Apocalypse

by Dean Crawford

  ‘You need to come with us,’ he informed her. ‘We don’t know what Joaquin will do next and we need to stop him before—’

  ‘I can’t,’ Katherine uttered, and hugged her blanket tighter around her shoulders. ‘We don’t know for sure if he’s really behind all of this.’

  ‘Yes, we do,’ Lopez said, and turned to Jarvis. ‘I know how to crack Purcell’s final code. I can find the documents that prove IRIS is guilty of fraud.’

  Jarvis had his cellphone in his hand almost before Lopez had finished her sentence. ‘Shoot.’

  ‘You said that his code was a cipher code that needed another code to decipher it,’ she said. ‘Charles told me that he and his father both took their secrets to the grave, and that time would tell. But his father didn’t have any secrets, only Charles did. If time would tell, then I’ve got to assume it’s the time of death of one of the two men. Charles’s “secret” was the code on his chest. I’m guessing, but try the date of Montgomery Purcell’s disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle: 9 October, 1964.’

  Jarvis dialled the crypto-analysis department of the DIA immediately, and dictated the dates to them. ‘Oh-nine, ten, sixty-four,’ he said as he grabbed a pen and paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. Ethan turned his back, letting Jarvis lean on it and scribble whatever his contact was saying.

  ‘Okay, got it.’ Jarvis rang off, and looked at his notepad. ‘Okay, here’s the code,’ he said showing them the page.

  frsbz racjotrl kbnq sf bpuzl mibmo yuwtez jrrwe

  ‘And here’s the cipher.’

  09106 40910640 9106 40 91064 09106 609106 40910

  ‘What do we do with that?’ Ethan asked, deciding not to mention that math had never been his forte.

  ‘You skip either backwards or forwards however many places the cipher tells you to in the alphabet,’ Lopez explained. ‘So f-r-s-b-z becomes . . . “first”. It fits.’

  Ethan watched as Lopez took over from Jarvis and swiftly decoded the message.

  FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF SOUTH MIAMI SUNSET DRIVE

  ‘Outstanding, Nicola,’ Jarvis said, and immediately turned to Kyle Sears. ‘Get a warrant from the DA. I want your men down there within the hour, and I want whatever documents they find in relation to Charles Purcell in police custody. No more accidents.’

  ‘You got it.’

  Ethan turned to Katherine, who stood beside him with her head in her hands, her long auburn hair hiding her face and obscuring her speech as she whispered to herself.

  ‘This isn’t happening.’

  ‘Katherine, this is all part of his scheme,’ Ethan said. ‘We know that he caused this. Charles Purcell predicted exactly where and when the earthquake would strike, and he told us both how Joaquin is able to cause these disasters and why. He’s been planning this a long time.’

  ‘But why?’ Katherine asked. ‘He could just as likely have achieved power or influence by being himself, by helping people.’

  Jarvis shook his head.

  ‘IRIS could not have funded all that it has done without embezzling funds from government,’ he explained. ‘It would have ceased to exist as an entity years ago. Joaquin has invested in charitable acts only a tiny fraction of what IRIS has received over the years from governments – the rest has gone into the construction of this device of his, something designed to gain him unassailable power and influence. He has to be stopped.’

  Katherine was about to reply when a Navy jeep rolled up alongside them to collect the Gulfstream’s crew for debrief. Thomas Ryker jumped out and waved them across.

  ‘Guys, we’ve got something you need to see.’

  Jarvis led them across to the vehicle, and as one they huddled beside the door. Ryker had a portable laptop that was sitting on the passenger seat and he turned it to face them.

  ‘Streamed from the Robert Murtaugh News Channel just a few minutes ago,’ Ryker said. ‘Most of the news channels are covering the earthquake disaster already, but this one’s different. It’s Joaquin Abell.’

  Ethan watched as Joaquin Abell’s face appeared on the screen. He was standing on the quarterdeck of his yacht, the sun illuminating his face as he spoke to the camera. The news channel’s scrolling text drifted past at the bottom of the screen, outlining details of the disaster.

  ‘It will of course be the responsibility of IRIS, as part of our charter, to send supplies, medical aid and construction materials to the Dominican Republic at this time of terrible tragedy. We cannot stand idly by after such a horrific event, waiting for the endless procrastination of world government. We must move now to prevent the spread of disease and decay and bring this beautiful part of the world back into the light.’

  Joaquin raised his hands imploringly at the camera.

  ‘This is the chance for us to do something personal, something right. We do not need to wait for governments any longer to take these terrible tragedies and turn them into something worthwhile, like a phoenix from the ashes. I ask you now, as citizens of the greatest country on earth, to do something that has never been done before. I ask each and every one of you, every American citizen on our planet, to donate just a single dollar to the rebuilding of the Dominican Republic via IRIS. Just one dollar. Even in these hard economic times, a single dollar is something that we can all spare. Yet, combined, that equals hundreds of millions of dollars devoted to the protection, healing and future care of a people devastated by loss, by pain and by suffering. People who no longer have that single dollar to spare. Do it today to turn a crisis into an opportunity, and I give you my word, as Joaquin Abell, that your money will create a heaven where, right now, there is only hell. Thank you.’

  The news channel switched to its anchor, and Ryker hit the pause button on the screen before looking at Jarvis.

  ‘He’s on his yacht,’ the old man said.

  ‘Which means that he can’t have caused the disaster!’ Katherine pointed out.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Ethan said. ‘He doesn’t have to press the button himself to activate the horror that he’s created. He’s got plenty of people working for him.’

  ‘Is the yacht still anchored out at sea?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘Right where it’s always been,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘Doesn’t make sense if he’s trying to hide his little undersea laboratory. He’s anchored within a mile of it.’

  ‘It does if your ego is as big as Joaquin’s,’ Ethan replied. ‘He’s cocky enough to think that we don’t know anything about what he’s done, and arrogant enough to think that hiding in plain sight is clever.’

  Ethan stared at the static image of Joaquin’s face. Something was wrong but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  ‘That was fast,’ Bryson said, as though reading Ethan’s mind. ‘Getting a news crew out on his yacht.’

  ‘There’s no news crew,’ Ethan realized. ‘He’s talking to a static camera.’ Ethan turned to Lopez. ‘We got footage of his yacht from a few hours ago and Robert Murtaugh was aboard along with a congressman, the governor of Florida and a few others.’

  ‘So he’s maybe heard about the earthquake,’ Katherine said, ‘and arranged a quick appeal, which Murtaugh has then sent to his people for broadcast.’

  Ethan looked at the screen thoughtfully for a moment and then something clicked in his mind. He looked across at the Gulfstream’s pilot, who was waiting patiently behind them.

  ‘What was the prevailing wind across the Florida Straits this morning?’

  The pilot replied immediately, having had the standard meteorological briefing before flying that day.

  ‘Southwesterly, eight knots, variable above five thousand feet.’

  Ethan gestured to the computer.

  ‘Wind that back,’ he asked Ryker, ‘then play it at high speed.’

  Ryker frowned in confusion but obeyed nonetheless. The broadcast played at four times normal speed. Ethan leaned forward and watched Joaquin’s comical babbling, but focused instead on the clouds as they raced across the sky, approaching from th
e horizon to pass overhead.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ Ethan said. ‘Looks like our boy Joaquin’s not as goddamned smart as he thinks he is.’

  ‘You think he’s lying or something?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘I know that he is,’ Ethan replied. ‘He’s just given us our evidence to convict him.’

  55

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Katherine asked. ‘It’s just a broadcast.’

  Ethan glanced one more time at the imagery on the screen.

  ‘The clouds are blowing toward the camera, so the camera is facing roughly west,’ he explained.

  ‘So?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘So,’ Ethan said as he looked at her, ‘the sun’s in his face. It’s in the east.’

  Scott Bryson chuckled and looked at Ethan with the first signs of respect. ‘Not bad for a boy scout.’

  ‘Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on?’ Katherine insisted.

  Doug Jarvis turned to her.

  ‘It means that Joaquin recorded this broadcast before the earthquake actually struck,’ he explained. ‘The sun rises in the east, so he must have recorded it sometime this morning.’

  ‘And the only way he could have done that is if he knew the quake would happen in advance,’ Ethan replied. ‘It’s evidence enough to get a warrant for his arrest from the District Attorney.’

  Lopez shook her head.

  ‘But why would he do this? He could have waited until the quake and then shot the broadcast. Why expose himself like this?’

  ‘Because he’s arrogant, greedy and not quite as clever as he thinks he is,’ Ethan guessed. ‘He would have needed to get this broadcast out as fast as possible, in order to get as much money from the public as he can, to maximize his profits from what he’s done. And he thinks that nobody will notice that the sun’s in the wrong place because it’s low enough in the sky to match the sunset, and his yacht’s at sea with no coast in sight to judge direction.’

  Katherine stared at the screen and Ethan could see her shoulders sag beneath her thermal blanket as she realized, finally, that there could no longer be any doubt. Joaquin Abell was behind everything that had happened, including the death of Charles Purcell and his family, and the scientists aboard the lost airplane.

  Ethan turned to her.

  ‘We need to stop him, Katherine, and we need to do it without a firefight. Joaquin is well protected and is almost certainly now in hiding. We need to get to his lab and we need you to help us, maybe even convince him that this is the wrong path that he’s chosen.’

  ‘Why me?’ she implored. ‘Surely you can just send the Navy?’

  ‘Because we need to bring him to trial for what he’s done,’ Jarvis said, ‘and the only way that’s going to happen is if he can be coaxed out of his underwater facility. Have you spoken to him since you left his yacht?’

  ‘He called me,’ she said. ‘From a satellite phone aboard the facility. I didn’t answer it.’

  Katherine rummaged in her pocket and produced her cellphone.

  ‘Can we listen to it?’ Lopez asked. ‘Right now, any information might help us.’

  Katherine switched the phone to speaker and dialed her voicemail. Ethan listened as an unknown male voice began speaking, the tones touched with urgency and fear. He noted a look of surprise on Katherine’s face as she listened.

  ‘Katherine, it’s Dennis. Listen to me, I don’t have much time. Joaquin isn’t running a conservation project down here. This is a military facility and he’s developed a machine to cause earthquakes and other natural disasters. He’s aiming for where you are, Katherine. I am not allowed to leave this facility. Please, if you get this message, get onto high ground until the quake has passed, and then get in touch with the authorities – the coastguard, the police. Hell, call the goddamned Navy, just get somebody out here as quickly as you can!’ The voice hesitated. ‘I’m going to try to stop him. Joaquin’s already killed hundreds, if not thousands. Please hurry, and take care of yourself, okay?’

  The line cut off, and Ethan looked at Jarvis. ‘You said you wanted proof.’

  Jarvis nodded as Katherine stared vacantly into the distance, the phone held limply in her hand.

  ‘Katherine, your husband needs to be stopped,’ Jarvis said.

  Katherine replied in a ghostly whisper.

  ‘He’s too far gone now for that.’ Then she turned away from the screen and looked at Ethan. ‘He told me that Dennis was a part of all this. He lied to me, again.’ She shook her head, clearly angry with herself. ‘I will try to help you.’

  Ethan nodded and turned to Jarvis.

  ‘We’re going to need a submersible of some kind.’

  ‘I’ll talk to the Navy,’ Jarvis said, already reaching for his cellphone. Then he looked at Bryson. ‘You’ve got an atmospheric diving suit aboard your boat, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Bryson nodded, ‘and that’s right where it’s staying. I’m done here.’

  Lopez turned to him.

  ‘You can’t,’ she protested. ‘We’ve almost got him.’

  Bryson turned to look down at her, his crooked smile and twinkling eye almost mocking.

  ‘No, you’ve almost got him. Since we met this morning I’ve had my boat shot half to hell, been knocked out by a psychotic Viking, been shot, caught in an earthquake and damned near drowned in Puerto Plata by a fucking tsunami.’ He looked at Jarvis. ‘I think you’ve got your seven thousand dollars’ worth out of me.’

  Lopez grabbed Bryson’s thick forearm. ‘We can’t finish this without you.’

  Bryson chuckled. ‘You’ve got the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Navy right behind you. What difference does it make to you if I’m here?’

  Ethan saw Lopez glance across at him, an almost embarrassed look on her face. She looked back up at Bryson.

  ‘My chances of survival will be a lot better with you around.’

  ‘Your chances are just fine with your little boy scout here,’ Bryson replied. ‘He’d just get jealous if I stayed. That right, Ethan? You’re not going to let her come to any harm. You never take your eyes off her anyway.’

  ‘Get out of here, Bryson,’ Ethan muttered.

  Bryson turned and without another word strode away from the vehicle toward the nearest airport gates. Neither Ethan or Jarvis made any effort to stop him from leaving.

  ‘You’re just going to let him go then,’ Lopez said flatly as she glared at them.

  ‘He’s got a point,’ Jarvis shrugged. ‘He’s done far more than he bargained for.’

  Lopez ran her hands through her hair and looked at Ethan with an expression midway between anger and desperation.

  ‘Ethan, surely you can see that we need him around.’

  Ethan shrugged. ‘He’s not a part of this. If you couldn’t convince him to stay, what chance do I have?’

  ‘Then how do we get to Joaquin Abell?’ Lopez demanded.

  ‘We sneak up on him,’ Jarvis replied, and lifted his cellphone to his ear.

  56

  IRIS, DEEP BLUE RESEARCH STATION, FLORIDA STRAITS

  June 28, 19:46

  Dennis Aubrey stood alone in the hub, staring vacantly at the video camera before him on the control panel. Joaquin had passed it to him less than an hour before, after it had been returned to him by that lumbering brute of his.

  Joaquin’s instructions had been clear: download the entire drive and have it ready within the hour. Whatever was on it would be viewed as soon as Joaquin had ensured his guests had left the hub and returned to the yacht, to be flown back to Miami.

  Aubrey had obeyed his instructions to the letter, but through every excruciating moment his mind had been filled with images of the earthquake that had shattered the tranquility of Puerto Plata. The murder of Benjamin Tyler had cemented Aubrey’s conviction that Joaquin Abell’s sanity had been abandoned, and that had been confirmed when Joaquin had proved to his guests that he could not only predict the future, but could reduce entire populations t
o medieval poverty and decades of dependence on foreign aid.

  When the demonstration had been complete and his guests had left for the surface, Joaquin had been elated, drunk on his own prowess, giddy like a spoilt child with yet another unearned gift clasped in its hands.

  Aubrey, on the other hand, had experienced a dizzying nausea that had flooded his throat with bile and sent flushes alternately scalding and chilling his skin. Thousands of innocent human beings were dead. Thousands more would die later when the millions of dollars promised by Joaquin to aid the needy were siphoned off into IRIS accounts scattered in tax havens across the globe.

  Worst of all, Katherine Abell had almost certainly perished in the catastrophe. For reasons that Dennis could not bear to admit to himself, that filled him with an anger he had rarely felt in his life.

  It had struck Dennis, right there and then, that no human being on earth held any value to Joaquin Abell. Dennis had realized – too late, he now knew – that he was as likely to be killed next as anybody else. Sooner or later he would be murdered, wiped from the slate of Joaquin Abell’s world like a fly swatted from a meal. An irrelevance, an irritation. A risk.

  Aubrey looked again at the camera. He had hoped, desperately, that when the group of guests left for the surface he would be among them. Yet now it was clear that he would never be allowed to leave. The Intrepid was back at the yacht and the Isaac under armed guard. He was a prisoner beyond the reach of law enforcement, his family, his friends and rescue.

  He pressed a button and the camera’s contents played on a small screen on the panel. He sped the timeline forward until he was watching events in the near future. As he watched, his heart sank as a terrible scene unfolded before him. He doubled the replay speed, and as the seconds ticked by so he felt his bowels loosen at what he was witnessing, a terrifying future of death and destruction. Appalled, Dennis paused the footage and took several seconds to gain control of his breathing.

  There was no escape. There was no alternative. The future could not be changed.