‘What’s that?’
‘Like any energy source, they could easily be weaponized in the wrong hands,’ Stanley replied.
*
The interior of the SUV was plush, black leather and dark wood panelling with chrome trim. Through the tinted windows the sunrise was visible breaking across the distant desert wastes, the whisper of the SUV’s tires on the asphalt road distant as though Amber were in a dream, all sound muted and vague.
‘As soon as we get you to Damman, you’ll be safe. To be brutally honest few women are safe in this country, especially Americans.’
Amber turned from the panoramic view to look at Huck Seavers, who was sitting in the opposite seat with his hat in his lap and watching her with interest.
‘You call this safe? Abduction?’
‘Liberation,’ Huck corrected her without taking offence. ‘You were under attack from protesters, and I can’t imagine what would have happened had they gotten hold of you.’
‘They got hold of Ethan and Nicola,’ Amber shot back. ‘I don’t suppose you’re concerned about what happened to them?’
‘They’re adults and they’re journalists, always poking their noses where they don’t belong,’ Huck snapped dismissively. ‘I had my people track them down to a lousy two–bit bail bondsmen service operating out of Chicago, Illinois. They haven’t been within a hundred miles of the Defense Intelligence Agency and they’re fools for having brought you here. I won’t be happy until you’re back in America.’
‘Like you care,’ Amber muttered and turned back to looking at the sunrise.
‘You’ve got me all wrong,’ Huck insisted.
‘Sure I have.’
‘You think I’m the bad guy in all this, but for no reason.’
Amber rubbed her temples wearily with one hand and shook her head. ‘No reason? The disappearance of three hundred people with whom I shared the town of Clearwater? The pursuit of my father, Stanley Meyer. Threats, violence, corruption and payoffs in order to keep people silent. Legal challenges quashed by lawyers too expensive for anybody else to fight, just so you can tear the tops off of mountains for profit.’ Amber looked at Huck for a long moment and then looked away again.
Huck Seavers sat quietly for a moment before he replied.
‘I have a family, you know?’ he said finally. ‘My wife and I have been married fifteen years and we have a son and a daughter, twelve and eight years old respectively. My parents died a decade ago and I have no siblings, so my family is everything to me. You say that I used expensive lawyers to quash legal challenges and you’re right, I have. That’s because often the challenges are from environmentalists who have absolutely no understanding of how important it is for people, for our country, to have power. Have I made villages disappear or murdered countless people? No, I challenge them in the courts, and I win. I win because our country can’t face an ever–growing energy demand with nobody to fulfil it. I win because my business is a legitimate one and because I want to provide for my family in the future. This is a business, the business of supplying energy for the things you want in your own home; your lights, your television, your hot water and your heating. Without companies like Seavers Incorporated, you’ll have none of that.’
Amber shot him look of pure disgust.
‘At what cost? The poisoning of the atmosphere and the water table and of countless species, the destruction of habitat that can never be replaced, the warming of the oceans and the atmosphere that will change the face of our planet forever, all just to see your kids go to a more expensive school or own a more powerful car? You can’t use the excuse anymore that there is no other option, that we can’t power our world by other means. Even before my father devised his fusion cage he already understood, as I do, that we could power our entire world off the back of either solar or tidal power if the world’s governments simply got their act together and committed to it. But they won’t of course, because capitalism demands profit: if something can be done for profit but is too expensive to initiate, then it is ignored. You’re not the solution Huck, you’re the disease. My father is the cure, and because his solution didn’t involve profit you’re trying to shut him down. Don’t you dare sit there and try to justify the things that you’ve done with a plea for sympathy and understanding, when more sympathy and understanding on your part might have turned this into the best thing that ever happened to our planet, the planet that your son and daughter will inherit.’
Huck remained silent for a moment.
‘You’re living in a dream world,’ he uttered finally. ‘You’re right that there’s enough energy falling on the planet every day from the sun to power our world for a year, but without anywhere to store that power it’s useless to us. Likewise tidal power, which no country can afford to implement on the scales required to power everything. You people, you always seek a singular answer to complex questions when no such answers exist. The environmentalists cry that nuclear power is dirty and dangerous, when in fact it is clean and safe. Any kind of coal burning is considered heresy, even though clean coal is now available to us. Oil is the sworn enemy of any environmentalist seeking to ban motor vehicles, and yet only a tiny fraction of the oil that we buy goes into our vehicles – the vast majority is used in manufacturing and lubricants. Aeroplanes are hated by the green movement, and yet now one of the most efficient forms of travel available to humanity. Left to you and your kind we would all be living in mud huts, our children suffering from hideous diseases long since cured by science, unable to read or write, but hey, at least we’d be able to hug a tree or two.’
‘It’s you who’s living in the past,’ Amber hissed as she shook with fury. ‘What use are fossil fuels when they’re going to run out? They’re going to be gone, Huck, sooner than you probably think. We’re using more and more every day and yet there is only a finite supply. It’s like those idiots hunting tigers in Russia and India to grind up their bones for use in mythical medicines, the Japanese catching sharks just for their fins and whales just for their blubber. Once they’re gone, they’re all gone! They’re so busy chasing profit that they don’t realise that before they know it, the source of that profit will be gone entirely. And then where will they go? Your company makes its fortune from coal, but that coal will be totally gone eventually, Huck. What are you going to do then? Any smart businessman worth their salt would already be looking for somebody like my father to give them an advantage in the future to start the revolution now, but no. Far better for you to simply take the cash and run, and let your poor son have to sort it all out in twenty or thirty or fifty years time when Seavers Incorporated collapses into ruin at his feet.’ Amber shot him a jubilant smile of distaste. ‘Well played, Huck, well played.’
‘Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that?’
‘Doesn’t look like it to me.’
‘It wouldn’t, would it? Because to you, people like me are the enemy, our black hearts filled with oil and coal, determined to destroy the world. But we did not create this problem, it was created for us hundred years ago and now we labour beneath its consequences. I don’t want to blow the tops off mountains to make a living. I didn’t want to make the inhabitants of Clearwater disappear. This isn’t about environmentalism, Amber, it’s about control. It’s about the fear of governments losing control over their people because the government becomes irrelevant, no longer needed for people to survive happily. The people I’m answering to don’t want that to happen, ever.’
Amber stared at Huck for a long moment, never having considered for herself the possibility that Huck Seavers was merely one more pawn in a long chain that led to heights of government she had never really thought about before.
‘Who are they?’
Huck shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you that because in truth I don’t actually know, but they are incredibly powerful and believe me they have a firm grip on what’s happening. If I’d discovered that your father had created his fusion cage before they did, I’d have off
ered to buy him out. I wouldn’t have given the device away for free, I admit, because there’s so much potential in it. But by Christ I would have bought it and I would have created a whole new industry, made billionaires of both myself and your father and changed the world at the same time. Don’t you think I would rather have done that than sent people up a mountain to slice the top off it? Don’t think I’d rather have done that than fight long and complex legal battles, regardless of how powerful my lawyers might be? Don’t you think I’d rather be selling something that could fit into anybody’s boiler cupboard, worldwide, than pissing about digging in the cold in Virginia?’
Amber felt her blood run cold and she sat in absolute silence as she stared at Huck for what felt like a very long time.
‘You’d have gone with my father’s device?’ she uttered in disbelief.
‘Of course I would!’ Huck almost shouted in exasperation. ‘But they had me over a barrel! If I hadn’t complied they’d have got somebody else to do it and Huck Seavers would have been destitute by the end of the week! You think I have powerful lawyers? These people appear to be able to control entire governments – they would have crushed me like a worm and left me with nothing. Your war, it shouldn’t be with me. It should be against this shadow government that seems to operate behind the scenes! Your father is running from the wrong people and straight into the arms of his enemies.’
Amber suddenly realised the depths to which some people had gone in order to keep her father’s device safely out of the public eye. Huck Seavers, the perfect foil to the environmental movement, in fact a human shield for those with the power to save humanity or destroy it.
‘We have to find my father as fast as we can,’ Amber said, ‘and I think that I can call my mom.’
‘You can reach her?’ Huck asked.
‘I have my cell phone,’ Amber said. ‘I’ve carried it ever since I left Clearwater.’
‘Finally,’ Huck said with a heave of relief. ‘The sooner we can get your family to safety, the sooner we can figure something out. I want in on this, Amber. Yes, I want to profit from it, but if this gets out it effectively neutralises the very people who are causing all of this – they won’t hold power over me any longer and they won’t be able to stop what’s happening.’
Amber felt excitement rippling through her veins as she sat upright in her seat.
‘Do you have any idea where my dad is?’
‘I think so,’ Huck replied. ‘Let’s try to call your mom first, and find out where she is so that we can warn her of … ’
A sudden deafening blast shook the vehicle and a clatter of gunfire caused Amber to scream as she threw herself down on the back seat. Bullets crashed through the SUV’s windscreen and it swerved violently off the asphalt road and plunged into the desert dunes.
***
XIX
Ethan saw the first grenade lobbed from the side of the asphalt road arc through the air, a black speck against the brilliant sunrise as the small convoy of vehicles approached. The militants had set up their ambush well, positioning themselves in a staggered line with the sun almost at their backs, the glare helping to conceal them from the view of the drivers.
Two more grenades bounced across the sun–scorched asphalt and Ethan threw his hands over his ears and ducked his head down behind a low dune just before the weapons detonated with a series of deafening blasts. He counted all three before he dared look up to see the four vehicles in the convoy swerving across the road, tires screeching as they slid to a halt and a clatter of machine–gun fire rattled out across the desert as the militants opened fire on the vehicles.
‘Hold your fire!’
Ethan’s cry was muted by the staccato gunshots as the militants swarmed up the sandy banks by the side of the road and dashed toward the vehicles, yelling threats in Arabic and broken English.
‘Move, now!’ Ethan yelled at Lopez.
They dashed together onto the road and headed directly for the SUV in the centre of the convoy even as Ethan saw flashes of gunfire coming from the cabs of the vehicles in front as Huck Seavers’ escort began returning fire against the militants. Ethan reacted instinctively, dropping down onto the asphalt as he drew his pistol and aimed at the nearest escort guard, a man with a scar on his cheek who was now shielding himself behind an open door and firing through the shattered window at the militants.
Ethan could see from his position the SUV that almost certainly contained Huck Seavers and Amber, the vehicle having left the road and slammed into a sand dune. Clouds of wispy blue smoke slithered from beneath the hood where the radiator must have ruptured, while oil spilling from a damaged filter onto the hot engine smouldered with brown coils of smoke.
Ethan took a breath and held it for a brief second before pulling the trigger of the pistol. The shot crackled out and he saw the guard with a scar on his cheek hurled backwards as the round hit him in the shoulder. The guard slumped against the side of the vehicle with his legs out in front of him.
‘Go now, I’ll cover you!’ Ethan yelled at Lopez.
Lopez responded instantly and sprinted for the SUV, a pistol in her hand as she reached out and yanked the vehicle’s door open. Ethan advanced forwards in a low run, crouched in order to avoid any of the wildfire coming from the militants to his left, and he reached the SUV just as Lopez was hauling Amber’s disorientated form out of the vehicle.
Amber pushed angrily away from Lopez, clearly unsteady on her feet from the impact and with a trickle of blood spilling from just above her left eye where she must have struck the back of a seat or perhaps the interior door.
‘Go, now!’ Ethan snapped.
Lopez dragged Amber with her across the asphalt as behind them Ethan heard horses galloping across the dunes toward the road, riders sweeping in to pick up survivors and flee with them into the desert wastes. Their Arabian horses looked born to traverse the deserts, with arched necks on a clean throatlatch and high tails.
Ethan leaned into the SUV with his pistol held before him, and at once saw Huck Seavers slumped in his seat. The businessman was unconscious, and Ethan reached out to his neck in search of a pulse. He found it immediately. Satisfied that the man was not dead, Ethan backed away and immediately ducked as a fist swung towards his face with lightning speed.
The blow cracked across the top of Ethan’s skull, Ethan’s defensive manoeuvre barely avoiding the blow as he felt somebody grab his wrist and twist hard, driving all of their weight behind it as they attempted to force the pistol out of his grip.
Ethan twisted in pain with the force of the grip, but he managed to keep his mind focused as he deliberately released his grip on his pistol and swung his left hand in to catch it. A knee drove up into his rib cage and Ethan gasped as pain ripped across his side and his right leg quivered and almost failed him. The pistol brushed past his fingers to clatter onto the asphalt, and his attacker’s boot landed on top of it to prevent Ethan from grabbing it again.
Ethan felt his arm twisted over his back with a violent tug that almost tore it out of its socket and he flipped awkwardly over. Ethan slammed onto his back on the hard asphalt and looked up against the bright sky to see Seavers’ senior bodyguard, Assim Khan, looking down at him over the barrel of a compact Sig pistol.
Assim aimed for Ethan’s forehead, anger twisting his features with fury, blood trickling from his nose, and then he squeezed the trigger. The gunshot shattered the air around Ethan’s head and he threw his hands uselessly to protect his skull even as Khan’s body shuddered and his legs gave way beneath him as the bullet passed through his chest and out with a faint spray of scarlet blood that stained his crisp white shirt.
Ethan leaped up and twisted the pistol from Assim’s grip, even as the guard slumped onto his back, his chest heaving as the dark scarlet stain spread across his shirt. Ethan looked up to see Lopez on the far side of the road, her pistol still aimed at Assim. Ethan looked down, shocked at how close he’d come to death, and saw Assim Khan staring up at him with a
pained expression.
‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ the guard gasped.
Ethan looked up and saw the militants withdrawing, firing still at the damaged vehicles to keep any of the remaining guards pinned down. Ethan dashed away across the road, jumping down into the safety of the dunes as the militants mounted their horses and one of them held the reins of an animal for Ethan.
‘Come, now, before it’s too late!’
Ethan vaulted into the saddle and checked over his shoulder to see Lopez already astride a horse, with Amber sitting in front of her and struggling to get out of the saddle.
‘Amber!’
Stanley Meyer called out to his daughter, and she looked up in shock and stopped fighting against Lopez as together the horses turned again and galloped away across the desert. Ethan heard the staccato blasts of the AK–47s behind them fall silent as the militants fled across the open desert, and behind him he heard a few feeble cracks as the guards attempted to return fire on their attackers. But the shots were wild and distant, and pistols simply too inaccurate at such long–range, and within a few moments they were galloping alone through the desert sunrise.
‘Dad?!’ Amber gasped, shouting above the wind.
‘They’re with me!’ Stanley called back.
They rode for almost twenty minutes, following ancient tracks that wound through the desert wadis, deep canyons carved by ancient, long–extinct rivers that sliced through the wilderness. Ethan could see that the militants were seeking an escape from the open dunes as they rode through ancient riverbeds long since desiccated by the Arabian sun, the high walls of the wadis shielding them from view of the drones and jets that would soon converge upon the shattered convoy far behind them.
The rising heat and the effort of galloping across open sand dunes had exhausted their mounts, but the militants had long learned to plan well ahead in the hostile environment and as they slowed the animals to a trot so Ethan saw ahead a small encampment concealed deep below the ragged walls of the wadi. There he saw wide buckets of water, the contents concealed by elaborate blankets laid across them by women completely concealed by their black burqa, only their dark eyes observing the militants as they dismounted from the horses and allowed the animals to drink. The Rabicano horses’ lean flanks were sheened with sweat that glistened in the morning light.
The Fusion Cage (Warner & Lopez Book 2) Page 14