Temple of Fire

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by Christopher Forrest


  “What in blazes are the people over at U.S. Petroleum doing?” asked the sheriff.

  “People in town are getting panicky,” proclaimed the mayor.

  A dozen people had gathered in the street below.

  “Nothin’ to worry about,” Langhorne said in a reassuring manor. “They have some new drilling techniques. They probably hit a gas pocket.”

  That had been enough to assuage the worry of Elko, Nevada, which returned to its sleepy routine of selling denim at the dry goods store and loading sacks of oats onto the flatbeds of cattlemen at Roy’s Feed and Seed. The distant rumble northeast of town was quickly forgotten.

  But not by Will Langhorne. He was well aware of what the boys at U.S. Pet were looking for: a deep reservoir of abundant oil that most geologists said didn’t exist beneath Nevada.

  Langhorne had mapped some of the territory in the extreme northeast corner of the state using Ground Penetrating Radar, or GPR. What he had seen had piqued his curiosity.

  He downed one more shot of Jack Daniels and headed into the bright afternoon light. The horizon to the northeast was still a bit hazy, but he figured that he might ride up to U.S. Pet’s site the following day and see what was really going on. He didn’t think that new drilling techniques alone could account for such a tremendous blast.

  In fact, he was positive they couldn’t.

  Shotgun Alley

  Aboard the Alamiranta

  Of all special ops forces employed by Catherine Caine, Titan Six was the elite paramilitary unit used for purposes ranging from intelligence gathering to combat missions in any part of the world. Led by Michael Hawke, known as Hawkeye, it consisted of Shooter, the young Caribbean sniper; Gator, machine gunner and former Army Ranger; Pyro, Japanese explosives expert; and Tank, Hawkeye’s younger brother and second-in-command.

  The team was currently practicing RDMs, or Rapid Deployment Maneuvers, in the ship’s holographic training simulator known as Shotgun Alley. The simulator was normally programmed for battle scenarios, although today, Dr. Grace Nguyen was taking Titan Six through new deployment protocols.

  Nguyen was in charge of the top secret BioMEMS program — Biological Micro-Electronic Mechanical Systems — that enhanced Titan’s special ops members through injections of nanobots into their bloodstreams. These microscopic “bots” could target and infiltrate body cells in order to produce numerous physiological benefits: increased strength, sharper vision, and enhanced smell and hearing. If a team member was wounded or in distress, the nanobots could release natural chemicals within the body, such as adrenaline, anti-inflammatory agents, and clotting factor. They could also boost the immune system, stimulate endorphins for pain relief, clear the bloodstream of most toxins, and provide night vision.

  A virtual C-17 Globemaster III was currently being projected onto a holographic landing strip. The Boeing Aircraft was a four-engine jet cargo and transport plane reminiscent of the workhorse of the Air Force, the C-130.

  “We already deploy faster than any military unit in the world,” Hawkeye told Nguyen. “So what’s in the offing, Grace?”

  “We can do better,” answered Nguyen. “On the left side of the Globemaster’s cargo bay are special chambers for each member of Titan Six and anyone else deployed with the team. Let’s take a look at what research and development is calling the TRM, or the Tactical Response Module.”

  Nguyen led Titan Six up the rear cargo ramp of the aircraft.

  “This is something out of science fiction,” remarked Gator. “Like 2001 or Alien.”

  “Not far from the truth,” Nguyen said, motioning to beds that were tilted at forty-five degree angles and encased in Plexiglas.

  “Depending on the assignment,” Nguyen said, “Titan Global now has the option of sedating its teams, feeding them nutrients intravenously, and pumping oxygen into the chambers. You never know when you’ll be deployed, and this will ensure that teams arrive strong and alert. The sedation can be reversed very easily, of course, before you jump. By the same token, a soldier can be brought all the way into suspended animation — just a few heartbeats per minute — if he or she is returning from a mission with a critical injury that requires surgery aboard the Alamiranta.”

  “Why not just give us some coffee and tell us to take deep breaths?” said Tank with a grin.

  “This will give teams a real edge during longer transports,” Nguyen replied. “We’re interested in seeing just how well the system works on the next assignment, even if it’s short.”

  “In other words,” said Hawkeye, “we’re the guinea pigs as usual.”

  Nguyen shot an index finger at the team leader. “You’re our elite team, so yes, you’re the ones who draw the short straw.”

  Nguyen smiled, and Hawkeye reminded himself for the hundredth time how beautiful the doctor was. He regarded her short, black, silky hair as very sexy. Her dark Asian eyes looked at the world above high cheekbones, and her skin was flawlessly smooth.

  “Today,” said Nguyen, “we’ll see how fast our technicians can get you into the chambers and hooked up to an IV drip. Don’t expect normal hospital apparatus, however. We use short, slim tubes and micro-needles.”

  Nguyen touched her inconspicuous earpiece. “It’s Mrs. Caine.” She paused. “I’m told that your next mission begins immediately.”

  “Tell her we’ll be in the briefing area in five minutes,” Hawkeye said.

  Nguyen shook her head. “No time for that now. You’ll be briefed en route. You’ll be taken by helicopter to a Globemaster at Titan’s underground airbase in the Mexican desert. Your destination will be Nevada.”

  “Why not just take us all the way by chopper?” asked Shooter. “We’re talking about a short hop.”

  “You need to do a HALO jump,” Nguyen said. “Mrs. Caine said you can’t risk detection from local U.S. airbases, plus any aircraft has to be well above the debris still hanging in the air.”

  “Debris?” said Hawkeye.

  “Gas, smoke, and dust,” said Nguyen.

  Titan Six exited Shotgun Alley, headed for the chopper pad on the main deck.

  The Nevada Desert

  Twenty-five Miles from the Former Camp of U.S. Petroleum

  Will Langhorne exited his Jeep Cherokee and adjusted the strap of his cavalry hat. Dressed in jeans, khaki shirt, and boots, he surveyed the broad vista before him. Even this far away from the blast site, the air was thick with dust.

  The explosion had occurred twenty hours ago, but the air still hadn’t cleared. Columns of black smoke curled lazily into the sky, and the desert floor continued to rumble slightly every hour.

  “Those aren’t aftershocks from an earthquake,” Langhorne said to himself. “The San Andreas has nothing to do with this little baby.”

  He took a compass from his jeans pocket and looked at the needle. It spun erratically, unable to locate true north. Rock formations often had magnetic properties, but Langhorne had never seen such strong anomalies.

  He took off his aviator sunglasses and surveyed the desert floor around him.

  Much of the sagebrush had been singed or outright burnt by the heat wave that had expanded from the well. Jackrabbits and rodents lay dead on the hardpan, killed by the intense heat from the explosion. A coyote and mule deer were also lying motionless fifteen yards away, flies buzzing over their stiff carcasses.

  Langhorne knew that animals could sense danger easily and often fled scenes of catastrophe well before an actual event, even one instigated by man.

  The maverick geologist also had a keen sense for danger. He had several hunches as to what might have happened at Camp 12A, and none of them made him feel safe.

  He was going to move in closer before the day was out. Was it wise to do so?

  No, but he had his motives.

  Bridge

  Aboard the Alamiranta

  Catherine Caine stood next to Captain Nikos Papagantis.

  “The typhoon has changed direction since yesterday,” said Papagantis. “
The Proteus 9 probe and other data from the weather lab suggest that it has begun to move northwest.”

  “In other words,” said Caine, “straight for us.”

  “I’m afraid so. Until an hour ago, our forecast models showed it impacting Baja.”

  “Let’s get under way,” said Caine. “Due west.”

  “I’m afraid we can’t outrun it,” said the Captain. “Beatrice can move faster than the ship.”

  “That’s absurd,” said Caine.

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am. I just got word that the engine room’s main reactor is offline indefinitely. It has accumulated the maximum amount of radiation that specs call for, and we need to purge the rads at our next layover. We can move under auxiliary diesel power, but the storm is going to overtake us within three hours. We don’t want to be caught in one of the storm’s main feeder bands for any length of time.”

  “Any ideas, Captain?”

  “Actually, yes. We move very slowly to the northwest, letting Beatrice overtake us. We then cruise at best possible speed, trying to stay in the eye of the typhoon, where seas are calm.”

  The attractive, slender CEO of Titan Global folded her arms and looked at the Pacific from the ship’s ultra-modern bridge. “The word is given,” said Caine. “Let’s do it.”

  Titan Six

  Above the Pacific Ocean

  Titan Six was aboard a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk stealth helicopter. It had flown south during the early hours of the morning to avoid Beatrice, but was now veering east towards Mexico. It would shortly loop northeast to Titan’s airbase.

  “Sorry about the detour, ladies and gentlemen,” said the pilot. “Flying through hurricanes is not recommended, as you can well imagine. We’ll be landing at Airstrip BC in about sixty minutes.”

  BC was Titan code for Bravo Cantina.

  “I’ve got Mrs. Caine on the COM,” said the pilot. “She’d like to brief you on your assignment now.”

  “Put it on speaker,” said Hawkeye. “We don’t have our helmets on.”

  “Roger that,” said the pilot.

  Hawkeye sat with his team for the mission: Tank, Shooter, and Gator. David Denton, nicknamed Quiz, had taken the place of Pyro because of the young man’s in-depth knowledge of geology. He’d also performed admirably on the team’s mission to Mont St. Michel to rescue his grandfather, the wealthy and eccentric scientist Charles Whittingon. Dr. Christian Madison was on the team to help provide scientific support.

  “Our client for this mission is U.S. Petroleum,” Caine began. “They’ve been drilling for oil in northeast Nevada in what is known as the Great Basin Desert. They’re looking for abiogenic petroleum.”

  Christian Madison let out a low whistle. “That’s radical. I didn’t know that anybody but the Russians were interested in the theory of abiogenic crude oil.”

  “Fill them in, Doctor,” said Caine.

  “Most scientists believe that oil is made from organic compounds — plankton and algae, for instance — subjected to intense heat and pressure. Some scientists, however, such as Nikolai Kudryavtsev, have believeded for quite some time that petroleum is too rich in hydrocarbons to be formed anywhere else except deep in the earth. They advocate the theory that carbon-rich fluids migrate up from the earth’s mantle. This model predicts that far more oil is available than geologists have heretofore believed to be the case. Present estimates say that we have enough petroleum for no more than another hundred years. If the abiogenic theory is true, the oil supply might be unlimited given the active nature of carbon compounds in the earth’s mantle.”

  “That’s correct,” said Caine. “And U.S. Petroleum was drilling a well in Nevada to see if they could tap into this abiogenic source. They’ve lost contact with the drilling site, where their CEO just happened to be visiting yesterday. Our infrared satellite images indicate that there has been a powerful explosion at the well, although we can’t get any truly clear images. Infrared does show, however, that there is a crater at least two miles wide where the drill was burrowing into the ground. Your mission is to do a little recon and then see if you can stabilize the geological activity. The drill seems to have tapped into some volatile gases. I’ll need an Ongoing Threat Assessment.”

  “Got it,” said Hawkeye. “We’ve handled oil and gas situations before, although usually to secure deep ocean wells from terrorists. Any indication that the well was sabotaged?”

  “Unknown at this point,” Caine answered. “U.S. Petroleum is baffled, but it wants us to give a quick response before Wall Street oil speculators can destabilize the market. It also wants to keep the feds at bay for as long as possible lest our client’s new drilling technology be suspended.”

  “Understood,” Hawkeye said.

  “And by the way, you’ll see an EFV aboard the Globemaster. It will be dropped near the crater after your HALO. The Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, which you will use to approach the crater, has some unique stealth characteristics.”

  “Titan Six is a go,” Hawkeye said. “Quiz and Dr. Madison are ready for their first HALO jump.”

  Quiz gave Hawkeye a thumbs-up. In reality, he and Dr. Madison, despite recent training, were terrified. HALO stood for High Altitude, Low Opening.

  The Nevada Desert

  One Mile from the Former Camp of U.S. Petroleum

  Will Langhorne got his backpack and gear from his Cherokee and threw some camouflage netting over the Jeep. Wearing a gas mask, he began to hike to the rim of the crater. The air on the southern rim was beginning to clear somewhat, but it was foul with gas, and dust storms hampered visibility. Also, smoke was still escaping from the crater.

  Slogging through terrain badly scarred by the blast proved difficult. The sand was scorched, and Langhorne had to haul his body over ridges that hadn’t existed twenty-four hours earlier. He also had to step across fault lines that had split the desert floor in a hundred places, carving deep crevices where gas seeped up like poisonous, malevolent genies. Like his namesake from the nineteenth century, he was roughing it.

  The occasional aftershock did nothing to bolster his confidence.

  Still, he was determined to reach the site before anyone else. Whatever had happened at the well was nothing that was taught in Geology 101 at any university.

  He approached the crater rim with extreme caution. He lay on his stomach, peering into the wide chasm below. What he saw made him gasp. One of his hunches while mapping the area with GPR had been dead-on. He rolled onto his back, hyperventilating. In a reflex born of self-preservation, he ripped off his gas mask and took deep breaths. Gas from below filled his lungs.

  Langhorne felt dizzy. Clutching his gas mask tightly, he tried to stand, but the ledge beneath his feet crumbled, and he plummeted into the yellow haze below.

  He rolled downwards on a steep incline, his backpack and gear cushioning the hard jolts his body took as it slammed against unforgiving, jagged rock.

  He came to rest one hundred meters below, his ribs bruised and aching. His bloody face was covered with abrasions.

  And then he passed out.

  Bridge

  Aboard the Alamiranta

  Twelve-foot swells from Beatrice lifted the bow of the Alamiranta high into the air. The great vessel pitched and yawed as the typhoon overtook it. Driving rain slapped the forward windows as Captain Papagantis sat in the command chair in the center of the Bridge.

  “Twenty-degrees starboard,” Papgantis ordered. “We can’t have this bitch of a storm knocking us sideways. Helmsman, keep us in line with the forward motion of the storm.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “I have a red indicator light for the port side,” said Lieutenant Bradley Bender, the second-in-command. “Aft section of the ship.”

  “What is it?” asked Papagantis.

  “It’s a contact alarm,” said Bender. “We’ve been struck by something.”

  “In a typhoon?”

  “It appears so,” said Bender.

  Ops Center

&
nbsp; Aboard the Alamiranta

  The Operations Center was the heart of all Titan paramilitary operations. It was a round, multi-tiered room with a grayish-blue marble floor. A dozen computer stations manned by Titan personnel surrounded a circular platform that displayed holographic representations of all mission sites. Flatscreen monitors displayed tactical data in the dimly lit Ops Center as technicians tapped their keyboards.

 

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