by J C Ryan
In fact, he turned out to be a big help, discussing and thinking through the evidence and giving her ideas for further investigation. It was almost as if he was as excited about the case as she, even though the FBI wasn’t involved. It wasn’t their jurisdiction, since the attack had taken place on foreign soil and on a US Army base.
When Kelly and her two team members had heard all they needed to know about the A-Codex and complementary information, it was time for a briefing by the DARPA scientists.
There, they encountered another level of astonishing facts. They learned of the depth of knowledge recorded on the plates Carter had discovered, including the applied technologies the Giants had put to use. Quantum physics concepts, Zero Point Gravity, and antimatter among them.
“And that’s only a tiny fraction of the information stored on those plates,” Dyer noted.
Ramos and Dyer, now in their element and able to talk freely, eagerly brought Kelly up to speed.
“So, these concepts weren’t new to us. That’s why we could understand what the Giants had to say almost immediately. But for us, it had all just been theory before. And in fact, to most scientists, it still is. Practical application is still out of their reach, but these records have put us way ahead of anyone else, as far as we know,” Ramos said.
Dyer continued. “One thing DARPA knew more about than anyone else already is antimatter. We’ve been researching it on behalf of the Air Force since the end of World War Two.”
Kelly held up her hand. “Wait a minute. You mean we already have the antimatter bomb? You know for sure that’s what caused the blast at Patch Barracks?”
Ramos shook his head as Dyer answered, “No, no. An antimatter bomb is still theory for us. As far as our knowledge stretches, there are a few insurmountable problems to produce such a bomb and explode it.”
Now it was Kelly’s turn to shake her head. If insurmountable, why do these brainboxes think the Patch Barracks explosion was due to antimatter? “Go on.”
Ramos took over again. “The first two issues are size and transportability. Have you ever seen the reproduction of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs at Los Alamos?”
Kelly shook her head.
“Well, the smaller of the two, Little Boy, was about ten feet long and not as big around as my waist, and it weighed a total of about two hundred eighty pounds. It produced an explosion equivalent to about fifteen kilotons of TNT and devastated the city of Hiroshima, killing over sixty-six thousand people instantly.
“Now, consider the size of the blast at Patch Barracks. Much smaller, yes?
“Okay. Well, in theory, it would take only a fraction of a gram of antimatter to do it. I’ll spare you the formula, but suffice it to say that a gram of antimatter reacting with a gram of matter would release the same energy as a forty-three kiloton TNT explosion.”
Kelly’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “I take it one gram of antimatter isn’t very large in volume. Someone could carry it concealed in their pocket, say?”
Ramos and Dyer laughed. Ramos said, “Yes, but I wouldn’t recommend it!”
Dyer explained, “That’s one of the first of the insurmountable problems. Antimatter and matter react as soon as they come into contact, and that causes the explosion. In essence, they annihilate each other, releasing enormous quantities of energy. So, containing the antimatter is an issue.
“To keep it safe and prevent it from annihilating, you have to keep the antimatter away from matter. So, our modern-day methods are to place the antimatter in a specifically designed magnetic container, almost like a bottle, called a Minimum Magnetic Field Trap. The MMFT is fitted with magnets, which keep the anti-atoms, or antimatter, in suspension, away from the walls of the trap, and thus prevent them from annihilating.
“As you can imagine, that setup is delicate. It can’t be easily moved around without the risk of obliteration. I would definitely not want to be the one to carry it around in my pocket.”
Kelly thought about it for a moment, mentally scratching her head.
“The next insurmountable is, it’s unbelievably expensive to produce. Millions of dollars for a few atoms. A gram would cost many hundreds of billions and would take centuries to collect.”
Kelly frowned in frustration. “So far, you’ve only told me why it can’t be antimatter that caused that blast. Yet, you still think it was. I’m perplexed.”
“Well, that’s the thing. It’s the only theory that explains the evidence.”
“Great. Round holes and square pegs,” Kelly muttered. “So, how do we prove this theory, and who would have the means to do it?”
“The Giants knew how to overcome all these problems. But it’s going to take us another six months or so to even start testing their method of producing antimatter. We’ve no idea how long it will take to get to the bomb-making stage.
“As for proving the theory, we’ll have to go to Germany to gather more information.”
Kelly sighed. It sounded like a dead end, but it was her only lead. “Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been most helpful. I’ll get back to you about the visit to Germany.”
She stood, and her two team members, who had listened without comment during the entire meeting, stood with her. After handshakes all around, the team exited DARPA headquarters.
“What now?” one of them asked.
“I’ll meet with Terrance and ask him to set up a meeting with Bill Griffin for me. I’ll call you when I know.”
After meeting with Bill Griffin, Kelly was told to stand down again until he had checked with the other security organizations—some fourteen that she knew about, and potentially others so dark the old saying “If I tell you I’d have to kill you” actually applied.
Chapter 12 - What’s left is zero
She got the travel authorization for the two DARPA scientists to visit Patch Barracks, and they left the next morning. Two days later, she got the message from Taylor Rice—Drs. Ramos and Dyer confirmed it was an antimatter explosion. They had no idea how it could have happened.
Shortly after, Bill Griffin called her to his office. The long and short of his inquiries were none of the other agencies were working on an antimatter bomb or knew of any country in the world capable of building one, and none of them knew anything about the A-Codex.
Bill’s conclusions were, “We have the mother of all security leaks. A national security crisis of colossal proportions. Someone has gained access to the A-Codex information and used it to construct an antimatter bomb. That ‘someone’ must have brilliant scientists, sophisticated facilities, and unlimited funds.
“Kelly, you can imagine what governments might want to embarrass the US with a stunt like this and who might want to let us know through an act of terrorism. The usual suspects, of course. Russia, China, North Korea, not to mention a number of Middle Eastern countries.
“What you don’t know, and is more top-secret, need-to-know information, is there’s an organization out there committed to a goal of world domination. Let me tell you about the people who call themselves the Council of the Covenant of Nabatea…”
Kelly listened without comment for a few minutes, and then pulled out her smartphone and began to take notes as Bill read her in on the Nabateans.
He concluded with, “I’d bet my bottom dollar they were in on it somehow. If not to instigate it, then to fund it. Find them, or someone connected to them, and you’ll have gone a long way toward finding specifically who did it.”
Kelly agreed.
The fact that the foremost security organizations in the world didn’t know, and neither wanted to guess who that “someone” was, nor admit that they could even exist, was terrifying. And now that “someone”, who obviously had a gripe with the US, had extremely dangerous information—and, in fact, they had the means to apply it.
A large antimatter bomb would make the Hiroshima bomb look like a single firecracker on the Fourth of July.
***
When Drs. Ramos and Dyer returned from Germ
any, Kelly met with them to get all the details and got even more bad news. The antimatter bomb at Patch Barracks could have been the size of a woman’s lipstick or smaller. It could have been delivered by a single person, and it could have been remotely detonated.
“Great. Just great.” Kelly imagined her career going up in a puff of dust like what she imagined happened when this antimatter stuff collided with matter—annihilation. Ramos had given her a striking analogy. “When matter and antimatter meet each other, it’s like adding plus-one and minus-one. What’s left is zero.”
Zero was just about what Kelly had in the way of leads. But she did have an approach. It didn’t make sense that any of the governments Bill had mentioned or the creepy Nabateans had all of a sudden stumbled upon the answer to antimatter energy. The most likely source was the A-Codex.
But how had that gotten into the hands of the bad guys?
Clearly, it had been placed there by a leak. The one and probably only way they had left to go about the investigation of who was to examine the individuals in the information chain from the source—Carter Devereux’s translation team—to the hands of whoever might be working on it. That meant DARPA, and she couldn’t disregard the people with access to the CIA vault where all translated data was kept.
Only the President, Bill Griffin, Irene O’Connell, and James Rhodes had access to the vault. To suspect, let alone investigate any one of them would be… I don’t want to even think about it.
However, somewhere in that chain they’d no doubt find the person or persons who had both opportunity and motive. That the investigation had to be discreet to avoid alerting the perpetrators went without saying.
The task was enormous. There were too many people who had knowledge of the A- and E-Codices. While not everyone knew all the details, most of them had a good idea of what information was covered in the Codices.
The leak could be anywhere.
Chapter 13 - More than once too often
Mathieu Nabati had been besieged by the Carter Devereux problem. His Maman was not pleased he hadn’t been able to solve the problem permanently, which was not a safe position to be in. He had no doubt he was somewhat protected from her wrath, being her only child. But bulletproof? No, probably not. So, this damned Carter Devereux and those associated with him had to be eliminated once and for all. But how?
Mathieu was still licking his wounds from the catastrophic failure of his last plan—the attack on Freydís.
Attacking it again would be fruitless. The place was now a fortress. They might as well plan to attack the White House, for Freydís was now equally well-protected, with at least two geostatic satellites permanently stationed above it and equipped with the latest technology. Solar-powered drones crisscrossed the skies above the ranch twenty-four seven.
Those “eyes in the sky” would detect any unexpected human movement, day and night. They were so sensitive they could detect a heat signature that differed from the ambient temperature, even during the summer when the temperature rose above that of the normal human body. If he didn’t know better, Mathieu would have thought one of the Nabateans’ own scientists had been involved in the development of those satellites and drones.
No, another attack on Freydís was out of the question.
Maman’s sources who were privy to the information gathered from the surviving members of their unsuccessful attack—the traitors! —reported the captives were telling their interrogators tales of wild wolves guarding Freydís.
Mathieu had his reservations. No one had ever heard of wild wolves protecting humans—discounting the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus.
Nevertheless, the tough-as-nails Spetsnaz troops had been spooked by something. They reportedly could only speculate about the numbers of the devilish beasts and couldn’t even begin to explain the mystical connection between the animals and the humans they protected. It was unfathomable that his pawns could be so duped, but the informant assured them the captives could not be shaken in their stories.
Furthermore, he’d been told every person on Freydís was now equipped with a tracking device, which they carried with them always. And since the attack, there were more guards and electronic surveillance, in addition to the satellites, than ever before.
It seemed the only option to attack Freydís would be from a remote location. A missile, launched from another country. For a moment, Mathieu entertained the mental image of the place wiped off the face of the earth by a hellfire missile, leaving nothing but a scorched swath of useless dirt. However, that would defeat the purpose, of course. Such an attack might rid him of the Devereux pestilence, but it would also destroy the information the Council of the Covenant of Nabatea sought, not to mention starting World War Three.
In the end, in frustration, he had to admit an attack was off the table and decided not to even suggest it to Maman.
Instead, with the approval of the rest of the Council, he’d found a way to neutralize Devereux, and the first step of the plan—the explosion at Patch Barracks—had been a rousing success.
The essence of the new plan was to discredit Devereux, and with him everyone around him, from the Black Ops agency, A-Echelon, that recruited him and his wife right on up to the current President of the United States. Not only would that neutralize Devereux, but it could also serve to put a new administration in place that might not know about them.
Mathieu, had he been the type to chortle, would have done so over the ammunition all these idiots had given him. But as it were, he was Swiss, and they were not known to be very humoristic people.
President Grant had stepped on the wrong side of the law when he authorized that raid into Saudi Arabia, not to mention when he’d allowed the CIA to venture into illegal territory with his full knowledge. There’d be no plausible deniability for him when Mathieu was finished with him.
And Carter Devereux was a thief! He’d stolen the library of the Giants from the City of Lights in Egypt. Mathieu would have done so himself, of course, but that didn’t absolve Devereux of the crime. Even his wife was larcenous. She’d in effect stolen the Sirralnnudam from that library in Armenia. Between the two of them, they’d gotten in the way of the Council’s plans more than once too often.
Oh, yes. Destroying their reputation and those of their friends was going to be a lot of fun.
Chapter 14 - A criminal of the worst sort
February 28
As if the events unfolding under cover of national security secrecy weren’t enough to worry about, President Samuel Houston Grant had another issue on his hands. In his final year in office, his task was to help his party remain in power. Any controversy could derail the campaign, as his Chief of Staff constantly reminded him.
Tensions were high as the media dug for any tidbit that could be parlayed into a firestorm, since their task was to gain attention from the public and feed the ever-growing demand for news, news, news. Even if they had to manufacture it. The more sensational they could spin it the better.
In this atmosphere, journalist Howard Crane at the Washington Post received a hand-delivered letter from an anonymous source. The source claimed he had a story that would shake the US and the world.
It was the stuff of cloak and daggers, and Crane was old enough to remember the fame and fortune that came to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein after their publication of material supplied to them by “Deep Throat”, leading to the Watergate scandal.
This letter Crane held in his hand could easily have been a hoax. On the other hand, it could also easily be his route to a Pulitzer. Without telling anyone where he was going, he followed instructions in the letter to meet with the source.
Late in the evening, in a dark corner of a parking garage near the same Watergate office complex that was the center of the political scandal, Crane’s source provided him with a flash drive.
The mysterious source called himself Shadow, and it was an apt description. Bundled in dark clothing including a ski mask, the figure was obscured by the bulk o
f a coat, and Crane couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman because of the voice distortion device “he” wore. Crane decided to think of Shadow as a man— for his own convenience and to stop the headache the speculation about the person’s gender gave him.
He also decided if the information was real, he didn’t want co-workers reading about it over his shoulder and perhaps scooping him. If it wasn’t real, he didn’t want to be the one who got burned for releasing it. Therefore, he took the flash drive home and disconnected his laptop from the internet before opening the files.
What he learned was explosive stuff. Black ops against American citizens? Supposedly sanctioned by the President? A man named Dwayne Miller had purportedly been abducted, held in custody illegally, and forced to testify against the directors of his company, Competitive Response Solutions. Nate Gordon, a director of Competitive Response Solutions, also abducted and shot in the knee to make him talk.
Worst of all, a conspiracy of major proportions. Supposedly, the late Vice President, George Robertson, had been assaulted by an unidentified ex-Special Forces operative, in the presence of the President, in the Situation Room.
The story the VP had suffered a stroke, but his family had been restrained from seeing him, and a persistent rumor he’d died of a gunshot wound rather than a stroke.
This bore more investigation. It was screaming for answers.
Howard Crane was no fan of Sam Grant. Hadn’t voted for him, and probably wouldn’t vote for anyone in his party—ever.
But he was a patriot, and this was stuff that could bring down a government. He also had a well-placed contact. Though he wasn’t certain she felt the same about him, he had a crush on the White House press secretary. At least he was friends with her. If he could persuade her to privately funnel questions about these allegations to the President himself, he would be satisfied that when he broke the story, he’d have given the man a chance to answer them. It was worth a shot.