Second Solace

by Robert Clark

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘He is a predator. A power-crazed politician who-’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘-preys on the weak to support his own agendas. He wants to-’

  ‘Don’t care.’

  ‘-turn this country into his own private bank. He wants total control of everything, and he doesn’t care-’

  ‘I don’t care either.’

  ‘-who he has to step on to achieve his goal. Under his reign, this country will implode.’

  ‘Drum roll. I don’t care.’

  ‘You’re happy with watching the world burn?’ she snapped.

  ‘I implore it,’ I said, ‘so long as it wipes everyone off the planet with it, then that’s fine by me. We’ve screwed this place up long enough. Let it go back to life before the humans. We’re a shitty species, anyway.’

  ‘Of course you think that way. After everything you’ve done, I’m not surprised.’

  ‘I think this way because of what’s happened to me,’ I said, ‘I was more than fine with being another cog in the machine until I went to Afghanistan and saw just how evil humans can be. And you know what? They’re even worse in the western world. Villainy spreads. It’s everywhere, and it’s incurable. Let it wipe us out, I say.’

  ‘That’s because of men, and their control over women.’

  ‘Probably, but I’ve seen plenty of women who are just as fucked up as men. I’m looking at one right now.’

  She wanted to retort, but there was no point. Instead, she calmed herself as best she could and went to climb out.

  ‘You’ll get a front-row seat to the downfall of your gender, Mr Stone,’ she said, ‘and you’ll take all the credit.’

  And with that, she climbed out, leaving Noble and I to the ramifications of her words.

  I looked at Noble.

  ‘What do you think she meant by that?’ I asked.

  Noble just shrugged.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but at that very moment, the truck door opened again, and Dickless returned. Instead of climbing in, he reached up and pulled Noble out into the warehouse. Passing her on to one of his goons, he reached up again for me. As he leaned closer to me, I turned and kneed him in the face.

  ‘Oops,’ I said. ‘Sorry, butter… knees, I guess.’

  I smiled at him. Knew exactly what was in my immediate future.

  Sure enough, he snatched my feet and pulled me out of the truck. I landed with a crack on concrete and, before I could recover, Dickless kicked me hard in the stomach.

  ‘You deserve much more than that,’ he snarled as his men hauled me up and dragged me away.

  ‘No, I love you more,’ I gasped as I trailed away.

  Outside of the truck, I could take in my surroundings much more clearly. The warehouse had to be the size of several football pitches in length and width, but was completely empty save for the couple dozen armed militia and their belongings.

  The three surplus army trucks were parked in a bunch at one side, with four vehicles parked a couple of metres away. The first and most notable was an articulated lorry, or what Americans would call a semi. The cabin was painted light grey, with the container a faded white. A logo on the side had been painted over recently, leaving a large white patch clearly visible. The coverup only barely masked the three words that had been printed, and I could still read what had been hidden. The Fenwick Association.

  The remaining three vehicles were made up of a silver SUV, a dirt-brown panel van, and a Mercedes. I could see Gail and Cece up ahead. Cece headed for the Mercedes, Gail for the semi. Both women were unarmed. Dickless’s men headed for the semi, which as we approached I could see was not empty. Two more panel vans sat inside. Both were painted white, with blue decals covering the back and sides. As I read the word plastered across the rear doors, I felt my stomach sink.

  Police.

  And underneath it gave me all the knowledge I needed to know where the attack was taking place.

  NYPD.

  New York.

  If the clock in my head was right, and I hadn’t missed too much time unconscious, I had a pretty clear idea what the date was.

  Thirty-first of December. New Year's Eve. New York. One of the biggest parties in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people from every corner of the world would be coming to celebrate. Millions of citizens partying or working or resting at home. Trillions of dollars of architecture, electronics, art, knowledge, science, everything. And Second Solace was coming for all of them.

  Noble realised it too. Instantly, she started to fight against her handlers. They clamped down harder and threw her inside the rear van. It wasn’t empty. Not even close. The corpse of Agent Jonah Miles slumped against something big. Shaped like an enormous cylindrical barrel on its side, the metallic outer shell had been secured down to the chassis of the van, hiding the more terrifying aspects inside of it. But I knew what it was. I knew before I was pushed in the van with Noble kicking and thrashing at my side.

  It was the bomb. Al-Assad’s legacy. Right there in front of me. Big and real and devastating. Inches from my face.

  ‘Enjoy your front-row seat,’ said Gail as she swung the van doors shut on us.

  Thirty-Seven

  The Moment

  I have a theory that everyone has a moment in their life that changes everything forever. For my dad, it was the day he realised he had pancreatic cancer, and only had a few months to live. It was the realisation that he wouldn’t be around to see his sons grow up. That he wouldn’t be there for them when they needed him. I think that hit him more than the cancer.

  Because that’s the thing about bad news. There’s two dreadful aspects to it. The first is that you have to live with it, eating away at you like, well, a cancer. And no matter what you do, it sticks with you forever. The second thing is that, while your life falls apart, the world carries on like nothing ever happened. When all you want is for some sign that the world has suffered the same kind of devastating blow as you have, but there is nothing. Not even a bump in the road.

  This wasn’t my life changing moment. Mine came years ago, when I spotted a girl across a crowded party on the last day of the millennium, and realised I was deeply, madly and irrevocably in love with her. That day changed my life. Spurred by her love and support, I took leaps and stole chances and tried to become the person I was supposed to be. Because of that love, I took an opportunity to cover the news in Afghanistan. I know in my heart that I would never have done that, had I not seen Sophie across that party and decided to be the best I could be. Without her love, I would have settled for an average life.

  As I looked from the bomb to Noble, I thought I saw that look in her eye that changed everything for her. An FBI agent, imprisoned for months, freed only momentarily before having her whole world come crashing down around her. Maybe not the life-changing moment she had expected, but it was the one she got. Trapped up against the corpse of her former colleague, she was captured by horror and disbelief.

  A low rumble told me the semi had started up, and a moment later, I felt the jolt as it rocked forwards. Bound for New York. Bound for destruction.

  ‘We have to get out of here,’ I gasped.

  Noble said nothing.

  ‘Jessica, can you hear me?’ I asked. ‘We need to do something before this truck gets to New York.’

  She snapped herself out of her reverie and looked at me.

  ‘Right,’ she said. Her eyes darted around. ‘We need to get out of these binds. Turn around so I can see what we’re dealing with.’

  I did, exposing my arms so she could see what held them together.

  ‘Tie wraps,’ she said. ‘Heavy duty ones. We won’t be able to snap them in half.’

  I turned back and saw her looking around again.

  ‘We need something sharp,’ she said. ‘What can you see?’

  But as I looked, the answer was a whole lot of nothing. Even the bomb didn’t appear to have any sharp edges. Not on the outside, at
least. I didn’t want to think about the inside.

  Then it hit me. The broken blade, still embedded into the sole of my boot. I’d almost forgotten about it entirely, so long it had been since last I’d removed my boots. My feet ached with every movement of my toes. The blisters were real and screaming. So much so that I’d had to drown out their very existence just to stop myself from screaming.

  I twisted my leg up and rested my left boot on my right knee.

  ‘I need your help to get this off,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to smell your feet.’

  ‘I’ve got a blade in there. For all those times I have to break free and escape from the blast radius of a bomb.’

  She flashed me daggers, but turned and tried to manoeuvre so her fingers were by my ankle. With care, she found the bootstraps and got to work. I guided her as best I could, given the lack of light and constant jostling. It took an age. Much longer than I wanted to waste trying to take off a boot. Seconds cascaded into minutes, each passing with sickening speed. Finally, she worked it free. Using my knee, I worked the boot off, and Noble caught it before it fell to the floor.

  ‘Where is it?’ she asked.

  ‘I dug it into the heel.’

  ‘I think I’ve got it,’ she said, concentrating on the task. ‘Yeah, that’s it. Give me a second.’

  She gave it a tug, and the blade came free.

  ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘Cut me free.’

  ‘Why don’t you do me first?’

  ‘Because I’m a federal agent and you’re a wanted fugitive.’

  ‘And that’s a bomb that could go off at any moment. So maybe don’t quibble about ethics at the moment.’

  She sighed but conceded. I twisted around and felt her blindly feel for my restraints. Suddenly, I wished I’d let her go first. But she was deftly accurate with her work, and without a single nick to my wrist, she cut through my restraints.

  I took the blade from her and got to work immediately, and in a matter of seconds, Noble was free. She rubbed her wrists absentmindedly as she looked at the bigger problem. The bomb.

  ‘We need to deactivate it,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, no shit. But how?’

  ‘We need to get a better look at this thing,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe we could kick a bit loose?’ I suggested.

  ‘Stone, let me say this only once. Do not, under any circumstance, kick the bomb,’ she said, emphasising each word with excessive care.

  ‘I’m just spit-balling here, if you have an idea, best to share it now.’

  ‘I don’t know, okay. I’m not exactly trained in bomb disposal. Give me that knife. Maybe I can work one of the screws loose.’

  I did as told, and she got to work. The consistent bumps as the police van wobbled inside the moving semi did not help. She swore profusely as the blade jumped out of the screw’s groves and sliced her hand, but she got right back to it.

  I shuffled backwards and tried the rear door. It was locked, but I thought there might be some way to bypass it from the inside. Unfortunately, it was no dice. Almost certainly designed to keep those inside from breaking out, anything short of a blow torch and an axe weren’t going to make a lick of difference.

  ‘Any luck?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m working on it.’

  ‘Got a timeframe for that?’

  ‘I’m working on it,’ she said again. ‘I could do with some light, if you want to be of some help.’

  I looked around. There was a small interior light in the centre of the roof. I fumbled around and found a discreet switch next to it. A scant, orange glow permeated the room. It barely reached the corners of the confined space, but it was enough to warrant a sigh of relief from Noble.

  Her progress was far from significant. Each screw she tried was burrowed deep into place. The blade was not an adequate substitute for an electric screwdriver.

  ‘We’re getting nowhere here,’ she snapped. ‘Even if I can get in there, I’m working blind.’

  ‘Shall we just wait for it to blow up in our faces?’ I asked sarcastically.

  ‘I’m not saying that, but we need a professional. I need to make a phone call.’

  ‘Sorry, I left my phone with the other bomb.’

  She turned on me.

  ‘Listen, either be helpful or shut the hell up,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t need you being a jerk.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Save it. Just help me out.’

  ‘Have you ever spent any time working with bomb disposal experts?’ I asked.

  ‘They put us all through a course. They showed us what to do with small devices, the kind middle-eastern terrorists make out of plastic bottles and nails. Nothing like this.’

  ‘It can’t be a nuclear weapon,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see a single piece of evidence to prove they were working on something radioactive.’

  ‘Me neither, but a bomb is still a bomb. We can’t let them activate it in a public area. I’d rather it kill us right here and now than somewhere they want it to go off.’

  ‘Can we try to work on the basis that it will kill no one before we start offering ourselves as sacrificial lambs?’

  But as that final word escaped my mouth, a thought dashed through the back of my head. Nothing concrete. Just a whisper. A fleeting memory. Something to do with lambs.

  And then it hit me. It hit me like a freight train, or a tsunami, or a meteor smashing into the surface of the earth. It hit me so hard, I could hardly believe it hadn’t hit me sooner. So hard, I felt like a goddamn idiot. The signs had been right there, screaming in my face, demanding to be seen.

  ‘It’s not a bomb,’ I said, incredulity rampant in my voice.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Noble asked.

  ‘It’s not a bomb. Well, not an explosive bomb.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘Electromagnets.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Electromagnets. It’s an EMP. Electromagnetic pulse. They don’t want to blow up New York. They want to send it to the dark ages.’

  I looked into Noble’s eyes.

  ‘Think about it,’ I said, ‘Miles and Whyte stuck me with a tracking device before they sent me to Second Solace. I know you had one too because they couldn’t understand how it just stopped working. Whyte gave me shit on the phone about how I’d been trying to destroy mine, when I hadn’t even touched it. They couldn’t believe I’d got a faulty tracker, especially after yours went dark. My guess is that happened when they moved you to the bunker. You were within spitting range of their tests, which must have short-circuited it at some point. That’s why they couldn’t see you. Just before I spoke to Whyte, there was this massive blackout. I was eating lamb with Gail, and she said it was the generators acting up, but she knew what it was. I thought she seemed strange about it.’

  ‘But Al-Assad was a Nuclear Arms specialist, not an electronics whizz,’ said Noble.

  ‘One of the biggest side effects of a nuclear explosion is the same as an EMP,’ I said. ‘If you detonated a nuke in space above a target, there are three types of electromagnetic pulses that are discharged. I don’t know the exact science behind it. Something to do with gamma rays and the Earth’s magnetic field.’

  ‘Why do you know these things?’

  ‘I read,’ I said. ‘For example, did you know that in the 80s, the Soviets reckoned that if they detonated a nuke over Sweden, the blast would be powerful enough to knock out around eighty percent of Europe’s communications in one go?’

  ‘Nobody knows that kind of shit.’

  ‘I do, I said. ‘Al-Assad has to have known the science behind that as well. If he understood it, he could put it to practical use.’

  ‘So this won’t blow up?’ Noble asked.

  ‘Don’t quote me on this, but I think it will. Just not anywhere near the size of a nuke. I reckon the explosives need to go off in order to generate the pulse, but it can’t be enough to destroy very much, otherwise Cage wouldn’t have ordered them to
build it under a mountain.’

  ‘But why would they want to use an EMP on New York?’ asked Noble.

  ‘Originally, it was never meant to be used as a weapon. Cage constantly referred to it as a deterrent. A defensive measure. I think he wanted something he could use if the army came calling to take back the land. He wanted the power to flick a switch and shut down all their technology so he could tip the power back in his favour. You saw how they all were. They knew that land like the back of their hand. If anyone came to attack, they’d have the knowledge, the man power, and the higher ground. And failing all that, they could run back to their bunker and have a grand last stand. That’s what Cage wanted. It was Cece and Gail that have twisted its use into something offensive.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer the question of why they would want to use it in New York.’

  ‘If that EMP goes off on New Year's Eve in one of the most populated places on the planet, it’s going to be total pandemonium. The loss of life won’t be the same as an explosion, sure, but it won’t be a million miles off either. It’ll turn the city into a free for all. It’ll show everyone what people are like when you take away their gadgets and let them do what they want. The government isn’t prepared for something like that. They want control, but the total number of law enforcement has to be at least stacked one hundred to one against them. No way can they hold the peace against that many people.’

  ‘Not everyone would riot though,’ said Noble. ‘Not everyone is like that.’

  ‘True, but how many people are struggling to pay their rent, or desperate to upgrade their phone or computer or get a newer, bigger TV? How many people do you think would see the lights go out and watch as the criminals start looting shops and think that they shouldn’t get involved? It’s a pack mentality. Once one starts, a lot more will follow. That’s what they want. Cece and Gail, they want chaos.’

  ‘We have to get the word out,’ she said. ‘We can’t let this truck reach Manhattan.’

  But no sooner had the words left her mouth did I realise we might be out of time. With a screech of the brakes and a steady turn right, I felt the semi pull to a stop, and the engine died. A moment of silence followed. Then, footsteps.