by Jim Magwood
Henry assumed from the messages he had received that the large building down the street was the Hammershed warehouse, but he couldn’t be sure. He stepped out of the car and tried for several pictures of the area with his night lens, but recognized the main building was quite a distance down the street and was very dark. He didn’t expect much from his shots. Everything around him was very nondescript. No addresses were posted, and none of the buildings had name signs. It really does look deserted, he thought, but if you were trying to run a secret operation, what better place could there be? The building did look as though it backed onto a second small waterway, so they probably had great transportation available. With the rest of the waterfront just down the road, and the truck traffic he had seen earlier, it looked as if it could be an ideal shipping location.
Henry got back in the car and poured himself a little coffee. He had arrived just a little before nine, so he checked his camera and recorder again and settled in for whatever was going to happen. He didn’t really know what to look for and hoped he wouldn’t miss anything. His mind pictured some giant police raid, or perhaps a hijacking by competitors with dozens of trucks showing up. Maybe a fire starting at a corner and gradually moving up the walls. He wondered if he should call something like that in to the emergency crews and supposed he should. There were a lot of other buildings in the area that could be affected by some catastrophe like that. He wondered, also, what his caller would think or do if he got involved in stopping whatever it was they had planned. One step at a time, he thought. The Story first.
As the seconds crept around to 9:30, he kept turning his head from side to side to be sure he didn’t miss anything. His equipment was in hand and ready. At first, precisely at 9:30, he saw a small flash in one of the lower left windows of the building. It was then that he realized there was no building on his street that sat in front of the warehouse at the end of the street. It was an open field and the openness allowed him to see all the way to the left end of the warehouse. It looked as though it stretched a long way off to the left, apparently a couple of blocks, maybe more. If it went as far to the right, the building was huge. Within a few more seconds following the first flash of light, another flash lit up windows moving to the right, and then more and more. Henry realized the flashes were first a blazing white, then were rapidly becoming a brilliant red. And it was at that moment that the first sounds of explosions reached him, and within another couple of seconds, the shock waves.
Explosions were taking place deep inside the building and were rapidly moving from left to right through the building.
Some of the explosions were now bursting through the long, flat roof of the building, and flames were becoming obvious.
As the explosions reached the apparent middle of the building, Henry started hearing a long string of smaller explosions, starting back at the left end of the building and again moving toward the middle. As they moved, he heard them becoming constant, like gunfire in an old war movie, and realized they were probably hundreds, maybe thousands, of rounds of ammunition going off. When he began to hear major explosions that he knew must be artillery rounds or packaged explosives, he began to worry whether he was safe where he was. But, the only thing that reached him was the noise of the explosions and the shock waves.
By now, the explosions had reached the far right of the building and he saw that the building was as long to the right as to the left, probably a total of half a dozen city blocks. It really was a huge building and with the light of the flames looked to be about half as deep as it was wide. The explosions were now coming through the roof all across the place, and the fires were raging from one end to the other. As he watched, Henry realized he hadn’t even begun to use his camera, but as he reached for it, he suddenly felt the earth begin to shake beneath him, as if from a large earthquake. His car began to rock and bounce and as he thought of starting the car and getting away from the site, he suddenly saw a massive fireball come through the roof of the building and leap into the night sky.
My god, he thought. That looks like it’s several hundred feet high. They must have had some huge stockpile of explosives stored deep underground.
The massive fireball finally peaked and began to fall in on itself, and then Henry watched as the walls of the huge building started collapsing in to the center of the burning area. He watched in amazement as the walls seemed to fall flat and he saw that apparently the entire middle of the building had been destroyed. As the explosions started receding, and the walls kept falling, he realized that the entire building was going to end up being almost flat. Basically, nothing left standing. And he knew the fires would have destroyed virtually everything that had been inside.
The demise of a business, he thought. That. Is. For. Sure.
This one has definitely been demised.
Henry sat for a few more minutes as the fires slowly settled, then heard the sirens coming from behind him. I better get myself out of here before they get here, he thought. I definitely don’t want to be answering questions about this right now. So he started the car, made a U-turn and slowly drove back the way he had come. As he turned back onto Highway 431 toward Hamburg, he saw a stream of fire vehicles coming toward the inferno. He looked at his watch and realized with a start that the whole thing had only taken about ten minutes from when the first explosion had gone off. Henry had seen his share of warfare and explosions, and knew that whoever set this event off really knew his stuff. With explosives set all through the building, and even underground, someone had to have been at this for a long time, or had to have a large crew doing the job very quickly. This was no simple arson fire in an old tenement set by some disgruntled landlord. This was a major demolition job, and extremely well done.
As he pulled back into the hotel valet parking area, he realized that he didn’t want to be in this city any longer. Someone was going to catch up to him and want him to explain why he had been at the scene, and he knew he didn’t have reasonable answers. He knew he would likely be held for questioning and that it would be a long time before he got back home. He told the valet service to just hold the car, that he would be right back. He went in to the desk and found that a package had indeed been delivered for him, then went up to his room and did a rush packing job. Back down to the lobby and he gave a sad, but simple story of an emergency back home, got back to his car and drove straight to the airport. He had to turn in his original ticket and pay full price for a last moment replacement, but was luckily in the air back to Washington within ninety minutes. As he settled into his seat and quickly tossed down a double whiskey for his nerves, he thought about The Story and started to wonder about what he really had.
Then he dug out his laptop and began to write his notes.
After a few minutes, he thought of the package he had received and dug it out of his carry-on. He opened it and exam-ined it carefully, being cautious to shield it from anyone close.
He quickly scanned the notes in the package and saw invoices, descriptions of shipments, names, places and dates. He saw names of ruling families in countries that had only been suspected before. Names of shippers that he had never heard suspicions about. Names of government agents that had facilitated some of the shipments. There were transcriptions of meetings with names of high-level government executives speaking in the meetings, giving blessings and counting money. My god, he thought. This can’t be real, can it? But, he knew that unless the documents and incriminating pictures had been faked, he was looking at undeniable proof of massive illegal, and long on-going, weapons transactions that was going to blow the roof off many a statehouse and that would sink government leaders and business people around the world.
But, how in the world could this group have possibly gotten this much information—and then gotten in to plant the explosives? It would have taken resources I can’t even imagine.
But, they did it—that’s what’s so unbelievable. It’s been done.
No doubt about it.
Man, he thought
, a tired smile beginning to cross his face, I sure hope this plane doesn’t go down. This really is The Story.
CHAPTER 4
“This is Merv Sawyer with your OnTheStreet team, and I’ve got Mr. John Franklin with me. Mr. Franklin, at last count there have been at least twenty-five of these apparent terrorist incidents around the world, and maybe many more. What do you think about the mess with these vigilante people and what they’re doing?”
“Merv, I think it’s the best thing since we pushed through the shorter work weeks. If these guys can get rid of some of those terrorists and criminals, then I say more power to them.
We’ve got politicians and those legal groups acting so high and mighty, but not doing anything but making money for themselves. And half of them are in bed with the bad guys. I say get rid of them all. We’ve got bunches of people in certain areas of our own city here—you know, real criminals, drug dealers and stuff—and I think more folks should start…”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“So, what’s for lunch today, Henri?”
“Same as about every day,” he replied tiredly. “More sandwiches with cheap meat. Can’t afford anything better these days. But, how do you keep having those little special dishes? What do we have here today? Looks like some truf-fles, and…”
“No, no. Hands off. You just need to be sweeter to your lady and she’ll…”
“No. No good. The prices are just too high. No wonder you keep signing up for double shifts—to pay for all those goodies.”
Georgi chuckled, but then replied in a more sober tone, “I agree. The prices are getting out of sight. I think it’s so much of this criminal stuff going on and no one able to put any controls on it. So much of our money is being spent on it that everything else is going crazy. Me, I’d like to get my hands on some of those idiots in the government and shut them down, instead of always hearing them tell us how much they’re doing for us poor souls.”
“Ah, yes. Our streets are so much safer with all they’re doing. Right! I wish that group that’s knocking things about would take on some of the government idiots. Services are falling apart; traffic is impossible. Have you tried to get anywhere near the Monte Mart lately? You can’t get through there with a bicycle. I don’t know if you could walk down there even. We need so much cleaning up of things.”
“Did you see that news broadcast about the vigilante stuff from near Hamburg? At least, I hear the vigilantes are being held to it. Some newsman from America is writing stories and seems to have an in. Knows a lot. Pretty scary, isn’t it?”
“I say ring them up and tell them to come have some words with our government folks. I might even chip in some tax money to hire them. Things can’t get much worse than…”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I hear you had quite an incident down your street yesterday, Meg. You’re okay, I gather? Anyone hurt that you knew?”
“No. It was one of those posh gambling palaces. We’ve been once or twice, but it was a little risqué for us. The food wasn’t so good, either. But, the place was always packed. Too many people simply wanting to lose their wages, I say.”
“Did it burn all the way?”
“It didn’t look like a complete loss when I went by this morning. Of course, who knows what the insurance folks will say, but it looked like the back was gone and most of one side.
The other side and the front were badly scorched, but still standing. So, I don’t really know.”
“So, a little more than just the gambling, eh?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, but the rumors I heard were that about anything goes—or went—at the place. We protested when it went in, but it didn’t do any good. They had too much support in the Parliament, I suppose. We didn’t mind the gambling. Everyone deserves a little fun once and again. But, we knew there would be every kind of vice coming with it, and it was just too close to home and the schools. Good riddance, I say.”
“I saw on the telly this morning that they’re saying it was done by that group that’s going around. Have you heard?”
“That’s what I read this morning. But, Cindy, I just don’t care. You should have seen the traffic the place caused. And prices of food and supplies seemed to go up right after it came in. We’ve had a couple of the local school kids accosted on their way home by some of the patrons. It was blown up to be such a beautiful and fun place, but it really was too seedy.”
“Do you think you’ll feel safer, or more comfortable, with it gone, Meg?”
“Oh, I do hope so. As far as I’m concerned, that group thing can stay around my area and do away with all the trash.
The authorities can’t seem to get hold of anything and scare out the trash. I say let these people do it, if they can.”
“I think I’d agree with you, Meg, as long as no one gets hurt. My boyfriend says…”
CHAPTER 5
At the same time that Henry’s plane was crossing over Iceland in the North Atlantic, three trains that had departed Omaha, Nebraska the day before, each heading to distant cities, derailed in deserted parts of the United States.
One was just heading into the Rockies through Denver and to the West Coast. One was rolling across the northern desert area of New Mexico. One was just approaching the Mississippi heading northeast to the markets of New York.
More than $24-million of prime, specialty meat was on the shipments. Each of the engines had crossed fixed points before explosions had derailed the rest of the cars. The derailments had been carefully orchestrated and none of the train crewmen had been hurt. The cars had been torn open as they had gone off the tracks, and within hours most of the meat was beginning to rot. Train and government inspectors wouldn’t have allowed the exposed meat to be recovered in any case, so the three trains of meat were complete losses. All the train cars and meat products had belonged to and come from the Hammershed packing plants located in Omaha.
As the derailments were being reported to management in the plants in Omaha, government inspectors were, at the same time, receiving notices that massive amounts of meat in the various Hammershed plants was e-coli infected. As Hammershed was one of the largest meat producers in the United States, inspectors were on their way to the plants within hours and orders had gone out to stop any and all production until any health risks could be discerned. No amount of pleading, begging or threatening from the Hammershed management could get the orders rescinded, and the plants ground to a halt.
That meant that meat already in process inside the plants quickly became unusable and had to be destroyed, live animals waiting outside for slaughter and movement to the production lines had to be fed and cared for, and thousands of employees had to be sent home and held off the jobs—all at a cost of millions of dollars daily. The Hammershed shutdowns quickly started opening arteries of red ink on the books.
Within the next couple of days, stockholders started bailing out, and bankers started turning gray at the thought of billions of dollars of investments turning to dust.
As the days moved on, Hammershed plants around the world began reporting the same kind of accidents, destructive events and financial failures. A ship belonging to the company sank about six hundred miles off the western coast of Europe carrying a full load of expensive European automobiles and furniture destined for the American markets. The ship had apparently burst several sections of the hull without warning and the leaks were so drastic the ship could not even begin to be saved. Radio broadcasts had given the crew plenty of time to be ready to abandon ship and they were picked up by rescue vessels throughout the next twelve to twenty hours.
In Africa, a huge processing and shipping plant for precious gems was virtually leveled when a massive gas leak touched off explosions throughout the plant. It was determined that the gas had likely begun leaking on Friday soon after the workers were sent home and continued throughout the weekend before the explosion Sunday night. The weekend had been planned as the beginning of a major maintenance and renova-tion move to be completed throu
gh the next two weeks, and the only employees on hand at the time of the explosions were the guards at the perimeter fences and patrolling the grounds.
They had received about an hour advance warning and no one was injured, but the buildings and the contents, including millions of dollars of raw and fine jewels, were destroyed.
Strangely, the gas lines had been turned off as the last of the Friday workers left the plant, but were discovered fully on when the investigations began.
In the United States, documents arrived at Baxter’s office that gave details of a massive scheme using illegal aliens in Hammershed’s U.S. plants to supplement the union laborers.