End of Days (20 page)

“Are you sure of this?” Sheppard asked.

“We’re certain of some and surmise the rest. Does the nature of the explosion witnessed match that profile?”

“Yes … yes, it does,” the engineer said. “An internal explosion is the most likely explanation. But how is it possible that one of our own security people could do this? How could it be allowed? Obviously somebody wasn’t doing his job correctly.”

“There’s no need to point fingers at—”

“It’s all right, Professor Sheppard,” Parker said, cutting him off. “He’s right. This shouldn’t have happened, but the reality of multiple launches left us severely understaffed. We were able to intercept and neutralize similar attempts made at three other launch sites.”

“Three others?” Sheppard gasped.

“Yes, and in all three incidents attempts were made by individuals to detonate explosives either in the ship or in its immediate vicinity. In one case, at the U.S. launch site, an agent was intercepted just prior to entering the control room.”

“The control room?” Sheppard asked.

Parker nodded. “Where you and I were seated. He was captured alive before he could detonate his device. His plan was to destroy the control room and kill all those scientists, technicians, and specialists necessary to launch the rockets.”

“How is it that some of the infiltrators were apprehended but others were not?” somebody asked.

“In the three cases where they were stopped, the person trying to infiltrate was either a technician or a scientist—people like those in this room,” Parker explained.

Sheppard looked around slowly at the people sitting with him. He noticed that he wasn’t the only one anxiously scanning the room.

“The successful operative was not a scientist but one of our agents. He was trained in security, so he knew exactly how to circumvent the system. Further, that same training kept him calm and able to execute his plan without detection. In the other cases,
civilians
were involved.”

Parker pronounced the word “civilian” with the distaste he felt for them. He might have been working for them and he knew their value, but he still didn’t understand or respect them.

“It is not reassuring, to say the least, that the very agents we count on to guarantee our security are the people in the best position to jeopardize our safety and our operations,” Sheppard said.

“Not reassuring, but certainly not surprising,” Parker noted. “The very nature of their training, their access to weapons, and the course of their work—it all makes them
excellent candidates to successfully complete either an act of sabotage or an assassination.” He paused and smiled. “But without us you’d all be dead anyway.”

Sheppard shook his head slowly. He’d gotten to know Parker’s dark sense of humour. He also knew that
his
life did depend on Parker and his men, and he couldn’t think of one other person in the world he trusted more than Parker.

“And can I assume that Judgment Day has taken full responsibility for these attacks?” Sheppard said.

“Affirmative,” Parker noted. “Capturing their other operatives alive has allowed us many insights into their techniques of infiltration. We have identified and isolated over a dozen other moles who were ‘sleepers’ in position to make the next wave of attempts.”

“Were any of those operatives in
this
facility?” Sheppard asked.

Parker nodded. “Three. All have been
neutralized.”

Sheppard felt a small shiver go up his spine. He knew full well what “neutralized” meant. He also knew that the more dangerous effect of these attacks and infiltrations was to deflect time and energy away from their goal. That was the only way they’d fail.

“Has the debris from the accident been secured?” Sheppard asked Parker.

“Fragments fell within a two-kilometre area downwind of the launch site. We have established a no-go zone around the crash areas. The whole area is hot. While no nuclear devices were activated, high-grade uranium is scattered through the site.”

“Have any attempts been made to gather that uranium?” Sheppard asked.

“Efforts have been specifically made
not
to allow anybody to harvest it. We wouldn’t want it to find its way into a nuclear device,” Parker said. “Probably the safest place for it to be is in plain sight.”

“Were there casualties on the ground?” Sheppard asked.

“Fewer than one hundred were killed initially. Contact with the radioactive material will potentially result in further deaths in the long term … assuming that there
is
a long term.”

“This has all been terrible,” Sheppard said. “But we must remember that the unfortunate destruction of one ship has not—I repeat, has
not
—impacted our plan. We deliberately sent more devices than we felt were necessary, to provide a backup for this or other incidents. This was done not only as a failsafe measure but also to provide a guarantee to superpowers that all nuclear devices would be sent from the planet. We have now established, for the first time since late 1944, a planet that is free of nuclear weapons.”

The group broke into spontaneous applause.

This did give Sheppard a degree of satisfaction. He hoped that maybe, just maybe, once their mission was completed, there would be a permanent ban on all nuclear weapons, and that the people with power would dedicate themselves to a new order of co-operation after they’d seen the power they possessed when they worked together. He was, he acknowledged to himself, a dreamer.

What he feared, though, was the idea that in spite of all the speeches about goodwill and trust and all the efforts
to police and ensure that all weapons had been gathered, almost all the nuclear countries had probably managed to secret away a few nuclear devices. The world was
almost
nuclear-weapons free, but if they were successful in saving the planet it might be only a matter of months, or even weeks, before the nuclear race was back at full gallop. If the external threat could be ended, it wouldn’t take long for the old policies, practices, and hatreds to resurface.

Even now the old rivalries were festering just beneath the surface. Already world powers were planning how to thrive and eventually dominate in the new order, once the world had been saved. It would be a different world, but not necessarily a better one.

Billy stopped as he entered the dining hall. He took a deep breath, greedily inhaling the aromas. After so many years of so little food it was still exciting, intoxicating, almost unbelievable. He often found himself passing through the dining hall for no other reason than to confirm that it was still there, that it hadn’t disappeared. There was food, food everywhere, and he could have anything, and as much of anything as he wanted.

Absently his hand went into his pocket to where his ID was—his key to getting food. He wasn’t even hungry. He could hardly remember what hungry was like. That was reassuring and troubling all at once. It was important not to forget. Not to forget about the kids in the “family” he’d left, not to forget his real family … his mother and father and brother, who had been taken away from him and—

“Excuse me.”

He jumped backwards, fists raised, ready to strike out. It was a girl. A small girl who had been smiling but now looked as startled as he was.

“I’m … I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

Slowly he lowered his fists and a smile replaced his scowl. It brought a smile to her face as well.

“I was just deep in thought,” he explained.

“I wanted to show you something,” she said. “If you’re not busy … if you have time.”

“I am busy, but I do have time … Amanda.”

“You know who I am?” she asked.

“Of course I know who you are.”

Billy knew every one of the kids in the program by face, name, and specialty. He understood that to be a leader he had to know all about the people he was going to lead.

“You’ve been here about six weeks, were raised in the French collective, are a very fine artist, and will be twelve on your next birthday … which is in less than two weeks.”

She beamed brightly.

Billy knew it was the wise thing to do, but it was also just his nature. He was good at remembering information about people … the same way he knew all about the people he’d been leading before coming here. He tried to push them out of his head.

“So what did you want to show me?” Billy asked.

“I’ve been working on an art piece and it’s finished, and I want you to see it.”

“In that case, lead the way,” he said.

She reached out and took his hand. “Come with me.”

She led him toward the study area, the place where the kids learned under the direction of their instructors. That was how they spent most of their time during the day—working, studying, learning. And they seemed to like it. They seemed to like everything. They never complained or protested. In the same way, none of them had ever protested about Billy being named their leader. They had just accepted that he was placed in that role because he was the best qualified. It was so different from where he’d come from. There he’d had to fight and scratch his way to the top, and then spend every day watching, waiting, wondering when he was going to be challenged again. Here there were no challenges.

As they walked they were offered smiles and greetings by everybody they passed. These kids were unfailingly friendly, polite, and encouraging. He’d come to realize how quickly this world could dull his senses. You became so relaxed, so un-threatened, that you stopped paying close attention. The way Amanda had snuck up on him. That would never have happened out there.

He caught sight of Christina through the glass of a soundproof booth. She was playing the piano.

“Can you hold on a minute, please?” Billy said.

He carefully opened up the door to the booth and the music flowed out. Beautiful music. He looked at her. She was as beautiful as the music. He stepped into the room—she was so engrossed, so lost in the music, that she didn’t even notice him.

She finished the piece, and both Billy and Amanda clapped. Christina got to her feet and bowed graciously.

“That was really wonderful, Christina,” Billy said. “Very impressive.”

“Thank you. Who’s your friend?” she asked.

“This is Amanda. She hasn’t been here very long.”

“Hello, Amanda. I’m pleased to meet you,” Christina said.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” Amanda said.

The two of them talked—about the centre, about their collectives, about their specialties—and Billy listened. The more he knew about their lives, the way they’d been raised, the better he understood them. They had never had to fight to survive, so they really didn’t know much about fighting … or surviving.

He looked at Christina. He found himself doing that more and more. Other than Joshua Fitchett she was the person he spent the most time with. There was something a little different about her. Something a little more normal. He’d seen her frustrated with her playing, caught her giving another person a look of annoyance, and on more than one occasion she’d let him know—subtly—that he was saying something that she thought was wrong.

He also found himself wondering about what was going to come later. There were two hundred kids and teenagers in the project. Just like the samples of flora and other fauna, they were eventually supposed to breed and reproduce the human population. Was she going to be his partner? Was that why she had been sent to be his guide originally? Was that the ultimate—?

She looked up at him and he looked away, embarrassed, as though he’d been caught doing something bad.

She reached out and touched his hand and he felt a surge of tingles run up his arm. He looked back and she was smiling.

“Would it be all right with you if I came along to see Amanda’s work?” she asked.

“Of course! That would be great!”

Amanda took one of his hands and Christina took the other and together they led him away. He felt happy. He wondered if it was obvious to anybody else how he was starting to feel about Christina, and he wondered, too … did she feel the same way?

He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. In the shadow of the disaster that would end the world, he was wondering if a girl liked him.

Dr. Andrew Markell held up his identification but he was shaking so badly he couldn’t put it into the slot. He brought up his other hand, and holding the tag in two hands, he was able to steady it sufficiently to enter the slot and trigger the door.

He looked around anxiously, trying not to look too obvious. The guards at the end of the passage were far away and surely couldn’t have seen, and the closed-circuit cameras—which were everywhere in the complex—wouldn’t have been able to pick up anything as subtle as a mild shaking.

He forced a smile onto his face but instantly thought better of it. Nobody had seen him smile for over a year—not since he’d been forced to abandon his section and step down from heading his department. He had been pushed aside once again, each new demotion moving him further and further away from significance, and … he tried to stop the
thoughts. This was the obsessive thinking that had plagued him, forced him out of the picture, condemned him to
useless
make-work projects that were just a way of
pretending
he was still part of the important work!

He stopped smiling. He knew that even that slightest change in behaviour might be enough to set off somebody’s silent alarms. They’d all been warned to watch for changes in somebody’s behaviour or habits as a sign of possible danger and to report it immediately. Ironically, knowing those instructions simply allowed somebody like him to avoid being detected. Or at least that was what he hoped and prayed.

He prayed often these days, seeking both God’s wisdom and His approval. He’d never thought of himself as a religious man, but sitting there at his desk, all alone with just his thoughts and staring at the numbers, he’d found God. Free of any real responsibility, he’d spent hours at his desk praying and thinking, which had given way finally to plotting and planning. He was always careful to keep his eyes open when he was praying. Was that disrespectful, to pray with your eyes open? Would that offend God? He worried about things that like, but he hoped that his actions today would guarantee him a place in Heaven. He’d find out soon enough.