Olympus Device 1: The Olympus Device (21 page)

T
he ex-professor rubbed his chin. “Sir, there are several hundred people involved in the construction, deployment, and maintenance of those weapons. Any unjustified, unwarranted mass launch would be difficult for even you to initiate. Your forces are going to wonder why - question their orders - perhaps even move to stop you if they believe you are insane.”

Frowning at the
suggestion, “Go on.”

“This weapon is differen
t. One man supposedly built it; one man can supposedly deploy it. If what we know so far is true, he didn’t have access to any special equipment or manufacturing capabilities. A simple gunsmith’s workshop being all that was required. That’s the difference, sir. That is what is so troubling. If this technology is viable, then practically anyone can build a weapon far more powerful than a nuclear device.”

“So why doesn’t he just turn himself in and let us handle the
technology like we’ve taken care of our nuclear arsenal since 1945?”

“I can’t speak for the i
nventor, sir. I believe his argument to your proposal would be that nuclear proliferation is a serious issue, what with all the headlines about Iran and North Korea. I’m sure he’s realized that the more people who know how his device functions, the more leaks are going to occur. Virtually everyone is aware of the nightmare scenario of the suitcase nuclear bomb. How long would it be before a zealous, radical individual built his own rail gun and wasn’t afraid to use it?”

The president waved hi
m off, “I’ve heard the argument, Henry, but I’m not convinced. I’ve been told by several scientists that the stories surrounding the event at A&M have to be greatly exaggerated. Over and over again, I’m told that the entire story is impossible from several different aspects. I’m receiving input from State that it’s impossible that one man could have designed and built such a weapon. Many are suspicious of foreign influences – perhaps even outsiders controlling the inventor.”

“Sir, there have
been numerous incidents of basement inventors making discoveries that have rocked the academic world. Skepticism ran rampant with them as well.”

The president sighed, his eyes drifting off while he digested Witherspoon’s last comment. “Henry,” he finally began, “I’ll abide by your recommendation and set up a blue ribbon panel t
o analyze how this newfound wizardry can be implemented and controlled. I’ll handle this quietly, without fanfare or political exposure. But I have to warn you, it won’t happen quickly. I’m not going to drop everything and rush around like a madman to solve an issue I’m not 100% sure exists. I want you to lead the effort. Put a list of the people you think should be involved on my desk, and I’ll get the ball rolling. That’s the best I can do.”

Smiling with the small victory, Witherspoon couldn’t help but try for just a little more. “Thank you, Mr. President. Is there any chance you cou
ld call off the law enforcement dogs? They are chasing the inventor, and I actually fear they’ll catch up to him. Bad things could happen if that comes to fruition, sir.”

“No. I won’t do that, Henry, and here’s why. If the others are correct,
if we have a criminal situation on our hands, then I would be doing a disservice to the American people if I stopped law enforcement from performing their duties. I can just see
The
New York Times
headline if such a thing were to occur. The scandal would destroy my administration. Form your commission, but in the meantime, I have to enforce the law.”

Secretary Witherspoon was visibly disappointed. Looking down at the presidential seal, he said, “I hope you’re right
, and I’m wrong, Mr. President. I sincerely do.”

Maria pulled her disappearing act again. This time it was her housekeeper who provided the car and alternate persona.

Dusty was up and about when she
finally made it to the hideout, burning with the news of Grace’s arrest, but unable to safely visit her ex for two days.

His reaction was predictable, a storm brewing behind his normally friendly eyes. Maria watched the anger spread, almost predicting his slightly faster breathing and then erect, stiff spine.
There was no final explosion, however. Just like when they were married, the man had always been able to hold his temper, if just by a thread.

“They’re doing this to pull me in,” he stated. “They’re sending me a message to surrender.”

“I’ve got to admit,” she responded. “I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this. You read all of those conspiracy blogs and stories on the internet and dismiss them as the rants of crazy people. Now, I’m feeling a little insanity myself.”

Dusty paced around the kitchen for a bit, thumbs hooked in
his pockets and head down. He looked up at her and said, “I can’t let my friends rot in jail, Maria. Not when I know they’re innocent.”

“So you are thinking of turning yourself in?”

“It’s not me they want – it’s that gun. I’ve thought about destroying it and then handing myself over, but that would probably result in them locking me away in some dungeon and being interrogated until I die. They’d never let me out – I might blab to the press or write a book or something.”

“What if you hid the gun and then surrendered? You can use the weapon’s location as a bargaining chip.”

Dusty grinned and then shook his head. “I’ve pondered that route as well. To be honest, I’m too scared to do that.”

Maria didn’t follow, her expression making it clear that she wanted Dusty to expand.

“I would be completely at their mercy. They could use drugs, waterboarding – all kinds of ways to get me to talk. Again, after they had their hands on the technology, I’d never see the light of day again.”

Maria started to
protest his thinking, the words “Our government would never do something like that,” coming out of her throat before Dusty’s raised eyebrows stopped her cold. A sheepish look came over her face when she realized how silly she sounded.

“So what do you want to do?” s
he finally asked.

“I think it’s ridiculous that I’m sitting here, hiding like some sort of bank robber, when I’m in possession of what be the world’s most powerful weapon. They want me so badly beca
use they’re scared of the gun. Maybe I should give them good reason to be frightened.”

Tilting her head, Maria asked, “So you would commit a crime because you’re not a criminal?”

Dusty shook his head, “The FBI appears to have lost all restraint. They’ve been the big kid on the block for a long, long time. They must feel pretty cocky… unchallengeable. Perhaps someone should challenge them, and the courts don’t appear to be the place to do it anymore.”

“You can’t shoot the entire FBI with that gun, Dusty.”

“I know, but I can send a message. Any chance you could go shopping for me? I need some stuff.”

Rolling her eyes, Maria started to question her ex, but the look on his face was concrete. She knew there wouldn’t be any answers and worse yet, she knew it was a waste of time trying to change his mind.

“Okay,” she sighed, “What do you need?”

Paula looked up from the receptionist desk and smiled as Maria entered the office. After a quick exchange of salutations and phone messages, Maria spoke loud and clear for all to hear.

“Could you do me a huge favor this afternoon?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Anthony’s birthday is coming up, and I need to pick up his present. It’s a bicycle and some other gear that would fit easier in the back of your SUV than in my car.”

Paula, always eager to get out of the office and do something different, replied, “No problem. Do you want me to take it back to your house?”

The boss pretended to think about her response. “No, he might be coming back this weekend, and I don’t want him to find it. How about you drop it off over at the Fitzgerald place? They’ve already moved to England, and their garage is empty. I don’t have it listed yet, so no one would bother the stuff.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Paula agreed.

“I’ll write down all the items I want, and of course give you my debit card.”

Disappearing into her office, Maria emerged a short time later with an extensive list. “I went ahead and put a few other stops on here, if you don’t mind.”

Scanning the paper, the assistant whistled and then looked at her watch. “Okay, I’d better get going. You know my birthday’s coming up soon, too. I wish my mom was so generous.”

“I’ll hold down the fort while yo
u’re gone,” Maria promised, a slight grin on her face.

Dusty heard the car pu
ll in the driveway, just as Maria had predicted. He’d already toured the house once, just to make sure he hadn’t left any tracks.

The closet was dark and small, but he didn’t mind as he listened to the garage door open and then the sounds of someone making several trips to unload.

Again, he listened to the sound of the garage door going down this time, followed by footsteps in the house and finally the front door opening and closing. He exhaled as the car started, the engine fading into the distance. He gave Maria’s assistant five more minutes, in case the woman discovered she’d forgotten something. After that margin of safety had passed, he carefully made his way to the garage to inspect the delivery.

Ten minutes later, he grunted with satisfaction, surveying the pile of boxes, bags
, and packages lying on the garage floor. Maria had sourced every single item on his list and thrown in a few extras to boot.

Job one was to find the tool kit included on his list. After that, he’d have a full afternoon of assembly.

The conference room table was filled with half-empty cups of coffee, a few bottles of water and two snack wrappers from the machine in the break room.

Special Agent in Charge Monroe looked up from the pile of status reports, his preference of receiving paper copies a widely known annoyance throughout the office. “I can’t believe Weathers has simply disappeared from the surface of the earth,” he began. “Yet, I know we’re doing everything in our power to find him. Any additional suggestions?”

“The hit is going to come from a video camera in all likelihood,” commented Shultz. “He doesn’t have any credit cards and he’s smart enough not to show his driver’s license. He’s going to look into a camera at some point in time
, and then at least we’ll know what part of town he’s in.”

Nodding his agreement, Monroe looked down the table at his head technician. “What’s the turnaround time from the NSA at the moment?”

We have a quad-pipe of dedicated fiber optic running at full speed between our data center and Fort Mead. They’re processing the facial recognition stream on about a two-hour average – give or take.”

Shultz whistled, “Two hours? How many images are they receiving per second?”

The tech, clearly proud of the geeky capabilities, responded with a smile. “We have 1,800 traffic cameras, 10,000 police dash cams, and over 240,000 private security video feeds that we’re processing. It is just over a terabyte per second.”

“And they’re back to us with potential hits in two hours? I remember when it use
d to take longer than that to get a match on a fingerprint.”

Nodding
, the computer guru continued. “They run an eight-point facial recognition algorithm on every face that shows on one of those cameras. That’s after they clean up the grainy and out of focus pics.”

“Amazing,” was Shultz’s only response. Monroe, however, wasn’t impressed.

“One of my biggest fears is that all this technology is going to make everyone think they can sit around on their asses and wait on the computers to catch the bad guys. Good old-fashioned hard work is what puts more criminals behind bars, not computer chips and megabytes of whatever.”

Before anyone could comment, the door burst open
, and a woman’s head appeared in the opening. Her voice was high pitched from excitement. “He’s on line two.”

Monroe, upset by the interruption, replied in a growl, “Who is on line two?”

“Durham Weathers, sir.”

The head agent’s initial reaction was as if he
didn’t understand what the female agent was saying. Frowning, he glanced at the cream-colored phone on the table top, his eyes seeming to focus on the blinking light labeled “Line 2.”

Inhaling deeply, Monroe reached for the phone and punched the button. “Agent Monroe speaking.”

“Agent Monroe, this is Dusty Weathers. I understand you’re looking for me,” answered a cheery voice with a strong, Texas accent.

Before responding, Monroe looked up at the tech and mouthed the words, “Is this being traced?”

“Automatically,” came the whispered response.

“Mr. We
athers, you are correct. Several thousand of my colleagues and I would very much like to speak with you. Why don’t you turn yourself in and get it over with?”

Laughing, Dusty replied, “I’m afraid I’m not going to make it that easy on you. As a matter of fact, if things don’t change, I’m going to make it more difficult on you, sir.”

“Are you threatening a Federal agent, Mr. Weathers?”

“I’m threatening
all
of them, Mr. Monroe. But this sounds so harsh, so antagonistic. The purpose of my call was actually to make you an offer that I feel is a fair compromise.”

Monroe rubbed his chin, clearly wondering where the conversation was going. “I will inform you that the government of the United States does not negotiate with terrorist
s, Mr. Weathers. With that being said, I’ll be happy to listen to your offer if it will make you feel better.”

Again,
a relaxed, genuine chuckle came from the other end of the call. “Very well, sir. Here’s my offer, the president will grant a pardon for all of my friends and family associated with my invention. That includes Hank, Grace, Mitch and anyone else you might choose to arrest in order to piss me off. In exchange for this pardon, I will destroy the rail gun and end this entire thing.”

It was Monroe’s turn to laugh, somehow the agent’s expression didn’t seem so relaxed. “I’m not even going to bother, sir. We would have no way of knowing you actually destroyed the device
, and besides, you’ve already committed acts of terrorism against your country. Acts for which you must pay with your freedom, perhaps your life.”

Monroe’s response shocked Shultz, the junior agent’s face showing surprise at the harshness and inflexible position. Looking around, he saw several others agreed with his assessment.

The other end of the line was silent for some time. When Dusty did speak again, his tone was low and cold. “I predicted that would be your response, sir. I thought my guilt was a foregone conclusion. Are you near the east side of the building, Agent Monroe?”

“No,
and what does my location have to do with your surrender?”

“I’ll give you one minute to find a window
with a view looking east. I think you’ll want to see this,” and the line went dead.

All the agents
in the FBI conference room seemed to rise from their chairs at once. After a dirty look from Monroe, the meeting attendees filed out calmly, all of them crossing the hall and finding any empty space to peer outside.

Shultz maintained the wherewithal to turn on his smart phone’s video camera while the technician was calling to his lab, trying desperately to get someone with a digital video unit pointed east. He was too late.

Dusty smiled when the green LED glowed bright. He turned on the aiming laser and then pushed in his earplug. The power setting was at 10%.

Bracing against the
window frame, he peered through the scope and found the small red dot of his laser illuminating the fender of the closest black SUV. He was on the fourth floor of an under-construction office complex six blocks away from the target, the first shift of workers not scheduled to arrive for another half hour.

Mindful of his p
romise to wait one minute, he glanced at his watch and scanned the area around his target one last time, hoping to avoid collateral damage. The top floor of the 3-story garage next to the federal building filled the view of the powerful optic. Two rows of neatly parked, government-issue, black SUVs rounded out the image.

Why the vehicles were exposed on the roof of the structure was anybody’s guess. Dusty assumed that the employees wanted to keep their personal cars in the shade provided by the lower floors – to hell with the taxpayer’s money. Maybe he was being harsh – maybe they parked the law enforcement vehicles as high as possible for security.

Shrugging his shoulders to dismiss the question, Dusty again checked his watch – it was time.

He centered the glimmering red ci
rcle of the laser and pulled the trigger.

The ball bearing changed state before
exiting the gun, the friction of the air causing the hardened steel to melt before clearing the last ring of magnets. Despite being a jet of molten metal, the magnetic properties of the missile didn’t change, and the rivulet of liquid shot forth still suspended in the rail’s magnetic field.

Four feet after leaving the gun, the molten stream began igniting the oxygen
in the air, the net effect similar to an arch of plasma racing toward the target at over 20,000 feet per second.

Like the conversation piece often called “Newton’s Cradle,” the sub-atomic particles of the atmospheric gases began to slam into one another, just like the steel balls hanging from the desktop toy. The aim
ing laser had excited the air just enough for the exploding chain of protons to follow its path, accelerating with every collision and following the path of least resistance.

At this point of the discharge, known particle physics ceased to apply. Billions of protons
began splitting, each release of energy adding to the freight train of energy following the red laser. The speed kept increasing until the universe had to defend itself from the ultimate catastrophe of infinite mass.

A door opened into another dimension, the gap in both time and space
expanded at the speed of light. It wasn’t a wide doorway, no larger than an inch in diameter, but the energy released was immense.

From the
sixth floor of the federal building, it looked as if the roof of the parking garage below shuddered. Then complete bedlam broke loose. The black metal bodies looked as if they were being crushed by a giant, invisible hand, bending and mauling right before the on-looking FBI agents’ eyes. And then the detonations began.

Scrap
s of flaming metal erupted skyward, closely pursued by rolling balls of black smoke. Blizzards of exploding shards of glass flew in all directions, the glint off the morning sun creating the impression of an early morning frost.

The blast wave hit next.

Like a gigantic clap of thunder, the rail’s crack echoed through the glass and steel canyons of downtown Houston. For several blocks in every direction, windows were swept with a wave of air moving at over 700 miles per hour – almost ten times the speed of hurricane-force winds.

Dusty hadn’t counted on the
impact of the wave, a look of horror crossing his face as he watched spider webs of glass replace the shiny, clear windows in nearby buildings.

The fast moving wall of air raised dust and debris from rooftops and sidewalks, a few pedestrians knocked to the ground.

Dusty shook himself out of the hypnotic state, feeling like a motorist rubbernecking at a roadside accident. He forced his eyes away from the damage. He had to move, and move quickly.

Breaking down the weapon, he stuffed it into his pack and casually walked to the stairwell, listening for footsteps at each landing until he exited at street level. He then strolled with purpose through the construction site, squeezing through the chain-link gate and out onto the sidewalk.

The few people who were on the street didn’t notice the man leaving the construction zone – their attention focused on the huge ball of smoke rising from the FBI’s parking garage.

Two blocks later, Dusty entered a coffee shop and ordered a large cup of blonde roast – with room for crème.

Everyone instinctively flinched on the sixth floor of the federal building, the flash of the explosions below causing the witnesses to turn away. The windows rattling with the impact of the blast wave prompted several people to scurry back.

Monroe recovered first, the experienced man turned and then began shouting, “Where is he? Where is my trace?”

The tech, standing nearby, checked his smart phone and answered, “Got him! He’s at 500 McKinney Street.”

“That’s only a few blocks away,” someone added.

“Let’s go! I want my team there now! Someone call Houston SWAT, and HPD – I want that area with a ring of steel around it in three minutes!”

The elevator car filled to capacity after
opening, anxious agents crowding inside for a ride to street level. A minute later Monroe’s team hustled through the lobby and onto the sidewalk, all of them running at full speed toward the nearby street where they hoped to find the man who had just attacked them.