Operation Damocles (29 page)

He took two cans of .223 ammunition for their M-16s and two twenty-pound boxes of fragmentation grenades. He wasn’t sure how they would carry the ammo and grenades, but was willing to see if providence would provide a means. He carried them into the hallway, and left them by the exit door. Returning, he searched the piles of ordnance for fuses and timers, but didn’t find any.

Going back along the hallway, he looked inside the equipment room and found the sprinkler controls. There was a workbench against one wall, and an upright metal locker with some tools and maintenance supplies inside. He found an electrician’s test meter, a partial roll of electrical tape and a spool of electrical lamp cord. He took these items, along with a screwdriver and pliers back to the sprinkler control box, which housed a clock timer with adjustable switches to turn the electric zone valves on and off. Having assured himself that the clock was working, he loosened the “on” switch setting and moved it to the three o’clock position. With the electrician’s meter, he checked the voltage across the switch. Satisfied, he disconnected the switch wires from the bussbar that fed current to the zone valves and left the two wires hanging. Using the pliers, he stripped the insulation from the ends of the two-conductor lamp cord, and twisted the bare ends together with the switch wires. He took two nails from a nail-and-screw bin, and carrying the reel of wire, went back inside the gym, unreeling the lamp wire as he went. At the pallet with the plastic explosives, he emptied out four boxes of the paper-wrapped bricks and made a pile of them. He cut the lamp wire and removed the insulation from the ends as before. He twisted the bared ends around the nails and jammed the nails down into one of the bricks of C-4. The conductors of the lamp wire were composed of dozens of very fine wires twisted together into a single strand. Townsend separated out a single thin strand of wire, and wrapped the ends around the nails, completing the electrical circuit. When the timer closed the switch, the tiny wire would short the circuit and explode with a bang, setting off the explosive.

He paused to survey his work, and noticed that the polished hardwood floor was gouged and scuffed where equipment had been dragged across it, and he pitied the school athletics director. He knew how dear such things were to them. It made him feel a bit less badly about blowing it up.

He piled mortar shells and ammunition on the pallet above the plastic explosive. He went the length of the gym looking for other munitions, and his heart leaped when he found a crate of binary chemical explosives. He quickly broke the coverings off a dozen of the flexible, two-pound plastic packages, and ruptured the internal membranes, allowing the two chemical compounds inside to mix. Once mixed, they were highly explosive. He dragged the crate of binary half the length of the gym, and parked it next to the wired C-4. To preclude some sentry arriving and spoiling the surprise before the timer went off, he tied a grenade under the pallet of explosives with electrical tape. He tied one end of the remaining lamp cord to the grenade pin and unreeled the wire down the hall to the door.

He cautiously opened the outer door, and seeing no one around, waved at the darkened doorway where Eve was crouched. He set the ammo and grenades down outside the door. Gingerly pulling the lamp wire taut, he stepped outside and allowed the door to almost close. Reaching inside, he looped the wire around the panic bar, tied it off, and gently closed the gym door behind him.

Jack gathered Eve back inside the utility building, carrying the ammunition and grenades inside with them. With the remainder of the electrical wire, he made a shoulder harness to carry the two cans of rifle ammo, one on his chest and one on his back. Slinging his rifle, he carried a box of grenades in one hand, and he and Eve carried another between them. It made creeping difficult, but he wanted the munitions.

They circled the parking lot again, going back the way they came. They had gotten as far as two blocks past the main thoroughfare with no problems, heading back toward the suburbs on their side of town, when two soldiers in an open Hummer turned a corner and approached them from behind. The headlights of the vehicle picked them out and cast their shadows, large and moving, on the walls of the buildings they were walking past. The vehicle pulled to the curb next to them and the officer in the passenger seat challenged them.

“Where are you two soldiers headed with that ordinance? Do you need a lift?” he asked.

Jack stopped, lowered the box of grenades in his right hand to the sidewalk, and turning across in front of Eve, approached the vehicle. The man asking the questions was a major, and Jack guessed that he was in command of one of the detachments stationed in the city. He knew that it was hopeless to attempt to fool him. He was white and obviously American. The driver was oriental, but didn’t speak, and Jack couldn’t tell from his unmarked battle fatigues if he was American or foreign military.

The major’s eyes were scrutinizing Eve, noting the feminine shape that the fatigues couldn’t hide, and roaming over Jack too, as he approached the vehicle. Jack could see doubts beginning to form behind the man’s blue eyes and quizzical expression. Jack brought the Walther up and pointed it at the man’s face, just inches from his nose.

“Tell him to kill the ignition,” he said, indicating the driver with a motion of his head. The major frowned, then said, “Kill it, Li.”

“Just sit still and keep your hands where they are,” said Jack. “Put the grenades in the vehicle, hon,” he said to Eve as he lifted his end of the box they carried between them, “and get in the back seat.”

Eve did as he said, without comment, climbing in behind the driver and resting the barrel of her M-16 on the back of the driver’s seat, muzzle pointed at the back of his neck. Jack climbed in beside her, keeping the pistol trained on the major’s head.

“Drive in the direction you’re headed,” he told him. “Stay on this street until I tell you to turn. Make a wrong move and I’ll kill you. Do you understand?”

The major glanced sidelong at Jack and nodded. He motioned to the driver. They pulled out, traveling unhampered and virtually unnoticed past occasional pairs of sentries walking the streets. They passed a truckload of soldiers under a corner streetlight, who were just being loaded aboard in preparation for going somewhere.

They reached the outskirts of town without incident. Jack was looking for a street or road that would take them out of sight of the developed neighborhoods, when just ahead he spotted a service road that led off to some sort of public works building. The timing was fortunate. Two blocks further on, there was a sentry-guarded roadblock at the edge of town, where the street they were traveling turned into a country lane.

They drove up to the cinder-block building with its chain-link-fenced compound, and Jack could see that they had found the sewage treatment plant. The plant was on a slight rise, and as they pulled into the lighted parking area, they could see four large, open lagoons spread out just below the rise, as the land sloped away from the city.

At Jack’s direction, the driver pulled up next to the building and stopped. When the driver turned the ignition off, Jack shot the major in the back of the head. Startled, Eve pulled the trigger and killed the driver. Jack pushed the major out onto the pavement, and getting out over his body, walked around to the driver and pulled him out. He dragged the still-convulsing body around the front of the vehicle, up against the building, and dragged the major’s body over beside the driver’s. He told Eve to get into the passenger seat, which she did. She looked slightly dazed, but responded immediately, without speaking.

Jack walked around the building and surveyed the sewage lagoons. The moon was up now, and visibility wasn’t bad, after the eyes adjusted. A paved, one-lane service road ran around beside the lagoons and dropped out of sight just beyond them. About a mile away in the same direction, across the open valley, a graded firebreak ran up over the mountain. On the farther hill was where they had left the Jeep Cherokee.

Jack climbed behind the wheel of the Hummer and followed the road around the building and down off the rise toward the lagoons. As they rounded the lagoons where the road had dipped out of sight, they found that it turned into a dirt track that led down to an open storage area where cannibalized equipment moldered on the ground. Old centrifugal pumps, motors, air conditioner parts, tires and miscellaneous junk graced the city’s bone yard.

The track ended, but the country flattened out as it ranged out across the small, open valley toward the foothills. Jack thought the Hummer could make it, and was proved right. An hour later, they recovered the Cherokee. Jack hid the military vehicle in a brushy draw just off the graded firebreak, near the foot of an electrical powerline tower. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s line crossed the track at an angle, coming inland from the coast and crossing the hills to the municipal substation at Palo Alto. It made a convenient reference point if they ever wanted to recover the vehicle.

###

That evening, back in camp, Eve was withdrawn and quiet. Jack understood. When he tried to comfort her, she became forcefully amorous, almost tearing his clothes off, and making fierce, passionate love. She finally fell asleep, physically spent, lying against his side, her face on his chest, one leg lying across his. He held her, and fell asleep shortly after she did.

Jack came awake, instantly alert, in the early afternoon, and lay listening for whatever it was that had awakened him. He heard Eve retching, somewhere outside. He found his rumpled jeans among the bedding. Pulling them on, he carried his shoes and socks to the mouth of the pipe, where he sat down and put them on.

Eve was on her hands and knees, about twenty feet away, near the slope of the reservoir. He pitied her. A few months before, she was a career woman and wife, living an ordered life, and violence was just something that she heard about on the news, and occasionally discussed philosophically on her show. Like so many others now, she was experiencing the loss of innocence, and it was an unimaginably cruel education. America was having the last traces of its comfortable, safe, twentieth-century heritage torn out by the roots. Gentle people were being emotionally, as well as physically, maimed. Jack deeply hated it, however inevitable it might be.

He wet a washcloth at the water cooler, and crouching down next to Eve, wiped her fevered face and neck. He gave her a cup of water to rinse her mouth with, then he held her against him, stroking her head and back, the two of them kneeling in the dust. When she was better, he walked her back to their sitting area and put water on the camp stove for coffee. He got her to eat a slice of bread, even though she didn’t want it, and when the coffee was done, her stomach had settled.

“I guess I’m not as brave as I thought I was,” she said.

“You’re about as brave as anyone I’ve ever known,” he said. “No one is born being used to ugliness and unspeakable acts. You have to learn it. I’m sorrier than ever for keeping you here. I don’t want you to have to learn it. I want you to stay gentle and optimistic inside. You’re not what’s wrong. They’re what’s wrong,” he thumbed over his shoulder, toward the town, indicating the occupation forces.

Eve looked past him, her gaze locking on the horizon. “Look,” she pointed.

He turned, his gaze following hers, and noticed a black cloud above the intervening hills. He picked up the binoculars and climbed atop the reservoir embankment. A moment later, Eve climbed up beside him.

“That was the gymnasium. I hope the diversion worked, and they got Robertson out okay,” he said. “They are going to be busy for a while, but I don’t think they’ll search this far afield. If they put it together and find the Hummer, there are still several hard-surfaced roads crossing between them and us. We could have gone anywhere.

“Honey, I’ve decided that until we know there is no other way, we’re going to stay out of sight. I won’t risk you again without good reason. If the weapon fails, we will leave the country. We stand a better chance of living free in a more primitive country. It will take them generations to gain control of all the little towns and villages everywhere. They will never control the entire land surface of the world; it would spread them too thin. It wouldn’t be economical either.

“I haven’t quite figured out where we’ll go or how we’ll get there, just yet. We might be able to steal a boat and drift down the coast toward South America, like we did in Florida. Overland is possible, but it will be hard. We will have to walk cross-country to avoid roadblocks and checkpoints. A boat has its risks, too. Out on open water, there is no place to hide if we’re discovered. We would have to travel at night and hole up during the day.”

“What would you do if you didn’t have me?” she asked.

“If I lost you now, I wouldn’t want to live,” he said, looking into her face. “There is no world for me anymore without you. I realized that tonight. I’m blundering around, confused, trying to fit things together. I can’t continue to think or operate like I’ve done all my life. You are not a soldier, and I don’t want you to be one. I have to find a place for us, somewhere where we can live in relative peace.”

“I still want to know. What would you do, now, if you had never met me; what if you were alone?”

“If that thing up there doesn’t work, I would do what Hector and Eddie are trying to do. I would travel back east, maybe even to Europe, and as the people responsible for all this surfaced, I would destroy as many of them as I could.”

“Then that is what we will do,” she said. “We wouldn’t be happy whiling away our lives in a thatched hut in some remote jungle. That would destroy us just as effectively as the enemy would, and accomplish nothing. I may not be a soldier, and I’d rather not be one, but I’ll learn if I have to. I’ll be a good partner to you. Together, we can go places and accomplish things that you might not be able to do alone. If war is the world’s destiny, then we will play our part in it.”

XLIII

Fourteen weeks after the purported fall of Damocles, Benito Salvitore called for a council meeting in Italy. He had a villa on an expansive estate near Rome, high on a rocky mountain outcropping. The villa overlooked the Mediterranean Sea, and was furnished in classical Italian and Grecian styles. Bright, white stucco walls beautifully contrasted with red tile roofs, pillared arcades and steps with carved stone balustrades. Walled gardens of roses and hibiscus were bordered by sentinel cedars, and occasional examples of Hellenistic period statuary.

The only thing that detracted from the classic scene was the satellite communications dish outside the garden wall. The promontory commanded breathtaking mountain views in all directions. The opulent architecture and spacious design bespoke lavish wealth. The car garage was like a barn, designed to hold thirty cars.

The leaders of all the governing houses of the world, nearly two hundred in all, began arriving in Rome on the seventh of August. Many would stay on for a few days after the general meeting on the eighth. Among those arrivals was Professor Leland Somerset. He landed in Rome at 7:20 in the evening and was soon checked into a hotel.

Somerset was of slightly more than medium height, with dark hair, brown eyes and a somewhat stocky build. The crinkles in the corners of his eyes were those of a man who had once liked to laugh. During the past few years, his mien had turned somber though, and he had become quiet and introspective, often staring off into the distance and thinking.

Among his peers in the scientific community, he was liked and trusted. That was partly because he made people feel that he was interested in what they had to say, and partly because he did what he promised, and never lied. Partly it was because he refused to be drawn into campus politics, or take sides in specious arguments. He preferred to let people think as they liked, unless they asked him for advice. In that case, his opinions were freely given, and given in such a way that the recipient never felt that he owed Somerset anything.

Those who knew him well never questioned his science or his motives. He engendered faith in others. How it came about couldn’t be described, exactly. Somerset was not conscious of it, he simply was himself. He believed in old-fashioned honor, and he practiced it, and it came through to others.

His career had taken some strange turnings. He had worked on the directed-energy weapons research at Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory during the Reagan years, doing “Star Wars” research, as it has been labeled by the press. For the past several years, he had been installed at the J.J. Pickle Research Laboratory in Austin, Texas, an arm of the University of Texas.

His wife Judy had died six years before, and his only daughter was married to a Navy officer and living in Naples, Italy. He stopped off there for two days before flying on to Rome. He wanted a last time with her before the end. He hadn’t told anyone, but he had come to Rome to die.

###

He settled into his room and took a refreshing shower. He sat at the window, looking out over the street at the people moving along the sidewalks. Later, he walked out, got a meal in a small restaurant, and walked the city streets awhile before returning to his hotel for the night.

The next morning, he ate breakfast, then went to see the Coliseum, the Forum and Vatican City with its famous St. Peter’s Basilica, the greatest church in Christendom. He studied the famous Dome of Michelangelo, and the splendid square and colonnade. He had always wanted to see some of the wonders of Europe, but had never had the time before.

He spent the bulk of the day seeing the sights of Rome, walking alone through the quieter side streets, sitting in cafes and drinking the small, rich coffees and meditating. At 4:00 p.m., he returned to his hotel and took a nap, rising at 6:00 p.m. to shower and dress.

At 8:00 p.m., he hired a car and driver to take him to Villa Salvitore. The security guard at the gate refused him entrance at first. Somerset gave the guard a letter of introduction addressed to Benito Salvitore, and waited with the security guard while another man took the letter in. In a few minutes, two men returned and searched Somerset. All he had on him was a wallet, pen and pencil, and what appeared to be a penlight. They gave him back his things and escorted him into the house, past the crowded reception hall and garden, and into a small library.

As they passed through the house, he heard several different languages being spoken by the guests who were standing in pairs and small groups, talking casually. Apparently the council meeting was over, and the business of the day was winding down. One would never guess that these quiet, well-behaved people had parceled out the world today. The basic division had already been done, but today’s meetings had concluded a ratification of understanding, and the finer details of authority, latitude, operating plans and target goals.

Somerset had to hand it to them, they were efficient. If it had been a bunch of pre-Damocles politicians, they couldn’t have arrived at a sound agreement within a year, much less a day.

As Hitler had shown the world in the 1940s, the most efficient form of government was an autocracy. The union of the high aristocracy was run like a business with shareholders, a board of directors and a chairman of the board. Benito Salvitore was the elected chairman, and his authority was almost absolute. That authority trickled down to thousands of minor community dictators, but in this place, this night, were all the ancient titleholders, the heirs of Byzantium and Rome, the descendants of the ancient and obscure houses of Europe and Asia.

These were the puppet masters. They who had secretly ruled the world via anonymous control of politics, currencies and business, for ages. Their control had been subtle but firm over the centuries—not always winning the moment, but always prevailing in the end—guiding the world slowly but steadily toward their secret goals. They had steadily consolidated their wealth and power, and grown stronger with each passing decade. The long-awaited time was at hand. The technology and economics were finally at the point where that dream of ages, true world conquest, was possible. They believed that they now enjoyed a hold over mankind that could never again be broken.

###

The security guards left Somerset alone in the room, closing the door behind them. One of the men waited outside the door while the other went to see the master of the house. In a short while, the guard returned, and they escorted Somerset into a large, sumptuous ballroom with perhaps two hundred curious people, all standing quietly, waiting for him. A man in a dark-gray business suit sat with two women in evening gowns on one of three openly arranged divans near the center of the room. Three men occupied the other two sofas.

Somerset was led before these people and left standing as the guards withdrew a few feet. Benito Salvitore was a dark-haired, middle-aged Italian of obvious sophistication and charm. His accent was cultured and his language crisp and precise—almost Victorian-era in phrasing. He held Somerset’s letter, and it was he who motioned Somerset to the adjacent sofa. The man occupying it got up and moved to stand a few paces away.

“Dr. Leland Somerset, is it?” said Salvitore, as Somerset sat down. “You have a strange manner of gaining entrance to an exclusive affair. Your note says that you have come here to die with me. What purpose exactly does this melodramatic entrance achieve?”

“Other than being the simple truth, it was just a ploy to gain admission, Mr. Salvitore,” Somerset answered. “Your security people would not have allowed me in otherwise.”

“And why do you desire admittance, Dr. Somerset?” Salvitore asked, smiling. “Is it your plan to shoot me down, and to die yourself, in a hail of bullets? Something like that?”

Somerset smiled in return. “Under the circumstances, you may patronize me if you like, Mr. Salvitore. I’m quite serious, though. I represent your enemies—the enemies of all of you that are here tonight. I and my colleagues have fought you this past year, and have at last succeeded in drawing you out where we can destroy you. I controlled the orbital weapon platform that destroyed many of your holdings in the United States.”

A sigh of comprehension passed through the raptly attentive audience. Salvitore’s face took on a serious expression. He gave orders to his head of security to search the house and grounds. He and his other guests remained where they were, along with the two guards who had escorted Somerset in.

“You have gained our undivided attention, Dr. Somerset,” said Salvitore, waiting. Salvitore motioned with his hand, and told the wine server to “pour the good Doctor a glass of wine.” Somerset accepted, just as graciously.

“You see,” said Somerset, “we couldn’t risk waiting any longer, while you consolidated your control. By the way, before you knew of Damocles, when had you planned to establish autocratic rule? Did you have a date in mind?”

Salvitore shrugged noncommittally. “Nothing specific. We had planned to assume overt control in another five or ten years. Things were going the way we desired anyway. There was no pressing hurry. We had hoped to disarm the United States through gun control legislation first, and to execute a more gradual, less violent takeover. We would have liked to have accomplished it without open warfare.”

“That’s sooner than we thought,” said Somerset. “We had estimated another ten or fifteen years.”

Salvitore waved his hand dismissively. “It may have taken that long. What difference would it make?”

Somerset sipped the wine. “None, to you. At least not in the way you’ve envisioned things working out, but to us, it was imperative that we act while we still had the freedom to do the things necessary to put our weapons systems in place. We also had to wait for you to move in and begin taking overt actions. To have acted too early would have triggered a backlash in the American people. Until the Vanderbilt Administration, many people still clung tenaciously to a misguided loyalty to those figureheads that you put in positions of authority, thinking they were being patriotic. We had to wait until a lot of people were openly disenchanted, almost the last possible moment. If we had waited much longer, though, we would not have had the freedom to construct the weapons and get them into orbit. Right now, your control is almost complete. Research programs are dead, government institutions in limbo. I doubt that we could manage it under today’s conditions.”

“I compliment you on your assessment, and your achievement,” said Salvatore, casually lighting a cigarette. “What made you believe that you could precipitate our takeover?”

“We watched as you gained control of NATO and the United Nations, and the development of the hand-in-hand conspiracy between the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Economic Council, the Federal Open Market Committee and the Federal Reserve Board. It was obvious to all but the blind. The engineered collapse of most of the private banks and lending institutions, followed by the assumption and sale of assets to the bigger banks under the Federal Depositors Insurance Corporation, and finally, the rash of mergers of the larger banks and corporate holding companies in America, the unprecedented bullish market—it all seemed to point toward a final commitment on your part. We assumed that if we fanned the flame of independence for a little bit, then appeared to fail, that you would seize the chance to get it over with once and for all. It appears that we’re batting a thousand, so far.”

Salvitore stirred the air with his finger. “You say that you intended to fail?”

“We intended for you to
think
we had failed. Otherwise, you would never have surfaced. Now, we know who you are, those of you here, and the smaller fry that are running things for you. Once you’ve all been taken or destroyed, your holdings and your fortunes will finance a new cooperative of independent governments without hegemony. It will take some fine-tuning, no doubt, but it will work.”

Salvitore laughed. “Are you telling me that this organization of yours has tricked us—that you are in control? Your weapon is destroyed! We have armies in every major city on the globe. What do you think you can do—you and your band of renegades? Who are you, anyway?”

“On the contrary,” said Somerset, rolling the wine glass between his hands. “Damocles is still very much in existence. Two more weapon systems are also in orbit. As we speak, Damocles is locking grid coordinates into his fire-control computer. Your main troop contingents are being recalled to their local bases and barracks. They each think it’s just a local thing, and they are not the least bit alarmed. In a few moments, at 9:00 p.m., to be exact, those armies will be as imaginary as your belief in your cultural superiority.

“Speaking of culture, with your Greco-Roman heritage, you should appreciate the irony of the names we gave to the weapon systems, the instruments that are about to compass your defeat. We decided to retain the Grecian mythology theme. Damocles held the threat over your heads, forcing you to react in a predictable way. Ariadne was the Greek princess who gave Theseus a thread with which to find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. She hangs above our heads now, doing the same thing that Damocles is doing over the American continent. We wanted our daughters to be able to identify in gender with one of them, you see.

“Apollo, god of the sun, music, medicine, prophecy and poetry, hangs over Asia. Actually, we had a bit of dissension there; some of our Asian members wanted to call him Rama, and of course, Buddha came up, along with Allah, Mohammed and several other deities and prophets. Apollo won out. It maintains the poetry, don’t you see? Damocles to show humanity the direct; Ariadne to show us the way out; Apollo to heal us, and show us the beauty of the new day. If that isn’t poetic justice, I don’t know what is. I wish my friend Paul could hear that. He’s always getting the last word. I don’t think he could top me tonight.”

“I appreciate your droll wit, Dr. Somerset,” said Salvitore. “If what you say is true, what do you think you will accomplish? Man is man. They will just revert again. People do not change. Do you think you’re going to divide up everything equally, and it will stay that way? The very day that your great Utopia is founded, someone will bring forth a pack of cards or a pair of dice, and the reapportionment of wealth will begin anew. What will you have gained? Come, come, Dr. Somerset, surely you’re not that naïve or socialistic in your thinking. Would you overrun all good things with the common herd?”