Operation Damocles (9 page)

XIII

At 10:00 p.m. Pacific Time, on the evening of August 10, an encrypted telephone conversation took place between two of the conspirators involved in the subjugation of the United States government.

“Well, my boy, I’m afraid we’re finished. I halfway expected it to end this way. I guess, deep down, I just hoped that the bastards would have enough compassion that they would capitulate, rather than risk the lives of millions.”

“Hector, I’m amazed at you,” the other voice responded. “You of all people should know that the only lives those bastards care about are their own.” The speaker sighed.

“We can’t quit. After all this time working together, I thought I knew you. I’m disappointed, not so much in you, as in myself. I guess I was just wishing for your convictions and philosophy to mirror my own, and I made myself believe it. I suppose I need accomplices to reassure me that I’m not a lone lunatic. Nobody else seems to give a damn, so why am I beating myself up over them?”

“Why are you, son? I know you believe in what you’re trying to do. You want to save the world. If that makes you a lunatic, I guess all of us are crazy. There are ten of us, all supposedly intelligent people, who have worked right along with you these last two years. I’ve been proud of your accomplishments. We all have. The problem is, the world doesn’t want to be saved. So why torture yourself over them?”

“Hector, I treasure all my friends, and I’ve been blessed with many good ones, but out of all of them, including even Paul, you are the one that I thought really understood what this was all about, the absolute necessity of it. You are one of the few people that I thought would really stick by his convictions to the bitter end. You’re the closest thing to a father I’ve ever known. Save Paul, there hasn’t been anyone closer since Judy died. What you’re saying makes me feel incredibly alone and hopeless right now, and a damned fool to boot.”

“Hell, son, you’re not alone. We tried. No one can do more than that. We held out a life preserver to the public. They’re just too timid to reach for it. They won’t fight City Hall. Either that, or they actually believe the propaganda they’re being constantly subjected to. I’m sure some of them do. You figure those under twenty, by and large, don’t have the experience to weigh what they’re being told, and those over forty are so frustrated with the futility of trying to change things by the vote, that they’ve given up and don’t participate anymore. We may as well face it. Democracy has failed . . . failed for lack of interest.”

“Not yet, it hasn’t.”

“Come on, Leland, what more can we do? It’s time to give it up and get on with our lives.”

There was a pause, as if by mutual agreement, where neither man spoke. After a time, the one called Leland broke the silence. His voice was resigned, determined. “I won’t let it happen, Hector. If they win, progress comes to a halt. We will sink into a dark age that will make life in Russia during the Iron Curtain era—even Germany under Hitler—look like the good old days. All the arts and finer things will vanish. Whole technologies will be lost. We can’t let it happen.

“If we don’t strive to evolve, and to become something more than bloody, scrabbling vermin, the whole species has no reason to exist. If mankind is going to make it to the stars, and become a mature species, they have to have liberty. Maybe they just don’t have it in them. Maybe what we do won’t matter in the end. Maybe I’ll go down in history as the greatest monster of all time. All I know is that I am going to do what I can to keep the bastards from taking over. Whatever chance there is, mankind is going to have it.”

“But what can you do? They’ve called our bluff. Our big stick has failed. There is nothing left but to cover our tracks and—”

Angrily, “Does everyone feel like you do, Hector? Are they all ready to throw in the towel?”

“Don’t get upset, my boy. The committee met this morning. We don’t like it any better than you do, but there just isn’t any use. If we go on destroying deserted bases and utility systems, and making a nuisance of ourselves, it will only prejudice people against us. God forbid, even if we fired on a small town somewhere, even Washington, and killed thousands of people, we would be branded as criminals and murderers. It would only turn them further away from us, and make the government agenda easier. They’ll think of us just as if we were any two-bit, foreign terrorists, and they would be right. It’s a no-win situation.”

When he answered, the one called Leland was calmer. “I knew the others would cave in, Hector, but I never thought you would. For the record, I agree. We can’t continue just being an irritant, and I won’t destroy a bunch of innocents in a small town as another warning. I won’t escalate this thing incrementally, till we become the tyrants. If we don’t carry out our threat, we’ll just become ridiculous. That’s why we’re going to go through with it.”

“You can’t be serious? Millions would die.”

“Nothing else is going to move them. If they have a choice between passivity and a fight, they aren’t going to fight. We knew that starting out. I intend to remove all their options.”

“The committee will never agree to it, son. Never. They’ve decided to destroy the weapon system. In fact, it is to be done at midnight tonight. It’s over, my boy.”

“No, Hector, it isn’t. As I said, I knew the others would fall apart in the eleventh hour. So, after the last warning shot, I changed the control codes.”

“What do you mean? For God’s sake, Leland, you can’t really mean to fire that thing at inhabited areas. It was supposed to scare them into action, not kill them. We trusted you, above all people. We all agreed it would take three of us to initiate the firing sequence. Everything we do requires agreement by all the leaders. Do you realize what you’re doing? It’s like the plot of a bad science fiction movie—one man having the power to destroy the world. It’s monstrous. It’s insane.”

“Maybe, but just a few weeks ago, we all agreed that our society is insane, because it has permitted it to come to this. Regardless of what you and the others may think, that’s the way it is, and you may as well accept it. I don’t intend to argue. We have to have the guts to stop them, or we may as well give up and just eradicate ourselves. I don’t believe it has to be that way. If I did, I wouldn’t be doing this. What would be the use?”

“For so many to die, so many innocents. They didn’t make things this way.”

“Didn’t they? The ones who bow and scrape when one of the hired hands comes to town? The silly women that vote for someone because of his looks, or his stand on ‘women’s issues’? The stupid men who vote for someone because he espouses an agenda that will make them money, without regard for their impact on anything or anybody else? The exploiters of racial bias that swing the minority vote simply because they appeal to minority interests? The chronic complainers that always bitch about conditions, but don’t ever do anything to change things?
They
gave power to the civil servants. They entrusted them with their very lives, and refused to exercise the controls that might have kept them in check.

“We are all to blame. God did not ordain that some people shall have the right to rule over others. We did that, by our apathy. We permit it. Rats and politicians simply get bolder if they get away with something, and we have allowed them to get away with damned near anything. Well, not any more, Hector. Not anymore.”

###

Later that night, another encrypted call went through, this time to Geneva, Switzerland.

“Conrad, I’m sorry to get you up in the middle of the night; I’m afraid I have news.”

“Hello, my friend. You forget the time difference. It’s early afternoon here. I’m lounging about the house today. No point in working, now. Nikoli is off making calls, dismantling everything.”

“Well, you had better tell him to stop. That’s what I’m calling about. It’s not yet over, after all.”

“You didn’t destroy the machine? But we all agreed.”

“Leland didn’t. I assumed that he would follow our lead, whatever we decided. Apparently, he knew us better than we knew ourselves. He took sole control of the system a few days ago. He fully intends to go through with it, Conrad.”

“What do you mean, he’s taken sole control?” The voice carried astonishment.

Resigned, the other replied, “Exactly that. He anticipated that we would waffle when it came down to it. He changed the control codes.”

“Gott im Himmell.
Where, Hector? Where will he strike?”

“The primary corridor of power in the United States. All the nerve centers and support networks are headquartered along the eastern seaboard, from Washington to New York. Government, business, insurance, banking—all the controls and the people with the know-how to reestablish them are there. He intends to wipe the slate clean.”

“What can we do?”

“It’s my opinion, as clear as that can be after being up half the night, that we have to support him. We have to proceed with our preparations, just as we planned. As he said, we have no other options.”

“Can we reacquire control of the device?”

“How? It’s a trillion-bit encryption key. It would take months just to break down the repetitive sequences and begin testing probabilities. The control system has four completely different base vernaculars, one each for targeting, navigation, propulsion and system security. Leland designed the thing. The security system has a dead man’s switch. If we start mucking around, we could even trigger it accidentally. The answer is no, not in your lifetime.”

“Then we must stop work on the other systems. We can’t add to his arsenal.”

“I’m afraid that he insists we complete the work, Conrad. He anticipated that argument, too. It’s logical that he would.”

“What if I refuse?”

“He said that if you should refuse, he will translate the weapon across the Atlantic and begin systematically destroying Europe, one country at a time. If the weapons are not ready to launch, on schedule, he will destroy your home country—Germany. Each week thereafter, until the weapons are in place and he has assured himself that they are functional, he will destroy another country.”

“My God, Hector, we’ve given a madman the power to destroy humanity.”

“He’s not mad, Conrad.”

“No? You think of him as your own, Hector. You would defend him, no matter what. Can’t you do something? Reason with him.”

“I’ve tried, and as hypocritical as I feel, I’ll ask you the same question he asked me: Why did you help him do it if you never intended to go through with it? And I’ll tell you the answer: It was an adventure. We wanted to see if we could do it. We talked, and we planned, just as though we were all committed to going through with it, but we secretly knew, even if it was just in our subconscious, that we could always back out at the last minute. Now, we’re horrified to find out that we can’t.

“God, we are hypocrites. Hypocrites of the worst land. We spent a fortune getting this far. If we weren’t going to do it, the money could have helped thousands of sick and starving people. We believed this would ultimately do them more good.”

“I can’t believe it,” said Conrad. “Forget what I said before. I like Leland, too. It’s just that he is the most level-headed person I have ever known. I cannot imagine him doing this.”

“He’s also the most pragmatic person you’ve ever known. All these months, we’ve been operating from an emotional perspective, in spite of being supposedly objective people. Leland wasn’t, and from a strictly objective viewpoint, he’s right. People are not going to take action unless forced to. It’s a matter of historical fact that populations never rebel until life is so miserable for everyone that the risk of death is preferable to living in slavery. It’s stupid, but that’s the human condition.”

“I know you’re right. I know we’ve been lying to ourselves, but Hector, in the end, we are scientists, not killers.”

“You’re using the same arguments I used to Leland, and again, I’ll ask you what he asked me: Weren’t you at Los Alamos during the 1950s, Conrad? Didn’t you collaborate on the H-bomb?”

“That was different.”

“Was it? Who created the neurotoxins and other chemical agents that the military has stored around the world? Remember Agent Orange, and mustard gas? We scientists have killed a lot of people over the years, Conrad, we just haven’t taken credit for it. Anyway, it’s pointless fretting and arguing. We can’t prevent it. He won’t bend. We can wash our hands and condemn him, or we can get busy implementing the plans we’ve spent so much time on. There are no other options.”

“But, Hector, the horizontal beam deflection circuit is still too wide. Minimum deviation is eighteen seconds of arc. Almost two miles. It will kill thousands unnecessarily. Can’t you dissuade him, Hector? He respects you.”

“I just tried. I pleaded until I was blue in the face, but he’s determined to go through with it, and he’s right. In order to succeed, he must fire now. The military is setting up a triangulation network using weather satellites to detect ionized particulates and water molecules as the beam penetrates the atmosphere. We’re delaying them by sidetracking parts shipments, minor sabotage and the like, but we can’t hold them up for long. We must fire before they complete their preparations. We can’t risk the weapon being found too soon. If it is, the plan will fail. Leland’s going to fire on the announced date, ready or not. In a way, I pity him.”

“Pity him? Why?”

“Because he is absolving us of guilt. He is taking the sin on his own head. He feels deserted by us, and terribly alone. Soldiers kill people in wars, but they are absolved of guilt by their country, their peers. Leland has no one, now. We chickened out.”

“But Hector, what about all those poor people? Millions of them. Women and children.”

The one named Hector cried out, “Damn you, Conrad! My heart is like a stone in my chest. I can barely breathe, thinking about it. What do you expect me to do? I don’t even know how to reach Leland.” He screamed into the phone, “What do you expect me to do? We all set this in motion. If Leland goes through with it, in five hours, millions are going to die, and there is nothing on God’s Earth that I can do to stop it.” The connection went dead.