| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | More Problems? |
| Date: | Sun, 23 Mar 1997 23:32:19 +0000 |
>>>>>[TO: D J H Coppinger, Alexander Monroe, LCdr R E Tarkington, 1Lt L
R W Lynch, Sgt J S Karlsbruhn
CC: SAC Chris D'Arkan, FBI
I got asked to meet a "source" on "a matter of importance" so I did.
This is what happened, and it's pretty fucked up, but it's the best I've
got so far.
+++++begin trideo
Lynch is looking out to sea, from high on a wooded hill in Everett:
tables and chairs suggest a coffee shop. The view is beautiful, as the
sun sinks slowly into a wrack of clouds, and he's amusing himself
zooming in on the handful of ships and boats visible, including the USS
Brooklyn at anchor in the channel and the black square of a submarine's
sail moving out to sea.
A soft click behind him, and Lynch starts to look around.
"Stay still."
"If you wanted to kill me, you should have done it already." Lynch
finishes his turn, to see a tall, elderly man - probably Bass - wearing
a blazer and tie, aiming an old M9 automatic at him.
"Mr Lynch, you are involving yourself in matters very few know about.
And concerning things that are lost, and should stay hidden."
"Will you put that gun down, please?"
"I'm afraid not, until I can be-" Bass is suddenly flexing his fingers
and rubbing his wrist as Lynch unloads the Beretta, then hands it and
the magazine back.
"Don't threaten a Marine, Admiral. Can we get some coffee and talk
properly?"
"Very well, Mr Lynch." Bass replaces the pistol in a shoulder holster,
takes a seat at one of the tables. "What, exactly, do you know about
Camel 29? And what is your interest?"
Lynch takes a deep breath. "Admiral, I am a consultant - and
unofficially a field agent - for the Strategic Intelligence Gathering
Agency. I don't know how current you are on the various intel groups..."
"I'll assume that puts you on the side of the angels, since you were
polite on arrival, and you didn't break anything when you relieved me of
my sidearm. The Agency were a foul and filthy group while I was in that
business, but there were rumours of a spring cleaning a few years ago.
So, continue. You do at least speak like a military professional."
"Lieutenant, Marine Corps Reserve. We found 329, the aircraft designated
Camel 29 on her final flight-"
"That's not possible. She was lost without trace when she went down over
the Pacific."
"She's in Lake Huron. I've been in the cockpit, retrieved the flight
data recorder: we pulled her out of the lake. She was carrying a payload
of sixteen-inch shells, experimental armour-piercers. Why the secrecy?"
The old man stares at Lynch for long seconds with naked terror in his
eyes. Finally he asks, "The cargo. Was her cargo intact?"
"Some of the canisters had broken loose, but none were breached.
There's no radioactivity."
"And are they secure?" The Admiral is still frightened.
"All of them secured and stored."
"Thank God. Thank God." The man's age seems to crash down on him. "She
never made it out of CONUS. We searched for so long..."
Bass bows his head and is silent for a long time, then looks directly at
Lynch. A woman appears with a tray of coffee and sandwiches, leaves
after a worried glance at Bass and Lynch. The Admiral remains silent
until she has gone.
"How familiar are you with weapons of mass destruction, Lieutenant?"
"Very. I personally destroyed four nuclear warheads, in March of last
year."
"Ah, the Maxim business... I maintain a morbid interest in such things,
Lieutenant. The ability of mankind to seek the means of his own
destruction fascinates me. You assume 329 carried mere armour-piercing
weapons? I only wish that she did. I commanded the scientific team which
discovered an excellent tool for Man's suicide, Mr Lynch. A biochemical
compound of considerable lethality, an agent of Doomsday."
"That has a wonderfully melodromatic ring to it."
"Mr Lynch, the agent - I nicknamed it 'Randall Flagg' - is intermediate
between a chemical compound and a virus. The scientifically correct name
covered half a page of closely-spaced text, we needed something usable
so I coined the nickname. It penetrates any protective measures we
attempted to test. To exclude it requires the exclusion of the very air
itself, and it appears able to infiltrate all fabrics or materials short
of solid metal. The agent is lethal to air-breathing organisms within
five minutes."
There is another long pause.
"Randall Flagg. A Stephen King fan." says Lynch thoughtfully.
"So few people recall old books, Mr Lynch. It's heartening to see others
still read the junk fiction of the last millenium."
Lynch pours himself coffee. "Mind if I smoke?" Bass shakes his head.
"Why not just use anthrax, or nerve agent?"
"Why indeed? Because, at the time, we were very, very afraid, and the
more militarily useful compositions such as Seven-7 were in the future.
This was the 2020s, Lieutenant. Extraterritorial corporations had
discovered the profitability of arms dealing, were flexing their new
muscles. I was the executive officer aboard the _Valley Forge_, bound
for Hawai'i, when the THOR shots came down in front of us and we were
ordered to turn back. The world's mightiest military, driven into
headlong flight by a -" Bass almost spits the word - "_corporation_."
"We were reeling from the aftermath of the Indian threat, if you'll
excuse me saying so, and the resurgence of Russian nationalism. Half our
nation was lost to us, strange plagues were slaughtering millions, our
citizens were warping and changing, children were being born in strange
new forms, the aftershocks of the Ghost Dance were still shaking the
earth... It was a terrifying time, Lieutenant, and we felt our nation
was in great danger. Such times lead to a...lack of thought as to
consequence. We sought safety in weapons.
"We developed Randall Flagg. It is lethal in minutes, and astoundingly
persistent. The material establishes itself in the soil, in sand, in
any silicate material - concrete, for instance - and remains active and
deadly. For centuries, according to our tests. Anywhere contaminated by
RF becomes unapproachable for generations. The agent does not spread or
seep, it simply stays put, a malevolent and eternal stain of death."
"And this was what was aboard 329? In the canisters?" Lynch offers the
Admiral a cigarette, which he accepts.
"Yes, at least its makings. The agent requires energetic conditions to
be created from its constituents. We found delivery by artillery shell
to be the most effective, since the spin and acceleration of the shell
could be used to produce RF from relatively safe reactants. Doctor
Vetterly - the scientist in charge - was most disappointed, we had hoped
to be able to deliver by missile, but we wished to prove the agent's
effectiveness first. So, bomblets were fabricated, and shells
manufactured. We used sixteen-inch shells. Room to work, you might say."
"The ones aboard 329."
"Exactly." Bass sips his coffee. "We intended to test them on Rongelo,
firing from the USS _Wisconsin_. Senator Hutchison's Naval Forces Act
had successfully brought her back into service, and she was ideal for
our purpose. When 329 vanished, we sent a second batch of shells, and
the trials proceeded, while an intense search effort was made."
"And let me guess. This is why Rongelo doesn't exist in any UCAS atlas."
"It was never well-known or well-mapped in any case. I take it you used
the Royal Navy navigation databases to find it? Of course."
Lynch sighs. "And the test was a failure?"
"Oh, no, Mr Lynch." Bass laughs, hollow and humourless. "The shells were
fired, four full salvoes, and we monitored the death throes of the caged
animals we had placed on the atoll. Including, I might add, those in the
sealed and filtered cages. We waited seven days, then Doctor Vetterly
led his team ashore. It was at this point we discovered the unwelcome
fact of the agent's persistence, and its then unexpected ability to
penetrate protective clothing. Within five minutes of the helicopter
landing, every man and woman aboard the aircraft was dead."
"Not good."
"Not good at all. You doubtless saw on satellite pictures the
helicopter, the corpses. For a few years we dropped caged animals onto
the island, in various forms of protective equipment. All died in
minutes. We sealed off the island, and erased all trace of its
existence."
"How did you seal it off?"
"Anthrax. Supposedly it was used by the Japanese last century for
biological warfare testing, rather like Gruinard was by the British.
Since they destroyed so many of their records of that time, they have
not protested or investigated: it could so easily be true. A chain of
warning buoys a mile offshore suffices. Anyone going ashore dies. A few
fools have, and word has spread."
Lynch sighs, and finally asks. "The formula."
"Destroyed." says Bass with certitude. "The ability to produce RF died
with Vetterly. He had dedicated thirty years to his quest, and no-one
else fully understood his work. In any case, his entire career had been
devoted to highly classified military bioweapons research. I was able to
have every paper, every note, every piece of information on which
Vetterly had ever worked destroyed. I personally supervised the
elimination. RF or an analogue may well reappear, Lieutenant, but the
work I led will never speed that process."
You hear and see Lynch sigh with relief. Bass looks at him curiously.
"I would have thought you might be disappointed, Mr Lynch. Or am I too
cynical?"
"I'm a soldier, Admiral, and these weapons repel me. I understand the
need to develop them, to prepare countermeasures, but that doesn't
change the primal fear they inspire. They're of little utility today."
"I am glad we are of one mind, Lieutenant. The constituents of Randall
Flagg are easily destroyed. They, and even the unoxidised agent, are
hydrophobic to an amazing degree, and the bomblets will rupture on any
significant contact with water. Simply open the shells and expose the
bomblets to bulk water - better, perform the entire procedure while
immersed - and the threat is completely destroyed. A failsafe we
insisted on."
"No booby-traps?"
"For a simple test, why would one be necessary?" Bass offers a wintry
smile. "The shell is a basic one and contains a radio-altimetric fuse, a
parachute and a small bursting charge in addition to its payload. At
three thousand feet, the shell deploys a parachute and stabilises its
descent. At one thousand feet, it detonates its burster charge,
scattering the bomblets, which by now have their contents fully
activated. The contamination footprint is approximately eight hundred
yards in diameter, and the radius of effect on a still day is
approximately four thousand yards. Every air-breathing life form within
that radius will die within ten minutes of the shell bursting. After
that, any air-breathing life form entering the contamination zone will
die in under an hour from first exposure."
There is a long pause.
"What do you intend to do, Lieutenant?" asks Bass at last.
"Destroy the shells. Destroy all trace of their existence." replies
Lynch.
Bass bows his head. "Thank God. Lieutenant, I pray that you're telling
me the truth."
"There are better weapons for lethality and effect: but the persistence
of your Randall Flagg is unique." Lynch sighs deeply. "I can understand
why you thought you needed it then, Admiral, but we don't need it now,
and in the wrong hands..."
"Of course. Of course. I'm glad that my information reached you."
"What information?" Lynch sounds puzzled.
Bass regards him with surprise. "I spoke to a Federal agent, when I
heard the first rumours of Camel 29 being sought. She advised me to fake
my death, because a corporation was seeking the weapons. I did as she
advised, and -"
Bass falls sideways, blood spraying from his chest. Lynch throws himself
flat and rolls clear, as half a second later the sound of the shot
reaches him: a narrow strobe in his vision showing the source of the
shot, a parked Bulldog van over a hundred yards away.
The smartlink's aiming cursor settles on it - flashing the red of
extreme range - and Lynch fires, thumbing back the revolver's hammer and
aiming before firing again. The van begins to move, the driver's side
window shattering and the Bulldog veering for a few seconds: Lynch has
time to empty his .357 at the van, the effects uncertain as it
accelerates away and is lost behind the hillside.
He curses, opening the cylinder and ejecting the empty cases: reloading
as he moves towards the Admiral.
Bass lies on the forest-bark ground of the viewpoint, his white shirt
stained crimson and blood running from his mouth and nose. Lynch
finishes reloading the Python and kneels beside him, reaching for the
flat olive-drab box of a medkit.
"Lie still and don't move."
"Lieutenant..." Bass coughs a mass of bright red bubbles. "I've served
long enough to know a mortal wound when I see one. But thank you for
trying. At least you reassured me that those thirty-six shells will be-"
he coughs again - "will be properly destroyed..."
You can see the life leave his eyes.
Lynch rises slowly, abandoning his attempts to seal the ghastly wound in
the old man's chest.
"Admiral, we only recovered twenty-eight shells on Camel 29." he says
softly. "But that's not your problem any more." He replaces the medkit
in its pouch, picks up the stainless-steel Colt Python and holsters it:
pauses, then takes the old man's pistol.
"Hope you don't mind, Admiral Bass, but I can use this, and I may need
it. Rest in peace, sir."
+++++end trideo
Okay, I already got a hunch. Alex, you've got point on Seattle, I've got
to fly out. Lilith, meet me at Sea-Tac, you know where.
Now will someone, I don't care who, tell me what's going on?]<<<<<
-- 1Lt J R W Lynch <23:23:35/03-23-58>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
