A Sword Into Darkness (8 page)

Instead of coming to a screeching halt, he floored the accelerator and swerved into oncoming traffic.  Alert drivers and collision avoidance logics drove all but one of the few cars there off into the tall grasses abutting the road.  As Nathan zoomed by the men and their car, an old minivan appeared in front of him in the oncoming lane.  They both swerved into Nathan’s right-hand lane, still headed for collision.

Nathan checked his turn at the last instant and the two vehicles scraped by one another in a shower of sparks and flattened fenders.  The BMW fishtailed down the centerline while the minivan spun around and came to a stop just in front of the third sedan.  Nathan got his car under control and slid back into his lane, flooring the power to the wheels once more.

It was all for naught.  Apparently deciding the sedans and armed heavies were not enough, two tactical vehicles merged onto the access road and blocked both lanes.  Their occupants exited bearing automatic weapons.  Nathan continued to debate his options for escape, but then he saw the letters emblazoned on the sides of the tac trucks:  DHS.

Nathan cursed and slammed on the brakes, bringing the coupe to a screeching sideways stop.  The three sedans arrived and also came to screaming halts, arrayed behind him to block any escape he might still be considering.  There were guns everywhere, all pointed at him, and he still had no idea what this was all about.

A severe looking woman in a dark gray suit emerged from the back seat of one of the first sedans.  She held up an ID, though it was impossible for Nathan to read from this distance.  “Mr. Kelley, this is the Department of Homeland Security.  Step out of the vehicle and come with us.  We have some questions for you.”

He carefully opened the door and climbed out of the low-slung car, hands held high.  No sooner was he out than there were three agents in black utilities on him, his arms held painfully against his back, his face and chest pressed hard against the hood of the car.  They frisked him with brutal efficiency while others began rifling through the car and cracking the encryption on his suite.  He heard the rapid clipping of heels on asphalt and the female agent, undoubtedly the leader of this merry band, was behind him, whispering in his ear.  “Why were you running from us, Mr. Kelley?”

Nathan fought a losing battle to keep the pain out of his voice.  “Why were you chasing me?  I didn’t know who you people were until your trucks showed up!  You didn’t exactly go out of your way to introduce yourselves.”

“Mr. Kelley, we often find introducing ourselves to someone like you merely an invitation to bullets or the destruction of evidence.  My sincerest apologies for any discomfiture you may have experienced, but you’ll have to excuse us for learning from our bloody past.”

A fresh jab from the man holding his arms elicited a long groan.  Nathan gritted his teeth to cut it off and said, “What do you mean, ‘Someone like me’?”

“Nuclear terrorists, Mr. Kelley.  And one of our modern war heroes as well.  How very sad.”

“What!?”

Nathan’s spluttering denials and protestations went unacknowledged.  They dragged him from the hood of his car and walked him into the back of one of the tactical trucks.  In a few more minutes, the access road had been cleared, and their convoy moved along the highway with both trucks, the three sedans, and Nathan’s BMW.  They were gone before the first regular police arrived with an ambulance to check over the frazzled occupants of the old minivan.

In the well-appointed back seat of the truck, Nathan sat with two dour-faced agent/soldiers in black utilities.  The female agent sat across from him on a rear-facing bench seat.  They drove in silence for several miles until Nathan could stand it no longer, exactly as they had intended.  “I’m not a terrorist, nuclear or otherwise.”

“That remains to be seen.  I am Special Agent Stanton, Homeland Security.  We’re acting on credible intelligence received concerning you and your employer’s recent activities.”

“Mr. Lee isn’t a terrorist either.”

“Which I am sure will be either confirmed or not in the very near future, but everything depends upon your cooperation.  Do we have it?”

“You have it!  Absolutely.  Nothing would make me happier than to help you, especially given your kind and gracious offer to chauffeur our meeting.”

“You can lose the sarcasm, Mr. Kelley.  Sarcasm ends this interview and gets you safely behind lock and key as an accessory in the illegal trafficking and use of nuclear materials.”

Nathan glared.  “Belaying sarcasm, aye, ma’am.”

She glared back at him for several more miles in silence.  Nathan used the opportunity to try to assess his situation.  They had not arrested him yet.  In fact, they had not even bound him, with the obvious exception of the two hulking guards on either side.  That probably meant that though they suspected him of something, they did not have enough certainty or evidence to proceed with impunity.  In fact, if they did arrest him, he could probably have it thrown out of court because of the manner of his arrest.  Homeland Security might have become overcautious and extreme in their procedures over the years, but they were still ostensibly a law enforcement agency.  Nathan tried not to repeat that to himself as a mantra.

This was a fishing expedition.  Not only that, but it had all the classic trappings of a shakedown rather than a legitimate interrogation.  These people were likely experienced at this sort of thing, and did not appear to be stupid.  That meant that their method of snatching him could hardly be an accident.  It was intentional, calculated, probably intended to intimidate him or cow him into a cooperative frame of mind.  He was unsure of what that meant for him, but it did serve to relax him somewhat.

Special Agent Stanton saw Nathan settle a bit from his earlier position atop pins and needles.  It only seemed to infuriate her.  No longer content to wait for his frightened, nervous babbling of what they wanted to know, especially since it did not seem to be working, she started in.  “Who is Lee working for?”

“As far as I know, Mr. Lee only works for Mr. Lee.”

She smiled.  “So Lee is taking it upon himself to become a nuclear power?  He’s trying to acquire weapons grade and reactor grade fissile material for some perfectly legitimate reason?”

Nathan winced inwardly, hoping his poker face betrayed nothing to the Homeland Security agents.  “Overseas procurement problems,” Lee had said.  It had been nothing for Nathan to worry about—that is until he had been snatched up by the most paranoid, overreaching law enforcement/defense agency since Hoover’s FBI.  Now, it might be considered Nathan’s problem.

“Ma’am, if something that outlandish were true, I’m sure that Mr. Lee would have a perfectly legitimate reason.  As it’s not true, I think this discussion is probably unnecessary.”

“Oh, it is indeed true, Mr. Kelley.  We’re not quite sure how involved you are, but since you’re the head of Windward’s Special Projects division, we would surmise that you are fully briefed.”

“Fully briefed on what exactly?  Your wild speculations?”

She folded her hands demurely in her lap.  “We have international data and voice intercepts of your employer attempting to procure nuclear material from several nations which are not on the best of terms with the United States.  I would advise you to drop the false innocence and start digging your way out of this.”

Nathan tried to think of something.  Repeated pleas of his virtue would fall on deaf ears here, and staying quiet would do no good, not when this whole operation seemed focused upon turning him into a babbling informant.  Unfortunately, there was nothing for him to babble, even if he had been so inclined.  He had not done anything, but Stanton and her underlings would never be satisfied with that.  He had to give them something, and though Nathan’s thoughts turned at a furious rate, they uncovered nothing.  Then he smiled.

There was no lie half so good as the truth.

“Okay.  Though I knew nothing about the specifics of what he was up to, I do know that he has been looking for some way to power and arm a spaceship in order to defend the planet from a marauding alien force.”  He paused, but she said nothing in return.  “That’s probably what he was doing.”

Stanton frowned.  “You’ll enjoy extra-territorial rendition, Mr. Kelley.  Sun, tropical beaches, four by eight cells, no ACLU or UN interference ...”

“I’m being serious.”

“Spaceships and aliens?  That is the polar opposite of serious and definitive proof that you doubt our own willingness to find the truth through whatever means necessary.”

“I’m not saying you have to believe it, and I’m not saying I believe it, even after seeing years’ worth of his evidence.  But you do need to believe that Lee believes it.”

“So you’re honestly proposing that Lee is trying to acquire nuclear materials in order to hold off an alien invasion?”

Nathan folded his arms and nodded.  “Yes, or at least that’s what he believes is happening.  I know this isn’t the first time you’ve heard this.  It’s been an internet rumor for years.”

“Yes, I’ve heard it before—the Deltan invasion, but I put it in the same category as Walt Disney’s head being frozen.  NASA debunked this whole thing almost ten years ago.  It’s some sort of comet or something, right?”

“A rogue stellar fragment that coincidentally happens to be between us and Delta Pavonis, but yes, that’s what they say.”

“Very well, but this also raises the very likely possibility you’re telling me this in order to shield your real activities behind some innocuous absurdity.”

Nathan leaned forward.  He felt his two guards tense up in response, but he ignored them.  “I’m not lying to you, and I’m not a terrorist.  You have nothing on me, because I haven’t done anything.  All that you have on Mr. Lee is that he’s some harmless kook with too much money and not enough sense.  No one is ever going to give him nuclear materials, and if he did actually manage to buy some, you’d be there to snatch us both up.  We wouldn’t be having a pleasant conversation in the back of your über-truck.”

She nodded slightly, though to what part of Nathan’s comment, he could not tell.  “And what is your part in all of this, Kelley?”

“I’m building his spaceship, but we don’t have our magic space drive yet.”

Stanton sneered.  “I’m going to enjoy interrogating you away from prying eyes.”

“It’s a date, then.  I’ll try to bring some flowers.”

The convoy pulled off the highway and into a bank parking lot just outside Virginia Beach.  The truck opened and Nathan was unceremoniously shoved out.  Stanton leaned toward him from her seat.  “It would be ill advised for Lee to continue with his proscribed activities, ludicrous reasoning or not.  As a valued and trusted employee, and someone with a noose around his own neck as well, I would recommend you persuade him to cease and desist.  This argument is no doubt being made to Mr. Lee himself by my California counterpart at this very moment, but it would not hurt to have you backing up our injunction.  I do so hope that we will not be seeing each other again, Mr. Kelley.”  The door slammed shut and the five Homeland Security vehicles sped off, leaving him alone in the parking lot with his beat-up BMW.

“Bye.”  He walked over to his car and climbed in, one side of his mouth turned down in thought.  His suite lay on the passenger seat, none the worse for wear.  Nathan extended the screen and scrolled through files.  Nothing seemed to be missing, but the access log did show a download of all contents, in spite of the heavy encryption he had bought for it.   He grinned a bit, thinking of how confused Stanton would be when the files only confirmed everything Nathan had been saying.

Even if she believed he and Lee were not terrorists, they still would not be allowed access to nuclear materials.  Windward as a company had already been denied any legitimate business in atomic energy or weapons development circles, so they could not get what they needed through the established channels.  And now they were under surveillance, so they would not be able to get any through extra-legal means either.  Lee’s plans now had two insurmountable obstacles:  power and propulsion.  And even if they somehow acquired a reactor and were able to remain out of jail, there would still be the impossibility of getting into space and out of the solar system.

Nathan was forced to acknowledge that what he had said to Stanton was indeed true:  even after spending three years on this project, he was still unsure who to believe.  Believe Gordon, his cronies, and their following of conspiracy bloggers that the approaching light was an invading hoard from Delta Pavonis, the Deltans?  Or believe NASA and their explanation for the blue light, that it was a large, long period comet reflecting light along a fortuitous axis due to its shape and composition, and that it was neither as far away or moving as fast as Lee’s data seemed to suggest?  Nathan thought NASA’s explanation involved a lot of coincidences and hand-waving, but every time he tried to put belief in Lee’s aliens, he seemed to feel the world dropping out from below him.

Nathan shook his head.  It was his job to build a space combatant, not to believe in its purpose.  He shut the screen on his suite and called up Lee’s home number.  He heard it ring, followed by Gordon’s weary answer, “Hello?”

“Hey, Boss.  It sounds like we need to have a talk.”

5:  “BLUE LIGHT SPECIAL”

July 26, 2039; University of Texas at Arlington, Physics Department; Arlington, TX

The
conical array was innocuous—nothing but a six inch diameter, six inch long, hollow, double layer cone of cerium-strontium-silver-sulfate superconducting nanowire mesh and frost covered cooling lines, surrounding a tightly spaced series of toroidal magnetic coils.  The cone was held aloft by stout bracing within the accelerator’s target chamber, which lay directly in the path of UTA’s moderate energy electron linear accelerator.  The LINAC, essentially a modified injector from the old, bitter days of the Superconducting Super Collider, looked equally cobbled together and home built.  This was the sort of place where C average students did third-rate science for the biggest, most apathetic commuter school in East Texas.  It was physics hell.