The Lucifer Sanction

THE LUCIFER
SANCTION
JASON DENARO

Avid Readers Publishing Group
Lakewood, California
This is a work based on historical events. People, places,
population references, the One Hundred Year War and the
Black Death are factual. The opinions expressed in this
manuscript are those of the author and do not represent the
thoughts or opinions of the publisher. The author warrants
and represents that he has the legal right to publish or owns
all material in this book. If you find a discrepancy, contact
the publisher at www.avidreaderspg.com.

The Lucifer Sanction
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2013 Jason Denaro

This book may not be transmitted, reproduced, or stored in
part or in whole by any means without the express written
consent of the publisher except for brief quotations in
articles and reviews.

Avid Readers Publishing Group
http://www.avidreaderspg.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-61286-151-7
Printed in the United States
ii

“You are capable of more than you know. Choose a
goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best,
however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably.
Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure.
Persist! The world needs all you can give.”

E. O. Wilson
“Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics
is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.”
Christopher Hampton
iii
PROLOGUE

“The United Nations predicts the world population
will exceed nine billion people in the year 2075. The overpopulation process is accelerating at an unsustainable rate.
Discounting natural disasters we will outgrow this planet
in very short time. There will be insufficient food and too
few resources if the population explosion is left unabated.
We have established conclusively that mankind’s numbers
must be forced into decline in order to maintain parity with
productivity.

There have been more people added to our planet in
the past fifty years than since the dawn of creation. We cannot
allow this growth rate to continue. We must implement the
Lucifer sanction. We must cull the population.”

*****
v

CHAPTER ONE
The Dig Site
Andermatt, Switzerland
January 4 2044
10:04 A: M

A dismal day.
Drizzle.
Gray Swiss skies surrender to a broad canvas

of cerulean blue, a perfect backdrop for the snow-laden
conifers that stand like giant sentinels along the perimeter
of the dig site.

Guardians.
On this morning of January 4th, 2044 a heavy
cover of white powder blankets the ground. At one time
the region consisted of towering mountains, but now-adays it resembles the devastated site of the 1908 Tunguska
explosion at Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia. The Tunguska
Event, a massive explosion near the Podkamennaya
Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai of
Russia, occurred at around 7:14 A:M on June 30, 1908,
and has been the focus of much speculation over the past
hundred years. Theories such as the end of the world, a
natural H-bomb, a black hole, antimatter explosion and
even the crash of a UFO the size of Tokyo had all kept the
speculators busy. Preliminary evidence indicated the cause
to be an air burst of a large meteoroid or comet-fragment at
an altitude of 8 to 14 miles above the Earth’s surface.
An international research team consisting of members from the Moscow State Lomonosov University,
Italy’s Bologna University and Germany’s Center for
Environmental Research investigated the Tunguska Event.
During their research they added another piece of evidence
- traces of acid rain in the region.
Extremely high temperatures occurred when the
meteorite entered the atmosphere. Oxygen reacted with
nitrogen causing a buildup of nitrogen oxides. Given the
event’s time period, it went relatively unnoticed despite the
fact the explosion was felt as far away as the UK.
Twenty years later in 1927 a research team led
by Leonid Kulik, a leading meteorite expert at the Soviet
Academy of Sciences made its way to the remote Siberian
region. The team took statements from locals in the area
and though they speculated the explosion was the result of
a meteorite, they were unable to find a crater.
A little under 3 years later, a British astronomer
suggested the blast was caused by a small comet composed
specifically of ice and dust, leaving no recognizable presence. One theory proposed the Tunguska object was a
fragment of Comet Encke. This ball of ice and dust was
responsible for a meteor shower known as Beta Taurids.
It cascaded into Earth’s atmosphere in late June and July,
around the same time of the Tunguska event.
During the press conference in Krasnoyarsk, Yuri
Lavbin, head of an earlier expedition, confirmed that parts
of an extraterrestrial device had been discovered. The
new expedition, organized by the Siberian Public State
Foundation Tunguska Space Phenomenon completed
its work on the scene of the Tunguska meteorite fall on
August 9.
Members of the Tunguska Space Phenomenon
managed to uncover blocks of an extraterrestrial technical
device that crashed into Earth on June 30th, 1908. In addition,
expedition members found the so-called “deer”... the stone,
which Tunguska eyewitnesses repeatedly mentioned in
their stories. Explorers delivered a piece of the stone to the
city of Krasnoyarsk to be studied and analyzed.
The 2004 expedition set off for Evenkia in July
of that year to solve the mystery behind the popular
phenomenon known as the Tunguska meteorite.
Organized by the Siberian Public State Foundation,
on August 9 the ‘Tunguska Space Phenomenon’ completed
its work on location, the first expedition to the region since
2000. The researchers scanned a wider territory in the
vicinity of the Poligusa village using satellite photos as a
road-map.
The aerial explosion that transpired near the
Tunguska River in Siberia on June 30, 1908, felled an estimated sixty million trees over 2000 square miles. Residents
observed a huge fireball almost as bright as the sun as it
moved across the sky. Moments later a flash lit the sky
followed by a shockwave knocking people off their feet
and shattering windows nearly four hundred miles off. It
registered on seismic stations across Eurasia and produced
fluctuations in atmospheric pressure strong enough to be
detected by recently invented barographs in Britain. Over
the next few weeks, night skies over Europe and western
Russia glowed bright enough for people to read by. In the
United States, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
and the Mount Wilson Observatory observed a decrease in
atmospheric transparency lasting several months.
The size of the blast was later estimated between
ten and fifteen megatons. More recent expeditions have
failed to find further remains of the object that caused the
devastation.
Had the Tunguska Event taken place a mere 4
hours and 47 minutes later, St. Petersburg would have been
completely obliterated.
The Andermatt explosion of April 4, 2015 created
strange phenomena and it too was attributed to a meteor
blast. The result reshaped the topography of a massive area,
suspending dust in the atmosphere and illuminating night
skies for several months. There was continual daylight that
spread from Switzerland to Austria, into France and across
Germany. Scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory
recorded
the
unbelievable
decrease
in
atmospheric transparency well into the spring of 2015.

****

Goldstone Deep Space
Communication Complex
Mojave Dessert
8:12 P: M
2042

On a midsummer evening of 2042 a faint transmission
registered
at
the
Goldstone
Deep
Space
Communications Complex in California’s Mojave Desert.
The Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex
was operated by ITT Corporation for the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory. Its main function was to track and communicate
with space missions including the Pioneer Deep Space
Station.

Goldstone antennae had been used as sensitive
radio telescopes for scientific investigations such as radar
mapping of planets, of the moon, of comets and asteroids.
It mapped quasars and other celestial radio sources,
locating asteroids and comets threatening to impact earth.
Goldstone’s reliability was beyond question, especially
its large-aperture radio antennas that detected ultra-high
energy neutrino lunar interactions. When the Mojave facility
pinpointed the faint bleep – bleep – bleep transmission
near the Andermatt coordinates, there was no hesitation in
undertaking an excavation rivaling any since the discovery
of King Tut’s tomb.

*****

Dr. Craig Drummond pressed his finger on a faded
orange button. The winter freeze had delayed excavation
over the final weeks of 2044, and the welcome siren
turned frustration to glee as it bounced about surrounding
snowfields. A web of cellular phones announcing resumption of the dig quickly alerted those who didn’t hear its
call to arms. Brightly clad volunteers set out from nearby
ski resorts, chalets and small cabins spread about the
Andermatt area, all coming together at the dig site, elated
at the opportunity to witness what was rumored to be the
find of the century. Within minutes of hearing the siren,
a glut of media arrived in two buses and noisily crowded
about the excavation site. A man resembling an aged Sean
Connery stormed from the entry of the tunnel. He stood at
attention, raised a megaphone to his mouth and shouted
with a booming Scottish brogue, “Quiet please! We must
have orderly conduct here!”

The crowd hushed and inched forward. The
Scotsman lowered the megaphone and passed a superficial
glance over excited faces. “I’m Doctor Craig Drummond.
I have the pleasure of leading the research team for this
project.” He extended a palm toward them. “Please, stay
back. We can’t risk a collapse or contamination by one of
you tumbling into God knows what.”

A camera crew jostled about for prime position. A
female news anchor called out in a gingerly tone, “Doctor,
we’ve heard you’ve located a UFO?”

“No comment, lassie,” Drummond said with
impunity.
“But you
have
found something unusual down
there,” and she made a jabbing pointing gesture at the
tunnel entrance, “down at the bottom of the hole.” She
jabbed again, this time with more resolve. “Is that correct,
Doctor?”
Drummond gave a bemused glance, hesitated
fractionally then snorted, “A hole! A bloody hole is it,
girlie?” The word offended him. It berated the dig team’s
efforts. “We’ve located an object at the lower level of the
excavation, yeah. I can’t elaborate beyond that.”
The media core fell silent for a few long seconds,
and then a young reporter, waving a pocket recorder
pleaded, “Please Doctor, throw us a bone here.”
Drummond considered his reply with indignation.
He allowed seconds to slip by.
“Two years ago,” Drummond said, “we received
information from the Goldstone Deep Space people
concerning the transmission of a signal emanating from this
area.” Cameras rolled and pocket recorders were shoved
as close to Drummond as to almost touch the speaker.
“Please,” he baulked, “a little space here, move back a few
paces.”
They did.
“In May of 2043,” he continued, “we gathered
at this location. We began a search for the source of that
transmission.” The Scotsman had their attention. “We’ve
excavated to a depth of three hundred feet. Sonar and infrared
scanning has turned up an object of eh, well, let me just say
it appears to be an object of enormous proportions.”
He relished their enthusiasm as the camera recorded
his every word. He straightened up, gestured to the dig
area, then pointed to the clear blue sky. “With the inclement
weather gone we’re finally able to continue on with our
work here. In answer to your question, hmm, forestalling
the inevitable seems...” and he searched for the words as
cameras persistently clicked, “aye, aye, aye, alright then,
we have in fact located an object. This is history. You’re all
privileged to be a part of it.”
There was a buzz among the press core.
“Doctor,” a voice called, “I’m Claus Liebman from
Zurich News. Will you allow a group of us to go down with
you – maybe with a camera crew? It’s only a matter of time
before the military is all over this . . . then none of us will
get near it.”
Drummond thought for a moment. He realized the
coverage could accelerate his aspirations, even put him in
the running for a Nobel.
“Fine, fine, alright then,” he said, in an impatient
Scottish brogue. “But any media release gets approved by
me. We can’t allow hyperbole to set off civilian hysteria.”
He made a gruff sound, flipped a hand toward the gathering,
“Four of you. Go ahead. Choose four to come down there
with me,” and the hand flipped from the group to the dig
site.
The group entered a huddle and argued among
themselves for several minutes. One stepped forward,
along with a young lady and two prepubescent looking
young men.
“My name’s Fellini,” he said. “Andre Fellini,
photographer with Blick.” He nodded at his associates.
“These three are journalists.”
“Well, Andre Fellini photographer with Blick,”
Drummond said gesturing at the camera and waging a
finger. “No camera.”
“Please Doctor,” the Blick man said in a pleading
voice, “A little footage for posterity.”
“We can’t have live streaming, laddie. We just don’t
know what to expect.”
Another of the gallery stepped forward, an alternate
camera in hand.
“Thanks, Stephan,” Fellini said. “This one isn’t
a live feed. It’ll record but won’t transmit live images.”
When we’re through you can edit whatever’s in it.”
“Very well, but no direct broadcast, agree?”
Fellini grinned and nodded to Stephan.
Mateo Montez was a young assistant who’d
accompanied Drummond on two previous digs. Montez
passed a helmet to the reporter and Fellini clumsily
positioned it on his head. Montez adjusted the chinstraps
and flicked the helmet-mounted light to the on position.
The doctor snapped his fingers at Mateo. “You sure
they’re fully charged?”
“Yes, I checked them just ten minutes back.”
“I eh, I have to warn you all,” Drummond said to the
cameraman and his three friends, “it’s a very steepincline;
it’s no walk in the park.” He jabbed a finger at Fellini,
studied his reaction. “We’ve encountered a few tunnel
collapses during the fifteen months of excavation.”
Fellini asked, “Have there been any injuries?”
Drummond took a timely pause and entered a more
solemn mood. “We lost one of our people when we came
across a gas pocket.”
“A gas pocket,” Fellini inquired with a touch of
fear.
“Methane.”
“Methane?”
“Over many centuries carbonaceous rocks and tarsands have resulted in unpredictable methane pockets,”
Drummond explained. “We call them
methane belching
.
Gas builds up within the strata, and eh, once accumulated
to a dangerous level it applies stress on the weakest point
and eh - unfortunately we encountered one of those gas
belches.” He paused and searched for words appropriate
for confused press group. “The gas migrated from an area
adjacent to the one currently under excavation.” Pause.
“Do you follow?”
“Yes, yes, yes, Doctor. But you do test the tunnel,”
Fellini probed, “to make sure the air’s safe?”
“Safe?”
“Yes Doctor, is it safe?”
Drummond waved his hand in the direction of the dig.
“We don’t bloody-well go down there with a canary, laddie.
Even if we did revert to nineteenth century technology, a
dead canary would hardly solve the problem.”
Fellini shrugged like a confused schoolboy.
“We run tests as often as necessary, ensuring the
atmospheric pressure contains at least nineteen-and-onehalf percent oxygen and not more than twenty-two percent.
It’s very precise. Is that clearer?” Drummond nodded
verification at his blank faced audience. “We uphold
constant monitoring to be sure hydrogen sulfide doesn’t
reach ten-parts-per million. When that level’s approached,
our crew’s notified immediately.”
Enjoying his intellectual hammering of the media,
Drummond decided to push the topic a little farther. “At
concentrations of twenty ppm’s, an alarm sounds and
respirators are used. That’s when we engage our air pumps
for increased
ventilation to maintain proper exposure
levels. We feel that since the, uh . . .” he paused, removed
his glasses and slowly polished the lenses. He took time
to gather his thoughts. Once gathered he slid the glasses
back and gave a demure look. “Since the incident,” he
said, “we’ve appropriated air-monitoring units,” and he
waved an impatient hand toward the tunnel entry. “To
summarize... yeah, we supply fresh air to all underground
work areas in sufficient amounts as to prevent dangerous
accumulation of gases. But there are inherent dangers other
than gasses when tunneling a collapsed site.” He took a
few long seconds to savor the looks of fear, or anticipation.
“This area is far less stable than solid strata. Beside the fear
of the methane belching we’ve the ever present problem of
ground movement.”
Fellini raised a hand to quell the chatter. “The
ground you’re burrowing, has it stopped moving?”
“Burrowing!” Drummond retorted. “We’re not
bloody rodents, young man.”
Fellini cowered a little.
“The settlement of soil layers is ongoing. Unfortunately it’s been exacerbated by last summer’s snow-melt,
as well as recent heavy snowfall.” The Scot stared hard at
his open mouthed audience. “We’ve strategically positioned
pumps in an attempt to remove water from further affecting
these areas. The explosion that caused these mountains to
collapse pushed the surrounding forest into matchsticklike layers creating massive unpredictability. It’s left us
with extensive mushy areas of pulp-like bark that’s unable
to support the ceiling weight of the tunnel.” He stared at
the tunnel entrance, tossed the megaphone onto a pile of
equipment and motioned for them to follow.