CHAPTER 29

Claudia, her one hand still gripped to the steel railing, stared at the television monitor. Close by, Blackstone and the rest of the Committee scientists watched in amazement. The force field was beginning to radiate outside the two ton containment device.

The force itself inside the remote lab was invisible, but anything not bolted down began to move slowly outward, a manifestation of the circular force that had caused the vibrations and humming noise.

“Oh my God!” said Blackstone.

The two graduate students were sliding across the floor, being moved by the invisible force field. Their voices could be heard over the television monitor. The pair sounded like children on a carnival ride.

“Whoa! Yes!”

The scientists in the main lab screamed for joy.

“It’s working! The force field is working!” yelled Blackstone

Claudia looked at several computers, and back at the television screen. She did not share her peer’s exuberance. She glanced over at Professor Means and caught his eye. She could see that he was unsure about what was happening, but he remained silent. Claudia turned back to the display and noticed something that really disturbed her.

“Uncle Rodney!” she yelled, “Look! The attendants are being pushed away from the emergency shut offs. They won’t be able to reach the grounding device! We have to shut it down. It’s too dangerous if they can’t reach it. Shut it down!”

“No, no!” he shouted, trying to be heard over the louder vibrations. “Not yet. We can’t. It’s working!”

***

Lucien quietly pulled out his pistol as he worked his way through the trees. He was careful to avoid any dry branches and stepped gingerly through the light snow that covered the dead vegetation. On his right and left, the six thugs and Hamid had assembled, now following his lead. They tried to stay hidden by crouching behind the trees. They paused when their leader did, stopping in front of the concrete building that housed the power station.

Without warning, one of the thugs sneezed. Hamid cringed. Lucien looked ready to shoot the man. The entire group halted and waited to see if anyone had heard them. Lucien was livid, but he regained his composure and waited, focused on the steel door of the power station.

The second guard was still inside, finishing his coffee when he heard the sneeze. He looked at the door and decided not to open it. There still had been no response from the gatehouse and he was concerned. He crouched down and peered out through a building vent, located a few inches off the floor. It was difficult to see anything in the dense forest. Out of the lower corner of a tree he spotted a leg. A few feet higher, on an adjacent tree, he spotted the barrel of an AK-47 rifle. The guard stood up and ran to the corner of the room. John made sure that extra weapons had been stored there. The guard selected an ammo pouch and slipped it across his shoulders. Grabbing a rifle off the rack, he put several boxes of ammunition in the pouch, and scurried out the back entrance, forgetting to pick up his radio.

The attackers waited silently outside the building. Lucien gave the signal. Hamid gestured to one man, who began to work his way across the open area, between the woods and the power station. The mercenary scrambled across the opening in a crouched stance, waiting for the bullets to start flying. Nothing happened. He reached his objective, an emergency shut off panel, a two-by-four foot metal box bolted to the outside of the building. Put there for easy access in the event of an emergency, the box was kept closed with an expensive case-hardened lock.

The mercenary pulled on the lock and looked back at his employer. No longer crouched down for protection, the man relaxed and stood up. The other men were comfortable when they saw this and came out from behind the trees. Hamid signaled to Antonio who moved toward the lock.

Lucien was incensed by the relaxed pace.

“What the hell are you waiting for?” he screamed. “Let’s do it today. KILL the power.”

Antonio ran full speed for the electrical box. He scrambled to pull out his bolt cutters and after several attempts, popped the steel hasp. He lifted the metal cover and reached for the pull-down emergency switch.

Antonio’s hand was mid-air when a rifle shot exploded, the bullet reaching its target, striking him. He dropped to the ground, blood pouring from the center of his back.

Hamid, Lucien and the rest of their crew scrambled for cover.

The estate guard had slipped behind the woods and watched while the attackers relaxed and stepped out from behind the trees. The former Swiss policeman – a crack shot – had waited for the right moment to open fire.

He fired rapidly, accurately pinning down Lucien and his men with near misses that chipped bark off the trees, inches from their heads. One thug opened up with his AK-47, spraying dirt and bark all around the guard. When he paused, the guard swung his rifle out and fired, striking the barrel of the AK-47, knocking it out of his hand.

“FIRE, DAMMIT.”

Lucien was livid. The mercenaries held their weapons out from behind the trees, haphazardly spraying bullets in the direction of the guard.

The guard pulled in behind the tree as the bullets blasted chips of bark and branches off the tree, and splattering the ground around him. The noise was deafening. The guard wiped the nervous sweat from his brow as he slung the ammo pouch to his front. He reached in for more bullets and rapidly shoved them into the rifle.

While the guard was behind the tree reloading, Hamid signaled for half of the men to flank wide on either side of the tree. The remaining thugs kept the guard pinned down with automatic fire.

There was a pause in the gunfire, as the guard entered a final bullet in the chamber with a distinct ‘click.’ It would be the last sound he would ever hear. As he swung his rifle around the tree, Hamid’s men, now at a wider angle, opened fire. Like an untethered marionette, the guard’s arms and legs flung in every direction, riddled with bullets.

The guard collapsed.

Lucien watched him fall and ran to the metal box, stepping over the almost-dead Antonio. He gripped the power station emergency cut-off lever, slamming it down with one swift move.

***

Claudia watched in silence as the physicists cheered and congratulated each other on the success of the experiment. Visible on the television monitors, the gleeful graduate assistants were laughing, effervescent as the force field pushed them, and everything else, across the room. The remote lab echoed with the graduate student’s giggles.

All at once there was a loud “click,” and the observation room turned black.

Everything stopped. There was a deadly silence in the pitch-black laboratory.

The power had been cut.

“My God,” said Blackstone.

“This could start a -”

“Chain reaction,” said Claudia.

She was stunned.

A few moments later, an emergency generator kicked on and the laboratory lights returned.

Claudia glanced at the television monitors. Both screens were blank, the pictures nothing but fuzzy white dots.

She was frantic and yelled into the speakerphone. “For God’s sakes - pull the grounding device!”

The laboratory turned to chaos. The monitoring equipment was no longer working; the computer screens all showing blank log-in prompts. The scientists jumped in front of their computers, trying to log in. New, more intense vibrations shook the lab. Unlike the earlier tremors, these felt like a category eight earthquake. The tremors shot through the room, as though the building was being lifted off its foundation. Claudia and Blackstone tried to hold on, clinging to the same railing.

The mild humming that earlier had bothered Claudia was now roaring like a freight train.

“It’s going to start a chain reaction,” said Blackstone. “We have to shut it down!”

Claudia pointed at the blank television monitors. “They have to do it on site.” They had put the shut off handles close to the technicians, as a safety measure. But the scientists had miscalculated the extent of the power the force field would generate and the graduate students had been pushed too far from the manual shut off switches.

She rushed for the door.

“I have to get up there and help them.”

Claudia stumbled as she ran out the laboratory door.

Blackstone was right behind her when he stopped at the door and turned to Professor Means and the rest of the scientists.

“Please. Everyone. Try to ground the reaction remotely.”

Professor Thomas was in a panic, out of control. “We can’t! It won’t work from here. Oh, my God, it’s a runaway reaction!”

Blackstone turned to Professor Means who was at his computer, focused, his face grim, the sweat beading off his forehead. Aware of the catastrophic consequences, Professor Means did not have to be told what to do. He was already trying to remotely activate the grounding device from his computer. He glanced at Blackstone and nodded, letting him know they would try.

Blackstone lifted his hand with a slight gesture, and spun away, running out the door, trying to catch up with Claudia.

***

The sound of automatic fire reverberated throughout the estate. When Lucien and his men approached behind the bakery truck, they made sure they cut the phone lines feeding the estate. Inside the building that housed the electrical grid was a T-3 line that fed a sophisticated telephone switch connecting all the data links and land line phones. Lucien grabbed one of the AK-47 rifles and riddled it with bullets, destroying the switch and the backup batteries supporting it. Lucien had placed a battery operated jamming device at the gatehouse, which jammed all cell phone traffic within a one mile radius.

The estate was isolated from the rest of the world.

Two more of John’s men, reacting to the firefight, rushed to the power station. Lying in wait, Lucien’s thugs easily gunned them down.

Confident they were in control, Lucien signaled for his men to move forward and follow him to the laboratory.

***

Blackstone, wheezing from his run, caught up with Claudia. She was stopped at the top of the stairway, gripping the handle. The door to the outside was open a few inches. She waited, listening.

“Did you hear that?”

There were rapid-fire explosions, the unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire. A man screamed.

“That was gunfire,” said Blackstone.

Claudia grabbed his arm and pulled him out the door behind her.

“Come on. Forget the gunfire. We need to keep moving before this whole place goes up in smoke.”

They scrambled up the narrow wooded pathway, headed for the remote lab.

Moments after Claudia and Blackstone fled the underground laboratory, Lucien arrived. The access door was locked, and the auxiliary power was on. He gleefully entered the electronic passcode into the keypad and the door buzzed open. He laughed as he passed through the steel security door and headed down the stairway.

Hamid was behind him, followed by Hector and the remaining four mercenaries. They left Antonio back at the power switch with the bullet in his spine, bleeding, but still breathing. No one was interested in helping the almost dead man.

The bonus for anyone that captured Claudia was too large.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” said Lucien. He scrambled down the stairs, pistol in hand, and looked back at Hamid. “We’ll see who has the last laugh today.”

They reached the second level and Lucien again typed in the correct code, opening the door. He scrambled into the hallway that led to the laboratory, closely followed by Hamid and his men.