Jo-el

Chapter 45 WAR

I woke with a dull headache. It was Tuesday, two weeks had passed since my first encounter with Ka-el. As I lay there searching through the fog in my brain I could feel an immense sadness. Not in a million years could I have predicted the events of the past two weeks. I wanted it all to go away, I wanted my life back. I didn’t want all the crazy power I’d been given. What seemed like a fairy-tale had become a nightmare. I wished to God that I hadn’t ridden down highway twenty-five and found that box of madness. I didn’t want to be a Superhero, if that was what I’d become.

I showered and dressed, then ate alone in the restaurant downstairs. My brain cleared and I perked up with my third dose of caffeine. My initial, dour mood slowly faded. Back in the suite I called Sally.

“What happened yesterday, Sally? Why did the network fail?” I’m sure my concern was very evident.

“Overload,” she answered, unemotionally.

“That’s it?”

Sally nodded. “I was monitoring the rape cases, remember you dumped that on me. I’m watching Sean and Maggie.”

“Maggie was here,” I objected.

“Okay, Sean. Then there’s the criminal groups, you’ve started a firestorm, Jo-el.”

“Wait a minute with that, how many rape cases do we have?”

“One hundred and forty-seven.”

“Jeez!”

“Ninety-two of the perps didn’t see you on CNN and didn’t hear about it, either.”

“Okay,” I thought for a moment. “Send the ninety-two an email with a link to my warning, I’ll give them another day. Send videos of the fifty-five losers to the local police. Now tell me what happened at Pippa’s apartment?”

“The forth guy in the car, the driver, heard the police sirens and left in a hurry. The three dead guys are in the morgue. One little problem?” She said, waiting to see my reaction, damn woman was becoming more human every day.

“What?” I was calm, or relatively.

“One of the three you wasted hadn’t actually killed anyone. He’d put a couple of guys in hospital, but he was young and new to the team. He’s not known to the police; the other guys have form.”

“So we, that’s ‘we’ Sally, not me, killed a guy without a police record.” I thought about it for a moment and just didn’t seem to care. He was on the broken path and no doubt would whack someone one day.

“What’s Pippa up to?”

“She’s very frightened. The CIA figured it all out during the night. They’ve got a guard on her.”

“Before we get to these criminal groups, what’s Maggie doing?”

“She’s taken another day off, she called your cell about twenty minutes ago and wants to see you.”

“Where is my cell phone?”

“The FBI have it in lock up, it’s turned off.”

I looked strangely at Sally. She could receive my text messages even with the phone off. “Can you text her to come to the hotel?” Sally nodded.

“Anything with Sean?”

“No, he went back to work this morning, doesn’t suspect you I guess. Wants to forget the incident.”

“Text him and see if I can have lunch with him.”

“Okay.”

“Now, tell me about the criminal groups.”

“You might want to sit down.” I gave Sally a funny look but sat on the sofa anyway. “They realize where you’re going, Jo-el and they’re scared, which is not a condition most of them are used to. Most are very rich and only semi-illegal, they have legitimate businesses and enormous weight and influence with local politicians and police. So, they’ve been talking to each other, which is also very unusual and they’re starting to make plans. The one fundamental decision they’ve all agreed on is that you have to go.” She paused. “And as soon as possible.”

“Have they figured out how to get rid of me?”

“No. But the FBI and CIA found out who you are, pretty quick.”

“Yea, my mistake.” I stood up and walked around the hotel suite. “I’m pretty sure I can dodge these guys alone, it’s just Sean and Maggie that worry me. I need to think what to do with them.”

“So you’ve written off Pippa, then?”

“Oh, right and Pippa. So, what’s their plan?”

“Well the good news is they’re arguing. The top guys aren’t used to democracy, they’re more into the dictator M.O. So far they’ve not agreed on any specific action, which gives you a chance to strike.”

“What do you have in mind?” One-man army, our Sally. Or should I say, one woman.

“As soon as I recognize they are plotting your death, I’ll whack them.”

“Simple enough. I like it.” I smiled.

“So I have your blessing to start.”

I guess having your finger on the nuclear button causes a tad of consternation, I felt my heart beat rise and head begin to sweat. “How many do you have on the list, so far?”

“Eighteen.”

“Show me some of them, I want to understand who these people are.”

Sally placed the disc monitor in the air and an image of a white, old man, maybe in his seventies, in a business suit appeared. He was sitting at an ornate table in a large, oak-paneled office. Around the table were six other men, similarly dressed of varying ages. None of them were smiling. The old man spoke.

“Jimmy, tell me again about the CIA woman.” They were talking about Pippa. One of the men at the table replied.

“We’re pretty sure she knows his real identity. But he must be protecting her, Oleg Verminov had three guys taken out last night, trying to get her.”

“Who’s Verminov?” asked the old man.

“Russian billionaire, he knows Yerchenkov.”

“How’d he get to them?” The old man asked.

“We don’t know. The driver didn’t see anyone, the three were brought out of the apartment in body-bags.”

“How’d Verminov know about the girl?”

“We don’t know.” Jimmy.

“So we need this woman?”

Heads nodded.

“So, how the fuck do we get her?”

A different man, bald with a beaked nose. “I talked with Jerry Spiel last night, he has a guy in the CIA, they’re working that angle.”

“I fucking hate Spiel, we have to deal with that low-life?”

No-one said anything for a moment. Then the old man continued. “Okay, what’s this woman’s level?”

“Special agent,” came the reply from Jimmy.

“How come she knew?” Nobody answered. “Who else knows?”

Jimmy replied, “We assume there must be others, but we don’t know who they are. I’m calling around.”

The old man nodded his head, his silver hair was glued in place.

“Does this asshole have kids?”

“We don’t know.”

“Well he must have family somewhere. As soon as we get an id I want every fucking brother, sister, niece, nephew, aunt, uncle, the whole fucking lot. We grab them all.”

My mouth was dry, I watched the old man’s face closely, he meant business.

“Who is he, Sally?”

“Conrad Lietz, German, net worth, three plus billion, drugs mainly. But he has a chain of legitimate warehouses across Europe. They’re in Berlin right now.”

“Who’s Jimmy?”

“British, ex-SAS, gone bad, in charge of security for Lietz.”

“Whack Lietz.” I said.

I watched Conrad Lietz double up and grab at his chest, the six guys jumped out of their chairs and tried to stop him from falling. They lowered him to the carpeted floor. Lietz took his last breath. I watched him die, it was wonderful. Piece of shit.

“Show me Spiel.” I told Sally.

The monitor went blank. I looked over at Sally.

“He has one of those nuclear bomb shelters, I can’t penetrate it. He’s out of reach for now.”

“Where is he?”

“New Jersey.”

“He’s American?”

“Sure is.”

“Do you know who his CIA mole is?”

“No, I’ll have to monitor every CIA agent and see if someone says something that gives them away.”

“Damn. This isn’t as easy as I thought it would be.”

“What about the Russian, Verminov?”

“Same problem, he flew to Israel yesterday, he has a bunker there.”

“Shit! Was he on the list of eighteen?”

“Yes.”

“How many can you access, right now?”

Sally was quiet for a while. “Nine.”

“Are they all the same as Lietz?”

“Basically, yes.”

“Well then, in your words, take them off the table.”

Sally smiled at me, she looked excited. “Done,” she said. God, it was that easy.

I paced around the suite for a while, pondering the mess I’d just unleashed. I wasn’t going to be able to hide from the aftermath. Ten crime bosses, dotted around the globe, fall dead of the same cause, all at the same instance, was like announcing it on Twitter. Still this could only be a good thing in the long run.

“Sally, did the President pick a time to meet?”

“Ten a.m. eastern time tomorrow.”

“Okay, good.” I’ll tell him everything, get the US on board. Maybe they could help me with these guys?

“How’s the market doing today?”

“It’s down, media says it’s fear.”

That’s normal, no one likes the unknown. “Sell the rest of my shares and put half my money into put options, say three months out. Weapon stocks, I’m going to eliminate the need for guns.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Maggie,” said Sally, “you want me to go?”

“No stay, she should meet you.”

I opened the door and Maggie strode in, past me, I could feel a tirade coming. She saw Sally, sitting on the sofa. “Who’s she?”

“That’s Sally, I told you I’d named my computer. She’s a holographic image created by the computer.”

“Why does she have to look like that?”

“That was my choice, Maggie. Why not a beautiful woman?”

“Why not mum, then?”

I decided to fight back. “I didn’t want the hurt, Maggie, do you understand that?”

“You’ve changed Dad. I’m not sure I know you anymore.”

“How could I not change, sweetie, look what’s happened.”

“Why Dad, why?” she cried out and then began crying. “Why did you have to take on the whole fucked-up world?” She sniveled and sat down, in an armchair, away from Sally. “Why couldn’t you just be a hero, I mean, what those alien people gave you made you incredible? Why spoil it and try and fix the whole world right off the bat?”

“Let me explain Maggie. There’s a reason I’m doing this.” Maggie wiped her eyes and turned her face toward me, expectantly. “I asked the same question. Why did these people from a planet, millions of light-years away, who have been monitoring us for hundreds of millions of years suddenly decide to contact us now? What triggered their involvement?” Maggie concentrated on my words. “The Cirion people are human, also. Their planet formed millions of years before earth and they developed technologies that we just dream about. They’ve told me that there are many ‘human’ planets at different levels of development. They also explained that they feel a bond with all those different human races. They have been reaching out to all of them to form a union of humans in the universe. I know it sounds like a science fiction novel. It sounds crazy, but we believe there’s other life in the universe and we’ve been sending out probes for years attempting to make contact. The people of Cirion have a policy of non-interference, unless certain circumstances exist. Isn’t that a similar policy that this country has with the rest of the world? I know, in the past there’s been world wars, but in the past fifty-plus years we started to change. It’s early days for us on Earth but we’re moving in the right direction, don’t you think?”

“Get to the point, Dad.”

“So the question is why are they now interfering?” I stopped talking, I hadn’t told anyone this so far and I realized it would be very difficult to accept and I was finding it difficult to say. “The answer is that the only criterion for interference is a possible annihilation of a human planet and extinction of its inhabitants.” Maggie’s mouth dropped open, her eyebrows rose.

“Are you telling me that the end of the world is coming?” I nodded. “And you believe them? Dad, people have been predicting the end of the world forever. I bet if I googled it now, there would be a list of nutcases predicting every possible reason why the world will end.”

“Maggie, this is different, think about it. I’m not just some nutcase, as you call them, standing on a soapbox, spouting on about the end of the world. Look at me! Look at what I can do; look at what I’m doing. Doesn’t that bring some validity to what I say.”

“How do you know you can believe them?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t believe us?” exclaimed Sally.

We both looked over at her. “You haven’t proved it, Sally, you can’t prove it, can you?”

“I can show you calculations, I can show you what happened to Cirion two million years ago.”

“What’s she talking about, Dad?” said Maggie.

“There’s a galactic storm heading for earth, similar to one that destroyed their original planet two million years ago”

“What do you mean, their original planet?” Maggie spurted out.

“They had to move.” I said.

“The whole fucking planet.”

I nodded my head. “What did you say, Sally? Only thirty-five percent survived?”

Sally said “Yes, approximately.”

“Wait a minute,” Maggie stood up and help her arms out. “I don’t understand. When? When is this storm going to wipe us out?”

“Seventy years or so.” I said.

“Oh, God, for one moment I thought you were going to say next week. So, we have seventy years?”

“If what the Cirion people say in correct, yes.”

“And what are we supposed to do?” Maggie was now very animated.

“Leave.” I said.

She glared at me and then at Sally and swung around, her mouth gapped open as wide as it would go. She spluttered, “What? Leave? And where the hell are we going?” She was facing me again.

“To another planet.”

“Jesus, Dad, what the hell are you smoking? That’s some heavy juice. You’re kidding, right?”

I shook my head and looked down at the carpeted floor. There was silence in the room for a moment. I waited for Maggie’s next question. In my mind I played a game, guessing the letter of the next word to emanate from her mouth.

“How?” she almost shouted out.

I smiled, inwardly, I was right. I told her to sit down, which she did, reluctantly. I explained about the spacecraft we needed to build, the two planets that the Cirion people had found that could sustain human life. That we would have to start again, rebuild, but with their technology. Maggie was dumbfounded. She constantly shook her head.

“So, how are you planning to sell this to the world, Dad?”

“By doing what I’m doing, do you see that, now? I have to do something unbelievable or no one will believe a word I say. It would appear that we have a long time, seventy years. But the task is beyond belief, we’ve never been outside of our solar system. We’ve put people on the moon, a quarter of a million miles away. These planets are one point six trillion miles away; it will take about four months at almost the speed of light to reach them.”

“This is too much, Dad. I’m lost. Who else have you told?”

“You’re it,” I said.

“Me! You haven’t told anybody else?”

I shook my head.

“Why not?”

“Come-on Maggie, you can figure that out.”

“They wouldn’t believe you.” I smiled.

“I’m meeting with the President tomorrow.”

“The US President?”

“Who else?”

“And you’re going to tell him.”

“That’s my plan.”

I could see in her face that she was beginning to understand what I was trying to do.

“I guess you’d never have gotten close to the President without all the stuff you’re doing? I can see that. They’d have locked you up in a funny-farm. Wow! It’s insane.” Then she paused and stared at me for a long time. “Why you?” She looked at Sally, “Why’d you pick him? Nice guy, but world savior, that’s a stretch. And why just one person? Don’t you have a few more of those belt computer things?”

Sally smiled warmly at Maggie. “He a reasonable man, he will do the right thing. We only had one belt. It was part of the original mission package, sent two hundred and fifty million years ago. The Cirion people had several contingency plans when they decided to send out monitoring stations to far away planets, one of them was that maybe one day someone from Cirion would come here so they wanted a belt that was compatible with the computer software at the time. But they’ve never been able to figure out how to travel at faster than the speed of light and until they do, no one from Cirion could travel here. But it doesn’t matter now, does it, because in seventy-three of your years this planet won’t exist.”

“Well you’re a happy fucker, aren’t you?” retorted Maggie.