Virtual Reality - Chapter 7
Aug 07 '05
The Bottom Line Only two more chapters to go after this.
Please read the Prelude before you read this!
(Sorry about the strange formatting but I can't seem to change it!!)
Chapter 7.
"I have an idea", announced Kershaw, who had been deep in thought for the past quarter of an hour since the communique. "What if we send in the SAS, or a similar crack team, although none can match the SAS. We could get them to `eliminate' a couple of high-ranking officials in the Libyan army, although not Antreb himself, as it's him we have to convince. Then we tell them that if they try anything against Tunisia, more deaths will follow. Maybe if the SAS operate well enough, Antreb won't feel safe enough to attack."
It was once again Foster who saw the flaw in the plan, although everyone else in the room was nodding in agreement. "There's a problem, though. The movement may well already be started, and if so then no amount of deaths in the Libyan regime or army or whatever will stop it. In fact, it may well be that such action will provoke them to more extreme measures than they were intending."
"Could be", Kershaw conceded reluctantly. Everyone again lapsed into silence, slightly more depressed now. Kalashni, Browning and Canning knew that they were now way out of their depth.
Finally Kershaw gave in his private battle, and decided to show the third compartment in his briefcase to everyone. Ignoring the stunned looks on their faces, especially Hansen's, he took out what looked like a jar of water. Hansen's, and everyone else's, astonishment rose dramatically.
"What is it?", asked Hansen, although the question was on everyone's lips.
"This", said Kershaw, holding up the jar, "is the ultimate doomsday weapon."
The stunned silence the ensued seemed to charge the very air of the room. The expectation was heightened, yet strangely muted by the ordinary appearance of the weapon.
"How does it work, then? It just looks like a... jar of water."
"I know it does. The liquid itself is not important. Suspended in the liquid is a highly volatile substance derived from phosphorous. Only this liquid containment will keep it from igniting. Once it comes into contact with the air, it not only causes the air to burn but also sets up a chain reaction. As long as there is more air to burn, the fire will expand. We estimate it would take about ten hours for the whole atmosphere to burn itself out. After that, of course, the air would no longer be breathable anyway, so even if people survived underground, they'd have to stay underground. Eventually they'd run out of oxygen too. It really is the ultimate weapon."
The others all looked stunned, none more so than Kalashni. But he didn't look as if he doubted the feasibility of the device. That was enough for the others to believe it would work.
"So what do we do with this marvellous piece of Armageddon then?", asked Hansen.
"Well, I did have an idea about that...", said Kershaw.
"So you're saying that we should tell Antreb that we'll use this thing and destroy the whole damned planet if he doesn't cease his ideas about attacking Tunisia, is that it?", asked Hansen with just a hint of incredulity.
"That's about the size of it, yes."
"Hmm. There is, of course, one small problem with that idea."
"What?"
"Well, how are we going to explain just why Tunisia is so important to us that we'd take this action?"
"We don't."
"Then they won't believe us."
"Then we'll use the device."
"You, my friend, are seriously crazy."
"Don't worry, I was only kidding. You're right, we need to find some reason for Tunisia being important to us, while concealing the truth."
Foster gave up. "Well I can't think of anything."
"Or me", commiserated Kalashni.
"I think that this is a job for the psychologists among us", announced Marshall dolefully. He couldn't think of anything either.
Canning looked up for a moment, as if they'd distracted him from his line of thought.
"We know that. Have you only just realized?", and he went back to his ponderings.
"Can you believe that? I thought they were waiting for us to come up with something, and it turns out that they've been thinking all the time!" Marshall was speaking with a supreme manifestation of irony in his voice, just to try and break up the tension a little.
Nobody seemed to notice.
"Eureka! I've got it!", cried Canning jubilantly.
"What? What?", asked Hansen impatiently. Kershaw looked at Canning with what might have been amusement, but was listening intently all the same. Foster held his breath.
"We'll tell Antreb that we've got this device that Brad showed us" he began.
Hansen interrupted. "Oh, brilliant, quite brilliant", he said sarcastically.
Canning gave him an irritated look and continued. "Wait! Listen, will you? We tell them, right, but we also tell them that we've set up some sort of field around Libya that means that we can destroy Libya without affecting anywhere else."
Kershaw caught up the theme enthusiastically. "Yeah, and they'd be more likely to believe that if we told them that it was actually America that made and planted the device."
"And", ended Foster emphatically, "that would also help to convince them that we, or I mean Carson, would actually use the weapon on them. We could say that Carson has already had the device planted in Libya, and that it's totally undetectable, and it could be detonated at any time."
Hansen knew it was a magnificent idea, and that it could work.
And in the absence of a better idea, why not try it anyway?
"Mike, we've found their frequency", said Marshall, after some diligent work with the radio transmitter. "It looks like they didn't particularly want us to talk to them."
"Good work, Dave. Now we're getting somewhere. General Antreb?" The last two words were spoken into the microphone that had appeared, apparently out of nowhere.
The voice from Libya was clearly shaken. "Yes? How did you get this frequency, English scum?", it demanded. It was definitely Antreb.
"Charming", remarked Hansen to Foster before turning to the mike again. "From your Commander-in-Chief, of course. How else would we know it?", he said in an impromptu burst of inspiration. He winked at the others. Anything that might unsettle the Libyan general would help them.
There was a short silence, and then Antreb spoke again. "Well, what do you want? Are you going to plead for your miserable lives, or grovel before the superior might of Libya?", he asked haughtily.
Hansen laughed with some feeling. "No, indeed general, we're going to destroy Libya."
"What?"
"That's right. We - are - going - to - destroy -
Libya. Did you get that ok? Do you understand?"
Antreb seemed to recover his composure. "Oh, that must be the English sense of humour. So sorry not to have understood you earlier." The sneer in Antreb's voice was eminently manifest, but not quite enough to totally overpower his uncertainty.
Certainly not to Canning, Kershaw and Hansen. Canning knew the sweet taste of success make itself present on his senses.
Hansen replied the sarcasm with a taunt. "On the contrary, however funny we may find it, for you it is certainly no laughing matter. You see, the Americans, under the direct orders of General Carson, have placed their newest, most powerful weapon in Libya, and would be quite happy, nay, overjoyed to detonate it for us and wipe your miserable little country of the face of the earth forever."
"You're bluffing. In fact, I find this whole conversation quite childish."
"The only childish thing about it, general, is your not believing me. I'll give you the details if you like." Thereupon he went through the details that they had worked out, and there was another silence.
A long silence.
General Antreb was not a happy man.
When he finally replied, he sounded sceptical, but, in all but words, he conceded that he wasn't quite prepared to risk it being a bluff. The psychologists in the room were quite convinced of that, anyway, and that was testimony enough for everyone else to believe it.
Success.
"Of course, the only trouble now", began Foster. Everyone else groaned. Why did there always have to be "just one more problem"?
"Is that Libya's interest in whatever it is we are interested in in Tunisia will have quadrupled. I don't think they're going to stop trying to find out what that is until they find it."
"True enough. Something has to be done about it, definitely", replied Hansen. "But what?"
"Isn't that always the question?", lamented Canning and Kershaw in unison.
Melissa Fitzgerald wasn't having the best of times either. Somehow, her bodyguards had failed her, her private Cessna had crash landed in Tunisia (of all places), and now she was on the run from Tunisian assassins, with Andrew Webber. She reviewed the events mentally and admitted that her bodyguards hadn't actually failed her, but they had died in saving her, and they'd be very useful to have around now.
She wondered if Webber would survive if she didn't. He'd be the next company head if so. She tried to put that thought aside. First priority is to survive.
Survive.
Unknown to her, however, Fitzgerald, although running from the Tunisian assassins, was also running straight into a trap laid by MINE operations manager Caroline fisher.
Neither Fitzgerald or Webber had noticed that their protagonists, the assassins, had been "disposed of", and were no longer chasing them.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.