Chapter 29- The Widening Gyre

Chapter 29

The Widening Gyre

Washington, D.C

Peter Bierko badly wanted to open a window but that was impossible where they were.  They had been put in a low level office, below ground floor in the Whitehouse.  There were four of them, deciding how the President and his government should act.  Peter wondered if these were the only people who the President could trust, or whether the meeting was so secret that no one else had known where to find it.

Richard McCoy, the Whitehouse Counsel had just wanted to act.  He wanted to order Military Police to arrest and detain the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as sending an M.P unit to deal with “Briar.”   Peter felt this was a massive overreaction.

The Attorney General Henry Finch seemed to agree with him but the lawyers were determined to argue it out for as long as possible.  Jack Krane, the Deputy Chief of Staff, seemed more concerned with the political dimension, which Peter found hard to imagine at this stage.

“What do we know about this Arctic thing?” asked Henry.

“We’re all code-word cleared Peter,” said Jack.

“We’re wasting time here,” said McCoy.

“I want the information.  If you want to change my mind, then this is the way to go,” replied Henry sharply.

“Arctic Blue is an old project, dating back to the late seventies or early eighties.  No one is really sure how it came onto the grid but it’s an Air Force project.  It’s an incredibly lethal bio-weapon.  That’s pretty much all that we know.  It was being kept refrigerated, frozen solid in a remote base in the Arctic,” explained Peter.

“Hence Arctic Blue?” asked Jack.

“I guess so.  There’s very little agency information on Arctic, only to say that any exposure is likely to be lethal. It’s very contagious too; any slight exposure is basically lethal.  And if it gets to a city, then there would be no saving them,”

“Shit,” breathed Jack.

“Why the hell does our government have something like that?” asked Henry, his face flushed.

“This was the project of an older administration,” replied Peter.

“But I thought when the President was sworn in, I thought it was one of our plans to get rid of everything like this!” spluttered Henry.  He stood up and ran his hands through his white hair.

Richard McCoy took a deep breath and shook his head.

“We were getting rid of things like this.  But this project was so secret it would be quite hard to get rid of it.  We’d asked the Air Force to look into disposing of it but they were dragging their feet,”

“No surprise there,” said Peter.

“Indeed,” replied McCoy.  “But I guess there is no coincidence that a few weeks after the President asks for this thing to be destroyed, someone tries to move it,”

“Who gave the order to destroy it?  Officially?” asked Jack.

“It was Robert,” said McCoy.  Robert Kavanagh, the Secretary of Defence.

“I wonder if it’s a coincidence that Robert isn’t here today too,” wondered Jack out loud.

“Robert’s a reliable man in most respects, he’d never knowingly sell out the President,” retorted Peter.

“I’m not sure we can know that.  Anyone who isn’t here is possibly with the other side,” replied McCoy.

“We’ve not even established that an ‘other side’ even exists at this stage,” retorted Peter.

“Come off it Peter!  Someone is giving orders to move secret, deadly assets.  They’re doing it without the assent of the Executive branch.  We’ve got a conspiracy here.  We need to crack it before it’s too late,” McCoy was in full oratorical mode now.  He had stood up to speak and his voice was crisp and clear.

Peter didn’t stand up.  He wasn’t a lawyer, he wasn’t a politician.  He wasn’t going to posture and brow-beat the others into following his view point.  He was a man of logic, a former Federal Agent.  He wanted to act on evidence.

“There also may be a political dimension to this,” McCoy went on.  “Where is the Vice President?  Where is the Secretary of State?  We all know that Kenny was the President’s main rival back in the primaries,” 

Jack nodded his head.  “Kenny was never happy with the number two chair, that’s for sure,”

“He could be involved in this.  He has contacts over at the Shop,” said McCoy.

Peter shook his head.  “The Vice President too?  Come off it!  You sound totally paranoid now!”

Henry sat back for a moment.  “I don’t know.  I’ve never trusted Kenny,”

“You’re talking about the Vice President of the United States,” said Peter to Henry, feeling his grip on the room slipping.

“He is,” said McCoy, simply.  “We’ve got to act now before it’s too late.  Before they beat us to the punch,”

“This room isn’t a democracy,” said Henry Finch.  “The President gave us authority to act on his behalf once the decision is made.  I suggest we make a decision now,”

“If you’re going to go ahead and arrest the Chiefs, you’ll have to do it over my objections.  Henry, Jack, just think about it for a minute or two more,” begged Peter.

Jack shook his head.  “I’m with Richard on this one.  We’ve got to act and worry about it later,”

“Think about it Jack!  The President will look like a lunatic, ordering his own Generals arrested!” said Peter with some force.  “Think about the election!”

Jack closed his eyes for a moment.  Peter turned to Henry.

“Henry, you’re the smartest guy in the room.  You can’t think we need to stage a counter-coup, not when there hasn’t been a coup against us!”

Henry Finch closed his brief-case

Sat-Com, Somewhere in Virginia

The rattle of small arms fire and the roar of flamethrowers continued out in the corridor.  Captain Thomas’s team had fallen back behind a set of blast doors that were now half closed.

General Petersen moved up the corridor to their position.  There were strange howls and cries out from the corridor.  A soldier leant back and reloaded his machine-gun.  Petersen put a hand on his arm.

“How’s it going son?” he asked.

“They just keep coming sir.  I’m not sure how many of them there are,”

“Just keep doing what you’re doing.  They wont get past you will they?” he asked.

The young soldier looked at him and then shook his head fiercely.

“No way sir,” he replied.

“Good lad,” said the General.  He moved quickly across the gap to stand by Captain Thomas.

“What’s the sit-rep Captain?” he asked.

“We’ve engaged about five unarmed targets in the corridor now.  They go down under enough small-arms fire but then they get up.  I don’t know how,”

“Let someone else worry about that.  What does keep them down?” asked the General.

“Fire.  If we burn them with flame-throwers, they stay down,” said the Captain.

“Okay then.  Keep this area covered. It’s the only way in or out of the command centre.  If you need more men, I’ll get them fore you.  Don’t take any chances. Anyone coming in, you fire first and then burn the body,”

“Yes sir,” said Captain Thomas.

General Petersen moved back into the control room.  The small-arms locker had now been opened up and everyone was carrying weapons.  The tech’s in the room looked very nervous.  General Petersen walked through them.

“Come on guys, we’ve got a job to do.  You know how to do it.  I picked each of you personally. I had my pick of all the branches of service, whomever I wanted.  I chose you.  Don’t let me down,” he said.

They began to get to work again.  The big board had gone dark and the interruptions in power had left the control centre unable to control anything.

General Petersen found himself stood near Lt Walker.

“Molly,” he said.

“General?” she replied, her eyes wide.

“What did that Colonel tell you?” he asked.

“Sir?” she looked upset, her eyes watered.

“Come on Lieutenant, I raised you from a pup.  I’m never going to hurt you.  What did he say?”

Molly Walker wiped her eyes and then spoke.

“He said you were a traitor sir.  He said this base was operating illegally, that we were Briar,”

“I thought he might have said that.  Molly, we’re not Briar.  Briar is elsewhere,”

“Yes sir,” she said back firmly.

“You believe me?  You don’t want me to prove it?” he replied.  He had always thought her a smart girl.

“Prove it later sir,” she replied.  General Petersen smiled back at her.  He hadnt been wrong about her after all.

“Okay everyone.  We need primary power back on in here.  And we need that done fast. I cant command and control anything from this fucking isolation chamber!” he yelled to the room.  The men began to act, to try and fix the situation.  General Petersen only hoped there was still a situation to control when they were back in control again.

He walked back to the corridor and looked at the men protecting the barricade.  They were firing full automatic now.  There was a terrible roar, a shriek and then something liquid struck the door.  One man fell back screaming and holding his face.  Smoke rose from the door.

The General grabbed a nearby Sergeant.  “Follow me son,” he said.  The General rushed the door, his side-arm at his side.  He dropped into place at the side of the door and looked into the corridor ahead.

A human figure stood there, covered in blood.  The failing power caused the lights to flicker so Petersen never really made out his features too well.  But he didn’t have hands any more.  There were a pair of deep, round holes where his hands would have been.  Something wet was dripping from there and where it touched the ground, it smoked.

“Captain?” he shouted.

“Sir,” replied Thomas.

“We’ve got to put that fucking thing down, now!”

“Roger that sir,” replied Thomas.

“Okay, on me people!” shouted Petersen.  He aimed round the corner and opened fire with his pistol.  The others joined in with a blaze of small-arms fire.  The man shape took nearly forty hits in the space of a few seconds and came off its feet with a shriek.

“Flamethrower!” ordered Petersen.  “Now,”

Captain Petersen turned the corner and pulled the trigger on the flame thrower.  A jet of flame rushed out ahead of him, lighting the corridor ablaze again.  Petersen fired a second burst of fire and then took cover.

“Good work Captain,” said the General.  He looked down at the wounded, smoke rising from there wounds and the horrible smell of burning flesh in the air.  Petersen took a breath and then began to tend to his wounded men.

The pain in his hands was forgotten.