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He sat at his
desk and made many phone calls and then they silently waited.
Madeline watched the Learjet being carefully towed off the lawn
through one of the full length windows. She watched Adam, Gemma,
Zol and Grayling leaving in a yellow taxi and then, moments later,
many top officials arriving in countless big shiny black
limousines.

Madeline linked
the President’s arm and together they made their way to the
Briefing room. – An extraordinary sight and one for certain gossip
in time to come. One by one the President welcomed in the
miserable, depressed and solemn dignitaries. Even though a gorgeous
minx was standing next to him, the gloom continued to flood into
the briefing room. The secretary of state, vice president, defence
secretary, several decorated generals and their sidekicks gathered
around a highly polished oval table in the conference room.

By now,
Madeline had had her app running for at least four minutes…

‘Gentlemen, you
should all know by now why we are here. A mind altering signal is
being blocked, you are now, I hope, all thinking rationally,’ said
a very serious President.

‘I can’t
believe we’ve all being sitting back and doing nothing,’ said the
defence secretary.

‘Nor can I, we
have to go to DEFCON 2 immediately,’ said a general.

‘That is the
last option. We have a few days yet until the flotilla can do us
any harm,’ said the President.

‘So exactly
what are the options,’ asked the vice President.

It was time for
Madeline to intervene - after all, she knew what was going on more
than most.

‘Sorry to
interrupt, I’m Madeline Bull, I’ve been enlisted by the British
government.’

‘Hah! That’s
who you bloody are… Preposterous!’ said another general. ‘You’re a
bloody robot, what the hell are you doing here?’

‘Calm yourself
General Elver. It worries me slightly how you come to know this
fact but needless to say, if it wasn’t for Miss Bull, the USA would
be a sitting duck,’ said the President.

It was a fact
that certain dignitaries knew all about Madeline the feisty android
– clearly General Elver was one of them. The four brilliant
scientists who built Madeline had been offered a great deal of
money by some obscure American department to make another Madeline
Bull android for their own purposes. Naturally the scientists
couldn’t deliver because Madeline carried a secret - she was
remotely controlled by Poppy. Very few people knew this. Ron
Poultney, however offered himself as a Poppy replacement but
Alexander put a stop to that! (Yes, it’s complicated. You’ll just
have to read the first book, Author)

‘As I was
saying, it may be a good idea if we put our heads together…
Nuttall, the head of MI 7 has sent me here. At present he is
working on a few leads. We believe that a man called Mark Titoo
could be behind all this,’ said Madeline uncharacteristically
trembling slightly. Not everyday did people get to talk to the
entire American congress.

‘Hang on… MI 7?
MI 7 doesn’t bloody exist!’ said General Elver.

‘It’s a secret
Government department,’ pleaded Madeline.

‘Secret or not,
if MI 7 existed, we’d know about it,’ said the vice President.

‘It does, this
special watch is a direct link to Nuttall!’ insisted Madeline.

‘He’s right
Madeline, if it existed, we
would
know about it,’ said the
President sympathetically.

Only one thing
for it, Madeline activated her super watch.

‘Nuttall, are
you there?’ said Madeline.

‘
Hello
Madeline, well done!’
said Nuttall.

‘I’m with the
President and his top men. They don’t believe me that MI 7 exists,
please tell them,’ said Madeline.

‘
They’re
right MI 7 doesn’t exist.’

‘Nuttall, what
the hell are you talking about!’ yelled Madeline into her
watch.

‘
We made it
all up… told you Capesdown was MI 7 so you’d let us modify and
train you. You’ve fulfilled your first mission successfully, you’ve
reached the hierarchy of the USA,’
said Nuttall.

‘Yes, I have
and they’re free from the brainwashing. They can now defend
themselves,’ said Madeline positively.

‘
Exactly,
that was the problem. The conditioning is global, we couldn’t avoid
that but it detracted the Americans from retaliating.’

And then it
dawned with the thud.

‘Oh my God… you
want Armageddon and I’ve just made it possible,’

Madeline may
have been a machine but she had to sit down - what
had
she
done!

‘
Is the
President there? Let me speak to him,’
said Nuttall.

Madeline took
off the watch and passed it to the President. She was visibly
shaking.

‘This is the
President of the United States of America,’ said the President.

‘
May I say
this is a great honour sir, to talk to probably the greatest
president America has ever had,’
said Nuttall creepily.

‘To the point
sir!

‘
I want to
assure you that all that has been done and is to be done do is for
the good of this world and the people on it.’

‘May I say Sir,
you have a misguided interpretation of the word: good.’

‘
With
respect Mr President, there is much more going on here than you can
possibly imagine,
’ said Nuttall sombrely.

Madeline
thought it time to but in, she was, after all, still a British
secret agent even if now, her employers weren’t apparently working
for Queen and country.

‘Mr President,
we have to find this Mark Titoo, I’m sure he’s behind all
this.’

‘
Yes you’re
right but you have it all wrong, Mark Titoo isn’t a man, Mark Titoo
isn’t even of this world. As I’ve said, much more is afoot than you
realise,
’ said Nuttall

He was clearly
talking in riddles and making no sense what-so-ever. It was time to
terminate the conversation. There was an unusual silence in the
room. Not for the first time she had lit the proverbial touch
paper. Time and time again people had told her that MI 7 didn’t
exist. All she had to do was Google it and that would have
confirmed it. Once again her eagerness had led her head long into…
into… there was no other word for it – Armageddon.

‘I am so, so
sorry,’ she said pitifully.

‘Sorry for
what, as far as we’re concerned, you’ve warned us,’ said the
President.

‘Yes but you
now have no alternative. You will go to DEFCON 1. The invasion
fleet won’t relent, they’re all possessed with hatred for you.
You’ll press the button, they’ll press the button and goodbye
world.’

‘You’re
surmising now,’ said the Vice President.

‘No she’s
right, it is… perfect endgame,’ said the President.

It really
was.

‘How can
Armageddon be good for the world? I’m sure he’s mad or on
something… As far as I can see it, there’s only one way out of
this,’ said Madeline.

‘Go on…’ said
the President.

‘We find where
the brainwashing signal is coming from and destroy it at source,’
said Madeline.

It was
important that Madeline gave out the ear devices. At present, it
was only the app running on Madeline’s super watch that was
blocking the ultrasound signal. Before they all made there way to
the basement of the west wing, everyone had the app running
permanently on their smart phones just in case the met anyone who
was exceedingly miserable.

Following the
recent revelation that MI 7 didn’t exist along with the rest of
what Nuttall had said, Madeline’s thoughts were now frenzying about
in… Poppy’s head. How could anyone perpetrating a new world war
possibly have good intentions? And Mark Titoo… of course he was a
man and of this world unless he really was as talking about aliens
but would an alien realistically be called Mark? Surely it would be
ofdijhv or something. Why, right at the beginning, was she sent to
terminate those inmates if Nuttall had nothing to do with the
Government? Why was she upgraded – made virtually indestructible? -
Who paid for that? Why the elaborate and no doubt expensive charade
with Capesdown hall and why, the bloody hell, did Nuttall loan her
his Aston Martin?

Chapter 29:
Bottom of the World

The Situation
room was staffed with the entire national Security Council. As
expected, they were all very miserable, gloomy people… for a few
minutes – then the mood lifted like aspirins suddenly taking
effect. Everyone had the app running on their smart phones and all,
without exception were horrified at the present crisis that they
had previously completely disregarded. The
Room was equipped with the most advanced and secure
communications equipment available – unless you happened to be
Madeline Bull. T
he President and his men were ready to ask
the pertinent questions.

‘Has any
unusual activity been detected anywhere on the globe,’ asked the
defence secretary.

‘Nothing Sir,’
said a technician.

‘Are you
monitoring everywhere, the Dead Sea for instance?’ asked
Madeline.

‘Yes Madam,’
said the same someone.

‘Are we
monitoring the Poles?’ asked the President.

‘Yes… err
actually no, didn’t think there was any point,’ said another
technician.

‘Well check
them, dammit!’ said the Vice President.

The various
large wall monitors displayed the Artic area of the earth and then
zoomed in towards the North pole.

‘I’ll change to
infrared, that’ll show up any life forms,’ said the same
technician.

Apart from
small settlements scattered about and several polar bears, nothing
was unusual.

‘Moving to the
Antarctic,’ said the technician.

The map moved
rapidly downwards to the South Pole.

‘Switching to
infrared,’ said the technician.

The map
continued to zoom in.

‘What the hell,
is that?’ said one of the Generals, referring to a bright red spot
a short distance to the Pole.

The map
continued to zoom in. To Madeline it was exactly like
Google-Earth
but this was live and all sensitive areas were
accessible.

‘Good god!
Looks like a small village.’ said the Defence Secretary.

‘Check there’s
no authorised activity in that area,’ said the vice President.

‘Nothing at all
Sir,’ a reply came back.

The map had now
fully zoomed in and the detail, considering the feed was obviously
from a spy satellite, was remarkable. The settlement appeared to
consist of substantial living quarters, four generator buildings,
two large fuel tanks and around the perimeter of the camp, an array
of forty or so white horn shaped devices pointing outwards.

‘My God!’ said
the President. ‘How the hell have they assembled all that out
there?’

‘And under your
noses,’ said Madeline.

‘Problem easily
solved… nuke it!’ said the Defence Secretary.

‘Not advised
Sir,’ said an officer on a nearby booth. ‘The effects of the
nuclear device melting the icecap will be devastating – a
substantial rise in the world’s sea level not to mention the
tsunami that would follow.’

‘Send missiles
then!’ said the Defence Secretary.

‘Have we got
anyone in that area?’ asked the President.

‘…Maryland,
she’s Ohio class, off the coast of Tasmania Sir,’ said another
officer.

‘Ohio class?’
asked Madeline.

‘A Ballistic
missile submarine,’ said the same officer. ‘It’s carrying four
MRBM’s, just about in range Sir.’

‘M-R-B-M?’
asked Madeline.

‘Do we
have
to give a running commentary!’ complained the Defence
Secretary.

‘Medium range
ballistic missile,’ said the President. ‘No time to waste, contact
Maryland – tell them to fire all they’ve got.’

It would take
nearly fifteen minutes, almost the maximum range of the missiles,
before they reached their target. The screen tracked their movement
across the globe – they seemed to take forever even though they
were travelling at speeds up to 10,000 MPH. The Officers closely
monitored the settlement. No life signs were detected, not to say
that the place wasn’t inhabited, they would hardly be stepping
outside for a fag at temperatures of minus 60C. It certainly was
incredible how the settlement had been built under the extremely
inhospitable conditions. Computers analysed the horn shaped
devices, the conclusion was that they were indeed ultrasound
emitters – gigantic, enormously powerful tweeters. The same
computers then calculated the power required to project an
ultrasound wave over a distance of ten thousand miles, all around
the earth – it was a lot – enough to power a small town. This was
the reason for having four separate generator buildings. It was an
amazing achievement, almost a shame it had to be destroyed.

‘They’re
beginning the decent Sir,’ said an Officer.

Suddenly,
several bright flashes were seen in the area of the settlement.

‘What the hell
are they?’ said the Vice President.

‘GBI’s Sir,’
said an Officer.

‘Ground based
interceptors,’ explained the President before Madeline asked the
question.

They all
watched as the GBI’s and the MRBM’s rapidly moved towards each
other and collided with four huge explosions lighting up the whole
electronic wall map.

‘Any more subs
in the area?’ asked the President.

‘No Sir,
nearest is Kentucky just off Peru. We can always send ICBM’s,’ said
an Officer.

‘Intercontinental ballistic missiles,’ said the President before
Madeline asked.

‘How come they
were so damn well prepared? It’s as though they knew they were on
there way.’ said the Defence Secretary.