Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon (17 page)

     They had taken control of every
observatory in the country to prevent any scientists not under government control from verifying the existence of Saris 7. They continued to maintain that their own scientists were in these observatories trying to find Saris 7, and so far they were unable to do so.

     At the same time, their trusted scientists were bought off- sworn to privacy in exchange for seats in the bunker for them
selves and their families. And threatened with all kinds of ugly things if they didn’t cooperate.

     The other great governments of the world, of course, were on the same sheet of music.
China was the first to discover Saris 7, almost five years earlier. They waited a year to share the information, because they weren’t sure what to do with it.

     Now all of the key players- the Russians, the Brits, the Israelis, the Chinese, the Germans and the South Koreans, were on board. And they all agreed that their citizens were better off not knowing.
    

     President Sanders believed they had a tight lid on Saris 7, until he got blindsided. Not from any of his trusted staff, or the government scienti
sts who were supposed to prove Saris 7 was a hoax.

     No, he was blindsided by a handful of people he’d never heard of before, whose collective voice was more convincing than his would ever be.

-36
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     Steve Weed was a mousy kind of guy. Not unlike the Milton character in the movie
Office Space
, Steve fit everybody’s definition of a computer geek. Right down to the pocket protector he wore in the left pocket of his shirt.

     Steve always
wore short-sleeved dress shirts with two pockets. One side for his pens, the other for his cigarettes and lighter. Button up shirts with two breast pockets were hard to find, so he always bought them at the same men’s store. And he always bought in quantities, in case the store suddenly stopped carrying them.

     Steve lived by himself, and had never really had a girlfriend. Most of his friends were other computer geeks, and his sport of choice was
Field of Honor
, which he played for hours at a time with his gamer buddies.

     Steve was many things. A gamer, a computer geek. Some would say a nerd.

     One thing he wasn’t was a highly visible activist.

     So when Steve walked in to CNN
world headquarters in Atlanta, the security desk automatically assumed he was there to fix somebody’s computer.

     And when Steve asked to speak to someone in the Headline News department, no one really took him seriously. That is, until he produced his EDI employee badge.

     That got their attention.

     Steve was suddenly fawned over.
Interns brought him coffee and donuts and lunch was ordered from a local deli.

     The m
akeup people did what they could, but Steve wasn’t a handsome guy. They covered up some blemishes, trimmed his hair and sprayed it into place, and suggested he remove his glasses. They said it was to cut down the glare from the studio lights. Actually it was because they greatly enhanced his nerdiness.

     And so it was
that the world finally got the confirmation it needed.

     At 2:55 p.m. that Tuesday afternoon, CNN blasted a “Breaking News” banner across the top of the screen for all of its worldwide affiliates.

     And Steve’s face was instantly broadcast around the world. To the 220 million people who were tuning in at the time, he confirmed everything that Hannah and Sarah had said. And he went one step further. He said it was common knowledge at EDI that the government knew Saris 7 wasn’t a hoax. And that they were taking steps to protect themselves, but had no plans to protect the citizens.

     As soon as the news broke, Velma Greer, another EDI analyst, walked into NBC studios in
New York. She told the reception desk who she was, and that she was ready to go on the air to confirm Steve’s story, and those of Hannah and Sarah.

     Pete D’Ambrosio was already sitting in the news director’s office at the ABC Nightly
News office.

     It was a one-two-three punch. They were tired of waiting for the government to quit playing games. And by coming out together, they planned to force the government’s hand.

-37
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     Still, the White House claimed it was a hoax. Every day or two, the President’s Press Secretary would hold a press conference, claiming that since these five people worked together, it wasn’t inconceivable that they were working in concert to play what amounted to a very elaborate practical joke.

     The President himself, on the rare occasions when the press could get him to say anything, would
tell the American people how sad it was that these people so desperate for attention would pull such a cruel trick.

     The citizenry of the
United States, and the rest of the world, didn’t know what to think. They were hoping against hope that it wasn’t true, but were finding religion just in case. They were laughing at how ridiculous the whole thing was, while stocking up on food and water. They were saying the government would never deceive them, while digging big holes in their back yards that they could use to hide provisions from their neighbors.

     This went on for about two weeks.

     Then an Englishman named Bernard Holmes walked into the office of
Der Spiegel
in Hamburg, Germany with a story to tell.

    
Mr. Holmes showed credentials to prove that he held a high level position with the British Ministry of Defence. For two years, he said, he’d been helping with secret plans to shelter key members of the Parliament when Saris 7 hit.

     He provided details that only one on the inside would have known. That the government had taken over an abandoned Royal Air Force Base, RAF Bentwaters, and had turned it into an undergr
ound fortress and shelter over a two year period.

     Holmes was outraged, because for all of the time he had worked on the project, he had been promised a place in the shelter for himself and his wife, and their two children.

     But Holmes had stumbled upon a highly classified document that his supervisor had very stupidly left sitting on a desk. It was an access list of those who would be allowed sanctuary within the new shelter. Holmes had picked it up and discovered that his name, and the names of his family, had been wiped off the list.

     So that the royals could add four more of their distant relatives.

     Holmes was outraged, and frightened. It isn’t often a man has the opportunity to stumble across his own death warrant. And that, essentially, was what it represented.

     And the ultimate insult was that they didn’t even have the courtesy
or courage to tell him about it. They were using him, to build their damn shelter, and then they were going to leave him out in the cold.

    
Der Spiegel
published his account the next day, after much hype on German television, and sold more papers in one day than in the whole previous week put together.

     The day after
Der Spiegel
broke the story, it was picked up on every media outlet in the world. It was no longer just an American hoax. Either it was a worldwide prank, or it was real.

     The next
day, two days after Holmes gave his account, an Israeli cabinet member named Shimon Nariv came forward to confirm the existence of Saris 7. He had been in the know from the beginning, he said to reporters. He had helped plan for the continuation of government in Israel. He had witnessed the vicious infighting, when trying to decide who would be blessed with a ticket to survival and who wouldn’t.

     Nariv himself had a place in the shelter. He was a single orphan, and had no family to take with him. But many of his friends had families who would die.

     He had been struggling with his conscience for quite some time. He was appalled that the most powerful governments of the world couldn’t put their heads together and come up with a way to divert Saris 7. Granted, their efforts would most likely fail. More appalling, he said, was that they wouldn’t even try.

     Nariv maintained that he was coming forward because it wasn’t fair that the vast majority of the world would perish, while the elite and powerful were taking steps to protect themselves.

     Then Nariv said “I am no longer one of them. I am one of the people. And if I can not choose to live with honor, then I do not choose to live at all.”

     Nariv then took out a small pistol and, in front of a shocked group of jour
nalists, shot himself in the head.

     Word of Nariv’s disclosure and death made its way back to the White House within minutes, and full panic mode set in.

     Within an hour, the White House announced that President Sanders himself would speak on the topic of Saris 7 in a news conference the following morning.

     And while the White House huddled long into the night, trying to find the right words to say, the rest of the world waited.

-38-

     Hannah sat at her PC inside the mine’s schoolhouse. She’d been up since 3 a.m., unable to sleep because no matter how many times she turned and changed position, she just couldn’t get comfortable.

     She was at one now with the baby inside of her. Every time he moved, she
felt it. She knew exactly where his little feet were, because she could feel them pressing against the inside of her abdomen every time he stretched his little legs. She found herself holding her stomach a lot these days, and smiling for no reason.

     Mark doted on her constantly. Told her how
gorgeous she was, how radiant and glowing. He told her he’d always heard that a woman was most beautiful when she was with child, and now he believed it.

     And she believed him. On her worst days, like today, when she was hard at work and running on three hours’ sleep, it would have been easy to doubt him. To say that he was just using pretty words to make her feel better.

     But she could see the love in his eyes, and she knew he’d never lie to her. In his eyes, she really was most beautiful now that her pregnancy had started to show. Even though she and everyone else thought she was a total mess, Mark still considered her his beauty queen.

     And Mark, and little Markie Junior, were the ones who counted most of all.

     Actually, they called the baby Markie knowing full well that it could just as easily be a girl. But they both wanted a boy first. Mark because he wanted an older son who would protect his siblings in the years ahead. Hannah because she wanted to replicate the man she so loved.

     And even though they had no confirmation from a doctor, and couldn’t get such confirmation now that Hannah was restricted to the mine, they just took it for granted that she was carrying a boy.

     Mark said “Baby, would you think I’m nuts if  I told you that I find you incredibly sexy now that you’re pregnant?”

     “I’ve always thought you were nuts, sailor.”

     Then, she noticed that he wasn’t smiling.

     “You mean you’re serious?”

     “Oh, I’m definitely serious. And you’re definitely hot. Now more than ever.”

     “Maybe we should get you some glasses before we seal the mine. I think your vision is going.”

     Mark kissed her. Gently at first, then with more passion.

     “When you were taking your midwife classes, did they happen to say how long we could… you know, before the baby was born?”

     Hannah was having fun with him now.

     “How long we could what? Play Scrabble, drive bumper cars, what?”

     “I’m serious, baby. I don’t know where he is inside of you, and I don’t want to, you know, put a dent in his head or something.”

     She smiled that smile that won his heart every time.

     “First of all, sailor boy, you shouldn’t flatter yourself. Secondly, I think we can play that particular game of Scrabble almost right up until the baby is born.”

     “Good!” Mark breathed a sigh of relief.

     “Seriously, baby, I’ll let you know if there ever comes a time when we shouldn’t.”

     He kissed her again.

     “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”

     “Only once or twice, sailor, Why don’t you tell me some more?”

     “Oh,” she added. “That whole head-denting thing? We can experiment with that tonight if you want, but you have to let me get this stuff ordered first.”

     Hannah looked over the list of things that Mark asked her to order from Amazon.com.

     “Two hundred kids’ swimming pools? What, a personal jacuzzi for every one of the chickens? What’s up with that?”