Fires of Midnight (30 page)
Authors: Jon Land
“We can divvy out the blame later. For now shut everything down. That includes Mount Jackson. Suspend the operation. Recall the team.”
“I’m afraid it’s already too late for that.”
F
or he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow. For he’s a jolly good fellow, that nobody can deny … .”
The song continued to ring in Turk Wills’s ears as the cake was brought out. Took two people to carry it. Hell of a lot bigger than the one they’d had for his retirement as captain in the Florida Highway Patrol twelve years back at the age of forty-two. Since he was the first black to reach that rank in the patrol’s proud history, it hadn’t been easy to force him out. But Wills had gone against his superiors’ express orders by continuing an investigation into the misuse of federally owned lands. When the evidence came up short of indictments, someone had to take the fall and it was he.
or he’s a jolly good fellow, for he’s a jolly good fellow. For he’s a jolly good fellow, that nobody can deny … .”
The song continued to ring in Turk Wills’s ears as the cake was brought out. Took two people to carry it. Hell of a lot bigger than the one they’d had for his retirement as captain in the Florida Highway Patrol twelve years back at the age of forty-two. Since he was the first black to reach that rank in the patrol’s proud history, it hadn’t been easy to force him out. But Wills had gone against his superiors’ express orders by continuing an investigation into the misuse of federally owned lands. When the evidence came up short of indictments, someone had to take the fall and it was he.
One thing was for certain: this cake had to feed lots more people than the one they’d given him for his last retirement. As head of security for Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Wills had upwards of five hundred people working under him.
“Speech, speech, speech!” the vast assembled crowd squeezed into the command center was chanting. Turk Wills stepped toward the cake to blow out the candles.
Funny thing about retiring when you work in Florida; where do you retire to? Wills wanted to spend more time with his family like everyone else, but the grandkids had all cried when he told them he was leaving Disney World. No more special treatment, they thought, no more
backstage passes and tunnel tours. They were too young for Wills to explain it to them. How credit card theft and counterfeiting were by far the biggest problems facing Disney World today and how others were better suited to handle those kinds of problems. He had a street cop’s mentality, and snaring criminals with wads of plastic jammed into their Jockey shorts just didn’t cut it anymore. Fifty-four years old—it was time, anyway.
backstage passes and tunnel tours. They were too young for Wills to explain it to them. How credit card theft and counterfeiting were by far the biggest problems facing Disney World today and how others were better suited to handle those kinds of problems. He had a street cop’s mentality, and snaring criminals with wads of plastic jammed into their Jockey shorts just didn’t cut it anymore. Fifty-four years old—it was time, anyway.
Turk blew out the candles and caught his smiling reflection in the glass partition. Still firm and well muscled for a man his age, he packed at least a portion of the build that might have made him an all-American offensive lineman if he hadn’t blown out his knee halfway through junior year at Clemson. He worked out as often as he could, proud that from a distance he looked ten, maybe fifteen years younger. Lately he’d even been thinking of letting his hair grow back, a rather extreme change since he’d been shaving himself bald every day since high school.
Turk had enjoyed a good run down here at Disney, but he was glad to be getting out now, before Park Number Four officially opened. That was what everyone had been calling it for the three years of construction on the Osceola side of Disney’s forty-three-square-mile property. Even the workmen had no idea what they were building and every blueprint Turk had seen told him less than the one before. He had learned the truth only four months before in a high-level meeting that at Disney meant representatives from sidewalk sweepers on up. Park Number Four’s theme was safari and would feature the world’s largest and best-stocked zoo. An enclosed tram would wind through and over versions of the plains of Africa, the jungles of the Congo and Amazon, and other regions brilliantly reproduced to create natural habitats for Disney’s ambitious stock of animals.
Patrons would be able to watch these animals sans bars, walls or fences from a tram car. There would also be a dozen petting zoos, chimps conversing with paying customers in sign language through interpreters, along with the world’s largest aviary and reptile collection. Safariland areawise would be Disney’s largest theme park, as big as Epcot and MGM combined. It had been scheduled to open in the summer and Disney attractions always open as scheduled.
But this would prove the exception.
Never before had live animals entered into the Disney mix, and their care, upkeep and the unexpected logistical problems all partially shared responsibility for an indefinite postponement of the opening. Partially because the final and arguably most stunning attraction in Safariland had turned into a nightmare:
Dinoworld.
It was meant to be a real Jurassic Park populated by robotic dinosaurs every bit as real as the ones from the hit movie. The problem was software. The programs written to control the dinosaurs’ movements were the most complicated in history and initially required a pair of supercomputers
to handle. Even then the programs kept developing bugs, and mechanical breakdowns came with every change in the wind.
to handle. Even then the programs kept developing bugs, and mechanical breakdowns came with every change in the wind.
Since Safariland and Dinoworld weren’t going to be ready as planned, a compromise had been reached so that summertime patrons who’d made their plans long in advance wouldn’t be disappointed. The working robots of two favorites, Tyrannosaurus rex and Stegosaurus, would be on display and performing starting on the Fourth of July. Wills asked the Disney brass if they knew what that would do to crowd control. They told him that was his problem, the last he would face before officially stepping down. So, added to the hundred thousand people, parades and fireworks on the Fourth of July, Wills was going to have to deal with dinosaurs being proudly unveiled.
He got to the last candle on his cake and stopped. The single ornament in the center of the icing was a T. rex. Wills scowled. Everyone else laughed.
“Let’s see,” he started dramatically, “today being July third makes tomorrow my last day on the job. Then I’ll leave you assholes to all the new problems caused by—”
“Turk,” his assistant called from the doorway leading to the inner office.
“You’re interrupting my speech, son.”
“Sorry. Phone call.”
“Headquarters?”
“No, sir,” the young man replied, a dumbfounded expression on his face. “Washington.”
“Y
ou?” Haslanger raised incredulously.
ou?” Haslanger raised incredulously.
Fuchs’s neck stiffened. “Can you think of anyone else capable of supervising this mission? Certainly not you, Doctor.”
“No, not me.”
“Of course not. To oversee recovery you would have to leave the confines of Group Six. Not very likely, is it?”
Haslanger said nothing.
“You would be well advised to keep that in mind while I am gone. Your performance as of late has been most disappointing, I’m afraid. The failures with GL-12 and then your blindness ray, followed by your bungling of CLAIR.”
“
My
bungling?”
My
bungling?”
“The boy was your creation. As such you should have been able to control him. Instead, by your own admission, he was calling every shot, captured only because he wanted to be, because we possessed the technology he required. It would be a terrible thing if he escaped Disney World with the only remaining portion of CLAIR, a terrible thing for both of us.”
“A terrible thing for the entire world, you mean.”
“Then you’d better hope my efforts are successful. And another thing, Doctor. If I am removed from Group Six, consider your own fate. You may find my successor to be far less sympathetic to your idiosyncrasies than I have been. But we should not stray from the matter at hand. Luckily, General Starr has supplied me with the manpower I need to accomplish what I must.” A slight smile stretched Fuchs’s lips. “I must tell you, I’m looking forward to the opportunity.”
Haslanger’s eyes urged caution, tentatively. “What of McCracken? He’ll be there, of course, certain to know everything we know.”
“No argument there, and for just that reason I would ask that you summon Krill. I think it best he accompany me south.”
“D
isney World?” the man on the other end of the line asked incredulously through the staticky connection.
isney World?” the man on the other end of the line asked incredulously through the staticky connection.
“General Starr has assembled an army to meet Fuchs there,” Thurman told him. Ordinarily use of a standard phone line in such a situation would have been avoided at all costs. In this case, though, he had no choice.
“But not you.”
“I’ve decided to take some time off.”
“Why call me?”
“I thought you should know. McCracken’s going to need help.”
“You think there’s anything
I
can do?”
I
can do?”
“I knew you’d want to try.”
“You available?”
“Like I said, I’m taking some time off.”
“Doesn’t leave me with much.”
“More than McCracken’s got now.”
H
aslanger faced Krill from across the desk in his darkened office.
aslanger faced Krill from across the desk in his darkened office.
“The colonel wishes you to join him in Disney World. He knows he will need you to finish this affair to everyone’s satisfaction.”
The dim light caught Krill’s catlike eyes, the room’s shadows further elongating his already out-of-proportion features.
“I need you there, too, for both our sakes,” Haslanger continued. “The colonel has made it his business to learn too much about me. I would venture he is the only man who knows everything, and when this ends badly—and, believe me, it will—I am the most likely candidate to become the scapegoat. I know that. It is the way the colonel works.” Haslanger stood up. “But he can be beaten. We can both be free of him, you and I, providing he does not return. Providing all traces of Joshua Wolfe and his fiendish concoction are wiped from existence.”
“He frightens you,” Krill said, in words that floated in the darkness like wisps of wind.
“The colonel? Hardly.”
“I was speaking of the boy. He frightens you because you know he is smarter than you are. You want me to kill him because he has become more than just a threat to Group Six. The creator, afraid of being destroyed by what he has fashioned.”
Haslanger made himself stare across the desk through the darkness until the disfigured face and skull were plain to him. “Yes, I am afraid, and you should be, too. If Fuchs leaves Disney World with the boy’s remaining portion of CLAIR, I will have outlived my usefulness to him, and that means so will you. Don’t you see? They all must die, everyone in that park. Fuchs will be blamed for it, while we will be spared, as will Group Six. Another Pentagon administrator will take over who lacks the colonel’s intimate knowledge of the two of us. Tell me you see this just as I do. Tell me you share my vision.”
Krill’s massive head nodded.
“Very good,” Haslanger said, calmer. He stood up and approached the locked cabinet on the side wall that contained a gallery of his creations. “Now let me tell you how it must be done … .”
“F
ound out why you’ve been having trouble reaching that friend of yours,” a grim-faced Sal Belamo told Susan Lyle upon returning to the car that would handle the first leg of their journey to Florida. Belamo had already arranged for a private plane to cover the bulk of it, and if all went according to plan, they’d be getting into Orlando early Sunday morning.
ound out why you’ve been having trouble reaching that friend of yours,” a grim-faced Sal Belamo told Susan Lyle upon returning to the car that would handle the first leg of their journey to Florida. Belamo had already arranged for a private plane to cover the bulk of it, and if all went according to plan, they’d be getting into Orlando early Sunday morning.
“His name is Killebrew.”
“Was, Doc. He’s dead. Got himself toasted in a blast that took out the CDC’s entire containment facility inside Mount Jackson.”
Susan felt an emptiness in the pit of her stomach. “My God …”
“It gets worse. From what I just heard they’re trying to pin the blame for the whole mess on you. Say you went crazy. Calling you a renegade.”
“Welcome to the club,” McCracken said from next to her in the backseat.
“They can’t get away with that.”
“Yes, they can,” Blaine told her. “You made yourself a convenient target for everyone to cover their tracks. Got yourself linked up with the wrong people inside Group Six. Helped lay waste to that facility and then headed west.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tell her, Sal,” Blaine said with his eyes locked on Susan.
“Story is you were just an accomplice. Boss, me and the Indian are getting most of the blame.”
“Meaning there’s nowhere any of us can turn to for help in Disney World.”
Blaine nodded. “Something I’ve grown used to.”
“I haven’t. Look, this is still about finding Josh and his remaining sample of CLAIR, and Killebrew was running some crucial experiments on the organism. He would have tried to reach me any way possible.”
“Your voice mail’s probably been listened to by anyone who can handle a touchtone by now, Doc,” cautioned Sal Belamo.
Susan looked toward Blaine. “I set up that private electronic mailbox, just like you suggested, and gave Killebrew the number.”
“I don’t recall suggesting giving it to anyone but me.”
“You’re not the only one who can think for himself.”
Sal Belamo pulled out his cellular phone. “What the hell? Let’s give it a whack.”
A
rkansas authorities had no choice but to let the fire that raged through the CDC’s Mount Jackson containment facility following the series of explosions burn itself out. It was twelve hours before rescue crews in helicopters could even venture close. Early reconnaissance of the site left little hope there’d be anyone to rescue, but until a closer inspection was made no one could say for sure. The containment facility maintained a number of samples from past investigations in ultrasecure isolation cases which might be salvaged, if nothing else.
rkansas authorities had no choice but to let the fire that raged through the CDC’s Mount Jackson containment facility following the series of explosions burn itself out. It was twelve hours before rescue crews in helicopters could even venture close. Early reconnaissance of the site left little hope there’d be anyone to rescue, but until a closer inspection was made no one could say for sure. The containment facility maintained a number of samples from past investigations in ultrasecure isolation cases which might be salvaged, if nothing else.
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