Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 21 Part 1 The forces of the State

"Gentlemen," said the general, "we have a problem. It is up to us in this room to solve it."

"Whoa," said Jacob, " it is customary to introduce the attendees to a meeting. We know who we three are, who are you."

"It is only necessary for you to be advised that we have a senior representative of all five services to the United States of America."

"So what are they?"

I interrupted," Army, Navy, Air force, the CIA and the Department of Inland Security. What I want to know is, who he is." I pointed to the man who held himself apart.

Slowly, in a mannered fashion he raised his head and examined me.

A chill of fear gripped my bowels. I knew who he was, or who Chris' and Lewis' protagonist would be in a hundred years time. This was another character with an identical genetic construction to someone in the future. McDeviot. The savant hypnotist, and financial genius who would conduct the worldwide scam to raise the finance for the expedition that would destroy the comet Rosetta.  

Dressed conventionally in a grey suit with a collarless soft shirt, his caucasian face was tanned, bony, with intimidating hooded grey eyes, and tightly controlled thick grey hair. His lips were straight and thin. 

It was a face to play poker with. He rarely made full eye contact. The clues to his feelings were not in his face. I sensed from his body language that he felt secure in being able to exact from the world anything that he wished. 

His lips smiled, his eyes didn't. 

"Well Charles, you know who I am. Need I say more?" 

The chill in my soul tightened,"N-no." 

"Good. Sorry General. It seems that we might have met at some time. We need not interrupt you further." 

"Well, I don't know," declared Jacob, "So somebody please tell me." 

The general said, "This is Mr Devlin, he advises us on - um - the financial implications of this operation. Berisford is correct about the functionalities of the remaining members of my team." 

I'll bet he does I thought. This man smells out money in the darkest recesses of Government. 

"As I said, we have a problem - all of us. You, Neumann and your staff have made a prediction that in a hundred years or so the comet named Rosetta will collide with Earth, and will likely modify it to make it untenable for humanity to survive. Perhaps you would like to address that first, Collins." 

"Our predictions of population behaviour indicate a complete disruption of civilized behaviour as soon as this information becomes widely known. Logical calm people like yourselves may seek for governments to spend sums on a way of circumventing the ultimate disaster by engineering, say, an intercept bomb or a missile programme to nudge the comet into a less dangerous orbit. But while the danger hangs over us there will be less rational projects proposed who will have their proponents, and a worldwide co-operative project will thus not succeed. The effort will be too fragmented.  

Therefore we opine that the Rosetta information should remain secret, and known only to a very few That's the core of the argument General." 

"So,"resumed the General, "How should this secrecy be achieved? Swartz, please give us your thoughts."  

"The essence of the plan is that the observatory's work be discredited as mistaken. After all it is the second scenario that has been put forward by Neumann's team, and a key member has met with a fatal accident. We can with the CIA's expertise modify computer records and related material so that the trail is obliterated in its entirety. We have one issue left after that, and it's Berisford's operation. We have I think secured what is in his story, but there is a manuscript and related artefacts that were in London with Alicia England, but were no longer there when the police found Miss England's body. We do not know where they are - or who caused Miss England's death which seems to be coincidental. The only crimes committed were the theft and the killing of the cat."  

That was interesting, I thought. The CIA didn't have the models or the picture or Chris' manuscript, I know I didn't, so who took them? Then it dawned upon me. The rat Jenkins. But having killed the cat and witnessed or provoked Alicia's death he'd be too scared to make use of them. Well, if I can get out of the present trap, that might be worth following up.  

"Surely," I said, "you can discredit it as a mere story. A piece of fiction, maybe well researched, but still a tale told to entertain."  

"General, if I may answer here," said Devlin in his penetrating voice, with so precisely enunciated consonants. 

"Berisford, the essence of a properly conducted and marketed scheme that seeks subscriptions is that it should be novel and completely dissociated from any hint of a scam. Your manuscript, firstly creates the essentials of a viable scheme, and then exposes it as a scam. Thus it must remain as secret as the scientific information of the disaster because the story precludes what the CIA, the Department of Inland Security, NASA, and my team have concluded is a way out, at least until another scheme is devised. Now do you see." 

"Well," said Jacob,"that's what you want, but if we say no what's the alternative?" 

"Admiral, perhaps you can help us out here." 

"It's not difficult. We drop a Trident VII missile on the mountain here, or essentially the air force carry out a similar mission with an air launched cruise missile. Both nuclear of course." 

Jacob, Will, and I exchanged glances. We all registered incredulity on our paled frightened faces. 

"But, " cried Jacob, "that's obscene. Besides American crews wouldn't launch a nuclear attack on Hawaii." 

The air force General answered," I agree Neumann, but we have been assured by NASA and our own technicians that the pre-launch instructions can be changed from a satellite to aim for another target within the range of the missile. It's only a matter of planning." 

"But what about afterwards. The country would go berserk." 

The army general answered with chilling disdain, "We'll call it an accident. After all we had a nice example of a failure in Kasakstan recently. Something like that."