Shadow of War, page 3
My role as Mayor, on the other hand, was vastly different. It was administrative in nature. I had to keep the kelp and fish farming going. Had to make sure crews monitored the city modules and keep the many citizens safe and happy. I kept the mining division extracting valuable minerals, the kelp farmers harvesting, and the repair people maintaining all the equipment, especially life support. I visited the schools and read to the children whose families were forging their lives in this underwater world.
The climate chaos on the surface was taking over. Global Warming had shattered shore defences and scorched farmland. Rising water had overwhelmed many island nations. Citizens had abandoned the low-lying ones, like the Maldives. The worst example on the mainland was Bangladesh. Tens of millions of people now had no homes. The humanitarian disaster there was indescribable. And, in the developed nations, even at higher elevations, economies suffered. Climate chaos had disrupted shipping when crane facilities on the shores became inundated.
And the topside nations were looking to us for resources. Fish, kelp, minerals, whatever we could locate and mine profitably. We used kelp to eat and shipped much out for further processing to methane. It grew half a meter a day at our location west of Florida, and was the purpose of Trieste, supposedly.
I glanced at Richard Lancombe, who was with me in my office. He was older, his hair long since white, and he’d lived most of his adult life in the underwater world. Despite his age, he was fit and agile. He swam each day—a five-kilometer route that many Triestrians seemed to enjoy lately—and he hadn’t yet begun to hunch from age. His senses were still sharp. He was my confidante and most senior advisor, and we met daily to stay up to date on TCI and our activities.
“What are you thinking, Mac?” he asked, looking up from his notepad.
My name is Truman McClusky, though most people shortened it to Mac. “Wondering why you want to go to Churchill Sands.”
“It’s a logical choice.”
“Why, again?”
He grinned. “Look, Mac. You’ve just brought New Berlin into our movement.”
“And the six Chinese cities. Don’t forget them.”
“You’ve done better than I thought possible. Oceania now has fourteen cities! All working together to achieve independence.”
That was TCI’s ultimate goal, with me at the helm. My dad had failed, but now I’d taken over. The most recent addition—the German city—had been the result of an elaborate plan involving the commandeering of a GSF sub, an attack on the United States Submarine Fleet’s HQ in the Gulf—Seascape—and its ultimate destruction with an Isomer Bomb. The US had assumed Germany was the culprit, and ongoing diplomatic discussions were threatening to explode into outright war.
Meanwhile, we sat out and watched the argument escalate.
It had worked brilliantly.
There was a tiny viewport in the bulkhead, and outside, in the sunlit warmth of the Gulf waters, my girlfriend Renée was checking the countermeasure stations and torpedo launchers that surrounded the city. I could just see her on her scooter approaching a launcher in the east quadrant—the side a Russian attack was most likely to come from in the coming weeks. I had been on the schedule to go out with her that morning, but had decided to stay in the office and take care of city business instead.
I was beginning to regret it.
“Thanks,” I muttered.
“I’m not joking,” Richard said. “The number of cities—”
“Russia destroyed Blue Downs in the fighting. We destroyed Seascape.”
“Blue Downs has been rebuilt.”
“Thousands died!”
“And Seascape,” he said, ignoring me, “was the USSF base here. They were too close for comfort.”
“I killed many people.” My voice was gravel, but too quiet for him to hear.
“The US is rebuilding Seascape too. It’ll be finished soon.”
I sighed and tried to ignore the thoughts boiling in my head. Blue Downs was the Australian city. Already its population had surged into the tens of thousands. The world needed our resources, and the destruction of a city was not going to stop the topside nations. They needed food, iron, manganese, kelp . . . and whatever else we could provide.
It was why I wanted independence for us. They were practically stealing our produce, when they should be purchasing it and letting us develop our own economies. We were not their slaves.
I glanced outside again at Renée. As if on cue, my comm crackled. “Just finishing up here, Mac. The torpedoes look great. No corrosion. The equipment is fine.”
“Acknowledged,” I responded in a crisp tone. I wished I could have made it softer and more romantic, but business was business, and I wanted to be professional.
There were sometimes crews at the torpedo launchers, watching for potential attacks, but we could also fire remotely from City Control, from the console just outside my office. Renée usually operated it, but part of her duties included maintenance. She loved being outside. I could see her in scuba gear, mounting the scooter, and getting ready to power away to the next launcher.
“So why Churchill Sands?” I asked Richard again, keeping my eye on the scene outside. Kelp swayed in the currents and fish flitted about. Citizens were swimming and the surface light thirty meters above lit the entire scene. Beams of sunlight shimmered through the waves from far above; it sparkled and dazzled in the warm waters.
“The British city could be our next target.”
“Target?”
“The population is ready to turn. They have an exciting Mayor there. I think we might convince her.”
I searched my memory. “Sahar Noor.”
“Yes, she’s galvanizing the population to work for the benefit of their colony, not for the United Kingdom. It is a perfect precursor to what we want.”
“You mean Oceania.”
“Yes, of course.” He frowned at me. “Are you okay, Mac?”
I started a response, then stopped. The truth was, I wasn’t sure. There was just a lot going on. Meg, for one. My sister was still recovering from the recent episode at Seascape, before we’d blown it up.
“What else is there?” I turned and studied his expression. The wrinkles made him seem wise, but the eyes were dark and hard to decipher.
“What do you mean?”
“At Churchill Sands.” I clenched a fist. “Come on, Richard. I know you. There’s more going on there than a Mayor who might be receptive to us. What is it?”
His face was ice for a moment before a smile spread slowly across it. “You’re good.”
“I just know you.”
“Well, a scientist has contacted me. About a new weapon.”
—••—
That got my attention. “What type?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but—”
There was flash of light from the viewport and a moment later a dull thud rumbled past the city. I snapped a look out to Renée—
And saw an expanding fireball where the torpedo launcher had been a moment earlier. A surge of water was moving toward Trieste’s modules, the kelp pressed nearly flat to the sand by the shockwave.
There was no sign of Renée.
I lunged to my feet and put my face to the port. “Renée!” I screamed. My spittle spattered the glass.
There was no response.
—••—
Barely twenty minutes later, I was in the clinic staring at Renée, her body limp on a procedures table. I clutched her hand, desperately hoping for a sign of life. Richard had accompanied me, as well as Meg, and my Chief Security Officer, Cliff Sim. The doctor was working on Renée, staring at the readouts as she placed sensors on Renée’s chest and arm.
The clinic was in the same module as City Control, but just a few decks down. We’d sprinted through the corridors and down the steep ladders to get there in less than a minute. Five minutes following that, a crew had brought Renée in, still in her wetsuit. Her scuba tanks were gone, however, blown apart in the blast. Her full facemask had remained on, luckily, and might have given her a precious minute or two of survival.
I desperately hoped for good luck.
I can’t go through this again, I thought.
“She’s alive,” Doctor Stacy Reynolds said to me. “Still breathing, O2 levels are fine. The mask saved her life.”
My breath blew out in a rush; I hadn’t even known I’d been holding it in. “Why isn’t she awake?”
“Concussed maybe. She’s just unconscious. I’ll give her something . . . just wait a second . . . ”
I turned to my CSO. “Cliff, what the hell happened?”
“No idea, Boss. She’d been checking the torpedo launchers and the countermeasure stations. In fact . . . ” He trailed off and stared at me.
I met his eyes. He was a mountain of a man, all muscle, bald, and tough as titanium. He was former USSF, but now worked for me. He still had a limp from the leg break he’d suffered at Seascape the previous summer, but otherwise he was back to his usual self. “What is it?”
“Weren’t you supposed to be on that detail?”
I nodded. “Don’t say it.”
“Why not?”
Because it’s yet another reason for me to feel guilt, I wanted to say. I settled on, “I can’t stomach losing someone else, Cliff.”
“I hear you.” He gestured at her. “But she’s alive. She was far enough away when it detonated.”
“So it was a torpedo?”
“I have a crew headed there now. They’ll report back when they know.”
“That’s the likely reason, isn’t it?” Richard said. “Torpedo detonated during the inspection.”
Meagan cleared her throat. “Makes sense. I don’t think the rest of them blew, though. How many are at each station? Ten? Twelve? That couldn’t have been more than one that went.”
I studied her. She was blonde with blue eyes and freckles. Men generally found her irresistible, but our family past kept her from enjoying it too much. The anger from our dad’s assassination in 2099 had consumed her to the point of committing murder. Since then, however, she had recovered physically, though there were still scars on her legs and a weight to her presence. She wasn’t the jovial, happy self I’d known as a teen. But things had improved dramatically since she’d killed Admiral Benning and we’d rescued her from Seascape.
I turned back to Renée. She was breathing normally, and the color was returning to her face. Her dark hair was short, as most Triestrians kept theirs, and I could see her eyes moving under her lids.
“That’s a good sign,” Stacy said.
“Her eyes?”
“Yes. She’s just unconscious, but aware. I’m bringing her out of it now.” She adjusted the IV and the response was instantaneous.
Renée gasped. Her eyes snapped open, then she immediately groaned. “Oh, my head.”
“Pain?” Stacy asked.
“Headache. Like a knife.” It was all she could get out; her eyes were now squinted shut against the light in the ceiling.
Stacy gestured for the light to dim and administered a painkiller via the IV.
Almost immediately, Renée said, “Better. Thanks. Whatever that was, I want more.”
“Morphine,” Stacy said.
“I like it.”
“What happened?” I asked. I gripped her hand tighter, if that was at all possible.
Renée sighed. Then she turned her head and looked at me. Her lips stretched into a lopsided smile. “You’re here.” Her lids were now half-closed as she slurred her words; the drugs had made an immediate impact.
“I am.”
“Thank you.”
“No other place I’d be.”
“I’m happy.”
I didn’t want to say what I was really thinking at that point. “Any sign that a torpedo was about to go?”
“No. They seemed perfect. The crew has maintained them well.”
It was as she’d reported earlier. No corrosion, equipment is fine.
Cliff had moved against a bulkhead and was in a discussion with his team out at the detonation site.
Meg stepped in and grabbed Renée’s other hand. “Glad you’re still around, Frenchie.”
Renée smiled. “Glad I am too. I am not through with you two yet.”
Meg had accepted my relationship with Renée and had practically already adopted her into the family. It had been difficult for all of us, since my previous girlfriend, Katherine Wells, had died in the fighting in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge a year earlier. At one point, Renée had wanted me dead. She had tried to kill me multiple times, but I’d convinced her to join our movement, and now she was living at Trieste and fighting by our side against the world’s superpowers.
“I’m glad you weren’t with me,” she sighed.
“I wish I had been.”
“Why? You think you could have prevented the explosion? You really are crazy.”
“It’s possible.” I shrugged. “I might have protected you.”
“I’m alive. I was far enough away I guess.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She squinted again as she tried to recall the events. Her voice was soft, her words still slurred slightly. “I had just checked the torpedoes. They’re underground in a concrete bunker. There’s an airtight cabin there too, where we sometimes have people to control them manually.”
“No one was there though, right?”
“Yeah. It was on full remote.”
“Did anyone touch the console in City Control?” I asked. I realized I’d have to ask Cliff to check the video surveillance to find out if someone had detonated a weapon from the command center. That chilled me to the bone; it was only a few meters outside my office, where I’d been with Richard. I didn’t want to entertain the possibility that someone could have done this from someplace so near.
“No idea,” she said. “I’d just reported back to you, got on the scooter and was jetting away. The next one is only a hundred meters farther to the east. I had descended a bit; there’s a rock outcropping on that side. I was just behind it when all hell broke loose.”
“That rock likely saved your life. Protected you from the blast.”
“Yes.”
I kissed her forehead, which was still wet with salty water. Her hair was still saturated, but I brushed the water aside and kissed her again.
“I have a headache tonight,” she muttered.
It made me laugh. It was something she never said to me. In fact, she was one of the most sexually aggressive women I’d ever known. “I forgive you. A torpedo explosion is good reason to reject me.”
“But only for tonight.”
“Yes.” I smiled. “Just one night’s reprieve for you. That’s all.”
“I’ll be all over you tomorrow. I promise.”
I brushed her cheek with the back of my hand. “No pressure,” I joked.
“Mac,” Cliff called from the edge of the clinic. He was holding his PCD and staring at me.
I turned back to Renée. “One minute. I’ll be back in a sec.”
She closed her eyes. “Take your time.”
I marched over to Cliff and let Meg take my place at the bedside. Cliff’s eyes were darker, if that was at all possible.
“What is it? The report?”
“My team is there, and it’s not good.”
“The torpedoes are all gone?”
“Worse than that.”
I grunted and stared at him, processing. “Say again?” I was stalling, trying to decipher what he meant.
“The torpedoes are still there. Twisted, damaged, ruined, yes. But my people accounted for all of them. None of them went up in the explosion.”
I stopped and considered that. “So they didn’t blow?”
“None of them did. Right.”
I turned my back to Renée so she couldn’t see the rage on my face. “So it was meant for me.”
“That’s right.” His face was hard; the lines in his forehead deep.
“So what exploded?”
“That’s the problem, Boss. It was a bomb. Planted somewhere nearby. Whoever did it likely thought all the torpedoes would also explode, maybe to conceal evidence, but—”
“They weren’t armed.”
“Right.”
“So someone remotely detonated it.”
“To kill, yes.” He paused, then said in a soft but deadly hard tone, “To kill you, Boss. It was an assassination attempt, Mac.”
Chapter Two
Two days later, we were on our way to the British undersea colony, Churchill Sands, in the English Channel. The bombing investigation was continuing, but I couldn’t hang around Trieste anymore and sit on my hands waiting. I was driving Cliff crazy, for one. He had a team of people working on the issue, but the extensive damage to the torpedo launcher was hampering his efforts and the forensics took time. He had reviewed the surveillance video of City Control at the moment of detonation; no one had been near the console. And surveillance of the actual site was a challenge, because the perpetrator could have planted the bomb at any point during the previous weeks.
So I gave up waiting, gathered my team, and departed for the North Atlantic.
Richard was the principal operative on this assignment, so he led the mission and had researched all the important players. I still wasn’t a hundred percent aware of who we were to meet or what the mysterious weapon he spoke of was, but he was a senior member of TCI and I trusted his instincts. He’d worked with my dad in the early days of Trieste’s espionage activities, attempting to keep the city on top of the underwater food chain in terms of technology and resource extraction, and had been working for independence for the undersea colonies since before I’d been born. I trusted him implicitly.
Meg was also with us on the mission; Renée was staying back at Trieste to recover.
