Offworld (46 page)

Parks took the hint and started walking away, but Rowley
hesitated.

"Why would you let us go?" asked Rowley, glancing again at the
jeep.

"Because we will need your expertise again," said Griffin. "The
machine will be used to bring everyone back when we're done with
our work. How could we do that without you?"

Rowley, apparently satisfied, nodded and turned away.

When both men were walking away, Griffin pulled out his pistol
and shot them both.

Chris watched in horror as their bodies crashed to the ground.
Trisha placed her hands over Mae's eyes, pulling the girl close, though
Mae probably had no idea why.

Griffin stepped up to the bodies and spit on them. "On second
thought ... we'll figure it out."

The personnel carrier entered the outer gates of Roston's main
base, which had been erected in the parking lot at Rice Stadium.
From there, Chris and the others were taken to the big tent near the
stadium's entrance and ushered just inside, where they waited side
by side.

Chris took a long look around the jam-packed tent. There were
computer terminals and radio stations scattered about, lots of vertical maps hanging with notes and circles drawn on them, and guns
of all kinds stacked in between everything else. Tables filled the
empty spaces, with stacks of paperwork and more maps covering
every inch.

At the heart of it all was a modest desk, behind which sat the
only man here who was not wearing a ski mask. The man looked up
just as a group of seven soldiers walked between the desk and Chris'
people. The soldiers paused for a moment, and Chris felt an unspoken
threat from their body language, before they continued on.

"You probably don't recognize those men, Captain Burke, but they
certainly recognize you," said the man behind the desk after they'd
passed by. "They're the ones you overpowered at the fairgrounds and
left tied up in the Wal-Mart ladies' room."

Chris turned for another look, and his eyes slid down to their
wrists, which still had red, raw lines around them from the zip-ties
that had cut into their flesh just a couple of days prior. He felt a rush
of satisfaction at the sight.

Roston rose from his desk and walked around it. He looked upon
Chris and his friends not entirely unkindly, but radiated authority with his every gesture. Chris approximated Roston's age to be around fiftyfive, and the colonel was in excellent physical condition. His crew cut
was perfectly trimmed, his shoes were buffed, and his movements
full of energy.

But he had tired eyes.

"It seems you were correct," said Roston, approaching Burke.
"Our next meeting is face-to-face."

Chris eyed him warily. "So it is."

A radio attached to Roston's hip chirped. "Yes?" he said, putting
it before his mouth.

Roston had the volume turned down so low on the device that
Chris couldn't make out what was being said.

All right, seal that area off and we'll deal with it later," he said
in reply. He replaced the radio on his belt and looked at Chris. "I
really wish you'd taken my advice and left town," he said, devoid of
warmth. "But since you didn't, and because you somehow overcame
every obstacle I've placed in your path ... I decided to let you live.
In exchange for that, I want the chance to explain why I'm doing
this."

Chris took a step toward Roston, and three guards lifted their
rifles. Roston waved at them and they eased just a fraction.

"Why is it important to you that I understand your reasons?"
Chris asked.

"Because I think you'll find we're very much alike," replied Roston. "I respect you a great deal for your achievements on behalf of
mankind, as well as your efforts during the war. And I would like
the chance to gain your respect in return. History is written by the
survivors, you know. You and your people have proven yourselves to
be survivors. So I want to ensure that history records the truth about
what I've done. And frankly, I could use your help."

Chris frowned for a moment, considering this. He didn't get the
sense that Roston was putting him on, but he wasn't inclined in the
slightest to give this man any respect, no matter what he said. Still, each moment the man talked was another that they lived. Maybe he
or Owen or Trisha could figure a way out of this mess....

"We don't seem to have any options, Colonel. So go ahead,
explain yourself."

"I need you to understand, Captain ... I'm not a monster, or a
villain, or a tyrant. I'm a soldier. Just like you."

Roston crossed his arms and leaned back against the desk, and
Chris almost felt like he was about to exchange war stories with an old
buddy. And it was true; Roston didn't strike him as an evil mastermind.
There was something so disarmingly authoritative and intelligent about
this man that Chris couldn't help but listen to his words.

"You know what it's like to ride fire in battle," said Roston. "You've
watched good men fall around you for causes they don't believe in.
You know, Captain, as I do, that many of the things we're ordered to
do are done solely to fulfill the self-satisfying agendas or stroke the
egos of men who've never risked blood on a battlefield. Such men
don't deserve such power just because they've been given the right
title. It isn't the men who declare war who have to wage it. Only those
of us who live in the field truly understand the realities of power."

Chris crossed his own arms and listened.

"You don't disagree, do you?" asked Roston in a voice that suggested he already knew the answer.

"No, I don't," replied Chris. "But I still think anyone who's done
what you've done has to be a lunatic."

Roston's eyes flared, just for a second, and he took a half step
toward Chris before composing himself.

"Toward the end of the war," he continued, "I was handed a mission of real importance. Intelligence had received verified reports of
an enemy conclave entrenched in a small rural village. Somewhere
in this town, well hidden and fortified, this enemy cell was hiding
something that had been stolen from a U.S. base. Something that
no one was supposed to know existed. A highly advanced nuclear
cluster bomb."

A cluster nuke?" Chris said. He was stunned. The technology
wasn't new, but it had been forbidden years ago. Treaties had been
signed between more than one hundred nations, and the U.S. was
one of them. Chris had never heard anything about the existence of
a cluster nuke during the war....

"Yes. It was real, but it had been built in violation of international
law. So we were given very strict instructions. There was no way that
that bomb could be allowed to leave the village that hid it. It was too
powerful, too volatile, and its strategic importance to the U.S. military
was deemed a greater priority than any living person; it had to be
either retrieved, or safely dismantled. But first it had to be found.

"My orders were absolute. The village was to be razed. No stone
unturned, no structure left standing, no life spared. The reasoning
was, if they lived in that village, then they could know of the bomb's
existence, and Washington would not allow knowledge of the cluster
nuke to leak out. It was hidden somewhere in that village, and we
were to find it no matter the cost. I was given command over a unit
of more than five hundred men and women, wielding hundreds of
thousands of dollars' worth of military hardware. Loyal soldiers who
would do anything that was asked of them. The kind of people needed
for a search-and-destroy mission of this magnitude.

"We followed orders. We did what they told us to do. In less than
four hours' time, one very cold, snowy night in February, we wiped
that village from the map. We killed every person who called it home.
Two days later, when we had still found no sign of the bomb, the
call came in from D.C.

"The cluster nuke had been moved by the enemy, the night before
we deployed. My unit and I had slaughtered more than/Our thousand
innocents ... for absolutely nothing."

Chris swallowed, suddenly finding it very hard to stand under
Roston's resolute gaze.

"The bomb was found a few days later at an enemy base," Roston went on. "It was dismantled and all evidence of it buried or destroyed. The cluster nuke was never detonated. But it destroyed
thousands of lives.

"My men and I-we haven't slept peacefully in the seven years
since that night. I close my eyes, and I see the families huddled together
in their homes, trying to stay warm.... I see the parents pleading,
bargaining for the lives of their children.... I hear the screaming
and the weeping.... I feel the cold of the snow that pelted my face,
the heat pouring from the fires we used to burn every building to the
ground.... I smell the smoke, I taste the tears, I feel the blackness
that swallowed my soul the night I extinguished so many lives."

He closed the gap between himself and Chris, until he was only
inches from Chris' face.

"This is not insanity, Burke! I've charted this course of action,
and I'm committed to it to the end!"

Calmer, Roston stepped back and let out a steady breath. "The
world was a dire place, and determined to annihilate itself. I'm
creating a world where senseless atrocities ordered by men with
unchecked power no longer will occur. Where there will be no men
with unchecked power. I'm taking that power from them, and-"

`And keeping it for yourself?" Chris asked, his arms still
crossed.

"If that's what it takes. But this isn't about power."

"Then what is it about? What do you gain from removing every
man, woman, and child from the face of the Earth-and then later
bringing them back?"

"Peace," Roston replied. "With no one to stand in our way, we
can do what no one has ever been able to do before: centralize all
sources of power from those who would surely abuse them. Military
arsenals. Weapons of mass destruction. Money and resources!

"Our goal couldn't be simplier, despite the extraordinary lengths
we've taken to accomplish it. It's the ultimate path to success: remove
all roadblocks. At one point after we took the people away, the animals became a nuisance, roaming freely through the cities, buildings and roads. With the people gone, the animals began to take over
everything. We had no choice but to remove them, too. But it isn't
permanent.

"We will succeed in creating a better world, not because we have
superior numbers or superior tactics, but because no one exists to
oppose us. We stayed here, so we win by default."

Chris watched Roston. For all his extreme ideas, Roston's plan
did have a certain logic to it.

"Why is it taking you so long?" Chris asked. "Couldn't you just
instruct the machine to bring all of those things to you, like the treasuries and the weapons and whatnot?"

"The machine has a peculiar quirk," Roston replied. "It can only
work with known variables. Our first priority has been acquiring the
firing keys to every nuclear weapon on the planet, but I can't just
force the machine to do this, because frankly we don't know where
all the nukes are. It's not like the people, which the machine could
easily identify based on the human chemical makeup. If we told the
machine to deliver to us every plutonium-based mechanism in the
world, we'd get a lot more than just bombs. We'd get nuclear-powered
submarines, power plants, and the like. We've had to search for them
by hand, and it's taking some time. Fortunately, we have all the time
in the world."

"So when you're done taking control of all the weapons and
governments and everything, you'll bring everybody back? Just like
that?"

Roston let out an excited breath, nodding. Chris believed the
colonel might think that he was beginning to get comfortable with
the idea.

"Everyone will be returned safely, no harm done. In fact, in a
very real way, we took them out of the picture to protect them while
we do what has to be done. We're not threatening them; we're not
holding them for ransom. Everything we're doing is for their benefit. We're creating a peace that will last for generations. You should be
helping us, Captain. Or at the very least, thanking us."

Chris studied Roston. `And what happens when the people of the
world decide they don't want your utopia? What will you do when
global society breaks down, and instead of peace, what you've created is mass chaos?"

Roston stood to his full height, no longer excited. "That won't
happen," he said. "We'll see to it."

From behind him, a white cloth was pressed into Chris' face,
and a sweet, cloying smell filled his nose for just a moment before
he passed out.