The Nemesis Program (Ben Hope) (27 page)

‘I remember seeing it on television,’ Roberta said. ‘It was awful.’

‘Oh yes, and of course our western rulers were quick to express the usual shock and sympathy for the victims. Almost before it happened, the United Nations were right there to help with the aftermath. A few quick backroom deals later and massive aid was being poured into the place, the Chinese were quietly ousted, five minutes afterwards a new democratic government popped up with just a little support from the CIA and other globalist agencies, and now Taráca’s up on its feet again and guess who controls the copper and gas industries?’

Daniel’s eyes flashed with anger as he went on, ‘That’s how it works. The old trick never fails. Knock them flat with one hand, then rush to their rescue with the other. And all the public sees of it are the sensational images of disaster and mayhem that the media keeps pumping into their numb brains, along with the message of what a cooperative and caring world we live in thanks to our benevolent leaders. Of course, every story needs a bad guy. Who better to lay the blame on than Mother Nature again? Meanwhile, behind the wall of lies, the deals are being made, their empire gets expanded, the balance of power shifts bit by bit in their favour and their grip on the whole world gets a little tighter.’

Daniel had been talking so furiously as the vodka loosened him that he now had to pause to gather his breath. ‘Let me get this right,’ Ben said, cutting into the gap. ‘You’d have us believe that this Tesla technology, this earth-splitting resonance gimmick—’

‘A little more than a gimmick, wouldn’t you say?’ Daniel shot back.

‘—or whatever the hell it is, has been weaponised by secret agencies to the extent that they can use it to destabilise whole countries? Destroying a city is a little bit of a step up from shaking a building apart, it seems to me.’

‘That’s exactly what I’d have you believe,’ Daniel replied emphatically. ‘The bastards have had decades to develop it. This is a tool designed to subvert nations. A weapon of limitless political potential, giving whoever can direct its power dominion over the world. They can use it to bend any country to their will.’ He grimaced. ‘Subtler and cheaper than war, twenty times quicker and more effective than old-fashioned espionage and subversion, and it brings their final goal one big step closer.’

‘Their goal?’ Roberta said.

‘To create a global state with themselves right at the top of the pyramid,’ Daniel told her, knocking back the last of his vodka. He leaned across to grab the bottle off the table, sloshed more into his glass and slurped it down. ‘That’s what they’ve wanted from the beginning, and now it’s theirs for the taking. The ultimate might gives them the ultimate right to do whatever they want, and they’ll always get away with it.’ He snorted bitterly. ‘Nobody’s going to complain, are they? Certainly not the good people of Taráca, not now that you can get a Big Mac on every other street corner of their rebuilt San Vicente. Fools. I saw it with my own eyes, when Claudine and I visited the place last year.’

As Ben wanted to doubt it, he couldn’t deny that what Daniel was saying seemed to fit perfectly with everything that had happened to Claudine, to Roberta and himself. In a globalist political game where innocent lives could be expended by the thousand without a second thought as mere collateral damage, the elimination of the odd troublesome scientist or potential whistle-blower was neither here nor there. Those with the power and resources to undermine an entire country could all too easily track an individual target from country to country, follow their every move and marshal the small amount of manpower necessary to wipe them out at will.

It was a compelling, frightening scenario. Did he want to believe it?

‘I hate to pour cold water on your theory,’ he said. ‘But earthquakes happen. They’ve been happening for millions of years before human beings walked the planet, and they’ll go on happening long after we’re gone. Even if the technology for this exists, there’s no way you can’t claim to know what’s a genuine natural disaster and what’s a deliberate attack.’

‘Oh sure, shit happens,’ Daniel countered angrily. ‘And it does: that’s the beauty of their scheme. The “forces of nature” bring a country to its knees economically, we go in to help them, and then they’re right in our pocket where we want them. Japan getting too powerful? China? No problem, we’ll zap them where it hurts, bring them down a peg, and nobody ever suspects a thing. How could a natural disaster be engineered? Anyone would think it was crazy. And they’ll systematically marginalise and discredit anyone who claims it’s possible, just like they’ve managed to turn Tesla into a joke now, to cover their own asses. But I’ll tell you this,’ he went on, glaring at Ben. ‘Claudine wasn’t some radical conspiracy nut who wanted to jump at any wild story going. She was a true scientist. She thought about every angle, looked everywhere for proof. Only a genius like her would have had the idea about the animals.’

‘The mule sanctuary video,’ Roberta said. ‘That was you working the camera, wasn’t it?’

Daniel nodded. ‘Claudine realised that interpreting animal behaviour could be a way to tell the difference between a natural event and one that was man-made. It’s been proven over and over that animals can tell when an earthquake’s coming, because they’re so tuned into every nuance of their environment. It’s almost like a psychic power they have. But Claudine was certain that when it came to a totally artificial phenomenon, the animals wouldn’t see it coming. And she was right. The same mules that seemed to have predicted the real quake of ’96 were taken as much by surprise as the humans, even though this was a far more destructive event. You figure that one out. Pretty damned suspicious, no? Okay, it wasn’t solid evidence. We still couldn’t be absolutely sure. It wasn’t until we met Zimm that we really knew we were on the right track.’

‘Who the hell’s Zimm?’ Ben asked, frowning.

‘An American called Barney Zimm. That’s what he told us his name was, at least. He made contact with us after we’d been going round San Vicente asking questions for a week. When we met in a hotel room, he wouldn’t allow us to film or record his statement and you could see he was rattled about talking to us. He told us he was a junior administrative employee with the US Embassy in Taráca, which was just a few streets from the Presidential Palace. According to his story, the day before the quake happened, he and his fellow workers had been visited by agents of FEMA – that’s the US Federal Emergency Agency—’

‘We know what FEMA is,’ Roberta said.

‘—instructing them to evacuate the buildings ahead of some emergency drill or other that was due to take place the following day. Their reasons sounded pretty vague, but they were extremely serious about the whole thing. According to Zimm, the agents gathered up all the key embassy staff, loaded them into these black vans and took them off to some undisclosed location outside the city. Next day, Zimm and the other lower-down staff took the advice they’d been given and didn’t show up at work. As it turned out, they’d have been flattened in the rubble of the embassy building. Of course, no such warnings ever reached the ears of the ordinary citizens of San Vicente.’

‘Jesus,’ Roberta said, shaking her head. ‘Those sonsofbitches.’

Ben wandered over to the window, smoked the last of his cigarette and gazed out at the peaceful forest as he tried to process all this mentally. A small flock of birds had flown down from the trees to peck at an object in the dirt a few steps from the parked Land Rover. At first he thought it was some dead animal, then realised it was the remains of the sandwich Daniel had discarded earlier.

Leaving the birds to their feast, Ben turned away from the window. He walked back to the computer. Stubbing out his cigarette, he closed the image of the ruined South American city. In its place he opened the document file on the unexplained devastation that had taken place in the Altai mountains of Mongolia.

‘Explain something to me,’ he said to Daniel, pointing at the screen. ‘This location’s so remote, they didn’t even discover the incident until March. How does this fit your theory? Is undermining the thriving Mongolian tourist industry a part of the New World Order’s agenda too?’

Daniel sighed. ‘You still don’t want to believe this.’

‘I believe in what makes sense to me,’ Ben said.

‘Like religion, is that right?’ Roberta challenged him. ‘You need cast-iron evidence for faith in God too?’

Ben tightened his lips and ignored the jibe.

‘Let me explain it another way,’ Daniel said. He pointed at the pistol in Ben’s belt. ‘You seem to know what you’re doing with that thing. Am I right?’

‘I’m familiar with it,’ Ben said.

‘I’ll bet you’re really good with it. But how did you get so good?’ Daniel asked him. ‘I’m no expert, but I imagine it must take a great deal of drilling and repetition, when you want to get proficient with a weapon that must seem at first very unfamiliar. Just as this technology is still in its relative infancy, very new to its operators, a learning curve like any other.’

‘You’re saying Mongolia was just a practice exercise?’ Ben said.

‘Practice makes perfect, yes? Especially,’ Daniel added with a significant look, ‘Especially when you have ambitious plans. When you’re working up to …’ He paused. ‘The big one.’

Chapter Thirty-Eight

‘What do you mean, “the big one”?’ Ben asked with narrowed eyes.

‘In energy terms, the Mongolia event is estimated at over nine point five on the Richter Scale,’ Daniel explained. ‘That far eclipses what happened at Tunguska in 1908, close on the equivalent of three gigatons of TNT. The biggest thermonuclear device ever detonated tips the scale at only fifty megatons. By comparison to this Mongolia incident, the Taráca quake was just a ripple.’

Roberta was frowning. ‘So what are you saying, that they’re increasing the power as they go?’

Daniel nodded. ‘Assuming that the devastation in the Altai Mountains was not a natural event, and it’s too strange and coincidental to assume otherwise, then that would appear so, yes. They’re cranking up the volume bit by bit, testing the capabilities of the technology. I believe that what we’ve seen up until now was just a dry run, if you will. A rehearsal.’

‘A rehearsal for what?’ Roberta asked, her frown deepening.

Daniel spread his hands. ‘I don’t know. Neither did Claudine. But I think that Mitch Shelton probably did.’

‘Okay, and who’s he?’

‘According to our sources, Shelton was a CIA operative allegedly also employed by the classified agency that may or may not be directly behind this. Seems he found out a little too much of what was going on, became alarmed and confided some of what he’d discovered to an American journalist and conspiracy investigator called Chester Guardini. When Claudine and I met Guardini at a Free Earth symposium in Frankfurt last October, he seemed terrified. Kept looking over his shoulder. Wouldn’t say much, except that something big was in the offing.’

‘Something big?’ Roberta said. ‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know. He kept talking about something called Nemesis. Some kind of secret program. He wouldn’t say more, just that he and Shelton were planning to blow the lid off real soon. Said it would be the biggest thing since … well, the biggest thing since
ever
. But it never happened. And it never will. Just days after we spoke to him, we heard that Guardini’s car had been totalled by a truck back home in Chicago. With him in it, that is. Pronounced dead at the scene. Around the same time, Mitch Shelton drowned accidentally on a fishing trip near Miami. Believe
that
if you can. Coincidence? I don’t think so.’

‘So with all the potential witnesses gone, we basically have no idea what this Nemesis program is?’ Ben said.

‘Pretty much none,’ Daniel replied. ‘And they’re serious about keeping it that way. After we heard about the deaths of Guardini and Shelton, I started getting scared. Claudine and I had been right there with him, talking in a public place. Who was to say we hadn’t been watched, followed, caught on camera? I told her it was getting too dangerous, that we should back off. If we get in too deep, I said, we’ll never get out again. But she wouldn’t listen. We argued.’

‘She was wilful that way,’ Roberta said. ‘Once she got an idea in her head, that was it.’

Ben looked at her and felt like saying ‘Claudine wasn’t the only one’, but he kept his mouth shut. A movement from the window caught his eye and he glanced outside to see that more birds had flown down to join the little flock greedily crowding around the food in the dirt. A shred of ham went flying; a crumb was snapped up by a darting beak. At least somebody was having a good time.

Daniel’s face cracked. He bowed his head and he started to weep pitifully. ‘I should have done more to persuade her,’ he sobbed, his shoulders quaking. ‘I should have been more forceful. Now she’s dead and it’s my fault. And next,’ he sniffed, wiping his tears, ‘they’ll come after me. I know it. What am I going to do? I found a safe place out here. I leave, they’ll zoom in on me and I’m history.’

With a sympathetic expression Roberta went over to Daniel and put her hand on his shoulder. ‘We can get you out of Sweden without them knowing, Daniel. Can’t we?’ she added, turning towards Ben. Daniel’s face seemed to brighten a little. ‘You can? But how?’

‘By flying right under those sonsofbitches’ radar,’ she replied. ‘That’s how we got here unnoticed. We have a plane.’

‘You have an aircraft? Where?’

‘At an airstrip, a little way south of here,’ she said. ‘We could get there in just a few hours in your Land Rover.’

‘I’m ready to leave any time,’ Daniel said.

‘Ben? What do you say?’

‘Two questions,’ Ben said. ‘The first, where are we supposed to take him? The second, where are we going ourselves? It looks to me as if we’ve hit a dead end.’

Daniel paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, then said, ‘Maybe not. I haven’t told you everything I know.’

But Ben had suddenly lost interest in what Daniel knew. Another movement outside had distracted his attention. The flock of birds gathered to peck at Daniel’s tossed sandwich had suddenly scattered, erupting like a small explosion and flying away in all directions for the safety of the trees. Ben jumped up and strode quickly to the window.