“And they won’t have to. Here’s why.”
The President’s Chief of Staff pressed a button on the remote. The main viewing screen lit up with an image of the earth and red lines circling the planet emanating from the North and South Poles.
“This is the normal size and strength of the magnetic field that typically protects the planet from severe solar storms,” the President said. He nodded and his Chief pressed the button again. “This was the size and strength of the magnetic lines of flux during the last solar storm.”
The red lines had been reduced dramatically. “And this,” the president nodded again and the screen changed. “This is the projected magnetic field during the next storm.”
The red lines almost completely disappeared. The realization of what they were facing settled in over the people in the situation room like the gloom before an approaching hurricane.
“After the end of World War Two, our military did some experiments with the generation of very intense magnetic fields. What we learned has led to this.”
The screen changed again. A satellite appeared on a direct line between the sun and the Earth. “This satellite is currently under construction and will be launched in seven days. It is named MagGen One. This satellite is powered by a nuclear generator and will create a massive magnetic field between us and the sun.”
“That field looks too small,” General Davies said. “That will protect only part of the planet. What about the rest?”
“That will be accomplished with satellites MagGen Two through Seven, placed as shown here.”
The new screen showed six more satellites positioned in a honeycomb pattern around MagGen One, but closer to the earth.
“When the CME arrives, this is what will happen,” the President said.
The next screen showed the material from the sun being deflected by MagGen One toward the next six satellites. The screen after that depicted the solar material being disbursed in a cone that would miss the Earth altogether.
“This is the plan we will be presenting to all of the other countries around the world.”
“How much are Russia and China doing?” the Vice President asked.
“Russia and China have both agreed to build and launch two MagGen satellites each. We will place two in orbit and the European Space Agency will launch one. These satellites will remain in permanent placement between the Earth and the sun and will protect the planet from any and all future solar storms.”
The President fielded a number of questions from his inner circle, and then asked who was in support of the plan. Peter Steinmetz raised his hand in support, knowing how little it would take to destroy all seven satellites with one of their saucers.
Ken Bartholomew felt a hand on his shoulder, which woke him suddenly.
“We’ve been at this all night,” Honi said. “You fell asleep around two-thirty. I figured you could use the rest.”
“Thanks. Just makes me one sorry excuse of an agent.”
“No, it doesn’t. It just makes you human. If it makes you feel any better, Stafford conked out before you did.”
“And Jake?”
“About ten minutes after you.”
“Well, I reckon a shower, clean clothes and some food will help.”
“I’m headed out for the same,” Honi said. “See you back here, then.”
Ken drove back to his apartment just outside of D.C., showered, dressed and ate a light breakfast. When he left he glanced down at the pavement next to his front driver-side wheel. A one inch long chalk mark was on the concrete perpendicular to his tire. Chen’s mark, indicating something was at their dead drop. He drove to a small hole-in-the-wall mail box business on the outskirts of D.C. He twisted the knob, lining up the dial to the letters used for the combination. When he opened the small door, he saw the envelope. He glanced over at the business proprietor, an old man who sat with his back to the boxes. Ken pulled out the envelope containing the thumb drive, slipped it into his pocket, and drove to the NSA building.
Even with his new ID card, he still felt a little strange not needing to check in and have an escort at another agency, especially at the NSA of all places. He made his way down to B6, area 4 and handed the thumb drive to Brett. “Same encryption as the one you made yesterday.”
Brett pulled a laptop computer from his desk drawer and plugged the USB drive into a slot. “Virus and malware check. Wifi’s been removed from this computer, so if the file’s infected, it can’t travel to any of our other computers.”
“It won’t be infected. But you should check it anyway.”
“Always do. Okay, it’s clean. Let’s see what we have.” Brett added the file to the database. “Names, but they’re all in Chinese characters.”
“Right click one of the names.”
“Ahh,” Brett replied. “Select English, American. There we are.”
“So where are we on names?” Honi asked as she entered area 4.
“Thanks to Ken, we have a lot more Chinese names on the plot. But we still have a lot of holes.”
‘Locations?”
“Some government buildings, some private residences; those are the easy ones. Most of them are in open spaces or large commercial establishments, and quite a number are located on university campuses. We will have to start cross-referencing security tapes to find these people.”
Jake arrived and stared at the screen and the list of names that were being added.
“Can we start plotting these locations on a world map?”
“Sure. Screen over there,” Brett pointed.
“Wow. Look at how these phones are clumped.”
“All of the power centers of the world,” Honi said. “Washington, London, Berlin, Moscow, Beijing…”
“Since when did Brazil and Argentina become power centers of the world?” Jake asked.
“And Paraguay,” Honi said.
“Look at Bolivia,” Ken said. “You’ve got as many phone connections in Bolivia as you have in Great Britain. How’s that possible?”
“Probably drug traffickers,” Honi said.
Jake pulled his phone and called Briggs. “It’s Hunter. How many FBI agents do we have in Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia?” He listened. “Okay, I need 100 agents sent to each country, today.” He paused. “Yes, I know that’s a lot of agents to each country. We have over 13,000 field agents and a lot of activity in South America. If we don’t cover those four countries we’re not going to have, or need, any agents at all in fourteen days.” He listened. “Yes. Thank you, boss.”
“So what are you thinking?” Honi asked.
“It just dawned on me,” Jake said. “We get so used to being the center of everything that I just assumed this whole conspiracy had to be centered here, in the states. But what if it isn’t?”
“You’re thinking foreign control?”
“Yes. I mean, just look at the names we have from China, and the cluster of connections in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The organizational connections in Argentina are higher than Secretary Halleran here in the US.”
Ken walked over to take a closer look at the display. “Now that we know the gold bearer bonds are connected to this Phoenix Organization, and we have Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia thrown into the mix, I’m thinkin’ the Phoenix Organization goes way back.”
“The Professor said it went back to 1947,” Jake replied.
“No, no. I think it goes back further than that. It feels like there are too many things we’re not being told. We need to go back to before World War II. That’s when the largest physical movement of gold the world has ever seen took place.”
“I think Ken’s right,” Stafford said. “Wars are presented to the public as being religious or ideological in nature, but the reality is wars are fought over resources. Gold and oil are right at the top of the list, and now, so is technology.”