Montross prepared for the speech, and for the start of the operation. On the screen behind him, a cross section alignment came into focus, one view highlighting a dry plateau area against a backdrop of epic Biblical mountain ranges, zooming in until a walled compound became clear. On the right, schematics and numbers were flashing, coordinates of an incoming strike team, mirrored on radar on another section below.
“Operation Two-Point-Conversion set to begin in three minutes.”
He looked up at the eager faces. General Asiro Bensari on his left, uncharacteristically out of uniform and in a black suit instead, as if decked out for an award ceremony. Montross wondered if he had just finally had enough of the attention, and wanted to one-up the presenter. Montross himself had finally gotten used to wearing these damn three piece costumes that Calderon loved. Even if each piece had cost more than the average American mortgage, the vest especially was damn annoying, but it wasn’t yet time to make a fashion change. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to himself than was already warranted by any slip ups in memory or attitude.
Asiro, the current head of the International Defense Initiative, was a man steeped in tradition. Under other circumstances Montross imagined him decked out in Samurai garb, ready to settle village disputes at the point of a katana. He was a man of few words, but he had certainly felt slighted with Montross taking the lead role in this, what should been a military operation.
“It’s time,” Montross continued, “to close down Ibr-Al Hansi’s terrorist operation. He tried earlier this year to strike at the very heart of a global event, the Super Bowl in San Francisco, and it was only through the combined efforts of various organizations and the talented members of my own team, that we prevented an attack that could have destroyed thousands of lives and shattered the world’s psyche.”
“We know,” Asiro chimed in, “and as we’ve asked before, it’s past time to reveal your sources. This ‘team’ you keep mentioning that seems to have unerring knowledge of threats before they occur.” The general’s hands had tightened into fists, and more of the disdain crept into his voice.
“I will reveal them, General. And you are right. It is time.”
Others in the room perked up, their attention vying between the speaker and the screen, both holding great interest now.
Montross sighed. “But for that, I need more than three minutes. After this operation’s success, after another grave threat to the world is taken off the game board, then I agree it is time, and you will understand the true nature of the weapon we have in our arsenal.” He looked at all their faces. “You will understand what potential it has — for both good and ill. It is the latter I’ve been working to contain, for this…weapon, this tool has been misused before by my own government and others, and it is my aim that together with those of you in this room we can manage this information. We can reveal only what we must, and at the same time we can effectively use this tool — this weapon as I’ve called it — to stop future threats and deflect or limit tragedies. Both of the man-made and natural type.”
“That,” said the delegate from Brussels, “I would like to see.” He was stocky and bald, and Montross found his taste in turtlenecks (and the very fact that he wore them under a suit coat) as distasteful as his nasally voice.
How did Calderon ever get mixed up with this group? Other than the general, the rest of the dozen people in here seemed confident enough, but all were alpha types who understandably put the needs of their home countries first. They tried to work in back deals for themselves or their interest groups. All of them superficially acted as one, but never strayed far from their true native loyalties. There was one however, that worried him, simply because of the fact that he couldn’t read her.
Miriam Agreson, from Berlin. She gave Montross the impression of a hastily-carved statue out of the Expressionist period: confusing and distinctly unnatural, yet somehow still pleasing to the eye. Tall, extremely long (and unsymmetrical?) arms, an elfin-like face with a too-narrow chin and eyes far too distant from each other, with a color he could never quite place. And that hair? On certain days he was sure it was a wig. Just too perfect, straight and never changing. Others might not notice, but he noticed everything. And what he couldn’t see, he tried to see.
He had probed her past, her present, and had tried on numerous occasions to go deeper, but with Miriam it wasn’t a shield. No blue screen blocking him. It was almost as if she had something else in place to show would-be-scryers who came looking: a little highlight reel of nonsensical images.
A burned out building, decimated in war. Tanks rolling in the distance as columns of smoke rose up from the rubble. Bodies strewn about. Nazi uniforms and a Swastika flag in flames. A rush into a tunnel shaking with subterranean detonations far off…then what looked like a camp, decimated prisoners reaching through barbed wire fences…
WWII? But certainly this woman, appearing in her late forties at most, hadn’t been around for any of that, so what the hell was he seeing?
No, Miriam was a wild card, and most attempts to get her to speak outside of these sessions had failed. She was always on the phone to parties unknown, or in her room and not responding. There was nothing on her in Calderon’s files. Montross didn’t like what he couldn’t understand, what he couldn’t know completely. She was a mystery, one he’d have to solve soon. Something would turn up, but for now…
“Two minutes,” General Bensari said, watching now with rapt attention. “Two minutes and we will see if your magic weapon can have another success, if we can root out the source of this threat.”
“And if so,” said the Brussels’ turtleneck, “we really must know how you’re doing all this.”
“The Super Bowl,” said another. “That Tokyo speed train back in November…”
“The attempted assassination of Frederico Montoya in Chile…”
“Don’t forget the Paris flooding in March.”
“No meteorological warning, nothing…except from your team.” Asiro said it in a calm voice as he watched the Apache choppers carrying his military force — a joint group of Marines and NATO forces — approaching the mountain-top compound.
“The Morocco seven-point-five earthquake?” said turtleneck. “With two days warning. No seismic indicators?”
Montross just smiled.
“One minute.”
He turned sideways so he could watch as well, even though there was little doubt. He had already seen the outcome. Clear as day. So had Orlando Natch, Phoebe Crowe and three other gifted psychics from the team back in Stargate over the last twenty-four hours. The visions were all concise, with better hits than most of their objectives recently. Credit also had to be given to the more mundane but just as exceptional fieldwork by numerous agencies that had worked to narrow down the location — and the name of the individual responsible for the near-destruction of American’s national pastime and a multi-billion-dollar industry.
The questions asked of the remote viewers were detailed and direct, and the results were all similar enough to be validated: the drawings consistent: this very plateau, the mountain range readily identifiable from image search technology. A little more legwork and satellite surveillance and they were sure they had the right spot. Something of high ranking interest was in those mountains. Authorization was provided soon enough by the Chinese government (in exchange for certain later-to-be-named favors). And the strike was on.
“Thirty seconds,” said Asiro.
The mission was not one of capture. Couldn’t risk Al-Hansi escaping or being used as a later bargaining chip. Already Montross had worried that the terrorist leader might have had his own psychic in his employ, the way he had almost supernaturally evaded both internal enemies and allied attacks for the past few years, seemingly one step away at all times. With this mission only planned in detail in the past six hours however, the likelihood of his warning system picking it up was remote.
There was that, plus the fact that the team back home had done a follow-up and seen the success of this mission, seen Al-Hansi’s body pulled out of the wreckage, along with those of several top lieutenants. This was going to be a huge win, an undeniable resume builder. Hell, if all these people here — even Miriam — didn’t line up to kiss his ass afterwards, then Montross would be shocked.
“Ten seconds.”
He held his breath, collectively with the others, and watched the screen. For just an instant, he let his mind take a short jaunt forward, just a few minutes. Just a little preview before the others.
He had tried this a few times before, and either just got a fuzzy glimpse of wreckage, or saw the successful visions from before. Afraid to over-use, and to waste time. Nothing had changed, this future path was unavoidable for Al-Hansi. They were going to win, and…
Wait.
Something was different.
As the room vibrated with excitement, as the others cheered the resulting explosion and the silence of voyeuristically watching a precision assassination, Montross instead witnessed something else.
It was as if a gossamer veil had lifted and the initial transparency it had provided turned to be a complete falsity. He staggered and gripped the table, knocking over several glasses. Aware all eyes were on him. Murmurs and confusion coming from all except one.
Miriam.
She stood unmoved, expressionless except for a slight smile as if this, finally, she had been expecting.
And then he saw it, saw what the following recon force, advisory team and ultimately the Press and the Red Cross would soon discover:
The mountain retreat… demolished, in smoking blacked ruin. Bodies pulled from the wreckage in pieces. Limbs and torsos, heads… gruesome bits and gore-splattered walls.
A small stuffed alligator, still burning. Still with the child’s hand gripping it tightly in blissful ignorance.
No terrorists.
No leaders, no men actually of any kind over the age of twelve. This had been a secretive base to be sure, but had been occupied only recently by fleeing Christians. Nuns who had saved over two dozen children from a fate worse than death, making the difficult trek to this mountain hideaway to wait for rescue that came in a much different form.
Montross struggled for a breath. “Impossible, impossible…”
The others had no idea, couldn’t fathom why he was collapsing in the midst of this apparent victory.
All he could do was weakly raise his head, blink away the vision — the one he knew now to be true, the valid future that had been somehow suppressed behind a false vision.
He lifted his eyes, and couldn’t see a thing in a red haze, besides Miriam watching him with grim satisfaction.