Before 24 Billion and Counting

Chapter 27 Part 2 New ideas or Blind Alley

    How could I tell Jade? How could I reveal that the USA military had told me they were prepared to release an atomic weapon to annihilate a politically inconvenient group of scientists and their families, merely to conceal a scam that might occur to finance a huge industrial effort, culminating a century from now. Yes, it would be to save the earth from destruction, but how many would suffer to achieve that? Releasing a viral disease from an aircraft to cover up those crimes now seemed possible, and the CIA, or whoever was behind this, could hide behind the latest of numerous extremist terrorist groups, to conceal themselves.

I couldn't tell her. She wouldn't believe it and it would distract her from dealing with the bomb.

"It's my daughter and her family. They live in this city. I fear for them."

"We all have family here, Charles," she said gently.

"I'm sorry. Of course you do."

.

"Well, we'd better get it right. Dave, any thoughts?"

"Boss I haven't run into this sort of problem before. If you have a straightforward bomb, you take it somewhere remote and safe and blow it up. If we can't do that without releasing a dangerous contaminant, or worse a disease, that makes it complicated."

"Well can we neutralise the system so it doesn't explode?"

"This is built like a smartphone. If you don't have a manual to tell you how it's supposed to be taken apart, then you'll bust something, if you try. OK for a smartphone - it will just break, this lot'll just as easily blow up."

Jade made a growling noise of frustration, and then near shouted, "This is just the sort of thing I thought might happen. I asked for an airtight facility to safely explode bombs in. I was told it would be too expensive."

"We have a sort of airtight container, boss if we set up this plane as prepared for take off without the air conditioning on."

"Ian," said Jade,"how far away from the bombs can that control unit be, to keep the system working?"

"Not far and certainly not outside the plane. The signal isn't strong, and maybe will deteriorate as whatever batteries it's got discharge. That maybe resolved by whatever thingy the lab comes up with, but that'll be a few hours yet."

"That means for sometime yet we've got to keep this bomb from exploding by switching the control unit every half hour, always assuming that there isn't a time limit or a limit on the number of switches. And we can't get at the system because it's sealed up,"

She took a deep breath and declared, "So we have a plan A. Listen up everyone. We need a volunteer to stay in the plane, in a breathing suit, keeping the switch sequence going. That person can be, say, down there," Jade pointed to the rear of the saloon,

" furthest from the explosion and protected from any poison released by the bomb if it goes off. We need to get an airlock system worked out for the passenger door and talk to Airbus about making sure the plane is sealed. I'll get the rep here. He should have arrived by now at the military terminal. He was in Adelaide. The airforce flew him over in a Hornet."

"Dave could you - " she was interrupted by a shrill trill from a phone buttoned at her shoulder. Jade walked to the rear of the aircraft talking into the instrument.

Finally she turned round and bawled, "Fucking pratt. The chief wants me at a fucking press conference. What does he get paid for. He gets paid to keep us free from hassle while we deal with this crap," she swung her arm at the bomb,"he should sort it. But oh no, I have to hold his sweaty little paw 'cos he hasn't the balls to deal with the bloody press on his own. Wanker.."