Impact

32

The ruined monastery was crowded with fleeing villagers, the monks laying out sick people in the bombed-out sanctuary and bringing them food and water. The sound of crying children and weeping mothers mingled with the babble of confused and terrified voices. As Ford looked around for the abbot, he was startled to see orange-robed monks carrying heavy weapons, bandoliers of ammunition slung over their shoulders, evidently patrolling the trails coming in from the mountains. In the distance, over the hilltops, he could see a black column of smoke rotating into the hot sky.

He finally found the abbot, kneeling over a sick boy, comforting him and giving him sips of water from an old Coke bottle. The abbot looked up at him. "How did you do it?"

"Long story."

He nodded and said, simply, "Thank you."

"I need a private place to make a satellite call," said Ford.

"The cemetery." He gestured toward a mossy trail.

Leaving the chaotic scene at the monastery behind, Ford made his way into a thinned area of forest. Scattered among the trees were dozens of stupas, small towers, each containing the ashes of a revered monk. The stupas had once been gilded and painted but now they were faded by time, some broken and tumbling to the ground. Ford found a quiet spot among the tombs, took out his satellite phone, plugged it into a handheld computer, and dialed.

A moment later Lockwood's thick voice came on. It was 2 A.M. in D.C. "Wyman? Did you succeed?"

"You're a damned liar, Lockwood."

"Just hold on. What do you mean?"

"You knew all along where the mine was. The damn thing's huge, you couldn't miss it from space. Why did you lie to me? What was the purpose of this charade?"

"There are reasons for everything--excellent reasons. Now: do you have the readings I asked for?"

Ford controlled his anger. "Yes. Everything. Photographs, radiation measurements, GPS coordinates."

"Excellent. Can you upload them to me?"

"You'll get your data when I get my explanation."

"Don't play games with me."

"No games. Just an exchange of information. In your office."

A long silence. "It's foolish of you to take that line with us."

"I'm a foolish man. You already knew that. Oh, and by the way, I blew up the mine."

"You what?"

"Blown. Gone. Sayonara."

"Are you crazy? I told you not to touch it!"

Ford made a huge attempt to control his boiling anger. He took a deep breath, swallowed. "They'd enslaved whole villages, women and children. Hundreds of people were dying. There were filling up a mass grave with the dead. I couldn't let it continue."

There was a silence. "What's done is done," said Lockwood finally. "I'll see you in my office as soon as you can get here."

Ford killed the call, unplugged the phone, and powered it down. He took a few deep breaths, trying to regain his equilibrium. It was quiet in the cemetery; twilight was falling and the last glimmer of light clipped the treetops, sprinkling the cemetery in flecks of green-gold light. Gradually he felt a bit of sanity returning. What he had seen would never leave him, as long as he lived.

And then there was the problem about the mine itself--something he had not mentioned to Lockwood. It was a realization so strange, so utterly bizarre, that it defied analysis. But the implications were terrifying.