The Fusion Cage

XXXIV

Aaron Mitchell closed the door behind the agent with a stern order. ‘Nobody is to come in.’

The door closed, Mitchell still holding the cell phone to his ear as he listened, and then finally he shut it off and slipped it back into his pocket.

‘What’s happened?’ Huck asked in desperation. ‘What’s he done?’

Aaron glared at the inventor for a long moment before he replied.

‘The money in the accounts he gave us has disappeared,’ Aaron replied, his voice low and filled with a menace so appalling that Huck took an involuntary step back from the agent. ‘One hundred million dollars has been spread across accounts in dozens of countries in an attempt to conceal its whereabouts. We’ll find it, of course, but for now it is no longer accessible to us.’

Huck shot Stanley a glance. ‘What have you done?!’

Stanley, his hands folded behind his back, finally turned away from the panoramic view and faced Mitchell, the smile still touching his face.

‘You didn’t really believe that I’d sell out to any of you black — hearted criminals, did you?’

Huck felt the world shift beneath his feet as though he were losing his balance as the world collapsed beneath him, which in many ways it had.

‘You promised,’ he gasped in a weak voice, barely able to speak. ‘That you wouldn’t share anything, that you would honour the deal.’

‘And I have,’ Stanley smiled, his gaze fixed upon Aaron Mitchell. ‘I have shared nothing, nor have I stolen any of the money. I have completely honored my end of our deal.’

Aaron Mitchell moved closer to Stanley.

‘Who?’ he demanded. ‘Where?’

Stanley’s smile grew wider as he looked up at the towering agent and he shook his head.

‘I think that you and I both know that no matter what happens to me, no matter what you evil cretins dream up, I’ll never tell you anything and that’s because I don’t actually know. This whole thing was out of my hands long before you even started looking for me.’

To Huck’s horror, Stanley’s smile broadened and he began to laugh as he spoke.

‘All this time, you and your greedy little cohorts have been chasing me around the world looking to silence me, but it gives me an immeasureable pleasure to tell you now that the whole thing has been a charade.’

Huck’s legs finally gave way and he slumped back down onto the armchair, his lungs aching and his breath wheezing as though somebody had stuffed a sock down his throat. Aaron Mitchell loomed over Stanley, his giant fists clenched.

‘Who, and where?’

‘You’ve spent millions, perhaps billions of dollars now,’ Stanley continued in delight, ‘and all of it for nothing. Greed is blind, they say, and you’re sure greedy!’

Huck tried to stand, to speak, but he could not. Tears welled in his eyes as he heard Stanley’s delighted cackles echoing around the suite.

‘I knew that you’d come after me, especially when Clearwater disconnected from the grid. It was only a matter of time, really, before somebody figured out that the town was getting its energy for free without a solar panel or a wind turbine in sight. News like that travels fast when there’s money involved, so I decided to ensure that when the time came, you’d come for me first. I couldn’t distribute the fusion cage without funds, which of course no company would provide as an investment without patents in place, so I needed a really big cash injection to get things moving.’

Aaron’s voice rumbled back at Stanley.

‘You didn’t invent the fusion cage,’ he said finally.

Stanley chuckled in delight and shrugged. ‘Nope, sorry! I just plugged it in!’

Huck Seavers almost gagged as he saw an image of Seavers Incorporated stocks plunging, of the entire company folding before his eyes and legal cases piling up by the second as his support from MJ–12 vanished. He knew without a doubt that they would hang him out to dry, that his company would be bought out for a fraction of its value and that his life, his family’s life, would never be the same again. They would lose everything: the house, the boat, the holidays, the cars, the security, the happiness …

Stanley Meyer’s voice chortled at Aaron Mitchell.

‘You’re finished,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing on earth that you can do to stop it now! Mine was not the only fusion cage built!’

Aaron Mitchell stepped forward and one thick fist ploughed down into Stanley Meyer’s plexus like a freight train through an eggshell. Stanley’s cries of delight mutated grotesquely into a wretch of agony as he folded over at the waist and plunged to his knees. A thin stream of bile spilled from his mouth to stain the carpet as he clutched his belly with both arms.

Mitchell grabbed the old man’s collar with both hands and lifted him bodily off the ground, one thick hand gripping Meyer’s throat as the other pinned him against a wall.

‘Who, and where?’

Meyer’s face was twisted in pain, his eyes streaming and blurred as he struggled both to breathe and to fight the pain from the blow that must have wrenched his innards apart. Huck could hear his sobs as Mitchell spoke again.

‘Believe me, what happens to you will be nothing compared to what I will do to your family when I find them. Your daughter, your wife, everybody. I will personally exterminate them one by one unless you tell me, right now, what I need to know. Who, and when?’

Stanley, his knees struggling to pull up to his stomach in sympathy with his pain, shook his head and cried out.

‘Never! I’ll die sooner than tell you a damned thing!’

Mitchell held the old man in place for a moment longer, and then nodded. ‘So be it.’

Mitchell hauled Stanley across the suite, the old man’s legs dragging across the carpet. Mitchell used a key card to unlock the balcony doors, Stanley kicking and struggling as he was pulled out onto the balcony, five stories above the gardens below. Huck dragged himself off the sofa and staggered across the suite, one eye drawn to a large ornate vase as he heard Mitchell’s voice from outside.

‘Last chance, Meyer. Start talking or you’ll end up as nothing more than a damp spot on that lawn.’

Stanley gabbled an agonized insult, and through the white blinds Huck saw Aaron Mitchell jerk one knee violently upward. The bony joint slammed into Stanley’s groin and the old man let out a stifled, pinched groan of agony as he folded up against the railings, weeping and quivering as Mitchell pinned him in place.

‘Your daughter will go first,’ Mitchell growled. ‘Painfully, slowly, while your wife watches. I’ll take months over it, Meyer, years. Nobody will ever see them again and even if they did they wouldn’t recognize what’s left.’

Meyer twitched, his voice sawing and rasping in his throat as Huck reached the balcony and saw Mitchell drag the old man over the railings, his old head and shoulders dangling over the precipitous drop as Mitchell growled at him.

‘Your suicide from this suite will be the first news report they hear,’ he rumbled, ‘just to let them know that we’re coming for them, that they’ll never be able to escape us. One call, Stanley, one call and your family will become the most wanted people on Earth. Tell me: who, and where?!’

Stanley Meyer sucked in a final, rattling breath.

‘Go to hell!’ he rasped.

Mitchell scowled and made to lift Meyer over the railing as the old man screamed in fear.

Huck lunged and swung with all of his might, and the ornate vase smashed across Mitchell’s temple with a deep crack that sounded as though somebody had dropped a metal ball on wet mud. Mitchell’s body flailed sideways as his eyes rolled up into their sockets and the huge man thumped down onto the balcony as Meyer cried out.

Huck Seavers whirled as the old man tilted over the edge and he lunged for Meyers. Huck threw himself half over the balcony railing and grabbed at Meyer’s wrists, catching them even as they flailed. The old man hung onto Seaver’s grip and looked up at him in amazement.

‘Give me your hand!’ Seavers groaned, barely able to maintain his grip.

Meyer stared at him through eyes smeared with tears of pain. ‘Why?’ he gasped.

Seavers knew what Meyer meant.

‘Because without you I’m nothing now!’ he said in a strained voice, fighting to keep a hold of Meyer. ‘I can’t survive now with or without your fusion cage, my business will collapse! You’re my family’s only hope!’

Stanley Meyer watched Huck for a long moment, suddenly it seemed unafraid any more.

‘Las Vegas,’ he said softly, still fighting back tears. ‘My wife’s in Vegas, and headed for the Crescent Dunes solar plant. Help her.’

‘Grip my wrists!’ Huck shouted. ‘I can’t pull you up like this!’

To Huck’s horror Stanley did not grip back as his legs swung out over the abyss, his rheumy old eyes now calm.

‘No! Don’t you dare do it Stanley!’

Stanley smiled, his voice devoid of anger.

‘Be the man you’d want your family to remember you as, not the man you need to be in the now.’

Huck stared at Stanley in amazement and then the old man’s hand loosened and slipped through his and he plunged away from the balcony. Huck stared in horror for a moment and then averted his eyes before Stanley hit the patio far below. He heard a distant, sickening thump, and bile formed in his throat as he glanced at Mitchell. The agent was lying on his back, blood streaming from the deep wound in his head onto the balcony.

Huck staggered into the suite and struggled to think straight. He managed to set the vase back down on the glass table and then to fumble for his cell phone in his pocket. His fingers felt numb as he dialled a number, and then heard it connect on the first ring and his wife’s voice.

‘Honey, where are you?’

‘Oh God, Angela, you’re safe!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Get the kids, Angela, get them and get in your car and run, okay?!’

‘Huck, what’s going on?!’

‘Just do it! Run, Angela, as far as you can! Everything’s gone, Angela. There’s nothing that I can do now to stop it. Please just do as I say and run!’

‘Okay!’ Angela replied, Huck hearing the tears and the fear in her voice. ‘Where are you?’

Huck struggled to speak.

‘I have some things that I need to do and I can’t be there with you right now. Please, just keep running okay? You know how to access the accounts?’

‘Yes, but … ’

‘No buts! Empty them, all of them, and run! I’m so sorry honey, I love you and the girls!’

‘I love you too, but you need to come with us and … ’

Huck shut the phone off, his own eyes blurred now with tears as he turned to shut the balcony door and buy himself some time. He locked it with Mitchell’s key card and then hurried to a mirror in the bathroom and splashed water on his face from the faucet as he forced himself to think straight.

‘Get out of here,’ he whispered to himself.

Huck straightened his suit and walked back into the suite, grabbed his Stetson and set it onto his head. He took a deep breath and strode to the suite door, opened it and walked out into the corridor. Mitchell’s two guards looked at him as he closed the door behind him.

‘He’s dealing with Meyer,’ Huck informed them, ‘and does not wish to be disturbed.’

The two guards nodded, and resumed their positions as Huck walked past them, his heart beating fast inside his chest as he reached the elevators, already thinking about his next move. He couldn’t use his car, or his jet, and only had a few hundred bucks on him.

Huck made it down to the reception hall and walked from the hotel. He barely noticed the dark — skinned Saudi sitting watching the reception hall from the nearby café. Huck was far too preoccupied with his dilemma. Somehow, he had to get to Vegas and find Mary Meyer before Majestic Twelve wiped her from the face of the planet.