The Hunt for Shambhala

37

As the launch sequence fired up and his mission control team hurried into action, Rakesh Madan turned to his prisoners with a smug smile of satisfaction. He had won.

“It has all been very carefully calculated,” he said. “Yama II will detonate exactly two hundred miles above North Dakota, Yama III will detonate the same distance above Suchowola in Eastern Poland, and Yama IV will detonate at two hundred miles above Beijing.

“Can you even hear yourself?” Selena said, taking a step back.

Madan ignored her completely. “The first weapon will destroy every single piece of electronic equipment in all of the United States and Canada, the second will destroy everything in every country in Europe and also all the western oblasts in Russia including the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The final bomb will fry everything in China, Japan and the Koreas.”

Decker squeezed his hands into tight fists of rage. “For God’s sake, Madan, don’t do this!”

“It is incredible to think,” he said with pride, “that in a fraction of a second I will wipe out all the technological advances made by man since the dawn of the electric age… but not in India, of course.”

“This is beyond crazy,” Decker said. “You’ll return billions of people to the Dark Ages.”

“This is my plan,” Madan said bluntly. “As the Destroyer of Filth, manifested in this world by my rebirth in Shambhala, I will eradicate the plague of your existence, just as the Holy Scriptures command me.”

Selena leaned into Johar. “I’m guessing the Holy Scriptures are not telling him to do this.”

“No, they most certainly are not,” he said. “I think our Mr Madan is confused.”

“Confused?” Decker said. “He’s crazier than a sprayed fly.”

Selena watched as five kilometres away on the pad, scientists evacuated the gantry and began to descend in an elevator inside the launch tower. She now watched the rocket on the launch pad with terror etched on her face as Madan ordered the final ignition sequence.

This was really happening.

They had failed.

Umbilical hoses connecting various systems to the rocket fell away from the fuselage, the hold-down arms released, and the launch tower slowly retracted away giving the rocket the space it required to launch. “This is insane, Madan! Please, just consider what you’re doing!”

A man sitting at the desk below the viewing gallery spoke into his mic and his words reverberated around the cavernous control room. “T-minus ten seconds.”

“You can’t do this!” Selena cried out.

Five…

“She’s right, Madan!” Decker said.

Four…

Three…

Decker glanced to his right and saw the two security officers who were standing either side of the self-destruct panel. They were now staring at the launch on the screen, mesmerized by the sight of the rocket as it powered up to full throttle.

Two…

One…

The launch tower fell away sharply and the Svarga lifted up into the air ahead of an enormous fireball of ignited propellant.

“And we have lift off, sir,” the man said.

“Godspeed Svarga!” Madan said, a tear forming in his eye.

Madan was also hypnotised by the sight of his mighty Svarga as it tore through the sunset sky on its way into orbit hundreds of miles above India. After that it would be only a few minutes before the three satellites and their lethal cargoes left the Svarga and the lunium-infused Yama bombs were deployed over millions of unsuspecting people.

Decker felt the rage rise inside him. His loved ones were part of this, back in New York and California and Indiana. It was morning there now, and he imagined his family were maybe out in their back yards… the first they would know that anything was wrong was when their power went out.

They’d moan and laugh and think the lines had gone down in a storm, and then maybe a problem at the power station when the blackout lasted longer than usual. Then the fear would start to rise when they realized that along with no TV, internet or telephone, there was no 4G wi-fi either… not even an emergency broadcast on the TV.

How long before they realized that no one else had power either? No one in the entire USA, or Canada? No more bank accounts, no more computers. The US would be blasted back into a lawless age of unpunished violence and bartering for survival. As all forms of communication broke down, the production and distribution of food and medicine would cease and water supplies would come only from rivers and wells.

Decker knew that there was no way such a world could sustain the current population. Organized society would break down in days… maybe hours. People in the emergency services — police officers, firefghters, paramedics — would scatter to be with their families.

With all the electronics fried inside the power stations, nuclear power sites would start to melt down and release radiation into the atmosphere — hundreds of them all over the northern hemisphere. Not even coal stations could work with their circuitry toasted. How long before people woke up to the fact that it was never coming back on… ever — at least not the way they understood it?

His family would have to go through this, along with the loved ones of Selena Moore, the mysterious Atticus she talked about, Charlie’s family in London and Diana’s in Portugal. Riley’s might be shielded in Australia for a while — until the transporter ships bringing oil stopped turning up. Then things would collapse there too… unless Madan put another Yama into orbit and decided to waste the southern hemisphere as well.

And who could stop him then?

No — this had to stop now, and it was more than his life to make it stop. He made an instant calculation to hit the self-destruct button. He knew they would shoot him, but it was the only way to abort this insane mission and bring Madan’s birds of death back to Earth.

With Madan entranced by the Svarga, and the two security officers also staring at the screen as the rocket screeched up into the sky at the head of a plume of smoke, Decker knew it was now or never. He also knew Madan and the others almost certainly didn’t know that thanks to several trips to NASA launch centers over the years he recognized what a self-destruct panel looked like. While most of the hardware in here looked Indian and former Soviet, the self-destruct panel looked American.

Now or never, Mitch.

He made a break for the self-destruct button.

The guards reacted immediately, fumbling with the safety covers on their leather holsters for a second as the unsuspected act of sabotage unfolded right before their eyes.

Madan spun around, eyes wide with horror and screamed at the guards to kill the American as he closed in on the panel.

Only a yard away now Decker reached out his arms and prepared to do the last thing he would ever do in this world. The set-up was simple enough — turn a key and hit the button, engaging the Svarga’s self-destruct protocol — but now he was aware in his periphery of the guards raising their guns into the aim and preparing to mow him down.

“No!” Madan screamed. “Don’t stop the Svarga!”

“Mitch!” Selena cried out.

“It’s done you son of a bitch!” Decker said.

He turned the key and heard the first gunshot, and then he hit the button as two more shots rang out. He waited for the pain and realized he was unharmed. He spun around to see Charlie Valentine slumping to the floor right behind him with gunshot wounds in his legs and torso. The English grifter had thrown himself in front of Decker and taken three bullets as he used his body as a human shield.

The guards hesitated and looked to Madan for their orders, but the Indian billionaire was staring desperately at the screen, waiting to see if the American really had destroyed his life’s work.

Decker and the others also stared up at the giant screen. For a few seconds nothing seemed to happen, and then everything changed. An enormous explosion ripped out the bottom of the Svarga and they shielded their eyes from the white-hot glare of the inferno. For half a second the Svarga seemed to hover in the air over the launch pad — neither going up nor down, and then the massive rocket began to descend directly back down its lift-off trajectory.

“What have you done?” Madan said.

“Stopped you sending billions of people back to the Stone Age!” Selena said.

The Svarga crashed down into the launch pad and exploded in a ferocious fireball as the remaining propellant ignited all at once. The explosion sprayed jets of liquid fuel out into the hot Indian night and lit up the landscape for miles in every direction.

Chaos erupted in the control room, with men and women shrieking and running for their lives, and when Decker and Selena gathered their wits, they both realized Madan and Kaleka were long gone.

Johar ran to Charlie and began tending the wound, while Selena scanned the control room. “Where’s Madan?” she said.

Decker sprinted to a window that looked out over the airfield.

“He’s trying to escape on a trike,” said Decker. “And Kaleka is right behind him.”

“Really?” Selena said, confused. “One of those little things kids play on?”

Decker looked at her. “Are you trying to be funny?”

“Well, that’s what a trike is, isn’t it, Mr Decker?”

“A trike is a microlight aircraft,” Decker said. “But thanks for the image of Rakesh Madan trying to pedal a child’s three-wheeled bike out of here.”

“I thought that was an odd way to escape.”

“Get after them!” Johar yelled. “I’ll make sure Charlie is ok.”

“You heard him, Mr Decker!”

“And will you stop calling me Mr Decker. It makes me sound like I’m old enough to be your father.”

“But you are.”

“I most certainly am not! There can’t be more than three years between us.”

“Well, you look older.”

“I had a tough life.”

“You can say that again,” she said peering at the deep lines on his face.

“Can we get on with stopping Madan?”

“You’re the one talking about kids’ bikes,” she muttered under her breath as they sprinted out to the airfield. “I had no idea air-trikes even existed.”

“They’re used for recreation mostly, but also for tugging banners, mustering… you name it. They can even be used for towing hang gliders into the air.”

“But this one’s being used as an escape pod,” she said.

“Not for long,” Decker said with a scowl.