CHAPTER 10


   “That son of a bitch,” was the only thing Mary could say even if she did so quietly. This was more than just her job. This was even more than international stability. This was all very personal to her. People she cared about, family even, were all on the firing line and, she had to ask herself, what the hell did Emmet Shoals have at stake? Nothing as far as Mary could figure as she watched him smugly sell his opinions on cable news. Nothing that he said overtly challenged anything but, when you dug beneath the surface it sure did. This guy knew what strings to pull and, that told Mary, he had inside information that he obviously knew how to put to effective use.
It was clear that the ordained reverend knew more about it than the man that Mary was sharing this flight with. As David Kent came strolling back from the bathroom, he sat back down and had to ask, “I thought you didn’t like this guy? You’d think you were his biggest fan from how you’re hanging on every word.”
Mary did not bother to answer. She was doing exactly what Kent had suggested. Questions like the one asked, by another talking head, was the reason why. Maybe the guy had tried to call Shoals out? He suggested that Shoals would be attending the rapidly growing demonstration in Washington but, Shoals deflected by laughing and saying, “I am much too old for that sort of thing. I do appreciate what those young people are all doing. They are, after all, the ones who will be called upon to fight this senseless war on the behalf a nation that is not even human. How can we deny that this would concern them?”
Mary sure knew what question she would have asked him at this point but, the news anchor, who was supposed to be moderating this panel, never bothered with something as common sense as that. How did all of those people get to Washington? They sure did not live there and they sure as hell did not just up and decide to drive there for no reason. The fact that something happened at the Dell was only a few hours old. Beyond a few world leaders, and their top people, no one even knew that something had happened for sure.
“The bastard knows,” Mary blurted out. When Kent gave her a strange look she practically growled, “he knows what happened at Coven Hill. He can’t say it without giving up his source but, he knows it’s the perfect time to lean on us.”
David considered that, was still a bit confused but, he had to ask with a certain amount of revulsion, “someone in the administration?”
Mary huffed in frustration, “more than likely it came from the Hill. Devon should have briefed the committee by now.”
David considered himself an educated man. He now wondered what that really meant. He should have been educated enough to know better than take this job. How complicated and convoluted his position was, was a good case in point. Officially he was the Secretary of the Interior but, as the president wanted, he was really supposed to be handling issues related to the elves. Devon was working on making that an official cabinet position but, as of yet, that had not happened. All the while, Mary was supposed to be his unofficial helper, working for him. The reality was, David felt, that he worked for her and she did not even have a title, let alone hold a cabinet seat. Couldn’t these people do anything on the up and up?
If David could make no sense of that then, understanding why everyone got so upset about this Shoals guy, was completely beyond him. He humbly asked Mary, “so what do we do?”
“Our jobs,” was all Mary had to say on the matter. She turned the television off and they remained silent till they landed at Coven Hill. She only spoke after she got off the plane and was joined by Phil Conner who fell in step alongside the delegation that got off the plane.
Phil responded to the very short question with his usual bland demeanor, “we’ll be meeting at our delegation building. You’ll have the usual crowd but, with one noted addition.”
It did not take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. Now that the Camelonians were being included, even if it had not hit the news yet, they were bound to show up. That was particularly true here at Coven Hill. As they had now informed the White House, the facility was theirs, always had been, and had never belonged to the United Kingdom. It was a point of diplomacy that was still being argued over and that was why Mary grumbled and responded with, “my old friend Carol Somerset, I take it?”
“Uh,” Phil stumbled and then said, “not really. Some guy named Reilly. I had never heard of him before. I got the CIA trying to work up a jacket on him. We don’t have much yet, not enough time.”
Just before getting in her waiting car, Mary shook her head at Phil and said, “you’re getting slack on me buddy. This isn’t poker night at Fort Bragg.”
Phil understood the meaning and Mary even wondered if he knew how much she meant it. The guy never changed demeanor, always spoke in that bland voice, and when playing poker he was a deadly opponent for those very reasons. The strange part was, Mary suspected, he didn’t even like playing cards even if he and his wife never missed a night.
These kinds of traits made Mary think it was why her ex-husband found the man so useful. Now that Bob was not here, she was going to see how useful he could be for her. That was why her parting words were, “so did you get in yet?”
“On the way now,” Phil replied in monotone. He then asked, “anything I need to tell Janet?”
Before closing the back door to the car, Mary replied, “yeah, tell her, now that she’s survived a revolution, I’m going to kill her.”
That was not really a message that Phil had any plans on delivering. Janet Isaacs was probably smart enough to figure out what her mother would say anyway and, besides, she would be equally inclined to ignore it. All it would do is put Phil in the middle of a cat fight and, give Bob one more thing to laugh at him about. Phil stuck to business and when he reached the old manor house, at the top of the hill, he had plenty of other reasons to do so. The guys in the black uniforms, the Camelonian Security Forces, were not all that happy to see him. Considering the fact that Phil had, just recently, almost killed them all, he could understand why.
Fortunately, Ian Dominique showed up at the perimeter and easily waived off the armed goon squad. He did not seem that happy to see Phil but, he was not angry either. It was more like the guy just did not care one way or the other but, as he led Phil to the house, he did happen to mention, “you know they told me to let you in. You should know that.”
“Doctor,” Phil told him bluntly, “when this is all said and done I think you guys are going to have to let the whole world in.”
Dominique seemed pretty confident along with his swagger, “not fucking likely mate.” Then he suddenly became somewhat apologetic, “nothing against you personally, colonel. It’s just this has been ours since before your country even existed. Hell, before there was even a Great Britain and, for that matter, even before there were even anybody that called themselves English. I don’t care what deal those saps in London made with the UN, they didn’t have the right.”
Phil probed, “is this King Arthur talking?”
The young scientist, the guy who allegedly discovered the Dell, blew the suggestion off, “I think you’ll find most of us feel this way. My Uncle doesn’t have to tell me that.”
“Before I could find that out,” Phil responded as they stopped at the front door to the mansion, “I’d have to first know who all of you are and, the one thing I have definitely discovered is, you Camelonians are pretty good at hiding that.”
“Better than you might realize,” Dominique replied with confidence.
Phil decided to wipe that smug attitude away with, “and something else you are, is making up cover stories. I guess that goes hand in hand with the hiding. You didn’t really discover the Dell, did you? I mean, how could you if you guys have known about it all this time?”
That did not rattle Dominique in the way Phil might have thought. He took it with a grain of salt, “yeah, well when Uncle Arthur asked me to do that, I was like, sounds good to me. Wouldn’t you take credit for something like that if you could?” That only drew silence and a blank look that Dominique did not seem to know how to take. As a result, he began stumbling over his words. He finally got out, “it’s not like I wasn’t really working on it. I really am a physicist.
You get that, right?”
Still blank in the face, Phil replied with, “I didn’t say anything.”
“Course not,” Dominique replied with a hint of hostility, “you’re just trying to pry whatever out of me. It won’t work Colonel.”
“You know I have a friend down in your hospital,” Phil replied. He actually felt kind of guilty using her for this as well. “If you’re looking for a hidden meaning to my visit, that’s it. Otherwise I’m officially here to make sure we can evacuate our casualties safely to our own facility, and say thank you for your help.”
Above everything else, Phil got the impression that Dominique did not like to be wrong. He would not drop the subject, “doesn’t matter cause Reilly should be informing your people of the situation, right now.”
Phil just nodded to the door and Dominique looked almost embarrassed that he forgot about it. He swiped a plastic card on a security lock and then they entered a grand hall that Phil was not too surprised to see. The place just cried rural England with it’s paintings, mounted displays of edged weapons, dark wooden stain, and furniture that probably cost more than any place Phil had ever lived. There was one painting in particular that caught Phil’s eye and despite the protest of a guard, Phil stopped and stepped up to it.
Dominique had to call off the guard and send him on his way. He stepped up next to Phil who noted, “I know this guy.”
“That’s my uncle,” Dominique replied, “Ian Balfour. I was named after him. You should know him. If you been to Feyland you would have had to deal with him at some point.”
Phil started briskly walking again like he knew where he was going and, in reality, he did not. Dominique had to catch up with him and then guide him along. Phil then asked, “so you said Reilly was briefing the UN team on the situation. I suppose then, it’s no harm if you go ahead and tell me.”
That actually made Dominique have to think before he finally just shrugged and said, “what the hell. You got a minute? I’ll just show you. It’ll be easier that way.”
Ian led the soldier into a security room full of monitors. The black shirts were not happy but, it was also apparent there was very little they could do about it. Ian had them pull up a video feed on one specific monitor and it was an overhead view from inside of building thirteen. Ian was actually laughing as he started the play back, “watch this, this is so fucking cool.” There was a flash and then the center of the room was filled with what Phil could only describe as a sun! There was a huge round ball of flames right about where the Dell was. When Phil noted this, Ian corrected him, “not right about colonel. That’s exactly where it is, that’s the Dell.”
“What?” Phil’s voice actually sounded out concern as he leaned forward and looked closely at the image, “that’s the Dell? What happened to it?”
Ian put his hands in his pockets, shrugged, and easily replied, “nothing actually. The Dell is the same as it’s always been. That’s just what’s on the other side. We think it got buried at the temple and there’s an underground fire. It’s being insulated by the debris so it’s burning pretty hot and long. We’re trying to snuff it out from this side, by sucking the air out of it.”
That was an interesting thought and as Phil backed away from the monitor he asked, “any luck?” Again, Ian shrugged even if it was clear the guy really did not know the answer. He still bragged and Phil used this point to ask, “something I don’t get. You guys always suck the air out of that room, like you’re doing now.”
“Yeah,” Ian shrugged yet again, “so?”
“When we drove those tracks in there,” Phil responded, “for that matter when I almost got blown up, the doors to Building Thirteen were wide open. If you don’t have to suck the air out why even bother?”
That made the physicist think before answering but, the good news was, he was going to answer, “it’s one of those little problems you never think of. Something we figured we had best do something about? You know what I mean?”
“Not really,” Phil replied.
“You know what causes storms? Colonel,” asked Ian. Now it was Phil’s turn to shrug and then Ian smugly continued, “a difference in air pressure. What if you got a serious low pressure center at Coven Hill and a very high pressure center at the Temple? You open up the Dell and suddenly you got a serious problem.”
That sparked a thought in Phil’s head, “you mean like, Wizard of Oz tornado stuff?”
“Well,” Ian mulled it over, “we never had anything that dramatic but, you could get some serious wind, maybe even a good thunder storm if the Dell is big enough, and the conditions are right. Best way to handle that is no air pressure at all, on ether side. Does that make sense?” When Phil nodded it was obvious that Ian was proud of himself. It made Phil wonder how much he had to do with the idea but, as they walked to the clinic, it seemed as if this had more to do with another pet theory of his, “you ever notice how monsters and stuff always went hand in hand with storms, you know, in stories?”
“No,” Phil replied blandly.
“Well you brought up the Wizard of Oz,” Ian replied with a chuckle. “It got me to thinking, what if all them stories had a root source. Maybe some poor Elf or Gnome, maybe even an Orc, got accidentally caught in a natural opening? Back then it was sure to come with a storm. Then the poor bloke gets discovered by the local villagers and, poof, you got an old fashioned burning at the stake, you know?”
“Interesting theory,” Phil replied with not a hint that he found it in the least bit so. He was busy looking at some of the machines they were passing on the way to the ward where the patients were being kept.
Janet Isaacs also interrupted them and Phil was perfectly satisfied with that. Ian took the hint and wandered off, giving orders to his medical people before he left. After that it seemed to Phil as if no one was paying them any particular mind so he asked Janet, “do you know what any of that stuff over there is?”
Janet seemed confused by the question. She looked at the machinery and responded with a bewildered tone, “some of it, why?”
“No real reason,” Phil responded and changed the subject, “how’s Katie? How’s the rest of our people?”
“She’s damn lucky Phil,” Janet replied in earnest. She gestured to everything going on around her, “if this facility hadn’t been here, if these doctors, well, Katie wouldn’t have made it.”
That peaked Phil’s interest for a lot of reasons, “what does that mean?”
“Phil,” Janet replied, “some of these doctors here, they’re like Nobel prize quality.” Janet pointed to one guy in particular, “that guy, his book was required reading in one of my genetics classes. You know I got to actually ask…”
“So you’re telling me this is state of the art?” Phil asked with a hint of surprise in his voice.
Janet led him towards the bed, with Katie in it, and remarked, “way above that. They’re doing stuff here, they got stuff here, I never even dreamed of.” She then bowed with, “I got to go finalize the transport. Be back in a minute.”
Katie actually opened her eyes at that point and asked, “wondering when you’d get over here.”
Phil took her hand after she nodded it was all right. He then told her, “don’t scare me like that again Major. We’re going to get you home now. You just let us handle it.”
That made Katie almost want to cry, “Phil, I was home.”
He had no idea what she meant.