“We’ll know shortly. Our senior guy at CIA is on top of the matter. Nobody gets away from him.”
“Do you mean Buster, Mr. President?”
“Yes. As I said, shortly we’ll know Bartholomew’s new mailing address.”
Chapter 67
September 14
“Exactly 142 miles southwest of Tehran, Mr. Director.”
“Knock off the Mr. Director bullshit, Buster. Fill me in on the details.”
“The people who pulled off the escape from Dunkirk in World War II should have had Bartholomew Martin in charge, Bill. Their compound in Kurdistan was stripped bare. They didn’t even bother to leave IEDs or booby traps. They just got the hell out of there. My inside people tell me that they made a mad dash from Erbil to their present position in Iran in just under nine hours. They loaded their tanks onto flatbed trucks and hauled ass. The place where they’ve set up their new compound is an abandoned Iranian Army base. The area is so desolate it doesn’t even have a name, but my guys think they’re calling it by the English words Reformation City, typical of Bartholomew Martin. As you know, the Reformers are darlings of the ayatollahs because they both hate the United States, and they both want to do anything possible to screw us. A land attack through the Iranian countryside is impossible, to overstate the obvious. We blew our shot at nailing Bartholomew and his snakes in Kurdistan, so now we have to come up with alternatives, all of which are above my pay grade.”
“No, it’s not above your pay grade, Buster. You’re the best spook in the CIA, and your thinking always goes beyond mere spying. You’re a strategist, and don’t give me humble pie crap by denying it.”
“Well, there is a simple answer, Bill, but it’s so simple it’s stupid. We now know, thanks to Rick Bellamy and his people from Homeland Security, that the Rosetta Corporation is nothing more than a tool of Bartholomew Martin. Rick has been working with the two astronauts we rescued from Stargazer and we now have a microscope on the whole operation. Rosetta’s Stargazer program became a technical means for Bartholomew to get control of the world’s weather. The astronauts, Nancy Mullin and Bill Cranston, who are now Mr. and Mrs. Cranston, are heaven sent. They both narrowed their suspicions down to the former operations vp of Rosetta, a guy named Philip Duncan, an old college friend of Rick Bellamy if you can believe it. They observed the 20 satellites that are controlled by Moonwalker. Cranston and Mullin were the astronauts aboard Stargazer and are intimately familiar with the controls which are almost identical to Moonwalker.”
“Hey, Buster, you just said that the answer was so simple it’s stupid. So, my long-winded friend, what is the simple stupid answer?”
“We bust Rosetta and take over by court order.”
“But that doesn’t solve the long-range problem, which is Bartholomew Martin.”
“That’s why it’s a stupid answer, Bill. That fucking megalomaniac will still be at large. Our country has some big problems on its plate—North Korea, Iran, and now Bartholomew and his Reformers, who are under the friendly wings of the Iranian mullahs. Do I have to remind you that Bartholomew is our most recent president? If it weren’t for Matt Blake and his wonderful wife, we’d be living in a goddam dictatorship. So that’s why stomping on Rosetta is only a short-term solution, which is a stupid answer.”
“Buster, you’re the smartest guy around here, which is why I keep you close so I can take credit for your brilliance. But don’t you think that sometimes a short-term solution is a good one. Hey, it’s mid-September and we’re having ourselves another blizzard. At this moment, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Bartholomew is in control of the world’s weather, which means he’s pretty much in control of the world. Put yourself in President Blake’s shoes. He can’t allow this dangerous weather to keep on happening. He knows that he’s got to deal with Bartholomew. Hell, he recently tried to destroy the prick and his entire organization in Kurdistan. Buster, you’re doing a great job of tracking what’s going on with the Reformers. But somebody’s got to plow this goddam snow.”
“Well, there’s even a simpler solution, which is even more stupid,” Buster said. “We know for certain, thanks to the Cranstons, that the weather is being controlled from Rosetta, using Moonwalker, the newly launched space station. Why don’t we simply blow up Moonwalker?”
“What? Yes, we know that the new space station controls the satellites, but even the Cranstons aren’t sure how. If we blow the damn thing up, we could permanently change the weather with no way to reverse it. We don’t know how they’re doing it, but Bartholomew uses Duncan and his people to keep changing the weather to throw us off balance. It’s as if they keep testing the thing to prepare for a major event. But one thing we do know is that Bartholomew Martin wants to control the weather. Hey, look out the window. The snow is letting up and the sun looks like it’s about to come out. I have a hunch that Duncan, probably on orders from Martin, is backing off on the wild weather because he knows that the Cranstons have disappeared from Rosetta. I think they’re trying to calm things down a bit, so we don’t take any drastic steps. Let’s get in touch with Rick Bellamy. He’s at the Kennedy Space Center with our two favorite astronauts.”
“Mr. Secretary, it’s the Director of the CIA on the secure line for you, sir.”
“Bellamy here. Go ahead, Bill.”
“Rick, is the weather changing where you are?”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “I’m with Bill and Nancy Cranston and we’re monitoring what’s going on with our new space station. Of course, we can’t see the controls, but somebody has been hitting the buttons, this time giving us a break. I think they’re intentionally backing off so we won’t attack them.”
“I agree, Rick. We have a lot of assets in place at Rosetta, deep cover assets as well as FBI agents in the open. I’m here with Buster, and he tells me we have 12 CIA people at Rosetta, posing as regular employees. As of right now we’re almost certain, just based on the facts we know, that the space station operation, including the weather controls, is being handled from Rosetta, not Bartholomew Martin’s new location in Iran. I think we need to meet with President Blake. We can only go so long in not putting a stop to Martin.”
Chapter 68
September 15
President Blake took advantage of the moderating weather to call a meeting at the White House.
Those present were First Lady Dee, Rick and Ellen Bellamy, Bill Carlini and Buster from the CIA, and FBI Director Sarah Watson. Astronauts Bill and Nancy Cranston were there as well, on the president’s specific orders.
“I think you will all agree that we can no longer put up with this unpredictable weather. For our entire country, actually the world, it’s the equivalent of being under siege. Our entire infrastructure isn’t designed for these wild weather swings. The Secretary of the Treasury gave me a report just how much this madness is costing our economy. The price tag could be as high as 10 trillion dollars over the next five years—that’s five years. Blizzard conditions for a full week are enough to put a small business into bankruptcy, as well as the companies that supply them. And I remind you that small businesses are the backbone of our economy. The Justice Department tells me that bankruptcy filings are at a record high in courts across the country. Not only is our domestic economy taking a hit, but the global financial structure is hostage to this insanity as well. And it isn’t just the economic impact, huge as it is, but the millions of choices and decisions that people make every day. I’m sure that our newlywed space heroes, Bill and Nancy Cranston, would prefer not to live out their lives in the Witness Protection Program.”