The Aegis Solution (32 page)

"Thermal explosions," Elias answered, wondering what path the old man's mind was following
now.

"Makes perfect sense. To the outside world it could be explained as an unfortunate, accidental fire,
a tragic accident. After all, who knows what those people inside Aegis have been doing? And fire would
have the added benefit of obliterating so much physical evidence, as well as the DNA of the victims.
All in all, it would be an excellent way to clean up after an operation. You obviously didn't carry that
ordnance in with you when you arrived."

"No, I received a drop last night. It came with that."

"I doubt it."

"Of course it did. I unpacked it myself."

"Oh, they may have sent something resembling the devices, but I suspect that what they sent to you
is quite harmless."

"If that is true," Stone posited as he joined the conversation, "that would clinch it. There couldn't
be any doubt that Faulk is behind all of this."

"True," Elias agreed.

"I'll go check it out," Stone ventured. "All I need to do is open up one of them and I'll be able to
tell."

"I'll go with you," Tillie added quickly.

"No, you should stay here."

"Huh-uh. I know the way to his stash."

"So do I. I assume that you used the same spot I was supposed to use?" he asked Elias.

"As far as I know." Elias went on to describe the location.

"Yep, that was going to be my drop location."

"It doesn't matter!" Tillie maintained, raising her voice insistently. "I'm going, too."

"Look…," Stone started to argue, but was cut off by Elias.

"She isn't quite sure about all of this, Eric. And in her shoes, I wouldn't be, either."

"What do you mean?"

"Okay, hotshot," snapped Tillie. "I'll spell it out for you. You were sent here to kill all of us. You
were captured the minute you arrived, so you never got your supply of firebombs or whatever they are.
Elias tells you that they arrived last night, and all of a sudden you are eagerly offering to go check them
out. You haven't even asked us if you could use the bathroom yet! I don't think so, pal. Not without
me."

Stone grinned at Elias and commented, "She's quite a piece of work!"

Elias nodded his agreement. "You don't know the half of it."



With Stone and Tillie gone, Elias settled into the comfortable silence which seemed to surround
Wilson. The two men listened to the whipping wind and watched the trees and plants in their frenzied
dance.

After some time, Elias finally spoke. "I never knew it was normal for the wind to have such
intensity in this part of the desert."

"It isn't. Or, at least, it wasn't always."

"You lost me."

Wilson tilted his head back and looked up at the sky, partially revealed above. "When I first arrived
here, it was gusty, to be sure. And it seemed to be constant. I'm not a native of this land, but when I met
Tillie, she informed me that at the time she came to Aegis...on its opening day, mind you...it was still.
According to Tillie, whom I trust implicitly – not only her integrity but her observational skills, as well
– the wind has gathered steadily since that day."

"How can that be?"

"Alas, I am no meteorologist. However, my meager knowledge of the field tells me that there is no
viable explanation. What I do know of desert winds is that the rule is a general calmness during the late
night through mid-morning, followed, as the day heats, with an escalating wind. What you have,
perhaps, not noticed in your short time here is that this wind is unceasing…unabating twenty-four hours
a day. Of course, there is always Tillie's explanation."

"Which is?"

"That God is mad at Aegis."

This was not the answer Elias expected from Wilson. "Is she serious?"

"She is. And she has assembled a fairly impressive list of reasons why He should be incensed. First
reason, many of the people who have checked in here, by all rights, ought to be dead. Without Aegis,
they would have committed suicide. She believes that their continued existence is upsetting some sort
of balance."

"The second reason?"

"The fact that Kreitzmann has set up his main, or perhaps even total, operations inside Aegis, that
all of his experiments are an offense against nature or God's plan or something like that."

"Is there a third?"

"There is. She maintains that the continued existence of Aegis is like a lighthouse on a stormy night,
beckoning to this ostensibly safe port those who might have lost their way – except that this is not the
safe port it was, presumably, intended to be. Instead, all of these lost folks are entering a lion's den. She
compares it to a lighthouse that might be maliciously built to lure ships onto the rocks."

"She may have some good points."

"She may, indeed."

Elias stared at Wilson, attempting to determine the depth of his sincerity.

Wilson continued, "There is biblical precedent, in which it is said that Sodom and Gomorrah were
destroyed due to their wickedness. I dare say that what is happening within these walls rivals the
nefariousness of those two cities."

"There could be another explanation for the increased winds. Global warming?"

"Global warming? Puh! Besides, even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change couldn't
stretch their findings enough to explain one simple fact about what is happening here."

"What's that?"

Wilson carefully placed his cup on the table and stared directly into Elias' eyes. "The direction.
Rather than coming out of the north, south, east, or west, the wind is blowing straight down from the
heavens."



"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Stone was slowing unscrewing the stainless-steel lid on one of the incendiary devices Elias had
stowed away.

"Yep. These are standard Incendergel bombs."

Removing the lid, he pointed at the thick, still liquid inside. "About forty-six percent polystyrene,
thirty-three percent gasoline with boosted octane, and the other twenty-one percent benzene. Pretty
nasty concoction but fairly difficult to ignite. That's why we use white phosphorous as the pyrotechnic
initiator, because that stuff is hotter than hell."

"So it is napalm, like they used in Vietnam?"

Stone gave Tillie a crooked grin over the top of the bomb, which he had placed on the end of one
of the crates. "You like to read, don't you?"

Tillie nodded, not taking her eyes off the device between his hands.

"Incendergel is a later-generation napalm developed after the Korean War, but quite a bit different
from the original, which was naphthenic and palmitic acids. Napalm is really the thickening agent to be
mixed with flammable liquids like gasoline. They used it long before Vietnam. It was the juice in the
flamethrowers during World War II and the firebombing in Germany. It needs a fuse, or pyrotechnic
initiator, to ignite. We also have bombs made with trimethylaluminum. Those don't need a fuse.
Exposure to the air is all it takes for one of those babies to go off with a bang."

"So how did you know this wasn't a trimethylaluminum bomb? It could have gone off when you
unscrewed the lid and the air hit it."

Stone tapped the side of the bomb with his index finger. "The label. It says right there what kind
of device it is."

"And you trust everything on labels?"

He shrugged. "Good point. I am doing this since Elias and I don't trust the guy who sent these. I
guess they could've been booby-trapped. One other reason though, a trimethylaluminum device
wouldn't have a lid you could just unscrew. The explosive material is sealed in."

Stone dipped the tip of a pencil into the gel, only enough to extract a drop, which he placed onto
the top of a piece of sheet metal they had picked up along the way. Setting down the sheet metal, he
replaced the lid on the bomb and picked up the metal. After he had put a few feet of distance between
himself and the device, he pulled a butane lighter out of his pocket. With one click, the lighter ignited,
making a soft whooshing sound. Stone tilted the lighter until the flame licked the droplet on the metal.

There was no instant bright flash; the mixture did not ignite. Instead, the liquid bubbled ferociously
until it steamed away, leaving a brownish spot on the hot metal.

"Not the real thing?"

"I don't know what's in these, but it isn't Incendergel or any other form of napalm."

She wrinkled her nose as the smell from the burnt gel reached her nostrils. "Smells like molasses."



"Duds, huh?" Elias stated flatly. "I guess that answers that question."

Stone glanced into the front doorway of the shack, where Tillie and Wilson made a show of busying
themselves. He was certain they were having a hushed conference about their two new visitors.

"What I don't understand, Elias, is why even send the bogus bombs to you. If the goal was to get
you trapped inside Aegis, then once you were here, there wouldn't be any reason to maintain the ruse."

"I've been thinking about that and might have a theory, but it isn't really far enough along in my
mind to share."

"Same old Elias," Stone said, shaking his head. "Sometimes I think that you play your cards so close
to the vest that even you can't see them."

Elias chuckled.

"At least tell me your theory as to why Faulk wants to get rid of both of us – or, if I was only the
bait, you. Is there anything you were working on before he sent you in here that he might have been
worried about?"

"I can't imagine. You know what I've been doing ever since the day…."

"Trying to track down Leah's killer."

"Right."

"That's all? No other projects?"

"No. Nothing else. Not for a single minute."

"Then there is only one possible explanation."

"What's that?"

"You were getting close to an answer. And that answer was one Faulk didn't like."

Elias stared at Stone. "Are you saying that Faulk wasn't responsible for her death solely because of
his supreme incompetence?"

Stone paused, realizing that planting this thought in Elias' mind was tantamount to lighting the fuse
on a guided missile. "Maybe," he answered, hedging.

Many times in the recent past, Stone had seen a certain look cloud the face of his friend, a faraway,
unfocused stare…an intense clenching of his jaw…accompanied by an infusion of redness in his
complexion. All were telltale signs that Elias was, once again, living through a fantasy which included
the meting out of justice against those who were responsible for his wife's death.

"Don't tell me you hadn't considered it in the past."

Elias mentally returned from the movie in his mind and looked at Stone. "I have, but never really
had anything I could hang my hat on. All of the clues led me back to colossal stupidity on his part, a
conclusion I never had a problem accepting, knowing him as I do."

"Specifically, tell me what new pieces to the puzzle you had found recently. Maybe there's
something that will help."

Elias thought for a moment, sifting through the details in his head. "Just one, really. And I'm not
even sure if this fits in. I only bring it up due to the timing. You remember Benjamin?"

Stone's eyes widened. "Code name Benjamin? Mossad?"

"One and the same. I heard from him, out of the blue."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. There was a call from him on my voice mail. He didn't leave any details, but said that
it was urgent we speak."

"Did you call him back?"

"I did, but I got his voice mail. We haven't talked yet."

"When did he call?"

Elias stared intently at his old friend and said, "The day before I heard from Faulk."

Stone shook his head. "I don't see the connection, not if Faulk sent me in here two and a half
months ago as bait to trap you."

"True. I only brought it up because it was so close to my hearing from him."

The screen door swung open and Tillie came out of the shack, followed by Wilson.

"Tillie, Wilson tells me that you think we are about to receive the wrath of God here."

She dropped her lanky frame into the chair nearest Elias. "Would you blame Him?"

"What's this about?" Stone asked.

Elias pointed up toward the sky and answered, "This wind. When I got here, I thought it was
probably normal for this part of the desert. According to our hosts, it isn't."

Stone glanced to the side, focusing on the mad gyrations of the foliage. "So?"

"I was one of the original group to enter Aegis, a first-dayer," Tillie began. "I still remember that
day clearly. It was hotter than hell, and they were keeping us under a tent to give us shelter from the sun.
We were all hoping for at least a breeze – but nothing, not even a breath of wind."