Cooper had been resting on a sofa and swung his feet to the floor. “They what?”

“The FBI raided my house, our headquarters. It happened just a few minutes ago. My secretary managed to call me on my satellite phone. The have a search-and-seizure warrant for all our financial records, as well as membership lists. They also have a warrant to arrest me and Susan on suspicion of tax fraud. Thank God, Susan is with her sister at our cabin in Big Bear, but it’s only a matter of time before they find her. What are we going to do? They’re on to us, Lydell. They know everything.”

“Calm down! They don’t know anything. The FBI is using their Gestapo tactics to intimidate us. If they knew about our plan, they would have arrested everyone in California and coordinated with Turkish authorities to raid this facility.”

“But it’s coming apart. I can feel it.” Severance sat heavily on a chair and buried his face in his hands.

“Get ahold of yourself. This isn’t a big deal.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Severance spat like a petulant child. “You’re not the one under arrest. You get to hide in the shadows while I take the fall.”

“Damnit, Thom. Listen to me. The FBI has no idea what we are trying to accomplish. They might have an inkling that we are plotting something, but they don’t know what. This is a—what’s that expression?—a fishing expedition. They issued a generic warrant to see our records in hopes of finding something incriminating. We both know there isn’t.

“We’ve made sure from the very first that our records are clean. The Responsivist organization is a nonprofit, so we don’t pay taxes, but we have filed our financials with the IRS like clockwork. Unless you and Susan have done something stupid, like not pay your income tax on the salary you’re paid, they have nothing. You’ve paid your taxes, right?”

“Of course we have.”

“Then stop worrying. There shouldn’t be anything at the house that could possibly lead them here. They might discover that we had an operation in the Philippines, but we can say it was a family-planning clinic that didn’t attract any visitors so we closed it down. The Philippines is predominantly Catholic, so that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary.”

“But the timing of the raid, so close to when we release the virus?”

“Coincidence.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in them.”

“I don’t, but, in this case, I am certain of it. The FBI simply doesn’t know anything, Thom. Trust me.” When Severance’s grimace didn’t soften, Cooper went on. “Listen. Here’s what we are going to do. You are going to issue a press release demanding these scurrilous charges be dropped immediately and calling the FBI’s actions a violation of your personal and civil rights. This is pure harassment, and

you are already preparing to file a civil suit against the Justice Department. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. The helicopter we’ve been ferrying in personnel on is still here on the island. I will go to Izmir, where the jet is waiting. Tell Susan that she should get out of California. I will meet her and her sister in Phoenix and bring them back. We hadn’t planned on moving into the bunker until shortly before the virus manifests itself, but coming a few months early is no great hardship. Afterward, I guarantee that a bogus charge against you will be extremely low on the federal government’s priority list.”

“What about sending the broadcast?”

“It is an honor I leave up to you.” Cooper crossed the room so he could lay a gnarled hand on Severance’s shoulder. “It’s going to be all right, Thom. Your man Kovac will eliminate whoever killed Zach Raymond on the Golden Sky, and, in a few short hours, all of our teams will be in position with the virus ready for dispersal. We’re here. It’s our moment. Don’t let something like this ludicrous raid upset you, okay? And, listen, even if they seize the house and everything in it, our movement will have already achieved its greatest success. They can’t take that away from us, and they certainly can’t stop us.”

Severance looked up at his father-in-law. It was disconcerting at times to look at his middle-aged face and know he was in his eighties. Lydell had been more than an in-law. He had been a mentor, and the driving force for all Thom’s success. Cooper had walked away at the pinnacle of his career so he could protect what he’d created from the outside, tossing away his very identity in order to bring them to this point.

He had never doubted Cooper before, and, while errant thoughts niggled at the back of his mind, he would trust their relationship more than his gut. He stood, gently placing his hand over Cooper’s arthritis-ravaged, gloved claw.

“I’m sorry. I was putting my petty fears above our goals. What does it matter if I am arrested? The virus will be released and will spread all over the globe. The scourge of overpopulation will end, and, as you’ve said before, humanity will enter a new Golden Age.”

“In time, we will be seen as heroes. They will erect statues of us for having had the courage to find the most humane solution to our problems.”

“Do you ever wonder if, instead, they will hate us for making so many of them sterile?”

“We will be hated by individuals, sure, but humanity as a whole understands that drastic change is necessary. They already see it with the global-warming debate. Things cannot go on the way they are. You may ask, by what right do we alone do this?” Cooper’s eyes glittered. “And I say, it is by right of being rational rather than emotional.

“We do it by the right that we are right. There is no alternative. I wonder if Jonathan Swift was really being satirical when he penned A Modest Proposal in 1729. He saw then that England was being overrun by homeless urchins and that the country was going to be ruined. In order to save themselves, he said they ought to just eat the children and the problem would vanish. Eighty years later, Thomas Malthus published his famous essay on population growth. He called for ‘moral restraint,’ meaning voluntary abstinence, to reduce humanity’s swelling numbers.

“Of course, that would never work, and now even after decades of cheap birth control our numbers multiply. I said that change was necessary, but we won’t change. We haven’t yet, so I say to hell with them. If they can’t curb their instinct to procreate, I will give in to my instinct of self-preservation and save the planet by doing away with half of the next generation.”

Cooper’s voice became a strident hiss. “And, in truth, should we even care if the great sea of unwashed out there hate us? If they are too stupid to understand they are destroying themselves what does their opinion matter to us? We are like a shepherd culling a flock. Do you think he cares what the rest of the sheep think? He knows better, Thom. We know better.”

CHAPTER 34

ERIC STONE’S STOMACH WAS TOO KNOTTED TO EAT the traditional astronaut’s breakfast of steak and eggs. He wasn’t nervous about the upcoming suborbital flight. In fact, he was eager for the experience. It was the fear of failure that cramped his body and turned his mouth as dry as the desert outside the hangar. He was all too aware that this was the single most important mission of his career, and, no matter what happened in the future, nothing would top it. He was facing a life-defining moment, with the fate of humanity resting in his hands.

And as if that weren’t enough, he also couldn’t get out of his mind the fact that Max Hanley was trapped on Eos Island.

Like Mark Murphy, Eric had been catapulted by his intelligence to early success without giving him the time to properly mature. Mark hid it by playing at being a rebel, growing his hair long, blaring loud music, and pretending to flout authority. Eric had no such persona. He remained shy and socially awkward, so it was little wonder that he had always needed mentoring. In high school, the mentor had been a physics teacher, at Annapolis, an English instructor, who, ironically, he’d never had a class with. After he was commissioned, he couldn’t find someone to take him under his wing—the military wasn’t structured that way—and he was ready to leave after putting in his mandatory five years.

Tags: Clive Cussler Oregon Files Thriller
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