Certain Death One

The Horror-3

The chairman of the board Arthur Walker slammed the door behind him, startling them all and seizing their attention - exactly as he had planned. He took his seat at the head of the large mahogany table without speaking. The others followed suit.

"Gentleman," he said, "I'll get right to it. Some of us know already what this meeting's about. The rest are going to find this a very unpleasant day. Chet?"

Chester Lane, Vice President of Corporate Communications rose to address them. Widely viewed as a smarmy sycophant, Lane betrayed none of his annoying qualities this morning. "Guys," he began simply, "We're in unbelievably deep s**t, worse than anything you can possibly imagine."

Chester's enemies usually smirked when he addressed them, but something about his manner drained their competitive spirit and replaced it with curiosity.

He continued, "Last night, as you know, a twelve alarm blaze utterly destroyed Carteret Chemical, which of course posed a potentially disastrous situation for anyone living in the area - the threat of toxic fumes, explosions, et cetera. Well, our worst fears were not realized - last night, anyway. However, you should know that there exists in the maximum containment holding dock approximately two thousand gallons of an unknown substance of such lethal properties that we have been forced to keep it there until a suitable disposal site could be found. It is presently not a relevant matter how it came into being. Suffice it to say the law has been broken. We need to decide right now how to transport this substance out of a densely populated area and where."

"Excuse me, Sir," Jed Smith raised his hand. His mock respect brought smiles to a few. "Why don't we dump it in New Jersey?"

Some laughed. Others shook their heads in disbelief.

Chairman Walker interrupted, "It's in New Jersey, already."

Smith shrugged, "Jersey's the toxic waste capitol of the world. Why don't we just leave it there?"

More laughter followed, but the frowns of anxiety and dread on others quickly dampened it.

"Minutes ago," Lane continued, his eyes watering, "A small cloud of gas from this substance escaped the plant, which we thought had been thoroughly secured by Plasti-Seal. As a result, four members of a Canadian family, traveling to Disney World, we believe, and eight men in the crew of the Norwegian freighter Oslo Maiden are now dead. On site medical examinations reveal their respiratory systems utterly dissolved.

"The hole in the Plasti-Seal canopy has since been plugged, but the entire facility is now contaminated with this gas, and we have a hurricane with sustained winds of over one hundred twenty miles an hour bearing down on us as I speak. Perhaps the Plasti-Seal will hold. Perhaps not. It has never been tested under these conditions. In fact, it has never been tested at all."

Lane paused, but not for dramatic effect. As he choked back tears, a chill gripped the onlookers.

"This situation resulted, we are told, when a technician unsealed the tank car where the substance is located to determine how much time we have before it eats through the hull. Five eyewitnesses assure us that the lid was raised for no more than ten seconds."

The thirteen VPs riveted their eyes to the speaker, aghast. Only the chairman stared down at the table's surface, his hands clasped as if in prayer.

"How much time do we have?" Nicholas Belton asked.

"We don't know for sure," Lane responded. "We only have the testimony of the EPA tech who looked inside."

A young assistant vice president interrupted, "How did the EPA find out about this before we did?"

Walker rapped his gavel angrily and shouted, "No more interruptions!"

Lane talked over him, "That's irrelevant to the crisis at hand. In answer to Nick's question, we believe we have eight hours, at least, but no more than twenty four." Lane added, "I guess I don't have to tell you, but I will anyway, our professional careers are over, but that's the least of our worries. At this moment, the most densely populated area in North America faces a catastrophe that would make a nuclear bomb seem like a discriminating weapon."

A deathly silence followed. Finally, Jed Smith raised his hand, all sobriety now. "Have the feds been called?"

"Preliminary contact has been made, but the ball was thrown back at us and the EPA."

"That's nuts," Smith declared to widespread nods, "We can't handle this. This is a military matter. They have the training, they have the equipment . . ."

"We made the mess, but somebody else is going to have to clean it up. Is that it?" Lane queried a silent room. "That's what I thought - and I agree."

Jed Smith asked Arthur Walker one last question before they scurried from the room, "Has the President been called?" he asked.

The President of the United States, standing rigidly, peered into the Rose Garden, oblivious to the natural beauty growing there. He listened to his trusted aide with as much attention as he could muster, fighting a recurring disgust for this godforsaken job.

What was it the Supreme Court justice had said? Nothing was worth this - no niche in history, no public adoration, and certainly not the salary.

If the voters only knew how limited were the skills of people who held high office in this country, they might decide to run themselves, either for election or a safe haven overseas. All his childish, optimistic dreams about a new generation of leadership ushering in a hopeful era of social reforms had been shattered by partisan politics. Nobody played for the team anymore, they only played for the party, and a stalemated, unfairly labeled "do-nothing administration" resulted.

He chose to run for re-election only out of gratitude and the desperate urging of his constituency, but his enthusiasm for the most powerful office in the land had flagged long ago.

"Our list of qualified candidates is alarmingly limited. I've surveyed the Joint Chiefs, FBI, CIA to determine what attributes and specific credentials they would demand in a theoretical situation like the one we face." Nelson Frelinghuysen, the President's top aide, fired off his oral report in a rapid monotone, making him sound like an automaton. Frelinghuysen understood the crisis and knew their only hope would hinge on a brilliant, but highly eccentric individual.

"His name is Colonel William Dennis Jeremiah, a gifted tactician, graduated from West Point, number one, 1966. Served with distinction in Viet Nam in the now defunct branch called Covert Operations. What exactly he did there is anybody's guess. Word is he threatened to write a book about it four years ago, but was dissuaded by threats of imprisonment and a bribe of five hundred thousand dollars.

"Jeremiah is one of only seven successful graduates of the Douglas Crisis Training Seminar, a CIA sponsored project designed more to determine aptitudes than impart skills. Among the many scenarios with which the students had to deal was overseeing official response to a nuclear power plant meltdown, from extinguishing the fire, to population control, to contamination removal. Jeremiah's proposals currently stand as official policy in the event of the real thing."

Frelinghuysen cleared his throat to allow this information to sink in. The President's glare served as his cue to continue.

"In 1991, he accepted the challenge to breach security and invade the Norbert,

Montana, nuclear missile silos and take control of them, using only information accessible to the public. He knew in advance that none of the security personnel had been informed, that secret access codes were changed every hour, and that he ran the risk of being shot on sight. Jeremiah was dropped one quarter mile outside the perimeter of the facility and accomplished his mission in forty-three minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

"Needless to say, precautions there have been . . . updated."

"So, what are we waiting for?"

"There's a little more, Mr. President." Frelinghuysen gave a half-hearted smile. "It's been rumored that Jeremiah got religion about three years ago, even wrote an evangelical book about it. Since then, he's been dividing his time between a home with a wife in Belmar and a log cabin in western Jersey with two Doberman pinschers. He built the latter dwelling with his own hands, on the land he bought with the hush money. He has surrounded his habitat with a nine-foot high barbed wire fence, and he has neither washed nor shaved in several months. Obviously, this raises considerable doubt about his mental and emotional stability."

The President had heard the same doubts expressed about Southern Baptists, of which he was one, but he let the remark pass. "How do we know so much about him?"

"Jeremiah is the kind of man you keep an eye on."

"There's nobody else?"

"Not close by."

"How long . . ."

"We can have him in Elizabeth in just over thirty minutes."

The President sighed deeply. We need a decision now, he thought. It's either him or me. The Chief Executive turned to Frelinghuysen reluctantly, wearing an expression that looked like shame. "OK. Go with Jeremiah. Inform him that he will report directly to me." The aide pivoted to leave. "And one other thing, Nelson."

"Sir?"

"Try to round up the other six graduates of that training seminar, just in case Jeremiah proves . . . unacceptable."

"Yes, Sir."

Atop the Federal Building in Newark, New Jersey, a helicopter prepared for take-off. A few yards away, three men engaged in heated conversation which the pilot, a young Caucasian woman, could not hear. Soon, one man, the lone African-American, broke away with a wave of disgust and climbed into the aircraft. He handed the pilot a scribbled note.

"Here are your coordinates, Agent Clementine. Get us there pronto." Then, he slumped into the back seat, wearing a sullen expression, leaving his seatbelt unfastened. "Looks like we're only escorts again," he muttered, to which the pilot responded with an understanding, rueful nod.

Former Major Thomas Jordan, for eight years FBI Agent Thomas Jordan of the "newly" formed Special Projects Branch, fought valiantly against a wave of fury which threatened to squash his soul. The emotion arose from repeated slights at the hands of less qualified "superiors," who promised his moment would one day come, the moment when he would take control of a project of some significance.

But that day had never come. In truth, both he and Agent Darcy Clementine had long ago resigned themselves to the status of cast-offs, concluding that this Special Projects branch had been created only because nobody else wanted them.

Part of Jordan tried to swat the thought away like an annoying yellow jacket, but it persisted. His friends and family warned him this would happen, but he refused to listen, refused to employ his intelligence and education in more profitable pursuits. He chose to believe his commanding officer and those outwardly sincere recruiters when they insisted the color barriers had fallen in the FBI. So impressed were they with the major's learning and talents that they asked him to head up a new division which had long lain dormant because they had no one qualified to lead it.

Jordan reacted warily. The prospect of pioneering a new division excited him, but the disadvantages of serving outside the mainstream may be too much for an ambitious African-American male to overcome.

Was this a genuine opportunity to exploit his skills and climb the ladder, or a way to keep him closeted while the good ole' white boys passed him by? As the years progressed, his suspicions threatened to crush him. At first, it seemed like Special Projects might go places when his branch director informed him that a new agent had been added to his staff, a brilliant young graduate from the University of Kentucky.

Jordan studied the pilot and felt a sudden rush of compassion.

Darcy Clementine had also envisioned excitement and accomplishment in the FBI, at the expense of other dreams, like marriage and children. Now thirty-four, she knew a critical decision loomed, either commit to her career for the remainder of her life, or shift gears and start anew. Jordan couldn't help but think that her thick southern accent and folksy manner diminished her credibility among higher ups and made her the target of secret mockery. In truth, he often found her colloquialisms a source of embarrassment himself. However, behind that enthusiastic, childlike veneer, lived a disillusioned, disappointed and extremely gifted young woman.