John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

“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?”