Simon looked at Al from the corner of his eye, not wanting the sec chief to realize that he was being stared at. The older man was red in the face from a mixture of tension and suppressed rage, except around the tightly set lips, which were white from the pressure of his clamped jaw. His eyes bulged as he kept his anger and rage within, and Simon was certain he could hear Jorgensen’s teeth grinding, even from a distance.
“So what do you want me to do, Al?” Rack asked in a voice that came out much smaller, and more timid, than he would have liked.
There was no answer, and Rack passed an awkward few seconds wondering if he had been heard. He was about to ask again when Al replied in a strangled voice that seemed to be forced from the back of his throat.
“Do nothing, Simon. This is my baby. And they’ll learn soon enough.”
With which, Al turned on his heel and strode rapidly from the room, leaving Rack in front of the darkened bank of monitors. The observer felt awkward. Should he stay and await further orders? Should he attempt to follow Jorgensen so that he, too, could report? Or should he just try to get the hell out of the way before all hell broke loose, as it surely would.
For Simon knew that Jorgensen was making a complete mess of the situation. He was only an observer, but even he—without training—could see that the situation was absurd. They had a vastly superior arsenal and greater manpower, and yet they now had this group of savages almost inside their base. Things couldn’t get worse than this, could they?
THE REDOUBT WAS HUGE. It ran to seventeen levels, burrowing deep into the earth, each level heavily reinforced to secure it against the pressure of the level above and the earth and rock surrounding. It had taken years of work in the two decades before the nukecaust to complete, and even then there were some areas where work had been stopped by skydark, and was only now being resumed and finished with what materials were at hand. It had been a vast undertaking by the secret cabal known as the Illuminated Ones, and the knowledge of how a black budget within the U.S. military-industrial complex had been set up and diverted to insure the completion of this and the other bases of the cabal had been handed down from generation to generation to insure that the importance of security and secrecy was emphasized and maintained.
Which was why Al Jorgensen felt distinctly uncomfortable when he entered the chamber where the central council met. A quorum of eight people—four male and four female—served as the central council. The tasks and divisions codified within the pseudo-military setup of the Illuminated Ones had been established before the nukecaust, and maintained in order to keep a structure during the long years of being hidden from view. Although these structures were rigid, the young ones born during those generations weren’t immediately assigned tasks by heredity.
Rather, they were educated, assessed and then allotted their sections according to whatever gifts they might possess. Thus, unlike any other pockets of predark old tech and old ways that might have existed the Illuminated Ones had insured that their redoubt ran smoothly because of competence.
Those who served on the quorum were from the administrative and comp-tech branches of the redoubt. These people had revealed a knack for their tasks during the years of education, and took turns of six months on the leading quorum before returning to their regular tasks until such time as their rota decreed they serve again. Like everything in the redoubt, it was ordered and streamlined to serve as efficiently to the cause as possible. Competence was the watchword, and with their desire to prolong and extend resources for as long as possible, the worst crime was incompetence.
Which was also why Jorgensen was so uncomfortable about facing them. He wasn’t a stupid man. In fact, in simulation he had revealed himself as far and away the best for his task. He prided himself on his ability to manage a job. And the fact that he now stood before them as a failure who was endangering their existence was something that hurt his pride deeply. He wasn’t afraid of what they would do to him for his failure. In truth, in his eyes he deserved whatever they might decree. The primary shame was that he had failed himself as much as he had failed the cause.