A/N: Long time since I updated, and the document preview thing ate my nicely detailed A/N. -- Long story short, I got injured and missed Christmas (Doesn't matter, since I'm an atheist and we celebrate Festivus at my place), my girlfriend and I went on vacation, and then I decided that I needed to submit this un-beta'ed chapter.
On with the show!
16: Interlude – The Thin Red Line
The Helmaj base
"I probably already know what you're thinking."
Kenji strained his hands apart, trying to reach the lock on the chains they had wrapped around his wrists. He could barely move, and if he could, the chains around his elbows wouldn't easily be budged.
NAPA VALLEY opened the tent flap, ducking in and pulling up a metal folding chair to sit across from Kenji; his hands were neatly folded in his lap, a look of concern – almost sadness – across his face.
"You aren't the only one I've run into like this. It's been in all manner of places. Would you believe that someone recognized me in St. Helena? The middle of wine country?Kiriko and I – oh, Kiriko is my wife, by the way; she's the one who batted you out of mid-air the Scimitar – we were eating at this wonderful little neighborhood restaurant, the kind of place that tourists haven't discovered yet, with a bottle of a nice Shiraz, and the waiter said he recognized me. A smart kid, a UCLA student working in the Valley for the summer. He had a photographic memory and remembered me from the Munich Olympics rescue mission. I was at Furstenfeldbruck, disguised as one of the German helicopter crews. By the time those idiot snipers started opening fire, Black September had already killed the entire Israeli team."
Amusing anecdote, you son of a bitch...
"It's the same story everywhere," NAPA mused. "The failed rescue of Patty Hearst from the Symbionese Liberation Army, planting explosive charges on Egyptian SAM sites just before the balloon went up on the '73 war... you probably didn't know about that little MITHRIL op, otherwise there wouldn't be any more Israel. Of course, they probably told you about REFUSENIK, the Berlin Airlift, the lateliberation of concentration camps... all of those were failed MITHRIL operations. Somewhere, somehow, I ran into someone who wanted me dead for each of those, for my role in the failure. You win some, you lose some. This time, though... you're the first person who wanted me dead for a successful MITHRIL op."
"What the hell do you mean?" Kenji growled, finally responding after so much silence. He clenched his teeth together, feeling the blood in his mouth from when he bit the inside of his cheek after the Scimitar's metal fist almost crushed him.
"The Lod Airport massacre, right?" NAPA leaned forward, smiling sympathetically. "I have a photographic memory, too." He tapped his head. "An old injury. Whatever happened shook up my neurons pretty spectacularly. Anyway, you've grown up a great deal since you had blood and tears on your face. No child should've gone through what you did."
"Then how was that a success!" Kenji screamed, trying to come to his feet. The chains around his ankles jangled as he tried to move, the wrist chains held in place with a thick lash of hempen rope bound to his ankle chains. "You personally shot ten people! I saw it with my own two eyes!"
"Yeah, I shot twelve, actually," NAPA leaned back, his mood suddenly turning somber. "One in the lower right quarter of the torso, a man in a gray business suit coming out of gate 44B. Another also in the head, an older woman, late forties, looked like she was French, maybe. Three schoolchildren in the chest. Four airport security officers in the stomach. The rest I shot in the back, so I didn't see the impacts. Two of those had to have been your parents. I didn't count Kozo Okamoto. I wish I had killed him, but MITHRIL needed someone captured from this ordeal. One of the others killed himself with a grenade, and airport security got the other one."
"You think that absolves you? You think that because you shot one terrorist, because he's rotting in jail, you don't have to answer for all those innocent people?"
"No, it doesn't absolve me. You're absolutely right: I am directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people, and as Helmajin Helmaj, I've lost count of all the Soviet soldiers and mudjehedeen guerillas that have been killed by the people I command."
"Then I don't suppose I could convince you to let me out of these chains and avenge them by crushing your windpipe."
"No, you couldn't. I have too much I have to do."
"Oh, and what is that? Do you have some babies you need to slaughter? Do you have to pour acid in the wounds of hospital patients?"
NAPA VALLEY stood up, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked out the open tent flap. "No," he replied calmly. "I have to end the need for people like me, and then end my own life."
"I like that last part, you son of a bitch."
"I expected you to. A lot of other people are expecting that of me. They've been doing it for some time now. I do plan to put a gun to my head and pull the trigger, because nobody else will do it for me... or without me wanting to die."
"Oh, please. You may be NAPA VALLEY, but you're a mortal man like the rest of us."
"A mortal man, eh?" NAPA turned towards Kenji, smiling. "How old do I look to you?"
"Like a six-week old shit pile left out in the sun."
"You're not as polite and calm as you look, you know. The Kenji Moriyama I've been told about was a lot more level-headed."
NAPA sat back down. "This is 1981, right? That would put me square at eighty years old."
Kenji didn't say anything, covering up his surprise with an angry stare.
"I look like I'm in my forties because my body stopped aging a long time ago."
Terezin, Czech RepublicMay 7th, 1945
"#The Red Cross doctors had just come around the block of the ghetto,#" the Russian soldier yelled over the din of gunfire. "#They were ambushed by a contingent of SS troopers who hadn't evacuated. Bastards had holed up in that house over there.#"
"Dammit," First Lieutenant Richard Sonoma swore, picking up his heavy Browning Automatic Rifle. The other soldier, a buck private with the Soviet 105th Guards Rifle Regiment, Zhukov's "Red Lightning" division, had rushed back from the siege despite a superficial wound to his face. "#Go see a corpsman,#" he shouted to the soldier in Russian. "#You four, come with me!#"
The troops obeyed without question, their platoon commander already having instructed them to follow the orders of the Allies' liaison officer. He had fought with them from the trenches around Moscow straight down to the Czech Republic, and they knew that he was worth his word.
He led them at a solid run, their weaponsloaded and at the ready, through the crumbling refuse that was the Terezinstadt ghetto. Richard didn't have time to consider whether the SS had deliberately damaged the buildings to make life harder on the thousands of Jews who had been confined there, if Allied bombing raids fromcaptured Italian airfirledshad targeted the place, or whether they were simply old. Crumbled remains of shingles, bricks, and mortar were scattered haphazardly throughout the street, concrete leaves scattered by the winds of war.
"#Around the corner, past the alley!#" a Soviet private yelled, and Richard stopped short of dashing out through. "#Seven SS are in the building!#"
Quickly, Sonoma dipped low to one knee, leaned around the side of the brick building, and fired a burst from his BAR. "#Now there's five,#" he said in his accented Russian as bullets impacted on the other side of his impromptu defilade. "#Bromkovsky, Petrov, I'll cover you. Move along the side of this building and advance to the next short block. Kovsky, Alexandrov, advance across the plaza to the rubble pile across the way. I'll dash up the center after ten seconds. Lay down cover fire and I'll advance up to Petrov's group. We'll draw their fire and you take their flank. Bromkovsky, Petrov, what the hell are you waiting for?#"
"Da, tovarisch leytenant!"
Sonoma dipped to the side again, bracing his BAR and letting loose on full automatic. He saw four German helmets dip low inside the building as the gun kicked out spent .30-caliber rounds, obscuring the alley in bursts of dust and fragmented bricks. The two Soviets dashed out, running under the covering stream of bullets, and quickly ducked behind cover; they quickly opened fire on the German position with their PPSh submachine guns.
"GO! GO!" Sonoma screamed, ducking behind the building to swap magazines. The other two soldiers advanced methodically, firing on the run to panic the Germans.
It was over in less than two minutes. The SS troops were encircled, and despite their dug-in position, it wasn't long before Sonoma and his soldiers had managed to get right under the Germans. Two of their number resisted and were subsequently outflanked and shot by Sonoma and his troops, and calls of "Wir übergeben!" – "We surrender!" – quickly came from two others.
"#There were seven of you,#" Sonoma barked in German at the two prisoners, hands over their heads, and held at gunpoint by Petrov and Bromkovsky. "#Four were killed. Where's the third survivor?#"
"#He ran off to the town square with the hostages. To the train station, I think.#"
"#How many hostages?#"
"#Nine local juden.#"
"#Guard these two. Kovsky, Alexandrov, come with me! We'll go through the alleys and head him off!#"
"#Back off!#"
The ambush had been sprung expertly on the German, and all but one of the hostages, all frightened, sickly Jews who had been confined to the ghetto, and later the Terezin concentration camp,had fled as soon as the Soviets had fired warning shots. All but one, whom the SS trooper had pistol-whipped with the butt of his Mauser and commenced to hold at the point of the rifle's bayonet.
"#Drop the weapon and put your hands up!#" Sonoma shouted in Russian by reflex. "#You are advised to surrender and you will be treated fairly under the Geneva Conventions! That man has nothing to do with this war, he is a civilian!#"
"#Back off or I will slaughter him right now!#"
"Shit. #Drop your gun and let him go!#" Sonoma shouted in Czech, one of the few phrases he had memorized. "#Boris, back your men away!#" he continued in Russian.
"#Sniper!#" one of his soldiers called out. "#Sniper in that warehouse!#"
There was a long, tearing craaack sound: two rifles firing at once. A Soviet PPSh burst struck the SS soldier, and another Soviet rifle round lanced up at the sniper, beyond Sonoma's field of view.
"No!" He threw his BAR aside and broke out in a desperate run, moments too late: the German soldier had made one last desperate thrust at his hostage. The Jew – a young man, looking like he was still in his twenties – grasped at his lacerated throat, streams of dark red blood forming a macabre splash against his tattered garments.
"NO!"
There was a single, final crack as another rifle fired, but Sonoma never heard it. The single bullet struck him square in the forehead as he ran towards the falling Jewish man, throwing him backwards. There was a final burst of PPSh fire, and as he fell, Sonoma saw, out of the corner of his fading vision, two of his men rushing towards the warehouse. Another set of boots was racing towards him, but before his head hit the cobblestone pavement, everything faded to black.
"Can you hear me, Lieutenant Sonoma?"
Everything is still dark...
"Raise your right hand if you can hear me."
It's still there... am I alive?
"Good, good. How do you feel?"
"Like there's cotton in my mouth."
"You, get him some water. We had to intubate you. You have been unconscious for the past seven days."
"Sniper... what about Terezin? That man..."
"Do not worry about Terezin. The main force of the 105th has arrived. You are at a field hospital not far from an Allied encampment outside Berlin. You are alive and you will continue to be alive."
"What happened?"
"Untie his bandages. Lieutenant, you were shot in the head and thefive percent of thebullet we couldn't removeis still partially embedded in your brain. You have damage to critical parts of your brain itself, but what has not been destroyed should still be functional."
"Doesn't hurt..."
"It shouldn't. The brain itselfcan't feel pain, and the nerve receptors on your forehead were severed beyond repair."
"So what's going to happen to me?"
As an orderly pulled the gauze bandages from around his head, Richard Sonoma blinked away the light of the medical tent. His eyes were met by those of a grizzled, unshaven regimental surgeon, with a man in an unfamiliar tan uniform standing next to him.
"As of right now, we're not sure what to do with you," the surgeon said, making notes on a clipboard. "But this gentleman here would like to have a word with you."
"Mmm."
Without another word, the surgeon moved down a few beds to make notes on another injured soldier.
"Richard Sonoma, first lieutenant, United States Army, serial number 212-21-44310, assigned as Allied liaison officer to the 105th Soviet Guards Rifle Division," the man in the tan uniform read off. "Date of birth unknown. Public records begin with your name being entered into Army ranks on May 9th, 1917."
"Too much George Cohan music was playing for a kid like me," Sonoma groaned. "Dammit, do they have any aspirin in this tent?"
"Why did you enlist in the Expeditionary Force during the First World War?"
"Like I said, I was a kid. Stupid. Impressionable. Grew up the son of an immigranton a vineyard in California and I'd probably die there, too. I lied about my age and used a fake name. That's what they call me now."
"So you've fought in both world wars?"
"Yeah. Pershing didn't know anything about fighting a war. It's a miracle I survived the first one and an even bigger miracle that I stuck around in the Army just before the Depression."
"Lieutenant Sonoma, they didn't tell you what happened to you just now."
"I guess you're about to, huh?"
The officer leaned forward. "Lieutenant, the bullet you took did two things: first, it lanced straight through your forehead, effectively bisecting a path between the frontal lobes of your left and right brain. Part of the lobes that was severed was a neural cluster that connects your left and right brain, effectively severing contact between the two. You have two brains: one optimally creative, the other coldly logical, completely free of collusion. Your memories are now completely isolated and independent, and you'll probably acquire eidetic traits. You're apsychiatric experiment in progress as we speak."
"I guess that thing #2 is the good news?" An orderly brought over a bottle of aspirin pills and a canteen of water. Sonoma availed himself of both, wishing he had some of the homebrew vodka that the Soviets carried with them. Anything to kill this headache...
"The bullet destroyed a significant chunk of your pituitary gland. The medics' initial evaluation is that it might have taken out your growth center. It is likely that your body will never age, and in theory, you will never experience natural death. God only knows what else happened to your mind."
Sonoma brought himself to sit up against the rusting metal medical bed. "I'll... never die?"
"I am from an organization that is not affiliated with eitherthe Axis or the Allies," the officer continued, pulling an envelope out of the breast pocket of his uniform. "The doctor we just spoke with signed off on your medical discharge papers. You're out of the Army as of today. No need for a soldier with a severe head injury. You haven't been out of uniform since you were sixteen years old. You've seen the waste of humanity, the suffering, the pain of war across the globe. You were part of the end of the old world order. If you think that war will end with this conflict, you'd be dead wrong."
"I'm a soldier. I went where I was ordered."
"You won't be a soldier anymore unless it's with us, Lieutenant Sonoma," the man in the uniform leaned forward, dropping the manila envelope on Sonoma's lap. "The war in Europe is over. Hitler shot himself a week ago. The Soviets are liberating German death camps, and from what I've been told, they make Terezinstadt look like a walk in the park. If you want to stop all wars – not just the ones your country fights – you'd do well to ask me about who we are."
The Helmaj base
September 11th, 1981
"My heart bleeds for your injury and joining MITHRIL," Kenji seethed. "Makes me wish the Germans were sharper shooters."
"They're sharp enough," Sonoma tapped his forehead. "The surgeonsput a metal plate in my head to hold everything together. That's Deutschland efficiency for you."
"Then why the hell are you here if MITHRIL was so damn kind to you?"
"I should actually thank you for that. It's mostly because of the Lod Airport operation."
"What the hell do you mean? Something about killing innocent people finally got to you, huh?"
NAPA VALLEY shook his head. "Only mostly. I hate killing innocent people, but it's the classic justification: the sacrifice of few to save the many. Maybe it's that logical half of the brain taking over, but I think that it'd be worse to have let the Japanese Red Army keep shooting up that terminal. I had infiltrated enough to convince them to let me in on the raid, and when the time came, I took down the guy in charge. The others were a little bit more... driven. No, it was the Scimitar that drew me away."
"I'm surprised. I thought you'd hand something like that over to MITHRIL."
"You'd think that, but do you remember the woman who was with me? She was the one who – "
NAPA's explanation was interrupted by a shout from the distance. "Soviets!" the shout came, repeating itself in other languages. "Soviet helicopters have lifted off from Konduz! Their front-line forces are moving east from Shamwaz! The Soviets are coming! The Soviets are coming!"
"Damn." NAPA VALLEY jumped to his feet and quickly walked out of the tent. Around him, Helmaj swarmed out towards the scrub flats, their marshaling area, as the Antonov started up its engines to taxi out of the way. "#Majid! Where are you?#"
"#I am here,#" Majid replied, his relaxed demeanor broken by a steely calm. "#We have moved the Scimitar to the cave and it is being prepared.#"
"#What about Kiriko?#"
"#She borrowed a set of tools and went into the cave. I assume she is going to make minor repairs to the Scimitar.#"
Majid's explanation was cut short by a loud THAKSSS-THAKSSS sound coming from a cave complex at the mouth of the Helmaj base. The Scimitar trod slowly, purposefully, towards the cargo container that had been disgorged from the Antonov, now astride the dead Opel truck. With a ponderous, smooth motion, the Arm Slave lifted the cargo container and slung it over its shoulder.
"Richie, I've got the components," a field radio crackled from NAPA VALLEY's back pocket. "I heard that a scout just came back. Bad news?"
"Yeah, they got the beacon triggered in the Antonov. Figure three hours' flight time with ground forces advancing in about five."
"Okay, I should be good with the Scimitar until then."
"Good. I'm on my way to help you."
"Oh, no you don't!" the voice on the radio said back, teasingly. "I'm a big girl. Leave this to me. You go prepare the defenses. Kiriko out."
Sonoma looked back through the tent at Kenji. "I'm going to have one of my men fly you out of here in the Antonov," he explained. "There should be a MITHPAC safe house back in Karachi. If you see Sachar, tell him that his toys won't save anyone unless he shuts down the toymakers."
Majid was still waiting for NAPA VALLEY outside of the tent; both men ignored the shouted threats from the captured MITHRIL agent. "We received a runner from the west slightly before your arrival. He delivered the briefcase."
"Good. Dispatch it to our fastest horseman. He's to rest until the battle commences."
"Understood. Will you be taking out the Scimitar?"
"No. Once Kiriko starts working on something, she doesn't stop. I'm not getting into that Arm Slave until she clears it for combat. I'm going to the front. If we can't lure in the Soviets effectively, this entire operation will be for naught."
Majid walked with Sonoma to the craggy slopes of the valley, taking a few steps up onto an ancient boulder. Below them, the thousands of Helmaj swarmed from tents to hastily-constructed shacks and old Quonset huts, gathering weapons and preparing positions. Holes were dug for defilades, traps, and tunnels. Rocks were arranged to stop tanks and APCs. The little vegetation that grew in the valley was cut down for camouflage.
"I think it's about time that I gave this to you," Richard spoke, reaching into the pocket of his parched sand-camouflage field jacket. He withdrew a dagger, its hilt and scabbard clad in gold and worn gems. "It belonged to your father."
Majid held up a hand. "I have no right to that dagger. Each Helmaj has their own, handed down from those before him, and they are borne only when they are ready to give their life back to Khau'ron Helmaj. That dagger is yours, Helmajin Helmaj."
Sonoma looked down at the Helmaj dagger. "Majid, this belonged to your father," he intoned, all emotion drained from his voice. "I had to kill him in order to take his position. This should have been passed down to you when he died."
Majid pushed back the proffered dagger. "The dagger of a Helmaj is his bloodline. It is the significance of being a Helmaj. It is earned, never given, and it is earned only through battle. It is the last thing seen before a Helmaj either triumphs over all odds or dies in the attempt. We only pry these daggers from the throats of the conquered or the hands of the fallen. As you took this from the neck of my father, who was Helmajin Helmaj before you, so shall we retrieve this either from your death or your triumph."
"'With your shield or on it,'" Sonoma quipped, letting a rare chuckle loose. "Majid, if I were you, I'd have tried to cut my throat ages ago."
Majid rubbed his beard-clad chin. "My honor is foremost and always that of a Helmaj, and it is mine to follow Helmajin Helmaj above all else. Not even my father was able to understand the role as well as you do."
A Helmaji runner ran up, bearing a brown leather briefcase in his left hand. "#The generator and all the attachments are functional,#" he reported in.
"#Good. Majid, see to the preparations. Deploy the anti-aircraft weapons in the cliffs, the mouth, and the exit of the valley. Hinds will have problems making attack runs across anything but the long way. Rally the horses. You, come with me,#" Sonoma ordered, pointing at the man with the briefcase. "#Don't let anyone lay a finger on that case.#"
Sonoma strode past a roaring diesel-powered generator, tended by an engineer and watched by a Helmaj soldier. Numerous 220-volt power cables snaked out of the output plugs, leading into an isolated cavern bored into a cliff face. As he entered the cavern, the thok sounds of powerful theatrical lights kicked an unearthly brightness into the sedimentary rock walls.
"#All is in readiness, Helmajin Helmaj,#" a soldier bearing an old 8mm film camera reported, tightening down screws on a tripod. "We're ready to go whenever you are."
"#Good.#" Sonoma sat on an old metal stool, nodding to the man with the briefcase. The soldier extended the case, and Sonoma set it on the floor of the cavern by his side.
"#We are rolling in five seconds.#"
"#Right. Ready when you are.#" Almost unconsciously, Sonoma ran his hands through his hair.
"#Three... two... one...#"
"Those of you who know me know who I am and that I mean business," he began, looking directly into the old motor-drive camera after the recording reel started to spin. "Those of you who don't know me need some background. I am known as NAPA VALLEY, and I was an operative in a secret organization dedicated to the prevention of international conflict and the preservation of peace. I use the word'peace' lightly because of the times in which we live. Over the years, since the end of the Second World War, the two superpowers, their proxies, and their client states have come to clashes too many times to count. This era, called the 'Cold War,' has seen the deaths of thousands. So many of those are undisclosed as of today. Be it secret nuclear testing on unsuspecting citizens – both in the Soviet Union and in the United States of America – or the continued growth of military industries within both power blocs, our species has been pushing itself to the brink and back for almost forty years now. I've fought in many of these conflicts and seen many of these hellacious atrocities, and little by little, I've lost the few shreds of faith I have left in the human species.
"I now speak from a location in northeast Afghanistan, as yet unconquered by the Soviet Union. I am with a nomadic warrior tribe that refers to themselves as 'Helmaj.' They have no written history to speak of, but oral traditions place them as a band of fighters with roots back to Qin-era China. They have roamed this region of the world since long before the birth of Christ, and as such, they have existed only by conquest. Their culture and language are influenced from all sorts of other warrior peoples; an anthropologist would probably find influences from China, India, Pakistan, the Tadzhik and Kazakh regions, and God only knows where else. Theirs is probably the last surviving warrior culture on this earth that has yet to industrialize. The end result of this is that they have fended off both the Soviet Union and the anti-Soviet mudjehedeen guerillas, who secretly receive supplies from the American CIA. I have cast my lot in with them because I believe that the Helmaj are the purest form of humanity in this world: warriors."
"We, as humans, find it a reflex, an instinct, to fight and compete. Be it for self-improvement, advancement of our own interests, or simply just for some sociopathic drive, fighting is our instinct, while thinking is an act that requires greater dedication. In order to understand each other, sacrifices must be made. Discomfort and misunderstanding must be endured and clarified. As noble as this is..." Sonoma paused, taking a deep breath and sighing. "As noble as this is,it's simply delaying the inevitable. Does understanding come as two superpowers stockpile nuclear weapons? Does it come from a nebulous non-governmental paramilitary group intervening as they see fit? Does it come from selective interference? I say it does not, and it never will come as the status quo progresses."
"The citizens of these countries are basically powerless to effectchange. The status quo, normalcy, or the 'way things are' drives people. The only thing that forces changes is adversity. I say that the time to force that change has come."
Richard reached to his side and opened the lock on the briefcase, pulling out two sets of mechanical blueprints. One was written in Cyrillic, the other in English.
"These are blueprints of a new type of weapon. Unlike what we've seen that drives on the ground, flies in the air, or sails on or under the waves, this 'Arm Slave' is developed by knowledge and skills that are far ahead ofmodern science and the powersthat continue to churn out thousands of destructive weapons every year. This knowledge has been kept a secret from the populace of the world because of its potential for chaos and destruction. The Arm Slave is one of many offshoots that this 'Black Technology' could bring forth. Imagine clean-burning engines that would put an end to the pollution and war caused by oil. Imagine massive networks of computers, connected like electricity and major appliances, sharing information and knowledge freely. Imagine what would happen if this technology, and the money that went towards it, went not towards weapons, but towards education."
"I am now recording these plans and will distribute them to any interested party. Copies have been given to law firms in New York, London, and Cairo to be distributed for reasons I will soon explain. I have also sent them, via postal mail, to figures of religious and local authority in the Warsaw Pact countries, to their underground networks of dissenters. I will make efforts to continue propagating these copies. They will show how these Arm Slaves can be effectively and cheaply built both by governments and non-governmental bodies. If humanity's truest desire is for such destruction, then humanity should have it."
Sonoma put the documents down and leaned into the camera. "The Arm Slave is capable of deployment from any platform: air, land, and sea. It can engage all manner of targets with all manner of weapons, from Gatling guns to tactical and strategic nuclear warheads. It can be equipped with its own specialized suite of weapons or use off-the-shelf components. This was once the secret of the two great powers. Each side currently has their own Arm Slave; the Soviets have developed what is known as the Rachenkov Design Bureau, and their Rk-81 'Scimitar' has its counterpart: the Rockwell M4 Patton."
"Why am I doing this? Simple. This 'Black Technology' is something that would normally be celebrated, were it developed publicly. Scientists would share their designs and ideas so long as information can be freely exchanged. To use technology for the betterment of humanity is what would take the real effort. However, the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union are at continual fault for bringing 'Black Technology' into the underground. They are at fault, and it is time that they suffered."
Sonoma closed the briefcase and held it up. "I have shipped threesimilar briefcases to the three capital cities that control the world today: Washington, D.C.; Brussels, and Moscow. They contain low-yield nuclear weapons, popularly known as neutron bombs. On September 15th, these bombs will already havedetonated, causing a fatal dose of radiation for all living humans within a radius of one mile. They have been planted in the seats of government for America, NATO, and the Warsaw Pact. The survivors of those governments willalso receivecopies of this video. They will know that their failure to make a real advancement for humanity has cost them thousands of lives... and their ill-kept secret."
"We Helmaj may not survive a coming attack by the Soviets. But we will force the world to realize its brutality. If this recording makes it out to the people of the world, now you can see with your own two eyes the weapons, the creatures that have been created to walk in the human image. You can see the destruction that they will reap from that design. Even if you don't believe that an omnipotent being created humans in its image... we have created our own destruction in ours. If this film is suppressed by the powers that be, let it go to show the lengths that governments will go in order to keep the people in line."
"So many great philosophers have said that nothing changes without pain and suffering. Either we as a species must undergo the pain and suffering of putting our animal natures behind us, or we will die by our own hands. That's all I have to say."
Sonoma waited a moment as the cameraman stopped recording and the film roller stopped spinning.
"#We begin the operation at twilight,#" he announced, standing up. "#We'll stop the Soviets and make our escape. We'll establish a foothold here... bring forth the dreams of our homeland, of the Helmaj before us. Sound the horns and prepare for battle.#"
To be continued...