Chapter 12
Night was falling and the evacuations had begun. Those needing medical attention had left hours before, giving them a good head start and hopefully a smooth ride. Pali's father had been allowed to travel with his now more stable wife but their adoptive son had stayed behind, joining the ThunderCats back in the main building which house Mwende's office.
The teams from out in the field had brought back the men they had captured and were interrogating them as Lion-O and the others ate dinner with President Mwende as his guests. They tried to keep the talk light but it was hard to do with the uncertainty surrounding their situation. Now with the dinner plates cleared and dessert and coffee on the way, Mwende turned to business.
"The men who were captured did not speak English. In fact they spoke Russian so it would seem that my earlier theory was correct," he shook his head.
"So what is the plan?" Lion-O asked.
"Well we first need to confirm they are in fact Russian citizens. If they are, I will approach President Kostoff about this and see what he has to say. He is a reasonable man and I can't imagine him trying something this stupid," Mwende told them.
"I would think that if he is as reasonable as you say that he would have no knowledge of what was going on," Cheetara said.
"This is true but he will know where to look for anyone who would have sent these men to do what they did. As far as the security forces can figure, none of the men captured would have the intelligence required to create such a machine. They were only sent out to install the machine and start it up once they had drilled the hole they needed," the President explained.
"You would need a background in seismology, physics, and engineering. While one person may not possess all the necessary skills, a team certainly would," Doctor Centi spoke up.
"Agreed. Though I have to admit the last two requirements are not exactly narrowing the field much. It would make more sense to go after the seismologist and have him or her lead us to the scientist and the engineer," Panthro said.
"My security forces are running the backgrounds of the Russian seismologists that Kostoff sent us when the problem with earthquakes became an issue. So far nothing to indicate that any of them would do something like this," Mwende told them.
"How many of them did Kostoff send?" Ben-Gali asked.
"He sent two and they are highly regarded in their field," the President said.
"Then I would suggest they look for someone who isn't so highly regarded. Or perhaps someone who has made a large monetary deposit recently that would stand out," the white tiger recommended.
"Already ahead of you on that. Figured I should have as much information as I could before approaching Kostoff with this," the President nodded.
"Sounds like you have everything covered. Since there haven't been more earthquakes, what is the plan for tomorrow morning?" Lion-O wanted to know.
"Doctors Summa, Sven, and Ali will accompany me out in the field to do some tests on the soil surrounding the new small volcanoes and see if they could threaten to open wider. The outposts for seismic readings will have to be checked as well to make sure that they haven't been damaged and have therefore been giving false readings," Doctor Centi said.
"Very good. Are we foreseeing any issues with the evacuation schedule?" Lion-O asked.
"So far so good and no unauthorized exits from the planet, so I'm thinking our perpetrators are still somewhere on this rock," Mwende told them.
"Then hopefully we'll catch them before anything else happens," Cheetara said.
To Be Continued…