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Page 10.
Scene 2. Villa Caproni
 A milky-white Bombardier Learjet 95A from Montreal descended on a long, leisurely approach toward Sicily. Its long contrail graced azure Mediterranean skies.
Blue seas below sparkled amid whitecaps, while foamy wavelets ran onto sandy shores.
The plane had just one passenger on board—a nervous, middle-aged scientist named Louis Cartouche. He had invented a way to assassinate foreign heads of state with a sophisticated bullet shot downward from orbit.
The flight crew consisted of two pilots and two flight attendants, all in the employ of a vast corporation. Global Anaconda was about to offer Louis Cartouche a top-secret deal on his Orbital Sniper Technology (OST).
The system consisted of an orbital, death-dealing satellite, plus a control system on the ground. For personal security and negotiating reasons, Cartouche had cloned the ground control unit and formed two separate units that must work together from separate locations in order for the whole thing to work. He had named his two units for Castor and Pollux, the twins or Gemini of ancient Roman mythology.
To successfully deploy the orbital sniper system, both Castor and Pollux had to work in tandem with one another and with the orbiting satellite, Capricorn. Louis’ idea was that you put Castor in one place—say in French Canada—and Pollux somewhere far from there—say in Europe. Together with the orbiting satellite, this would form a triangle of death. Louis hoped his invention would finally deliver financial wealth after years of struggle. Never mind that he sensed Anaconda was over-confident and planned to operate the two units side by side at a small, secure facility in Montreal. It didn’t matter to him what anyone did, as long as he got his money and could live a decent life from here on—maybe even become a family man, once he could afford to stop living hand to mouth.
Cartouche and Anaconda simply needed to sign some papers in Palermo first—a formality. Anaconda had already had the Castor twin in development in Montreal, under Louis' guidance, for two years. Now he would sign over the Pollux unit plans. He had a working Pollux unit in a secret laboratory in the basement of an old warehouse in Montreal—physically, it was a matter of Anaconda’s movers trucking the Pollux unit a few miles from one location to another inside the city. When and if the papers were signed today, depending on how the negotiations went, the two units—Castor and Pollux—could be sitting in a secure Anaconda facility in Montreal’s Technopolis by tomorrow. He imagined Anaconda’s engineers would dismantle one of the units, and transfer all the capabilities to the other of the two. Having a single ground-based control unit would certainly simplify things. He’d designed the system to be complicated enough that Anaconda would not only need to buy Pollux from him, but the plans to remove the redundant, second capability (Pollux) as well.
Then it would be a matter of launching Capricorn, with the weapons on board, and Anaconda could deliver the death-dealing Project David into orbit. With its orbital sniper technology (OST), it could read the proverbial ground-based license plate or recognize a face from 200 miles up—as its Cold War ancestors Corona and Keyhole had done for the U.S. Air Force and the CIA, respectively—but more importantly, it could launch a deadly sniper bullet to kill the world’s next Hitler or Saddam Hussein—or any other person of disinterest that Anaconda’s paying customers happened to choose. It would be a lucrative product line.
Furthermore, Anaconda already had at its disposal the satellite technologies to launch OST Capricorn on its deadly missions, with a brace of waiting bullets (each the size of a submarine torpedo, but light-weight ceramic).
Louis felt he had nothing left to lose. He knew he was a helpless fool, riding a tiger. He was negotiating with a ruthless global corporate consortium. He would not take the unspoken threat of their vast power and merciless profit motive lightly. Corponations ruled the world, and Anaconda was the second most powerful consortium on earth, behind only its arch-rival, Camelback Consortium.
The new-model, twelve-passenger Canadian jet—shaped like a dagger with swept-back wings—was just finishing its long but comfortable flight, high above cyclonic autumn storms ravaging the North Atlantic.
The aircraft had skirted the weather by refueling at Gander, Newfoundland, and then Shannon, Ireland. The late model, twelve-seat plane flew below the edge of outer space. Under black night and calm stars, she was a glowing dot. She moved like a comet, and left a long white contrail in the atmosphere.
Louis Cartouche felt as if he were looking down into his own acid stomach and frightened thoughts. Far below whirled an early autumn North Atlantic storm. He watched as the storm ripped Iceland with Force-3 cyclonic fury. The storm's eastern edge, spinning like a giant, toothy circular saw, pushed rains and floods against the Netherlands and into northern Europe.
By contrast, the journey's southern leg seemed balmy and idyllic, as the aircraft descended into the Mediterranean, down the leg of Italy. Most men would have visions of bathing suit, snorkeling, soothing music, and a sparkling red Campari-and-soda on the beach. The world's most beautiful women would strut their bikinis at the intersection of sun, sand, and sea.
But the sole traveler on board Flight CAIT-7634 was too desperate and serious a man for such diversions. The aging, nervous inventor wore a dark suit that did not fit him well. Monsieur Louis Cartouche, age 45, was ABD-Mechanical Engineering. This meant All But Dissertation for Ph.D., a status to which he knew he'd never rise. It was not a degree, but a nebulous status like holding one's breath—and he had turned blue years ago.
He looked totally out of place in the luxury business jet. His shock of graying hair rose around his head like a thunder cloud in need of lightning—or combing, or both. He clutched his fists together between his thighs as he gazed through the small porthole. The Italian peninsula passed to the east, on his left, as he pressed his cheek against the port side window.
Louis Cartouche was a quiet, mousy man who had spent most of his life inventing deadly gadgets while on the run from the law. He'd spent his years to date huddling, so to speak, at corporate back doors for his next meal because no legitimate university would fund his research. The OST was his first viable after many failed inventions.
The next few hours would make or break his life. It all seemed like a dream just now.
Those next few hours would likely also change the course of world history.
Wars like the U.S. adventure in Iraq could presumably be avoided if one could simply assassinate a gangster like Saddam Hussein with a bullet from 165 miles (264 km) up in Low Earth Orbit (LEO).
Louis had conceived of his idea as a student and loner, clutching a mug of Labatt in a Montreal tavern, and angry at the world like many a 19-year-old. Now, over thirty years later, his dreams and sacrifices were about to become a functioning reality.
He would become a wealthy man—or a dead one.
In the right hands—like Global Anaconda's—the world would be forever safe from megalomaniacs whose few frothy apothecary grains of testosterone regularly caused great storms or wars that tore the fabric of history, dislocated economies, and murdered tens of millions of innocent people.
In the wrong hands—Louis could not begin to imagine the downside if the wrong element got hold of his Orbital Sniper Technology.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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