The Doomsday Box
The Doomsday Box
A Shadow Project Adventure
Herbie Brennan
For James and Penny with much love
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Chapter 1 - Opal, London, England
Chapter 2 - Opal, the Shadow Project, outside London
Chapter 3 - Danny, Mid-Atlantic at 36,000 Feet
Chapter 4 - Michael, Disused Air Force Base, Montauk, New York
Chapter 5 - Opal, Underground Base, Montauk
Chapter 6 - Opal, Out-of-Body, Underground
Chapter 7 - Danny, Underground at Montauk
Chapter 8 - Michael, Underground at Montauk
Chapter 9 - Michael, the Montauk Carlton, Montauk
Chapter 10 - Fuchsia, Underground at Montauk
Chapter 11 - Opal, the Montauk Carlton, Montauk
Chapter 12 - Danny, in Quarantine, Underground at Montauk
Chapter 13 - Danny, in Quarantine, Underground at Montauk
Chapter 14 - Carradine, the Meeting Room, Montauk Underground Complex
Chapter 15 - Carradine, the Meeting Room, Montauk Underground Complex
Chapter 16 - Danny, the Meeting Room, Montauk Underground Complex
Chapter 17 - Fuchsia, the Transportation Chamber, the Montauk Project
Chapter 18 - The Team, Somewhere in America, 1962
Chapter 19 - Danny and the Team, CIA Headquarters, Langley, 1962
Chapter 20 - Opal, McLean, 1962
Chapter 21 - Michael, Safe House, McLean, Virginia, 1962
Chapter 22 - Danny, 31,000 Feet over Sweden, 1962
Chapter 23 - Opal, the American Embassy, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 24 - Opal, Red Square, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 25 - Danny and Fuchsia, Red Square, 1962
Chapter 26 - Opal, KGB Headquarters, Lubyanka Square, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 27 - Michael, KGB Headquarters Basement, 1962
Chapter 28 - Danny and Fuchsia, the American Embassy, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 29 - Danny, Out-of-Body over Moscow, 1962
Chapter 30 - Danny, Out-of-Body, Lubyanka Prison
Chapter 31 - Opal, KGB Headquarters, 1962
Chapter 32 - Danny, the American Embassy, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 33 - Michael, Lubyanka Prison, 1962
Chapter 34 - Opal, Colonel Menshikov’s Apartment, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 35 - Opal, Colonel Menshikov’s Apartment, 1962
Chapter 36 - Danny, the U.S. Embassy, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 37 - Opal, Menshikov’s Apartment, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 38 - Danny, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 39 - Danny, Menshikov’s Apartment, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 40 - The Team, Menshikov’s Apartment, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 41 - Fuchsia, in Trance
Chapter 42 - Danny, Cobra’s Apartment, Moscow, 1962
Chapter 43 - The Team, Langley, Virginia, 1962
Chapter 44 - The Team, the Montauk Project, Present Day
Epilogue - Opal, Manor House Meadows Nursing Home, Two Years Later
Author’s Note
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
Opal, London, England
Opal fastened the strap around her ankle and stood up to admire her new shoes. The school uniform didn’t help—that frumpy pleated skirt!—but at least she could get an idea. She grinned at the image in the mirror. Fab shoes: no doubt about that. Very red, very high heels (would she actually be able to walk in them?), and those crisscross straps were something else. Her father would have a fit!
On the other hand, her girl friends would be green with envy.
“Walk up and down a bit—get the feel,” the assistant suggested. “Don’t just look in the mirror.”
Opal did as she was told, teetering a little. “I’m not used to high heels,” she said apologetically. The Project frowned on high heels.
“They do take some getting used to,” said the assistant, as if he had personal experience. “But they suit you, dear. Stand by the mirror and put one foot ahead of the other like a model. That’s right. . . . Oooh, you’ve set me all aquiver!”
They were hideously expensive, something else her father would go mad about, even though Opal was going to buy them with her own money from the Project. She deserved nice shoes. The Project was hard work—dangerous too—and she still had to find time for school. She definitely deserved nice shoes.
She left the shop in her old flat black pumps (regulation school issue, along with the pleated skirt), but the box in the bag seemed to be calling out to her, singing a little tune. New shoes, high heels, red, and absolutely perfect whatever her father was going to say. She wondered if she dared wear them at the Project. (There was no official dress code, of course—most of the operatives slopped around in jeans and sweaters, except for her father, who always wore a suit, and Mr. Carradine, who sometimes did.) That would liven up the office. She could just see her father’s face. Not that she would be wearing the outfit for her father—really, secretly, she would be wearing it for Michael.
She could imagine his face too, probably just as shocked as her father’s. He was cute—boy, was he cute!—but he was just the tiniest bit uptight about some things. She didn’t know why she went out with him sometimes. Well, she did, but he could afford to loosen up a little.
Opal glanced in the window of the shop she’d just left. They were featuring a pair of shoes in green that were quite nice. Maybe she would have been better off buying them. She thought about it for a nanosecond, then moved away. Maybe Topshop would have something to go with the red shoes, something that would get Michael’s attention.
Opal glanced at her watch. Lots of time to get to Oxford Street, especially if she took a cab. She turned left, heading for the taxi stand, when somebody grabbed her from behind.
She was so surprised, she didn’t even think to scream.
Chapter 2
Opal, the Shadow Project, outside London
Opal felt like screaming at her father. There was a strange girl in the office, a peculiar creature with pale skin and pale eyes and pale hair, wearing the oddest clothes. Danny, the newest member of the Project, was sitting beside her, a bemused look on his face. But the worst thing of all was that Michael was there, looking very cool in sweater and jeans while she, Opal, was humiliated within an inch of her life in her school uniform!
And actually, that wasn’t the worst thing of all. The worst thing of all was that her father didn’t even seem to notice her fury. “Is your passport up-to-date?” he asked her, frowning slightly.
“Your people practically snatched me off the street,” Opal snapped. “I thought I was being kidnapped!”
“It was rather urgent, I’m afraid,” Sir Roland told her mildly. He raised an interrogatory eyebrow. “Passport up-to-date?”
“I don’t have one,” Danny remarked, more or less to himself, “on account of not being part of the jet set.”
Sir Roland took an envelope from a drawer and threw it casually across his desk. “Yours has been arranged.”
Danny opened the envelope and shook out a brand-new burgundy passport, gold-embossed with the United Kingdom’s lion-and-unicorn coat of arms. “Shouldn’t I have signed something for this?” He casually flipped it open. “Oh,” he said, disappointed. “It’s in my own name. Thought I might be going as James Bond.”
“Going where?” Opal demanded. She caught her father’s expression and added crossly, “My passport’s up-to-date.” As was his, if he was going with them. She had looked after all that sort of thing since her mother died.
“New York,” Michael said.
Michael always seemed to be one step ahead. Her own fat
her ran the Shadow Project, and still Michael seemed to know everything before she did. What was happening in New York that was so urgent she didn’t have time to change before they told her about it? And who was the pale girl?
As if reading her thoughts, Sir Roland said, “You haven’t met Fuchsia, Danny’s new partner. Fuchsia, this is my daughter, Opal. Opal, this is Fuchsia Benson.”
Fuchsia jumped up and skipped across the room. “What’s your birth sign?” she asked Opal as they shook hands.
Opal looked at her for a moment, taken aback. But eventually she said, “Taurus.” She didn’t believe in horoscopes, of course. Most Taureans didn’t.
“Mine’s Gemini with Moon in Cancer, so I’m supposed to be fey.” Fuchsia grinned. “There’s no scientific proof for astrology, but it’s a great icebreaker, don’t you think? Michael’s a Leo—I asked him before you got here—so he’s all butch and dominant.” Fuchsia’s grin widened and she dropped her voice to a whisper. “I asked Sir Roland too, but he wouldn’t tell me.”
I’ll bet he wouldn’t, Opal thought. She looked at Fuchsia curiously. Only teenagers could be Shadow Project operatives because they had minds that were open enough for the sort of espionage the Shadow Project did, but Fuchsia seemed an odd one. Perhaps she had special talents. Opal gently extricated herself and asked her father, “Why are we going to New York?” Actually, despite being mad at him, she thought New York might be fun. She could definitely find a red dress in New York.
“It’s not New York, New York,” her father said. “It’s actually Montauk, New York. Gary Carradine will be going with you. He’ll be here in a moment to brief you.”
She’d never even heard of Montauk, New York, but she expected all would be revealed when Mr. Carradine arrived. Which he did, almost at once, looking more like Nicolas Cage than ever, although London seemed to be getting to him, since he’d swapped his normal jacket and chinos for a safari suit. He was even wearing a tie.
“Hi,” he said cheerfully, then, more formally to Opal’s father, “Have you filled them in, Sir Roland?”
“I’ve mentioned Montauk.”
“Where is Montauk?” Danny was never one to sit quietly through briefings.
“Southeastern tip of Long Island,” Mr. Carradine told him. “It’s a town with a nice beach—it’s become a bit of a vacation spot these days. Population triples in the summer.”
“So you’re sending us on holiday?” Danny grinned. He was an East London boy with no respect at all for authority, something Opal secretly admired.
Carradine grinned back. “You could say that. It’s a mission, but I think I can promise it won’t be anything as dangerous as your last one.”
Lives had been lost in the last one. Her father had come close to losing his. Hopefully the new mission would definitely not be as dangerous.
“But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take it seriously,” Sir Roland put in soberly. “Your trip comes on the heels of a request from the National Security Agency.”
“The American National Security Agency?” Michael asked, surprised.
“There is only one,” Sir Roland said mildly. “You’d better tell them all about it, Gary.”
Carradine perched on a corner of Sir Roland’s desk, while Opal slipped into the chair next to Michael, who gave her a small, secret smile. He looked as handsome as ever. They both turned back toward Carradine.
“Before I tell you about the mission itself,” Carradine was saying, “it might be useful to give you a little background—”
“This is classified information,” Sir Roland interrupted. “So please bear in mind you are all signatories to the Official Secrets Act.”
Which meant they could go to jail if they discussed what they were about to hear with anyone. It was typical of her father to remind them. He was very much a spy of the old school.
Mr. Carradine said, “Exactly. Thank you, Sir Roland. So . . . this story goes way back before you were born—more than half a century, in fact. Any of you ever hear of the Philadelphia Experiment?”
They looked at him blankly, then one by one shook their heads. Except Fuchsia, who said, “That’s the ship they made invisible. My sister Julie says it’s an urban myth.”
Carradine nodded. “Very good, Fuchsia. Except it isn’t all a myth, although some of the details have been distorted over the years. But let’s start with the bit that is a myth. The story you’ll find on the internet is that back in 1943, a character called Carlos Miguel Allende was standing on the deck of a freighter in Philadelphia harbor watching another ship, a military escort vessel called the USS Eldridge. An escort’s not a particularly big ship, but it’s not small either. All the same, it disappeared right before his eyes.”
“Cool,” Fuchsia said.
Carradine gave her a sidelong glance. “According to Allende, after fifteen minutes the Eldridge reappeared, and when he investigated, he found most of the crew were insane and several of them were actually fused into the structure of the ship. Later he discovered some of the sailors had come back with a weird affliction—they kept twitching in and out of our plane of existence. Two of them got into a fistfight in a Philly bar and disappeared in front of a whole roomful of witnesses before the second punch was thrown. There were even people who claimed the Eldridge materialized in Norfolk, Virginia, for a few minutes before vanishing in a green fog. Allende said he found out the whole mess started as a navy experiment aimed at making ships invisible . . . an experiment that went terribly wrong.”
“Whozza,” Danny said. He had the sort of blank look on his face that meant you couldn’t tell whether he was genuinely impressed or just fooling around.
Carradine ignored him. “Most of that really was an urban myth, Fuchsia, including Carlos Miguel Allende—his real name was Carl Allen. But that’s not to say there wasn’t a grain of truth in the story. This was during the war, remember—the Second World War. America was very anxious to develop new weapons that would bring it to an end quickly. Since the late 1930s, the U.S. Navy had been funding a top secret program called Project Rainbow, which was set up to investigate the military possibilities of cloaking aircraft and ships using high-frequency electromagnetic fields. Somewhere around 1942, the scientists started to report limited successes using small-scale models. And in 1943, they ran an experiment using a full-sized ship.”
“The Eldridge?” Michael asked.
Carradine nodded. “Carl Allen’s story was accurate up to a point. The navy wasn’t trying to make the ship optically invisible, just invisible to radar, like modern stealth aircraft. But they did use high-frequency electromagnetic fields, and the experiment did go wrong. The Eldridge didn’t jump into hyperspace, of course, but many of the sailors did suffer mental impairment and had to be hospitalized. Nobody suspected it at the time, but high-frequency magnetic fields can influence the human brain. The fields generated on the Eldridge were so powerful they drove half the crew nuts. The navy covered it up, of course—not hard to do in wartime. They paid a few million in compensation to the sailors’ families and closed down Project Rainbow. What use was radar invisibility if it drove your crew mad?”
“But they opened it up again in 1953,” Sir Roland said in a cynical tone.
“Why?” Danny asked curiously.
“Yes, why?” Opal echoed. Even though her father worked for the government—even though she worked for the government—she didn’t have to like what governments got up to.
Fuchsia said, “I bet they thought they could use high-frequency magnetic fields as a weapon. Zap the opposing army. Mad soldiers would be just as useless as mad sailors, except now they’re on the other side.”
“That’s almost exactly right, Fuchsia,” Carradine said, with undisguised surprise. “They started to wonder about using magnetic fields as a psychological warfare device—mind control, that sort of thing. But I expect the idea of zapping an opposing army occurred to them as well. Anyway, the core group of scientists approached Congress for funding—in a se
cret session, of course—and Congress turned them down. Apparently, a majority of congressmen thought the project was too dangerous. A lot of them still remembered the Philadelphia Experiment, of course.”
“So that finally killed it?” Michael asked.
“Not at all,” said Carradine. “The scientists went direct to the military, and the Department of Defense offered funding and a decommissioned air force base at Montauk, New York, as a site for the work. This was before Montauk became a tourist center, so it was a sleepy little town that was perfect for a covert operation. And more importantly, the base had a radar installation that worked on a frequency the scientists believed could influence the human mind.”
Why are we going to Montauk? Opal wondered. Mr. Carradine’s story was all very interesting, but so far it seemed to have no connection with the Shadow Project. The Shadow Project was a top secret British-American espionage department that used teen spies like Michael, Danny, and herself, who were able to separate their minds from their physical bodies with a little help from Project technology. That was a long way from mind control.
Or was it? The thought occurred to her.
But Mr. Carradine was still talking. “By 1967, the Office of Naval Intelligence had become interested and so had the National Security Agency. They helped build a secret underground complex, something like this one.” He spread his hands to indicate the warren that was the Shadow Project, buried deep beneath a crumbling English manor house.