The Nostradamus Inheritance by Raymond Leonard

Author:Raymond Leonard [Leonard, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Raymond Leonard
Published: 2012-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

When Mary and Bronwen had been updated on the events in Cyprus, Bronwen said, ‘This man Stavros knows his computers. I’ll have census files mounted on TITAN, and start the search for the survivors.’

‘What about countries that don’t keep records?’ asked Ian.

‘No problem. We get round that by cross-referencing the survivors after the holocaust. It’ll take time but I’ll winkle out most of the two hundred.’

She looked at the Professor, ‘With me tied up with the survivors, you inherit the job of finding the sanctuary. People have been asking what Ian and Mary are doing at Southwood, so draft them as assistants.’

The Professor scratched his head, ‘I’m not questioning your allocation of duties, but where in creation do we start looking for a sanctuary?’

Bronwen thought hard then she said, ‘If you’ve got the stomach for it, use TITAN to simulate a war and see what happens.’

The President’s directive gave the Professor an ‘un-restricted access’ security rating, equal to his own. With this clearance, the Professor’s team of analysts interrogated countless files over the next three weeks.

Only now did the true horror of a war between the super powers become horrifyingly clear. Yet for all the quality of the computerised data files, with their cross-referenced calculations to three places of decimals, the most chilling document was a simple note. This had been written, years before, by a leading academic to a former President.

Harvard University October 28th. 1962

Mr President

A source, previously found to be reliable, informs me that two days ago, Chairman Khruschev threatened a twenty megaton strike on your home city of Boston, if a single Russia ship was sunk approaching Cuba. You replied that if Boston was attacked, we would then counter-attack Kiev. I congratulate you, Mr. President, that sanity prevailed on this occasion, with two of our missile bases in Turkey being ‘rendered obsolete’ as the Soviet fleet returned to the Black Sea. However, my source says that the strike and counter-strike were less than twelve minutes away before an agreement was reached. After our private discussions over recent years, my views on the insanity of the arms race do not need to be restated. I spent last night analysing what would have happened to Boston if the strike had taken place. My account deliberately avoids the use of emotive language. The horror would be so immense that mere words soon lose their meaning.

* At ground zero, a crater two miles wide and five hundred feet deep, with a rim dwarfing a twenty storey building, would be created.

* One second after detonation, a blinding fireball five times hotter than the centre of the sun would melt the retinas of everyone still alive within a twenty mile radius

* Everything above ground level for a hundred square miles of the blast would be vaporised and consumed within the radioactive mushroom.

* The water in Boston harbour would be transformed into superheated steam, cooking all life for miles in every direction.

* A raging firestorm would incinerate all combustible material within a twenty mile radius (humans are combustible).

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