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And the Swan Died
By Jack Dold AuthorHouse
Copyright © 2016 Jack Dold
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5246-2135-3
CHAPTER 1
The Dream
"Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand."
Revelation 1:3 (KJV)
Friday, June 14, 2019
Raymond Barksley was one of the world's richest men, a collector of other people's businesses that had begun in 1986 when he took everything he owned and sold it to buy stock in Microsoft Corporation. He parlayed that first investment into an enormously diversified portfolio of high tech stocks, land, minerals and oil. Always on the lookout for new ideas with a future, he seldom missed an emerging company. After a relatively short period, he was wealthy enough to afford the most egregious mistakes, something he rarely made. He thought often about it, but couldn't remember the day he became financially bulletproof. At 80, he was still mentally sharp, still married to his college bride, loved by his brood of three sons and two daughters, and his growing cadre of grandchildren. He was a stalwart in his church and community and possessed of two handfuls of life-long friends, none of whom were dependent on him. He often expressed amazement to his wife, Dorothy, that for them life had been an uninterrupted walk in the park, and he knew exactly whom he had to thank for it. Raymond Barksley was a deeply religious man.
* * *
Raymond had been unusually pensive throughout dinner, something Dorothy noticed immediately. She waited patiently for the explanation she was certain would be soon forthcoming. Their marriage was one of unusual symbiosis. For nearly sixty years they had confided in each other.
"Dorothy, I received a terrifying report today," he said after they had left the table and were settled in the TV room. Anna, their maid, brought them coffee. After she had left, Raymond reached into a folder he had brought with him and handed her the scientists' report.
Dorothy quickly read the two pages, carefully put them on the table next to her. She put some sweetener in her coffee and took a small sip. Without looking at her husband, she picked up the papers and read them again. Raymond watched her silently, not wanting to intrude on her train of thought.
Finally, she handed him back the report.
"You believe this is actually true?" she asked quietly.
Raymond fumbled with the papers.
"I'm not sure what I believe. The six scientists involved aren't even sure. The data they are receiving is contradicted by every other monitor on earth. The only place where such temperatures are being recorded is at their bore site. They are looking for an explanation. And frankly, they are praying that they are wrong.
Dorothy regarded him closely. She had seen her husband with doubts before and knew that there was something else involved. A thought occurred to her.
"Nevada is a curious place, Raymond," she said in an off-handed manner. "Didn't they do a bunch of nuclear tests out there? Maybe your scientists have hit a place that was affected by those blasts."
Raymond considered her statement, and nodded.
"I remember those tests, near Sand Mountain. I'll ask Sydney Phillips if they had looked into that possibility."
He drank the rest of his coffee and managed a smile.
"Let's put off worrying until we have something more certain. Now, how about a movie?"
They spent the rest of the night on an "ancient" James Bond movie, and had almost gotten the disturbing Nevada bore out of their minds by the time they went to bed.
* * *
Two days later, Raymond came down to breakfast, visibly shaken.
"What's the matter, dear?" Dorothy asked. "Didn't you sleep well?"
"I slept all right ...," he said, then paused, looking to see if Anna had left the breakfast room. "... considering we may have less than a year to live."
"Oh, I'm sorry," he apologized, sitting down at the table, "but I had the most peculiar dream last night."
Dorothy was immediately at attention. She leaned forward, propping her head on her hands, looking at him intently.
"Tell me about it."
Raymond was about to respond when Anna came in with the morning Chronicle.
"Wait until after breakfast, sweetheart. We can take our coffee out into the garden."
Half an hour later they were sitting in the gazebo and Raymond told her about the dream.
"I woke up from a sound sleep and found myself dripping wet. I felt that there was someone in the room, and considered how I could defend myself."
He paused, and let out an uncomfortable chuckle.
"I know this will sound crazy, but I discovered an old man standing near the window."
"An old man?" Dorothy repeated. "Can you describe him?"
"He was short, and thin. He was dressed rather shabbily — jeans and a gaudy orange shirt. He had a full head of white hair, and several days of beard."
"That's a pretty detailed description, my dear ... for a dream."
"That's what bothers me, Dorothy. I don't think it was a dream. I was sitting on the side of the bed looking at him."
"Did he speak?"
Raymond nodded.
"He had a deep, gravelly voice. He called me by name, and he said that I should build a shelter for people of faith where they could live their last months in peace."
Dorothy was startled.
"He used that term, 'their last months'?"
"That exact term."
She leaned back in her chair and gathered her thoughts.
"It's funny, Raymond," she said finally. "I had a thought that was very similar. Wouldn't it be terrible if we humans ended our stay on this earth in anarchy and rage?"
"That would be awful. And I fear that is precisely what would happen if our friends at Cal are correct and the word gets out. The panic would only be exceeded by the hatred, especially in our cities."
Dorothy changed the subject.
"Did you ask the scientists about the nuclear tests?"
"I did, the morning after you mentioned them. There were none done in the region where the bore is placed. It's in an area in the southern Newark valley where the crust is relatively thin."
Raymond paused.
"Phillips dismissed the idea immediately. He said they had considered those tests before they started looking for the site."
Dorothy sighed.
"When do they plan on making their study public, Raymond?"
"They are almost ready. I think it is already finished, but they are afraid of the reaction, not so much of the public but from the scientific community."
"Can you talk them into withholding the report?"
Raymond got up and walked around the gazebo, considering his wife's question.
"I don't know. But I'll certainly ask them."
CHAPTER 2
Decision
"And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth."
Genesis 9:11 (KJV)
Friday, June 21, 2019
Six somber men entered the boardroom at Global Ideas Tower, a fifty-story structure a block off of Market Street in downtown San Francisco. It was the world headquarters for Raymond Barksley's far-flung empire. The men, dressed variously from casual to sloppy to dapper, were met by a smiling Barksley and his assistant, Franklin Mosse.
"Welcome, gentlemen," Barksley said, shaking each of their hands. "There is coffee and some fattening stuff over on the sideboard. Help yourselves. I think everyone is here. We'll start in a few minutes."
Nervously the six men, all research scientists at major universities, picked at the donuts and rolls spread on the table, then settled into the chair that bore their nameplate. When all were seated, Barksley began.
"As far as I know, the eight of us in this room are the keepers of the most significant secret in the history of mankind. The enormous question for us is, what are we going to do with that secret? I will tell you up front, the work you have been doing is going to change mankind's entire outlook on life, such as it is, or will be. I am prepared to put every cent in my possession, which is considerable, at your disposal if there is any reasonable use for it." He smiled. "I think you are all aware that wealth is about to become an obsolete concept. Let's get to the heart of the matter."
He turned to Sydney Phillips on his right. Sydney was the Chairman of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a slim man, slightly balding, with active eyes that seemed to bore in on whomever he was speaking to, eyes that sometimes frightened the graduate students in his department.
"Sydney, the report we received stated unequivocally that on February 24, 2020, the earth is going to explode. Do you still maintain that date?"
"Yes, Mr. Barksley ..."
"Please, it is Ray. There are no titles in this room."
"Or 'Doctors'?" Phillips responded with a smile, receiving a nod.
"Okay, Ray. My colleagues and I have been working on this for almost four years now. As you know, U.C. received a federal grant that sponsored that probe in the Nevada desert back in 2015. My assistant here," he said, indicating Buckley Mannings, a young black man sitting next to him, "and I are the only ones at Berkeley involved in the project. We've been on sabbatical for the last year, so no one else is involved in our research. We have been receiving data ever since the bore began. In January 2016, that data started to concern us because it was registering unexpected temperatures as the probe went deeper into the crust. In June of that year, I contacted Foster Briggs and Timothy Machek at Stanford." He nodded toward the two across the table.
"... and Wallace Wilkins and Jeremy Chen at Cal Tech." A similar nod to the two at the far end.
"The six of us have been working on nothing else since."
He looked around the table, receiving grim nods from everyone.
"There is nothing we have found that leaves any doubt about the future. In fact, that date only holds if there is not a cataclysmic series of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes prior."
He looked over at his Stanford colleagues.
"Foster, why don't you take on that subject?"
Foster Briggs was the head of the Department of Geophysics at Stanford. The recipient of a Nobel Prize in physics, his field of expertise was plate tectonics.
He turned first to Franklin Mosse.
"I see that you received the materials I sent. Is it set up?"
Mosse picked up his cell phone and spoke briefly. A screen at the end of the room lit up.
"Tim and I have put together a map of the major critical points around the Pacific Rim, the most active volcanic area in the world. He picked up a remote in front of him and flicked a button, bringing a large map of the Pacific Ocean to the screen at the end of the room. He began a detailed description of earth volcanism and plate tectonics.
"Of course we have a network of active spots completely around the ocean, from Indonesia to California to Nicaragua and Guatemala to the tip of South America, even Antarctica. In 2015, when the probe was activated, there were 414 active volcanic sites within the Ring of Fire. Today there are 445."
"Are those volcanoes that are actually smoking?" Franklin asked. He then hesitated. "Is 'smoking' the right term?"
"Any volcano that has erupted in the Holocene period is considered active."
"Holocene?" Franklin asked.
"Approximately the last 10,000 years."
"That's an increase of more than nine percent," Raymond observed. "Is the rate of increase constant?"
"No." Tim Machek answered. "That's another of the anomalies of this thing. The increased activity all occurred in the first year after the bore started. None of the eruptions were at major, life-threatening sites. That is surprising because some of the most likely areas have remained quiet. There has been nothing since."
"It's almost like the thing is being controlled, as though that initial activity was just to get our attention," Jeremy Chen from Cal Tech observed. "From a physics standpoint, it doesn't make sense."
"Why not?"
"If heat is increasing at a predictable rate, it should be released at a consistent rate, but it's not. The heat is rising in the mantle but is not being evacuated. That means that both heat and pressure are building. If there is no release, we will reach a firing point."
"An explosion?"
"Exactly. In February, 2020."
Raymond leaned forward, his eyes focusing intently on the Cal Tech physicist.'
"How do you normally measure the heat of the earth's interior?"
"Simply put," Avery responded, "the earth's mantle registers two different kinds of heat: primordial, which is the heat from the origin of the earth being lost by the core into the mantle; and radiogenic heat that is actively produced in the mantle and crust by radioactive decay. Geoneutrino detectors can measure some of the elemental decay, but not all. Primordial heat is often measured by x-rays."
He paused.
"Of course, this is far too simplistic."
"What happens if the volcanic activity increases again? What if Yellowstone caldera exploded, or Mt. Fuji? Would that change your prediction about the earth's explosion?"
"That could move the date of total destruction, at least of all living things, up to an earlier date."
"Can you explain?"
"A series of massive volcanic eruptions could blot out the sun, or contaminate the oxygen, or both, as well as heating up the atmosphere to deadly levels for life."
There was full silence in the room.
It was again broken by Raymond Barksley.
"Is it possible that such an eruption, or eruptions, could take the pressure and heat off and cool down the core?"
"I suppose that is possible, but the effects may still be catastrophic for the earth."
"So, February, 2020 is the outer limits of life on earth. Is that what you are saying?"
Six voices answered as one. "Yes."
"Is there any chance of reversing the heating?"
"Of cooling the core?" Phillips asked.
"Yes," Raymond responded.
"We can't conceive of one. We don't even know how hot the core is supposed to be, or for that matter, how hot it was before this all started. Anything we know about the core is an educated guess."
Barksley heaved a deep sigh, his eyes down at the papers in front of him, then relaxed visibly. He looked around the table.
"We are going to have to broadcast this news," he said simply. "Have you gentlemen thought of how this can best be done?"
There was silence, and Barksley suddenly realized that these men were theoretical scientists and were probably incapable of dealing with this on a world-wide basis.
"We have spoken about this countless times among ourselves," Sydney Phillips said quietly. "And none of us knows what to do."
"That's why we all agreed to this meeting, Ray," Jeremy Chen declared. "Our expertise is on the theoretical level; you have the skill to deal with people and practical problems."
"We don't even know how to talk with our own universities." It was Wallace Wilkins. "It's too big, and we are all scared to death of the thing leaking out and causing a world-wide riot."
"And yet the world has to know," his Cal Tech colleague added.
"You are all certain of your data and conclusions?" Ray asked again. "You have no doubts?"
"None," Phillips declared firmly. "Unless the heating of the core stopped as quickly as it began."
"Is that possible?"
"Ray, the heating of the core as we have seen it over the past months is not possible in our minds. At this point, anything is possible."
Ray was silent for a few seconds.
"That brings up another issue that has bothered me, and probably you gentlemen as well. Why haven't scientists around the world measured this increased heat? You have your bore deep in the mantle, but aren't there other ways to monitor the earth's temperature?"
"We are, as you suggest, also mystified by that," Sydney Phillips responded. "Except for our bore, even we can't detect any temperature increases by normal means. As far as the scientific world is concerned, everything is perfectly normal."
"How do you usually read such temperatures?"
"We have thermal monitors and seismic recorders on every active spot on earth, thousands of them. The entire geophysical scientific world is honed in on those monitors."
"Could the bore be sending false data?"
"We considered that early on, because of the general silence on the issue worldwide," Wallace Wilkins said. "Twice we have pulled the bore up and subjected it to careful testing. It has been exact to the thousandth of a degree in lab testing. We are certain it is sending correct temperatures."
"Could the temperatures be confined only to the Nevada area where you are boring?"
Foster Briggs took up the thread.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from And the Swan Died by Jack Dold. Copyright © 2016 Jack Dold. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
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