Extinction Crisis

James nodded. “The same news leaks have shown up across Europe and the United States. Israel was smart enough to clamp down a hard moratorium on printing the news about the Negev incident, so your neighbors aren’t getting frightened and antsy yet.”

Encizo frowned. “Israel isn’t nervous over Israeli nuclear energy. But you just have to know that the Inshas attempt is all over their headlines. Just imagine that your neighbors had a gas leak, Cal.”

“I’d be worried about fires or monoxide poisoning in my own house, just because of our proximity,” James muttered.

Assid’s brow furrowed in concern. “So even though we’ve been incident free, at least as far as a reactor being threatened with a critical incident, just the very act of stopping their infiltration accomplished whatever goal our enemy wanted? That’s insidious.”

“That’s the type of Machiavellian manipulation that we encounter on a regular basis,” Encizo sighed. “I miss the good old days when if it wasn’t simply a local group of psychotics, then the ones responsible were the KGB holdouts.”

“Or Nazi revivalists,” James mentioned.

Encizo rubbed his forehead, tracing the faint scar he’d received on a mission years ago. “Thing is, with the world in such flux today, there are dozens of groups with the money and motive to pull this kind of panic mongering.”

Assid nodded. “This could easily be a ploy of the Saudis to dissuade their customers from abandoning oil for nuclear power.”

“Not necessarily the whole Saudi government,” James said.

Assid sneered. “I wouldn’t put it past those fanatics. They’ve given their nephews millions in order to fulfill their religious fantasies of Islamic dictatorships.”

“You’re Muslim, aren’t you?” Encizo asked.

“And you’re Christian. Does that mean you endorse homophobic freaks who claim that tidals waves are messages from God that Christians aren’t murdering enough gays?” Assid asked.