Without Warning Part 5

"I have PACOM on line for you, sir."

Musso accepted a pair of headphones with a mike attached, fitting them on and walking over to a far corner.

"This is Musso," he said, quietly.

"General," came a brusque reply in a rather refined New England accent. "Admiral James Ritchie here. Glad to hear you're still with us. You seem to be on the front line of this ... phenomenon."

"Close enough, sir. It's touched down about seventy klicks north of here. Admiral, if you don't mind me asking, do you have information about the situation in CONUS? All we're getting is the news feeds out of Europe and Asia."

"No," complained Ritchie. "We're not doing much better. Some of my people have managed to take control of the Keyhole over Havana. That's what I'm pus.h.i.+ng through to you now, but we've got nothing from home yet. I take it there's no chance we'll get a real pair of eyeb.a.l.l.s on this today?"

Musso shook his head, holding the earphones in place as he did so. The set was way too small for him and kept slipping off.

"No, sir. Whatever this thing is, it's specifically targeted for an antipersonnel effect. We lost a few people to it before we realized. The Cubans lost a lot more, for what it's worth. But there seems to be no interference with electronic signals or equipment. I guess it's something akin to a neutron bomb. Takes out the people and leaves the infrastructure in place."

Even as he said it, the rational part of his mind rebelled. He was talking about his wife and children. They were part of the "antipersonnel effect." They had to have "s.h.i.+mmered away," just like all of Nunez's men. Just like everyone north of here.

They'll be fine, he repeated over and over. They'll be fiine and they'll be home soon.

Ritchie's voice crackled in the headset, and Musso wondered if he'd spoken too soon about signal interference, but the audio came good again.

"Okay, well, have a look at the video my people are sending you. There's about twelve minutes' worth. Then we'll talk again. I'm going to call a video-conference of the ... the available theater commands in twenty minutes."

The admiral sounded like an old man.

He'd have family at home, too. But this was worse than losing a family. Much, much worse.

The videoconference, hosted out of Pearl, drew in high-level partic.i.p.ants from all the theater commands, including himself as the senior officer "available" from NORTHCOM. That's how they were putting it. Not "surviving," just "available." For Musso, the fact that he was sitting in was a bad, bad sign.

He was enthroned behind the desk of the "unavailable" commander of Guantanamo Naval Station, in a small, bare office just off the base war room. Beads of moisture sweated from gray concrete walls, and no personal touches softened the utilitarian s.p.a.ce. Even the Sony plasma screens on the desk had been set up by a couple of navy techs ten minutes earlier, to give him some privacy during the linkup. One panel was layered with multiple windows running civilian news feeds and restricted military data channels. In one of them he saw live top-down footage of Was.h.i.+ngton, with English-language subt.i.tles laid in over the original Cyrillic script. There was no explanation for the Russian source material. It might have been hacked, or purchased, or simply offered for free. Another small riddle to add to the all-enveloping mystery of why the city in the satellite footage was entirely devoid of human life. At least half of Was.h.i.+ngton was visible in the pop-up window. Musso could see dozens of fires burning out of control, unattended by a single soul. It was amazing how the human mind could adapt to the most irrational, outrageous insults. He'd already accepted, down in his bones, that what had happened was real, and that there would be no reversing it. But his b.a.l.l.s still tried to crawl up into his belly as he considered the vision of a depopulated American capital. Perhaps it was the Russian captioning.

"Links secure."

The disembodied female voice could have originated anywhere, but Musso supposed it belonged to a comms specialist somewhere in Pearl. The screen devoted to the conference divided in two, with the face of Admiral James Ritchie taking up half the real estate, while four smaller windows carried the heads or acting heads of the other unified theater commands. Apart from General Jones, the Marine Corps officer in charge of U.S. forces in Europe, Musso didn't know any of them personally. But of course he knew of Tommy Franks, the CENTCOM boss. The long, weathered face was famous the world over as commander of the Coalition arrayed against Saddam Hussein. Musso could only imagine what sort of pressure he must be under right now. Franks had a naturally melancholy appearance to begin with, and Musso thought it even more deeply lined and puffy-eyed than normal. By way of contrast, a fresh-faced woman, Lieutenant Colonel Susie Pileggi, occupied the frame set aside for the senior "available" officer of the Southern Command. With SOUTHCOM's main HQ in Miami lying well behind the event horizon, seniority fell to her as acting commander of Joint Task Force Bravo in Honduras. She was based at Soto Cano Air Base, about ten miles south of Comayagua. Like Musso himself, and Admiral Ritchie, whose superior, Admiral Fargo, had been in Was.h.i.+ngton this morning, Pileggi had found herself thrust into the rumble seat by the absence of her own boss back in the U.S. It reminded him of war games in which he'd played a very minor role back at the start of his career, role-playing a ma.s.sive Soviet nuclear strike that all but destroyed the United States and her government.

Franks was the ranking officer among them, but he deferred to Ritchie, who wasn't burdened with managing a looming war in the Middle East, and who had the full resources of PACOM at his disposal. The admiral, like all of them, appeared tense, and when he spoke it was with a clipped tone that Musso recognized. He'd heard the same serrated edge on his own words whenever he'd opened his mouth today.

"I'll recap what we do know," said Ritchie, "before moving on to the much greater issue of what we don't."

Musso watched four heads, including his own, nod in acknowledgment.

"As of three hours, fourteen minutes ago, an event of unknown origin appears to have wiped human habitation from an area estimated at just over four million square miles ..."

Musso found his throat closing involuntarily. His wife and children were deep inside that four million square miles. His whole country was, close enough. His life.

"We have not yet mapped the exact perimeter of the effect," Ritchie continued. "But we have good estimates that it lies in a very rough ovoid shape that covers ninety percent of the contiguous U.S. mainland states, half of Canada, and all of Mexico above a line extending from a point a few miles north of Chilpancingo on the west coast to Chetumal on the east and extending through the Gulf to transect Cuba seventy klicks north of Guantanamo. Of the big mainland U.S. cities, only Seattle appears to lie outside the area. The governor's office in Olympia has declared a state of emergency, imposed a curfew, and called out the guard."

Musso couldn't keep the surprise off his face. Nor could Susie Pileggi, he noted. He hadn't seen any mention of Seattle in the news bulletins. As if reading his thoughts, Ritchie explained.

"General Blackstone at Fort Lewis sent troops into the local media outlets to forestall a panic. The ... uh ... governor and deputy are ... unaccounted for. So are some of the city council people for Seattle. Apparently they were at some conference in Spokane. Behind the event horizon. An estimated four hundred million people were caught within the affected zone," Ritchie continued. "At this stage we have no information or even speculation about what may have happened to them, whether the effect is permanent, a natural phenomenon, or technologically based. We've been monitoring the reaction from any potentially hostile governments and none are behaving in any way that would give rise to a suspicion that they played any role in this."

"What's happening in Beijing?" asked Tommy Franks.

Ritchie appeared to direct his answer to a spot just over Musso's shoulder as he addressed the image of Franks on a screen thousands of miles away.

"The army is pouring onto the streets in every major provincial capital, General. Martial law has been declared but none of the PLA's force-projection a.s.sets have been mobilized. Nonetheless our own counterstrike forces are at Defcon Two, just in case."

Ice water pooled in Musso's guts. Ritchie had ordered his nuclear submarines to stand ready should the need arise to reduce the communist giant to a vast crematorium. It raised an immediate question. Who would authorize any such strike? Again, Ritchie seemed to be one step ahead of him.

"I'm afraid before we proceed any further," he said, "we need to discuss where the executive authority now lies."

"There's no designated survivor?" asked Tommy Franks.

Ritchie shook his head.

The further into this they got, the bleaker it grew, thought Musso. The designated survivor was a cabinet member nominated to remain apart from the other-was it sixteen or seventeen?-people in the presidential line of succession, a civilian a.n.a.logue of the chain of command. The system only really operated when the executive branch was gathered in one place, such as during a State of the Union address, but it wasn't the time to play semantics. If they couldn't legitimately find somebody to step into the office of president, then any military actions they took would have no legal basis.

"Elaine Chao, the secretary of labor, is in Geneva," said Ritchie, "at a UN conference. But she is specifically barred from the line of succession because she's not a natural-born citizen. As best we can tell, there is n.o.body from the line ... available."

"You mean alive," said Musso, unable to accept the euphemism any longer. "There is n.o.body else alive. In the line of succession. Back home. Anywhere within the area affected. You'll excuse me for speaking out of turn, but I think we need to start responding to this on the basis of a worst-case scenario. It's permanent. We cannot change it. They are not coming back, and if we screw up, a lot more people are going to die."

Silence greeted him, and Musso immediately regretted his lack of tact. There was a reason he was never to going to ascend to the rarefied heights of a theater command, the same reason he'd been slated for forced retirement in the next twelve months. Finally, General Jones broke the moment, speaking from Brussels.

"Well said, Tusk. The world's been knocked flat on its a.s.s, wondering what hit it. But that's going to change within a day or two. And all h.e.l.l is going to break loose. You can bet on it."

"Gentlemen, if I might?"

The testosterone had been ramping up very quickly. The intrusion of a softer, female voice seemed to calm things a little. Lieutenant Colonel Pileggi smiled out of the monitor at Musso, at all of them.

"We all took an oath to defend the Const.i.tution of the United States. No matter what catastrophe has overtaken us, that oath and the Const.i.tution still stand. Millions of American citizens are still with us. Some of them back home, in the unaffected Northwest. Most of them scattered around the world. I don't know the exact figures but there must be-what?-four or five million Americans overseas on any given day. There are emba.s.sies, consulates, military bases and personnel, the sinews of government, if you will. But it is a government of the people. Not of us. If we are to act, it must be as servants of the American people, no matter how few or far-flung they may be."

Pileggi spoke with controlled pa.s.sion. n.o.body spoke at all until Tommy Franks's thick Oklahoma drawl poured out of the speakers.

"Granted, Colonel, we can't just pick a president out of a hat. But we need to act and d.a.m.n quick. I've got close to a quarter million men and women out here in the desert waiting on orders to go. Saddam has even more waiting to receive us, and a lockerful of dirty weapons ready to fire off. I got millions of potential enemy combatants all around me. Israel sitting on top of her nukes. And that a.s.shole bin Laden spooking around in back of it all. Pretty soon I'm gonna have to s.h.i.+t or get off the pot, and either way now it's gonna make a h.e.l.luva G.o.dd.a.m.n mess. You are right. It ain't my decision to make. But somebody has to make it, and I don't see anybody we can turn to."

Pileggi nodded.

"In the end, we have to turn to our citizens," she said. "But given the extreme nature of the immediate crisis I suggest we return to first principles. We are a representative democracy. I suggest we find the senior surviving elected representative. If we can't lay hands on anyone from the federal level, then we go to state, to the governor of Alaska, or Hawaii or Was.h.i.+ngton State. We frog-march them into office if necessary, for a strictly limited period, pending an election of a new Congress and executive."

"Sounds like a plan," said Franks.

"Consider it done," said Ritchie.

Musso watched him drop his hand to make a few handwritten notes.

"If and when we do find someone to a.s.sume executive responsibility," the admiral continued, "we will need to be ready to do whatever is needed of us. General Musso, you're the closest of us to the phenomenon. It might be time to tell us what you know."

What I know? he thought. What I know is that we've been f.u.c.ked three ways from Sunday.

When he spoke, however, it was in the same brusque style as his peers.

"The edge of the effect, the event horizon, manifested itself as an observable atmospheric phenomenon, seventy kilometers north of my position at Guantanamo," he began.

Seattle, Was.h.i.+ngton

"He's ... Barb. The Air ... Guard picked him ... ago ... and later ... for now ..."

"Barney? You're breaking up. I can't hear more than two words in five. Did you say Kip was fine? Is he okay?"

The phone beeped in her ear, the connection lost.

Barbara Kipper slammed the handset down in its cradle. It'd taken her nearly an hour, trawling around in h.e.l.lacious traffic, to find a pay phone that actually worked. Twice she had been stopped by soldiers who had informed her, politely enough, that a curfew was in place and she'd need to get home. But Barb knew that given the traffic, home wasn't going to be that easy to reach, and she needed to talk to Kip. Only for a moment. Just to make sure he was safe.

She was convinced that the phone companies let their booths fall into disrepair to force everyone into buying cells. Not that they were worth anything today. The network was melting down. She got through to Barney Tench on her eighth attempt, and even then the interference had been so bad it was hardly worth it.

But Kip was okay, wasn't he? Barney had said that. The guard had picked him up somehow and was flying him back? Or driving. Or whatever. But he would be back "later." She realized she was shaking and close to tears.

"Are you all right, lady? Are you done with the phone? I really need to call my mom is all. She's in San Francisco this week. Visiting her pop. And you know. I really need to call her now."

Barb came out of her trance with a start. The young man, a boy really, in front of her had almost pushed his way into the booth. He was dressed in some sort of uniform. A Wendy's employee, she realized, and his eyes were large and fearful, darting over her shoulder to lock on the phone as if it were a life preserver in high seas.

"Can I just get in, ma'am? And use the phone? You made your call and ..."

"It's okay. I'm sorry," said Barb. "Let me get out of your way."

He waited until she was half out of the cramped s.p.a.ce before pus.h.i.+ng in past her. On any other day it would have set off all of her old New York alarms, made her think she was being mugged. But the kid had eyes only for the phone.

"Good luck," she said. "With your mom."

He muttered thanks and began feeding coins into the slot.

She hurried back to the car, where Suzie was sitting up in the front seat, keeping an eye on her. She'd parked outside a bar and grill near the corner of Northeast 106th and Fourth Street, far enough away from the Bellevue Square mall to have avoided the traffic snarl that had frozen the streets for a few blocks around there, but even so, the road network here was peaked out, too. n.o.body, it seemed, wanted to be at a desk, and thousands of people had poured onto the streets in their cars, all hoping to get home or to their kids or partners. Maybe it was the dumba.s.s curfew, too, she thought acidly. n.o.body wanted to get stuck away from home today. The sun flared off winds.h.i.+elds in hundreds of small supernovas, horns blared, and thousands more people on foot picked their way through the slow-moving traffic, all of them looking frantic to be somewhere else. It was like 9/11 except in the burbs.

Barbara climbed back into the Honda and strapped in, keying the ignition and searching the radio band for a reasonable voice. The national stations were off-line, and many of the locals had thrown open their switchboards to a rising cacophony of nutbars and crazies.

"Mommy, did you get my treat?" asked Suzie.

Barb squeezed shut her eyes. She'd promised Suzie a small chocolate or another piece of candy if she sat quietly through her mother's increasingly anxious search for a working public phone. And of course, in the rush and the worry, she'd completely forgotten. The sharp, rising inflection in Suzie's voice, which was quavering toward a tantrum, meant she couldn't put it off.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. Mommy forgot. But, I've ... uh ... I've got some gum here. Would you like some gum?'

She fished a packet of Dubble Bubble out of the coins and scrunched-up gas receipts in the cup holder.

"But Mommy, I'm not allowed to have gum. You know that I ..."

"Today, you can have gum," she said, more brusquely than she'd wanted to. "Here, knock yourself out."

She tossed back the packet and immediately regretted it. Suzie was always a little more sensitive to Barb than to Kipper-admittedly because Barb tended to have a sharper tongue. Her lower lip was trembling, and the gla.s.sy sheen in her eyes warned of imminent tears. A tension headache began drilling in behind Barbara's temples.

"... estimates of the dead or missing run into the hundreds of millions," declared a somber voice on the radio. "A joint statement from the governor's office and the commander of Fort Lewis advises people in the metro area to stay off the roads, keeping them clear for emergency service vehicles and military transport. The curfew will be enforced ..."

Barb flicked off the radio with some irritation. It couldn't have been helping Suzie's mood.

"I want Daddy," she sobbed, as the tears finally arrived. "I want Daddy home. I don't want him eaten."

"It's all right, darling. It's all right."

But the collapse had begun, and within seconds her daughter was a heaving, squalling ball of misery in the back of the car.

Where the f.u.c.k are you, Kip? thought Barbara.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n. That mother's gotta be twenty miles high."

"Higher, sir," the airman informed him. "Seems to fold over somewhere up in the mesosphere."

Kipper nodded but said nothing. Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and confirm the fact, as his granddad used to say. Pops Kipper was full of such quips for all occasions. He used to keep a dictionary of quotations on the kitchen table at his place, ready to deploy somebody else's wit at a moment's notice.

Christ knows what he'd have said about this, thought Kip, as they banked down and away to the west to begin their long approach to Seattle. The C-130 wasn't designed for scenic flights, but even through her small, grimy windows he was afforded a scarifying view of the energy wave that ran in both directions right out to the very edge of the world-and over it. He was the only pa.s.senger in the plane, a service laid on especially for him by the military at the city's request. He'd linked up with it on some no-name airstrip out in the boonies, delivered there after a helicopter ride that had left him white-knuckled and nauseated.

The loadmaster-that's what they were called, he was sure-stayed glued to the window nearest his perch at the rear ramp, jamming his head up hard against the Plexiglas to keep an eye on the phenomenon as their course change took it out of direct view. It was far enough away from Seattle that people couldn't see it from the ground, the airman told him, which Kip thought a small mercy. The city would be a nuthouse if you could. Probably was anyway, he reflected. The flight crew, after exhausting the possibilities of speculation and conspiracy theory when the vast, s.h.i.+mmering wall had first hove into view, was restricting itself to terse monosyllables as they prepped the craft for descent and approach.

"I reckon it came from s.p.a.ce," said the airman, a native of New Orleans to judge by his accent. "Something like a black hole that brushed up against us."

He was young, with a smattering of pimples on his fleshy pink jowls.

"Black holes don't really brush up against anything," said Kipper. "They suck in whole planets and crush them to a singularity."

He'd seen that on the Discovery Channel once. It made him feel better to have something to say.

"A singu-what now, sir?" asked the airman.

"A singularity," said Kipper. "It's, uh, where energy and matter get crushed down into a single state that is so small it's almost not even there."

"s.h.i.+t," said the young man. "Well, I guess that ain't no singularity out there."

"Nope," agreed Kipper. "Guess not."

"Do you know what we're gonna do about it, sir, to turn it off?"

Kipper could see from the strain around the boy's eyes that he was really asking another question. How are we gonna make this better? How are we going to get our world back?