Without Warning Part 9

"Uh-huh," he muttered. They'd had the same result plugging into FAA and weather satellites back at Gitmo. As far as their technology was concerned, the haze didn't exist.

He could feel the warmth leaking out of the late afternoon as the sun dropped toward a line of low, scrubby hills in the west. There was a faint but noticeable dry heat radiating from the haze, but that was all.

"Care to take a closer look, Major?" he said.

Nunez shook his head. "No. But what else is to be done?"

The Cuban officer took the first steps away from the convoy, toward the new edge of the known world. Musso fell in beside him as they cautiously approached the barrier. The country hereabouts was little different from the area around Guantanamo. Both were nestled at the edge of the Sierra Maestra range, the remnants of huge fractured slabs of continental plate raised from the ocean floor over millions of years by tectonic impact, volcanic eruptions, and the hundred-thousand-gigaton blast of the Chicxulub comet punching into the surface of the planet just a short distance away some sixty-five million years ago. The Maestra was a perfect guerrilla territory, a vast contrary maze of steep valleys, volcanic dikes, abrupt fault lines, and nearly impenetrable karst areas, all riven with limestone caves and covered in dense forest. The ranges gave out on the far side of the haze, smoothing out into the low, rolling plains that made up nearly two-thirds of Cuba's land surface. For all of the earth-shattering violence that had gone into creating this environment over the aeons, it was nothing compared with the immediate spectacle of the static energy wave.

Musso was able to make out the lowland steppes on the far side without much trouble. Nothing moved there. Nunez had compared it to looking through a waterfall, but to his mind it was more like a few layers of plastic wrap. He stooped down to pick up a rock as they walked, wondering what would happen if he threw it in. Nunez slowed as they approached the face. It appeared to billow, like a sail. They stopped about fifty yards away.

"I would not think it safe to get much closer," Nunez said.

"I wouldn't argue with that, Major," agreed Musso. "Let's just accept that we're both possessed of stainless-steel cojones and take it nice and careful from here."

He could see a burned-out car wreck on the far side, near a bend in the road, and wondered if that's where Nunez's superior officer had disappeared. This close to it, he avoided looking up. The scale of the thing was enough to give him a teetering sense of vertigo without making it any worse by craning his head back. He turned around to check on his people. They were all watching anxiously, their bodies rigid with antic.i.p.ation. Suddenly there was a whoos.h.i.+ng noise and he saw them all jump, like an audience in a horror movie frightened by a cheap stunt.

"What the f.u.c.k?" he said, turning to Nunez.

But the Cuban was gone.

The cries of his comrades and of Nunez's men reached him a moment later.

"Run, General! Get the h.e.l.l outta there!"

Admiral Ritchie found his eyes straying from the television news broadcast to the silver-framed picture of his daughter on the desk in front of him. The photograph was old. Nancy was nineteen now, but on his desk she remained forever three, holding a small bear, sucking her thumb, and staring off a thousand miles into the distance.

He had to tear his eyes away. It was almost too painful to bear. She should be all right. She was supposed to fly out for Europe this morning. But they had heard nothing from her.

Had she made the flight? Had it escaped the Wave? He didn't know. His wife was frantically trying to find out, but without much luck.

With a grinding effort of will, Ritchie turned his attention back to work.

Thank G.o.d for cable news, at least, he thought. He had wondered if he might have to press the governor's office for a declaration of martial law, fearing that panic and violence would be inevitable as the population of the islands digested what was happening. But far from sending mobs onto the street, the wall-to-wall media coverage, all of its sourced from Asia and Europe, seemed to be keeping Hawaii's civilian population glued to their TV and computer screens. Every available police officer had been called in, and a battalion apiece of marines and soldiers were hurriedly tooling up with crowd-control gear, just in case, although all of the reports he'd received so far had the streets half deserted. Hopefully they wouldn't be needed. The surf breaks off the north sh.o.r.e were a little less crowded than usual, but not much. Apparently even the end of the world wasn't going to interfere with some people's search for the perfect wave.

"Governor's office called, sir."

Ritchie looked up from the drifts of paperwork that covered every square inch of his desk. A couple of pages had even dropped to the floor. His PA, Captain McKinney, bent forward and retrieved them.

"Yes, Andrew? Good news, I hope?"

"Mixed, Admiral. Curfew starts at 1800 sharp tonight. They couldn't agree on the rationing, though. But they have organized emergency flights from Tokyo and Sydney for any perishables or medical supplies that run low. The national security committees of both the j.a.panese and Australian cabinets are still meeting, but their local liaison staff has pa.s.sed on messages from both prime ministers that they'll give us whatever help we need."

They're the ones who'll be needing help soon enough, thought Ritchie. But aloud he only said, "Well, that's something at least. For now."

The armed forces had considerable stockpiles of rations and medical supplies on the islands, but they didn't store items like insulin for diabetics, or drugs for treating cancer or a dozen other common maladies. Ritchie couldn't help wondering just how much of a supply of antidepressants there was in Hawaii, and how many people were likely to kill themselves or suffer heart attacks or stress-related strokes in the next few days. Given the number of tourists from the mainland here, probably lots.

Nearly two and a half decades earlier he'd written his master's dissertation at Annapolis on the navy's crisis management at Pearl Harbor. He'd been scathingly critical of their efforts on December 7, 1941. Now, faced with his very own calamity, he had to wonder if he would have done any better. There was just so much to do and so little to do it with. Events had accelerated to a point where he would possibly never catch up.

"Thank you, Captain," he grunted, dismissing young McKinney, just as an officer in army greens appeared at his door.

"Colonel Maccomb, Admiral. I have your updates if you have a moment."

Ritchie didn't, but waved the man in anyway. Maccomb looked like he had run all the way over from the 500th Military Intelligence Brigade, a decent hike in the midday heat of the equatorial sun. PACOM was just months away from taking possession of a new headquarters, the Nimitz-MacArthur Pacific Command Center, which would have centralized everybody in one modern facility. It looked like they'd be sticking with the old campus now, however, necessitating a lot of time wasting as his subordinates ran all over the island.

"Sit down, Colonel. Give it to me as quickly as you can without losing track of the story."

The intelligence officer nodded brusquely, snapped a sheaf of paper in his hand, and worked down a series of bullet points.

"Both of our alliance partners in the AOR have either activated their treaties, or will have within twenty-four hours. Land elements of the j.a.panese Self-Defense Forces have been recalled to barracks, the naval forces are making preparations to put out to sea, and the air force is already flying CAP over the home islands. The Aussies have called up their reserves and moved all of their remaining high-readiness forces onto alert..."

"Remaining?"

"Yes, sir. They have a special forces group, a squadron of Hornets, and a naval task force in the Gulf with us, for Iraq."

Ritchie nodded.

"All of the other regional powers have gone to varying states of high alert. Taiwan has been placed under martial law, and the armed forces have put Plan Orange into effect. South Korea has declared that a curfew will come into effect as of 2200 tonight. Their forces and ours are ready, watching the DMZ, but Pyongyang is sitting very, very still. There's been nothing on their media at all."

"And China?"

Maccomb gnawed at the inside of his mouth like a man with a lifelong chaw habit.

"They've put a lot of troops onto the streets, and our satellite cover shows a lot of activity around the Taiwan Strait batteries, but the force-projection capabilities they do have remain dormant for the moment. They're as spooked as anyone, and they know we still have the forces in theater to check them if necessary."

Ritchie nodded, feeling a headache building behind his eyeb.a.l.l.s.

"That's a dreadfully dangerous amount of hardware and armed men moving around."

"Yes, sir," agreed Maccomb. "It is."

"It just reached out and took him," said Kwan, a little breathlessly. "Like, I dunno, like a sort of liquid metal blob or something. Faster than anything I've ever seen."

Musso nodded. He didn't trust himself to speak just yet. His heart was still going like a rat in a trap, and he recognized the hollow, shaky feeling of having dodged a bullet, or something just as nasty. Musso had been a marine for longer than he had been anything else in his life. He knew war from the inside, the way an addict knows his poison. He knew what it was like to make a ball of himself, tight and small, like a clenched fist, as death zipped like a swarm of bees through the air all around him. He knew too well the fragility of the human body, the way that war respects not age, not courage, gender, righteousness, intelligence, or any of the limitless personal touchstones that everyone thinks will get them through, just before everyone starts dying. He had held in his arms grown men reduced to bloodied rags and cooling meat by a few dumb grams of flying metal. He had carried a little Somali girl in his hands, no more than two she would have been, her poor tiny body burned and disintegrating as he ran for a medic. He knew the filth and horror of war as a contagion buried just beneath the surface of his own skin.

He knew fear.

But he had never known it as he had in the few seconds after Nunez was consumed. Fear like a rancid, suppurating pustule that suddenly burst all sweet and bilious in his guts, flooding his mouth and throat and stomach with a distillation of terror in its primal state.

He was going to be a few moments getting over it.

The Cubans, he saw, had freaked the h.e.l.l out, but were holding it together under the lash of Nunez's deputy, Captain someone-or-other. Musso couldn't recall his name. His people were no less upset, although they were hiding it a little better. Everyone had withdrawn back up the road toward Guantanamo, pulling over to the side about five hundred meters from their original position. The energy wave hadn't altered in the slightest.

Musso released a ragged breath.

"Okay. As of now, n.o.body gets within five hundred meters of that thing, okay? I can't tell the Cubans what to do, of course, but I'm guessing they won't argue."

Kwan nodded and looked around for the nameless captain.

"I don't even know if he speaks English, sir."

"Me neither," he said. "Get someone to translate. Your sergeant, Gutteres, he's sharp. Put him on liaison if you can spare him."

"Julio's specialty is binary nerve agents. I don't think I'll be needing him," she said flatly.

Kwan saluted and turned away to find their new translator. Musso took a sip of chilled sports drink from an insulated bottle. They had withdrawn to a spot on a slight rise where a small clearing allowed all of the vehicles to pull off the shoulder. The Americans were still attempting to take readings from something that their equipment told them wasn't there. The Cubans had gathered into a loose line under the watchful if anxious gaze of their latest commanding officer. They were sure going through them at a fair clip.

Musso calmed his breathing. His heart rate had dropped back to something a little more reasonable, and the unpleasant low-grade voltage that had been buzzing away just under his skin had finally died down. He couldn't help but wonder where Nunez had gone. If anywhere. That led naturally to thoughts of his wife and kids and what had happened to them. His stomach turned over again. Another slug from the drink bottle and he put it away, pus.h.i.+ng off the side of the Humvee and walking over to his radioman, determinedly trying to ignore his personal anxieties.

"Corporal, can you hook me up with Pearl, via Gitmo?"

"No problem, General. Just give me a moment."

Musso left him to it, taking a minute to talk to the Cubans' new CO. Jenny Kwan and Sergeant Gutteres were deep into a three-way conference with the scared-looking officer, who snapped rigidly to attention when he saw Musso approaching. The marine gave him a tired smile and a nod in reply.

"How're we doing, Lieutenant?" he asked Kwan.

"Pretty good, sir. Captain alvarez here speaks pretty good English. A h.e.l.l of lot better than my Spanish at any rate. Sergeant Gutteres is filling in the blanks."

Musso addressed the Cuban directly. "I'm sorry about Major Nunez. He seemed a good man and an excellent officer."

"He was," alvarez replied. "We liked him. All the men liked him very much."

"Well, Captain, I'm about to seek guidance from my superiors, but for myself, I'd like us to keep talking, to help each other out if and when we can. I'd suggest you try and find someone further up your chain of command to report to, but son, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that you are it."

Sergeant Gutteres had begun translating quietly as soon as he'd seen alvarez struggling to keep up with Musso. He finished a few seconds after the general. Captain alvarez grimaced a little at the thought that he might well be the sole surviving authority figure in his country, but to his credit he sucked it up and gave the Americanos his sternest warrior's face.

"Cooperation, yes, General," he answered. "Perhaps, in this emergency, we might discuss a joint command, no? A combination command?"

At the look of incomprehension on Musso's face, he launched into a burst of Spanish. Gutteres waited, taking it all in, before pa.s.sing on the gist of what he'd said.

"Long story short, General, alvarez is offering to temporarily place his men under your command. He emphasizes the temporary nature of the arrangement."

Musso nodded. He understood that the Cuban was covering himself against the unlikely eventuality that they might click their heels three times and find that everything had returned to normal, in which case he'd probably need to seek immediate asylum.

"You do me an honor, Captain," said Musso, nodding to Gutteres to make sure he translated the phrase literally. "Your men have comported themselves with great bravery and forbearance today. They are a credit to your country, and it would be a privilege to serve with them, however temporary the arrangement might be."

alvarez, who seemed more than happy with that, asked if he might borrow the sergeant to speak to his men. Musso agreed, laying a light hand on Gutteres's shoulder before he left them. "Take it easy, son. A light touch is called for. Let alvarez do any yelling and b.u.t.t kicking that's required."

"Got it, General."

His radio operator indicated from the command Humvee that he'd established the link to Pearl, and Musso exchanged a salute and, less formally, a handshake with his newest subordinate before hurrying back.

"It's Admiral Ritchie, sir."

"Thank you," said Musso, as he took the handset. "Admiral, it's General Musso, sir. I'm afraid I have some more bad news."

Ritchie hung up when he was done with Musso. He didn't know which was more disturbing, the way the energy barrier had reached out and s.n.a.t.c.hed Major Nunez when he strayed too close, or the fact that the surviving Cubans had been so neutered by the events of the day that they had effectively surrendered control of their territory, or what was left of it, to the United States ... or what was left of it.

A terrible melancholy had settled upon his spirit in the last hour or so. He hadn't noticed it stealing up on him, but having received Musso's report he found himself in a bleaker frame of mind than he could recall having known before. He could hear an increasing hubbub outside his office as more and more people poured into PACOM headquarters. Hundreds of phones appeared to be ringing, and so many voices competed with one another to get their message through, to have their tiny part of this unfolding nightmare recognized as important, that the normally hushed environs of the command center reminded him of the stock exchange in New York. He'd visited there with his wife and daughter a few months before 9/11.

"Admiral."

"I'm sorry," he said, a little roughly, pretending he'd been lost in thought about something more than his own personal tragedy. His PA was at the door.

"It's General Franks, sir. On a secure line from Qatar. He says elements of the Iraqi army are leaving their entrenched positions and appear to be heading toward the border with Kuwait."

Just for a second Ritchie thought his heart might have stopped. Then he realized it had simply jumped. It felt as though it had gathered itself up and tried to leap right out of his chest. He felt momentarily dizzy and covered it by nodding as he leaned back in his chair.

"Patch him through if you would. Any other good news?"

"The Israelis have moved extra units into the Gaza Strip. A street party there got out of hand and turned into a riot. One of their guys got shot trying to close it down."

"A street party?" Ritchie couldn't keep the dismay out of his voice.

"They're breaking out all over, sir. All over. Plenty in the Mideast, of course. But plenty more in Europe, even Britain, in some of the northern areas, with big ... ah ... migrant populations."

"You mean big Muslim populations."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. Patch General Franks through to me here."

Ritchie had a few seconds alone to himself before Franks came on the line. My G.o.d, he thought, silently. This is going to turn bad even quicker than I thought.

Pacific Ocean, 570 nm west of Acapulco

"Shoeless f.u.c.kin' Dan," spat Pete, with no joy in his voice at the arrival of such an old, esteemed colleague.

"And all of his little toes," said Mr. Lee, shooting a wide, gap-toothed grin at Pete. To add to the effect he raised one eyebrow and winked, a most disconcerting sight. "Flippant humor, Mr. Pete? To ease tensions before confrontation."

Pete forced a wan smile in spite of himself. Shoeless Dan was no laughing matter. The dude dealt in some high-octane villainy. Word was, he'd once filled the hold of a Liberian freighter with a couple of hundred orphans for the Chechen maf'. Unspoiled children paid off at the same dollar-per-key rate as good heroin if you could get them into the right wholesale chain. Dan denied it, of course, but not all that strenuously. It added to his mystique, which he needed, given the incurable fungal infection that had turned his feet into putrescent, oozing slabs of meat. The things were grotesque, as big as footb.a.l.l.s when they really swelled up, and never smelling any sweeter than a rancid wheel of Spanish cheese.

He knew his boats, though. And he knew the smuggling biz.

"Flippant humor, Mr. Lee." Pete nodded while watching the go-fast boats split up and peel off to come at the yacht from opposite sides. "Does Chinese culture even do flippancy?"

"Mr. John Woo, yes," said Lee. "Central Committee of Communist Party, not so much."

"Who is the more Confucian, then?" asked Pete, following Dan's boat through a pair of binoculars.