by Joe Hill
The big man is unashamed. “People who are qualified. People who earned it. People who can do the arithmetic. There’s a lot more to math than counting out change when someone buys a dime bag. A lot of the model immigrant communities have suffered because of quotas. The Orientals especially.”
Fidelman laughs—sharp, strained, disbelieving laughter. But the MIT girl closes her eyes and is still, and Fidelman opens his mouth to tell the big son of a bitch off and then shuts it again. It would be unkind to the girl to make a scene.
“It’s Guam, not Seoul,” Fidelman tells her. “And we don’t know what happened there. It might be anything. It might be an explosion at a power station. A normal accident and not a . . . catastrophe of some sort.” The first word that occurred to him was “holocaust.”
“Dirty bomb,” says the big man. “Bet you a hundred dollars. He’s upset because we just missed him in Russia.”
“He” is the Supreme Leader of the DPRK. There are rumors someone took a shot at him while he was on a state visit to the Russian side of Lake Khasan, a body of water on the border between the two nations. There are unconfirmed reports that he was hit in the shoulder, hit in the knee, not hit at all; that a diplomat beside him was hit and killed; that one of the Supreme Leader’s impersonators was killed. According to the Internet, the assassin was either a radical anti-Putin anarchist, or a CIA agent masquerading as a member of the Associated Press, or a K-pop star named Extra Value Meal. The U.S. State Department and the North Korean media, in a rare case of agreement, insist there were no shots fired during the Supreme Leader’s visit to Russia, no assassination attempt at all. Like many following the story, Fidelman takes this to mean the Supreme Leader came very close to dying indeed.
It is also true that eight days ago a U.S. submarine patrolling the Sea of Japan shot down a North Korean test missile in North Korean airspace. A DPRK spokesman called it an act of war and promised to retaliate in kind. Well, no. He had promised to fill the mouths of every American with ashes. The Supreme Leader himself didn’t say anything. He hasn’t been seen since the assassination attempt that didn’t happen.
“They wouldn’t be that stupid,” Fidelman says to the big man, talking across the Korean girl. “Think about what would happen.”
The small, wiry, dark-haired woman stares with a slavish pride at the big man sitting beside her, and Fidelman suddenly realizes why she tolerates his paunch intruding on her personal space. They’re together. She loves him. Perhaps adores him.
The big man replies placidly, “Hundred dollars.”
LEONARD WATERS IN THE COCKPIT
North Dakota is somewhere beneath them, but all Waters can see is a hilly expanse of cloud stretching to the horizon. Waters has never visited North Dakota and when he tries to visualize it, imagines rusting antique farm equipment, Billy Bob Thornton, and furtive acts of buggery in grain silos. On the radio the controller in Minneapolis instructs a 737 to ascend to flight level three-six-zero and increase speed to Mach Seven Eight.
“Ever been to Guam?” asks his first officer, with a false fragile cheer.
Waters has never flown with a female copilot before and can hardly bear to look at her, she is so heartbreakingly beautiful. Face like that, she ought to be on magazine covers. Up until the moment he met her in the conference room at LAX, two hours before they flew, he didn’t know anything about her except that her name was Bronson. He had been picturing someone like the guy in the original Death Wish.
“Been to Hong Kong,” Waters says, wishing she weren’t so terribly lovely.
Waters is in his mid-forties and looks about nineteen, a slim man with red hair cut to a close bristle and a map of freckles on his face. He is only just married and soon to be a father: a photo of his gourd-ripe wife in a sundress has been clipped to the dash. He doesn’t want to be attracted to anyone else. He feels ashamed of even spotting a handsome woman. At the same time, he doesn’t want to be cold, formal, distant. He’s proud of his airline for employing more female pilots, wants to approve, to support. All gorgeous women are an affliction upon his soul. “Sydney. Taiwan. Not Guam, though.”
“Me and friends used to freedive off Fai Fai Beach. Once I got close enough to a blacktip shark to pet it. Freediving naked is the only thing better than flying.”
The word “naked” goes through him like a jolt from a joy buzzer. That’s his first reaction. His second reaction is that of course she knows Guam—she’s ex-navy, which is where she learned to fly. When he glances at her sidelong, he’s shocked to find tears in her eyelashes.
Kate Bronson catches his gaze and gives him a crooked, embarrassed grin that shows the slight gap between her two front teeth. He tries to imagine her with a shaved head and dog tags. It isn’t hard. For all her cover-girl looks, there is something slightly feral underneath, something wiry and reckless about her.
“I don’t know why I’m crying. I haven’t been there in ten years. It’s not like I have any friends there.”
Waters considers several possible reassuring statements and discards each in turn. There is no kindness in telling her it might not be as bad as she thinks, when in fact it is likely to be far worse.
There’s a rap at the door. Bronson hops up, wipes her cheeks with the back of her hand, glances through the peephole, turns the bolts.
It’s Vorstenbosch, the senior flight attendant, a plump, effete man with wavy blond hair, a fussy manner, and small eyes behind his thick gold-framed glasses. He’s calm, professional, and pedantic when sober and a potty-mouthed swishy delight when drunk.
“Did someone nuke Guam?” he asks without preamble.
“I don’t have anything from the ground except we’ve lost contact,” Waters says.
“What’s that mean, specifically?” Vorstenbosch asks. “I’ve got a planeload of very frightened people and nothing to tell them.”
Bronson thumps her head, ducking behind the controls to sit back down. Waters pretends not to see. He pretends not to notice that her hands are shaking.
“It means—” Waters begins, but there’s an alert tone, and then the controller is on with a message for everyone in ZMP airspace. The voice from Minnesota is sandy, smooth, untroubled. He might be talking about nothing more important than a region of high pressure. They’re taught to sound that way.
“This is Minneapolis Center with high-priority instructions for all aircraft on this frequency. Be advised we have received instructions from U.S. Strategic Command to clear this airspace for operations from Ellsworth. We will begin directing all flights to the closest appropriate airport. Repeat, we are grounding all commercial and recreational aircraft in the ZMP. Please remain alert and ready to respond promptly to our instructions.” There is a momentary hiss, and then, with what sounds like real regret, Minneapolis adds, “Sorry about this, ladies and gents. Uncle Sam needs the sky this afternoon for an unscheduled world war.”
“Ellsworth Airport?” Vorstenbosch says. “What do they have at Ellsworth Airport?”
“The 28th Bomb Wing,” Bronson says, rubbing her head.
VERONICA D’ARCY IN BUSINESS
The plane banks steeply and Veronica D’Arcy looks straight down at the rumpled duvet of cloud beneath. Shafts of blinding sunshine stab through the windows on the other side of the cabin. The good-looking drunk beside her—he has a loose lock of dark hair on his brow that makes her think of Cary Grant, of Clark Kent—unconsciously squeezes his armrests. She wonders if he’s a white-knuckle flier or just a boozer. He had his first scotch as soon as they reached cruising altitude, three hours ago, just after 10:00 A.M.
The screens go black and another AN ANNOUNCEMENT IS IN PROGRESS. Veronica shuts her eyes to listen, focusing the way she might at a table read as another actor reads lines for the first time.
CAPTAIN WATERS (V.O.)
Hello, passengers, Captain Waters again. I’m afraid we’ve had an unexpected request from air traffic control to reroute to Fargo and put down at Hector International Airport. We’ve bee
n asked to clear this airspace, effective immediately—
(uneasy beat)
—for military maneuvers. Obviously the situation in Guam has created . . . um, complications for everyone in the sky today. There’s no reason for alarm, but we are going to have to put down. We expect to be on the ground in Fargo in forty minutes. I’ll have more information for you as it comes in.
(beat)
My apologies, folks. This isn’t the afternoon any of us were hoping for.
If it were a movie, the captain wouldn’t sound like a teenage boy going through the worst of adolescence. They would’ve cast someone gruff and authoritative. Hugh Jackman, maybe. Or a Brit, if they wanted to suggest erudition, a hint of Oxford-acquired wisdom. Derek Jacobi, perhaps.
Veronica has acted alongside Derek off and on for almost thirty years. He held her backstage the night her mother died and talked her through it in a gentle, reassuring murmur. An hour later they were both dressed as Romans in front of 480 people, and God, he was good that night, and she was good, too, and that was the evening she learned she could act her way through anything, and she can act her way through this, too. Inside, she is already growing calmer, letting go of all cares, all concern. It has been years since she felt anything she didn’t decide to feel first.
“I thought you were drinking too early,” she says to the man beside her. “It turns out I started drinking too late.” She lifts the little plastic cup of wine she was served with her lunch and says “Chin-chin” before draining it.
He turns a lovely, easy smile upon her. “I’ve never been to Fargo, although I did watch the TV show.” He narrows his eyes. “Were you in Fargo? I feel like you were. You did something with forensics, and then Ewan McGregor strangled you to death.”
“No, darling. You’re thinking of Contract: Murder, and it was James McAvoy with a garrote.”
“So it was. I knew I saw you die once. Do you die a lot?”
“Oh, all the time. I did a picture with Richard Harris, it took him all day to bludgeon me to death with a candlestick. Five setups, forty takes. Poor man was exhausted by the end of it.”
Her seatmate’s eyes bulge, and she knows he’s seen the picture and remembers her role. She was twenty-two at the time and naked in every scene, no exaggeration. Veronica’s daughter once asked, “Mom, when exactly did you discover clothing?” Veronica had replied, “Right after you were born, darling.”
Veronica’s daughter is beautiful enough to be in movies herself, but she makes hats instead. When Veronica thinks of her, her chest aches with pleasure. She never deserved to have such a sane, happy, grounded daughter. When Veronica considers herself—when she reckons with her own selfishness and narcissism, her indifference to mothering, her preoccupation with her career—it seems impossible that she should have such a good person in her life.
“I’m Gregg,” says her neighbor. “Gregg Holder.”
“Veronica D’Arcy.”
“What brought you to L.A.? A part? Or do you live there?”
“I had to be there for the apocalypse. I play a wise old woman of the wasteland. I assume it will be a wasteland. All I saw was a green screen. I hope the real apocalypse will hold off long enough for the film to come out. Do you think it will?”
Gregg looks out at the landscape of cloud. “Sure. It’s North Korea, not China. What can they hit us with? No apocalypse for us. For them, maybe.”
“How many people live in North Korea?” This from the girl on the other side of the aisle, the one with the comically huge glasses. She has been listening to them intently and is leaning toward them now in a very adult way.
Her mother gives Gregg and Veronica a tight smile and pats her daughter’s arm. “Don’t disturb the other passengers, dear.”
“She’s not disturbing me,” Gregg says. “I don’t know, kid. But a lot of them live on farms, scattered across the countryside. There’s only the one big city, I think. Whatever happens, I’m sure most of them will be okay.”
The girl sits back and considers this, then twists in her seat to whisper to her mother. Her mother squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. Veronica wonders if she even knows she is still patting her daughter’s arm.
“I have a girl about her age,” Gregg says.
“I have a girl about your age,” Veronica tells him. “She’s my favorite thing in the world.”
“Yep. Me, too. My daughter, I mean, not yours. I’m sure yours is great as well.”
“Are you headed home to her?”
“Yes. My wife called to ask if I would cut a business trip short. My wife is in love with a man she met on Facebook, and she wants me to come take care of the kid so she can drive up to Toronto to meet him.”
“Oh, my God. You’re not serious. Did you have any warning?”
“I thought she was spending too much time online, but to be fair, she thought I was spending too much time being drunk. I guess I’m an alcoholic. I guess I might have to do something about that now. I think I’ll start by finishing this.” And he swallows the last of his scotch.
Veronica has been divorced—twice—and has always been keenly aware that she herself was the primary agent of domestic ruin. When she thinks about how badly she behaved, how badly she used Robert and François, she feels ashamed and angry at herself, and so she is naturally glad to offer sympathy and solidarity to the wronged man beside her. Any opportunity to atone, no matter how small.
“I’m so sorry. What a terrible bomb to have dropped on you.”
“What did you say?” asks the girl across the aisle, leaning toward them again. The deep brown eyes behind those glasses never seem to blink. “Are we going to drop a nuclear bomb on them?”
She sounds more curious than afraid, but at this her mother exhales a sharp, panicked breath.
Gregg leans toward the child again, smiling in a way that is both kindly and wry, and Veronica suddenly wishes she were twenty years younger. She might’ve been good for a fellow like him. “I don’t know what the military options are, so I couldn’t say for sure. But—”
Before he can finish, the cabin fills with a nerve-shredding sonic howl.
An airplane slashes past, then two more flying in tandem. One is so near off the port wing that Veronica catches a glimpse of the man in the cockpit, helmeted, face cupped in some kind of breathing apparatus. These aircraft bear scant resemblance to the 777 carrying them east—these are immense iron falcons, the gray hue of bullet tips, of lead. The force of their passing causes the whole airliner to shudder. Passengers scream, grab each other. The punishing sound of the bombers crossing their path can be felt intestinally, in the bowels. Then they’re gone, having raked long contrails across the bright blue.
A shocked, shaken silence follows.
Veronica D’Arcy looks at Gregg Holder and sees he has smashed his plastic cup, made a fist, and broken it into flinders. He notices what he’s done at the same time and laughs and puts the wreckage on the armrest.
Then he turns back to the little girl and finishes his sentence as if there had been no interruption. “But I’d say all signs point to ‘yes.’”
SANDY SLATE IN COACH
“B-1s,” her love says to her, in a relaxed, almost pleased tone of voice. He has a sip of beer, smacks his lips. “Lancers. They used to carry a fully nuclear payload, but black Jesus did away with them. There’s still enough firepower on board to cook every dog in Pyongyang. Which is funny, because usually if you want cooked dog in North Korea, you have to make reservations.”
“They should’ve risen up,” Sandy says. “Why didn’t they rise up when they had a chance? Did they want work camps? Did they want to starve?”
“That’s the difference between the Western mind-set and the Oriental worldview,” Bobby says. “There, individualism is viewed as aberrant.” In a murmur he adds, “There’s a certain ant-colony quality to their thinking.”
“Excuse me,” says the Jew in the middle aisle, sitting next to the Asian girl. He couldn’t be any m
ore Jewish if he had the beard and his hair in ringlets and the prayer shawl over his shoulders. “Could you lower your voice, please? My seatmate is upset.”
Bobby had lowered his voice, but even when he’s trying to be quiet, he has a tendency to boom. This wouldn’t be the first time it’s got them in trouble.
Bobby says, “She shouldn’t be. Come tomorrow morning, South Korea will finally be able to stop worrying about the psychopaths on the other side of the DMZ. Families will be reunited. Well. Some families. Cookie-cutter bombs don’t discriminate between military and civilian populations.”
Bobby speaks with the casual certainty of a man who has spent twenty years producing news segments for a broadcasting company that owns something like seventy local TV stations and specializes in distributing content free of mainstream media bias. He’s been to Iraq, to Afghanistan. He went to Liberia during the Ebola outbreak to do a piece investigating an ISIS plot to weaponize the virus. Nothing scares Bobby. Nothing rattles him.
Sandy was an unwed pregnant mother who’d been cast out by her parents and was sleeping in the supply room of a gas station between shifts on the day Bobby bought her a Quarter Pounder and told her he didn’t care who the father was. He said he would love the baby as much as if it were his own. Sandy had already scheduled the abortion. Bobby told her, calmly, quietly, that if she came with him, he would give her and the child a good, happy life, but if she drove to the clinic, she would murder a child and lose her own soul. She had gone with him, and it had been just as he said, all of it. He had loved her well, had adored her from the first; he was her miracle. She did not need the loaves and fishes to believe. Bobby was enough. Sandy fantasized, sometimes, that a liberal—a Code Pinker, maybe, or one of the Bernie people—would try to assassinate him, and she would manage to step between Bobby and the gun to take the bullet herself. She had always wanted to die for him. To kiss him with the taste of her own blood in her mouth.
“I wish we had phones,” the pretty Asian girl says suddenly. “Some of these planes have phones. I wish there was a way to call—someone. How long before the bombers get there?”
