Dead Zero

by Stephen Hunter

  What the fuck do I do? he wondered. Pray for a miracle?

  “All right,” said Swagger, “I got a last little card to play.”

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  THE ROSE GARDEN

  FREEDOM MEDAL PRESENTATION CEREMONY

  1922 HOURS

  How lovely it was. The flowers seemed endless, their blossoms bright even in the declining light of late summer. A kind of ambrosia filled the air, and there was just a tint of pink glow over the looming silhouette of the Executive Office Building.

  The America that counted was here. The president, so charismatic that he even outshone the glowing Zarzi, his wife; the vice president, his wife; and all the others in suits and uniforms: chairmen, joint chiefs of staff; the service chairmen; the director of the Central Intelligence Agency; a dozen powerful senators, some even from the other party in the spirit of ecumenicalism; the cream of the liberal punditocracy from the great papers of the East Coast; the television heads, hair shellacked unto perfection; a variety of Washington-style women, all of whom seemed to have that tawny elegance over slender legs; and an audience consisting of dragooned staffers from the Administration, a sea of littles well primed to clamor and go wow for the TV cameras. All were gathered here to sell the world an important message: this man counts. This man we trust. This is the man who will bring us peace. This is the man we can work with. This is the man who understands. He is, well and truly, our man in Kabul.

  He bowed as the president slid the ribbon necklace over his head, and he felt the weight of the huge gold disk added to his neck.

  Oh the indignities to arrive at this moment: wanded, x-rayed, touched, even probed. Subjected to chemical tests, sniffed by dogs and men, touched again, touched yet again. But he had signed up for that; it was the price of the moment.

  The president finished, speaking so eloquently as was his gift, of a vision of a world without IEDs and young men of any faith bleeding out in the dirt of a far-off country, and then stepped back to hand the lectern over to the Glorious Zarzi for some brief remarks.

  FBI HQ

  FBI INTERROGATION SUITES

  HOOVER BUILDING

  PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  1923 HOURS

  They all looked at him.

  “Let’s hear it,” said Nick.

  “I want you to run a search, Google, or super FBI Google, some high-tech, high-speed data search on the following. See what links there are between our friend Dixson in there thinking he’s a hero and the director of National Intelligence, that guy Ted Hollister.”

  “Why?”

  “Dixson’s clearly in on this, whatever this is. But he only knows so much and nothing more. He’s told us everything and he thinks he’s a hero. And he ain’t heavy enough to go beyond what he’s done. He knows about the contractors and the policy and that’s it. I got an inkling from something Hollister said at that meeting he might know a little bit more than we think about all this.”

  “Swagger,” said Susan, “Hollister was long gone from the Agency before Jared was even recruited.”

  “Please. I can’t explain, ticktock, ticktock, time’s wasting. Please: check it out. He said something he shouldn’t have said at the meeting. Let me just see if there’s a link.”

  Nick nodded. “Youth movement, prove your worth,” he ordered.

  Young people stirred and hustled. Time crept by. Up on the monitors, from a dozen angles, the U.S. Army band played “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the Rose Garden, and men and women stood with hands on hearts or at perfect salute in tribute to their country.

  “Prelim,” said Chandler, reentering. “Jesus Christ, turns out Dixson grew up in Braintree, Massachusetts, where Hollister lived when he was teaching at Harvard, same street, two houses apart. Dixson’s father, Roger, was at Harvard and Harvard Law with Hollister in the sixties. They were both on Law Review. Dixson later got his master’s at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. International Law, taught by none other than his dad’s old friend, classmate, and neighbor Ted Hollister. Immediately after, he joined the Agency—”

  “Yes!” said Susan, in a squirt of zeal. “Yes! In those days you only got in with the recommendation of a senior Agency official or ex-official. Someone in the extended family. Jared Dixson was Ted Hollister’s legacy, as we call them in the shop, protected by Hollister’s rep and charisma. Dixson wasn’t working for Jack Collins, not really. He was working for Ted Hollister.”

  “Chandler, sit down, catch a rest. Someone else under the age of thirty, call Secret Service White House right this second, see if Hollister’s at the event, he should be.”

  “That old man’s in this up to his eyeballs,” said Susan. “And, ahem, allow Princess Perfection to point out to the monster Swagger, he’s not Agency.”

  “Once again, you kick my ass, Okada-san.”

  “He’s there,” came the call.

  “We ought to talk to him. Now, not tomorrow, not next week. Now,” said Bob.

  “We should,” said Nick.

  Memphis rose, yelling at Chandler, “Get an SUV outside fast, clear us at the White House. I don’t know how this is shaping up but I think I might need a sniper. Get me a goddamned sniper fast.”

  “Nick, they let SWAT go this morning. They’re all home in Virginia resting from the gunfight in Georgetown. I could get you one from DC metro in about twenty minutes.”

  On all the screens, the president of the United States came to the podium.

  “Hey,” said Swagger, pointing at Cruz, “there’s the best sniper in the world.”

  THE IWO JIMA MEMORIAL

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  1850 HOURS

  The six bronze men were gigantic. They struggled with the flag, its three primary colors flapping in a wind, cross-illuminated by many beams of light that illustrated the whole piece, the ripples of muscle, the rents in the metal clothing, the hobnails in the worn combat boots, the twelve-foot rifles, all in the muted, fading green of military glory, its tarnish eroded by the ages.

  “Warriors,” said Professor Khalid. “You must honor their bravery.”

  “Infidels,” said Dr. Faisal. “Brigands, crusaders, invaders, rapists, and scum.”

  “You haven’t learned a thing, have you?” said Khalid.

  “The Koran contains all the information I need to know. Other than science, the rest is delusional self-hypnosis on the part of the enemy.”

  “Even now, can’t you control your enmity?” said Bilal.

  They leaned against the van, which was in the parking lot of the Marine Corps memorial on a hill overlooking the river and the spotlit city that was Washington, DC. If anything, it was more beautiful and beguiling on this warm, comfortable, clear evening than any other. Above, pinwheels and novas blinked across cosmic nothingness, and below the city was a shimmering plain of white buildings, flags flying on many of them, the whole forming a kind of horizontal fusion of light and dark, patterns broken here and there by something of specific edge and shape, such as the spire in the center, and beyond it, the vast dome.

  “Bah,” said Faisal. “He talks too much. He enjoys his little epiphanies, his ironies. He is vain and prissy. He has a Western mind. He is not one of us. He thinks too much. He has no internal discipline. He has not learned the fundamental lesson, which is submission.”

  “You call it vanity, I call it individuality. Until we learn to value individuality, we will lag behind the West in all things and—”

  “If you kill them all, there is nothing to lag behind,” said Faisal.

  A few other vehicles dotted the lot, and a U.S. Park Service police car had passed through a few seconds ago, noting nothing, not stopping, and it had then disappeared toward Rosslyn, a banal assortment of skyscrapers that loomed behind them. Up at the monument, a few kids scrambled around, supervised loudly by a father.

  “The journey is almost over,” said Bilal. “Are you prepared for what comes next? Have you accepted it?”

  “Completely
,” said Faisal. “Never for a second did I have a doubt.”

  “I am without doubt too,” said Khalid. “The religious subtext here means nothing to me, it’s all mumbo jumbo, but I embrace the political one. My hand shall not pause, my heart shall not fail.”

  “That was very good ice cream,” said Faisal.

  “Another thing he said with which I agree. Yes, it was very good ice cream.”

  They had stopped at a Baskin-Robbins on the way over, three men of obvious Middle Eastern persuasion, in fresh new dishdashas with prayer caps on, waited patiently in line among the moms and dads and squealing children, some in dirty baseball uniforms, some mere babies, and each had gotten a special treat. Khalid had double strawberry in a cup; Bilal a straight sundae with walnuts, whipped cream, and a cherry; and Faisal maple praline and mint chocolate chip in a waffle cone, but with a dish beneath so that when the cone could no longer support the ice cream, the whole confection would not disintegrate in his hands.

  Now, finally, they were where they should be at the time they should be there.

  PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

  FROM THE HOOVER BUILDING TO THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  1932 HOURS

  Memphis, Swagger, Cruz, and Okada raced through the hallway to the exit dock, where a black FBI Explorer, its blue-red lights already flashing, its engine running, waited. Memphis got behind the wheel, and Cruz went to the rear of the vehicle, opened the tailgate, removed a gun case, opened it, and pulled an H-S .308 sniper rifle from it, and a red box of Black Hills 168-grain Match ammo. He went to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  Memphis was saying, “I will designate target. You listen to nobody but me if it comes to that. And you do not fire unless I give you the green, you have that, Sergeant?”

  “Yessir,” said Cruz, who at the same time was reading the rifle’s logbook, maintained shot by shot by its original assignee. He learned it had been fired 2,344 times, all with Federal Gold Tip 168-grain Match ammunition, for an average five-shot group from 100 yards of .56 inches. It was, of course, an H-S Precision rifle built from the design of a Remington 700 action, trued and bedded by the H-S custom shop, a Jewell trigger installed, with a Broughton barrel; its last 200-yard group, shot three weeks ago at Quantico, had been 1.06 inches, and the shooter, Special Agent Dave McElroy, had readjusted the zero to 100 yards, cleaned it, fired one fouling shot, and put it away for deployment. He had been on the perimeter of the convenience store on Wisconsin Avenue, but had not gotten a shot.

  Chandler leaned in.

  “Okay, you’re cleared through the southeast gate. Then you can pull around past the big house to the right and take the roadway to the right straight to the Rose Garden. Secret Service has been briefed and will greet you.”

  “Good work,” he said. “Okay, let’s go.”

  The SUV pulled out, scooted around the block, passed several vehicles that maneuvered out of the way, hit Pennsylvania’s broadness, turned right, and Nick accelerated.

  The vehicle ate up the eight blocks of government architecture and hotel frontage that dominated Pennsylvania, slowing only to weave its way through the traffic at cross streets. It reached the White House southeast gate below the Treasury Department’s Doric immensity. The gate to the White House, nestled in a bank of trees, loomed just ahead. A red light and too much oncoming traffic momentarily halted them just a few yards shy of the goal.

  “Where’s the goddamn siren?” Nick cursed.

  Bob leaned forward to help him find it.

  “Wait,” said Susan. “Jesus, look. That’s him. That’s him.”

  Indeed it was. Stepping out of the pedestrian gate, a short, furtive figure paused for the same light that halted the SUV. Yes indeed, clutching his ever-present professorial briefcase, it was the director of National Intelligence, Ted Hollister. He checked his watch, looked both ways impatiently, and realized he had to wait for the shift to green like all ordinary mortals. They saw him exhale a large breath in frustration.

  Nick found the siren. Blaring, he pulled ahead, as the cars before him parted awkwardly to clear a path. Nick took the left, pulled across traffic, and halted two feet from Ted Hollister.

  “Mr. Hollister, sir, where are you going?”

  In seconds Nick was next to him, Bob flanking the other side, and Ray close at hand. The car’s blue-and-red pumped color into the scene, and around them at the juncture of 15th and Pennsylvania, traffic piled up.

  “He’s bugging out,” said Bob.

  Susan came to them.

  “Mr. Hollister,” said Nick, “you remember me, Nick Memphis, FBI?”

  “I do. What is this about?” said the old man curtly. “I have an important appointment.”

  “Sir, late last night we arrested Jared Dixson and he’s now confessed to assigning a contractor team to take out Whiskey Two-Two, and to authorizing a smart munition into a nonmilitary target in Qalat. There is more collateral that will have to be answered for as well. We’ve seen the records and clearly he is connected to you and—”

  “I will be happy to discuss this with you at length in my office. Simply schedule an appointment and I will—”

  “Sir, why are you leaving the White House now?” Bob said. “Ain’t this your big night? Seems odd—”

  “I do not intend to stand in the street and discuss matters of national security with sergeants and low-ranking agents. I warn you, gentlemen, I will take severe action against you and I have considerable influence. Now, let me go—”

  “Why are you in a panic to leave now? What’s happening in two minutes that you have to be far away from it?”

  “I will not stand for this. I will call a policeman.”

  “You ain’t calling no one, goddamnit,” said Bob.

  “I will destroy you,” said Hollister. “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

  But then Bob pulled Nick aside.

  “This ain’t getting us nowhere,” he said. “Y’all take a little break. You go take a walk or something, whatever. You trusted me, I’s just an old fool, said I was too tired to go with you. You’re all off the hook. You leave. I guaran-fucking-tee you that in three minutes this weasel tells me everything. And I mean everything.”

  “No,” said Nick. “Swagger, this is the United States. We do not—”

  “Ticktock, ticktock. It’s happening now. The one they said wouldn’t never happen, the ticking-bomb deal. You’d risk all them lives and the morale, the humiliation, the degradation of this country because you want to feel good about yourself tomorrow morning? That’s a pretty high price for feeling good about yourself, Nick, and I have to say, it’s not your ass on the line, it’s theirs.”

  “I want this off the table,” said Nick. “It is not to be discussed anymore. Instead, I want—”

  “He’s right,” said Susan. “Ticktock, ticktock. It has to be done.”

  Nick shook his head. He could not believe he was having this discussion, but he was.

  “Then I should be the one who—”

  “No,” said Bob. “Everyone here is young and has way more to contribute. Me, I’m done, there’s nothing left for me. Lay it off on me, I’ll go to prison, I’ll be the torturer, the one everybody can hate. I’ll break every one of his goddamned fingers and he’ll sing before I reach number three.”

  Then Susan said, “Wait.”

  “Look, I know this guy,” she said. “You’re right in thinking that if this thing is going to happen, it’s going to happen tonight, in a very few minutes. He is not afraid of pain or of disgrace or of failure. He is not an Islamist. He doesn’t believe in seventy-two virgins. He believes in nothing, and that being the case, only one thing can frighten him and you see it in his flight. He is afraid of death. If there’s death anywhere tonight, it’s at the White House. Take him to the White House. What happens to them happens to him. That takes it all from him, and that and that alone frightens him.”

  “She’s right,” said Nick. “Get him in,
let’s get in the gates and see what we get.”

  They loaded the squirming old man into the front, wedged between Nick and the stoic Ray. Nick punched the siren again, pulled back, rotated the vehicle to the gate.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said as the gate rose, taking an agonizing three seconds. The two uniformed White House cops on duty waved the vehicle by, and it slipped into White House territory, and began to wind on the circle around Executive Drive that would deposit its travelers at the Rose Garden, in the lee of the West Wing extension. The big white mansion, with its curving Harry Truman balcony dominated by vast columns, stood out white and immaculate in the spotlights, but more to the point, through a light screen of trees to the left of the portico, nestled in the crook of the much larger building, a ceremony was clearly transpiring, and a well-illuminated crowd of people could be seen standing before a podium on which stood the distinctive figure of the president of the United States, among other men of power and prestige.

  “Stop, stop,” Hollister suddenly cried.

  Nick halted the car.

  “You have something to say?”

  “Look, can we go somewhere and—”

  “Yeah, the Rose Garden. That’s the only place we’re going.”

  Hollister twisted, in some kind of further existential agony, licked his lips, swallowed hard. Nick looked at him, then turned, dropped the car into gear, and began to ease forward.

  “Stop,” the old man said. “Oh Christ, stop.”

  Nick looked at his watch. It was almost 7:45.

  The thing was scheduled to end at 7:45.

  “Talk to us or I will drive us there in ten seconds.”

  Hollister swallowed again. Then he said: “They have a missile. It’s a Hellfire.”

  THE IWO JIMA MEMORIAL

  ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA

  1944.30 HOURS

  Behold Hellfire.

  It was a stubby thing, six feet long, seven inches wide, painted olive drab. It had tiny, out-of-scale fins, four at the nose, four more at the tail, which looked almost comical against the girth and charisma of the larger thing. In the air it looked like a flying barrel with little cartoon wings, except that it moved too fast for the eye to see, and for the first few seconds, a searing blot of flame so blinded observers it was impossible to make out further details. It was suspended on a much-modified Norwegian launch tripod, welded crudely inside the van’s rear cargo area. It had a translucent nose, where the laser seeker had once been, and immediately behind it a warhead section, with the twenty pounds of a late-industrial-age witches’ brew called PBXN-9 explosive. Detonating upon impact in the Rose Garden, it would surely kill everyone who was within fifty feet of its point of impact, and it would burn, mutilate, blunt-force traumatize and otherwise perforate the many others outside the immediate kill zone. It would kill all the roses.