Triggers

by Robert J. Sawyer

  There were always people on the Mall, but Jack imagined fewer would stop at the Vietnam Memorial today. Instead, just as he himself had earlier, they’d hang around the places that had been in the news lately: the Lincoln Memorial and the charred rubble that had been the White House.

  The main part of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial consisted of two polished black stone walls that joined at an oblique angle. The west wall pointed to the Lincoln Memorial and the east one to the Washington Monument. The walls were only eight inches high at their ends but rose along their 250-foot lengths to be over ten feet tall where they met.

  Someone was approaching now. Jack always waited to see what each person needed. Some people knew how the wall worked—the soldiers were listed chronologically by date of death—and could find their loved one’s name incised in the stone. Others needed help, and if they seemed lost, he’d show them how to use the index books that told you which of the 144 panels had a particular name on it. Others still needed someone to listen, or someone to talk to. Whatever they needed, Jack tried to provide it. And for those who didn’t know, who didn’t understand, he told stories.

  The approaching man was black and about Jack’s age—maybe a vet himself or maybe the brother of one. Jack watched as the man found the name he was looking for—it was about shoulder-high on the wall. Not many people left flowers in the winter, but this fellow did, a small bouquet of roses. Jack waited a minute then walked over to speak to him.

  “Someone special?” Jack asked.

  And, of course, the answer was “yes.” It was always “yes”—everyone listed here was special.

  “My best friend,” the man said. “Tyrone. His number came up, and he had to go. I was lucky; mine never did.”

  “Tell me about him,” Jack said.

  The man lifted his shoulders a bit as if daunted by the task. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  Jack nodded. He took the bright red mitten off his right hand and offered that hand to the man. “My name’s Jack. I was there in 1971 and ’72.”

  The man wasn’t wearing gloves. “Frank,” he said. He shook Jack’s hand for several seconds.

  “Tell me about the last time you saw Tyrone,” Jack said. The memory of that event—Tyrone’s farewell party, at his favorite bar—came to Jack as soon as he asked about it, but he let Frank recount the story anyway, listening to every word.

  BESSIE Stilwell was scared. The Army colonel who had intercepted her and Darryl at Andrews Air Force Base had taken them to Camp David—and then locked them in Dogwood, a large guest cottage on the grounds there. She hadn’t been allowed to go to Luther Terry Memorial Hospital to see her son, and hadn’t been allowed to speak to anyone except Colonel Barstow and Darryl.

  She understood what was going on: as soon as Barstow had gotten her and Darryl into his car, the memories of President Jerrison’s phone call to Secretary Muilenburg asking him to have his staff intercept them had come back to her. They were prisoners here, cut off from the rest of the world. The president was going to go ahead with his plan; he wasn’t about to let a little old lady interfere.

  According to the framed photos on the walls, German chancellor Helmut Kohl had stayed in this cottage during the Clinton administration, Japanese prime minister Yasuo Fukuda had stayed here during the Bush years, and British prime minister David Cameron had used this place when Obama was president. The cottage had a large, luxuriously appointed living area and four giant bedrooms, so she couldn’t really complain about the quality of the accommodations. But her cell phone had been confiscated, and so had Darryl’s BlackBerry, there were no computers—although Darryl had pointed out where they had previously been installed—and the phone could only reach the Camp David operator. And, of course, the doors were guarded, so they couldn’t leave.

  Bessie didn’t need much sleep—five hours a night was all she normally took since her husband had died. And so she woke up before Darryl emerged from his room, and she went into the living area and sat in a nice rocking chair, looking through a window at the beautiful countryside. She concentrated on Seth’s memories, trying to find something—anything—in them she could use. But it was, she had learned, all about triggers: unless something brought forth a memory, the memory was hidden. Ask her what she knew about Seth Jerrison and the answer was nothing; ask her what his birthday was, or what make his first car had been, or whether he preferred his toilet paper to hang over or under the roll, and she could dredge the answer up.

  She hunted and hunted, thinking about this, about that, then about something else, again and again.

  At last, frustrated, she did what she always did when she needed guidance. She prayed. God, she knew, understood that she had arthritis and wouldn’t mind that she didn’t go down on her knees. She just sat in the chair, closed her eyes, and said, “O Lord, I need your help…”

  And after a moment, her eyes opened wide.

  Ask and ye shall receive.

  She’d already been told she couldn’t speak with President Jerrison. But maybe, somehow, there was a way to get a message to him—and him alone.

  Perhaps a letter? She got up from the chair and shuffled over to the elegant antique writing desk—it pleased her that it was probably older than she herself was. She found some stationery in a drawer, and a retractable ballpoint pen, but—

  But she couldn’t trust that anything she wrote down, even if she put it in a sealed envelope, wouldn’t be read by others before the president saw it. If only there was some way to send him a private message…

  And it came to her.

  Of course.

  So simple.

  You take any three numbers that add up to thirteen…

  CHAPTER 45

  BESSIE opened the door to the cottage, letting in a blast of cool morning air. The blond, brown-eyed Army officer stationed outside spun on his heel, and said, “Can I help you with something, ma’am?”

  “Are you normally here, young man?”

  “Someone will be on guard all day, ma’am.”

  “No, I mean, are you normally part of the Camp David staff?”

  “No, ma’am. I’ve been temporarily assigned here; I’m usually stationed at the Pentagon.”

  “Ah,” said Bessie. They weren’t going to let her talk to anyone who wasn’t already in the know, it seemed. “I need you to deliver this to the president,” she said, handing him a sealed envelope; she’d found some nice linen ones in the same drawer as the Camp David stationery.

  “I can’t leave my post, ma’am, but I’ll call for someone else to come and get it.” He took the envelope from her.

  “It’ll go straight to the president himself?”

  “Well, ma’am, I’m sure there’s a process. It’ll be turned over to his staff.”

  Bessie shook her head. “That’s not good enough, young man. I want you to take it to him—you personally. Call for someone else to stand here, but you deliver it yourself, do you understand?”

  “I—that’s not how it’s normally done, ma’am.”

  Bessie rallied all her strength. “These aren’t normal times, are they? Surely you understand that the president brought me here for a reason. You wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for him not getting an important message from me in time, now, would you?”

  He seemed to consider this, then: “No, ma’am.”

  “So you’ll personally see that he gets it?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll take it directly to the residence.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Bessie smiled. “Thank you.” She closed the door and turned around just in time to see Darryl Hudkins emerging from his room. He was wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday, although Bessie’s luggage had been waiting for her when she’d arrived here; someone had fetched her things from the Watergate.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Stilwell,” he said. “Sorry I slept in so long.”

  “Nothing else to do,” Bessie said.

&nbs
p; “True. Did you sleep all right?”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “Have you called for breakfast yet?” They’d been told whatever they needed would be brought to them.

  “No,” Bessie said. “I’m usually not hungry when I get up.” She thought for a moment, made a decision, then pointed to the living area. “Won’t you sit down? There’s something I need to tell you.”

  She imagined his eyebrows went up, but, from this distance, she really couldn’t see. He went to the sink, got himself a glass of water, asked her if she wanted one, then went and took a seat on the ornately upholstered couch facing a giant window.

  “We have to talk, Darryl. Or, well, maybe we don’t. I’m still getting used to how this all works, but…”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She paused, again having second thoughts. After all, Darryl was one of Jerrison’s trusted associates; the president had chosen him to go with her to California. She searched Jerrison’s memories for any indication that he’d taken Darryl into his confidence about Counterpunch.

  Nothing.

  Of course, Darryl might still be in on it; Bessie doubted the president briefed members of his protective detail personally. And so, she decided, she’d find out the old-fashioned way: she’d ask. “Darryl, does the name Counterpunch mean anything special to you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “It didn’t to me either, until yesterday, but…God, I don’t even know where to begin. Can you—can you pluck it from my mind?”

  There was a pause, then: “I’m not finding anything, ma’am.”

  “Counterpunch? Are you sure? I know all about it.”

  “Nothing is coming to me. Where did you hear about it?”

  “Well, I didn’t, actually. It’s something I learned about from the president’s memories.”

  “Oh,” said Darryl. “Well, if I understand what Dr. Singh said, ma’am, the linking of minds is what he called ‘first-order.’ You can read the president’s memories, and I can read your memories, but I can’t read through you to his memories.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Bessie. “Then I guess I just have to tell you.”

  “That’d be simplest, ma’am.”

  She took a deep breath. “Operation Counterpunch is what they’re planning to do,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “The president. The military.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “And, ma’am, what is it they’re planning?”

  “To destroy Pakistan.”

  “I—what?”

  “To destroy Pakistan,” she said again, and this time she did clearly see Darryl’s eyebrows go up. “To wipe all hundred and seventy million people there off the face of the Earth.”

  “God,” he said, although it was more breath than voice. “Why?”

  “I—I don’t know how to put this.”

  “Was it Jerrison’s idea?”

  “No. No, it was presented to him two months ago, by um…” She had trouble with the name; she’d recalled it repeatedly now, but wasn’t quite sure how to make the initial sounds for it. “Um, Mr. Muilenburg. He’s the, um—”

  “The secretary of defense,” said Darryl. “Go on.”

  “That’s right. He came to see the president, and laid it all out for him. Their conversation went something like this…”

  SILVER-HAIRED Peter Muilenburg sat on one of the short couches in the Oval Office, and Seth Jerrison sat on the other one, facing him, the presidential seal on the carpet between them.

  “And so,” Muilenburg said, “our recommendation is simply this: we wipe Pakistan off the map.”

  Seth’s mouth dropped open a bit. “You can’t do that.”

  “Of course we can, sir,” replied Muilenburg. “The question is whether we should.”

  “No,” said Seth. “I mean, you can’t. Nuclear weapons are dirty; if you take out Pakistan, you’re bound to send fallout into the surrounding countries. Iran and Afghanistan to the west, China to the north, India to the east.”

  Muilenburg nodded. “That would be true if we were proposing using nukes. But the new Magma-class bombs don’t give off any appreciable radiation, and the electromagnetic pulse they produce is much less devastating than that generated by a nuke.”

  “It sounds like those terrorist bombs,” Seth said.

  “Where do you think they got the technology?” Muilenburg replied evenly. He held up a hand. “Not that we gave it to them, of course. The initial research was another one of those cold-fusion notions, coupled with some interesting new physics out of Brookhaven. No one quite realized the destructive potential at first; when we did, it was classified beyond top secret, but enough hints and clues had already gotten out.”

  “So the Chinese have this, too? And the Russians?”

  “Not big bombs, like we’ve got, sir—at least, as far as we know. Which is why we have to do it now—an immediate counterpunch.”

  Seth shook his head. “It’s not a proportionate response, Peter.”

  “Was nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki a proportionate response to Pearl Harbor?” asked Muilenburg. “Two whole cities, full of civilians, for one Navy base? At Pearl Harbor, twenty-four hundred people died, of whom just fifty-seven were civilians; the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed a hundred times as many—almost a quarter of a million people, almost all of them civilians. Was that proportionate? No—but it ended the war. It stopped it cold. When we had the clear upper hand in 1945 against the Japanese, we used it—and we never had to fear the Japanese again.”

  “But the terrorists aren’t just in Pakistan,” Seth said.

  “True. But most of the al-Sajada leaders are there. And Pakistan shielded bin Laden for years; their ISI knew he was there. Yes, there are terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere, but the message will be clear: if there’s another attack on American soil, we’ll take out another nation that harbors terrorists.”

  “No,” said Seth. “I mean the terrorists are here. In the United States, and London, and elsewhere. They’re already here; that’s how these attacks can happen.”

  “Foot soldiers. The leaders are back there.”

  “In the Islamic world?” Seth said. “This isn’t a war against Islam.”

  “No, it’s not,” Muilenburg said. “There are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world, and fifty countries in which Muslims are the majority of the population. Pakistan is just a tiny part of Islam.”

  “This is horrific,” Seth said. “Abominable.”

  “What’s been done to us is horrific,” replied Muilenburg. “And it will go on and on unless we force them to stop, unless we show them that we will not tolerate it. We’re the last remaining superpower. It’s time we used our superpowers and put an end to this.”

  DARRYL listened intently as Bessie recounted the meeting between Secretary of Defense Muilenburg and the president. “And Jerrison bought into this?” he said when she was done.

  Bessie nodded. “And it’s going ahead on Monday. Tomorrow.”

  Darryl looked around the luxurious cottage—but a gilded cage is still a cage. “I guess there’s nothing we can do about it, is there?”

  “Well,” said Bessie, “there’s not much.” She searched the president’s memories to see if he had received her letter yet; it didn’t seem so. “But,” she added, looking out the window at the snow-covered forested ground, “at least I’ve given it my best shot.”

  CHAPTER 46

  SETH Jerrison was still lying on the bed in the presidential residence at Camp David. The First Lady—Jasmine Jerrison, tall, sophisticated, refined—was sitting nearby, working on her laptop computer, which was perched on a little desk. With the exception of Agent Susan Dawson, Seth had dismissed the Secret Service from providing his protection here; he was now relying on Navy and Marine officers who had been screened by Peter Muilenburg’s staff.

  There was a knock at the door. Jasmine got up and opened it. One of the M
arine guards saluted her crisply. “Ma’am, an envelope for the president.”

  Seth couldn’t see her face from here, but he imagined she was narrowing her green eyes. “Who’s it from?”

  “Ma’am, Mrs. Stilwell insisted that it be delivered to your husband.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “I promised Mrs. Stilwell that it would go to the president.”

  “I’ll give it to him. Thank you.” She took the envelope. The young man saluted and left, and Jasmine brought the envelope over to Seth. He nodded, and she got the ornate letter opener off the desk and slit the flap, put on her reading glasses, and pulled out the single sheet.

  “It’s gibberish,” she said.

  “What?”

  She held it so he could see. He was already wearing his Ben Franklin glasses, and he tipped his head so that he could look through the lenses at the paper. It was a piece of Camp David stationery with a long message written on it in a shaky hand. The letter began:

  5-2-6

  IJFXK XVXJY DIJLZ…

  “What’s it mean?” Jasmine asked.

  The First Lady was privy to all his secrets—personal and professional—although he’d never had cause to explain the 13 Code to her before. He did so now. It took only a few seconds for her to write up a decryption table for the key 5-2-6, but converting the message was tedious—just as, Seth imagined, it had been tedious for Bessie to write it out.

  He dictated Bessie’s note one letter at a time, and Jasmine typed the corresponding decoded characters into her laptop. She then put in the proper spacing and added punctuation.

  “‘Dear Mr. President,’” Jasmine read aloud. “‘You’ve kidnapped me and are preventing me from seeing my ailing son.’”

  “‘Kidnapped’ seems a bit strong,” Seth said.

  Jasmine, who, he supposed, had taken in the gist of the letter while typing it up, lifted her eyebrows. “It gets stronger. She writes, ‘I believe in God. I read the Bible every day. I do believe in an eye for an eye. But what you’re planning is a million eyes for one. I can’t hold with that.’”