Midnight Sun

by Basil Sands

  Conceited superiority on one side and slothful gluttony on the other. An absurd image crossed his mind. In the coming panic, the beautiful couple screaming in terror as the frightened fat family eats them whole. He suppressed the urge to laugh, careful not to damage his temporary appearance.

  Behind him, a thickly accented woman's voice muttered, “Why you pick dis spot, Jimmy? We should'a gone up pron low.”

  “Shh, we got here too late,” a man reponded, presumably Jimmy.

  “I canna see nothin',” said the woman. “Dem fat people blocking me dis side and dem tall people's blocking me de utha side.”

  Farrah felt a poke on his shoulder, and he turned his head to see a heavily madeup woman with tattooed eyebrows and a huge sun visor giving her a cartoonish appearance.

  Suddenly changing to a sweeter-sounding raspy voice, she said, “Hi, you mine ip I stand nexa you? I'm too short, canna see presdin back here.”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes, then looked apologetically at Farrah. “I'm sorry.” Turning to his wife, he said, “Suki, don't bother people.”

  “No,” Farrah said. “It's quite all right. There's room for one more.”

  “Tank you,” she said, sliding up next to him as she gave Jimmy an “I told you so” look. “I live in Medica pipteen years, neba see presdin.”

  “Ah, well, I suppose you'll get to see him momentarily.”

  “You not Medican, heh?” She looked at him quizzically. “You accent Yango Namja, Englishee.”

  “Yes, ma'am,” Farrah said. “I am British.”

  “You here bacation?” Suki asked.

  “No, business,” Farrah said, looking impatiently toward the heavily guarded vehicles from which the last of the leaders were slowly dismounting.

  “I been England once,” Suki said. “I bisit my baby bruda at Manchessa Unibersty, maybe nineteen ninety six. He pray chuku dere.”

  “I beg your pardon.” Farrah was surprised to hear his own university named by such an uncouth person. “He played what?”

  “Chuku...uh...” She turned to her husband, “Jimmy, wassa chuku call?”

  “Soccer,” he said, “or football in England.”

  Farrah was shaken, and a shocked look crossed his face. “What was your brother's name?”

  “Yi Ji Sung. He pray pootball dere mebe two year, den get on Manchessa United and pray. Now he too old pray, but he still sisstan coach.”

  “Dear God,” Farrah said. “I know Ji Sung. We were close friends on the football team. We tried out for United together as well, and he got my spot after I backed out.”

  “Wha?” Suki said, her eyes stretching wide, “Wow, das is amajing. Whassa you name? I call him tonight, maybe gib him you numba. My name Suki. Wassa you name?”

  The Air Force Band interrupted their conversation, blasting a fanfare to present the foreign leaders as they mounted the stage in procession. Farrah snapped back to his senses.

  “Oh, here dey come,” she said, turning toward the dignitaries. “I talka you later.”

  Suki’s full attention locked on to the famous men climbing the stage, looking at them as if at any minute one of them would come down and hand her an award from the UN.

  Smiling and chatting with each other like school boys filing into a classroom, they looked down on the crowd imperiously, kings and emperors eying their subjects. Farrah put his hand back into his pocket and slid his finger over the three buttons on the key fob. One button for each of the three explosive devices in the tunnel. Three tiny plastic dots that would change the face of the world.

  A row of hard-looking, observant men stood at either side of the platform, their presence visible, but not intimidating. The governor of the State of Alaska stepped up to the microphone.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is with pride and great pleasure that I welcome to the Greatland the president of the United States of America.”

  The crowd let out a roar of applause and cheers as the presidential fanfare sounded and they turned their gaze toward the man ascending the podium. The president of the United States in past incarnations had only visited Alaska twice. Ronald Reagan had a secret meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1986. George W. Bush visited Elmendorf Air Force Base to see off a large troop headed to the war in the Middle East in 2005. This was the first time a sitting president addressed the general public in the Frontier State.

  Farrah's heart thumped against his rib cage. The president stepped up to the microphone, raising his hands and stretching his face in a smile that seemed much more genuine than Farrah expected. As he began his speech, the president looked legitimately happy to be on the stage in front of this crowd of Alaskans, and they seemed to feel likewise.

  To his left, Suki fanned herself furiously with the program card that had been passed out at the entrance, her husband positioning himself such that he caught the excess breeze she threw past her own face. The midday temperature in the direct sun, somewhere north of eighty degrees, drew a constant stream of sweat that steadily ran into his eyes. Farrah reached up and wiped his forehead, sending droplets coursing down his face. He let out a quavering breath, took a deeper one to calm himself, then glanced at the clusters of body guards at either side of the stage. He willed himself not to show nerves beneath their searching gaze.

  It was time—there was no need to wait any longer. Farrah stared directly into the president's face, listening to the tempo and tone as he began his speech. He waited until the president’s voice started toward a climax in pitch—he’d put an exclamation mark on the sentence for him. The sound rose in volume, and when it seemed its highest, Farrah pressed the first button. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Nothing. He quickly pressed all three in sequence. No explosion. The presidential speech continued. Farrah kept his eyes straight ahead, expressionless, unable to hear any more of the speech. He glanced to his left. Kreshnik, dressed in city maintenance worker's coveralls, stood at the edge of the park with a group of similarly attired men. Their eyes met. Farrah blinked twice, then returned his gaze to the stage. Kreshnik’s eyes turned back to the president, then he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and held it up to his ear as if receiving a call and backing out of the crowd. He moved away west, toward the tunnel entrance.

  Suki’s husband, Jim, sidled up behind her. As he adjusted his position, putting his face into the full breeze from her fan, the Englishman wiped his hand across his forehead, then let out a shaky whoosh of breath. The sound and movement drew Jim’s attention and he glanced toward him. Sweat trickled down his face, almost immediately replaced by new beads of moisture welling across the Englishman’s skin. Jim's attention zeroed in on an irregularity. Tiny dots of sweat expanded evenly across the man's forehead and cheeks and clean-shaven upper lip, but some parts of his face were dry. Jim could see pores on the skin outside of his eye sockets, the back half of his jawline, and his nose, but in those areas, no droplets formed. Rivulets of sweat ran over those places, but none originated there.

  Farrah turned his head, looking past Jim to a point at the edge of the crowd. As he turned, a drop of sweat broke loose, trickling from high on his cheek in a fast-moving stream across his skin, then vanished as it came to the dry spot. Jim felt a familiar flush, the sense of standing near death. He'd last felt it while sneaking his boat through Republican Guard lines in Iraq and had hoped never to experience it again.

  Chapter 29

  Delaney Park Strip

  Friday, June 24th

  09:46 a.m

  Warner saw the thick-looking city maintenance worker making his way along the periphery of the crowd talking into a cell phone. He pulled out his own phone and looked at the screen—there was no signal. The jammers Tomer mentioned were working. Warner discreetly followed the man until he came to a small brick structure behind an office building, unlocked the door, and went in. He waited until he thought the man had descended the steep staircase to the subterranean passage. A moment later, he entered slowly, pausing to allow his eyes to adjust to the light. Warner dre
w his weapon from inside his jacket and continued to the bottom, soundlessly walking tiptoe down the metal stairs, knees slightly bent, body in a partial crouch, ready to pounce into combat.

  Leka watched his cousin go into the underground tunnel, and saw the tall FBI agent follow him in alone. He made his way toward the same tunnel entrance, going in slowly, producing a resin knife from inside his boot. The knife, hard and razor-sharp and invisible to both x-ray and metal detectors, had been easy to smuggle onto the grounds. Kreshnik had one too, as well as a handful of deadly throwing darts made from the same material, tucked within their boots as well. After all the years of protecting the president, the Secret Service still overlooked things their technology could not pick up, all in the name of protecting citizens’ privacy.

  Kreshnik approached a valve on the pipe. Warner’s voice rang out.

  “Freeze! Hands out from your body, now!” Warner fast-walked toward him, gun pointed at his chest.

  Kreshnik’s right hand went up. The left stayed out of sight.

  “Both hands, now!

  Kreshnik abruptly ducked, and his left hand flicked into view. Warner fired his pistol twice as he flattened himself against the wall, dodging two heavy resin spikes. The shots exploded like a howitzer battery in the tight confines of the cement-lined tunnel, the sound wave enough to knock a man flat. Kreshnik spun, arms flailing as a bullet slapped the meat and bone of his shoulder.

  Leka charged from behind, knife in hand. His ears ringing wildly, Warner barely heard the thump of boots on floor. He attemptied to roll away from Leka's powerful hammer hands a moment too late. Warner's arm flew up to deflect the knife thrust. The blade came fast, slicing muscle and sinew between the radius and ulna. Warner let out a bellowing roar and jammed the butt of his pistol into the muscular Kosovar's skull. Leka roared back and hammered his fist into Warner's forehead, smacking the agent into the wall and jarring his pistol loose. It spun across the floor with a clatter.

  Leka jabbed a fist toward Warner's gut, and the agent raised his leg to deflect the blow. Leka’s knuckles cracked against Warner's knee. Both men shouted in pain-filled fury. Grunting back the agony in his arm, the knife had wedged solidly between the bones of his forearm, Warner grabbed Leka's shirt and used the man's own body weight to leverage him across and away. Leka countered by grabbing Warner's clothes. The two men toppled to the ground in a seething mass of grappling and growling like a cage-fight death match. Their faces pressed against each other, grinding jawbones into each other like weapons, using every part of their anatomy as a tool of inflicting pain. Fingernails gouged into skin. Knees pressed to thigh muscles and groin. Elbows dug into ribs. Warner bit Leka's ear, drawing blood and eliciting a howl. Leka grabbed the knife handle protruding from the other's arm. Warner let out a scream and drove a thumb into Leka's eye, then repeatedly jammed a knee into his groin. Leka reacted to the testicle blow, loosening his grip enough for Warner to roll into the upper position and drive an elbow into Leka's solar plexus.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the wounded Kreshnik rise to his knees, grab the gun that had flown from Warner’s hand, pick it up, and point it at him. Warner quickly fell back onto his side, allowing Leka to raise on top of him. He took the bait. Kreshnik's shot exploded as Leka rose above Warner. A look of triumph lit Leka's eyes in the brief second before the bullet slammed the side of his head, face bursting like a ruptured melon. Leka snapped to one side, flying off the Secret Service agent as if yanked by an unseen string.

  “No!” Kreshnik shouted.

  Warner, now without a shield, scrambled to his feet. Another shot rang out. Warner instinctively stiffened, waiting for the bullet to slam into his body. Instead, he saw Kreshnik stumble back, a look of shock on his face. Warner turned to see where the shot had come from.

  Tomer moved forward from the darkness behind them, gun raised with both hands.

  “You all right, Robo-Cop?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “No problem, but you owe me one.”

  A steady stream of blood ran from the knife wound in Warner's arm, dripping from his fingertips. He checked Leka's body. He was very dead, one eye staring wildly into space, the other sitting round and bright white against the mash of bloody pudding that had been the right side of his face. The pair of agents moved toward Kreshnik, Tomer’s pistol up and ready. Warner’s weapon was several yards on the other side of the man. The Kosovar was still alive, moaning, shaking, blood bubbling from his mouth. Tomer shook his head at the sight, his turned a pale green. Warner could see by the look in his eyes, he’d never shot a man before.

  Kreshnik's trembling hands moved to his chest, clutching at the wound. He said something neither man understood, then convulsed, his arms twitching, one grasping the fabric of his coveralls near the pocket. He squeezed something, as if he were feeling for an object inside, searching with the tips of his fingers. A key fob slid out of his pocket onto the floor. He grabbed it and fumbled over the buttons.

  “Shoot him!” Warner cried out.

  Tomer raised his pistol and fired three rapid shots, twice in the chest and once in the head. The top of Kreshnik’s skull burst, his dying hand contracting on the key fob. A loud pop sounded far down the tunnel, followed immediately by a sharp crack. A moment later, the air shook with a roar that erupted into a deafening explosion, snapping the atmosphere into chunks too jagged to breathe. The distant darkness suddenly blazed with the light of a fire fed by high-pressure jet fuel, its brightness blossoming like a solar flare reaching through the tunnel to grab them.

  “Run!” Warner shouted.

  He grabbed Tomer by the arm and they sprinted for the exit, a fireball expanding behind them. As they reached the stairs, smoke started rising from their jackets. The sharp odor of their burning hair prompted them to take three stairs at a time, Tomer's fear outweighing his bulk. The fire sucked the air from around them. With a burst of primal energy, Warner slammed the door open just as the blaze of jet fuel filled the space around them. The pent-up pressure threw them bodily into the air, a bright orange tongue of flame chasing them as their bodies slammed onto the pavement twenty yards away.

  In the center of the park strip, a pillar of flame fifty feet high shrank back into the gaping hole from which it had erupted as the pressure released via the open door. Warner’s shocked system realized with a sudden new panic that he was on fire. He joined Tomer already rolling on the ground to put out his own flames. Screaming people fled in every direction. In the distance, a very loud “boom-pfff” thumped the air, Warner had heard the sound before, in Afghanistan—malfunctioning mortar shells bursting in their tubes.

  Chapter 30

  Delaney Park Strip

  Friday, June 24th

  10:04 a.m

  Muffled pops sounded far in the rear of the park crowd, followed by a loud crack and a rumble beneath the grassy field. The fat family jerked toward the commotion as fast as their bulk would let them, their corpulent necks undulating with the movement. Suki clutched Jim's arm, stiff with shock. They turned to see people running. Jim's eyes snapped over to Farrah. The man stared straight ahead, locking his eyes on the president, whose view of the distant chaos was unhindered. Farrah's mouth twitched with a psychotic smile. The Nordic-looking couple both let out a yelp, terror registering on their faces. Jim followed their gaze and saw a pillar of fire reaching skyward, screams echoing through the crowd. Panic swelled, starting at the back of the crowd, then moving closer live the wave of a tsunami, driving unavoidable horror nearer and nearer, allowing no place to run.

  Secret Service and the foreign bodyguards rushed to protect their charges, forming a wall of armed flesh, guns drawn, waiting for a target to materialize. They organized into an impassable cordon around the stage, shoulder to shoulder. Their faces were hard like flint, no fear, ready to absorb whatever danger might be coming. The dignitaries instantly vanished behind their bodyguards. Vehicles revved and the powerful men on the stage were whisked to safety behind bullet p
roof glass and armored plates.

  Far in the distance, several blocks away, came two loud explosions carried on the air with another sound that made Jim think of metal being ripped. He looked back at Farrah, now certain he was part of what was happening. Instead of being frightened like everyone else, the man looked furious, his plans apparently gone wrong. He turned back toward the stage, his body tense, about to bolt. Jim reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder of his jacket, yanking hard.

  “Oh no you don’t, you bastard,” he blurted out.

  Farrah spun around in a move that took Jim by surprise. His arm came down so fast, Jim had no time to avoid the impact of the blow. With a loud pop, his elbow dislocated, eliciting a scream, but he did not let go of the man. Jim's wife stared wide-eyed. With a sudden flash of movement, she took Farrah unprepared, glanced at Jim’s damaged arm, back at Farrah, then lashed out with a slap to his face that was so hard a storm of white stars erupted across his vision. He staggered briefly, recovered, then unleashed a jab into the woman’s face. Blood spurt from her nose. She stumbled backwards, crying loudly as she fell into the fat family. The father tried to catch her, but tripped over the child, who fell onto the mother, who lost her footing and toppled over. The family thumped to the ground, a thousand pounds of flesh collapsing with a resounding thud almost equal to the explosion. The Nordic couple screamed in terror at the scene around them, any sense of superiority shattered by their panicked reaction. They backed away in horror, grasping each other as if it were their last day on earth. Jim grabbed Farrah with his good arm. Before he could release the grip of his injured arm, Farrah wrapped his own around it, yanked hard, then kneed him in the stomach. The multiple points of intense pain overwhelmed him. Jim crumpled to the ground, and Farrah escaped into the crowd.