Blackmail Earth

by Bill Evans

  Parvez and the Mohammeds shared a pot of tea. They talked about the weather, but even these common words were fraught, as they must be in times teeming with peril.

  “There will be sudden storms,” the shorter man said, scratching his chin through his beard. “They will arrive out of nowhere.” He smiled. “Not even the scientists can see them coming.”

  “Only Allah,” said the taller one. Parvez nodded knowingly.

  “A man such as you, living on a small island, he could use help,” the shorter man continued. “Is this not so?” He smiled again.

  “I am humbled by your offer,” Parvez said.

  “We must move fast,” the taller man added, glancing around. But no one was listening, and the jingly-jangly sound of a CD smothered their softly spoken words. The music annoyed Parvez. Someday music would find its proper place in the Maldives, and it would no longer distract serious men from serious tasks.

  They made plans with careful words, and then the tall man bowed his head and said, “We will pray together soon, and our prayers will be heard around the world.”

  We worship Allah in all kinds of ways, Parvez reminded himself after the men left. Sometimes we pray in the silence of our souls. Sometimes we pray with the shattering screams of the unforgiven.

  * * *

  Forensia hurried back from the barn to check on Bayou, resting on a blanket in Dafoe’s expansive country kitchen. She flipped aside her black braids and bent over to see if she could get him to eat. Poor dog could hardly get around. Not that they wanted him to. “Make him rest,” Dr. Berkley had ordered, “even if you have to coop him up in a dog crate.”

  Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary; Dafoe had trained Bayou so well that when Forensia commanded him to “stay,” he never moved. Now, she coaxed precious bits of cooked lamb into him.

  The border collie loved lamb, but had to labor to swallow the meat. At least he could eat. And he is recovering, Forensia assured herself. At times like this, when he gazed at her with his big marbly eyes, she could hardly believe that he’d lived through the coyote attack. Or that her savagery had been the sole instrument of his survival. But she had no regrets: She’d saved him, and no matter how she parsed it, the fact that he lived felt great.

  But the torn-up dog, still bandaged and stitched, couldn’t herd, so Forensia would have to take over the rest of his chores as well as his master’s.

  “Let’s go,” she called to Sang-mi. Her friend was curled up on the couch, looking almost as frightened as she had in the minutes after she’d found GreenSpirit’s mutilated body. “I’ve got to move those cows to pasture and it’ll take a while.” She knew that the other woman wouldn’t want to stay alone in the house for more than a few minutes.

  Sang-mi slipped a barrette into her short black hair and almost ran to Forensia, edging past Bayou without so much as a warm glance or word. She didn’t care for dogs—a cultural quirk, apparently—but Forensia knew she felt a deep affection for her tall American friend. Last night, they’d sat up talking after Richtor and the others had gone to bed, and Sang-mi had told Forensia about a long-developed North Korean ecoterrorism plot that might dwarf any nightmare in the Maldives.

  Forensia was still trying to figure out what to do with this horrifying news, but right now she had to turn her attention back to the more immediate threats they were facing.

  She picked up Dafoe’s varmint gun and stepped onto the porch, eyeing every tree, shed, and fence post like they were hiding GreenSpirit’s murderer.

  Forensia missed having Bayou’s eyes and ears on full alert out here. There were never surprises with him on duty; he’d even warned her of the attack that had taken him down. Richtor had insisted on loaning her his big lumbering Newfie, but Forensia didn’t think the one-hundred-sixty-pound ball of lazy black fur had shifted a single inch since claiming a spread of shade on the porch.

  Not an hour went by without Forensia remembering the threat that Jason Robb had shouted at her after the initiation. And she wasn’t the only one strongly suspicious of the high school quarterback: This morning she’d glanced at the local news online only long enough to learn that Sheriff Walker had asked anyone with knowledge of Jason’s whereabouts to come forward. If the sheriff was making that plea, Forensia figured that Jason’s buddies weren’t talking; it was widely known that his parents had refused to cooperate with the sheriff, the New York State Police homicide detectives, or the FBI. She did feel sorry for his folks; one son died in Iraq and the other had turned into a killer.

  Long as he’s not around this place.

  Forensia took Sang-mi’s hand and headed for the barn.

  “My baby kicked me,” her friend said.

  “Really? Just now?” Forensia asked, still scanning the farm; she never would have offered to help out Dafoe if she’d known how freaked out she was going to be working out here with just Sang-mi for company.

  Her friend nodded. “When we started walking, I felt it.”

  “That’s great. First time?” Looking everywhere at once.

  “No.” Sang-mi smiled slyly. It had been so long since Forensia’s friend had brightened that her smile did feel like a first.

  Sang-mi had had ample reasons to feel glum. First, her Pagan boyfriend got her pregnant, after insisting that he’d had a vasectomy. Then he promptly took off for three months to “see the sights” in Vietnam, China, and Thailand. A real loser, in Forensia’s opinion, though Sang-mi wouldn’t hear any criticism of him, saying sternly, “He’s my baby’s father.”

  And now it turned out that Sang-mi had been carrying more than a baby. She’d also been bearing the news that she’d divulged to Forensia about North Korea—about a plot that involved her own father.

  Sang-mi had told her that the reason the CIA was still debriefing her dad was that he was an expert on North Korean plans to launch thousands of rockets that would release trillions of sulfate particles into the atmosphere. The sulfates would block the sun and send the Earth into a deep freeze that would mean endless winter for most of the planet for many years.

  “Dafoe’s friend wrote about it,” Sang-mi had added, surprising Forensia, who’d known little about Jenna Withers’s book, other than its broad subject: climate change.

  “What did she say?” Forensia asked.

  “She had a section about the North accusing the U.S. and other countries of causing climate change and the famine in the North.”

  “Is that true?” asked Forensia.

  “Who knows,” Sang-mi said. “But that’s why the North developed this secret plan.”

  Sang-mi went on to say that the North Koreans had taken an idea advocated by many geoengineering proponents and turned it into a weapon of unprecedented mass destruction. Forensia thought her friend was exaggerating until Sang-mi had explained the worldwide effects of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991.

  “The missiles would be like many Pinatubos,” Sang-mi had said, “and the sulfates will make the whole Earth very cold. That’s the big reason my father defected, along with me,” she patted her belly, “even though he knew that they’d arrest his mother and father and torture them and keep them in prison until they died.”

  Forensia had been shocked, but Sang-mi had just continued, “They were tortured but we think they are still alive.”

  “What is the North waiting for?” Forensia had asked.

  “For something horrible to happen that they can exploit. That’s what the North always does. When the U.S. was busy invading Iraq, the North started sending missiles over Japan, just to let them know that they could reach huge population centers with their bombs. They’re always looking for pressure points.”

  This morning they’d been awakened by a call from Sang-mi’s mother, who had been nearly hysterical. Her husband’s CIA handler had contacted him right after the jihadists threatened to blow up the tanker. Forty minutes later a helicopter whisked him away. Sang-mi’s mother had no idea where he had been taken or when he might return.
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  Forensia paused in the shade of the barn and turned to Sang-mi. “I don’t get something. The CIA took your dad away after the jihadists announced their crazy plans, but what would that have to do with North Korean rockets? That’s so weird. There’s no connection between them and the Maldives. They have different religions, different cultures, and very different politics.”

  “The tanker has everything to do with those missiles,” Sang-mi replied pointedly. “The sulfates in them and the iron oxide in the tanker both lower temperatures. One works in the ocean and the other in the sky. Both of them together,” she shook her head, “would be very, very bad. Not twice as bad—many times as bad. That’s the connection.

  “The North, they see everybody paying attention to the tanker, and the Supreme Leader,” her anger was on rare display, “says to his army, ‘Now we can get the whole world’s attention.’ That’s what he wants. And once he gets it, you watch, he’ll say ‘You think the Maldives is bad? Wait till you see what I’ve got.’”

  “But for what?”

  “For everything. They have nothing. They need food, oil, cars, gas, trucks, trains. Anything you can think of. The country is a disaster.”

  The threat of a double blast of terrorism that targeted the very life of the planet left Forensia stunned. In the seconds that followed, she found herself imagining the blazing sky darkening, and an unkind chill sweeping over the land, frosting the brittle trees and barren stream beds.

  She entered the barn and opened stalls, still numbed by the news. The cows often wouldn’t budge without Bayou to nip at their heels.

  “Go on, move.” She had no patience for them this morning. She turned to Sang-mi, who’d followed her inside. “Would the Koreans in charge of the rockets really do that?”

  “The president is crazy, and he makes the people crazy. Crazy people do crazy things.” Sang-mi’s voice was choked. Looking at her, Forensia saw tears pouring from her friend’s eyes. Forensia held her close, felt Sang-mi’s round belly pressed against her own. The baby kicked. The women stepped apart.

  “I felt that,” Forensia exclaimed.

  “Me, too.”

  The barn door creaked, and they both spun around. It was a cow, finally leading the herd to pasture.

  Forensia nudged the last of the cows out of the barn. Once they were in the parched pasture, she rested the rifle against the fence and closed the gate.

  Again, she looked all around them. She was glad to help Dafoe, but she looked forward to having him back later that day. Over the last week, everything had begun to feel unsettled. Anxious. She was sure that her fear had spiked because of what Sang-mi had told her, but she also had the uncanny feeling that invisible eyes were boring holes in her back.

  * * *

  I see them. They’re looking all around but they don’t see me. I won’t let them. Not till it’s time. And then all they’ll see is me.

  He’s out in the brush, a good hundred and fifty yards away. The talk in town says this is right where the tall one beat a coyote to death and then shot it. Killed three of them. He wouldn’t have figured her for that kind of action. Maybe she’s up to all kinds of fun, especially private stuff with her pregnant friend there. Must get kind of messy in bed when they get going.

  He’s kept an eye on her place in town, which is getting downright crowded. First, the Korean moved in, and now a bunch of other Pagans. Supposed to be a tiny two-bedroom. She must like her fun.

  When the two of them took off early this morning, he figured the Korean was going to help with the farm chores. And if she was going to do that, even being pregnant and all, he figured that the guy who owned this place needed a lot of help. Turned out he wasn’t even around. That big-name girlfriend down in the city must be keeping him busy.

  He looks through the brush and knows he’s got to be careful. Tall one’s got a rifle, and everyone knows now that she’s handy with a gun. You can tell just looking at her. She’s holding that rifle so easy it might as well be a … broomstick.

  He laughs quietly, but tells himself to get serious because there’s just no way to get a jump on the two of them out here. You got to be patient, capital “P.” Don’t want to be doing anything rash till it rains.

  But he’s glad to see they’re worried. You bet they are. Looking all around, heads twisting this way and that, like they’re possessed.

  He backs away. Just to be sure. Can’t let himself be seen. Then he’d have to take corrective action on the spur of the moment, and that’s just not a smart thing to do. You got to get the jump on them, like you got the jump on the old witch. And you’re going to want rain to help you. If it’ll come. He shades his eyes and looks up. Sky looks bleached.

  But man, you got to get her, he warns himself. You can’t wait forever because the minute she starts putting two and two together, two and two is going to add up to you.

  * * *

  Nighttime in North Korea. Satellites from the United States spy on 23 million people, but they capture only darkness blacker than the deepest well. All around the Supreme Leader’s nation, lights burn: in China, Japan, and South Korea. They are visible. They are vulnerable. Their lights burn like stars too weak to stay up in the sky.

  But we are blackness. We are invisible. Our enemies shudder, thinks Jae-hwa as he enters the Supreme Leader’s compound.

  Two lines of “pleasure girls” pass him as they exit. They are so young and beautiful, dressed identically in blue jackets and skirts. They lift the burdens of the motherland from the shoulders of the president. And that is for the best, for he is the leader and “We cannot live away from his breast.” Jae-hwa repeats this popular slogan to himself solemnly every time he comes to see the great one.

  Guards on both sides of Jae-hwa escort him into a vast hall with a ceiling that arches high above him. This marks the beginning of the Supreme Leader’s private quarters. At the very end, the most revered one sits at a long table eating rice and vegetables and dark red ostrich meat by himself. Jae-hwa knows the ostrich comes from the president’s private farm. So much hunger, but he must eat. He must be strong. Above all others.

  The Great One studies Jae-hwa, who wishes that he were shorter so that he could honor the Supreme Leader more by looking up to him with his eyes, as he does with his heart. Then the president smiles and sings. This is a momentous occasion, the highest honor ever accorded Jae-hwa. He beams with pleasure. His son and his son’s sons will forever know of the night when the most revered one sang to him.

  “Our enemies are the American bastards, who are trying to take over our beautiful fatherland. With guns that I make with my own hands, I will shoot them, bang-bang-bang.” His voice is so powerful. When he points his finger and fires an imaginary gun, Jae-hwa applauds, beaming, and nods over and over. This is a song all North Koreans know, but none can sing it with such conviction, for none have shown the Supreme Leader’s heroism against their brutal foes. Jae-hwa’s own son sings this song every day at school, and before he goes to bed. He sleeps soundly because his father works with the Supreme Leader. So much pride in Jae-hwa’s home.

  Now the president aims his finger at Jae-hwa and pretends to shoot him. Jae-hwa stops smiling. Stops nodding. His hands fall to his sides. Have I insulted him? Jae-hwa doesn’t know what to do. He thinks of his son: May you always sleep soundly, even when the guns are real.

  “We have our guns, bang-bang-bang,” the Supreme Leader sings again.

  The president means the rockets. That’s why Jae-hwa is here. For many years the army has loaded thousands of missiles with sulfates. Overseeing the arming of rockets has been Jae-hwa’s most important duty since the 1990s, when droughts and floods caused a million people to starve to death. Maybe more, but nobody dares say this.

  It was a holocaust of hunger. Mothers ate dirt and fed their babies insects. It was not the fault of the great nation or the Supreme Leader. The extreme weather was due to climate change, spurred by the wastrels in North America and Europe and Japan. The Supreme Lea
der warned the world that he would not let his people suffer alone. The West ignored him and slandered him. Called him crazy.

  They won’t ignore the president much longer. The rockets are loaded with enough sulfates to make the whole world share the gnawing hunger of the North.

  “The fools in the Maldives know nothing,” the president says.

  “You are right, Supreme Leader.”

  “The time is coming to instruct the world.…” This is what the Supreme Leader does so well. He teaches us all, Jae-hwa thinks. We are his children. “The phony election in the United States comes in days. We must act.”

  “You have been most patient with them,” Jae-hwa says.

  “Do you think I have been too patient?” the president demands.

  “No.” Jae-hwa’s toes curl up in his boots; he did not intend to offend the most powerful one. “We have waited for your wisdom.”

  “We must be ready. Are we?”

  Jae-hwa tells him that every rocket is loaded. “They will turn the sky black.”

  The Supreme Leader smiles, and nods at a seat at the long table. A guard rushes to bring Jae-hwa a plate of warm food. Jae-hwa wishes that he could save the ostrich meat for his boy, who has never tasted such a luxury. Hunger is the burden of heroes. The Supreme Leader has shared these wise words so many times.

  But Jae-hwa would never insult the president by asking to take home food served at his table. To eat with him is a great honor. So Jae-hwa carefully matches the Supreme Leader’s every mouthful. Eat when he eats. Chew when he chews. Swallow only when he swallows. Always follow the Great One.

  Jae-hwa begins to perspire, and for the first time, notices the heat in the room. If he could, he would bring the heat home to his boy, too. There is no heat for houses in North Korea.