The successor watched Harpoon nervously look at his watch, then glance up at him. The man's mind spun in a clutter of nagging, clawing, personal questions. Was his wife alive? Were his kids okay? Had the radiation already begun to burrow into his bones, chew into his lymph nodes? Every fiber of the man's soul demanded answers. But he would not ask. In the agony of his journey through the Louisiana backwoods he had steeled himself to take control as quickly and decisively as Harry Truman. If a haberdasher could do it—a simple, unprepared tailor from Missouri—he could do it, too. History demanded it. His country, bushwhacked by godless tyrants in the middle of the night, demanded it.
The man shuddered involuntarily, tried to hide it, and sank deeper into his bright blue swivel chair, seeking some comfort from its fresh luxury even as the aircraft bounced erratically on the runway. He brushed at a cobweb tangle of wispy but tenacious Spanish moss still clinging to his jeans. The silken moss refused to dislodge, so he turned his attention instead to a bur snagged in his shirt. He tugged it loose and flicked the little irritant away, propelling it to a landing between the high-gloss black of the shoes across from him. Lord Almighty, losing's not the issue. Truman would have ass-kicked this guy farther than he booted MacArthur.
Harpoon ignored the flight of the bur, taking in the strange scene around him. It was not reassuring to a man accustomed to military order. The takeoff delays were less reassuring. The plane bumped violently, then stopped, the engine whine falling off to a low rumble. He reached toward the white telephone console, so many of its button lights connected to dead ends now. The engine whine accelerated again and the plane edged forward. He thought better of a call to the cockpit—the pilot had enough troubles—and settled back into his seat, one of four clustered near the phone in the command plane's presidential quarters.
On the admiral's right sat the backwoods judge who had rescued the successor from obscurity with a Bible and a quick oath and whom the successor had insisted on rescuing from the bayous. On the successor's left sat the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, an old friend. He looked a mess, his face flushed, his pudgy fingers tapping their grime nervously onto an armrest, his belly heaving in irregular swells over a barely visible silver-and-turquoise Indian belt buckle.
Behind the Louisiana judge and the admiral stood two Secret Service agents, the survivors of eight sent out from the Baton Rouge Treasury office to collect the man. Their business suits, the discounted flannels favored by young stockbrokers and government agents, were disheveled and torn. Mud caked their trousers, and splotches of dry dark red spattered their jackets and shirts. They clearly had been quite efficient. They still held their Uzi submachine guns at what passed for port arms. The guns made Harpoon still more edgy. The plane bumped again.
“How bad's bad, admiral?”
The man's words seemed to carom out of nowhere, breaking an awkward conversational lull and jolting Harpoon out of his temporary preoccupation. He struggled to put his thoughts together.
“Come on, man,” the successor said, the drawl back. “Come on.”
The plane cut left, then right. The pilot was zigzagging around the aprons like a drunken driver. Harpoon wanted to wait now, give up a few precious minutes to get the plane in the air and the man downstairs where he could be led with detail rather than misled with the awful, abbreviated facts.
“You still there, admiral? I do think we got a war goin' on.”
“Sorry, sir,” Harpoon said slowly. “You are in acute danger. I want to get airborne.”
“Been in acute danger for four hours, admiral. It's mean outside. People are like animals.”
“I know, sir.”
“Well?”
“Sir?”
“How bad's bad, admiral?”
“Sir, it's extremely complex and technical. You need the fullest briefing possible.”
“Psshaw!” The successor pulled angrily upright in his seat. “Complex. Technical. Full briefin'. Doggone you, admiral, you sound like every cotton-pickin' bureaucrat in Washington. We got no time for that kind of talk.”
Harpoon winced. It took them months to break in a new President. How did he do it now in minutes? “No, sir,” he said cautiously, “we have very little time.”
“Then get on with it, man. Just give it to me. One. Two. Three. I'm not stupid. How many warheads did the commies hit us with?”
“About two thousand, sir.”
“Two thousand.”
Harpoon searched the man's face for a reaction. “Yes, sir. Probably twenty-five hundred megatons.” React, damn you. “One megaton is about fifty times the explosive power of the Hiroshima bomb.”
The successor stared at him coldly. “Don't patronize me, admiral. I know damn well what a megaton is. What did we hit them with?”
“About the same, sir. Somewhat less megatonnage.”
“Our stuffs better. Always was.” The successor prided himself on the show of knowledge.
“More accurate, sir. It was a relatively even exchange.” Harpoon shifted uncomfortably. The engines ebbed again. Harpoon started to reach for the intercom button.
“How many dead?” the successor asked.
Harpoon drew his hand away from the phone. “Millions.”
“Of Americans.”
“Yes.”
“And Russians.”
“Yes.”
“A relatively even exchange.” The man harrumphed and went silent, his gaze drifting around his new quarters. The drift stopped on a far blue wall where the portable Seal of the President of the United States stared down on its newest possessor. A clutch of olive branches sprouted from one set of talons on the emblem's proud eagle. An array of arrows jutted from the other.
The man felt a great debt to that eagle and the country it represented. The only son of a dirt-poor Oklahoma farmer, he had gone into the oil fields when he was fifteen, sunk his own well when he was twenty-two, and brought in his first when he was twenty-five. A year later he had his first million dollars and found the Lord about the same time, seeing each as a reflection of the other and both as a reflection of his country's gifts. The Oklahoma City Times called the young oilman an American classic—a man who talked hard, worked hard, prayed hard, and had all the rewards to prove it.
In his late thirties, during the continuing OPEC crisis, he merged his successful independent oil company into one of the majors, accepting a fortune and a vice-presidency. It became the unhappiest time of his life. He didn't trust multinational oil, didn't trust anybody who placed as much value on a Persian sand dune as he did on good American soil. He edged into politics, mostly fund-raising. He played the game hard and, some said, mean—skewering candidates who failed to see Americanism his way, pouring cash into the campaigns of those who saw the dream as he saw it.
The last recipient of his cash had been elected President. And the invitation to join the Cabinet was like a prayer answered, particularly when the President-elect told him the first order of business was energy independence to help put the squeeze on the Russians. His mind drifted back to the meeting at which the President-elect had offered him the job. The new President had talked grandly and seriously of the great social responsibility that went with the appointment, emphasizing the chance he would get to move a nation on issues that would carry his imprint far beyond his lifetime. It was a chance to give back to his country part of what his country had given him. He had accepted without hesitation, and the President had thanked him warmly.
“How'd the President get it?” the successor asked quietly, his eyes still fixed on the Seal.
“In Nighthawk One, sir,” Harpoon replied. “His chopper.”
But it soon became clear the President had wanted him for other duties, too. He had become the administration's sonuvabitch, the man who did the balls-slicing while the President smiled, a political lightning rod who drew the bolts meant for the man in the White House. Even those well-schooled in the alley-fighting of Washington politics were surprised at how well he pe
rformed those chores. Behind the leather chair in his office on the sixth floor of the Department of the Interior hung a sign that read: “Don't Get Mad, Get Even.”
“The chopper started for Andrews. The crew saw they couldn't make it and tried to run.”
The successor pulled his eyes back into sharp focus on the Presidential Seal, his Seal now. Above the talons clutching both arrows and olive branches, the single rock-hard eye of the eagle glinted at him in challenge. An eye for an eye. A relatively even exchange.
“We assume the chopper was crushed in the blast wave.”
The successor's eyes swung abruptly away from the eagle, taking the glint with them. “Assume?”
Harpoon stared back at the man. He wanted to get him off this subject. He wanted to get the plane off the ground. “Sir,” he said evenly, “you don't go looking for bodies in this kind of war. You don't find them.” Harpoon paused very briefly. “We haven't heard a word from any political or civil authority since we got the message to come for you.” He paused again, adding, “Four hours ago.”
The successor looked at him strangely. “Can't all be dead.”
“No, sir. Not all. Our communications system is dead. You were out there. In a safe area. Nothing's working.”
The successor stiffened. “That's why I'm in here, admiral. We spent a billion dollars protectin' these planes from nuclear effects.”
Harpoon stifled a sigh. “You looked in the window downstairs, sir,” he said. “We've got our gear back up to ten, maybe twenty years beyond Alexander Graham Bell. Doesn't do us much good if there's nobody at the other end of the phone.”
The plane swerved sharply, causing one of the Secret Service agents to stagger. His Uzi wobbled menacingly.
“Sir, those men must sit down,” Harpoon said in alarm. “If one of those weapons goes off inside this aircraft . . .”
The successor ignored him. “You tellin' me the President of the United States is inside his command post and he can't talk to his troops, can't talk to his commanders?”
Harpoon glanced worriedly at the agents. “Right now, sir, we're having more luck picking up a disc jockey in Walla Walla.”
“Don't you be sarcastic with me, admiral,” the successor bristled.
“Sarcastic?” Harpoon forced himself to keep his voice calm. “I'm sorry, sir, but I'm deadly serious. We're picking up a few distress signals and some garbled messages. But communications? We're getting primitive messages through to a handful of bombers. Through Alice.” He immediately knew he shouldn't have slipped into the lingo yet. “That is it,” he added.
“Alice?”
“ The Looking Glass plane, sir. The Strategic Air Command's airborne command post. It's a thousand miles north of us and our only tie to anything now.”
Harpoon thought he saw the first real flicker of fear cross the man's face. The engines had stopped whining again. Jesus, get this plane out of here. The flicker faded.
“Harpoon they call you?”
“My code name, sir.”
'Well, Harpoon, you and Alice better get your act together fast.” The man sounded as if his television set had gone blank and the answer was to plug it in again. “If you think this President is going to let this stop at a relatively even exchange, you speared the wrong fish.”
“Let it stop?” Harpoon fought the exasperation out of his voice. “We don't know how to stop it, sir. You have a damned tough decision to make. But it may be like the tree falling in the wilderness. If nobody hears it, did it make a sound?” He held a rock-hard gaze on the man. “This war, sir, is completely out of control.”
Suddenly the plane turned hard left, then lurched to an abrupt stop. The man with the turquoise belt buckle moaned. The judge firmly closed his eyes. The younger of the two agents lost his footing, careened into the back of the admiral's seat, and lost his grip on his Uzi. The small gray riot gun slithered over the admiral's shoulder, bounced off his knee, and landed on the floor between the officer and the successor. Harpoon reached over, but the successor clamped his foot on the weapon. Pure fear finally gleamed in the man's eyes. A small white light blinked urgently on the telephone console between them. Harpoon retreated from the weapon and lifted the phone, listening. “Crap,” he said after seconds. “The Looking Glass saw it? Then go, man, go!” He listened further, his craggy face rapidly contorting in anguish. “Oh, my God,” he breathed into the phone. After a moment he said bleakly, “Take it over the top of them.” He stared at shoes still polished to a duty-night sheen and slowly ground an errant bur into the rug. “Dammit, pilot, take it over the top of them!” Harpoon cradled the phone softly.
“Give the gun back.”
The engine rumble rose rapidly into its piercing takeoff whine, the plane edging forward, then rolling.
“Give the gun back, sir.”
Harpoon's voice was patient but persistent, as if he were talking to a child. The successor stared at him numbly, holding the submachine gun loosely in his lap, then slowly handed it up to the agent, who stood precariously behind Harpoon.
“Do you understand what's happening, sir?”
“Troops should've cleared the crud off the runway,” the successor said in a blank monotone.
“The crud on the runway . . .” Harpoon strained to keep his voice even over the engine roar. “My troops, sir. Your troops. They're the crud on the runway. On their bellies. Shooting the animals. Clearing a path for this aircraft. They're shooting their own people, sir. Your people. People so sweat-stinking scared I can smell the terror in here.” The plane bumped. “Thanks, marine.”
The nose of the giant plane lifted. It tilted left as one set of wheels left the ground. Whump! The plane tilted right. Whump! The admiral heard the flaps curl back into the wings as the E-4 climbed. “You've got a decision to make very soon, sir. Do you understand SIOP? Do you understand transattack deterrence theory? Do you know how to issue nuclear orders? Do you know who I am? Do you know who TACAMO is?” He stopped, feeling the weight press down on him as the plane reached for altitude. “Do you want to be briefed?”
The successor sighed. Harpoon felt uneasy. He knew that most of the military officers aboard this aircraft shared his views about the next steps. He also knew that not all of them did. His mind saw the colonel—the Librarian, they called him, a Russian expert whose bespectacled eyes were forever magnified in that if-you-knew-what-I-know look.
Harpoon looked at the successor. The man's face was certain again. Crap. He shoved his own fear back down into the pit of his stomach. The little white light was blinking urgently at him again, and he reached over to pick up the phone.
“Hey, Radnor?”
Radnor ignored Tyler, staring instead into the flickering radar screen that showed the Canadian coastline giving way to the frozen reaches of the Beaufort Sea and then the Arctic Ocean as they moved north toward Russia again. “Radnor?” Keep the sonuvabitch out of your head, Radnor. He's gonna drive you over the edge, take you with him. Blank him out. Focus on north, north toward the bastards who stole your dream. Stole Laura.
“Hey, Radnor. I'm serious. Really serious.”
Radnor's eyes bored into his radar screen. His world narrowed to the edges of the scope. He had no peripheral vision. Tyler would be in his peripheral vision. O'Toole would be there. The world would be there. His wife. His dream. His future. “Radnor.” Keep out of my head, damn you, Tyler.
“I'll go halfway with you, Radnor. I'll say it happened. I will. I promise you. But you gotta go halfway with me.”
Block him. He's the threat now. “Talk to me, buddy. Radnor. Talk to me. Please.” God damn you, Tyler. Shut up. Live in your own screwed world. Stay out of mine. “Radnor!”
“Shut up, Tyler,” Radnor said quietly, fingering the broken pencil.
“Radnor, go halfway with me. Just say Timmie isn't dead. Forget my wife. Radnor, please.”
Radnor turned slowly and looked into Tyler's grotesque and mournful face.
“Just Timmie. You don't h
ave to say anything about my wife, Radnor.”
Radnor felt dizzy. He forced the jagged edge of the broken pencil against his palm, hard, till it hurt, till the skin broke and blood appeared. “Forget my wife.” Radnor burst. Laura! The pencil became a dagger, the palm a fist. The fist rose high, then lunged downward.
Upstairs, the red of the flight panel throbbed hypnotically and Moreau stared into the glowing gauges as she mechanically completed a course correction. Her mind felt flooded with novocaine, half struggling with the aircraft, half struggling to untangle the befogged memory of her father's schedule in semiretirement. Thursday night. Friday morning. Was this a lecture day at the Academy in Colorado Springs? You're dead then, Dad. Dead under the megatons that caved in Cheyenne Mountain and brushed the dust of the Academy up into the clefts of Pike's Peak. Or are you home in Steamboat Springs, sheltered farther back in the mountains? The dancing red fallout clouds moving slowly east across the desert from the wasteland of San Francisco and Sacramento. The fog rolling south from the missile fields of Wyoming, sweeping over the white tops of the Medicine Bow Mountains, crossing the Continental Divide, oozing through the high cut of Rabbit Ear Pass. Be there, Dad. Please, Daddy. Be where you can fight, dig, run, hide, struggle to live. Don't be dead. . . .
Radnor's shriek cut through the earphones in the B-52. Moreau jerked to attention. Kazaklis lost his thoughts of Sarah Jean. Halupalai sat bolt upright, startled out of the farewell to the fifteen-year-old daughter he had not seen for years.
Downstairs, Radnor's fist smashed into the worktable in front of Tyler, blood from his own hand spattering across the navigation charts. Tyler reared back in his seat and sat frozen, tears streaming down his face. “I spanked him, Radnor.” Radnor picked up his hand and slammed it down again. And again. He felt nothing.
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