“How long before he'll be coherent?”
The nurse wrinkled her forehead. “Half-hour. Forty-five minutes maybe. He'll be pretty rummy at first. He's been off it almost an hour now. You”—she cleared her voice in mock reproach— “you've been off it a while longer.” She chuckled. “You're the kind of patient who makes hospital legends, sailor. We get a lot of bed-wetters. But that was a new one.”
Sedgwick noticed for the first time that his sheet was dry, changed after he had passed out. People doing their jobs, he thought. All kinds of jobs. As trained.
“Is there anything you can do to bring him around faster?”
“Not much, I'm afraid. We could shoot something into him to hop him up now that we've knocked him down. It'd be very dangerous. And I truly don't think it would do any good. You'd probably have a babbling chimpanzee on your hands. Not the President you need.” She paused. “Are we really in that much trouble?”
“I'm afraid so,” Sedgwick answered. He felt the nurse shudder and pull her hand away. He looked at her and saw eyes that retreated in guilt, not fear. He reached for her hand.
“I'm sorry we screwed things up,” she whispered.
He squeezed the hand he had wrenched a half-hour earlier. “Believe me, nurse,” he said, “you aren't the ones who screwed up.”
After the sudden and violent gust of wind cleaned out the B-52, the air pressure inside the cabin stabilized with the pressure outside. The wind stopped almost immediately, replaced by the barely perceptible rustle of thin air racing over the escape hole Halupalai had left in the top of the plane. Even as they began their rapid descent, Kazaklis reached forward and stripped his glove off the green screen, his hand becoming infinitely colder even than his contempt for the world that had placed them in this mess. The temperature had plummeted more than one hundred degrees in a split second. The pressure fell to less than three pounds per square inch, one-fifth of normal. The nitrogen in their body fluids began to form bubbles. Unless they descended quickly, they would begin to suffer from ailments ranging from the bends to paresthesia to uncontrollable choking. With the air outside their bodies thinning by a factor of five, the gases inside their stomachs and intestines expanded by a factor of five. The pain stabbed. To deal with this irritation, they had to vent the expanded gases through both available bodily orifices. This they did, without shame. Otherwise, they rode silently downward— each drawn deeply within, each depressed, each having more difficulty with the emotional stress than the physical stress.
Moreau did not look back. Kazaklis looked once, confirming with a quick glance that Halupalai's seat was gone, his buddy gone with it, and that they now had a gaping and irreparable hole in the top of their aircraft. Kazaklis made the rest of the descent feeling as if the hole had been torn through him. They leveled out at twelve-thousand feet, unsnapped their oxygen again, and quietly flew on, wordlessly telling each other that neither was ready to begin the discussion of their new dilemma. Kazaklis finally broke the silence. “The son of a bitch,” he said, his words emerging in a low, tormented hush. “The poor, dumb, wonderful son of a bitch. Damn him.” He pounded a newly gloved fist into his knee in hurt and frustration. “Why, Moreau? Why?”
Moreau stared straight ahead, unmoving. “He wanted to go home,” she said flatly. “He was happy there.” She fought against the shivering, still trying to shake the subzero cold out of her bones and adjust to the marginal warmth they had found. “Maybe that's what we should have done, too.”
Kazaklis turned to look at her questioningly. She continued to stare ahead, her oxygen mask hanging loosely below a clenched jaw. “Were you happy there?” he asked.
Her brow furrowed briefly, memories of the past Christmas flooding her mind. She had asked her father close to the same question. “I don't think happiness is one of the goals I set in life,” she replied, almost exactly as he had.
Kazaklis turned away. He peered out the cockpit window at the vast and vacant sea scarcely more than two miles below them now, its whitecaps clearly visible atop giant swells. It showed no sign of hostility, no sign of tampering, no clutter of crud and bodies. It was pure. Kazaklis, conveniently blotting out the possibility of a faulty and mangling ejection, envisioned Halupalai in it. His friend bobbed placidly in the swells, basking in their peacefulness, no more rejection, no more failure, not bothering to open his rubber raft, not bothering to begin the long and pointless search for a home that was long gone. He knew Halupalai wasn't going home. Kazaklis sighed. “Our lovable beachboy didn't do us any favors, bless his lost soul,” he said.
“I know.”
“We got ourselves some real problems.”
“Yes.”
“You serious about going home?” He looked at her intently. He had no intention of making the same lost search that Halupalai had begun.
“Could we make it?”
“How's our fuel? Hundred thousand pounds?”
“Ninety-six.”
He ran it through his head for curiosity's sake. San Francisco lay 2,500 miles away. Fiji roughly the same. The westerlies would help them, although not much at this altitude. With the new drag, their fuel would give them four hours, four and a half perhaps. “A chance,” he said. “My guess is we'd paddle the last couple hundred miles. Through the crud.” He added a bite to his last sentence.
Moreau didn't appear to notice. “Maybe we ought to face reality,” she said blankly. Her voice was devoid of all life.
“Reality?” He let the word sit a minute. “If we're lucky, reality's a firing squad, Moreau.”
She smiled faintly. “And if we're unlucky, commander?” she asked, the question suddenly abrasive.
“Planet of the apes, pal. They won't even care who we are.”
“Shit!” Moreau exploded, stopping the unintentional game.
“Cherepovets,” Kazaklis said calmly. “Zebra two-one, Moreau. They went for the gonads. The other guys must be going for ours. Who's going to turn it off? Halupalai's out there looking for an island that won't be there if he ever finds it.”
“Dammit.” The edge started to back off her voice.
“You know the system better than I do. It has to go. Maybe they'll dig out of the rubble someday.” He paused. “I don't want to spend the rest of my life digging.”
Moreau lurched across the throttles between them. She pounded tight fists angrily into the pilot's chest and arms. He sat stolidly, allowing the thrashing to continue until finally she slumped back into her seat. “Dammit,” she said despairingly. “Dammit, Kazaklis, I feel so guilty.”
A stillness enveloped them, the engine roar unheard, the rush of the wind a mere whisper over Halupalai's escape hatch. The whispering sound seemed to whisk ghosts out of the emptiness: the pale, splotched face of the young air controller from the Bronx—melech hamafis; the moxie in the last haunted words from Polar Bear Three—get those mutha-fuckahs for us; Klickitat and Elsie, who chose a bleak and different duty; Tyler's tortured soul and lost son; Radnor's blissfully sad decision to join his wife. And Halupalai. . . .
“Did we do anything right, Kazaklis?” Moreau asked mournfully.
“We did what we had to do, Moreau,” he said, not answering.
“Damn you, did we do anything right?”
“You never know, Moreau,” he said slowly. “Not even when it's all over.”
They sat silently for several minutes. Then Kazaklis stiffened. “You gonna be okay?” he asked sternly. “Can we get on with it now? Or do I have to do this all myself?”
Moreau turned and looked at him. She smiled, sadly at first, then less so. “You have a couple of holes in your magic carpet, Captain Shazam,” she said. “Where do you think that tattered cape will take us?”
Kazaklis grinned from ear to ear, every tooth showing, although a close study would have shown that the eyes were not shining with quite the toothsome gleam. But he covered, as he always did. “Rarotonga!” he exulted. “Bora Bora! Hiva Oa! Papeete for the lady!” He turned quickly away,
as if to check the port engines. He would not let her see the gleam turn to a glisten. But Moreau didn't need to look at him to know the cover was fraudulent.
“God, I'm going to miss him,” Moreau said.
“Yeah, me too,” Kazaklis said quietly.
For a moment the silence returned, the roar and the whir of the wind pounding only at their memories. Then Moreau sucked in a deep breath, resigned to the knowledge that Halupalai had taken his route just as they had taken theirs.
“What kind of chance do we have, Kazaklis?”
“Fiji. Maybe.”
“It's as far as San Francisco and a lot harder to find.”
He turned and grinned at her again, the teeth telling one story, the eyes another. “There's plenty of palm trees out there, Moreau. We'll find a sandy beach somewhere. If not, it's two in a canoe, kid. A rubber canoe.” He reached over and slapped her on the thigh. Half-slap, half-pat, really, making certain it carried some nicely indefinable touch just between the two.
The President grumbled contentiously under his breath. The advance work was abominable tonight, the protocol inexcusably sloppy. Where the hell was the Marine Band? Band always played “Hail to the Chief” when he left Andrews. No excuse for this. None. But Sedgwick's here. Good man, Sedgwick. Had to get to know him better. Give him a little presidential nudge over at the Pentagon. Never hurt, helping a young officer. Navy's in fine form tonight. Marines are wading knee-deep in trouble. Commandant would find his ass in a sling for this one. God, he was tired. Stairs to Air Force One looked like the side of the pyramids. He groaned, then tried to suppress the sound. Smile, buster. Part of the job. Screw the smiling. Screw the job. Sometimes this job isn't worth sour owl crap. He grunted. Then he reared himself up to full strength for the walk, Presidentially, up the aircraft stairs.
“Gimme a hand, Sedgwick,” he mumbled. He could confide in Sedgwick. “Feel like I'm walking the last mile.”
Sedgwick's hand landed lightly on the President's chest, gently pushing him back into his bed. “Take it easy, Mr. President,” the aide said. “We're not walking anywhere tonight.” Another, cooler hand caressed his forehead. He felt dizzy.
“President always walks,” he protested. “Tradition. Tradition's goin' to hell around here tonight, Sedgwick.”
God, he was tired. Where the devil were they going? Slipped his mind. Be careful of that. Nice to be here in Detroit. Except it's Denver. Damned bad politics. Time to turn and wave. Tradition. He raised an arm and arched it slowly across his hospital bed. He heard a soft feminine voice reassuring him. His wife? His wife . . . “Connie ... ?” He sagged back in his bed and lay still for a moment. “What time is it, Sedgwick?” he asked, perfectly lucid.
“Eighteen-twenty-five Zulu, sir,” Sedgwick replied from his own bed. “Twenty-five minutes after one.”
“In the afternoon? Jesus Christ. Where are we?”
“In the FEMA bunker at Olney.”
“Who's with us?”
Sedgwick's eyes moved around the room, passing the two nurses and landing on the civil-defense director to whom he had just talked and who now stood at rigid attention a few feet away. The military aide lingered a second, then answered, “Two charming and wise nurses, a radio operator, and a half-dozen technicians—and the Northeast regional director of FEMA.”
“That's it?” the President asked incredulously.
“That's it, sir.”
“Jesus Christ.” All the king's horses and all the king's men . . . He felt dizzy again. “What's the matter with me?”
“You're blind, sir. Your legs are broken.”
“Fuck that, Sedgwick. I know that.” He thought of the nurses. “Pardon the language, ladies. I can't see you so you're not there. What have you got me on? My mind's dancing all over the place.”
“Morphine, Mr. President,” a female voice answered. “Sorry. We thought it was best. Mr. Sedgwick convinced us otherwise.” The nurse looked at Sedgwick and blushed. “Just keep talking, sir, and it'll clear up. You sound pretty clearheaded now.”
The President grumped. “Time to be clearheaded was when I came into this godforsaken job.” He paused. “So how come we're not all dead, Sedgwick? What the hell's going on out there?”
“I'm afraid we don't have a very good fix on it, sir. Communications are shot to hell. Some of it's coming back very slowly. But nobody's been talking to anyone else, as far as we can tell. We're in a helluva mess.”
“Our preliminary data show it could have been much worse,” the director cut in too eagerly. “Most of the targets were military. Collateral damage to civilian populations, of course. A few cities were hit intentionally. But I'd say our fatalities are only about thirty million, surely no more than forty million.”
The President tried to pull himself up in bed. He felt a sharp pang of pain in his legs but continued to grope blindly toward the strange voice. “Who the hell is that?”
“Bascomb, Mr. President,” the man replied. “Director, Northeast region. FEMA. Retired Army. General officer.” He reluctantly added: “Brigadier.”
The President slumped back in his bed, his mind spinning. “No more than forty million . . .” He struggled to look back in the direction of the civil-defense director. “I'd say you lost a couple of divisions, Mr. Director,” the President whispered.
“My point, sir—”
Sedgwick waved the man off. “It's horrible, Mr. President. It's also much more complicated, much more dangerous . . . and probably much worse than the estimated casualty figures.”
“Do we have it turned off?” the President asked hauntedly.
“I don't know, sir. No one down here knows. But it certainly doesn't sound like it. We've got a couple of command planes up. We haven't been able to get through to either of them. We can hear one of them. The Looking Glass plane.”
The President felt his mind wandering again. “So Alice is running the war . . .”
“Snap out of it, sir!” Sedgwick commanded, surprising himself. “I doubt anyone is running the war. If they can't talk, they can't run it. My guess is SIOP's still running the war. And that's bad. Very bad.”
“The fucking computer.”
“The fucking computer programmed all the orders, sir.” Sedgwick hesitated. “You signed off on them. For the ICBM's, the bombers . . . and the submarines. The ICBM's are gone. The bombers ... I don't know. I assume they're gone, but they go in only with confirming orders through the Looking Glass. By someone with National Command Authority. The subs are different. They operate on the reverse principle. They go with the original order unless the order is countermanded.”
“Countermanded? Good God, Sedgwick!” The President bolted upright in his bed again, ignoring the pain from his legs. “Communications are shot? Then we can't countermand anything. We can't talk to them.”
“I don't believe so, Mr. President. Not at the moment.”
The President looked sightlessly into the ceiling. “What about the Soviets, Sedgwick?” he asked quietly. “What are they up to?”
Sedgwick glanced quickly at the civil-defense director. “I'm guessing, sir. From bits and pieces picked up on the radio here. Not too much seems to have happened since the first wave. Their bombers should have been in on top of us by now. We know they held back more than half their ICBM's. They've got some subs left. There is absolutely nothing the Soviets can do about our submarines. I think they're waiting. If our subs go, they'll hit us with everything they've got.” Sedgwick closed his eyes. “I hate to say it, but I suppose that's what I'd do.”
The nurses took a step backward, expressions of fascinated horror on their faces. The director shifted from foot to foot. The only sound in the room was the whir of the giant air purifiers. “When, Sedgwick?” the President asked with terrifying calm. “When are the submarines programmed to go?”
“We left the White House in a helluva hurry, sir.”
“When, Sedgwick?”
“I don't know.” The young naval aide clipped his word
s. He looked at the clock. It read 1830 Zulu. He heaved a great sigh.
“Five minutes? Couple of hours? The only people who know are in the subs. And in the command planes.”
The President slowly raised a hand to his face, causing the I.V. stand to teeter precariously. He rubbed his empty eyes. “How?” he whispered. “How could we create such an ungodly monster?”
Sedgwick sighed again. “There's more, sir.”
“There can't be much more, Sedgwick.” The President's voice was raw with agony now. “Forty million dead? If the rest of those babies go, we'll be lucky if there are forty million alive.” He stared into the blankness. “Very damned lucky.”
“I know that, sir.” Sedgwick resumed slowly. “The Olney radio operator is picking up some traffic. Bits and pieces, as I said. Some from Europe. He received a most peculiar call from the Soviet Union an hour ago. The speaker claimed he was the Soviet Premier.”
“The Premier?” The President's mind was whirling now and he was sure it wasn't the morphine.
The director cut in again. “I talked with him, sir. He wanted us to patch him through to the E-4.”
“The E-4?” The President sounded confused. “What goddamned E-4?”
“I'm sure he was an impostor. Naturally, I refused, as I would have done in any case.”
“Why the hell didn't you let me decide that?”
“You were colder than yesterday's turkey, Mr. President,” Sedgwick interrupted.
“Why the hell didn't he get you?”
Sedgwick lifted his eyebrows, spread his palm toward the director, and let him have the floor. “He wanted the E-4,” the man sputtered.
“Jesus Christ, you two. The goddamned E-4 went with my eyes at Andrews!”
Sedgwick looked levelly at the director. “Are you going to tell him or aren't you?” he demanded. The director shot an angry glance at the much younger man, but he said nothing. “According to the director,” Sedgwick continued bluntly, “an alternate E-4 made it out of Omaha and picked up a presidential successor in Baton Rouge. The man is aboard the E-4 at this time.”
Trinity's Child Page 40
