Critical Mass

by Whitley Strieber

  “Let it run,” Webb countered. “Let the energy dissipate now or it’ll be worse later.”

  “No.” A voice from the back, tiny with unease. Polly. Fitz sought his daughter with his eyes. She looked back at him from as if from another dimension, her gaze resplendent with the unquenchable hope of youth, her mother’s proud lips, determined, supremely confident that her dad was the great man she believed him to be.

  “Here are my decisions,” he said. “I am federalizing the National Guard in every state except Nevada, under provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2007. I am declaring that a state of martial law exists in the United States, and I am ordering the armed forces to DEFCON 1, with the specification that nuclear weapons must be mounted and armed at once. I am further commanding that any aircraft without specific military authorization found in flight in the United States, day or night, are to be shot down without warning. I am closing the borders, and please inform the Mexican and Canadian embassies that anyone crossing will be shot on sight until further notice, with regrets; I’m sure they’ll understand.” He stopped.

  There was silence. He knew why. All of the above was expected. It was another order that they were waiting to hear.

  He looked again from face to face. Briefly his wife’s eyes touched his. He went on. His daughter’s pleaded. Brave girl—until a month ago she’d been working at an AIDS mission in Botswana. She knew all too well the suffering of the third world and therefore the agony that Dream Angel would cause.

  “Very well,” he said. “Now listen. I am going to communicate to the vice president that it is my recommendation that Dream Angel be enacted if Washington, D.C., is destroyed. Is that understood?”

  Polly shook her head back and forth, back and forth, so hard that the only sound in the room was that of her hair swishing. Her face had gone bright red. He could see tears flying.

  Then they all erupted. “Mr. President!” “Fitz!” “Sir!” All of them, their voices furious.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Not be a damn coward!” General Mandell blurted.

  “That’s out of line, General.” Fitz knew that there could be a coup. He knew that the entire government could fly apart on this morning like an overwound spring.

  Mandell saluted him. “Sorry, Sir.”

  “What I am looking at is threats that originated in Finland and Japan. Not in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia, not in Pakistan.” He took a deep breath. “And I am looking at something else.” He glanced toward Logan. “That I cannot discuss, even in this room.

  “What I can say is this. Power—world power—is gone from our hands. While we’ve been listening in on the pillow talk of the princes, the little guy has come up from the kitchen and stolen the damn silverware.”

  “Mr. President, that’s defeatism.”

  “Shut your mouth, Ryland. You’re a damn fool! Fifty years ago, we had divisions to fight against. Waves of Chinese soldiers to cut down in Korea, columns of tanks to blow up. Then came Vietnam, and that was a little different. A sort of army that came and went in the shadows. Then 9/11 and Iraq, and we were fighting ragtag Bedouins, disorganized and sparse on the ground, but far more effective than the Vietcong. But now where are we? Warfare has gone from divisions to individuals to . . . nobody. The virtual state. So you expect me to kill ten percent of the world’s population—just to be sure we don’t miss?”

  Now the chorus of complaints rose to a roar, and there was menace in it. He saw bulging eyes. He saw spit in the shouting throats.

  “Hear me out!”

  They fell silent.

  “If we carry out Dream Angel, and afterward we are still under nuclear threat, as I am sure we will be, we might have to surrender—”

  There was an explosion of voices. He held up his hands. Sought them with his eyes. He regained control of the room . . . barely.

  “Face this. It’s reality. What if they do another city, and then tell us they have more, and will do worse? What we do then is surrender. And that can happen after we execute Dream Angel.”

  “You’re talking about Western civilization,” Polly said, the youth in her voice almost taking Fitz’s breath away. “We can’t surrender.”

  But they could, if they were beaten, and he knew it. They would have to. “If we execute Dream Angel and we destroy all those countries, and we miss the leaders of this thing, then they could end up in control anyway. They will punish our people terribly for our actions. We’ll be marked as a nation of war criminals, cursed for a thousand years.”

  Fitz had seen many men break, and they broke all in the same way. There was a stillness; then the shoulders dropped, then the head. He saw his secretary of defense break. “Trust my decision, Mike.”

  Ryland looked at him. Looked him up and down. Fitz had brought him in because he was hard. A tough, brilliant man with a history in the military, in business.

  “You are saying that we’ve lost.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “Fitz, we need to retaliate.”

  Fitz put his hand on Ryland’s shoulder. “I want you to say to me, ‘We need to kill two hundred million people.’ You say that.”

  “We need to kill these terrorists!”

  “Who? Who in hell do you mean?” He glared toward the intelligence chiefs, who stood together near the door, as if they wanted to escape. “With all your equipment, all those damned listening devices, all those brilliant agents, you can’t tell me a thing. You know when Assad jacks off or Putin blows his nose, so who is this Mahdi? Where is he?”

  “Sir—”

  “We’ve thrown away billions watching the embassies and the palaces. And what do we have? Not one damn thing!”

  Millie gestured from the doorway to her office. The media was ready.

  “We’re done here,” he said.

  Logan said, “Your speechwriters—”

  Fitz turned to his loyal chief of staff. Tried a smile. Didn’t work. “They can’t help me,” he said. “I’m alone now.”

  As he left the room, he felt as if he carried a weight of stones. Polly came to him. “Daddy, we’re so proud of you.”

  Anger suddenly came up in him, deep, raw, helpless. “Get out of Washington,” he rasped.

  She stepped back, her face flushing, her dry lips opening with surprise.

  He turned, took her in his arms. “You’re so young,” he said. “So very young.”

  As he passed along the corridor, flanked by Marines in full battle dress, preceded by two and followed by three, he gave the order to release the communication that had been received from the so-called Mahdi. In five minutes, Fitz would speak. Now, however, on TV screens, on websites, read over the radio, slapped into newspaper extras, the words of the only man who had ever come close to conquering the world were seen for the first time.

  And not one intelligence service anywhere on the planet knew his true identity.

  Or no, that wasn’t quite true. One knew. It knew him well.

  17

  BLUE SKIES OF HELL

  Ressman had successfully landed Jim in Piedras Negras. Jim had done what he had to do there, then crossed the Rio Grande in some shallows and made his way to Kenneally’s little love nest. Jim had been watching the mobile home for an hour. From inside he could hear the president’s voice on the television, could catch a few words. It was seven twenty in the morning now, full light. He hung back in a grove of twisted mesquite trees, moving as little as possible in order to take advantage of the dark trunks as camouflage.

  He knew the contents of the terrorist website. He’d heard it read on the car radio. Everybody on the planet, he assumed, was aware of it by now. Whether the president embraced Islam or not, Jim thought that Washington would be destroyed, probably at midnight tonight. He knew all too well how hard it was to prevent such an attack once the bomb was in place.

  They would try to interdict this, of course—even now, Homeland Security operatives were doubtless moving through the
city with radiation detectors, filling its streets and skies with surveillance mechanisms, watching every detail of desperate life as the place unraveled. God help Nabby. He could only hope she had made it to her dispersal point.

  He moved closer to the double-wide. Thankfully, there were no children. He didn’t know if he could do this with children present. It was now seven thirty. His target was moving about inside, so he was probably on an eight-to-four. He would leave in about ten minutes.

  Carefully Jim pressed his ear against the wall of the trailer. A female voice, high, quick, full of sobs. Him then, lower, quieter, an edge of tension that suggested a possible vulnerability to Jim.

  He went along the gray wall, staying below the line of the windows. He reached the screened back door, grasped the handle. He saw that the door was spring-loaded and would make a distinctive creaking sound as it was opened. There was no way to surprise them; they were going to know that he was coming in.

  He took a breath, deep. He was going to have to face a gun. He was going to have to terrorize people and hurt them, maybe kill them. He thought of the towering cloud and the dead, and pulled the door open.

  The moment the springs creaked, there came a challenging male voice: “Hey!”

  Jim stepped in, finding himself in a kitchen—green linoleum, a countertop range crowded with four small burners, a narrow fridge. The window above the sink looked out on a black Tahoe. The room, the whole trailer, was thick with cigarette smoke. From the living room a parrot chattered above the droning, mournful voice of Anderson Cooper on CNN.

  “Who are you?”

  Jim smiled at Kenneally. “A ghost. That’s why you couldn’t kill me. Who’s your contact?”

  “Get out.”

  “No can do. Who paid you?”

  The wife called out, “Arthur, who is that?”

  Arthur Kenneally was big, hulking even. Like some big men, he could move quickly—too quickly. But Jim was also quick. He stepped past Arthur and into the living room, where a handsome woman of perhaps twenty-eight sat in the dark watching the television. She had a large cross in her hands.

  He reached down and closed his fist around the lace collar of her nightgown and dragged her to her feet.

  Her eyes widened; her body flopped, a fish dragged to the surface. She would scream, but not just yet. He swung her around and slammed her against the fake wood wall beside the door. The whole trailer shook; the wall snapped; she cried out.

  “Who paid you, Arthur?”

  “Freeze!” He pointed a pistol at Jim.

  Foolish move. Jim needed a gun. He wheeled, putting Mrs. Arthur between himself and his adversary. “She can die; it’s okay by me.”

  “Arthur!”

  “Who paid him, love?” Jim threw her against Arthur, who stumbled back into the kitchen, his gun flailing.

  It was a Colt .45, U.S. Army issue, heavy and hard to handle. Probably Arthur’s daddy’s gun. Customs and Borders weren’t issued weapons like this. Jim saw the two pounds of pistol shaking, its muzzle wobbly. Using a quick, accurate step, he raised his foot and connected with the man’s wrist. The pistol hopped, then flew from the man’s flopping hand.

  With a crash, it slammed into the ceiling. Jim hurled Arthur’s woman into his face and caught the weapon as it fell. “New rules,” Jim said.

  They lay in a heap, both now in shock, Arthur still believing that he was going to be able to control a situation that was far from his ability to handle.

  Jim grabbed a fistful of collar and dragged Arthur to his feet. “Who paid you?”

  “What?”

  Carefully restraining himself, Jim pistol-whipped him.

  Arthur slammed into the wall. In the living room, the parrot began screaming.

  Now Jim got the woman to her knees. So pretty, the face tiny and delicate, the skin almost translucent.

  He jammed the gun into her mouth, shoving hard enough to make her gag, jerking it so that there would be blood for Arthur to see. Then Jim pulled it out and threw her on top of Arthur. “Who paid you, Art?”

  “Get out,” the woman shrieked, blood flying from her mouth. “Get out!”

  Jim took her by the hair and dragged her into the living room. As Arthur came to his feet, Jim waved the gun at him. “I excite easily,” Jim said. “It’s a fault.” He pressed her face against the television. “Arthur did this. Las Vegas is burning and Arthur is personally responsible. Arthur will be executed, and if you don’t tell me everything you know right now, you’ll take a needle, too.”

  Jim drew her away from the television and threw her onto the couch. When she hit, she cried out.

  “I had nothing to do with this!”

  “Don’t even try, Arthur.”

  “But—what? What did I do?”

  “Removed the ASPs from Bridge One. Who was out there in the brasada with you, Arthur? Who was in command?”

  “Arthur, what is this? What is this man saying?”

  “What I am saying is that your husband took out a major U.S. city, goddamn it! He killed a million people!”

  “Arthur?”

  “Shut up!”

  Jim felt a fiery pain in his back, and realized that she had pulled a knob off a cabinet and gouged him with the screw in its base.

  Roaring, Arthur pushed toward Jim. His aggression told Jim that he understood that something was wanted from him and therefore that the gun was only a prop.

  Jim stepped aside with a dancer’s ease, and Arthur crashed into the kitchen table, bending its aluminum legs and causing it to slide to the floor.

  Now the woman leaped on Jim’s back. He ducked forward, twisted his arms behind him until he could find purchase in her clothing, then hurled her forward and out into the living room, where she fell hard against the birdcage, releasing the terrified parrot, which flew out screaming, his green plumage gay in the clutter of the wrecked space. As he fluttered around and around the swaying ceiling light, his shadow made the walls dance and the woman screamed and screamed, cringing on the floor.

  Arthur came back and found out that the gun was not quite a prop when it slammed into the side of his head, knocking him into the stove.

  Jim leaped on Arthur and pinned him. “You tell me or I will turn on this burner in three seconds.” An otherworldly calm had descended on Jim, as it always did in these situations. Afterward, he knew, he would turn into a knotted mass of agony, his throat burning with acid, his guts sour with bile. But now, he was moving in his zone of balance.

  He turned on the burner, which was under the back of Arthur’s neck. As Jim expected, the whole body lurched, the face turned purple, the eyes bulged, and spitting, orange flames came out around Arthur’s head, making him look for a moment like a crazed saint.

  In Arthur’s howl Jim heard the tone of assent, and he turned off the burner. As Arthur chewed, his face bright with grimace, Jim drew well back. Arthur’s vomit was white froth. “Egg Beaters for breakfast,” Jim said. “Good idea. You oughtta stop smoking, too.”

  Jim yanked Arthur up off the range. His burnt hair added a nauseating stench to the fetor that already filled the house. Now a new smell—piss. Arthur’s sphincter was releasing. “Now, Arthur, tell me.”

  “It was an order!”

  “From?”

  “Channels. An ordinary order. And we’d gotten them before, when that system was first being deployed, and it turned out not to work.”

  “The order is filed?”

  His wife began screaming again. Jim turned toward her. “Shut up,” he said. She didn’t. “What’s her name, Arthur?”

  “Gloria!”

  “Gloria, if you don’t settle down, I have to kill Arthur.”

  As Jim dragged Arthur back into the living room, she gobbled the next scream. Jim tossed the big man onto the couch, then picked Gloria up and threw her down beside him.

  “Now, let’s all understand each other. I am here for two reasons. First, Arthur destroyed or disabled the advanced spectroscopic portal radiation mon
itors on Bridge One, which enabled Mr. Emilio Vasquez to smuggle at least one atomic bomb into this country, which was detonated at midnight over Las Vegas. And Arthur tried to kill me when I found out.” He smiled at Arthur. “So let’s see if we can get past that bullshit about you following orders. Unless somebody ordered you to come after me. Who might that have been?”

  Gloria’s face contorted so much she took on the appearance, almost, of something not human. Jim was reminded of ancient busts of Medusa. It was terror so great it appeared as rage. He knew it, he’d seen it before, and it shamed him to know that he was responsible for such suffering—but not enough to make him stop.