The hospital was only four blocks away. All he had to do was get that far. He felt his consciousness fading as he moved ahead in lurches, past one block, two, three. He could see it. The entrance to the emergency room lay one block ahead, its white fluorescent light seeming to be at the end of a long tunnel.
He pushed the gas pedal with his foot. It seemed so heavy, he could hardly control it, and the car picked up speed. His hands were weak now, so weak that he couldn’t hold on to the steering wheel. So close. So close. The car turned, from the open street into the grille of a storefront. The window held dark gray men’s suits, mannequins lit even this late at night.
He noticed the car wasn’t moving anymore, even though he could hear the roar of acceleration. As his mind faded, he thought he could hear voices of men screaming something that sounded like “hell, hell, hell.”
Chapter 55
June 16
Langley
Buck Chapman left the live feed of reporting from Liberty Island streaming on his computer. Hostages were now being ferried off the island, and the dead were being arranged in rows of black body bags. He listened to the news as he read reports coming in from both civilian news agencies and blogs and official secret channels within the US government.
In the outer office, people were still crowded around the TV. Others were at their workstations, probably doing the same thing as Chapman. He was startled by the vibration of Smith’s phone in his inner breast pocket.
He picked up the call and held the phone to his ear.
“Hello?”
“Is this Philip Chapman?” It was a woman with an English accent.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “How did you get this number?”
“I’m calling on behalf of a Mr. Smith. He—I think he’s injured.”
“What happened to him?”
“It’s complicated. Listen! I have a message for you. It’s from Smith. There’s going to be a terrorist attack. They—tonate an EM—”
“I’m sorry, you’re breaking up,” he hollered. “Repeat that.”
“—M—P!”
“Did you say EMP?”
“Yes!” The call was suddenly clear. “An EMP is going to be detonated tonight over DC! It’s meant to take down Air Force One!”
Chapman’s heart sank. “When?”
“Soon!” she exclaimed. “The plane is already in the air!”
“Dear God. Is there anything else?”
“No! Are you someone who can do something about that?” she asked. “Because maybe you should see to that now.”
He felt a surge of adrenaline and hung up the phone. “Cyn!” he yelled out. “Cyn, in here, now!”
She ran to his door, breathless and alarmed. “What is going on, Buck?”
“An EMP device is going to detonate over DC. Spread the word. The primary target is the Air Force One and the President, but we need to get the word out to as many people as possible. Enlist everyone here to make calls. Get in touch with FEMA first. They have emergency protocols in place. Then call every other government agency you can, starting with Homeland Security. I’ll take care of warning the President.”
“But how do you—”
“Cyn, now. Oh, and tell them to use speakerphone and take their cell phones out of their pockets. No one should be holding any electronic equipment when the blast hits. Spread the word.”
She turned to the office and banged on the wall for attention. “I’m going to need everyone’s attention here!”
Chapman turned his attention to making the most important call of that day.
Chapter 56
June 16
New York State
Morgan waited, crouched behind the Jeep in Weinberg’s cargo plane, as the Airbus Beluga got off the ground. He held the straps on the right side of the plane against the g-force of takeoff, hoping that the Jeep would not skid and crush him—although the vehicle was secured to hooks on the airplane’s fuselage.
He didn’t have much time to make his move. Soon enough, Weinberg’s men would get up and move around. He counted six of them, and their semiautomatics were close by, hanging from the side of the plane near the seats. At least one was bound to have a handgun on him. Plus, gunfire in an airplane was never a good idea, although the option of bringing down the plane would always be there as a last resort.
He looked around at the other cargo. There were some boxes that might have contained weapons, but Morgan couldn’t reach them without exposing himself. On the ground was a box of heavy duty buckled canvas straps, like the ones that were holding the Jeep in place. Emergency flotation devices and military-grade parachutes lined about ten feet of the floor across from the Jeep.
In the middle of the cargo hold, on the conveyor belt that led to the ramp in the back, was the EMP device. It was painted a dark, purplish blue to blend in with the night sky. It consisted of a sturdy metal frame about the size of a refrigerator with an ovoid shape suspended inside—the device itself, with what seemed to be a thick enough protective metal shell to make it impervious to bullets. It had a control panel with an LCD display on the side and a large flat box on top that had some kind of opening mechanism. Morgan surmised that it was a parachute to keep the device aloft as the airplane put some distance between itself and the blast.
The Jeep that had been loaded into the plane was outfitted for military use, which meant it probably contained a box in the back. Morgan raised his head just enough over the spare tire to confirm that it was there. Then, slowly, gingerly, he opened the latch and lifted the lid. Jackpot. Inside were two M16s and a row of magazines.
He looked at the men, but their heads were obscured by the seats. He reached over the back of the Jeep and pulled out one of the rifles, then two magazines. As he did, he caught the glint of something moving side to side—the key to the Jeep was in the ignition. He took another magazine and crouched behind the Jeep again. He loaded one magazine into the M16 and slipped the other into the waist of his pants in the back. The third he left on the floor, safely ensconced between two slats.
Morgan felt the forces shift—the plane was leveling off, ending its ascent. He could hear the men speaking, though he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He peeked around the Jeep and saw that two of the men standing. It was time for action.
Morgan picked up the spare magazine and leapt onto the Jeep. He turned the key in the ignition, put the car into gear, and put the magazine on the accelerator. The straps still holding on tight to the vehicle, the motor roared furiously and the tires skidded on the floor.
All six of the men heard this. Those who were sitting down stood up to look backward with fear on their faces, while those already standing lunged for their guns. Not fast enough. Morgan bounded off the back of the Jeep and released the buckles on both safety straps. The car charged forward, the curve of the airplane turning it toward the center of the cargo hold. It missed the EMP by several feet and hit the seats head-on, plowing through them and stopping against the cockpit door, its still rotating tires raised off the floor by the debris.
Two of the men were caught in the seats when the Jeep hit, and two had managed to dodge to each side. The plane rocked upon the impact of the Jeep, and everyone was sent sprawling. Morgan tumbled forward, crashing against one of the men on the right front corner of the cargo hold.
In the chaos, Morgan saw that the man who had cushioned his fall had a Glock semi tucked into a hip holster. Morgan pulled it out and fired the first bullet into that man’s gut, then two into the torso of the other man who had fallen just a few feet away. On the other side of the Jeep were another man and Anse Fleischer.
Morgan stood up and ran around the Jeep and the debris of the seats, but the tumble had left him dazed. He fell forward and rolled onto his side. He pushed himself into a standing position and, a little more carefully, made his way around the Jeep. He saw the other soldier first, struggling to get up, and fired. His aim was not as good as usual—the first three bullets were embedded harmles
sly into the fuselage. The last hit home on the man’s neck.
Morgan barely saw the hulking shape of Anse Fleischer barreling toward him and tackling him backward toward the EMP device. Morgan lost his grip on the Glock and smashed backward into the floor of the plane, with his own weight combined with Fleischer’s. The meaty white left hand came down hard with two punches to Morgan’s temple. Morgan grabbed for anything too use as a weapon, and his hands closed on a jagged and pointed piece of metal from the mangled seats. He thrust the makeshift knife just as Fleischer’s fist came for another punch, and the metal plunged deep into the German’s hand. The man bellowed.
Morgan held tight as Fleischer jerked away, and the shard came free in Morgan’s hand. Fleischer had pulled his torso away instinctively, giving Morgan the opening to stab the jagged metal into his abdomen and push it up into his rib cage, trying to drive it through his heart. Morgan evidently missed, and Fleischer emitted a gurgling scream.
The giant got up. He lifted Morgan clear off the ground and shoved him hard against the floor. Morgan blacked out. When he came to, he saw Fleischer kneeling by the EMP device, operating the LCD panel with his still-intact right hand. He was obviously weakened, his fingers shaking, his breathing ragged.
Morgan staggered toward him. His mind was clear enough to know that he couldn’t kill Fleischer if he wanted any hope of disarming the EMP. His eyes fell on the security straps, which were now strewn all over the floor. He picked one up, then grabbed Fleischer’s right hand. Fleischer was too weakened to shake Morgan off. Morgan secured his hand to the EMP’s armature, then took his mangled left hand and did the same.
“You’re stuck,” said Morgan.
“It’s armed,” Fleischer said, and smiled with reddened teeth. Blood oozed from his lips to the floor. Morgan looked at the display on the EMP device. It was counting down from seven and a half minutes. He tried pressing a “cancel” button on the touchscreen, and it prompted him for a six-digit code.
“Disarm it!” cried out Morgan.
Fleischer laughed.
“You’re tied to it!” yelled Morgan. “If it goes off, you die!”
“I am already dead!” Fleischer exclaimed.
“Tell me how to disarm the bomb! Give me the code!”
“You can’t stop it,” he said. “The EMP will detonate, and there is nothing you can do!”
“You have the opportunity to do one last good thing!” Morgan roared. “Of not dying a mass murderer!”
“I die serving the Weinberg name!” he said in ragged, gasping breaths. He spat out a wad of blood, but he was so weak that it dribbled off his lips and down his chin. His head lolled on his shoulders, and he slumped against the EMP device.
Morgan tried to input random codes, and only got as far as three when the keyboard locked and wouldn’t allow him to try any more. He tried to remove the panel from the frame, but it was welded in place, and all the wires ran through the steel armature. He looked around for some way to destroy the device. Bullets wouldn’t do it, explosives would just set it off.
This thing was going to be triggered, no matter what he did.
He looked back at the Jeep, which trapped the pilot in the cockpit. There was nothing Morgan could do for him, either.
Morgan stumbled to the left side of the cargo hold, which held the parachutes. He took one down and hit the button to open the back ramp as he strapped himself into the pack. A crack of blackness appeared, widening, a powerful gust of wind enveloping Morgan’s bruised and aching body. As soon as the opening was large enough, he jumped off the back into emptiness. He let himself fall, getting as far away from the plane as possible.
Morgan felt the shock wave first, almost hot enough to melt his skin, and the hairs on his body stood on end with static electricity. Below, all the lights went out for miles, as far as the eye could see, all the way to the brightly lit cluster of DC itself. He pulled the ripcord and felt the violent upward tug as the parachute deployed. He looked up at the airplane, high above him already, and saw it sputter in the moonlight and fall out of the sky.
Chapter 57
June 16
Langley
Chapman made his first call to the Secret Service. The top priority had to be to save the President, if possible.
He, along with everyone else in the office, contacted government agencies, then radio and TV stations, then airports and then hospitals. Once the most urgent calls had been made, they all took the time to call their families. Rose was brave and resourceful, as usual. She was frightened, but she kept her head and took his instructions down.
Chapman was on the speakerphone with a head nurse at an ICU when the blast hit. The phone flashed blue, along with every other piece of electronic equipment in his line of sight. He heard screams and the sound of shuffling in the outer office. Within seconds, candles were lit—some people had evidently been prepared.
Chapman sat back in his chair. As the adrenaline subsided, the full fatigue, stress, and horror of the past day set in. He heard people crying in the outer office. He slumped off his chair to the floor and leaned against his desk. He focused on steady breathing as a way of keeping from falling apart.
He heard a delicate knock on his door, but he didn’t have the energy to respond. The door creaked open and light footsteps came around his desk. The shadow of Cynthia Gillespie loomed before him.
“Buck,” she said in a voice that tried to be comforting but ended up sounding fragile. She lowered herself until she was sitting on the floor with him.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
He nodded, as a way of saying, so am I.
“I need you close,” she said. He moved over so that she could sit next to him, her back against his desk. He took her hand in his. She shifted her body so that she could face him. In the darkness, he could see her eyes, wide and frightened. She kissed him.
“Don’t say no,” she whispered into his ear. “I need this right now.”
“I won’t,” he whispered back, and kissed her, getting lost in her warm, soft lips.
Chapter 58
June 16
Kunar Province, Afghanistan
The sun was high in the sky. Sergeant Dwayne Davenport looked out the window of his Humvee into the mountainous, rocky terrain of the Kunar province of Afghanistan. It was a routine patrol, filled with both boredom and dread, typical of the war, which had bursts of violence interspersed with long stretches of absolutely nothing.
Looking into the distance, he thought he could see—no, it definitely was a person, a man, dressed in rags, running and motioning to them.
“Stop the car!”
He took out the binoculars and stood up through the sunroof. He looked at the man. There was something strange about him, something Davenport couldn’t quite place.
“Identify yourself!” Davenport called out, then said the same in Pashto and Dari, the two major languages of Afghanistan. The man was too far away to hear, but continued to run toward them.
“Just shoot him!” cried out Flowers, the newest member of their squad. Davenport didn’t want to, not yet. He was nervous, too. A patrol being approached could always mean an attack, and other un-friendlies could be hidden around them. Davenport scanned the area with the binoculars. If this was an ambush, he caught no sign of it. He yelled out to the man again. No response.
The man did seem to be yelling something that Davenport couldn’t catch. He was closer now, too close for comfort. Davenport took aim, and at that moment heard what the man was saying.
“Help me! Help me, please!”
In English.
“What are you waiting for? Shoot him!” yelled out Flowers.
“Shut up!” said Davenport.
The man approached the vehicle, then dropped to his knees in exhaustion. With a weak but firm voice, he intoned:
“My name is Lee Erwin Wolfe. I’m the Secretary of State of the United States of America. For God’s sake, please get me out of here.”
Chapte
r 59
June 16
Boston
“DC is dead,” said Shepard, reading from his computer. “No power anywhere in the city.”
“Then it happened,” Diana Bloch whispered. She sat down on the bed of the suite at the Mandarin. She could only stare at the wall in horror. “Do we have estimates for casualties?”
“We’d need to figure out how many planes were airborne within the blast radius of the device,” Karen O’Neal said. “There could have been twenty, thirty even more. That’s going to be the lion’s share of the deaths. Next is people hooked on some kind of life support, pacemakers. There would be accidents from cars’ electronics going haywire.” She spoke quickly. “And we don’t actually know how big a surge is going to flow through certain electronic equipment—whether a person holding a cell phone against their ear would be electrocuted, for instance. And what about people stuck in vehicles like cars or elevators or—”
“Okay,” Bloch cut her off. “That’s enough, Karen. Let’s all calm down.”
“My sister lives in DC. She has a husband and a son. I can’t call them to know that they’re okay and—”
“Stop,” said Bloch. “As soon as we get communication, we’ll do whatever we can to contact them.”
“Do you think the president was on Air Force One when the EMP went off?” asked Spartan. She was slumped over the desk, fighting back tears.
“No clue,” said Shepard. “All my goddamn connections to DC have been severed.” He banged his fist on the hardwood desk, scowled in pain, and then clutched it protectively.
“But someone was warning the public,” said Spartan. “It was on TV, on the radio, on the Internet. . . . Someone managed to warn a lot of people. Maybe the President got away, too.”
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