by Ted Bell
Starting with the president, Dr. Mariano went to each person in the conference room, checking pulses, pupil dilation, and asking a few questions to determine whether or not anyone wanted a mild sedative. No one did.
“What in God’s name happened, Danny?” the president asked.
“Yes, sir, well, we’re still trying to figure that out, both up in the cockpit and with tech support down on the ground. Apparently, the airplane flying Red Three today suffered a catastrophic systems failure.”
“There’s an understatement. Damn thing tried to shoot us down.”
“Yes, sir. The pilot lost all control of his aircraft, Mr. President. The way the skipper put it to the engineers on the ground, he said, ‘the airplane was completely co-opted.’ ”
“Co-opted?”
“Somebody else was flying that airplane, sir. One minute the pilot had control, the next minute, he was riding a drone. His radar went active, he painted us, and then his weapon system armed. That F-15 was seconds away from launching a Sidewinder at us when Red Team Leader took him out, sir.”
“Did that poor boy get out first?”
“No, sir. His ejection seat was inoperable.”
“Thank you, Admiral Mariano; thank you, Danny, appreciate your help. That will be all.”
Once the door had closed, the president said, “I’d say this crisis just escalated, if that isn’t too much of an understatement for you.”
“It’s insane, Mr. President,” Anson Beard, the secretary of defense, said, squeezing his temples with his forefingers. “Just insane.”
“Not an ‘it,’ Anson, but a ‘who.’ Who the hell has amassed this kind of power? Hell, you could bring the whole damn world crashing down with something like this. We’re going to spend the rest of this flight lighting up the secure phones; how many we have on board, twenty-eight or so? I want everyone notified immediately, Defense, NSA, CIA, FBI, the Joint Chiefs, everybody. We got a war on our hands. I’m not so sure we don’t have a world war on our hands.”
Twenty-two
Palo Alto, California
As soon as the funeral service for Dr. Cohen was over, CIA director Brick Kelly approached the president and said he needed to go for a long walk. He had a few hours to kill before Angel was wheels-up again. Her next stop was Los Alamos, for an emergency presidential briefing on the AI research being done there. Los Alamos scientists had been working feverishly to prevent some kind of cyberattack on the facility. It was the lead scientist’s contention that only AI-level intelligence was capable of launching attacks such as were now occurring against the United States.
Prior to that, the president and the secretary would engage in a parlay with the brass at Travis AFB about what was now being referred to as “the Incident.” At Travis, they’d teleconference with the Joint Chiefs and discuss the implications of the near-disastrous attack on Air Force One, coupled with the sinking in the Caribbean.
Besides, Brick thought, the rolling, wooded hills of the cemetery perfectly suited his mood. A cold, wet fog had rolled in from the bay during the service, like an Irish mist. Perfect atmosphere to do some much-needed thinking, he thought, strolling through a garden of chiseled and sculpted stone.
Under the dripping trees, a long line of black cars was beginning to move down the winding lane. The saga of America’s most brilliant scientist was now officially laid to rest. Brick shivered, suddenly very cold, and he wrapped his raincoat tightly around himself.
Cohen was gone. Inexplicable. He’d talked to the man via telephone just a few short weeks ago. Found him brimming with optimism and energy. Telling his same jokes, funny still despite years of repetition. And excited about a recent breakthrough in his AI research. Something, he’d told Brick, that would “change everything.”
His death constituted a huge loss for the American military, defense, and intelligence communities. Brick knew the DOD had been counting on him to make the huge AI advances needed to give the United States a leg up on the warfare of the future. Neo-War, Cohen had called it. Now? In what had become a blinding glimpse of the obvious, the United States had not only failed to surge ahead, but, judging by recent frightening events, they’d clearly fallen woefully behind.
But behind who? That was the question.
He found a stone bench at the base of a great sequoia that was reasonably dry, raised his umbrella against the drip-drip-drip, and sat down. He expelled a sigh that hung in the damp air before his face like a small cloud. The temperature must have dropped twenty degrees since the service. California weather, he remembered it well. But, he reminded himself, he wasn’t here to think about the goddamn weather. He was here to think about the survival of his country.
Brick Kelly was a lanky Virginian, too old to be the “whiz kid” he’d once been in Washington, but still considered relatively young blood around town. As he aged, his reddish hair flecked with grey, he was acquiring a “Jeffersonian” demeanor that suited him well. He was more at home among his books than out “pressing the flesh,” and he’d brought much-needed respect to the once-troubled CIA. He’d worried about how he’d fit with the new president, but he and McCloskey seemed to have meshed seamlessly.
Brick spoke softly and let the president wield the big stick.
These were hard times for everyone in the White House and in government. He couldn’t remember a time in his career when he’d felt so helpless in the face of the country’s many enemies. Now, a faceless, unnamable enemy seemed to have leapfrogged ahead in the ways war worked in the twenty-first century. Hell, in the ways the world worked. If you suddenly possessed the power to seize control of anything, anything, and bend it to your will, then all the warships and warplanes and nuclear warheads were rendered irrelevant. Useless.
How do you fight an enemy like that?
He composed himself, clearing the decks, giving his mind a little breathing room.
There was only one way, and the insight was so obvious Brick almost laughed out loud at his own thickheadedness.
You put your very best and brightest people together and you focused on the who, what, and where. Not to mention the how. Who had this new power? What was this new power and how did it work? And where the hell was it sourced from? Answer those questions correctly and you had a fighting chance of surviving this nightmare to fight another day. Hell, he felt better already.
A small, white-haired woman in black approached tentatively from his right. He’d seen her grieving at the graveside, throwing a spray of flowers onto the lowered casket, her frail, sorrowful shoulders heaving beneath the long black coat, her face a portrait of unbearable loss.
It was Dr. Cohen’s widow.
“May I sit down, Mr. Kelly?”
“Of course, Stella. Let me move over. You used to call me ‘Brick,’ remember?”
“Yes. Brick. That’s right. Thank you so much for coming all this way. You and the president and his wife. It would have meant so much to Waldo. He believed in you all, you know, Washington. Not so keen about some of the gentlemen who’ve passed through the White House of late. But he believed in us, do you know what I mean? All of us together. Americans.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“I’m supposed to be home now, receiving guests bearing casseroles. I just couldn’t do it. I happened to see you sitting over here—I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Of course, not, Stella. I’m glad we have this chance to—”
“He didn’t kill himself, you know.”
“I’m sorry?”
“It wasn’t a suicide, like they’re saying. No, my Waldo was murdered, sure as I’m sitting here.”
“Stella, you don’t—”
“I told this to the local police. They said they’d look into it. But I could see the look on their faces. They think I’m just a crazy old woman who can’t face reality. So when I saw you just sitting up here
all alone on this hill, I thought, well, if there’s anyone in the world who might listen to me, God parked him under that tree.”
“Tell me, Stella. Tell me why you think Waldo was murdered.”
“Oh, I’ve no idea why he was murdered. He didn’t have an enemy in this world. But I do have an idea how he was murdered. That’s why the police think I’m crazy.”
“How? How was your husband murdered?”
“He was . . . hypnotized. Put in some kind of a trance, I don’t know what else to call it. Here, let me show you something.”
She reached into the pocket of her overcoat and withdrew some object, her fingers closed around it tightly so that he couldn’t see what it was.
“Ready?” she said.
“Ready.”
She opened her hand to reveal a stunning piece of jewelry. It was a shimmering golden butterfly, perfect in every detail, perched on her palm. “Watch this,” she said, and gently stroked the folded wingtips. The gossamer wings slowly opened and began to move. And suddenly the butterfly lit off, darting this way and that before heading up into the branches overhead.
Stella closed her hand and put it back into the pocket of her raincoat.
Brick stared up in openmouthed wonder.
“Stella, what on earth?”
“Waldo made that for me. His gift. For our fiftieth wedding anniversary. He gave it to me just after we finished dinner. I cooked his favorite thing. Roast leg of lamb. Beautiful thing, isn’t it?”
“Unbelievable. Stella, it flies . . .”
“That’s Waldo for you. Wouldn’t give a girl just any old ordinary piece of jewelry, now, would he?”
“But—”
“Let me finish my story. It won’t take long. He gave me the butterfly and after dinner we were in the kitchen, doing the dishes together like we always did, talking about our upcoming trip to Capri and how much we loved that island. That’s when the telephone rang in his study. He went in there to take the call. I heard him say hello but heard nothing after that. I got curious and went to check on him. He was just standing there, with the phone to his ear. When he saw me, he hung up and said he was going to walk the dog and for me to go on up to bed. I knew something was wrong. It was in his eyes. The way he spoke. The way he moved. I asked if he was all right and he said, oh, fine, you know. But he wasn’t. I asked him who it was on the phone. He said nobody. Just music. Really beautiful music. Heavenly, he called it. Transcendent, lovelier than Pachelbel’s Canon. And then he went and got his coat from the closet, put Feynman on his leash, and walked out the front door. And he never—he never came back, Brick. He never came back to me.”
He let her weep, putting his arm around her shivering shoulders and pulling her close to him.
Sobbing, she said, “Do you believe me, Brick? Am I just a crazy old woman?”
“I do believe you, Stella. I believe every word you’ve just said. And I will find whoever did this to your husband, I swear to you. No matter what it takes, I’ll find them and try to bring you some peace. It’s the least this country can do after all Waldo did for us.”
Stella withdrew her hand from her pocket once more and held it out, her empty palm up. The golden butterfly appeared, darting down from somewhere in the high branches above and alighted upon her outstretched hand. It settled, folded its wings, and she carefully put it back inside her pocket. She withdrew her hand once more and placed a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.
“What’s this?” Kelly asked.
“Just after I found Waldo’s body, I ran to the lab to call for an ambulance. I found a name he’d scribbled on a notepad by the phone. He noted the time, you’ll see. He wrote 7:47 P.M., just before he came up to dinner. And that equation below has to do with the impossibility of surpassing the speed of light, by the way.”
“Thank you, Stella. It’s a good start.”
“Thank you, Brick,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. “I knew the instant I saw you standing by the grave that they’d sent me the right one.”
She turned and walked away down the hill, a black smudge of watercolor that eventually seeped into the grey mist and disappeared.
He opened the paper. On it a single scrawled word in Cohen’s hand: Darius. And beneath it an equation. Something to do with the speed of light. Brick got to his feet, stretching his long limbs. He knew what he had to do. First things first.
He needed to assemble his team.
Call C at MI6 in London. Get Alex Hawke on this.
At least he now had a name.
Darius.
Twenty-three
U.S. Missile Defense Agency Launch Site, Fort Greely, Alaska
Rain was still falling on the corrugated tin roof of the Red Onion saloon. Lightning flashed on and off, and thunder shook the wooden walls. The streets outside were rivers of mud lit by sulfurous yellow arc lights. The Onion was the only place where a man could get a drink in downtown Camp Greely, population 328, including military personnel, their families, and civilians. Whoever coined the phrase “middle of nowhere” coined it right here in Greely. Try to find it on Google Earth. Seriously. Good luck.
Since he was “going underground” at 0600 tomorrow for a forty-eight-hour tour, Lieutenant Colt Portis was in the mood to drink. Portis was a “push-button warrior.” He had command of a group of U.S. Army personnel whose responsibility it was to defend America from an attack by hostile nations. Specifically, an attack utilizing intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from North Korea, Russia, or China.
The good-looking young army lieutenant pushed his empty beer glass across the battered bar and said to the barkeep, “Only if you’re not too busy, Griz.”
“Never too busy for you, General,” the bearded codger in the filthy white apron told the good-looking young army lieutenant. He snatched up his sudsy glass and pulled another pint. Portis turned to his right and spoke to his watch partner and fellow “Guardian of the North,” namely, anyone manning the ABM, or antiballistic missile, base here at Greely.
“Ready to beat feet, Speed?” he asked his friend.
“What?”
“Vamoose. Amscray. Leave?”
“Hold your horses, okay?”
Art Midge, who hailed from Lower Bottom, Kentucky, had only two gears: slow and slower, thus his base nickname “Speed.” The night they’d met, in this very saloon, Speed had said to him, “Know where Lower Bottom, Kentucky, is?”
“Nope,” Colt had said.
“You don’t?”
“Hell, no.”
“Why, damn, Portis, you ought to. Everybody else does. It’s in a little holler just down the mountain from Upper Bottom.”
“Makes sense,” Colt said, trying not to laugh just in case Speed was being serious.
The rangy youngster was currently busy leaning over the bar, peering deeply into the half-empty bottle of tequila sitting in front of him, as if it held countless untold secrets. Judging by the level of concentration, Portis was half expecting a question on the true meaning of life.
“Why in hell do you s’pose they put a worm inside some brands of tequila anyway? What’s your thought on that?”
“I never thought about it.”
“Well, now I’m asking.”
“Called a gusano down in Mexico, where they eat them all the time. Says it makes your dick hard.”
“Yeah? I wouldn’t eat a worm even if it made my dick bigger.”
“If I were you I’d eat up then, little buddy.”
“You ain’t me.”
“I got lucky, what can I tell you?”
Portis downed a final shot of tequila and chased it with his last gulp of Moose Drool Brown Ale, a local microbrew. He slid off the stool and punched Speed’s bulging shoulder muscle.
“Last call for alcohol, little buddy of mine. Drink up.”
“You�
�re leaving? What the hell, Colt? See that little white T-shirt full of balloons over there in the corner?”
“Yeah. Hard to miss.”
“Girl has her eye on you, stud muffin.”
Portis glanced over his shoulder and winked at the girl. Nothing wrong with winking last time he checked. Maybe he was married with a brand-new set of twins, but, goddarn it, he wasn’t dead yet.
“Margie’s already wondering where I am. She’s got supper on the table ’bout now. I’m outta here, Speed. I’ll see you in the A.M. before we go down in the hole, all right?”
“Two whole days without liquor, sunlight, or women. Damn.”
“It’s an honor to serve, Speed. Don’t ever forget that.”
Midge saw the look on Portis’s face and decided to keep his wisecrack to himself. Colt was a smart guy, Stanford grad, then Caltech before he signed up. Always reading books about the military and American history and shit. The kind of guy who gave the word patriot a good name: an All-American American.
“Give my little Margie a hug for me, buddy, I’ll catch you on the flip side.”
“Later, man.”
The Portis family lived in a small two-story, two-bedroom house in the residential section of the camp. Colt liked it because he could walk to work. Margie’d done a great job making the place feel homey, too. For base housing, it was pretty darn good.
Greely’s residential compound, called the Camp, was spread out around the military section, called the Fort. That meant dogs, armed guards, and concertina wire atop a fifteen-foot wall surrounded his little piece of heaven. Walking up his sidewalk, his umbrella blown sideways by the howling wind and rain, he was cheered by the pale golden glow in the windows of home.
He could see his wife silhouetted in the upstairs window, putting the twins down. His little angels, Merry and Anne. Margie’s mother’s name was Mary Anne and they’d planned to name their brand-new baby daughter after her. Then they up and had two, born on Christmas Eve, hence the “Merry.”
