Violent Peace: The War With China: Aftermath of Armageddon

by David Poyer

  * * *

  FOUR hours later he stood panting amid blasted and twisted cars in the Archipelago parking lot, looking up. The immense circular building had been smashed and torched. He caught the carbonized whiff of burning and char even through the charcoal filters of the mask. And mixed with it, disquieting and ominous smells of rotting flesh.

  Nan had been developing a flu drug for Archipelago. That much she’d told him on their infrequent phone calls during the war. The main research campus, here in Seattle, had been within the blast radius of the southern burst. The firefighters who’d given him a lift here had told him he wouldn’t find much. That everyone would be either evacked or dead. But Nan had once mentioned the name of her team leader.

  A Dr. Anton Lukajs, who’d apparently relocated to a satellite facility in Yakima.

  And, fortunately, the fire truck could patch its radio into an operational landline back at the station.

  “Yes, Doctor Lenson worked for me,” an ancient, quavery, Middle European–accented voice informed him. “She is your daughter? I too have one. A daughter. In Albania.”

  Dan pushed the mask higher on his face. He could risk a few minutes’ exposure. He said into the phone, “Is she with you? Do you know where she is?”

  “I have not seen her since I left Albania. She was working for the government there, and then afterward I heard—”

  Dan clutched his head. “No. Sorry. I meant my daughter, sir. Doctor Nan Lenson. When did you see her last?”

  “Oh. The disaster. You are the hero, right? The naval officer?”

  “Right now I’m just Nan Lenson’s dad. Please … can you tell me anything? Where is she? When was the last time you saw her?”

  “No, no, she is not here. A very competent researcher, though she had independent ideas. She and some of the younger faculty had their doubts about security of formulary information. I had to agree with them, they had a good point—”

  Dan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. The guy was old, he’d been through a lot. He said again, mastering his impatience, “I’m sorry, Doctor, but I only have a few minutes to use this line. Can you tell me the last time you saw Nan Lenson, and where that was?”

  “When did I see her? Just before the attack. At the campus. But … wait a moment. Yes. I remember. A woman who was in the bunker with her came to Yakima with us,” the quavering regretful voice muttered. “She said Doctor Lenson left just before the first warhead hit.”

  Dan fought a sinking feeling. “She left the bunker, you mean? Before the burst? Why in hell would she—”

  “Well, perhaps not. Just before, or just during—she was not sure. Just that she, Doctor Lenson, your daughter, yes, forced the shelter manager to open the door, and left. Saying she had something important to do.”

  Dan nodded grimly, as if that could encourage the guy to remember. “Something important. Okay. What could that have been, sir? Where would she have gone, to check on something so important she’d leave a bomb shelter during an alert?”

  “Well, that I do not know. My guess is that it had to do with Qwent.”

  “Qwent. And that is—?”

  Lukajs explained that Qwent, or perhaps he was saying Quant, had a pharmaceutical plant not far from Lake Washington. Manufacture of the new drug had been subcontracted to them. Nan had been in charge of overseeing that effort, both hitting the production milestones and maintaining quality control. “They had just finished the first production run. Preliminary bulk production. She went there every day to check on it. It may be she felt she must find out if it was protected, or had survived the blast. She was very much involved. Very concerned the compound, it is called LJL, would be properly manufactured, properly packaged. Since Qwent also manufactured a pesticide at the same factory, you know. She was—she is—a good girl. I mean, a good scientist. You are her father? I should tell you that.”

  “Thank you.” Okay, he had to admit that sounded like her, to put her project ahead of her own safety. “But you, or this woman from the shelter, never heard from her after that. After she left the bunker.”

  “No one. Not a word. I am sorry, Admiral.”

  Dan wondered how he knew his rank, then realized Nan must have told him. For some obscure reason, this buoyed him up a little. She’d been proud of him. Just as he had been so very proud of her.

  He thanked the old man quietly, and signed off.

  * * *

  THE Qwent facility, the pharmaceutical plant, lay at the top of a modest crest, looking out over the lake. He could see, now, where all the soot-stained rain was coming from. Beyond the water, which was like a pool of ink dotted with patches of floating ash, the city was still burning. A heavy smoke shrouded its broken remains. Small twisted forms lay scattered along the lake’s near shore. After a moment he recognized them as ducks, or maybe geese.

  The hand-laid brickwork told him the shell of this building was old. Converted from some earlier industrial structure, an old factory, probably. Now it was all just twisted wreckage. Shattered rubble—bricks, pieces of gray mortar, glass, twisted iron beams—littered the ground outside a chain-link fence. Looters had already been at work; broken computers and the spilled guts of process equipment, more glass, stainless tubing, wrecked motors, the debris lay scattered across the grass, which still showed signs of flash scorching, although a few fresh, pale green shoots were pushing through. A corkscrewed-off section of metal roof, complete with blasted and wrecked solar panels, lay canted across the chain link.

  He skirted it to a gap and walked up to the building, following the whine of chain saws and yelling voices.

  A crew in face masks, rubber boots, and heavy gloves, but without protective suits, was digging at one corner of the building. Dan couldn’t see why and didn’t care. When he trudged up, one of the men halted and looked at him quizzically. Dan lifted his mask. “Where’s your supervisor?”

  “See Jimmy,” the guy said, and pointed.

  Dan found Jimmy, who wore a green-and-yellow shirt with Qwent embroidered on the breast pocket, and asked his questions. To his surprise, the super nodded. He lifted his mask and palmed sweat from his face. “Sure. I seen her. Long dark hair, young, Archipelago tag? White coat? Yeah, she was here.”

  “You mean, the day of the attack? Before or after the hit?”

  The supervisor nodded. “On C Day, but after the burst. Definitely after. We were still getting the building evacuated, computers and process equipment loaded on trucks. She came in with a motorcycle gang.”

  Dan furrowed his brow, not sure he’d heard that right. “A … motorcycle gang?”

  “Yeah. The Berzerkers. I recognized their colors. No idea how she picked those dudes up. Not a bunch you want to get in their face, know what I mean? But she seemed tight with them. They had their guns on Heremy, he’s the manager? Or was—he hasn’t been back since. I heard ’em arguing. He didn’t want to let the shipment go. She persuaded him otherwise. With them pointing rifles at him.”

  “Hm,” Dan muttered. Not sure what to make of what he was hearing.

  “Next thing we know, she’s hijacked a reefer truck. You know, a refrigerator truck? And they forced us to load up all million doses. Then they all took off. The Berzerkers, her, the truck, everybody.

  “And I ain’t seen them since.” He looked Dan’s uniform up and down. “Where’d you serve?”

  “Navy. Taiwan Strait, central Pacific, then the invasion of China.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s it like there?”

  “A disaster,” Dan said. “Famine. Disease. Fallout. We hit them hard.”

  Jimmy gazed out over the ruins of the city. “As bad as here?”

  “At least. In fact, probably a lot worse.”

  “Good,” the guy said, satisfaction clear in his voice. “Serve the fucking slants right. I hope they all died screaming. Thanks for your service.”

  Dan digested this in silence, he too looking out to the north, over the ruins of what had once been Seattle. Now it was
a plain of radioactive rubble. Still smoking, still burning, though it had been days since the strikes. Just miles of level destruction, stretching away until it was lost to the eye in a dark reddish haze, through which the sun shone like a distant ruby. There had to be thousands of bodies down there still. Charred. Buried. Burned.

  He looked back at the lake, blinking sweat from his eyes. Now he understood. The dark lumps floating on its far side weren’t clumps of ash. Or, not just ash. He hadn’t been able to see them well through the blurred, fogged, single-element lens of the mask.

  They were bodies. Corpses. Floating on the lake they’d taken refuge in, when the searing heat had become too hellish to withstand. Cooked like chickens on a grill. But still alive, while they roasted.

  He shook his head, and tore his fugitive mind back as Jimmy held out a bottle of water. Dan poured some into his hand, washed his face, drank two swallows, and handed it back. He wanted more, but drinkable water seemed to be in short supply. “Thanks. Thanks a lot. Where do you think they might’ve been headed?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. We just wanted them out of here before the wind changed and brought that fucking plume back over us. Or before that mob decided to start shooting. We were all in shock. Half the people on the line that day … God, it was bad. And they kept walking past, from the city. Burned, blinded, arms missing, carrying dead kids, their skin hanging off them … they’d just stop, looking at nothing, if they still had eyes … then fall down dead.” He swallowed. “We cleaned up most of the bodies, put them on the trucks, but they were layin’ all over the grass here.”

  Dan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Yeah, I can imagine.”

  “My best guess … your daughter … maybe they’d head inland. You know, east? Maybe toward Yakima? Seems like I heard one of them mention that.”

  Yakima, where Dr. Lukajs was. Where Archipelago had relocated to. But Lukajs had said Nan wasn’t there.

  But her team leader hadn’t exactly come across as on top of things, and there might be enough confusion that she could be there and her boss didn’t know it. A possibility, anyway. But how was he going to get to Yakima? He was turning away again when the guy said, “You got transportation?”

  “Uh—no.” This would be a problem. He had no car, and from everything he’d heard, gasoline was scarce and all the public charging stations for EVs had gone down in the Cloudburst. Bus, train? They’d be packed, if they still ran. He could maybe pull rank and get aboard, but even as he thought it, knew he wouldn’t.

  Plus, if she wasn’t in Yakima, he might need to follow her trail somewhere else. Nan, and this … gang … had apparently showed up here to get the drug. He still hadn’t figured that partnership out. Unless this Jimmy was feeding him some kind of bizarre confabulation.

  The supervisor was walking away, back toward the building. He called over his shoulder, “Well, hey … it may not be what you want. But one of the guys, he left this here.”

  Dan followed him around the corner, and halted.

  It lay canted against a dumpster. Scorched on one side, and dented, probably by the bricks that lay scattered around it. But by some miracle, the gas tank hadn’t exploded.

  He contemplated a battered black Honda Gold Wing. The windshield was cracked. Deep scuff marks along the side showed where it had been laid down, maybe several times. Or maybe that was from the bricks and debris kicked up by the shock wave.

  Jimmy reached into the leather saddlebag and came up with a key. When he turned it the headlight came on, though not very brightly. A hollow click evidenced signs of life in the battery, though not enough charge to turn the starter over.

  Nan had left with a motorcycle gang. Was this the way to find her, to literally follow in her tracks?

  Magical thinking? Maybe. But if this was a straw, he was ready to grasp at it. At the very least, today he’d learned one shining, intoxicating fact. She’d been alive. Alive and kicking, making things happen, after the attack.

  Which lifted an immense weight from his heart, though a sickening anxiety remained.

  “This is yours, Jimmy?” Dan asked the guy. “This bike?”

  “Mine? No. A guy left it last year, after they laid him off. Said I could sell it if I wanted to. But the market’s been kind of … anyway, I never got any takers. So if you want it, I’ll let ’er go. Cheap.”

  Dan didn’t have much cash. A skimpy roll of the new-issue, tissue-paper-thin hundred-dollar bills. If you needed something out in the war zone, either the Navy supplied it or you did without. He had most of his pay socked away, a nice chunk of change by now, but no way to access it. And if he did what he was contemplating, he’d need every dollar left in his wallet.

  At last he slipped off his Academy ring. Over an ounce of massive fourteen-carat gold. It had accompanied him for thirty years. Gone around the world, accumulated dents and dings from ships and subs and planes. He valued it, sure. But a ring could be replaced, while Nan …

  He held it out, the carved facets of his class crest glittering in the dull reddish sunlight. “How about this?”

  “Whoa. I can’t take that from … is that gold?” Sudden avarice glittered in the man’s eyes. Yeah, that age-old shiny yellow metal never lost its appeal. The worse things got, the more valuable it became.

  “Give me your full name and I’ll buy it back later. So, no worries. And if you never hear from me again, well, then, it’s yours. Deal?”

  Jimmy hefted the ring in his palm. “Uh … sure. If that’s really how you want to do it.”

  “Deal, then.”

  Suddenly enthusiastic, Jimmy rushed about, helping him siphon fuel from a wrecked car. Dan checked the oil on the bike. The level seemed adequate, though it was dirty, obviously overdue for a change. The other workers gathered around, interested. They jumpered the bike into a hesitant grumble. One man checked his tires and pronounced them “Worn, but okay if ya don’t push it in the rain.” Another briefed him on how to change gears. A third sketched out directions to Yakima. Yet another broke out a sandwich and handed half of it over. “For the road,” he said.

  Dan was gifted bottled water, a ragged blanket, a rusty multitool, a small tarp. He thanked them, and stuffed it all into the saddlebags. Sailing a small boat taught you one thing: it was better to have a thing and not need it, than to need it and not have it. They all agreed Yakima was only 150, 160 miles away. One tank would probably get him there. “Down Route 90, then head across the mountains. Keep Mount Rainier on your right,” Jimmy said. “And you can ask along the way if anybody’s seen a shitload of Berzerkers convoying a reefer truck. That’d be hard to miss.”

  “And watch for zombies and cannibals,” another worker added.

  Dan shook hands all around, zipped his jacket, and climbed aboard. No helmet, but considering this was the long-awaited Nuclear Apocalypse, he wasn’t going to worry about a lid. He blipped the throttle experimentally, put it in first, and let up cautiously on the clutch. The bike jerked forward and stalled. He got off, kick-started it again, and climbed back on. He wobbled around the building, nearly running into a toppled section of fence, but straightened out on the scorched grass and headed down the hill.

  Second gear … third.

  But as he rode, gradually pushing up his speed as he got used to the machine, the heartsickness returned. Why had anyone ever thought war solved anything? It only traded old dilemmas for new, far more terrible problems.

  Someone needed to pay. For that dead girl-child. For the men and women who’d died beside him, out in the far Pacific. For this murdered city, through whose abandoned, smashed, radioactive streets he slowly rode.

  But who could bring charges, assign blame, pass judgment, hand down punishment? He could think of only one court, at least on this earth.

  But if the US wouldn’t submit to its jurisdiction, neither would the Chinese.

  The ICC inquiry … Maybe he should respond. Offer himself, as a sacrifice to justice. Whether or not the administration thought it was
a good idea.

  He shook his head angrily. That could wait for later. For now, he’d better concentrate on what he was doing.

  At first the asphalt pavement was buckled, warped, melted in the higher spots, the hills, where the heat from the fireball had struck most directly. But as he rolled south, gradually picking up speed, buildings no longer slumped across the pavement like toppled giants. Fewer wrecks littered the road. Wires no longer trailed across his path, and power poles and lampposts and sometimes even road signs still stood. The sky brightened as the smoking city fell behind. The mingled stenches of burning and death grew fainter, though those of uncollected garbage remained, giving off a rank, vegetable rot, and here and there his wheels splashed through backed-up sewage.

  But town after town he rolled through lay deserted. Storefronts were shuttered, or their plate glass lay sparkling on the sidewalks. No one was out on the streets. The roads stretched empty, the gas stations and recharge stations dark, the traffic lights unlit. He didn’t even see any birds or stray dogs. Hadn’t there been a dog in every movie about the apocalypse?

  His disquiet grew. What had happened to the country? He’d been away so long. Years, in fact. Things had changed. Even beyond the impact of a nuclear war.

  He hesitated. Steered around a wrecked and abandoned cop car, its windows smashed out, its interior still smoldering tendrils of plasticky-smelling white smoke. Then inhaled, deep, and gunned the throttle as clear highway opened ahead.

  A reluctant pilgrim, he set out to cross a ruined land.

  3

  USS Savo Island Wakkanai Bay, Japan

  THE enemy missiles kept coming, rapidly emptying Savo’s defensive magazines. Until at last the fatal zeros glowed on the ordnance tally readouts. Yet the cuing note bonged on and on, while Chief Terranova screamed at her from her console. And the missiles climbed. Pitched over. Headed straight for America …