by Pam Funke
Fifteen minutes later, Mary looked around but did not see Karin. She wondered where she had gone and if she were okay. Worried, she set off to look for her.
CHAPTER one hundred and forty-four
Before the destruction of Washington
Ninety minutes ago, complete chaos had broken out at the Pentagon as well as at the White House. This can’t be happening again was going through everyone’s minds. This was reminiscent of the events of 9/11, but at the same time, it was ten times worse. At least then some people had survived, but this time, it had completely wiped out all of New York City. How are we going to recover from this? The President of the United States ordered an emergency staff meeting.
“Please tell me we know what happened, that we know who is responsible for this,” President Avery said pacing the room.
“I’m afraid not, Sir. We do know this much, it appears to be just like the attacks on Israel,” Michael Wade said.
Oh my God. We have to quarantine the area now. Workers died when they tried to work on the bomb zones in Israel. I cannot allow anyone to enter New York City. We’ll have to wait until it’s safe to get any answers. How can I reassure the American people? President Avery stopped, “Are you telling me that New York City was attacked with those same kinds of missiles?” he asked concerned.
“Yes, Sir. It appears that way. We have quarantined the area plus an additional 20 mile radius outside of the perimeter. We have not allowed anyone into the area because if it is like Israel then anyone who goes into the area will contract some kind of horrible disease and die within hours of contracting it. We are looking to send in robots similar to the bomb bots to gather intelligence for us,” said Mario Vasquez, Secretary of State.
It is just as I feared. President Avery sat down, “What am I supposed to tell the American people?” he sighed despondently.
He folded his hands in thought. Everyone in the room sat quietly watching the President. President Avery finally looked up, “How do we stop this from happening again?”
He was almost afraid of the answer. This was the question on everyone’s mind.
“How can we stop something we cannot even see on the radar? How can we fight a ghost?” President Avery asked.
Michael Wade looked solemn, “I’m afraid that we can’t Sir. We are unable to stop this from happening again. We can only hope and pray that it doesn’t.”
President Avery slammed his fists down on the table. This is not good, not good at all.
“Sir, I think now would be a good time to move you and the first family to safety,” Mario Vasquez said.
“I agree,” Michael Wade said.
“Alright, but first I am going to address the nation. I need to comfort and assure the American people.”
“But Sir, your safety and the safety of your family come first. You can address the nation from a safer location,” Mario Vasquez said.
President Avery just smiled. “Mario, thank you for your concern for our safety. I really appreciate it, but it is my duty to this country that I do this now. Go and gather my family for transport. I will join you after I have addressed the nation.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Mario Vasquez got up and laid his hand on the President’s shoulder. “May God be with you, my friend,” he said before turning and leaving the room.
“Michael, please make the call to all of our military bases using the hotline and put them on DEFCON1. Next, alert the Pentagon to the status and have them evacuate. Then call the police chief and the mayor and order a mandatory evacuation of the Washington DC area,” President Avery commanded.
Michael Wade moved to the red phone and placed the calls. President Avery got up and walked to the small sanctuary inside of the White House. He needed a moment alone with God before he addressed the nation. He fell on his knees before the altar; his heart extremely heavy.
“Father God, please give me the strength to get through this. Give the American people the strength to be able to deal with this. Comfort your people oh Lord for You alone know the pain and suffering this is going to bring. Please protect my family and friends as we prepare to evacuate. If it is your will that we do not survive this, then please welcome my family and me into your loving arms. Protect this wonderful country, Lord. I know this country has gone astray, but I ask you to forgive us and have mercy on us. Bring this country back to You as only You know how. Please give me the words to say in my speech to the nation. Thank you, Lord, for all you have given me. I ask all these things in your loving Son, Jesus’ name. Amen,” President Avery prayed out loud.
Michael Wade stood quietly in the doorway. It always uplifted him to see the President praying for others. He waited patiently for the President to finish before addressing him.
“Sir, they are waiting for you in the press room. Secret service already has your family; they are packing as we speak. As soon as you are done addressing the nation, we will join them on Air Force One.”
President Avery nodded. He walked quietly for a moment then turned to Michael and stopped. “Do you believe in God, Michael?” President Avery asked.
“Sir?”
“I asked you if you believed in God, Michael. It’s not a hard question. A simple yes or no will do.”
“I am not sure sir. I believe there is a higher power out there, but I don’t really know if there is a god. I haven’t really given it much thought sir.”
President Avery shook his head sadly. “Don’t you think that now is as good a time as any to make up your mind? We are not promised tomorrow you know. What if you were to die right now and find out that you were wrong?” President Avery said.
They walked quietly the rest of the way to the press room. Michael thought about what the President had said.
Approximately fifty reporters were waiting with their camera crews. The room was abuzz with chatter as everyone wondered what the big press conference was about.
“Why the urgency?” they wondered.
No one knew about New York City yet as it had just happened within the last half hour. President Avery walked calmly to the front of the room. He raised his hands in a gesture to quiet the room and to alert them that he was ready to begin. Each reporter gave their little speech to announce the President’s address to the nation before they quietly turned their attention to President Avery.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the United States, I stand before you not as your President, but as a fellow American. It is with my sincerest sympathy that I tell you this. Our nation was attacked less than an hour ago. Two missiles have destroyed New York City with no known survivors at this time. We are doing everything in our power to find out who has done this dreadful deed and we are working even harder to prevent this from happening again. Upon finding the terrorists who have invoked this horrible, cowardly attack upon this nation we will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. They will pay dearly for their crime. It would be better for them if they had never been born.
I am gravely saddened by the loss of so many American lives as I am sure that each of you are. But this is not the time for anger; it is the time for our country to come together as a family. We need to comfort one another, to support one another and to pray for one another. This great nation was founded on God and to God we as a nation need to turn. We have allowed our mediocre lives to come first instead of keeping God first. We need to rectify that problem today. I pray for the salvation of not only this great country, but for the salvation of each and every American’s soul. May God be with us,” President Avery said with passion. He then turned to step away from the podium.
CHAPTER one hundred and forty-five
Things were just as hectic in the Pentagon as they were in the White House, if not even more so. Everyone was running back and forth doing their various jobs as intelligence was steadily coming in about the attack on New York City. Joshua Blake, the head of military intelligence was busy studying the computer monitors.
“Hey Joey, bring up that attack on Isra
el on the third monitor, please. There is something oddly familiar here,” Joshua Blake said.
Joey quickly searched the database then pulled up what Joshua was looking for. They stood there staring at the three screens. They all appeared to be identical; it was almost as though they were watching the same video feed on three different screens except they were each to a different target. They watched the clips then re-watched them. Joshua was frustrated. It was impossible to tell where they had come from. It was almost as though they had been designed to give invalid trajectory readings. How strange this is. Joey suddenly had an idea. He changed the speed of the video down so they could watch it frame by frame.
“What did you see, Joey? Anything?” Joshua inquired. He thought maybe that was the reason for the frame by frame viewing.
“No, I did not see anything yet. I just thought maybe we would find a clue this way,” Joey said.
Amante Stewart came running into the room. She was hysterical and near tears.
“What is it?” Joshua asked.
“You’ve got to see this. The President was just on the television addressing the nation about New York City and now look,” Amante said.
The television screen just showed a snowy picture, much like when television stations used to go off the air at night; every channel was currently like that.
“Something’s not right,” Joey said. “Come on.” He hurried out of the room.
Joey, Joshua, and Amante hurried to the door that faced the White House and went outside. There was a loud explosion as the missile struck with precision. They saw the White House burst into flames as the missile struck. The President, first family and the rest of the White House staff were now gone. Joey, Joshua, and Amante were horrified and afraid. A moment later, the second missile struck and they were no more. They never saw the frames blinking on the computer screens. On each window was a frame of the missile and the symbol on each was identical.
CHAPTER one hundred and forty-six
Missile five was minutes away from its target. By now the people of the world were extremely terrified. There had been four missile attacks this past week alone on top of all the violence already in the world. People were afraid; they were hiding in their homes afraid to go outside.
Missiles five and six struck their targets. The people of Bogotá never knew what hit them. It was late in the night and most of the people had gone to bed. All over the world, people had been glued to their television sets, appalled by the horrible events of the day. “When will this madness end?” they wondered.
****
Out on the streets of Beijing, China, Mei Ling, age 9, was walking home for lunch with her little brother Wei, age 5. Wei enjoyed this time with his big sister; she would always play games with him on the way home. He thought Mei was the world’s best sister. Although Mei adored her little brother, she sometimes felt overburdened with him. It was not easy having a little brother who was blind. She had to do so much for him that it left little time for her to enjoy anything else. She didn’t always want him to tag along with her and her friends. Their mother was a single-parent as their father had died three years prior. Mei knew she had to help out especially since their mother worked so hard just trying to make ends meet.
Mei was describing the scenery to Wei as they walked home. They made a game out of it. She would describe something and he would have to guess what it was.
“New object. This one is black, white and blue. It is soft and warm to the touch, but if you make too much noise it will be gone. What is it?” Mei asked.
Wei thought about it. “Hmmmm. Is it an animal of some kind?” Wei asked.
“Perhaps.”
“Is it large or small?”
“Small.”
“Is it a cat?”
Mei laughed hysterically as she pictured a cat fitting that description. Wei certainly had a vivid imagination. Wei looked confused. What was so funny?
“You are so silly, Wei. Cats don’t come in those colors, but it was a really good guess. Guess again.”
“Give me another hint.”
They were almost home now. Wei could smell the donuts baking from the donut shop a block away from their home. He hoped they would stop there on their way back to school. He loved those donuts.
“It can learn to talk just like us,” Mei replied.
“Now, who’s being silly?”
“Wei, I am being serious. It can learn to talk. Do you give up?”
“Wait. Don’t tell me yet.”
Mei took her little brother’s hand as they waited to cross the street. She could see him thinking pretty hard about the answer.
“Mei, what’s that noise?”
“What noise, Wei?”
“It’s a kind of whistling sound like mom’s tea pot.”
He looked afraid. Mei looked all around them, but did not see anything unusual; just the normal things they saw every day. Vehicles and bicycles were driving down the street, people walking hurriedly to their destinations, the construction guys working on the building across the street. Nope, nothing new or strange that she could see. Yet her brother was afraid of something.
“What does it sound like Wei?”
“It’s a high pitched whistling sound and it’s getting closer like it’s moving. It’s coming from there,” Wei replied turning and pointing towards the sky.
Mei looked to where he was pointing; she did not see anything at first, but as she watched she saw something shiny in the sunlight. It was the wrong shape for an airplane. She did not know what it was, however, her instincts told her to run and get off of the street. She quickly grabbed hold of her brother tightly.
“Let’s go,” she said firmly starting to run and pulling him along with her.
“It’s something bad isn’t it?” Wei asked afraid.
“I don’t know, but I think that it is. Now come on, we need to get home.”
People stopped briefly wondering why the two children were suddenly running down the sidewalk. They looked afraid.
“Is something wrong?” a woman asked trying to stop them.
Mei nodded yes and pointed towards the sky as they continued to run. The woman turned to peer at what the little girl had been pointing at. She tilted her head sideways trying to get a better look.
“What in the world is that?” she asked no one in particular.
Others looked to see what she was staring at. The missile continued to get closer and closer. Suddenly someone realized what it was.
“Oh my god, everyone run. Run now!” the man yelled turning and running after the children. People were running in all directions trying to get away.
Mei turned back for a moment to see what all the screaming was about and was nearly knocked down by the man running by. She looked at the thing in the sky and knew they would never make it home. She pulled her brother close to her. She hugged him and kissed him on the forehead. Wei sensing something was terribly wrong did not bother to wipe the kiss away or pull out of the embrace; instead, he hugged his sister earnestly.
“What’s the answer?” Wei asked.
“Huh? What Wei?”
“The game, what was the answer?”
Mei smiled at her brother’s attempt to cheer her up. “It’s a magpie, sweetie. Just a magpie.”
“I love you, Mei. You’re the best sister ever.” Wei smiled.
“I love you too, Wei.”
The missile struck its target wiping out half of Beijing—a minute later missile eight struck wiping out most of those who were left.
CHAPTER one hundred and forty-seven
The group watched each missile’s streaming video as they approached their targets and found their marks. Emotions were high in the situation room as each of their excitement grew. All that is, except Richard. With each missile strike, his heart became heavier and heavier. He still had no idea what God wanted him to do here. All Richard wanted to do was to run away and hide from all this evil. Besides, he was worried about Halle. He had not ha
d a chance to call her. He didn’t even know if she were still alive, especially since Washington DC had been one of the recent targets. How foolish he had been; he had not realized what he’d had with Halle until now. He vowed to make it up to her if he ever got the chance to.
Rosalind was pleased with the events so far. She could not wait until Nicolaitanes returned. She’d thought he would be happy with the way she had handled things while he was gone. She was also curious as to what he had found to be much more important than this project.
General Ludlow was feeling very nervous and queasy. He had just participated in the annihilation of so many people—not to mention he just attacked his own country. He knew now that he could not do this anymore. The guilt was unbearable.
Grant was close to losing it. This was just too much. Charlie and Katy are lucky. They got out while they could. “That’s what I need to do,” Grant mumbled.
General Ludlow looked at Grant curiously; sweat was pouring from his brow. Grant looked up as he sensed the General watching him. They looked into each other’s eyes then turned away without saying a word. General Ludlow looks afraid. Grant looked back at the televisions, he wasn’t sure how much more of this that he could stomach.