Or not at home at all, thought Rynard. Never assume, it makes an ass out of you and me. A British man had told him that once. That man was now dead. The Colonel had killed him when the man assumed he would not. "You've made an ass of yourself," Rynard had said, as he pulled the trigger.
"Should we move in?" asked the voice in his ear.
It was Braun. He's an ass too, thought Rynard. "No. We wait until we see him. We wait all night if we have to."
"Yes, sir," said Braun.
The boy's mother was clearly visible in the yellow light of the kitchen. She was washing dishes and staring wistfully out at the rain. She was looking right at them, totally oblivious to their presence. A large mosquito bit into Rynard's forearm, right into his tattoo of a modified Nazi SS symbol. Rynard watched the mosquito fatten with his blood and did not move. This was nothing to him. He'd once crouched for two days in the basement of a latrine, covered with cockroaches and maggots, while awaiting his mark. When the target had finally entered, the man never saw it coming. Despite the victim being over two hundred and fifty pounds, Rynard managed to drag him through the twelve inch toilet hole and suffocate him in sewage. As a result, the body was never found. It was ridiculous and sublime. That was Rynard's favourite kind of kill; the kind where the victim simply vanishes. Murder can be elegant in its own way. Rynard firmly believed that killing was an art form. He'd come to see death as an end in itself. Belly bloated, the tiny bloodsucker flew away. Rynard mentally congratulated the mosquito as being the only creature to draw his blood and live. He glanced back at his tattooed bicep where a welt was already forming. A US Customs official had once stopped him, upon noticing the apparent Nazi insignia on his arm. Rynard pointed out, that it was not a pair of S's, but a pair of dollar signs. Rynard felt no fealty to the Führer, only to the almighty dollar, euro or whatever other currency he was being paid in. The customs official had waved him through; there was no arguing with dollar signs. Rynard wore one other tattoo. It read simply "Anna" in Schaftstiefel Grotesk type. Rynard raised the binoculars again. The target's mother looked tired. She placed the last dish on the rack, turned away from the window and was gone.
The rain began to let up.
"We have the boy, approaching from the main road."
Rynard smiled with satisfaction. "Wait until he's entered the house, then we go."
A minute passed.
"He's inside."
"Go."
Fourteen soldiers materialized out of the wet woods.
* * *
Alex and Gerald stood dripping in the front hall. "Wipe your feet!" shouted his mother from the living room, "and hang up your coat!"
"Sure mom," said Alex. He carefully hung the dripping jacket on the hook. A pool of water instantly formed on the floor below.
"Such a good boy," said Gerald with a sneer.
"I'm sneaking you in aren't I?" said Alex. He'd first checked to make sure his mother was in the other room watching TV before inviting Gerald inside. It was risky, but easier than having him climb over the woodpile outside Alex's window. Still, if his mother caught them, she'd take his internet privileges for sure. "I'd get a Mustang," said Alex, continuing their conversation from before.
"A Mustang?" said Gerald with a snort. "You're such a hick! For that kind of money you get a Porsche."
"Oh..."
"Or maybe a Bugatti."
"Yeah, you're right," said Alex. He had no idea what a Bugatti was, but wasn't about to admit that. At that moment, what looked like an unmarked pop can rolled across the carpet and stopped at his feet. "Ger, what's that?" asked Alex.
"What's what, dickwee—"
The gas grenade exploded with a FOOOM!—filling the room with white smoke. Alex and Gerald gasped and choked before dropping to the floor.
"What the Hell is going on?" said Alex's mother as she stormed into the hall. Claire found herself walking into a cloud of knockout gas, halothane mixed with potassium chlorate and lactose. Claire was lactose intolerant but, really, that was the least of her concerns. Her first thought was that the boys had been playing with fireworks again. She carried this misconception with her all the way to the carpet, where she landed with a thud! There she lay, unable to move but still vaguely conscious. Her anesthetized brain continued to function in a detached, unemotional way. She watched, curious, as a troop of Neo Nazi mercenaries dressed in camouflage gear and gas masks exploded through every window of her home. Two of the soldiers appeared above her. Each held an MP7 suppressor-tipped submachine gun, or 'personal defence weapon' as the NRA preferred to call them. The soldiers gazed down at Alex's mother through mirrored plexiglass face masks. Claire could see herself in the reflections. How embarrassing, she thought, my hair is disaster. Somewhere, in the back of her brain, terror clawed at the lid, trying to get out. The soldiers spoke to one another through their masks. Their voices sounded like garbled announcements from a subway train PA system. Claire wanted to say something they could understand, to bridge the divide. "Mind the gap," she said. The glass faces looked down at her obliquely. Claire's final fleeting thought was how the glass particles from the windows looked like glittering snow on the men's shoulders.
Rynard entered the hallway, wearing a simple rubber gas mask and goggles. He snapped his fingers, pointed to the boys, and flipped his hand. Two mercenaries rolled over the bodies of the unconscious boys. Rynard studied their faces. He then twirled a single finger in the air. The men immediately set about ransacking the small house. Rynard checked the gas meter on his wrist. He lifted his mask, inhaled, held, and remained conscious. "Clear." The men pulled up their own masks, then continued with the task at hand, overturning tables and slashing sofa cushions.
One of the soldiers reached the fireplace and paused to pick up a snow globe sitting on the mantle. Inside was a plastic four leaf clover and the words "Good Luck!" in green celtic script. The soldier shook the sphere and watched, amused, as snow fell inside. Rynard cuffed him on the back of the head and snarled, "Get back to work!" The soldier dropped the glass ball to the floor and scurried to search a nearby closet. The snow globe bounced and rolled to rest at the toe of Rynard's boot. The Colonel saw the inscription and scoffed. He didn't believe in luck. Nor did he believe in fate. He thought that people who said "everything happens for a reason" were idiots. A South African game warden had said it to him while arresting Rynard for smuggling. Moments later, after disarming the warden and turning the gun on him, Rynard repeated the words back to him. "Everything happens for a reason," he said. "In this case, the reason is ten million euros in black rhinoceros horn." He then shot the game warden between the eyes. Rynard smiled at the memory of the look on, what was left of, the man's face. Rynard kicked the snow globe away. He then turned and joined in the search himself. He was never above getting his hands dirty.
* * *
Using a pair of tongs, Charlie picked up the cracked snow globe from beneath a smashed IKEA Söderhamn chair. He peered at the message inside. If we're lucky we'll get some prints off it, he thought. He placed it gingerly into a ziplock evidence bag. "Looks like they beat us to it," said one of the agents.
Charlie peered about the small home. The power was out. The interior was lit in stark relief by the crisscrossed beams of floodlights they'd erected to aid in the search. The cold night air blew freely through the shattered glass windows, billowing the drapes, and scattering loose papers. Outside, the dark woods, wild, harsh, and impenetrable, formed a black mass against an eigengrau sky. Hours ago, this was a cozy family home, he thought, if only for a single mother and her son. The sense of violation was stark—drawers dumped, upholstery torn, lighting fixtures pulled from walls. Charlie shuddered. He also felt disappointment. They were too late. There was no sign of their objective and the only two people who could tell them about it were dead. Charlie considered again the bodies of the mother and her young son. Both had been forced to the floor somehow, then shot between the eyes. There was no sign of struggle. The bullets had passed clean through t
heir skulls and penetrated several inches into the floor. Armour piercing ammunition with no armour to pierce. Charlie rolled the young man's head with his toe and tried to look for a hint of resemblance to his mother. They had nothing in common, other than the new family trait of a bullet hole through the forehead. Red hair, thought Charlie, he must have got it from his father. Everyone said Faith took mostly after her mother, save for her eyes. She'd had Charlie's eyes. Charlie stopped himself from thinking about it. Nobody had his eyes now. "I'm not so sure," said Charlie.
The agent looked at him. Around the house, a small team of CIA operatives picked through the wreckage, gathering any possible clues in ziplock bags. Charlie nervously touched the gun in his pocket. Despite working three years as a field agent, he had never once carried a gun. The agency had no domestic law enforcement mandate—that was FBI or DHS territory. Charlie had tried to suggest bringing in the bureau but Morely, predictably, said no. He'd claimed there was no time, but the reality was that Morely was an agency man, and old habits die hard.
"Whoever did this was a professional," said Charlie, "and there were several of them. It's messy... but methodical. It's also complete. They didn't stop part way through as if they'd found something. So, unless it really was in the last place they looked..." Charlie's iPhone chirped. He peered down to see he'd received a new message on CIM, the CIA's encrypted messaging app. It was a photo of Claire Graham, in her pre bullet-in-the-face days. She looks nice, he thought, like a good mom. He swiped to the next photo. It was of Claire with her arm around her son Alex. Alex looks a lot like his mother after all, he thought, but nothing like the boy on the floor. He glanced at Gerald Allen, with his red hair, hazel eyes and tomato soup seeping from the hole in his forehead. Nope, thought Charlie, nothing at all.
Chapter 5
"Do I really sound like that?" – R. M. Nixon
The President of the United States sat at the head of the White House Situation Room table. Also present were; Jim Hornswell, Chief of Staff; General Frank Troy, Head of Armed Services; several other advisors and security staff. Teleconferenced in on the big screen was CIA Director, Robert Morely who, on direct orders of the President, had left his chewing tobacco at home. Instead, the director was chomping furiously on a piece of nicotine gum.
"Indestructible?" asked the President, skeptically.
"Yes sir, but I assure you; we have our very best people on it."
"Like who?" asked Jim.
"Charles Draper. Good man."
"Never heard of him."
"Yes, well, with all due respect, sir, do you know any of our senior staff?"
The Commander-in-Chief waved this off. "What about nuclear weapons? Can't we just blow it to Hell? As a preemptive last resort, of course." The President was still not buying this 'indestructible' nonsense.
"No sir, definitely not. Once opened, it cannot be stopped."
"Sounds like a Senate Inquiry," laughed one of the staffers. His smirk vanished when no one else joined in.
"Even controlled nukes?" asked the President.
Morely, who was used to working with politicians, responded as if the question made perfect sense. "No, sir."
"What about uncontrolled?"
"An uncontrolled nuclear strike? We hadn't actually considered that, but... no. Honestly, any use of nuclear weapons could actually make the problem worse." He resisted the urge to ask the Commander-in-Chief if even knew what these terms meant.
"Damn," said the President. Deflated, he took a sip from his coffee. The nuclear option was the one trump card a President was always supposed to have at his disposal. Finding out it was useless was like playing four aces at poker, only to be beaten by four monkeys. "I mean what the hell are four monkeys?" demanded the President.
"I'm sorry sir?"
"What? Oh, nothing. I just... I just never saw a problem a nuclear weapon couldn't fix," he muttered ruefully. "Okay then, it looks like this going to require some out-of-the-box thinking."
A murmur of agreement went around the table.
"Well, those are your orders, people," said the President of the United States.
Those in the room looked at each other, searching for someone among themselves who knew what this meant. Frequently they didn't understand what the President was saying. They simply played along, knowing that, most of the time, it didn't matter anyway. A former staffer once compared meetings with the President to watching a David Lynch movie. It looked like it meant something, but maybe it didn't. Either way, you sure as hell couldn't admit you didn't know or you risked looking like a fool. In Washington, being a fool was fine, looking like a fool was not. This time, however, there was no faking it—someone had to actually do something. "I'm sorry, what are our orders, sir?" asked a junior staffer. While secretly grateful that someone had spoken up, the others glared at him with contempt. The young man suddenly felt like someone who'd inadvertently volunteered to be a participant in an ebola vaccine trial control group.
"You heard the President, think out of the box!" roared General Troy. "You need him to zip up your fly for you too, soldier?"
"Um... I'm not a soldier," said the young staffer, thus ensuring that this was the last time he'd ever be invited to The Situation Room.
The General sneered, "And you never will be."
The President rose to his feet, buttoning his jacket as he did. "Report back to me when you have answers," he said. The others stood accordingly and remained so until the President and his Chief of Staff had left the room.
* * *
The President entered the Oval Office feeling irritated. He then proceeded to pace back and fourth as he attempted to grapple with a problem unlike he, or any president, had ever faced. He remembered what a life coach, and former lover, had once told him years before. The word for "crisis" in Chinese, she said, was a combination of the words "danger" and "opportunity". The President pondered how the danger part was always apparent, while the opportunity part was often elusive. He also thought about how the English word "brunch" was also a combination of two words, "breakfast" and "lunch". The President of the United States then realized he was hungry. He pressed the intercom. "Judy? Send in some grilled cheese sandwiches."
"Yes sir. Any particular type of cheese?"
"The best, of course—American."
"Yes, sir!"
The President turned to his Chief of Staff, who had been standing by patiently. "Now, where were we?"
"You were ordering sandwiches."
"Before that."
"Averting Armageddon?"
"Yes, exactly." The President walked behind his desk, placed his hands on the back of his chair and hung his head. Jim was used to this pose. The President did it when he considered serious policy decisions, when he prayed, and when preparing to break wind. Sometimes he did all three at the same time. "I just don't get it," the President confessed. He and Jim went way back. Jim had helped him run for governor. His Chief of Staff was one of the few people he could be completely honest with.
"What? Oh the weapons? Well, nuclear weapons are a wonderful thing, no one's saying they're not, but—"
"No, no, no! I mean, why is this happening to me? Why is it happening during my term? It's not fair."
"You're right, sir. It's not fair for anybody."
The President began to pace again. "What I want to know is, how did it even get out? And how did anyone know what it was? None of us seemed to know what it was."
"Well, we're not sure, sir. I mean it was the Cold War... it was top secret... it was embarrassing when it was lost... Perhaps they figured it was gone for good, and hoped and prayed it would never be found? Swept it under the rug, as it were."
"But it's the most dangerous weapon ever devised!"
"Well, yes, in theory. It's never actually been tested. Look, Mr. President, they probably figured no one knew it existed, so no one would look for it. No harm, no foul."
"Someone knew it existed!" snapped the President.
"Yes, Mr. Pres
ident, apparently so," Jim agreed, "but, you know, this could work out well for us. I mean, you can take command and look 'Presidential'. Don't change horses in midstream and all that. It could help us win a second term."
The President stopped pacing and considered this. After a moment, he began to nod, slowly at first, then with enthusiasm. "You're right! It could define my legacy."
"Indeed, sir."
"Assuming we actually avert Armageddon..."
"Well, either way, really—but yes."
The Commander-in-Chief resumed his pacing, this time with growing excitement. Suddenly, the President's eyes lit up and he began waving his arms as if directing planes at an airport. "I've just had a... a... what's the word? Starts with an 'R'...
"Revelation?"
"No, no. Rrr... rrrrr..."
"Realization?"
"Rrrr..."
"Recognition?"
"No, no, no," The President thought hard for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Epiphany!"
"My next guess."
"I've had an epiphany. This is no accident."
"It isn't?"
"No. This... this is why God made me President. This was what I was chosen for!"
The Chief of Staff hesitated. The President was a man of faith and that faith had been a guiding light for many of the choices he'd made, first as governor, then as a presidential candidate. Jim, on the other hand, put his faith in poll numbers and back room deals. Still, years of working together had told him when to step back and let the President's authenticity shine through. The people sensed the sincerity of his faith and so far it had never failed them. "Perhaps you're right, sir," said Jim, nodding his head in agreement. "Lets run with that."
"This is about Judgement Day, and I don't mean the next election."
"Alleluia, Mr. President."
"Hallelujah, Jim."
Chapter 6
"Will you accept this rose?" – Henry VIII
The Sunny Side Motor Inn was one of those ignorable roadside motels whose primary clientele were people who had misjudged how far they would get that day. It was near nothing, had no particular appeal, and rarely had more than two or three cars in the lot. Today, however, was a banner day at this unremarkable lodging. For the first time since the World Pog Convention was held there in 1992, there was a 'No Vacancy' sign hanging out front and tired travellers would simply have to drive on. Normally, this would be something to celebrate for the owner and manager of the Sunny Side Motor Inn, Donald Crane. Don, however, was spending the day stuffed inside the motel ice machine, turning blue.
Chaos Theory: A Feel Good Story About the End of the World Page 5