Day of the Delphi

by Jon Land

  By the time Blaine had finished his tale, leaving out mention of the Delphi’s nuclear stockpile for the time being, the President had sunk into the chair. His shoulders all but disappeared into its high back. His features paled. His lower lip was trembling.

  “You say that Carlisle furnished you with the names of those who were part of this Delphi when he disappeared,” he raised when McCracken had at last finished.

  Blaine’s response was to pull a 3.5-inch floppy disk from his pocket. “Some of which would have later left on the same terms he did. Since his information stops at 1980, others listed will be dead, and undoubtedly there’ll be a number of names missing.”

  “Like Samuel Jackson Dodd’s, no doubt. What about the when and how? Did Carlisle have any notion about that?”

  “No, but Tom Daniels did,” Blaine told him, recalling Daniels’s final plea to him in Rock Creek Park. “Six or seven days from now.”

  The President’s face paled. “Of course.”

  “Sir?”

  “One week from tonight I’m scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on my new strategy for economic revitalization.”

  “The entire leadership of the nation together at the same time … Lambs to the slaughter, sir.”

  The President gripped the arms of his chair. “And instead of those actually responsible, the Midnight Riders will be blamed.”

  “In an apparent revolution,” Blaine picked up, “that will leave the military no choice but to assume control.”

  “Only until they can circumvent the Constitution to call for a special presidential election.”

  “Which Dodd has positioned himself to win. But he’s not going to be elected president, sir, he’s going to be elected savior. And the people will accept anything he and the Delphi force upon them.”

  The President’s face regained its color. He shook his head deliberately. “No, in spite of everything, I still don’t buy all of this. I don’t care how deep the Delphi’s reach into government extends, they’ve misjudged the country’s reaction. They’ll never get away with this.”

  McCracken was suddenly struck by something he’d forgotten, one of the last words spoken by Tom Daniels.

  “Mr. President, what is Prometheus?”

  What little color remained in the President’s face drained out instantly. His eyes grew frightened. He rose and walked stiffly to the room’s bar. He started to pour himself a glass of water from a pitcher and then changed his mind. He spoke without looking directly back at McCracken.

  “Prometheus is a national version of the emergency broadcast system. A communications network built to endure even the severest electromagnetic pulse in space and provide reliable communication in the event of the unthinkable.”

  “Sounds like an unnecessary extravagance in this era.”

  “But we have no idea what the future might bring, do we? The system was on the verge of completion when I took office. But I made sure the public and Congress thought it had been abandoned, another multi-billion-dollar albatross that didn’t work.” The President stopped and looked back at Blaine. “In actuality it couldn’t have worked better. I renamed it Prometheus. Besides you, there aren’t five other people in this country who know of it by that name.”

  “Tom Daniels knew.”

  “And by connection the Delphi. Only—”

  “How does Prometheus work?” Blaine interrupted.

  “Satellite relays with dozens of redundant systems along with the most advanced software and hardware ever put into orbit,” the President answered, watching McCracken nod his head. “What I’ve just said doesn’t seem to surprise you. Why?”

  “Dodd Industries, sir. Check the contractors. That’s where they’ll all lead back to.”

  “Even so,” the President followed, “Prometheus’ existence would only facilitate strategic communications. How could that possibly aid the Delphi’s plan?”

  “Look, sir,” Blaine answered, moving toward him, “I don’t know a down-link from an up-link. But I do know that everything with communications today comes down to satellite relays. Big machines talking to each other. Without an electromagnetic pulse to spoil the mix, Dodd links Prometheus up with standard orbiting broadcast satellites and replaces their signal. Like magic, the Delphi take over the airwaves to facilitate the taking of control by the military. And thus Dodd.”

  “The country left with no choice but to listen.” The President regarded McCracken quizzically. “Wait, there’s something you’re not telling me, something you’re holding back.”

  “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure until this moment. But now the rest of their plan makes perfect sense.”

  “Rest of their plan? Good Lord, what more could there be?”

  “In a nutshell, sir, the Delphi is presently one of the major nuclear powers on the face of the planet.”

  The President’s face sagged and he headed slowly back to his chair.

  “Miravo Air Force Base,” Blaine continued.

  “Retasked to dismantle short-range nuclear artillery shells.”

  “No, retasked to allow a number of the warheads to be smuggled off the base and stockpiled.”

  The President sat down. “Five other bases have been retasked as well. Can we assume the same holds true for them?”

  “I think the enemy we’re facing got all of what they needed from Miravo. But their salvaged stockpile isn’t going to be used inside our borders.”

  “Where, then?”

  Blaine took a deep breath. “I started down this trail in the wrong direction, sir. It wasn’t the lunatic fringe doing the plotting, it was another fringe … .”

  “An international cadre of madmen from the radical right,” the President summed up succinctly after Blaine had finished the explanation passed on to him by Carlisle.

  “Whom the Delphi will help bring to power and then utilize to help control and manage the entire world. The Trilateral Commission itself was founded on a doctrine that wasn’t much different.”

  “I don’t think the Trilat’s charter said anything about a council of lunatics running civilization.”

  “A means to an end and nothing more. Even if they fail, the resulting disruption makes the Delphi winners because other nations will be ill equipped to respond to the disaster that has taken place in the United States while the transition takes place.”

  “The question becomes, Can all this still be stopped?”

  “Bill Carlisle gave me the name of the only international Delphi representative he was sure of: Travis Dreyer.”

  “Also known as the South African Hitler.”

  “Dreyer will be able to fill in the missing details, maybe even the identities of the remainder of the Delphi’s chosen lot overseas.”

  “You plan on going to South Africa and making him talk?”

  “Ideally, I can come up with the information without him ever knowing I was there.”

  The President thought for a moment. “There’s one week left before my address to Congress. That’s all the cushion I can give you.”

  “And you can make good use of that same cushion at home, sir, while I’m in South Africa,” said Blaine as he held up the floppy disk Bill Carlisle had given him.

  “The members of the Delphi.”

  “Preempt them, sir. Arrest them on any charges you can come up with. They couldn’t know about my meeting with Carlisle. The advantage is ours. Surprise them and maybe we avoid the day of the Delphi altogether.”

  The President looked anything but optimistic. “If we fail, I’m afraid I’ll only have one option left: moving the entire government to the proper emergency locations. The Delphi can’t kill who they can’t get to.”

  “No, but you’ll end up with a national panic on your hands, and those you’re trying to save from the Delphi will be questioning your sanity.”

  “I’ll take that over sitting by while Washington gets overrun by illegitimate troops who have orders to assassinate the country’s elected and appoin
ted leaders. Let Congress impeach me. At least the country is saved.”

  “But for how long? Dodd will still be out there, and he’ll find a way to get his special election. The point is that for every strategy we undertake, short of total preemption, they have a contingency.”

  “We’re not giving up, Mr. McCracken.”

  “Not at all, sir. We’re just getting started.”

  Blaine met with Johnny Wareagle inside an empty White House office twenty minutes later, as soon as his meeting with the President had concluded.

  “Didn’t want you and Sal to feel left out, Indian,” McCracken started, “and there happens to be a task that’s right up your alley. The way I see it, the Delphi would never have shipped their entire store of nuclear weapons to their international representatives. They’d want to keep plenty in reserve as a future bargaining chip, as well as backup.”

  “I understand.”

  “The bulk of the weapons must still be in the United States and we’ve got to find where they’ve been stored. Otherwise the Delphi lives to fight another day.”

  “Leave it to Sal Belamo and me, Blainey.”

  “With the President’s blessing, by the way.” McCracken paused. “It’s strange, Indian,” he continued uneasily, “here we are working on the inside, as far inside as you can get, with the resources of the entire nation behind us, and we’re still alone.”

  “There is a point in that, Blainey.”

  “Love to hear it.”

  “The inside is a state of mind, not one of being. From our beginnings in the hellfire we have always worked outside the system, but only to better accomplish what the system needs. I came to Sandcastle One last night after Traggeo. But when I saw he was part of something much bigger, I realized he had only been a lure the spirits had cast before me to draw me there.” Wareagle stopped and took a long look at McCracken. “To you and what we face now. What we must save.”

  “Save them, right? Those who’ve denounced us, red-flagged us, denied we even exist. We’ve prevailed in spite of them.”

  “Then who are the true outsiders? We see ourselves as part of a country, and a world, that sometimes must be saved from itself and its own excesses. Those in power created these excesses, or at least allowed them to be. They steer and manage an entity they stand beyond, without, to watch evolve. But they don’t see what that evolution has wrought within.”

  “We do.”

  “Then you understand.”

  “I think so. Next thing you know the spirits will be trying to speak in my ear, too.”

  Wareagle flashed a rare smile. “Perhaps they have already started and you need only to listen.”

  No sooner had Johnny left the office than Kristen Kurcell barged in, much to the dismay of the FBI agents assigned to watch her. She closed the door in the lead one’s face.

  “I guess you’re planning what they call the fast exit, eh, McCracken?”

  “Let me do what I do best, Kris.”

  “And what happens to me?”

  “You stay alive.”

  “Not good enough,” she said resolvedly.

  “Look, Kris—”

  “Don’t bullshit me, McCracken. I’m a part of this, in case you’ve forgotten. I threw everything away to find out why my brother died.” She hesitated, but her eyes lost none of their fire. “Samantha Jordan was in love with me, you know—”

  “I got that impression.”

  “—and I killed her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not. She was part of what killed my brother, full of lies and deceptions. Even all those times she tried to seduce me, the lies were there. I could have quit my job, but I didn’t because above everything else I thought she was my friend. Another lie.”

  “Maybe not. You admitted yourself she could have had you killed right away, but didn’t.”

  “Again, to serve her own interests.”

  “Isn’t that what everyone does?”

  Her gaze grew suddenly uncertain. “You don’t.”

  “I’m different.”

  “I know,” Kristen said.

  Taking a quick step forward, she pulled Blaine’s head down and kissed him with all the passion pent up within her. Blaine could feel every bit of her emotion and her fear. He wrapped his arms around her and instinctively responded. The moment lingered as she jammed her hands against his chest and drove him back against the wall.

  “Take me to South Africa with you,” she said after at last pulling away, eyes demanding the response she wanted.

  He raised his hands and grasped her shoulders. “Just be here when I get back, when all this is over.”

  “It’s never going to be over, not for me anyway. My life’s in the sewer.”

  “Try swimming, even treading water. I’ve been there. It works until the time comes to climb out.”

  “What if I don’t want to climb out?”

  “Then you drown.”

  “You’re a son of a bitch, McCracken. You’re—”

  Before the next word had left Kristen’s lips, Blaine had covered them with his own. She tried to push him off briefly and then relented, returning his kiss with a passion equal to her earlier one.

  This time it was McCracken who pulled away first.

  “Now we’re even,” he told her.

  The contents of the floppy disk given to McCracken by Wild Bill Carlisle had been transferred to hard copy and distributed to Ben Samuelson, Charlie Byrne, General Trevor Cantrell, and Angela Taft in the Situation Room first thing Wednesday morning. Their reactions ranged from shock to disbelief to disavowment as they scanned the eighteen-page document that contained files on the twenty-one men and women who had served with Carlisle on what had become the Delphi. Four of the twenty-one had died and two more had been incapacitated by illness, leaving fifteen in all. The President stressed the fact that some of those fifteen would have been forced out of the Delphi or left by their own choice, as had been the case with Bill Carlisle. The rest had stayed to form the nucleus behind the threat the government was currently facing.

  Before the meeting had even begun, crack troops dispatched by General Cantrell had taken control of Miravo and all other bases retasked to handle the dismantling or destruction of nuclear warheads. At the very least, then, the group could rest assured that the Delphi’s nuclear stockpile would not be expanded further.

  Under the circumstances, that didn’t really reassure any of the members of the inner circle. After reading through Carlisle’s list of Delphi members, Charlie Byrne leaned back and tapped his knuckles together. Cantrell ruffled through the spent pages. Samuelson shoved the document away from him and stared it down as if afraid it might lunge back his way. Taft was shaking her head.

  “How certain can we be of the accuracy of this information?” opened General Cantrell.

  “Absolutely certain,” responded the President. “To waste our time arguing otherwise is playing the old ostrich game of sticking our heads in the sand.”

  “There are three senators on this list,” Byrne pointed out.

  “Also three military men,” Cantrell added. “An admiral and two generals. All three major branches of the armed forces covered.”

  “It’s the representatives from the private sector I’m more concerned about,” said Angela Taft. “Three of these men became political legends without ever running for office or even granting an interview. Consultants who’ve troubleshot in the background for the last three administrations, including this one. Men who understand power and know how to wield it.”

  “How familiar are you with the representatives from business, Charlie?” asked the President.

  “You don’t have to go beyond the front page of The Wall Street Journal to recognize their names, that’s for sure, sir. But it goes way beyond that. Three of these men control companies that are among the largest multinational corporations based in this country. And the other two are billionaires several times over.”

  “Not hard to figure ou
t where the resources came from to finance their right-wing allies across the globe, is it?” the President commented as he turned to Samuelson. “Now, Ben, how do we go about bringing them in?”

  Samuelson was still flipping through the pages deliberately. “A coordinated, simultaneous effort to prevent the possibility of any of the representatives being forewarned,” the head of the FBI said without any hesitation, barely looking up from the report. “Of course, since we don’t know which of the fifteen we can safely rule out, the round-up will have to include all of them.”

  “Lots of states to cover,” the President cautioned. “I counted ten for the fifteen names on the list.”

  “We’re prepared, sir.”

  “How long before you can bring it off?”

  “Lots of men have got to be moved into place, and there’s the added complication of setting up a workable communications link. Say, between midnight and dawn tomorrow, Thursday. Catching the representatives at home should facilitate matters considerably. Of course, there are some factors we’d better get squared away right now.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do we inform the locals and take them along?”

  The President shook his head. “The people on Carlisle’s list probably damn near own the locals. Absolutely not. Next?”

  “What exactly, sir, are we going to charge them with?”

  “To paraphrase Rhett Butler, ‘Frankly, my dear Ben, I don’t give a damn.’ But how does treason grab you?”

  Samuelson nodded, satisfied with the response.

  “Can we make that stick?” asked Angela Taft.

  “So long as we exercise all proper procedures,” answered Samuelson, “yes, I think we can.”

  “What about Dodd?”

  “He’s taken up temporary residence in Olympus, sir,” Samuelson replied, referring to the space station Dodd had backed in a coventure with NASA.

  “Good timing.”

  “He’s got to come down sometime,” said Charlie Byrne.

  “And when he does, Ben,” the President told the director of the FBI, “I want the son of a bitch brought to me with his balls in a sling.”