April 4: A Different Perspective

by Mackey Chandler

  When she looked back at the White House her bedroom window was shooting a flame out like a torch. Mel had made sure nobody would follow them out that way. There was a sudden burble of bullets cutting the air past them from a silenced weapon, clattering on the pavement and Mel urged her, "Come on!" pulling on her hand. He didn't try to return fire.

  Across the street there was a police barricade along the edge of the park. They cleared that with about as much trouble as a frightened deer. "Two more blocks," Mel told her. To what exactly he didn't say.

  The first block went by and Mel turned right at the corner, cutting across the short side of the block to a new street. They turned left and that quickly they were back in an area that had power and it would have looked better in the dark.

  Mel slowed to a walk, although it was hard to do in their drug agitated state and there were a couple large black men, bouncers in satin jackets guarding the roped off entry to a club, music escaping the entry behind them, but nobody waiting to go in at this late hour. The guards looked hard at this odd couple passing, he in a suit and she in casual clothes, as out of place in this neighborhood as a horse in church. She took the tattered gloves off and put them in a rear pocket.

  A store down at the next corner showed lights and appeared to be open, its facade a mass of hand written signs, listing its goods and services, sprinkled with logo ads for beer and wine. A framed red on white sign assured everyone they took negative income tax cards. There were three thin, scruffy young men standing close to each other outside the store, their breath frosting the air. One had a paper bag and took a drink from it as they watched.

  When they got near the store Mel walked off the curb into the street, telegraphing they wanted nothing to do with them. The trio sauntered, with an exaggerated slowness that fooled no one, into their path. Mel drew a black pistol, unlike the previous strange weapon and held it pointing up by his shoulder, finger along the trigger guard with perfect discipline.

  The three men split without needing a consultation, one walking fast around the corner out of their sight, the other two suddenly remembering a purchase they needed to make in the store.

  Mel holstered the weapon, but stayed in the street, ignoring a sanitation truck that had to swing wide around them. He cut right, into the side street the one young man had fled to. He was nowhere in sight. Cutting across, he went to an ally that ran up the center of the block between commercial buildings. He pointed a small device down the alley and there was rattle of a steel shuttered door being lifted by a motor, but it was so dark she couldn't see it and the echoing sound in the dark alley was no help.

  Mel took her hand again, confident and guided her. "Easy," he warned her, slowing. "Feel ahead of you, low." Her hand came up against something cold and hard. It was grimy too and she wiped her hand on top of her pants leg.

  The noisy door came down behind them, making her jump. It was much louder now. Once it was down Mel turned on the same torch he'd used in her room. They were standing in front of a boxy delivery truck. Paul Romano and Sons Produce, it said across the front, in green letters with yellow shadowing. He beckoned and walked her to the passenger door. It unlocked with an old fashioned milled key and he slid it open.

  Once Wiggen climbed in, a high step, both in and up, he went around and climbed in the driver's side. The seats were much nicer than you'd expect in a utilitarian vehicle. He didn't pause, sliding across the seat and going in the back. There was a rattle of keys again and metallic sounds. He returned and laid a heavy long gun on the floor within reach. A large white box with a red cross he propped against her seat and opened up.

  She was surprised again when he stood back up, undoing his trousers, he let them fall in a pile around his ankles. Bright blood streaked his leg down the sides. There was a neat hole, still trickling blood.

  "You didn't say you were hit!"

  "And what good would that have done?" he asked. He had a point. He took a little tube with a flange on the end and pressed it to the outside hole and pushed, injecting something in the wound. After a shudder and a pause, he did the same to the inside.

  "Surely you need more attention than that. We need to get you to a hospital."

  "With the Patriots watching the hospitals? No thanks. My blood is on the sidewalk and even though I twisted my pants leg tight below the wound, I don't doubt I left a drop here and there. If they don't find it tonight they surely will in the morning. This will stop the bleeding, inhibit infection and if I never get further treatment, it will slowly dissolve as it heals."

  "What if there's damage inside?"

  "I can still feel my toes and move them, so no major nerve damage." He was fitting a flexible cuff on his right hand while he talked. "If it had hit the artery, or bone, I wouldn't have run here two blocks with you, drugs or no drugs. As soon as this cuff finds a vein in my hand, I'll put a slow drip on it to replace some of the fluids I've lost and we'll get out of here before they track us down. Ah, good," he said, when the cuff around his hand showed a green light.

  He hung the soft IV bag on a coat hook behind his seat and eased the pants back up past his knees but didn't fasten them, turning carefully to face forward. "Would you go in the back," he asked, handing her his flashlight. "There is a bin labeled 'rations' and I'd like you to get us several energy bars and bottles of water. Also there as a big plastic bucket. Dump the stuff in it out on the floor and bring it and the rations back up front please."

  She did as he asked, carrying the stuff up front in the bucket. He dumped the food out and left the empty bucket between the seats. "What is the bucket for?"

  "It will likely be obvious in a bit," he said cryptically.

  The truck started with a low rumble, which meant it was a Diesel, not an electric or fuel cell drive train. He ran the door up and when it was all the way up turned on his headlights and pulled out. She heard the door start back down behind them as soon as they cleared. They went a few blocks and pulled into an open market, busy with activity, even though there was no sign of the sun yet. Mel parked by some other trucks, plugged his hand comp in the dash and did something.

  "We are going to fake making a few deliveries, working our way to the west bit by bit and somewhere out near the edge of the Metro area we'll stop and when we start again we'll be a different truck," he promised.

  "I don't feel so good," Wiggen complained. "My hands are shaking and, uh…"

  Mel handed her the bucket quickly. She shoved her face in it and was horribly sick.

  "Unfortunately, that is the price for the boost my spray gave you."

  Wiggen rinsed her mouth out with one of the bottles of water.

  "Why aren't you sick then?"

  "I had three of those injectors," he explained. "They're calibrated for me and I weigh about ninety-five kilo. I never thought to have one made up for you at a lower dosage."

  "For all you knew it could have killed me!"

  "Well staying there was going to kill you for sure," he said, shrugging.

  * * *

  "We were able to secure the White House, the Pentagon is effectively neutralized, but only with extensive damage and the Executive building was seized almost empty and is secure. andrews is contained. Nobody can approach it without being intercepted, but internally we don't control it completely. Most other posts and facilities in the area are occupied or neutralized.

  The CIA building is isolated, but it's worth your life to move anything within two kilometers of the place. Fortunately they don't seem to be actively resisting us. They made most of their satellite offices, including overseas just – disappeared - en masse."

  Col. Allister took a deep breath. "The fly in the ointment, is that President Wiggen was spirited away by her Security Chief, Wainwright. He is however wounded. We found his blood outside the perimeter fence."

  "You came that close to stopping them?"

  "Actually, he was wounded by friendly fire from the roof. The first team in was advancing on Wiggen's bedroom door and her se
curity got a bit ahead of them. They were in the hallway when he detonated a Claymore and wiped them out to a man. It was the B team that finished securing the building and by the time they arrived at her room it was completely engulfed in an intense fire."

  "Yes, it's unfortunate that got to the news services before we could catch it," The General said, rubbing his face. "By the time they got video of it the neighboring rooms were burning too. The public has a nostalgic fondness for the building. Well, the Canadians did a better job of burning it before and it was rebuilt," he allowed with a sigh. "Are there records of any systems put in place to use for such an escape?"

  "None of the known escape provisions were utilized. It appears her Security Chief improvised and avoided all the known routes and plans, known to anyone we interrogated."

  "I know Mel. This doesn't surprise me. We are not going to easily consolidate our hold, until we have Wiggen in hand. What are you doing to accomplish that?"

  "We have the full cooperation of the FBI, the majority of which came over to us intact. If they touch the public 'net or financial networks with one fatal datum, we will be on them. Any transaction over a hundred dollars has to be assigned a Federal number, so they can barely buy dinner, much less rent a room for the night, without leaving a trail."

  "Let me know when you have them," his leader said. Privately he considered the problem. The Colonel assumed Wiggen and Mel were on their own. If they had help they wouldn't need to buy anything. But did they have anybody they could trust? Mel apparently didn't trust his own organization completely, or he wouldn't have made escape provisions outside official channels. Who would he trust to help? Not him obviously, or he'd have gotten a call by now. He'd very carefully never revealed his political leanings to the man. How perceptive of him. The General smiled, he had never tried to recruit Mel either, but seemed they had the measure of each other.

  Chapter 34

  "Something big is going down in North America," Louis shouted over com, excited far more than was his usual calm manner. Jeff was still half asleep, his first thought being, So what do I care? This getting roused in the middle of the night was getting to be a bad habit and irritating, but he calmly asked Louis, "Is it something I need to get up to monitor?"

  "I would if I were you," Louis urged him. "I'm working station com and can't come myself, but I think you should go in and check the news services. There is all sorts heavy traffic and the news has video of the White House on fire and dark all around it, no fire fighters or equipment responding. That has to be some sort of attack. There wasn't any video, but the same service said there were explosions and fire at the Pentagon too. If Wiggen goes down it's bad for us isn't it? So I think it matters a great deal what's happening down there now."

  "I'm afraid you're right on that part," Jeff admitted. "I'll get up and see if I can make any sense of it." He was sleeping at his office, which he'd probably neglected to tell Louis, so he wouldn't need to go in, he was there. He just got up, rolled up the comforter he was sleeping on and reversed the pump on his air mattress to compact it again. A quick shower was in order too. He might be mostly awake by the time he was done. He put on his spex and told the coffee maker to start a pot and stood in the shower set on pulsating, letting it blast him in the face. He was so groggy, it took him a few seconds to realize that wasn't going to do much good if he didn't take his spex off.

  * * *

  The cloud of pellets approached the Rock from behind. The mechanics of orbits make a retro orbital approach difficult. Pretty much everything is launched the same direction as the earth's rotation, to not waste that free motion. Even offsetting that orbital motion, to achieve a polar orbit was expensive in propellant and outside the ability of some heavily laden vessels. To actually force a complete reversal of orbital direction would require refueling and then extravagant waste of that fuel. That's why Home was riding ahead of the rock in orbit, for protection from the only practical approach.

  There were eight hundred tungsten pellets, cubes actually, as they needed to pack compactly in the projectile in which they were launched. Six hundred some of them impacted the end of the Rock, each going fast enough to vaporize the individual pellets. The total energy was not enough to change the orbit of the captured asteroid measurably, or a display from afar more exciting than a sudden scintillating flash, but more than sufficient to shred the two men working on the extraction equipment so thoroughly, that they never felt the instant of their death.

  The millimeter radar sited near the extraction equipment was damaged enough to put it out of service, but unfortunately for the men who launched this kinetic weapon, it did not do so quickly enough to keep the data from it traveling a fiber to the other end of the Rock and being transmitted to Home. The radar provided a trajectory for enough individual pellets to back track their long range trajectory and spread, to a very specific time and place.

  * * *

  "Mel, that's a Home weapon you used to cut the window open, isn’t it? Have you been an agent of Home all along?"

  "As if even I could smuggle an unofficial weapon into the White House! No, the laser is simply the best of its class to be had. We bought three by round-about methods in Tonga, so they wouldn't know where they were going. They were checked out very carefully before being allowed near you. Before we even allowed then in DC for that matter."

  "What was that terrible blast I heard before you came in my room? Somebody was screaming at the end."

  "There was a team coming up the hall to seize you, or more likely kill you. I got ahead of them and positioned a Claymore I kept in an attaché case, in the hall. When they were about halfway down the hall from the elevators I detonated it. Four hundred little pyramids of hard steel, at rifle bullet velocities, clears a hallway pretty efficiently. I'm just surprised there was enough of one of them left to scream. He must have been in the ballistic shadow of the others at the rear. A fluke for sure."

  "But they had other forces or they wouldn't have shot you in the leg as we were running away," Wiggen suggested, eyebrows scrunched in thought, trying to visualize it all.

  "I knew they had other forces, from other gun reports I could hear further away. I'd never have grabbed you and ran, if I thought we could retain control of the White House. But they were not using silenced weapons, likely one of our guys shot me, from our own crew. They had suppressed weapons for close in work. Normally they wouldn't be expected to engage targets clear out at the perimeter fence. If he'd had a rifle instead of a sub gun we'd be dead. I can't blame him, no friendly forces were planned to be there."

  Mel pulled in behind a Big Box store and parked away from the docks, but watching them with three other trucks. Nobody would think anything of it if he didn't run in. If he'd been driving all night it wouldn't be unusual to take a nap, seeing the docks full and the other truckers wouldn't bother him.

  "Time for an energy bar and some water. The cherry ones are really good."

  * * *

  "It looks like they are shutting down all the commercial air traffic too," Louis informed him. "As they land they are not allowing new flights to take off. I don't see them diverting flights to land early though."

  "What would be the point of… >WHAMMM<.

  A concussion shook Jeff's office so hard his coffee jumped off the edge of the desk and splattered across the floor. One of the corners of his wall screen tore loose and it dangled at an angle, still working against all reason. When he looked closer the whole wall was bulged behind it and the attachment anchor uncovered where the screen dropped. The lights switched over to dimmer emergency lamps and then came back on in seconds.

  "Did you feel that?"

  "Shit, shit, shit. Can't talk." Jeff could tell from the stabbing motions Louis was working his board like crazy, trying to find out – something. If he didn't feel the explosion he certainly had evidence of it on his com board.

  "Put your suit on," Louis told him, scowling and jumped up from the station com board, likely to put his own suit on. T
hat seemed excellent advice, in fact Jeff was embarrassed he had to be told to do it, with his bulkhead all bulged in front of him.

  * * *

  Near two-hundred pellets in a ring sped past the Rock. Most of them struck nothing and continued beyond, climbing away from the Earth at a slight angle. They would reach an apogee that did not endanger the geostationary communications satellites, but a perigee that would not result in all of them reentering the Earth's atmosphere, until several other spacecraft and habitats had been damaged.

  The angle was such that a small crescent of Home's rings were exposed to the cone of hazard and three pellets tore through pressure, destroying an air processing plant, a self-storage facility and the shower room for the beam dogs, with three workers just off their shift using the facility.

  One pellet struck the construction radio shack, with two workers and a dispatcher inside. The only survivor was a worker in a hard suit, who still had his helmet closed. Another pellet hit a FedEx robot freighter parked, waiting for dockage and debris from that damaged an orbital shuttle inbound from New Las Vegas, but without casualties.

  Seven dead and three with minor injuries was a minor car crash in New Jersey, or an unimportant Drone strike in the Trans-Arabic Protectorate, but it was a national catastrophe for Home.

  * * *

  >THUD< woke Eric with a jolt. The lights were out to sleep, but the emergency lights came on for a few seconds before they went back out and returned him to darkness. He called the regular lights back up and was relieved when they came on. He immediately went to the entry cupboard and got an emergency pressure suit. When he went back in the living room, both his mother and sister were peering out of their rooms, looking worried.

  "Did somebody tell you to put on your pressure suit?" his mother asked, critically.