“You’re safe in your Mount Weather—”
“And you in your Mount Yamantaw. So what? Every major nation has a facility like this, and it’s a good thing, or we wouldn’t be involved in this pleasant conversation. Now, maybe we do away with the posturing and get down to business.”
More curses flowed over the cable. The image faltered and slipped out of focus before returning to normal. Jeremy had warned the president about this. The EMP satellites were nuclear and left a great deal of radiation circling the planet, radiation that still played havoc with electronic devices.
“Stow the language, Bogdan. You can’t intimidate me. I work with the most frightening things on the planet—politicians.”
Jeremy thought he saw the Russian president fight back a grin.
Bogdan motioned for the translator to leave. The moment the door closed, Bogdan leaned over the desk as if attempting to whisper in the president’s ear. “So, do we blame the Chinese?”
Barlow grinned. “I wish we could, Mr. President, but they know the lay of the land. They’re next on my call list. They may be worse off than we are with that huge population.”
“It is true. I have already exchanged words with them. Their winter is as harsh as our Russian ones. They do not have food reserves enough to feed their billions.”
“We don’t have reserves enough to feed our hundreds of millions. India must also be suffering.”
Bogdan nodded, his face a canvass of sadness. “Yes, we have been getting reports.”
“I was hoping you were.” Barlow looked distant for a moment and then snapped back to the moment. “Mr. President, it is important we keep in contact. I am told that your people had the same idea to use the undersea cables. I commend you.”
He shrugged. “What else is there?”
“True. Bogdan Arturovich…” The president had returned to using the Russian’s patronymic. “The time has come to put away national rivalries. Our countries will recover, but it will take a long time, maybe more years than you and I have left. We just don’t know. I do know that the blame game won’t work. Our losses will be severe. The worst is ahead of us, I’m afraid, and we still have to track down the real culprit.”
“What is your plan, Mr. President?”
“My father used to say that a man walking across the country would fare better if he focused on his next step and not his final one.”
“He sounds like a wise man.”
“He was, Bogdan. He was, and so are you. Your country needs you, and the world needs your country. Let’s work together.”
“That won’t be easy, Mr. President. Most of our leaders blame you.”
“I can imagine.”
“The Chinese blame you. So do the North Koreans, or so I hear. The French are a little put out too. Is that the right phrase? Put out?”
“It is. Can you convince the Chinese to work with us?”
“No one convinces the Chinese. We must convince them to convince themselves.”
“Will you try?”
Bogdan scratched his scalp, mussing his gray hair. “I will try, Nathan, but their anger is acute. Honestly, I’m not sure many countries will follow your lead.” He hesitated and then added, “Nor will they follow mine. I fear I have burned too many bridges.”
“We have to try.”
Bogdan nodded. “Many leaders will use this opportunity to seize more power. Not everyone is as understanding as I.”
That made Barlow laugh. Bogdan joined him.
“So that you know, I am sending technicians by submarine to some of our allies. We hope to expand our makeshift communication.”
“Submarines. An excellent idea.”
“You’ve done the same thing, haven’t you?”
“Of course.”
“I never know if I can trust you, Bogdan.”
Another chuckle. “That’s the way Russian politics works, Nathan.” He looked straight into the camera. “You can trust me, Nathan. You can trust me, even if no one else does.”
23
Liam Burr
Liam Burr studied himself in the mirror and still liked what he saw. Five feet eleven, trim and fit, coal-black hair without a strand of gray, dark and intelligent eyes, olive skin, a distinctive chin and nose. His appearance turned the heads of men and women alike. The gaze of the women lingered. At thirty-eight, he carried himself with the aplomb of a man twenty years his senior and the humor and zest for life of a man fifteen years his junior. Young women ached for him; older women dreamed of him. To call him movie-star handsome fell short of the mark.
He placed a red tie over the buttons of his white dress shirt and examined it in the mirror like a jeweler counting facets on a diamond. He didn’t feel red today. He tried a brown tie with the image of books stitched into the fabric. Too casual. Next came a cobalt-blue tie with no pattern. The same color as the background of the flag of the European Union. Strong. Bold. Businesslike. A tie fitting a leader in the ever-tightening band of member states.
Burr represented Italy and had done so for the past six years. It took only two years to secure a position of influence among the twenty-seven member states. He moved through the halls of the three political centers of Brussels, Luxembourg, and Strasbourg with ease, making friends and sealing supporters for his causes. He granted favor upon favor, year after year, until the bulk of the key leadership owed him. Some owed him mere courtesy; others owed him much more. Those who didn’t owe him for some favor still showed deference. Rumor was he had dirt on almost everyone. The rumor was true.
Politicians around the world came to agreement by debate, mutual benefit, or fear of exposure. The formula stretched back to the ancient Greeks, and the principle had not changed in the twenty-first century. Politics was human chess. Push the right piece at the right time, and one’s opponent was on the defensive. To date, Liam had never had to throw open his “vault of secrets,” as his enemies called it. Liam’s raised eyebrow usually sufficed.
As much as Liam liked women, he loved power and money more. He had plenty of both, but he longed for more of the former.
He slipped the blue tie around his neck and under his collar, tying a Windsor knot with practiced ease. Right the first time. It was one of the many games he played. Having to retie a necktie was a failure of concentration and execution. Liam hated failure of any kind. He didn’t tolerate it in himself or anyone else.
“Benito!” His voice was clear and strong.
Two seconds later, Benito Moretti entered—a stout man with the shape of a German beer keg. “Yes, signore.”
“My coat, please.” Liam watched Benito take a moment to analyze his boss’s attire. Dark pants, no pinstripes, white shirt, blue tie. Without hesitation he disappeared into the large walk-in closet and emerged with just the right coat—a Valentino. Liam liked to test Benito. He had several suits of the same color, the cheapest of the lot costing 2500 euros—$3500 US—and kept the suit coats and trousers on separate hangers. It took a practiced eye to discern the subtle differences between the Valentino and the Caraceni. Not that those numbers mattered now. The price of a suit in a society with no power and a rapidly depleting source of food no longer impressed anyone. Still, Liam liked to look good. Just because others struggled with the basic needs didn’t mean he had to. Besides, looking good was part of his personality and image. In his world, the man with the expensive suit held power over the man in the cheap rags.
“Is the car ready, Benito?”
“It is, sir.”
“The Rolls?”
“Yes, sir. I’m still trying to get the other cars working. Fortunately, we maintain spare parts for the Phantom II.”
“They are difficult to come by, Benito. I’ve been buying parts where I can find them.” He thought about the rusted corpses of the other Phantom IIs sitting inside his twenty-car garage. Liam was no mechanic, but he loved vintage vehicles, and he could afford the best wrench monkeys in Italy. By today’s standards, the electrical system of the Phantom was
simple. No computer chips in 1931.
“I have replaced most of the electronics, and the car starts and runs as it used to.”
“But…”
“The electromagnetic pulse burned out the filaments in the bulbs. We must travel by day or when the moon is up.”
“You’ve done well, Benito.”
“I have taken too long, sir. Pietro could have done better and faster.”
Pietro was the full-time mechanic in Liam’s employ. He had not been able to return to the estate since the outages. For all Liam knew, the local mobsters or the Roman city government had pressed the poor man into repairing their vehicles. Cosa Nostra or politicians. In Liam’s mind, they were often the same thing.
“You are too hard on yourself, Benito. You have proven your value to me many times, but never more than these past two months. You have remained faithful to me during this difficult time.”
“I have no family, sir, and it is my honor to be of service to you.”
Benito lived on the estate just outside Rome. He was more than a butler; he was also in charge of Liam’s safety. His skills had been put to use in the Vatican guard until he knocked one of his superiors to the hard surface of Saint Peter’s square. Liam rescued him from a prison term by calling in a few minor favors. Benito proved grateful, and Liam paid him three times what he had been making before. He made a salary normally reserved for upper executives. Liam learned early on that money could buy loyalty.
“I take it you were able to get fuel.”
“Yes, sir. I had to rig a hand pump, but it worked just fine.”
“I trust you’ve taken precautions for additional fuel.”
“Yes, sir. We should have no problem reaching Strasbourg. We will have to find fuel once there.”
“That won’t be a problem, Benito.”
“I have prepared several days of food. Fortunately, we still have Alda to feed us. I’m afraid my cooking would be substandard.”
Alda was the cook. She and her daughter lived on the premises. “The drive is only ten or twelve hours. Why plan for several days?”
“We don’t know what awaits us along the way, sir. If the roads are blocked or we have mechanical trouble, we might be stranded for a time.”
“Of course.”
“Forgive me for saying so, signore, but you look weary. Did you have another bad night?”
Liam buttoned his coat to make sure it hung on his frame correctly. “Yes.”
“The same dreams?”
Liam turned from the mirror and from Benito. “They don’t seem like dreams. They are so real.”
“The same people?”
He stepped to an antique mahogany dresser with a marble top and gold-plated drawer pulls. “People is not the right word. They are…monsters.”
The image of eyeless, human-shaped shadow creatures stabbed his brain. This time they had come at 3:25 a.m. The morning before at 2:13. The time before that at 2:31. In each instance, one shadow figure hovered over his bed, staring at him through orbless eyes. Each time he awoke, the beast would be a few inches closer. He had tried sleeping in a different room. The mansion had twelve bedrooms to choose from, but the creatures always found him.
Closing his eyes did not make them go away. It was as though his eyelids had grown transparent. Regardless of how tightly he slammed his lids shut, he could still see through them. Once he had covered his face with a pillow; another time he used his arm. Still he saw them. Staring. Hovering. Oozing closer and closer with each night that passed.
The first night, he fled from his bedroom, sprinting over the threshold, down the curved, sweeping stairway, and out the front door.
They were there in the moonlight, in the air, hovering over his mansion, over the estate like black ghosts. And each one stared at him.
At him.
Him.
Things at the hospital had improved, but the rest of DC had grown worse. A small cadre of soldiers had kept the generator going and delivered fuel. Roni had learned from one of the soldiers that the president had been working with governors and the mayors of major cities, allocating fuel to high-need facilities like hospitals, police and fire stations, and key government buildings. She also learned that the help was limited.
“I passed several empty hospitals on the way here,” the sergeant had said.
“How do you know they were empty?”
“The windows were broken, and there was evidence of fire.”
“Looters?”
“That’d be my guess. Some people are looking for meds, others for food. Druggies have been cut off from their sources. Their providers can’t move around like they used to. It’s not safe out there—not even for drug dealers.”
“They can’t all be stoners and addicts.”
“I saw a woman coming out of one of the hospitals. She was wearing an apron.” He chuckled but it was abbreviated. Roni didn’t need years of medical school to recognize a weary man. “It was like she stepped out of the Donna Rollins Show.”
“Donna Rollins?” Roni thought for a moment. “Donna Reed? The old television show?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Donna Reed. That show was old before I was born.”
“Just to be clear, Sergeant, it was old before I was born.”
“Yes, ma’am. Of course. My grandmother used to watch reruns. I saw them when I spent time over there. Anyway, I couldn’t figure why a housewife would be looting a hospital. Then it hit me—she had a sick kid or husband or something. Needed meds.”
“We get a lot of people asking for meds we no longer have. Why would she be wearing an apron?”
“Crazy, ma’am. There are a lot of crazy people out there, and I mean that literally. Bug-nuts. I’ve been in a couple of neighborhoods, and it’s like a zombie apocalypse.”
“How’s your family, Sergeant?”
He cut his eyes away. “I don’t know, Doc. They live in Wyoming. I can’t get a hold of them.”
Roni recalled the conversation as she poured another cup of coffee. A night that included four straight hours of sleep was a luxury. Everything was a challenge. Elective surgeries were ended the first day of the crisis. Now weeks into the Event, only the most severe cases went into the ER. Some of those were police officers shot while on duty. Meds were running short. Harris Memorial had been declared one of the “keep open” hospitals in the city. Patients from other facilities found ways to get there. The place was full, the meds few, and desertion by medical staff was on the increase—less than she anticipated but more than she hoped.
She couldn’t blame them. Most of the day, Roni wished she could walk to her home in College Park. It took all her willpower not to drop Jeremy’s name and new rank of general and get one of the few operating vehicles to take her home.
Logic won out. There was nothing at home for her. She had possessions, but she couldn’t use them here and had no way to protect them. She had visions of her lovely little home in shambles or burned to the ground. She didn’t know the facts, so her mind filled in the scene in the most garish, frightening way.
The weather had turned. Eight inches of snow had fallen the previous night. Travel had already been nearly impossible except on foot and bicycle. Now it was worse.
She wondered how many people were freezing in their homes. How many would suffer frostbite and not be able to get medical help? Her sense of powerlessness intensified.
Roni walked up the stairs to the pediatric wing to check on Cody. He was playing in one of the activity areas with a boy about his age. The boy was bald, and Roni wondered how much chemical therapy was left for the cancer patients. She doubted it was much. A brief vision of the children’s ward filled with small corpses raced across her mind, and she did her best to exorcise it. She was a doctor, trained to face the truth regardless of how difficult. She had grown weary of that.
She poked her head in the room. Cody and the boy looked at her. Cody smiled, but his playmate didn’t. Dark skin circled his eyes. He looked gaunt, thinner than
he should, weaker than was right. The cancer had its food source.
“You okay, Cody?”
“Yes. Are you okay?”
The question made her smile. Lately, Cody had begun showing concern for Roni’s health. No doubt he was seeing what she refused to acknowledge. “Yep. I’m good. I’m going to the doctor’s lounge for a bit and then to the cafeteria. You know how to find me, right?”
It was a useless question. Cody moved around the facility like he owned the place.
Roni went to one of the lounges. The door was left unmarked in an effort to give doctors a place to rest from the constant pressures of hospital medicine. The place was empty.
She sat, removed Jeremy’s letter, and read it again. She had quit counting the number of times she had read the missive at twenty-five. His handwriting comforted her, and his unfaltering concern for her soul was endearing. Still, she wasn’t ready to adopt a belief in God. The more she saw, the less she believed.
Where was God in all of this? That young cancer patient playing with Cody could use a God. Cody could have used a little help from the Almighty before his mother and father were killed. Millions were hungry. She rethought that. She had learned that the problem was global. In that case, the better part of seven billion were hurting. How could Jeremy’s God allow that?
She folded the letter and clutched it to her chest. Over the years, she had accepted the incongruity of their relationship and never felt his faith was artificial or contrivance. It was as much a part of her husband as his skin. Although she knew it made him a better man, it wasn’t something she could adopt. It just didn’t make sense.
But then again, what did?
24
Donny Boy
Stanley Elton had always considered himself a resourceful man, intelligent, insightful. He had gone head-to-head with the IRS, financial lawyers, district attorneys, and others who tried to bring down a client. To date, none had succeeded. Part of that was due to his long-lasting commitment to never take on a client with shady business practices. For him, the first principle of accounting was “Never do books for crooks.”
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