Jeremy retrieved a piece of paper from the flight suit he had been required to wear. “Know how to find this place?”
The petty officer took the note, studied it, and then handed it back. “Yes, sir. High cotton.”
The comment raised Jeremy’s eyebrow.
“Sorry, sir. Something my mother used to say. It’s in the high-rent district.”
“I thought all of Coronado was…high cotton.”
“Yes, sir, it’s just that some areas are more high-rent than others. This is top-of-the-line digs, sir.”
“Give me a minute to get out of this suit, and then we’ll go see how the other half live.”
Dupont gave a sad smile. “Lately, sir, the other half have been living like everyone else.”
“Understood, Petty Officer. I haven’t forgotten.”
“I bet they have quite a view.” Jeremy craned his neck to see the upper floor of the tower. “Do you know which building they’re in?”
“Yes, sir.” He pointed at the ten-story structure. “Each building has its own address.”
“Okay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Begging the general’s pardon, but my orders are to escort you and provide protection.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Sir, please don’t make me choose between an Air Force general and a Navy admiral.”
Jeremy chuckled. “I think I know how that would turn out.”
“Yes, sir. The admiral has two stars.”
“Figures. Let’s go.”
Jeremy was surprised to see the power on in the building and said so.
“The whole city came online when the base did. That’s true for areas around the other bases. The rest of San Diego is still hit and miss.”
“So the elevator must be working. Good. I’d hate for you to have to carry me up ten flights of stairs.”
“The general looks pretty fit. I doubt you’d need my help.”
“Who said anything about needing help?” He pushed the elevator call button. As he waited, he could see damage done to the lobby and windows.
“Things got rough,” Irwin said.
“You should see DC.”
A few minutes later they exited the elevator and stood before the door to the condo from which the e-mail to Jeremy had originated. Irwin knocked. Hard.
“Who is it?” A male voice.
“Mr. Elton? My name is Jeremy Matisse. I’m with the Air Force.”
“Air Force? How do you know my name?”
“Open the door, sir, and I’ll be happy to explain.”
There was a pause. “What is this about?”
Petty Officer Irwin raised his voice. “Please, sir. The general needs to speak with you.”
“General? Okay, hang on.”
Jeremy listened as Stanly Elton unlatched several locks. The door opened an inch. “Identification.”
Jeremy pulled his military ID from his pocket. “I’m for real, Mr. Elton.”
The man opened the door. “Come in.” He sounded abashed. “Sorry. I’m afraid I’ve become overly cautious.”
“Understandable.” Jeremy stepped into the condo. It was neat and clean. For some reason, he expected to see a mess. “Are you Stanley Elton?”
“I am.” He motioned to a place behind Jeremy. “This is my wife, Dr. Royce Elton.” He nodded in the direction of a middle-aged Hispanic woman. “This is Rosa. She is a friend of ours.” The woman looked frightened.
“Doctor?” he said to Royce.
The woman wore clothes designed for a slightly heavier woman. There were dark circles under her eyes. The woman gazed at the sidearms the men carried. She looked frightened too. “PhD. I’m a geneticist.”
“Ah. I married a doctor. A surgeon.” Jeremy smiled. He looked around the space. Well appointed, well furnished. A view of the bay out one window, a view of the ocean out the other. This was the domicile of the rich. Then he saw an empty electric wheelchair. His gaze lingered. Few things drew attention like an empty wheelchair.
“My son’s,” Elton said. “He’s in his room.”
A sense of relief ran through Jeremy.
Elton continued. “He doesn’t need the wheelchair. In fact, he hasn’t touched it in months.” He paused. “It’s a long story.”
“Mr. Elton, do you have a computer on the premises?”
“Yes. Several of them. Actually, my son has them. I don’t use computers at home. I get enough of that at work…got enough of that at work.”
“May I ask what you do, sir?”
“I was an accountant. Not much need for that now. My wife teaches at UCSD. Not much use for that either.” He glanced at his wife. “I suppose I should offer you a seat, but I’d like to know why you’re here.”
“We received an e-mail from this location. It was addressed to me.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible, General. I haven’t sent any e-mails. We’ve…the building has had power for only a few weeks, and we don’t have access to the Internet. I guess the servers were wiped out or something.”
Jeremy noticed the man’s self-editing. “This didn’t come over the Internet. It came over a secure military network. Most people don’t know it exists.”
“I don’t know anything about it. How could I access a secret military network?”
“That’s one of my questions. To send this message, someone had to hack into the system. Trust me, that’s almost impossible.”
“I can’t help you, General. I can operate the basics of a computer, and I’m really good with accounting software, but that’s it.”
“Yet you have several computers in your home.”
“True, but they’re not for me. They belong to my son.”
“Could he have sent the e-mail?”
Elton said no. “He’s…he’s special.”
Jeremy cocked his head.
Elton broke eye contact. “Donny is not like other people. He’s an adult, but he’s more of a child. He barely speaks and seldom makes sense.”
“That might explain it.”
Elton looked at Jeremy again. “What’s that mean?”
“The message had only one word: Oatmeal.”
Dr. Royce Elton gasped.
Roni Matisse finished her shift in the Mount Weather medical facility. Sitting on the sidelines while at Mount Weather was out of the question. Since college, her life had been spent on the edge. She seldom worked to exhaustion, but she always stayed busy. Even on her days off from the hospital she felt the need to do something constructive. After only a few days at the facility, she asked for medical privileges. The staff was glad to have her. She made frequent trips back to DC as promised but spent half her time in the underground facility. Although the facility had a fully functioning operating room, it was seldom used. Roni had assisted with two appendectomies and one gallbladder removal. There had been several injuries, mostly among FEMA workers on the surface. For the most part, medicine in the facility was undemanding.
Her work at Harris Memorial continued to be challenging. As more hospitals came online in DC, the flow of ER and surgical patients decreased. Medications were still in short supply and had to be used judiciously.
Adjusting to the small apartment and life under artificial light proved easier than Roni thought possible. Cody loved it. He played with the children of congressmen and senators, high-ranking military personnel, and rank-and-file soldiers. Only a child would find adventure in this, but if pressed, Roni would admit the experience was pretty cool. Still, she never forgot what was happening not far from the secret compound. People suffered. Things were better, but they were not good for those who still struggled to get by on too little food and very little technology. She wondered if things would ever return to the previous normal. She didn’t like thinking about it.
As Roni walked from the hospital to their apartment, she caught sight of Senator Ryan O’Tool sprinting her way. His eyes settled on her, and he adjusted his course.
“Dr. Matiss
e, I need you. I mean, we need you.”
“Settle down, Senator. What’s the problem?”
“The president has collapsed.”
Her spine fused and her knees went weak. “Where is he?”
“The sitting area outside his apartment. You know where that is, right?”
She did. Jeremy took great pride in introducing her to the president. They first met in the space O’Tool mentioned. Roni and O’Tool immediately started running back that direction as they talked. “Tell me what happened.”
“We were discussing recent intel on the Israel-Syria problem. We were also wrestling with the new EU—”
“Cut to the chase, Senator. Tell me exactly what happened to the president.”
“He was talking…he grimaced…he clutched at his chest, moaned, and fell from his chair. I think he hit his head too.”
Roni stopped and faced O’Tool. “Here’s what you’re going to do, Senator. Get to the hospital and tell the first person you see…” No, that wouldn’t do. Word would spread. “Ask for the shift doctor and tell him I sent you. Then you say this: ‘President down. Possible heart. Crash cart. Stat.’ Then tell them where to go. Got it?”
“Shift doctor. Down. Heart. Crash cart. Stat.”
“Go. Go now.”
One second later, Roni was on the run again. She prayed with each step, something she couldn’t recall doing before.
Donny sat in front of several computer monitors, his hands in his lap. He did nothing more than stare.
“This is Donny,” Royce said. “Donny? There’s someone here to meet you.” He didn’t respond.
Jeremy expected a young teenager but instead saw a thin twenty-something with uncombed hair. He sat like a statue, eyes fixed on scrolling code that meant nothing to anyone but him.
“He’s off-planet.” Royce looked embarrassed by her comment. “It’s a phrase we use when Donny isn’t responding. He seems to block out everything around him.”
“Does he just stare at the monitors?”
“No, usually he’s pounding on one of the keyboards.” Stanley moved past Jeremy and stepped to his son’s side. “Sometimes he types all night. Well, he used to. I mean, once we lost power…”
“Tell him, Stanley,” Royce said. It wasn’t a suggestion.
Stanley looked at Jeremy and Irwin. “You won’t believe me.”
“I’ve seen a great deal, Mr. Elton. I can pretty much believe anything.”
Stanley looked at his son. “We didn’t lose power when everyone else did. I mean, eight months ago. My office went dark. The whole city went dark. So did every condo in this complex. Every unit but ours.”
“You need to explain that,” Jeremy said.
“I wish I could, but I can’t. We kept it secret of course. You can imagine the danger we faced if everyone on Coronado learned we had power when they didn’t. That kept us going for a long time, but then a while back, it just quit. It came back on when everyone else’s in Coronado did. I understand we have the Navy to thank for that.”
“There are countless people to thank, including those who got the portion of the grid that feeds this area up and running.” Jeremy moved closer to the monitors. “Are you telling me he wrote this code?”
“He’s a savant,” Royce said. “He’s incapable of caring for himself. His communication is limited to a few words, and oatmeal is his favorite. He uses it for everything. Like other savants, he’s extremely gifted in one area but incapable of dealing with normal activities.”
“Oatmeal,” Donny said, parroting the word.
“Does he know what he’s doing?”
Royce shrugged. “That’s hard to say. Some savants do what they do without thought. It’s instinct to them. Donny is only happy in front of a computer.” A moment later, “He gave it up for a while. After everything went south. Covered up the monitors with blankets and sheets. A day or two ago, he picked it up again.”
“Except he never did surf the Net. He writes this gibberish.” Stanley ran his hand over Donny’s head.
“I don’t think it’s gibberish, Mr. Elton.” Jeremy’s stomach flipped. He turned to Donny. “Hi. Donny. My name is General Jeremy Matisse. I got your message.”
Donny blinked, turned his attention to Jeremy, and began to weep. “Shadow, shadow on my right. Shadow, shadow on my left. Shadow, shadow everywhere. Shadow has all the might.”
He sobbed.
Roni rounded the corner that led to the presidential wing and to the large meeting area outside his apartment. A security agent started to stop her when a voice bellowed through the area: “Let her in.” The voice belonged to a man she had only met once since coming to Mount Weather, Vice President Franklin Grundy.
She sprinted around chairs and sofas. President Barlow lay on his back. A large contusion grew over his right eye. Roni dropped to her knees. “How long has he been out?”
Grundy answered. “Four minutes. I looked at my watch.”
“Has he been unconscious the whole time?”
“Yes.”
She searched for a pulse. “The head wound. From the fall?”
“Yes.”
Roni looked up. Admiral Radcliffe and Secretary of State Baker stood next to Grundy. She returned her gaze to the man on the floor. His skin was pale and his eyes at half-mast. She found no pulse, and he wasn’t breathing. “Who knows CPR?”
No one spoke, so Roni did. “Get down here, Admiral.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Tell me what to do.”
Roni tilted the president’s head back and pulled open his mouth. She ran a finger over his tongue, searching for vomitus. She leaned forward and placed her open mouth over his and forced three breaths down his trachea. His chest rose and fell. “I’m going to do compressions. Every time I say ‘five,’ you breathe for him. Don’t be shy about it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Roni ripped open Barlow’s shirt, not to make compressions easier but to save time when the crash cart arrived. She put one hand over the other, placed the heel of her hand on the president’s sternum, arched forward and pushed. “One, two, three, four, five…” She paused a second to let Barlow’s lungs fill and then started compressions again.
She was sweating by the time the medics arrived. She called for an airway, an Ambu bag, and the defibrillator.
The medical staff worked with practiced precision. Roni heard a gasp and then, “Oh, dear God, no.” She didn’t look. She didn’t have time, but she had no doubt the president’s wife had arrived.
They loaded Barlow on a gurney. Roni climbed on the wheeled stretcher, straddled the president’s body, and continued CPR.
Twenty minutes later, in the medical complex, Roni declared the president dead with the full agreement of the head physician. Katey dissolved into tears. Her son and daughter had arrived. Their tears joined hers. The area where they had worked on the president was limited to only those working to save his life. Security took charge of the location. The family and advisors waited in a side room. Admiral Radcliffe took the news like a military man, with all his emotions locked down. He turned to Grundy. “Any orders, Mr. President?”
“Yes. Someone get me a chair.”
33
Jeremy, Donny, and Shade
Jeremy held Donny for several moments, letting him weep on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what had triggered the sudden outburst, but it was heartfelt. The sobs came and went. Just when Jeremy thought Donny was regaining composure, he would descend into despair again.
“Is he normally like this?” Jeremy turned his head enough to see Royce. Tears wet her face.
“No. He didn’t even cry as a baby.”
“How does he know you, General?” Stanley kept his voice low.
“I have no idea. Nor can I imagine how he could hack the military network.” He pushed Donny away so he could look in his eyes. “Hey, buddy. Feeling better?”
Donny didn’t speak. His lip quivered and he looked as frightened as any man Jeremy had ever seen. �
��Does he understand me?”
“He understands a few things, but we’re never quite sure what. He so seldom responds beyond a few words.
Jeremy put a hand on Donny’s shoulder. “Hey, pal. How about it? Do you understand me.”
No response.
“May I look at your computers?”
Donny shot to his feet and stepped to the side, making room for Jeremy to sit.
“Thank you.” Jeremy took the seat. It felt warm.
Donny ran from the room. His mother followed. A moment later, Jeremy heard an electric whine. Stanley and Irwin stepped aside as Donny drove his electric wheelchair into the room. He maneuvered like a NASCAR driver and pulled next to Jeremy. His eyes were still red, but he now showed a new enthusiasm. “Oatmeal.”
“Oatmeal indeed.” Jeremy set his hand on the keyboard. It was sticky, and he might have pulled back if the streaming code hadn’t pulled him in. “This may take a few minutes.”
“Just a few, sir?” Irwin asked.
“Days.” He looked at Donny. “I’m betting Donny here understands more than we give him credit for.” Jeremy pushed the keyboard toward the savant.
Donny looked at it and then at Jeremy. He giggled.
Jeremy chuckled then said, “Stuxnet.”
A few moments later, Donny had scrolled through the code and stopped. Jeremy recognized several lines. They were similar to the famous code but not identical. Material had been added.
“A question, sir,” Irwin said.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Shouldn’t these computers have been wiped clean like all the other computers in the world?”
“Yes.”
“But they weren’t. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Jeremy said. “Something is beyond weird.”
“Shadow, shadow.” Donny uttered the words softly, his gaze directed at Irwin. Was he answering the question?
Jeremy pointed at the center monitor. “Shadow?”
Donny put his fingers over the keyboard but then hesitated. His hands shook until his fingers touched the keys. Tap. Tap. Tap. The lines of code scrolled and then stopped. Donny pointed to the center of the screen. “Shadow. Shadow. Shadow.”
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