“Call the other planes back,” Whitmore said softly.
Nimziki couldn’t believe it. “The other bombers might have better luck,” he argued. “One of their destroyers is en route to Chicago. We still have time to intercept it and deliver multiple warheads. We can’t just give up!”
“I said call them back.”
The president sank into a chair and stared up at the ceiling. The failure to inflict any damage on the aliens’ ship convinced him there was no way to prevent them from landing. Suddenly, he felt like there was plenty of time. Somehow, he knew from his mind-meld experience with the captured alien, it would take them a couple of years to move the entire population down to earth from the mother ship.
In light of what happened in Houston, it seemed to be time now to rethink the strategy of fighting the aliens and time to begin organizing ways to resist them once they began their invasion. The only logical course of action Whitmore could see was to wait for them to establish their cities, then blow the world to smithereens. Mankind was going to be exterminated, he knew, without mercy. If we’re lucky, he told himself, we might be able to take them down with us.
*
Jasmine, fighting sleep, watched the embers of the dying fire. Although she was exhausted, too many dangers, real and imagined, lurked in the darkness for her to close her eyes. Marilyn Whitmore, near by, seemed to be resting easily. The quiet man wasn’t as quiet as before: he was snoring, really sawing some logs.
In the distance, Jas could hear the sound of helicopter blades and wondered if removing the First Lady from the crash site had been the right thing to do. For all she knew, the helicopter in the distance was out there searching for Marilyn. Coming to El Toro, especially after all the warnings she’d heard along the way, felt like a horrible mistake. She would have left immediately to get Marilyn to a hospital, but in her haste to find Steve, she had smashed out the headlights on the truck by crashing through barricades of rubble. Traveling in the dark could be too dangerous.
The helicopter would come closer, scanning the ground with a searchlight. Not until it was half a mile off did Jas think it might actually find their tiny camp. She grabbed a branch and stirred the fire, sending a shower of sparks into the air. The others awoke to see the chopper heading toward them, the blinding searchlight in their eyes. Jas waved her arms and pointed at Mrs. Whitmore. To everyone’s surprise, the helicopter began to set down not far off. Jas ran toward the spot, eager to get some help. When she saw who was piloting the big olive green bird she burst out weeping and laughing at the same time. Overwhelmed, she ran to the helicopter and jumped through the door into Steve’s arms. She smothered him with kisses, then yelled over the noise of the blades, “You’re late!”
He grinned and yelled back, “I know how much you like big dramatic entrances.”
Steve brought a stretcher from the helicopter and, together with the quiet man, loaded Marilyn in the back for the ride back to Area 51. It didn’t look like she would live to see her husband again. She was coughing badly again, hacking up blood.
Steve pulled the quiet man close and shouted, “We got room for one more, buddy. You wanna take a trip to Nevada?” When the man shook his head no, Steve shrugged, “Suit yourself. Jas, let’s go!”
As Jasmine passed the quiet man, she asked, “You’re not coming?”
The man just looked at her, droopy-eyed, then gestured toward the band of wounded people they’d collected during the afternoon. He didn’t want to leave them. She handed over the keys to the truck and told him where the supply of food was hidden. Before she turned to go, she looked into the man’s eyes. “Hey, my name’s Jasmine Dubrow. What’s yours?”
The man looked at her sadly, as if he hadn’t understood.
Steve bellowed, “Jas, let’s go. We’ve got to go now.”
Tearing herself away, she trotted to the copter and strapped herself in, then watched the quiet man grow smaller and smaller as she flew away.
*
Dr. Isaacs felt like a marathon runner hitting the wall. Thirty hours of nonstop work were taking their toll. Bleary-eyed and sallow, he looked in on Mrs. Whitmore, a fake smile smeared across his face. When he saw her sleeping, his face dropped back into a mask. A moment later, he saw the president trotting down the corridor carrying a child in his arms. Behind him, Connie and a Secret Service agent jogged along on either side.
“How is she?” he demanded.
Issacs gave the president a look that told the whole story. Turning to the little girl riding in her father’s arms, he said, “I’ll bet you’re Patricia Whitmore.”
“Hey, how’d you know that?” The six-year-old was always amazed when strangers knew her name.
“Because your mommy is right inside there and I know she wants to see you. But you have to promise to be gentle, okay? She’s very sick.” The moment she was turned loose, Patricia tore around the corner like she hadn’t heard a word.
“I’m sorry, Mr. President,” Issacs said. “Perhaps if we’d gotten to her sooner. She’s bleeding internally. Even if we had gotten to her immediately, I’m not sure…” His voice trailed off. “There’s nothing else we can do for her, sir.”
The president put a hand on Dr. Issacs’s shoulder before straightening himself up and pushing through the double doors.
“Oh, my munchkin!” Marilyn was doing her best to wrap an arm around her daughter. She looked weak, but not on the verge of death.
Remembering to be very gentle, Patricia reached up and patted her mother’s stomach. “Mommy, we were so worried. We didn’t know where you were.”
“I know. I’m so sorry, but I’m right here now, baby.”
Issacs waved the medical staff out of the room. When the last of them were gone, Whitmore walked over to the bed and knelt down next to Patricia. “Honey, why don’t you wait outside so Mommy can get some rest.”
Reluctantly, the little girl kissed her mother and went outside to wait with Connie. As soon as she was gone, Marilyn’s brave smile shattered into tears and whimpers of pain. She reached for her husband’s hand.
“I’m so scared, Tom,” she whispered, tears pouring freely down both cheeks.
“Hey, none of that,” he said bravely, “the doctor said he’s optimistic, said you’re going to pull through this.”
She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Liar,” she said, squeezing his hand with fading strength. Then the two of them put their heads together and cried. They cried and kissed and looked into one another’s eyes until she fell asleep for the last time.
*
When the president finally stepped out of the room, his face was drained of color, his eyes bloodshot. A number of people waited at a respectful distance down the hallway, most of them with questions for their leader. They needed his approval on communiques and authorizations for troop movements, the thousand decisions presidents made every day. But the man who stepped into the hallway didn’t feel at all presidential. Overwhelmed with grief, he didn’t feel capable of acting as the leader of anything. Without a word, he moved through the people in the hall until he came to Jasmine. Before he could find his voice, she reached out and took his hand.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I’m so sorry.” She still felt a lingering guilt about not being able to get Marilyn to a doctor sooner.
Whitmore shook his head. “I just want to say thank you for looking after her. She told me. You sound like a very brave woman.” He turned to Steve and managed a weak smile. “And you again! Thank you for letting me say goodbye to her.”
Patricia had followed her father down the hall. “Is Mommy sleeping now?”
He reached down and picked the girl up, realizing he didn’t have the strength to explain it all just yet. “Yes, baby,” he said, squeezing her in his arms, “Mommy’s sleeping.”
*
By the time Connie found Julius and asked him to speak to his son, David had turned the small office space into a disaster area. Acting much drunker than he actually was, he had thr
own the chairs against the room and overturned the refrigerator. He was storming around kicking the furniture when Julius saw him through the plate-glass windows and hurried into the room.
“David! David! What in the hell are you doing? Stop already!”
David was just about out of gas anyway. He stopped flailing long enough to explain, “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m making a mess.”
“This I can see,” Julius assured him. “And why? Why are you messing?”
“We’ve gotta burn the rain forest, pops. We’ve got to dump all our toxic waste!” To illustrate his point, he emptied out a waste paper can, then threw it against the far wall. “We’ve got to pollute the air! Rip us the ozone! Maybe if we screw this planet up badly enough they won’t want it anymore.” Taking careful aim at a coffee cup someone had left at the edge of the counter, David did his best to kick it. He missed by a mile and ended up sprawled on his ass in the middle of his own litter.
“Well,” Julius looked around the room, admiring the work his son had accomplished, “you’ve gotten us off to a good start. This room is officially polluted. Now it doesn’t matter if the Martians kill me, because when the bill comes for this office I’ll die of a heart attack.”
He walked over to David, who laid back and put his arms over his head, moaning. Clearing a spot, Julius sat down next to his son. He suspected David’s tantrum had more to do with Connie than he was willing to admit. He searched for the right thing to say. “Listen,” he began, “everyone loses faith at some point. Take me, for example. I haven’t spoken to God since your mother died.”
David opened one eye, surprised by his father’s revelation.
“But sometimes,” the old man went on thoughtfully, “you have to stop and remember all the things you do have. You’ve got to be thankful.”
David snorted and covered his head again. “What have we got to be thankful about anymore?”
“For instance…” Julius looked around, searching for an idea. At a temporary loss, he said the only thing he could think of. “Your health! At least you’ve still got your health.” He knew that was a pretty lame argument and didn’t blame David for moaning again. Nevertheless, he took hold of an arm and began tugging his son to his feet. “Come on, let’s go look for a jacket and a cup of coffee. Drinking weakens your system. I don’t want you catching a cold.”
Reluctantly, David let himself be pulled to his feet. Then suddenly he stiffened, caught in the grip of a startling idea. Something like a smile twitched across his lips.
“What did you just say?”
“About faith? Sometimes a man can live his entire life…”
“No, the second part. Right after that.” David turned and looked through the glass at the alien attacker resting just outside.
“What? That you might catch a cold?”
“Pop, that’s it. That’s the answer. Sick. Cold. The defenses come down! It’s so simple. Pops, you’re a genius!!”
Julius gave him a long, suspicious look, wondering if his son had finally gone off the deep end.
*
When Julius finally persuaded her that David was sober enough to be on to something worthwhile, Connie had gone to the president and asked him to come into the storage hangar where David wanted to demonstrate something about the alien attacker. He claimed to have a plan.
The group had gathered on the observation platform, standing around waiting. “All right, Ms. Spano, what’s this all about?” Nimziki demanded, impatient from the second he’d walked in.
“I really have no idea,” she said, talking to the whole group. “He wanted everyone here to show us something about the spacecraft.”
Nimziki bristled at the idea of being summoned by a civilian and not even being able to get a straight answer. “Well, let’s get on with this,” he said testily. “We’ve all got more important things to do.”
Connie was fed up with this pompous ass. She put her hands on her hips and was about to lay into him when the president came striding down the steel ramp into the hangar. He called a group of advisers to one side of the ramp and had a quick word with them.
Dylan standing beside Steve, asked loudly, “Does that plane fly in outer space?”
“It certainly does,” Steve told him.
David came through the cabin hatch and climbed down the ladder to the large pedestal holding the attacker. He gave a technician inside the ship a few last-minute instructions, then jogged toward the observation platform.
“What have you got for us, David?” This time Whitmore’s use of David’s first name implied no challenge. He’d been hit in the gut so hard, so many times over the last two days, he was way too weary to try to pull a power trip on anyone. He spoke as one frightened man to another.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” David began, sounding a lot like the late Dr. Okun, “I’ve worked up a little demonstration. It’ll just take a moment of your time.”
David reached into a trash receptacle and fished out a soda can. “We’ll just recycle this guy,” he said to himself, trotting back to the attacker and reaching up to set the can on the tip of the wing. When he returned to the observation platform, he waved a signal to the technician sitting behind the windows of the attacker. The man hit a switch, then gave David a thumbs up. Looking at the crowd on the platform, David could see he’d captured their interest. “Major Mitchell, from where you’re standing, do you think you could shoot that can off the ship?”
Mitchell looked at the president, who returned a “why not?” shrug. Unsnapping the flap on his holster, he withdrew his pistol. After a last quizzical look around, Mitchell, a pretty fair marksman, raised his firearm and sighted on the can, slowly squeezing the trigger. With a crack, the bullet blasted out of the gun and crashed against the protective shield. A loud clink sounded when the ricochet struck one of the iron catwalks above. Suddenly everyone lost enthusiasm for the experiment.
“Oops, I didn’t think about that,” David apologized. “You see, the can is protected by the ship’s invisible shield. We can’t penetrate their defenses.”
“We know that already,” Nimziki said. “Is there a point to all of this?”
“My point,” David said, getting to the good part of his show, “is that since we can’t break through their shields, we’ve got to work our way around them.”
David walked over to a rolling tool shelf where he’d set up his laptop computer. It was connected to a cable that ran through the shield, into the cockpit of the alien craft, and plugged into the shield receiving unit he’d repaired earlier that day.
“This will just take a second.” David typed instructions into the machine, then stared down at his wristwatch, silently counting down.
“Now, Major Mitchell, as far as my assistant sitting in the cockpit is concerned, the ship’s shield is still protecting the can. He hasn’t made any adjustments. Would you mind trying to shoot the can again?”
Reluctant to send another bullet ricocheting through the concrete bunker, Mitchell looked testily at David. Not until Grey gave him the go-ahead did he unholster his gun.
“Hold on now!” Steve wasn’t taking any chances. He carried Dylan to the top of the ramp and got behind the concrete corner. Most of the observers followed him up there. Mitchell took careful aim and shot again. This time, the can flipped over backwards and the bullet clanged off the wall at the far end of the big hangar.
“How did you do that?” General Grey asked, suitably impressed.
“I gave it a cold.”
Julius, beaming with pride, nodded to the others in the group. The president, intrigued, moved closer to where David continued working with his computer.
“More accurately,” he went on without looking up, “I gave it a virus. A computer virus. Nasty little things, very hard to shake once you’ve caught one.” With a final, artistic tap, he hit the ENTER key, then turned the machine around to show Whitmore and Grey the graphic he’d brought up. The president studied the screen for a mo
ment, nodding in agreement with what he saw.
Grey, who knew computers but hated them at the same time, kept his eyes on David. “Are you telling us you can send some kind of a signal that will disable all their shields?”
David touched his fingertip to his nose. “Exactly. Just as they used our satellites against us, we can use their own shield signal against them… if.”
“If what?”
“If we can plant the virus in the mother ship, it would then be sent down into the city destroyers and the attack ships like this one. Okun told us that this ship’s power was coming directly from the mother ship, so that must be true of the large ships, as well.”
“I hate to poop on your party,” Nimziki had snuck to the edge of the observation platform and was leaning over the railing for a look at the computer screen, “but just how are you proposing to ‘infect’ the mother ship with this virus? They don’t have a Web page on the Internet.” He looked around for others to share his joke.
David responded without hesitation. “We’ll have to fly this attack craft out of our atmosphere and dock with the mother ship.” He said it as if it were the most natural, obvious idea in the world.
Steve’s ears perked up the way they always did when space flight was mentioned. He set Dylan down and walked down the ramp to hear more. David unrolled one of the satellite photos of the mother ship, the 415-mile-long titan which was waiting patiently behind the moon for the destroyers to pave her way. All concentration, David handed the president one corner of the blurry poster-sized satellite photo.
“Here—” David indicated what looked like a docking bay “—we can enter right here. They seem to follow a certain logic in the design of their ships. If this one is like the city destroyers, this is the front door.”
David could sense that the politicians and military bigwigs around him were more than skeptical.
“You know what? He’s probably right.” Steve surprised everyone, including himself by interrupting the intense discussion. Everyone turned to look at him, so he continued. “When I flew past that door on the LA ship—city destroyer, I guess you’re calling them—I could see this big-ass—I mean, this giant docking bay inside. The ships park in clusters around a central towerlike thingie.”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 23