Critical Mass

by Whitley Strieber

  Jim Deutsch said nothing. His misery was so great that he halfway hoped that the bastard would crash and kill them both. All Jim cared about now was getting to a phone. Any damn phone!

  Then Ressman made a turn. “I see a light,” he shouted. “I see a light!”

  Ahead, Jim saw it, too, the faint but unmistakable outline of a runway.

  They came rocking and bouncing in on the strip of the Grand Canyon National Park Airport. Ressman laughed with relief; he threw his head back; he sucked great gulps of air. He said, “What happened to my plane?”

  Jim heard him but didn’t bother to explain what the electromagnetic pulse that emanates from an atomic explosion does to electronic circuits. The hell with Ressman and his plane.

  The Grand Canyon airport was quiet and dark, with a strong night wind coming in across the desert from the west.

  “Is that the moon?” Ressman asked.

  Deep in the western sky there was a curious light, a crescent. It was dim purple. “It must be,” Jim said.

  “What happened out there?”

  Too many years doing what he did had made Jim react automatically to questions with silence. Nabila had hated that about him, because habit had extended it far beyond the necessities of the job.

  He could have told Ressman that his greedy stupidity had killed a great American city. He could have slugged the bastard, but he knew that would drop Ressman, and if he dropped this man, he was going to go further; he was going to kill him. His hands itched with the death in them. To be sure he wouldn’t use them, he jammed them into his pockets.

  He could not yet see the cloud from here, but the color of that crescent moon told him that it was just below the horizon. They had about four hours before the prevailing winds brought its deadly radiation over this airport, not to mention all the people living in the region.

  He had no iodine pills. He had nothing to save himself or anybody, nothing except his mind and what was in it: the knowledge of what had just happened, of the fact that it had been accomplished because crucial security forces were penetrated.

  But the top level didn’t know this. The White House would call on every asset the country possessed, and some of those assets were going to be doing the wrong damn job. How deep was the penetration? How much more damage could it do? And worse, the biggest question of all: were there more bombs?

  “Get a plane ready,” Jim told Ressman.

  “Excuse me?”

  Jim gestured toward the three light aircraft that were visible on the hangar apron. “Those guys are ready to roll, and they won’t have damaged electronics because they were below the horizon.”

  “What?”

  “Find the one with the best range. We’re going to take it.”

  “But—they’re locked! I don’t have keys.”

  Jim went to him, took him by the throat. “Be ready to fly in ten minutes.”

  “It’s theft.”

  “I’m commandeering the aircraft due to the fact that this is a national emergency.” He released Ressman. “Do it now.”

  Jim went to the small, locked waiting area. He sprang the lock with a credit card. Inside, he found a phone. He lifted the receiver. If it didn’t work . . . but it did. He dialed CIA Operations in Washington, waited for the computer, and input his personal code. A moment later, a young man’s voice said, “May I help you?”

  “I have observed an atomic weapon detonate over Las Vegas, Nevada. The time was twenty-four zero one. That is midnight plus one minute local time.”

  There was a silence. When the voice returned, it belonged to a scared boy. “We don’t have that.”

  One of the many problems the intelligence community had was that its members were now younger than they had ever been. Due to cannibalization from outside employers, and the fast-growing contractor business, the median age of CIA officers had been dropping for years. Thus the young man’s crisis experience would be limited.

  “I want you to tell me the procedures you will now carry out.”

  “This is a drill?”

  Jim remained silent. He didn’t care how agitated the kid became or what he thought he was involved in, as long as he did his duty correctly.

  Jim was not surprised that the CIA didn’t have the information yet. One of the things that characterizes extraordinary destruction like this is that it conceals itself inside a circle of ruined communications systems. McCarran Airport would be off-line, probably permanently, Nellis AFB would be in chaos, and the local Homeland Security office would obviously be down. Probably there were no radio transmissions, no phones or cell phones, nothing at all getting out. Hams in outlying areas, maybe.

  “A ten- to thirty-megaton atomic explosion has taken place above Las Vegas, Nevada. The probable agent is a plutonium bomb detonated at an altitude of five to seven hundred meters. It has caused extreme damage. They city is nonviable at this time. It is burning.”

  “Please confirm your identity.”

  Jim went through the classified identity routine. Then he added, “This needs to go upstairs right now, do you understand that, with my identity tagged intact all the way to the White House and the NSC. Do you know how to write up those tags?”

  “Sir, I do not.”

  Since the 1990s and the various failures that had resulted in the CIA blowing three capture and two assassination opportunities on Osama bin Laden, it had been possible for certain officers in sensitive situations that might require extremely fast response to move information on an expedited basis—that is, if the lines of communication weren’t compromised, which this one certainly could be. Jim had to assume that whoever had been able to use the FBI to try to arrest him would also have made sure they had access to communications like this one. What he had to say, though, was beyond the need for secrecy.

  “I want you to patch me in to the White House. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, Sir. But, Sir, excuse me, shouldn’t you be reporting in the chain?”

  Now it was time to play his ace, the new card that the disaster had put in his hand. “It could be that the president has only minutes to live unless he takes shelter, so do as you are told and do it now!”

  A silence followed. Then clicking, a ring, and a voice: “Security.”

  “I need to speak to Tom Logan. It’s a matter of critical national urgency. There is a time problem. I need immediate access.”

  “Who’s speaking, please?”

  Unbelievable. He contained himself. “I am a CIA officer. My name must be on your monitor.”

  “I need to confirm your credentials, Sir.”

  He had the chilling thought that he might be talking to a conspirator. They would want to get as close to the president as they could. Nevertheless, he repeated his identifiers. He waited. There was another click.

  “Hello?” God, had they hung up? Don’t do this, for the love of all that’s holy!

  “Logan.”

  The chief of staff, and thank you, God. “Mr. Logan, my name is James Deutsch. I am a Clandestine Operations contract officer operating under extreme deep cover within CONUS.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sir, this is the greatest national emergency in U.S. history. Within minutes, you will receive word that Las Vegas, Nevada, has taken a nuclear hit.”

  There was a choked sound.

  “You need to get POTUS in motion at once, but know this: there has been betrayal, probably for years, probably since Brewster Jennings in 2001. You are aware of that?”

  “Of course I’m aware of it! But that’s—it’s solved. That was Ahmad Khan. State was ordered to leak Brewster Jennings to Pakistani intelligence, and Khan used the information so that he could smuggle nukes around Brewster’s operatives. It’s old news. Contained. Done with.”

  “Okay, leave it. I know that our problem is in Customs and Borders at least, and I can identify one person of interest. There is also FBI involvement, but they may be acting on information with all good intentions. There must also be traitors,
further up the chain of command, close to you guys. Understand that. Must be.”

  “What are you saying here? Las Vegas—”

  “Listen to me, God damn you!”

  “All right! All right! It’s three in the morning; I had—I had an embassy staffer . . . uh, here. I have to get POTUS moving?”

  “Las Vegas has sustained a gigantic nuclear strike. Largest bomb ever detonated over a city. You must move the president to safety, but you must know—are you registering this now?”

  “I am!”

  “All right. The bomb was transported in country due to sabotage of the border detection system and a penetration of our security apparatus.”

  “How bad? How bad?”

  “I have no way of knowing, but they were able to generate an arrest warrant that nearly got me taken out of the picture. It’s up to you guys to figure out who could have done that. Find the warrant and work from there.”

  “My God. And you’re saying—what? How serious is this explosion again?”

  “Las Vegas is on fire from one end to the other. And, Mr. Logan, there are probably other bombs.”

  “You have knowledge of this detonation?”

  “I’m here, on the scene! I saw the blast!”

  “What I need to know is why this happened. Where was our interdiction program?”

  Jim could only hope that the man was not actually this stupid. He was in shock and half-asleep and maybe on pills or drunk or whatever. It must take a lot to enable a man in his position to sleep. Jim tried to inject more control into his voice. Sound calm, authoritative. Seconds counted. “Get POTUS in motion. Activate the Emergency Response System. Federalize the National Guard and put it under the Continental Army Command.”

  “Who are you, again?”

  “My name is James Deutsch, and I am on my way to D.C. because I cannot communicate everything I know over phone lines. Not any lines anywhere in the federal system, especially yours.”

  “This is the White House!”

  “When I get there, I will contact you again and you will conduct me to the president. Do you understand?”

  “No.”

  “If we are penetrated, there could be hostiles anywhere along the chain of command. I know the DCIA will back me on this. So will the DD. The deputy director knows me by name. Jim Deutsch. Tell the CIA to isolate information flow—oh, shit, I’m overcontrolling. I’m scared, buddy. Obviously, you need to communicate with the director level across the whole security system. Warn them. Tell them that this could have grown out of the Brewster Jennings problem. That’ll get their attention.”

  Jim hung up. He leaned his head against the wall of the old-fashioned telephone booth for a moment, and breathed deeply.

  He returned to the flight line to find Ressman sitting in an ancient V-tailed Beechcraft Bonanza.

  “Let’s fly.”

  “I’ve got the guy’s info right here,” Ressman said, “but you need to give him a call. I don’t know where they keep the keys.”

  Jim took the pilot’s logbook from Ressman and returned to the little lobby. He dialed the number in the logbook but got an answering machine. “You have reached the home of—” Then a click. A concerned, older voice: “Hello?”

  “Mr. Timothy Whitehead?”

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Agent James Deutsch. I’m calling on a matter of national importance. I am at the Grand Canyon airport with a pilot. I need to use your airplane.”

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s a national emergency, Mr. Whitehead. An atomic weapon has been detonated over Las Vegas and—”

  “What?”

  “Sir, please listen to me. I am at the airport. I need your plane.” He thought of the old man in Texas, now without a truck, struggling to survive. At least the owner of a plane wasn’t going to be hurting that bad. “I need to know which keys are yours.” There would be a set at the airport, of course.

  “They’re on hook twenty-two in the safe. What’s happening? Are we in any danger?”

  “Sir, are you in the Grand Canyon area?”

  “We’re in Flagstaff.”

  Jim made a mental calculation. That was far enough away to survive the worst of the radiation. “Keep your doors and windows closed. Turn on the radio and follow the alerts. You’ll start to hear them in about ten minutes.”

  He hung up the phone. The “safe” was not a safe at all but a lockbox. He’d sprung many heavier-duty setups, and doing this one was no more difficult than rolling down a widow.

  Perhaps Nabila could help. She was need-to-know on a thing like this. In fact, his guess was that she’d be getting a call-in within fifteen minutes.

  He phoned. It rang. Rang again. “Nabila?”

  “Jimmy!”

  “The news is bad. Las Vegas was just nuked.”

  She did not gasp; she did not cry out. In the background, he heard a male voice.

  “Get Rashid on, too.”

  “Jim?” His voice was tightly controlled.

  “Rashid. Hi. Listen. I’m in Nevada. Las Vegas just took a multikiloton nuke. Plutonium, I think about thirty k’s. Three times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.”

  Nabila choked out a cry.

  “Nabila?”

  “I have a warning! I have a warning that Maggie wouldn’t put in the briefer because we couldn’t confirm!”

  “What warning?”

  “Women in the West must put on the hijab or there will be a serious consequence. It was deployed out of Finland a few days ago.”

  “Deployed out of Finland but originating in Russia?”

  She was silent. They were violating the law, talking like this to each other and on a clear line and with another party with yet a different set of clearances on the call as well.

  “Nabila, I have a need to know.”

  “But I have no authority.”

  “Where in Russia, Nabila?”

  Rashid’s voice interrupted. “She asked me for lookdowns in Helsinki, then St. Pete, then—”

  “Jim, is there a Russian connection?” Nabila asked.

  “Listen to what I’m going to tell you. There is a penetration of U.S. security forces involved and it is extremely serious. Very high level. Obviously, a Russian connection is possible.”

  “The Muslims are surrogates, then?” Rashid asked.

  “They were, but they’re in control now, because nobody running them would have a motive to actually detonate a nuke like this, least of all Putin. But the internal system that’s protecting them—it’s still in place and it’s active, because they’re trying to kill me. Probably, whoever’s involved inside is doing it to save their own skin, at this point.”

  “These terrorists are insane,” Rashid said. “Not all of us are like this. It’s heresy and it’s madness.”

  “I know how painful it is for you guys. All the more motive to do what you can to help, am I right?”

  “We will do anything!”

  “Okay, here’s what I need. I am under threat pressure and I am moving east in a small plane with about a five-hundred-mile range. I’m going to take it down to Phoenix and I need you to wrangle me a jet out of Deer Valley Airport. I need clearances in order by the time I get there.”

  “Consider it done!”

  “Rashid, how?” Nabila asked.

  “Nabby, I don’t know, but we will do this!”

  “Travel me as someone too important to divert. The deputy director, say. And this is important—make sure the plane moves, even if nobody’s on it.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “Just do it. Make certain.”

  “How can we even get a plane, let alone convince them to fly it with no passenger?” Nabila asked. “It’s all crazy.”

  “We will! Now stop; this is enough. Jim, it will be as you say.”

  “Thanks, both of you.”

  “Rashid—”

  “Enough, sister! Jim, it is done.”

  He could imagine Nabby’s eyes, the wid
ening at the edges that came when she felt insecure, or when she was being taken to bed. He could almost feel her body against him. When he was under fire or running hard, she would float into his mind like this, what guys called a battlefield angel. He wanted to say that he still loved her, but he feared that he might insult her, and he would certainly offend Rashid.