Critical Mass

by Whitley Strieber

  Rashid said, “Assalmu Alaykum.”

  Jim replied, “Ma’a Salama.”

  “Ma’a Salama,” Nabila said. Good-bye, in their formal Arab way, a convention full of the fatalism desert life induces.

  Jim went to the little Beechcraft. He gazed into the pure air of the late night, staring for a moment back toward the huge flickers, red and orange and pink, that swept the western horizon. He climbed into the seat. “We good to go?”

  “Checks out.”

  He pulled down his door, made sure it was latched. The field around them was dark and silent. Or was it? Now, he had to assume the worst. Always. When he spoke, he made sure it was loud enough to be heard from the edge of the apron: “Take me to Deer Valley Airport near Phoenix. Do you know it?”

  “I’ve flown in there.”

  Ressman started the tiny plane’s engine. It darted down the runway, and rose into the night. For a few moments, Jim let its running lights remain visible; then he told Ressman to cut them. The plane was lost to view.

  Jim sat listening to the drumming of the old engine, scanning the meager instruments, watching the altimeter rise. When it reached nine hundred feet he said, “That’s enough.”

  Ressman trimmed, throttled back, and dropped the nose. “We got mountains ahead,” he said.

  “Not really. I want you to reset the course. We’re not going to Phoenix at all. I’m going down to Piedras Negras. So what I think we need to do here is refuel in Nogales, then take me to P.N. and we’re done.”

  His call had been a diversion. He didn’t know who might be listening and he didn’t even know for certain if Nabby and Rashid could be trusted. If by some miracle they actually got an empty plane to fly to Anderson, he might achieve a major misdirection. If not, his pursuers would at least be a little confused for a while.

  “I don’t know if I can find Nogales.”

  “Out in that desert, it’ll be the only lights.”

  “You’re running. Staying below radars.”

  “I am running, Mr. Ressman. You got that right.”

  When Ressman didn’t respond, Jim allowed himself to close his eyes. If Nabila had understood the silences between his words, a specially cleared jet would take off from Deer Valley in about two hours and head for Washington. It would be empty, except for the pilots, but hopefully nobody would realize that until it landed. He would be far away by then, on a different route and mission entirely.

  12

  EMERGENCY RESPONSE

  SYSTEM

  Among the first things a president learns is that when his bedside telephone rings after midnight, the news is never good. He threw back the quilt and sat up. He picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

  “Sir?”

  “Hit me, Logan.”

  “We need to get you in motion; a nuke’s gone off in Vegas.”

  The world shuddered; the room swayed. He sucked breath, sucked more. His heart started in, bad. His mouth went so dry he could hardly form words. He grabbed the glass of water on the bedside table and drank it down.

  “Sir?”

  The president of the United States sat on his bed, a phone clutched in his hand, dying and dying, a million deaths. “Oh, God, God, God.”

  He was no kid; he had his share of health problems; his heart wasn’t invulnerable. He took deep breaths until the sensation passed. Then another sensation came—that same heart almost broke with sorrow. His administration was ruined. This was the worst disaster in the history of the United States and it was his watch. He had a place in history and it was a hell of a bad one and—“Those poor people! Are we doing what we should? Where’s FEMA? Where’s the Guard? Where’s the National Emergency Response System?”

  “We need to move you, Sir.”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  “She’s in Newfoundland, Sir,” Logan said. “They landed as soon as they got the emergency signal.”

  He forced himself to think. This place could go up any second. He could be about to die—God, in seconds! “Okay. Okay. I’m calm. Is the government disbursing?”

  “Across the board. The Emergency Response System is active; the whole country’s being warned—”

  The president grabbed the remote off the bedside table and jabbed at it. The television turned on. He tuned to CNN.

  At first, the screen appeared black. Then there were stars on it. “We’re eight miles west-southwest of the Strip, Charlie,” a voice said. Then more silence. “I don’t know if I can be heard. We’re eight miles west-southwest of the Strip, Charlie. Are we on the air?”

  The stars bulged into blurs, then resolved.

  Tom Logan came into the room.

  “Oh my God,” President William Johnson Fitzgerald said. “God help us all.”

  Hundreds and hundreds of fires turned the screen into a weltering orange glow. Buildings, homes, whole neighborhoods, all were burning. There were dark figures visible here and there in nearby streets. And in the center of it, like some sort of monstrous autumn bonfire, the Strip was sending a tower of fire into the sky.

  “Sir, we need to get rolling.”

  “I hear you. Get me the governor of Nevada.”

  “Sir, we’re under imminent threat!”

  “Do it!”

  Logan made a call. “Governor Searles, please, this is the president calling.” He gave the phone to the president.

  “Mike? . . . Look, I want to know what you need. I’m federalizing the Guard, but not there. You keep them. And if you need any military. Any military. Or planes. Nellis—excuse me? . . . Oh, God. Of course Nellis is gone. All right. Look, I’m going to give you my direct line, but I’ve got to get in motion. They’re afraid we could be about to take a hit. Washington.” He gave Logan the phone.

  “Sir, I need to tell you something—”

  “Talk to him!”

  “Oh yes, Governor, it goes without saying. It’s a disaster area. We’ll make certain that all possible fire equipment, Phoenix, Salt Lake, LA—everything that can be deployed—”

  The president grabbed Logan’s arm. “Go slow on that. This could be one of many. They might need their own services.”

  “We’ll make sure everything’s moving toward you as soon as possible.”

  Two Secret Service men had come in with the coat and shoes that were kept ready for a sudden move in the night. The president put the coat on over his pajamas and put the shoes on and followed them.

  Logan said, “Sir, Mr. President—”

  From outside, the president heard the helicopter landing. “I don’t want that,” he said. “We’re too vulnerable in that.”

  “It’s the protocol we’re using—”

  “No. No. We’re going down.” Few people realized just how extensive the tunnel system under Washington actually was. There was not a single embassy without an FBI listening post under it. In fact, the first tunnel had been constructed by L’Enfant during the building of the city. It led from the White House to the Potomac, and was intended as an escape route for the president. During World War II, it had been widened and an electric railroad installed for the use of FDR. Until the advent of presidential helicopter travel in the sixties, it had been the primary escape route. It was why presidential yachts had been so important for so long, and why they had been anchored where they had. Every president from Washington to Kennedy had kept a yacht at the ready.

  With the advent of missiles that could reach the city from Siberia in twenty minutes, though, other means had to be found. Thus the current system of moving the president to the National Redoubt by helicopter.

  As they hurried down from the residence, the president could see one of the young men speaking into his radio.

  At the bottom of the stairs, they were met by an ashen Milton Dean, head of the president’s security detail. “Sir, excuse me, but the tunnels are not safe in this circumstance; you have to understand—”

  Among the agreements that a president made was to abide by the orders of his security personnel dur
ing times of danger. Was the chopper really safer? Certainly it was fast. They would be in the bunker in twenty minutes.

  But that wasn’t enough, and he knew it. “Where’s the Continuity of Government Act?” he asked Logan. The president had introduced it earlier in the year, but it wasn’t a legislative priority.

  “Stuck in committee, Sir.”

  “Goddamn it.” The act would provide a structure for the governors to reconstruct the federal government, in the event that Washington was destroyed before the federal emergency dispersal program could be enacted. He took a deep breath. Okay, fella, this is why they elected you. Good in a pinch. “Where’s Matt?”

  “The vice president is moving.”

  The president headed out toward the Rose Garden and the waiting helicopter. He stepped into its plush, nearly silent interior, followed by a running Logan. But the Marines closed the door and took off. Their orders were clear: during an imminent peril emergency, move the moment POTUS is aboard.

  Because there was only the dispersal program and no continuity act, if a nuclear weapon was detonated in Washington without warning the U.S. government would collapse. Why such an act had not been passed years ago was beyond President Fitzgerald’s comprehension. And yet he’d let it get stuck in committee, hadn’t he? You didn’t like to think about things like that. You didn’t want to believe it could really happen—which was your weakness, the enemy’s strength. As things stood, the government had to survive or the country was ruined.

  “Get this thing moving,” he shouted into the intercom. “Flat out, boys!”

  He closed his eyes. At least Linda and Polly and Dan were all right, for the moment. But God help the American people. And . . . oh, God, Las Vegas. “Damn those bastards; damn them!” Fitzgerald would not stoop to hating all Muslims. No, not this president. But he was tempted, because there was an incredible weapon being constructed that he could potentially use to entirely change the face of human society. Dream Angel offered him that much power. To order it activated, though . . . it would be the most monstrous, most terrible thing ever undertaken by any human power. What was worse, it was still unfinished. Parts of it were just theoretical. More terrifyingly, nobody really knew what it would do—except for the fact that it would kill millions.

  He was going to be asked to make the decision about whether or not to attempt Dream Angel. If he lived. “Where are we?”

  “Eight miles out.”

  “Put on the goddamn gas!”

  13

  A WORLD AT BAY

  It was now one ten in the morning in Las Vegas, four ten in Washington, and eleven ten in England. A benign sun shone on the spires of London and the new skyscrapers that increasingly defined the skyline, and flashed against the wings of the pigeons wheeling above Trafalgar Square. In Regent’s Park, the roses were lingering in the long, warm autumn, and Queen Mary’s Garden was filled with noonish strollers. One by one, they took out their cell phones and one and then another stopped and concentrated on what their friends were telling them. Then they noticed bells beginning to ring, everywhere, bells.

  In seventeen languages around the world, the BBC’s announcers read the same main story: “Bulletin from America: The U.S. city of Las Vegas, Nevada, has sustained a large explosion and has fallen out of communication. There are reports of extensive damage and fires in outlying areas. Area witnesses report a blinding flash followed by a series of severe explosive shocks. A fiery cloud hangs over the city at this time. Many are believed dead, and there has been much property damage. Owing to the darkness there, a full assessment of the damage, and an official announcement about the nature of the explosion, will not be forthcoming until the predawn light in approximately an hour and a half.”

  Radio 4 went back to the reading of the letters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to his mother, Mary Doyle, and the prime minister, who was watching a live video feed from Las Vegas being provided him by MI6, became sick in the toilet of his office at 10 Downing Street. Then his security personnel came and soon he, also, was in motion. Like the United States and every other Western country at risk of nuclear terrorism, the United Kingdom lacked a definite continuity-of-government process. If London was destroyed this moment, the British people would not only be without a government; they would also be without the slightest means to reconstruct one.

  In Dharmsala, India, Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, considered the dark event. He made an unprecedented decision to telephone His Holiness the Pope, who came to the instrument from his luncheon. The Dalai Lama stepped into his small garden, where the sun was setting over the wide-leafed trees. The pope listened with shock and concern to the old man. He did not consider that there was any doctrinal validity to the Dalai Lama’s beliefs, but the pope certainly respected the man’s sincerity. As the pope listened to the description of the catastrophe, he knew precisely why this other religious leader had called him. This was the beginning of an attack on religion; that was clear. And, more specifically, an attack on Christianity.

  The pope next telephoned the prime minister of Italy and asked that he send troops to seal off the Vatican immediately. Then the pope ordered the Swiss Guards into action, and they began moving through St. Peter’s and the Sistine, quietly but persistently directing the tourists to leave. In the crypt beneath the great church, other men moved among the tombs with powerful flashlights, finding here and there lovers, and once a priest on some nameless mission, who hurried away. Along with the interlopers, the tourists at the tomb of Saint Peter were returned to the surface.

  In Paris, police surrounded important public buildings and the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Musée d’Orsay were closed, as were the Uffizi in Florence and the Prado in Madrid. All European governments made similarly frantic efforts to escape their capitals, and all faced the same danger—total lack of continuity in the event of sudden catastrophe.

  The United States, Canada, the European Union, Mexico, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, and many other countries grounded all flights immediately. Most countries issued grounding directives, but many did not have sufficient control over their own airspace for this to be effective. Flights over most of Africa and various Asian countries continued, at least until planes made scheduled landings. All flights incoming to the United States, the European Union, and Canada were either turned back or landed under fighter escort.

  The news reached the Middle East at approximately ten thirty in the morning local time, when Al Jazeera carried a grim bulletin: “The U.S. city of Las Vegas is in flames after the detonation of a nuclear bomb. There is no communication with the city, but news helicopters just arriving on the scene report that the entire metropolis is burning. The famous gambling strip is no more.”

  For a few moments, the channel went back to its regularly scheduled program, The Fabulous Picture Show, featuring an interview with Sudanese film director Lina Makboul about her latest project, called Water. A moment later, the channel returned to the news and the same feed of the city burning, now in the pink light of the predawn, that was being broadcast worldwide.

  Cairo, Baghdad, New Delhi, Rawalpindi, Kabul, Tehran, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem—all the great cities of the Middle East—simply stopped. Cars stopped in the streets; people stopped on the sidewalks.

  As soon as it had received the alert from Mossad, the Israeli government had put its military on immediate alert. Across Jerusalem, across Tel Aviv, in the streets of London, of Paris, of Berlin, of New York, of Houston, of Mexico City, a great silence descended. But that was not true in Cairo, it was not true in Tehran, in Riyadh, in Damascus, in Gaza, where people rushed cheering into the streets, leaping, dancing, and soon the news crews were there, too, taping the sweating men, the dark rush of women.

  After ten minutes of this in Cairo, the Egyptian government, desperate not to offend the Americans, sounded the air-raid sirens, with the result being panic and confusion, then a stampede to evacuate the city. In Iran, a frantic military went into defensive posture but was c
areful not to put more than a few aircraft in the air. President Ahmadinejad issued an announcement on state television that any attempt to attack Iran would be met with “fierce resistance.” Immediately thereafter, along with the rest of the government, he left for a mountain retreat north of Tehran. Privately, he was furious. Who had done this? He sent a message of condolence to the U.S. president, assuring the Americans that Tehran was not responsible. But would they believe it?

  Similar messages were sent by Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, North Korea, and every other country that worried that it might be held responsible.

  In the Pamir Panhandle in Afghanistan, a clear, quiet noontime arrived and people took their lunches of olives and cheese, of lamb and tomatoes, eating quietly in the profound silence of the place, while the grasses bowed in the noon wind and a truck passed on the road, its gears grinding as it began working its way up a hill.