Critical Mass

by Whitley Strieber

  “I know it.”

  “This, too, shall pass. Maybe. Now get things in motion for me, please.”

  “Sir, everybody’s here.”

  “Here? My God, they belong on dispersal!”

  “Sir, when you came back, so did they.”

  “But not Matt?”

  “No, he’s still secured.”

  Had he returned, Fitz would have had him arrested, returned to his bunker, and imprisoned there.

  Still striding, Fitz shook his head. The others were still fools to come back. Without them, rebuilding the government would just be that much more difficult. So he’d do this as fast as possible and get them the hell out. He reached the Rose Garden and went inside. And there stood Dan, his son. Gone was the nose piercing. His hair was cut—roughly, but in a conventional cut. The media’s beloved Goth had disappeared, transformed into the kind of kid this president had hoped to show the world.

  “What in hell, Danny, get out of here!”

  “Dad—no.”

  Sudden anger flared in him. How could Dan be so dense? “This is a death trap, for God’s sake! We’re in our grave, all of us who are in this place.”

  “Dad—”

  “You’re young; you have no business taking a risk like this. Look, your mom’s in Newfoundland, and I’m ordering you to join her. You go out to Andrews. There’ll be a plane. You and your sister be on it.”

  “Mom is here.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “She landed at Andrews twenty minutes ago. And Polly’s on her way.”

  “This place could go, Son. Any minute. You need to leave.”

  “Dad, your family is here, and we’re gonna be here.”

  Then it would be all of them, all of the Fitzgeralds, vaporized together in this lethal place. He didn’t want it, but he accepted it because he had no time to argue. He embraced his son and felt his arms around him, felt his hand patting his back, a gesture of gentle support, simple, telling of the bond between them.

  He took a deep breath, then gave his son’s elbow a squeeze and went past him into the Oval. He’d do it all from the ceremonial office, because today was history—probably the last day of history as the world knew it—and he was damned if he would do it anywhere except in the center of power and authority. The Oval.

  16

  EXCELLENT PLANS

  Fitz supposed he was nothing but a sentimental fool, but he never entered the Oval without feeling the presence of all the great men who had worked here before him. He thought of decisions that had been made here, and what might have gone through the minds of the men making them. From here, Truman had dropped the bomb on Japan. From here, Kennedy had sent men to the moon. From here, Johnson had ended segregation. And from here—in here—Fitz would do what he could to repair the most horrendous breach of American security in history.

  On his desk, the classified briefer lay open and ready to read. Fitz glanced down at it. A probability study analyzing who might be responsible, based on that idiotic concept of “chatter.” Why would chatter be so important, for the love of God? It was chatter, wasn’t it?

  The Iranians were chattering the most, it seemed. Of course they were; they probably expected a bomb down their throat at any moment. The Syrians were chattering, the Israelis, the Egyptians, the Afghans, Pakistanis, Indians, Chinese, Kazakhstanis, Ukranians, Russians—along with, he supposed, the rest of the world. Who wouldn’t be chattering right now? Even the Vatican was on the list.

  There was, in short, nothing of value in the briefer.

  Billions of dollars a year, a decade of reorganization, thousands of brilliant and courageous people, superb equipment—and Las damn VEGAS was murdered!

  Shame. Shame on them. Shame, above all, on William Fitzgerald, who had believed in a system that was rotten, broken, shattered—penetrated.

  The thing was, and he could not deny this, he had known. Why else had he been after the Justice Department to plug the holes? Face it, Mr. President, you knew damn well. Not specifically, of course. But he had known that somewhere in a system this large and this porous there had to be water gushing in, bulkheads collapsing, watertight doors that should be closed being left wide open.

  You knew, Fitz. Their souls are on your conscience. You’re the president and the buck just stopped. Their blood is your responsibility.

  He hit the intercom. “Millie, is it still burning?”

  “Sir, you can see. It’s morning there now. It’s all smoke.”

  They seemed to come to the door of his soul, the ocean of the dead, holding out their children’s smoking bodies, calling to him, asking him why he hadn’t protected them.

  He wanted to cry, but he was too mad to cry.

  He looked down not at the briefer but at the hands that held it. His hands. Mottled, a bit thick, a broken nail, his gold wedding band the only decoration. They were the hands of a man who, before this day was out, might order retaliation for this terrible, evil act.

  Dream Angel would take hundreds of millions of lives. What was worse, Dream Angel was one of those absurdly theoretical plans that never worked the way they were supposed to work. All he knew about it for certain was that it was going to cause untold human suffering.

  He pressed the intercom again. “When the Joint Chiefs arrive, I’ll expect to discuss Dream Angel.”

  “Yes, Sir,” Millie replied.

  Quickly he considered the protocol of his telephone calls. The PM first, then the pope. The United States was a secular state, after all, and in any case, what could the pope offer but prayers?

  Fitz picked up the phone. “Good morning, Cameron, sorry for the delay. I’m in my pajamas and an overcoat.”

  “Fitz, first, of course, there are no words—”

  “Can you help me?” Four simple words, from one man to another and from his American people to their ancient British source.

  “I’ve asked MI6 to review everything. Literally, everything, for any shred, any scrap—”

  “What about London?”

  “We’re on crisis dispersal now. And coping with the civilian traffic moderately badly, I’m afraid. I think every hotel in the countryside has been booked by Londoners.”

  “You need a continuity-of-government plan.”

  “We’re behind on that.”

  “You’re not alone. I just hope it’s not too late. Where are the French, the Italians, the Germans?”

  “Nobody has a continuity plan, not that contemplates decapitation.”

  “We’ve been fools, all of us.”

  There was a pause, as if to absorb the enormity of that statement. “I’m not at Number Ten, in any event,” Cameron finally said.

  “I’m in the White House.”

  “Fitz, I just wish to God that there was something I could do!”

  “You have this so-called Mahdi’s little missive?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “It came from Japan. The one before that—so innocuous they didn’t tell me about it—from Finland.”

  “It was designed to create discord, that first one.”

  “In what sense?”

  “Too small to matter. Therefore, the people who didn’t recognize its seriousness will be blamed.”

  “No witch hunts. No time.”

  “They will be demoralized.”

  “Cameron, we have a security problem on this end. Is there any knowledge of it over there?”

  No response. The silence extended. Then, “Truthfully, how can I know? Certainly I haven’t been told.”

  “Ask MI6, if you don’t mind. If they know anything, any hint, let me know. Or Matt, if I’m no longer involved.”

  “Fitz, you’re a great man.”

  “Too scared for that, Cameron.”

  “We’ll raise a glass together, in victory.”

  That sounded about as hollow as anything Fitz had ever heard in his life. “We will,” he said, trying to force something like optimism into his voice.

  He hung up and
said to Millie, “I’m going to do the press conference at nine sharp. Let them know.”

  “You have an urgent from Mr. Hanlon.”

  The director of the Secret Service. Fitz picked up the phone. “Charlie, don’t talk; just listen. I have credible evidence that there is a penetration of our security services, which made this whole catastrophe possible. I cannot know who we can trust.”

  “Sir, we are absolutely clean. You know how carefully we vet our people.”

  Except for spies from the Philippines, of course. “Thank you, Charlie.”

  “Sir, we’re clean!”

  He just could not take the risk. “I’m using War Powers to remove you. Stand the presidential party down now.” He glanced toward the door. “Where are my Marines, Millie?”

  Logan had come in. “Company A is deploying now.”

  “Okay.” Fitz went back to the phone. “Charlie, I don’t want war to break out between the Secret Service and the Marines. You stand down.”

  Charlie did not reply.

  “Charlie, that’s a direct presidential order issued during a national emergency.” He fought to recall the exact terms of the act. What did he need to say to get this to happen?

  “Yes,” Charlie said at last. “Yes, Sir.”

  Fitz hung up. Logan said, “The pope is waiting.”

  “The pope, Millie.” A click. “Your Holiness.”

  “I speak on most urgent matter,” the old man said, his English lightly accented. “I have received a threat from an Islamic fanatic that calls himself the Mahdi. He says we must close all churches or there will be a serious consequence. Mr. President, I must know if this threat is with substance.”

  He considered, then threw the question back: “Do you have any indication from your own sources?” Contrary to popular belief, the Vatican didn’t have an official intelligence service, but it was the world’s best listener.

  “We believe that the threat in this document has substance. If we do not close our churches, there will be a further bomb. What I want to know is if this is what you call a credible threat?”

  The president did what presidents must do, but only good ones do well. He made an educated guess. “Holiness, I can confirm that the document you have is authentic, and is almost certainly linked to the group that has detonated this weapon.”

  When the pope’s voice returned, it was low, and now so thickly accented that Fitz could hardly understand. “We cannot close all churches.”

  “It’s not in your power, anyway.”

  “No, only the Catholic.” He paused. “Is there anything to be done?”

  The president considered his answer. He had to communicate force and caution both. “We’re evaluating the situation. World leaders will be notified first, including Your Holiness.”

  “God be with you, then.”

  He hung up the phone. Millie came in and laid a color printout of the Mahdi’s Web page on Fitz’s desk. He fingered it, read it, read it again.

  He went to the window, and watched the shafts of morning sun, gold and soft, spreading across the lawn. He wondered if he would be alive in fifteen minutes, or in ten . . . or one?

  “Fitzie!”

  Joy possessed him, followed immediately by as cold a dread as he had ever known, because his wife should not be here. Then the sound of her voice shot a bolt of memory straight into the depths of his mind. He saw her in girlhood, when they had been kids together, saw her in the tree house with little boxes of cereal and milk she had brought for a picnic, holding them while he kissed her and she turned away from him, her eyes as sharp as crystal, her cheeks red. She had a dusting of freckles then.

  Tall, proud, her blond hair swinging, she strode to him. But her eyes did not have that crystal sharpness in them now. Her eyes were terrible. She had been crying, and doing it a lot.

  He opened his arms and she flew in, and he said, with all the determination he could force into his voice, “Get out of here.”

  She looked up at him. Briefly there was the old twinkle there. Then it was gone. “Not gonna happen, buddy.”

  He kissed her.

  Logan hovered. “Sir?”

  Fitz drew back, taking her taste with him.

  “Sir, your meeting’s here.”

  “Let’s roll.”

  The Joint Chiefs came trooping in, and the intelligence chiefs, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the military secretaries.

  “Gentlemen,” Fitz asked, “can we carry out Dream Angel?”

  Air Force Secretary Hobbes said, “The planes are already in the air, Sir.”

  Fitz looked at the faces of the assembled men, and of his wife and now also, he saw, his son and daughter, who stood in the back of the crowded room.

  Dream Angel was the most fearsome military operation ever conceived. Over a thirty-hour period, it would deliver 1,750 W101 neutron bombs across all areas on the planet controlled by Muslim fundamentalists. At least, this was the theory. But Fitz knew military planning and its accuracy. He’d been a young congressman when a U.S. smart bomb had blown up the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. One thing was certain—wherever the bombs actually exploded, they would certainly kill an almost inconceivable number of human beings.

  “Very well,” he said.

  Planes and cruise missiles would deliver the ordnance. From Saudi Arabia to Indonesia, the affected areas of the world would literally be depopulated. The expected death rate was so high that there was an environmental impact assessment that discussed the climatic effects of the huge amount of methane that would be released by the decaying corpses.

  “Do we go?”

  The question, raised by Air Force General Alfred Mandell, hung in the silence.

  Fitz wished that he could raise the question of the penetration. But how could he? Once he reaches office, a president learns very quickly why such a massive intelligence organization is needed. Presidential power extends only as far as presidential knowledge. For example, they were helpless right now because they didn’t know anything about this so-called Mahdi, and even more helpless because of this catastrophic security issue.

  “What fools we mortals be,” Fitz said. He looked at Webb Morgath, who literally twisted in his seat on the uneasy end of a couch. “Webb, can we narrow this thing down? Who’s the Mahdi?”

  “Sir, I don’t have that information.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “We have the website—we know that it was set up on a server at a Japanese university, but that’s all we know.”

  “Japan,” Fitz said softly, tasting the history in the word: Tj ruining the country, then people bowing to MacArthur’s car as it passed, now Toyota and Honda standing astride the industrial economy of the planet.

  The world, as it existed now, was an outcome of American victories in World War II and over the Soviet Union, and American foreign policy since.

  But all policy is based on knowledge, and Fitz’s knowledge right now was compromised. He knew that Las Vegas had been nuked. He knew that this had happened, almost certainly, because U.S. security assets were being used or neutralized by the enemy. He knew that somebody who called himself the Mahdi had taken responsibility for the bombing. But he did not know if Dream Angel would work, and for a very specific reason. “So what happens if this attack isn’t coordinated from within the target areas? We execute Dream Angel and it doesn’t help?”

  “Sir,” Secretary of Defense Mike Ryland said, “with all due respect, that isn’t the issue. The issue is spreading terror a thousandfold greater among the Muslims than they can deliver to us. Break their will.”

  Fitz’s phone rang. Every eye turned toward it. All knew the same thing—Millie would never put through a call at a time like this unless it was terribly, terribly urgent.

  He picked it up. “Yes?” He listened, then put it down. “Mosques are being set fire to all over the world. The UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, India—a huge backlash.” Then he added, “It’s working both ways. In Cairo and
Beirut, they’re driving through the streets of Christian neighborhoods, machine-gunning people at random. In St. Louis and Atlanta and Mobile, mosques are burning. A man walked down a street in Seattle, shooting men with moustaches. A Sikh was strangled with his turban in a Dallas shopping mall while a crowd applauded and cheered.”

  “We need to deploy the Guard,” Ryland said.