Critical Mass

by Whitley Strieber

They were taken home by the police, back to the plane and the bomb, and as they went into the house an F-16 thundered low overhead, its fuselage glowing in the city lights.

  Inside the house, Bilal said, “I have another way. I am too heavy now, but perhaps that can change.”

  Hani’s eyes grew as quick as those of an uneasy sparrow. Flick, flick, they went, looking to the living room, to the kitchen, resting on the door into the garage.

  “You must help me, Hani.” Bilal tugged at his brother’s shoulder. “Here, come to the garage; we have the saw.”

  Hani pulled away. He looked at the floor. Shook his head. “I will go,” he said.

  As midnight had approached, President Fitzgerald had ranged the White House like Banquo’s ghost, followed and guarded at every turn by Marines.

  At ten minutes to twelve, he had taken a call from the Pakistani leader: “Mr. President, I know that Dream Angel is off the deck. I am calling to beg you for our lives.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fitz had said, and immediately felt weak for saying it. He sensed his power—American power—ebbing away, dying with the dollar and the terrible passage of this night. He’d hung up, not listening to the man’s further protests.

  There had been two calls from the pope, who was apparently with the Saudi Grand Mufti. The Saudi king had telephoned twice. More pleas, no doubt. There had been other calls from Syria, from Iran, from Indonesia, everybody knowing that Dream Angel had moved to its fail-safe points, everybody knowing that the moment Washington was destroyed, hundreds of millions of Muslims would also be destroyed.

  At five minutes to the hour, the vice president had called. “Fitz, I want you to know that the Document of Transfer arrived safely. I have it here.”

  “Thanks for letting me know, Matt.” The world was distant from Fitz now, full of details—the singing of the crowd out on Pennsylvania Avenue, the distant roar of a passing F-16, the tap of heels along a corridor he could not see.

  “That’s not why I called.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “Come on; I’ve got the chopper on the lawn!”

  “America does not run.”

  “The death of the president will be looked on as proof of our weakness. It will be seen as a defeat!”

  “The courage of the president will be seen as strength. Then the world will see a smooth transition of power. That’s what history has to remember, not that I turned turtle and saved my own damn ass. There’s a lot of movers and shakers out there, for God’s sake.”

  “Who?”

  “That crowd. Senator Martin is there, Cardinal O’Halloran, for God’s sake. They’ve been singing for hours. Standing their ground because I am standing mine. This is the best way, bro. Take it from me.”

  “It’s a waste of life! The kids, Fitz, Linda. Think of them!” Matt paused. When his voice came back, it was darker, and there was a lot there, Fitz knew, that was not being said. “You could have evacuated a lot of people from that city.”

  “And risk an immediate detonation? No. Listen to me: Dream Angel is approaching fail-safe. They can remain on station for four hours; then there’s a refueling cycle.”

  “The moment Washington is destroyed, they’re goin’ in. Should’ve gone in hours ago.”

  “You don’t think my decision was the right one, either.”

  “Fitz, there are no right decisions in this thing. I would have sent Dream Angel and gotten the hell out of D.C. You look at things differently.”

  One minute to twelve had come. “You wouldn’t have. No way. Not if you were in this chair.” The trouble with Dream Angel was that it was too big to use. You have an ant on a plate, you can’t use a sledgehammer without smashing the plate you’re trying to keep clean. But there was no use explaining any of this. One thing a president learns early—don’t explain yourself, because you can’t.

  “Fitz?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s twelve two.”

  “Well, hell, they’re late, aren’t they? Go with God, bro.”

  “You, too. My love to all.”

  “I have a cussed tough family.”

  They were both silent, then. Hanging up this phone, Fitz thought, was like an act at the end of the world. But he did it. He looked at the phone, on the old Roosevelt Desk. He was in the Oval again. He didn’t give a damn who heard what. At last, the president of the United States had no secrets.

  “Logan, we got anything from upstairs?”

  “Nothing. There is not one bogey in the sky anywhere in the area. And every high point from Atlanta to Bangor has been searched at least twice. Plus the radiation detection teams are out in force. Fitz, there just isn’t anything.”

  “I wish the damn detectors were better.”

  “The best technology in the world—”

  “—just isn’t good enough!”

  He went to the window, looked out across the shadow-filled Rose Garden. Officially, he was a praying man. They liked that, the American people. Guy like them, grateful to his God. Fine.

  He’d go to the National Cathedral on occasion, but it was more a time to turn over problems. He wasn’t like those crazies who’d been around here before, with the gall to believe they were on some kind of special mission from God. He just hoped for the best. He knew what he was—as, he suspected, did most people—a little bit of nothing on a tiny dot of a planet in the middle of who knew where? Lost in the stars.

  He bowed his head, and he prayed hard, not to some God who might be looking down on a president but to the God of his childhood, whose presence he had felt when, as an innocent boy, he had knelt and been grateful for his little days.

  28

  TWO STORIES

  Twelve thirty came, and Rashid’s stomach was in his throat, his heart racing, his blood boiling. He jumped up and went to the cooler and got a Coke, popped it, and chugged. Immediately, Mark was there.

  “Are we looking at a coronary?”

  They could see his medicals, of course. He was way off the charts; there was nothing for it. “I’m sorry. My sister wasn’t dispersed. And the waiting—oh, God!”

  Mark put his hand on Rashid’s shoulder. “That’s very understandable. If you’re not mission capable, you just let me know, we’ll have Horace add your con to his for a while.”

  “I’m not seeing anything. Bombers at their fail-safes. Pakistani military convoys heading out of target areas.”

  “They know the Dream Angel target areas?”

  “The entire Pakistani establishment will be packed into Karachi. Wherever there are concentrations of moderates. You can be sure of that.”

  “What about those Russians?”

  “They never reappeared. Only the shepherds, that’s all that ever moved in the area.”

  “And low-level reconnaissance showed nothing. Dead, no activity.”

  “The vehicle remains parked where it was.”

  “Then the two Russians are still in there?”

  He was going mad; he couldn’t talk more about this; he was no actor! He had to get out of here somehow and get to Alexandria and find out what had gone wrong, and he had to fix it, God willing.

  “They are in there. Perhaps it’s some sort of—I don’t know—bounty hunt. They thought perhaps this Mahdi nut was hiding there. They went in and now they’re trapped in a cave-in or blown up by a mine. There is absolutely no sign of activity. Nothing. So that’s what I think happened.”

  “Well, it bears watching. Why not send in some Dragonflies?”

  These were small drones disguised to look like insects, which fooled nobody. “They haven’t got the range. I can put in for conventional drones again, but it’s going to mean diversion from targeting-related missions. I don’t think we’ll get them.”

  “Yeah, we don’t want to rock that boat.”

  “Listen, Mark, do you think I could go outside and get some air? It’s like hell in here for me. This place is so damn small!”

  “That’s tot
ally against regs.”

  “Mark, I’m getting sick! My sister—it’s driving me up a wall!”

  “Yeah, your meds are spiking every alarm in the book. Look, I can’t do a compassionate pass, not at this alert level. What I can offer is a tranquilizer and cot time.”

  “No tranquilizers. But I wouldn’t mind if Horace took my con for half an hour. That would help. But if Washington . . . when—for God’s sake, don’t hold it back from me.”

  Mark went back to work, moving off through the door of the tiny canteen and down the narrow corridor, his bald head shining in the fluorescent glare. Rashid went to the rest area, closed the door, and looked around for some other means of escape. A grill in the wall, but he wasn’t going to be able to make it through the ductwork. That was movie fantasy. The grill was small; you’d need to be a child to get through there. In any case, there were barriers back in the ductwork, he felt sure. This was a secure facility.

  He lay on the cot considering his options.

  His only means of departure was right through the front door, into the car park, down the twisting access road in his car, and out to the highway. This would mean breaking regs. It would mean a disciplinary hearing, maybe arrest, maybe even getting shot thanks to some trigger-happy cop with a rod up his ass over the curfew.

  Given moderate traffic, Rashid was only twenty minutes from Alexandria. The traffic was almost gone, he knew, because he’d done lookdowns when he could. If he could get to the bomb, he was convinced that he could fix whatever had gone wrong.

  As soon as he made his move, they were going to be after him. His car was loaded with tracking devices, of course, so they could afford to stand well off. They would be able to tail him from the very satellites that he himself used all the time. Even if he left the car, his implant would still be trackable. They all had them, in case they were kidnapped. So nobody would need to come near him, not until he made contact with whomever he was going to see.

  If it was anyone other than Nabby, they would be all over him in minutes.

  God, make the plane fly! Make it fly! Where was it? The stupid, evil betrayers, why weren’t they doing their part? Did they despise God? What was wrong with them?

  There were shouts. At first, he wasn’t fully aware of them, so lost was he in his desperate thoughts. Then they turned to cheering and his throat closed; his head began to pound. He got up from the cot and went back to the work area, twisting through the maze of carrels. People were coming out, congregating, violating regs as if they no longer existed. They were pouring into Horace’s cubicle, everybody.

  “Hey, infidel,” Carol Wilkie cried. She came up to him and embraced him. “Don’t be modest!” She took her veil and drew it across her mouth. “The Paki cops got the Mahdi and a hard drive is on its way to the CIA station in Peshawar. They’ll upload its contents to Langley in a few minutes.”

  “Oh! Oh, my God, how . . . wonderful! Wonderful! We are saved. Saved!”

  “Not just yet,” Mark said. “But we’re going in a good direction.”

  Rashid forced his face into a smile. “But we still have our cons,” he said. “This may make them act precipitately.”

  “It’s being kept under a lid,” Carol responded.

  Suddenly Rashid saw what to do. “In Pakistan?” he said. “Don’t make me laugh. Folks, listen up.” He was proud of himself. This was hard, but he was doing it for Allah, this wonderful act. How had he come by it? God, only God, could have transformed him like this. They were all watching him now. He continued, “We need to go back to our cons. Let nothing past! Because, mark me, this will be known from Jakarta to Riyadh within the hour. Is already known. And it is going to make our enemies act.”

  Silence. Staring faces. “And I thought you were losing your gourd,” Mark said.

  “I was. Now I’m not.” He went back to his own con. Washington had to wait, now. His work was here; God had just made that very clear. He had to do whatever he could to expand his operational area, to cover some more important regions.

  He knew the cities that Case Purple covered. It was his job, now, to get his mission revised, so that he could do what he could to conceal suspicious activities in them. All one of these pigs needed would be to see airplane wings being unfolded on a street in Queens or Hammersmith or the Tiergarten and another nail would be driven into the coffin of mankind’s future. Humanity could not survive much longer, if the Crusader world was allowed to continue to gobble resources. No, they needed balance. They needed the help of Allah, and so Rashid’s job remained the same as always. He went to work.

  From a window in the darkened residence President Fitzgerald stared down at the crowd. His lips moved to the rising chorus. Beside him, Linda stood resolute. Dan and Polly also.

  “No indications, Sir,” Logan said, his voice soft and admirably firm.

  The second hand of Fitz’s watch swept on. Overhead, the jets screamed back and forth, round and round. Higher, AWACS and the E-4B circled. “No joy, no joy,” came the reports. The Air Defense Command was convinced that they could shoot down anything that entered Washington airspace within thirty seconds of its being observed.

  “You can depend on us,” the generals had told Fitz.

  “Well overdue now,” Logan said.

  Linda’s arm gripped Fitz’s. “I love you,” she said, then kept repeating it, a mantra, “I love you, I love you. . . .”

  Freedom had to win, and death here was the greatest contribution that Fitz could now make to that cause. His anguish was that his family would not leave him . . . and his abiding joy. He was so angry at them and so proud of them.

  Dan gasped, sobbed, choked it back.

  “One thing I know I have. I have the bravest family in the world, and the most loyal damn chief of staff in the history of this office, and Logan, could you please get us that bottle that’s in the drawer beside my bed?”

  Logan disappeared.

  “What bottle?” Linda asked.

  “The one you don’t know is there. You can’t be president without hootch. It’s never been done.”

  “Dad—”

  “Dan, boy, we’re not safe. They’re just late. Could mean anything.”

  “It might still happen?”

  “At any moment. But the longer we go past the hour, the more the odds drop.”

  Maxwell, the butler, appeared with the bottle of Blue Label. He brought it on a silver tray, with shot glasses.

  “Max! I thought I told you to go back to Wheeling!”

  “I lost my bus ticket, Sir.”

  “Well, I only see five shotters there, Max. You better get a sixth for yourself.”

  There, in the darkness, with the voices of the people singing and the autumn wind rattling the old eaves, the presidential party solemnly drank smooth whiskey. “History forgets moments like this,” Fitz said. “But we must never forget.”

  Dan said, “You’re a great president, Dad, and I didn’t think you would be.”

  Now, that was a rock-back-on-your-heels stunner, coming from his hero-worshiping son. Who was Dan, really? He would have a hell of a time forging a life of his own. To its children, a presidency was a cursed shadow.

  The crowd had stopped singing. All those faces were looking at something, some sort of movement close to the main gate. But what?

  “What is it?” Linda asked.

  “Somebody attempting entry,” Logan said.

  There was dripping, and a smell of urine, hot, intimate. Fitz did not ask who had let go. It wasn’t him; he knew that. He wished he could spread his arms around his whole people, the whole world. “ ‘Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death,’ ” he said, and then, very suddenly, could speak no more without his voice revealing the terror that rode his soul like a mad horseman.

  “We need to see the president,” Jim shouted through the great iron gate. A Marine stared at him from fifty feet away, well into the White House grounds. Farther back, a Humvee stood, its engine grumbling, dim light
within revealing more young faces. “Look, I know perimeter safety, too. I know you can’t approach.”

  “Hurry, Jim!”

  “I know—listen—I’m going to toss in my credential.”

  The Marine reacted immediately, snapping to a defensive posture, pointing his weapon at Jim.

  “No!” Nabila cried.

  “It’s just a credential,” Jim said. He dangled the small leather wallet. “Nothing else. You need to take it to your officer now.”