Chloe drew in a breath which shuddered. Her eyes prickled hard. “Oh, god, those poor people…!”
Cristián pulled her against him. Hard. “Not nearly as many people as there might have been if you had not sent the countdown out to everyone with the Cloak. That’s all your doing, Chloe.”
“Not everyone will make it!” she cried. “It doesn’t matter if everyone is not safe.”
“It’s the price of peace, Chloe,” Parris said. “Those who don’t make it…they will live on in Vistaria’s memory, a reminder of the cost of war. It will help maintain the peace for a generation at least.”
“Just a generation?” Chloe was appalled.
“Unless the new leaders of Vistaria can teach the next generation the same lesson, in a way which doesn’t involve shredding the country in two,” Parris replied. She glanced at Cristián. “People who remember it best must explain it to them.”
“How long until impact?” someone whispered.
“Thirty-three seconds,” Locke murmured back.
Silence fell as they watched the drone track the missile, to record a successful strike in compassionless full color video.
*
THE CELLAR WAS DUSTY AND dirty, the dull walls thickly coated with coal dust. Calli coughed as she helped Nick push the heavy steel-lined door shut. Roldán pulled the sleeve of her shirt over her hand and held it to her face. “The air!”
The shutting of the door also cut out all the light.
Nick switched on the flashlight app on his phone. He dropped the rifle and moved into the center of the room and twisted on one foot, examining every corner with the light. “That one,” he said, pointing to one of the outside corners. His pointing finger dripped blood, for a bullet had grazed him on the arm.
The corner was beneath a wide, steep chute leading up to the top of the walls. An old coal chute. This was where Minnie and Carmen had stolen into the Palace.
They moved over to the corner, ducking under the iron chute.
“Sit,” Nick said.
Calli kicked away the worst of the coal and rocks in the corner, until it was clear. Nick dropped into the corner and put his back to it. He held out his arm. “Come here. You, too, Maria.”
Maria settled on his left side and hugged her knees to her chest, as Calli tucked herself up against Nick’s side. His arm dropped around her.
“How long?” Maria breathed.
Nick flipped the phone over.
0 hours, -1 minutes.
Calli sucked in a breath.
The floor beneath them heaved. A low rumbling sounded, which built into a deafening roar.
Calli closed her eyes and pressed her face into Nick’s chest, shuddering.
His heart was slamming against his chest. He was shaking, too.
*
THE MISSILE ANNOUNCED ITSELF WITH a low whistle which climbed to a piercing sonic shriek. Duardo winced and turned his head to track the rocket as it streaked across the sky. It was almost too fast to track.
It was white, with an orange nose, white tail fins and wings. A blind tube of instant death.
He frowned. “That doesn’t look like a handmade bomb,” he said.
Aguado looked. He didn’t have time to respond, for the missile found its target.
Duardo saw the front of the Palace implode, collapsing in on the path of the rocket.
Then the rocket exploded and most of the Palace lifted into the air, as if it was throwing up virtual arms. It split into two equal halves. Then the shock wave hit, throwing Duardo backward. His head hit something solid and blackness dropped over him.
*
AS THE SHOCK WAVE AND noise reached them, Adán paused from tying up the launch to look up, just as everyone else was. Directly west, and several hundred feet higher up the mountain than their sea level altitude, was a climbing, blooming mushroom shaped cloud.
Minnie clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes glittering. Her throat worked.
Adán put his arm around her. “Don’t think about it. Not until you know for sure,” he murmured.
She nodded, which sent her tears spinning in the still throbbing air.
*
ON SIX OF THE NINE screens in the Whitehouse Situation Room, the mushroom cloud climbed above the peaks of the Vistarian mountain range. A spontaneous applause broke out.
“That’s the end of that war,” one of the generals murmured, turning back to his notepad.
Richard Collins lurched to his feet, thrusting the chair back with his thighs. It was on wheels and careened back to hit the wall behind him with a loud crash which made everyone look around from the screens.
“Those were good people we bombed,” he said, his voice hoarse. He rested his hands on the table, to stop them trembling. “I was about to resign, to redress this terrible error. This, just now, has changed my mind. I will dig to the bottom of this. I will find the son of a bitch who is really responsible for this.”
He paused. Every officer at the table—and most of them were in uniform—was staring at him as if he had stood upon the table and quoted Dr. Seuss.
Collins nodded. “If it’s you I’m coming for, brace yourself.”
He stalked to the door, his hands clenched. He didn’t wait for the Marine to open the door for him. He straight-armed the thing. It flipped back to smash against the outer wall with a satisfying crash.
*
OLIVIA WATCHED THE LUGGAGE CIRCLE the roundabout for a second time. Why was it that whenever she’d had the worst flight possible, her bag was one of the last to be put onto the carousel?
No one stood nearby, even though a lot of luggage still sat on the belt and even more spewed out from the opening in the wall.
Daniel caught her elbow. “‘livvy…” he said softly. The note in his voice made her turn, her heart jumping.
He pointed to the long windows on the other side of the cavernous hall.
That was where all the passengers had gone to, Olivia realized. They had abandoned their luggage, letting it circle endlessly, while they pressed themselves against the glass.
Over their heads, climbing higher and higher above the horizon, was a cloud that looked a lot like…
Olivia gasped. “Daniel, is that…would that be…?”
“Vistaria?” His voice was hoarse. He nodded, looking at the window.
Olivia covered her mouth with her hands, holding in any pitiful sounds she might make.
Who had been caught in it?
Who would be the final causalities of this war which had just ended?
*
WHEN GARRETT WAS IN DOCTOR mode, he couldn’t be interrupted for anything mundane. He simply didn’t hear anyone, even if they shook his arm or tried to take the scalpel away from him. Carmen knew that from personal and direct experience.
This time, though, some externality must have registered upon his subconscious. When she tugged on the sleeve of his shirt, he paused from tying the suture he was in the middle of and looked around. She pointed.
Climbing up above the cleft of Freonegro pass was a billowing, roiling gray cloud, with a long, long shaft and a thick head which was spreading even as they watched.
“Oh, Christ…” Garrett breathed.
A big Chinook helicopter roared over the valley, drowning out everything. It was super low—low enough that Carmen could see the treads on the tires on the wheels at the front.
“Fuck! The wounds! Cover the wounds!” Garrett cried, leaning over his current patient to shield the open wound from the wind and dirt being whipped up by the twin sets of rotors.
Carmen leapt to pull the sheet up over the next patient. They were all lying on the ground because there were no facilities or gurneys to put them on. The American medics Garrett had asked Thorne to assign to him leapt to follow suit.
The helicopter came to a halt in mid-air, then descended, to settle only a hundred yards away. The back door opened. A US military officer with insignia Carmen didn’t recognize strode over to where Garret was
bent over his patient, using the sides of his white coat as a shield.
“Sorry about that,” the officer said to Garrett.
“When you aren’t being a fucking moron, who are you?” Garrett demanded.
“Colonel Alan Roberts, US Medical Corps.” He nodded toward the skyline where the cloud was still expanding. “Specifically, I’m the lead medic for the Army’s radiation protocol and dispersal of same. You’re going to need my help.”
Garrett sat back on his heels. “Radiation…” he breathed and closed his eyes.
Roberts hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward the helicopter, where cartons and trunks and containers were being off-loaded at a great rate. “We’ve got folding cots onboard. They might make your first aid station more comfortable, yes?”
Carmen rested her hand on Garret’s arm. It was tight with tension. “Yes, thank you, Colonel Roberts,” she said gently. “We will need every bit of help you can give us.”
*
EVEN THOUGH THE VIEW HADN’T changed for five minutes, everyone gathered around Parris’ computer continued to watch the cloud in total silence.
Chloe didn’t realize she was crying until Cristián used the corner of his shirt to dab her cheeks dry.
Parris reached out and closed the lid. Slowly. She laid her hand on top. “Rest in peace,” she murmured.
19.
A STRONG WIND STUNG HIS face, which helped Duardo stir and reach for consciousness. The skin of his face, especially his cheek, was hurting. It brought him closer to wakefulness.
Every inch of him hurt.
How badly was he injured? The question surfaced slowly. It made him struggle the rest of the way to proper awareness.
He was lying on his back on what felt like lumpy roadway. A howling gale whipped sand about at cyclone speeds, reminding him of the hurricane which had taken out the silver mine. Even the sound was the same.
That was why his cheek stung. The wind scoured it with the sand it was blasting.
Duardo bought a hand up to shield his cheek. Carefully, he opened one eye.
What he saw took a few minutes to make sense. When he realized what he was looking at, he jerked up into a sitting position, stunned.
He was laying on the far side of the big circle from what used to be the gates of the Palace. He was nearly eighty yards from where he had been standing when the Palace blew. There were no gates left. What bits of fencing remained was bent over at an acute angle.
There was no fountain left, either.
The Chevrolet he had been crouched behind was not there. Neither was the antique Ford. One of the Ford’s spinner hubs was pressed up against the one-foot high remains of the building it had been standing beside, completely flattened. It would never spin again.
Over everything, including Duardo, was an inch-thick gray dirt the consistency and fineness of ash. He absently brushed off his sleeves, as he stared at where the Palace had once been. Nothing was there now but rubble.
Then he realized he could see the remains of the Palace, because little was left of the administrative building at the front of the grounds. It had been flattened just like the Palace.
Even the sky overhead was the same color as the ground. More dust was drifting down like snow. Duardo had seen snow once, high in the mountains.
He looked around the area where he was sitting and spotted the heel of what had been a polished officer’s boot. Groaning with the effort, Duardo crawled around the chunks of masonry and bricks and bits of fencing.
Aguado laid on his face. Duardo turned him over. He groaned heavily, making Duardo grin with pleasure. Aguado, at least, had come through.
There were more people stirring. Not everyone, though. Now he knew what to look for under the dust, Duardo saw more bodies. There were a few survivors, though, picking themselves up and shaking themselves off.
Including Insurrectos.
Duardo looked around for his gun. He remembered leaving it on the ground in front of him for fast pickup. It would be long gone now. He pulled his back-up knife out of his boot and with supreme effort, got to his feet and headed for the nearest Insurrecto, the knife out.
The Insurrecto’s eyes grew larger when he saw Duardo coming. He threw up his hands in surrender. “No more,” he said, his voice hoarse. “No more, I beg you.”
Duardo lowered his arm. “Yes, you’re right. This is more than enough.” He looked around at what was left of the Palace grounds once more.
Beside the Insurrecto, more of his companions were getting to their feet and putting their hands in the air. Their eyes were wide and white, the only part of their faces not covered in the fine dust.
He told the Insurrectos to sit in a line on the ground and tell anyone who came to do the same. Then he went back to check on Aguado.
There were twenty-seven cowed Insurrectos sitting on the ground by the time the first helicopter edged carefully onto what had been grass in the Palace grounds. The men who got out wore full hazmat suits with independent air tanks on their backs.
Duardo watched them approach him and Aguado, who was on his feet by then. Duardo’s belly tightened. “Where the hell does Vistaria go from here?” he asked softly.
*
CARMEN HEARD THE FIRST SURVIVORS to be processed through the decontamination tent Robert’s people set up right in the middle of the valley included Duardo Peña and the Mexican general.
She did something she had never done before. She pulled rank. “I am the daughter of the former President and the niece of the President pro tem—the other pro tem,” she amended hurriedly, as Roberts crossed his arms, studying her. “I demand to speak to the current President pro tem, so I can learn what happened to the rest of my family.”
“Everyone wants to know what happened to their family, ma’am,” Roberts said gently. “Full radiation decontamination takes days.”
“I don’t care. I need to speak to him. Someone has to run this country and I might be the only one left with half a clue how to do that.”
Roberts didn’t move. “Ma’am, this isn’t a country at the moment. It’s a disaster area. Have patience. Keep working with your man over there—you’re needed. We’ll let you know when you can speak to General Peña…although there is a long list of people in front of you, including the President of the United States.”
Carmen stalked back to the double row of folding beds where Garrett worked with six nurse orderlies in uniform and a whole pallet of drugs and equipment. She got to work, because Roberts was right. She was needed.
*
DUARDO DIDN’T LIE ON THE bed because he didn’t feel the need to. He sat, his legs crossed. He stared at the Colonel standing at the foot of his bed, processing what he had just said. The man was in uniform. He wasn’t wearing a hazmat suit. He was the first person Duardo had seen without a shield of plastic between them since being put in the helicopter on the Palace lawn. “Run that by me again,” Duardo said.
“Is your English the problem, or do you want me to explain the science, sir?” Roberts asked politely. “I can get a translator—”
“My English is just fine,” Duardo said. “I’m having trouble with empirical evidence, if you must know. I saw the cloud, Colonel. I can still see it if I crane my head and look through the plastic walls of this tent. How can there be no radiation, if there was a mushroom cloud?”
Roberts nodded. “It’s a common misconception that only nuclear explosions have mushroom clouds. Any sufficiently energetic detonation or deflagration will produce the same effect. This was, by all accounts, a monster of a bomb.”
Duardo stared at him. “The drone…it was leaking radiation,” he said, feeling stupid.
“I believe the President will want to explain that to you himself. There’s been developments over the last twelve hours. If you’re up to it, the call can be put through now.”
Me?
Duardo didn’t voice the question. Instead, he said, “Has Nicolás Escobedo been found? He was in the Palace when it blew.
If by some miracle he survived…” He trailed off, because Roberts was nodding.
“Señor Escobedo did survive. They’re talking to him now, although it will take a while to dig him out.”
“They’re talking to him?”
“They were drawn by metal banging and found a coal chute, I’m told. They slid a phone down to him through the chute. Señor Escobedo directed everyone to speak to you about official matters, as you are the President pro tem.” Roberts hesitated. “Right now, you are the only known official of the Loyalist republic of Vistaria. There are many people who need to speak to you rather urgently, now you’ve been cleared. Including President Collins.”
Duardo rubbed the back of his neck. “Can you bring the phone to me, or do I need to go somewhere to take the call?”
*
NICK AND CALLI WERE PULLED from the wreckage, with a smiling Maria Roldán beside them, twenty-eight hours later. They were airlifted to the emergency hospital which had sprung up in the Freonegro pass.
Duardo demanded access to the three and was given it with a speed which made him uncomfortable. He was escorted to Nick’s bedside.
Nick was scratched and bruised—all of them were—and suffering mild dehydration and exhaustion. The doctor had seemed willing to share any information about Nick’s condition with Duardo, whether it was personal, privileged, or not. He also expressed his amazement that all three survived.
Duardo pulled up a chair beside Nick’s bed and glanced around. There were doctors and nurses, and an orderly with a cellphone, taking pictures.
“Give us the room please,” Duardo told them.
Instantly, the sectioned-off portion of the tent emptied of people.
Nick raised his brow. “You’re getting the hang of this.” His voice was scratchy.
Duardo shook his head. “I’m still a green lieutenant in here.” He touched his chest.
“Any leader who thinks he’s a good leader, isn’t,” Nick replied. “Doubt keeps you humble.”
“Then I’m more than humble,” Duardo replied. He hesitated. “I don’t know what they’ve told you yet about your condition.”
“That it wasn’t a dirty bomb?” Nick winced as he shifted on the bed. “We knew that before they hauled us out. There was a military aide…I think his sole job was to stay on the end of the phone for us. He got very chatty, passing the gossip along. He just couldn’t fill in the blank bits.” He looked at Duardo. “Can you?”
V-Day Page 19