Girdler paused for several long seconds to see if anyone would challenge this analysis, and then continued. “Meanwhile, they’re letting every audience member use their phones however they want. A masterstroke. Not only do we witness their suffering on ultra-high-definition, 3-D television, which is more vivid, and will make the murders more graphic, than if we were there in person, but we’re also treated to endless tweets from the victims. Messages to loved ones. Facebook posts. And these celebrities have many millions of followers. We get outpourings of love, terror, misery, and hopelessness. We get correspondence with spouses and family, dripping with primal emotions. Love. Fear. Loss. Heartbreaking, terrible stuff that will go viral like never before. Ellen DeGeneres tweeted a selfie of some stars from the awards a number of years back, and it was the most re-tweeted message in history. How many retweets do you think the messages streaming out of there now are going to get?”
Girdler cleared his throat while everyone attending the meeting stared at him in spellbound horror. “So basically, we’re fucked!” he finished, not shying away from this coarse but accurate depiction of their situation. “If we do nothing, or attempt to negotiate, the world watches a slow-motion slaughter. One that will go on and on and on until we do something to try to stop it. When we do, our attack will fail, further diminishing us, and they blow the entire theater. At that point, since our actions triggered the final outcome, it will appear to many that we have the blood of thousands on our hands.”
Several members of the Council visibly shuddered. The temperature in the room, already chilly, seemed to drop another ten degrees.
“If everything the general says is true,” said Admiral Janikowski, breaking the long silence, “and I believe it is, I think we have to consider launching an immediate strike on the theater. Even knowing it’s bound to fail.”
“So send in a team to purposely trigger the explosion?” said the president in disbelief.
“It’s going to happen anyway,” replied the admiral, “no matter what we do. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being an unmitigated disaster, triggering the deaths of thousands of innocents is a ten. But letting these monsters spend days prolonging this with the eyes of the world upon them, days pulling legs off of spiders, only to kill everyone in the end anyway, would rate a hundred. It would be playing into their hands, without altering the end result.”
The president surveyed expressions around the room and didn’t like what he saw. The admiral’s logic was unassailable. This could well be something they would be forced to do.
The president considered. If one became certain a person would be tortured to death, without any hope of a reprieve, would killing them quickly be the humane thing to do?
Probably so, he had to acknowledge.
“The ethics of going this route are troubling enough,” said Cochran finally. “But how do we, in good conscience, turn an assault team into a kamikaze squad? Knowing their purpose is to act as a detonator? Who would agree to such a mission if they knew?”
“That probably won’t be necessary,” said Snyder. “We have two plainclothes marshals inside the theater. For an event of this importance, this is standard practice. The public is only aware that there are marshals hidden on certain high-risk jumbo jets. But we plant them at other events as well.”
“Why wasn’t I told of this immediately?” demanded the president.
“Frankly, because it doesn’t change a thing,” replied the Secretary of Homeland Security. “You heard Hakim. They’ve planted three ringers of their own. Even if our marshals were able to take out all seven terrorists before they could trigger the explosives, which is very unlikely, they have no way of knowing who the three plants are.”
He paused. “But the marshals’ presence does change how we go about provoking an early end to this. We’ll order them to try to take out Hakim and the others. They’ll have no chance. But tragically, these men are already destined to die, no matter what. At least we can give them the dignity of going down fighting. ”
“I agree with the secretary,” said Girdler quickly, before anyone else could jump in. “But I must insist that we don’t force the terrorist’s hand for at least thirty more minutes.”
The president looked at him quizzically. “We won’t,” he replied. “We’ll wait until just before the first scheduled execution. We’re not about to make a decision of this magnitude until we’ve exhausted all other possibilities.” The president’s eyes narrowed. “But who are you to insist?” he demanded. “And what’s the magic of thirty minutes?”
“I have a man exploring the situation now,” replied the general, ignoring the commander in chief’s first question. “It’s likely we have no way out. But despite what’s been said here, there just might be a slim chance, after all. But my agent won’t know for certain until he’s in proximity of the Cosmopolitan.”
Eyebrows shot up all around.
“What kind of a chance?” said the president.
“Too small for me to waste any more of this group’s time,” he replied. “But I promise, if the impossible happens, and he’s able to come up with something, you’ll be the first to know.”
9
As the van neared the Cosmopolitan Theater, Nick Hall was assaulted by an avalanche of terrified thoughts that hit him like a nuclear shock wave, and he was certain his head would burst. He wanted to scream in agony, but too many agonized thoughts were already screaming into his brain. Being in proximity to dense groups of people was always a dizzying, maddening shock to his system that could send him reeling, which is why Girdler had isolated him in the desert.
But this time the tight knot of humanity numbered in the thousands, and each individual within this group was broadcasting thoughts at mind-searing decibel levels: visceral, emotional, panicked thoughts that blasted at his head and psyche like a jackhammer.
Hall balled his hands into fists and squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to surface from under a tidal wave of everyone-shrieking-at-once thoughts that never stopped coming. As he neared a point at which he felt himself losing consciousness, perhaps his mind’s way of protecting itself from madness, he marshaled all of his will and experience to push the maelstrom of thoughts down, to shunt them away to a still-deafening, but survivable, white noise.
He had known he would need to fight through this and had asked Megan to be stoic while he did so, not wanting an additional distraction. He had ordered the soldiers to remain silent until he told them otherwise, but unlike Megan they had no idea what was happening to him. He read they feared he had gone into an epileptic seizure, and he somehow managed to throw up a forestalling hand just as they were about to attend to him.
After several more minutes of the most intense effort he had ever put forth, he managed to get enough of a grip that he was able to fully gather his senses once again. Taking a deep mental breath, and knowing he couldn’t delay, he plunged back into the semi-contained sea of noise, desperately trying to locate at least one of the terrorists.
He got nowhere. The intense thicket of thoughts was too overwhelming. He couldn’t sort through them all in time. It was impossible. He had become expert at isolating minds and searching for needle-in-a-haystack thoughts. But not for thoughts hidden within a shrieking, panicked haystack such as this.
And then an idea materialized, breaking through the crippling pandemonium of inner voices. He knew how to find the needle. It was obvious. He just needed to zoom in on anyone who was thinking in Arabic, which would narrow the field considerably.
Nick Hall plunged in once again, this time with a specific goal, and found what he was after. He worked to isolate this first mind, and keep it isolated, locking in the mental coordinates before trying to isolate the next. Within five minutes he had found all seven terrorists.
Now that he had isolated minds to focus on, the white noise wasn’t quite as maddening. He activated Altschuler’s translation program and went to work. His fishing expedition was more difficult than it would have been had these
men thought in English, but the software in his implants still allowed him to make the progress he needed.
The plan was pure evil, on an even grander scale than he had previously appreciated. They would begin the massacre with a single bullet to the head of their victims, but this would rapidly escalate to beheadings and worse. They would continue to kill stars in ever more inventive and barbaric ways, hoping they could get key concessions along the way, potential icing on their cake. And they would never relent, until the US had no choice but to storm the castle, with disastrous results.
But there just might be a way for him to stop it . . .
Hall contacted Justin Girdler on his internal cell phone.
“What’ve you got, Nick?” said Girdler, answering this communication in seconds. “I’m muting a meeting of the National Security Council to take this, so be efficient.”
“Their demands are a sham,” Hall thought at his implants, forcefully enough for Megan to pick up telepathically. “They plan to kill everyone, and themselves, no matter what. They’ll milk this for all it’s worth, for as long as they can, eventually forcing us to mount an attack, so the world will blame us when it finally blows.”
“I knew that already,” said Girdler impatiently. “Any chance to prevent this?”
“Yes,” replied Hall, steadying himself as the speeding van he and Megan were in hit a jarring pothole in the road. “It’s dangerous, and there are no guarantees, but it is possible.”
As Hall began quickly outlining the key intel he had gleaned from the terrorists and the broad brushstrokes of his plan, a part of him expected protests from Megan. But while he could read the anguish on her face, she didn’t issue a single telepathic interruption or complaint.
He had underestimated her. She was an amazing woman, and she would see this was something he had to do, despite the risks.
They had been forced together and had fallen in love, and their time with each other the past six months had only intensified these feelings. Megan was a petite five foot five, in her late twenties to his early thirties, with short hair, as black as his own, and a flawless complexion. And while she was cute, she wasn’t nearly as stunning as many of the women Hall had dated, including the woman he had planned to marry when they had met.
But Megan Emerson was so much more fun to be around than any other woman he had ever known. So much more down-to-earth. She had rescued him. Not just from assassins who were trying to kill him, but from a marriage that would have been unhappy and that would have, inevitably, failed early.
He had been a shallow jackass, and she had demonstrated what a true connection could be like, above and beyond a physical relationship.
Life without her had become unthinkable. And he knew she felt the same way. But she would also know he was the only hope to save thousands of lives. So no matter how big a risk he planned to take, failing to make the attempt would be even more unthinkable.
When Hall finished the rough outline of his plan, there was a brief pause as Girdler mentally examined it from every angle.
“It might work,” said the general finally. “With one thorny wrinkle. You’ll have to lead a team of highly seasoned special forces commandos. Men who will need to follow your every order without question or hesitation. No matter how strange. No way they risk their own lives, and others, by blindly following a civilian with zero combat experience. Not without very good reason.”
“Good point,” said Hall in frustration. This was something he had failed to consider. “So you’re suggesting I’d have to tell them about my psionic abilities.”
“Not just tell them. Demonstrate. Convince them beyond any shadow of a doubt. It’s the only way they’ll follow you. And the president will have to be convinced, as well, or he’ll never sanction the attack under your command.”
Hall blew out a long breath. “We can’t let these people die just to protect my identity.”
“Every shred of decency I possess agrees with you,” said Girdler. “But we’ve discussed this. This terrorist act will kill thousands. But if your abilities becomes widely known, eventually leading to the discovery of the secret to perfect mind reading, worldwide civilization will self-destruct. Or, at minimum, retreat back into the stone age. Many millions will almost certainly die.”
Hall responded without hesitation. “You know that I believe this is true. But it doesn’t matter. Maybe the key to cracking ESP will never be found. I don’t know. But I can’t let these people die on the chance that outing myself will lead to an even greater catastrophe. Possibly. In the future. It doesn’t work that way. This may be a horrible decision that the world will come to regret. But we have to take that chance.”
“I agree,” said Girdler, and this immediate capitulation surprised Hall, who had expected additional arguments from the man, or at least hesitation. “But I needed to be certain you had thought this through.”
The general took a deep breath. “Okay then. Here goes nothing. I’m going to rejoin the president’s meeting. Stay tuned, Nick.” He paused. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am that it’s come to this.”
“Me too,” replied Hall. “Me too.”
10
“What about issuing an ultimatum of our own?” said Aaron Anderson, the Secretary of Defense, as Girdler rejoined the meeting. “Threaten these fuckers back, for a change. Tell them if they evacuate the theater now, we’ll let them go. But if they kill anyone else, we won’t rest until every last member of Islamic Jihad has been hunted down and killed. That we’ll put the full might of the United States of America into crushing every last one of these cockroaches.”
“Might make us feel better,” responded Janikowski, “but it wouldn’t work. They’d actually love for us to react this way. So they could stand up to our threat and prove their resolve. Show that they’re prepared to martyr their entire movement if they have to. And they know our limitations with respect to carrying out such a threat. We spent years trying to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaeda. And while we had great success, we certainly didn’t get them all. And our efforts didn’t improve our position in the slightest. The group just metastasized to any number of spin-off groups that were worse than the original.”
“I agree,” said the president. “We can’t get them to back down. And given this attack, I’m sure they know we’ll be going after them relentlessly anyway.”
Cochran paused for just a moment, obviously intending to continue, when Girdler jumped in. “Mr. President, I just received the report I’ve been waiting for, from my agent in the field. It’s promising, and suggests there is a way to end this without further loss of life on our side.”
Cochran looked at the 3-D image across from him as though the general had lost his mind. “I find this impossible to believe,” he said bluntly. “You said yourself the construction of this booby trap is flawless.”
“It is. But there is a vital piece of intelligence you don’t know,” explained Girdler. “That you need to know. I don’t have time to beat around the bush, so I’ll just come out with it. Nick Hall—the famous Nick Hall with the implants—is alive and well. And he’s been working with me since his supposed death six months ago.”
There were gasps and mouths hanging open all around. The repercussions of thought-controlled Web surfing had continued to reverberate around the world like nothing else that had come before. Congress was even now deliberating on the proper safeguards and oversight of the implant technology. And this technology, and Nick Hall’s involvement, was the biggest story of the past hundred years.
“Who else knows about this?” demanded the president, recovering his mental equilibrium.
“No one else, sir,” replied Girdler.
“You’ve been keeping Hall’s existence secret? What, using him as your own personal asset? Without any buy-in from your superiors?”
Girdler nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said simply.
“You know that pulling something like this is a court-martialable offense?” said the president in
dismay. He shook his head. “But that is a discussion for another time.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “So how does Nick Hall’s existence help us? Surfing the Web, with thoughts or otherwise, doesn’t kill terrorists, or disarm bombs.”
“You’re familiar with the rumors that Hall could read minds as well, correct?”
“You’re saying these are true?” said the president.
“Yes. Within a range of about six miles. Nick was the one who learned the attack on the Cosmopolitan was imminent. And obviously, he’s the field agent I’ve been speaking of. Which is why it was critical he relocate to just outside the theater. That’s what I’ve been waiting for.”
“So he could read the minds of the terrorists inside?” said the president.
“Exactly,” replied Girdler, who then quickly briefed the gathering on what Hall had learned, and his proposed plan of action.
“For this to work,” said the Director of National Intelligence when Girdler was finished, “Hall’s ESP would have to be perfect. More than perfect.”
“It is,” said Girdler.
“We have no other options,” said the president. “I get that. But before I put this mysterious, back-from-the-dead Hall in command of an assault team, I need a personal demonstration.”
Girdler shook his head. “Can’t be done quickly enough,” he said. “You’re well out of his range. If you weren’t, he could convince you in seconds. But trust me, the last thing you’d ever want is to be anywhere near him. He can read your every thought, every memory—every secret,” he said pointedly. “Your taste in porn. What you say to yourself when no one is listening. He can find every last skeleton you’ve ever hidden in a matter of seconds. I have absolute respect, admiration, and affection for this man. But I won’t get within ten miles of him.”
The president considered. “So I have to authorize this based on your word alone? The word of a man who admits to violating the chain of command, and keeping information vital to the national interest from his superiors? Is that what you’re telling me?”
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