Iron Gate

by Richard Herman

  The man went through the stairwell door and into the hallway. MacKay ghosted down the steps and waited beside the door. The door handle turned and he tensed. On the other side of the door, he heard the same labored breathing. He raised the fire extinguisher. The door cracked open and MacKay mashed the trigger, sending a yellowish-white spray into the man’s face. MacKay kicked the door open and barreled through, still spraying. The man was rubbing his eyes, twisting wildly from side to side. MacKay bashed his head with the fire extinguisher and he collapsed to the floor.

  He scooped up the man’s Beretta and moved down the hall to his office. He tested the door and it opened enough for him to bob his head around the door jamb to see inside. The body of Jason Robby was slumped in a corner. MacKay slipped inside and felt under Robby’s jawbone for a pulse. Nothing. Then he saw the wound. A bullet had punched a hole the size of a pencil into Robby’s chest and had mushroomed, blowing out his backbone. The bastard’s using Devastators, he thought.

  His younger agent, Kevin Grawley, had taken two of the small shaped-charged high-explosive slugs in his stomach and had almost been cut in two. MacKay’s face froze as he pulled at the slide of the small Beretta until he had ejected four Devastator rounds. He hit the magazine release and the clip slipped out. A seven-shot clip. All the rounds were accounted for. Methodically he reloaded and walked back down the hall. He stood over the unconscious man as he considered his options.

  He had to get out of Johannesburg and reestablish contact with his control. But more importantly, who had done this? Could he make it look as if he also had been killed in the attack? Could he hide in the death and destruction going on outside?

  Slowly, his rage grew. Robby and Grawley had been good men, not killers. He spoke to the unconscious man. ‘Fortunately, you are a gentleman of color and about my size.’ MacKay rifled the man’s pockets, taking his identification. When he was clean, MacKay shoved his own passport, wallet, and keys into the man’s pockets. Without a word, he picked the man up and carried him to the office. He stood on a chair, pushed a ceiling tile aside, and felt inside. He pulled out a small box and checked its contents. Everything was there, including the thermite grenades.

  For a moment, MacKay considered breaking the man’s knees so he would be conscious and immobilized when the grenade went off. He rejected that idea, chambered one Devastator round, and shot the man in the head, blowing away any traces of the beating. ‘Merry fuckin’ Christmas to you too,’ he muttered, then pulled the man’s shoes off and exchanged them for his own. He stepped into the hall, pulled the pin to the grenade, and rolled it into the office. He had ten seconds to clear the floor. He made it in eight.

  Flames were shooting out of the office windows when MacKay found Ziba. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘An office was fire bombed by persons unknown and Jason Robby, Kevin Grawley, and John Arthur were killed in the blast.’ His voice was a monotone, without emotion.

  He felt Ziba’s hand slip into his. ‘Can you tell me your real name now?’ she asked.

  He hesitated. Then, ‘John Author MacKay.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  MacKay studied the apartments in the building across the street. ‘I don’t think the asshole who got Robby and Grawley was working alone. I want to stake out this place and see who shows up. Besides, it’s too dangerous to be on the streets now.’

  *

  Friday, December 19

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  *

  Mazie Kamigami Hazelton took a deep breath and picked up the leather folder with her name embossed in gold letters at the bottom. The folder went with her new job as special assistant to the National Security Advisor and was a symbol, a prop to carry around signifying her importance. She dropped it on her desk and marched out of her new office, a small, windowless cubicle on the second floor of the West Wing, and down the stairs to Bill Carroll’s corner office.

  Carroll’s secretary, Midge Ralston, glanced up at Mazie and smiled. She had known Mazie since she was ‘the Frump’, an overweight junior staff member on the National Security Council. Over time, Mazie had matured into a brilliant analyst, slimmed down to a petite size four and married one of Washington’s most eligible bachelors, Wentworth Hazelton. But no glamorous exterior could hide the fact that Mazie Kamigami Hazelton possessed one of the finest minds in Washington, D.C.

  Midge motioned her inside. ‘Break a leg,’ she said. It was Mazie’s first day on her new job. Inside, Carroll and Cyrus Piccard were waiting for her.

  The old man came to his feet and gave her a courtly nod as they shook hands. He fully approved of Carroll’s choice and knew what was hidden behind the petite and beautiful exterior that blended the best of Mazie’s Japanese-Hawaiian heritage. ‘You have been given an impossible task,’ he said.

  Mazie gave him a beautiful smile. ‘I have been warned.’

  ‘Mazie,’ Carroll said, interrupting them from behind his desk, ‘cold nuclear fusion will be the number one item at the cabinet meeting today. This is one of those areas where technical expertise is needed to make policy and hopefully, you can explain it.’

  She shook her head. ‘I can try. How long do I have?’

  ‘I’m an old man,’ Piccard answered. ‘I go to sleep after five minutes of anything ... just like the cabinet.’

  Mazie laughed. It was a warm laugh, laced with kindness that made her face come alive. ‘Fusion is the opposite of nuclear fission. In theory, the fission process is simple; a neutron is made to strike the nucleus of an atom, the nucleus splits apart and several more neutrons are released, along with heat and radiation. All this takes place in a reactor or an atomic bomb.

  ‘On the other hand, nuclear fusion is the stuff that powers our sun and the stars. Rather than split the atom, it joins them. Two hydrogen nuclei collide, fuse, and create a new nucleus. The result is a form of helium and radiation. The byproduct is an astronomical amount of energy in the form of heat. But it takes a huge amount of heat to make fusion happen — millions of degrees.

  ‘The only places where that kind of heat exists is in the sun, an atomic explosion, or in a laboratory device called a tokamat. Cold nuclear fusion is the holy grail of science because the true believers claim that fusion can be made to happen without all the heat in the first place.’ She was finished.

  Carroll nodded. ‘That took seventy seconds. Very good.’

  ‘The laboratory device you mentioned, why don’t we use it like a reactor?’ Piccard asked.

  ‘A tokamat is self-defeating,’ Mazie answered. ‘It takes more energy to develop the heat in the tokamat than is gained from the fusion process going on inside.’

  ‘I take it you do not believe in cold fusion,’ Piccard said.

  ‘In science,’ Mazie replied, ‘you don’t believe or disbelieve. You prove or disprove. Cold fusion has not been proven.’

  Thanks, Mazie,’ Carroll said, dismissing her. ‘I want you to come to the cabinet meeting and repeat what you’ve just said.’

  After she had left, Piccard leaned back in his chair and waited. Something important was bothering the National Security Advisor. ‘Cyrus,’ Carroll said, ‘I need your advice.’ He rose and walked to the window overlooking the President’s Park. ‘South Africa is being swept by riots and they have formally requested the United Nations send a peacekeeping team. It gets complicated because the Afrikaners may have discovered cold fusion and are strong enough to act independently of the central government. The CIA seems fixated on finding out what happened to the nuclear weapons the South Africans had before the new government came to power. As usual, we’re in a reactive mode, running as hard as we can to catch up. The President wants action. What would you tell him?’

  ‘First,’ Piccard replied, ‘exercise the UN peacekeeping option now that Congress is in recess. Second, build a fire underneath the CIA ... a very big one. Find out what the Afrikaners are up to.’

  ‘There’s more,’ Carroll said. ‘We know
that OPEC and the Japanese are running covert operations trying to get at Prime. The CIA claims they’ve got a make on the third group and are describing it as the neo-Axis. It’s a European alliance made up of the old Axis powers.’

  A deep frown cut Piccard’s face. ‘Germany, Italy, and Austria,’ he said, ‘are all dependent on oil imports for their economic survival. Control of Prime would break the stranglehold of OPEC and make them dominant on the continent. What they didn’t achieve by war, they accomplish by economics. The Japanese response to defeat with a vengeance.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Carroll replied. ‘But we haven’t a clue what the neo-Axis is up to.’

  ‘I’d look for an Afrikaner connection,’ Piccard said.

  ‘And the Afrikaners have moved Prime. We don’t know where.’

  ‘That does complicate the situation,,’ Piccard allowed.

  Carroll was still standing in front of the window. He fixed Piccard with a strange look. ‘And I have ALS,’ he said. ‘Lou Gehrig’s disease.’

  Piccard was visibly shaken. He crossed the room, reached out and rested his hand on Carroll’s shoulder. ‘Oh, my dear man, I’m so sorry.’ There were tears in his eyes. The two men stood there, not saying a word. Piccard sensed Carroll’s agony. He wouldn’t see his children grow up, walk his daughter down the aisle, or ever hold a grandchild. Those had all been denied to Piccard and he knew the hurt. Is this the price we pay for success? he thought. If so, it was often an unfair exchange, very unfair.

  ‘Is that why you asked Mazie to be your special assistant?’ Piccard asked.

  Carroll nodded. ‘She can create the continuity my replacement will need until he gets his feet on the ground.’

  ‘Does the President know yet?’ Piccard asked. Carroll nodded. ‘Your resignation may be premature,’ the old man said. ‘The President understands the value of tragedy in politics.’ He gathered up his cane and top coat, ready to leave. ‘There are some interesting times ahead for you.’

  ‘Isn’t that an ancient Chinese curse?’ Carroll asked. ‘To live in interesting times?’

  ‘It wasn’t a curse,’ Piccard answered, ‘but a supplication to the gods against boredom.’

  Carroll watched him walk down the hall, thankful he had him as an advisor. He turned to his secretary. ‘Midge, call Chuck and Wayne. Tell them I’m going for a run.’ Midge made the call and brushed away a tear. She knew her boss was dying.

  The two Secret Service agents who ran with Carroll were waiting for him when he came out in his running clothes. ‘A nice day for a run,’ said Wayne Adams, enjoying the unusually warm December day.

  ‘Lots of runners out,’ Chuck Stanford responded. Carroll motioned to the two men and they started to jog, barely more than a walk. The two agents matched his slow pace in silence, each scanning the area, looking for any suspicious activity. Then Carroll picked up the pace and for a few brief moments, the old look was back on his face and he was at peace with the world.

  *

  Sunday, December 21

  Knob Noster, Missouri

  *

  The phone call came at five in the morning. After a dozen rings, it finally penetrated and Pontowski fumbled for the receiver. ‘Pontowski,’ he muttered, still half asleep. It was the command center telling him they had communications traffic that required his immediate attention. ‘Since when,’ he grumbled, ‘do the Reserves handle the hot ones? What the hell are you active duty pukes hired for?’ He listened to the polite answer.

  Pontowski banged the receiver down and sat on the edge of the bed, his feet on the cold floor, trying to think. He needed at least two cups of coffee to cut the mental fog that bound him in the early morning. And it was getting worse the older he got. He shrugged on his flight suit and zipped up his flying boots. After splashing some water on his face, he checked on Little Matt. You are a good kid, he thought, gazing at his sleeping son. He went downstairs and knocked on the door of his live-in nanny. ‘Martha, I’ve got to go to the base, it’s urgent. I know today is your day off, but can you cover for me this morning?’

  The door cracked open and Martha Marshall peered out. She was a no-nonsense woman in her middle sixties and brimming with good health. ‘I should never have let Sara talk me into taking this job,’ she told him. Martha Marshall was Sara Leonard’s widowed mother and had been at loose ends since Sara had married John Leonard and moved to Knob Noster. Martha had jumped at the chance to be a nanny for Little Matt. Not only did the job give her an income, but she lived next door to the Leonards. ‘I’m too old for this.’ She gave Pontowski a hard look before relenting. ‘Oh, of course,’ she sighed.

  ‘Thanks, Martha, I’ll make it up to you.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ she called to his back. ‘But you can start by getting married.’

  ‘Is that an offer?’ he answered.

  ‘Not me, you fool.’

  The communications traffic that was waiting for his attention in the command center was a simple four-line message from the National Military Command Center directing the 442nd to activate OPS PLAN RAPID ROGER. ‘What the hell is Rapid Roger?’ he asked the on-duty controller.

  Even though the captain had sampled Pontowski’s early-morning personality, she didn’t hesitate. ‘I’ve never heard of it, Colonel. But I’ll find out.’ She hit pay dirt on the first phone call to the 509th Bomb Wing’s plans officer. ‘Sir,’ she told the lieutenant colonel, ‘you had better get right over here and explain it all to Colonel Pontowski.’ She hung up, faced Pontowski, and took a deep breath. ‘Not good, sir. Two copies of Rapid Roger were sent to our plans shop over a month ago. A copy was never forwarded to you. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Lovely,’ Pontowski grunted. ‘Command and control by rumor.’

  ‘Can I get you some coffee, sir?’ the controller asked.

  ‘Point the way,’ he grumped. ‘I can get it myself.’ The caffeine had done part of its work by the time the 509th plans officer scurried into the command center. Without a word, the lieutenant colonel handed the thick document to Pontowski. ‘Fucking lovely,’ Pontowski gritted as he scanned appendix C, the operations section of the plan. ‘We’re tasked with a rapid reaction commitment to deploy twenty A-10s within forty-eight hours after notification. And this is the first I’ve heard of it.’ His words were rapid as machine gunfire. ‘Thanks a bunch, Colonel, for not doing your job. Now I’m standing knee deep in muck because you haven’t got your shit together.’

  ‘Sir,’ the lieutenant colonel stammered, ‘your Reserve headquarters, the Tenth Air Force at Bergstrom, should have sent you a copy.’

  Pontowski flipped to the last page of the document and checked the distribution list. ‘Not according to this,’ he said. ‘We were to get our copy through your plans office since Air Combat Command is the gaining command. You are part of ACC, right?’ He didn’t wait for an answer and stomped out of the command center. Regardless of who was to blame, his wing was going to look bad. It was just the way the bureaucracy of command and control worked.

  His first action was to initiate a unit recall, hoping most of his reservists would get a telephone call and report for duty within twelve hours. Then he drafted a message to the National Military Command Center explaining the situation. No matter how he phrased it, one outstanding fact could not be avoided: the 442nd was not going to be ready to deploy in forty-eight hours.

  Tango Leonard was the first to report in. ‘What the hell is going down?’ he asked. Pontowski told him about the activation message and Rapid Roger. He handed Leonard a copy of the message he had sent to the NMCC. ‘I don’t want to be standing next to you when we get the reply to this,’ he told Pontowski.

  The reply to his message arrived six minutes later. Both men were surprised by its brevity. The NMCC wanted to know when the 442nd would be ready to deploy and Pontowski was ordered to report to the NMCC in the Pentagon soonest. ‘They’re probably building a gallows at Ground Zero right now,’ he groaned. Ground Zero was the five-acre courtyard that formed the h
ub at the center of the Pentagon.

  Leonard paced the floor, thinking. ‘Boss, you know how these alerts work. We get ready in forty-eight hours then stand around for a week with our thumbs up our asses waiting to get the execute order. But we might be able to make the forty-eight hours. I’m not saying we’ll do it with style and grace, but damn, you’ve got some fine people here. They proved that in China.’

  ‘Get to it,’ Pontowski said. A knock on the door caught his attention. His new executive officer, First Lieutenant Lori Williams, a tall and willowy twenty-three-year-old African-American, was reporting in. His people were showing up much faster than anticipated.

  ‘Sir,’ Williams said, ‘Captain Stuart is outside. He heard about the recall and wants to speak to you.’

  Pontowski pulled a long face. ‘Tell Maggot it’ll have to wait until I get back. I’ve got to catch a plane.’ You’re avoiding this, he told himself. It isn’t right to keep him hanging. ‘Lori, scrub that. Tell him to come in.’

  Maggot walked in and snapped a highly professional salute. His uniform was immaculate, his shoes shined to a high gloss, and he had a fresh haircut. Captain Dwight ‘Maggot’ Stuart had never looked so military. Pontowski waved a salute back and told him to sit down.

  ‘Sir, thanks for seeing me,’ Maggot began. ‘I’m hoping you’ll reconsider your decision.’

  ‘I can’t take any more heat,’ Pontowski replied.

  ‘Colonel,’ Maggot said, trying not to beg, ‘I know it’s time I quit doing Maggot-type things and grow up. I’m asking for one more chance.’

  Pontowski glanced at his watch. He was running out of time. ‘I’m sending your records to ARPC.’

  Maggot’s lips compressed into a thin line and his chin dropped. Pontowski hadn’t kicked him out of the Reserves but by sending his records to ARPC, the Air Reserve Personnel Center, Pontowski had consigned him to the inactive Reserve. It was a bureaucratic limbo and he would never fly again. Maggot nodded and stood up. He wouldn’t beg. ‘If you ever need me, sir, call. I’ll be there.’ He saluted and walked out of the office.