by Terry James
Then, again, he pondered through his impatience, to give too much attention to the matter of the information he carried might not be a good thing. Better, perhaps, to treat it as routine.
Not much could happen here, where Air Police security was exceptionally tight because of the diplomatic courier activity which routinely flowed through Andrews to and from the capitals of the world. And now, with the Russian disaster and the many unknowns surrounding it, security was more alert than ever to possible trouble.
Worried looks on the hurried, harried faces of the military and civilian-government people, who made hushed talk while they strode briskly through the crowded main lounge, told the story of the effect on Washington, D.C. If there had been elation here, it had faded.
Karen was less than an hour away. Karen and answers to the mysteries of their phone conversations. Stone Oaks — less than an hour away.
"Mr. Zen!" Two men approached, the taller one offering his right hand. "I'm Agent Dobson, Treasury." He nodded toward the other man, who took Jacob's hand. "He's Agent Garrett. Sorry for the delay. This Russian thing has us jammed up." Both men presented their credentials. "Our orders are to take you directly to the Oval Office."
Traffic moved slowly at first, when the navy blue Chevrolet entered the Beltway headed North, but it thinned after the transfer loop was negotiated, putting them on State 4 leading into the heart of the District of Columbia. The late evening flow of vehicles coming from the city crawled, but traffic on their side moved more quickly the closer they traveled toward the capital.
Lights from the eastbound vehicles pierced the thick night-haze, creating an aura of yellow luminescence against the darkness. Jacob wondered, of the people behind those lights across the median, how many comprehended the true circumstance of the world while they struggled to complete their daily ritual of pushing their ways home? Did even one of them know of the decisions that would be made, that were being made, while they pushed and honked and shoved? Decisions that would prick their protective bubble and change forever the way life would be lived.
Had the bubble already burst for Karen? Certainly it had for him. "They've been behind us for a mile or so."
The driver's words pulled Jacob's attention forward from his position in the back seat. His eyes meeting, in the rearview mirror, the eyes of the broad-shouldered Treasury agent. Jacob looked out the rear window to see a set of lights 200 yards back.
"Mister Zen, you better be ready to stay down and hang on in case there's trouble." The agent riding shotgun held his revolver and checked its cylinder while calmly making the suggestion.
"They've closed on us, Brett. I'll put a squeeze play on them, and we'll try the infrared."
The driver floor-boarded the accelerator and in the same instant swerved into the inside lane, then shot past a car and moved alongside a pickup. Although there was no opening, the agent nudged the nose of the sedan toward the left headlight of the pickup in the right lane next to them. The driver of the truck hit the brakes and whipped right to avoid contact, nearly hitting the guard rail, but he managed to keep control.
In a tire-screeching lurch, the agent jammed the Chevrolet between the still-swerving pickup and the van ahead.
"Can you get the scope on him?" the driver said above the blaring horn of the truck behind them.
"Not yet!"
The other man, Jacob could see, was working at the dashboard area, finally settling his face into a binocular-like instrument the way one would look through a submarine periscope.
"Nope! Can't get 'em," the man at the scope said. "We'll have to run with them."
"Okay, let's do it! Hang in there, Mr. Zen!"
The driver jerked the Chevy into the passing lane and crammed the accelerator to the floor. The helpless thought flashed: What might be the odds for living through a second chase like the one that night with Karen? Not good, he decided as the careening sedan, despite the seat belts, threw him first against the left door, then onto his right side against the seat, before he managed to brace himself in anticipation of each spastic lurch. Would the thrashing detonate the briefcase?!
"He's coming with us, Brett!"
The Chevrolet's speedometer was on 95. Their acceleration caused the vehicles in the right lane to appear motionless. The agent riding shotgun was again at the scope instrument. "Okay, Marty. Got him!"
Jacob looked out the rear window to see the chasing vehicle's headlights several hundred yards behind, but closing. He turned to see the driver's eyes, nose and forehead in the mirror. They were cool, professional eyes, assessing the next move in coordination with the man's experienced brain and hands.
Then, in a fraction of a second, the eyes in the mirror were gone! The driver vanished!
The agent disappeared! No... It must have been a blast from an unseen, unheard weapon. It had to be! Jacob struggled forward against inertia, trying to see what was happening, but was thrown backward, then slammed against the left rear door. The car was jerking violently, the steering wheel spinning unattended!
Unfastening his seat belt, he pulled himself forward again, gripping the back of the seat in front of him.
No time to puzzle over the driver's seat being empty, as the car was bearing down on a concrete drainage pipe at more than 60! He dove for the wheel and captured it with his right hand, then his left —the attaché' case making the effort a painful one. Jacob pulled himself in a slithering fashion across the seat, at the same time, turning the steering wheel right to avoid the culvert. An eternity passed during the seconds before his lower body slammed onto the front seat, the maneuver causing the handcuff to rip the flesh of his left wrist, his feet to catch on the man slumped against the right door. He pulled his feet free and flung them toward the brake pedal. A dark form came into his peripheral view and there was a grinding thud that caused the car to convulse, then tip onto its left side.
The attaché case would explode! He gripped the wheel tightly and felt it snap. The world became a dark, rolling blur, and in his mind he prayed... "Dear God... not now!"
The car was upright, with the roof on his side badly caved in. Blood was everywhere!
Where was he hurt? Only at his wrist, where the handcuff and attaché case caused it to twist and the skin to tear. He had a dull, throbbing pain in his forehead, the pounding becoming sharper as his senses regathered. He wiped his fingers across the wound. There was some blood, but not enough to cause the profusion. The agent's head and left shoulder plopped heavily against him, the man's eyes open wide, the mouth gaping. Jacob pushed the seat-belted body to an upright posture in order to help the agent; he saw the reason, then, for the volume of blood!
The tear in the left side of the neck oozed with what must be the last of the man's blood. After pushing the body against the right door, he painfully eased himself through the opening between the crumpled door and its jagged facing and looked around for help. The carnage was incredible! Everywhere, crushed and burning vehicles! People moaning, screaming, begging for help.
Siren wails coming from Andrews on the east and from Washington on the west met at the spot where Jacob stood unsteadily, then faded while making their 360 degree sweeps. The eerie horizons in both directions pulsed sanguinely with glows of gigantic fires, giving silhouetted illumination to structures between himself and the city to the west.
Nuclear attack! D.C. would be among the first struck! His heart flip-flopped in his chest, his throat constricting with fear. The world was finally doing the unthinkable: committing suicide. His consciousness faded, and he had to go to one knee. His chest felt like it would erupt with each heart pulsation. His mind and vision cleared when he lowered his face.
No —This was not consistent with the characteristics of thermonuclear holocaust as he imagined it, not like he had been led to believe it would be. There was no blinding flash, no devastating blast or firestorm, nor depletion of oxygen.
The agent had disappeared in front of him! But it couldn't be! He stood, then bent to look into t
he badly compressed car. The other man lay in his own coagulating blood, corpse-white, his throat still seeping the bright arterial liquid from the jagged tear in his neck. He searched the interior which was well-lighted by several burning wreckages nearby. Only the floorboard on the driver's side was darkened by shadows, and he ran his free hand over the carpet, feeling crumpled cloth. He pulled the material to eye level. A pair of slacks with a dark leather belt running through the loops — still buckled. Exploring further, he found a suitcoat, a shirt, a pair of shoes and socks--the shoes still tied, as if the driver had dissolved within his clothing! The seat belt and harness, buckled!
"Help me! For godssake, Mister! Help us!"
The woman's frantic plea while she gripped his arm yanked Jacob from total immersion in his thoughts of the phenomenon he still was not sure he had witnessed. Her features, he could tell through the spattering of blood on her face, were those of a pretty woman. He wondered why he noticed such a thing, when the world was coming apart. Perhaps because the mind involuntarily selected out whatever small bits of beauty were to be found in all this... spectral ugliness.
He allowed himself to be pulled along by his arm while they stumbled across the divider. She pleaded with him in emotion-choked words that were barely understandable. "My little girl... Help me find her! Please... I can't find Carrie!"
They reached the Toyota wagon, Jacob's still somewhat addled thoughts on the face that disappeared from the mirror — on the rolling car — the bloodless corpse — on Karen.
"My mother! Please help her, Mister!"
Without thinking about it, he checked the woman who looked to be in her fifties. She had a cut along her left jaw and blood on her hands, either from the wound or from abrasions on her hands and arms. "Where's Carrie? Is Carrie all right, Misty?"
"I can't find her, Mother. Mister, can you find her for us?" The young woman looked at him, her face, her voice strangely calm.
"Miss, I'm sorry. There's no child here," he said, checking the back seat of the wagon. He opened the back door to look around the cargo area. Just clothing. A child's dress, white leotards, patent shoes, a stuffed toy animal.
"There's some clothing back here; that's all I can find."
The woman took the dress from him and stared at it, a blank expression on her face. "It's Carrie's dress, Mother," she said unemotionally, then sat down behind the steering wheel and held the dress in her lap. "Thank you for finding it," she said without looking up at Jacob. "See, Momma... Carrie's dress."
Jacob stumbled backward, his eyes wide with realization that the little girl had disappeared like the agent, clothing ... the only evidence of her former presence!
He wandered, meandering between wreckages, ignoring cries of the injured — the dying. There were too many. Too many...
A hand reached from a window, clutching at his right bicep. He instinctively jerked free, then looked inside to see the man whose face was a mask of blood, his nose smashed from impact with the steering wheel. The man held a handkerchief against the head of a woman lying beside him on the seat.
"Help us! My wife... she's bleeding." His plea was offered weakly; he, himself, would soon lose consciousness from loss of blood.
"Where are the kids, Joe? Oh, Lord! Where are the kids?" The woman whimpered the question without moving.
Jacob reached for the door handle; the metal just above his hand suddenly dented. A hole appeared in the dent's center. A sharp report cracked somewhere behind him. A large caliber handgun!
Dropping to his knees beside the truck, Jacob, in that mind-boggling instant, wondered about the man and woman in the truck. The round must have hit one or both of them. Another shot! The bullet ricocheted off the road shoulder's asphalt not 10 inches from him! Only one direction to go! The second shot had definitely come from the other side of the divider, behind where the wreckage of the government Chevrolet sat. He had to make it to beneath the pickup, if he was to have a chance! Another blast and ricochet off the asphalt, the bullet piercing a front tire of the truck.
He cast a quick look in the direction of the gunfire, seeing a broad figure kneeling, readying with both hands for another shot. Why, of all the people to survive, did it have to be one of the men who had been in the car chasing them?! He felt the sting on the calf of his left leg before he heard the report of the pistol. He was hit!
Shoving the case in front of him, he crawled on his stomach beneath the truck. The leg was still working; the sting was gone. He was now out from under the pickup on the side opposite the gunman. What good was an exploding case? He needed a more usable weapon!
He stopped to consider his position among the wreckages, then checked the damaged leg. If he had been hit, he couldn't tell it. No blood, no pain. But when he took his next step, it felt like the calf muscle had been slapped with a heavy gauge chain.
He tried to see the would-be killer, find the man so he could plan what he hoped would be a life-saving strategy. He saw the predator stalking about the wreckages, looking for his quarry, moving slowly with the pistol held at the ready position wanting another crack at his prey. The assassin was at the back end of the truck. Jacob ducked behind the upside-down car lying just ahead of the pickup. He had to move quietly away, eastward - back toward Andrews. While he limped in a crouched position between the stalled and mangled vehicles, he kept the man with the gun in sight, and devised his plan.
Moving more quickly, he duck-walked in great pain, occasionally stopping to look back in the direction of the stalker. He had lost the man among the wreckages and the dazed people who searched the carnage for those who needed help. He must move more quickly still... must put distance between himself and his attacker, then put his plan into action.
He searched the lane next to the grassy divider, seeing finally what he had been looking for. Perfect! An old Volkswagen! Unoccupied.
Circumstance and end justify means, he assured himself, looking inside the small car, then pulling the door open. Keys were still in the ignition. He turned the key and the motor churned, slowly, then caught. Movement in the rearview mirror! The attacker! The pistol aimed with both hands at arm's length, sighting the target! — Him! Jacob dove to his right across the gear console an instant before the rear window and windshield exploded. At the same time, he clumsily stomped the clutch, jammed the shift lever into first, whipped the steering wheel left, then floor-boarded the accelerator, causing the car to jump into the divider.
Staying bent across the gear console, except for a quick look at where the car was headed, he heard a series of shots and the rounds thumping into the VW. Now he had to chance it. He sat upright to weave his way through the west-bound traffic, which, though stalled like the east-bound traffic, was much less congested.
The windshield was fractured in spider-web design, obscuring his view. Too late! The Volkswagen's left, front fender ripped into a wrecked car's bumper, severing the VW's fender and causing him to nearly lose control. He straightened the wheels; he had to make it to the shoulder on the far side of the road, where he could be afforded at least some protection by the vehicles that would then be between him and the man trying to stop him. If he could only survive the next volley!
Two more reports from the pistol. No damage. He was on his way!
He threaded the Volkswagen carefully between the jumble, then drove rapidly when it thinned along westbound 4 toward Washington. Thinking the man might be able to follow or radio ahead, giving someone a description of the VW, he slowed to find an empty car. There — its engine still running, the automatic transmission lever still in drive, the car apparently undamaged by its contact with the wreckage in front of it.
When Jacob started to slide beneath the steering wheel, a ripple of chill went down his spine. Clothing on the seat, shoes and socks on the floorboard! He looked around the interior and saw that each passenger position was littered with clothing, and on the floorboard there were shoes. All seat belts — fastened!
Minutes later, he eased the dark brown
and tan Pontiac by a tangled heap of metal that had, less than 45 minutes earlier, been two cars about to cross the Anacosta River over the John Phillip Sousa Bridge. This part of the city was strangely quiet, he thought, picking up speed again after crossing the bridge. An absence of human activity, except for the red and blue lights rotating a mile or so up Pennsylvania Avenue. A road block, probably stopping, then checking — maybe turning away — incoming traffic. That might be the procedure for any major city during a crisis such as this, whatever this was. The nation's capital certainly would have a plan for dealing with such emergencies.
One reason for his disquieting feeling stemmed from the darkness of the inner city. The great granite and marble edifices looked like black, hulking behemoths against the glowing bronze backdrop created by fires even farther westward than he had estimated from his earlier vantage just outside Andrews. Whatever happened, it had knocked out primary power to the most vital city in the world. Back-up sources were undoubtedly now feeding essential systems. The roadblocks were part of dealing with the disaster, nothing more.
But apprehension grew and dominated his logic. Had his pursuer alerted someone among those waiting just ahead that Jacob Zen was approaching the city? The car was different, but the face — certainly well-memorized by those who so desperately wanted the materials in the case — the face on the UNIVUSCARD they would tell him to produce, remained the same face.
He had to get to the President. Because he had the credentials, those at the roadblock who were not in on the attempt to get the materials from him would see to it that he was taken to the White House. They would believe his story about losing his escorts — about the agent vanishing when the phenomenon occurred. Or would they? And, if they did believe him, which people at the roadblock could he trust?
What about the President? What of the government? Instinct, based not on panic, but on something beyond pure reasoning, warned that matters of monumental importance to humankind were forever, fundamentally altered in that millisecond when the agent's eyes disappeared from the mirror's reflective surface.