by James Kiehle
Beyond that, the Canadian Columbia mountain range and what had been, farther to the north, the towns of Okanagan Falls, Kelowna, and Salmon Arm. Bombarded by snowy winter after winter, then submerged as of last year, the shift in temperatures over the last five years had been wacky and extreme. The snow melted but the runoff pooled and rain water had been blocked by stubborn ice packs, this while the backed up waters also began to freeze and covered vast tracts.
Looking up after hearing an unusual noise, Jared shielded his eyes from the Sun, then caught sight of a fast-moving light followed by a long tail of smoke streaking across the sky that turned into a blazing orange ball as it approached land, then exploded on the horizon in a blinding flash—the last thing Jared saw before the meteoric Bullet’s impact disintegrated him. He didn’t witness the white-hot shock wave or feel the colossal fire that instantly turned his flesh and bones to ashen flakes as the meteor decimated every living thing in its blast radius in a microsecond.
Jared would never know how much snow became steam and how many ice packs melted. He didn’t know that the Ice Shelf was poised to cease existence and be reborn as a cascade of raging water; a tidal wave that could travel south faster than a Formula One racer.
But for now, the ice would hold.
•
In Datong, China, an aide whispered in Huang Junjie’s ear. No one overheard.
One of his teams, working on intercepting any American communiques dealing with space, picked up news about a meteor on course to strike somewhere in the PRC.
Wasting no time, activating the test, he raced to the main office.
“Hurry, hurry. Implement the codes,” Huang urged as he ran around the room, up one aisle flanked by desks and technicians, down another. “This must be done now.”
“But the military codes could be compromised,” a man said. “And we could overload the system—all systems—”
“That doesn’t matter,” Huang pressed. “We don’t have time. Implement the codes.”
Huang knew that the cyber commands had to be relayed before his department might not be able to send anything should this meteor strike anywhere in China.
But unknown to them, the only systems they disrupted were China’s ZCF-111, on a recon flight near Hawaii, and on the USS Catalina and her escorts, affected when their computers were suddenly reprogrammed.
On the Catalina, no one noticed the ZCF-111 quietly roar over them.
They had troubles of their own.
•
Chao, intent on her mission, was all business as she zipped over the USS Catalina and didn’t notice the meteor that flew above and behind her on its way to Canada. Just a minor sense of what was that?
Not that it mattered, because all at once her ZCF-111’s controls went berserk. She lost all power. The airborne marvel of twenty-first-century China’s technological competence experienced a complete rewrite of code and plunged towards the sea. After a whispered “Oh, Heavenly Spirit,” it was too late.
Everything in her cockpit went haywire.
Chao’s missiles launched. Not the standard air to sea puppies, these were the big dogs, two of the compact little nukes, not more than a megaton each, about what Nagasaki got.
And before all power stopped and her plane fell from the sky, Chao Dai-wing witnessed the briefest but most insanely beautiful explosion.
•
“The first bullet landed somewhere in British Columbia,” Pinkie announced. “I suppose that’s as good as the middle of the ocean. You don’t have to worry about tsunamis. Just downed trees.”
“And maybe that Ice Shelf thing. Where did the second part of the meteor hit?” Ben wondered.
“My guess is here,” Dutch pointed. “Datong, a metropolis in northernmost Shanxi province. “
“Is it near the capital?” Ben asked.
“No, it’s more than five hundred miles from Beijing, but the impact could be seen from there.”
Ben tried to imagine. Those in the capital would see the fire, hear the bang, and watch an ink-black cloud rise in the sky as a dark nimbus or a nuclear bomb detonation. Datong, the city that one half of the Bullet evaporated, was older than Christ by some two hundred years, had been pillaged and conquered and reborn time and again. But now there would be no phoenix rising from these ashes, just a wasted land to rival the most desolate places on Earth. Not for years would anything emerge from the devastation, aside from cockroaches, rats, and ants.
No humans, perhaps forever.
On this day, the three million citizens of the prefecture barely witnessed the end of a long civilization—it happened so quickly. The noise from the falling meteor alone was astonishing, filling the air with an otherworldly roar, then a ball of fire erupted from the sky as it exploded in a violent collision of rock on rock. The meteor destroyed all that existed here, turning this part of the planet’s clocks back to prehistoric standard time. One moment human beings were tending to chores, cooking dinner, playing basketball, sending texts, and the next instant they were gone—just gone—vanished in a cloud of everything.
•
1022 hours. Out at sea, just fifty miles from Pearl near the northwest corner of Oahu, the destroyer was a long way from the Taiwan blockade and battle zone, but the USS Catalina’s mini-armada was sure to get into the thick of it soon enough, they all knew that .
Above them a whisper-quiet jet seemed to zip by—puzzling.
“Was that one of ours, sir?” a lieutenant asked his commander.
“I didn’t see,” the officer replied, distracted by an odd noise.
Then, a sharp light off starboard. A fireball, trailing smoke, followed by a short, deafening pop as the skies above quickly turned a misty, oyster slag, thick as mud, obstructing the view from the bridge like the darkest fog ever, leaving a smell that made sailors nauseous.
“What caused that?” the admiral asked of anyone, but no one knew.
Worse, a full surge—sparks flew, electrical and key equipment malfunctioned at once, affecting the radar and sonar; then the emergency generators kicked in and immediately caused havoc. Codes on visible terminals began to change. The stuck launch button on the sea-to-sea Mk 143 “Armored Box Launcher” BGM-109A/B/C Tomahawk missile popped out and instantly fired, sending a deadly, expelled jet flame on the seaman behind it, incinerating him. Rising fast, the missile wavered a bit, then shot straight off in a short arc and exploded on the horizon, a rapidly expanding roil of smoke and fire—its target unknown.
A nuclear explosion.
The first of the war.
•
Peter Grant, 30,000 feet aloft, stared at the monitor on the plane. So much to digest. There was new news now, something important was happening outside his sphere of interest—China, Taiwan, old hat—this was intel on a meteor of some sort.
Minutes from impact.
This would have been of consuming interest except for the ringing phone in his pocket. Three people knew this number: The President of the United States, General Spivey, and Li Cai Wen.
A perfunctory, “Grant” as he clicked on the line, his hello echoed by Li.
“Grant. It’s Wen, as you no doubt know.”
Peter, now more concerned, said, “This must be what we talked about—worst case scenario.”
“I assure you, it is.”
“What can I do?” Grant asked.
“Fire up the engines,” Li Cai Wen said.
“Nukes?”
“Unless you have a magic wand, then yes,” Li replied. “Strike first. Hit the mainland where it hurts. I feel this. I know this.”
“What do you know?”
“You have a destroyer escorting the Arleigh-Burke’s. Something will happen. A misunderstanding. What is this warship called?”
Peter said, “I can’t tell you—”
“Is it the Catalina?” Li asked, as the line began to crackle. “It has Taiwan’s nuclear bomb on board.”
Grant, unsure of security clearance, wondered, “Exactly whose
side are you on, Mr. Li?”
After a second of silence, “Wen? Li?”
No sound. Dead line.
Grant, bewildered, made his way to the cockpit and lifted a secure phone.
“What’s the number of the White House?” he asked the co-pilot.
“One.”
•
When news of the meteor blast in Datong reached Defense Minister Liang, he marched around the room, face shaded crimson, and violently tossed a letter opener across the room and into a wall.
“They shot first,” he insisted. “The American ship launches a missile, destroying our best jet fighter—and my niece— then they drop a nuclear bomb on Datong? We did not see this coming? How could we not detect a missile enter our airspace?”
An aide tried to calm him.
“We do not believe it is an attack. The Catalina you speak of, this was an accident, some malfunction. As for the bomb, there have been reports that it was the meteor—”
Liang wouldn’t hear of it. “Nonsense. It was the Americans.”
“Sir, please, I beg you—Do you honestly think this was a nuclear attack?” Ming asked. “It seems so unlikely. We have no proof—”
Irate, Liang told him, “The proof is ten million dead. There will be more proof if we wait.”
“But what would the Americans have to gain from that? I, too, have heard of a meteor—”
“Don’t be naive, Ming,” the Minister seethed, his eye twitching uncontrollably. “Propaganda. An invention of their media. We are on full alert—not war footing—we are at war. The Americans know we will take Taipei long before their forces can be assembled. Don’t be fooled. This was an American preemptive nuclear strike. Now we must prepare for all-out attack. The war of wars—quick and decisive. End this.”
He slammed his fists on his hips, challenging anyone. To Xiong, he barked, “Enter the code.”
Across the room, Xiong Guoxiong asked, “Sir?”
“Ready Bau Gie.”
“Yes, sir.”
Xiong had been ordered to open the Box—which was actually just a fancy, fat Apple computer with bells, whistles and about a thousand keys—a few minutes before, after witnessing a moment of his commander’s near-hysteria. Xiong shivered in fear, frightened for himself, for all China, but was far more concerned for his family on holiday near the blast zone. Survival seemed unlikely and he felt almost paralyzing sadness.
Mother. Father…
But Xiong did as he was told. He put the key in the lock. He input the numbers. He reinforced the code. Hit Ready. The activate light turned to red.
Xiong, barely watching the minister now argue his case on the phone to the president of the People’s Republic, (“They fired first!” he insisted) was verging on tears. Xiong’s emotions were shaken, all nerves on edge, so when he heard the next exchange, Xiong either misunderstood the words or simply didn’t listen, and acted too efficiently.
Minister Liang slammed down the phone and seethed at General Ming, “They don’t understand. They want to sue for peace, negotiate.”
Ming looked relieved. “Perhaps it is for the best—”
Liang exploded. “It was an attack and I tell you right now—if the Americans use nukes, we’ll use them too. Their own president said this very thing.” He walked backward a step, his back near to Xiong’s, and the minister accidentally nudged his assistant, then wheeled around, stared at Xiong for an instant and his eye twitched.
Xiong understood. He was prepared. Finger on the trigger.
For the People.
For my ancestors.
For China.
“How many would you fire?” General Ming asked, trying to keep his tone low and noncommittal. “One? Two? A warning shot?”
Liang leaned forward, his face nearing Ming’s.
“I’d fire them all,” Liang said.
“Firing all,” Xiong Guoxiong announced.
He turned his key and pressed the scarlet button.
The order to fire Dong Feng 51-class missiles was sent out across China. Red-labelled double-set keys were locked into boxes and turned to Engage.
Defense Minister Liang screamed, “WAIT!”
18. Interlude
Horrifying.
In Honolulu, too far from the nuclear explosion at the North Shore of Oahu to actually see it, Judy and Iris still heard the tremendous blast and watched minutes later as TV news reached the scene and broadcast shots of the burgeoning mushroom cloud while a helicopter hovered over the wreck of the Catalina and its escorts.
All hands were dead. The military shooed the news crews away.
American spokespeople blamed the Chinese and said this unwarranted attack was a second Pearl Harbor, which the PRC denied, saying it was an accident, but stopped short of admitting that an unauthorized recon flight was to blame, also a lie.
But after news spread in Honolulu, then worldwide, all of it fell apart.
Iris peered out the hotel room blinds at the scene below on Kalakaua Boulevard. Cars and trucks jammed the roads. What caught Iris’s eye was a fist fight; the melee was drawing a crowd.
“This is nuts. Crazytown. Waikiki is falling apart,” she said, turning to Judy for an instant. “I just saw some dude try to run over another guy with his SUV—it was like—like road rage on steroids.”
“Nice phrase,” Judy said, folding a sweater, trying to stay sane with everyday chores. She wished she had a kitchen to cook in right now. Make some eggs or tuna casserole. “Maybe you’ll be a writer like your Dad.”
Iris huffed, “He’s not a writer, he’s an editor. Big diff,” then shrieked: “That guy there. Oh my God, he’s got a gun—”
Judy joined her at the window, pulled her daughter farther away from it and watched the chaos far below. She put her hands on Iris’s shoulders, who reached up to hold them both.
Two pops sounded from below and they instinctively jumped. Looking down, Judy watched a man run away, firing shots indiscriminately into the air. Another man fell and a crowd gathered, but no one seemed to be doing anything to help. All at once, they began to beat him up.
“Not him,” Iris cried through sound-proof glass. “Beat up the man with the gun!”
“Iris—”
Her daughter spun around, arms straight against her thighs. “This is scary, mom. Really damn scary. What are we going to do? Christ, they attacked goddamned Oahu.”
“Careful on the language, sweets. We’ll figure something out,” Judy said, trying to sound like she knew. In truth, she was at her wits’ end. She couldn’t reach Russ; the outside phones weren’t working. You couldn’t get a cab or a bus or use virtually any form of transportation. The airport was out of control and cruise ships were either being confiscated by the military or were completely booked. Mob scenes everywhere.
Worse, the women from the school had scattered in all directions. She hadn’t been able to reach them in their rooms.
“I’ll call Janet and Caryn again and see what the group wants to do,” Judy said, picking up the room phone, blindly dialing. “Maybe they’ve arranged to fly back early.”
“There’s a big fire over there,” Iris said. “But no fire engines. A lot of sirens though.”
The phone line was dead. “Damn it, you’d think at least the hotel phones would work—” Judy said, slamming it down. She paced the room, arms held straitjacket-style and glanced suspiciously at the TV. The sound was down low because it was just too unnerving, but images showed a riot taking place not two miles from where they were holed up.
In the aftermath of whatever happened in northern Oahu, not sixty miles from their hotel, major panic. Judy and Iris didn’t actually see the blast but the news sure did, and broadcast the nonstop action, competing with all the other news stories of dominoes falling one by one. Frenzy had set in, globally it seemed, and no different for those in Hawaii, where danger was far more immediate for the Perry girls.
This was real. This was a real war, where unexpected things happen and all the r
ules are thrown out as one crisis bumped into another one.
“I’ll be right back, Iris,” Judy said and stepped into the oversized, far too bright bathroom.
She sat on the john and thought hard, weighing the options, wishing to God that Russ was here with them. But he was probably living his own hell at home in Bend.
The reality was that they were totally on their own. The end of the world might come, it felt more and more like it, but Judy was now feeling angry, not despondent. Her mind raced with subplots, how she might get the group off the island. Now, sitting on the toilet, Judy decided to take the reins and do something, anything.
Just keep swimming.
She stormed out of the bathroom, eyes hardening.
“You look pissed,” Iris said.
“Not pissed, honey—determined. We can’t just wait here,” Judy said. “Pack what you think you’ll need and can carry. You brought your backpack, right?”
“Of course,” Iris said, her voice somewhat wary. “But it has books in it—”
“We’ll replace them. Now, go, move. Take only what you really need and what you can easily lug around. Be ruthless.” Judy started her own frantic packing, all the while thinking: What the hell can we do?
Iris held up a free hand. “Can I take my imaginary iPad?”
“I’ll buy you a new one,” Judy replied, not hearing.
•
Russ left the office and the world of news behind. Walking at a steady, fast clip, hands in both pockets, listening to the sounds of a small city facing trouble, Perry felt like an electrically-charged swamp of near-hysterical fear, thinking of Judy and Iris and the dangers they faced.
He needed to calm.
More than that, he needed to get away from here.
The urban noise had been reduced to the roar of the river, some humans yelling, far-off traffic and several sirens. Smoke filled the air in strong wafts. The streets were deserted and car radios were off for the moment. As far as Russ could tell, he was the only person alone out there; the others were hiding or possibly in mobs.