Season of the Harvest

by Michael R. Hicks

  “Shut the door,” Curtis ordered the Secret Service agents before gesturing for Mathay to come to the table and set down the briefcase.

  “What’s going on, sir?” Coleridge asked huskily, his pale gray eyes fixed on the football.

  Thomas Wilburne, the recently-promoted Secretary of Defense, glanced at the case, but his expression didn’t reveal any surprise. Then he looked at Clement and nodded his head respectfully.

  He knows, Curtis thought. He’s in on The Secret, too. With a sinking sensation he suddenly understood that the deaths of President Fowler and the former Secretary of Defense had been a bit too convenient. Ridley was right. But that confirmation wouldn’t sway him from what he had to do. He might burn in Hell for it, but he’d do anything to save his daughter. Lord, forgive me, he begged.

  “I’ve received what I believe to be absolutely reliable information,” Curtis told them, “that there is a weapon in the EDS base that poses a clear and immediate danger not only to the United States, but to the world at large.” He looked directly into Coleridge’s eyes. “If this thing gets out, if it’s exposed to the atmosphere, it will contaminate the world’s biosphere and end life as we know it.”

  “I’ll order the Air Force to prepare the penetrator bombs,” Coleridge said, reaching for one of the phones along the wall, “and–”

  “No, general,” Curtis told him. “Conventional weapons will only increase the likelihood that this thing that EDS has created will be accidentally released into the atmosphere. It has to be completely contained. Sterilized.” He nodded at the case. “And there’s only one way to do it.”

  “Mr. President,” Coleridge began carefully, “sir, may I ask where this information is coming from?”

  “It’s from a deep penetration agent we’ve had inside of EDS for the last month,” Clement answered before Curtis could say anything. “It’s one-hundred percent reliable.” He glanced at Curtis. “We’ve gotten details of the weapon, a retrovirus suspended in an aerosol form. It was just confirmed.” He gestured at the phone on his belt. “There’s no question, general.”

  “Sir,” the old Marine said to Curtis, “we...we can’t just drop a nuke. We haven’t been attacked on a scale that–”

  “We have been attacked!” Curtis shot back angrily. “Why the hell do you think I’m standing here instead of Ben Fowler, our former Commander-in-Chief? Remember him? He was blown up, along with your former boss and a few hundred high schoolers. And how about the hundreds of people who were burned to death in Colorado? Not to mention the ring of explosions around the world, all of which EDS publicly took credit for.” Despite his guilty knowledge that The Others may not have been as white as snow, he was nonetheless filled with righteous anger at the outrages that had been visited on the country and the world. “Ring any bells, General Coleridge?”

  “Yes...yes, sir,” Coleridge said quietly.

  “All I want to know, general,” Curtis told him coldly, “is if you’re going to carry out the orders I give you. If not, consider yourself relieved and I’ll summon your deputy to see if he has the balls to get this job done.”

  “No need, sir. It’s my job. I’ll do it.

  That was when the Predator’s video feed, which had been running uninterrupted on the front screen, suddenly flared with a tremendous explosion from where the FBI agents had been engaged by a defensive team that had come to the surface from the subterranean base.

  They all turned to look at the scene.

  “We’re out of time,” Clement said urgently, watching as smoke roiled out of what must have been a ventilation shaft leading into the base. “It may already be too late.”

  “Colonel Mathay?” Curtis ordered.

  Without a word, as if this were nothing more than a routine communications exercise, Mathay opened the case, revealing a heavily protected device similar to a laptop. With a few keystrokes, he activated the football’s console.

  “Your orders, sir?” the colonel said, looking at Coleridge.

  “Initiate an operational alert,” Coleridge said after a long, uncomfortable moment. He looked at Curtis. “What attack option did you have in mind, sir?” he asked. “We don’t exactly have anything to cover this in the SIOP.” The SIOP was the Single Integrated Operational Plan that was the blueprint for how the United States would employ its nuclear weapons.

  “It’s an ad-hoc mission,” Wilburne, the new Secretary of Defense, said. He looked up at Coleridge, then at Curtis. “And there’s already an asset available.”

  The President’s expression hardened at the reminder that one of the nation’s nuclear weapons had been loaded aboard a strike aircraft without his knowledge or consent. But that was an issue he would deal with later.

  “BLUE MAX?” Coleridge asked. “That was a nuclear strike training exercise. The planes don’t have operational weapons on board.”

  “One of them does,” Wilburne told him flatly, but he was looking at Clement.

  “You’ve known that our planes have been carrying nuclear weapons without my authorization?” Curtis asked him, aghast.

  Wilburne nodded, his eyes still on Clement. “I coordinated the weapon deployments,” he said. Turning his gaze to Curtis, he added, “I was…ordered not to inform you or President Fowler, sir.”

  “God Almighty,” Curtis breathed. “All right. Use it,” he said, looking at the video feed and the rising plume of smoke from the EDS base. His blood chilled at the sight as he wondered if even now, particles of the weapon were escaping into the air. If the weapon’s even real, a part of his mind whispered.

  “Your authentication, please, Mr. President?” Mathay asked.

  Curtis reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a plastic card about the size of a credit card that was nicknamed “the biscuit.” On it were printed the authentication codes that would allow the nation’s nuclear weapons to be armed and used. He read off a string of letters and numbers, which Mathay carefully entered into the football’s console.

  “Mr. Secretary?” the colonel said, looking at Wilburne. In order for a valid nuclear weapons order to be issued, the President’s order had to be confirmed by the Secretary of Defense.

  Wilburne already had his biscuit out. “I authenticate...” And he read out a set of random letters and numbers, which Mathay again entered into the console. They were rewarded with a set of illuminated buttons on the console changing from red to green.

  “The target, General Coleridge?” Mathay asked.

  “Here,” Clement said, handing Mathay a small slip of paper that held the latitude, longitude, and surface elevation of the EDS base.

  Mathay glanced at Coleridge, who turned to look at Curtis.

  “Enter it,” Curtis said flatly, and Mathay punched in the information into the console.

  “Mr. President,” Mathay said finally, “do you authorize the nuclear mission execution order?” His finger hovered over a rectangular red button that said EXECUTE.

  Curtis swallowed hard, the full meaning of that single word glaring from the button striking home. “Yes,” he said, forcing out the words. “I authorize the execution of this mission.”

  Mathay nodded, then pressed the button. In a few seconds the display on the console reported that the order had been issued and received by the designated strike aircraft.

  “It’s done, sir,” Mathay said.

  “May the Lord forgive us,” Coleridge whispered, his face pale.

  ***

  “Martin, if you’re making this up I’m going to bust your ass,” Major Elaine Harris growled over the intercom. She was the pilot in command of a B-52H Stratofortress strategic bomber of the 5th Bombardment Wing out of Minot Air Force Base, and she was not happy. Not happy at all. What had begun as a nuclear strike exercise, something they rarely seemed to get to do these days and had spent weeks preparing for, had gone awry. Harris’s aircraft had pulled out of the training mission they had been flying in isolated desert areas of Nevada and ordered into a holding pattern in cleared airs
pace west of Beale Air Force Base in California. No explanation, no nothing. They’d burned up thousands of pounds of fuel doing nothing but blasting holes in the sky in a racetrack pattern over the mountains of Tahoe National Forest, and Harris was ultra-pissed.

  “Major,” Lieutenant Martin Borichevsky, the plane’s navigator told her tensely. “It’s an action message, all right. I’ve already confirmed it. Twice. It’s a valid exercise order.”

  “What kind of crap is that?” Harris’s copilot muttered as he looked at the target plot the bombardier had punched into the plane’s systems. “The target’s just outside of Beale?” He was from California, and could imagine them being ordered to attack the base itself as part of an exercise, but not a bunch of orchards in the foothills of the nearby Sutter Buttes. “This is just a simulated release, right? I can’t believe they’re going to have us live-drop a training weapon outside of a bomb range!” he said.

  “Negative,” the bombardier said firmly after briefly conferring with the navigator. “Martin’s got it right: it’s an actual release. We’ve got the go-ahead.”

  The copilot looked over at Harris. “This doesn’t make any sense, major. We’re not actually going to do this, are we?”

  Harris regarded him for a moment. They’d only flown twice before and she didn’t know him all that well. She unsnapped her mask and killed the intercom so the rest of the crew couldn’t hear. “What the hell do you think we get paid for?” she snapped. “If the action message is valid and we’ve confirmed it, we follow our orders. I don’t give a shit if those orders are to drop a nuke on the White House. If you can’t handle that, you should’ve stayed in the Boy Scouts.” She stared hard at him. “This aircraft is mission capable, mister. Are you?”

  Slowly, he nodded, then turned away.

  Harris snapped her oxygen mask back on and clicked over to the intercom. “Weapon?” she called to the navigator, trying to dismiss her copilot’s concerns as she began to run through the extensive pre-strike checklist before the bomber would be ready to do what it had originally been designed for: delivering a nuclear bomb. Only in this case, it wouldn’t be a real one.

  “The strike order calls for a single B83,” the bombardier called out. The plane carried four training weapons that, aside from blue markings designating them as such, looked, weighed, and handled just like real B83 nuclear gravity bombs. Except, of course, that these didn’t have an actual nuclear weapon in the bomb casing. “Setting it for...three hundred kilotons. Air burst at five hundred meters above ground level.”

  “Flight profile?” Harris called.

  “Low-high-low,” the navigator responded. That would bring the plane in at a low-altitude run toward the target. Then they would pop up in a rapid climb to release altitude to drop the bomb. As the bomb fell to earth, slowed by a parachute that would deploy after it was dropped, Harris and her crew would dive for the deck and get the hell out of the area so they wouldn’t be obliterated by the simulated nuclear explosion. “Turn to course two-eight-one,” the navigator called, and the indicator on Harris’s navigation display moved to the right, settling on the new course. “Recommend an altitude setting of five hundred feet in terrain following mode.”

  Harris smiled behind her oxygen mask as she hauled the B-52’s nose around to the west and started the descent into the mountains that separated her plane from the target. She was looking forward to the reaction from the 9th Operations Group weenies at Beale as her BUFF, the acronym for the B-52’s unofficial nickname of Big Ugly Fat Fucker, suddenly roared overhead.

  Maybe this mission won’t be such a dog after all, she told herself.

  ***

  Monica Ridley’s eyes fluttered open. She was still in the conference room. It took a moment for her to understand that it wasn’t all a nightmare, that what had happened with the Clement-thing, The Other, had been real.

  With adrenaline flooding into her system, she tried to stand up, but instead collapsed to the floor in a heap of unresponsive limbs. She whimpered at the pain that suddenly shot through her abdomen, and looked down to see a spot of blood that had welled up from where the thing had jabbed her with something, like some sort of needle.

  It must have injected me with something, she thought, something that’s bringing back the disease.

  “Oh, God,” she cried softly, biting down on the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. You’ve got to do something, she told herself sternly. You’re not just going to lie here and whimper. No one had come for her yet, which gave her an opening.

  She looked up at the wall behind the chair where she had been sitting. There was a secure phone in a recess in the wall. She just needed to reach it.

  It took five minutes of agonizing effort to push and pull herself back into the chair, fighting against her increasingly useless limbs. She felt as if her body was decaying, withering away with each second.

  At last, panting with exertion, she managed to knock the phone off its cradle and into her lap. Then, with painstaking care, for she knew she had little time left, she punched in the numbers for the secure line to the FBI’s watch center.

  The call was picked up after the first ring. “Watch center, Special Agent Ramirez,” came the sharp, no-nonsense voice of the woman who answered.

  “This is...” Ridley began, shocked at the sound of her voice. It sounded like it was coming from a wheezing child. Forcing a deep breath into her lungs, she tried again. “This is Director Ridley,” she said, her voice sounding like it had some authority now.

  “Ma’am,” Ramirez asked, “are you all right? Are you ill?”

  “No, I’m fine,” Ridley lied, her growing fury battling against her body’s increasing helplessness. “I need you to patch me through direct to the SAC for the Sutter Buttes operation. Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ramirez replied. “Stand by.”

  If only I could, the FBI’s Director thought bitterly as she looked at the useless legs that would never stand or walk again. As the seconds ticked past, she prayed she could get through to her people in time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  A low boom echoed through the complex, the only outward sign of the explosion that had thrown Jack and the others to the ground on the surface above.

  “No,” Naomi whispered as the video feed showed him flying through the air to land hard on the concrete where the truck repair shop had been. He lay very still. “Please, God...”

  Then the full significance of the explosion hit her. The blast valves in the air intake complex. They were the only thing keeping the harvester, or whatever it was, from getting out. “Renee,” she called, “is the air intake complex still secure?”

  After a moment, Renee said, “The indicators are showing that the valves are all closed,” she said, then quickly added, “but I’m getting a warning light on valve three.”

  “Will it come open?” Naomi asked, trying not to give all her attention to the screen showing the topside video feed, where a stunned Richards was up now and stumbling-crawling toward where Jack lay.

  “It won’t open,” Renee told her, “but it may not completely seal against any more blasts.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Naomi said, “at least for a while. They took enough of a beating. What else–”

  An alarm suddenly began to whoop.

  “External power is down!” the woman at the power systems station called out, shutting off the alarm. “We’re on battery power now.”

  “Go into power conservation mode,” Naomi ordered. The woman nodded and turned back to her console. Throughout the complex, lights and other electronic equipment that weren’t essential were shut off.

  “Come on, Jack,” Naomi whispered, clutching the edge of her workstation as she watched Richards kneel down next to him. “Come on...”

  “What the hell?” Renee blurted as something suddenly dropped down from the top of the view in the video feed. It was a helicopter, a Blackhawk. As everyone in the control center watched, eyes w
ide, it landed hard, slamming onto the concrete apron around the ruined air intake vent right next to where Richards was trying to revive Jack.

  Amid more exclamations of surprise, the Blackhawk’s crew leaped out, hands in the air. One of them, from the troop compartment, rushed over to Richards, who pointed a pistol in the man’s face.

  ***

  “Special Agent Richards?” the black-clad special agent shouted above the dying roar of the Blackhawk’s slowing rotor blades as the pilot made a hasty shutdown.

  “That’s right,” Richards snapped back, barely hearing the man but able to read his lips. His ears were still ringing from the blast of the satchel charges. But his aim was steady enough. If this guy so much as sneezes, he thought coldly, I’ll blow his brains out. “What do you clowns think you’re doing?”

  “We’re surrendering,” the man told him, ignoring the gun. He gestured for two of the helo’s crewmen to help with Jack, and they immediately knelt down, gently picking him up. “I’m Special Agent Franzman, the SAC. I have new orders straight from Director Ridley.”

  Richards suddenly caught sight of the other FBI agents who’d survived the initial massacre but who hadn’t come along in the attempt to use the satchel charges. They were carrying their wounded comrades and moving as fast as they could toward the portal. None were armed, and all had confused and frightened looks on their faces.

  “What in blazes is going on?” Richards demanded.

  “We’re about to get nuked,” Franzman said, deadpan. He clearly didn’t believe it, but like Richards, he was a professional who followed orders, especially if they came straight from the director herself. His expression made it clear that he expected Richards to laugh or reassure him that the director had gone mental. Having to suddenly turn himself and his agents over to two men, Richards and Dawson, who moments before had been the FBI’s two most wanted criminals, was causing him some serious indigestion.

  Instead of laughing, Richards grabbed Franzman’s arm and ran as fast as he could toward the portal. “How long?” he shouted as he ran.