He turned off the VCR and looked at a real-time tape of the General. He was still talking.
“So, you see, America is the New Jerusalem promised by God. White Europeans are the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, and the Constitution is God's gift to His chosen people. Only the Constitution and the Bill of Rights come from God. All other laws have been instituted by a puppet government bent on conferring the blessing of sovereign American citizenship on blacks and Asians and women and homosexuals and Jews. We will die to defend God's plan. We will kill to defend God's plan. If you don't think we will, get out your Bibles and check the Old Testament. God killed women. God killed children. God killed babies. We will do no less.”
The General paused and looked at his watch. Then he repeated his fatal error. He glanced down the entrance road, looked at his watch again, and resumed his tirade. Chao checked the counter on the video player, so he could return to that moment of indecision, then he chewed on his pencil eraser while the General kept talking.
The imbecile is expecting reinforcements, Chao thought. The initial assault force was sent to secure the site, but the big guns are coming later.
He called Agent Shanks, who was sitting nearby in a van full of nuclear physicists trying to pinpoint exactly how much havoc the Army of the Resurrection could wreak. Chao told him to concentrate on scenarios using weapons smaller than a car bomb. In this case, maybe smaller than a breadbox. It bothered him that Shanks didn't sound greatly relieved.
Next, he called the helicopter team, on standby in Barnwell, and asked for full surveillance of the area outside the Site boundary.
“These guys are paranoid about helicopters. Stay as high and as far from the Site as possible while still giving full coverage. If you see anything suspicious—large trucks, a sizeable group of vehicles traveling together, anything like that—we're going in.”
“And the children?”
“If we let a truckload of explosives cross the boundary, the whole site is vulnerable. Do you know how many children live downwind from here?”
The voice was weak in his ear. “No, sir, I don't.”
“Then I repeat: if you guys see anything suspicious, then we're going in. I'll take full responsibility for what happens to the children.”
Chapter 26
Babykiller clicked the television off. “It's very homey here with you, and I'm having a hell of a time watching the Feds squirm, but I had a more romantic evening in mind.”
Even now, even twenty-some-odd years after her rape, her body reacted to his implication. Her blood ran cold and her throat constricted, but she willed her fists not to clench. He mustn't see her respond to his threats. Or were they threats?
Babykiller seemed to be laboring to convince himself that she wanted to be with him, that all these years she had yearned for him, just as he had yearned for her. If she stopped playing along and made him admit that he had coerced her into coming to him, then he would lose and she would win. He would probably also kill her, but that wasn't the point. She recognized that she had some control over both their fates and the balance of power shifted ever-so-slightly in her direction.
She decided to play the game. She gave him a small smile and allowed him to interpret it. Maybe she was being coy. Maybe she was just shy. She looked up at him and said, “I don't want to watch TV, either. What do you want to do?”
He stood up and jerked her off the sofa without looking to see whether she landed on her feet. “This house has lovely gardens. Let me show them to you.”
* * *
J.D.'s wound was bleeding again. Cynthia hated to disturb his rest and she really hated the idea of making him hurt even more than he already did, but she couldn't ignore the blood.
She opened the last dozen sterile gauze pads—two-inch squares were pitifully inadequate for this job—and wadded them together. She pressed the absorbent mass into J.D.'s gunshot wound and leaned on it with all her weight, trying not to think about the damage his broken collarbone was doing to the tissues around it.
She watched the gauze go red and judged that the bleeding had slowed, but she wasn't much encouraged. J.D. barely flinched under the torture she was dealing out. It had been a half-hour since he opened his eyes.
* * *
Babykiller gestured grandly at the land sloping below him. “My house's location on the lip of a Carolina bay has given my gardeners room for creativity. They've built terraces down the slope for flowers and vegetables and, on the floor of the bay, they've created a garden comprised of only native plants.
Larabeth was letting Babykiller drone on. There was an escape plan weighing on her brain, and she needed to let it be born. It wasn't just an escape plan either. It was a rescue plan. She just needed to work out some pesky details.
“I'd like to see the native plant garden,” she said.
“Ever the environmentalist, aren't you, darling? Well, the native plants aren't as lovely as these,” he said, gesturing at the rosy crape myrtles and the nodding lilies, “but they sure are easy to grow, if you feed them.”
He limped down a ramp that Larabeth supposed was constructed especially to accommodate his disability and she followed. She had no choice but to follow. He was holding her hand.
* * *
Cynthia knelt by J.D. Their guard remained several yards away from their position under a shady tree on the creek bluff. It would have been a pleasant place for a picnic.
She took her patient's pulse and respiration every fifteen minutes and they hadn't changed, for better or worse, in more than an hour. She didn't know this man. She had barely shared two conversations with him. Somehow, his survival had become painfully important to her.
Perhaps it was because he had tried to save her from these brutes. Perhaps worrying over his fate kept her from worrying over her own. Perhaps she clung to him as her only link to her long-lost natural mother. He had said he loved her mother. Cynthia had never had a chance to love her. She just wanted to meet her.
Twice, J.D. had stirred under her discarded jumpsuit, calling a name that sounded something like “Larabeth.” The first time, Cynthia did a double-take, then dismissed her suspicions as sheer fantasy. What adopted child hadn't fantasized about rich, famous parents who would be making a dramatic entrance any minute, ready to whisk their lost baby away to their very expensive home?
The second time J.D. started his feverish raving, Cynthia was sure. He was calling for a woman named Larabeth, someone he apparently loved. He had said that he was risking his life to save her, for the love of her mother.
Cynthia was starting to put two and two together. She racked her brain for memories of her afternoon with Larabeth. Did Cynthia have her eyes? Her voice? Cynthia had always wondered where she got her flat feet.
She ached for the chance to get free from her captors, turn J.D. over to competent medical help, and track down Dr. Larabeth McLeod.
She thrust her hands in the pockets of her work pants. Now that she'd removed her jumpsuit, she could reach her pockets and their contents. In her right hand she held a single, tiny hope.
All her friends laughed at the dainty pocketknife she carried, but they were always more than happy to use its blade as a screwdriver and to open their beer with its perfectly functional bottle opener.
She had unobtrusively worked the pocketknife open, deep in her pocket. She couldn't imagine escaping from armed terrorists with such a modest weapon, but it was all she had. She palmed it and waited for an opportunity to present itself.
* * *
Larabeth did not enjoy the native plant garden. The garden was shady and its view extended across a cypress swamp to the far slopes of the Carolina bay's great sloping bowl. True to his word, Babykiller had cultivated the bay's natural species.
Larabeth had forgotten that those species included carnivorous plants. She was repelled by the broad expanses of pitcher plants, purplish and bright yellow flowers dancing atop their grotesquely swollen trumpets.
“It's remarkable
how few insect problems we have, even here at the margins of a rather large wetland,” he said.
Larabeth nodded, imagining the insects struggling deep in the plants' conical pitchers. They had been lured to their fate by bright flowers and scented nectar, only to be digested alive.
“We've been able to cultivate longer-blooming, healthier plants by feeding them.”
Larabeth murmured wordless admiration and tried not to think about what he might feed his meat-eating plants. She hoped it was hamburger.
He called her attention to an open area carpeted with tiny reddish rosettes of leaves and miniscule flower spikes, saying, “My sundews. And over there, you'll see my Venus fly-traps.”
They picked their way through the field where sundews consumed gnat-sized insects. Larabeth had been suppressing an adrenaline rush for too long. Her legs were trembling so that she could hardly walk steadily from stepping stone to stepping stone, but walking off the stones would mean striding happily through murderous plants, as Babykiller was doing. She stayed on the path.
Looking up, she saw an enormous, non-native feature of his garden that he had failed to mention. It was a gleaming, brand-new, hangar and on its landing pad sat a four-seater helicopter. She had no workable escape plan yet, but the germ of whatever plan she developed would be this helicopter. Too bad she didn't know how to fly it.
* * *
The General was sweating all over his uniform. He had delivered the speech of his life. He fully believed that the American citizenry was, even now, rising up against the oppressive politico-economic system that had given them air conditioning and cable TV. He was ready to stop talking now, but part of his Army and most of his firepower was still missing.
Well, he'd have to improvise. He picked up the kid his bodyguards had been holding at gunpoint and held him up to the camera. “We've got some real cute hostages and we've got five trucks, each with twice the explosives that McVeigh used to bring down the federal building in Oklahoma City. We can blow this place to kingdom come and, believe me, none of you wants to breathe the radioactive dust it will leave behind.”
The kid whimpered and the General barked “Shut up.” Feeling stronger now, more in control, he handed the kid back to his bodyguards and strutted back and forth, hands behind his back. He'd seen pictures of Hitler standing that way.
“We don't want to poison the earth with the ruins of this place. We don't want to kill any kids. We do want to repeal every amendment to the Constitution except the Bill of Rights. We want the immediate establishment of an African homeland to house the descendants of slaves who never belonged here to begin with. And we want an emergency election, so the real citizens, adult, white, male property owners, can choose a legitimate government.”
He nodded to the bodyguard who wasn't holding a sniveling hostage. The guard flipped open a walkie-talkie and spoke one word.
* * *
Larabeth was about tired of fueling Babykiller's domestic fantasies. She was now helping him gather fresh veggies for their dinner.
He had fetched two wicker baskets from the greenhouse and, carrying one of them slung over her arm, she was plucking tomatoes and snap beans. She noticed that he had chosen to gather the okra himself. Harvesting okra properly requires a knife.
She listened to the crunching sound of his knife severing each okra pod. She kept her distance and took a calculated risk by bringing up a decidedly unromantic topic. In an effort to soften the effect, she couched her question with flattery.
“Your attacks on the Savannah River Plant and the Hanford Site have been stunningly successful. Before that, your animal slayings and the crop defoliation were perfectly executed. When are you going to tell the world why you're doing these things?” Kneeling among the bean plants, she looked up at him with a hint of adoration. “When are you going to tell me?”
“You already know. That's why I love you, because you do know. You know what the United States of God-bless-America did to me and all the other soldiers and all the Vietnamese. You can see that I endured all the pain our government could dish out and rose above it. When I reveal myself, the world will marvel at the power I've accumulated since Vietnam destroyed the man I used to be. And the woman I have always loved, my Larabeth, will be at my side.”
He took a step toward her. She looked for the knife but he had put it away, somewhere, as quickly as he had produced it in the first place. She maintained eye contact.
“I loved you, Larabeth, before I learned to speak again, to walk again. I knew you would respect me if you understood the reach of my power. I knew you would understand me if you could be made to listen. Once you respected me and understood me, I knew you would love me before I died. Before we died together.”
The ground trembled beneath her and she marveled at the physical depth of her fear. Then the rumbling grew and she knew the tremors were real.
She fell to her hands and knees in terror. “You've blown up the plant. We're not far enough away.” She looked up, waiting for radioactive debris to fall from the sky, but she didn't care any more, because Cynthia was certainly dead already.
The tremor subsided and he limped toward her, still empty-handed. He lifted her to her feet. “The plant is still standing, dear. If you'll forget your fears, you'll realize that the ultimate explosion will dwarf this little tremor. What you're feeling now is just a warning blast. A declaration of intent, if you will. I am not ready for us to die, not now. We have a little more time yet to enjoy each other.”
The tremor had passed, but Larabeth couldn't find the willpower to stand up, so she stayed where she was, cowering in the dirt. He stood over her and stared into the distance at something she couldn't see.
“I have thought of having my underlings bury us here in this lovely spot, where the flowers would grace our graves and the vegetables would make good use of our rotting flesh. Alas, it won't be possible, because I intend to live long enough to see the witless General blast the Savannah River plant to oblivion. I doubt there will be much left of this place after the nuclear dust settles.”
Babykiller hoisted her to her feet with surprising ease, and she realized that his upper body had been compensating for his weak leg for nearly a quarter of a century. She would have to factor this strength into any escape plan that might require her to physically overpower him.
“It saddens me that this lovely spot can't be our final resting place, but no matter. I have other mansions and other gardens where our bodies can return to dust.”
* * *
Cynthia remained under her tree, under armed guard and completely ignorant of the terrorists' motives. It was hard to maintain utter terror for several uneventful hours, but she was managing it pretty well. She could feel disaster welling up like the livid thunderclouds gathering overhead.
J.D. rested fitfully, dogged by blood loss and sepsis. She wondered if they would be allowed to sleep indoors, because she doubted he would survive a night of exposure.
The ground tickled her for a moment before its tremor escalated to a full-fledged earthquake. J.D. groaned. She tried to shield him from falling pine cones and hoped the tree didn't come down on them. She glanced at the creek below them and wondered if the bluff they were perched on might crumble into the water.
She had worked at the Savannah River Plant for three years and she'd written the escape plan to be triggered if the plant blew up, but she never thought it would happen. The place had stood for half a century. Now these extremist bastards had killed them all.
As the shaking stopped, she turned her eyes in hatred on the extremist bastards. They were cheering, jumping around, waving their rifles. Surely they weren't all suicidal. She felt a tinge of hope.
Then she heard another noise, a roar that crescendoed and grew near. A brown frothing wave thundered down the creek, carrying debris and small trees ripped out by their very roots. A second wave of thick sludge rushed after it and its odor rose to meet her. Cynthia was familiar with the site layout and she knew what she was
seeing.
The main part of the plant was probably still intact, which meant that she and J.D. weren't doomed quite yet. The stinking mess rushing below her meant that somebody had blasted away the dikes holding back a series of waste-holding ponds upstream, perhaps as a warning or perhaps out of sheer cussedness. The resulting contamination would be widespread and devastating. Her captors were overjoyed.
* * *
Chao had a line open to Shanks, so he had only a moment of outright terror when the sound of the blast reached them.
“The physics guys say this explosion is too small to worry about.” Shanks said. “If something major goes up, you won't have to check with us. You'll know.”
“Just a small indication of our serious intent,” the General said.
Chao wanted to spit at the screen.
The General kept talking. “Those blasts obliterated a series of holding ponds. Huge holding ponds. And what, you may be asking, were these ponds holding? This plant has been here since 1951, making plutonium and tritium. Nice stuff like that. What do you think was in those ponds we just blew up? I hope somebody knows, because there's millions of gallons of something rushing from those ponds, through the swamps, and straight into the Savannah River. I hope none of you nice folks watching this broadcast lives downstream from here.”
Chao tried to forget about the blasts and the noxious mess heading for the Savannah River, because the General had said something important just before he ordered the explosions. Truck bombs. He had bragged about five truck bombs. Where were they? They hadn't passed in front of him when the General arrived. The Site borders were sealed. God forbid they were already inside before the Army of the Resurrection arrived. If they were, then maybe the General would be rewriting the Constitution.
Chao went back to watching the General bluster. No, this was not a man who was certain of victory. This was a man who wanted his truck bombs, who needed his truck bombs, who didn't know where in the hell his truck bombs were.
Wounded Earth Page 25