The First Horseman

by John Case

  ‘You do? Well, I suppose they might be, but . . . why do you think so?’

  ‘There’s a Customs report about Korean money coming out of Japan. And it makes sense. I mean, that the North Koreans would –’

  ‘Does it?’ Wasserman asked. ‘I wonder. Do you have the report? I’d love to see it.’

  ‘No.’

  She frowned. ‘No, you don’t have it? Or –

  ‘No, we don’t have it,’ Annie said.

  ‘But you’ve seen it,’ Wasserman supposed.

  Frank shook his head.

  The woman’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Then . . .? I guess I just don’t understand.’

  ‘We were told about it,’ Frank said.

  A swish of nylon as Wasserman crossed her legs. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘So it’s a rumor.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Well,’ Wasserman remarked, ‘some rumors are true. I suppose it depends on the source. Who are we talking about?’

  ‘Actually, I think the source is dead,’ Frank said. ‘A Georgetown grad student named Ben Stern. Solange killed him.’

  ‘Okaa-aay,’ Wasserman replied. ‘Okay for now. But . . . I don’t get it, really. Why would the North Koreans “bankroll” Solange? They don’t have a lot of foreign exchange to play with.’

  ‘You’re asking my opinion?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Mmmm.’

  Frank shrugged. ‘Well, in my opinion, there’s a convergence of interests.’

  Wasserman frowned, ‘I don’t see how that could be,’ she said. ‘I mean, they’re worlds apart. What could they ever have in common?’

  Frank thought about it for a moment, but it was Annie who spoke: ‘Are you asking that because you want to know the answer, or because you want to know if we know the answer?’

  ‘Oooh!’ Wasserman said. ‘What a good question. I wonder.’

  ‘Do you have a card?’ Annie asked.

  The heavy woman shifted in her chair. ‘No,’ she said, with just a trace of regret in her voice. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  Frank made an exasperated sound.

  ‘Look,’ Wasserman said, leaning toward them. ‘Here’s the deal. If you want to get out of here tonight, you’ll try to be helpful.’

  ‘“If I want to get out of here tonight” – who the fuck are you?’ Frank asked. ‘And what’s going on here, anyway? Are we under arrest?’

  Wasserman weighed the question. Finally, she said, ‘No. As I understand it, you’re not actually “under arrest.” It’s more like preventive detention.’

  ‘Preventive detention!’ Annie exclaimed.

  ‘What is this?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Actually,’ Wasserman said, smoothing the creases in her dress, ‘it’s a national emergency. The President made it official at three-seventeen this morning.’

  Frank fell back into the cushions of the couch and sighed exasperatedly. ‘And why is it we’re being held?’

  ‘That’s something you’ll have to take up with Neal. He’s the one who’s calling the shots on the domestic side.’

  ‘But we haven’t done anything wrong,’ Annie said, suddenly teary-eyed.

  ‘I’m sure that’s true,’ Wasserman replied. ‘And I’m sure that Neal will straighten everything out. But as you can appreciate, we’re very short of time – so if we could just get back to the subject, I’m sure that would help immensely. Okay?’

  Annie nodded.

  ‘We were talking about “a convergence of interests,”’ Wasserman said, looking at Frank.

  ‘Right,’ Frank replied. ‘And here’s what I think: I think Solange and the North Koreans would love it – both of them would love it – if America came apart at the seams.’

  ‘Okaaay . . . for argument’s sake . . .’

  ‘And Solange can make that happen. And he’s deniable!’

  Wasserman looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Why do you say that?’ she asked.

  ‘Because he’s a “kook.” They’re all kooks. So no matter what happens, no matter what they say or do, it happens out of context. It has no context. Once you say a “cult” did it, you strip the event of any political significance it might ever have.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because a cult is basically a convention of lone nuts,’ Frank replied. ‘I mean, that’s what people think. And because they’re nuts, what they do isn’t seen as rational. So their actions don’t have any coherent meaning. Which is just another way of saying they’re beyond investigation. “Deniable.”’

  Wasserman nodded, thinking about it. ‘Let’s say you’re right. Why do you think North Korea would want to jumpstart an epidemic that might kill half the people in the country?’

  ‘Because if that many people died, the country would fall apart. Our highest priority – our only priority – would be to bury the dead. Or burn them. And even if we still had a government that worked, I don’t see it sending people off to fight a foreign war. I think we’d stay right where we are. Cut wood, and build crematoriums.’

  Wasserman was silent for a while. Then she asked, ‘You mentioned “a foreign war.”’

  ‘I was thinking about North Korea invading the South.’

  ‘And is this something you intend to write about?’

  Frank rubbed the stubble on his jaw. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe.’

  Wasserman nodded. ‘Or maybe not. You can’t prove it.’

  ‘Right,’ Frank said. ‘I can’t prove it.’

  ‘And it really doesn’t matter, anyway,’ Wasserman added, getting to her feet.

  Annie looked shocked. ‘It doesn’t matter? How can you say that?’

  ‘Because Mr. Daly’s right. Solange is deniable. And look at the possibilities. If Solange succeeds, the question of responsibility is moot. Half the people in the country will be dead, and you’re right – I’m not at all sure that, under the circumstances, we would have a government interested in foreign affairs.’

  ‘Okay. And what if he fails?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Well, then he’s just a nut. Even if you could trace the money that he was given – and I don’t think you could – what would it show? That it came from North Korea? I don’t think so. The most you’d be able to prove is that it came from Korean workers living in Japan. To which a lot of people would say, so what? Maybe Solange has a lot of Korean followers. Maybe they’re crazy, too.’

  ‘And the point is, what?’ Frank asked.

  Wasserman shrugged. ‘Only that you should be careful. In the end, what’s really at stake is Frank Daly’s credibility. And let’s face it, I don’t think you want to look like a conspiracy theorist – even if you’re right. Now, do you?’

  Before he could answer, she turned on her heel and left.

  Soon afterward, Gleason came to the Headmaster’s House to ask Frank and Annie if they’d like to accompany him to New York. ‘Do we have a choice?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Gleason replied. ‘You can stay here if you’d rather. Or there’s a Motel 6, just up the road. I could put someone outside the door. But I don’t think you’d like it there, and this way, I can keep an eye on you – and you’ll be closer to the action. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

  The helicopter was noisy, the flight interminable. And when they landed, it seemed as if they’d traveled as much through time as through space.

  A turn-of-the-century Coast Guard station, closed the year before, Governors Island lies off the coast of Brooklyn in New York’s Upper Bay, where the Hudson and East Rivers converge. Less than a mile from lower Manhattan, the island has little in common with the crowded, noisy, neon-lit city that the public knows, but is instead an oasis of clapboard buildings, wheeling gulls, and salty breezes.

  Frank and Annie spent the night, unguarded, in a guesthouse about a hundred yards from the docks. There was no phone, but the view from the porch was spectacular, a panorama that included the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and Manhattan in between.

  The next morning, they joined Gleason on the
bridge of the Chinquateague, a 110-foot Coast Guard cutter with a 25mm machine gun mounted to its deck.

  ‘The thing is,’ Gleason said, gazing through a pair of high-powered binoculars at a queue of freighters waiting to enter the bay, ‘we know what he’s going to do. Or what he thinks he’s going to do.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Then again, if you look at it from the other side, he knows that we know. So why should he do it?’ Passing the binoculars to Annie, he pinched the lids of his eyes between his thumb and forefinger and yawned.

  A soft breeze played with the flag at the stern of the ship, but otherwise it was a perfect day for ‘a biological incident’ – humid, warm, and overcast.

  ‘He’ll do it,’ Frank said, ‘because he’s a megalomaniac. They aren’t known for their flexibility.’

  Gleason nodded. ‘That’s what I think, too. I think he’ll do it to prove that he can do it.’

  Annie wasn’t so sure. ‘And what if he goes to Plan B?’ she asked.

  Gleason looked blank. ‘What’s Plan B?’

  Annie shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But I’ll bet he has one. He ran tests in California and Wisconsin, and other places, too – and he always used the same archival flu.’

  ‘And what does that tell you?’ Gleason asked.

  ‘That he was testing dispersal methods – and not the virus itself.’

  Gleason looked worried for a moment, but the moment quickly passed. ‘Yeah, well, we’re way ahead of him. We ran our own tests – in the fifties. And I can tell you what the results were: if you’re after maximum infectivity, you’ve got three choices. Boat, plane, or subway.’

  ‘And you’ve got ’em covered, right?’ Frank asked.

  The FBI agent nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘They’re covered.’

  Frank looked skeptical.

  ‘FEMA’s given us all the powers we need,’ Gleason said.

  ‘FEMA?’ Annie said.

  ‘The Federal Emergency Management Agency,’ Frank replied.

  ‘We’ve shut down the New York and Washington air corridors to small planes. Same thing with the rivers. You won’t see any motorboats on the Hudson or East Rivers – or the Potomac, either. Not until this is over, and maybe never again.’

  ‘What about the big ships?’ Annie asked, nodding toward the queue of freighters.

  ‘They don’t get in the harbor until they’ve been searched and we’ve put a team on board.’

  ‘And the subways?’ Frank asked.

  ‘We’ve got people on every train.’

  ‘What about a car?’ Annie asked. ‘Or a truck. If they’ve micro-encapsulated the virus, it could pass through the catalytic converter and right out the exhaust. All they’d have to do is drive around. No one would notice a thing.’

  Gleason thought about it.

  ‘Jesus,’ Frank said, looking at Annie. ‘You could be dangerous.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Gleason decided. ‘You wouldn’t get the kind of penetration that you want. Not with a car. You’d need a boat or a plane. Something that goes all over the place. A subway system would be good.’

  ‘And the water supply?’ Frank asked.

  Gleason shook his head. ‘No. It’s a myth about dumping something into the water supply. You wouldn’t get the kind of dispersion that you’d need. And I’m told that you might not be infected anyway, if you drank it. It’s a respiratory virus.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Frank said, ‘is why you think you can handle this without anyone noticing. I mean, just the pilots –’

  ‘Oh, they’ll notice, all right. People will notice. But you won’t see anything about it in the press.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because every media outlet in the country got a fax or a phone call this morning.’

  ‘So now we have censorship?’

  Gleason made a moue. ‘No more than we had during Desert Storm. Anyway, it’s just this, and it’s only temporary,’ he said. ‘You can still read the box scores.’ Seeing Frank’s frown, the FBI agent elaborated. ‘Look, it’s the twentieth century. Which is another way of saying we’re living in a crowded theater. People start running around, yelling “Fire” –’

  ‘What if there is a fire?’ Frank asked.

  ‘We’ll handle it,’ Gleason replied.

  ‘Okay,’ Frank said. ‘So handle it. What do you need us for? I mean, if I can’t publish the story –’

  ‘It’s not that simple,’ Gleason said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because of the Internet,’ Annie suggested, her voice disconsolate.

  Gleason inclined his head in a way that was half nod, half bow. ‘It’s a big problem,’ he said.

  Frank watched a seagull turn in a gyre above the gun on the bow. ‘So what’s next?’ he asked. ‘How long do we sit here?’

  Gleason shrugged. ‘That’s up to Solange,’ he said.

  30

  STATEN ISLAND

  SUSANNAH WASN’T USED to driving trucks, but the U-Haul was really easy. It had an automatic shift, and terrific visibility. Which was good, because ever since the boxing match, she was having trouble with her eyes. Behind the heart-shaped sunglasses she wore, her right eye was almost completely closed, and her left was filled with blood and kind of blurry. The doctor said it would be all right, but not right away. It would probably take a while.

  Meanwhile, Stephen sat in his car seat, gurgling.

  Talk about the ‘butterflies.’ She was scared. Not so much by what they were about to do, and what might happen if it went wrong – but of getting it wrong. She had special instructions from Solange, and God help her if she fucked up. . . .

  She’d gotten to the dock almost an hour before, arriving about a minute after the ferry left. This looked like bad luck, but it was actually intentional. First on, first off, Solange had said, like it was important.

  So she’d sat there for fifty-nine minutes, and then, when the gate lifted, she drove slowly forward until the truck was deep inside the ferry. In the rearview mirror she could see the Frenchman’s car, with Vaughn and Belinda in the backseat.

  She was really nervous. But she shouldn’t have been. In most ways, her job was the easiest. In fact, she didn’t really have anything to do unless they got into trouble. Which is where you come in, cher, You’re Plan B.

  Cool, she thought. I’m Plan B. No one else is Plan-anything, except, I guess, for Plan A. That’s what they are. But I’m Plan B. She squinched her eyes together because they were tearing up, which they’d been doing a lot lately. Outside, she could hear the ferrymen shouting to one another, and the boat’s horn – a deep, howling tooooot. Then the floor began to tremble, and the walls, too, and suddenly they were rumbling ahead. Smoother now, gathering speed. Lots of speed. She could feel it.

  As if on cue, Vaughn and Belinda climbed out of the car behind, then went around to its trunk, where the Ingrams were stashed. They were wearing the matching T-shirts Solange had designed – so everyone could recognize each other, right off, no matter how confusing it got. The T-shirts were cool – bloodred, with a mudman’s head on the front, and above it:

  the meek

  She wished she had one . . . but not really. Because this way it was even better. She was special. She was Plan B. Ordinarily, she might have felt left out, but this time, she didn’t. Because Solange wasn’t wearing a T-shirt either. So he was Plan B, too.

  Behind her, the door to the U-Haul shrieked as someone, probably Saul, rolled it up into the roof. Then the truck rocked and, a moment later, she could hear them dragging out the aerosolizer.

  She eased herself out of the truck and went around to the other side. Opening the door, she unhooked Stephen from his car seat, boosted him up to her shoulder, and headed for the deck. ‘Rotsa ruck,’ she said, walking past a grinning Solange.

  And then she was outside, and it was kind of glorious, the air fresh and damp and breezy. There were lots of people on deck, mostly smiling, and inside, too. ‘Look at that,’ she said to Stephen,
pointing, ‘that’s a big city! Can you see the big city? Where is the big city? Oh! There it is!’

  An old black man with a shoe-shine kit gave her a smile, then turned to a guy who looked like a banker and, nodding at his wing tips, said, ‘You need help, my man! You kinda scruffy!’ A blues band started to play in the main salon. Someone threw a Nerf ball to someone else. Kids ran shouting up and down the deck.

  She was standing at the railing, showing Stephen the Statue of Liberty, when she heard a soft burst of submachine-gun fire from somewhere in the middle of the boat. A woman screamed as a second gun came into play, and people started running this way and that, as if there was somewhere to go. Then the screaming stopped and the ferry slowed almost to a halt, and her friends appeared out of nowhere, looking so cool you couldn’t believe it.

  Saul and the Frenchman, Vaughn and Belinda, Veroushka and Avram. Maybe four or five others – all of them carrying Ingrams. Except Saul, who was lugging the aerosolizer to the bow, and the Frenchman, who carried an electric drill.

  ‘Everybody inside,’ Veroushka ordered.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Antonio shouted, pointing his Ingram at a fat woman and her family.

  ‘Move it!’ Jane yelled. ‘Are you stupid?’

  One by one, and then by twos and threes and tens, the passengers surged into the main salon.

  It was neat being in charge, Susannah thought. Neat to be part of something that everyone else was afraid of. She laughed as the Frenchman went past her and, turning, fired the battery-operated drill at her, pretending it was an Ingram, then looked wide-eyed and shocked when the drill went whir whir instead of brrrt-brtt.

  Talk about funny . . .

  And then, just for a second, while Saul and the Frenchman anchored the aerosolizer to the deck, things got wobbly. This kid with a buzz cut grabbed Jane by the hair, jerked her back and threw her to the ground – all in one motion, coming up fast and cold with the gun in his hand. Jesus, Susannah thought, this guy knows what he’s doing.

  But then, as it turned out, he didn’t. Veroushka threw her gun to the ground and her hands in the air – ‘Don’t shoot!’ she screamed. Which made the guy turn, and just as he did, Antonio came out of the main salon, firing his Ingram in a left to right sweep that almost cut the kid’s head off.