Whack Job

by Mike Baron

  How long before I can talk?

  “Hard to say,” the surgeon said. “Possibly within a week if the graft holds.”

  Otto nodded. The surgeon patted him on the leg. “We’ll have another look tomorrow.”

  The surgeon left the room.

  Lon Barnett was waiting.

  ***

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  “Horrifying Events”

  Burnett knocked on the door and entered looking grim, holding some white papers folded in half lengthwise. He wore a two-piece gray suit, white shirt, blue tie, gold clasp. He nodded at Stella.

  “Is this a good time?”

  “It’s as good a time as any,” Stella said.

  Barnett went to the foot of the bed. “Otto, this gives me no great pleasure. The entire team is proud of what you’ve been able to accomplish and I’m sure the court will keep that in mind.”

  Barnett cleared his throat. “Otto White, you’re under arrest for the murder of Agent Hornbuckle. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney the court will provide one for you. Do you understand these rights?”

  Otto nodded.

  Barnett flattened out the papers, handed them to Otto with a pen. “Please sign at the bottom.”

  “What charge did you settle on?” Stella said.

  “Manslaughter. Not even the DA had the heart to charge him with first degree murder. Plus there’s his service and medical discharge to consider.”

  Not guilty by reason of insanity. Just like Lester Durant.

  Stella held her hand out. “May I?”

  She read the indictment and handed it back.

  “Again,” Barnett said, “I’d like to shake your hand.”

  Otto stuck out his hand and they shook.

  “Good luck,” Barnett said. “Say, the chief wants that Ocelot back. Do you have it?”

  Otto shook his head. He hadn’t seen it since the lab.

  “If it shows up I’d appreciate a call,” Barnett said and left.

  Stella lingered a few minutes fussing over the pillows, making sure Otto had water close at hand. She took something out of her purse and slipped it under the covers into his hand. “In case you need to call somebody,” she whispered.

  She kissed him again on the forehead, gathered her things and left.

  Otto found the TV remote in the nightstand and turned it to the all news channel. The President was about to address the nation from the East Room. A hushed reporter announced his imminent arrival and then there he was, walking up to the podium shaking hands and exchanging greets. He squared off behind the big podium, which bristled with a half dozen mikes. The Presidential Seal hung on the front of the wooden lectern.

  The President wore a gray three-piece pin-stripe, a light blue shirt, and a red, white and blue tie. With his silver hair neatly parted, he looked like a man you could trust with your infant daughter while heading down to the corner bar for a drink. If you looked up “president” in the dictionary, you would see this man.

  The press secretary sang, “Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.” There was a smattering of applause in keeping with the solemnity of the event.

  President Reynolds faced the camera with a serious expression. “Good evening my fellow Americans. I appear before you tonight to announce significant developments in a problem that has recently plagued many nations including our own, spontaneous human combustion.

  “Although some authorities have known about this frightening phenomenon for years, it has only become public knowledge in the last few days. There have been countless rumors as to the source of these horrifying events from terrorism to God’s wrath. Yesterday, American scientists working in conjunction with their counterparts in Russia, China, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, Abu Dhabi and Brazil, pinpointed the cause, if not the method of these events.

  “We have annihilated the leaders behind this wave of terror and expect that from now on instances of spontaneous human combustion will be drastically reduced if not stop altogether. I am not at liberty to divulge the perpetrators’ identities for reasons of national security but I can assure you that your government is doing its utmost to protect you from this threat.

  “Fellow citizens--do not be afraid. Do not let these incidents disrupt your daily lives. Those behind these heinous crimes have paid with their lives. I want to thank our brave men and women in uniform and in particular the FBI and CIA for their contributions. I wish I could call out every single patriot who contributed to this case but again, for reasons of national security, I cannot.

  “In the days and weeks to come, we will release the details as they become available. Thank you and good night.”

  People shouted “Mr. President!”

  Reynolds had turned to go but now he turned back, gripping the sides of the podium in both hands. “What is it, Jack?”

  “Can you tell us what country or countries are behind the attacks?”

  The President stared.

  “What is it, Jack,” the President said. He began to sweat. A puff of smoke escaped the corner of his mouth. His eyes flared yellow and the screen went white accompanied by screaming, the sounds of furniture being shoved aside and Secret Service personnel shouting.

  ***

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  “Lockdown”

  Monday through the following Monday.

  Within two hours, the Vice President took the oath of office and issued a no-fly order for the entire country. National Guard patrolled the streets around the capitol in armored personnel characters. Anti-aircraft batteries were mounted on the roof of the White House. The concrete barriers went back up. Rail traffic ground to a halt as TSA inspectors swarmed the trains. Manic bureaucrats took precautions that had absolutely nothing to do with the danger at hand.

  All top government officials including cabinet secretaries, the White House staff and heads of intelligence agencies voluntarily submitted to MRI scans. They found three officials, including the Secretary of Energy, hosting the parasite. The Secretary of Energy flared out in the MRI machine, causing a massive explosion that destroyed the Dr. Bartholomew and Elizabeth Chandler Wing at Bethesda Naval Medical Center killing twenty-two and injuring fourteen.

  The other two were taken into custody and isolated, raising civil liberty questions. The WH reached out to brain surgeons to extract the pellets of death.

  Both Al Qaeda and the Anarchist Brotherhood claimed credit for the President’s death.

  Riots broke out in Detroit, Los Angeles and Miami. The governors of those states called in the National Guard. It looked to Otto like martial law. Only in small town America did life proceed with any semblance of normality. The mood at St. Mary’s Hospital in Denver was grim. Formerly cheerful and joking nurses made closed zippers of their mouths and went about their duties like sleepwalkers.

  Otto’s personal guard increased to two. A young FBI agent joined the cop in the hall. Otto was out of bed walking around on the second day and made a point to keep his door shut.

  The new President hadn’t said a word about aliens.

  How did they expect to pull it off?

  Otto had a Grade 6 security rating. Stella was an attorney--she knew how to keep her mouth shut. But a secret this explosive would not stay buried. People would notice the takeover of Pawnee Grove by government troops and scientists. They would note the flame-outs associated with the Grove and start asking the hard questions. Some minor bureaucrat at the National Geodetic Survey would recall an unusual request for magnetic resonance imaging in the mountains north of Estes Park.

  The rumors would grow attracting more bloggers, more citizen journalists, and perhaps even a few disinterested members of what passed for the press these days until one day The National Enquirer would shriek, “TARGET EARTH--ALIENS BEHIND BURNINGS!”

  Mass hysteria roiled beneath the surface. People were already stressed out about the lousy
economy, the terrible schools, the price of gas, the inevitable cry for more taxes and increasing commercial blocks on television. Food insurance sales skyrocketed as did ready meals, distillers, batteries, generators, guns and ammo.

  The world entered the heretofore unknown zone of shock overload. It was a matter of degree. Never had so many things gone wrong at once: the world economy, tribal warfare, global warming, global cooling, the dissatisfaction that had been building since the eighties. Since the dawn of time. There were more people now, less chance to get away, to let off steam, to enjoy some blessed privacy, unless you were rich. Social media exacerbated the difficulties exponentially as bloggers, periodicals and journalists clung to the hoary adage, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Moral scolds dueled with sneering progressives. God’s wrath! Gaia’s revenge!

  Riots broke out in Athens, Paris, Moscow, Marseilles, Stockholm, London, Belarus, the Ukraine, you name it. Millions of people screaming Stop the world I want to get off!

  President Hamish Burke declared wage and price controls.

  At least a dozen Grove attendees could not be located.

  Was it even a matter for national security?

  Was it the state’s job to grapple with theological evil? What about the separation of church and state? Otto had his own views. He knew he was in the minority.

  All Otto had to do was claim God told him to shoot Hornbuckle and the state would happily classify him insane. He could hang out with the Below the Beltline Sniper. But Otto had no intention of avoiding his duty. He would not, he could not allow himself to be incarcerated.

  If God exists so does Satan. The Skorzh were an incomprehensible evil. If that wasn’t satanic, what was? What if the Skorzh had been created in Satan’s own image? What did that say about humanity?

  Ever since Libya, Otto felt that he’d been spared for a purpose and now that purpose had been revealed to him.

  He wished he could speak. He badly wanted to talk to that priest.

  The cast came off a week later, Dr. Haas pleased with the results. Otto looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like a Steve Bissette drawing, normal from the nose up, but with a jaw that looked like it had been pasted together from cardboard and ass meat. Half his teeth were missing. Haas intended to replace them with synthetics sunk into the new jawbone he’d made.

  The jawbone of an ass.

  Otto spoke out of the left side of his mouth sounding like a hare lip. Bullis had been unable to visit due to the no fly order, but they finally spoke, ten days after Otto had been admitted.

  “Mr. White,” Bullis said via phone. “We usually avoid insanity pleas due to the difficulty of convincing a jury, but in your case it’s the way to go. I’ve obtained classified medical reports regarding your service prior to your call-back. You should never have been called back in the first place.”

  Otto knew this was bullshit, but it was lawyer think so he let it go.

  “The President’s going to lift the no-fly order this evening. I can come out and meet with you on Friday, if that’s convenient.”

  “Not going anywhere,” Otto mumbled into the bedside phone. He kept the Ocelot concealed and charged every night. When he’d finished with Bullis Otto went into the bathroom, shut the door and locked it, turned on the fan and sat on the toilet. He assumed that either the Bureau or the Agency had bugged his room. He crouched, concealing his mouth with the Ocelot in case there was a tiny camera linked to a computer with lip-read technology.

  He dialed the Time Warp in Boulder and left a message for Kleiser.

  Kleiser called back an hour later.

  They spoke for an hour.

  ***

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  “Copy Cats”

  Monday morning.

  President Hamish Burke met with CIA Director Luther Brubaker, National Security Advisor Margaret Yee, FBI Director Howard Lubitch, and Homeland Security Director General Rolf Panny. Chief of Staff Murray Compton had agreed to stay on to assist the new President in transition. They met in the Situation Room with the lights turned low, the wall of monitors reflecting the continuing disintegration of civilization, conflagrations and the odd flaming man.

  If Burke were resentful about initially being kept out of the loop he didn’t show it. Yee had brought him up to speed with the developments at Pawnee Grove and Cheyenne Mountain.

  “Gentlemen, Lady,” the President began. “The Russkis finally agreed to share data with us. We’ll be getting their videos and autopsy results this afternoon.”

  “Rolf, what have you discovered about the secret sauce?”

  The secret sauce--the unknown ingredient detected in the remains of several victims and in the “Blood of the White Man.”

  “Dr. Ellen Jo Taylor, Head of Microbiology at Stanford believes it’s a form of organic hydrocarbon. This appears to be an oxymoron but as Dr. Taylor points out, we’re dealing with an unknown element. They’re still mapping its magnetic properties. She plans to subject the substance to the Martin Mass Spectroscope within the next couple of days. We’ll know more then.

  “In the meantime she’s developed a blood test to find the element that gives us an alternative to the MRI scans. Dr. Hayley Gross has the test and is forwarding details to every hospital and emergency clinic in the country. It’s called the BWM test.”

  “BWM?” Brubaker bristled.

  “Blood of the white man,” Panny explained.

  The President turned his bland face to Yee. “Doctor?”

  “Rich white men are experiencing loneliness right now. Not even their wives and mistresses want to get too close. Everybody who even knows somebody who’s been to the grove are lining up for MRIs. Two staff doctors at St. Mary’s in Denver where White is being treated have been put on administrative leave until they complete their scans. Every scanner in the nation has been pressed into use. Creeps are coming out of the woodwork to claim they’d been to the Grove. A lot more claim they’ve been invaded or possessed. It’s like try-outs for American Exorcism. Here’s where that blood test will save us time and money.”

  “Can’t we simply eliminate the more outré individuals with an interview?” the President asked. “If some bum comes into an ER with needle tracks up and down his arm and claims to have a chip in his skull, I think we can safely eliminate him.”

  “Sir,” Yee said, “we do not yet know the extent of the invasion. We have no enemy with whom to negotiate except for three men who tested positive and are in protective custody. We can’t just go in there and remove the ship. That requires the finest brain surgeons in the country, if we want to keep these men alive. The operations can take hours. And what happens if the aliens power up during the operation and fly out? And leave their little calling card?”

  The President shrugged. “I don’t see where we have a choice. The future of civilization is at stake. I want those men operated on as soon as possible and I don’t want the ships damaged. We must have someone with whom to negotiate.”

  The President turned. “Rolf, Howard, how close are we to understanding how that teleportation device works?”

  Panny held his hands up. “Not even warm, Mr. President. We’re still studying its function. No one is permitted to even touch it. The radiation readings are quite high so we’re leaving it alone for right now.”

  “‘Cause I’m thinking,” the President continued, “if we could find a way to reverse that we could send an expeditionary force through to see what the hell’s going on. Maybe some SEALS or something.”

  “Mr. President,” Panny said, “it may be years before we understand the technology involved. It may be decades.”

  “That’s unacceptable, Rolf. This country launched the Manhattan Project because it was necessary for our survival and the survival of civilization. This country put a man on the moon. Whatever resources you require, I want you working on it until you figure it out. Knowing it can be done, has been done is half the battle.”

  “As you wish, Mr. President,” the general sai
d. “We’re working with SETI and the Stanford physics department.”

  “Do you have a team trained to deal with extraterrestrials?”

  Panny nodded.

  “We’ve been working on it since the seventies,” Brubaker said.

  “What do these goddamn bugs want?” the President asked semi-rhetorically.

  For a moment, no one stirred.

  “Mr. President,” Brubaker said. “I can only surmise they seek to displace man as the head of the food chain on this planet.”

  “But why go about it in such a haphazard manner?” the President said.

  “Mr. President,” Yee said in a thin but tensile voice, “these creatures are alien. They are, by definition, unknowable. We can’t think of them as sentient beings possessing any semblance of morality. We must regard them as an implacable, unknowable enemy, like the plague or an infestation of…of spiders.”

  Burke nodded.

  “Mr. President,” Brubaker said. “The Russkis are launching mass cyber-attacks on our security system. So are the Chinese and the Iranians. They’re terrified we’ll crack this technology.”

  “Advanced Networks is on it,” Yee said.

  “Sir,” Murray Compton said from the far end of the table. “It was the first he’d spoken since they’d sat down. “You might want to address the issue of copy cats when you speak to the nation tonight.”

  The President arched his eyebrows. “Copy cats?”

  “Yes sir. Loons issue a fatwah on Facebook, Twitter, Google--they’re against the corporations or something. They go to the mall or the courthouse, douse themselves with gas and set themselves on fire. Six so far. Unfortunately, people believe the internet statements are part of a conspiracy and that these self-immolators are part of the invasion.”

  Burke rested his chin in his hands. “Why can’t the invasion be the conspiracy they don’t believe?”

  “Murphy’s law,” Yee muttered sotto voce. Everybody laughed.

  “Murray, get in touch with Sylvia--have her write something about the copy cats.” The President looked around the table.