by Alan Gold
He stood and walked toward the semicircle of chairs in front of the president’s desk.
“Daniel, please . . .” said Debra softly.
“It’s okay, Debra,” the president said gently, “I’d like to hear from Professor Todd.”
“Sir, you’re going to make an announcement which says that bats are generally safe, but we’ve all got to be careful because some bats that are under stress are building up viruses which mutate and can cause real harm to people . . . so until we’ve got the situation under control, don’t go near bats. Is that right?”
“Generally, I guess,” said President Thomas.
“Okay. Now if I was listening to that announcement and I’m a scientist on the make, wanting publicity, I’d think that it was manna from heaven. First thing I’d do, wanting to get my name in the paper or my fifteen minutes of fame on television, would be to phone the media and say, ’scuse me, but bats fly and eat insects on the wing; they fly to distant fields and eat fruit. While they’re silently flying unseen over your houses, their body fluids full of deadly viruses are expelled and in the morning, the bacon or eggs you eat could kill you. And don’t go running around your back garden without shoes and socks, because if you have the smallest cut in your foot, you’ll pick up the virus on the grass and it’s good night Charlie. Not only that, but . . .”
“Okay, Professor. I think we have the drift of your argument. You’re saying that a television education campaign could hurt us more than help us,” President Thomas said. “So what do you recommend?”
“Newspaper adverts, sir,” he said. “But buy the ads in specific papers where there’s a bat colony or a flight path. Most bats have regular roosts and regular flight paths. As an example, sir, in Austin, Texas, there are a million and a half bats that fly every evening out from under the Congress Avenue Bridge over Ladybird Lake and fly in an almost straight line to their feeding grounds. So why would we trouble people who weren’t underneath their flight path? We should publish newspaper ads that give full details of the problems we’re facing, what we’re doing about it, and most especially the standard flight path that the bats take over the area in which the newspaper is circulating. Get the paper to print maps that show clearly which cities or towns or villages are directly under the flight path of the bats as the colony leaves its roost and searches for food. If we can identify the towns that lie underneath, we can give a focused warning to the folk that live there. Then we wouldn’t have to alarm the whole country. These days, sir, there aren’t all that many bats around. We’ve done a pretty good job of eradicating many of them. That’s why we’re in this trouble.”
The president looked at the secretary of agriculture, who shrugged. “I can see no problem with that idea, Mr. President. My people will do some work on it, and we’ll report back in twenty-four hours,” he said.
“They don’t have to do any work,” insisted Daniel. “They’ll find out that I’m right. I know bats. I’ve worked on them half my life.”
The secretary of health, DeAnne Harper, said, “If Professor Todd is correct, then I think his strategy is the right one for us to take. Why scare the pants off everybody when we only need to terrify a small proportion of the population that could be in immediate danger.”
“Okay, that’s what we’ll do.” He turned to the man on his right and said, “Mr. Secretary, will you and your agriculture department work with Professor Todd and ensure that what he’s just said is correct . . .”
Daniel started to react but was cut short by the president. “Doctor Todd. We all respect your expertise, but this is a huge crisis for America; people are terrified of going outdoors. You know what’s just happened in North Carolina. So before we follow your advice, which I’m sure we will, I need to test your hypothesis.”
Daniel nodded, much to Debra’s relief. Everybody stood and started to leave the room, but as they filed out, the president said softly, “Debra, could you please give me a moment of your time?”
She waited until the Oval Office was empty. Nathaniel Thomas led her over to the couches, where they sat. A butler appeared from nowhere and offered them coffee or other drinks, which they both declined.
When they were alone, President Thomas said, “When we first met, I promised you a private tour of the White House. Since then, I guess we’ve both been a bit busy, what with my normal presidential duties and you flying off to London to take care of things there and then having to hightail it back here. But I haven’t forgotten about my promise, and I’m happy to show you around any time you want.”
She felt herself blushing like a teenager and hated her body for reacting without the approval of her mind. “That’s very generous of you, sir, but I know how busy you are, and. . . .”
“And you’re up to your eyes in it too. There’s a number of ways of looking at it. A couple of hours out of our schedules aren’t going to kill either of us. And it’ll have the advantage of making us both happy. What do you say?”
“How can I refuse an offer from my president?”
“Dear God, you make me sound like a mafioso. When do you want to do it? Tomorrow afternoon would be good. My wife is out of town, giving a speech in Chicago. About two?” he said, standing and escorting her to the door.
She was too stunned to speak. His wife was out of town? He didn’t . . . he couldn’t . . . would he?
***
Noah Simball, known to all his friends as No Slimeball, sat in the back of a black delivery truck that had its windows coated with a transparent film. He could see out, but nobody could see in. He’d been warned by Stuart that the Feds and protection services regularly scanned the area adjacent to the White House looking for parked cars, trucks, and vans that might be observing the comings and goings at the most powerful building in the world. He had also been warned about the electronic monitoring, the listening devices, scanners, movement detectors, and a dozen other things that showed the White House security people what was happening inside and in a broad sweep outside the building.
He was parked in Alexander Hamilton Place looking carefully at a guarded exit that fronted a tunnel. It wasn’t a well-known tunnel because its entry was well concealed, but it was the unofficial way for cars to enter and exit the White House. As cars emerged from the underground parking lots buried deep within the building’s grounds, they turned left onto East Executive Avenue, skirted the White House, and then went into Washington, DC’s frantic traffic.
Knowing which car to spot, Noah waited patiently, as patiently as he’d waited for that old dude in Florida to come out of his shop and confront the crowd. Noah had a large stone in his pocket to toss through the store window to draw the owner out so he could stab him when he tried to prevent Noah from stealing the furs. But before he’d had a chance, some man had thrown a car jack and done half of Noah’s work for him.
But this job was going to be a lot more difficult than offing some old guy. This was a job to off some high government official, and the level of security would be much greater.
Suddenly, a large black limo emerged from the tunnel. He could barely make it out because of the concealed entrance, but as it sped up the ramp from the underground parking tunnel into the grounds of the White House, he focused his binoculars on the car and its license plate. He sighed. It was the wrong car. Wrong plates. But another big black limo emerged fifteen minutes later, and this one had the right plates. He quickly hurried from the back of the van through the curtains and sat in the driver’s seat, turning on the engine and gunning the pedals to be ready the moment the limo and two other cars had overtaken him. Always stay two cars behind the target, Stuart had told him. And that’s just what he’d do. As a student of Stuart at the University of the Wisconsin School of the Mind and as a foot soldier of the Whole Earth League, he always did what he was told.
He followed the car northwest from the precincts of the White House toward Georgetown. At a brownstone just off Potomac Street, the limo slowed and stopped, depositing the secretary of heal
th at a freestanding building with a neat front garden, a path that led to steps that ascended to a mahogany door in a three-story house. As if by magic, the door to the house opened as the secretary of health reached the top step, and the brilliantly lit interior gave Noah the feeling that the person he was about to kill lived in more comfort and wealth than he would ever know in his life.
Noah drove past the building as the limo pulled away, turned left on Prospect Street, and then left again on Thirty-Fourth Street. A final left turn brought him back out front of the secretary’s home again. He drove past, parked his van a hundred feet away, and waited ten minutes. Then he started his engine and drove away—this time twenty blocks. He carefully checked his mirror every few minutes, and when he was certain that he wasn’t followed, he turned a sharp right and parked 100 feet inside the road. No car followed him, so he started up again and returned by a circuitous route to the secretary of health’s home. Again, he parked ten houses north of her house and waited. And waited. Tired, he pushed aside the curtain and went to the back of his van where he hunkered down and quickly fell asleep on a mattress.
The alarm on his mobile phone woke him at 2:15 a.m. Yawning, he had a quick drink of Coke and climbed back into the driver’s seat of his van. He scanned the roadway and the parked cars. There was no traffic at all. He knew that the Secret Service made twice-nightly drive-bys past all the cabinet secretaries houses and that they’d have taken his van’s license number. He’d bought these plates from an old man working in a used car lot in Alabama. It was a van the owner had for sale for two years and which would soon be turned into scrap. So when the Secret Service checked out the number, it wouldn’t be flagged as stolen.
Looking back through the mirror, in the distance he could see that there were no lights other than one over the porch in the secretary of health’s home. Good! Everybody would be asleep. And nobody would know what hit them.
It took Noah ten minutes to take the C-4 explosive out of its carefully hidden spot under the carpeted floor inside the van. The C-4 was wrapped in thick plastic, which was covered in coffee grounds to fool sniffer dogs in case he was stopped and searched; the coffee ground-covered tube was then encased in an airtight cylinder, which had been washed and scrubbed a dozen times to rid the outside of any possible trace of the explosive.
Washing the large package of explosives with a bottle of water, he plugged copper terminals into opposite ends and attached them to a transmitter, which was synchronized to emit signals at the precise megahertz range. This would activate and explode the blasting cap that in turn would cause the electrical impulse to create the explosion necessary to turn the C-4 from a harmless mound of gloop into a bomb that would destroy the foundations of the house and make the entire structure collapse into itself. He set the timer for two hours’ time, meaning it would go off at about 4:30 a.m. while everybody was still asleep.
He pulled the balaclava over his head and left the van, walking in the shadows cast by the trees until he was opposite the secretary’s house. Standing in darkness, Noah put on night-vision goggles and looked carefully at the house and its grounds. There was no movement, nobody looking—nobody at all. Quietly, he crossed the road and walked to the large locked gate. He’d already found a part of the fence adjoining the next-door building that he could climb. Checking that there was no traffic on the road, within seconds he was over the fence and standing in the front garden of the secretary’s home. He ran on the grass beside the path in case it had movement activation alarms. The path meandered around the house, and Noah quickly found what he was looking for. It was a coal grate, where coal had been dumped before houses got boilers and central heating. Noah lifted the coal grate and wormed his way inside the underneath spaces of the house. The coal storage room had been bricked over years earlier, but there was sufficient room for him to place the explosives so that they were close to the foundation of the house.
In the eerie green light of the night vision goggles, he checked the clock on the timer. It was perfect. All he had to do now was to connect the cathode lead to the battery terminal, and then the moment the timer hit zero, the battery would pass a jolt of electricity that would cause a high-pitched burst of energy, akin to the sound of a scream and designed to activate the detonator. Once the detonator exploded at the cathode end of the C-4 package, the thirty pounds of high plastic explosive would instantly decompose and the gases would escape at twenty-six thousand feet per second—causing the biggest explosion the area would ever see. It would be like an intercontinental ballistic missile being dropped on top of the house . . . only this would be from underneath. The gases would blow out the entire substructure of the house, and everything above would collapse within and it’d be adiós to anybody living upstairs. Noah couldn’t stop smiling.
He was back in his van within six minutes. Stuart had told him not to hang around but to drive away. His hand rested tentatively on the ignition key. He knew he should turn it, gun the engine, and drive far away. He knew the consequences of being caught. But no matter what the rational part of his mind said to him, the emotional part told him to stay put and look at the end result of his beautiful night’s work. Another pillar of the Washington establishment, another animal killer, was about to get her just rewards.
The minutes ticked past; time went incredibly slowly. Dozens of cars drove past him, even though it was the middle of the night. He checked his watch a dozen times. And eventually, after two of the longest hours of his life, his watch told him that within the next minute, there would be an almighty explosion.
He could barely breathe with the excitement. He felt an erection stirring in his groin. Thirty-twenty-ten-five seconds to go. He opened the window of his van and looked backward to the secretary woman’s house. As his watch showed the precise time, he held his breath and waited. And waited. After ten seconds past the due time, Noah breathed out, suddenly worried that something had screwed up. Had he set the timer properly? Had he . . .
And as he was thinking, a brilliant flash of light illuminated the entire street, followed seconds later by the loudest explosion he’d ever heard, which tore apart the silence of the night. Even knowing what would happen, Noah was stunned by the sound. A blast of hot wind rushed past the van, catching him by surprise. And then he saw a thing growing in the distance. A brilliant white and yellow monster ballooning outward and upward, enveloping the trees with leaves and branches that instantly burst alight—the pavement, the roadway, the cars that stood silently nearby were suddenly picked up and hurled across the roadway. Everything in the immediate vicinity that was flammable was set ablaze as the fireball enveloped everything. Objects from inside the house began flying through the air—gates and bricks and tree branches and furniture and all the innards of the building, flying haphazardly in the light of the monster that roared and expanded in brilliance and heat and sound and fury.
Noah’s jaw dropped in stunned silence. Windows of houses all around him cracked and smashed in the reverberation. It was a holocaust, a nightmare of the apocalypse, a war zone. Suddenly terrified, Noah tried to start the van’s engine, but his hands were shaking so badly, he dropped the key. He scrambled for it, found it, and only just remembered to do what he’d been told by Stuart. He quickly opened the passenger side door and dropped a crumpled up piece of paper into the gutter. It was a business card. A card belonging to Lorrie Benson. The same Lorrie Benson who’d worked as a PA for Tom Pollard of CHAT until the previous year, when she’d resigned to live in Washington with her lesbian lover and their three cats.
***
Noah was shaking for an hour after he left the area. He’d never seen anything so exciting in all his life. He’d obviously used too much explosive, but what the fuck . . . it all added to the publicity value.
And the police were also in a state of shock when, ten minutes after the explosion, they arrived en masse to see what had become of a Georgetown house where there’d been dozens of reports of a massive explosion. The patrol car officers
stood in front of the vast gap where once a large and very expensive brownstone had stood and wondered what in the name of God they were expected to do. Fires were raging inside the house; the garden where settees, chairs, and desks lay askew in flames; fires were ablaze in adjoining houses and terrified residents were trying to use sprinkler hoses to douse the infernos, and dozens of residents up and down the street were looking at the broken windows of their houses in horror and amazement. Some men and women in pyjamas were sitting by the roadside, nursing sores and cuts; some were wandering shell-shocked in the aftermath of the explosion.
Motivated by training and a need to take control of the situation, the officers got cordon tape from their cars and built a perimeter. Notebooks out, they began to ask residents what in God’s name had happened. But nobody was game to go anywhere near the house, both because of the intensity of the fires and because it was nothing more than a shell with walls that were still standing and in imminent danger of collapse.
More distant residents, who were not directly affected by the blast, came outdoors when they saw the blue and red flashing lights from the patrol cars but started to return home when they heard the sirens of ambulances and fire engines approaching. The police continued to interview residents, trying to gain an initial picture of the incident. Almost every neighbor who had been asleep told them that it was undoubtedly a gas leak; one elderly man who’d recently watched a Hollywood movie where a similar incident had occurred, told the policeman that the gas had accumulated in the basement, and then when the time clock had sparked the pilot light from the boiler, it ignited the pool of gas and “whoomp.”
The area was cleared so that the police forensic team could work alongside the fire department. The ambulances departed with just a couple of residents who had been cut by broken glass and one elderly lady in a state of shock who kept talking about terrorists and 9/11.
When the fire was extinguished, an investigation team began to sift through the rubble in the early light of the dawn. It took just minutes to discover the bodies of five people—a middle-aged man and woman burnt beyond recognition and three children, one teen and two younger ones, also burnt so badly that it couldn’t be determined whether they were boys or girls. And it didn’t take long for the chief fire officer to say to the police captain who’d taken charge, “This wasn’t a gas explosion. This was a bomb. The patterns radiate from underneath the foundations of the house. It blasted the fuck out of everything. If it weren’t for the strength of the walls in the brownstone, it would have taken out a couple of the adjoining houses as well; as it was, the solid walls concentrated the blast upward. The poor bastards asleep upstairs would have been blown to kingdom come. Their bodies would have hit the underside of the roof space and they’d have come down on an inferno.”