The Eighth Day (32 page)

The shock wave pummeled the house. Every window shattered. Kronos, standing in the doorway, was knocked back into the living room. The windows on the communications van imploded and the satellite dish collapsed. Shrapnel from the disintegrated truck showered down with the force of bullets, puncturing vehicles and parts of the house. A piece of steel embedded itself into the hood of the truck that Hiccock and Major Hanks were crouched behind. The sound of the explosion echoed off the foothills for at least thirty seconds, repeating back and forth, as Hiccock and the major regained their upright postures.

“Look …!” Hiccock pointed to a crater fifty feet around and thirty feet deep in the middle of the road. Smoldering parts of the truck dotted the edge.

“Good shooting, Bracken … Bracken?” The major looked down and saw Bracken was dead on the ground, impaled by a twisted, mangled piece of the truck’s red metal.

“A minute ago, I called him son,” the major said to Hiccock with a catch in his throat.

The president, Reynolds, and the heads of every U.S. agency were packed into the Situation Room of the White House. “We have found the enemy and he is one of us. Quarterback’s team has successfully traced the source of these terrible bombings and terrorist actions against the people and property of the United States to a government portal. Someone in this room is responsible for the carnage and destruction that has befallen this nation. One of you is heading up a project or initiative that is, at best, treason, and at worst insane.”

The room ignited with murmurs. The president allowed it to go on for a few seconds, watching for reactions, then continued. “If it didn’t make me sound so egotistical I might think it a coup d’état.” That brought the room to silence. “I know I fell into this job because I was a strong independent taking votes away from the men who would be king. But goddamn it, I will not have the destruction of the American way of life as the legacy of my administration.”

The president noticed a bookish man in his late twenties had entered the room during the momentary lull. “Who are you?”

“Walter Conklin, Sir. I am the CIO here at the White House. They said you wanted to see me.”

“Have you been briefed?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“So tell me what we are looking for, Conklin?”

“Well, I’m only the Chief Information Officer here, not an expert.”

“I understand, but I need an opinion.”

“Big mainframe. Maybe a Cray or new Paradigm SQ. Lots of support techs and a big pipe, probably multifiber array with switch nodes and isolated redundant power sources.”

“How much money are we talking here?”

“Hard to say, Sir, but probably tens of millions.”

The president addressed the room. “We haven’t found anything like that in your various department budgets. So that leaves only one option.”

Reynolds jumped in, “Black Ops. Programs and initiatives not open to congressional scrutiny.”

“Who’s running this program? NSA? CIA? The damn Girl Scouts? Who?”

The phone rang. The president waved his hand to the communications officer and talked into the speakerphone. “Who is this on the line?”

A voice came back over the loudspeaker. “General Tyson, Sir, duty officer at joint operations center. There’s been an attempted attack on Quarterback.”

“How? Why? Who would know the …”

“Sir, it was a truck laden with explosives. It got to within 1,000 feet of the house they were in. One casualty, an Army Ranger. The bazooka man who took out the truck was killed by the blast, Sir.”

“Good God! Are Quarterback and the Admiral okay?”

“A little shook up but fine, Sir.”

“How did the assailants know where they were?”

“Once Quarterback’s team broke through the firewall, they were reverse-traced and the assassin was dispatched immediately.”

“Do we know who the assassin was?”

“Carlsbad PD identified him as Henry Wilson, an explosives engineer on a construction site fifty miles from Admiral Parks’s home. A seemingly otherwise model citizen until he went nuts and rampaged through most of downtown Carlsbad on his way to meet his maker, Sir.”

“I’ll recommend the ranger who did the shooting for a posthumous DSC. Let’s bring Quarterback’s team back to Washington where we can keep them safe.”

“Yes, Sir.”

The president signaled to the telecom officer and the line was terminated.

“Somebody in this room is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and we are not leaving until I find out who it is.”

Celebrity is a potent charm. Anyone whom it touches glows, seemingly forever, with its incandescence. Even in a maximum-security prison, among the formerly notorious and momentarily infamous population, true celebrity had its perks. The yellow legal pad on her lap was proof. A “gift” from a star struck guard. The crayon was a concession to the survival instinct of all prison personnel, lest they become hostage of as simple a weapon as a number two pencil or Bic pen, pressed into their carotid artery. It was a safe and non-threatening Crayola brown, with which she took careful notes.

Penitentiary life did not allow for makeup or beauty salons, yet she was dangerously attractive. A short stint in Tai Bo, building upper body strength through boxing-like exercises, had served her well when one of the dykes, who demanded attention from all the “new bloods,” got a little too friendly once.

Out in the prison yard, in the bright Leavenworth, Kansas, noonday sun, sat two ends of the spectrum - the young “looker,” with the bound and shackled, nutty old lady. They spent all of the exercise hour conversing, taking notes, and occasionally stopping as thoughts coalesced in the younger one’s mind.

A passing guard noticed the large, scrawled crayon heading at the top of the brown-lettered page as he patrolled past, “Inside Club Fed - Part 3 - Martha Krummel - The Gardening Grandmother.” Carly Simone had her next byline.

Army MPs boarded up the shattered windows. Another swept debris off the floor. Hiccock resurrected the workstation as Admiral Parks rubbed a sore elbow.

“Did I forget to thank you for bringing technology into my quiet home?”

Hiccock looked around and surveyed the damage. “I really am sorry about that. Obviously the government will pay all damages … or I will.”

The major entered. “We got orders to bug out back to Washington on the double. Pack up whatever you’re going to need.”

“I won’t be needing anything, ’cause I’m not going,” the Admiral said resolutely.

“Ma’am … er … Admiral, Sir, ma’am, it’s a direct order from the Commander in Chief directly to me! At my pay grade! There’s no ‘no’ for an answer. The president decided you would be safer in Washington.”

“It’s Admiral USN, Retired, Major.”

Kronos walked in with his laptop, an airport wireless antenna sticking up. “It’s close by.”

“What is?” Hiccock asked.

“The point of presence. I phase-detected the shift from the first bounce signal and its spread indicates a lapse time of .23 picoseconds. That’s .000000000023 times the speed of light which equals 8.14 miles away.”

“Translation?” Hiccock said.

“The firewall and possibly the whole shebang is very near. The origin or point of presence is the last stop before the backbone of the Internet.”

Hiccock turned to the major. “We’re staying.”

“You’re leaving … until my orders change.”

Hiccock pulled out his cell phone as he said to the major, “Sorry you lost a man before.”

“The president is personally recommending him for a Distinguished Service Cross. C’mon, we’ve got to go.”

Hiccock put up his finger for the major to wait as his call was connected. “I heard you are recommending a DSC for the downed soldier. Thanks, he saved all of our lives.”

The major’s jaw dropped.

“I know you ordered us back there to Washington, but my main computer geek just located the source as eight miles from here.” Hiccock folded his phone at the end of the brief conversation. The major, still following his orders, started to usher Hiccock out when a radioman appeared.

“Sir, Ultra traffic, decode coming through.”

The major took the radio headset. “Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir. Yes, Sir. Thank you, Mr. President.” He handed the radio back and looked to Hiccock. “You got to let me borrow that phone sometime. Okay, we’ve been ordered to stay and I’m to assist you.”

“Assist? Not to pull rank on you here, Major, but I’m an SES-4 and you are a 0-4. That makes me a simulated equivalent to some kind of general, you know.”

“Well, I’ll follow any militarily correct order. You get to ask, I get to veto if I feel it endangers the mission or presents unacceptable risks.”

“Fair enough. Okay, what’s your plan, Major?”

“Take a map. Draw a circle and door-to-door it.”

“Forget about the doors,” Kronos said. “This kind of connectivity requires fiber. Flat out DC to light.”

“What’s a fiber look like?”

Kronos plucked a hair out of his head and held it up. “Well, this is the cross-sectional diameter.”

The major took a deep breath and left.

Hiccock’s cell phone rang. Tyler was calling from the FBI psychological profiles lab. A mug shot of Wilson, the truck bomber, was on her computer screen. Technicians were audio scrubbing his answering machine message through a voiceprint analyzer.

“We’re doing voice stress analysis baseline sampling right now,” she said.

“Is that anything that can help us?”

“Our engineer fits the profile. He was on his iPhone one minute, then left his field office and headed for you.”

“So he was another one programmed while online?”

“It appears so.” There was a silence, then, “Bill?”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you come back to Washington and stop playing Army.”

“Playing? I need to be here. We are so close.”

“You are so stubborn. This is just more work for you, isn’t it?”

“Let’s not fight right now, okay? I really need to focus on what’s going on, you know.”

“Okay, but …”

“But what?”

“But be careful. That’s an order from your old boss.” She clicked off. Hiccock said into the dead phone at the same moment the major walked by, “I love you, too, boss.” Hiccock ended the call, addressing the screwed up look on the major’s face. “Not the Prez that time.”

The major walked to the front of a caravan of trucks and Jeeps. He stepped onto the sideboard of a two-and-a-half-ton truck. Waving his weapon, like John Wayne rolling the wagons, he ordered the column to move out.

“You think we could stop off for a pizza?” Kronos said.

They snaked around the crater in the road. On the far side, a tiny buzz turned their heads back in the direction of Parks’s house. A small plane dove out of the sky.

They watched in disbelief as it crumpled into the simple wood-frame house. An instant later, the tiny aircraft exploded, shattering what was once Admiral Parks’s peaceful haven.

“A delayed explosion,” one of the troops coldly observed.

Hiccock turned to Admiral Parks and sheepishly grinned. “The government will recompense.”

“Or you will,” the pissed-off Admiral said, scowling.

A “BREAKING NEWS” logo ripped into programming. A hastened-to-his-chair anchorman, Neil Peterson, was still adjusting his seat when the camera switched to him. The floor manager standing by camera one heard the cue from the director on his headset and threw his finger toward the anchor.

“CNN has learned that martial law has been declared by Federal authorities in Chavez and Eddy counties in New Mexico. We have had several reports of Army units charging into factories, stores, and private homes. One unconfirmed report speculates that any dwelling with a satellite dish is being targeted. Stories of troops fanning out throughout an office building, yelling orders, and forcing employees down to the floor are as yet unconfirmed. Although no official reason has been given by the White House, it is widely suspected that this action, which allegedly took place some fifteen minutes ago, is in response to the recent wave of terrorist attacks on American soil, but again that is purely speculation.” He paused, listening to something on his IFB earpiece. “I have just received word that we have some video of more military and police actions, again centering around technology. We’ll have that report from New Mexico coming up shortly. Until then, let’s go to Susan Hawks, for a legal perspective on all this. Susan …”

“Neil, the imposition of martial law is rare in U.S. history. Essentially, the declaration temporarily rescinds the Constitution and the Bill of Rights for the citizens and property of these two New Mexican counties. It places police or military authorities in power and affords them wide latitude to conduct search and seizures and set curfews.”

“Why? What is the reasoning behind this?”

“It’s anyone’s guess at the moment. Martial law is usually used in case of civil unrest, and as far as we know there is no civil unrest in these two counties.”

“So that leaves what, in your opinion?”

“Well, obviously the Federal government is looking for something and it must be a big and time-sensitive issue.”

“So let me get this straight. They are searching for something wholesale and don’t need any reason whatsoever in order to search and seize people, property, or assets.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Is this, in your opinion, a response in some way to the wave of recent terrorist actions?”

“I’d say that’s certainly a good prospect.”

“We are ready with the report now from Jasper Hines, who was in New Mexico working on a story for one of our weekend shows when all this came about. Jasper, I hear you’ve witnessed an actual event that occurred in the last hour.”

The screen switched to the reporter standing on an average American residential street. “Neil, we were here covering a story on a gathering of psychics, new-age followers, and parapsychologists when we began to notice a high level of military activity. We came across one truck full of soldiers and followed them here to this sleepy little bedroom community. What happened next was right out of an Orwell novel …”

A video appeared, shot through a news van window, showing a two-and-a-half-ton truck carrying four soldiers. The truck stopped on a residential street where the soldiers dismounted.

The reporter narrated the action. “They stopped, we stopped. Here a soldier is holding up a device, which Jim, our satellite technician, has identified as a field-strength meter. You can see him waving it around. He then apparently gets some sort of indication from the handheld device and now, here he is pointing in the direction of one of the houses on the street. At this point, we witnessed, incredulously I might add, U.S. military troops unceremoniously entering a civilian house.”

The scene cut back to the reporter now in front of the house. “Two minutes after that video we just showed you, the squad of soldiers was out of there and gone. We have here with us now the members of the Wisticki family who live in that house. Let’s start with you, Mrs. Wisticki, what were they looking for?”

The still-rattled woman looked to her husband and then addressed the microphone in the reporter’s hand. “Well, I was vacuuming when the soldiers just came through the door. They ordered me to stand against the wall.”

“What were your thoughts at that moment?”

“Why, I was scared to death. I didn’t know what was happening.”

“Mr. Wisticki, tell us what happened next.”

“The troops ran through to the living room and ordered me to get down on the floor from my reclining chair in front of the TV. More troops went upstairs to where my son was.”

“Timmy, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Timmy Wisticki, Sir,” the twelve-year-old answered the reporter.

“Tell us what happened when they came into your room.”

“They picked me up and pulled me out of my chair, sat me on my bed, and said, ‘Don’t move.’”

“What were you doing when they did that?”

“I was playing Ninja Force Four—”

“Is that a video game?”

“It’s an online computer game. I’m the national champion.”

“I strapped together three PCs and had a DSL line installed so Timmy could play faster than anyone else,” his father said.

“What happened then?

“A soldier sat at my computer and slid a disk in and did some kind of file search, then left.”

“And did anyone tell you what they were looking for?

“No.”

“No?”

“Nope.”

“A puzzling mystery. We’ll try to gather more information, but right now back to you in the studio, Neil.”

The scene switched back to the anchor introducing yet another hurried-to-the-microphone expert. “We are joined now by our own head of technical operations, Phil Shimerhorn. Phil, what do you make of this?”

“From what I just heard, the field strength meter must have been reading an intense concentration of electromagnetic energy coming from the Wisticki household. The three PCs that the father lashed together
would
create that kind of intense hyperactive signature.”

“So they are looking for some kind of technological device?”

“From this report, it would appear to be so.”

The anchor then swiveled to a video monitor with a feed from the remote studio where Susan was stationed. He started talking to the monitor as if she were really inside it. “Susan, with the account we just heard of this search, my question to you is, is this legal?”

“It’s covered under
posse comitatus
, which authorizes the military to operate as a de facto police force. I heard nothing in that account over which the Wistickis could sue or have recourse, not under martial law.”

“Thank you, Susan. So the question for now is, just what is going on in New Mexico? We’ll be right back after this word.”

Hiccock and the major were listening to reports on the field radio. “Unit 2, nothing yet. Unit 3 is investigating an extremely strong electromagnetic field reading. Unit 9 is en route …”

“You know what I can’t understand?” Major Hanks said.

“What?”

“If they found us in the house and sent the truck and plane, how come they aren’t coming after us with guns blazing now?”

“Good point. What would you do if you were the bad guys, Major?”

“I’d get some intelligence, send out a scout, find our weakest point, then plan an attack.”

“What would be our weakest point?”

“Some hole in the defensive perimeter or some exposed asset that might be vulnerable to a strike. Then again, it could be some operational misstep, like us having all our planes lined up in neat little rows at Pearl Harbor for the Japanese to just pick off.”

Hiccock pondered this as Kronos walked over. “Look, I’m starving. Can we please get a pizza?”

Hiccock came up with an idea and pulled out his cell phone. “Maybe
they
have an operational weakness.” He spoke into his phone, “Hiccock for the president … of course I’ll hold.” He covered the phone with his hand, “Can I get a Jeep and a driver?”

“What’s on your mind?” the major asked.

“Maybe we’re looking for the wrong thing. Let me and Kronos here do a little scouting.”

“I’ll send you out with a squad. You are still my first priority. Fair enough?”

Hiccock nodded as the White House telecom officer came back on the line. “Sir, the president is in a meeting right now.”

“You know what? I’ll call him back.” He folded the phone. “President’s busy. C’mon, Kronos, lets see the countryside.”

“Just tell me there’s a pizza shop somewhere around here.”

They trotted over to a second lieutenant in front of three Hummers. He saluted as Hiccock and Kronos got into the lead vehicle.

“Can I ask you something?” Kronos said.

“What?”

“I checked up on you. You come from the Bronx.”

“Burke Avenue. So?”

“So how come I’m me and you’re you?”

“If it wasn’t for football, I would have been you. The game was my ticket out.”

“That’s the other wiggy thing about you. You had the world by the oysters as a QB and you didn’t go pro. What, no balls?”

“I played ball in college to repay my scholarship. But I wanted to
use
my head, not get it knocked off by some NFL linebacker.”

“Yeah, but the broads you coulda scored with!”

“Didn’t need them.” Hiccock watched two RVs pass on the other side of the highway. “I met my wife in college. She was head of a research project. My boss, actually. Brains, beauty, and a way of making me feel …”

“But you played for freaking Stanford. They were a no-bullshit football factory.”

“They also offer one of the best science programs in the country. I was good at football but I am better in science. I wanted to do what I was good at, and felt good doing.” Hiccock realized he might as well have been speaking Esperanto. “You can’t understand that, can you?” Hiccock was distracted as more recreational vehicles passed.

“What are you thinking?” Kronos asked, following Hiccock’s line of sight to the mobile homes passing by.

“Do you fish?”

“No.”

“Hunt, ski, rappel?”

“I program, pal.”

“So you haven’t noticed all these RVs that we’ve been passing all day. More than you’d expect during off-season. There is no campground close.”

“Food!” yelped Kronos like a hunting dog pointing at a bird.

Not being able to take it anymore, Hiccock relented. “Lieutenant, can we stop here?”

The column pulled into a McDonald’s drive-through.

“I need to get there now,” a determined Janice Tyler said to her new Air Force captain. Since the reinstatement of Hiccock’s authority under Operation Quarterback, she enjoyed a little more power.
More than a captain
, she figured, since he was snapping to it on her “order.” She now had a staff of FBI profilers. They would continue weeding through the psychological “mind field” that was being mapped by the cookies, worms, and replays of the subliminal computer screens. Computers had become the central focus of Janice’s work because they were the only evidence any of the homegrowns left behind to testify as to their state of mind. All except for those associated with the Sabot Society. There were no subliminal messages detected in their computers, although the FBI Electronic Crimes Lab did find an abundance of conventional e-mail and chat room evidence. The chasm created by this disparity of evidence reinforced the notion that the Sabot was an unfortunately unlucky, and spectacularly inept, copycat group.

“You’ll have to strap in, Ma’am,” her captain said, as the small Air Force VC-100, essentially a small corporate jet with “USAF” and stars and stripes painted on the fuselage, started to taxi. Two Air Force pilots flew it. One was female, she noticed with a little smile, made sweeter by the fact that her Air Force cabin attendant was a male.

Bags of hamburgers and fries were handed into each Humvee. The three Hummers, with their machine guns tied off, pulled into three spaces in the lot. As the burgers were distributed, Hiccock observed an amazing transformation. Before his eyes, these hard-core Army Rangers had turned into high school kids with smiling faces, munching on Big Macs and sipping Cokes. He walked inside the store to pay the bill and asked to see the manager. The oldest guy in a paper hat with a nametag on his shirt came forward and identified himself. “Welcome to McDonald’s, I’m Tim. Is there something I might do for you today?”

“Kinda busy, huh?” Hiccock spoke like he ran a Mickey D’s back home, trying to disarm the company-approved speech.

“Been that way for a few weeks now.”

“All those campers and Winnebagos?” Hiccock gestured to the passing parade of RVs.

“And minivans and backpackers from all over camping out at Leadfoot.”

“What’s going on at Leadfoot?”

“Some kind of New Age voodoo crap.”

“New Age what?”

“All these psychics, Ouija board weenies, crystal gazers, shakra-holics, vegetarians, libertarians, all of ’em. Say they’re being drawn to Leadfoot. Hooting and hollering at the moon for all I know.”

Hiccock handed over a hundred-dollar bill for the troops.

“Your turn to feed the Army?” the manager said with a chuckle.

“Can I get a receipt, please?”

Then it hit him.

He ran outside, his cell phone to his ear.

After being dressed down by the president for not interrupting the meeting the last time Quarterback called in, the orders were now crystal clear: send all calls from QB through immediately. As commanded, the telecom officer intrepidly interrupted the president mid-sentence, “Sir, call from Quarterback.”

Someone, maybe Reynolds, decided to use only Hiccock’s code name, in case one of the president’s men convened in the room was, in fact, a traitor or anarchist. He nodded to the telecom officer, and then picked up the handset.

“What is it, Bill?”
Damn
. He’d just blurted Hiccock’s name out in the open. He listened for a second, then reacted with lowered brows over squeezed eyes. “You’re serious? Well, I’m not going to start second-guessing you now. I’ll order it and call you back.” He put the phone down and addressed the telecom officer. “Jennifer, get me Paulsen at the GAO.”

Hiccock placed the phone back in his shirt pocket. The lieutenant had a map out on the hood of his Humvee. “No Leadfoot on this map.”