Trinity's Child (11 page)

“Flyin' this old Buff by braille, Mama Bear.”

“Hang in there, will you,
Polar Bear Three?
That's not the end of the . . .”

Moreau stumbled.
Polar Bear Three
chuckled.

“Li'l slip there, Mama Bear. Hope yore right. But I think that's ya-all's problem now. Not ours.”

“There's a lot of desert out there,
Polar Bear Three.
We'll talk you down.”

“Goddammit it, Moreau!” Kazaklis  exploded into the radio. “We aren't talking anybody anywhere!”

“Calm down, commander,”
Polar Bear Three
said quietly. “We'll respectfully decline. We already talked, and none of us feels much like wanderin' around in the desert for a few hours, stumblin' over mutated prairie dawgs. We didn't get very far from home. Dunno how the plane held together. Marvel of American technology. Thank the boys at Boeing for us. Old pappy's not so good at flyin' blind, though. 'Fraid I wobbled us right through the edge of the cloud. We took about two thousand REM's.”

Moreau shuddered. The crew of
Polar Bear Three
had taken a massively lethal dose of radiation. In a hospital, they'd be dead in a few days. They weren't going to a hospital.

Down below, Radnor began shaking like a leaf. He had never heard of anyone taking that much radiation. In front of him, the jellyfish was growing, enveloping almost half his screen.

“We got our seein'-eye dogs down in the basement,” Radnor heard
Polar Bear Three
say. “They didn't take the flash, lucky boys.

And they's hot—pardonin' the 'spression, Mama Bear—to trot far as we can git after the bad guys.”

Radnor's bones suddenly ached. He knew the two men, down in the dark basement of
Polar Bear Three,
just like he and Tyler, had been protected from the blinding flash. He also knew nothing except distance could protect them from the radiation. His skin felt prickly, as if just below the surface the white blood cells were munching away at the red. His head throbbed. His eyes ached. The jellyfish grew, as Kazaklis neared its edge.

“Think we'll just mosey on north and see how far we git,”
Polar Bear Three
continued serenely. “We don't make it, ya-all do us a favor? Get those mutha-fuckahs for us. Pardonin' the language, Mama Bear.”

The jellyfish pulsed almost off the wingtip.

“Commander!” Radnor screamed.

Almost simultaneously, Radnor's screen flashed, flaring wildly, and then flashed again, completely washing out the jellyfish.

“Radnor?” Kazaklis responded.

Again, there had been absolutely no motion in the plane. Radnor, embarrassed that he had panicked, took the briefest moment to compose himself. Then he said: “Nudets, sir. At least two detonations.”

Kazaklis began counting. “Where?”

“Dunno. Screen's flaring again.”

“Lemme know.” Kazaklis sounded so calm Radnor's embarrassment deepened.

Five. Six.

“Polar Bear Three,
this is Mama Bear,” Moreau continued. “Do you read me? Do you read me,
Polar Bear Three?”
She heard nothing but static.

Seven. Eight.

Halupalai saw the curl of the thirty-footer forming, feeling the mix of fear and exhilaration. He poised for it. He reached over and placed his hand on O'Toole's.

Nine. Ten.

“Screen's settling.”

Eleven. Twelve.

“Detonations north,” Radnor said, struggling to pick through the electronic riot of his screen. “Twelve miles. Fifteen miles.” The jellyfish was receding, and others, more distant, were forming.

Kazaklis  stopped counting at thirteen. He relaxed briefly. His taut shoulders sank, the double white bars of his shoulder patch drooping 
with them, as did
 
the lightning bolt, the eagle's talons, and the olive branch. He began whistling,
Oh beautiful, for spacious skies . . .
 Some seconds later, the first quiet little ripple of vibration moved through the Buff, then the second, pocketa, pocketa, magic fingers nursing the pilot's temples. . . .
for amber waves of grain . . .

“Little more practice,” Kazaklis  said jauntily, “and we'll have this down pat.”

Moreau looked at him strangely.
“Polar Bear Three,
this is Mama Bear,” she said urgently. “Do you read,
Polar Bear Three?”

“I don't think I'd bother, copilot,” Kazaklis  interrupted.

“Polar Bear Three,
this is Mama Bear,” Moreau insisted.

“You see any airplanes down there, radar?” Kazaklis  asked Radnor.

“I can't find him, commander. The screen's still kinda cluttered.”

But Radnor knew, as did Kazaklis .

“Polar Bear Three! Polar Bear Three!”

“They were heading straight into the detonations, copilot. They're better off. Do a radiation check on us.”

“Polar Bear Three
...”
Moreau's voice trailed off. She slumped in her seat, rubbing her white eye. Then she began checking the radiation equipment.

“We took fifty to a hundred REM's on launch, commander, sir,” Moreau said brittlely. “Maybe two hundred, probably one-fifty, passing the cloud. Commander. Sir.” Moreau felt perversely sorry she couldn't tell Kazaklis  he was glowing in the dark. The dose would make them nauseous in a few days, but not seriously, and probably long after they would have to worry about it.

“Well,” Kazaklis  said cheerfully, “sounds like we're all gonna get a little dose of the Russian flu. Everybody get their shots?”

“Commander? Would you turn on the heater? It's colder than a witch's tit down here.”

It was Tyler. Maybe he's shaken it off, Kazaklis  thought. He switched on the heater, having forgotten the routine chore in the turmoil.

Fear the goat from the front, the horse from the rear, and man from all sides.
At the end of their single unproductive meeting the Premier, his gray eyes staring unblinking as the translator repeated the words in English, had suddenly popped the old Russian proverb at him. The President remembered bristling, intentionally tightening every facial fiber to stare back sternly. That sounds like a threat, Mr. Premier. The Premier's face had sagged into hound-dog sadness, Russian fatalism seeming to mold consternation into a face that would give but not yield. A threat; ah, yes, I suppose it is, Mr. President. To both of us. We now return to our world of men. Do you think we can control such a place?

Icarus interrupted the President's brief musing, answering a previous question. “How the hell can I explain what the Chinese did, Mr. President? Frankly, I think they did us a favor. I just wish their hardware had been a little better.”

Icarus was down to eight minutes and he was not happy. He did not want to bother with this part. The President did. He was trying to get some grasp on a tangle of far-off events that made no sense. He needed to understand. One set of American missiles was on its way, at his instruction. But he still had a decision to make. A big one.

“But Pakistan, for God's sake,” the President replied. “Pakistan has been allied with China longer than anyone in Asia.”

“We're reasonably certain that was an error, a stray. A lot of mistakes are being made. Not only overseas.”

The President let the last comment pass. He felt penned in, like a steer on the way to slaughter. Every new bit of information seemed to poke at him, cattle prods urging him this way and that, but always toward the same end.

“And the Russians have not yet responded to the Chinese?”

“They appear to be moving troops across parts of the Chinese border. It is difficult to determine. It is not exactly our most pressing problem here at the moment. The Soviets have not responded with heavy weapons.”

“Heavy weapons. You mean nuclear weapons, general. They took a nuclear attack from the Chinese and did not respond.”

“Mr. President, the Soviets have had less than five minutes. You've had almost twenty. The Chinese weapons were very crude. Of the forty-nine Soviet divisions the Chinese tried to hit along their border, I doubt a dozen were destroyed. Everybody in the world with a two-bit space satellite is watching this. The Chinese saw an opportunity and took it. It was semisuccessful.”

“Semi. I'll bet that word sells well in Islamabad. The Pakistanis are not the most stable lot. The missile landed in the outskirts of the capital?”

“In the Indus Valley, toward Peshawar. Our assumption is the Chinese were trying to loft one over the mountains toward Alma Ata or Tashkent. I think the Paks misunderstood.”

The President started to laugh, uncontrollably. “Misunderstood?” he gurgled. “Jesus. I'll bet they did.” The President felt woozy again, his skull echoing, his brain rubbery.

“Misunderstood badly, sir. They've launched aircraft toward Delhi.”

The President focused sharply and stopped laughing. “The Pakistanis have nuclear weapons.” It was not a question.

“A dozen, maybe more. Elementary devices. Gravity bombs. They have no missile-delivery system.”

“So we have to assume those are headed for New Delhi?”

“The Indians seem to be making that assumption. The Indians and the Paks aren't exactly friends. India has placed fighter interceptors in the air. And tactical bombers.”

“And they also have nukes.”

“That we know, sir.”

“Good God, it's like a damned summer cold. One sneeze and everybody catches it.”

The President closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose between two nervous fingers.

“Almost everybody,” Icarus said bluntly.

“What's that supposed to mean, other than another shot at my manhood?” the President snapped back.

“It means it's time to sneeze. Everybody's snorting except us, the Brits, and the French. The Brits, as usual, are waiting for us, poor fools. The French, I'd guess, don't know which way to point their missiles—at us or the Soviets.”

“Everybody?”

“The Israelis,” Icarus acknowledged.

“The Israelis,” the President repeated.

“Well, what would you expect the Israelis to do? They've got planes flying in every fucking direction. They sent us one message: stay out of our way.”

The President's head throbbed. The noise did not help. He glanced over at the sprung door. Bluish-white tongues of fire, jets from acetylene torches on the other side, sliced steadily around the remaining hinges. He could hear a muffled commotion and occasionally a muted pop-pop-pop, as if light globes were bursting.

“Why don't they just blow the damn thing?” the President snapped at the duty officer.

“We don't want the briefest communication outage now, sir. They're almost through. The Secretary of State's on the other side.”

“I know he is,” the President said bleakly. He wanted to see the Secretary about as badly as he wanted General Patton reincarnated in the Situation Room. In fact, in their brief conversation a few moments ago, the Secretary had sounded like General Patton, ready to swoop in to save the civilized world.

The door gave way with an unexpectedly quiet thump and half a dozen Secret Servicemen swept through, their stubby Italian machine guns tilted toward the ceiling. The Secretary strode through the doorway purposefully, in a tuxedo, followed by a handful of combat-dressed marines with carbines. The President suppressed a grim chuckle.

“Looks like all the burglars are coming through locked doors tonight, huh?” he greeted the Secretary.

The Secretary started to salute and caught himself in mid-gesture. “What was that, Mr. President?” he asked, confused by the half-caustic reference to his own description of the Soviets.

“Nothing.” The President shrugged. “What's it like out there?”

“The best of worlds, the worst of worlds,” the Secretary replied very seriously.

Oh, Christ, the President thought. “Can you be a little more descriptive?”

“The buildings near here are surprisingly intact. The White House, not exactly a hardened facility, is damaged but standing. Windows broken, lot of flotsam kicking around. Your helicopter was blown into the trees along the East fence. I've brought in another. Andrews is six minutes away. Now that you've launched the second attack, I'd suggest we move there immediately and board the command plane.”

The staccato popping noise, much louder now, caromed sharply through the open door. The marines stiffened and turned. The President's body jerked, his nerves shattering like crystal.

“What the hell was that?!”

“We are having some minor trouble above ground,” the Secretary replied matter-of-factly. “The civilian population is somewhat panicky.”

“What do you mean, somewhat panicky?”

“It's controllable. I've deployed two companies of marines, as well as the Secret Service and normal guards, on the White House grounds. Some of the civilians are coming over the fence.”

The President heaved a great sigh.

“A nuclear weapon has exploded in your nation's capital, Mr. President,” the Secretary said, his words suddenly jaggedly edged. The President saw a glint, a glint he had seen before, in the Secretary's eyes. He looked at his Cabinet leader closely and saw, for the first time, why he was so intensely disliked by so many people in and out of his administration.