He hits Send, waits while the text message travels its circuitous route.
A flutter runs through him. The sting of betrayal, Nina’s betrayal. And loss, too. Perhaps even he didn’t fully appreciate his feelings for her. Her revolutionary mind. Her hard, agile body. Her voracious appetite for exploration, in the world of cyberwarfare and in the bedroom. The hours and days and weeks they spent collaborating, challenging each other, feeding each other ideas, offering up and shooting down hypotheses, trials and errors, huddling before a laptop, theorizing over a glass of wine or naked in bed.
Before she lost interest in him romantically. That he could live with. He had no intention of remaining with one woman. But he could never understand how she could take up with Augie, of all people, the homely troll.
Stop. He touches his eyes. There’s no point.
The reply comes through:
We are told Alpha is confirmed dead.
That’s not quite the same thing as confirmation. But they’ve assured him of the professionalism and competence of the team they dispatched to America, and he has no choice but to believe them.
Suli sends back: If Alpha is dead, we are on schedule.
The response comes so quickly that Suli assumes it crossed paths with his message: Beta is confirmed alive and in custody.
“Beta,” meaning Augie. So he made it. He’s with the Americans.
Suli can’t help but smile.
Another message, so soon after the last one. They are nervous.
Confirm we are on schedule in light of this development.
He answers quickly: Confirmed. On schedule.
They think they know the schedule for the detonation of the virus. They don’t.
Neither does Suli at this point. It’s now entirely in Augie’s hands.
Whether he realizes it or not.
Chapter
46
“…need to wake him.”
“He’ll wake up when he wakes up.”
“My wife says to wake him up.”
Far above me, the surface of the water. Sunlight shimmering on the rippling waves.
Swimming toward it, my arms flailing, my legs kicking.
A rush of air into my lungs, and the light so bright, searing my eyes— I blink, several times, and squint into the light on my face, my eyes slowly coming into focus.
Focus on Augie, sitting on the couch, wearing shackles on his wrists and ankles, his eyes dark and heavy.
Floating, time meaning nothing, as I watch his eyes narrowed in concentration, his lips moving slightly.
Who are you, Augustas Koslenko? Can I trust you?
I have no choice. It’s you or nothing.
His wrist turning slightly, almost imperceptibly. Not looking at the iron shackle. Looking at his watch.
His watch.
“What time…what day…” I start forward, stopped by pain in my neck and back, an IV protruding from my arm, the tube strung along behind me.
“He’s awake, he’s awake!” The voice of Carolyn’s husband, Morty.
“Mr. President, it’s Dr. Lane.” Her hand on my shoulder. Her face coming between me and the light. “We performed a platelet transfusion. You’re doing well. It’s 3:45 in the morning, Saturday morning. You’ve been out for a little over four hours.”
“We have to…” I start up again, leaning forward, feeling something under me, some kind of a cushion.
Dr. Lane presses down gently on my shoulder. “Easy now. Do you know where you are?”
I try to shake out the cobwebs. I’m off balance, but I definitely know where I am and what I’m facing.
“I have to go, Doctor. There’s no time. Take out this IV.”
“Whoa. Hold on.”
“Take out the IV or I will. Morty,” I say, seeing him with his phone to his ear. “Is that Carrie?”
“Stop!” Dr. Lane says to me, the smile gone. “Forget Morty for one minute. Give me sixty seconds and listen to me for once.”
I take a breath. “Sixty seconds,” I say. “Go.”
“Your chief of staff has explained that you can’t stay here, that you have somewhere to be. I can’t stop you. But I can go with you.”
“No,” I say. “Not an option.”
She works her jaw. “Same thing your chief of staff said. This IV,” she says. “Take it with you in the car. Finish the bag. Your agent, Agent…”
“Jacobson,” he calls out.
“Yes. He says he has some wound-control training from his time with the Navy SEALs. He can remove the IV when it’s done.”
“Fine,” I say, leaning forward, feeling like I’ve been kicked in the head six or eight times.
She pushes me back. “My sixty seconds isn’t up yet.” She leans in closer. “You should be on your back for the next twenty-four hours. I know you won’t do that. But you must limit your physical exertion as much as possible. Sit, don’t stand. Walk, don’t jog or run.”
“I understand.” I hold out my right hand, wiggle my fingers. “Morty, give me Carolyn.”
“Yes, sir.”
Morty places the phone in my hand. I put it to my ear. “Carrie, it’s going to be today. Get word to our entire team. This is my formal acknowledgment that we are to move to stage 2.”
It’s all I need to say to get us ready for what we are about to face. Under “normal” disaster scenarios, at least those occurring after 1959, I would reference the DEFCON levels, either for all military systems worldwide or for selected commands. This is different—we are facing a crisis never conceived of in the fifties, and pieces must be set in motion in ways far different from what we would do during a conventional nuclear attack. Carrie knows exactly what stage 2 means, partly because we’ve been at stage 1 for two weeks.
Nothing from the other end but the sound of Carrie’s breath.
“Mr. President,” she says, “it may have already started.”
I listen, for two of the quickest—and longest—minutes of my life.
“Alex,” I call out. “Forget driving. Get us on Marine One.”
Chapter
47
Jacobson drives. Alex sits next to me in the backseat of the SUV, the IV bag perched between us. Augie sits across from me.
On my lap is a computer, open to a video. The video is satellite footage, looking down on a city block, an industrial area in Los Angeles. Most of the block is consumed by one large structure, complete with smokestacks, some kind of large factory.
Everything is dark. The time stamp in the corner of the screen shows 02:07—just past two in the morning, about two hours ago.
And then fireballs of orange flame explode through the roof and the side windows, rocking and ultimately caving in the side of the industrial plant. The entire city block disappears in a cloud of black-and-orange smoke.
I pause the video and click on the box in the corner of the screen.
The box opens onto the full screen, which itself is split three ways. In the center screen is Carolyn, from the White House. To her left is acting FBI director Elizabeth Greenfield. To Carolyn’s right is Sam Haber, secretary of homeland security.
I’m wearing headphones plugged into the laptop, so the conversation from their end will reach only my ears. I want to hear this first, in full, without Augie overhearing.
“Okay, I saw it,” I say. “Start at the start.” My voice is scratchy as I shake off the hangover from the treatment and try to focus.
“Mr. President,” says Sam Haber. “The explosion was about two hours ago. The blaze has been enormous, as you can imagine. They’re still trying to get it under control.”
“Tell me about the company,” I say.
“Sir, it’s a defense contractor. They’re one of the Defense Department’s largest contractors. They have a number of sites around Los Angeles County.”
“What’s special about this one?”
“Sir, this plant builds reconnaissance aircraft.”
I’m not making the connection. A defense contractor? Recon planes?
“Casualties?” I ask.
“We believe in the tens, not the hundreds. It was the middle of the night, so basically just security personnel. Too soon to know for sure.”
“Cause?” I ask, careful to limit my side of the conversation.
“Sir, all we can say with certainty is a gas explosion. Which doesn’t automatically suggest a hostile actor. Gas explosions happen, obviously.”
I look up at Augie, who is watching me. He blinks and looks away.