Aim and Fire (18 page)

“Truly, my friend, you have thought of everything.

While I know that Allah favors our mission, it will also come to pass because of your foresight and planning.”

“Allah has seen fit to guide my hand to this place and time. I am only doing as he would have me do for the glory of Islam. I thought you might want to see our various flight plans, perhaps review the primary and secondary ones and the estimated coverage,” Joseph said.

“That would be excellent indeed, but I want to see the cone’s transfer. Now that we are this close to achieving our goal, I am concerned, even with all of your safeguards in place, that something will go wrong at the last moment,”

Sepehr said.

“A prudent concern—a wise man is never hasty in accomplishing his ultimate goals.”

They both watched as the men loaded the cone into another container, also lead lined, loaded it onto a cart, and wheeled it through the airlock to the loading dock. There they would use a truck to move it back to the rocket, where a crane would lift it to be reattached to the body.

Once it was away, Sepehr followed Joseph into the main workroom, which was still abuzz with activity. The anti-septic smell irritated his nose for several breaths until he got used to the odor. Joseph led him over to one of the plasma screens displaying a map of the United States.

“Watch this simulation of our primary flight plan. I think you will be very pleased with the estimated results,”

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Joseph said. He went to a keyboard and hit several keys.

On the screen, a small green dot launched from El Paso and arced into the air, soaring up over the Eastern United States, passing over the Mississippi and soaring higher over the Appalachian Mountains. In the corner, a small timer counted the passing seconds. A minute passed, then two. Sepehr realized he was holding his breath, and let it out with a soft whoosh.

The missile reached the apogee of its trajectory, 130

miles above the eastern half of America. Instead of diving down to explode in a city, it detonated in a bright blast of heat and light. A small yellow circle expanded out from the initial burst point, perhaps three inches in all directions.

“That is the initial blast and heat effects, which will be negligible once it reaches the ground. The radiation may have some effect in the atmosphere, but will be dispersed by the prevailing winds rather quickly.”

“And the true damage—” Sepehr’s words trailed off as a red sphere grew from what had been the missile, expand-ing out much farther than the original blast radius to en-compass the entire eastern half of the United States, enveloping New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., as far west as Chicago, as far south as Miami and New Orleans, and everything in between.

“Our preliminary casualty estimate is three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand people in the first hour, then tens of thousands more in riots and crime once people realize what has happened. No doubt the National Guard will be mobilized, but they are already weakened by America’s involvement in overseas conflicts, and perhaps some units will even join the mobs. The government will attempt to declare martial law, but with no way to communicate their orders, it will be paralyzed, and the chaos that Aim and Fire

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will result as fires rage with no power, no water pressure, no lights…it will be glorious.”

Sepehr simply nodded, staring at the red circle that rep-resented the electromagnetic pulse that would blanket the entire half of the nation, including a large portion of Canada. The disruptive pulse would short out electronics and communications circuitry in millions of devices across the country, from toasters to airplanes. He imagined the carnage as hundreds of fully loaded jumbo jets fell out of the sky all over the land, crashing into buildings and suburbs in orange-red fireballs. He allowed himself to dream of the Capitol Building going up in flames as a 767

plowed into the dome, collapsing the entire structure.

Cities would grind to a halt as the electrical grid shut down, snarling whatever traffic hadn’t already stalled.

Thousands of people would be trapped in skyscrapers, crushing each other in the stairwells as they struggled to escape the innocuous workplaces that had suddenly turned into lightless, stifling prisons. As Joseph had said, the infrastructure would collapse almost immediately, with police and fire units not only unable go to where the crimes and accidents would be, but also unable to communicate with each other. Civilization would grind to a complete halt, with hundreds of thousands dying in the violence and looting that followed, and a huge exodus of refugees streaming west over the Mississippi, choking the nearby cities that would be inundated with the seemingly endless stream of panicked people looking to escape to anywhere that still had power.

The one regret that Sepehr had was that he couldn’t get the entire country in one blast; the bomb they had simply wasn’t powerful enough. Therefore, America would eventually recover, but it would take time, and 166

would never be the same again. And they would bear the scars for decades afterward.

“Are you all right, Sepehr?”

With a start, Sepehr realized that his mind had drifted off into the magnificent daydream of carnage and destruction that he was about to put into motion, a holy storm that would rain invisibly down on the United States, and truly wash away their decadent civilization. He turned to look at Joseph with a beatific smile on his face.

“It will be magnificent, Allah be praised.”

Joseph nodded. “Allah be praised.”

“You’ve been pretty quiet these last few miles.” Nate looked over at Tracy, who seemed lost in thought. “What’s on your mind?”

They had left the city several miles back, and were now skirting the edge of the U.S.-Mexico border, sometimes marked with pickets, sometimes with an eight-foot-high steel barrier, sometimes not even marked at all. Once the houses and buildings of El Paso had faded from sight, all that surrounded them was the Chihuahuan Desert, with acres of parched scrubland dotted with various cacti, yucca plants and thin-limbed trees.

His voice seemed to startle her, and her deep brown eyes darted to his face, then looked away just as quickly. “Just taking it all in, I guess. My mother’s grandparents lived in Arizona for much of their life. I visited a few times when I was a child, but hadn’t been back since they passed away.

I guess I’d forgotten how beautiful it can be.”

“Don’t let it fool you. That desert’ll sap the water and life out of you faster than you’d think, and leave you a dried 168

husk in the sand. Every year we find people trying to cross over that ran out of water or got lost, and the desert sucks everything out of ’em and leaves ’em deader than disco.

Not a pleasant way to go—from what I understand, as a person dehydrates, their brain basically starts to shrink from lack of fluids, until they go insane before finally dying.”

“Thanks for that wonderful image,” Tracy said.

“Just thought you’d like to know what people risk to get here.”

She regarded him with a curious look on her face. “You mean a slow, agonizing death as compared to being shot and killed quickly?”

“Didn’t say either one was a better way to go, just that some folks take the ultimate chance to make what they think is a new life for themselves.”

“Unless folks like you and I stop them,” Tracy said.

“Yeah, there is that. We’re here.” Nate pulled the Bronco off to the side of the road. The area where the killings had happened was cordoned off by yellow tape, which was good. Otherwise, it was doubtful he would have found the area again, since it was quickly looking like every other bit of windswept highway out here. The bloodstains had dried in the desert heat, and now were barely marked by slightly darker spots on the road and desert hardpan. White bits of dried plaster marked where Kottke had done his cast work, but the tire marks were also slowly being eradicated by the stealthy desert.

Nate swung out of the SUV and let Tracy go ahead of him, getting the feel of the scene. He kept an eye on her as she examined the site. His first impression was of a confident, capable woman who might be a bit out of her depth here, but was going to do whatever she could to get the job Aim and Fire

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done, which he admired. Whether she could pull it off, well, they’d just have to wait and see.

“Not much to find out here, either. Your team did good work,” Tracy said.

Nate raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know there was any other kind.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing Tracy flush, and not because of the heat. “I didn’t mean it like that—”

“No, but ever since you started looking, I got the impression that you expected to blow in here, look over the files and crime scene, go ‘aha’ and pull up the perfect bit of evidence that all us local yokels missed. When you’re responsible for over 250,000 square miles of territory to cover, with only half the needed staff to do the job, you tend to make damn sure that you don’t miss a thing the first time around.”

Tracy stared at Nate during his diatribe through her silver-framed sunglasses, then she walked over and held out her hand. “Tracy Wentworth, Department of Homeland Security, pleased to meet you.” With her other hand, she brushed off her shoulder. “There, chip’s gone. I guess I’ve gotten so used to relying on the resources back at headquarters—you know, staring at computers for ten hours a day—that I didn’t recognize quality crime-scene processing even when it’s staring me right in the face.”

Nate reached for her hand and shook it once. “All right, then. So, you’ve read the reports and examined the scene—

what’s your expert conclusion?”

“I don’t suppose the Border Patrol vehicle was equipped with video?” she asked.

“If it was, I would have suggested we review it in the comfort of an air-conditioned room, instead of standing out here in the sun. We’re still trying to get the funding approved for those. But even it we had it, it probably wouldn’t 170

have done any good, especially after they torched the truck.”

Tracy nodded. “Since they didn’t leave a sign saying The Terrorists Went This Way, we’ll have to see for ourselves where they went.” She flipped open the cell phone again. “Stephanie? What have you come up with so far?”

She turned up the phone’s volume so Nate could hear.

“One of our military satellites recorded the following footage from 0154 hours to 0203 hours on the specified morning.”

The small screen on the phone burst into life, showing a grainy picture of a panel truck with two men next to it, moving what looked like bodies to the side of the road. The pair of men kept their heads down as they worked, and the overhead view meant their faces couldn’t be seen. When they had finished, they got in the truck and drove away, heading north-northeast.

Tracy frowned. “Away from El Paso? That doesn’t match your theory about staying near the city.”

Nate held up a finger. “Think about it for a second.

These guys just killed two dozen people, and sprayed blood and tissue everywhere, including on the truck they just stole—”

“And they need to hole up somewhere and make sure it’s clean—maybe even repaint it—” Tracy continued his line of thought.

“I know an out-of-the-way place that would serve just fine. Come on,” Nate said.

Back in the Bronco, he pulled a tight turn and sped off in the same direction the truck had gone, pushing his twenty-year-old SUV down the highway at a shaking eighty miles per hour. The desert sped by in a tan-and-brown blur, dotted with the occasional green cactus Aim and Fire

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piercing the skyline. They traveled for at least half an hour, until Nate pulled off the road before they crested a rise that would have given them a perfect view of the several dozen square miles beyond.

Tracy stared at the large hill. “Why did you stop here?”

Nate grabbed a pair of binoculars from the backseat.

“You never know who might be here before you, so it’s good to take a look before charging in.” He got out and walked up the slope until he could see over the top. As he scanned the old white-walled adobe barn and faded farm-house, he was aware of Tracy at his side.

The area looked completely deserted. Nate handed the glasses to her. “Tell me what you see.”

She lifted them to her eyes and looked down at the buildings for a minute. “There’s no dust or sand buildup by the barn doors, which means recent activity—someone’s been here within the last couple of days.”

“Good eyes. Let’s go check it out,” Nate said.

They drove down to the supposedly abandoned buildings. Nate pulled the Bronco around to the back. “No sense advertising our presence if anyone does happens along.”

He took out his pistol and pulled the slide back. “Ready?”

Tracy looked a bit dubious, but followed his example.

“Is this really necessary?”

“In the eleven years I’ve been here, I’ve seen agents nearly get killed by having their heads bashed in from illegals, coyotes and drug smugglers, and I’ve seen a helicopter get taken out of the sky by a rock. That’s what I hadn’t told you yet—the desert may be dangerous, but the men running around out here make it look like an oasis.”

She raised a sculpted eyebrow at him. “Hmm, just like in Washington.”

“Touché.” He slid out of his seat and crept along the side 172

of the barn, clearing the corner before rounding it to approach the door. Tracy took a position on the opposite side, her pistol steady. “Shouldn’t we call for backup?” she whispered.

“What, and wait a half hour for them to get here?” Nate held up three fingers, then counted down to zero. As soon as he did, he grabbed the door handle and yanked it over.

“U.S. Border Patrol! Anyone inside, come out with your hands up!” He shouted in Spanish, then repeated the commands in English. Only silence answered him. Nate peeked around the door, then relaxed a bit. “Anything that did go down here, I think we missed it.”