Digital Winter (32 page)

“Noticed? I did more than notice. I caused it.”

Liam leaned back in the chair. He was dealing with a madman. “I see. That's not something I would go around telling people. I imagine there are a great many people who would like to get their hands on you.”

“Would you be one of them?”

Liam rolled his response around in his mind before speaking. “If I believed for a moment that you caused all this, then yes. I'd wrap my hands around your throat.”

“Ah, I knew I chose wisely. I've noticed that the more gentlemanly a man is, the more violence he harbors. Do you agree?”

“Perhaps. I've not given it any thought.”

“Now you're lying to me, Burr. It is never wise to lie to me.”

“And why is that?”

“I am many things, Burr, far more than your tiny brain can understand, but patient I am not. I also have an enormous ego, just like you. I have a compulsion to protect it.”

“I grow weary of this, Shade. It's time for you to leave.” Liam stood.

So did Shade.

Something took hold of Liam's shirt, lifting him two feet off the floor. The something was a shadow, one vaguely shaped like a human except larger by a third.

“What—”

The shadow carried him toward the window, slowly at first. A glance terrified Liam. Instead of a view of Brussels, he saw a curtain of shadowy shapes—eyeless faces and hollow mouths pressed to the glass in a single, undulating mass. Black, ill-defined hands pressed through the tempered glass pane. Fingers crooked. Reaching, grasping, clawing.

“No—” His voice failed him. He screamed but heard only silence.

The hands touched him, pulling at his flesh.

Centimeter by centimeter he neared the wall of glass. Hands pulled at his ears, fingered his open mouth, clawed at his eyes.

“No. Please. God, no!”

“You don't believe in God, Burr.” Shade's voice. In his ears, in his brain. The words tunneled through the soft tissue between his ears like worms boring through soft dirt.

Liam was outside, hovering fifty feet above the hard concrete surface below. Then he began to rise. Slowly at first, like a child's runaway balloon, then faster, like a plane and then a rocket. The air grew cold and thin. The earth receded.

Liam had flown many times to many countries. The window seat had always been his choice. He enjoyed looking down on the earth as he flew over it. He knew what thirty-five thousand feet looked like.

The air was too thin to breathe. Frost crystalized on his skin and then the surface of his eyeballs. He gulped for air like a fish left to die on a dock. His body began to spasm. He managed to mouth one word. “Please.”

The last image Liam saw before his eyeballs frosted over was a nearly faceless image of the man who had been in his office.

“If you insist,” Shade said.

He let go.

The door to Liam's office opened and closed. He heard the lock being set. The cold on the outside was gone, replaced by the relative warmth of his office. The cold still on the inside leaked out.

His vision began to clear. He looked at the windows that moments before had been covered by hideous creatures. Thankfully, the creatures were gone. He felt the Persian rug beneath him.

Then he saw a pair of feet in expensive dress shoes. A pair of gray slacks rose from the shoes. Liam didn't move. A hand gently slapped him on the cheek. “Mr. Burr.”

Mister? American accent.

“Are you with me, sir?”

“Who…”

“My name is Fred Pierce, sir, and we need to talk.”

“I'm…alive.”

“True, but you may not be happy about that later. Here, let me help you to the sofa. It's got to be more comfortable than the floor.” He helped Liam up.

“Where is…I mean…”

“Shade? Who knows. He comes and goes as he sees fit.”

“We must call for help.”

Pierce shook his head. “I don't advise that. Just because Shade isn't here doesn't mean he's oblivious to what we do.”

“You know about him? You've seen him?”

“Seen him? Yes, you could say that. I've seen more of him than I care to mention. When you're ready and able to talk, I'll fill you in.”

“Are you with him?”

“Like you, I've been chosen. In some ways, Liam, I am your new best friend, like it or not.”

Pierce was average height, average build, average brown hair, average blue eyes, average middle age. Nothing about him was distinctive. He smiled.

The man frightened Liam.

J
eremy walked the halls of the Mount Weather facility. Next to him strolled President Nathan Barlow. The man moved slower, his shoulders drooped, and his skin seemed to sag and was a full shade paler than when they first arrived.

“It's impertinent of me to ask, Mr. President, but how are you holding up?”

“I'm fine, Jeremy. Tired. Stressed. I'm still well enough to irritate my wife.”

“Good to hear, sir. There are not many higher callings.”

Barlow chuckled. “They'll put that on my tombstone: President Nathan Barlow, United States president, New York senator, history professor, wife irritator.”

Jeremy smiled. The man might look like death warmed over, but he still had a sense of humor.

“I've been talking to my advisors one-on-one. I've been president long enough to know that a certain amount of gamesmanship goes on when you get too many people in the room. I have an order for you, but first, tell me about your progress.”

“As I mentioned in our group meeting yesterday, sir, we've made little progress on finding the source of the worm. We have more communication now but not nearly enough. Our biggest problem is that so many of the computers that were affected by the worm were wiped clean by the EMP pulses.”

“Like blowing up a building after committing a crime. A harsh way to get rid of evidence.”

“That's a good metaphor, sir.”

“But you have some information. You said it was like Stuxnet.” He motioned to a bench in the common area. Several workers stared at them, but none approached. They sat. “Jeremy, it's just you and me right now. This stays between us. Did we do this to ourselves?”

“No, sir. The source of Stuxnet is still undetermined, although I suspect Israel…” He looked at the president. “Sir, are you saying we had something to do with Stuxnet?”

“That happened under another administration. Believe it or not, the president doesn't get every bit of information, but yes, I believe that we had a hand in it—and let me answer the question you're too polite to ask. Yes, if the opportunity came my way to knock out the Iranian nuclear refinement centers without sending a single armed man over the border, I would take it. Without hesitation. So I ask again. Did we do this to ourselves? Did we plant a worm that turned on us?”

“No, sir. I can't see how. The effect is too wide and over too many systems. We didn't do this to ourselves.”

“Then who did it to us?”

“I wish I could tell you. I'm taking a new approach, sir. I've learned all I can—and when I say ‘I', I also mean my team, limited as it is. Now I'm trying to create a scenario in which I could replicate the problem. Each failure tells me what doesn't work.”

“You're trying to unleash another digital worm? Another Moriarty?”

“Not release it, sir. The computer and communications infrastructure is too damaged even if I wanted to do so. No, I'm trying to figure out what has to be done for the worm to be successful. I know the power outage was meant to reboot computer systems. And it's not enough to just destroy computers and the power grid. Moriarty destroyed our ability to fix the damage.”

The president took several deep breaths and then closed his eyes. “Ever see the movie
Things to Come
?”

Jeremy shook his head and then asked, “As in the H.G. Wells novel?”

Barlow grinned. “I had you pegged as a sci-fi type. Yes, the movie was based on the Wells novel. I'm not surprised you haven't seen it. It was made before you were born.” He chortled. “For that matter, it was made before
I
was born. 1936. Raymond Massey.”

“Was it a good movie?”

Barlow shrugged. “I suppose. For the time. Good is subjective. I thought it was boring. The story covers an entire century and predicts a world war in 1940. They got that part pretty much right. They weren't even close on 1970, and who knows if they'll be correct about 2036. In the movie, the war left the world desolate. People lived in burned-out, bombed-out buildings. Local leaders—the roughest and toughest people in the area—took control, making those around them little more than servants.”

“I think I know where you're going with this, sir.”

“The movie and the book were off on the year, but they got the social decay right.” Barlow's gaze grew distant. “I got word this morning…the White House has been destroyed.”

“No.”

“I'm afraid so. A mob, probably starved out of their minds, stormed the place. Since I'm here, security was lighter than it would have been normally. The mob killed the few capitol police on duty.”

“Horrible. How bad is it?”

“Looted and burned to the ground.”

Jeremy closed his eyes and tried not to imagine the image. The effort was futile. His mind painted a bleak picture of the great building lying in ruin and dead security men unmoving on the ground. “It doesn't seem possible.”

“Not the first time, General. During the War of 1812, the British occupied the capital in August of that year. British General Robert Ross called for the burning of all public buildings. Almost every building of the government came down, including the White House. To his credit, his men were only allowed to torch government buildings. In that sense, he saved the city from complete destruction.”

Barlow took a ragged breath. Jeremy heard a slight rattle. “It's one thing to see the place burned by a foreign force, but to have our own citizens do it…I'm stunned. At the same time, I'm not surprised. We don't have a great track record for dealing with natural disasters. We tend to throw money at the problem. Money is worthless now. So is gold. All the gold dealers who talked people into investing were wrong. No one cares. What is the father of three going to do with a gold nugget? Buy food? What would the seller need it for? A joke. A horrible, soul-grinding joke.”

He drew a finger under his eye. “A courier brought film of the place burning.” He shook his head. “Film, mind you. Not digital tape. Not many digital cameras working. A few, but not enough. I have no idea how they got the thing developed.”

“Can troops be sent in?”

“Why? It's too late, General. The place is a smoldering mess. To protect some of these places, troops might have to fire on desperate citizens. This isn't a bunch of malcontents or protestors; they're desperate, pitiful people. I can't imagine giving the order to fire on a crowd like that. Can you?”

“No, sir.”

“Some things are improving. I guess I should be thankful for that. Your submarine idea was a good one. The Russians, Chinese, and British have pressed their subs into service. Setting them up as radio relays was brilliant, Jeremy. Inspired. So was the advice to have only a portion on the surface at one time.” Jeremy had come up with the idea of a chain of submarines relaying radio messages over the ocean.

“There could still be satellites up there waiting to go off. I doubt it, Mr. President, but I can't see exposing the few working assets we have.”

“With the subs spaced over the oceans and AWACs flying over the continent, we're getting pretty good radio coverage. Not good enough, but at least our bases can talk to each other. Well, some of them can. The cable connections continue to hold with major countries.”

“Every step forward is something to be thankful for.”