The Angel & the Brown-eyed Boy (35 page)

The Pawtawamauck River was at her feet. At least she hoped it was the Pawtawamauck River. She’d never really established which river it was. Several rivers ran parallel to each other in the area, dumping their polluted contents into the sea within a five-mile stretch of coastland. If it wasn’t the Pawtawamauck, tough shit. She’d do her job anyway.

Val was so cold she could barely think, but what she thought was good. She held her arms close and rubbed her hands, trying to overcome the chill. She kept low to the ground, stooping and walking with bent knees. She shook uncontrollably, but could still function.

She’d had some crazy thoughts the night before. Nightmares. Questioning what she’d done all her life, as though it had been bad. Stupid thoughts. She kept going, heading toward the estate. She did what she was trained to do. She did it better than anyone. She would complete this mission, even if the fucking world was going to blow up.

Why should she care? She’d blow up today instead of at the front. This was the front. Her whole life was the front. Valerie Zanner would complete her job. She would kill whoever and whatever she met.

She pulled her weapon out of its holster with fingers that felt like chopsticks. She was afraid she’d drop it. It was in perfect condition, a perfect killing machine. Like her.

Val took the safety off and set her gun loosely in the holster. She stood at the edge of the forest facing a grassy meadow. If she was where she thought she was, the Piermont estate should be two miles across the field. She would get there and complete her mission. She’d make everything right. The president of the United States had ordered her to do what she was doing. She was on the right road.

Crossing the field was harder than she had thought it would be. Cold was part of it. She could also see the turbulence in the sky over
the forest. The thing was miles away, but could travel fast. She threw herself on the ground every few yards, sure that it would pick her up and tear her to bits as it had the others.

Images and sounds—fragments of memories from the last twenty-four hours—assaulted her. They blended into a hideous collage of destruction. As her teeth chattered and her muscles cramped, she tried to make sense of it. What had happened? Was it real?

Explosions, the sound of bodies being crushed by teeth, Josh’s sweet face. The ballet teacher, Will, and the others blown to bits.

Over and over.

Val felt herself crumbling as she picked her way across the meadow. She shook with terror as much as cold. The touch of a blade of grass, the rustle of a bird in the new light. Every sound or sight caused her to panic. Where was it? When would it get her?

She pulled her pistol out and held it in front of her with both hands, determined to fight to the death. Determined to kill whatever she encountered. Most of the time, she was too frightened to remember that she was a federal agent with a mission. Then the president’s voice would come to her, ordering her to handle the situation at the mansion. He’d make her the FBI chief later that day.

“You can count on me,” she whispered. She looked at her hands holding the pistol. The ring was covered with dirt and mud. She brushed it with a finger of her right hand. A blue flash reassured her.

“G
ee, Martha, that was really fun last night!” he whispered to his wife’s sleeping form. Lincoln Charles had awakened next to the first lady in their bunker room. He sat up. His cabinet and top officials were arrayed on the floor around their bed in sleeping bags. He couldn’t get them to leave last night. They felt safer being around him. Linc smiled. It was just like a camp-out!

He moved as silently as possible. Some of the senators were elderly and needed their sleep. The night before, they’d had a nice meal with lots of wine, and cognac afterward. The computer people and techs were freaked out because none of their equipment worked. He’d included them in the crowd effortlessly. He’d been wrong about techs; they were nice people when you got to know them, and damned useful.

“Sir, I don’t know why our satellite hookups aren’t working,” one of them had said to him the night before. “We think it has to do with”—the kid rolled his eyes toward the metal-clad area they’d discovered when Yuri had popped his surprise the day before. It was
a black hole, sucking up optimistic feelings.

Not if he could help it! Linc had led the group in singing, starting with “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” He’d changed to “It’s a Grand Old Flag” and other patriotic songs. When they’d demanded that he stand and sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Linc had jumped up and obliged them.

Wasn’t a dry eye in the house, when he was done—or the senate, either. Damn, he loved his country. Maybe he was a dim bulb, as he’d heard whispered, but Linc Charles would not let his people down. The ones in the bunker, anyway.

They’d been doing charades when he and Martha called it a night. Those youngsters were the hope of the future!

“So what if we can’t tell what’s happening?” he’d said to Martha before they went to bed. “We’re safe.”

Now a tap on the door got his attention. A barely audible voice came from the speaker: “Mr. President. It’s urgent.”

“I’ll be right back, Martha,” he whispered to his sleeping wife as he put his bathrobe over his PJs and sought out his slippers. Linc picked his way through the senators and cabinet members sleeping around the bed. Ron, his chief of staff, snored loudly.

“Yes, what is it?” he said to one of the techs he’d met the night before. Nice kid, a tenor. He should work out great in the skits that Linc had planned.

“It’s him again.” The kid looked scared stiff.

“Who? Yuri? What does he want?”

“You, sir. He wants to talk to you.”

“Well, let’s go. What can he do to us?”

They entered the blockaded hallway. The doors to the rotunda were open, and the lights bright inside. “You guys stay here,” he said to the secret service men. “No big deal. Yuri and I are friends.” They did as he asked.

Linc entered the domed metal room with the projected light from the ceiling, and confronted the amazingly lifelike hologram of Yuri. It turned when he entered, as though it had 360-degree vision.

“Hi, Yuri! What bad news do you have for me now?”

A deep rumbling laugh said that Yuri’s programming had identified him and got his joke. “Look, Mr. President, I don’t have to tell you. I can show you. The strikes began hours ago in Moscow, my capital. Once the most beautiful city on earth. Look!”

One of the metal panels on the wall became a screen, followed by the others, one by one, around the circular room. Linc gasped. Moscow didn’t exist. There wasn’t even any debris to focus on.

“From Moscow, the detonations moved westward. Look at this.” The paneled walls displayed new cities and greater destruction, ranging up and down and around the globe. Linc watched in horror as Yuri called out their names: “Cairo! Athens! Warsaw! Stockholm! Berlin!” The voice crowed with delight.

The walls now showed before-and-after shots. Powerful Munich; Munich in ruins. Lovely Rome, Paris, Madrid, London—all destroyed. Linc didn’t see a single person in the wreckage, not even a cat or a dog. Really not even any wreckage.

Yuri bellowed and laughed. “You didn’t think I would do it, did you? You thought dear Tsar Yuri would relent. DIDN’T YOU?”

Linc jumped. “Well, yes. I didn’t see how a human being could be so heartless. How could you be so evil? You son of a bitch!”

“Easy. You are no different than anyone. You only notice what you want to. You know what has been going on during your reign. The camps, the spies, the torture.”

Linc was silent. He hadn’t wanted all that. His advisors had told him... no, he wouldn’t cop to that. He’d agreed to have them.

“I didn’t realize—”

“I didn’t realize,” the deep voice intoned. “Oh, Lincoln Charles, I expected better. From the United States, I expected a better cover. A better way to make the unspeakable sound good. Try harder.”

Linc slumped, the good mood from the night before gone, the feeling that living underground might be fun, at least for a few years, until the atmosphere cleared. He had failed in every way.
The pictures on the walls kept coming. Cities he didn’t recognize blew up. A world map appeared, showing the devastation coming closer to his home. He put his hand on his heart.

“Would you like to stop it, Linc? Would you like to be the one that stops the destruction? You can. Think of a way.” The powerful figure leered at him from its circle of light. Black Russian commando’s uniform, high combat boots. Broad, bald forehead, and thick neck. “Would you like to stop it, Linc? For everyone? Are you smart enough to find the way out? There is a way out, you know.”

Linc thought as hard as he could, but nothing came to him. “Fuck you!” he shouted. “You’re just fooling with me.”

“You don’t want to try? Try harder, Lincoln Charles. Think of a way to stop me.” The figure paced inside its illuminated circle, the light pouring down from the ceiling.

Linc looked around. There wasn’t any sort of weapon or anything at all he could use as a weapon. Everything in the room was tied down. He saw a candy wrapper one of the techs must have dropped earlier. He grabbed it, compressed it into a tiny ball, and threw it at Yuri. When the paper passed into the circle, it ignited. It flamed briefly, then smoked. Yuri’s image broke up, becoming filled with static. It quickly returned to its former focus. Yuri’s sharp eyes stared at the wrapper.

“Hah! You’ll have to do better than that!” Yuri’s voice crackled and cracked. “Do better than that!” It repeated. “Do better than that.” The foreign body had disrupted whatever had programmed the hologram.

Linc’s eyes narrowed. He looked around for something larger to throw into the light. There wasn’t anything—no refuse, no debris. They hadn’t had to break into the vaulted room; the doors had opened to admit them.

“Hurry, Lincoln Charles. I have just opened the screens in each of the bunkers.”

One of the wall panels showed Martha sitting up in bed staring at the wall opposite her bed—as though she could see Yuri and him. His cabinet and senior officials surrounded her, piling onto the bed.
They gasped as Yuri taunted him.

“See? Do you want your people to see you powerless? Do you want them to know what you didn’t tell them last night? Do you want them to see you grovel and beg? You can turn off the destruction, Mr. President. Show me how to do it.”

Linc got it. There was one thing he could throw at Yuri. Damned if he was going to let Martha and his friends die terrified.

“O-oh, say can you see...” Linc put his right hand on his heart and began to sing. Without a pause or backward glance, he leapt into the circle of light and the center of Yuri’s image.

Electricity flashed and the image disappeared. Blackness surrounded him for an instant.

The explosion blew a crater almost to the Washington Monument. The ancient buildings housing the Congress went up along with the White House.

In bunkers under the Pentagon, analysts watched their surveillance screens.

“Why did the White House blow?” someone asked. “That wasn’t supposed to happen. There were no missiles there.”

S
am stood in Oned’s corral, holding a sledgehammer. The stallion looked at him curiously, as though wondering why he was there so early. I’m here to kill you, my beauty, he thought. Sam swung the hammer over one shoulder, knowing its weight and how it would feel passing through the air. He knew the dull thud it would make when it crushed Oned’s skull.

He trembled from his feet up. He had never shaken like this. He knew he’d better get started; dawn was coming. He’d start with Oned, his favorite, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to kill him if he didn’t do it right away. He would not have the animals die the way Arthur said they would. He’d take them himself.

The night before, when people had eaten their fill and drunk as much of their hosts’ bubbly hooch and hard stuff as they could, Arthur had approached him. “Let’s go down into the shelter and talk,” he said.

“You can get in an’ out?”

“Yeah. I’m as familiar with everything as Jeremy. It’s been my job since they started building it.”