WOLVES IN THE NIGHT

WRATH & RIGHTEOUSNESS

[Episode Seven]

CHRIS STEWART

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used factiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locals or persona, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Original Edition © The Shipley Group Inc. (Published by Deseret Book Company) Condensed Edition © 2012 The Shipley Group Inc. (Published by Mercury Radio Arts, Inc. under license from Deseret Book Company)

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

Cover design by Richard Yoo

“It is best if an enemy nation comes and surrenders of its own accord.”

—Du You (A.D. 735–812)

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Coming In Episode Eight...

ONE

New York City, New York

Despite all of its grandeur, beauty, influence, and power, it took less than two weeks for the city to die.

For more than a hundred years it had reigned as one of the greatest cities in the world, a center of business, finance, trade, media, and law, serving as one of the world’s great cultural centers as well as the home of the United Nations, making it the diplomatic center of the world. One point seven million people lived on the tiny island of Manhattan, another six million within the five boroughs, almost nineteen million in the surrounding metropolitan area, making it one of the most densely populated spots on the earth.

Power. Focus. Money.

For more than a hundred years, it had it all.

Pulse. Action. Demands and rewards.

The city was as animated as any living thing: breathing, growing, exerting an undeniable force, never sleeping, always moving.

For more than a hundred years, New York City had shone as a jewel in the crown of mortal glitter.

More than a hundred years to reign, but only two weeks to die.

Drexel Danbert could see that it was dead now—or, if not dead, certainly convulsing in its final throes.

Once the ultimate symbol of wealth and power, the awesome skyscrapers that surrounded him were empty skeletons, icons of human accomplishment protruding meaninglessly into the smoky sky, old bones jutting from a decaying battlefield, awful reminders of a tragic fall. The streets below, crammed with dead cars, buses and semi-tractor trailer trucks, were ghostly and still, occasional wind-blown papers and a few ragged stragglers the only things that moved. And there were rats. Lots of rats. He was amazed at how quickly they had scurried from the sewers to reclaim the land. From where he stood, forty floors above the city, he couldn’t see them, but he had been on the streets enough to know they were there.

Drexel Danbert, founding member and senior partner of Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs, the greatest and most secretive international government relations firm in the world, stared down on the empty city from his penthouse overlooking the Financial District. The windows around his apartment reached from floor to ceiling, offering a magnificent view, and he leaned his head against the pane as he looked down wistfully on the empty streets below. From where he stood, facing east, he could see all the way down the man-made canyon known as Wall Street to the East River. Right and right, William and Broad Streets ran north and south, much broader and more imposing than the narrow street below the window where he stood.

Of the millions of people who used to live around him, few remained. There were a couple of homeless wretches who had chosen to die out on the street, as well as an unknown number of vagabonds who daily crossed the bridges between Brooklyn and New Jersey, looking for food. But that was about all. Everyone else was gone.

Well, not all. There were the gangs. The filthy gangs. He’d heard the reports: the things they’d done, the things they were eating now, some of the things they would do for food.

He shuddered as he thought.

Was this was the world they’d created?

Had they gone too far?

He shuddered once again.

Time passed. He didn’t move. Looking out his window at the dying world, he felt the gloomy doubt inside him growing thicker and more oppressive.

Had they torn it down too quickly? Did those who were left hate each other too much now to rebuild? Was there any hope of reconstruction or would people accept things as they were? Tribes and bands of friends and families—was that all that existed anymore? In their determination to break them, had they simply gone too far?

That idiot King Abdullah! The old man said that he would stop him, but he hadn’t been restrained.

Thinking of the Saudi king, maybe the single most powerful man left in the world, Drexel Danbert shook his head. The king and the man who grew no older might have destroyed their entire plan.

The dark fear grew inside him when he thought of the old man. Who was he? Where had he come from? And why had he betrayed them so?

The Grand Plan had never called for the destruction of his country. Why would they want to rule over a Stone-Age people struggling through nothing but devastation and starvation? They had wanted to break it, not destroy it. Break the government and people down to such a point that there would be no resistance to the Brothers when they moved in to institute a government of their own.

But, looking upon the dead city, he had to wonder now. Had they taken out too much of the foundation, making it impossible for the United States to rebuild?

His partners didn’t think so.

He was certain they were wrong.

He took a weary breath and held it, listening to the silence in his ears.

His penthouse was cool and quiet. No electricity. No running water. No sound of life anywhere. Like most of the other New Yorkers, he had had no choice but to drink out of the Hudson and East Rivers, which were toxic with floating filth. Three days before, he had run out of food. A plastic bag had been his toilet. A couple of disposable wet wipes the only way to wash his hands. The elevator in his high-rise was not working, making it a major commitment to go down to the street, but nothing like the commitment it took to climb the stairs again.

He looked down on the death around him and took another breath.

Funny, he thought, why he had chosen to stay.

He could have left the city; they’d given him plenty of warning. He could have been sitting drunk and lazy somewhere in London, Casablanca, even Paris, though he truly hated that pompous city. But this was what he’d wanted. He had wanted to see the end.

The firm had started transitioning its operations to Europe almost a year before, then hurriedly relocated its headquarters to Paris three weeks before the EMP attack. Most of the other partners had already evacuated, except for those who were currently engaged. Some of their most productive partners still worked within the government, and everyone recognized there was important work for them to do. But, like all of the others, he could have gone. He’d stayed, though. When his partners had demanded an explanation, some in angry voices, he hadn’t answered, though deep inside his empty soul he knew.

He was old now. In a few weeks, he would celebrate—OK, observe—his ninety-first birthday, which made him very old indeed. His life was over and he knew that, and he didn’t really care.

So he stood alone beside the window, thinking of his age. For a man of ninety-one, he was in remarkably good shape—his legs were a bit arthritic, but his mind was clear and everything else was going strong. Something about the partnership seemed to do that; all of the founders had lived into their nineties, a few even making it to a hundred. They used to laugh at their unnatural longevity, saying it was because they had far too much to live for. But Drexel knew it wasn’t so much what they had to live for as what they feared when they were dead.

Looking down, he stared at the age spots that speckled the back of his soft hands. Despite their best efforts to hold it back, time had moved forward. One by one, the founding partners had passed away, leaving Drexel alone now in the world. He had already outlived three wives, one of whom he had actually cared about (though he couldn’t remember much about how that felt). He had six children, most of whom he hadn’t seen in years, an unknown number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren he didn’t even know about, let alone their names, sexes or where they lived. It was true that two of his sons would soon be partners in the firm, but even they were not close and he rarely saw them anymore. His other children had sensed his evil and avoided him for years.

So he stood alone in silence, looking back on his life without a smile.

Only blackness lay before him, only darkness left and right. And there was no reason to turn and look behind him—he knew the shadows that hid back there. Time had caught up and finally passed him, and he couldn’t change what he had done. Everywhere he turned now, the feeling was the same. Whether in this life or in the next, it was going to be the same.

But it didn’t matter. He was ready for something new. The next stage might not be better but he doubted it could be worse. He’d been empty, dead and desperately unhappy for almost fifty years, and the will to keep on fighting simply didn’t exist inside him anymore.

*******

The dark spirit stared at the old man, looking deeply into his eyes. He knew the veil of separation lying between them now was so thin that the mortal could feel him when he was near. He took a small step toward the man and snarled.

The mortal kept on staring, hunching his shoulders against his cold.

How Balaam wished that the man could see him! How he wished he was more than just a wisp of smoke, a passing hint of darkness, a thought, a voice, a feeling of despair. How he wished that he was more than just a spirit, always sensed but never seen!

He wanted substance! He wanted texture! He wanted to feel something. He wanted to be felt!

Balaam reached out to touch Drexel Danbert, but his hand passed through the mortal like light passing through a wisp of smoke. Balaam shivered, cursing in frustration. No warmth, no sense of touch, no comfort or consolation could be found in the passing of his hand.

Balaam looked at the mortal, hunger, lust and envy in his eyes. All of Lucifer’s servants worshiped flesh, and the closer they came to the end days, the more they desired what they knew they would never have. Ironic, Balaam thought, how so many of the mortals were willing to give up the one thing the dark angels wanted most. Control of their bodies. The ability to choose. Yes, the weapons the dark angels had developed to control the mortal bodies could be very powerful, and once people started down that path, they almost always slipped up in the end.

Why they were so foolish, Balaam failed to understand.

But they were. They had proven that for more than seven thousand years.

Balaam knew the old man could sense that he was near, sense the cold and the hatred and the blackness of his soul. Balaam didn’t have to speak loudly for the old man to hear him anymore; they had so much in common, they almost thought the same. The same desperation and sense of hopelessness controlled their calloused souls.

Balaam watched as the mortal looked down on the empty city where his fellow mortals used to live. “He doesn’t even know why he hates them,” the dark angel sneered as he watched. “His heart is blackened by emotion that his head can’t even understand. It makes no sense and he knows that, but he is so corrupted he can’t control his emotions anymore.”

Leaning toward the man, Balaam leered and whispered to his slave. “You did it,” he hissed proudly to his faithful servant. “You taught them to hate each other. You divided them completely, tearing them apart. You did everything we asked of you and now your work is done.”

Moving, Balaam stood before him so he could look into his eyes. The change had already started taking place. Every pleasure the mortal had experienced, every indulgence, every sin, was poison to him now. He had no good memories to support him, no joy in looking at his life. Everything he had done, every decision he’d ever made, had brought him to this point, and now all he had was pain. Every fleeting moment of earthly pleasure only added to his suffering, the cumulative memory a bitter realization that he had damned himself to hell.

Funny how it worked out in the end. For the righteous, thinking back on their lives seemed to bring them joy again. But for the evil, the memories of their failings created nothing but renewed suffering and pain. Even when it was over, it wasn’t over, and it all came back again.

To the evil, it was a haunting.

To the good, a joyful song.

*******

Standing by the tall window, Drexel took his glass of brandy, a clear, coconut-flower Mendis, tossed it back, let it burn against his throat, swallowed, poured another glass, tossed it back, then took the bottle and threw it against the marble wall. The liquid splattered like clear honey, then flowed toward the hardwood floor, mixing with the shattered glass. He sniffed the heavy smell of liquor, and then walked to the front door.

Pulling it open, he hesitated and then turned. Walking back, he looked around his twelve-million-dollar apartment a final time, taking in all the things he’d spent his life collecting.

He looked at his favorite possession in this world. Underneath six inches of fireproof, bulletproof, and airproof glass, one of the four existing copies of the original Magna Carta was on display, the only one in private hands, and the crown jewel of his collection. To the right of the display case was a set of original Shakespeare manuscripts. On the walls, multimillion-dollar paintings. Greek and Roman sculptures. Looking at these things was like looking at a week-old newspaper. The things meant nothing to him now.

Sitting awkwardly on the single step that separated the marble entry from the main living room, he pulled on a pair of heavy boots. Standing, he looked around again. Then Drexel Danbert, one of the richest and most powerful men in the world, stepped out into the hall.

He didn’t leave a note for any of the partners who might come looking for him. He didn’t take any of the cash or T-bills that were stuffed in the open safe built into the corner of his den. He didn’t take the jewels, watches, paintings, rare manuscripts, any of the things he owned. Leaving the penthouse door open, he started walking down the stairs.

Going down was easy. Much easier than coming up. Two days before, it had taken him most of the day to climb the stairs.

No worries now. He would never climb these stairs again.

He paced himself, stopping every three stories to catch his breath. Fifty minutes later, he hobbled through the heavy door on the ground floor. Lots of brass, chrome and marble greeted him; the building’s foyer was as beautiful as any of the apartments on the upper floors, but it had been many years since he had noticed any of the splendors. Most of the windows that faced the street had been broken, leaving shattered glass scattered on the tile floor. Every step he took crunched broken glass under his shoes.

Dressed in a pair of old slacks, a dirty denim shirt, and a battered coat he’d picked up on the street two nights before, he walked out onto the pavement. Stopping for a moment, he felt the swelling in his knees, then turned up the collar on his coat. The wind blew down the glass and granite canyons that surrounded him, and hundreds of cars still lined the streets. The vents in the sidewalks were dead now, no steam, no smells, no hiss of passing subway trains underneath. A stray cat walked across the sidewalk and onto the road, disappearing underneath the nearest car, a yellow cab with a couple of brightly wrapped FAO Schwarz presents still inside. Breathing deeply, he smelled it, the dank rot that drifted from the river. Cold air. The smell of rats. The stench of garbage in the streets.

Turning, he started walking north on Broad Street and then west on Wall Street until Trinity Church came into view.

Keeping to the opposite side of the street, he swung around the old church, feeling creepy as he stared at the ancient cross.

A crowd had gathered on the far side of the church’s graveyard—a group of rough, angry, filthy men. He stared at them, hesitating, rage and loathing surging through his veins. Hot sweat started dripping against the back of his neck as a lifetime of raw emotion came crashing down on him. For almost seventy years he had gorged on hate and now it burst inside him, foul and full.

And it was inescapable. Whether in this life or the other, the pain would stay the same.

Looking up, he raised his fist and cursed his God. Then he shoved his hands into his pockets and turned toward the crowd to die.

TWO

Northwestern University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois

Sara Brighton sat on a small chrome and plastic chair in the corner of the emergency room. The place swarmed with people, all of them sick, injured or dying, and the chaos and confusion grated against her nerves. Ammon stood beside her, his hand resting gently on her shoulder. Their clothes were filthy, caked in dried mud and bloodstained, but they were dry now and warm, at least for the moment, and there was something good in that. The emergency room looked like something from a third-world country: dazed women; blood smeared across the floor; a child crying in the corner, apparently abandoned, her dark cheeks stained with tears. Four or five litters topped with bodies, some of them covered in disposable sheets, lined the walls. Several gurneys were clustered in groups of three in the center of the room.

Sara motioned toward the motherless child, beckoning with her hands. The little girl hesitated, then ran to her, throwing her arms around her shoulders and burying her head into Sara’s neck. The child cried for a few moments, wetting the back of Sara’s jacket, then fell into a whimper before dropping off to sleep, her breathing interrupted with involuntary sobs. Sara stood up carefully, holding the little girl’s head against her shoulder, and walked through the emergency room, questioning everyone she saw, “Is this your child? Do you know who she belongs to?” Blank stares and impatient gestures. No one knew. No one cared. She adjusted the child’s weight against her weary arms and returned to the small chair.

Sara sat in silence for a long while. The chaos bustled all around her, but she didn’t seem to notice anymore. As time passed, her eyes creased in worry. Ammon watched her, seeing the anxiety fall upon her face, clouding her eyes and tightening her lips. He knelt down beside her. “What is it, Mom?” he asked.

She looked up, tried to shake it off, but the cloud remained.

“What are you thinking about?” Ammon asked again. He kept his voice low, not wanting to wake the sleeping child.

Sara thought for a moment, not looking at him. “It’s not right,” she answered slowly. Ammon could see she was talking mostly to herself.

“What’s not right, Mom?”

“Your dad warned me.” Her voice was quiet.

“Warned you? About what, Mom? What did Dad warn you about?”

“About him. About what’s going to happen.” She shook her head.

“What are you talking about, Mom? Dad knew what was going to happen to him? He knew about the bomb in Washington? About the EMP?”

“No, no. Something else. Something with the . . .” her voice trailed off again.

“What Mom? What’s going to happen?”

She looked at him, her eyes pleading. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to get it out. But she couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe never. She finally looked away.

“Mom?”

She brushed him off with a lift of her hand. “I can’t talk about it. It’s probably nothing anyway.”

Ammon sensed the inconsistency in her answer. “Mom, it can’t be something you can’t talk about and still be nothing. Those two options are kind of mutually exclusive.” He tried to smile at her.

She looked around the crowded emergency room. “I’m thirsty.”

Ammon didn’t bite on her attempt to change the subject. “What did Dad warn you about?” he asked again.

“It’s nothing, Ammon.” She was determined now. “If it is, or if something changes and I think it is, then I will tell you.”

“Mom?”

“I’ll tell you, OK?”

Ammon looked at her, waiting, his face impatient. He wanted to press, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good. She could be as stubborn as any of her children and far more stubborn than his dad. He watched her awhile, then stood and walked away, searching for a doctor or a nurse or an attendant or anyone who might be able to tell him where his brother was.

*******

They waited for almost seven hours. By that time, Sara was exhausted, hungry and scared—scared of the scene around her, scared of what was outside the brick walls of the hospital, scared of what might be ahead.

But mostly she was scared of what her husband had whispered to her on the last night they were together on this earth.

Looking around, she took a breath and thought about her son, who was lying on a bed somewhere in the bowels of the enormous hospital. Thinking of him, she felt a warmth inside her heart.

The only thing she wasn’t scared about was Luke. That was the only thing she knew would be OK.

Ammon checked his watch for the thousandth time, purely out of habit, but of course it wasn’t working, frozen on the moment a little more than five days before when the world had been thrown back a hundred years. Sara watched him, then held her arm out, her old windup still telling time. Ammon glanced toward it: 2:16 A.M.

Reaching out, he tapped her silver watch. “Kind of quaint.”

She looked down at her wristwatch. It was dirty now and worn.

“I know you’ve told us before, but I can’t remember. Where’d you get that old thing?”

Sara smiled wearily. “Right after we were married, your father and I went hitchhiking around Europe. He was stationed in Germany at the time. He had seven days’ leave. We bummed around, staying in student hostels, bed and breakfasts, getting every mile we could out of our Eurail pass. Sometimes we’d get on the train and just ride it until we felt like getting off, not even knowing what country we were in. On the last day, he bought this for me at a tiny shop in this little village on some huge mountaintop in Switzerland.” She moved her arm, holding the watch a little closer to her, fingering the silver band. “An old windup. Hardly impressive. He always apologized, thinking I’d prefer something more modern or expensive . . . .” Her voice trailed off.

Ammon watched her. He didn’t want to think about his dad. “Nice to have something that doesn’t run on batteries or electronics,” he said.

Sara pulled on the band, looked around, then stood up. “There’s the doctor!” she said to Ammon.

The young doctor, his face pale with exhaustion, was walking quickly toward them, his crumpled blue cloak unbuttoned, the tails trailing behind him. Moving through the crowd, he was inundated with pleading questions. “Dr. Mortenson, what about my daughter? Doctor, can you tell me . . . ? Doctor, you’ve got to come and look at this right now! Doctor! Doctor!” Everyone had a crisis. Everyone needed his attention. Everyone had a sick or dying husband, mother, daughter, son, all their needs legitimate, and all of it far more than he could do. He worked his way through the crowd, gesturing to some, offering a calming word or two to others. Ten feet from Sara and Ammon, he motioned for them to follow. They moved quickly toward him, following as he turned. Getting to the hallway, Sara stopped and turned around. What to do with the sleeping child in her arms? With no one around to offer the child to, she found an empty gurney and laid the little girl down. Patting her back, she covered her with the bedsheet, pulling it up around her neck, then kissed her cheek. It wasn’t right to leave her there alone, but what else could she do? There had to be someone who knew her; a relative or friend had to be somewhere amid the chaos. She couldn’t just take the child with her.

Stepping back, she patted the little girl’s back again, moved a strand of dark hair from her face, and turned to follow Ammon, who was chasing after the doctor down the hall.

The doctor passed through a double doorway, pushing the heavy electric doors back manually, then turned right and moved into a patient’s room. Sara and Ammon followed. Four beds were crammed into a room that should have held two. Luke was sleeping on the first bed. The doctor stopped at the foot of his bed and turned. “Tell me again what happened to your son,” he said.

Sara started. “We were out in the country, what, south of here. We were stranded, like everyone else. It was night, last night, I guess—no, two nights ago.”

Ammon watched the exhausted doctor grow impatient. “He was shot,” he interrupted, cutting to the chase.

The doctor turned and looked at him. “He was shot?” he repeated skeptically.

Ammon hunched his shoulders. “Yeah.”

“Did you see it?” The doctor spoke rapidly.

“I was standing right there.”

He turned to Sara. “You’re the mother, right?”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

“Did you witness the shooting as well?”

Again, she nodded as an answer.

The doctor looked at them both doubtfully. “Hmmmm,” was all he said.

“What is it, doctor?” Ammon asked, his voice tight and weary. He, like the doctor, had not slept in more than two days: one night of holding Luke in the backseat of the car, another day of hiking cross-country dragging his brother on an improvised litter, another night to make it through the city, and then waiting another day in the emergency room.

The doctor studied him, thought, then turned and lifted an oversized folder that was hanging at the foot of the bed. Every motion was quick and efficient, not wasting an ounce of energy or time. “We have emergency power, enough to run a few of our instruments, and this is what I found.” He lifted a multicolored image and pointed as he talked. “A quick MRI of Frank’s abdomen.”

“His name is Luke,” Sara started to correct him.

The doctor clearly didn’t care. He pointed with the tip of his pen. “We have an entry wound, four centimeters below the lower thoracic cage.” He moved the pen. “We have an exit wound, just below the costal cartilage.” He moved the pen again, pointing to a lighter image on the MRI. Pausing, he stared thoughtfully. “An entry wound below the front rib cage. An exit wound near the center of the back, six centimeters from the spine.” His voice trailed off again. “But nothing in between them.”

The doctor rubbed his eyes. It couldn’t be right. He was too tired. Too tired to think. The MRI must have malfunctioned. Poor imaging. Poor technical support. Everyone in the hospital was running on fumes, all the doctors, nurses, technicians, staff. It simply couldn’t be. It had to be a mistake.

But it wasn’t. It simply wasn’t.

He’d done his own exam.

Ammon watched him. “Doctor?” he asked.

The young physician looked at him. “Everything is going crazy. It can’t be what it seems.”

The overhead loudspeaker called the doctor’s name, ordering him to room three. He glanced quickly down the hallway, nodding toward a colleague, but didn’t move.

Ammon stared at him. Everything is going crazy. Yes it was. But he still had no idea what the doctor was talking about. “Crazy. Yes, sir, it’s crazy,” he said. “Tell you something else that’s crazy. That’s my brother lying there with a hole inside his chest. Now, we need to know what you’re going to do to help him—”

The doctor raised a hand to cut him off. “Are you certain?” he demanded. “You actually saw him shot?”

Ammon swallowed hard, dumbfounded at the persistence of the question, then glanced toward his mother. “Yes. We both were there.”

“And he was shot with what kind of gun?”

Ammon stared at the doctor, wondering what could be going through his mind. “I don’t know!” he answered in exasperation. “A handgun! BANG, BANG. A regular pistol. I’m not an expert.”

“Look at this!” The doctor jabbed the pen again. “I’ve got an entry wound. I’ve got an exit wound. A hole here,” he moved the pen again, “a hole here. But no damage in between.” He turned to face Ammon and his mother. “Nothing. You understand that? The bullet should have passed directly through his pancreas and torn it to shreds. But it didn’t. The pancreas is undamaged. Clean as a whistle. Functioning perfectly. The metal should have perforated his small intestine. But it’s like the bullet entered, turned into water, passed through his intestines and pancreas, and shot out the back, all without doing any internal damage. I don’t know, I’m just a doctor, but that seems kind of strange to me.”

Ammon stood there, his eyes wide. Sara’s hands shot to her mouth and she gasped quietly. The doctor leaned against the wall, his face impatient. The loudspeaker called his name again. Several nurses and technicians moved quickly up and down the hall. Constant noise. Constant motion. Constant stress and urgency. Ammon knew that people were sick and dying all around them and the doctor had to go. He took a quick step forward, focusing on the doctor. “There’s no internal damage?” he quickly questioned.

“Nothing. I’ve examined the patient. There’s no damage except the entry and exit wounds. I’ve brought in a couple of colleagues. They’re as dumbfounded as I am. He’s got two flesh wounds, which will be painful, but they’ll heal quickly, I presume, unless you guys exercise the same magic that healed the internal damage, in which case I’m sure your brother will jump up any time and go waltzing out of here.”

Sara took a step back. “Are you certain, doctor?”

“Of course I am.” He almost seemed angry. It was frustrating and mystifying and it bothered him that he didn’t have an explanation. Doctors were supposed to have the answers. Doctors were in charge. He was the trained physician, master of the emergency room, lord of his kingdom, speak a word and it was done.

But not now. Not with this case. He had no explanation, not a thing to offer. He was just as confused as the two people standing there with him. Turning, he dropped the medical chart in a green plastic box between the two beds.

Case closed. Time to move on.

Sara watched him, not saying anything, though her eyes conveyed every emotion in her soul. The doctor studied her, trying to read the look on her face. Surprise? He didn’t see it. It was almost as if she had expected what he’d told her. Confidence? Peace and acceptance? The doctor didn’t know.

She held her hand against her mouth again and stared at her sleeping son.

Ammon walked to stand beside her. “What do we do now?” he asked.

The doctor nodded to the hallway. “He doesn’t need to be here anymore. A week ago we would have kept him, but that isn’t an option today. We need the bed. We can’t spare the nurses or any attention from the doctors or other staff.

“So take him. Keep him down. Keep the wound clean. Change the dressing twice a day. That’s about all I can tell you. You need to take him home.”

Home, Sara thought, and in an instant she was transported to the old plantation home back in Virginia. The huge, tree-lined yard. Shutters. Hardwood floors. The sounds of her husband walking in his bare feet, not wanting to wake her up as he made his breakfast at 4:30 in the morning, the sounds of her three sons sleeping in their rooms, the smells of Sunday morning.

Home. No, she couldn’t take him home. They’d have to take him somewhere else. She glanced toward the doctor. “We will take him then,” she said.

Ammon moved toward the bed and took his brother’s hand. Luke’s eyes fluttered and he woke up.

“How you feeling, buddy?”

Luke seemed to test his body, slowly arching his back. “Pretty good,” he said.

“That’s good, man. That’s really good. You’re going to have to help me.” Ammon put his hand underneath his brother’s back. “We need to lift you up.”

Luke slowly raised up to an elbow. “What we doing?” he asked.

“Getting out of here.”

Luke looked wearily toward his mother. “We’re leaving the hospital, Mom?”

Sara moved to his side. “Yes, Luke, they don’t have room for us. But you’re going to be OK.”

Luke was confused and disoriented. “But where we going to go?”

“I don’t know,” Sara said.

THREE

East Side, Chicago, Illinois

Captain Samuel Brighton stood at the apartment window. It was growing light now, the sun just barely breaking over the horizon, illuminating the dirty high-rise buildings in a golden hue. It had been a long night. The sun was comforting to him now, and he almost opened his arms to embrace it as it rose.

It was completely quiet, though he thought he could hear the women breathing behind the thin bedroom doors. The morning grew brighter and he stood there motionless, watching, listening, thinking, sometimes praying. He thought of the last two days: the parachute jump, the night run through the darkness, not knowing where he was going, only knowing he had to run. “Go!” the Spirit had told him. And so he had run. He thought of finding his family, his brother’s stomach bleeding, his mother in tears, Ammon in shock, almost unable to move, the black woman and her daughter in whose home he was now standing. He thought of the mud, the rain, and the peace. He thought of the blessing, the miracle, the unseen hands upon his own. He brought his palms together, still feeling the unseen hands’ heat. Was his father with him? He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. The experience was too sacred to talk or wonder about. He thought of the day and nighttime walk across the country, through the outskirts of the city, the improvised litter holding Luke. He thought of his mother, who had stayed with her youngest son back at the hospital, an old, chaotic, brick-and-mortar complex on the other side of the city. He thought of his best friend, Bono, another brother, wondering if he had found his family. Sam shuddered, thinking of him. Was he OK?

The morning passed in silence. He didn’t hear Azadeh’s footsteps and he started when he realized how close she was behind him. Whirling, he turned to face her, his hand instinctively moving for the holster at his side. Seeing his reaction, she pulled back and lifted her hands, palms out, face bowed, a signal of submission. He looked at her, took a breath, and forced himself to relax. “Hi, Azadeh,” he said.

“I frightened you. I am sorry.”

Sam blushed. He was embarrassed. No way that would ever have happened in the field. “No, no, it’s OK. I was just thinking.”

She looked at him as if waiting. “Good morning,” she then stumbled, trying to think of the word, “officer,” she finally said.

Sam laughed. “Officer! Really! You don’t have to call me that.”

She glanced around, embarrassed. “Cap . . . tain Brighton . . . .”

“Sam. Just Sam, OK?”

She smiled at him again.

He watched her intently, and for a fleeting moment the world seemed almost right again. Balanced. On track. Everything OK. The feeling came and left him in an instant, and he almost shook his head. Where had that come from?

“You found me again?” she said to him. It was a question, not a comment, and there was wonder in her eyes.

“I didn’t really find you,” Sam weakly explained. Still, he half smiled. It was an amazing coincidence, one that had befuddled him. “It does seem that fate has cast us here together.”

“You found me on the mountain. You saved me from the camp at Khorramshahr. No, more, you saved me from the man who came to take me. I know what he was doing.” She looked off, thinking of the slave traders, her eyes half open, her voice so low Sam had to strain to hear. “I was here, alone again, when you appear again.”

A shaft of sun finally broke over the tallest building, sending a thin beam of pale light through the small kitchen window. The two were silent for a moment. Looking at her, Sam couldn’t help but think about the first time that he had seen her on the burning hill above her village in Iran, a terrified and lonely girl, young, too scared to talk, watching from the edge of the ditch, reaching for her father, who had been brutally murdered for no more reason than that he had tried to protect a young prince. He remembered seeing her, catching the feeling in his soul. Combat had a way of humbling the hardest man, and he was susceptible to its influence because of the things that he’d been through. So he sensed it, almost hearing the words inside his mind: You know her. She is a sister. You were sent to help her.

It seemed so long ago now. Years. Another life. Another world. So little of it even seemed relevant to him anymore.

Watching Azadeh, he realized that she was older now, much older than she should have been, and no longer just a girl. She had always been beautiful, but there was something more about her, something wiser, softer, maybe more determined, certainly more aware. He watched her intently, almost happily. Just being there in the friendly stranger’s kitchen, a warm sun shining through, was enough to make him—he didn’t know—not happy, exactly. Maybe satisfied.

Azadeh looked up at him, her dark eyes reflecting her deep thoughts. She had her own memories, powerful to the point of overwhelming, and for a moment she was also lost in the past. Together they stood in silence, the pale morning light beginning to fill the room. Sam shifted his weight, comfortable with the silence, but finally he shook his head. “Azadeh?”

She focused on him.

“Are you all right?”

She nodded, unsure of what to say.

He continued looking at her. Her dark hair was held behind a white and silver scarf, but several strands had escaped the shiny material and were hanging at the side of her face. Reaching up, she brushed them back. She wore a thin robe, worn but beautiful Persian silk; long cotton pants, something like pajamas; and white fabric sandals. “Are you all right?” he repeated.

She nodded. “I am fine.”

“You miss your country?”

She didn’t answer.

“Do you have any family?”

Her eyes half closed and she barely moved her head, the light scarf shimmering, another strand of dark hair escaping. Sam watched the ringlet bounce gently at the side of her ear.

“Do you have friends? People back in Iran you are keeping in contact with?”

“I have friends.” She thought again, a mental picture of Omar, her father’s only true ally, flashing into her mind. She envisioned the huge man whisking the young prince into his enormous arms, turning and heading up the mountain trail, rain and smoke and fog around him. She hadn’t seen him since the day her father had been killed. Then she thought of her fellow villagers rummaging through the remains of her burned-out house, leaving nothing behind but broken pots and garbage. “I had friends,” she concluded, talking mostly to herself.

Sam could see she didn’t want to talk about it and diverted his eyes, looking around the tiny apartment. “Are you hungry?” He reached for his pack.

“I have food.” She nodded toward the fridge.

Sam hesitated. He knew how little food was there.

“You need some water?” His camel pack was almost empty now, but he would share what he had.

“No. I am fine.” She motioned to the half-full plastic container with the melted ice from the freezer.

Sam pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and played with it, absently flipping the cover open and closed. Azadeh eyed the black-and-silver case. “Why do you have that?” she asked.

Sam tossed it from one hand to the other. “A relic of the past.”

“Does it operate?”

He laughed. “Yeah. Kind of. I mean, the phone itself would still work. I was underground in a subway—do you know what that is?” She shook her head. “An underground train.” She nodded quickly. “Being underground, my equipment was protected from the giant magnetic surge. That’s why I have a flashlight, a watch, this phone that still works. The problem is, none of the cell towers are operating . . . .” His voice trailed off. He had lost her, he could see that from the look on her face. “No cell phone. Not right now. Sometime they’ll rebuild the towers. Then it will work again.”

She stared at him and nodded. He cleared his throat awkwardly, then moved to the kitchen table and sat down. Azadeh hesitated, then followed. “How long have you been here?” he asked.

She thought for a moment before holding up nine fingers.

He counted. “Nine weeks?” That didn’t seem right.

She shook her head. “No. Sunsets . . . days.”

Nine days. “Not very long,” Sam said. He pressed his lips, almost smiling at the irony. She had barely made it to America before it had all come crashing down. Was that a good thing, being here after the EMP attack? He didn’t know. Truth was, there were lots of places he would rather be than in the United States right now. For the first time in modern history, this was the last place in the world anyone might want to be. “Your timing is ironic, isn’t it, Azadeh?”

She pulled the top of her robe. She probably had no idea what ironic meant, but still she seemed to sense his meaning. “I am glad I am here,” she said. “I have nothing here, that is true, but,” she nodded east, “I had less over there. It is bad in your country now, but it can be as bad over there. Or it will be. Soon. But all that does not matter.” She stopped talking as she thought. “I am a person here,” she concluded.

Sam stared at his hands, his fingers moving anxiously. “I have to go,” he said.

Azadeh looked suddenly terrified. “Go?”

“Yes. I have to check on my mom and brother. Then we’ve got to form a plan.”

“A plan?” Azadeh wondered.

“Yes. You know, decide what we’re going to do.”

She bit her lower lip. “What will you do?” Her eyes were wide now, fear showing through.

Sam reached across to touch her fingers. “Don’t worry about it, Azadeh. We’re going to work it out.”

She kept staring, finally whispering, “You will be going?”

Sam looked around, his eyes resting on the window. He knew the scene that lay outside. “I don’t think we can stay here.”

“You will take your brothers? Your mother? You will go?”

“Yes. Probably soon.”

She stared again, not saying anything, then looked around as if searching for something before bringing her eyes back to him. “I cannot go out there. A Muslim woman. An Iranian. It is not safe.”

Sam nodded, understanding.

“Please.” She motioned toward the back bedroom with her hand. “Mary? Kelly Beth? Me? Please. Can we go with you? If not, I do not know what we will do.”

Sam hesitated, looking at her in surprise. “Azadeh, did you think that I was going to leave you?”

She only stared at him.

“We’re not going to leave you. We are together now, kind of like a family.”

She looked down, too frightened to believe him.

He leaned forward across the old table. “I promise you, Azadeh, we’re going to stay together. It’s going to be OK.” He stood up and grabbed his jacket. “I’ve got to go and find my family now,” he said.

*******

Northwestern University Medical Center, Chicago, Illinois

The hospital was in utter chaos. There were no gurneys or wheelchairs available, so Sara and Ammon wrapped Luke in a blanket and propped him up, one of them under each arm. He stepped gingerly and winced once or twice, but Ammon was surprised at the strength with which his brother moved; his legs didn’t wobble and he seemed to hold his own weight. They walked slowly down the hallway toward the main entrance. Pushing the heavy door back, they found themselves in the covered horseshoe parkway jammed with several ambulances and other cars, all of them dead. Stepping into the light, Ammon felt grateful to be out of the hospital, which seemed like nothing but a black pit of despair.

He looked around, squinting at the sun. “Where do you think Sam is?” he asked his mom.

Sara looked up and down the crowded streets. There were many more people out now than there had been the night before. They gathered in the streets, on the corners, near the hospital door. They seemed angrier and more desperate. A nervous knot grew in her stomach. She searched the crowd for Sam, hoping his tall shoulders would stand above the growing mass of people. “He said he’d come back after he got Mary and her little girl back to their apartment,” she said.

Luke nodded toward the nearest bench. Sara and Luke sat down. Luke immediately bent over, resting his head on Sara’s lap. Ammon paced, looking up and down the street. “We need Sam,” he mouthed to his mother so that Luke couldn’t hear.

“He’ll be along,” she said.

“I don’t know what to do or where to go.”

“He hasn’t forgotten us.”

After about twenty minutes, Luke opened his eyes and sat up slowly. Ammon looked down at his brother. “Luke, buddy, you OK?” he asked.

His younger twin smiled. “Doing pretty good.”

“Do you think that you can make it?”

“What do you mean by make it?”

“We need to do some walking.”

“Yeah. I can walk.” Luke started pushing up.

Sara suddenly squealed and pointed toward the crowded intersection. “Look!” She stood up beside Luke. “There’s Sam. You can see his uniform.”

Ammon turned and looked. There, almost lost in the line of dead cars and the mass of people, a young man, taller than the others and dressed in a tan camouflage army uniform, was walking quickly toward the hospital entrance. Sara called his name, and he started moving toward them. “OK. Very cool,” Ammon said as he turned to Luke. “Sam will be able to help me hold you. He’ll know what to do.”

Sam approached them, almost at a run. Seeing Luke, he stopped suddenly and stared. A long moment passed. “What are you doing here?” he asked in disbelief. “You should be in the hospital!” He broke into a smile. “You know, with a bedpan and good-looking nurses all around.”

Luke laughed and caught himself, his hands shooting to his side. “Been there, done that, the whole bedpan thing.”

Sara threw a knowing look to Ammon before she said, “They kicked us out of the hospital. They don’t have room for him.”

Sam’s face turned angry. “Are you kidding me?” He motioned toward Luke. “Sit down there. Save your strength.” He turned toward the entrance and started walking. “Come with me, Ammon. We’re going to talk to them.”

Sara ran beside him, reaching for his hand. “Sam, Sam, it’s OK.” She tried to pull him back. “He’s going to be all right.”

Sam stopped, staring at her. “What do you mean? He’s clearly not OK.”

She looked into his eyes. “He’s OK,” she said.

“He isn’t OK. He’s been shot. They just don’t want to have to keep him. They want to—”

“No, Sam, he’s OK.” She emphasized the word. “He’s hurt, yes, and he’ll have to be careful, but he’s going to be all right.” Glancing around her, she motioned to the burgeoning mob of people on the street. “There isn’t enough time to explain everything right now. We’ve got to get him off the streets. We’ve got to figure out where we’re going, how we’re going to get there, and what we’re going to do.”

FOUR

The Paris Office of Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs, Paris, France

Drexel Danbert was presumed dead. A new leader of the firm had been selected and put in place.

As the sun set, the lights about the city began to shine, a million dots beneath a haloed prism that had formed around the moon. The sky was clear of clouds but tinted with blood-red dust from the strong currents that stirred in the upper atmosphere. A faint smell of smoke and acid still drifted in the air.

The penthouse stood atop a glass high-rise building in the 2ème arrondissement, the primary business district just north of central Paris. Across the street and down one block, the Bourse, the French stock market, was still abuzz. The Bibliothèque Nationale was to the right, the Louvre directly ahead.

The recently elected senior partner of Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs closed his eyes. He smiled, thinking of his old boss. Drexel Danbert had simply disappeared, leaving his apartment and walking off into the night, a fitting end to a life that was as storied as it was mysterious, as convoluted as it was corrupt. The problem was (and they had all known this would be a problem), the old man had retained some sort of conscience, and it had driven him insane. Too bad. He had been a great talent. The good news was they didn’t need his kind of talents anymore.

With the old man’s disappearance, Edward Kelly was the senior partner now. Thin, with white hair, bushy eyebrows, and a mean downturn in his lips, he stared in silence, sniffing the breeze that blew in from the partially open window. The air was warm but far below him, in the floodlights, the foliage around the Jardin du Palais Royal had turned prematurely red. No one could remember a fall that had come so early or so fast. It seemed that overnight every tree within the city had burst out in red and deep orange. Now, just a few days later, the leaves were falling, turning brown and lifeless just as quickly as they had ruptured into flame. The grass was also prematurely turning brown. And there was no reason for the sudden change. It hadn’t been cold, it hadn’t frozen, there had been plenty of rain. It wasn’t just the dormant sleep of coming fall, nature getting ready for the freezing snows and colder temperatures that December would bring. This was something different. Something none of them could explain.

The grass wasn’t hibernating, it was dying, turning brittle as strands of dry confetti.

Earlier in the afternoon, Kelly had walked along the rock-lined pathways that ran around the Palais Royal, pulling occasional tufts of dead grass and examining the roots beneath, all so dry he could blow them away with his breath. Wondering, he had stared. It was happening all over the city. All over Western Europe. Crops dying in the fields. Fruit shriveling on the limb. Vegetables decaying on the vine before they could be picked. Most suspected it was some kind of unforeseen effect from the nuclear attacks in the Middle East, United States, and Iran, but anyone who knew anything about the effects of radiation and nature knew that wasn’t true.

There was no correlation.

This was something else.

It was as if nature were completely disregarding the rules that had governed it before.

They would eventually understand it, Kelly was certain. There was no need for real worry. Still, it was curious and caused him just a hint of alarm.

He stared through the deeply tinted windows of the high-rise building. Below him, business carried on as usual, thousands of people going on about their lives, working late, putting in their time for the system they adored. Money. Always money. War, nuclear explosions, massive death and rage, whatever else, it didn’t matter as long as there was money to be made. And because the partners had been warned to move their headquarters from Manhattan to their building here in Paris, they were in a great position to make more of it. A lot more. More than they could count. More than they could ever comprehend.

He stared as the moon rose, casting a yellow shadow across the great city. Normally he loved this view, but with the city so brown and lifeless, it offered no beauty to him now. He breathed and stared another moment, then turned to his partner. “Drexel thought we went too far,” he stated matter-of-factly. “He told me that. He thought we pushed them beyond their ability to rebuild their country.”

The other man smoked, a blue haze drifting toward the wood-paneled ceiling twelve feet over his head. He pretended to think, but he wasn’t really doing so—he had already made up his mind. “I think they will,” he answered slowly. “Some will try to stop them, and of course there will be many who won’t help, but most will buy our vision. When we step in with the answers, how could they possibly tell us no?”

Kelly grunted, unconvinced. There was a tension between the two, subtle but pervasive in everything they did or said. They were no longer friends but contenders in an always deadly game, especially since Kelly had been named managing partner of the firm. Theirs was a game for money, a race for power, for supremacy in the order. There were no friends. All of the partners walked around with targets on their backs. Still, he didn’t worry about it. He was prepared.

The smoking man, a former U.S. senator, lifted his heavy body from the Chippendale mahogany camelback sofa and moved to stand beside the window. For a moment the two of them were silent, looking out. The smoker finally spoke. “They will rebuild.” His voice was tight with impatience, as if he were speaking to a foolish child. “I don’t think that is the question. The question is, will they rebuild on our terms? I am certain that they will. They are pliable and open now. Vulnerable and defeated, beat down to their knees. It is hard, once the top dog, to get knocked off the pile. No, they’ll do anything to get it back, believe me, they will.

“And we have laid the foundation. Three generations of work have come to fruition. A constant dripping can hollow out the hardest rock, and we’ve been dripping on them a long time now. All around the world, their values and ideas are despised. Most of the Americans hate their own country as much as the world hates them now. Former government leaders—even one of their former presidents—academics, entertainers, educators, trusted officials, all of them have been our allies, helping to spread the word.

“We’ve actually convinced them that their country was the problem, not the answer; the cancer, not the cure. They think their nation was too powerful, too greedy, too racist and full of war. The time is right. It’s almost perfect. We have our man. We have a plan. They’ll listen to us now.”

The senior member of Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs grunted again, then sipped his wine. He was not young, and the sense of history was not lost on him.

He thought a moment, letting the words they and them turn over in his mind. Then he thought about his home. Born and raised in Massachusetts, he traced his family roots back to Plymouth Rock, almost four hundred years before. Yet he and the partners always spoke of the Americans as them and they.

There were the Americans and there were the others, and the members of the firm were part of the others now. Their society had no borders, no love for country, no love for people or culture, and certainly no love for home. They were above and beyond that, and happy that they were. America was not the enemy, just an obstacle that had to be overcome. Very simple. No emotion. Just another part of their job.

Still, Kelly understood the United States more than most. And yes, its people had the tenacity to rebuild their nation. If the partners didn’t think they would run into opposition, they were painfully mistaken.

Sensing his thoughts, the fat partner glanced toward him, hiding his contempt, then took a final drag before snuffing the half-smoked cigarette onto the palm of his hand without feeling any pain. “The Great Experiment failed and you know it,” he almost sneered. “We knew it would. You and that idiot Drexel might not have believed it, but the rest of us knew. They tried to share it, they tried to force this thing they call democracy,” his voice slipped into a sneer, “but the Middle East wasn’t ready and their timing couldn’t have been worse. Democracy doesn’t mean anything if you’re worried about getting shot out on the street. Democracy doesn’t mean anything if you don’t have anything to eat. They pushed too hard and failed. Just as they were at the apex of their rotting, they tried exporting their philosophy throughout the world. Now it has failed, or it is failing, in every quarter of the globe. Iraq. Iran. South America. Central and Eastern Europe. Tiny convulsions of democracy sprouted here and there, but none of them were self-sustaining. Some of them survived a generation, some more or less than that, but it’s over for these countries. Everything is crashing down.”

Kelly stared down at the glistening city as he listened. Sipping his wine, he wished that he were drunk.

The other man lit another smoke. “Little wonder it fell upon them. The truth is—and even you recognize this—most people no longer want to bother with actually governing themselves. They want a nanny more than freedom, someone to feed and bathe them and take care of the details, someone to make decisions, to make life easy if not satisfying or complete. They don’t want to really understand and analyze all their problems—those are far too complex. Free will is such a bother when there are so many other things to think about. Morality is such a distraction when there are parties and food and sports and drugs and sex and computers and corruption and, well, you get the point.”

Kelly didn’t answer.

“Life in the States was so easy and undemanding, the Americans would have given up anything to preserve it,” the junior partner continued, smoke escaping from his nose. “And in the end, they did. They gave up everything. Now they are the cotton candy of world cultures, soft and sweet, entirely without substance.” Another whiff of smoke drifted from his nose. “So,” he concluded, “there will be no rebuilding, not without our help. We’ll be able to fashion the government. Shape it and mold it. And we will hold the power.”

Kelly shook his head. It might have proven true in Asia, mostly true in Europe, and certainly true in former Russia and dozens of other countries throughout the world, but the United States was different. It had always been different. And it was different now.

Still, he held his tongue as he stared at the dead trees that lined the streets below. It was too late to convince his partners, and he just didn’t care that much about it anymore.

The partner watched him out of the corner of his eye, shifting his massive weight, and started in again. “The United States is the most hated nation in the world. Is there a better indication of the magnificent job we have done! The United States is the monster—not Cuba or North Korea, who have institutionalized starvation and poverty for generations now. Not Middle Eastern monarchies who beat little girls who learn to read and behead their older sisters who have the misfortune of being raped. Not China with their forced abortions—where are the civil libertarians on that?” He stopped and laughed, the irony forcing his fat belly to roll. “Evil is good and good is evil. We have crested that plateau. As long as they believe that, as long as they really hate each other as much as they love themselves, as long as they think their own nation is the evil one, they will comply with our demands.

“We can take the U.S. Constitution and shred it, then mold a new society into what we think is right. The Society we all belong to. It is clear our time has come.”

Kelly sniffed again. A long silence followed. “You are aware, I am certain, who the president of the United States is now?”

“Of course,” the fat man grunted.

Kelly turned, looking directly into his eyes. “She is not a part of us.”

The fat man lit yet another cigarette. “I know that. They know that.” He gestured vaguely in some direction toward the east.

“So, then—how do they propose we get past that?”

The fat man shook his head and sneered. “They’re going to kill her. What did you think they’d do, my friend?”

FIVE

Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania

There was no reason to lie to her. She was with them or she wasn’t. Either way, she wouldn’t leave the command post without making a decision. Nor was there any reason to soften the impact of what they wanted her to do. And there certainly wasn’t any reason to speak to her as if she really was in charge. She was a custodian of the presidency, but she hadn’t been elected. She didn’t speak with the voice of the people nor did she carry the support of the military or the cabinet or—more important—the men who were in charge. She was a happenstance of the Constitution and that was all.

The blast over Washington, D.C. had already killed the president and vice president. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, third in line to the presidency, lay in a hospital somewhere in western Virginia, but she hadn’t regained consciousness since the explosion. If she ever did (and the two men were absolutely certain that she wouldn’t), it was extremely unlikely that she would regain even a fraction of her faculties.

Which meant the poor woman propped up before them, the former president pro tempore of the Senate, was now in charge.

A fractured leg and third-degree burns were the total of her injuries. Which meant that, one way or another, they had to deal with her before they could move on.

The new president of the United States sat at the head of a huge wooden conference table, her casted leg hidden under a full skirt, a pair of chrome crutches leaning against the side of her chair. Her hair was full and straight, with fashionable strands of gray. Her face was drained and weary, her mouth tight with determination. She looked off as she thought, breathing in the purified underground air.

Her name was Bethany Rosen. Fifty-six years old, a Californian, three terms within the Congress, she had been selected as a Senate leader for her congeniality and middle-of-the-road politics—that, plus her husband had made a billion dollars producing movies and could raise more money for the party than any other person on the West Coast.

The new president put the red binder aside, took a frightened breath, then reached down and moved her leg, feeling the heavy cast against the chair. A shot of pain moved up her spine and, for a moment, she thought of the day the injury had been sustained. She remembered the emergency alert, her cell phone going off, scrambling down the front porch of her townhouse east of the Capitol, the wailing sirens, the sound of an approaching helicopter sent to take her away, the white-hot light, the blazing heat against her face and arms, the falling steps and crashing metal, the sound of splintered wood, the pain against her knee. She remembered passing time, blurred visions and urgent voices, an ambulance ride and then a helicopter, the softness of white sheets and the peacefulness of sleep as someone poked a needle in her arm. Then she remembered slowly waking and finding out that she was in charge.

If the rush of power was good for recovery, then she would recover very soon, for the office of the president was something she had coveted for almost thirty years. And she intended to make a difference while enjoying every moment of her command.

Which might be a long time or a little, depending on the decisions she now made.

*******

The meeting had begun at exactly 10 a.m. The two men had entered the room and sat down, one on her left, one on her right, and slid a four-page, red-bound document across the table. “Read this,” the first man had commanded, then sat back in silence as she read.

The conference table inside the presidential office suite at Raven Rock was huge, easily accommodating twenty-five or thirty people, and the three individuals seemed small, their chairs tucked up against the edge of the thick oak table. The room was very quiet as the president read. Ten minutes later, her heart racing, she lifted her eyes, pushed the red binder away, and adjusted her leg. “You want me to what?” she whispered at the men in disbelief.

The first man, a former president himself, leaned forward, his voice patronizing and sickeningly friendly. A bitter old man beneath the soft tone, he’d been voted out of office almost thirty years before and his eyelids were heavy now with age, the pupils dull and empty underneath the drooping lids. The anger of his rejection had grown more acidic through all the empty years, and most everything he said or did now revealed the poison in his soul. “Bethany,” he insisted as he reached out for her hand, “this really is important. You have to listen to us now.”

She stared into his face, spiderwebs of tiny purple veins running up and down his cheeks. “You want me to hold back,” she hissed. “You don’t want me to retaliate. You’ve got to be kidding me!”

The former president shook his head. “It’s the best thing for us now.”

“It’s outrageous,” she answered simply. “Outrageous and impossible! And that is not all.” She tapped the red binder. “Everything you’ve suggested here will weaken us to the point—”

“What we’ve suggested, Madame President, will ensure the survival of our nation.”

She openly scoffed. “No. It wouldn’t be the same nation, not after you get through it.”

The other man, the current National Security Advisor, cleared his throat. He was young, extraordinarily a good-looking man, with lots of family money and supremely confident. “It’s too late for all that, Bethany,” he answered in an impatient voice. “We already are not the same nation. The old days have passed us. It’s a new world now.” He turned away to keep from glaring. He and the newly sworn-in president had a history of conflict that went back several years, and their philosophies of government relations couldn’t have been more opposed. The ugly truth was, he considered any one of his current girlfriends far more capable of being the president than the woman who sat across the table from him now, and it was all he could do to hold back his disdain and contempt.

Her dark eyes flickered and her mouth hung open. She thought for far too long. “So, while we leave our enemies untouched, you want me to,” she glanced down at the binder, reading from the list, “suspend habeas corpus. No more evidentiary hearings. Arrest hostiles and hold them as long as it takes. Months. Years. A lifetime. No evidence. No trials. Keep ‘em all locked up forever.” She glanced down again. “Declare martial law—now, maybe I could go along with that but for the fact that giving military personnel law-enforcement authority would break the Posse Comitatus Act. You both know that. We have always forbidden the military from exercising police duties within our own borders.” She paused and took a breath. “This isn’t the Third Reich, my friends. I don’t care how difficult things are right now, we can get through this without—”

“Without what?” the former president sneered. “Without exercising a few understandable precautions?”

She turned to face him, adjusting herself painfully in her seat. “Listen to yourself, Mr. President. Listen to what you just said. Understandable precautions?” She angrily tapped the red binder. “It seems to me that shutting down the court system is a bit more than just an understandable precaution.”

“We don’t have time for trials right now. Don’t you see that, Bethany? The nation is hanging by a thread! It’s nothing but chaos out there, worse than anything you could imagine. In very short order, you’re going to have food riots in the streets. You’re going to see murder and mayhem over a single loaf of bread. Do you think, in your naïveté, that the courts can begin to handle that? You can’t have sympathetic judges releasing prisoners because the prison food isn’t warm and there aren’t enough beds! More importantly, half the federal judges will interfere with what you have to do right now. And what is that, Madame President? The answer is perfectly clear. You’ve got one priority, and that’s security. You’ve got to buy yourself some time to put this thing back together. Until then, you’ve got to keep a firm grip on the situation or it will spin completely out of control. You keep a tight grip, and we might—probably not, but we might—keep this nation together. But if you go soft, if you go all civil rights, sympathy and ACLU on us, then believe me, we’re through. Do that and it won’t matter—you won’t have anything left that is worth fighting over anyway!”

The president looked down in pain, uncertain. Nervously, she flipped the pages. “Detention centers. Expanded powers. Look at this!” She slapped the red binder closed. “You want me to nationalize industry, the media, all means of transportation—”

The National Security Advisor sat back and scoffed. “You really don’t understand the situation, do you, Beth? You don’t understand it at all! You think nationalizing industry and transportation is going to matter? You think taking control of the media will make a difference? There is nothing up there, Beth. Nothing left at all, not since the EMP—no television, no radio. A few old-fashioned printing presses have shown up, but believe me, Madame President,” he seemed to choke, “no one is concerned with editorializing right now. The only things that are working, the government owns and controls anyway. Military transportation, computers, command and control. The Emergency Broadcasting System. That’s about all there is. A few other things here and there, but not much, you have to know. So believe me, Madame President, taking control of industry and transportation is the very least of your worries. No one’s going to give a whit who owns what if you can’t get things going anyway.”

He paused and leaned toward her, his eyes simmering, traces of red around the lids. “Lay the foundation for rebuilding,” he concluded forcefully, “and no one’s going to complain about the niceties of ownership. No one’s going to ask the driver of the ambulance if he’s a member of the government!”

She looked up, her face growing pale. Something desperate and dark had settled over the room. She felt a cold shiver run through her and fought a sudden urge to move away from these men, to remove herself from the feeling. Still, she summoned her strength and held the binder up, shaking it at the former president. “Disband the Congress. Send them home. You can’t seriously be advising me to—”

“Federalize power within the presidency? Absolutely we are!”

She turned away, too stunned to react, her breathing shallow, her heart throbbing in her ears. “I don’t believe it. I simply can’t believe it. You can’t be serious.”

“Of course we’re serious, darling.” The National Security Advisor leaned toward her ear. She looked at him and almost recoiled from the anger in his eyes. There was no respect within their burning and certainly no fear. You are a pretender, they seemed to scream at her, an unfortunate happenstance of history, but that is all. You are not the president, at least not really! You have no power. You have no judgment. You will do what we tell you to do.

It stunned her, the burning hatred, and she had to look away. “I don’t think you would have called the previous president darling,” she barely whispered, trying to hide her rage and fear.

The National Security Advisor snorted, letting the insult hang like a bad smell in the air, then wiped his brow. “You’ll forgive me, I’m sure, Madame President.”

His apology was only more demeaning, and she looked away again.

The National Security Advisor fell silent. He was much smarter, more experienced and certainly more capable of managing this crisis than she was. It galled him to even talk to this woman just because she was next in line.

The president glanced down at the paper, stabbing the first item on the list. “You don’t want me to retaliate for the EMP attack?”

The former president edged toward her, leaning on his arms against the table. “Beth, who are you going to retaliate against? Do you even know who launched the missiles? How are you going to prove it?”

“Prove it! We all know who did this. The missiles were Iranian variants of the Al Abbas Scuds! Soon we’ll know where the warhead nuclear material was refined, but even now we all can guess—”

“Guess, Bethany? I don’t think we should be guessing.”

“We won’t be guessing,” she shot back, feeling hostile now. “We’ll take our time, we’ll analyze it carefully, but when we have our answers, I swear to you, we will retaliate.”

The former president sadly shook his head. If he didn’t believe what he was saying, it was impossible to tell, for lying was such second nature to him that he hardly knew himself. He was so comfortable in his many skins that he didn’t notice when one shed. What do I need to believe in order to convince them? Close my eyes, think a moment . . . poof! That’s what I believe now. “It won’t make any difference,” he countered sincerely. “Bethany, we have known each other now for what, twelve, fourteen years? I have watched you and admired you. I’m comfortable, and I mean this—no, I’m grateful that you are in this position now. The nation will be well served by your considerable judgment and intellect, but you must listen to what I tell you. Forget retaliation. It solves nothing. Certainly, you could order the deaths of a couple million Arabs. But what will that do to improve things for the United States? And the Persians you would kill are innocent! You understand me? They are innocent, every one. Sure, you might kill some of those who are responsible, you might take out a few of the mullahs, but remember, all of them are buried now in blast-proof bunkers in the desert that we can’t identify or target. Even if you get lucky and kill a handful of the leaders, what about the millions of innocent civilians who are collateral damage to your cause?”

The president shook her head. “I know King Abdullah is responsible. So far, he’s been behind every—”

The former president interrupted. This was the main reason he was here. “King Abdullah is innocent of this attack,” he shot back. “I have known King Abdullah for many, many years and there is no way, no way he had anything to do with these EMP attacks. To even suggest that the Saudi royal family had anything to do with this is patently absurd.”

The former president stopped and held his breath, glancing angrily toward the National Security Advisor. “I’m begging you, Bethany,” he said again, this time more softly, “do not retaliate. It doesn’t help us. All you’ll do is cement a hundred generations of Muslim hatred against us. Do this and there won’t be peace in your lifetime, the lifetime of your children or of your great-great-great-grandchildren after that.”

The National Security Advisor leaned impatiently back in his chair. “Worse, you’ll be wasting time and resources—resources that we need in order to rebuild. And that’s the only thing you should be concentrating on right now: rebuilding our nation, our military, our security services, our infrastructure, all of the things we need to survive.”

The new president lowered her eyes uncertainly. She didn’t know. For the first time she considered that they might be right.

But the other suggestions on their list, she was certain of them. She slid the red binder across the table, nudging it up against the National Security Advisor’s arm. “These other things you’re recommending are patently unconstitutional. Not a single thing you have presented here is within my authority. The courts will never allow it, the Supreme Court will—”

“Will what? Roll over in their graves? There is only one surviving member of the entire Supreme Court! Does his one vote control our world? Does one man decide our fate? No! It cannot be. We have no courts or Constitution. We have no laws now, no organization, no state borders, no state militias; we’ve got no working infrastructure, modern equipment, machines, food, sanitation, and no, we have no courts. All we’ve got is more than three hundred million people out there who are a few weeks from starving to death!”

“The nation will not allow me—”

“You don’t have a nation! Don’t you see that? You’ve got absolutely nothing now! Nothing but what little you can scrape together and somehow manage to rebuild. And that is the entire point. That’s the only reason we are here. Yes, we are going to rebuild our nation, but it won’t be like the nation we had before. It will be stronger, more defensible, more perfect. It will be different, we all realize that, but it will be better.”

The president shook her head, her cheeks growing pale. She looked down. Her hands were shaking. She slipped them under the table and bit her lower lip.

She was scared now. No, she was more than scared, she was almost terrified. She had a feeling—a terrible, dark, hopeless feeling—and it was coming from these men. They reeked of desperation and despair. They reeked of lies, deception, power and lust; she knew that, she could feel it. And there was something more, something evil, something loathsome. The only thing she wanted now was to get away from them.

Taking a quick breath, she pushed back against her chair. “I thank you for your input.” She struggled to move her fractured leg. “You are well regarded, and I will certainly consider the advice you have provided.” She started to stand.

The National Security Advisor pushed back and stood beside her. “Consider carefully, Madame President.” His cold eyes narrowed on her now. “There is danger all around us. None of us are safe.”

The former president took a short step forward and placed his hand upon her arm. Lowering his voice, he whispered to her, “We must work together on this, Bethany. That is so important now. If we combine our talents and our powers, we can salvage what we need to in order to raise this nation once again. But we must work quickly and in combination. And yes, it might be necessary to work in private, at least until we have a better understanding of the situation. But working in secret, our combination,” he suddenly paused and cleared his throat as if he had said something wrong. “Our combination of talents and abilities will be enough to see us through,” he finished.

“Think about it,” the National Security Advisor mumbled roughly. “I think you’ll see that we are right.”

*******

The president pushed a button underneath the table and an aide appeared to escort the two men out. They left the large conference room and walked down the hallway in the Command Center, away from the presidential office suite, then paused and turned to face each other.

The former president shook his head. “She’s not going to do it, is she?”

“I told you she wouldn’t,” the younger man said.

The two men stood in the crowded corridor, several military officers and civilians hurrying by them. They waited, letting them pass. “I do think we convinced her not to retaliate against our brother,” the former president whispered when the two men were alone again.

The National Security Advisor considered, then slowly nodded. “Yes, I think so, too. If not, I would have killed her before we left the room.”

A moment of silence followed, the sound of the ceiling fans and air purifiers humming overhead.

“Regarding the other items, she isn’t going to move,” the National Security Advisor hissed.

The former president hunched his shoulders and thought. “Let’s do it, then,” he said.

The National Security Advisor turned and started walking. “It’s already done.”

The older man followed, his steps short and weak. “You have ordered it already?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You weren’t going to give her a chance to think about it, to come around?”

The National Security Advisor kept on walking.

The former president rushed to catch up. “You didn’t give us much time to convince her.” He didn’t sound disappointed.

The National Security Advisor turned to him. “I wasn’t as optimistic about her as you were, I guess.”

SIX

The Paris Office of Danbert, Lexel, Taylor and Driggs, Paris, France

The servant slipped into the private living quarters built behind a hidden wall at the back of the massive office. The large apartment was well used for it wasn’t unusual for his master to sleep at the headquarters building, sometimes not going home for days. It was late at night and the bedroom was dark. Moving silently across the leather-covered floor, the lambskin supple and warm from the heated coils under his feet, he walked toward Edward Kelly’s bed. The red moon cast dim shadows through the fifteen-foot-high arched window, and he could see the whites of Kelly’s eyes shining in the dim light. “Sir,” he whispered carefully.

The senior partner didn’t move.

“Sir,” the servant whispered once again.

The man’s eyes fluttered, moving wildly left and right. Then they opened wider in panic, and his face contorted as if in pain. He breathed heavily, as if he had been running and was suddenly out of breath.

The servant waited, scared, watching his master’s eyes as they fluttered and moved in fear. Realizing the man was dreaming, he reached out and touched his shoulder. “Sir,” he said more loudly.

Kelly sat up quickly, instantly awake. “What, what, what is it?”

“Sir, you have a call.”

“A call? Who?” He stopped and held his tongue, fighting the lingering fear and disorientation, then moved his feet to the side of the bed and placed them on the floor, forcing himself to calm down.

The nightmare had left him breathless and it took him a few seconds to collect himself.

Late-night calls were the norm in his business. The truth was, he hardly ever slept. Like a father of a fussy newborn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through an entire night. At any given moment, about half of his clients were awake, stretched across the globe as they were. And at any given time, about a third of them were dealing with some crisis or another for which they needed the firm’s help. None of them gave a second thought to jarring him awake—for the money they paid him, they would have called him at his own funeral and been furious if he was a little slow to respond from the other side of the grave. Still, as he sat at the edge of his bed, something about this phone call seemed to cause a sense of worry. It was a sixth sense he had developed. He knew when to tighten up before the punch. “Who is it?” he asked as he stared at the mobile phone.

“General Lafferty, sir.”

General Lehman Lafferty, the new chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Kelly cleared his throat, took a breath, and reached out for the phone. “General, what can I do for you?” he said.

“Edward, we’ve got a little problem,” the chairman answered.

“The world is full of problems, General Lafferty.”

“You think?” The general wasn’t happy and clearly not in the mood to laugh. “We’ve got a personnel issue we’ve got to deal with.”

Kelly checked the luminescent clock atop his ancient Roman nightstand. “They told me the president would be taken care of within the day.”

“She will be. That isn’t why I called.”

“Unless you believe in instantaneous resurrection, I can’t imagine what you’re so worried about.”

The general snorted. The phone hummed a moment, the military STU-IV secure voice encryption creating a quarter-second delay. “You remember my old friend General Brighton?” he asked.

Kelly had to think. “I’m starting to remember.”

“He worked for President—”

“Yes, yes, I know who you mean.”

Another half a moment of silence. “It appears he might have known more than we thought he did. It appears he might have talked.”

Kelly didn’t move, his white legs hanging over the side of the pillow bed. He studied a few strands of hair protruding from his shins. “OK, that could be a problem, but hardly, I have to believe, one that would be impossible to overcome.”

“That depends on who he talked to, doesn’t it, Edward?”

Kelly brushed a hand across his face. His mouth was parched and tart from the nightly shot of whiskey and he wanted to spit the dryness out. “Maybe. But anyone he might have talked to is certainly dead.”

“To use your word, maybe. If we’re lucky. But there might be one we didn’t think about.”

“We didn’t think about. You know, Lafferty, I thought that was what we paid your group for. The people over here would be a little disappointed—”

“No, no, you can’t pin this one on me. It was never part of my contract to—”

Edward instantly shot back. “Listen, you snot-nosed little twit. Before we made you an offer, you were, what, some nameless three-star general counting tanks and training soldiers while looking forward to selling Amway when you retired to pay for some brat’s tuition there at Harvard? I hardly think, General Lafferty,” he spat out the general’s name, “you need remind me of responsibilities or any sort of financial arrangement that might be in place.”

The STU-IV hummed. The other man cleared his throat, a soft muffle through the line.

Kelly arched his back, feeling angry and impatient. “Look, OK, so Brighton might have suspected—”

“He way more than suspected. He was very close.”

“OK. It doesn’t matter. Say he knew. Say he talked. Whoever it was he talked to, it couldn’t be that hard to take care of them. We killed General Brighton. We’ve killed others. Surely we can kill anyone else he might have talked to.”

The general hesitated before he responded, “What about his wife?”

Kelly didn’t move. “The blonde witch. The Goody Two-shoes.”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“No freaking way Brighton confided in his wife. He wouldn’t have trusted her.”

“Apparently he did.”

“He wouldn’t do that to her, put her in such danger.”

“He might have if there was no one else to turn to.”

Kelly swished a wad of spit around his mouth. “Is she alive?” he prodded.

“We think so.”

“Have you looked for her?”

“Of course we have.”

“And . . . ?”

“Is it possible you’ve missed the newspapers, Edward?” The general’s voice dripped with deep sarcasm. “Maybe you’ve been busy with French wine and the lovely ladies down in Cannes, but things have been going kind of poorly over here. It’s proving a bit difficult to find her, under the circumstances, don’t you see? We can’t find Washington, D.C., let alone a missing person from the city. So no, we haven’t found her. If we had, she would be dead.”

“Don’t you know anything about her?” Kelly was incredulous now.

“We know she left the city.”

“Alone?”

“No, with her kids.”

Edward’s mind was spinning now. He had an incredible memory, more than photographic, he remembered nearly everything he saw, heard, or read. He wouldn’t have been worth a hundred thousand dollars an hour without extraordinary mental capabilities—and his brain was spinning now, sorting through his cerebral files. “She’s got a son who’s in the Special Forces.”

“He set out to find her. He might be with her, too.”

Edward Kelly swore. Rubbing his feet against the leather floor, he thought. “OK, let’s say that Brighton told her. Assuming you are right and that he knew—”

“Let me say it again, Mr. Kelly. He knew. That’s why it was so, what should we say, convenient, that he died in the attack.”

“OK, whatever, let’s say he knew. I’ll even give you that he told her. Who’s she going to tell? Who would possibly believe her? I’m sorry, general, I still don’t see what’s got your shorts in such a wad.”

The general snorted angrily. “What if I told you that, over the past couple of months, General Brighton had developed a very close and personal relationship with that idiot Brucius Marino.”

“The Secretary of Defense?”

“Yeah. That’s the one.”

“We’ve been watching him! No way they could have been together and we not know.”

“But we do know. Which makes us a little anxious. Why were they meeting? Why were they keeping it a secret? And where is Brucius now?”

Edward Kelly stood up from the bed, his heart racing. He walked toward the window, looking out. The sun was four hours from rising, but he wasn’t going back to bed. He thought, pacing, his body casting a dim shadow across the soft floor from the moon. “We’ll take care of Brucius Marino,” he finally said.

“You’ve been saying that, Edward—”

“Shut up! You hear me, General Lafferty. Shut up and listen to me now. We will take care of Brucius. Now you go find that woman. We can’t have her out there talking, not until we’ve taken care of Marino. How many historic corners have been turned because of some meddling wife? We’re not going to let her turn this corner because she’s messing with things out there.

“So take care of her, OK? We’ve got other problems, much more urgent and demanding. Smash this little fly so the group can concentrate on more important things.”

SEVEN

Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania

President Bethany Rosen sat uncomfortably at her large office desk, her broken leg stretched out before her. She was tired, irritable and, worst of all, terrified—for her country, her countrymen, her staff around her, herself. She felt the crushing responsibility of the presidency and wondered, deep inside, if she was up to the task. Leading the country, even at the best of times and under the best of circumstances, was a nearly impossible task. Leading them out of the darkness that enveloped them now—well, she simply didn’t know. Could she do it? Could anyone do it? She took a breath and sat back, looking at the crowded desk around her. She had a pile of security papers on her left, another pile on her right, two piles right before her, another stacked against the wall behind her chair. She popped an antacid in her mouth and glanced down at her watch. It was impossible to keep track of time inside the artificial environment of Raven Rock and she was shocked to see that it was 2:05 a.m.

She moved her back painfully. She had no feeling in her broken leg. She’d been working for almost twenty hours straight and she desperately needed rest. So did her staff. She’d been driving them very hard. For every hour she worked, they worked two, and some of them had been without sleep now for almost three days.

Leaning back, she rubbed her eyes, feeling the strain against her forehead and down her neck. She stood and reached for her crutches, then looked over as her chief of staff, a former campaign manager and close friend, entered the private office. “How are the fallout readings in D.C.?” was the first thing she asked.

The chief of staff glanced at his notes and then looked up. “I’m not sure, Madame President. I could find out very quickly.”

The president frowned. It was the answer he had given her this morning when she had asked the same question. “What about the results of the EMP? Is there any residual fallout or other health considerations?”

The chief of staff glanced down at his clipboard once again. “Ma’am, from what I understand there are not now, nor will there ever be, fallout considerations from the warheads that were exploded over the United States. The detonations took place too high to settle through the upper atmosphere. But ma’am, you’ve got to remember, we are treading on virgin ground here. I’m not convinced anyone really understands—”

“I’m leaving Raven Rock first thing in the morning then. I won’t hide down here any longer. We’ll stay away from D.C. for the moment—heaven knows there’s nothing there to go home to anyway, not with the White House and Congressional complex and office buildings completely destroyed. We’ll move the nation’s capital to where, Tom? I don’t care. You and the staff pick a place. Richmond might be as good a spot as any; we’d be close enough to the remains of the government in D.C. that we could have access to whatever we have left. But if you want to go to New York or Philadelphia, I’m OK with that, too. Either way, I won’t stay down here any longer. I want to be up there and see for myself what’s going on. I want to be up there with my people. I want them to see me and hear me and know that something, someone is still there, that the government hasn’t completely folded and we are going to move on.”

The chief of staff dropped his clipboard to his side, his face concerned. “I’ll check it through the Secret Service. They’ll have to clear it first.”

“Fine. Talk to them. Get it cleared. But tell them I will not take no for an answer. I’m not going to hole up here in Raven Rock forever. Three days have passed now since the EMP attack. I want to get up there and it’s critical that I do.”

More scribbling on the clipboard, the chief of staff’s brow creasing as he wrote.

“And I want to address the nation as soon as possible,” the president said. “Have the Emergency Communications Center set it up. I want to stand before our people and assure them that we are still here.”

The chief of staff looked around, almost laughing with sarcasm, but managed to hold it back. We are here! Yeah, there was a little truth in that, but it was pretty hard to sugarcoat the fact that the government had pretty much been destroyed. The nation was about to hear from their new president, a woman ninety-five percent of them didn’t know and fewer of them could have even identified. And what was she going to tell them? Hope you all got some food and water stuffed away because it’s looking pretty grim.

Hard to be optimistic when things had already crashed down on their heads.

Still, he kept his face straight, holding the sarcasm in. “I’ll talk to the communications coordinator,” was all he said.

“How many stations—what kind of coverage across the nation can we get?”

“I’m not sure, Madame President. I would think, based on the afternoon briefing, we can cover almost everywhere. A few remote pockets out west might be out of range, but it’s my understanding you’ll have pretty much coast-to-coast coverage, at least on the AM frequencies. The larger consideration is, how many people have access to working radios? Not too many, I am thinking, and even fewer will have working television sets. We’re going to have to provide them. It’s going to take some time.”

The president nodded, then rubbed her eyes again. The chief of staff waited, his own knees feeling weak.

Through the silence, he reflected on the highly classified report sitting in the secure safe back in his office. The National Intelligence Brief was short and terrifyingly clear. And it was hot. Boiling hot. He felt his safe would explode. The picture it painted of the country was as depressing as anything he’d ever seen. Many Americans had not eaten since the day of the attack. Most of them didn’t have any drinking water. Perhaps half a million had died already from lack of emergency medical care. And the devastation was just beginning. It was going to go downhill. The United States didn’t have a stockpile of food, not nearly enough to feed them all, and no way to distribute it anyway. They didn’t have medical supplies, not to speak of, beyond the few days of inventory stockpiled on pharmacy and hospital shelves. They had no electricity, no sanitation or clean water; the list was so long and overwhelming it was crushing even to think about.

Worst of all, of the three hundred some-odd million Americans, two hundred and ninety-seven million of them were completely unprepared, expecting the government to take care of them. Not a highly accurate expectation, it turned out.

He cleared his throat and looked around, thinking of the president’s request to get out of Raven Rock. Yes, they might be able to leave the underground command post for a few days, a few weeks even, but they wouldn’t be aboveground for long. Conditions on the surface were deteriorating so quickly, they would soon be driven back to the safety of the secret command post. Within a few weeks, mass starvation was going to sweep across the nation. There would be food riots and chaos unlike anything ever seen before. Once that started—and his estimate of it being a few weeks away might be an overly optimistic one—they would need the security of Raven Rock once again, the food supplies, clean water and medications, everything the underground complex could provide.

It killed him to have to face it, but the truth was, they would end up back inside Raven Rock.

He looked around at the heavily paneled walls, thinking of the cold stone and thick cement that surrounded him two hundred feet beneath the surface. Putting the image aside, he turned to the president. “We’ll set up the broadcast to the nation as soon as possible, but I have to ask you, Madame President, what are you going to say? What will you tell the people? How can you give them any hope?”

The former Californian senator closed her eyes and thought, almost wincing at the weight of the pressure on her shoulders. What can I tell them? she wondered to herself. What can I tell them that they don’t already know? They’re not stupid; I can’t fool them. But I can’t just give up and lead them down a road of death and despair.

She considered a moment, exhausted, her leg in real pain. Breathing slowly, she almost micro-slept before the sound of the chief of staff’s body movements brought her back to the room. She opened her eyes and looked around, then turned to him. “All I can do is tell them the truth. It is ugly now. It will get worse. But we have to keep our faith and go on. Most of all, I want to remind them that we are not alone. God has guided our nation in the past and He will guide us even now. This greatest of all nations is still His magnificent cause, and the only thing we can do now is put our faith and trust in Him.”

The chief of staff stared, his mouth open. It wasn’t what he expected, not from a woman who, outside of weddings and funerals, hadn’t been inside a church in many years. Funny, he thought, how the situation had a tendency to refocus one’s heart. Still, he understood it. Truth was, he was feeling a bit religious himself.

“I will tell them that help is on the way,” the president continued. “We have allies and friends across the globe. None of them were affected by the EMP attack. They will stand by us now as we stood by them in the past.”

No, the chief of staff wanted to counter, we are friendless and alone and we must recognize that now. But he held his tongue, keeping his eyes on the floor.

“We have indescribable challenges,” the president concluded. “We all know that. But we’ll work together. We’ll stand together. And yes, we will rise again.” She hesitated, thinking. “The one thing I won’t do,” she concluded, nodding toward a red binder on her desk, “is shred the Constitution as we begin to rebuild.”

*******

The president slept inside a small apartment off the main command post. Twenty minutes later, as she lay atop her bed, her eyes closed, the stillness of the night around her, she was amazed at the almost perfect silence. Rock walls. Cement floors. Thick, blast-proof steel doors. All of it combined to stifle every sound and vibration, leaving the air unnaturally soundless and dull.

The night passed and, though she was exhausted, sleep was slow to come. Too many thoughts. Too many worries. Her chest was tight and every time she thought about the next day her heart raced again. Rolling to her back, she breathed deeply and, starting with her lower body, stretched her muscles to relax. Her toes. Her feet. Her legs. Her abdomen and arms. Everything was limp and soft now . . . her breathing was growing heavy . . . the tightness in her chest was gone . . . she was falling into darkness as she drifted off to sleep.

A final thought ran through her mind just before she fell asleep: Her husband and son were still out in Sacramento. She’d already made arrangements to send out a military jet. Soon they would be with her. Things would be a little better then.

With that thought, the president smiled lightly, then drifted off to sleep.

Twenty minutes later, she was dead.

*******

The potassium chloride had been administered in the herbal tea she had swallowed just before slipping into bed. As expected, it was a perfect assassination, leaving no trace of foul play behind.

Because potassium and chloride are naturally found within the human body, the forensic pathologist had no evidence that an assassination had taken place. Later, during the autopsy, when examining the dead woman’s heart, the pathologist noted all the classical indications of a massive heart attack: discoloration and swelling in the aorta, pockets of clear liquid throughout one chamber. His notes were textbook clear: Unstable angina. Fatal outcome. Dynamic coronary thrombosis leading to infarction and sudden death. Possible peripheral embolization culminating in total vascular occlusion.

The only other medical discovery of any significance was the slightly elevated calcium chloride levels within the blood—hardly interesting and certainly not suspicious.

Ventricular fibrillation leading to heart failure was the final conclusion of the forensic pathologist.

*******

Upon being told of the president’s sudden death, the National Security Advisor turned away and sadly shook his head. “It was simply too much for her,” he whispered to the general who had brought him the shocking news. “Truth is, the burden of the presidency might be too much to ask of anyone right now.”

EIGHT

East Side, Chicago, Illinois

They helped Luke up the bare cement stairway. Ammon held his brother’s weight, his right arm around his waist, Sara on the other side. Luke was getting heavier as they climbed. Sam felt a mushy wetness against his hand and knew the dressing on Luke’s back was saturated. His brother was growing weak now, but they all were. They were all exhausted, barely hanging by a thread, the last couple of days, the last week, the last month stripping them bare of any emotional reserves, leaving them physically and mentally worn down to the bone. As they worked their way up to Mary’s apartment, Sam sucked a shallow breath. The stairwell stank, graffiti covered most of the walls, and just a hint of light bled in from the small, wire-mesh windows on each landing. Rounding the second corner, Sam heard a woman gasp and looked up. Mary Dupree was waiting for them on the third floor, Azadeh at her side.

Mary stared, her mouth open, her dark eyes wide in disbelief. Stepping down, she glanced at Azadeh, then ran down the flight of stairs. Nudging Sara aside, she draped Luke’s arm across her own shoulders. Azadeh followed, her face clouded with concern. Reaching out to Sam, she spoke in Farsi, but he didn’t catch her hurried words and didn’t understand.

Mary moved carefully, matching Luke’s slow steps. “Why isn’t he in the hospital?” she whispered to Sara as they climbed.

Sara patted her arm reassuringly. “It’s OK,” she said.

“They should have kept him in the hospital!” Mary’s voice was angry.

“It’s OK. Don’t be upset. We’ll explain everything.”

Something in Sara’s words settled Mary down and she turned her attention now to Luke. “Come on, baby!” she said as she helped him up the last flight of stairs, whispering encouragingly in his ear, like a mother to a child. “Almost there, baby. You can do it. Almost there.” Her voice was soft, her accent musical.

Luke turned to her and smiled weakly. “I’m not dying here, Miss Dupree. You know that, right?”

“Shhh, child. You save your strength now. Mary’s going to take care of you.”

Sara listened, a weak smile crossing her weary face. So good. So strong. Mary was her family now.

*******

They sat around the small kitchen table: Mary holding Kelly Beth, who was asleep now in her arms; Sara next to her, her hands resting on the table; Azadeh against the back wall, her eyes moving constantly, unsure of her status among the group; Ammon in the last chair, leaning heavily upon the table. Sam was sitting on the counter. Luke was in the back bedroom. He had a bit of fever but was sleeping now.

Ammon looked at all the others. “It’s amazing,” was all he said.

They sat in silence, thinking, wondering, trying to put the miracles they had witnessed into perspective. Mary held her little girl ever tighter, rocking her in her arms, holding her as if she’d never let her go. “It’s not amazing,” she countered, resting her chin on Kelly Beth’s head. The child’s eyes remained closed. “It’s the hand of God, Ammon. Pure and true. The hand of God, just like in the Holy Book. The Virgin Birth. The rise of Lazarus. The healing of the Leper. Mercy of the Father.” She choked, her voice falling as she glanced down at the floor, then lifted her eyes up to Sara. “These sons of yours. Angels. Prayers. I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand it at all. I don’t know how it happened. All I know is what I know. My little girl was dying, dying right before my very eyes. I’ve watched others passing; I know what happens to them just before they slip away. They lose interest in the world, folding into themselves. They become smaller, shallow, the darkness drawing near. That was happening to my baby. She was just a day away . . . .” Her voice trailed off again and she swallowed hard. “I had taken on her suffering as if it were my own. Her pain was my pain, her suffering was my suffering, her despair my own. How many nights had I begged Him for my daughter? Lord, I believe. Forgive me for my weakness. Help my lack of faith. Lord, will you have mercy? Will you help my little girl? Help us, Lord, I begged him.” She glanced again at Sam, who had said a prayer for Kelly Beth, then shook her head. “I don’t know how it happened. All I know is that it’s true.”

No one spoke. A sweet, peaceful feeling settled over the room as the sounds from the crowded streets drifted through the window. Azadeh kept her head down, trying to understand. So many new words, so many new ideas. Still, she understood the general feeling and somehow she knew that what Mary said was true.

Sara reached across the table and took Mary’s hand. “You’re a good person, Mary, and God has heard your prayers.”

“I know lots of good people who don’t get answers to their prayers. At least that’s the way it seems. So why me? Why my daughter? I feel so unworthy.” Her lower lip trembled and her cheeks were stained with tears, but she didn’t look away or waver, staring into Sara’s eyes.

Sara tightened her grip on Mary’s hand. “No one can answer that, Mary. You’ll probably never know. But I do think that we were meant to be together. I think we were sent to find you, to help you and Kelly Beth. I think you were sent to help us, too.”

“Me? I can’t do anything for you.”

“You don’t know that, Mary. You don’t know what the future has in store.”

Mary’s face was clearly skeptical. Sara patted her hand a final time and sat back. “Everything that has happened has to have happened for a reason. Everything we’ve been through, it is all part of the plan.”

“The plan?” Mary wondered. “Do you really think God planned for this to happen?” She nodded to the small apartment window, indicating the death and chaos taking place down on the street. “Is all this really what He wanted?” She wasn’t doubting. She wasn’t faithless. She just really didn’t know.

Sara looked down at the table, her mind flooding with memories of her husband, the strength of his arms, the smell of his hair, his patience, his faith, his determination to do the right thing, regardless of the cost. The life that he had chosen was full but as demanding as any she could imagine, hard and short. She thought of the endless nights she had waited for him to come home—days, weeks, months when he didn’t come home at all. And now she would have to wait for years. Such a long time. But she accepted that. It wasn’t over, and she knew that she would see him again, maybe before she was even ready. She sighed, then turned to Mary. “Everything that happens is a part of His plan. No matter what happens to us, to our children, to either you or me, there is a purpose and reason for it.”

Mary didn’t answer as she clung to her child.

Ammon looked up at his mother. “How’s Luke doing?” he asked.

Sara twirled her fingers nervously. She had wiped the blood away with a towel, but without any water she couldn’t wash them and they were tinted crimson now. “I don’t know. The wounds are deep, or at least they look deep to me. I changed the dressings. They bled awhile, but I don’t know if . . . .”

“They’re fine,” Sam broke in. He had examined Luke’s injuries as well. “Two small entry and exit wounds. Believe me, I’ve seen way worse. Like the doctor at the hospital said, they’ve perforated the skin and muscle and a little of the fat and tissue underneath, but they’re not into the organs, certainly not as deep as bone. He seems kind of weak, but frankly, we all are. I’m sure the wounds will heal nicely and it won’t take too long.”

Mary stared at Sara, her eyes still wide in wonder. “An entry wound . . . an exit wound . . . .”

No one said anything.

“My little girl here was dying . . . .”

A deep and sacred silence.

Mary looked up at the heavens and lifted both of her arms. “Thank you God,” she prayed.

*******

They had dinner. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to fill them: canned beans, Spam, a handful of crackers. They sipped the water carefully—it was the most precious thing they had, and they had much less of it than of food. After eating, Sam shot a wary eye toward the closet where they had hidden the three packs of supplies they had brought with them. Underneath the backpacks were two camel packs of water as well as a few other emergency items they had taken from the trunk before hiding the car in the stand of trees along the road. He thought of the other things left in the car: the gold coins, the rest of the food, the clothes, the sleeping bags, more emergency supplies. They had taken everything that they could carry with them, but they had also had to find a way to carry Luke, and so they hadn’t been able to bring as much as Sam would have liked.

“All right, what are we going to do now?” Sara said.

No one answered. No one knew. Sara thought she heard a clock tick and looked around suddenly, the sound already foreign and out of place. No electricity. No clock. Of course, she had been wrong.

Sam slid off the counter and walked to the kitchen window. Something from outside had caught his attention, and he leaned across the old sink, standing on his toes to peer down on the street. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “It seems there aren’t any good options. But I will tell you this, we can’t stay here.”

Azadeh looked around anxiously. Up to this point she’d been quiet, but her eyes were expressive now and full of fear. Sara saw the look on her face but didn’t understand it. Mary, who knew her better, leaned across the table. “We’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do now,” she said to Azadeh to assure her. “Where we’re going to go, how to get there, you know, all that kind of thing.”

Azadeh concentrated, then turned to Sara. “When you say ‘we,’ you mean you and your sons—”

“All of us,” Sara assured her. “We’re going to stay together. We need to stay together. It’s better for us all.”

Azadeh’s eyes remained wary. She didn’t believe them, not yet, not completely. She wanted to. She desperately wanted to believe they wouldn’t leave her, but little in her life experience indicated that that would be true. It seemed much likelier that they were going to abandon her at the earliest possible moment. She was a liability, not an asset, and she had been around long enough to understand how it worked. So, though she tried, she remained on guard, searching for an advantage as they talked.

Sara turned to Sam. “You say we can’t stay here,” she said. “Are you certain that’s true? This might be the best place we could be. It’s safe, at least, and certainly better than being out there on the street.”

Sam shook his head. “Maybe, but I don’t think so. It’s a rough neighborhood. We stand out. We’re a minority and not a welcome one.” He glanced at Azadeh. “Some even less than others. Hard as it will be for us, it will be much worse for Azadeh. She can’t blend in. Everyone will know where she came from. And let’s face it, no one’s too thrilled about Muslims or Middle Eastern people right now, especially out there on the street.”

“But Azadeh’s going to be the minority anywhere we go.”

“That’s true, but it’s a lot more than that, Mom. We need to get out of the city. From the looks of it, most people have decided to stay here. I’m guessing, like us, they don’t have anywhere else to go. But it’s going to get harder and harder to exist here. No food. No clean water. It can’t hold up for very long. And when it falls, I like our chances much more out in the country than here.”

Sara glanced at Ammon, who slowly nodded in agreement.

“I don’t know if I should leave my home,” Mary said, looking around the apartment she had lived in for so many years.

“We can’t tell you what to do,” Sara answered. “We’ll do everything we can to help you, but the truth is, there’s little we can do if you decide to stay here.” She glanced down at Kelly Beth, who was still sleeping in Mary’s arms, then nodded toward Azadeh. “You’ve also got to consider what is best for Kelly Beth and Azadeh. Are you going to be able to take care of them?”

Mary fell quiet. “I don’t know how I’ll even take care of myself.”

Another cold moment of silence.

Sam, who had been listening quietly to the exchange, finally spoke. “I don’t have much time,” he said.

Sara turned to him, her face falling. She pressed her lips together. Her hair was hanging limp now, dirty and lifeless, but she was still beautiful.

“This war isn’t over. I only have two weeks.”

Sara stood and moved toward Sam and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m just so thankful you were able to come to us even for just a few days. Imagine where we’d be if you hadn’t come.” The soldier held his mother. “How I wish you could stay,” she whispered to him.

“Mom, you know I can’t.”

She pulled away and put the palm of her hand across his mouth. “I know. I understand. And I’m not angry. I’ve been married to a soldier for more than twenty years. Believe me, I understand. What it means is that we’ve got to move more quickly. We’ve got to figure out where we’re going and what we’re going to do.”

Ammon stood and moved toward the telephone. Mary watched him. “It’s not working,” she said.

The phone was sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter. He didn’t even pick it up. “You have a phone book?” he asked her.

Mary stood, walked to the cupboard, opened it, and dropped a thick black-and-yellow book into his arms. Ammon took it, thumbed through the back, referred to a couple of the maps in the front of the phone book, then motioned to his mother and Sam. They talked together.

Ten minutes later, they had a plan.

NINE

Taxi Two-Five, Thirty-One Miles Northeast of Little Rock, Arkansas

Lieutenant Bono sat alone on a cracked vinyl crew seat in the front cargo compartment of the Air Force transport, his backpack at his feet, his handgun strapped in a camouflage canvas holster at his side. Sometimes he dozed. Sometimes he stared, his head back, his vacant eyes looking straight ahead. Inside the cabin, it was noisy enough to make it difficult to communicate, and the crew members who passed up and down the cargo compartment seemed more than happy to ignore him as they went about their work. For two hours he hardly moved, though sometimes he would glance down at his watch. The interior of the military transport aircraft was illuminated only by a line of small, recessed bulbs that ran along the sides of the floor and a few red lights spaced out on the cabin ceiling overhead. The vibration of the four enormous engines hummed throughout the aluminum airframe and the air smelled like ozone, dry and clean but a little too sterile to be comfortable. There weren’t any windows in the cargo compartment but the cockpit door was open; if the lieutenant leaned over, he could look forward to the cockpit and through the front windscreen to see the utter darkness that had settled outside. It was shocking, how little starlight or even moonlight penetrated the clouds of dust that were blowing through the upper atmosphere—and there was not a single ground light anywhere.

Bono watched for a long moment, shook his head, then leaned back against his seat again.

The cargo master, an Air Force sergeant, walked past him to check his load, cursing the loose straps in overly colorful language and pulling them tight again. Walking back toward the cockpit, the sergeant—himself a little weary from having worked for more than thirty hours straight now—couldn’t help but notice the strain in his passenger’s face. The lieutenant was young and his hair and skin were so dark that he looked almost like a foreigner—Mediterranean, maybe Greek, maybe even Arab. It didn’t matter, the sergeant figured anything but straight-up American was a real unpopular look right now. And the lieutenant acted tired. Dirt tired. Combat tired—the bone-crushing, muscle-sapping, eye-drooping weariness that comes only with combat. The young man had seen a lot of combat; the master sergeant could see that in his face.

The loadmaster stopped and nudged him. “Hey, lieutenant, remember, you can sleep when you’re dead.”

Bono opened his eyes and looked up. The sergeant offered him a bottle of water, which he took gratefully and almost emptied in a single gulp. The sergeant leaned toward him, talking loudly enough to be heard above the noise from the jet engines and hissing high-pressure environmental systems. “How come your watch is still working?” he asked, nodding toward Bono’s wrist.

Bono didn’t seem to hear him but looked down. “I was underground when it hit,” he said. The sergeant tilted his head questioningly. “The Metro in D.C,” Bono explained.

The sergeant nodded. “You know how much a working watch is going for down on the street? I know a guy who was over in Germany when the EMP hit. Just got back a couple days ago, so his watch was still working. Sold it for two thousand dollars yesterday. At least that’s what he claimed. But he was an Army guy so, you know, who knows if it was true.” The Air Force sergeant smiled. Yeah, the world was falling apart, but things weren’t so bad he couldn’t still get in a little Army dig.

Bono lifted his eyes but not his head. “Believe me, dude, I know what you’re saying. Can’t trust an Army guy any farther than you could throw ‘im.”

The sergeant smiled again.

“Really, two thousand dollars?” Bono asked.

“That’s what he said.”

“Know what?” Bono answered. “I’d have kept the watch.”

The enlisted man leaned forward, bracing himself as the aircraft bumped through a pocket of turbulence.

“U.S. bills, Monopoly money, it’s all the same now,” Bono said.

“No,” the loadmaster shook his head, “it won’t always be like that. Remember, the rest of the world is still out there, pretty much unfazed. They’ll step in to help us. Things will soon get back to normal.”

Bono thought of the nuclear bombs over Gaza, Washington, D.C., other cities in the world. He thought of the EMP attacks and the utter devastation that had swept across the country. “You really think so?” he asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore; his eyes were sincere.

“Promise you, lieutenant.” The sergeant patted Bono’s shoulder. “Keep the faith, sir, keep the faith.”

“Hope you’re right.” Bono closed his eyes and lowered his chin to his chest.

The sergeant watched, then prodded him again. “Where you headed?”

Bono lifted the collapsed water bottle and sucked the last few drops. “Trying to get to Memphis. My wife and daughter are there.”

The sergeant nodded toward the Special Forces emblem on Bono’s lapel. “Special Forces, eh?”

Bono looked down at the pin. “I only wear it so I don’t have to remind Air Force guys that I’m better than they are.”

The sergeant faked a laugh. “Hey, good one. Never heard that one before.”

Bono smiled and winked at him.

“You’ve been away a long time?” The sergeant was serious now.

“Way too long.”

“Your family, they’re OK, though?”

“Far as I know. They went to stay with my in-laws before the EMP hit. It should be pretty safe there, out in the country.”

The sergeant nodded, then turned and walked toward the cockpit. Half a minute later he returned with a couple more bottles of water and handed them to Bono. The lieutenant took them, thanked the sergeant, and stuffed them in his pack. The sergeant watched, then handed him his own half-empty bottle. “You need this more than I do.”

Bono hesitated. “No, I’m cool. Thanks.”

The sergeant shoved the bottle to him. “Take it.”

Bono took the bottle and gulped the water down, a single drop escaping to his chin. “Thank you,” he said.

The sergeant leaned toward him. “I hope you find your family,” he shouted above the sounds of the cargo compartment.

Bono didn’t answer.

“You got a ways to go to get from Little Rock to Memphis.”

“Yeah. About a hundred miles.”

“You got a way to get there?”

Bono looked away before he answered, “Not yet.”

“That’s going to be a problem.”

Bono thought of his trek across Washington, D.C, just the day before: the forming gangs, the murdered husband and stranded wife, the fires, the unending lines of stalled vehicles, civilians hanging on him, begging him for water, food, or information. Yes, it was going to be a problem. That much he knew.

The sergeant looked at Bono for a long minute, then slapped his shoulder. Standing, he made his way toward the back of the aircraft to check the cargo for their final approach and landing.

Bono’s heart raced, a tinge of adrenaline rushing through him as he felt the aircraft begin to descend. Little Rock Air Force Base was straight ahead. A highway map was folded across his lap, and he spread it out and held it up against the dim light to study it. The base was twelve miles northeast of the city limits. He pressed the map with his finger, tracing a path toward the outer edge. He’d seen enough back in Washington, D.C., to know it would be better to avoid the major highways, so he planned to head cross-country for eight miles toward I-40, cross the Interstate, and continue southeast until he hit State Road 70, which ran toward Memphis. It would be far less crowded. Once he hit the state road, it was just a little more than a hundred miles to his in-laws’ home.

A hundred miles. Less than a two-hour drive back in the old days. At least a four- or five-day hike in the brave new world.

Five days just to get there. If he didn’t have any problems or run into trouble, which he knew he would.

He glanced at the empty seat beside him, wishing that Samuel Brighton were there. He missed him. He missed his friend’s company and sense of humor, but mostly he missed having someone he trusted at his side. He felt safe now, in this aircraft, but that was soon going to change. He was about to set off on a cross-country hike in a strange and uncertain world, and it would have been nice to have a buddy with him for the trek. Thinking of Sam, his mind drifted back to the last time he had seen his friend at Langley, when the two men had said good-bye. “I’m going to Chicago,” had been Sam’s last, frightful words. The decision made no sense, and at first it had left Bono completely speechless. But he knew now, though he wasn’t certain why, that it had been the right choice. For whatever reason, Sam was on the right path.

The aircraft lurched through turbulence as it descended through a layer of clouds, then began a slow turn to the right. Bono felt the gentle pull of the turn pressing him down against his seat, and he leaned back. As his mind drifted, a twinge of excitement ran through him, a warm, fuzzy feeling that had sustained him through months of separation, loneliness, and fear.

Closing his eyes, he thought about his wife, Caelyn.

*******

Bono would always remember the first time he had seen her, the entire scene forever imprinted on his mind. He could hear the sounds of the wind through the trees; smell the wet, fresh-cut grass; see the color of the sky; feel the lurch inside his stomach as she walked toward him; the sunlight on her face; and the afternoon breeze playing with her hair. A senior at UCLA, he spent a lot more time hanging out at the ROTC building than he did with his fellow economics majors who were preparing for law school or getting an MBA. Truth was, he was dying to graduate, get through infantry school and into battle. The last thing on his mind was getting married.

He was sitting on the steps of the Wooden Building (all of the campus buildings seemed to be named after someone famous), waiting for his ROTC squad to take to the intramural field, when she suddenly came around the corner of the building with a couple of her friends. Being drill day, he was wearing his cadet khakis and leather boots and, as she walked by, he felt suddenly self-conscious and unsure. Although she looked in his direction, she seemed to pay him no attention. He watched her approach, unable to pull his eyes away. She was tall and athletic (attending on a tennis scholarship, he would later learn) and the most beautiful girl—no, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was out of his league, he knew that, but he really didn’t care. He’d never seen her before and chances were, large as the university was, he might never see her again. He had to talk to her, he simply had to, and he had to make his move now.

But he didn’t. He just sat there, his mouth open, his eyes wide.

She passed by him, the cadet staring at her like a puppy. Ten feet down the sidewalk she unexpectedly stopped and turned around.

Taking a deep breath, he gathered all his courage, stood up, and walked toward her.

She waited. Her two friends kept on walking. Out of the three, she was the only one who had turned around.

“Hey there,” he said as he drew close.

She looked past him, lifting on her toes as if she were looking for someone else. He shot a quick look behind him but there was no one there.

“Hey there,” he said again.

She lowered off her toes and looked at him. Tan face. Killer eyes. His stomach flipped again. “Hi,” she finally answered.

He stared, suddenly unable to think of anything to say, his mind empty as an arctic landscape. He felt stupid, his mouth dry, his mind completely blank. Through the awkward silence he started praying that she wouldn’t ask him something complicated like, “What’s your name?”

“What’s your name?” she asked.

He almost panicked, his mouth open.

She watched, waited, then smiled, her eyes teasing. Tall as she was, she still had to look up at him. “OK, we’ll get that later.” She nodded toward the cadet rank on his shoulders. “Are you a general?”

He shook his head. “Ahhh, yeah.” He corrected himself. “I mean no. No. I’m not a general.”

She moved her head again, tilting it to the right. “You’re not?”

Bono completely missed the teasing in her voice. “No. Not yet. But I will be one day.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I was, you know, kind of kidding.”

Bono realized how foolish he had sounded and looked away. She glanced toward her friends, who were waiting for her now, then nodded for them to go on. Bono looked back at the group but hardly saw them. All he saw was her.

He swallowed painfully. “Whoa, that sounded kind of, you know, kind of—”

“Dumb,” she answered for him.

Panic settled in again, his mind fading. She reached up and toyed with the lapels on his cadet shirt. “These are pretty cute.”

Cute. Yeah, that was it. Cute. That was why he was going into the Army. “I’ve always thought the Army had the cutest uniforms,” he said in a very serious voice. “No reason you can’t look good when you’re out there killing people.”

She looked at him, taken aback, then they both began to laugh. Extending his hand, he introduced himself.

“My name’s Caelyn,” she answered after learning his.

He watched and waited. “I don’t get to know your last name?”

She eyed him without blinking. “No, not yet. You have to earn that.” Another shot of sunlight cut through her hair. That killer smile once again.

He nodded to the steps but she didn’t move to sit down. “Does anyone ever learn your last name?” he asked carefully, more than happy to stand if that was what it took to keep her there.

“A few. Not too many. As an Army guy, I’m sure you understand. Got to make the enemy earn every inch he gets.”

“Is that what I am, the enemy?”

“Believe me, if you’d dated some of the buffoons I’ve been out with, you’d know exactly what I mean.” She always seemed to smile, but he could see that part of her was serious.

She glanced down at the book he’d been reading. Black leather. Lots of pages. Reaching down, she turned it over, her smile shifting just a bit. “The Holy Bible?” she asked in surprise.

He fingered the Bible nervously.

“Are you religious?” She almost seemed to laugh.

Was there disappointment in her voice? He wasn’t sure. Still, for the first time since he had met her he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.” He moved the Bible to hold it in both hands. “I may want to one day be an Army chaplain.”

She looked away, seeming to think. “That’s going to be a problem,” she answered slowly.

“How’s that?”

“Well, let’s say that one day I take you home to meet my parents. Now, not only would I have to tell them that you’re going into the Army, but you’re a Protestant, too. My mom’s not going to like that. I don’t know what she’ll do.”

Go home to meet her parents. He was ready right now. Meet the family. Set a wedding date. He was ready for it all. But all he did was nod slowly, unsure of what to say. Her sense of humor was unpredictable, like trying to stay ahead of a swirl of leaves in the wind. Then she nudged him on the shoulder. “Hey, general, don’t worry too much. I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

He pressed his lips together with concern. “It gets worse,” he admitted, his voice low and tense.

“Really?”

“Afraid so.”

“How’s that?”

“Well for one thing, I’m actually Jewish. And I always vote Republican. On Wednesdays I go door-to-door with a couple of friends who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. On weekends I sell flowers on the street corner for the Moonies. I make my living telemarketing. And I just got out of jail.”

She stared at him with a straight face. “Pretty much everything they could ask for in a potential son-in-law.”

“Pretty much.”

She stared off again, thinking deeply. “I don’t know if they’re going to be able to handle the whole Republican thing,” she muttered sadly.

He matched her far-off stare. “My dad voted for Kennedy.” His voice was hopeful.

“So you’re open to negotiation.”

He shrugged. “On a couple of things, I guess.”

She reached out for his hand and shook it. “I think maybe we can reach a deal, then,” she said.

*******

They sat on the cement steps of the Wooden Building and talked for three hours. He missed his ROTC drills. She missed a lab. Neither of them noticed. Neither of them cared. Sometime after sunset, he walked her home. Sitting on the front steps of her apartment building, they kept on talking until sometime after midnight.

Early the next morning, he called her on her cell phone. She picked up as if she’d been waiting. What was the point in pretending? A ball had started rolling that neither of them could control. They didn’t want to control it. They wanted it to roll.

“Have I earned an inch?” he asked before she could even say hello.

She didn’t answer, puzzled.

“You got to make the enemy earn every inch,” he reminded her.

She laughed and answered, “Yeah, I guess you’ve earned an inch.”

“Then I get to know your last name?”

“All right, general, my last name is McKenny.”

“Well, Miss McKenny, are you doing anything tonight?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid that I have plans.”

The line was silent.

“I’ve got a date with a guy I’m really smitten with,” she went on.

She could hear him deflate, his breath exhaling in her ear.

“He’s intelligent and good-looking, but it seems like there’s—I don’t know, something more. I can’t explain . . . .”

He was silent; then he got it. He sat there stunned. Everything that he was thinking, she was thinking, too.

“What time’s good for you?” he asked urgently.

“Soon as you can get here, general.”

“I’m on my way,” he said.

Two months later, they decided on the wedding date.

*******

That was the way it was for them. They met, fell in love, and never once looked back. They didn’t second-guess. They didn’t wonder. They didn’t have to. They knew they were lucky; only one in ten thousand relationships worked out like theirs did. And they were smart enough to appreciate it and be grateful every day.

As time passed and Bono got consumed with his military career, the months of separation, months of longing and waiting and dreaming of each other, only made the times they spent together seem that much more important and intense. Together or apart, when everything was said and done, when the frustrations and joys and disappointments were considered, they simply loved each other.

Some people said it was a fairy tale, but they knew it was more than that. This wasn’t a fairy tale, this was real, and it was as eternal as it got.

Sitting inside the large cabin of the military aircraft, his face illuminated only by the dull red bulbs overhead, Bono smiled.

A hundred miles was all that separated them. A hundred miles. He would crawl to Memphis if he had to. He was going to see her soon. He was going to see his wife. He was going to hold his little girl.

His stomach fluttered just like on that first day that he had seen her. Life was good. He was happy. He was almost home again.

TEN

Four Miles West of Chatfield, Twenty-One Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee

Something told her. She didn’t know what it was or where it came from but something told her and she knew. He’s thinking about me right now.

Caelyn peered up at the darkness. OK, her husband was still alive. That was good. But where was he? Iraq? Iran? Syria? Would he ever come home? Would she ever see him again? Would she ever again cling to him, press her cheek against his neck, and hear him whisper her name in her ear?

She wanted to cry, thinking of going through these dark days by herself. But she didn’t. There were no tears now, just resolve and determination as strong as the family oak that was swaying in the night wind out in the yard.

As an Army wife, especially the wife of an Army Special Forces soldier, Caelyn was used to being on her own. She had known she would spend a lot of time alone before she’d decided to marry him. Still, the decision had been a no-brainer—better to have him briefly when she could than not to have him at all. And she’d never once regretted her decision, even on the loneliest of nights, even when she worried for his life.

Still, there were too many nights now spent down on her knees, pleading with God to bring him back to her. “You promised me,” she would whisper to the heavens in the dark. “You promised. I believe you! Please don’t let me down.”

Moving slowly, she rolled toward her daughter, who was sleeping with her in the bed. A heart-wrenching sense of dread was building up inside her. She shook it off and sat up, placing her feet on the cold floor. Time to be strong, time to hold her fear in, time to brace herself for whatever it was that God had in store.

She looked at the dark window, then bowed her head and said another silent prayer. “He’s thinking of me right now. I know that. Will you please tell him that I’m thinking of him, too?”

Opening her eyes, she stood up. Morning was coming soon, and there was a lot of work to do.

*******

Later that day, Caelyn and her mother were working in the basement of the old farmhouse. The blonde-haired Army wife turned toward the older woman and forced herself to smile. “It’s going to be OK, Mom. We’ll figure something out.”

The other woman frowned as she turned back toward the shelves. Her hair was salt-and-pepper gray, her shoulders tired and smaller than they used to be, but her face was animated, her eyes defiant.

Looking at her mother, it was difficult for Caelyn to imagine how such a small woman could carry such a big stick. But it was true. Her mother was a fighter; she’d proven that all her life. Trouble was, sometimes she didn’t know what she was fighting for. As the years had passed, Caelyn had sensed the frustration building up inside her mom. The woman had suffered a lifetime of battles, sacrifice, and unselfishness, most of it unspoken, and never known what it all was for.

If you’d only listen to me, Mother, I could help you. If you’d swallow your pride for just a moment, I could help you understand.

As Caelyn watched, her mother’s eyes faded just a little. Caelyn realized the real change that was taking place inside: The confidence was fading, the fire inside her mom was growing cold, leaving just a flicker where there used to be a flame.

Sometimes, when she was younger, Caelyn had wondered what it would take to bring her mother down.

Now she knew the answer.

It would take something like this.

Caelyn stepped back, felt the wooden stool behind her, and leaned against it, watching her mother count the bottles of peaches, beets, beans, and corn. Her mother had canned all the time when Caelyn was a little girl, but it was a lost art now and she hadn’t done it in years. Why go through all the work and hassle? It didn’t save any money. In fact, by the time they paid for the bottles, food, and supplies, it ended up costing more than store-bought food, not to mention all the work.

Caelyn looked around the basement storage room. Some of the bottles were so dust-covered she had to wonder if the food inside them was even safe to eat, knowing botulism was just as deadly as starvation. She thought back, trying to figure out how long it had been since she’d seen her mother in the kitchen bottling vegetables or fruit. Sometime back in college—probably her sophomore year, she decided, maybe five or six years before.

The air inside the storage room was cool and musty, the cement walls damp to the touch, and she almost shivered, pulling her arms tightly around herself as she watched her mother counting the bottles of food that were probably spoiled anyway.

Her mother finished counting, stood quiet for a moment, her eyes searching as if for more, then turned around. “Forty-two,” she announced.

Caelyn forced another smile. “OK, Mom.”

“I counted them twice.”

The younger woman stood up from the stool. “Good, Mom. Every little bit is going to help.”

The older woman hesitated, disappointed. “I thought there was more. There should have been more. I was thinking last fall, ‘Gretta, don’t be so lazy.’ I know how much your father likes bottled peaches but it seemed like there was always something more pressing to do.”

Caelyn heard footsteps on the kitchen floor above her and turned her head to listen. “Come on, Mom, let’s go up and check on Dad.”

Her mother moved toward the cellar stairs. As she walked by, Caelyn noticed that the soft skin around her cheeks was patchy white. Her mother had already lost a lot of weight and she was growing frail. Caelyn tried not to think about it, but she was worried about her mom.

“I should have been more prepared,” her mother said as she started climbing the stairs.

Caelyn reached out and placed a hand on the small of her mother’s back to brace her as she climbed. “No one saw this coming, Mom. There was no way you could have known.”

Her mother shrugged and walked to the top of the cellar stairs. Caelyn followed. Hearing squeals of laughter drifting from the backyard, she walked to the kitchen window to look outside, where her daughter was playing with the dog.

It had been several years since she’d been home. Looking out, she noticed that the oak tree was fuller now, the pine trees a good ten feet taller than when she was a little girl, the grass a little thinner beside the path, the honeysuckle that lined the ditch as high as the detached garage. She inhaled deeply, taking in the smells of the old house: pine cleaner, fresh dirt from the fields, the air heavy with lilac and hay, a bit of musty odor drifting up from the basement. The house creaked with a sudden gust of wind, the floor joists creating the familiar sound of old wood under strain.

She had been born and raised in this house. In fact, she’d never slept under another roof until she’d gone away to college, never called anywhere else home until she had gotten married and started following her husband around the globe. Every sound, every corner, every smell was as familiar to her as the back of her hand.

She stood there thinking of the old house as she watched her daughter playing in the yard. Her mother moved beside her and for a moment they watched together.

“She looks so much like you,” her mother whispered, looking out on the blonde-headed child.

Caelyn smiled softly and answered proudly, “I think she looks like her dad.”

“Either way, she’s lucky.” Caelyn’s mother lifted onto her toes and kissed her daughter’s cheek.

The little girl was playing with the old bloodhound, Miller (named after her father’s favorite beer, though Caelyn would never tell her daughter that). The dog lay almost lifeless on the grass, the six-year-old draped over him like a blanket. The little girl rested her chin on his head and lifted his enormous ears against the sides of her head. The old dog endured the humiliation, lifting his eyes to the back of his head; then he rolled over, knocking the child onto the grass. He licked her face, his pink tongue covering her entire cheek, until the little girl giggled and squirmed away.

For one fleeting moment Caelyn was transported back in time, back to the day before the world had been turned on its head. She had awakened early that morning, what was it, a week ago now. Walking outside to watch the sunrise, she had felt the morning dew between her toes. It had been a peaceful, easy morning and she remembered feeling good. But as she had watched the eastern sky turn from purple to pink and then to gray, she had almost heard a voice. “All of this is going to go away.”

She had shuddered, not understanding.

“What is going away?” she asked.

But the voice had not answered.

Of course, now she understood.

The old dog got up and lumbered toward the shade at the side of the house. The little girl, Ellie, laughed and followed. The screen door to the kitchen opened and Caelyn’s father plodded into the room, empty beer can in hand, the smell of smoke and pepper drifting in. Seventy-two. Gray hair. Small face. Her father was still a handsome man even if a little thin. Staring at him, she saw the simple innocence that seemed to keep him young. But she could also tell from his awkward walk that he was hurting from the arthritis and it worried her, knowing he had less than two weeks’ worth of medicine to treat the painful disease. A couple of days before, she’d walked four miles into town to see the pharmacist, but it was too late, they’d already sold out of everything. It was shocking to see how bare the grocery store shelves had been just three days after the attack. No food. No medicines. None of the most basic supplies.

Turning to her dad, she asked, “How’s the jerky coming?”

Her dad coughed. “Pretty good. You’re going to love it. I’ve got some Cajun jerky. Some pepper. A little jalapeño and salt.”

Like most ranchers, Caelyn’s parents had a freezer full of beef, but without electricity to keep it frozen they’d had to do something to preserve it before it rotted. So her father had improvised a smoker, spent a full day cutting the meat into thin slices, marinated it overnight, and was smoking it now, creating long strips of beef jerky that would keep for months.

“Be sure to get it dried all the way through,” Caelyn reminded him as he walked through the kitchen. “We don’t want any of it to rot.”

Her father didn’t answer, and she realized he hadn’t heard her. “Dad,” she said again, taking a couple of steps toward him, “are you drying it all the way through?”

He sat on a plastic-covered chair and looked up. “I don’t know. You want to check it?”

Caelyn knelt down in front of him. “No, Dad, I don’t have to check it. I’m just asking. We don’t want to waste any of the meat.”

Her dad wiped a sheen of sweat from off his temple. “I want you to check it for me, OK? I can’t tell for certain. I don’t want to mess it up.”

Caelyn’s mom walked over and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s OK, Len. I’ll check it for you. I’m sure you’re doing a great job.”

He reached up and touched her hand as she rested it on his shoulder. “A drink of water?” he asked.

Caelyn went to the container sitting beside the kitchen sink. Droplets had condensed on the metal can and she wiped them with her finger before pouring her dad a glass. Holding it up, she examined it against the sunlight. The water had been pulled from the small fishing pond down near the hay field, and though it had been strained and boiled over an open fire, there was no way to remove the tint of green from all the moss and vegetation in the pond. It tasted bad, even after being boiled, but she figured it was safe. Green or not, she knew what a huge blessing it was to have anything to drink. How many people out there had nothing now?

Turning, she took the glass of water to her dad.

“No beer?” he asked with disappointment. He’d been a two-beer-a-day guy for almost forty years. One in the morning, one at night. Never more. Never less. It was one of the peculiar habits he’d picked up after the accident.

“Nope, Dad, no more beer. Isn’t that great? I’ve been trying to get you to quit that nasty stuff for how long now?” She patted him on the shoulder. “Looks like I get the last word.”

Her dad took the glass of water and drank half down. “I’m not sure it’s worth it anymore,” he said sincerely. “Life without beer. No TV to watch the Yankees. Might as well be dead.”

Caelyn smiled, hoping he was kidding, but not really sure. It was another peculiar habit of her father’s—he was brutally honest, the connection between his brain and his tongue as straight and sure as any truth machine.

Her mother watched them, then turned toward the screen door. “I’ll check the jerky,” she said.

Caelyn gently rubbed her father’s shoulders, feeling his thin muscles and tired bones.

*******

Everyone who met her parents thought they were an extremely unlikely couple. And it was true, though Caelyn knew that hadn’t always been the case.

Her father was from Buffalo, New York, and held a master’s degree in chemical engineering from New York University. Graduating magna cum laude, he was on his way to a very successful career when he met the young woman who would become his wife. Her mother was a southern belle, her family roots going back to Charlestown and the Civil War. Her mother’s parents, the grandparents she’d never known, were the last of the old southern heritage. Solid, frugal, and pampered by old money until the Great Depression came and took it, her grandparents had been left with nothing. Without financing for proper upkeep, the old family farm, plantation house, and outbuildings fell into decay, forcing her grandparents to sell. They moved to Memphis, where her grandfather bought a much smaller farm and eked out a humble living while raising nine kids, Caelyn’s mother being the youngest one.

Part of a song-and-dance troupe during her freshman year in college, her mother had met her father on a weekend trip to New York City, where the group had performed for a local talent show. Three months later, to the dismay of both families, they were married. Scandalous to marry a Yankee, a man who had never even visited the South; her mother’s family had nearly gone into shock. Wanting a fresh start, the young couple had moved to California, where Caelyn’s father took a job with an up-and-coming pharmaceutical firm. Big money was on the horizon. Soon there would be children and a big house with a pool. Life was good and getting better, and there was no reason to expect that anything would ever change.

Eight months after they had moved to L.A, her father’s car was struck head-on by a drunk driver coming at him on the exit ramp of Interstate 101. Two cars, each traveling forty miles an hour. Metal on metal. Engine on engine. Glass on glass. The drunk driver was killed, the steering wheel of his Plymouth compressing his chest against the back of his spine. Her father wasn’t wearing a seatbelt—no one wore seatbelts in those days—and the collision sent him crashing through the windshield.

At first the doctors told her mother that her husband had been killed. Then, even with the sheets pulled up over the patient’s head, a medical intern had found a weak and erratic pulse. Frantic work from a brilliant team of doctors brought her father back to life.

Three months of coma followed, each day full of fear and dread. Then one Sunday morning he opened his eyes, told his wife he loved her, stared at the ceiling for a moment, then rolled over and fell asleep again.

But it was a sleep, not a coma. He snored. He moved. He even mumbled once or twice. That night, Gretta stood beside his bed, desperately holding his hand. In the morning, he woke up and rolled over. This time he tried to smile.

Five months after the accident, he went home from the hospital and started another journey, learning to walk, talk and feed himself again.

Two years later, he proudly struggled through a first-grade book of Dick and Jane. Gretta smiled at him broadly as he read, but inside, she was weeping like a child, knowing he would never work as a chemical engineer again.

The years came and went with very little to note their passing. They sold the new house down in Huntington Beach and moved up to Ontario, not as nice, but much cheaper. Her mother worked as a receptionist while attending night school, then started teaching first grade. Her father took care of the neighbors’ yards. Five years of teaching came and went. Her father learned to ride a bike. Her mother turned thirty, then thirty-five, and still no children. Her father got a job as a custodian at the school. Forty came. Not much changed. Her father worked weekends in the yard.

Then something happened to stir things up a bit.

Back in Memphis, Caelyn’s grandparents fell sick and died within five days of each other. None of the other children wanted the family farm so, after almost twenty years in southern California, her parents decided it was time to make a change. Caelyn’s mother packed up their belongings, sold the house, gave up the California sunshine, and moved back to the family farm twenty-one miles outside of Memphis, where they settled in to grow old. She got another job teaching school. To her great delight, her husband seemed to thrive taking care of the old farm.

Caelyn’s mother accepted things for what they were, thinking this was as good as her life was going to get.

Then she received another piece of astounding news. For weeks she lay awake at night, smiling at the darkness, far too happy and excited to sleep.

Nine months later, on her mother’s birthday (surely a sign from God, her mother always said), and with a rare Memphis snow outside, Caelyn was born into this world.

After twenty years of feeling as if she was more or less alone, like a sudden gift from heaven, Gretta held a little baby in her arms.

*******

Caelyn McKenny Calton watched through the kitchen window as her mother poked at the fire underneath the homemade smoker. Watching her mother was like looking into a crystal ball; a time machine couldn’t have shown her any better what she would look like when she was sixty-nine. And they had much more in common than just their looks. Both had quick hands and quick emotions, quick to joy, quick to anger and quick to cry. Both were fiercely independent, opinionated, and strong.

Proud Southern women. It shined in both of their eyes.

Yet as much as they were the same, there was a vast difference in their outlooks now. And the differences between them had grown larger with the passing of each year.

Caelyn had a softer side. A gentler side. A certain trust in God. Her mother was not like that. She was less feeling underneath. She’d lost her religion out in California and wasn’t particularly interested in looking for it anymore. She wasn’t hard-hearted, really, just less willing to feel, the experience with her husband having left her cautious and on guard. Like a drying limb on a gnarled cedar tree, she was strong and unbending, but tight and knotted up inside. Making her caution worse, the only good thing that had ever happened to her had been her little girl, and the years they’d spent together had proven far too short. Before she knew it, Caelyn had gone off to college and fallen in love with some Army guy.

It had proven very hard for her mother to let go, which made their relationship difficult at times.

ELEVEN

Two Miles West of Chatfield, Nineteen Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee

The man was exhausted. His muscles ached, his head hurt, his arms were sore from driving, and it was getting late. He was hungry and thirsty, and more than ready to head home. He and the boys had been up since way before dawn. The sun was close to setting, and he knew how utterly dark it would be once it went down. And there weren’t any headlights on the old tractor that he was driving, which meant that if he didn’t turn around, it would be a long, stressful drive back home. He glanced up at the setting sun, thinking of the moon. Yes, it would be up there, but he almost feared it now. Bloody red. Evil looking. Like the devil glaring down.

He shifted in the old seat and almost swore. He didn’t understand it at all. They’d completed their assignment. It was time to go home. On the old tractor it was an hour’s drive, at least, back to his home.

Yet he kept driving in the other direction, steering the tractor down the road. “Keep on going. There are others,” the voice inside him seemed to say.

But there were no others. Whatever foolish prompting he was having, his mind told him it was wrong. He knew everyone who lived within the county—he knew them very well. And no one else was out there. He had seen them all.

He slowed the tractor. It was time to head on home. He didn’t want to be out here after dark. He could feel the evil growing close.

Still, the voice persisted in his heart. “Keep on going. There’s one more.”

The driver shook his head. He was a simple man. He wasn’t ever going to make a million dollars or watch himself on television; he’d never be famous or elected to some big-time public office. But this much he knew: The Spirit was talking to him now. He recognized the feeling. “Keep on going. Keep on going. There is one more.”

He mentally reviewed the list of district members for the third or fourth time. No. There were no more. He had visited them all.

If it was the Spirit that he was hearing, then the Spirit had it wrong. No matter what it told him, he knew there were no more people down this road.

Still, he kept on driving, fighting the terrifying urge to turn around.

The Spirit wasn’t the only voice inside his soul.

“I own the night!” the evil taunted him. “Stay out here and I’ll kill you. I’ll send a mortal out to find you—there are dozens of them around here who are under my control. Fear the darkness. It’s my kingdom. Don’t be a fool. You’ve got the two boys. I could kill them, too!”

The man hesitated, glancing fearfully over his shoulder.

“Stop,” the evil hissed again. “Stop and turn around!”

“No,” the Spirit whispered, “there is another out there, someone the Father cares about. She’s been praying for you, brother. You cannot let her down. Don’t fear the darkness, it is empty. They cannot hurt you if keep your faith strong. You are on the Master’s errand. He’ll protect you. Now please, don’t turn around.”

TWELVE

Four Miles West of Chatfield, Twenty-One Miles Southwest of Memphis, Tennessee

Caelyn gave her dad a final pat on the shoulder, then moved toward the kitchen door. It creaked on its hinges, but the spring that pulled it closed behind her was firm and strong. Like everything else on the farm, the house was well maintained. She stepped onto the back porch. The clapboard home, two stories, white with dark green shutters, faced west and the sun was setting now, providing cool shade on the back porch. Her mother had moved around to the south lawn where the smoker had been set up at the edge of the grass. Caelyn walked to the side of the house and rested against the corner, taking in the view. Green pasture in the back, a heavy tree line on the far side, a strangely shadowed sky overhead. It was so quiet she could hear her heart pulsing in her ears. The road out front was completely deserted. No birds. No wind. No movement of the trees. To her left, a golden field of wheat had been cut down to the nubs, leaving only straw, the grain having been harvested back in July. What would they give to have the wheat back now? A lot. But it didn’t matter, it was gone, sold to the granary on the edge of town, augured up into the silver tower, then dropped into waiting railroad cars and hauled off to General Mills or Betty Crocker or some other mill somewhere. Caelyn swallowed, wishing desperately that her father had held onto even a little of the grain, but he didn’t have anywhere to store it. Truth was, no farmers raised food for themselves anymore. They grew the crops and sold them, then, same as everyone, bought the finished products at the store. Turning her head, she looked north. Barns. An old milk parlor. A cement and metal manger where they used to feed the cows. Her father ran a simple operation. A little wheat. Corn. Soybeans. He had a herd of forty heifers but the yearlings had all been sold. Most of the mother cows were pregnant now and would calf again during the coming winter.

As a precaution, they had moved all the cattle into the back pasture, where they couldn’t be seen from the road. Was it necessary? She didn’t know. So far, they’d been left alone. A couple of the neighbors had come by a time or two, but those were the only people they’d seen since the EMP attack. Still, they’d heard rumors of things that were happening in the city and the suburbs: mean, scary things and desperate stories. People were getting hungry now. Could parents watch their children begin to starve without doing something to help them? Not for long. So, thinking it might help avoid a conflict, Caelyn and her parents had moved the cows into the south pasture. Having the cattle out of sight would probably help, at least for a while, but eventually they were going to run out of hay to feed the animals. As it was, they had enough to last through December, but that was about all. And it would be impossible to buy any more; her father had checked. No one was selling. Without extra hay, come December, their mother cows would start going hungry. Caelyn knew it wouldn’t matter anyway; the herd would be slaughtered and eaten long before then. She didn’t know how or by whom, but it would happen. The cows were food. Food was scarce and getting scarcer. Eventually someone was going to come and take their herd.

The wind suddenly picked up and shifted from the south and the smoky smell of mesquite blew toward the house. She sniffed, her stomach growling, an empty pit between her ribs. She hadn’t eaten much over the past four or five days—partly out of nerves, mostly out of a sudden, deep-seated drive to conserve whatever food they had—and her mouth started watering as she smelled the drying meat.

She walked toward her mom. “How’s it going?” she asked as she approached the silver smoker.

Her mother lifted the lid from the metal garbage can, and a puff of white smoke billowed out. Picking up some old hot pads, she carefully removed the meat-covered grates fitted inside the can, dropped a handful of water-soaked mesquite chips into the fire box, replaced the grates, and put the lid back in place. “You know, this smoker your dad made is working really well.”

Caelyn studied the homemade smoker: an old metal garbage can, a metal chip box, a couple of metal grills. Her father had cut a six-inch hole in the bottom of the garbage can, dug a pit to allow for venting, then built a small fire and put the lid in place. He’d even installed a small thermometer, an engine temperature gauge he had taken from an old tractor, which read 224 degrees Fahrenheit, right where they wanted it to be. “It’s amazing he could come up with this so quickly,” Caelyn said, glancing back toward the house. Her father had followed her out and was now sitting in the wicker rocking chair on the porch.

There was no greater evidence of the intellect that remained inside him than his uncanny ability to build or fix almost anything on the farm, working on machinery as if he’d designed it himself. He couldn’t tell you who the president of the United States was, balance a checkbook, or add up a simple column of three-digit numbers. He couldn’t follow a story from a newspaper or tell you anything about the war, yet he could quote the batting records of his beloved N.Y. Yankees for every year since 1970 as well as every Super Bowl final score. Most times it was like he was in a deep fog. But sometimes the stupor lifted. Muttering, he would scribble on hastily arranged pieces of paper as old designs and formulas popped into his head. It was as if he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that his brain used to work on a different level than it now did, as if a part of him remembered the statistical formulas and chemical theorems he’d spent so many years coming to understand. Sometimes she could see the frustration that was bottled up inside. “It’s still there,” his eyes would plead. “Can you see it? Do you believe me? The intellect is still inside me! But it’s just so jumbled up!”

It was as if, after the accident, part of his brain had been sent back to when he was a small child, making him almost impossible to predict or understand. But, from time to time, there were powerful reminders that the man trapped inside the wounded mind was still there.

Her father saw that she was staring at him and he smiled happily, the youngster inside him always friendly. She smiled and waved back, then turned toward the smoker. The jerky was almost done, a full side of beef, enough to keep them in meat for at least a couple of months.

If they were careful and didn’t waste it, and if other people left them alone.

Her mother adjusted the garbage can lid, making certain it was tight, then brushed a smoky strand of hair away from her eye. “Where’s Ellie?” she asked.

Caelyn nodded over her back. “Last I saw she was chasing Miller around the other side of the house.”

Gretta turned and shaded her eyes to the dropping sun. “She’s doing OK, I think. Don’t you?”

Caelyn pressed her lips before she answered. “She doesn’t really understand what’s going on.”

Gretta frowned a little, her eyes moving constantly up and down the road. “I don’t know,” she answered carefully. “Sometimes I think little kids know more than we give them credit for. She hears us talking. She hears the tone of our voices. But it’s more than that. Children have a sense for these things. Ellie certainly does. She’s a smart girl. She knows something’s going on.”

Caelyn folded her arms across her chest. “I hope not. I really hope not. She’s far too young—”

“She’s a strong girl, honey.”

“Yeah, but she is a little girl. Hardly more than a baby. I don’t want to steal her childhood. She deserves more than that. I absolutely want to keep things on an even keel for her for as long as we can.”

Gretta hunched her shoulders, thinking. “Maybe that’s not the right thing to do.”

“How’s that, Mom?”

“Maybe you should tell her. I don’t mean tell her everything, but you know, give her some idea why things have changed. You can’t hide it from her forever. She’s eventually going to know. We’ve got no car. No electricity. No running water. We’re scared to go into town. You don’t think she’s noticed any of this already? No, she’s noticed, and she wonders. I think you need to tell her enough so she won’t worry even more. If you don’t, trust me, Caelyn, her imagination is going to kick into gear. And a six year old’s imagination can come up with some pretty scary things all by itself.”

Caelyn thought before she answered. “I don’t know, Mom. I don’t want to worry her. There’s no reason to make things any worse.”

“Caelyn, she already knows that something’s very wrong. You need to give her some information, even if just a little. Assure her, yes, we all need to do that, but you’ve got to explain to her that the world has changed.”

Caelyn put her hand out toward the garbage can, exposing her palm to its heat, letting her fingers drift through the smoke that was seeping from the under the heavy lid. “She’ll be OK, Mom.”

“She’ll be OK? Caelyn, are you kidding? What is there about this situation that makes you think any of us are going to be OK?”

Caelyn dropped her eyes, feeling the burden of responsibility once again. “It’ll be OK, Mom. You’ll see. There’s help out there. We aren’t in this alone.”

Gretta stared at her daughter. “I love you, honey, you know I do. I love you more than anything I have left in this world. But you’ve got to understand something. I’ve been alone for almost my entire life. Yes, I’ve had your father, but you know the situation there. He’s loyal and dear, and I love him through and through. If there is any justice in this world—and maybe in the end there isn’t—but if there is, he will die and go to heaven without having to stop at the gates of Saint Peter. He’s that good of a man. But that aside, I’ve been alive long enough to know you’ve got to take care of yourself. And that’s truer now than it’s ever been. We can’t count on anyone to help us. We are alone now.”

Caelyn nodded slowly but didn’t say anything.

Gretta checked the temperature on the garbage can, started to say something more, then cocked her head and listened. “You hear that?” she asked.

Caelyn turned toward the road, catching an occasional sound drifting and fading with the wind.

“Something’s coming,” her mother said anxiously, turning toward the house. Walking across the grass and onto the porch, she told her husband, “Come inside with me, OK?”

Caelyn faced the road and squinted. Her back to the house, she heard the screen door behind her open and then shut. She stepped toward the road. A large, green farm tractor, the raised exhaust pipe belching black smoke, pulled a small wagon down the road. Two young men steadied themselves near the front end of the wagon. The tractor driver was hidden inside the tinted cab.

Caelyn lifted her hand to protect her eyes against the sun. The tractor lumbered closer. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

THIRTEEN

It was a worn-out John Deere, old, layered with dust and tinted with rust spots on the metal fenders that wobbled over the back tires. The glass cab reflected the slanting rays of the late afternoon sun as the tractor turned into the driveway that led toward the detached garage on the back of the house. Caelyn glanced toward the wagon. Two young men balanced themselves beside old cardboard boxes stacked three high. Caelyn tensed as they approached. She didn’t know these men. Somewhere behind her, she heard her mother calling, “Ellie, come on in here.” The urgency in her grandmother’s voice left no room for the little girl to argue, and almost immediately Caelyn heard Ellie’s light footsteps across the porch. Caelyn kept her eyes on the strangers, her shoulders square. The tractor moved toward her and stopped. The driver cut the engine, the cab door popped open, and a white-haired man dropped from the tractor to the ground.

“How you doing?” he called out. He stood beside his tractor, pulling leather gloves from his hands. Caelyn studied him quickly. Weathered face. Dark, drooping eyes. Old Wranglers™. A checkered shirt. Obviously a man who’d spent his whole life on the farm. She answered cautiously, “Doing good. How are you?”

The old man shrugged, then nodded around him. “Been better, I guess. Figure we all have.”

The two young men—she could see now that they were no more than teenagers—moved to the front of the wagon and seated themselves, their legs hanging over the edge. They didn’t say anything. She quickly took them in. Short hair. Clean faces. Old work clothes. Neighbor farmers? Probably. She started to relax.

The older man took a step toward her and frowned. “You alone?” he asked, glancing over her shoulder to the old farmhouse behind.

She immediately grew tense again. “My mom and dad are in the house,” she answered quickly, her voice hard.

He looked toward the house. “Are you sure?” he pressed.

Caelyn’s eyes grew angry. “Of course I’m sure.”

“You’re Caelyn, right?”

She hesitated. “Maybe. Who are you?”

The old man turned away from the house and focused on her.

She knew she had to be careful but, as she looked into his soft face and friendly eyes, she relaxed again. She had a sensitive spirit. It was one of her gifts—she could sense a person’s goodness before that person said anything—and looking at him, she knew instantly that she need not fear this man.

The stranger took a step toward her. “I’m Walter Simpson.” He extended his hand. “You probably don’t remember me. You and your husband were out here a couple summers ago. I used to be the pastor. We met once or twice at church.”

Caelyn froze, too stunned to move. “Yes, I remember, Mr. Simpson. Of course,” she said, her voice cracking. She moved toward him and they shook hands. She stood back, her face radiating relief, then started bouncing up and down. “Of course! Of course! I remember you. I am so glad to see you. Thank you, thank you, for coming by.” She bounced again, embraced him, then quickly pulled back again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m so glad to see you!” She embraced him one more time.

Simpson smiled at the happy greeting, then wiped a leathery hand across his brow. “These are a couple of my grandkids, Josh and Boyd.” The teenagers waved and muttered “hey” but didn’t get up from the trailer. In fact, they hardly seemed to move. She studied them. Taking in the weary shoulders and hanging heads, she realized they weren’t being rude or disinterested—they were just exhausted. And maybe a little scared.

“They’re good kids,” Simpson said, seeming to read her mind. “Usually they’re more outgoing, but we’ve been up since nearly four o’clock this morning and I’ve run ‘em pretty hard. But they’re young, right men,” he looked back over his shoulder, speaking to his grandsons now, “and tough as nails. A hard day’s work isn’t going to kill ‘em.”

“Sure, Grandpa,” the oldest one said, though the tone of his voice made it pretty clear he wasn’t sure.

Simpson turned back to Caelyn and studied her. Blonde hair down to the top of her collar. Deep blue eyes. Small frame. Long neck and slender fingers. He frowned and looked around, thinking of the neighbors and others who lived along this road. Dangerous to be so pretty in this unpredictable new world.

She bounced again, not seeing the concern on his face. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her smile so radiant he finally couldn’t help but smile back.

Simpson adjusted his worn-out White Sox baseball cap. “We’ve been going around the county, checking on a couple of folks. Thought I’d, you know . . . ” he hesitated, looking off at the horizon.

“You knew that I was out here?”

“Not really. I just . . . .” Again, his voice trailed off.

Caelyn watched him, waiting for more explanation. Simpson was quiet, seeming lost in thought. Caelyn smiled faintly, then nodded to the house. “My mom and dad are inside.”

Simpson glanced across the grass. “I don’t know your parents very well. Met your mom a couple of times. She can be a real rascal.” He laughed. “She’s probably got a deer rifle aimed at my chest right now.”

Caelyn’s eyes sparkled. “I don’t think so. A potato shooter, maybe. Far as I know, my parents have never owned a gun. They came here from California, remember. Not much of a gun culture out there.”

Caelyn’s mother stepped out onto the porch.

“Do you know my dad?” Caelyn asked.

“No, not really. I live five or six miles down the road, then up toward the highway, so our paths have crossed from time to time, but that’s about all. Your parents haven’t ever visited church though, am I right?”

“My husband and I attend the church whenever we come home to see my parents, but I’m afraid that isn’t very often and they never come with us to church. Not much interest, I’m afraid. Maybe someday. We keep on trying.”

“Understand. We keep on trying. Sometimes that’s all we can do.” Simpson stepped to his side and waved to Caelyn’s mom. Gretta hesitated a moment, then stepped off the porch and walked toward them.

“Hey there,” he said when she approached. “Walter Simpson.” He extended his hand. “We’ve met a couple times, but it’s been a long time.”

Her mother stopped in front of him and shook his hand. “Sure, Walter, I remember. What brings you out here?” Caelyn sensed the edge in her mother’s voice.

“Just out checking up on people, you know, seeing if everything’s OK.”

“You live . . . ?”

“On the other side of Edmondson.”

“Kind of a long way from home, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know, not too far, I guess. Of course, we’re not checking on everyone between here and my place. Just a few friends and such. I was about finished and ready to head back home when—” he paused. “It occurred to me that Caelyn might be out here visiting her parents. Thought I’d come out and see if everything’s OK.”

Caelyn watched her mother closely. Gretta didn’t relax at all. Always too suspicious. Not unfriendly, just overly careful. It was the way she’d always been.

Simpson saw the reservation on her face. “So, you’re doing OK?” he asked. “Do you need anything?”

Gretta squared her shoulders a bit too proudly.

Simpson saw it and grinned again. “No, Gretta, we’re not out inviting people to come to church and get saved, though,” he nodded toward the small town of Edmondson off to his right, “there’s plenty of that going on at some of the town churches, from what I understand. But anyway, like I said, we’re just out checking up on everyone.”

Gretta shook her head. “We’re doing fine. Thanks for asking, Walter, but there’s nothing we need here.”

There was the sound of footsteps crossing the wooden porch and Caelyn turned around. Her father had walked out of the kitchen and was standing near the screen door, holding it open. Ellie ran out of the kitchen, jumped off the porch, and fell onto the soft grass, then pushed herself up and ran toward her mom, grabbing her by the knees. Simpson knelt down to look at her. “Holy cow, what a little cutie!” He looked up at her mom. “The spitting image of you. People must tell you that all the time.”

Caelyn smiled proudly, patting her daughter gently on the head. “Thank you,” she said, pulling Ellie close.

Simpson glanced back toward his grandsons.

“How’d you get your tractor working?” Gretta asked.

“Mostly because it’s so old. Not much as far as electrical wiring and fancy stuff for the EMP to burn out. All the new tractors, heck, they’ve got more wiring and computers than the space shuttle, I think. But these old things, they’re pretty simple. Easier to keep them chugging along.”

Gretta nodded toward the road. “I haven’t seen any tractors or other farm machinery up or down the road. None of ours is working and we’ve got some old stuff, too.”

Simpson shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s kind of a long story.” He glanced at Caelyn as if somehow he expected her to help him explain.

“A long story?” Gretta said. “I think we’ve got time to hear it, Walter.”

The older man shifted from one leather boot to the other. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”

Caelyn’s mom kept her eyes on him, waiting.

“OK, I guess it’s not so hard to accept if you’ve a mind to. A couple weeks ago I was into the Farm Supply in Edmondson getting some sheer bolts for the plow when,” he paused, reached down, pulled a long blade of grass from the ground, and put it in his mouth, holding it between his teeth, “when I heard a voice,” he continued. “‘Pick up parts to rebuild the wiring on the old John Deere tractor,’” it said.

“At first, I tried to ignore it, but it seemed to come back again. ‘Pick up parts to rebuild the wiring on the old John Deere tractor.’

“Kind of weird, huh, hearing voices when I’m out shopping for farm parts. But there it was. I figure, who am I to argue? So I bought some electrical parts. Turns out I got everything I needed to get Bertha running after the EMP attack. None of the secondary electronics on the tractor work—the wiring for the lights and stuff has been fried and I had to wire the battery directly to the starter—but, as you can see, I got the old girl running.”

Caelyn watched him, a new understanding in her eyes.

Gretta’s face was disbelieving. “You heard a voice?” she asked.

“Kind of,” Simpson answered sheepishly.

“Really? It helped you with your shopping list?”

Simpson kept his eyes on her, a friendly smile pasted on his face. “God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t He, Gretta?”

She started to answer but Caelyn quickly interrupted. “Mr. Simpson, are you telling us that even when something’s been destroyed by the EMP, it can be fixed?”

“Certainly. If you have the parts. But that’s the problem, of course, no one has the parts. Not near enough to go around. How much of our farm equipment will we have replacement parts to fix? I don’t know. Not too much, I guess. Maybe a dozen or two tractors in the county. Two dozen out of two or three hundred. That’s not enough to make much of a difference, I suspect.”

“But if we can get the parts, we can rebuild things? And replacement parts can be made, is that right?”

Simpson sucked the piece of grass. “Yeah, but think of this. All the factories are down. No electricity anywhere. Most of these kinds of things are made overseas anyway. Now, that might be good news or bad news, depending on how this works out, I guess. Will the Chinese or whoever sell us the things we need right now? How will we get it shipped here? How long will it take? Can we ever get enough? We’re left without any transportation systems. No computers. No banking systems. No communications to coordinate the effort.” He spit out the chewed piece of grass, a tiny speck of green sticking to his lower lip. “So yeah, Caelyn, I think we’re going to be able to rebuild, it’s not like the entire country’s been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, but it’s going to take some time. A couple months to get started. Half a year to make a difference. Maybe a full year, maybe more.”

Gretta shook her head and muttered, then looked toward the quickly setting sun. Shadows had grown long now, stretching dark and thin across the deep green grass, and the house cast a dark outline almost to the fence along the backyard. “A month is too long,” she whispered in desperation. “A couple of months is hopeless. A whole year? Don’t make me laugh. None of us are going to make it, not if we have to get by on our own for that long.” She turned to Walter. “Don’t you think the government is going to step in and, I don’t know, do something?”

The old farmer hunched his shoulders. “I don’t know, Gretta. I’m no prophet and no civil servant, so take everything I tell you with a great big ol’ grain of salt, but I think the government is pretty much like you and me, completely overwhelmed. I just hope they can keep control of the people, keep some sense of law and order . . .” his voice trailed off. “Do you have a radio?” he asked.

“No. At least not one that’s working.”

“You hear about things out in California? L.A. and San Francisco?”

“We haven’t heard anything,” Caelyn answered, brushing her hand through Ellie’s thin blonde hair.

Simpson glanced down at the little girl, who was looking up at him, her eyes wide, listening to every word. “Maybe we can talk about that later. Just know it’s kind of a mess out there. Like I was saying, I only hope the government can keep a lid on things. Keep things a little bit under control.”

“Surely they’ve got some plan, some kind of program for such a time as this?” Gretta’s voice was angry now.

“Are you aware of any government programs that could take care of everyone within the U.S., or even part of us? I wish there were. Water, of course, is a huge problem and the most urgent need for most people, and it’s going to take every resource the government has just to provide the most basic water service. Even with that, I think pretty much everyone’s going to eventually end up drinking from the rivers and the lakes. After that, I just don’t know, but it’s my opinion that the government isn’t going to step in and help us. They just aren’t prepared. It’s too big a job.”

Gretta kept her eyes on the dropping sun. The sky was turning red now, a deep, fierce, unnatural glow. “So you’re telling me we’ve got to make it for a year on our own.”

“Who knows? Maybe it won’t be that long. It’s too late in the fall now to plant anything, but we can plant again in spring. Everyone can grow a garden—”

“But that’s next year. We’re not even talking spring, you’re talking about harvesting in fall!”

Simpson shrugged, his face pained.

“I don’t have a year’s supply of food, that’s for sure.”

Simpson and Caelyn glanced at each other. A moment of silence followed. The little girl hanging on her mother’s knees looked up with blue eyes, then motioned toward the tree swing. “Can I, Mom?” she said. Caelyn nodded toward it and the little girl ran off, her cotton skirt rippling behind her in the breeze. Caelyn watched her go, then turned back to Simpson.

“What happened out in San Francisco?” she asked quickly.

Simpson bent for another blade of grass. “There was an earthquake. A real beauty. Lots of damage throughout the city, but the worst thing was the fires. Once they got started, no one could stop them. Sounds like the entire city is in flames. The whole thing might be burned. Same down in L.A. It’s an unbelievable thing, from what I heard.”

Gretta turned to him, a sick look across her face. She had spent much of her adult life in California and had many friends out there. “How do you know that?” she demanded as if the whole thing were Simpson’s fault.

“A lot of the locals own shortwave radios. Enough of them are still working that we get some word.”

Gretta hesitated, not understanding but too tired and discouraged to press. “The entire city of San Francisco . . . L.A, such a beautiful city . . . so many, many good people,” she whispered.

Caelyn put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. “It’s OK, Mom. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”

Simpson waited a moment, then kicked his boots through the long grass at his feet. It’s worse, his face seemed to say.

“There are a couple other news items you might want to know about,” he went on after a moment of silence. “Things are kind of tough all over. Other cities are in shambles. New York is completely deserted, they’re saying. Chicago’s got some fires, though not like out in L.A., but I’ve heard they’ve got a dysentery epidemic, too. St. Louis has been torn apart by a week of race riots. South, the borders have burst open. Millions of Mexicans are making their way across the Rio Grande. The government simply doesn’t have the people or equipment to stop them from pouring into our country. They said two or three million illegals have come across the borders already. Some of them are led by Mexican drug lords with their private armies. They’re coming up in old trucks and cars. I guess a lot of the vehicles and equipment in Mexico were far enough away from the EMP that they weren’t damaged in the attack. There’s lots of looting, lots of violence.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Some of the border towns have been destroyed.”

A sudden, violent picture flashed in Caelyn’s mind. Men. Guns. A dark sky. A feeling of cold dread. She almost couldn’t stand to listen anymore. Glancing away, she looked for Ellie, then stared at the ground, lost in thought.

“Listen, we’ve got to be heading on,” Simpson said, nodding to the wagon. “We’ve got some emergency supplies. Canned goods, spaghetti, things like that.” He waved to the boys, who stood and lifted a couple of boxes. “Tell me what you need,” he said.

Caelyn glanced anxiously toward her mother, who shot her a glaring look. “I think we’ll be OK for a week or two, but I don’t know what we’re going to do after that,” she said, ignoring her mother’s angry stare. “Back home, my husband and I have some food storage, enough to see us through, but that’s five hundred miles away from here. I don’t have any way to go and get it and bring it back here, and even if I could, I couldn’t leave my mom and dad.”

Simpson nodded to the boys, who climbed down from the wagon with their boxes and looked at him. “Put them on the back porch,” he said.

“We don’t need that,” Gretta protested, but the two boys ignored her, moving with the boxes toward the house. “Look,” she continued, her voice angry now, “I don’t know what you all expect from us in return for your favors, but I don’t think you should expect me to be showing up at your church anytime real soon.”

Simpson laughed, not at all offended. “Gretta, we don’t expect anything from you. We just thought we might be able to help.”

Gretta stared coldly, still suspicious. “I still won’t be visiting your church this week.”

Simpson laughed. “That’s a relief.” His voice was teasing.

She scowled, then turned toward the young men on the porch. “I’ll take care of those,” she called out, marching after them.

The old farmer watched her walk away, then quickly glanced to Caelyn. “Your mom’s a real handful.”

Caelyn was dying with embarrassment. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry, I can handle her. And I think I understand her a lot better than you might think. She’s a proud woman, a woman who’s made a go of it on her own for a long time. She’s been responsible for your father since they were first married, from what I understand, and she takes great pride in the fact that she can take care of herself. Nothing wrong with that, nothing wrong at all.” He watched as Gretta walked onto the porch and took one of the boxes from the nearest boy. “Listen, Caelyn,” he said, turning back to her, “there’s a couple things you need to know. First, we’re having a meeting at the church next Saturday afternoon. We want to take an evaluation of where we stand. We’ll be setting up a communications tree, taking an inventory of everyone’s supplies, making a list of the number of people in every household and their needs. Basically, we’ll be setting up a community resource of available food, reserves, medical supplies, tools, generators, working vehicles, everything. We can’t have someone out here trying to scrape by on their own, not if they don’t want to, not if there are others who are willing to help. It’s all strictly voluntary. It’s not like we’re going to go around confiscating people’s food or anything like that, but we recognize that some people are going to have resources that others won’t, and they’re willing to share. I think you’re a pretty good example. From what I understand, you and your husband have done everything you could to take care of yourselves. Now your husband is off somewhere.” He paused. “Where is your husband, Caelyn?”

The young woman suddenly choked. “I don’t know,” she said.

“He’s not, you know—he’s OK, though?”

“As far as I know. Last I heard he was being pulled out of Iraq. All the American forces were being pulled back. He called once, a few days after the nuclear attack on D.C, saying he’d be back in the country within a short time. I haven’t heard from him since.”

Simpson watched, his face soft and sympathetic. “I’m glad to know that he’s OK.”

“Yes. I count that blessing every day.”

“Still, like I was saying, you did everything you could to prepare, but now you find yourself in a difficult situation. We need to help take care of you; we want to help take care of you. Sure, my family has a pretty good supply, but do you think I could live with myself if I wasn’t willing to reach out to those good people who need my help?”

Caelyn listened, her eyes misting. “What do I do, though? I could come to the meeting, but I don’t have anything to offer. I’m a liability; I have no assets. And I’m a stranger in your midst.”

Simpson shook his head. “I think you underestimate both yourself and your own people. And we are your people. You’re not a stranger. I mean that, Caelyn.”

She nodded, her head dropping.

“OK, then. Now, I’m trying to think. Maybe I’ve got this wrong, but it seems to me that you’re a nurse?”

She nodded slowly.

“Don’t you think someone’s going to have a need of your expertise? That’s the way it works. You give what you can. You help others. Others give what they can. They help you. We take care of each other and put the rest to God. We lay what we have upon the altar, then turn around, go to work, and hope for the best.”

Caelyn lowered her head again. “What time is the meeting?”

“One o’clock. It will take you a couple hours to walk there, but that’s OK, lots of people will be walking, that’s why we’re starting early. We want to get in, take care of as much business as we can, and give people enough time to walk home before it gets dark.”

Caelyn was quiet as she thought. Gretta’s voice drifted toward them from the kitchen, and the two young men emerged through the screen door.

Simpson glanced anxiously around the empty landscape. “You’ve got to travel careful,” he said.

Caelyn didn’t understand.

“There some rumors going round. Roving gangs. Lots of bad guys. No surprise there. But some of the more—how’s a good way to say this—some non-believers think that Christians are the problem. They blame us for the last election. Say they lost because of us. Say the Muslims wouldn’t have attacked if it hadn’t been for the Christians. Some of ‘em are sayin’ we’re part of some conspiracy . . . .”

Caelyn laughed sarcastically. “Good heavens, are you kidding? With all the bad around us, that’s the thing they choose to worry about!”

“Kinda weird, I know, but people have their own special way of going crazy these days.”

Caelyn pressed her lips, pulling a strand of hair away from her mouth.

“I want to see you at the meeting,” Simpson ordered as he watched her. “If not, I’m going to come and get you. I mean it, Caelyn, no way we’re going to leave you out here on your own.”

Caelyn looked up, her eyes wet with tears now, a clear drop clinging to her cheek. “Mr. Simpson . . . .”

“Walt is OK with me.”

“Walt, did you know that I’ve been praying for someone to come here? I’ve been praying that for days. I needed you so desperately. How did you know to come?”

He looked at her, his face firm but kind. “The Spirit brought me here,” he told her.

She looked up, again not understanding.

“I was going to turn around. I wanted to get home before it got dark. But I couldn’t. I knew that someone else was out here. It wasn’t until I saw your parents’ house that I remembered meeting you a couple years ago in church.”

He cleared his throat. “I think you prayed me to you, Caelyn. Your faith is strong enough that God was able to use even an old fool such as me. And let me tell you, that’s amazing. My wife is going to be impressed. She’s been praying for me for almost forty years, so far as she can tell to no result.”

Caelyn laughed with gratitude, then fell into his arms, giving him a hug. “Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Spirit. Thank you for being the kind of person who would come out here to find someone like me. Thank you for not giving up. And yes, I’ll be there Saturday.”

The two boys walked past them. “Come on, Grandpa,” one of them said.

Simpson glanced to the porch where Gretta was standing now and waved. “See you in church next week,” he called to her.

She waved him off and walked back into the kitchen.

Simpson laughed and climbed back onto his tractor. The engine turned, then churned, black smoke rising from the exhaust pipe. He waved, used both hands to turn the heavy steering wheel, and drove away.

Caelyn watched the tractor disappear down the road. She knew her mother was watching from the kitchen window, but she didn’t turn around.

Standing there, she felt a sudden sense of loneliness falling on her like a blanket from the sky. She shivered from a heavy heart while staring at the completely lifeless road.

Turning slowly, she looked east. The sun had set now and the sky was turning dark. It would be a few minutes more before the first star or the moon would appear. Overhead, a pair of swallows flew by, searching for the first of the nightly mosquitoes. Standing at the edge of the grass, alone, looking east, Caelyn was consumed by a longing for her husband. She reached out, lifting her arms sadly to the sky. “Are you out there, babe?” she whispered. “Are you out there? Are you alive?”

She stood and waited for an answer, but nothing came.

“I miss you so much. We both miss you. Will you find us? Will you come home? How long will it be until you hold us both again?”

Again she waited. Then, taking a long breath, she turned and walked into the darkening house.

FOURTEEN

East Side, Chicago, Illinois

They ate together, eating what little they had, sitting around the kitchen table, some of them on the floor. Sara watched Luke carefully out of the corner of her eye. It was the first time he had joined them to eat, and he was looking better. She’d changed his dressing just an hour before and the wounds were clean and healing, the broken skin pink and knitting. He was stronger now; she could tell that from how much he ate.

Luke realized the others were watching him and suddenly flushed. “I’m OK,” he said, embarrassed. “Y’all don’t have to stare at me like that.”

Mary reached out to pat his hair, almost reverently, as if she were touching the Pope. She treated him like a saint, some kind of earthly manifestation of the power of heaven. Kelly Beth sat on her mother’s lap, playing with a pair of animal crackers they had found in the back of the cupboard. Sara watched and smiled.

Sam looked at his watch. “I’m going to do a little recon in the morning to figure out what’s going on out there.”

Ammon was staring at a road map. “You know, if we went down a different highway, we would pass our car. Think about the food, gold and things we left there. It’d be really good to—”

“All that stuff will be there later,” Sam said. He thought of the men on the road, the bandits who’d commandeered the bridge the night that Ammon had been shot. “It isn’t our priority right now.” Sam nodded to the women on the other side of the table. “I want to gather it up same as you do, but I don’t want everyone with us when we do. There might be trouble. You and I and maybe Luke can go get it later.”

Ammon pressed his lips together, then nodded.

Ten minutes later, it grew dark. The sun was setting quickly now, with winter coming on. There was nothing to do. It was dark. It was growing cold. They got out the bedding and sleeping bags and started getting ready for bed.

*******

Sara slipped into the bedroom to check on Luke. He was lying on a mattress on the floor, his feet hanging over the worn edge, and though his eyes were closed, she knew he was awake. She watched him a moment, then walked quietly across the matted carpet and sat down in an old wooden rocking chair. Rocking gently, she closed her eyes and started softly singing an old song her father used to sing to her when she was just a child. The melody was slow and haunting but comforting to her now.

O don’t you remember,

A long time ago.

There were two little babes,

Their names I don’t know.

They strayed far away,

One bright summer’s day,

And got lost in the woods,

I’ve heard people say.

And when it grew night,

So sad was their plight.

The bright sun, it went down,

And the moon gave no light.

They sobbed, and they sighed,

And they bitterly cried.

Then those two little babes

Just lay down and died.

She stopped singing, drifting away, almost asleep, her mind lost in other thoughts. Then she heard Luke moving on the mattress and she looked down at him.

“And when they were dead,” he started singing, and Sara softly joined in.

The robins so red

Gathered strawberry leaves,

And over them spread.

And all the night long,

They sang this sweet song,

Poor babes in the woods.

Poor babes in the woods.

Luke smiled at her. “Out of all the songs you used to sing us, that was always my favorite one.”

“Are you kidding?” Sara laughed. “Talk about a song that just kind of makes you want to go out and slit your wrists or something.” Her face scrunched in the dark.

“A little depression can be a good thing for a kid, you know: ‘Song Sung Blue’ and all that kind of thing.”

“Oh yeah, we need a bunch of that right now.”

They both laughed again.

“It’s a good song,” Luke finished, thinking of his childhood.

Sara nodded slowly. “A good song.”

Luke stared up at her from the dirty mattress.

“You’re feeling better,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. She could see that he was stronger now.

“Yeah, I’m feeling pretty good.”

Sara leaned forward on the old rocking chair and the spindled legs creaked under her weight. “We’re going to be leaving soon.”

“Good. Everyone is ready to get out of here.” He rolled to his side and rested his hand on his arm. “Do you think God talks to us in dreams?” he asked unexpectedly.

She resumed rocking, the creaking chair soft and comforting in the growing darkness. “Maybe not to everyone, but to some people, I think He does.”

“Has He ever talked to you in a dream, Mom?”

She thought a moment. “No. I guess that’s not my gift. But I know that other people have it. Your dad did. He had warnings in dreams more than once. My mother used to talk about her dreams all the time, but hey, she used to talk to angels.” Sara paused and laughed. “She was such a character, especially in her older years.”

Luke watched his mom. “Do you miss her?”

“My mom?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure I do. I miss her all the time. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. I suppose that when I’m ninety-five, assuming I live that long, I’ll still miss her. It’s supposed to be that way.”

Luke rubbed his hand through his short hair. “I had a dream last night.” He cleared his throat.

“Yeah?” Sara said so that he would go on.

Luke hesitated, his eyes turning to stare at nothing, his face thoughtful, his head slightly cocked. Sara waited, listening, not wanting to interrupt. “It was dark. A pack of wolves came, dozens of them, thick hair bristling on their necks and shoulders, their teeth flashing in hungry growls. I was alone. They prowled so close. You could see them in the shadows. They weren’t afraid of my fire. And it didn’t matter what I did, I couldn’t scare them off. They wanted me so badly. Thin as bone, I could see that they were starving, but there was something more. You could see it in their yellow eyes, hear it in their growls, feel it in the air. It was like they didn’t want to just kill me, they wanted something more. And no matter what I did, they didn’t go away. All night long, I could see their yellow eyes glinting in the firelight, never blinking, getting closer, always closer.” Luke fell silent and lay back on the mattress.

They sat a long time in the quiet darkness.

“Do you think it means anything?” he finally asked.

Sara brought her hands together in a fist before her face and gently bit her finger. “I don’t know, son. I really don’t. It might mean something, but I don’t know what it’d be. If I were to think about it, maybe pray about it, maybe I would know.”

Luke took a deep breath and held it before he sighed. “I’ve thought about it, Mom.” He looked away. “They’re out there, the wolves. Yeah, we’ve got to worry about food, water and the cold, and where we’re going to go and all that kind of thing, but that’s not the thing that’s going to kill us. It’s going to be the wolves. They’re not afraid anymore. No matter what we do, they’re not going to go away. And they hate us. They want to kill us, to destroy us. All the other stuff, I think it’ll be OK. But not the wolves. They’re the thing we’ve really got to worry about.”

*******

Sam was staring out the kitchen window when Sara came up behind him and stood close. “I need to talk to you,” she whispered.

Sam turned around. “Yeah, Mom.”

She put a finger to his lips. “Alone.” She nodded to the door.

They slipped out of the apartment and stood in the hall. “Azadeh told me you have a cell phone that is working.”

Sam reached into a thigh pocket and pulled it out. “I was in the Metro subway in D.C. when the EMP struck.”

“It’s working, then?” She sounded so hopeful, he thought she was going to cry.

“No, Mom. I mean, the cell phone is working, yes.” He flipped it open and held the green switch to turn it on. The screen glowed red and blue and he showed it to her. “But there’s no coverage. All the cell towers are down.”

“What about the military stations on the lake? I know there are some Navy and Coast Guard stations along Lake Michigan.”

“I’ve tried them, Mom. Nothing.”

“When was the last time you tried? How long has it been?”

Sam thought. “I don’t know. When we first got here.”

Sara took his hand, pulling him toward the stairs. “Let’s go try again.”

Four minutes later, they were standing on the roof. Sam watched his mother carefully. “Mom, it’s time you told me what’s going on.”

Sara ignored him, reaching for his phone. The soft light from the small screen bathed her face in a ghostly silver. “I know the military has all kinds of communication facilities,” she said. “They contract with local carriers for their service, even for the military stuff. It’s not like the Coast Guard or Air Force own their own phone lines, cell phone towers, that kind of thing. They’re going to push to get that stuff up so they can use it.”

Sam continued watching, not saying anything.

“Where’s the nearest military station?” Sara asked.

Sam hesitated, thinking, then waved vaguely off to his right. “I don’t know, Mom. I think there’s a Coast Guard training facility somewhere east of here.”

She pointed the cell phone in that direction and lifted it over her head. “They would have hardened some of their facilities. They would have the equipment to rebuild.” She gasped suddenly. “Look at this,” she whispered.

Sam took three steps toward her and looked at the phone. A single bar. Sometimes two. “Whoa,” he said. “No kidding.”

Sara gasped again. “Good, good, good. OK,” she almost dropped the phone as she thought, suddenly flustered and unsure of what to do. “OK, OK, who, who, who do I talk to?” She acted as if Sam wasn’t even there. “I can’t call the Pentagon. No one there. No, no, not no one, nothing there. OK, OK, who? How do I get a hold of them? What am I going to say—”

“Mom!” Sam grabbed his mother by her shoulders. “What is going on?”

“I’ve got to call and warn him.”

“Warn who? About what?”

“I’ll call the Strategic Command Post in Nebraska. How do I get the number?”

She held the phone up and dialed 911. “It’s ringing, Sam, it’s ringing!” She waited and waited. No answer. Nothing but a constant ring. “All right.” She disconnected. “I’ll try the number for the emergency switchboard at the White House. They might have, they must have transferred that number to a working phone.” She punched the cell phone as she talked, excited once again. She listened, holding her hand up by her face in eager expectation. “Ringing . . . ringing,” she whispered. “It sounds like . . .” she turned her head suddenly and talked into the phone. “Yes, yes, can you hear me?” She took a step toward the edge of the roof. “Can you hear me? Yes, I can barely hear you. My name is Sara Brighton. My husband was General Neil Brighton, Special Assistant to the President. This is an emergency. I need you to connect me to the Secretary of Defense. Yes, Secretary Marino’s office.” She paused and listened. “No, no, I can’t wait. What! Are you certain he is dead? Then who is his replacement? No, this is an emergency . . .” Another short pause. “I already told you, my name is Sara Brighton . . . hello . . . hello?” The phone was dead.

She lowered the cell and looked at Sam. “He hung up on me,” she said.

Sam checked the cell phone. The low battery indicator was now on.

“He hung up. Or maybe the line was disconnected.”

“Mom.” Sam took a step toward her. Taking her by her shoulders, he looked into her eyes. The moon was barely rising now and the sky was black. “Mom?”

Sara hesitated. “But if I tell you—”

“It’s time to tell us, Mom.”

Sara looked at him. Her eyes were big and teary, round and glistening in the dim light. She was suddenly young and vulnerable and frightened as a child.

Sam heard her sniffle, felt her shoulders shuddering; then she fell into his arms.

When she was finished with her story, Sam sat for a long time without speaking. Then he looked down at his cell phone. “This was a huge mistake,” he said.

*******

Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), Huntsville, Alabama

Electronic transmissions were intercepted, identified, and flagged by a series of enormous antennas stationed throughout the country, but concentrated primarily along the East Coast and in a few locations along the western mountain ranges. Some of the radio intercept devices were the normally anticipated satellite dishes pointing upward, though these were mounted on bearings and hydraulic cylinders to move them to appropriate pieces of the sky. Others were tall and slender trestles that reached several hundred feet above the ground. Some had been built in clusters and were situated on remote, stripped-down pieces of federal land with extremely limited access, including strictly enforced no-fly zones. Other listening devices were positioned within the cities, hidden behind nearly translucent material alongside civilian buildings, the occupants clueless about the immensely powerful radio intercept equipment that was operating next to them. A great many listening devices were disguised as cell phone towers, radio antennas, or television broadcast dishes, whatever was required to minimize the speculation as to what the devices were used for, how many there really were, and how deeply they could reach.

On a normal day, before the EMP attack, the U.S. government was capable of intercepting and monitoring hundreds of millions of cell and telephone conversations, emails, Internet access, and instant messages every day, the sheer volume making it possible, even likely, that this particular conversation might have been missed.

But since the EMP attack, the use of such electronic communications had dropped off dramatically.

So they listened, they noted and they passed the information on.

FIFTEEN

Headquarters, National Security Agency, Fort George G. Meade, Maryland

Ten Miles Northeast of Washington, D.C.

There were two enormous buildings, side by side, one a little longer and lower than the other, both of them black metal and glass cubes that reflected the sun, passing clouds, radar sensors, laser intelligence listening beams, heat, cold, conventional listening devices, everything and anything that might connect the occupants of the two buildings to the outside world. One of the most secret and secretive agencies within the intelligence community, for many years the federal government denied that NSA, known facetiously as No Such Agency, even existed. Once it had been revealed, extensive precautions had been put in place to isolate it, including the construction of its own exit of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, labeled “NSA Employees Only.” Hidden behind a wall of trees (most of northern Virginia and southern Maryland was covered in dense forest) the NSA complex housed more mathematicians and supercomputers than any other organization in the world. It also drew more electricity off the grid than any other private or public entity within the entire state of Maryland, including the largest steel manufacturers and shipbuilders along the coast. (In 2006, the Baltimore Sun reported that the entire NSA complex was susceptible to severe electrical overload because of insufficient infrastructure to support the geometrically growing demand.) The agency had its own hardware, software, and semiconductor production facilities, as well as its own cryptology research center. No one knew how many people worked for the NSA, though sometime early in the century some overly ambitious counterculture guy had Google-earthed the parking lot, counted the number of parking spaces (18,000), driven northeast of Washington, D.C., pulled off the nearby highway and counted the average number of occupants in every car that passed, then announced across the Internet that the agency employed 39,000 people, which was surprisingly close. Aircraft over-flight of the area was strictly forbidden, the nearby streams and trees were scattered with hidden motion sensors and listening devices, and there wasn’t an inch of the security fence and surrounding buffer zone that wasn’t covered with redundant surveillance cameras.

Because Executive Order 12333 directed the agency to limit its resources toward the collection of information regarding “foreign intelligence or counterintelligence” and not “acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons,” the NSA’s eavesdropping mission concentrated on overseas diplomatic and military sources. With a few controversial and well-published exceptions, the NSA had complied with this directive. But it surely didn’t now. The world had tipped, almost fallen. Nuclear explosions had taken place over Israel, Iran, and other portions of central Asia, not to mention Washington, D.C. The nation had been incapacitated with an EMP attack. No one cared a whit about Executive Order 12333 anymore. The NSA was listening to everything. The agency’s footprint was huge, stretching across every continent, including North America, and the sheer volume of information that passed through its system simply boggled the mind. And though the agency had a few branches scattered around the country (the Texas Cryptology Center in San Antonio, Texas, being the most well-known), the vast majority of the dirty work was done at the headquarters building at Fort Meade.

And because the buildings were sealed, stocked, and secured, neither the EMP nor the previous nuclear attack against Washington affected the work that took place there.

*******

The man was short, a civilian with a thin mustache and black, slicked-back hair. He walked into the two-star general’s office without knocking and placed the red binder on his desk.

“Sir, I think you might want to see this,” he simply said.

The general was slow to look up. “What is it?” he asked dismissively.

The small man firmed his shoulders. “A target from the presidential directive we received two days ago.”

The Air Force general/NSA director looked up slowly, his face filled with instant disdain. “We don’t have a president right now,” he said.

“I know that, sir. I’m talking about our leadership out in Raven Rock.”

The NSA director scoffed.

The man nodded toward the folder. “It falls within the parameters of the priority search,” he explained.

The general didn’t respond.

“Should I pass it on?” the man asked.

The white-haired general snorted. “Do we have a choice?”

The man lifted up the binder. “Do you want to read it first?”

The general waved him off and repeated his first question. “Do I have a choice?”

The man waited.

“Will it matter if I read it? Will it matter what I think? Does it matter what any of us think anymore?”

The small man stared, his eyes blank as a snake’s. Yes, he thought, though he didn’t say the words out loud, it matters quite a lot what you think. And who you support now. It matters more than you will ever know.

His eyes remained expressionless as he answered, “Some of the targets they are looking for have popped up in Chicago. General Brighton’s wife—”

The general glared in fierce anger. “Who cares? With everything else that we are dealing with, how can anyone consider this a priority right now!”

The slick-haired man met the general’s angry gaze and didn’t blink. “There must be reasons we don’t know about.”

The general huffed, thought a moment, then grabbed a pen, scribbled his three initials across the routing paper, and handed the binder back. “Take care of it,” he said.

The man took the binder, turned, and started walking toward the door. Pausing without turning back, he said, “The president has given us a directive.”

The general was looking down at the papers on his desk now. “I know that, Spencer.”

“You may not like it, I understand that, but some of us feel—”

The general didn’t let him finish. “I know how you feel, Spencer. I don’t care for either your feelings or your thoughts. Now go on, take the intercept and get out of here.”

*******

Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania

At seventy-eight hours, fifteen minutes, Bethany Rosen, the former president pro tempore of the Senate, would go down in history for being the president of the United States for the shortest period of time: just more than three days from the time she was sworn in until she was dead.

After her death, it was time for what remained of the national civilian leadership to work further down the line. Next in the order of succession—fourth in line—was the Secretary of State, who had been killed in the nuclear attack on Washington, D.C. Next was the Secretary of the Treasury. Not being a fool, and having figured out—or, more likely, having had it whispered to him—what had really happened to the previous president, he utterly refused to be sworn in.

The Secretary of Defense was next. Problem was, no one knew where he was. Buried under the rubble of Washington, D.C., they were certain, along with two hundred thousand other souls.

Which brought them to the Attorney General.

*******

Albert J. Fuentes, current Attorney General, soon to be the next president of the United States, scheduled the swearing-in ceremony for 6 p.m. Once that formality was over, it would take them only a few weeks to put the necessary changes in place.

Beautiful when a plan fell into place.

The cabal that had brought him to this point would give him very specific instructions. And they were certain the new president would comply.

The United States, as they knew it, was about to cease to exist. After years of waiting, hoping such an opportunity would one day present itself, Albert J. Fuentes and his friends were prepared to act. And while the new president would be the front man for the code of power, he would not be the brains. The real brains, the real power, went much deeper than any single man.

No, Fuentes, a simple federal judge whom hardly anyone inside Washington, D.C., had even known two years ago, would not be the one holding the real reins of power.

That night, at exactly 6 p.m., Fuentes placed his left hand upon a Bible and raised his right hand. Standing before a video camera, a few witnesses, the only surviving member of the Supreme Court, his wife, a couple of members of the Congress, and the press, he swore to defend the Constitution from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. Completing the oath of office, he shook a few hands, then got to work.

So it was that, after one nuclear explosion, two murders, and one very clear conversation in a small office deep in Raven Rock, they finally got their man.

*******

Offutt Air Force Base, Headquarters, U.S. Strategic Command

Eight Miles South of Omaha, Nebraska

The Air Force technician listened, took some notes, then hung up the secure telephone. “Some of our military guys got a trace on a couple of the individuals the SecDef was asking about,” he said to the four-star commander looking over his shoulder.

The four-star commander leaned toward him, resting his hands on the younger man’s chair.

“You sure it’s them?” he prodded. It had been so long since he’d received any good news that he was immediately skeptical.

“We can’t know for certain till we get them, but it sounds that way right now.”

The general hesitated. “How’d you get the information?”

The technician nodded toward the telephone. “We stole it, same as they did. The Raven Rock guys took it from the NSA. We took it from the Rock guys as they passed it up the line.”

The general swirled a cup of cold coffee in his hand. “Let me have it,” he said, reaching for the report.

SIXTEEN

East Side, Chicago, Illinois

The apartment was like a prison and they simply couldn’t stand it any longer. At the quietest time of the afternoon, when the streets had fallen into a lull and the sun was dropping, a few of them fled outside.

The setting sun was pale gold, giving light but little warmth as it moved toward the western horizon, and there was a jarring hint of fall in the air. The sky was pink above the horizon and dark blue, almost purple, overhead. Everyone noticed it now, the different colors in the sky, the shifting shadows and translucent hues. The cold wind blew in from Lake Michigan on the north shore of the city and swirled around them, stirring dry leaves at their feet as it funneled between the high buildings. The sky was full of color but cloudless, the rain clouds having moved off to the east, where they had already mixed with a blast of arctic air—months early down from Canada—to form a line of heavy snow showers over Pennsylvania and New York.

Azadeh Ishbel Pahlavi, Mary and Kelly Beth Dupree, and Captain Samuel Brighton sat on a rusted metal bench in a small, littered courtyard crammed between two of the high-rise apartments. Kelly slept, her head resting on Mary’s lap. The afternoon was calm, and for the first time in days, they had time to think.

Although they didn’t know it, very similar feelings had settled in all of their hearts. Together, they worried about the future of their terrifying new world.

The streets and sidewalks were full of people, people moving everywhere. Sam watched, wondering where they might be going, where they were getting food. He noted the different sounds: voices, footsteps, sometimes shouting, far off a sharp crack—maybe a gunshot—but never the sound of trains or cars. To their right, the elevated train tracks stood against the afternoon light, dark spindles of steel reminding them of what used to be just a few days before.

Sam wore his camouflage pants and shirt, which caught everyone’s attention. At first glance, some of them probably thought he was an imposter, for though his hair was short and tight, his face was dark with five days’ worth of beard. Seeing the holstered weapon under his left arm and the backpack at his feet, most of them turned away.

Sam tried to relax, though it seemed his eyes were always moving, looking at each man or woman who walked by. Inside, his gut was tight. He was in America, but he felt like he was back in the Middle East and, like an American in Kabul, he knew that he stood out. He also knew there were more illegal weapons in the neighborhood around him than there were in Kabul, one of the poorest cities in the world. Funny, he thought, how much it was the same. Here, like there, unemployment was rampant, the homes in disrepair, the abandoned warehouses, old buildings, and crowded housing complexes providing a haven for criminals. Here, like there, it came down to clusters of families and tight groups of thugs. The Americans called them gangs, the Afghans called them tribes—didn’t matter, they were the same. Even the looks on the faces of the people were familiar: vacant stares, resigned acceptance, hopelessness, uncertainty, anger, fear, some open rage, a few shy smiles. It shocked him how similar the two places felt. Opposite sides of the world. Opposite cultures. Very different people. Still so much the same.

He thought about their situation. He believed it had been a mistake for his mother to make the call. But it didn’t matter. Too late now. They probably needed to move, go somewhere—he didn’t know—someplace else. He looked again at the devastation all around him, and was convinced. Soon as Luke and Kelly Beth were able, he was going to get them out of this place.

Azadeh sat quietly on the bench opposite Sam. Mary sat at her side, her arm around her shoulder, holding her close. Sometimes Azadeh rested her head against Mary’s arm; sometimes Mary leaned against her head. Dropping his eyes, Sam looked at Kelly Beth, who was asleep curled up on the bench, her legs tucked up to keep warm, her head on Mary’s lap. She slept contently, her breathing slow and deep. Although healed from the ravaging cancer that had taken her to just a few hours from death, she was frail and recovering from the emotional and physical ordeal. Weak still, sometimes disoriented, she would need weeks to build her strength back, maybe months before she completely regained her health. Meanwhile, she needed food and water, proper sanitation, and lots of time to heal and rest.

And everything she needed, they couldn’t give her now.

He looked down at his hands, then held them up to the light, thinking of that night along the road, hidden in the cluster of trees, running as if his life depended on it, looking for his family and finding them in the trees, praying for the lives of his brother and the little girl on Mary’s lap.

He moved his hands together, rubbing them gently as he thought.

Sometimes he could almost feel it, the heat against his hands.

They had been there, he was certain. His father. Someone else. Sara told him she thought it was Azadeh’s father. He didn’t know if that was true, but someone had been beside him on that rainy night two days before.

Mary stared down at her daughter, absently stroking her brow. Her face was peaceful, her black eyes calm.

“She’s going to be OK now,” Sam said to her as he watched the mother and her child.

Mary looked up and smiled gently. “Yes, I am sure she will.” She spoke with unwavering confidence. “The good Lord didn’t heal her just to let her die a few hours later. One day she’ll tell her children of these wonderful days.”

Sam pressed his lips and nodded with a barely perceptible movement of his head. Stealing a glance at Azadeh, he felt his heart skip a beat again. She made it hard to think sometimes. Her soft skin. Her dark eyes. Her thin neck and delicate fingers. He thought about her too much and he hated that. He didn’t need the distraction and neither did she. She wasn’t American, not even Christian. The two of them were opposites in almost every way.

Still, sometimes he wondered . . . .

He sucked on his teeth and said nothing, just leaned back and gazed up at the empty sky.

*******

Azadeh kept her head slightly bowed, but her eyes hardly left Sam’s face, noting the anxious movement of his pressed lips. He seemed to fidget at the silence, sometimes acting as if he wanted to speak. She noticed that about the Americans: They expected conversation even when they had nothing much to say. It was very different from her people, who loved the silence; many of her closest moments with her father had been without words.

Sam kicked his feet, nervously moving the small backpack, then dropped his hands onto his lap.

She watched him and wondered. Did he notice how she looked at him? Did he notice her at all?

No. He was an American, an officer, and a soldier. He was far beyond anything she had to offer. He was part of another world.

Still, there was something about him, something different, something—she didn’t know, something stronger than bone and muscle. She didn’t understand it, but this much was certain: She was glad he was her friend.

Feeling the touch of Mary’s hair against her cheek, she brushed at the tickle. The wind gusted and she turned her face to the sun, feeling welcome and cared about for the first time since she had said good-bye to the old woman back at the refugee camp in southern Iraq. With the thought of Pari, her only friend in Khorramshahr, the memories suddenly came flooding back. She didn’t want them to, but she couldn’t control it. She might as well raise her hands to stop the wind as to hold back the memories once they had been released. The London doctor had tried to explain it to her before sending her to the States.

“How are you sleeping?” he asked her.

Azadeh didn’t answer for a moment. “All right,” she finally said in Farsi.

“Are you having any nightmares?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you find it hard to concentrate? Do the memories sometimes flood your mind?”

Azadeh looked up at him with pleading eyes.

The doctor saw it and noted her response on his pad. “The emotional devastation you’ve experienced is very similar to that of combat soldiers. Your emotions have been jarred. Sometimes the memories will come out like a monster, too powerful to hold back. Don’t worry about it too much. They’ll eventually go away.”

So it was that, as she sat in the afternoon light, her face turned up to the sun, the memories washed like a sudden flood into her mind. She thought about her father, a man she loved more than any other person in the world. She thought of her old friend in Khorramshahr. The afternoon the flesh dealer had come to take her away. The first time she had seen Sam back on the hilltop overlooking her tiny village in Iran. The Iranian troops, their black uniforms and unmarked armored personnel carriers, the greasy smoke hanging in the air, her father’s cries of anguish, looking into his dying eyes, the vertigo and crushing loneliness of knowing that she was alone.

*******

The afternoon sun was low and cold, but Sam felt warm and safe and he started to relax. Watching Azadeh, her face soft and full of thought, his mind too drifted back to the first time he had seen her, the battle in the valley so very far away.

Closing his eyes, he relived the entire scene.

*******

Sam took a step to the right to see past his men and his shoulders slumped as he looked at the smoking tree. The lower branches had been scorched, all of the leaves burned to ash. The corpse lay in a heap at the base of the tree “Anything else?” he demanded as he looked away.

“No, Sam, that’s all.”

“All right then, let’s go. There’s nothing more we can do and the Honcho wants to get out of here. Move to the helicopter. Let’s get out of this hell.”

“Roger,” the soldiers muttered. They all wanted to leave. There was too much death, too much darkness, too much destruction and despair. And it seemed to be for nothing. None of it made any sense! His team gathered their gear and moved down the hill in a run. Sam watched them go, standing alone atop the hill.

A slight wind picked up, blowing up from the valley and lifting the smoke to the tops of the trees, bending it over the branches like the long, misty fingers of an enormous, dark hand. Sam turned his face to the breeze, hoping the wind would remove the stain from his memory and the smell of smoke from his clothes. He closed his eyes and listened, feeling the breeze on his face and the weight of his gear pressing against his shoulders and chest. The radio receiver beeped in his ear as the other squads announced they were ready to go. He pulled out the earpiece and let it hang at his neck. He needed a moment of silence, a moment of prayer.

He bowed his head slowly. “Dear God,” he began, then paused for a time. He wanted to say something, and he felt that he should, but try as he might, he didn’t know what to say.

He didn’t feel like praying. He felt like kicking someone’s head in.

He paused, then finally mumbled the only thing he could think of. “Please help them,” he muttered, then lifted his head.

Turning, he started to walk down the muddy road. He had only walked twenty paces when something spoke in his mind. He tried to dismiss it, but the feeling remained. He paused, then peered back at the smoldering tree.

She crawled from the high grass on the other side of the road. She was young, wet, and muddy, with long hair and a tan dress. She moved toward the body at the base of the tree, and knelt beside it, holding her hands over her mouth. Watching her, he saw her shoulders heaving and heard her muffled cries.

“Go to her,” an unseen voice seemed to say. “She is your little sister and she needs your help.”

Sam stared in frustration. “But what could I do?” he thought in desperation to himself.

The voice didn’t answer and Sam didn’t move. The sound of the helicopter blades began to beat from behind him as the pilots spun the rotors up to operating speed. He turned to the landing zone to see that his squad had loaded up in the helicopters and were ready to go. He heard his name being called through the tiny radio earpiece that hung at his neck. “Captain Brighton,” his team leader called him. “Sam, let’s go!”

He eyed the helicopters, then glanced back at the girl who wept by herself in the mud.

“Go to her,” the voice repeated.

The helicopter blades spun, ready to lift in the air. Bono moved to the side of the lead helicopter and stared up at Sam. The leader motioned to his radio and pointed to him. Sam slipped in the earpiece and heard the captain’s voice. “Sam, come on, man, we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Please, Sam,” the voice pled. “I can’t do this alone!”

Bono’s voice broadcast into his earpiece. “Let’s get out of here, Sam! Come on, man, let’s go!”

Sam reached for the transmit button. “Stand by,” he said.

“What are you doing up there, Sam?”

“Stand by!” Sam replied.

He turned away from the helicopters and looked at the girl near the tree. She kept her head bowed and her hand at her mouth. Sam took ten steps toward her and she finally looked up, her eyes wide with fear. She started to back up, pushing herself through the mud and Sam lifted his hands, holding them away from his body in a gesture of peace. She cowered, her head low, almost bowing to him.

Sam took another step forward and she slowly raised her head. She looked at him and his heart seemed to wrench in his chest. She was so young and beautiful; vulnerable as a piece of ash in the wind. Her eyes were brimming with tears, which left a small trail on her cheeks.

Sam caught a sudden breath. The feeling so strong it was like a kick in the chest. “I know you,” he said.

She watched him intently, then cocked her head. Her face softened and she quickly wiped a rolling tear from her cheek. Sam saw the pain and desperation and he felt his heart wrench again. He felt breathless and hollow, his chest growing tight.

He moved to her slowly and she backed up in the grass. She kept her eyes low, too terrified to look at his face. Sam stopped a few paces from her, then knelt down at her side.

He shot a quick look over his shoulder. Bono and two other soldiers had come up the road and were watching in silence from twenty paces away. They didn’t move toward him, letting him talk to the girl.

Sam moved a few inches toward Azadeh. “I’m sorry,” he said. He spoke slowly in English, hoping she would understand.

She forced herself to stop weeping and lifted her eyes.

And Sam saw it, a flicker of recognition, as if she knew him too!

He gestured to the charred body. “Your father?” he asked, locking her eyes with his.

She nodded in despair, then turned away from the tree.

“Where is your mother?” he asked her.

She only stared back.

“Mother?” he repeated.

Azadeh shook her head.

“You are . . . alone?”

“Now . . . I am.”

Sam leaned slowly toward her and reached for her hand. “Look at me,” he told her.

Azadeh kept her head low and Sam lifted her chin to look into her eyes. “Khorramshahr,” he asked her. “Do you know where I mean?”

She backed away from him slowly, her face uncertain with fear.

“A refugee camp,” Sam repeated, pointing with one hand to the north. “Khorramshahr,” he repeated. “Go there. They will help you.”

Although she nodded slowly, Sam could see she did not understand.

“Khorramshahr!” he repeated. “If you can make your way there . . . .”

“Sam,” Brighton heard his friend’s voice. Bono had moved to his side and he placed his hands on Sam’s shoulder. “Sam, we have to leave. Come on, man, let’s go.” He pulled on Sam’s shoulder, then put a hand under his arm, lifting him up and pulling him toward the road.

“Khorramshahr!” Sam called out to her before she disappeared in the grass.

*******

Opening his eyes to look at Azadeh, Sam couldn’t help but notice how much older she was now. She had seen a lot, lived through a lot, since the first time they had met. Both of them were different now. The entire world had changed.

It was getting dark, and the noise and hustle from the street was getting louder as the shadows grew. Sam looked around anxiously, the hairs on his neck suddenly standing on end. He didn’t know what it was, but there was a sudden dread inside him. Like a little kid, he was growing fearful of the dark. “Let’s go upstairs,” he said, standing suddenly.

Mary looked up at him. “This will be our last night in Chicago?”

Sam looked down at her and thought. “Probably not. I want to check our route before we leave. It might take a couple days. Better to know what we’re walking into.”

Mary motioned to the neighborhood. “I wonder if I’ll miss this.”

Sam looked around at the chaos and ugly devastation, wondering how she could. “I’m going to go out tonight and check a few things,” he said.

Mary nodded to the streets. “It doesn’t get any better, not until we get a long way south.”

“That’s why we’ve got to take some time and figure out the best way out of here.”

*******

The apartment was as dark and quiet as a morgue. In fact, that was what it felt like—death, sadness, despair, and impending doom. Sara hated it. It was oppressive and claustrophobic. She knew her sons felt they were prisoners in the apartment, unable to walk around the neighborhood or even step out on the street. And though she tried to hide it, sometimes she felt the same way too.

She rolled over on the sleeping bag, listening to the breathing around her, then sat up. Her legs pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her knees, she thought of her husband, Neil. For the thousandth time, she longed for his touch, his voice, his strength, his ability to make a decision, his optimism for the future, his courage, his willingness to help others regardless of what it meant to him, his eyes, his laughter, his sense of humor, everything he was or used to be. For the thousandth time, she wished that he were there. If she closed her eyes, she could almost smell him. She could feel him, his spine taut, his arms around her, his hands against her back, his stubbled face against her cheek. She closed her eyes as she imagined, then felt an overwhelming sense of peace.

“Patience,” the Spirit told her. “You have this to look forward to.”

Patience. She almost viewed it as a friend now. Life had taken them to an interruption, but not the ending. With such hope, she knew that she could wait.

She quietly stood. Moving into the tiny bathroom with its yellow tile floor and cracked walls, she shut the door and felt around for the candle and box of matches Mary had left out on the sink. Holding the half-burned candle beside her face, she looked at her image in the mirror, studying the features that stared back at her. She’d lost weight, she could see that in her face; she was too thin now, her cheekbones taut. Her blonde hair was pulled back and dirty and she wanted a shower in the worst way. But she was still beautiful. More, she felt stronger than she’d ever felt before. The light inside her eyes was just as bright and she had lost the hesitation that had haunted her during the first days after the attack. The floor was cold and she rubbed her hands against her arms, then looked back in the mirror, staring into her own eyes in the flicker of the yellow light. The pain was there, deep inside, but she knew she would be OK. She could smile now and really mean it. It was true; she had a lot to look forward to.

Wasn’t it strange? Despite the desperation all around her, she had so much to live for.

“Patience. Keep looking forward. You have a lot to be grateful for.”

Puffing out the candle, she opened the bathroom door and moved toward the sleeping bag on the floor.

*******

As Sara passed the narrow doorway that led into the kitchen, something caught her eye. She stopped, frozen, her heart suddenly racing in her chest, then slowly turned her head.

Something was at the window.

No! It couldn’t be!

There. It flashed again.

She caught her breath in fear.

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be! She was on the third floor.

But she’d seen it. She knew she’d seen it. She hadn’t lost her mind.

A pale face. A vicious smile. Dark eyes staring back at her.

She gaped at the window without moving. The empty pane was lifeless, dark, the faintest glow of starlight casting a pale sheen. She stared and held her breath again. Nothing moved. Her heart raced, the blood pounding in her ears. Behind her, she could sense her sons as they slept, their heavy breathing, sometimes movement, the soft brush of bodies against the sleeping bags. She wanted to run to them and cry in fear. But she was frozen where she stood.

She wasn’t going crazy. She had seen the face at the window, staring back at her.

Another chill ran through her. She could feel her own breath upon her face, moist and faint. It was cold inside the apartment now, and she shivered as she stared.

She took a step toward the window. Her feet touched the cheap linoleum, feeling every crack on its surface. The room was silent. It seemed so dark, darker than any other night. She kept on walking. Eight steps before she reached the window.

Something fluttered by! Black cloth. A hand. Suspended in the air.

Her fist shot to her mouth to stifle her cry of fear.

No! It couldn’t be!

She didn’t move. She felt faint and dizzy, almost sick inside. She realized she wasn’t breathing and took a gasp of air.

She wasn’t dreaming. She wasn’t crazy.

She took another step, forcing herself to breathe. Another step. The floor creaked as she adjusted her weight to release the pressure against the floorboard. Behind her, Ammon coughed and rolled over. Somewhere above her, heavy footsteps moved down the tenement hall. She stared. The window was completely blank. Dark. Another step and then another. She never blinked, eyes riveted at the window. Something drew her forward. She tried to fight it, but she couldn’t resist. The window stared back at her, a sheet of black, flat and cold. It seemed to mock her, daring her to come. Come closer. Come and see. There is something out here. Come closer. Do you dare?

She kept moving forward, every sense raw and on edge. She was aware of every breath, every touch against her feet, the cold air against her arms, the utter lack of sound, the blackness of the night, the dank smell of the refrigerator that didn’t work.

A final step. She felt the countertop against her hips and sensed the emptiness of the kitchen sink below her arms. The window was just two feet away. She leaned forward but saw nothing. She reached out to touch the glass, feeling the coldness of the outside air against the pane. Leaning a little closer, she looked down at the outline of the streets below.

He dropped down and stared at her, suspended in midair. His face was evil, black and brooding, his dark eyes flashing in the starlight. He smiled and pointed at her.

She was what he was looking for.

Sara’s mouth hung open, her breath sinking in her chest. Half a second passed in silence. Finally, she let out a scream.

*******

Twenty minutes later, Sam and Ammon tapped carefully on the apartment door. Mary let them in. Sam held his flashlight, its bright, white beam illuminating the night. Like all of his gear, it had been protected from the devastating pulse of EMP by the underground subway. Sara sat on the edge of the couch, her hands trembling at her side. Sam’s face was tense but not frightened, puzzled but not strained.

Sara watched her sons as they walked into the room. Luke was standing behind her, both of his hands resting on her shoulders. Mary remained close, never leaving her side. Sara caught a flash of dark metal in Sam’s hand.

“What did you find?” Mary asked. She gripped Sara’s shoulders as if bracing for bad news.

Ammon and Sam exchanged an anxious look. “You were right, Mom. There was someone outside the window.”

The room was silent. “Are you kidding me!” Luke finally asked.

“See, I’m not going crazy,” Sara said, her voice defensive. Mary knelt down by her.

“No, Mom, we always said that you weren’t crazy.”

“But you didn’t believe me?”

“That’s not true. We just didn’t know what to think.”

Sara reached over and placed a hand on Mary’s arm. “He was there. Suspended in the air. Like he was flying,” she repeated her story for the umpteenth time.

“Well, not exactly.” Sam held up the piece of metal. “But it would have looked like that to you.”

“What did you find?”

Sam moved the flashlight to the piece of black metal in his hand. “This is a military rappelling device. They’d planted a bolt into the edging along the top of the roof, then rappelled over the edge using this brake and carabiner. It was the only way they could have looked inside the window.”

“Military rappelling devices? Bolts and carabiners? What are you talking about?” Sara pleaded.

Sam held out the oval carabiner and braking device. “I know this gear,” he said. “It’s highly specialized military equipment used by Special Ops.”

Sara stared at him, her face growing pale. “Are you saying there was a U.S. soldier outside our window?”

Sam thought for a long moment. “I’m saying there was someone. We don’t know who. We don’t know why. It seems crazy, but someone was out there. And they knew what they were doing. They were looking for something or someone. There was a reason they were there.”

Sara looked away. For a moment, Sam thought she was going to be sick, she looked so ghostly white. He took a step toward her. “Mom, are you OK?”

He watched her as her head dropped.

“Mom?” he asked again.

She was silent a long time. The apartment was deathly quiet. “I know who they were,” she finally said. She shook her head and closed her eyes.

Sam shot a quick look to his mother. He was the only other person who knew.

Mary asked, “Who would be using this equipment? Why would they be here?”

Every eye remained on Sara. She turned and looked at Mary. “I have put you all in danger.”

Mary shook her head. “You have saved me, baby.”

Sara swallowed hard, then jumped up, ran into the kitchen, and threw up into the sink.

SEVENTEEN

East Side, Chicago, Illinois

Sam tapped quickly, almost silently, on the apartment door. Azadeh stared at it anxiously while Mary let him in. He pushed the door back just a crack, slipped into the room before she could open it all the way, then grabbed the metal handle and shoved it closed again. All of them except for Luke and Kelly were waiting in the small living room. They all stared at him, waiting for his report. The soldier’s face looked grim.

“What’s the matter?” Sara asked him.

He glanced over his shoulder. “I was being followed!”

Sara’s hand shot to her mouth and she sucked in an anxious breath. Mary looked at the window nervously. Being from the neighborhood, she knew better than the others what being followed might really mean. Ammon stepped toward him, the brothers communicating with just a look between them.

“Followed?” Sara asked. “Do you think it was the—you know—the same man who was at the window?”

Sam went into the kitchen and poured himself a drink of water from one of the plastic canteens they had brought. “No, Mom, it was just a couple of hoods,” he answered after taking a quick swallow. “No biggie. I can take care of them. I lost them anyway. Still, I’d just as soon not advertise that we’re all up here in this apartment.” He took another swallow. He was thirsty. He’d been running. For the first time, Sara saw the shiny beads of sweat on his brow.

Sam motioned to his army jacket. “Funny how this gets such an interesting reception out there on the street.”

Sara and Ammon followed him into the kitchen and the group eventually congregated around the tiny table, eager to hear everything he had to say.

“Did you learn anything?” Ammon asked.

“Not a lot,” Sam answered after finishing his drink. He motioned toward the window. “It’s getting kind of crazy out there.”

That much they knew. All it took was one look out on the street to see that the world that had existed just a few days before was gone.

“Are we going to be able to leave tonight like we planned?” Ammon asked. He was more ready than any of them to get out of the dreary place.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. Gangs have blocked off almost every street. They’ve dragged old cars, piled up garbage cans, old furniture, anything they can get a hold of to build a barrier.”

Ammon almost swore. He simply couldn’t stand the thought of another day trapped inside the apartment.

“It’ll be OK,” Sam said to assure him. “They’ve already started to fight among themselves. It reminds me a little bit of Serbia, but things will settle down. Still, we don’t want to leave tonight. I think it’s too early. Another day, maybe two, and I think things will be OK. If we leave at the right time and follow the route we talked about, I think we can get through the worst areas without too much problem.” He shot a secret look at Azadeh. “If we are careful, and if we stay together, we’ll be OK.” He turned to Sara. “How’s Luke doing? What about Kelly Beth?”

“They’re both doing really well. It’s just amazing.”

Sam walked toward the window. “I met some policemen,” he continued.

“Really!” Mary exclaimed, her voice hopeful.

“It’s about time,” Sara said. “Where have all the law enforcement officers been?”

“There aren’t many of them reporting for duty, from what I could learn. Right now they’re trying to operate with less than five percent of their total force.”

“Five percent!” Ammon shot back. His face showed disappointment and disgust. “Cowards! Where did they all go?”

“Same as the rest of us,” Sam replied. “Home with their families. Trying to survive. Trying to figure out where they’re going to get some water for their kids, where they’re going to find some food. And in some ways, I can’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to be a law enforcement officer down there on the street right now. A million crazy people, lots of them with guns. No rules. No expectations. No communications between officers. No backup. No police vehicles. No way to get around.”

The group was silent. Azadeh started to say something and they all looked at her, but she fell silent, embarrassed.

“You saw some cops, though. That’s a good step,” Mary said. “Maybe we’ve turned the corner. If we can get some officers down there on the street, if people start to feel like things will soon be back to normal—”

“Miss Dupree,” Sam interrupted, “I don’t mean to be disagreeable, but things are not getting anywhere back to normal.”

“But if we can get some policemen—”

“I’m not sure we can be counting on these guys to help us anyway. Maybe just the opposite. I watched them shaking people down. First thing they did when they stopped me was frisk me for any food or water. Second thing they wanted was to take away my gun. I told them, dude, you got to be kidding. They insisted. Well, maybe even more than insisted. I tried to show them my military ID, explain to them I was authorized to carry it, that it was a military-issue weapon. It took a while to get them to back off.” He cracked a quick smile. “I had to be persuasive.”

Ammon watched him carefully. There was more to this story. A lot more. Sam hadn’t gotten the cops to leave him alone by sweet-talking them. He would discuss it with his brother later on.

Sam lifted the cup again, letting every drop of water drip into his mouth. Putting it down, he wiped the sweat from his forehead, wetting his sleeve. “We’ve got a new president of the United States,” he said.

Stunned silence. No one moved. An unexplained chill fell over the room.

“A new president?” Mary asked him.

Sam nodded at her.

“A new beginning? A new start at order?” Mary’s voice was full of hope.

A cold chill moved through Sara. It cut her, sending a dull ache around the base of her skull. A new beginning? She forced herself to breathe. No, she knew that wasn’t true.

She took a step back, her face drained of color. She didn’t breathe again for a long moment, her eyes dropping to the floor.

No one noticed her distress. They concentrated on Sam.

“A new leader for our nation?” Ammon asked him.

“Yep. A new head cheese.”

“Who is it?”

Sam wiped another bead of sweat from his face.

The room fell still and cold again.

“Albert Fuentes,” Sara said into the silence.

Everyone turned to her, but that was all she said.

Ammon shot a puzzled look to Sam, asking with his eyes. “Yeah, she’s right,” he said.

Ammon turned back to his mother. “How did you know that, Mom?”

She stood in the middle of the tiny kitchen, her hands shaking at her side. If she’d been staring at a monster, which she was, she couldn’t have looked more scared.

Ammon took a step toward her. “How did you know that, Mom?” he repeated, his voice as gentle as a whisper.

Sara swallowed and looked away.

The room was still and silent.

“Your father told me,” she finally said.

COMING IN EPISODE EIGHT...

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The old man raised an eyebrow. “He’s the best you got?” He smiled weakly as he said it. Fuentes thought that he was kidding. The others knew he was not. “I don’t know. I really don’t,” the old man went on. “I feel like I’m on the iceberg watching the Titanic bearing down. It’s a full moon. We’ll see the bodies. This is going to be a freaking mess.”

*******

A flash of movement in the smoky morning pulled Sam’s eyes away. Four of the men drew their weapons and pointed them at his head. In a simultaneous burst of motion, he pulled out his Beretta and shoved it into the leader’s face.

“You’ll never get us all,” the leader mocked.

“Maybe not, but I’ll get you.”

*******

Eighteen thousand feet above them, a pilotless drone moved silently through the empty sky, its sensors looking down, its hypersensitive radar, visual, IR, and ultraviolet sensors scanning the two-block radius around them inch by inch. Far away—from what location, the leader didn’t know, perhaps an unknown base inside the U.S., but more likely from a CIA site overseas—a military pilot controlled the drone, flying it by satellite-remote control, the drone’s sensors relaying what it sensed or saw. And the Predator reconnaissance aircraft saw everything. It could count the squirrels in the trees around them from the heat their bodies bled into the morning air, detect the coolness from the water trapped in rain gutters from the downpour the night before, sense the vibration on the front windows of the various homes enough to know if anyone was speaking inside. The man looked up, feeling naked, knowing the Predator could read the heat that escaped through his shirt collar accurately enough to estimate the heartbeats in his chest, knowing it could fire its Hellfire missiles at him and he would never know, the explosion killing him seconds before he ever saw or heard the missiles coming at him through the air.

*******

“Kill them!” the Master screamed again into the mortal’s ear. He had his arms around him, holding him in a cold and deadly grip. “Kill them now. Kill them all!” He cried with rage and fury.

The mortal hesitated.

“DO IT!” Satan commanded.

*******

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Coming In Episode Eight...

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Coming In Episode Eight...