Bob stood there for a moment, watching the silent interplay with admiration. I was so wrong. What a woman my nephew found. What children she brought to our family. I, he concluded, have been an utter ass and a fool.
He walked the few steps to Linda and handed her his cell phone. "Here, call your husband if you can get through. Give him my regards… and my regrets." He patted her shoulder, not ungently, nor even lacking a certain late-blooming admiration and affection.
Linda took the device and smiled up, gratefully.
"I have something else I have to do," Bob announced.
The uncle, the old tyrant, walked to his desk, fiddled with a computer that had no wires coming from it, then began to speak.
"John," he said aloud to a face that appeared on his screen, "there's not much time. Can I do a codicil to my will over this line? I can? Good. Prepare to copy this then. 'I, Robert Hennessey, being of sound mind and body… '"
Cochea, 0924 hours
Hennessey was pale, Parilla saw; paler even than the gringo norm. His eyes were glued to the television screen that showed the imminent collapse of all his hopes, the destruction of his life. On the screen people were jumping from the flaming towers to smash their bodies below. It was better than burning.
Hennessey's own cell phone rang. Jimenez picked it up, answered, then-not without some reluctance-passed it over. "It's Linda," he announced in a breaking voice.
Like a drowning man grasping desperately for a life preserver, Hennessey took the phone.
"Honey, where are you and the kids?" he asked desperately.
He heard screams and cries in the background as Linda answered, "I'm here at Uncle Bob's office… the children are with me. I am so sorry, Patricio."
Hennessey felt his heart sink. "Is there any way out?"
Her answering voice held infinite sadness and regret. "No… I don't think so. The only way off would be helicopters, now. And I don't hear or see any. It's getting very warm in here, husband. We'll have to go soon. Why don't you talk to the kids? Do not worry; I will wait as long as possible but I will not let our babies burn if I can help it. Goodbye, Patricio. You know I love you."
"I love you, too, Linda," he wept. "I always have."
"Dad?" Hennessey heard young Julio say, voice quavering, then firming up. "I am being brave, Dad…"
TNTO, 1003 hours
The air was very bad now. The windows people had knocked out in order to jump had let in as much smoke as fresh air. Ashes floated on the fire-fanned breeze.
Uncle Bob, Linda and the kids crouched low, breathing what oxygen there was in the hot, stifling, and murky office.
"Not much more time… Linda," Bob said. As if to punctuate, a chorus of heartrending screams came from down the hallway. The fire had eaten through the floor, consuming a half dozen office workers who had been steeling themselves for the jump. The screams seemed to go on and on.
Linda stifled a sob as she hugged Milagro and Lambie to her breast. With tears rolling freely down her face, she said, "It's just so wrong. What did my babies ever do to harm anyone? What did I do? What did Patricio do that he should be left all alone?"
Bob just shook his head. He had no answer that would help. He looked out the window towards the GNN building, even as a cloud of dust and smoke began to billow out from it.
"It's collapsing," Bob gasped through the smoke laden air. He gestured toward the open main area of the office suite"The fire is getting worse. We have to go now."
Linda nodded, sniffed, suppressed a cough. "One last thing first." She took her arms from around the girls briefly, put her hands on her stomach and said, "I baptize you in the name of the Father…"
It was almost time to go. The heat rising from the floor, telltale of the flames below, was already too much to bear for long. Nor could anyone on the floor stand for all the thick, toxic smoke that hung above.
On the other side of the suite, a man laughed. "Infidels," he cried in a foreign accent, "see the judgment of Allah. See the wages of your iniquities. You will all die here and burn in Hellfire forevermore for your crimes against the will of the Almighty."
Uncle Bob recognized the voice and answered back, with more force than reason, "God will send you and all your kind to Hell, Samir, you miserable, treacherous bastard."
Julio looked calmly at his mother. Ten years old or not, he was her son, and his father's. "Mom, will Daddy make them pay, the men who did this?"
"That will be as it will, my baby," Linda answered. "But… knowing your father, I can't imagine that he will not. He is… he can be… a very harsh man."
Linda looked at the flames rising behind her. "Almost time, children. Pray, now." She began to recite, "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come…"
Others joined in the final prayer, and one began to sing a halfremembered hymn, in English. Yet Linda recognized the song by its Spanish version. She, then the children, then another dark and lovely young girl in a short red shirt joined in, in Spanish.
Perhaps because she was an island of relative calm in a sea of insanity, people clustered around Linda. Most stopped praying, a few going silent but more joining in the hymn. In English it was known as "Abide with Me."
As the song neared its end, Linda and Bob stood. It was easier to stand near the smashed-out window than it had been in the smokefilled interior. Bob took Julio in one arm and wrapped the other around Linda's slender waist. Linda, with one arm around Lambie and the other holding Milagro stopped singing for just a moment to say, "Close your eyes, babies," and to kiss each of the little girls atop their heads.
She resumed singing and began to walk forward, others following. At the very edge she hesitated, but only for the tiniest fraction of a second. She and Bob took the last step forward, the hymn echoing in their ears: "Help of the helpless, O abide with me…"
It was a long way down. Linda felt her speed build. Her stomach seemed to want to come out of her mouth. She heard the babies she clutched so tightly scream as if from a great distance. She reached terminal velocity and the falling sensation in her stomach disappeared.
There was a brief sense of shock and then… nothing.
Cochea, 1028 hours
"Don't look, Patricio," implored Jimenez, voice strained with despair for his friend.
"No… don't," whispered Parilla, shaking his head slowly.
Hennessey ignored them, his eyes fixed on the television image. Down went the Center Tower, slowly, majestically. With it went his wife, his three children, possibly a fourth, too. Linda had hinted before she left for the Federated States that she might be expecting. He gave off a soft, wordless cry.
In the background Lucinda bit her hand to stifle wracking sobs. "The babies, the babies, the babies… my Linda… I changed her diapers as a baby… my little ones…"
Overwhelmed with grief, Hennessey just let his head hang, tears running down his face to gather and drip from the end of his nose and chin. He made no sound, yet his shoulders shuddered spasmodically.
Not knowing what else to do, Jimenez walked to the liquor cabinet, extracted two glasses and a bottle, then poured a light drink for himself and a much larger one for Hennessey.
"Here, Patricio, drink this. For a while, it will help."
Eyes of the Prophet, Zion-occupied Filistia,
Terra Nova, 11/7/459 AC
As Hennessey wept, even as thousands and millions in the Federated States and some few other places wept their grief and shrieked their anger, a series of rather differently spirited and impromptu- but, one cannot doubt, wholehearted and completely sincere-demonstrations erupted around the globe. From one end of the Salafi and Moslem quarter to the other cheering people took to the streets, automobile horns blasting, people dancing, women warbling the Arabic call to battle and victory.