No 787 appeared on any radar, on any ship, plane, or ground station. High-altitude satellites might have seen something, but if so, it had not yet emerged from the analysis; even the NSA’s quantum computers couldn’t instantly scan the imaging from so many millions of square miles for something that would fit into one city block. A couple of low-altitude satellites would pass over soon; maybe they’d have better luck.
No calls came in about explosions, planes crashing, planes where there should be no planes; nothing. Perhaps they were taking some longer way round, had found a hole in the defenses or were planning to make one?
The big red patch in the Northwest grew, and its finger slid down over the Bay Area and thickened into a wedge, and nothing happened.
In the safe aqua zone, Newport Beach, California, well down the south coast, blossomed red, another victim of geometry that made it stick out from a great circle perspective centered on Jayapura.
The new red blotch spread rapidly, engulfing Irvine, reaching toward San Diego, as the older, bigger malignancy crawled into the northern suburbs of LA. The whole American/Canadian coast would be solid red in another minute.
There were down spots in the Mexican radar fence, but the holes were temporary problem spots, not where anyone—
Check that assumption. Heather typed a quick note and posted it in general discussion: Some radars down in Mexico. NE1 chkd Y? &when?
About five seconds later she saw MISO from Cam—his personal abbreviation for “make it so.” Shortly after that, a note came in from someone at Homeland Security, saying DoD was getting an answer through their liaison with the ministerio del ejército in Ciudad de México.
Ejército, the Army? Why not Defense? Heather clicked up a footnote. Technically Mexico has no Defense Department: Army and Navy are separate, the Air Force is part of the Army, and so the Mexican official with the most defense radars under his control is the Minister for the Army. Pretty much the same setup as we had in the United States around 1940; but unlike us, the Mexicans haven’t had a lot of wars lately. Mostly because we’ve been behaving our asses, sorta, comparatively anyway.
Heather looked up. The West Coast was bright red from Bellingham to San Diego. Red was now spilling down Baja, spreading east over the deserts and mountains, and racing around the northern head of the Gulf of California. She was holding her breath, as if somehow she could hear a shot or an explosion from here.
A note popped up on her screen to say that the Mexican Army should soon have a complete report on the radars that were down. So far all reports were of people not getting the word to defer scheduled downtime; more pale green curves popped up along the west side of Baja.
ABOUT THE SAME TIME. NEAR GUERRERO NEGRO. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST OF BAJA CALIFORNIA. 5:15 P.M. PST. MONDAY. OCTOBER 28.
At first, Samuelson hadn’t even been sure that the dark area coming over the horizon was land, but now below him, it was not just land, but a place he knew. From the air, the Bay of Sebastian Vizcaino has a distinct hooked-curve shape that is easy to pick out, and because buildable land is scarce along its shores, the town of Guerrero Negro sits in a distinct, unusual position north of and above the bay. Just south, the Baja Highway cuts away from the Pacific to the Sea of Cortez. Guerrero Negro is a major ecotourist jumping-off point for whale watching and for the Vizcaino Desert Biosphere Reserve. Samuelson had passed through a dozen times in his twenties and a few since then with Kim, especially during the early, traveling years of their marriage.
Now I know exactly where I am, Samuelson thought, and they don’t know I do. I just need to figure out how to use that.
The plane began a steep descent; the pilot said something over the loudspeaker, but Samuelson’s tourist-Arabic from thirty years ago wasn’t adequate to make out what.
They leveled off at low altitude, flying down a canyon toward the Gulf of California. They must be—
The hand on his shoulder made him jump. “Time to make your statement.”
“That is impossible,” he said. “I cannot betray—”
The man punched him, in the face, hard enough to numb it. He hit Samuelson again, drew back his fist and looked into his eyes, waited for the vice president to realize what was happening.
He hit him again, much harder. “You must make your statement now.”
“I will not,” Samuelson said, “and you can’t make me.”
Those are the rules, where they come from. When anyone offers you anything, or asks for anything, refuse twice, accept on the third. Basic negotiation principle: Behave in a way that the other side is at home with.
He thought about that while they held him up and beat his ribs sore, leaving him coughing and unable to wipe the tears and mucus from his face.
When Samuelson had caught his breath, the man said, again, “Now, your statement.”
“What must be in the statement?” Samuelson asked.
They dickered and haggled. Samuelson insisted that he did not want to read the official statement because it dishonored himself and his nation. He pleaded with them—couldn’t he make his last words his own, and speak the way he always did to American audiences, wouldn’t that be more believable? And could he please begin by saying farewell to his wife? Well, because a man can be in love, can’t he?
One of his best negotiations in a life of negotiations. He had nothing to offer, and everything to gain, and the other side did not realize that he got everything he wanted.
When they had agreed, he was permitted a quick trip to the bathroom. Two guards watched him while he took a dump; did they expect him to hang himself in the toilet paper or pull a concealed machine gun from the electric shaver?
Face freshly washed. Calm. Ready.
The little light glowed on their camera. Here goes. “My fellow Americans, by the time most of you see this, I will be dead, because the men sitting just a few feet from me are planning to kill me, along with themselves. They demanded that I make a statement, which they are sending out in some kind of live webcast via cellular broadband, I’m afraid I don’t understand the technical details, but apparently they fear that we may be fired on before they can transmit a recording. So, they tell me, I am speaking to you, right now, live, in streaming video, and this is going out over the web, and they’ve notified millions of media outlets and bloggers and so on to record it; I’m sure many of them will broadcast it.
“First let me just say, Kim—my wife, my one and only love ever—I love you as much as I did on our honeymoon in Guerrero Negro, when we hiked the canyons to the north and sailed up the Gulf of California, if—”
A rough hand grasped his hair. Someone shouted. He tried to jab his handcuffed hands upward into the crotch of the man holding him, but other hands pushed them down, so he tried to turn and bite the man’s leg, but his head was held too tight. A knife pressed against his throat. Well, I tried.
The pressure slackened. His head was released. He saw that they were pointing the camera at the one who had been pressing the knife to his neck.
The man seemed to shake off the murderous rage as if it had never been, and handed the knife to one of his friends. The cameraman counted down, three, two, one, and the active-light went on. The man said, “We had hoped to present an honest—”
Samuelson screamed, “Bullshit! What’s in those barrels? What’s in those barrels?” as they yanked him around, trying to reach his mouth while he bucked and curled away from them.