Harlan is at the stove, boiling a pot of green beans. “Supper’s in ten minutes. Go upstairs and clean yerself up, you smell like somethin’ the cat dragged in.”
Rocky starts to say something, then thinks better of it. She heads out into the living room and climbs the wooden stairs in her stocking feet, hearing the familiar pattern of creaks. Entering the guest bathroom, she slams the door, unable to pull it shut within its swollen doorframe.
Gunnar hears the noise. He finishes toweling off, then slips on a pair of jeans and a sweater. He runs a comb through his wet black hair, then pauses at the bedroom door. Fingers his two-day growth, checks his breath, curses himself, then walks to the bathroom door and pushes it open.
She is standing in her slip, washing the manure from her skirt. He stares at the taut muscles in her back and legs.
Rocky never looks up, She can feel him staring at her figure.
“Enjoying the view?”
“Why are you here?”
“Orders, from my father. If it was up to me, you’d still be in prison.” She slips her skirt back on and turns to face him. “We have a situation. The Navy’s giving you an opportunity to make up for some of the damage you caused. My orders are to bring you to Washington.”
“What for?”
“You’ll be debriefed in D.C. The chopper’s refueling.” She glances at her watch. “Should be back in half an hour. Get your gear.”
“Forget it.” He walks out.
“Forget it? Hold it, mister—” She follows him down the stairs, her stockinged feet nearly slipping out from under her on the polished wood floor. “What do you mean forget it? Goddamn you, Wolfe, you owe—”
He spins around at the foot of the stairs, his face close enough to smell her scent. “I owe? Who do I owe? I’ve stepped in more blood than a butcher and have more Purple Hearts than a cow has teats, and do you know what I have to show for it? A dishonorable discharge and five years in prison. The only thing I owe is some serious payback to the asshole who set me up.”
“If that’s true, then you may finally get your chance.”
He feels his chest tighten. “What are you talking about?”
She stares into his gray irises, noticing the stress lines around the eyes. “Someone built the Goliath.”
“Bullshit—”
“Bullshit? I was there, asshole, I was aboard the Ronald Reagan when she sank.”
Rocky’s words jolt him like a live wire. “A carrier? We lost a carrier?”
“Not just the carrier, the entire CVBG.”
“My God.” He rubs his forehead, struggling to digest the information. An American carrier fleet packs more military might than all but a handful of nations in the world.
Rocky adjusts her skirt and sits on the bottom step. “Information’s being kept on a need-to-know basis until the Navy completes its salvage operation. The Ronald Reagan was carrying a dozen nuclear warheads.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Gunnar leans against the rail. The house is silent, save for the ticking of Harlan’s grandfather clock. “Are you certain it was the Goliath?”
“I saw it, Gunnar. It looks exactly the way we designed it.”
“Who built it? When did the attack occur?”
“The attack took place about a week ago. The rest of your questions will be answered on the flight to Washington.”
A week ago? If Sorceress was activated, then … Gunnar closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I think it may already be too late.”
“Excuse me?”
“There may not be much we can do to stop it.”
“Eight thousand sailors died, Gunnar. You think we’re just going to sit back and …” She wipes away tears, her face flushing in anger. “They killed my husband.”
“Your husband?” Gunnar looks up at her, at a loss for words. “When did you—”
“What difference does it make? All hell’s breaking loose. I haven’t seen this much panic in Washington since the nine-one-one attacks. Now get your gear, I have orders to deliver you to D.C.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll contact the MPs, who will drag your sorry ass on board the chopper in shackles.”
“He ain’t goin’ nowhere, not ’til he eats.” Harlan Wolfe enters the hall from the kitchen, a carving knife in his hand. “Gunnar, go and get your stuff. And you”—the old man points the blade at Rocky—“you get in the kitchen and help me put supper on the table.”
The thunder of the helicopter’s rotors echoes in the distance.
“All through Nature, you will find the same law: First the need, then the means.”
—Robert Collier
“The atomic bomb will never go off, and I will speak as an expert in explosives.”
—Admiral William Leahy to President Truman, 1945
“Science will conquer famine, eliminate psychological suffering, and make everybody healthy and happy … yeah, sure.”
—Theodore Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber, who sent bombs through the mail, causing three deaths and numerous injuries
“We only killed our own.”
—Mickey Featherstone, Irish mobster, to future New York mayor Rudy Giuliani
CHAPTER 3
Convention Center
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The tall woman with the pale complexion and shoulder-length brown hair fidgets as she waits her turn at the dais. She scans the crowd, then glances at the television crews. One-third capacity, and none of the major news networks are even here. What the hell’s wrong with our species? Are we that infatuated by the stock market and pro football? Don’t we realize that our very lives are in danger?
“Our next speaker is Dr. Elizabeth Goode, the foremost authority on nanocomputers and the author of ‘The End of the World and Other Selffulfilling Prophecies.’ Dr. Goode?”
A smattering of applause from the late-morning crowd.
“Before I begin, I suppose I should thank you for even bothering to show up. Frankly, it seems more and more of our population is caring less and less about the world’s quest to annihilate itself using thermonuclear means. I don’t know … maybe we scientists are simply not explaining ourselves properly, or the public just doesn’t believe us. Hell, maybe this entire convention would have been better served if the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research had invited some Hollywood bimbo with big tits to speak to you about nuclear proliferation instead of an overworked, single mother with a 170 IQ and dark circles under her eyes.”
A rustling of chairs as the crowd reenergizes.
Give ’em hell, Goode. Remember, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.
“You just heard Dr. Robert Schwager warn us about how the former Soviet Union’s stockpiles of weapons’ grade plutonium have turned into the equivalent of a third world yard sale, and yet most of you are probably daydreaming about your Philadelphia Eagles winning streak or thinking about what you’ll order for lunch. For God’s sake, people, wake up! Apathy is the world’s greatest killer, so you’d better snap out of it now and smell the sarin, before we wipe ourselves off the face of this goddamn planet.”
Dr. Goode registers the local television cameraman’s lens zooming in from stage right.
“I’ve been invited here this morning to give you a brief overview of the latest doomsday technology, a little something we scientists refer to as ‘pure-fusion weapons.’ You’d think we humans would already be satisfied with our ability to annihilate the world’s population a healthy five thousand times … but no. Now scientists at the United States National Ignition Facility at Livermore, California, and our French counterparts at the Laser Megajoule Facility in Bordeaux are on the brink of testing a new weapon, a real doomsday bomb—one that our politicians in Washington may actually be persuaded to use.