“Yes, sir.”
After I had my cell phone back in my pocket, I checked the Kimber in my shoulder holster. Loaded and ready. Zoe Kerry’s derringer was in my right sock, also loaded. Put my laptop in my office, make a pit stop on the way to the helicopter, and I would be ready to fly.
Sarah stopped tapping and swiveled toward me. “You going somewhere?”
“Grafton wants me in Norfolk. He’s sending a chopper for me.”
“That bomb might explode while you are there.”
I shrugged.
She couldn’t leave it there. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
I didn’t know what to say. We’re all going to die. That’s the way life works. The only issue of any interest is when. I kept my mouth shut.
“So aren’t you scared? A little bit?”
“Should I be?”
“Tommy…”
Seeing the look on her face, I crossed to her, tilted her head up and kissed her on the lips as sweetly and gently as possible.
“See you in a few days, Sarah,” I whispered.
Walking down the hallway, I felt like a shit. I just didn’t have a good-bye scene in me. “Farewell, dear lady. Until we meet again, here or on the other side of the great divide.” Fuck that.
Maybe the truth was I didn’t give a good goddamn.
The panic in southwestern Virginia hit the White House like an earthquake. Sal Molina and Jurgen Schulz had helicoptered back from Norfolk. Molina thought he could feel the floor oscillating as people ran through the halls on errands that presumably would save civilization. He was summoned to the Situation Room, where the president was huddled with his national security team. Once there, Molina found that Schulz had panicked, too. He was in full cry when Sal walked in.
“It’s that incompetent asshole Grafton, and that idiot admiral McKiernan. Those two fools think they can manage this mess! The hell of it is, there probably is a fuckin’ bomb in the harbor, and those imbeciles sat there talking about finding it, a fuckin’ needle in a fuckin’ haystack. Goddamn chinks! I think we should get the Chinese ambassador in here and tell him that if a nuke goes off in Norfolk, we’ll massively retaliate against China. We won’t leave two bricks stuck together in that fuckin’ commie paradise. We’ll cremate every fuckin’ chink between Vietnam and Mongolia. Every last one of the silly sons of bitches — men, women, children and comrades. All of them!”
When Schulz paused for air, Molina spoke directly to him. “Let me get this straight. You are advising escalating the crisis by threatening the Chinese with all-out nuclear holocaust. They have ICBMs with nuclear warheads, too. What if they decide there is no way off the cliff except to shoot first? Wipe out America and save as many of their people as possible?”
“They’ll back down,” Schulz insisted.
“What if they don’t? Are we bluffing? Would you really do it?”
The silence that followed was broken when the president said, “Thank you, Jurgen, for that thoughtful advice. Any more thoughts, Sal?”
“Norfolk certainly is in meltdown. Somebody leaked the possibility of a bomb, sure as sin. That was inevitable, I suppose.” Molina sighed. “If Grafton and McKiernan can find the thing before it blows, they will. If they can’t, I don’t think anything we do will matter much. A nuclear explosion in Norfolk, or anywhere else, will have profound, unknown consequences. If it happens … Well, I think we had better await the event and go on from there. Assuming that there is a United States left that we want to live in.”
Jurgen Schulz started cussing again. Molina had never before heard a Harvard professor throw around so many of those fine old Anglo-Saxon words. Obviously Schulz was a connoisseur. Molina thought it a rare treat to hear those words delivered so passionately.
When Schulz ran down, the president said, “I don’t know about you people, but I am going to have a nice quiet dinner, drink a couple glasses of wine and try to get some sleep. I suggest everyone here do the same.”
“What about the congressmen and senators and the press?” his chief of staff asked. “They are besieging us.”
The president eyed him. “And your point is…?”
“We can’t—”
“Oh yes we can.” The president stood and walked out.
Sal Molina didn’t linger. He went to his office, stirred though his telephone messages, then donned his coat and headed for home. He decided to buy a six-pack on the way, and a pizza. He used his cell phone to order the pizza, which the girl assured him would be ready when he arrived.
When he got to the Pearly Gate, St. Peter might ask, “So how did you spend your last night on earth?”
“Eating a Super Supreme Pizza and drinking three beers, sir. I couldn’t think of anything else.”
“Did you get the traditional crust?”
“Oh, you bet.”
Zhang Ping was on his way to the Chans’ restaurant when he passed a convenience store with a telephone kiosk mounted on the wall. America didn’t have many of those anymore, not since the dawn of the cell phone age, so it was a rare opportunity. Zhang did a U-turn and went back to the convenience store, which was still open. Yet empty, with only the clerk behind the counter.
Zhang examined the phone mounted on the wall. The receiver was off the hook, dangling at the end of the line. Someone had pried open the coin box, ruining it. Zhang put the receiver on the hook, waited a few seconds, then put it to his ear. No dial tone.
Perhaps there was a telephone in the store.
He went into the store, walked to the cooler and selected a soft drink. Took it to the counter. Saw the phone on the ledge behind. The young male clerk was of mixed race, perhaps a quarter black, with tattoos on his arms and one running up his neck.
Zhang put the soft drink on the counter and reached for his wallet with his right hand.
The clerk picked up the bottle. That was when Zhang reached with his left hand, grabbed a handful of hair and slammed the man’s face down onto the counter. With his right hand he delivered a karate chop to the neck. He heard the bones snap.
He pushed the clerk away, and the body fell behind the counter. Taking his time, Zhang Ping walked around the counter, picked up the telephone.
He dialed a number he had memorized six months ago. The call went through.
Ringing. Once, twice …
A male voice answered.
This was an unsecure line, yet Zhang threw caution to the wind. He had to know what was happening. The empty streets, the cell phones that didn’t work, Choy’s disappearance, the massive traffic jams on the exit roads …
In about a minute he had it all. The news was out. The rumor that there was a Chinese nuke hidden at the naval base had emptied the town. Mass panic. The authorities were searching.
“Do you have any instructions?” Zhang asked.
“No.” That meant that the man had heard nothing from Beijing.
Zhang stood beside his vehicle in the empty parking lot listening to helicopters fly overhead, the low moan of jet engines … stood listening and thinking.
If Choy Lee hadn’t betrayed him yet, he soon would. That was problem number one. Zhang decided to take care of it first.
He climbed back into his stolen ride, started the motor and headed for the Chans’ restaurant.
The lights in the parking lot were still on. Choy’s SUV was sitting in front, nose-in to the building., the only vehicle in the lot. Not another car sat in the parking lots of the other storefronts to his right and left. Sally’s old Toyota must be parked behind the building. Zhang saw the plywood over the window and the CLOSED sign in the front door, which was undoubtedly locked.
If Choy had called the authorities, this lot would be full of police and government cars. It wasn’t, so he hadn’t. Perhaps there was still time.