Fire (58 page)

When he got to the door of the freight car, he stopped, stopped dead in his tracks as stunned and in awe as Andy was.

“It’s him,” Christine said. She was climbing into the car, and her face was a mask of pain and concern. “It’s the one from my dream. He’s the one the dreams came from, I think.”

She walked to that incredible . . . thing, that incredible creature that lay writhing in agony on the floor of the freight car, and she stooped to touch his face, to caress it with love that tried to drain away a little of the pain but couldn’t take any of it and maybe Luke thought he ought to be jealous but it just wasn’t possible, it just wasn’t in him to feel it because he loved that creature at least as much as Christine did and maybe more.

“Luke Munsen? What are you doing here?”

And Luke looked up and saw Ron Hawkins, sitting on the far side of the car beside a filthy dog he almost remembered, and even if it was strange and impossible for him to be here, God it was good to see him, see him and remember him, he was a friend and the fact that he was there gave Luke a connection to his still-vague past and God that was a good thing.

“Same damn thing you’re doing here, I bet.” And remembered the urgency. “We’ve got to get out of here,” he said. “Is he well enough to move? We’ve got a car not far from here. Got to hurry — there’s no time at all.”

“Hurry where? From what? There’s no way he —” Ron nodded toward the creature “— can just get up and walk away from here, you know. Something’s wrong with him, seriously wrong.”

“Then we’ll have to carry him, that’s all. I’m not sure what’s going to happen — but . . . I had a dream, maybe an hour ago. A dream? No, not a dream. I was awake, and driving; there’s no way you could call it a dream. A vision, maybe?” Luke frowned. “I’ve been having a lot of dreams like that one, lately. We got to get away from here.

Christine looked up at him, away from the creature. “What did you see?”

Luke hesitated a long moment before he answered; he was afraid to say. And cursed himself for spending time they didn’t have. “An explosion. An explosion like the film of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that they showed us back in grade school.”

Andy was the one who broke the silence that followed. “Oh shit,” he said. “Are we going to get out of here, or what? Come on somebody. Let’s carry the big fella out of here.”

Ron shuffled over toward the creature, and together he and Christine slid the creature across the floor of the boxcar. Luke and Andy took his shoulders and lifted him out —

By then, of course, it was already too late. The fact was that it had been too late for them to get far enough away from the moment Andy had first set out across the field.

They had the creature half-way out when Luke lost his footing on the steep incline that led down from the train tracks, and he went tumbling ass-first down the stony dry dirt embankment, and Andy and the half-dead creature were only an instant behind since there was no way the boy could support the creature’s weight by himself —

And all three of them inside, Ron, Christine, and the dog Tom all came rushing down to help —

And that was the moment that the man in the plane triggered his nuclear warhead over the Mississippi River near Cahokia, just south of East St. Louis, and everything for miles and miles and miles around disappeared in a mushroom cloud of death and fire and subatomic vapor and pain.

Disappeared forever, without leaving behind a trace.

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FRIDAY

July Twenty-Second

INSET FL = Transmitted by satellite link

INSET FL = Friday, July 22.

JERUSALEM (REUTERS) — Israeli forces today pushed the joint Syrian-Iraqi army back across the Jordanian border, and launched a counter attack on Damascus through the Golan Heights. The Israelis claim to already be within 10 miles of the Syrian capital.

There are also unconfirmed reports that they have cut off lines of supply to the Iraqis and Syrians still fighting near the Jordan River. Israeli officials refused to comment on these reports. One official, who refused to be named, branded them “rumors — unfounded speculation.”

Egyptian representatives to the emergency meeting of the Arab League, now taking place in Tunis, condemned the Syrian-Iraqi attack as “criminal aggression.” Jordanian King Hassan, attending in person, called for the universal condemnation of Syria, Iraq, and Libya, which he accuses of having supplied Syria with material support. The League as a whole has not yet taken a position on the conflict.

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SATURDAY

July Twenty-Third

EXTREMELY CONFIDENTIAL

Transcript of a

conversation between

Herman Bonner and

our agent. Recorded

the morning of 7/23.

H.B.:You’re on time as always, Tim. I appreciate that.

A.:Of course I am, Dr. Bonner. What did you need from me?

H.B.:Several things. Several things. First, though, I wanted to check the progress of your missile program. How is it coming? Will you have them ready soon?

A.:Later this morning, if everything stays on time. No reason why it shouldn’t. (Pause.) Which reminds me of something I keep meaning to ask you.

H.B.:Yes. . . ?

A.:Well . . . we’ve never talked about this, so I’m not real sure. All these weird things that keep happening all over the country, all over the world. . . . Like all those weird things in the newspaper about that animal that’s like the Beast from Revelation. Like all those people who die and come back everywhere. Like how the newspapers always seem to read these things just the right way. Are we involved in that somehow? It almost seems like we have to be.

H.B.:Of course we are, Tim. Why do you ask?

A.:I thought so. It’s just that I’ve been wondering. . . .

H.B.:(Impatient.) Wondering what? Speak directly — there’s no time for this.

A.:Wondering how come we’ve got to do all this if what we really need to do is blow up the world. To make it clean. I mean — why don’t we just go ahead and drop those bombs, and to heck with all this stuff? Does it really make any difference?

H.B.:Ah. That’s what you’re getting at. I should have known. Yes, Tim — yes. It does make a difference. All the difference there can be. The fate of the world was written a long time ago, written by a hand far mightier than yours or mine. If we are to have any hope of accomplishing our ends, we must produce that fate as nearly as possible. Otherwise we are doomed to fail.

A Post-It note mounted in the center of the page obscures what lies below. It reads as follows:

When are we going stop this man, General? We’re left with almost no time at all. And we’ve already lost St. Louis. I gather that our man is actually arming these bombs? Why, for God’s sake? If the Air Force isn’t up to the job, I’ll march into this base and strangle him and Bonner with my bare hands. I don’t care if they’ve got the man who’s legally our President with them. We need to put this to an end.

Below this, written in a finer, more careful hand:

Show a little patience, Ben. We’re working on it. Our man is in fear for his life. If he sabotaged Bonner, the man would kill him. And have someone else do the work. At least he’s feeding us information, and thank God for that.

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Chapter Forty

LAKE-OF-FIRE, KANSAS

By Saturday afternoon, George Stein had begun to pray that God would let him die. Die forever and for real and permanently. His heart needed an ending; the scars that Herman Bonner had left on his soul over the last two days were too deep to ever heal. His shame twisted him too hard, too far; there was no way he could ever grow easy with himself again. George Stein didn’t just want to die — he wanted more. He wanted the death that atheists see waiting for them: pure and sweet oblivion.

A total and final end for body and soul.

It was a vile thing to pray for. George Stein prayed for it all the same.

Not that it mattered. If God heard his prayers, he didn’t heed them. Three times since the sun had come up this morning he’d felt the life bleed away from him through broken arteries, and each time he’d woke only a short while later in coagulating pools of his own blood. And looked up, reborn, to see Herman Bonner leering at him.

Herman kept him chained much more carefully now. George had spent most of the day chained to that filthy, blood-crusted bed, each leg, each wrist bound individually. Then, half an hour ago Herman had kicked him till he woke, taken his chains from the bedposts, and carried him to the front of the room. George would have tried to fight him off if he’d had the strength, but he didn’t have it — he was so weak, in fact, that he hadn’t even had the spirit to try to fight.

“I want you to see this, George,” Herman said. And he hoisted George up toward the ceiling, and looped the chains that bound his wrists into a wide, heavy-gauge, white-painted hook — a hook George hadn’t noticed before, and whose original purpose he couldn’t imagine. Herman left him dangling like a side of beef in a meat locker. “It’s the culmination of everything we’ve worked on together for years. It’s important that you see.”

George grunted. He didn’t want to see whatever it was Herman Bonner wanted to show him, and anyway there wasn’t strength enough in his neck to lift his head to look out the window.

Maybe Herman understood that, or maybe he was just impatient. Regardless, it wasn’t a sight he was about to let George avoid; he put his hand under George’s chin, pressed his head back and up until it was wedged between his arms and George could see. . . .

George had thought himself beyond pain and feeling. Thought that there was nothing left to do but die, and that there was nothing more Herman could do, to him or otherwise, that could stir him. Until he saw what Herman Bonner was doing, and the bottom fell out from under his stomach all over again.

The landing field outside the window was filled with transport planes — twenty of them, at least. And each of the planes had a missile attached to it, or in process of being attached.

Dear God.

It was the end of the world Herman was planning. And there wasn’t a damned thing George Stein could do about it.

“Apocalypse, George. The Apocalypse.” Herman ran his fingers through his hair, preening. Let out a long, satisfied sound that was somewhere between a groan and a sigh. “Enough to destroy a score of the world’s largest cities, and if all of them detonate at once — perhaps! perhaps! — the damage to the world’s tectonic structure will start that final cataclysm!” His eyes were filled with something — lust? No, not lust. Lust was a purer and more human thing. “So soon . . . it’s been so long, and now so soon. . . .”

George tried to speak, but at first all that came from his throat was the sound of moving phlegm. When he tried again, his voice was faint and unsteady, but the words came out, at least. “Why, Herman? Why would you want to destroy the world God made?”

The . . . desire in Herman’s eyes brightened, and after a moment he began to laugh. “It really isn’t in you, is it, George? If you can ask the question, how could you ever understand the answer?” And he lashed out, suddenly, with his fist, pounding George’s diaphragm so hard that he felt the pressure squeeze his heart.

It was quiet for a long time after that; George wanted to speak, wanted to respond, but there was no way he could with the wind knocked so far out of him. It came back slowly. Too slowly, in thin ragged breaths that weren’t enough to let him speak. And when he finally could speak, the words were a pale whisper.

“God loves you, Herman,” George said. “He loves us all. He’ll still forgive you if you only let him.”

And Herman laughed and laughed and laughed.

And that was faith, damn it, it was the most important thing in George Stein’s life — the most important thing there ever could be, if you asked George.

No matter how important faith was to George Stein, Herman Bonner’s laugh made him ashamed of it and of his words. That shame was the worst sacrilege George could imagine.

Death would be better. Much better. It was something to pray for.

Herman smiled at him, hungrily. “You want to die, don’t you, George? You’d like me to strap you to one of my rockets — to let the cleansing nuclear fire erase you from this world forever.” He moved close, so close that George could feel and smell his warm, fetid breath. So intimate that it made George want to feel ill, but he hurt so bad already that it was hard to tell if it added anything. “Yes. You do want that, don’t you, George? It’s too bad. It’s the one foul thing I can’t give you. I want you here with me — want you here to see my final solution for this world. You’ve been so much a part of it . . . it would be a poor thing to lose you now. A poor thing indeed.”

Herman was . . . touching him. Intimately, painfully.

“They’re dead, you know. The ones who were coming for me. Reduced to subatomic dust in my wondrous explosion. There’s nothing, now. No one. To interfere, or threaten or — stop my plans. Of all those who could oppose me, George, only you are left alive. And you’re no threat to me.” Again, the ravenous smile. “You’re my darling, George. My pet.”

And George was afraid and ashamed and he wanted death with a need almost as strong as the need in Herman Bonner’s eyes. “Stop, Herman. Please. Stop.”

Herman didn’t stop. Instead he did something so physically excruciating that George nearly blacked out. “George — do you know that I lied to you, George? I did. It pains me to admit it, but I did lie. There is still one threat left. An entire army of a threat. Three divisions of conventional soldiers and airmen, sent here from other bases in the Midwest. Camped not twenty miles from here, just beyond the Nebraska border. They’ve been there for two days, now.”

Three divisions? If the real army was here three divisions strong then it was all over. Wasn’t it? It was, unless Herman had something more up his sleeve.

“They don’t worry me, darling. Do you know why?”