Last Gasp (33 page)

An airport security guard in peaked cap and shiny blue uniform was standing above him, an automatic in his meaty fist. The crowd surged around curiously, agog at the spectacle; this was better than television.

“My briefcase,” Chase said breathlessly, patting it as if to corroborate his story. “This man stole it.” There was a look in the guard’s eye that made Chase feel as if he were the guilty party.

“All right, take it easy now.” The guard, a burly fellow in his fifties, crouched down on one knee. When he turned the young Asian over his look became positively suspicious. Sticking out of the Asian’s T-shirt, just below the left collarbone, was the broken end of a hypodermic needle, still seeping pinkish fluid.

The guard looked at Chase warily. “You made damn sure he didn’t get far. What are you, a doctor or something?” He pressed three fingers to the side of the Asian’s neck, feeling for his pulse.

Chase blinked. “Wait a minute, that wasn’t me. I only... is he dead?” Chase asked, hollow-eyed, as the guard straightened up. The Asian’s sallow complexion had turned gray. His lips were tinged with blue.

Watching Chase closely the guard unclipped a transceiver from his breast pocket, thumbed a button, and spoke into the grille. “Control, this is blue nine-three. We have a homicide in the transit lounge.” The barrel of the automatic was pointing at the middle of Chase’s chest. “Suspect apprehended. Get the rush squad here right away.”

“Officer, you’ve got this all wrong. You can’t hold me, I’ve got a plane to catch in”—he looked at his watch—“eight minutes. This man is a thief, he stole my briefcase, this bloody thing here!”

The guard wagged his head. “What kind of score do you think this is, fella—I find you next to a dead man and you just take your flight as if nothing had happened?”

“It leaves in eight minutes!”

“Right, it leaves in eight minutes without you. Now just take it easy.” Chase sagged helplessly. What a ludicrous situation to have become embroiled in, and all for the sake of a piss. It was going to take hours to explain and sort out a simple sequence of events. Simple, that was, except for the broken needle protruding from the Asian’s chest. What was he, an addict? Impaled himself on his own hypodermic? No, Chase recalled, that wasn’t how it had happened ... he’d definitely seen the Asian stagger
before
the fall. Then how ... ? It didn’t make sense. Knowing it was futile, he tried one more time.

“Officer, there are people up there in the men’s room who saw everything that happened. All you have to do is ask one of them—” He turned and pointed up the escalator and his arm remained frozen in midair. He’d seen, for just a moment, the big man in the black vinyl hat before he’d ducked out of sight.

A random and unconnected scattering of thoughts coalesced and glowed like neon in Chase’s brain. The Asian had encountered no one except the big man in the black vinyl hat. The big man had a camera around his neck. He was also wearing a heavy gold bracelet on his hairy wrist. A memory stirred, but one he couldn’t place, of gold jewelry on a hairy wrist.

Chase lowered his arm and waited silently while the crowd flowed around the three participants in the little drama. He stood frowning, trying to make connections, and he was still trying when the other security guards arrived and led him away at the point of a gun.

It was a table of death’s-heads. Beamed straight down from recessed spotlights in the ceiling, the light bounced off the papers spread across the horseshoe-shaped table, with President Munro at its apex, and lit everyone from above and below.

Foreheads gleamed like bone, eye sockets were black and cavernous, chins and jowls jutted: a tableau of waxwork effigies.

Directly in front of the president, through the glass wall, holographic displays hovered ghostlike in the middle of the darkened chamber. Beneath them sat controllers and military personnel at hooded consoles, while officers stood in the shadowy background in small groups.

Along the table to the president’s left, General Beaver, one of the three Joint Chiefs present, said, “Satellite photoreconnaissance confirms the intelligence picture, sir. Taken together, I should say we have a good probability rating, in the high seventies.”

“That still leaves a better than twenty percent shortfall, General.”

“With all respect, sir, it can only be conclusive when the Soviets actually implement the scheme,” General Stafford pointed out.

August, 9, 1999. The president’s famous vote-winning smile was absent today at this meeting ninety feet underground in the concrete, steel and lead-lined installation known as the Prime Situation Center. Connected to the White House by a two-mile tunnel that ran under the Potomac River, the PSC was located directly beneath Arlington National Cemetery. Another tunnel, also with an electric rail shuttle, linked it to the Pentagon, a mile to the east.

General Smith, the army chief, voiced the opinion that they were in danger of losing credibility. “If somebody’s going to act, it ought to be us,” he argued. “Our countermeasures are more than adequate and at operational status. Isn’t that so, Colonel Madden?”

Madden nodded, and for the benefit of the tape added, “That’s correct, General.”

“Christ, George, this isn’t the old nuclear scenario of a preemptive strike,” said General Stafford. “Nobody comes out of this one looking good and smelling sweet. We all go down the goddam drain together!”

“Not necessarily all,” said Ralf Zadikov, seated on the president’s left. The secretary of defense was a gaunt figure, pointed chin resting on clasped scarecrow hands.

General Stafford’s lips tightened. Along the table several people shuffled papers and avoided one another’s eyes. It was bad form to admit, or even mention, the existence of the sealed oxygen-enriched enclosures reserved for high-ranking politicians and military personnel. This was another key element in the ASP master plan, thoughtfully provided by Madden and designed and built by JEG Construction.

To cover this lapse General Beaver said hurriedly, “Can we see our deployment pattern on display, Colonel Madden?”

As soon as Madden gave the order over the desk mike a brightly colored azimuthal projection of the globe shimmered in the black air behind the glass. Missile sites were red; tankers in black against the blue ocean. Nine of the missiles and four of the tankers had the Greek letter p, for beta, in silver in the center of each symbol.

There was silence while everyone contemplated the pleasing design. Then General Smith said, “What’s our present state of readiness, Colonel?”

“Three hundred, ninety-five missiles payloaded with Blooming-dale’s targeted on key areas of jungle and rain forest on all continents outside North America. We have thirty-eight tankers of two hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand tons capacity of Macy’s constantly on the move in all major oceans. By the end of this year we will have fifty-two tankers. The missiles and tankers designated beta contain a new bacteriological herbicide that is much more powerful and effective than conventional chemical compounds. We’re proceeding as fast as possible to make the conversion to all our missiles and tanker fleet.”

“Will this be enough to give us herbicidal overkill?” General Smith asked.

“Yes, sir.” Madden used the electronic indicator, a glowing white dot. “As you’ll have noted, the tankers are grouped in convoys and not scattered at random. These areas”—the white dot danced about—“ the equatorial Pacific, the North Atlantic, the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and parts of the Indian Ocean near the Madagascar Basin are richest in phytoplankton and therefore contribute most of the global oxygen yield. We estimate that with our present fleet we can eliminate up to eighty-five percent of marine plant life.”

“Then why upgrade the fleet at all if we already have that capability?” General Stafford wanted to know. As air force chief of staff he could see the need to deploy more missiles, but who the hell wanted more tankers? The defense budget was tight enough without wasteful and unnecessary expenditure.

Madden read the general’s mind and had his answer ready. “The time factor, sir. With more tankers we can speed up the process.”

“Why not more missiles and speed it up even more?”

“Because the forest and jungle targets are less important, General. They contribute only about thirty percent of the oxygen in the atmosphere; the oceans are the major supplier.”

General Smith seemed mesmerized by the display floating in the darkened chamber. “How long will it take?” he asked in a faraway voice.

“For elimination of marine plants we estimate six to nine months— with the existing fleet. When our tanker program is complete we can reduce that to between three and six months. Also our new bacteriological herbicide will be far more efficient. These organisms are biologically alive as distinct from chemically dead, so they reproduce themselves and actually increase their effectiveness from the moment of dispersal. The longer they’re in the water the more abundant they become.”

An army colonel down the wing of the table said, “How soon before there’s an appreciable drop in oxygen content?”

“We have no idea,” Madden said quite calmly.

“No idea?” General Beaver said. “None at all?”

Madden shook his head, unperturbed by this admission. “Scientific opinion is at variance. At one extreme it’s thought that a reduction in atmospheric oxygen will be apparent within five years. At the other, twelve thousand. We simply don’t know.”

“Can I amplify that?” Farrer put in, raising his hand like a schoolboy asking to leave the room. A civilian member of the scientific liaison team, he was in here in the Prime Situation Center for precisely this purpose.

“I wish someone damn well would,” General Beaver said icily. Farrer smiled diffidently. “There are two factors that make an accurate forecast extremely difficult if not impossible. The first is the sheer volume of the earth’s atmosphere: fifty-seven hundred million million tons. The second factor is the complexity of the biosphere and the interaction of its various components: oceans, atmosphere, landmass, living organisms, and so on. Interpretation of the figures, as Colonel Madden has mentioned, varies a great deal. Some forecasts have it that oxygen depletion will become noticeable in just a few years—maybe five, ten, twenty. Others say that were photosynthesis to cease altogether, less than one percent of our present oxygen stock would be used up, in which case it would take many thousands of years.”

“It was my impression, Colonel,” said General Beaver, fixing Madden with a stony eye, “that DELFI had provided us with an accurate prediction—isn’t that so?”

“Correct, General, up to a point.”

“What ... point?” General Beaver said ominously.

“DELFI extrapolates from data we already possess, not from hypothetical factors such as the implementation of DEPARTMENT STORE. Computer weather modeling is still an inexact science and is subject to the same constraints I mentioned a moment ago; that’s to say, a lot depends on individual interpretation.”

“So where does this leave us in relation to the Soviet threat?” General Smith demanded. “Can anyone answer me that?”

“Where we’ve always been,” Madden said promptly. “Holding the balance of power.”

“Explain that to me, Colonel.”

“Well, sir, the Russians have Project Arrow, we have DEPARTMENT STORE. Neither of us knows what the effects might be should these schemes be implemented, and it’s precisely this uncertainty that each side is seeking to exploit.”

“Dammit, Colonel Madden!” General Smith exploded. “Over a year ago you and—and—” He jabbed his finger.

“Farrer,” Madden supplied.

“You and Farrer stated with absolute certainty what the effects would be on the United States if the Soviets went ahead with their scheme to divert two rivers away from the Arctic Basin. Your report stated quite specifically”—he ticked them off on his fingers— “droughts, flooding of our major coastal cities and towns, widespread crop failures throughout the midwest. Are you now saying that this isn’t likely to happen?”

“Not at all, sir. Those effects were, and still are, predicted as accurately as we know how. But as Farrer has made clear, the biosphere is an extremely complex mechanism. Neither we nor the Russians knows precisely what might happen.” Madden smiled blandly. “Just as no one could say with total certainty how nuclear warfare would affect the planet, General. The same applies to environmental war. It’s a gamble.”

“Come on, George, we knew that all along,” General Stafford admonished his fellow chief of staff. “Hell, if we dealt in copper-bottomed certainties we could hook up a computer and let it make all the decisions. As far as I’m concerned Colonel Madden has laid it on the line.”

“So we’re back to stalemate,” said General Beaver with a heavy sigh. He looked directly at the president. “Until the Soviets decide to go ahead while we’re still dithering.”

It seemed that the president hadn’t heard, or chose to ignore, the criticism. He was watching the display, eyes half-closed. But then he said, “When they make their move we’ll be ready. Mr. Zadikov assured me that DEPARTMENT STORE is superior to the Soviet threat. They know we can wipe out the biosphere any time we feel like it. And I would add that I have complete confidence in Mr. Zadikov’s judgment.”