The Big Bang (21 page)

“Defensive, only,” the President insisted. He had struck down the only clear aggressor that had presented itself in this, what was the longest day of his life so far, but he would not authorize unilateral strikes, even against those countries that had been working against the US for decades. When pushed by an Army four-star general to “bomb the piss out of the Middle East,” the President had snapped, “And accomplish what? For every possible Al Qaeda sympathizer we kill, we'll slaughter a thousand poor bastards who are just trying to live their lives.”

Yet he had to sit there and get the reports. The Air Force and the Navy, the most mobile of the military, were fighting one isolated battle at a time, giving as good or better than they got, being whittled away while China and Russia fought to see who would have a country left at the end of their mammoth conflict. The Army and National Guard stateside were put on full alert, with a special sanction to guard any sites with large caches of weapons: armories, nuclear depots, chemical weapons depositories. The President issued an additional clarification to all forces still able to receive his message. The ROE would be clear and unambiguous. “All units will aggressively defend themselves if attacked in any manner. Commanders are directed to protect the lives of their personnel above all else, American civilians second only to that.”

And still, the missiles rained down on China and Russia.

“They left some farmland, it looks like,” Wild Bill noted while reviewing a satellite image, rolling an unlit cigar from side to side in his mouth. He couldn't dip down here, he couldn't smoke, well, by God, nobody had said you couldn't at least have a stogie on your person.

One of the Atomic Energy commissioners spoke up. “Might not be any use to them. Depends on the half-life.”

The Labor Secretary, a Rhodes Scholar type, joined in: “The peasants will get a chance to run Russia for a while. Maybe real Communism will get a tryout.”

Everyone seemed pathetically eager to say something, anything, to pull their attention away from the stark reality of what they'd seen and the horror of what they imagined. “Doubt it,” Will Bill grunted, and spit a piece of cigar into his coffee cup. “A harsh winter, with a starving family to feed? Bring out the worst in anyone.”

What he didn't say, and didn't need to say, was that winter was coming to America, too. Nuclear winter had long been predicted as a consequence of this kind of warfare. How long it would last was unknown. Unknown, along with everything else.

Karen never had a clear recollection of the day after the Big Bang. She guessed it was because of what Harriet did on day three. Sometimes her inability to remember puzzled her, other times it scared her. She must have gotten food. That office-store guy, Bao, had walked with them until they found the National Guard, she was sure of it. He'd given her his watch. “Have lots, don't worry!” he'd said. That she remembered. It was one of the last acts of kindness from a stranger she'd be able to recall for a long time.

Then, in the vague chronology of her mind, it was more chaos and confusion. Her knowledge of that day was mostly from reading and talking to other refugees. She'd been there, but had no picture of herself as having done it. The National Guard was overwhelmed, she knew that. They'd been trying to get people out of the city, afraid of further sabotage attacks. They had managed to rig hand pumps at some places, trying to get water to thirsty people.

Looting had broken out, of course. This time, the government was not screwing around. Anybody who seemed to be breaking the law was shot on sight. A nuke in your backyard could make a person a bit trigger happy, make you not much care to stop and inquire whether the miscreant was simply seizing an entrepreneurial opportunity in the form of a stolen plasma TV, or if they were part of the larger attack.

Karen spent most of the day trying to convince the National Guard that Harriet was, in fact, a Congresswoman, and therefore deserving of special treatment. Some men still had their wallets, while most of the women had lost their purses and their IDs in the mad scramble to escape with their lives.

This posed a special problem for Harriet. Her clothing torn, hobbling about on the Tinkertoy splint that Karen had rigged and a cast-off crutch they'd seen on the sidewalk, her hair not coiffed and with no makeup, she in no way resembled the woman who had appeared regularly on Sunday morning talk shows. Never the most patient of public servants, tired, aching, thirsty, Harriet grew increasingly petulant and demanding. “I'm a Congresswoman!” she'd shrieked at some chubby National Guard PFC. “You have to put me in touch with the President!”

“Ma'am, if you keep moving to the outskirts of the city, you will find help there,” the chubby PFC said, gulping. He had dark circles under his eyes. His night had been no picnic either, and he had no special instructions for dealing with members of the House anyway. If they were all like this bitch, he was just as glad he didn't have an answer for her. But since all she had was her shrill voice, he simply urged her on toward Alexandria, where she could be someone else's problem.

Karen had no idea where the inspiration came from, but when the tired group passed a small bookstore, she called a halt. Kevin was thinking ahead…he'd labeled everyone's plastic water bottle with a Sharpie and had collected them after they were empty. He carried them in a black plastic bag. While the men and women sat in the small wedge of shade, Kevin went looking for water. Karen was peering into the windows of the darkened store.

In the dimness, she saw someone. Janitor or thief, she didn't care. She rapped loudly on the glass of the door.

She knew she'd done that. She knocked hard enough to make her knuckles hurt. After that, it was the strange fog of confusion, as if she had heard a story about herself and remembered the story, but not the event.

Somehow, she'd gotten into the shop. She'd rooted through the rack of periodicals until she found a clear picture of Harriet, with an equally clear caption identifying her as the Congresswoman from the 37
^th
District in California. It wasn't a driver's license, but it wasn't bad.

The magazine became their passport back into the city, to better treatment, and, ultimately, Harriet's passport into Karen's debt. Waving the magazine, Karen managed to work her way through the lower layers of the National Guard hierarchy, until a harassed career captain detailed four soldiers to escort them to the rendezvous point near the Smithsonian complex.

Karen had never walked so much in her life. Well, maybe when she was a girl. She was still stiff and cramped from carrying Tarik down the stairs. And she was ravenous. The Captain had given each of Harriet's party an MRE. Normally, she would have passed on most of the contents with their preservatives and high fat content, but that day, she fell on the food.

They ate as they walked, with Harriet now on a stretcher carried alternately by the men in the group. That she remembered. The food was ambrosial, and warmth and energy spread through her. She even licked the wrappers. At first, she was focused only on what she was eating, but as the hunger subsided, she began to take note of their surroundings. They were walking in the middle of the streets, where there was more room to maneuver around the crowds and stalled cars. Sidewalks were crowded with people walking the other way, shooed out of DC by the National Guard.

There was a sameness about the refugees. This was another thing Karen knew. Dirty faces, torn clothes, shuffling steps. Not a lot of talking, almost no laughing. Children crying. The eyes were all the same—they transcended race or sex. Red-rimmed and bloodshot. She'd feared violence, but what she saw was numbness.

It was nightfall before they reached the Smithsonian. Groups of people were sprawled on the lawn. The Civilian Government Convoy of military transports had left for the day; they wanted to be undercover and well-shielded before night fell, in case there were additional attacks. Unexpectedly, Harriet was subdued, too weary to complain. They collected some emergency blankets from a saint from the Red Cross and huddled together on a small section of rolling lawn.

Tonight there were no prayers of thanks. Everyone was silent with their own thoughts of family or friends. Or the future. They knew they'd seen just a little of what their future might be like—the lack of power, the failure of utilities, a government overwhelmed by the needs of its terrified citizens.

The gray blankets were scratchy, but Karen was too weary to care. As the sun dropped, she grew chilly. She shivered and wrapped the blanket around her tightly, curling into a ball to conserve her body heat. Still, the shivering rippled through her.

She felt something drop around her shoulders. Kevin draped his blanket over her, tucked it carefully around her. “Skinny girl like you,” he said. “No wonder you're cold. You're a stick. No fat on you at all.”

Karen looked up at him. There were responses in her, hardwired statements honed and sharp as her collarbones.
Of course I'm fat, I'm a cow
, was one of them.
Look at my ass, it's as big as a Volkswagen
, was another.

But tonight those statements fell away from her, the weight of the self-delusion and lies unable to support themselves in the face of the reality of death and fear and staggering blind ignorance of what was going to happen to them. “Thank you,” she said to him.

He smiled and ducked his head shyly. Then he lay down beside her, not touching, but close enough that his body warmed her. Whenever she opened her eyes that night, she would see his comforting shape in the darkness.

Father
, the President prayed,
I don't know how much more of this I can take
.

Once, when Laura had been pregnant, she'd started bleeding. He'd sat outside the emergency room for hours. Back then, he'd had no one to turn to for solace or comfort. To his eternal shame, he'd slipped out to the truck from time to time to belt down a fortifying shot of some no-name bourbon in a glass pint bottle. That day he'd prayed without knowing why he did it, or to whom he spoke. But today…even when he knew to Whom he prayed, he knew that this is what hell would be like. To have the responsibility for millions of innocents and not be sure you have the power to protect them, no matter how much you desired to do so.

The Russians and Chinese had stopped firing missiles at each other. By some counts, their subs had exhausted their arsenals. Satellite photos showed huge swaths of both continents burning. Not burning…glowing. Glowing with the heat from melted rock. Across the world in the localized contests, much of the American Navy and Air Force had been destroyed in savage fights for survival, but not before taking the attacking enemy with them. The floor of the every ocean was bejeweled with the crushed, twisted wreckage of destroyers, frigates, and all the classes of fighting submarine known to any military. Within them slumbered forever brave men and women who had, at the end, only been battling to protect their countries and their shipmates.

Reports had come in, too, about blasts in major American harbors, vaporizing Navy ships at dock, possibly from underwater saboteurs with suitcase nukes of their own.
After 9/11
, he thought,
we watched the flight schools, but who thought about watching scuba schools? How could we have watched for everything and everyone and still stayed America?

Someone knocked on the door. “Are you all right, sir?”

He was kneeling by the sink. The most powerful man on the planet, according to some, and the only godda— only damned place he could get a moment of privacy was in the can. “Yes, I'm fine, I'll be out in a minute.” Would this day never end? He couldn't remember when he'd last slept.

He was on his knees. It seemed important to him, to humble himself before God. It had been his practice ever since he'd given his life to Christ. People and pundits mocked (and feared) him for his faith, but it gave a structure to living, and it made him accountable. He imagined a lot of those who'd mocked were praying as earnestly as he was. “Father, help me protect this great nation, and help me keep our friends safe. Lord, watch out for my family. Your will be done. Amen.”

He stood slowly. His face and eyes felt gritty with fatigue. He rolled up his sleeves and carefully washed his face with soap and water, rinsing well with cold water. He patted water on the back of his neck, then dried his face and buttoned his cuffs before walking back out to the situation room.

On the third day, things got really bad.

Karen awoke early, the blankets over her head, the morning warmth making her cotton cocoon stuffy. When she sat up, dew ran in rivulets down the blanket. Kevin, lying nearby, was damp but had managed to fall asleep. Her skin was flaky now, and she wished she had thought to grab some lotion somewhere.

Today things were going to turn around, Karen thought as she stretched. They would be first in the queue for the National Guard's convoy. FEMA had set up an interim site for the government to reconvene. Its location was secret, but the hydrogen-powered buses would carry Harriet and her staff there. Even though it was a petty thought, Karen hoped they'd have showers there. She was caked with sweat, dirt, and dried blood. Her clothes were disgusting and getting stiff with accumulated grime.

A latrine of sorts had been set up behind a berm, the public toilets useless and soiled from the lack of running water. Hurrying behind the hill, Karen relieved herself, hating to be contributing to the fouling of this beautiful area. Right now there was nothing for it, but she made a note that once Harriet was installed in the new seat of government, Karen would push her to make reconstruction of the nation's historic monuments a priority.

Already people were stirring. Karen found her blankets, shook them out, and rolled them up into two bundles. She was already learning the lesson of scarcity—waste not, and look out for yourself.

The good souls from FEMA had unlocked one of the Smithsonian outbuildings, and were passing out MREs. Karen had never been a fan of spaghetti for breakfast, but after it had been warmed with an ingenious heating pack, she gladly ate it all. Karen wheedled a couple of spare boxes out of the exhausted FEMA worker and brought them back to her group. One she gave to Harriet, who was still having trouble moving, even with her crutch. The other she gave to Kevin.