Armageddon

Chapter Fifty Nine

Coach Insignia Restaurant, Renaissance Center, Downtown Detroit

Gloria Hurst clearly remembered her first trip to Renaissance Center, three decades ago. The gleaming complex of glass and metal towers had promised a fresh start for the city, still struggling to get over the stigma the 1967 riots had created. The 80s rolled around and the dreams of a regenerated Detroit never came to pass; outside of the little oasis of ‘civilization’ the corporations had built, the slums had just continued to decay. Jobs kept leaving and never seemed to come back, buildings crumbled and the criminals seemed to multiply . So many times she’d thought of selling up and moving out, but somehow she’d never had the heart to leave. Her children had never understood that, particularly after her house had been robbed twice in the same month.

The war had almost come as a relief. All the plants still open were running at full capacity and many of the closed ones were being reopened. The roads were clogged with buses (only the gas rationing had forestalled gridlock) and downtown the crowds were thicker than ever. Still, Gloria’s own neighborhood had hardly changed. All the attention was on places like Sterling Heights and Livonia, where the remaining plants were. As for the suburbs, she’d heard that the government had been requisitioning all the foreclosed McMansions and subdividing them to create cheap worker accommodation. She imagined the look on the faces of the homeowners association and laughed.

However the ring of slums between downtown and the industrial belt was being ignored, if anything there was even less interest in regenerating it now that war production was at the top of everyone’s minds. Gloria sighed. At least the muggers were keeping a low profile. The cops weren’t playing catch-and-release any more, the ones who got arrested tended to be drafted and the ones who fought back usually got splattered by the huge guns all the cops were carrying now.

“Granny!” The young boy’s voice roused Gloria from her thoughts. Ah, there they were, her eldest son and his family, come to visit her at last. “Granny, what’s that?” Her grandson was staring out the windows, which had a fine view of the city due to their location near the top of the city's tallest skyscraper. The boy seemed to be pointing at something near the horizon. Gloria turned stiffly in her chair and strained to focus on the distant buildings. There was an odd flickering over an intersection, perhaps two miles to the north, and a glint that seemed to come from something falling out of the sky. Her heart beat faster as she realized that the irregular, chattering roar that had been slowly building was the sound of many, many guns being fired. Was it the demons? Had the army shot down a demon? The sound of gunfire died away. Several people were standing at the windows now, asking out loud the same questions she was thinking.

The molten rock literally exploded out of nowhere, the unstable portal hurling great sprays of magma in every direction. Many who’d seen the images of the portal opening over Sheffield had remarked on the eerie beauty of the hellish fountain, unfolding in its first few seconds like a giant deadly firework. This attack was different, a raging beast that seemed to lashed out at random without symmetry or reason. Gloria winced as the first gouts of lava reached the bottom of their arcs, smashing into buildings with a spray of fire and rubble. The freeway intersection collapsed and disappeared in a vast cloud of smoke, peppered with tiny gouts of fire as gasoline flash-vaporized and exploded. For a full ten seconds the scene unfolded in silence, save for the screams and yells of the people in the restaurant. Glasses and plates began to rattle and fell as the first seismic vibrations made their way up the building. Then the shockwave hit, an overpowering roar overlaid on a deep rumble that seemed to grab Gloria’s guts and shake them in her torso.

“We’ve got to get out of here! Mom, come on, let’s go!” Her son had grabbed her shoulders and was trying to pull her up.

“Lawrence. Lawrence! Look at that crowd.” Lunchtime was the busiest period for the Coach Insignia and now it seemed that nearly everyone was trying to jam themselves through the doors at once. Some of the staff were shouting, gesturing, trying to control the flow but without much success.

“You watch the news, you know what happened in England." Gloria was shouting hoarsely, to be heard over the din. "That lava will flow downhill, straight towards us. I’ll never get out in time, not with my arthritis.”

Her son just stood there, stunned. “We can’t leave you…”

“Of course you can! You have to save your kids! Now move!” Gloria shoved his arms away.

Lawrence Hurst’s face was full of anguish, but his mother’s reasoning was indisputable. In the distance he could see the lava already beginning to flow down the trench the freeway sat in, heading for the river – and downtown. He hugged her tightly. “Goodbye mom.” Then he was gone, trying to force a path through the crowd for his family, his wife dragging their screaming children behind them. Gloria turned back to the window, tears streaming down her face. The tears were not for herself; oh, fear was welling up inside her, and frankly she hoped the building would collapse before the fire got to her. The tears though, they were for her city, which had suffered so much and struggled so hard to rebuild, only to have its heart burnt out by a war that nobody could even have imagined just a few months ago.

GM-Cadillac Hamtramck Assembly Plant, Detroit

It had been a hell of a job to get the plant converted over in two months flat, as much for training the workers as the retooling. Jake suspected that the Army already had a plan for the switch ready before the Message, because once the word was given the work started almost immediately – and went on 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, UAW be damned. Somehow they’d pulled it off and now the triple-one sevens were rolling off the line. Production was already up to ten units a day and still increasing. His section was responsible for wiring and accessory fit and they’d had some pretty horrible QC issues while the new workers were broken in. Jake O’Reilly’s temper was legendary at the plant, but truly he didn’t mind the hours or the problems; it was worth it to see his people so energized and the factory back at full capacity. The triple-one seven wasn’t as tough as a Bradley, but it was a huge step up from a Humvee and a hell of a lot easier to build than the Stryker. If the Army kept kicking Baldrick butt (armies even – couldn’t forget the Ruskies and the Brits, Jake thought), then they’d be a lot of escort and patrol missions coming up, and the ‘hell-model’ Guardian was the ideal tool for that job.

The attack came without warning; the factory floor was too noisy to hear the gunfire outside, and the management were still arguing on the phones when the portal opened. Tons of molten rock crashed through the roof, spraying onto sections of the line below. Sizable sections of the plant were destroyed within the first ten seconds, and fires began spreading immediately through the remainder. Shockwaves battered the staff as shrapnel zinged through the air, combining with the heaving ground to leave many workers in a state of shell-shock. After Sheffield everyone had been told that this might happen, the most pessimistic staff had even expected it, but nothing could prepare them for the reality of having a volcano appear in the sky nearby. Jake’s first thought was to get his people out. His second thought was to save as many vehicles as he could. His third thought was that these goals combined nicely.

“Listen, all of you…” It was useless, the roar was overpowering. Fortunately since the new workers had been put on the line Jake had been keeping a megaphone close at hand. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d used it to stop some butterfingered technician about to burn out a wiring harness; now he cranked the volume to the max and used it to save their lives.

“LISTEN, ALL OF YOU. TAKE ANY VEHICLE THAT CAN DRIVE AND GET CLEAR. THERE ARE PLENTY IN THE TESTING AREA. IT’S YOUR BEST HOPE FOR SURVIVING THE ROCKS AND THE SMOKE.”

The burning rocks seemed to have stopped coming for now, and Jake used the respite to herd his team into the nearly completed vehicles. The power had

gone out, throwing the factory floor into a hazy twilight filled with screams, shouts and running forms. “TODD’S TRAPPED, YOU THREE, PULL HIM OUT OF THERE. RICK, IT JUST NEEDS FUEL, GET SOME DAMN DIESEL AND DRIVE HER OUT.”

The Guardians were roaring to life and starting to move, knocking equipment aside as they sought any open path out of the chaos. Jake looked around – all of his staff seemed to have gone save a few huddled in a still unfuelled M1117. The smoke was already too thick to see the other sections…

The brief respite ended as a fresh wave of flying lava crashed into the plant. Jake fell to his knees, dazed by the impact of a trolley propelled by the blast. His eyes were swimming and his throat burned with the heat and the toxic smoke. He couldn’t see the Guardian… he hadn’t heard it leave, but he couldn’t see it… he struggled to regain his feet but the shaking, cracking floor seemed to defeat his efforts.

A hand gripped his wrist and pulled him up. It was Todd, and Jake had never been so grateful to see the spiky-haired brat. “She’s fueled up boss, let’s go.” Jake was half-dragged, half-clambered through the door of the Guardian. The cabin was filled with injured workers, and someone was already in the driver’s seat, because no sooner was he on board than the engine roared to life and the armored car pulled away. Flames licked at the windows as the vehicle sped through the factory, crashing through the wreckage of jigs and component bins as it made for the doors. Then they were clear, rolling across the huge parking lot, surrounded by a mass of other vehicles trying to escape the destruction. Lava continued to rain down, destroying some of the cars even as they watched, but luck smiled on their Guardian and they were soon out of range.

Jake leaned forward to address the driver. “Get us up to the Davison intersection. The VDF are bound to set up a checkpoint there, we can drop off our wounded and refuel. They’re going to need all the help they can get.”

White House Situation Room, Washington D.C.

“Sir, it’s Detroit. City’s been hit hard, the attack started just a few minutes ago.”

“Let’s hear it John. In a hundred words or less, please.”

“Mr. President, the Baldricks hit Detroit with a lava attack. As far as we can see right now, it’s the same mechanism as Sheffield, but bigger and nastier. We shot down the spotter demon, but the portal still opened. We’ve got something like forty thousand tons of lava a second falling out of the sky a couple of miles north of downtown.” Secretary Warner paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts.

“The Cadillac plant took a hell of a beating and Wayne State has already become a firestorm. The freeway trenches are channeling the lava; we can’t stop it before it reaches the river. In the next half hour we’re going to lose the Renaissance Center, plus the tunnel and the bridge to Windsor. As for casualties… haven’t got an estimate yet, but worst case is well into six figures.”

“You know, Detroit is the Democrat-voting stronghold of Michigan, if it’s gone, then it might be enough to flip the state into our column.”

There was a stunned silence in the room. Eventually President Bush’s voice cut through the disbelief, pitched low and frighteningly cold. “Karl, shut up, just shut up. John, could you continue please.”

“Personnel at DIMO(N) detected the portal activity at 12:43 Eastern. NORAD was informed immediately of course. We vectored in F-16s from the 127th out of Selfridge, they flew up on full reheat but the local United States Volunteers got to the co-ordinates first. As far we can tell, they sighted a demon of the same type that the Sheffield footage shows, what General Abigor calls a ‘gorgon’. Local citizens already had it under fire when the USV shot it down with triple-A. Unfortunately the damn things seem to be salvage fused.”

Blank faces stared back at him. “It’s a nuclear warfare term, it means… never mind. The point is, shooting down the gorgon seems to cause the portal to open prematurely. We bought some time to evacuate, but not nearly enough to save everyone. Sadly the LDV unit was directly under the portal when it opened; they were killed instantly.”

Bush stopped glaring and his face softened from his barely suppressed anger at the earlier remarks. “They died in the line of duty? That should be recognized, it’ll put the Volunteers on the map as part of our armed forces. Medal of Honor?”

Secretary Warner thought quickly. “I agree with the sentiment, yes Sir. But the Medal is a bit over-doing it. A Silver Star each for the crew would be appropriate I think, and a Presidential Unit Citation for the Third Michigan USV. The situation in Detroit is pure hell, if you’ll forgive the phrase sir. There’s a serious difference between this attack and Sheffield. Over there, the portal remained in one place and poured its lava over the same target. So, although it spread, the starting point was constant and to some extent the damage was self-limiting. The Baldricks have learned their lesson from that Sir, this time the portal is moving, its sort of dancing around at random over a two or three mile area, a bit like a deflating balloon. So the lava’s being spread over a much wider area and the damage is a lot greater.”

“I hope nobody ever thought the Baldricks were stupid, that could be the worst mistake we could make.” A slight surge of amusement went around the room at that point, briefly lightening the somber tone. The President himself had benefited more that once from a presumption of stupidity. “As soon as word of this second attack hits the streets, we’re going to be under pressure to do something. Remember World War Two?”

The reference caused a certain degree of bewilderment in the situation room. Eventually the Army Chief of Staff, General George W. Casey, explained. “Back in World War Two, there was popular demand for anti-aircraft batteries around our cities. So the President ordered 90mm anti-aircraft batteries set up. Unfortunately, those guns were also badly needed as tank-killers in Europe but the Army there never got them due to the AA priority. So a lot of our tank crews died while our cities were never attacked.” Casey settled back, mentally noting that the aide who had slipped him the explanation for the President’s remark had just earned himself a promotion and a choice assignment.

“Can we pull any triple-A back from Hell?” Bush didn’t sound hopeful.

“Not a chance Sir. The Harpies are the most effective weapon Satan has, they’re giving us a lot of trouble. They’re like aircraft but present in infantry numbers and our fighters just can’t shoot them down fast enough. We were lucky first time round, Abigor had only one legion of them, sixty-six hundred. We believe there are at least 33 legions being thrown into the battle to under way. Over 200,000, our troops need every anti-aircraft system they’ve got. We can’t even give them air support properly at the moment, all our planes bar a few, are killing Harpies. If anything we need more triple-A out there not less.

“Anyway, Sir, its pointless. We know now that killing the gorgon path-finder doesn’t do any good, well, not much anyway. Once it’s over a city, that city is gone. It’s like the bad old days before we had the GBIs up in Alaska, once we spotted an inbound missile, we knew the city it was aimed at was gone, it just hadn’t died yet. We can’t defend the cities because by the time the gorgon appears, its too late. We have to pre-empt the attacks at source. Now, there are a few things we can do there, our early warning system based on the cell phone net worked. We need to give DIMO(N) all the resources they can use, that they don’t already have anyway, for early warning. It isn’t much, but it’s the best we can do until we get all our pieces into place. Other than that, all we can do is to mitigate the disaster. I do hope FEMA are going to be a bit more competent this time than they were at New Orleans.”

There was an embarrassed shuffling of feet at that remark. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne took the bait elegantly. “Well, at least we’re arming the victims this time around, not disarming them. I guess the crime rate will be a bit lower.”

“Given the size of the holes the LEO community have taken to blowing in the alleged perpetrators, I think that’s a reasonable assumption.” There was a brief spasm of amusement at the sally from FBI Director Robert Mueller. “One thing about these lava attacks, we don’t get much looting, people are too busy running to think about getting a free television. Most of them anyway. And the draft is sweeping most of the candidates for street criminals out of the way into the forces where the Sergeants are straightening them out. Law and order isn’t really a problem, you’d be surprised how rarely it is in a really major disaster. How long it will stay that way is another matter, one or two more attacks like this and we’ll have mass panic on our hands. That’ll do more damage to our industrial production than the attacks themselves.”

"Which brings us to the why? Neither Detroit nor Sheffield were really important production centers, so why Detroit? Have the analysts worked out the enemy's strategy?"

"Only the obvious so far, Mr President.” Secretary Warner took a deep breath. “Sheffield and Detroit were both industrial powerhouses until quite recently, very recently in Baldrick terms. Remember, to them, centuries are a short period. My guess is, this 'Belial' has worked out that our military strength relies on our industrial base, but his intel is stale and his targeteering is lousy. Make no mistake though, he hit us hard this time around, this is the worst blow we've taken since this whole business started. We don't want to give him a chance to refine his aim."

“Then we have to kill him at source. Now. Prime Minister Brown was right, we can’t just let this pass. Hell has to hurt for this and hurt badly. We lost under four thousand people in 9/11 and we took two countries down by way of retaliation. Now you say we’re going to lose upwards of 25 times that number.” Bush’s jaw set. “They’re going to have to pay, the American people demand it. Tell me what we’ve got and how we’re going to use it. The answer ‘nothing’ won’t be accepted.”

“Sir, we have several plans in motion. We have a path-finder of our own on the way up to Tartarus, he’s expected there in 24 to 36 hours. Once he’s in place, we can portal a deceased special forces team to his location and they’ll position navigation beacons to home a B-1 strike in. They’d devastate the area. As a back-up we have a British special forces group ready to go in. If the B-1s can’t do the strike, they’ll do a ground raid. We have a B-1 searching for Tartarus as well, if our pathfinder can’t get through, she’ll find Tartarus, eventually. We have time Sir, we believe that it will be a week or more before Belial manages to get set up for a third strike. One of our options will be in place by then.”

“Not good enough, what do we do now?” Bush’s voice was dogmatic and a little petulant.

“We can hit Dis with an air strike, the B-1s won’t be able to hit Tartarus for days, we can let them loose on Dis. With conventional bombs of course. We have a nuclear strike plan, we can adapt it for a conventional bombing strike. That’s about our only serious option right now.

“In the meantime, we have to think about limiting the disaster we have in hand. We have a couple of options there. We have a prototype device that is designed specifically to close portals. This prototype is too large to be carried by an existing bomber but we do have a different alternative. We have old C-54s we’ve pulled from the boneyard and we can refit one to carry that prototype device. The original plan was to use a Britannia and target the Sheffield portal but that’s run a long way out of steam now, the vulcanologist believes it’ll run dry in a day or less. We can test out our new device in Detroit instead.”

“There’s another thing we can do.” Doctor Surlethe’s voice was clinical. “We can deprive the baldricks of their own navigation beacons. I propose we test the entire population for the Nephilim genetic ancestry and quarantine those carrying it in isolation camps until the war is over.”

There was another stir in the room, this time of anger. In one corner, Karl Rove leaned back in relief, somebody else had made a political error of grade one levels. Secretary Kempthorne was the one who took up the cudgels though. “And we know what to look for do we?”

“Well, we will, after some investigations.”

“And then you propose to place people in indefinite confinement without them having committed an offense on the vague off-chance that a baldrick might use one of them?”

“Better that than an incinerated city.”

“Even though we already know that wearing tinfoil hats offers complete protection against mind entanglement?”

“But there are a few people out there who won’t. There are always eccentrics who deny that the tinfoil hat is absolutely essential to prevent baldricks taking over their minds.”

“And you want to indefinitely jail an unknown number of people, possibly millions, because one or two might refuse to wear their hats?”

“Well… Put like that….”

“And that’s how it will be put ladies, gentlemen, Karl.” Rove winced, he hadn’t been forgiven after all. “We will make it a legal requirement to wear a tinfoil hat and enforce it. But there will be no mass detentions. We did that in 1941 and the stain is with us still. Thank you, we will have another meeting in six hours time when we can get some of the rest of the world in with us. Karl, Dr Surlethe, I wish to speak with you two privately.”