First Light

CHAPTER FOUR

Maj. Arnold Alexander slid the NASA report into a manila folder. He was a fastidious man with a neatly clipped moustache, narrow-set eyes, and a heavy chin that gave him the aspect of a perpetual scowl. Which made it easier for him to disguise the scowl he was currently biting back.

“Worst-case scenario,” Henry Gutierrez was saying. The major thought the curly-haired man was far too fond of the word “scenario.” Gutierrez had used it at least five times since the meeting had begun.

“Doesn’t look like much of a scenario to me,” Alexander said. He secretly chafed at the power wielded by this little pencil-pusher. As chief of Homeland Security’s Office of Infrastructure Protection, Gutierrez had risen through the ranks on departmental politics, not experience or merit. But in the terrorism era, army officers like Alexander had to defer to bureaucrats like Gutierrez. The abstract goals and elusive enemies of the last decade of U.S. warfare paled in comparison to the invisible threat the Department of Homeland Security was created to stop.

Alexander’s people fought a war of flesh and blood, but Gutierrez fought a war of emotion. And that emotion was fear, the side that always won in the end.

Maj. Alexander was not only outranked, he was outnumbered in the compact Homeland Security boardroom. The third person at the conference table, Ellen Schlagal, was from the Office of Cyber Security and Communications. She had scarcely spoken after accepting a cup of black coffee, and she turned the cup before her in small circles, mostly staring into the drink’s surface. When she did look up, her intense blue eyes swept both of the men’s faces like an emergency beacon.

“We can educate the public about the problems, but of course that opens the door to opportunists,” Gutierrez said.

“It’s either that, or when somebody’s cell phone goes out, they start blaming terrorists, and then we have a full-on panic,” Alexander said.

“If we announce in advance that blackouts are coming, we might have a panic anyway. A stock market crash, ammunition stockpiling, food hoarding.”

Alexander rubbed his moustache in annoyance. “Let’s say that a terrorist group has a planned mission, more or less ready to roll. And they find out major cities might lose their electricity and communications. That would be the perfect time to swoop in and pull off an attack. Not only would they benefit from the chaos, the odds of getting caught—assuming they weren’t packing suicide belts—go way down.”

“That’s still just a theoretical risk,” Gutierrez said.

“But that’s what your whole department is built on,” Alexander said. “Something that might happen. Might.”

Schlagal finally spoke. “I agree that NASA’s data isn’t convincing enough. Solar flares can knock out some satellite reception, but the worst we’ve ever experienced is short-term disruptions, usually measured in minutes and hours, not days.”

“But the electrical grid is a little more fragile than the satcomm systems,” Guitierrez said. “It’s an interlinked system of more than 200,000 miles of transmission lines. It’s like a spider web. If you knock part of it out, it’s hard to sew back the missing threads.”

“But you can just plug in parts and keep rolling,” Alexander said. “Fill in the gaps later.”

“Not so simple,” Gutierrez said. “The grid likes to be balanced. Electricity isn’t really stored. It is distributed and consumed as it’s created. Big outages can lead to cascading failures as power re-routes to other parts of the system, including back to the power plants. A series of surges blowing out everything along the way.”

Alexander wondered why he was the unlucky officer to field this problem, driving over from the Pentagon to battle the Capitol’s weekday traffic. He couldn’t even see this as a defense issue. Homeland Security had claimed its turf and had both the psychological and political pull with Congress. Any event on American soil short of a foreign invasion was not going to involve the armed services.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s say you do have some blackouts. Even a lot of them. I still don’t see the imminent threat.”

Schlagal cut in again. “The problem is there really isn’t a repository of transformers. Parts are made as needed. We’d be at least two years behind—”

The power went out.

Alexander waited for five seconds. Gutierrez was wearing a watch with an illuminated dial. Otherwise, the room was pitch black.

“Back-up generators will kick in any second now,” Alexander said. “But I have to admit, that was a pretty nice marketing ploy.”

The room remained dark. Now he could smell Schlagal’s perfume. Gutierrez breathed like a smoker. His watch dial flickered and moved across the table, rustling papers.

“Your HQ does have back-ups, right?” Alexander said, brushing his moustache again.

“Yes,” Gutierrez said. “But back-up generators are always hard-wired into a building’s electrical system. Any surge from an electromagnetic pulse is going to short out the generators as well.”

The lights blinked once and went dark for two full seconds, then came back on. “See?” Alexander said. “These solar flares aren’t going to be anything more than a temporary inconvenience.”

“These are the first waves,” Schlagal said. “NASA said the effects are unpredictable and of unknown duration. We could have a few weeks of brownouts or we could go down in one big zap.”

Alexander wasn’t an old-school officer. He’d come up with women in the ranks and had served in the Iraqi War with female officers. And Washington was changing, as well, with women seeking—and often gaining—top positions and Congressional seats. He didn’t figure Schlagal for a political gold digger, despite her inclination to blow this minor threat out of proportion.

“I don’t have to tell you what even three days of a widespread power outage would do,” Gutierrez said, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache. “Just picture your own routine. The food in your fridge would spoil. You might get lucky at the grocery store, but there’s more likely to be a panic. Besides, the store’s fridges would be out, too.”

“A surge would affect vehicles, too,” Schlagal said. Now they were coming at him like two tag-team wrestlers who had trapped an opponent out of reach of a tag. “Electronic ignitions and computers in cars. So you’d be walking to the store. Which, of course, means no delivery trucks would be showing up with veggies and milk.”

“Christ,” Alexander said. “Don’t tell me the TSA is going to be involved, too. Those bastards don’t need any more encouragement.”

He wanted to be home, watching sports highlights and drinking a beer. His daughter Junie was in twelfth grade, and he’d been helping her with her physics. The subject had gotten much more complicated since he’d been in school. Maybe he could get some of the NASA folks over to give her some tutoring.

“I don’t think you’re taking this very seriously,” Schlagal said, eyes narrowing so that the mascara on her lashes nearly merged into two black lines.

“Okay,” Alexander said. “I could see a panic if people weren’t prepared. And your average person won’t be prepared even if you give them advance warning. Remember Hurricane Sandy? We might need some troops on standby if the National Guard and local police can’t handle it.”

“Not just grocery stores. Hospitals, police stations, and fire departments will lose not only their power but their ability to communicate. Not to mention all those planes. Do you know how many thousands of flights are in the air at any given time? And almost all those planes run on computers or have electronic components. One big pulse could knock them all out of the sky.”

“You’re making the problem so big that it’s almost pointless to plan for it,” Alexander said. “Like nuclear war. If it hits, you’re doomed anyway.”

“Sticking our heads in the sand won’t help.”

Gutierrez fell silent and pressed his palms against each side of his head. He squeezed his skull so hard that his fingers were white. His lip trembled.

“You okay, Mr. Gutierrez?” Alexander wondered why the administration let civilians make decisions about national security. They clearly couldn’t handle pressure under fire.

“As you can understand, Major, we’ve been hopping all over Capitol Hill on this,” Schlagal said. “It’s a hot potato that no one wants to catch.”

“I’m sure the Commander-in-Chief doesn’t want it anywhere near his desk,” Alexander said.

Gutierrez’s face clenched, his cheeks crinkling around his grimace. “Don’t…make this…about politics.”

The major held up his hands, palms showing. “Hey, we all know who gets the credit on those rare occasions when things go right. And we’re here when they need a fall guy. Like if this solar event becomes a real problem.”

“It’s not just a single event,” Schlagal said. “It’s a phase and a cycle. NASA says the worst is yet to come.”

“Well, in one way, if it gets worse, things get simple. We impose martial law in the name of national security. The fringe militia and the liberals will grumble, but everyone else will welcome it if it makes them feel safer.”

“I’m not so sure we can open the door for the administration to gain more power,” Schlagal said. Gutierrez appeared to be having troubled breathing. Alexander wondered if the man suffered from asthma.

“Abraham Lincoln used executive powers to the extreme,” Alexander said. “Nationalizing the banks, suspending the Fourth Amendment, and lying as a matter of policy. History remembers him as a compromiser, but he actually was a benevolent dictator. Of course, half the country would have argued about the ‘benevolent’ part.”

“Half the country might be in the dark next week,” Schlagal said.

As if to punctuate her statement, the lights flickered again. Alexander frowned and glanced at his laptop computer. Even though it had a battery back-up, the screen went blank. “Okay, then. I’ll kick it up the chain of command.”

Gutierrez stood, shoving his chair backward so hard that it tipped over. He clenched his fists and pounded them on the tabletop in time with each word he uttered. “There…is…no…chain.”

The major didn’t like the way the guy’s dark eyes glittered, as if the wiring behind them had shorted. Maybe he had snapped from the stress. Not all that surprising for a civilian, but worrisome because other lives might depend upon his actions and decisions. Alexander needed to take control of the situation immediately.

“We need an update from NASA—”

Gutierrez interrupted by diving across the table, reaching for Alexander. Schlagal yipped in surprise. The major, instincts well honed by combat training, rose into a defensive stance. Gutierrez crawled across the slick maple surface, the knees of his nylon trousers struggling for traction.

“Henry?” Schlagal said.

“Scenario!” Gutierrez bleated.

Alexander didn’t like the look in the man’s eyes. At Fort Benning , Ga., he’d once been jumped by a private who’d screamed “Remember Pork Chop Hill!” over and over. It had taken three M.P.’s to drag the attacker away, but not before Alexander had thrown five or six hard punches to the man’s head. The man didn’t even seem to feel the blows. Later the private was booted from the Army for possession of narcotics before he could be court-martialed for assault on an officer.

Gutierrez now appeared to have that same mindless rage boiling inside him. He slapped Alexander’s laptop to the floor and jumped off the table. Alexander was a good four inches taller, but Gutierrez still charged him, hands open like the claws of a crab, going for the major’s throat.

Despite the sudden ferocity of the attack, Alexander kept his calm, ducking under the assault and slapping Gutierrez off-balance with a judo-inspired elbow. Helen Schlagal broke from her own shock and raced for the door. Gutierrez snarled like a rabid dog and jumped at Alexander again, this time actually snapping his teeth together with an audible clack.

The lights went out again and in the darkness, the major heard the door click open and Schlagal calling down the hall for help.

Where are those back-up generators?

Alexander didn’t have time for the next thought, because Gutierrez slammed into him with the full force of his 180 pounds. Luckily most of it was stomach, the flab of a career civil servant. Alexander spun away from the blow and drove a fist toward where he guessed the man’s nose was but struck him in the temple instead. Gutierrez grunted and collapsed in a heap.

When the lights flickered back on a minute later, Helen Schlagal returned to the room with two guards to find Alexander bent over Gutierrez’s limp form, checking his jugular for a pulse. Alexander shook his head. They tried CPR until a medic arrived, but it was too late.

No one knew it at the time, but Gutierrez was Victim One in the tsunami of solar radiation rolling across the globe.