Gideon's Corpse

37

There were no floor buttons in the elevator, just a key, and an armed marine to operate it. Dart entered the elevator; the marine, who knew him well, still carefully checked his ID—knowing Dart would reprimand him if he didn’t—then grasped the key and gave it a single turn.

The elevator descended for what seemed forever. As it did, Dr. Myron Dart took a moment to collect his thoughts and take stock.

As N-Day approached, entire sections of Washington had been evacuated and secured by large numbers of troops. Every square inch had been searched and re-searched with dogs, radiation monitors, and by hand. Meanwhile, the country held its collective breath, speculating endlessly on just where in Washington Ground Zero might be.

Many across the country were fearful that the massive response in DC would force the terrorists to pick another target. As a result, other large American cities, from LA to Chicago to Atlanta, were in a panic, with residents fleeing, tall buildings emptying out. There had been riots in Chicago, and citizens had pretty much evacuated themselves from anywhere near Millennium Park and the Sears Tower. New York City was a mess, with entire swaths of the city abandoned. The stock market had lost fifty percent of its value and Wall Street had shifted most of its trading operations to New Jersey. A long list of American landmarks had become shunned, with nearby residents fleeing—from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Liberty Bell. Even the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was generating panic. It had become a theater of the absurd.

Along with the speculation and panic came the inevitable recriminations over the stalled investigation. NEST had come under a tidal wave of criticism, second-guessing, and public furor. They said it was incompetent, chaotic, disorganized, choking in bureaucracy.

Much of the criticism, Dart had to admit, was valid. The investigation had taken on a life of its own, a Frankenstein, a lusus naturae not subject to central control. He was not surprised. It was, indeed, inevitable.

The marine glanced at him. “Excuse me, sir?”

Dart suddenly realized he had murmured out loud. God, he was tired. He shook his head. “Nothing.”

The elevator doors whisked open onto a passageway carpeted in blue and gold. A wall clock announced eleven PM, but this deep underground, under these circumstances, time of day had become essentially meaningless. As Dart stepped out, two more marines appeared, flanking him and leading him down the corridor. They passed a room full of people sitting at a monstrous wall of computer screens, all talking simultaneously into headsets; another room that contained a podium with the presidential seal, television cameras, and a bluescreen. There were conference rooms, a small cafeteria, temporary military barracks. Finally, they reached a closed door with a desk placed before it. A man behind the desk smiled as they drew near.

“Dr. Dart?” he asked.

Dart nodded.

“Go right in. He’s expecting you.” The man reached into a drawer and pressed something; there was a buzz and the door behind him sprang ajar.

Dart stepped through the door. The president of the United States sat behind a vast, unadorned desk. Two miniature American flags stood at opposite ends of it. Between them was a row of phones in various bright colors, like something you might see in a playroom. On a side wall were half a dozen monitors, each tuned to a different station, their audio output muted. The president’s chief of staff stood silently to one side, hands folded in front. Dart exchanged nods with the chief, who was famously taciturn, and then turned his attention to the man behind the desk.

Beneath the renowned thatch of jet-black hair and the bushy eyebrows, the president’s eyes looked sunken, almost bruised. “Dr. Dart,” he said.

“Good evening, Mr. President,” Dart replied.

The president swept one hand toward a pair of sofas that faced his desk. “Please sit down. I’ll take your report now.”

The door to the room was quietly shut from the outside. Dart took a seat, cleared his throat. He had brought no folder, no set of notes. Everything was burned into his mind.

“We have only three more days until the anticipated attack,” he began. “Washington is as secure as is humanly possible. All resources, agencies, and personnel have been mobilized in this effort. Army checkpoints have been set up on all roads leading in or out of the city. The writ of habeas corpus has, as you know, been temporarily suspended, allowing us to take into custody anyone for almost any reason. A holding and processing facility for detained persons has been erected, on the Potomac just up from the Pentagon.”

“And the evacuation of the civilian population?” the president asked.

“Complete. Those who wouldn’t go have been taken into custody. We’ve had to keep the regional hospitals open, with skeleton staffs, for those patients who simply cannot be moved. But those are few.”

“And the status of the investigation?”

Dart hesitated a moment before replying. This was going to be rough. “Nothing new of importance since my last briefing. Very little progress has been made on identifying the group or where the nuclear device is located. We have not been able to narrow down the actual target—that is, beyond the several already noted.”

“What about the possible threat to other cities? Of the terrorists shifting their target?”

“Again, we have no useful information on other targets, sir.”

The president erupted to his feet, started pacing. “By God, this is unacceptable. What about this terrorist still on the loose? Crew?”

“Unfortunately, Crew continues to evade our men. He escaped into the mountains and my men now have him trapped in a vast wilderness area where at least he can do no harm, where there’s no cell coverage, no roads, no way for him to make contact with the outside world.”

“Yes, but we need him! He could name names, he could name targets! Damn it, man, you people have to find him!”

“We’re deploying massive assets into the search. We’ll find him, Mr. President.”

The president’s slender figure swept from one side of the room to the next, turning briskly as he paced. “Tell me about the nuke itself. What more do we know?”

“The Device Working Group continues to disagree about how to interpret the patterns of radiation, the isotope ratios, the fission products they’ve detected. There are anomalies, it seems.”

“Explain.”

“The terrorists had access to the highest level of engineering expertise—Crew and Chalker were two of Los Alamos’s most knowledgeable experts on nuclear weapons design. The question is how good their fabrication of the supposed weapon was. The actual machining of the bomb parts, the assembly, the electronics, is a very, very exacting business. Neither Chalker nor Crew had that kind of engineering expertise. Some in the Device Working Group feel the bomb they made might be so big, it could only be carried around in a car or a van.”

“And you? What do you think?”

“I personally believe it’s a suitcase bomb. I believe we have to assume they had engineering expertise beyond Chalker and Crew.”

The president shook his head. “What more can you tell me about it?”

“The two sections of the charge have been well separated and shielded since the accident, as we can’t find any trace of radiation anywhere. Washington is a sprawling city, spread out over a large area. We’re dealing with the proverbial needle in a haystack. The very best assets from local, state, federal, and military resources have been tapped, and we’ve drawn heavily from all the many military bases near Washington. The city, quite literally, is crawling with troops, forming a massive dragnet.”

“I see,” the president said. He thought for a moment. “And what about the idea that all your effort might just cause the terrorists to divert the weapon to a less hardened target? The whole country’s in a state of panic—and rightfully so.”

“Our people have discussed that question at length,” Dart replied. “It’s true that there are many other targets that might prove attractive. But the fact is, all the indications we have are that the terrorists are fixated on Washington. Our experts on the psychology of jihadism tell us the symbolic value of the attack is far more important than numbers of people killed. And that means an attack on America’s capital. I continue to believe myself, quite strongly, that Washington remains their target. Of course, we’re assuming nothing, and assets in every major American city have been activated. But I think it would be a serious, serious mistake to draw additional assets from Washington to counter some purely hypothetical risk in another city.”

The president nodded again, more slowly. “Understood. However, I want your people to identify a specific list of iconic targets in other cities and form a plan of protection for each one. Look, the American people have already voted on a list of targets with their feet—so get to work. Show them we mean to protect everything. Not just DC.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“You think with all this, they’ll change the date?” the president asked.

“Anything’s possible. In our favor is the fact that the terrorists don’t know we’ve figured out the date. We’ve managed to keep that secret from the press and the public.”

“And it had better stay secret,” the president said. “Now, is there anything else I should know at the present time?”

“I can’t think of anything, sir.” He glanced at the chief of staff, who remained in the background, imperturbable.

The president stopped pacing and fixed Dart with a tired look. “I’m well aware of the torrent of criticism falling on you and the investigation. They’re beating the hell out of me, too. And in many ways the investigation is massive and unwieldy and duplicative. But you and I both know this is the way it has to be; this is the way Washington works, and we can’t change horses in the middle of a race. So carry on. And Dr. Dart, before our next briefing—in fact, as soon as possible—I’d like to hear that you’ve captured Gideon Crew. It seems to me this individual is the key to breaking the investigation.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

By way of dismissal, the president offered Dart a smile—a tense, exhausted smile with neither warmth nor humor in it.