America (32 page)

Both men were watching the computer presentation in front of Turchak, and the forward-looking sonar display, so they didn't see Rothberg staring unblinkingly at their backs.

*   *   *

The explosion of the two Flashlight E-bomb warheads over Manhattan caused a complete, total, massive power failure in the heart of the most wired city on the planet. At the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchanges the indexes had already fallen the maximum amount allowed in one day and the authorities had suspended trading minutes before the trillion-watt electromagnetic pulses destroyed the computers and communications equipment that made trading possible. The television and radio broadcasting network nerve centers in Manhattan were destroyed, leaving people all over the globe wondering why the video and audio of their program had suddenly disappeared.

Telephone switching units, Internet servers, mobile telephone transmission towers, heat and air-conditioning units, office equipment—the devastation was as total as that which had struck Washington, but affected more people since New York was a larger, denser city and the hub of so many of the world's networks.

Of course the power grid in the affected area failed. The fused switches and massive short circuits dragged down the power grid throughout the northeastern United States. All of New England temporarily lost power, as well as upstate New York, New Jersey, and much of Pennsylvania.

Electric trains all over the area coasted to a stop. Within a three-mile radius of the blasts, the electric motors in subway trains and regular locomotives were destroyed.

Fortunately the FAA administrator had grounded non-emergency private and commercial flights east of the Mississippi River—visiting a financial disaster upon the airlines and their employees and stranding and outraging a large portion of the traveling public—so no airliners packed with people fell from the sky. The electrical systems and navigation gear in the airplanes parked at Newark and JFK were totaled by the E-warhead blasts. The electromagnetic pulses from the blasts were sufficiently weak by the time they hit the aircraft parked at LaGuardia that they only damaged them, destroyed some delicate avionics, and left better-grounded or -shielded boxes unharmed.

Two police helicopters, airborne when the warheads detonated, went into uncontrolled autorotations, killing all aboard when they screwed themselves into the ground; a medevac helicopter transporting a heart attack victim crashed on final approach to a hospital landing pad; and a private jet descending into the New York area with a cargo of human organs for transplant went nose-first into the Hudson River.

In the minutes following the blast, millions of Manhattan office workers waited impatiently for power to be restored. Of course, the recent attack on Washington was common knowledge, so many immediately assumed the worst. As people discovered that even battery-operated devices no longer worked, the realization that New York had been attacked by E-warheads from USS
America
spread like wildfire.

When emergency generators failed to restore any level of electrical service—the emergency generators were themselves dead—the dimensions of the disaster began making themselves felt as people tried to exit their buildings. Elevators were stuck where they had been when the pulses arrived. Those in transit were hung up between floors. Emergency crews began working to extract the passengers, a task that would take as long as twenty-four hours in some cases. The vast bulk of the people trapped in the office towers of Manhattan began trekking down endless dark staircases.

On the street they found that the sound of the city had completely changed. Not a single gasoline or diesel engine was running. The sounds of the streets were voices, angry, unhappy, some panicked, as everyone stared at streets crammed with dead vehicles. The gridlock nightmare extended from the Battery to Central Park and beyond. Many vehicles contained people trapped by electronic door locks that wouldn't open. Policemen used gun butts to shatter the safety glass of vehicles with people trapped inside. Since there were not enough police, volunteers attacked windows with anything handy.

Times Square, the beating heart of the city of New York, that pop-art cathedral to tacky outdoor advertising, was dark and strangely quiet. Theater and movie marquees and the giant electronic billboards were blank, the human energy gone. Under an overcast sky, New Yorkers and pilgrims alike stood stunned amid the ominously dead buildings, unsure what to think or do.

Endless columns of frightened, claustrophobic people trudged through stygian subway tunnels to escape stalled trains and climbed the stairs from dark stations. They formed unmoving crowds at the subway exits, trapping those still underground, as they stared disbelievingly at the traffic jam from hell that blocked the streets.

Reports trickled in via messengers to police stations and City Hall. An absolute electrical failure—even water had ceased to flow through many of the city's supply pipes since the pumps that moved it were disabled. Without water, the sewage system would stop carrying away waste products.

The authorities quickly realized that they faced a catastrophic disaster of the first order of magnitude. Approximately eight million people were trapped in the affected parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and New Jersey, unable to escape from a city that in one terrible moment had been rendered incapable of sustaining human life. Worse, getting outside help to the people who would need it would be extremely difficult; in fact, in many places, getting food and water in would be impossible for days to come—perhaps even weeks. Eight million people would need a lot of help. The usual disaster assistance organizations were going to be totally inadequate.

Gradually the authorities came to the realization that New York City, the beating heart of high-tech America, had become a death trap.

*   *   *

The warehouse in Newark that housed Hudson Security Services was far enough away from the epicenter of the two Tomahawk blasts over Manhattan that most of the computers inside escaped damage. Surge protectors and backup batteries worked as advertised, soaking up excess voltage. Two hard drives crashed, only two. Zelda grabbed the telephone, felt relief wash over her when she got a dial tone. Then the power failed. Although the Hudson employees feared the worst, seven minutes later the electricity came back on.

As the crew divided their attention between diagnostic efforts and the television monitors, Zip Vance told Zelda, “That was too damned close.”

Indeed, had they known when the Tomahawks were coming, Vance could have had all the equipment shut down and grounded. And immediately inflamed the suspicions of everyone in the room. Coincidences like that don't just happen. So it worked out for the best, Zelda thought. She picked up the telephone, checked again for the dial tone. Still there, although the switches would soon be overwhelmed with people calling relatives.

It took several hours to verify that the main storage units were unaffected, with their files intact. Only when that was done did Zelda shoo out the employees. They charged for the elevator, anxious to go to their homes and ascertain the damage there.

When the last elevator load was out the front door, Zip brought the elevator back up and killed the power switch. “So far so good,” he said and dropped into a chair.

“I thought we were going to have to use the rope,” he added. “Always wondered if Freda could make it down.” Freda was forty pounds overweight, the heaviest woman in the crew. “She always said she wouldn't try. Guess you would have had a roommate for the duration.”

Zelda didn't want to talk about Freda or the rope.

“With incentives, Jouany owes us more than four hundred million,” she said lightly. “Or did before those Tomahawk missiles hit. By tomorrow the number will be over five. Think of it! A half a billion dollars!”

“Money? Is that all you think about?”

“In America money is how you keep score. We're winning big, baby.”

“There's more to life than money,” her partner shot back, meeting her eyes.

“Zip, we've been through all this before. I just never thought of you that way.”

Vance got out of his chair and headed for the elevator. He talked as he walked. “In two or three weeks this will be all over, one way or the other. We'll be in jail or filthy rich.”

He threw the switch to power up the elevator, opened the door, and climbed in. “What are you going to do with the rest of your life, Zelda? Have you even thought about it?”

He didn't wait for an answer. The elevator hummed, and down he went.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The wide road ran on and on toward the distant blue mountains, until it rounded a far curve or topped a rise and disappeared from view. Even then the road was still there, even if out of sight. It would faithfully reappear when you rounded the curve or crested the hill. That was the promise of America. In America there was always the road.

Jake Grafton was thinking of the road as he drove along in the government sedan with Janos Ilin in the passenger seat. Neither man had much to say. Ilin had readily agreed with Jake's suggestion of a drive for lunch when he intercepted him on the fifth-floor landing of the office building stairs. He looked almost relieved as he spun around and descended the stairs that he had just trudged up.

Jake headed west on Interstate 66. They were passing the Beltway exit when Ilin asked their destination.

“I thought we might have lunch in Strasburg,” Jake said, “the hotel there.”

“Fine,” Ilin replied and asked no more.

They drove with the radio off. They had no audio cassettes or disks, so the only sounds were the hum of the engine and tires and the snore of truck diesels. As they passed Manassas the interstate narrowed to two lanes in each direction, the traffic thinned, and they were left with the September day, with its dissipating overcast and mild breeze, and the road. Always the road.

Jake knew what he wanted from Janos Ilin. He wanted to know what the Russian knew about the theft of USS
America.
He wanted to know who was behind the theft and what they hoped to accomplish. If they were Russians, he wanted to know. If they weren't, he was even more curious. Alas, he didn't know how to go about getting what he wanted.

The guy was so foreign! Oh, he spoke decent English, could understand and be understood, but Jake Grafton had been to Moscow and seen the place. Ugly, inhospitable, polluted, filled with people speaking an incomprehensible language and fighting like rats for the bare necessities, Moscow was as foreign to Jake Grafton as any spot he had ever been. Thinking about Moscow as he drove this morning, he remembered that sense of hopelessness that he had felt when he visited there years ago, immediately after the collapse of communism. At that time the population was still living in the shadow of the absolute dictatorship, an oppressive tyranny from which humanity and common sense had long ago been squeezed, if indeed there had ever been any. A more cheerless place he couldn't imagine.

And Moscow was Ilin's home, his national capital, the place where he had spent his life learning and pulling and climbing the ropes.

What, exactly, did he and Ilin have in common? Explain that, please.

“Your embassy,” Jake said, breaking the silence, “does it have electrical power?”

“Oh, yes,” Ilin said, grinning ruefully. “We Russians have worried for years about American intercept methods, so we hardened the wiring inside the building and installed extra generators. The lights will be on there even if the sun burns out.”

“One assumes that contingency is extremely unlikely.”

“No doubt, but if it happens, we will be ready. The ambassador will be able to see to write his report to Moscow: ‘Today in America the sun burned out.' That is the way of a bureaucracy. When someone somewhere predicts a possible crisis, that prediction assumes a life of its own. Regardless of the likelihood of that crisis occurring, regardless of the cost in effort or money to guard against it, someone will build a career minimizing the damage that crisis could cause, if it ever happens.”

“I see.”

“The bureaucracy rules.”

“And the microphone in your belt buckle? Was that hardened against electromagnetic pulses?”

“Alas, no. It is history, as you Americans say.”

“Why the microphone in the first place? All the liaison officers were free to return to their embassies whenever they wished and presumably reported everything that they saw or heard.”

“Always the bureaucracy. By listening to what I heard, the bureaucrats could guard against incompetence or betrayal by me.”

“Don't they trust you?”

“They trust me within reason. But the bureaucrats know that the world is a tempting place and people are weak.”

“Are they listening now?”

“No,” Ilin said and grinned. “I am free as an American, at least for a little while.”

“And those little soliloquies outside my house in Delaware? What were they about?”

“Sol—what? Excuse me. I do not know that word.”

“Soliloquy. A conversation with yourself.”

Ilin grinned. “I tease the listeners, who cannot talk back.”

Grafton smiled. At last he had a glimpse of the human being.

“So who stole our submarine?”

“Vladimir Kolnikov and Georgi Turchak and the rest of your CIA Blackbeard team.”

“How did the Russian government find out about the Blackbeard team?”

Ilin grinned again. “Now I ask you—is this car wired? Are
your
people listening?”

“I don't know,” Jake said. He drove in silence for about a minute, then when a place offered itself, pulled over to the side of the road and got out of the car. Ilin did likewise. They were alongside a cow pasture. Jake and Ilin climbed the fence and walked fifteen or twenty yards.

“They are not listening,” Jake said. “I guarantee it.”