Blackmail Earth (29 page)

“Okay,” Dafoe said carefully, “but what’s that got to do with me or my e-mail?”

Sang-mi glanced at him and wiped her eyes. “I told GreenSpirit secrets. The reason we left the North. About the missiles.”

“Can someone clue me in here?” Dafoe asked. “What missiles?”

“May I tell him?” Forensia asked.

Sang-mi nodded slowly, and Forensia explained about the rockets tipped with sulfates. “They’re the reason that her father is still getting debriefed by the CIA.”

“That’s astonishing is what that is,” Dafoe said. “You’re saying that one of the poorest countries in the world is planning to cause a catastrophe that can freeze the whole planet?”

“Korea has many smart people,” Sang-mi said indignantly, “and thousands of rockets.”

“But that still doesn’t explain why you tried to hack into my computer. Please tell me what you were looking for in my e-mail.”

“Something from Jenna Withers,” she whispered.

“Jenna? Why?”

Sang-mi pointed to an end table where Dafoe had left an inscribed copy of Jenna’s book. “Jenna Withers knows about North Korea,” Sang-mi said. “It’s all in there—the famine and drought, and the Supreme Leader blaming the U.S.”

“The missiles, too?” Dafoe sounded like he could scarcely believe that, but Forensia knew her boss hadn’t read Jenna’s book yet.

“No, not the missiles. That’s
secret,
” Sang-mi repeated. “But once I told GreenSpirit about the plans to explode the sulfates, she wanted me to find out if the task force knew anything about the most dangerous geoengineering plan in the history of the world. So I tried to hack into your computer to see if Jenna Withers had said anything to you about the missiles. But now I see that the answer is probably no because you did not know anything about them.” Sang-mi shook her head, as if she were disappointed in Dafoe. “Then, this morning, GreenSpirit spoke to me and said that I should try to get into your e-mail again, that it was very important to try one more time.”

“She
talked
to you?” Dafoe sounded like he’d been abducted by aliens.

Sang-mi nodded. “Just like you are.”

Dafoe glanced at Forensia, who nodded and said, “GreenSpirit is a powerful presence. I sense her all the time.”

“But she’s dead,” Dafoe insisted.

“To you, maybe,” Sang-mi said staunchly. “But she says a lot to me. This morning she said that if I found out that Jenna Withers didn’t know about the missiles, then I had to tell her about them so that she could tell everyone when she’s on TV. That’s what GreenSpirit wanted to do—tell everyone. And she said that Jenna Withers will tell the world, once she knows.”

“She will, will she?”

Sang-mi nodded patiently. So did Forensia.

“Why don’t
you
tell everyone?” Dafoe asked Sang-mi.

“Because no one would believe me. Think about it. A girl from North Korea says there are missiles that will turn the Earth into an ice cube? The daughter of a defector? They would think I was a double agent, or that my father was. Or they would just put me in a hospital for crazy people. But Jenna Withers? People would listen to her. She’s on the task force, and she’s a star on one of the biggest shows on TV. People will believe her. GreenSpirit said so.”

“But your father has told the CIA, right?” Dafoe asked.

“They’re making him keep it secret. GreenSpirit said dangerous secrets should be exposed. All of them. And this was the most dangerous secret of all.”

*   *   *

Jae-hwa holds a chilly handrail and steps down metal stairs into the heart of a vast missile complex. This is a hallowed place, for it was carved out of the mountain decades ago by men using only picks, shovels, buckets, and the undying courage of their nation.

We have lived in darkness like moles, but we will rule like golden kings,
he tells himself.

Dim lightbulbs come alive one by one in row upon row, illuminating three-story-tall missiles mounted on heavy steel rails. Above them, Jae-hwa sees the hatches that will open for the rockets when the diesel generators come to life. Jet fuel for the missiles, diesel for the old railroad engines that move them into place. The past is always slave to a glorious future.

All around Jae-hwa rises a maze of monstrous power. It fills him with the deepest pride to know that the Supreme Leader has engineered the most deadly strategy in the history of humanity—and waited so patiently for the precise moment to strike. Now, with the world’s attention on a tanker in the Maldives that could release a massive amount of iron oxide, intense interest has finally been focused on technology that can change the world’s climate, just as the Supreme Leader knew it would someday. News people from all over the world are rushing to cover the story. Soon the time will come to tell the American puppet president about the missiles that will make the tanker look like a toy, and the West’s nuclear bombs like cheap guns.

Jae-hwa watches soldiers take their stations, then reaches up to rest his hand on the missile next to him. He loves the feel of the smooth metal, the icy cold that numbs his fingers almost instantly, as if the missiles are already spreading their deep chill, even before they explode.

When the Supreme Leader tells the American puppet president what we will do, the West will have to surrender or suffer a terrible fate.

Jae-hwa flicks a toggle switch, and the old generator, a gift from the Soviet Union when that nation was a strong and stalwart ally, shakes the floor.

He orders all the lights off and the hatches opened. Someday, he will tell his son about this historic moment when the missiles started moving into place, drawn by chains that were rusty but still strong. Like the great nation itself.

The night sky appears in the open hatches, a vast blanket of char stippled with the lights of stars and satellites.

We can see you, but you cannot see us. We hold the secrets of a glorious future. You know only the dead secrets of the past.

Diesel fumes thicken the air and a thin smile creases his taut face. Victory, the Supreme Leader says, comes from the might of men with iron in their bones and fire in their blood.

Jae-hwa looks at the steel that points to the stars and his smile broadens. When the Supreme Leader says that the time has come to launch the rockets and draw a dense curtain over the Earth, those lights will vanish.

Time moves slowly when so much is at stake, but now Jae-hwa knows there are only hours to the completion of his mission. Tomorrow, there will be only minutes. And after a few last, furious seconds, Jae-hwa will throw the shiny silver switch that he’s waited so many years to touch.

Men of iron. Men of fire.

CHAPTER 19

“I’m being held by Al Qaeda on the supertanker the
Dick Cheney…”

The wire cutters around Birk’s thumb had produced a delightfully bright-red line of blood that drooled from beneath the blades. But even as Birk sat there trying not to wince and craving a drink the way a vampire craves blood—he knew that this could well be the best performance of his illustrious career. As long as his fucking thumb remained attached to his hand, he’d be happy to sit there bleeding in front of the teensy computer camera.

“This hijacking has all the earmarks of a well-planned military operation. These men know what they are doing and are well armed. I ask officials of all concerned nations, especially the United States, to listen carefully to their demands…”

Birk let his eyes drift to the wire cutters, knowing that in all likelihood he was focusing the attention of millions of viewers on the crimson sideshow. He glanced at the digital time display on the computer screen and knew that if he could yammer for just about one more minute, he’d go live as the lead story on
Nightly News.
As it was, he figured that right this second he was being carried by just about every broadcasting outlet in the world. What a great feeling, everything considered. And when the bewitching hour hit for
Nightly News,
he’d jack up the reporting to a whole new level to try to snag as many minutes of network airtime as possible.

Birk had already noted that every time he made the slightest attempt to pull his thumb away from the wire cutters, Raggedy Ass squeezed a wee bit harder. And voilà! More blood. Birk planned on some serious bleeding as
Nightly News
came on because, as reporters knew the world over, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

“The men holding me say that they will start releasing thousands of tons of iron oxide into the ocean if at least one of the ten biggest coal-fired power plants in the U.S. isn’t shut down immediately. They’re making this demand so that the U.S. can show good faith in the negotiations.”

And they were making this demand in no small part because Rick Birk had advised the cracker jihadist to raise the ante incrementally. “Show that the U.S. won’t even budge the tiniest bit,” Birk said, knowing that if he could stretch out the negotiations, two important things would happen. It would give the newly arrived U.S. military, whose fighter jets and rocket-equipped helicopters were buzzing high above the tanker, more time to stop this terrorist act; and it would get Rick Birk more airtime. Not necessarily in that order.

With all the lethal hardware in the air and on the water, Raggedy Ass had been surprisingly receptive to Birk’s counsel, leading the correspondent to conclude that most of the jihadist’s planning had gone into the hijacking of the supertanker, and not its actual occupation.
Kind of like the U.S. in Iraq,
Birk thought. As for Suicide Sam, he had a nervous habit of fiddling mindlessly with the different colored wires protruding from his vest, especially when he was staring at the TV screen on the other side of the wheelhouse. Watching the Shopping Network of all goddamn things.

Ye gods, he’s doing it again.

Birk forced his gaze back to the tiny computer camera, noting that right this second
Nightly News
was going on the air. He imagined the prissy-boy anchor, Brad Tettle, saying “Good evening” with the far more experienced visage of the great Rick Birk looming over his shoulder.

Timing it as closely as he could from almost fifty years of experience, Birk said “Good evening,” and jerked his hand in the grasp of the wire cutters.

Good God almighty.
Raggedy Ass squeezed much harder than Birk had expected. The pain was excruciating and the septuagenarian had to fight to keep his composure. Blood washed down the base of his hand and wrist. Very visible. Very good.

“I should start off by saying, Brad,” Birk said, assuming an intimacy he didn’t have with the young anchor, whom Birk was certain couldn’t find his way out of a shoe box, “that I’m sure that you and our viewers”—
Yes,
our
viewers, not just yours, anchor rot—
“have noticed this minor inconvenience.” Birk stared at his thumb. “I’ve been warned that each of my fingers, starting with this one, will be removed,” a nice understated way to allude to the gore, “by these wire cutters if the U.S. doesn’t shut down its coal-fired plants.”

The best part of this performance—by far—was that Brad couldn’t interrupt him with his notoriously insipid questions. For the first time in years, the camera belonged only to the veteran, the one and only Rick Birk.

“But I trust that this painful pressure”—
Wry, Birk, keep it wry,
he advised himself—“will not in any way cloud the clarity of my reporting, live from the heart of the hostage takeover of the
Dick Cheney
.”

The whole time Birk talked, he affected an odd and emphatic blinking of his eyes. To any sentient observer, even to brain-fart Brad, it would appear that Birk, in the midst of torture and agony, was coolheaded enough to send coded messages.

That Birk wouldn’t have known Morse code from the expiration date on a bottle of mai tai mix mattered not at all because it would appear to the millions watching that he was risking hellacious dismemberment on live TV to send critical messages to America’s intelligence agencies. And Birk would have bet a bottle of Bombay gin that the CIA, NSC, and military intelligence were, in fact, scrambling with all their computerized code breaking right this minute to try to decipher his “message,” which, as he knew better than anyone, could be reduced to “I’m fucked and so are you.”

*   *   *

Since Jenna had arrived more than an hour ago, Higgens had been glaring at the outsize Birk on the huge screen in her luxurious suite and saying very little. Hardly a hint of the outrageous, blustery performance Jenna had witnessed at the White House.

The meteorologist looked at Birk’s thumb again; it was hard not to stare. It looked like shark chum, but she had to admire his coolness under fire; she didn’t think that she’d fare nearly as well if her fingers were about to be nipped on live TV.

The video clarity from the
Dick Cheney
was surprisingly good, nothing like the crappy Skype experiences that she’d had. But then again, she figured a supertanker had high-end everything. This one sure had high-end drama.

Senator Higgens stirred enough to point to Birk’s bloody appendage. “Should have been his dick,” she said before quaffing a dry martini like it was a Rodeo Daze Coors Light.

“Excuse me?” Jenna said. She’d left the highly agitated Alicia Gant and Special Terrorism Correspondent Chris Randall lamenting the loss of “their” airtime on the
Nightly News,
only to spend most of her visit watching the senator drink, and then drink some more. Higgens had made one other cryptic remark about Birk—“He’s not that hard to tie up”—that Jenna had declined to dignify with a follow-up question, but “Should have been his dick” was just too bizarre to leave alone.

“Did you say—”

“I sure did,” Higgens interrupted, “and I speak from experience. His
thing,
” she might have been shooing a fly from the motion of her hand, “would be no great loss to the world.”

“I didn’t realize you knew him.”

The senator’s eyes rotated unsteadily to her guest. “Unfortunately, yes, but I suppose anyone who’s ever met him considers the experience unfortunate. He’s a colleague of yours, right?”