Red Dot: Contact. Will the gravest threat come from closer to home than we expect? (16 page)

“We got trouble,” said Thomas Remny, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, who was trying to put his thoughts together while US troops fought and died in the battle shown on the monitor. “ISIL is trying to make a comeback, taking advantage of a drawdown in Western forces,” he said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The brutal terrorist group, known to most Americans as ISIS, had begun to break up under sustained attacks. But now, it seemed, it was back. “And religious and political extremism in general is rising fast.

“Most of the local Iraqi forces working with our trainers in the camp in Southwestern Anbar Province deserted about six hours ago. We had eighty-four men there, and they’re under serious attack. Very heavy mortar fire is coming from a nearby town, and it’s tearing them up.

“They’re taking lots of casualties, and their munitions won’t last forever.” After a pause, Remny said, “They could be overrun within twenty-four hours.”

The Situation Room fell silent for ten or twenty seconds, and everyone absorbed the possibility of dozens of American troops dying in the assault, while the rest faced beheading or crucifixion by the most savage terrorists on earth.

“Can we get them out?” the President asked in a rushed, high-pitched voice.

“The USS Iwo Jima is sending helicopters to a base in government-held Iraq. They’ll be ready to fly to the camp in less than two hours,” said Remny. “But, sir, they can’t send anyone in while the camp is under such heavy attack, especially by those mortars.”

The President stood with his arms hanging loosely by his sides, almost desperately waiting for more information from Remny.

“We, sir, have drones and warplanes in the area that could take out the mortar positions,” said the Under Secretary, seemingly hesitating to present the dire option to the President.

“They could take out the enemy positions,” he continued. “But as you know, ISIL puts its weapons in heavily populated areas. The chances for collateral damage … well there would be collateral damage, a lot of it.”

Aariz Kazim, Assistant Secretary of State heading the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs had slowly walked closer to Douthart as Remny made his assessment.

“Mr. President,” Kazim said, “in all our fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have never knowingly called in air strikes that would kill so many civilians. Maybe, maybe not even since World War II.

“And even if the D9 situation ends peacefully and we go back to, more or less, normal, that kind of, of … damage would severely hurt our chances to build up peace in the area. More war and disruption would be almost inevitable.”

“Who is our contact at the camp?” Douthart asked.

“Major Washington,” said Remny.

Douthart turned toward the monitor and said in a loud voice, “Major Washington, can you hear me? This is President Douthart.”

After a slight delay as the signal bounced back and forth between satellites, a voice came back. “Yes sir, Mr. President, I can hear you.” And as small arms fire and mortar explosions continued in the background, a black man with a bloody bandage on his forehead appeared on the screen.

“Major, what is your situation?” Douthart asked.

“It’s not going well, sir,” Washington said, and then ducked out of view for a second when a mortar round exploded loudly close by.

“What do you need?” the President asked.

“We need … well, we need … pardon my language Mr. President, but we need to get those God-damned mortars destroyed.”

“Major Washington, we’ll do everything we can,” Douthart said.

The President turned to Remny, and looked at the Under Secretary blankly for a few seconds, with his mouth open, as if wishing some miracle would suddenly save the camp.

“Take out the enemy positions,” he finally said in a flat tone of voice.

“Attack the ISIL positions by air, including the mortars, and destroy them?” asked Remny.

“Yes, whatever it takes,” Douthart replied.

Remny and Kazim exchanged a look, and the Defense Under Secretary said, “Even with extensive collateral damage? Many civilian casualties … deaths?”

“Yes. Yes,” said the President.

As the Under Secretary turned to carry out the order, Douthart found himself almost unconsciously walking out of the Situation Room and back to the Oval Office. At his desk, he turned his chair toward the wall to his left so he wouldn’t have to look at the device with the ominous yellowish-orange light, now temporarily dark.

The President knew the signal would flash again soon enough. Russia was poised to invade or threaten neighboring areas to reconstitute a semblance of the Soviet Union, confident the West wouldn’t impose sanctions that would damage Russian and Western economies in the face of the approach of extraterrestrial life. China had provoked confrontations in waters
off its coast, to strengthen its position in bitter territorial disputes with Japan and Vietnam, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian nations.

Within each country, as most people temporarily focused with relief on their daily lives, passionate political, ethnic, and religious groups toiled around the clock to advance their positions and stir unrest. Separatists in Spain, Turkey, China, and elsewhere around the world energized supporters to protest for independence, and in some cases, to arm for a violent rebellion.

In America, the take-no-prisoners style of politics that had developed in the past few decades provided fertile soil for rapid growth of extremist groups. Warnings increased from the leaders of FreeUS, an outgrowth of the Occupy Movement, that they would have to abandon nonviolence in certain situations. They were convinced that a new “anything goes” mentality in the wake of evidence of life beyond Earth would make the 1 percent even more rapacious and unprincipled.

Still, it was a shock when armed demonstrators holding a foreclosed house in Oakland in early October threatened the police who had come to evict them. A tense standoff lasted three days, ending when the last holdouts, two men and two women in their twenties, walked out of the house to be arrested. Considerable popular support for FreeUS melted away during and after the confrontation. But hardcore activists vowed not to give up so easily “next time.” They formed a splinter group styled on the 1970s leftist revolutionaries, the Weathermen, and called it Storm.

In the seemingly boundless expanse of scrub and grassland in New Mexico, Federal agents had held back for months when confronted by a rancher who refused to follow land management and tax regulations. But the rancher and scores of his far-right supporters, who flocked to the area, feared that recent erosion of respect for old standards would embolden the authorities to act against individual freedoms. They convinced themselves that the government would attack them using the D9 threat as an excuse, or even claiming that ETs had attacked the ranch. The most extreme members of the insurgents, who called their group Plains Free, planned a pre-emptive strike that they were sure would start a general uprising against the government.

But the most ominous threat received little public attention. As CIA Director Maddox had warned the President, a cabal of military leaders and their political supporters were convinced that Douthart’s measured response to the approach of alien life put the nation in grave danger. Defense Secretary Fitzgerald and others skillfully publicized this view, often as anonymous sources, but few knew that secret plans were in motion to seize power, either to oust current government leaders or force them to adopt more aggressive policies.

The President’s response to the growing threat was disturbingly feckless. Additional heated clashes erupted between supposed opposition leader Fitzgerald and the Vice President and others close to the White House, and administration officials repeatedly sounded out high-ranking military officials to head off any revolt. But through it all, as other domestic and international crises mounted, Douthart seemed paralyzed when urged to fire Fitzgerald. The momentary loss of focus and vacant stares—“retreats,” some insiders called them—became more frequent and lasted longer.

Still, in everyday life, in the shadow of the volcano, a semblance of normality persisted for a week after D9’s profane hip hop message at D minus 20 … then for another day, and another.

But as the countdown to D9’s arrival in Earth’s orbit ticked down to near one week, it arrived at a threshold in mass psychology. At D minus 10, people around the world became more restless as the veneer of familiar predictability in the next few days began to dissolve. At D minus 9, anxiety rose and more people stayed home from work, pulled their kids out of school, began buying necessary—and not-so-necessary—goods with abandon.

Claire already had a taste of the growing panic. A couple days earlier, Sam had come home excited about some new classmates. Claire called around and found out that one of the teachers at his school had stopped coming to work, and some of her students had been transferred to Sam’s class. Claire’s son also told her he hadn’t seen a few of his regular classmates recently.

But the panic really hit home on D minus 9. Claire answered a midmorning call at work to hear her mother, speaking with a shaky voice, say,
“Claire is it all right if your father and I come over to stay at your house for a few days?”

“Why? What’s wrong?” asked a shocked Claire. “I mean sure.”

“It’s the God-damned Robards,” Claire’s dad said loudly in the background, referring to their next-door neighbors.

“What?” asked Claire. “I thought they were so helpful when you moved in, and you guys played cards together every Thursday night.”

“Well,” said Claire’s mother, “Steve—Mr. Robards—just came over and told us, warned us, that they would take any measures they had to, to keep outsiders from breaking into their bunker at their house or taking their food or fuel supplies.”

“Warned us with a gun,” Claire’s father said in the some loud voice.

“What?” cried Claire. “Did he threaten you with it?”

“No, no,” said her mother. “He just wore it in a holster.”

“While his idiot, alcoholic son stood in their front yard holding a rifle and trying to look mean, though he just looked
stupid
,” said Claire’s enraged father, shouting the last word of the sentence.

“Willie, calm down, please,” said Claire’s mother.

“Absolutely, you can stay,” Claire said. “You’ve got the key. Bring whatever you need and go ahead. And Dad, please calm down.”

After a long pause, Claire’s father said in a subdued tone, “All right,”

That was the day—Friday, October 7—the President made up his mind to fire Fitzgerald. After weeks of dithering, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. In the middle of a morning briefing, as Douthart mulled the Fitzgerald problem over for the thousandth time, the clouds that had obscured the correct path of action drifted away and the President leaped, then and there, at the chance to finally sack the renegade Cabinet member. After the briefing, he had his schedule cleared late that morning and asked that the Defense Secretary meet him in the Oval Office at 11:30.

In the back of his mind, Douthart knew that doubts that had plagued him for weeks would eventually rear up again and sap his determination. But with the confrontation officially scheduled, he maintained his resolve. Just before 11:30, Fitzgerald was escorted into the Oval Office. The two men
shook hands cordially and, after some brief small talk, took their seats, the President behind his grand, uncluttered desk. Fitzgerald sat directly across from him, relaxed and apparently confident, with his peculiar smile playing on the lower half of his face, beneath his habitually furrowed brow.

As soon as they were settled, Douthart realized to his distress that the reasonable and diplomatic speech he thought he’d laid out in his imagination had fled from his mind. So, with nothing to do put plunge ahead, he began to speak.

“Mr. Secretary, first I want to thank you for your hard work and your dedication to doing what is best for America in this difficult time. But especially now, in this crisis, I need to be sure I can count on the full support of everyone on my team,” Douthart said, speaking slowly but evenly.

“Well, Mr. President,” said Fitzgerald, interrupting when the President took a brief pause, “thank you for your compliment, and I must say I believe I
am
supporting you in your inner circle by advocating a strong response to the extraterrestrial threat.”

Douthart was thrown off stride by the interruption; in his many rehearsals, he made his points in one compelling speech. Then, according to the script, Fitzgerald either took the obvious hint and resigned, or the President asked for his resignation.

“Yes,” the President continued haltingly. “I appreciate that you have stated your views plainly. But they’re significantly different from those of my administration as a whole.” He shifted in his chair, as Fitzgerald remained composed across from him. “And … there are some, frankly, disturbing signs that you are …
may
be … linked to opposition to the administration.”

“Mr. President, I have to reject that assertion.” Fitzgerald shifted his weight but remained erect, with traces of that odd smile still on his face. “I am merely forcefully representing the views of many Americans, who fear that we are not protecting our country adequately.”

“I’m afraid it appears to go further than that,” said Douthart, with a flash of anger. “It seems, and there have been reports, that you may be taking an active role in leading some factions that would act … against the interests of my administration.”

“Mr. President, I must reject that accusation. I am giving a voice to many influential Americans, who feel deeply that we must do more, much more, to protect our country.”

Douthart’s eyes grew wider when—so he thought—Fitzgerald emphasized the word “influential.”

“I’m wondering if you will be able to serve—uh, effectively—in the Cabinet, when you represent such an extreme position.”

“Mr. President, I assure you I will continue to be a loyal and effective member of your team.”

Almost imperceptibly, Fitzgerald’s remaining hint of a smile morphed into an image of steely determination as he looked directly into the President’s eyes. “And it would be a mistake to remove me from my position. The people whose views I represent would be very disappointed to lose their voice in your administration.”