White: A Novel (9 page)

“NBC news has learned that three commercial airliners have crashed”—he looked down at a piece of paper—“three international flights, apparently . . . almost simultaneous crashes . . .”

Williams held a finger to his ear, pausing for a producer to read him the very latest information from reporters at scenes of horrific carnage. The television pulsed with a sense of impending doom. The seasoned journalist looked shaken.

“We have live footage from Los Angeles International Airport . . .”

Images of flames, smoke, and emergency crews racing down an empty runway.

“Reports of similar crashes at Miami International and . . . yes, at Reagan National. Reports are just beginning to come in,” he recited from behind his characteristic scowl. “But NBC news has confirmed that three separate airliners have crashed in Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington . . . are we certain about this?” he asked someone offscreen. This was live television, after all, and he had just upstaged the president of the United States. He wanted to get it right.

“All right.” He nodded. “Sources in a position to know confirm eyewitness accounts.” He cleared his throat. “NBC news is reporting that at least two of those planes appear to have been shot down. I’ll say that again . . .”

Beechum just shook her head.

“I never thought you’d hear me say this, James,” she said, in words just loud enough to turn the veteran A.A. away from footage of an L.A. plane crash. “But we’re dealing with a threat unlike anything we’ve seen before. Something truly evil.”

James stared at his boss, a woman he considered a hardened, almost impenetrable good.

“Quite frankly, I don’t know that we’re good enough to beat it.”

IV

Tuesday, 15 February

01:17 GMT

Bunker Alpha-2, Central United States

SIX MEN SAT
in chairs facing each other. There was no other furniture in the windowless room—no paintings, floor lamps or decorative moldings. Two wire-caged industrial lamp fixtures provided the only illumination. Their dark red-lens glow painted the space in a hushed, claustrophobic light—a light common to emergency exits, bomb shelters, and crack houses. The door had been bolted shut, from the inside.

“Almighty God, you are the one true and righteous God,” a voice spoke in heavily accented English. He stood before the others and read from a thick religious text. “You are the fear and the hope. We declare your glory as the thunder declares your praise. You smite our enemies; you sate our need.”

The speaker wore white robes that wrinkled at the floor. A linen hood covered his head and face, open at the eyes and contoured to his dark and weathered brow. The robes bore no markings, symbols, or other raiment.

“Only to you, o magnificent God, do we bow our heads,” he continued. “For our strength, for our guidance, for our salvation. There is no other God. Those who pray to idols fall the way of all those who deny You. For You are the Lord of all heavens and earth. You are the guardian. You are the creator of all things, the one God. The Supreme. The Just.”

The speaker closed the book and sat down with the others.

After a moment, another man spoke, also in English. Though he wore no visual markings to identify himself as the group’s leader, his presence spoke for itself.

“Thank you, Brother,” he said. “We have business today. Ishmael, you have an update on operations?”

Ishmael, the heaviest of the six, sat directly across from the leader. He spoke with a deep, resonant voice but no airs.

“Cell Three has successfully completed this stage of operations,” he said. “As planned, brothers in Los Angeles, Miami, and Washington DC have engaged three airliners. One British Airways 777, one El Al Airbus 300, and one Singapore Air 747. All three planes were brought down. There are no known survivors.”

The leader nodded. He saw no need for congratulations. This loss of life was necessary work, not something to gloat over.

“Logistics?” he asked, turning to the man sitting at Ishmael’s right.

“Everything is moving forward as planned,” he said. “Cell Six has operators prestaged at the rallying points. Time line remains the same.”

He spoke with military precision, which made perfect sense. Like the others in this circle, he had bravely fought the infidels in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“What about our diversions?” the leader asked.

“Bodies have been recovered at two of the sites. The third was arrested a short distance from the Los Angeles shooting, just as planned.”

“And everything has been backstopped?”

“Yes. Police will be busy with them for days.”

“What about our claims of responsibility?”

“Videotapes have been sent to the proper media. In fact, they have already hit cable news. Everyone in America has heard of Ansar ins Allah by now.”

“Intelligence?” the leader asked. He turned to a man sitting next to him, who spoke in a small, academic voice.

“Our assets remain confident that Jafar al Tayar has not been compromised in any way. There will be no further contact, of course. Not until the final stage. But that doesn’t matter. We have clear and constant access should the need arise.”

“Good,” the leader said, finally acknowledging that things had progressed as planned. “Unfortunately, we have one other matter to take care of. Unpleasant business.” He breathed deeply. “Bring him in.”

The sixth member of the circle—the one who had said nothing to this point—stood and walked stiffly to the bolted door. He slipped open the lock and disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he had another man by the arm. This man wore street clothes and a blindfold. His feet were bare. His wrists and ankles had been shackled and looped together beneath his knees. The poor wretch had to shuffle along, bent double at the waist, staring at the floor.

“I hereby convene a Council of Will,” the leader said. The prisoner was pulled inside the circle, where he waited, forcibly bowed before the others. “Read the charges.”

The sergeant at arms pulled a piece of loose-leaf paper from his pocket and adjusted his hood to better read in the dim red light.

“That this man, a Phineas priest, entrusted with the work of a just and almighty God, has betrayed that confidence, endangering the well-being of his brothers and the success of the mission. That this man, a Phineas priest, entrusted with the work of a just and almighty God, has betrayed an oath by disclosing information outside the scope of his cell. That this man, a Phineas priest, entrusted with the work of a just and almighty God, has needlessly placed in doubt the sanctity of this Council.”

The man in shackles began to weep. The tears came softly at first, obscured by the blindfold, but within moments, he began to cough as the phlegm of regret clogged his nose and backed up in his throat. Soon, sounds of his sobbing filled the room.

“Do you have anything to say in your own defense?” the leader asked. Only the sergeant at arms and the accused stood. The others remained in their chairs.

The helpless prisoner bucked up and down a bit, trying to catch his breath. Then, as if resigned to his fate, he offered a deep sigh and spoke.

“I told my wife I was going out of town and that if she was concerned about me, she should watch TV to know that I was doing God’s will,” he said. “Is that my crime? She was eight months’ pregnant, and she was scared. I was just trying to reassure her.”

“Questions from the Council?” the leader asked.

“You told your wife, and your wife told others,” the operations manager said. “What if she also compromised us outside the community?”

“She didn’t. She wouldn’t. Ever.”

“That’s what we thought about you,” the leader said. His voice changed within the course of a sentence from calm authority to an accusing hiss. It was a voice that even in brighter light would have sent chills down the other members’ spines. “We lost good men in that Indonesian jungle on Sunday. Who’s to say it wasn’t because of your reckless tongue?”

The man began to tremble. To visibly shake.

“Please,” he begged. “I have a new baby. My wife . . .”

“By will or negligence you have betrayed us,” the leader said. “Motivation really doesn’t matter now, does it?”

The leader nodded, and the sergeant at arms wasted no time. God was the only true power, they all knew, but their leader wielded the sword of vengeance.

With no further discussion, the sergeant at arms drew an eight-inch-long Tanto fighting knife. He rested the tip just below the now-condemned man’s right ear, and then, with a twisting motion, plunged the razor-sharp blade into the base of his skull.

Death came instantaneously. There was surprisingly little blood.

“That concludes our enclave,” the leader said. “Burn him on the cattle pile.”

One of the men stood to get the door. The other three helped carry the body. When they had gone, the leader walked down a hallway past several other doors. He stopped at a flight of concrete stairs leading up and shed his hood.

“Thank you, Lord, for sparing us Caleb,” the leader prayed in his heavily accented voice—that of a Texan. The light of a bright Kerrville moon spilled down the staircase, over his heavy shoulders. Word from overseas sources indicated that his son had sustained an awful wound out there in that Indonesian jungle, but had survived and would return to continue with the mission.

Clang! Clang!

A bell rang above him, the call to evening meal.

Colonel Buck Ellis folded his garments under his arm and started up the stairs. Work never ended here at the Homestead, and he was hungry.

“DADDY! DADDY! DADDY!”

Jeremy arrived home in Stafford, Virginia, to banners, balloons, and hugs. He hadn’t showered, slept, or shaved in more than three days, but that seemed to have no impact on the three little kids who met him at the front door.

“Where’s my present?” Christopher, the five-year-old, immediately wanted to know. Every time Dad left, he came home with something in his bag. It had been more than two months this time. “I want something big!”

Maddy, the oldest, held on tightly as Jeremy bent over at the waist to wrap his arms around them. All three of his kids had grown since he left. Maddy had lost another tooth, and the boys had both gotten haircuts.

“Easy kids,” Caroline said, standing just outside arm’s reach. “Give your dad some room to breathe for goodness’ sakes.”

Jeremy looked up at her with the best smile he could muster. Though he had thought about this homecoming nearly every day since he’d left, the actual event, as usual, left him feeling lost and empty. It wasn’t that seeing his family again didn’t thrill him. No, it was the reentry. It was the deceleration of a violent life suddenly colliding with innocence.

“Hi, baby,” Jeremy said. He reached out with one hand and pulled his wife close for a kiss. She offered a cheek and wrapped her arms around him.

“My God, I thought that was you on that plane,” she whispered so the kids wouldn’t hear her. “I was so scared. How horrible.”

Caroline fought the tears.
Not in front of the kids.

“Wasn’t my time, I guess,” Jeremy responded. He kissed her forehead and held her tightly against his chest. “It could have been Dulles just as easily as National.” He’d flown into both so many times.

“I missed you so,” Caroline said. She had said those words so often since moving here, they barely sounded sincere anymore.

“I know, baby. I missed you too.”

And there they all stood for a long moment, five Wallers tangled in the doorway of a split-level rambler, a builder’s model in the Hampton Oaks subdivision of Stafford, Virginia. Though home for more than a year now, it felt as odd and foreign to Jeremy as the hotel he’d just left in Bangkok.

“OK, OK, OK,” Jeremy said, finally. He broke up the hug, moved everyone inside the entry foyer, and pulled the door closed. “You want us all to freeze or what?”

Weather had been unseasonably cold in the DC area for the past week. It felt even worse to a man who had spent the previous week in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

“What did you bring us, Daddy?” Maddy asked. She and the two boys dragged Jeremy’s duty bag across the floor and tugged at its thick nylon zipper.

“Hey, you guys!” Caroline called out. “I told you to ease up. Give your dad a chance to relax a minute before you go tearing through his stuff.”

She managed a smile for her husband. Caroline had been through these decompressions before. Sometimes the smallest things set him off: toys lying around the house, rearranged furniture, something he didn’t like for dinner. Reentry wasn’t easy on any of them.

“The kids got you cake and ice cream,” she ventured. That seemed like a safe beginning.

“Sounds great.” Jeremy smiled. He leaned down to help the kids with his bag. “But before anybody starts opening presents, there’s something I want from you,” Jeremy said. Maddy and Christopher erupted in smiles.

“Not . . . the force?” She giggled.

“The force, Daddy?” Christopher squealed. They knew what was coming.

“Prepare for the force!” Jeremy yelled, throwing his arms wide and assuming an auditorium-sized smile. “The force suplex!”

With that, he executed the signature move of one of professional wrestling’s most popular stars. He wrapped all the kids up in a bear hug and rolled them to the ground in a tumble of laughter, tickles, and Bronx cheer kisses.

“Uncle! Uncle!” Maddy called out, trying to get away long enough to open her presents. “Give him the knockout hug, Christopher!” she yelled.

Jeremy allowed the little boy to press his trademark maneuver and rolled over, faking unconsciousness. The kids jumped up and dug back in after their presents.

“Take those into the other room, please,” Caroline ordered as they pulled out poorly wrapped parcels. She stared down at her husband, wondering what terrors he had endured. His hair looked matted and longer than she’d seen it in years. Bruise-colored rings clouded his otherwise brilliant blue eyes. A dark stubble covered his cheeks.

“You always get lost in the shuffle,” he said, sitting up after they had gone. “Well, almost always.” Jeremy reached into his bag and pulled out a gift for her.