The Dying Time (Book 1): Impact Read online

  FBI Director Royce Bannister opened his mouth and the President spun to face him, finger pointing, eyes hard.

  “Don’t! I’ve heard all the damn excuses I’m going to hear. Now get that stabilizer back. And listen good. I don’t care what you have to do. We’re talking the survival of the human race here. Nothing else matters. Am I making myself clear?”

  Nervous nods followed his gaze around the room.

  “Are there any more of these stabilizers available?”

  “Yes, Sir, Mr. President,” Farley Moffat said. It was time to cool things down. “There are other stabilizers; just none that fit the Sunflower configuration. Martin Marietta’s adapting one to our needs now.”

  Hammond Powell’s eyes nailed Farley to the wall. “Then we can still launch in time to vaporize this rock?”

  “It'll be tight, Mr. President, but yes, we think so.”

  “We can’t afford ‘think so,’ Farley. Make it happen.”

  President Powell turned to Carl Borzowski. “Carl?”

  “It’s our only shot now, Mr. President,” he responded. “They’re working around the clock. Priority Ultra.”

  The President nodded. Priority Ultra was the nation’s utmost priority designation. Everything attached to Sunflower was now Ultra, including finding the bastards who hijacked the shipment and killed those soldiers.

  He looked at the men in the room. They’re doing everything possible, he reminded himself. So why did he feel like it wasn’t enough? Probably because the stakes were so high. He realized he and most everyone he knew would very likely die if the asteroid hit--and they would be in Mount Weather, one of the most shockproof, heavily secured places in existence, stocked with every necessity and convenience known to man. He was the most powerful man on Earth and even he couldn’t buy more time.

  “Next,” he said, tucking those thoughts away and taking up the burden again.

  “The cave sites are mostly stocked, Mr. President,” Morgan Hamilton said. “We’ve decided on a lottery system for selection once the ‘must save’ personnel list is filled. Kind of like in the movie, Deep Impact.”

  “Weighted toward women and people with farm backgrounds?”

  “As well as scientists, yes, sir.”

  The President turned to the FEMA Director and asked, “What about the seed and sperm banks?”

  Juan Salazar said, “All systems are go. The Seed bank in Fort Collins has been reinforced and a special unit has been assigned to defend it from looters. The animal bank now contains DNA from every known species of mammal, amphibian, reptile, fish and bird, as well as countless insects. There are similar depositories in Petaluma, Toronto, and Svalbard, Norway.”

  “Eli?”

  “The Russians and Chinese just launched Seed and Animal bank modules up to the ISS for Project Genesis, but Sir, if we don’t destroy or divert the asteroid it’s looking like it will hit just off the East Coast of...” Eli Cohen consulted his notes to be certain, “...the Carolinas.”

  “Damn,” the President said. His hometown was Charleston. “What about those we can’t get into the shelters?”

  “People in caves or storm shelters, even in windowless rooms, should be able to survive the initial impact so long as they’re outside the blast area. Those trapped above ground won’t be so fortunate.”

  President Powell thought about frogs and turtles and other ancient species burying themselves in the mud and decided he now knew the genesis of that behavior. Maybe the Hopi had it right and their ancestors had come up out of caves.

  He shrugged, flipped his old fashioned spiral paged notebook open and asked, “What about the nukes?”

  Farley glanced at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, who nodded, and replied, “As of midnight last night all 136 reactors regulated by the NRC in this country have been shut down and fail-safed. Even if the cores are breached the rods have been cooled down to the point where any radioactive materials released will be low grade.

  “So far as we can determine every other country with nuclear reactors have followed suit. Those aboard naval vessels are small enough that environmental damage will be slight and we’re hoping they survive anyhow.

  Dropping all the nuclear power plants offline has created blackouts in several areas and we’re catching flak for that.”

  He caught the President’s eyes flashing at him, cleared his throat, and got back on point.

  “All our nuclear weapons have also been fail-safed. MIRV’s in our missile silos have been removed and stored as safely as possible. The same goes for bombs and tactical weapons.”

  President Powell sighed. It wasn’t enough, but he supposed it was the best they could do.

  *

  Los Angeles

  “Jesus H. Christ!” Joey threw down the newspaper. The headline screamed, “Giants Massacre Convoy!”

  “I've never seen so much goddammed heat. Cops are everywhere, shaking down anyone who ever spit on the sidewalk. Feds are buzzing around like somebody kicked a hornet’s nest. Carswell says the military intelligence types are grilling everyone on the base. Benny the Bug is looking for us.” And worst of all, a witness had seen his sons leading the ‘convoy massacre.’ He and the twins had been in hiding since the news broke.

  “There weren't supposed to be any damn witnesses.” He’d taught them better than that.

  The twins looked at anything but him. Nothing they could say to that.

  “Now the cat’s not just out of the bag, it’s yowling to the whole damned world it belongs to ME!”

  “Think this heat is over that stabilizer thing we took?” John asked.

  “Of course it is, you idiot,” Tony sniped. “Carswell said it's part of some top secret military satellite.”

  John bristled. “Killing eight soldiers was going to piss the Feds off anyhow, Tony.”

  “Yeah, well, you were in charge, John,” Tony sneered. “And if you’d killed all eight the heat wouldn’t be focused on us!”

  “How the hell could I know that bastard survived the fall?” John asked, glaring daggers at his twin.

  “That's enough,” Joey yelled. “We don't have time to fight among ourselves. We have to figure out how we’re getting out of this mess. Meanwhile, have Jamal deal part of the load to our contact in Denver. When those punks get picked up with hot pieces from the shipment it’ll take some of the pressure off us, maybe even discredit that witness.”

  He put his head down in his hands to think. That stabilizer had to be worth millions. A peace offering for Benny? No, he'd hang on to it for a while.

  *

  Beverly Hills

  “Where the hell are they?” Benny the Bug stormed around the plushly decorated room. His lieutenants looked at the Persian carpet, the Gaugin and Picasso’s on the walls, the ceiling. “It isn't enough those oversized oafs were holding out on me with their piss-ant gunrunning operation. Oh, no. They have to go and declare war on the fucking U.S. GOVERNMENT!” He took a deep breath. “And everybody connected knows they’re part of MY organization. Do you have any idea the shit that’s bringing down on me, and what it costs? Well, do you?”

  Not one of his men would meet his glare.

  “Millions.” He took a deep breath. “Now, I want’em found. Capisce?”

  He emphasized the last word by pounding his fist onto the walnut dining table. He stared at them while they shifted uncomfortably.

  Ice crept into his voice. “And when you find’em, bring’em to me alive.”

  They scattered faster than teenagers caught stealing.

  Benny ran a hand across his forehead. The fucking Government, he thought, amazed. Even that dumb bastard Joey should know that the Government wasn’t an enemy. Springsteel Tool and Die, one of Benny’s most profitable legit businesses, made a bundle selling substandard six dollar bolts to the Pentagon and other agencies.

  *

  The Freeholds

  Michael hit the “place your order” button on Amazon.com and checked LED light bulb
s, inline fuse box, Midland two way radios, and Patrick Sweeney’s “Gunsmithing the AR-15 off his shopping list. He read an article on the Preparedness.Pro website about Tattler reusable canning lids, posted a link on how to build a portable solar generator on the American Prepper’s Network and then clicked onto the next website.

  Ellen poked her head into Michael’s office and asked, “What are you doing, honey?”

  “Ordering spare diodes for the micro-inverters,” Michael said. He clicked the “view cart” link on the Grainger’s website and dug out his credit card before hitting “pay now.”

  “What’s wrong with the old ones?”

  “Nothing, right now, but if we got hit with a large solar storm or EMP they’d burn out and our solar panels would just sit there generating electricity that couldn’t go anywhere or do us any good. Remember the Prepper motto, Two is one and one is none.”

  Ellen thought about that for a couple of seconds and asked, “But won’t the new ones get ruined too?”

  Michael smiled at her and said, “No, because I’ll store them in the Faraday Cage.”

  Ellen’s eyebrows rose. “And what is that and when did we get one?”

  Michael rose and walked around his desk and said, “Come on, I’ll show you,” and led her down the hall and through the kitchen and out into the garage.

  “There,” he said, pointing at an old metal cabinet.

  “That’s a Faraday Cage?”

  “Well, not yet.” He opened it up revealing a hand-cranked and solar powered emergency radio, two pairs of Motorola walkie talkies, dozens of rechargeable lithium ion batteries in assorted sizes and their chargers, several flashlights, boxes of CFR and LED light bulbs, and a few power tools. All of it sat on pieces of bubble wrap or cardboard or even bags of Styrofoam peanuts to keep them from touching the insulated metal sides. He’d replaced the metal shelving with non-conducting wood. “But, when I finish filling it and seal the seams with aluminum duct tape, it will be.”

  Ellen said, “Uh-huh,” shook her head and went back into the house. Honestly, when he got this way, spending sometimes thousands of dollars to prepare for unlikely events, she just didn’t know what to think. She could see dehydrating or canning food from their garden, and loved the fresh eggs and meat from their chickens and rabbits, as well as the milk from their Jersey. She liked how the flour and corn meal they ground in their Wondermill Junior grain mill was far superior to any from the store; but where did it end? It wasn’t like they didn’t have money. And Woodland Park was only a forty minute drive.

  Still, she knew better than to argue with him about it. This was his protective instinct on steroids. She smiled, and that wasn’t all bad. And who knew? If TEOTWAWKI (The End of The World As We Know It) came knocking at least her family and her community would be better off than most.

  Besides, she’d learned to trust his instincts, recalling that it wasn’t that long ago she didn’t want to learn to use a gun.

  As she entered the living room a CNN news alert caught her attention.

  “...and the death toll from this terrorist attack on the military convoy in Arizona is still unknown. Sources close to the investigation say that they do not think the ambush was the work of Mexican drug cartels, but they aren’t ruling anything out at this time.”

  “Michael!” She yelled. “You’d better come in and hear this.”

  Chapter 9: The National Defense Authorization Act

  “Raoul,” Ariel called out as she entered the house. “Guess who I’ve got with me.” She stopped as she saw him shushing her with one hand while holding the phone to his ear with the other.

  “God, Harry. It’s that bad?” The grave look on his face told Ariel it was very bad. “Ariel and I will get to work on it right now. I'll call you tomorrow with the results.”

  He hung up and turned to face her, his eyes lighting up when he saw the short, curly brown hair, warm gray eyes and big bright smile of their granddaughter as she came through the doorway.

  “Sara!” He opened his arms for a hug. They had raised her from the age of six after their son and his wife died in a car wreck.

  “So, how are things at Stanford?” Raoul asked, proud of her status as a surgeon and instructor at Stanford Medical School.

  “Pretty good Grandpa, but I think I’ve come at a bad time.”

  “Nonsense,” Ariel exclaimed. “There’s never a bad time for you to visit, especially now.”

  “Your Grandma's right,” Raoul said. “We were going to call and invite you over for the holidays.”

  “Then what was that on the phone?” Sara asked.

  Raoul sighed. “It concerns something we want to tell you about.”

  “Raoul!”

  “Relax Ariel. I'm not going to tell her anything classified, just something the whole world’s going to know about in less than two weeks.”

  Sara wore a puzzled expression, but Ariel couldn’t restrain herself. “Something happened to the launch,” she said and the dread in her voice touched them both.

  Raoul shook his head. “The launch was flawless, but the stabilizer isn't so stable.”

  “Then we can’t aim Sun--.” Ariel bit off the word with a glance at Sara.

  Sara said, “Look, you two obviously have something important to attend to, so I'll just get my bags and put them in my old room while you hash this out.” She started down the hall to her room. “When you want me, I’ll be in my room reading.” She tossed a smile back over her shoulder. “This is the only place I can catch up on my medical journals.”

  “We can't aim Sunflower,” Raoul confirmed. “That was Harry Garrison and Carl Borzowski on the phone. Something about six-dollar bolts and for want of a nail. He wants us to put our heads together and see if we can software our way around his hardware problem.”

  Ariel nodded and said, “Call General Mabry and tell him we need the Cray. Then call the lab and let them know we want a direct feed from Sunflower. We don't want to depend on what anyone says is wrong. We want to see what's wrong for ourselves.” She headed into the kitchen. “I'll get us packed and tell Sara we'll be gone for a few days. We can tell her about the rock when we get back.”

  *

  A Warehouse in Denver

  Jamal Rashid opened the briefcase and did a quick count. It was all there. He nodded to the black men standing in the shadows, picked up a pry bar and opened one of the wooden cases in the back of the truck.

  Shark Cassidy slid out of the shadows, jumped up into the truck bed and looked down into the case. Like rain on a nighttime road the M16’s glistened with a fresh coat of oil.

  “I pick the nex’ one,” he stated.

  Jamal shrugged. Shark pointed one out that had a couple of others stacked on it and his helpers uncovered it. Jamal handed Shark the pry bar, but the results were the same, gleaming weapons and boxes of ammunition. Shark’s pulse quickened. Now this was power.

  “We unload now,” Shark said.

  “Suit yourself,” Jamal replied, handing Shark a set of keys. “But the truck’s part of the deal.”

  Five minutes later Jamal dialed 911 from a nearby pay-phone. Joey’s instructions were to leave nothing to chance. The heat had to focus on Denver. Three minutes after that, cops were surrounding the warehouse.

  *

  “Man, you did good.” Tears of joy leaked down Viper’s face as he cradled the new M16 in his palms. Crates of them were stacked in the U-Store-It shed, along with enough ammunition to bury every honky in Colorado.

  Shark Cassidy beamed at the approval of his leader. “Then you ain’t mad about Skull gettin’ popped?” Skull and the others had been trapped inside the warehouse during the firefight with the police. Shark had only escaped because he drove the truck out, with most of the weapons still packed inside, just before cops arrived.

  “No, my brother.” Viper said, and continued in his best preacher mode. “The price he paid was well worth it, for you have put into our hands the means by which to deliver our message to
the whites. I praise you, Shark Cassidy, and our martyred brothers. The Dark Lord will reward you.”

  *

  Beverly Hills

  “Joey.” Benny Bonificio's piggish eyes gleamed. “So good to see you and your boys.” The Scarlatti’s lay handcuffed, waist and ankle-chained on Benny’s Persian rug. John and Tony were gagged.

  “Mister Bonificio,” Joey said calmly. “There’s been a mistake.” He and his sons were dead men unless his red herring worked.

  “Oh, there’s been a mistake all right, Joey. The kind I only let people make once.”

  “No, Mister Bonificio. I mean we didn’t do this thing. Surely you heard some niggers in Denver pulled the job?”

  Benny waived a newspaper in Joey’s face, the one where newly promoted Corporal Otha Gladson described his attackers. “How many pairs of seven-foot tall white niggers do you know, Joey?”

  “C’mon Mister Bonificio. The witness is a nigger too. He was prob’ly in on the job and just made that giant stuff up ‘cos it sounded good. When me an’ the boys saw those lies in the paper we got scared and hid. The Scarlatti’s always been loyal, Boss. You know that. Why you think I sent a message to you? I need your help to get outta this mess.”

  Benny paced the room. He hated to admit it, but Joey sounded like he was telling the truth. That part where the nigger said he jumped off a hundred-foot bridge to escape had to be pure bullshit. And Joey the Giant had backed him several times. And the oaf was too damn stupid to even conceive a job like this, much less pull it off. And the papers did say the search was focusing on the Denver area, some black, Satanist whack jobs.

  “But what about your little gunrunning operation, Joey? You been holding out on me.”

  Joey looked ashamed and his voice was soft, almost pleading as he spoke. “Only ‘til I growed it big enough to be something to be proud of. Then I was gonna tell you. Tony there, he kept the books and we brung’em to show you we was straight.”