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This novel is a fantasy of the future, a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Great effort has been made, especially regarding those individuals who have recognizable positions with government, or publicly known organizations, mentioned herein, to insure they are not mistaken for past or present individuals in those positions. What the future holds, what possible outside influences may be brought to bear on future participants in those organizations, no one can say.
Copyright © 2015, 2020, 2023, 2024 Miles A. Maxwell FAB LLC
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“An Ordinary Evening” George Washington Bridge Overview by Bob Jagendorf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en
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First Printing 2015.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2015934114
Treason, Bigamy, And Murder
Cynthia Reveal held onto her older brother Everon a little longer than usual, on a cold February evening as they said goodbye. She watched him turn and wave with that ironic smile, then disappear into the terminal where his jet was parked. Why did she have the feeling it was the last time she’d ever see him?
She shook it off.
He’ll be fine.
Cyn slid into the corner of the back seat as her cab pulled away from the curb at JFK and tried to ignore the radio’s annoying squeal beneath the reggae. A streetlight reflected her worried bright-blue eyes in the window. Her palm ran across the briefcase on her lap. The reason for her worry lay inside it.
I should have told Everon about this report. But he was so excited — his new jet, then he was on the phone. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say anything. Maybe he hasn’t left.
Cynthia pulled out her phone. She hesitated.
No. Franklin. That’s who I should call. Something terrible’s going on at the bank, and his church is involved. He needs to know.
She tapped her younger brother’s picture . . .
And received a fast busy.
She tried again . . .
It didn’t ring.
She checked the signal. A single bar flicked on and off.
She had her boss’s home number on Long Island —
She stopped. Put down the phone.
I’m being paranoid. I’ll call him first thing in the morning.
As the driver turned onto the Belt Parkway, he searched the radio, but the squeal got worse. Cynthia couldn’t take it.
“What is wrong with your radio?” she asked. “What’s that sound?”
The radio cut off.
“Thank you,” she said.
She’d be home two hours later than usual tonight. Steve would be waiting. She tapped the phone.
Half a ring, and the damn thing disconnected.
Strange.
She hit redial, and looked at the lighted windows of the Brooklyn high-rises so close together.
The phone rang . . . and rang.
On their way to the airport, Everon had suggested that Cyn, Steve, and their daughter Melissa “Escape this claustrophobic mess!”
If I could just talk Steve into us packing up, she thought, and get out!
The phone disconnected a third try.
She gave up.
Unlike Everon or Steve, her own work would have to be near a major US banking center. Unless she went private.
Vegas wouldn’t be better, would it?
She’d seen those tract homes on top of one another.
The small lots. Your neighbor’s late-night trash-to-the-curb excursions waking you up.
She sighed.
Not that different from New York.
She closed her eyes and thought, Maybe there’s room for us in Spring Valley. An hour commute on those desert roads wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe I should talk with Grandma Del —
She was jerked awake in a traffic jam.
What the hell? Central Park South?
They were blocks off her usual route, what she owed on the cab’s meter way up, going east in front of the Plaza Hotel.
“Hey!” Cynthia said. “How’d we get over here?”
“Sorry, lady. I had to go around. Construction.”
Horns honked uselessly. Another cab driver, head out the window, screamed at the car blocking their path. The response was a hand gesture rude anywhere except New York City.
Cynthia angled her watch to the light.
Seven-thirty?
I wish we could go somewhere like the little town Franklin lives, she thought. A quiet place without all the traffic and taxes and rules and frustration —
She sighed at the big white flakes coming down. Beneath the flags waving from the hotel’s porte cochere, guys in chocolate overcoats were escorting blondes and brunettes into town cars.
Probably going to restaurants or movies or the ballet at Lincoln Center, she thought. Feeling the excitement of another Monday evening.
In another hour none of it would matter.
Something passed Penobscot, the Coast Guard cutter assigned to break ice and patrol the harbor waters.
The sonarman scored a tiny blip on his scope. Recorded electronically for eight seconds, it disappeared. It was moving so slowly, the computer had classified it BIOLOGIC — an aquatic vertebrate — and removed it from his screen.
Since 9/11 a cutter was always patrolling New York Harbor. But time heals all wounds — a scab is never as motivating as open flesh — and the sonarman too erased the blip from his mind.
Penobscot continued north.
The fish swam silently past two small private boats, beyond the Statue, following a course between Liberty and Governors Island, swung east of the Hudson River, and northeast into Upper New York Bay.
When it reached the center of three transmitter signals, the fish suddenly swam faster, rising upward. As it crested the surface, a valve opened. From a chamber inside, not unlike a long scuba tank, highly compressed air blasted through a nozzle in its tail. The fish rocketed above the water.
For every foot gained, its potential was multiplied.
A little girl in a party hat, on her way to celebrate her eighth birthday, a dinner at the South Street Seaport, held her mother’s hand as they walked along the pier toward the bay.
“Look, Mommy,” she pointed. “A giant fish!”
It was the last thing she ever said; the last thought she ever had; the next-to-last sound she ever heard.
As the fish reached the zenith of its arc, opposing charges in its belly imploded toward each other. Eighteen nanoseconds later the fish, and the girl, became nothing more than a ball of pure expanding energy.
On the Upper East Side, a siren like the lone wail of a coyote, echoed down a distant concrete canyon and in through a barely open window. Car horns blared in answering conversation.
Probably blocks apart, Cynthia thought.
She left the window as it was. She liked a little fresh air getting back to the bedrooms at night.
The horns and siren faded, and from the master bedroom came the faint sound of the jazz station she liked. Not clear, though. That same annoying squeal from the cab all but blotted out George Benson’s airy guitar.
“What’s wrong with the radio?” she called softly.
“I don’t know, hon,” Steve’s voice drifted back. “It’s been like that all night.”
The radio cut off.
“Weird night for electronic stuff,” she said. “My phone wouldn’t connect. I tried you three times.”
“I know. I tried you too.”
Cyn slid everything from her briefcase into the mess of the open third drawer down a file cabinet plastered with flower stickers, her idea of sprucing up their office-nursery until they could find something larger.
Out of sight, out of mind, she thought. I’m sure not going to talk about the bank with Steve tonight.
She turned and leaned over the crib. In the dim light she was surprised to see Melissa’s bright-blue eyes looking up at her.
“I’ll get that drawer straightened out when you wake up tomorrow,” she whispered. “Nighty-night, sweet girl.”
She stroked Melissa’s fine blonde hair as her eyes closed and kissed her daughter goodnight.
Cyn hopped to the bedroom, kicking off her sneakers. She loved the feeling of getting out of sweaty socks at the end of a long day.
“Oh, I thought for a minute you were going to bring her in with us,” Steve said softly. He had just begun his own three-months leave as hers ended.
“I can —”
“No, it’s okay.”
She slid off her pants, laid them on the arm of the chair, removed her jacket, blouse and underwear, laid them neatly with the pants, and slid under the covers next to Steve. She pulled the sheets and bright Aztec blanket up to her chin.
Fortunately that sound on the cab’s radio wasn’t affecting the TV. Cyn rubbed her right foot against Stevie’s left ankle. Their favorite comedy was just starting.
“How’s Everon?” Steve asked. “Did you tell him I said hello?”
“Of course. He said to tell you hi. He seems happy. His solar panel production is expanding. He’s buying a jet.”
“Cool. You okay? You seem kind of down tonight.”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
He yawned, his foot traveling playfully up her leg.
“I was thinking,” he said, “maybe we oughta go shopping for a bigger bed?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she laughed, leaned in close, and kissed his neck. “This old double does have compensations.”
She rubbed his left foot.
Cynthia turned her head.
“Do you hear that?”
Time — slowed — down.
Off in the distance, what seemed like somewhere south, two sounds blended together — one low and growling; one high, like the howling whining wind of a hurricane.
They turned, only a confused, beginning fear in each other’s eyes.
As the first shock hit the building, Steve and Cynthia were drawn to an amazing thing. In the nursery, their three-month-old daughter flying into the air and falling into the open file drawer beside the crib.
The fireball lit the night beyond the brilliance of the sun.
To those like Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa, far enough for time to hear, the maelstrom roared, then sucked all sound to vacuum.
In the first five seconds the shock wave traveled one mile. By the time it reached East Sixtieth Street it was still moving faster than the speed of sound.
Out Penobscot’s slanting window, as the sonarman tried desperately to cling to the bulkhead doorway— to anything, he watched the horizon tilt, the cutter’s stern rising like a surfboard on a cliff of water, right at the George Washington Bridge.
Then the cutter’s nose dropped, straight down the face of the cliff.
Of the people in Manhattan, no one had time to think about getting their car out of a parking lot, across the Brooklyn Bridge, and onto Long Island. The East Side bridges were disintegrated within moments of that sound.
No one had time to consider getting a cab to take them through the Lincoln Tunnel. Giant balls of fire blew through all the tunnels within moments of that sound.
No one had time to take their money out of the bank. Or to convert it to gold. Or to think about what to wear. Or to decide what food to buy.
Within moments of that sound, chunks of building from the other side of Sixtieth Street blew through Steve and Cynthia’s bedroom to join those of their neighbors on the north side of the alley, dominoing uptown toward Harlem.
Such was the end of three hundred years of progress. Of fighting over an island fifteen miles long and three-point-five miles wide. Of racial warfare and welfare, neighborhood scams, gang war, corruption, and decay. Of tearing down and building back up. Of planning, zoning, and backroom politics. Of social-climbing parties of the rich and famous. And of giant structures that reached into the sky. Each a living, breathing monument to man’s greatest achievement.
Reason.
The firestorms would burn on for days. There was worse to come.
“Waaaa-hoooo!” the jet’s pilot shouted.
The night sky rolled around the windshield, and the sparkled earth was overhead.
The blond man’s fingers on the yoke held their assigned altitude perfectly.
“I don’t think,” his female co-pilot yelled back, “you’re supposed to do barrel rolls in a Leeeearjet, Everon!”
“Less than a hundred feet deviation!” he laughed as the corkscrew ended. You don’t think? . . . I’m supposed to do barrel rolls in a Learjet . . . ? Wahoooo!”
He took them over again.
Free of meetings, Everon Student thought. Free of traffic, free of the earth! There’s nothing like blasting at 300 knots across the sky!
Sadly, his attempt at getting Andréa Buer into the spirit of things wasn’t working. The petulant look on her face was growing, denying the intimate things they’d done minutes before.
“Relax!” he tried. “The Lear was developed from a Swiss fighter! The airframe’s certified to three g’s, but it’ll take more like six. We’re not even pulling a g-and-a-half. How often do you get to let your hair down at thirty thousand feet? Upside down?”
And over they went again.
It’s perfect! he thought. Not too big. Not too small.
Everon had worked very hard to afford the little jet. This was the payoff. He was going to own it! He’d flown plenty of jets, but always for other people. This one would be his.
He felt — what was it?
Giddy!
He laughed and took them over one more time.
There were actually two things Everon liked about this aircraft. The joy of controlling such incredible strength and agility. And in the seat to his right, the best-looking female pilot he’d ever seen.
He watched Andréa as they inverted.
Deep brown eyes, long red hair — beautiful!
Okay. She looked better without the greenish tinge. Maybe I should cool it. But this sure beats the hell out of flying commercial. I could get used to this!
The Lear was owned by Hunt Williams. His company was the largest electric power producer in east Pennsylvania and west New Jersey.
A few hours ago Everon and Hunt had had lunch together. Hunt had offered to purchase Everon’s solar power farms — one, west of Vegas; the other, south of Phoenix.
Everon said he didn’t want to sell Two-State Solar. But he’d be happy to trade Hunt all the solar panels he wanted for the jet. The older executive had already replaced the Lear with a big Gulfstream G400.
Everon and Hunt had made a deal.
Earlier, the flight out from Nevada with Andréa had been flirtatious, while she took him through the jet’s systems.
She’d mentioned seeing his picture on the cover of Entrepreneur. She had actually purred, recalling an old Gliding Magazine story about his US sailplane record out of San Diego. She’d claimed, one pilot to another, she’d been wanting to meet him for a long time. She’d even asked for his autograph, which he thought was pretty funny. That was a new one!
He’d obliged, scribbling his signature on a napkin from the jet’s tiny galley.
Andréa had given him a little kiss on the cheek when he handed it to her.
A gorgeous, lithe female pilot, he’d thought, with flaming red hair? Isn’t it only good manners to kiss her back?
He had.
She had seemed adventurous and provocative. But that was as far as it had gone. Until they left JFK Airport for Nevada.
Over New Jersey, he and Andréa had cleared the clouds, looked at each other, and simply started kissing.
She’d turned on the autopilot — not the only thing that got turned on. Her left knee had been against his right knee. A hand on the inside of his thigh to let him know what she wanted. He’d returned the move and felt the moisture building in the crotch of her knit pants.
The cockpit was close quarters. Instead of going back to use one of the foldout beds, for safety Everon had stayed in the pilot’s seat.
Andréa had unzipped his fly, rose from her seat, slid down her pants, and in one deft motion, turned sideways and engaged him. Her fingers had woven into his hair, taking him all the way inside at twenty-six thousand feet.
It had been intense. So incredibly romantic. Linked together, the stars above, the feel of her body, her lips on his.
Whew!
More alone than two people could ever be on the planet’s surface. Andréa Buer had proven to be a wild, insatiable woman.
Twenty minutes later he’d been demolished. Mile High Club? he’d thought. Hell — five miles high!
But Everon wasn’t the type who smoked or watched TV after sex. He needed to recover in his own way.
Once every muscle in his body had released its tension, he’d craved something to cap things off. They were over Pennsylvania when he’d let loose of Andréa, turned off the autopilot, and retaken control of the jet. Brought it up to thirty thousand feet to see what it could do.
Andréa’s sexual aggression had misled him. Believing, after what they’d done, her tastes would also be adventurous in flying, she’d surprised him by becoming a whiner.
Now, he regretted making love to her. Even flying with her.
He leveled out to the tinkle of glass breaking back in the cabin.
He frowned. “You okay?”
She gulped and glared. “Please don’t do that again, sir!”
“Sir? What’s this sir stuff?”
Before she could answer, the right wing dipped. Hard!
Andréa shot him an angry look.
“What an ass!” she muttered.
But the yoke was level and Everon had a death grip on it. He hadn’t done a damn thing!
“What the hell!” he shouted as the plane nosed over, bucking violently.
He twisted the yoke to level the wings and pulled back, trying to bring the nose up.
The jet was completely out of his control.
Into The Dirt
Everon’s hand beat Andréa’s by a second, pulling the turbines’ power back to zero. The airspeed indicator was already in the red.
Seeing his reaction, she added her strength to his, pulling against her yoke.
But the jet seemed to have its own idea. Hurtling them toward the ground, they were already down to twenty-eight thousand feet.
It was twice as difficult to pull on the controls face down, hanging from seatbelts that cut into their bodies. But preferable to being thrown against the windshield a foot from their faces.
“I think it’s coming up!” Andréa gasped.
The plane’s nose rose slowly. Its violent bucking was smoothing out.
“Five degrees!” Everon shouted. “Ten!”
Then another wave knocked them well over the falls, and the jet’s nose continued to rotate past vertical.
Everon feared the wings would be ripped from the fuselage. Blood rushed to his face. He clamped his teeth against the terror flowing into his skull with one word —
“PULL!”
The plane raced on, toward an impact that would spell their deaths in the dirt.
“Eighteen thousand feet —!” Andréa shouted.
“Fifteen thousand —!”
And the little Lear began to respond.
Much too slowly to suit Everon. Air screamed outside the cabin.
How much can the wings take? he wondered.
The nose came forward. Extreme tension in his arms, pushing with his legs, flight angle changing at a snail’s pace — ten degrees . . . twenty . . . thirty-five —
They rushed onward, below nine thousand feet.
At five thousand they regained the horizon.
“Hail Mary, full of grace,” Andréa muttered.
She took a deep breath, glanced at the flashing console lights, then reached up and shut off the high-pitched alarm pinging from their radical altitude loss.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I hate to say it, Everon,” she admitted shakily, massaging her stomach, “it’s a good thing you insisted we buckle these seatbelts, preceding your aerobatic unruliness.”
“I guess that sir stuff went out the window a couple of miles higher,” he said.
Andréa smiled weakly. “I guess so.”
“See what you can find on the radio, okay?”
“Okay.”
She found her headset on the floor.
“This is Learjet One-Oscar-Mike,” she transmitted. “New York Center do you read?”
Static.
She repeated the call.
“Nothing!” she said.
The jet’s displays flickered.
“Cleveland?” Everon suggested.
“We’re probably too low.”
She switched frequencies.
“One-Oscar-Mike, Cleveland Center, do you read?”
“Oscar-Mike, this is Cleveland Center,” a weak and broken voice responded.
“We were just hit by extreme clear air turbulence,” Andréa radioed.
“We’re receiving reports from all over the area,” the controller replied. “Say altitude and position.”
“Level at five thousand,” she said. “Over middle Pennsylvania. We took a sudden dive from flight level three-zero-zero.”
“No major storms on radar,” the controller replied. “Wait one —!
“Uh — Hold on —!” he said.
Everon and Andréa looked at each other.
“Word is,” the controller’s voice came back, “there’s something in the New York area. Stand by —!”
Everon whispered, “New York?”
He exhaled slowly into the night, thinking of Cyn’s apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, while Andréa scanned the instruments.
Everon turned to the right. “Breathe, Andréa,” he reminded her.
She let out a long blast of air.
“I wonder what — ?” she asked. “I’ve never felt turbulence like that!”
“Once in a hang glider,” Everon muttered. “Flying stupid, beneath a thunderstorm in Telluride, Colorado. When I was thrown inverted. Nothing ever in a powered aircraft —”
“One-Oscar-Mike,” the controller radioed. “All flight plans through New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut are being re-routed . . . Stand by . . . More information coming in!”
Andréa looked at Everon.
“There are only two possibilities I can think of,” he said. “Neither of them good. The one I’m most afraid of is a nuclear attack.”
“Nuclear?” she asked. “Could there be radiation here?”
“Probably not,” he said, “if this originated in New York. Predominant winds are west to east, right? On the other hand, EMP and the shockwave would extend in all directions. In terms of turbulence, much farther. I’m betting that’s what we hit — or hit us. But I’m not jumping to any conclusions.”
“We’re pretty far from New York!” she said.
“I know. That’s what worries me most.”
Illegal to use in a plane or not, Everon pulled out a cell phone and tried his sister.
It didn’t ring.
“The lines to New York must be down,” he said softly.
No! Cynthia! As long as —! Maybe —! Franklin!
He tried another number.
No response.
A single bar on the phone flickered on and off.
He glanced at the jet’s altimeter. They were flying west over Pennsylvania, still at 5,000 feet.
“Maybe we can lock onto a cell tower,” he said, “somewhere farther out.”
Ten minutes across the night sky the phone showed two bars. He tried again.
This time it rang.
“Hello?” responded a deep, crackling voice.
“Franklin!” Everon shouted.
“Hello?” came his brother’s voice. “Hello?”
Franklin couldn’t hear him.
On The Edge Of Reason
Franklin Reveal’s cobalt eyes followed the slender blue thread that held his life. Illuminated only by the beam of his pocket light, the thread disappeared into the darkness above.
He held his hook knife against the thread.
One quick cut, he thought. A long fall would be a good way to end your life — wouldn’t it? If you had the will and the presence of mind, you might even enjoy the ride down.
Then again, you might not.
The blue thread was dry twill climbing rope. Franklin hung suspended a hundred feet in the air. Off the lip of his favorite rappelling site.
A mile walk from a quiet road, alone in the dark Ohio state park, ignoring regulations, Franklin came to Ash Cave whenever he wanted to silence all the voices.
Trees towered beneath him. An owl hooted. An animal growled.
Maybe one of them will just chew through the rope and save me the trouble.
A gigantic shadow fluttered across the ancient walls.
It’s not a cave anymore, he thought. Its dome collapsed centuries ago.
He turned off his pocket light and looked up.
What remained of the cave was only an overhang, before a background of twinkling constellations.
Like my life.
Bold Orion, he thought. Sword hanging from a three-star belt at his waist. Never afraid, never conflicted about anything . . .
The Big Dipper . . . primitive man drew an angry bear.
Franklin saw a ladle.
What will it pour out next? he wondered. Hopefully something worth living for.
He looked from his knife to the nearly invisible rope. Back to the sky. He knew why he felt drawn to the stars tonight. Today was February 7. What would have been his mother’s birthday.
Born under the sign of Aquarius, she’d been fascinated with astrology. He’d never thought it made much sense.
Do the gravitational fields of planets affect personality formation during the months a fetus is growing in the womb?
He didn’t know.
He searched the sky, then remembered: You can’t see Aquarius in the north latitudes this time of year.
In the cold, still air, a crazed bat fluttered past his head in search of a midnight snack. With a gloved hand, Franklin pushed a lock of dark hair from his forehead. He watched the bat dive, like a spastic fighter plane, into the lighted circle around his Coleman lantern on the ground.
Doesn’t he know it’s too cold to be out here? Weird night.
Franklin rubbed a painful spot on his right shoulder. His eyes were adjusting to the night. Breath hanging before his face, he glanced at the knife. He didn’t know what was wrong with him.
“Why do I think of things like that?” he huffed darkly. “I help a lot of people at the church. I ought to use my methods on myself!”
He tried to remember where the negativity started.
The seminary? No, before that. But tonight’s depression is nothing like the fear those guys feel on the air transports — talking up that death-on-the-shoulder thing, trying to prove how brave they are, going into battle.
He hadn’t been in any sort of battle in a long time.
No, this is new. This is gray. Not even the mission that led to my leaving the Rangers caused me to feel this bad.
He’d joined the military to get away from the memory of a girl. He’d entered the seminary to get away from the thing he’d been a part of in the military. Maybe he hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he hadn’t done anything to stop it.
Now look at me.
He peered up the rope again.
Thinking about killing myself.
The guilt still stung.
Thank God for Cynthia. Sometimes family is all you’ve got.
Part of it, Franklin knew, was the warning he’d received this week from Ralph, his boss, the church’s senior minister.
“Stick to prayer!” Ralph had ordered. “No more hypnotic therapy sessions on our church members!”
Franklin rubbed a hand across his jaw. There was a dull ache in his rear teeth. He’d been feeling it more often lately — always after he’d spent all day at the church.
It doesn’t matter. Maybe nothing will ever matter.
But as he hung there in the air, his neck relaxed, the ache in his teeth faded. The bad feeling left him. He let the knife hang loose against his vest.
“It’s too quiet!” he laughed aloud.
Without conscious thought, his lanky frame stayed upright while he switched the rope to his right hand and peeled the earbuds off his fanny pack with his left. He pushed them into his ears. Pressed a button on the radio to scan for a local station.
“Ugh!”
Voices. A talk show. Isn’t there classical or jazz?
He tapped the button. The scan moved on. Tonight he needed something mindless . . .
It stopped on another station.
“More talk?”
“— this special report. At this point we have only scattered information.”
He was about to tap again, but the voice sounded strange. Shooting out words rapid-fire:
“All communications are out! Thought to be caused by a blast in New York City!”
“This can’t be real,” Franklin mouthed.
New York?
He froze.
“Cynthia!”
“At 8:01 Eastern Standard Time, an explosion, thought to be nuclear, was apparently detonated near New York City. It is unknown whether this was a terrorist attack or something else.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to communicate with our Manhattan affiliate. Damage must be extensive. Communication outages include all five boroughs of New York City, Long Island, parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, and east Pennsylvania —”
Franklin’s cellphone warbled.
He answered. “Hello?”
There was no response.
“Hello!” Franklin shouted.
He heard only static. Then, somewhere back in the noise was a voice he recognized.
“Everon?”
The connection cleared.
“Did you hear about New York?” his brother asked.
“Yes,” Franklin said. “On the radio. Just now.”
“Did they say what happened?”
“They didn’t know much. Communications aren’t getting through. They think a nuclear bomb went off.”
“I thought so,” Everon said. “Did they say where?”
“They didn’t know. Somewhere around New York City.”
“I hope Cynthia’s okay.”
“She’s on the Upper East Side,” Franklin replied.
“If it went off on the south end of the island, maybe she’s —” Everon’s voice faded.
“Everon! Are you there? We’ve got to find her!”
“Are you in Erie?” Everon’s voice came back.
“No, I’m in southeast Ohio, camping. Where are you?”
“What’s your closest airport?” Everon asked. “Doesn’t matter how small.”
“Bayne’s close, but I think it’s only a landing strip. You mean with commercial flights? Won’t they ground everything?”
“Bayne —? Southeast of Columbus?”
“Yes, that’s the one. About forty minutes away. Where are you?”
“I’ll pick you up at the Bayne strip in forty-five minutes.”
“Tonight? In the dark?”
But Everon had already disconnected.
Franklin’s heart pounded. He saw the bomb going off. The fireball. Buildings going down.
Cynthia!
He let the trailing rope run through the cam, dropping as fast as he could toward the light below.
Brothers Once Removed
The runway was too short, the jet’s speed too great. Its nose stayed up long after the snow burst around its tires. It plowed the air, struggling to stop before it hit the snow-covered trees.
From behind the bouncing headlights of Franklin’s ancient jeep it appeared the jet was almost in the trees. Its nose dropped and he could hear Everon standing on the brakes.
At the very last moment, the little jet spun, its stubby right wing clipping small branches.
Franklin pulled the jeep off the runway and parked on slanted ground in the snowy brush. He threw a coil of rope over his right shoulder, grabbed two duffel bags, and rushed to the jet’s open door.
“Hey, Bro,” came Everon’s worried voice as Franklin climbed inside. “It’s definitely nuclear?”
“That’s what the radio says.”
Franklin tossed his gear on a rear seat and buckled in.
A young woman with long red hair nodded, gave her name as Andréa, and pulled the door shut. She slid into the right seat in the cockpit next to Everon.
“Did they say anything about more bombs?” Everon called over his shoulder.
“Just speculation. That this won’t be the last.”
“Let’s not think about that,” Everon said. “Right now, Cynthia, Steve, and Melissa are all that matter.”
Franklin and Everon were step-brothers, related to Cynthia by one parent each. Once nearly inseparable, they’d seen each other rarely over the last fourteen years.
Ninety seconds later the jet’s wheels were off the ground.
While thousands of people streamed away from New York, trying to escape, Franklin, Everon, and Andréa headed east. Toward it.
Franklin watched through a slice of windshield between the cockpit seats. The sickening glow ahead was growing closer. The city was on fire.
He wondered softly, “Is this the beginning of the end?”
He closed his eyes, his stomach a knot of dread, and recalled a line from Revelation.
And there went out a horse that burned red. And power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, that they should kill one another. And there was given unto him a great sword to make war.
“There’s no GPS signal,” Franklin heard Andréa say.
“Any satellites above the blast zone must have been damaged by the bomb’s EMP,” Everon answered.
“Did you hear that?” Andréa asked.
“Can’t make it out. Too weak,” Everon said.
“It’s so dark,” Andréa answered. “Only the car lights to tell us where we are!”
“Maybe we can get radar vectors,” Everon replied. “Try Newark.”
“One-Oscar-Mike to Newark Airport!” Andréa radioed.
They waited.
“No answer,” she said and tried again. “Newark Airport?”
Franklin opened his eyes.
Between the cockpit seats he saw Everon glance overhead and flick a switch. A voice came from a speaker.
“Newark Airport is now controlled by military personnel,” a voice said. “All private and commercial aircraft are directed to find alternate landing facilities at this time.”
Everon turned to Andréa. “La Guardia?”
“That’s awfully close to Manhattan. I’d like to get out of the whole area.”
“Let’s see what they say, huh?”
Andréa radioed.
“Turn off!” La Guardia’s controller answered in a voice full of static. “All our runways are obstructed by debris.”
Franklin wished he could just throw open the door and rappel right down onto Cynthia’s roof.
Just to know they’re okay!
“JFK?” Andréa asked, changing frequencies, her jaw muscle bulging.
But a controller told them JFK Airport was being evacuated. It was beneath the bomb’s radioactive cloud.
Franklin felt each denial as a physical blow. He couldn’t just sit here.
He stepped forward and leaned between the cockpit seats. Picked up an aeronautical map off the floor. He scanned the map and pointed to a spot in New Jersey.
“What about this? Is TEB an airport? Looks like it’s close to New York. If it’s not too close.”
Everon glanced at the map, then nodded at Andréa. “Teterboro!”
She changed the radio frequency and called the tower.
There was no response.
“Look!” Everon pointed through the windshield. “That highway.”
He glanced down at the map and pointed. “We’re here.”
Andréa twisted her yoke, banking the jet.
“Teterboro area traffic,” Everon called, “Learjet One-Oscar-Mike — anyone know if the runway is useable?”
Nobody answered.
Minutes later, Andréa began a pass along the runway’s right side.
“How’s it look?” she asked. “I — I can’t see much.”
“No active planes on the field,” Everon said. “I don’t see chunks of debris or anything. The lights are pretty dim. The runway numbers aren’t clear. Maybe they’re covered with dirt.”
“There’s no beacon on the tower,” Andréa breathed. “No strobes, the runway lights are barely visible. I don’t know, Everon —”
“They’re probably on emergency power,” he said. “It’s the best we’ve got. Let’s take it.”
“Teterboro area traffic,” he radioed, “Learjet One-Oscar-Mike turning downwind. Runway Two-Four.”
Franklin buckled in.
How many planes are out here wandering around in the dark tonight? he wondered.
Andréa took a deep breath, turned, and entered the approach pattern.
Franklin thought, She’s ready to pull up any second.
“Not being able to talk to the tower is scary,” Andréa said. “If there’s something blocking the runway, this could be the last landing we ever make.”
“Learjet Oscar-Mike,” a voice said, “this is Gulfstream Six-One-Six-One-Sierra-Golf, about seven miles out. We’ll follow you in.”
Another jet, Franklin thought. Behind us.
“Okay, Sierra-Golf,” Everon radioed.
“Cross your fingers,” Andréa muttered.
She pulled back the throttles, and they descended rapidly.
The runway was wet when they touched down, and looked dirty, but there was nothing blocking it. Andréa taxied over next to two small jets parked by the airport fence.
Everon had the side door open before the jet stopped moving.
“Wait here!” he yelled, grabbing a briefcase, and disappeared.
Through the door, Franklin watched a larger jet set down on the runway they’d vacated. Two more landed, taxied over, and parked wing-to-wing.
Minutes later, a dark-haired man in a black leather jacket and a rail-thin blonde in a shiny red coat leaned their faces through the Learjet’s door. Both were well-tanned.
“Anybody know what’s going on?” the woman asked nervously.
“An Ohio radio station suggested the device might be nuclear,” Franklin said.
“We know it’s nuclear,” a man’s voice rumbled from the darkness behind the woman. “Had to be.”
A sudden bright glare appeared in the distance. A BOOM! reached them as the glow faded to red.
“What was that?” the woman screeched. “Was that a plane?”
A dozen smaller explosions followed. Helicopters zoomed overhead, their spotlights sweeping the landing area.
Franklin moved to the door and said, “Excuse me.”
The blonde in red backed up enough to let him step outside.
He edged into cold air that smelled of smoke. More people were gathered around the jet. Everybody was trying to talk at once.
A man, his chubby face pink with cold, said in a high voice, “A station we picked up over West Virginia said the Mayor of New York is missing.”
“They think he’s dead!” somebody else said.
“The deputy mayor’s in charge,” someone added.
“Where’s the President?”
Everon ran up, out of breath.
“Let’s go! I got us a helicopter. The latest weather briefing says we’ve only got a few hours to fly in, find them, and get out. Then the wind’s gonna change and blow the fallout back this way.”
“Everyone’s subject to military law,” said a dark-skinned man in a blue overcoat. “It’s on the radio.”
“We’ll see,” Everon said.
Franklin grabbed his gear. Everon took one of Franklin’s bags.
“I better stay with the jet,” Andréa said, as Franklin stepped back outside.
Everon didn’t answer.
“You’re going in there?” the woman in red called after them in a jittery voice.
But Franklin and Everon were already gone.
Everon and Franklin’s grandmother, Del Aires, opened the kitchen door at the rear of her ranch house in Pahrump, Nevada.
She stood about five-six, with light-gray hair, and slight of build, but possessed an unusual inner strength for a woman nearly eighty years old.
She was surprised to see Everon’s secretary Judy on the porch outside. A few inches taller than Del, Judy had brown hair and eyes, and a slim figure.
“You’re working late!” Del said.
Everon’s factory and solar farm were next door to Del’s house, on the other side of an asphalt runway. Judy had walked over.
Then Del noticed the look in Judy’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
“The factory phones are out. I can’t call Everon.”
“Something wrong with your cell phone?”
“It doesn’t work either.”
Del turned, and Judy followed her inside the house. Del lifted the old kitchen phone.
“Mine’s working,” she said. “I have a dial tone.”
“I did too,” Judy said. “But —”
Del tried Everon’s cell and put the call on speaker.
“This number is not in service,” said a recording.
“That’s the same thing I got,” Judy said.
Del tried Franklin’s number.
The call just sat there. No message. Nothing.
She hung up.
“That is odd,” Del said.
The phone rang.
Del picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Uh — hello. This is Hunt Williams with Williams Power calling from Pennsylvania. I’m trying to reach Everon Student.”
“Hello Mr. Williams. This is Del Aires, Everon’s grandmother. Everon flew to New York this morning. We’ve been trying to call him.”
“Yes, we had a meeting today. He should be back by now.”
“We haven’t heard from him.”
“I just spoke with someone who left the New York Power Convention early,” Hunt said quietly. “It looks like a bomb went off tonight in New York City.”
“What kind of bomb?” Del asked, voice rising.
“He thinks it was nuclear. The whole city is on fire.”
“Oh, no!”
Del’s head filled with images of flames surrounding her granddaughter Cynthia, Cynthia’s husband Steve, and their daughter Melissa.
“Our entire system is down,” Hunt Williams said. “We think because of EMP. Thousands of our customers have no power. Most of our engineers were at that convention. They were staying in the City tonight. I don’t know what we’re going to do. I need Everon’s help.”
Hunt sighed.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “Power is out all over the country.”
“Our power comes from Everon’s solar farm,” Del replied. “We’re fine.”
She hoped Cyn and her boys were okay.
“It took my family a hundred years to build this company,” Hunt said. “Tonight we’re down to one small diesel generator, chugging behind the control room. President Wall just shut down all the nuclear power plants, which will make it doubly tough to restart any of the East Coast power plants.”
“That idiot!” Del replied. “How are you able to call us?”
“I’m on my satphone. Service is intermittent, depending on what satellites are overhead. Any that were above New York when the bomb went off were probably destroyed by EMP.”
“We’ll have Everon call you the moment we hear from him.”
“Thank you. He has the number.”
They disconnected.
Del tried Cynthia’s number. She moved the phone from her ear as it emitted a noise she’d never heard a phone make before.
“That’s the sound my garbage disposal makes,” she told Judy, “when it’s grinding silverware.”
“I’m going back to the factory,” Judy said. “In case I can get a call through to Everon.”
“I’ll keep trying Cynthia,” Del replied. “And Franklin.”
Judy left.
Del turned on the radio and listened to commentators speculate about an East Coast bomb. When she couldn’t take any more, she shut it off.
Where, she wondered, are Everon, Cynthia, and Franklin?
