“I . . . I’m—well, certainly there is a level of readiness.” Both men knew that launch facilities that had been listed as fully operational had been found by the Kremlin’s inspectors to be abandoned and in ruins.
“A level of readiness. I’m sure. God only knows what would happen if they tried to launch. The whole country would probably be blown up. Our country!”
The missiles were old and liquid fueled, and many of them were so unstable that they could not even be removed from their silos, let alone fired.
“Perhaps the Ameris don’t know our situation,” Alexandrov said.
“No? All the Kremlin is a stage.” Putin chuckled. “We should dance and sing, provide some entertainment.”
This had once been Lenin’s office, bugged with radios disguised as filing cabinets. Now it was nanotechnology. Dust that communicated with satellites. You fight your way to the summit only to find that it is not power but the illusion of power that defines you.
“What is to be done?” Alexandrov asked.
Knowing all he knew, Putin could do nothing more than shrug.
“We can’t have Dream Angel,” Alexandrov said.
“Oh? Perhaps we want them to launch, but let’s not speak further here, not on that.”
“We must execute Case Forty,” Alexandrov said. “Our friends must.”
“It’s finished,” Putin said. Case Forty was the assassination of Aziz, the idiot who called himself Mahdi.
Alexandrov met his eyes.
“Yes, finished—as in, failed,” Putin said bitterly. Then he shrugged, looked up at the ceiling. For all he knew, there could even be video cameras recording his every gesture for the Ameris right here in this room. The Kremlin was a theater. “Case Forty has failed and we will not be heroes to the world. Aziz is in Pakistan now.”
“But how could he escape? Your man—”
“Dear Vladimir. Indeed, how could my man fail? Such a man? Aziz must have known that he was coming.”
“So we have a traitor?”
“You know what Stalin used to say—everybody is a traitor. So, yes, we have a traitor. We need a general purge.”
“Dare we do that?”
“To survive? Certainly. Kill them all. That way you can’t miss. Another of Stalin’s famous techniques.”
“I don’t have the apparatus to conduct a purge. I don’t have the informants, the trained teams of officers. That’s all gone now.”
Putin shrugged. “Perhaps the Bible has it right. Perhaps we’ve come to the end of time.”
“I can’t believe that.”
“Well then, you can believe this. Our intent was to unleash a nasty little cat to torment the Ameris. But that isn’t what we have done. We opened the cage of the nasty little cat, but there was a lion in the damned thing, and now the lion is running free, my friend, and anything can happen. Even here. They could come to Moscow.”
Alexandrov looked out the window, where the domes of St. Basil’s glowed in the artificial light that flooded the old cathedral. “Here? It’s unthinkable!”
Putin gazed also at the cathedral. “ ‘And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.’ ” He smiled his small and careful smile.
“What is that from?”
“The Revelation of John. From the Roman Bible.”
“Ah, yes. But still, it’s about Rome, not Moscow.”
“The world is Rome, you fool!” He laughed now, as cold a sound as Alexandrov had ever heard. “I don’t know that Aziz will win. The Mahdi! And the Muslims believe him. They’re rejoicing!”
“Carpet-bomb Chechnya.”
“We’ve done enough suppression there. Anyway, we’d need our own version of Dream Angel.” He considered for a moment. “I will tell you this, Alexandrov: we have lost a war nobody knew we were fighting.” He raised his eyebrows, a smile touching his lips. “Including us.”
Alexandrov knew when to leave him alone, and quietly withdrew.
COMMUNICATION FROM THE MAHDI OF THE EARTH OF MUSLIM PEOPLE
GLORY TO GOD, THE CALIPHATE OF ETERNAL PEACE IS COME.
THE END OF TIME IS HERE.
Because the Crusader King, William Johnson Fitzgerald, did not perform sadaha, and the Christian churches were not closed, and an apostate decadent and fallen Muslim danced on the balconies of the greatest of these palaces of sin and evildoing, there has been a serious consequence.
An attempt has been made, also, upon the life of your guide, but as he is held hidden yet in the folds of Allah’s robe, he remains with you, and no amount of Crusader treachery can ever kill him or capture him.
Now, in view of the continuing Crusader apostasy, hear your Mahdi.
The law of Šar’ah is enacted throughout the world, and replaces all other law.
You who suffer under the burden of debt, rejoice, for God has said it: your debt is canceled, and any trading in debt or with debt is liable under the Law. Further payment of debt will be punished under the Law. Extension of credit will be punished under the Law.
The existing authorities are ordered to arrest the money changers of the world, and the masters of debt, to wit, the chairmen of the leading banks, a list of whom will be sent to the kings and emperors of the world. And any citizen may also arrest them and bring them to prison, or imprison them himself, for the Glory of God and the Sanctity of His Word.
The use of intoxicants is forbidden now.
The apostate laws of marriage are ended, and now the only legal marriage is between professing Muslims. Divorced people may only marry other divorced people. The giving of proper bride wealth is obligatory for any wedding from today.
Women must strive to cease working at jobs outside of the home, driving automobiles, and going about uncovered. Gradually, the Law will be enforced, as women learn the happiness that it brings them. Adultery by man or woman, properly confessed or witnessed according to law, is punished by stoning until dead.
Sanctions against slavery are ended, and the holders of slaves may now go openly with their slaves.
All executions are now public. Crime is punished according to the Law. The thief must lose his hand, the murderer his head, and so on.
Criticism of Mohammed is no longer allowed, and to those who have the Crusader taste for satire and derogation, your Mahdi urges you: reflect carefully, for you are no longer free to curse God or his prophet.
We repeat, for the last time, that the Crusader King William Fitzgerald must at once perform sadaha before all mankind.
The Crusader King has an evil plan called the Dream Angel, which even at this moment is poised to visit death upon hundreds of millions of Muslim people. If the jets leave the fail-safe points where they are now cruising, fifty Crusader cities will be at once put to the atomic torch.
We have spared the Crusader capital, because the flagrant apostasy of the pope could not go unpunished. But unless all of the requirements listed here are met, the Crusader capital will be destroyed at midnight tonight, and it will then be known that the pure and noble forces of Allah cannot be stopped.
The glorious Day of Standing is upon us, and your Mahdi rejoices with you, in the name of Allah the Most Holy, and Mohammed who is his prophet.
30
LITTLE MARY SUNSHINE
The destruction of the Vatican and the burning of Rome brought silence to the world. The streets, which in some places had been full of protestors and in others revelers, now became empty. Most TV and Internet outlets simply posted a copy of the Mahdi’s latest statement and left it there without comment. Radio stations recorded a reading of it, and repeated the recording over and over again, afraid to say anything else.
President Fitzgerald huddled with his family in the stripped wreck of the residence. He had not gone into the West Wing in days. When he spoke, it was in a whisper, to avoid being overheard by any listening devices that h
is attempt to sterilize the place had missed. He’d had the windows boarded up and covered with carpeting, to thwart laser-based listening, and with tinfoil, in a layman’s attempt to scramble radar and microwave systems.
He feared that the penetration of the government might have turned the surveillance capabilities of the U.S. intelligence community against its master. Not because it was probable, but because he could no longer be sure.
Thus the place looked like the lair of a madman, Howard Hughes or some such. To an extent, it was probably useful if those who came here went away whispering about Fitzgerald’s sanity. Let the new Mahdi hear rumors that he was unstable. Perhaps he would become overconfident, and be drawn into some sort of mistake.
Fitz stared at the latest pronouncement, delivered to him by his own son on a sheet of paper. Dan lingered near. Linda and Polly were in the president’s bedroom, which he and Linda shared. That one room he had left untouched. They were under strict orders to speak of nothing important there. For his part, he stayed out. When he slept, in uneasy fits and starts that were more like falling than falling asleep, he did it on a cot brought in by his Marines. “Rome,” he muttered.
“Dad?”
All the terror, all the rage, boiled up in him, blasting up from his deepest heart like bloodred lava. “Rome! Rome Rome Rome!”
Dan drew back. An uneasy Marine pushed open the door.
“I’m going to do it,” Fitz said. Four words, softly uttered by a man who wished to the great God that he had never heard of politics.
“You mean . . . release Dream Angel?” Dan asked.
Fitz laughed in his son’s face—barked it out, the bitter snap of it made harder by the flat echo off the stripped walls.
“I’m going to go out there”—he pointed vaguely toward the Rose Garden—“and I’m going to do sadaha.” He felt himself crumpling, his heart echoing like an empty cave, and then Dan was trying to hold him, his good son, strong son. Fitz added, “We can’t win. Not against this—this monstrosity. We need God and we ain’t got God, have we?”
“Of course we do,” Dan said.
Fitz advanced on the two young Marines in the room. “Out!”
They looked to Dan, young eyes darting under their helmets. Dan gave them a curt nod, and suddenly Fitz saw him as a sort of savior. Dan had the answers. Dan could retrieve this situation.
“What do you think I should do?”
“Dad, if we don’t release Dream Angel, Polly and I are going to live under Šar’ah law. That’s going to be your legacy.”
“They’ll burn our heart out! Burn it out! Fifty cities!”
“Unless it’s a bluff.”
A rush of tingling raced up his arms, followed by swaying nausea. He moved quickly to a chair, immediately sank down in it. “Yeah,” he said. “Kennedy played chicken. I guess I can.” And then he saw it, saw it clear. “I will go down there and I will shout that ula ula shit for our little fucking unkillable Mahdi; then I will wait one hour.” He went close to Dan, embraced him in a hug that made him stiffen. They were not a touchy-feely family. Fitz tried to stifle the loopy mirth that was coming up but couldn’t. Looming like a great, mad golem over his son, he giggled. “Then,” he managed to say, “I will release Dream Angel.”
“Dad . . . it’s a plan.”
“A good plan!”
“Why wait, though?”
“Throw him off.”
“The second those planes lock onto their courses and the cruise missiles are launched, he’ll know.”
“These are primitive people. They’ll be celebrating. Rattling goddamn bones.”
“They are not primitive. They’re smart and effective. You can do sadaha. Who knows, maybe it will throw them off. But you better sure as hell move Dream Angel out at the same time.” He seemed to swell before his father, and Fitz saw in him all the power, the pile-driver instinct, of their clan. “Break ’em, Dad. Break ’em! Because I don’t want to live like that, and I’m telling you, nobody does, not even the Muslims—the normal ones, that is.”
The moment Fitz had considered releasing Dream Angel, his next thought had been of the fire in the cities, London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid—who knew, perhaps Moscow and Beijing, too, and why not Tokyo, LA, Chicago, and, certainly, old New York? “ ‘What candles may be held to speed them all?’ ” he said. “ ‘Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes / Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.’ ”
“ ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth,’ ” Dan said. “Wilfred Owen. Verboten, now, under Šar’ah.”
Dan suddenly seemed like a comic figure, somebody from the Sunday funnies, a capering, grinning goon. Fitz had to literally fight the urge to slap him down, it was so strong. He compelled his fists to open, compelled his mind to push away the savagery that was a hair’s breadth away from possessing him. “Okay,” he said, “time to chop-chop. Logan!”
The outer door opened immediately, and his chief of staff came in.
“You sound like you’re walking in socks even when you’re not,” Fitz commented. “That’s a joke, Son.” He turned to Logan. “Okay, my dear—” He went close to him, gazed into the eyes. Sad, sad! “We are going to do this so-called—what’s it called, Son?”
“Sadaha.”
Logan took a deep breath. “Sir, the entire cabinet is downstairs, and I think you owe it to the system to at least enter the Cabinet Room.”
“Ah, yes, of course I do. I owe them! I owe everybody! And hell, it’s real convenient, because now that slavery’s coming back, I can literally belong to everybody! Snap your fingers, here comes Fitz. The ultimate in public service. Cabinet Room, sure. Boots to lick, here I come!”
He saw Logan’s eyes flicker toward Dan, then come back again, not reassured. Fitz continued, “You know, you two fellas know me by the moles on my damn butt. But lemme tell you. I am light-years away. I look like I’m here. Yeah. But I am not here. I am way out on the far edge, and the wind is blowing from behind and I am looking down, and sliding closer, and while you guys are in the White House, the truth is, I’m looking down from this terrible precipice. And I know what I am seeing. It is the abyss.” He clapped his hands. “Dresser! Suit me!”
The bedroom door clicked. Cracked a little. Opened. Linda and Polly came out. “We released the staff,” Linda said. “But I can straighten your tie.”
Polly stood to one side, shoulders hunched. He knew her when she was like this, his pouty willow of a girl, her fifteen-year-old face capable of so easily breaking his heart or mending it, or sending it with her slightest smile into high orbit. “Hey, girl kid, you don’t look so hot.”
An eye rolled on the visible side of her face, rested on him for a moment, then looked away.
“You need makeup, too,” Linda told him. “You look dead.”
That made him smile, proving, he thought, that corpses can. “Just a little tired,” he said.
“Daddy!” Polly’s face was hard now, gray and gleaming, a wax effigy, or something left behind by a vampire.
“Honey?”
“You’re going to surrender.”
“I am going to try to buy us some time.”
“If you surrender, and we have to go into purdah, Daddy, I am going to commit suicide, and I’m not the only one.”
“Polly!” Linda said. “Don’t pressure him like this!”
“Mother, he has to know that I won’t be the only one! I am not going to go into this slavery that these crazy people have for women! What’s wrong with being a woman? A woman is a beautiful thing, a woman is a gift from God, a woman is equal. Equal, Daddy!”
“I know it! And I am not going to surrender. Perhaps, create that appearance. But, darling, I swear this to you on my heart and on the blood of my mother, I will not let this nightmare come here. No matter what it takes, they will not succeed.” Whereupon he heard, as distinctly as if he had been a comedian dying on a stage, a ripple of sinister laughter, and thought, immediately—no, knew—that this was a symptom. His first definite symptom o
f psychosis. He’d been expecting it, because his reading of history told him that one of the primary things that drove leaders mad was being trapped between two unbearable alternatives. Leaders who had infinite power but were imprisoned by profound vulnerability—Nero came to mind, who had been excellent, then gone mad—lost their hearts, their minds, their souls. Such leaders could kill a quarter of a billion people without a qualm. It was a road Fitz was going down, and he knew it, and every step he took he went a little faster.
Out there in the dark, across the whole world, the ships waited, the planes.