Without Warning (19 page)

“Thank you, son,” he said as they pulled up at the edge of a crowded parking lot. “But a lot of people weren’t as lucky as me today.”

The lot was packed solid. Men and women in expensive-looking business wear hurried about with no apparent reason to their movements. He supposed that the civilian arm of government had gone over to emergency procedures as quickly and completely as the military. Until now, he’d been concerned only with the latter, but the governor’s office had requested his presence at this meeting as a matter of the highest urgency, and Ritchie had seen no alternative to attending. Apart from Seattle, which was perilously close to the event horizon, and Alaska, which was sparsely populated and still largely undeveloped, Hawaii was pretty much all that was left of the United States. But while she could defend herself, given the concentration of military forces in the islands, Ritchie wasn’t sure she could feed herself for much more than a few days. And with a quarter of a million men and women to pull out of a war in the Middle East, he really didn’t need to be distracted by food riots in his own backyard.

“Shall I park, here, sir?” his driver asked. “You don’t want to get jammed in is all, Admiral.”

“No,” said Ritchie. “Good point. Take the car back out of here. Get yourself something to eat, and then park somewhere in the district, but not here. This place is a mess. I’ve got your number. I’ll call you when I need you.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

Ritchie was pleased to see that the sailor checked the charge on his cell phone before answering. Just because he was young didn’t mean he was dumb.

“I’m sorry, sailor. What’s your name? I didn’t catch it in the rush before.”

“Seaman Horvath, sir.”

“Okay. Good work, Horvath. Take a break. I suspect I’ll be a little while.”

Stale sweat, fading perfume, and air rebreathed so many times it tasted sick and wrong. The contrast with his own headquarters couldn’t have been starker. Ritchie hit the corridors of the state capitol and ran headlong into mayhem. Spiraling turmoil seemed to be the general operating principle, the sort of witless hysteria you might expect on amateurs’ night at a Chechen bordello. Ritchie was buffeted by staffers and aides as they double-timed from office to office. A woman swerved to miss him, all elbows and high heels, and crashed into a copy machine that had apparently been pushed into
the hallway. She spilled a couple of hundred loose-leaf pages over the carpet, cursing like a chief petty officer as she dropped to the floor to gather them up. Hundreds of voices competed in the cramped space as people spoke over and past each other, all of them convinced that their own particular order, or request, or fragmented rumor was the most important piece of that moment’s puzzle. The media were everywhere, wolf packs of TV and print reporters threading through the upheaval, firing up shoulder-mounted cameras and thrusting microphones into the face of anybody who seemed remotely responsible for anything. Ritchie gripped his briefcase a little harder and pushed forward lest…

“Admiral. Yo! Admiral. Is the military taking over? Is there going to be martial law?”

And before he could dive into a side passage or broom closet one of the packs had suddenly fallen on him. Bright white light seared the backs of his eyes, temporarily blinding him and forcing him to squint against the harsh glare.

“Admiral. Are you here to take over? Are you going to run the emergency response?”

Ritchie couldn’t see who was asking the damn-fool questions, but he could sense a sudden press in the crowd around him as maybe a dozen or more reporters turned their attention toward the only symbol of authority in the immediate area: a man in a short-sleeved khaki navy uniform sporting four stars on his collar. A jabbering crush of journalists surged toward him, and without thinking he barked out an order.

“Stand back, please. Have some dignity, would you!”

Ah, damn it!

He’d reacted instinctively, allowing his dismay and surprise at the chaotic scene to get the better of him. But to his relief it actually seemed to work. There was a noticeable lessening of the disarray immediately around him, and Ritchie made an impulse decision to go with it.

“First off, drop the lights, please. I’m not answering any questions standing here like a piece of roadkill in the spotlight. Second, hell no. I’m not here to take over. What’s up with you people? You’re not children. Stop acting like them. Governor Lingle asked me here this evening to discuss what aid the armed forces of the United States of America might render to the civil power. And that is it. I don’t declare martial law. I don’t give orders. I follow them. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to do just that.”

Before he could step off and continue his journey, however, a small birdlike woman with enormous black hair pushed a microphone into his path.

“What can you tell us about what’s happened on the mainland, Admiral? Have the military been monitoring the phenomenon? What are you going to do about it?”

Ritchie was tempted to push past her, but he couldn’t help noticing how the ambient roar that had filled the entire building just a few minutes earlier had died away completely. A flicker of color behind the phalanx of reporters answered any questions he might have had about why. He could see himself on a television monitor in a room across the hall. This was probably going out live across the island. Possibly around the world. The urge to sit down, sigh, and rub his eyes was nearly overwhelming, but these people needed leadership and certainty just as much as any bunch of kids taking fire from the enemy. In the absence of anyone to provide that leadership, the buck seemed to have stopped at his feet for the moment. The admiral didn’t see any point in fudging the issue. He slowly bent and carefully placed his briefcase on a desk, the black, dead eyes of the TV cameras following every move. It gave him time to compose his thoughts. When he stood up again he spoke into near silence.

“Something terrible has happened back home,” he said. “If you’ll excuse me. My family is originally from New Hampshire. I can’t tell you a lot of what you need to know right now. I can’t say exactly what has happened, how or why. But you are right. We have been looking hard at this thing, throwing every asset we have at it. We’ve lost some more people in doing that, but I want to emphasize one very important point. Much of our armed forces were outside of the continental U.S. as of this morning. They remain intact and ready to make any sacrifice, to take any action necessary to protect you, the American people who are listening to this. Our friends and allies are helping us, too, and with that help we
will
get through this, I promise you.”

A beat of half a second’s silence followed his speech before the media pack erupted again, firing questions and demands for information at him. He was just about to wave them away when a booming Southern accent cut through the pandemonium.

“That’ll be all for now, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. You heard the admiral. He does have a very important meeting to get to. Governor Lingle will address you all live right after it—and no, I can’t say for sure when that will be, but you’ve definitely got a couple of hours to go get your horses fed and watered.”

The man’s voice was so powerful, his delivery so sure, it quelled the incipient press riot almost immediately. Ritchie was grateful, but bemused. As a resident of the islands he was familiar with some of the public faces of the
state administration, even though Governor Lingle had not been in office long. But this massive, roaring bear of a man was new to him, and Ritchie didn’t see how he could have missed such a figure—or a voice.

He was impeccably if heavily dressed in a three-piece blue pin-striped suit, and he took Ritchie gently but firmly by the elbow and propelled him through the ruck of journalists.

“Keep smiling,” he muttered. “Don’t let your fingers get anywhere near their mouths. And check to see if you still have your wallet and watch on the other side.”

His self-appointed guardian operated as a gentle but unstoppable battering ram, carving a path not just through the crush of reporters and cameramen, but also through the throngs of civil servants beyond them, many of whom stood and gawped at Ritchie when he passed by, almost as if he were some kind of celebrity.

“Guess I’ve had my fifteen minutes of fame,” he said.

“Not if you got any more performances like that up your sleeve,” his companion replied somewhat grimly. “Wish I could get a few others to turn it on like that. Jed Culver, by the way. Of the Louisiana bar. Originally. I run a consultancy out of D.C. of late.”

Ritchie awkwardly swapped his briefcase from one hand to the other and they shook.

“Admiral James Ritchie, Mr. Culver. You didn’t sound like a local boy.”

Culver steered him around a corner and past a couple of security guards who were doing a good job of pissing off a dozen or more staffers who insisted that they had good reason to be admitted to the inner sanctum. That’s what this part of the building felt like. It was less crowded and much quieter, and events didn’t seem to be spinning out of control quite so badly here.

“I was lucky enough to be on vacation with my family,” said Culver. “My immediate family at least, thank God. Anyway, I saw the news this morning and figured I would lend a hand if they wanted. Lingle’s main press handler was stateside.”

“You’ve done a lot of press management then?”

“Oh, yes. Real press, too. Hard men like Jimmy Breslin and Chip Brown. Not like these pussies. That was a great speech before, you know. Really nailed a few heads to the wall. That’s what we need right now. A big goddamned hammer and a whole bucket o’ nails to get things secured ‘fore they start flying off all over.”

They pulled up outside a closed office door. There was an indefatigable energy to Culver that you couldn’t help liking. A lot of spare mass was expensively
hidden away under that designer suit, but he looked like a man who could plow on for days at a time without a break. The island was probably lucky to have him. The heavyset lawyer rapped on the door and waited half a beat before pushing on into an anteroom furnished with two desks, behind which sat a couple of very stressed-out young women. One had three phones clamped to her ears and was writing notes on multiple pads. The other was stabbing at her telephone’s keypad, listening for a second, slamming down the receiver, and repeating the process all over again.

“Governor ready?” asked Culver. “I got the admiral. Pulled him from the mouths of the lions by my own hand.”

The second receptionist, the one having so much trouble making her call, nodded at them. “Go on through, Mr. Culver,” she said tersely. “They’re waiting.”

As Culver led him through, a thought occurred to Ritchie.

“Why pack the suit, if you’re on vacation, Mr. Culver?”

The lawyer smiled back over his shoulder.

“Ah, you’re a man who thinks like my good wife, sir. Come on, meet the governor.”

Culver seemed unnaturally assured of his place, given that he was little more than an interloper, but he’d obviously been of some help to the administration through the madness of the last twelve hours. There were any number of legitimate government officers trapped behind the velvet rope down the corridor who had more claim to be here than him. But here he was, and there they were, frozen out by a couple of state-sponsored bouncers. In a way, it gave Ritchie some hope. Perhaps things weren’t as disorganized as they’d seemed.

Governor Lingle was waiting for them just inside the office, flanked by a couple of suits. Her eyes were framed by the same haunted appearance he was beginning to recognize on everyone. If he looked in the mirror he’d doubtless see the same expression staring back.

“Admiral, thank you for coming down,” said Lingle, sounding very tired. “I understand you must be very busy. Please, sit down. We’ll get on with this as quickly as we can.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Ritchie, shaking her hand and then those of the other people in the room, whom the governor introduced as heads of various departments.

“How did the city look to you, Admiral, on your drive down here?” she asked.

Ritchie didn’t see any point in weasel words.

“You curfew isn’t holding, ma’am. It’s being widely ignored. The state troopers and police are using a very light hand. I wouldn’t say there was panic on the streets, but the stores will run empty very soon, and then you’ll see some real fear and probably some violence. There’s a lot of people trying to get out, tourists I suppose, although who knows. If you want my advice, do everything you can to get them on a plane with all dispatch.”

Lingle nodded and pursed her lips. Her staffers’ reactions were mixed. One bristled, two others nodded vigorously. Jed Culver remained impassive.

“I don’t want to see any more troops on my streets. In fact, I’d prefer not to see any out there at all, Admiral, and I’m sure you’d rather not have to employ your people here either, but it might not be a bad idea to prepare for the worst anyway. I’m sure you must have a plan in some bottom drawer somewhere for this sort of thing.”

“Not really,” he said, shaking his head. “But there’ll be something somewhere about aid to the civil power in situations of extreme crisis—a mega tsunami or supervolcano or something. It shouldn’t be beyond our abilities to adapt. But Madam Governor, if I may, there is a related issue I’d like to raise very briefly, that of executive authority.”

Culver and Lingle did an odd, unrehearsed double act. The lawyer leaned forward keenly on his chair, while the governor rubbed her eyes and sat back in her own.

“Go on, Admiral.”

Ritchie snapped open his briefcase and handed over a sheaf of documents.

“I had the JAG office here run up this briefer for you, ma’am. It’s about the line of succession. Realistically, the president isn’t coming back. Nor any of the cabinet or other nominated successors. In terms of elected officials who can assume the office of the presidency, it’s you, the deputy governor in Juneau, or maybe the Speaker of the state house in Washington.”

“Oh,” said Lingle, as an uncomfortable stillness wrapped itself around the room. “So, which one of us?”