Divided States, page 27
When she’s done freeing Hansen, Lori tosses the pliers to Jeremiah.
Then she puts two each into Dust Devil and Prickly Pear before handing the rifle to Hansen, who bolts for the door.
Lori’s in the hall but still catching up when they hear a burst of gunfire. He stops and holds up a fist.
“At least two rifles,” he says. “Maybe more.”
They listen. More gunfire. Hansen flicks his fingers forward and Lori follows him down to the nurse’s station, then right. Another shot, then one more before a gravelly voice shouts.
They’re are still walking down the hall when the double doors burst open and two new men appear, both in black tactical gear and pointing short-barreled rifles.
“Hold your fire,” says a voice from behind them. She’s still searching for a match when the face appears.
Hansen curses, then lowers his weapon.
“Novak.”
53
ERIC
Eric’s the last one Reynolds snips free. He tries not to read much into it, especially since they’ve been hearing gunfire for the last minute or so.
But with full use of their hands, everyone—including the one suffering from pulmonary edema—seems ready to head into the fray without weapons or body armor.
Moore walks over to Eric while the soldiers talk strategy in their corner. “Assuming Boudreaux and Hansen were able to get the better of Taggart and his men, you need to figure out how to stop the nuclear detonation in Cushing. They smashed my cell, but last I checked my contact in China said they weren’t going to launch anything until someone attacks them.” He turns to the wall with a round analog clock. “We’ve got less than twenty minutes before the Allied Nations think Iran has joined China. There’s no holding off after that. It wouldn’t surprise me if President Ramirez has already put the USA into snapcount, though I don’t know how many missiles would launch.”
The only way to make sure China doesn’t either nuke more cities or detonate one at high-altitude is to stop Novak. Then they can worry about contacting Alex Ramirez in Philadelphia.
“Is your cell backed up online?”
“Yeah, but I’ve never tried to access the cloud account outside of The South. You think it’ll work here?”
“Most hospitals have access to the open internet since they have to transport patients internationally. It’s worth a shot to see if you can access your contacts and call Anderson, let him know what’s happening.”
Moore walks to the conference room door, joining Reynolds and MacLaughlin.
“I’m going to head back to the offices and see if I can call out to someone for help,” Moore tells them.
Reynolds looks over his shoulder at Eric. “Your girlfriend joining you?”
Screw you. But instead of saying it, Eric walks toward the group. “I’ll help him. We’ll come and get you when we know more.”
Reynolds nods and opens the door. He and MacLaughlin take off with military precision to the right, while Moore and Eric break the other way. They’re nearly to the office doors when an explosion draws their attention toward the hall.
Thick smoke drifts their way, as does shouting.
“Flashbang,” Moore yells before opening the door and pulling Eric inside.
Moore slams the door and together they race behind the messy desk of Dr. Rahul Patel.
“Sounds like Boudreaux and Hansen didn’t overtake the guards,” Eric says. “I thought there were only two and Taggart. How the hell did they get the better of—”
The door flies open, and a canister ricochets off the wall and the desk.
* * *
After his sight and hearing return, Eric sees the conference room. He’s in another chair and handcuffed again. The rest of the group is present at the table, all hurting from the flashbangs.
As he blinks away more of the smoke, Eric realizes there are two new faces.
The doctor, who’s sitting beside Reynolds.
And Novak.
He turns to one of the new guards, who seem much more capable than the yokels Taggart had been using. “Everyone accounted for?”
The guard nods. He’s not intimately familiar with them, but Eric assumes these guys are Republican Guardsmen. When he was on the phone with Robb, Novak was in the background saying they were running late. Eric hadn’t known what he meant, but he never imagined Novak and Robb would be catching a jet.
Eric finishes scanning the room. The bodies of Dust Devil and Prickly Pear have been shoved into the back corner of the crowded room. Novak has seven of his Guardsmen and Taggart.
Only one person’s missing.
“Where’s Robb?” Eric asks.
“Well, now I know it was you who called earlier,” Novak says. “Robb was a blubbering idiot. He broke on the way to the airport. Didn’t give up your name, though. Something to remember him by”—he checks the inside of his wrist—“for a little while longer.”
Why the hell is Novak here? If he’s supposed to be handling the nuclear situation for President Cole, what good is he in Oklahoma, let alone this tiny hospital in this tiny town. And why risk being so close to the blast? It was dangerous enough just flying into and driving through the snowstorm.
Eric’s default is to think a situation through. Analyze it to death until the answer presents itself. But he doesn’t have days to do that. Or hours. He barely has minutes, so there’s only one course of action left.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Novak leans toward one of the guards and says something. Eric’s ears are still ringing, so he might’s well be whispering. But whatever Novak says, the guards spring into action and begin rifling through the pockets of their hostages.
“First,” Novak says, “you should know it was always going to end this way. Right here in this hospital.”
The henchmen are Republican Guard, based on the sleeve digging into his pants pockets. He pulls out a keyring and wallet, his cell having been confiscated and presumably destroyed in the field just south of the Kansas Territory border. His items are slid into the middle of the table with the rest. Among them are a cellphone somebody must’ve kept hidden from the previous guards and a piece of crumpled up paper with sloppy handwriting.
Novak walks to the table and picks up the phone. “Why, Doctor Hosseini, you’re a sneaky one. That wasn’t necessary for this to work, but hopefully you’re even shadier in real life than we planned on making you look.”
“Sir, please, you’re making a mistake. My name is Doctor Rahul Patel. I’m from India originally—”
“Cut the horse shit,” Novak says. “I know all about you, Doctor Sasan Hosseini. Hell, you’re the key to all of this. I mean, Cushing was always one of our targets, but we could easily have sent the cruise missile here after saying Iran bombed any place in the country. But with an Iranian-born doctor practicing in the very same province, our story is that much more believable.”
Novak has a patsy. But how would a doctor in Farefax, Oklahoma, sneak an unknown nuclear bomb onto the continent? More importantly, how would Novak’s story hold once the material was tested? Scientists can tell which area of a nuclear facility a sample comes from. No, lying about the origin of the bomb or the delivery logistics wouldn’t work.
Unless Hosseini’s alleged involvement in ends with the planning and payoff. Those elements can be faked by anyone with the right computer skills. Then the source and movement of the bomb don’t have to be faked.
Novak doesn’t have a patsy.
He has a group of them.
54
JEREMIAH
Novak’s going to blow up a town and blame it on this poor soul. The documents he forged were really Dr. Hosseini’s ticket to hell on this Earth.
Novak’s too sick to just shoot him. He’ll turn Hosseini over to the Joint Republican Council, which oversees the elite counterterrorism force for Texas and Oklahoma. Novak will say he discovered Hosseini’s plan and couldn’t quite foil it in time to stop the detonation in Cushing, but another attack is imminent and only Hosseini knows when and where. The Councilmen will take it from there.
Unless Jeremiah can sort through this cluster.
“You’ve made your point,” he says. “China’s already on the brink of war after you bombed Southern California, and you have, what, a dozen more long-range missiles on that bomber? That’s enough threat to get the Allied Nations to fold. You don’t need to kill thousands more and ruin this man’s life.”
“You had your chance to die with dignity back at the plant, but you chose your ex-wife over the greater good. Fortunately, my priorities didn’t change so drastically after I left the military.”
“You were kicked out for being a nutjob,” Jeremiah says. “You don’t even live on the same planet we do.”
“Which planet is that?” Novak starts pacing the room, a college lecturer finding his element. “The one whose storms are getting exponentially worse? The one that produced the epic blizzard outside? That forced New Orleans to build that monstrosity of a wall to protect its people against super hurricanes? The one that made Los Angeles a wasteland long before today’s nuclear strike?”
“And nuking the continent off the face of this apparently awful planet’s going to help?”
Novak stops. “I’m only detonating one more. And, yes, it’ll bring a nearly instant end to our dependence on oil.”
Fowler croaks, as though he tried to stop mid-giggle. “You think shutting down oil trading’s going to suddenly turn the world onto green energy?”
“Not suddenly. Because without forty more years of progress—and people at the top committed to that—the science’ll never be advanced enough to plug the oil wells. But if they don’t act quickly, if they don’t realize what’s best for the world is best for the individual, they’ll let the planet turn into a Stephen King novel.”
“It’s unreal how crazy you are,” Jeremiah says.
Novak glances at the clock. “I have enough time to explain it so even you can understand. After all, Dr. Hosseini should know a few details if he hopes to deliver a reasonable confession to save his family from the same torture he’ll undoubtedly receive from the Councilmen.”
Dr. Hosseini, who had been quietly sitting beside Mac, begins sobbing uncontrollably. She can’t properly console him, but she leans over and talks softly.
“So right now the truck Reynolds and his team snuck out of Amarillo—”
Jeremiah spits in Novak’s direction, but he doesn’t have enough saliva to make it dramatic. Dom tries hocking one, but the adrenaline dried him out, too.
“As I was saying, your semi is parked outside the Columbus Petroleum Terminal just south of Cushing. It’s one of the few places West Texas Intermediate crude is physically delivered. Columbus also helps set the sulfur content and specific gravity for WTI.”
“And they’ll find somewhere else to get their specs and be trading within the week,” Fowler says.
“That’s a possibility. But that’s just future money. Might’s well’ve come from old Pennybags himself. Blow up the pipelines near Cushing, and more than a dozen major companies lose out on the three million barrels of crude that flow through them every day. At close of business last year, the price of oil was hovering around seventy-five dollars a barrel. So, in addition to the markets losing their billions in futures, the companies will lose a cumulative total of about two hundred twenty-five million dollars a day.”
Jeremiah’s never been one for math or budget sheets, but he’s beginning to grasp the magnitude.
“And that place’ll be radioactive for years,” Novak says, “meaning that money only gets recouped after they invest in new pipelines and related equipment to skirt the area.” He turns to Fowler. “You more than anyone knows how much that’ll cost.”
Fowler doesn’t speak, but his bulging jaw muscles say enough.
“And what about Cushing’s famous storage tanks? Those eyesores can hold up to ninety-one million barrels, but let’s call it an average of seventy-five. And let’s say the price of oil drops by twenty-five points almost instantly. Even at fifty dollars a barrel, you’re looking at nearly four billion dollars evaporated into thin air.”
Novak starts pacing again, and everyone—even Jeremiah, God help him—tracks his movements. “But the panic will be much worse than four billion in instant losses. Oil’s becoming as valuable as diamonds. There’s maybe forty years of the stuff left inside this dying planet, so anybody in that game was banking on the price going up. Most of the major firms probably thought that four billion was really more like seven billion, which is why they’re all overleveraged and have invested those trillions in borrowed capital. And the money that trickled down to the contractors has been going into cities and towns all across the Rural Bloc, and they’ve all set out budget projections using those numbers. Hell, think about what happens to the fifth-wheel camper industry when the pipeliners and other contractors can’t get work?”
“The industry flatlines,” Fowler says.
“Oh yeah. And think about the drillers. Why would a company keep pumping ancient swamps out of the ground when they have nowhere to store them? Refineries only have so much capacity, and that was before the pipelines that get the finished products out were blown up. But let’s say they can offload that. How will they get more crude to refine? Can’t take sour and heavy crude unless they’re set up for it, and those modifications take millions of dollars per refinery.”
Novak takes up a post behind Fowler and puts his hands on his shoulders. “Nearly every single pipeline that runs to nearly every major refinery on the continent goes through that little town south of here. Doesn’t it?”
Fowler nods.
“So,” Novak says, “it won’t be long before the continent is no longer producing gasoline. And diesel? Well, that’s a byproduct of refining the gas, so you can’t have one without the other. Looks like the electric car guys out on the West Coast will be happy. Until the asphalt shortage creates a lack of drivable roads. And so on.”
Novak sounds so confident, it’s hard to remember that he’s a stark-raving lunatic. Though for all the crap he’s talked on K and his morons, they do have the world in a vice right now.
“I know you think I’m crazy,” Novak says. “But why do you think all the dystopian movies have gas as the most valuable commodity left on the planet. So, faced with that possible outcome, why wouldn’t an alliance of governments come back together to both stop a nuclear war and to ensure that the continent’s citizens have access to the fuels that still make society possible.”
Fowler jerks so violently Novak steps back. “You’re exactly right, and that threat can still work. There’s no reason to do the deed. You still have time to call it off and give the Allied Nations a chance to do the right thing.”
Novak tells his men to lower their weapons. “See, that works in a perfect world. But it doesn’t account for the ignorance, greed, or tendency for people to feel invincible. That’s how we got into this mess to begin with. Without consequences that hurt the elite in their own bank accounts and food supplies, nothing changes.”
Jeremiah shakes his head. “Jesus H. You think you’re the good guy.”
“My ends are justifiable. Just as yours were when you chose to drive out of the plant with the nuclear weapon that will fix the current plagues on our society.”
The crazy man releases Fowler and walks to Dr. Hosseini. “Now, doctor, you’re smart enough to have understood what I just laid out. I suggest you memorize it as best you can. The more forthcoming you are with the Councilmen, the better it’ll be for you and your family.” Novak looks across the table at Lori. “Now, you won’t be expected to know all of this. Hell, I need you to deny till … well, you know the rest.”
PART IV: EMERGENCY DISABLEMENT
55
LORI
She knows the rest of that phrase, but not the rest of Novak’s plan, which is what she needs. Because she’s going to stop him.
Or go down trying.
If Lori can go out being righteous again, even for a moment, she can handle death. But to get her chance at redemption, Lori needs more information.
“If the doc’s your fall guy, why keep me alive?”
“We need someone to satisfy the world’s bloodlust.” For the first time since he arrived, Novak’s eyes stop conforming to his smug, cool act and reveal the crazed lunatic underneath.
“See, the good doctor here can’t act like a terrorist,” Novak says. “But if he’s smart, he’ll tell them he was approached by someone from the Iranian government while working in Los Angeles who convinced him to move, scout the area, and help plan the Cushing strike in exchange for the millions of dollars now in his account. Then they keep paying him as he recruits the rest of you for his piece of the mission.”
Dr. Hosseini begins rocking in his chair and repeating words that Lori assumes are a prayer.
“But the doctor here’s only a useful idiot. You, on the other hand, have a long history of violence that’ll be fed to the media, including the incidents that led to your father’s discharge. And you’ll resist interrogation, which means the Councilmen will be granted permission to torture you. And let me assure you, Retired Detective Gloria Young, you will reach that breaking point and reveal your role in this plot just to stop the pain. After that, the country will rally around your public execution and demand the world’s governments take action to restore peace.”
