Final Winter

She let her voice rise. ‘What hyperbole? What exaggeration? Come on, Victor. You know your history. You know what we’re up against. Let’s say we do nothing about immunization. Let’s say that we depend on Monty and his bright young men and women to intercept the attack teams. I’m sure they’ll be successful in most cases. But they’re not perfect. Let’s say a handful get through…what next? You’re still looking at hundreds of thousands of deaths. Panic. Collapse of our economy. Perhaps even the end of us as a functioning superpower. What then? I’ll tell you what then. Meetings are held in Tokyo and Moscow and Paris and Berlin and even in poor London, and decisions are made. Compromises. Appeasement. Surrender. From the politicians in those nations who don’t want mass graves in football stadiums or wheatfields as a consequence of cooperating with us in our war on terror. And I know it’s a fucking cliche and all that, but by then the terrorists win. And how long before sharia — Islamic law — is imposed in Paris, in Amsterdam, in some of the Asian countries? How long?’

Underneath the table, Adriana could feel her legs begin to tremble. ‘You’re correct, Victor. There are terrible choices ahead for us. Quite terrible. But there are choices, nonetheless. One choice is to do nothing, and hope that our border security and other forces intercept the attack teams. The other choice is not to wait on hope. It’s to act, and I’m sorry, but that’s the only choice I think is available.’

She was about to continue speaking when the lights flickered.

Flickered again.

And then there was a loud thump, coming from above.

And in a moment, Monty and Brian were standing up, their hands now gripping pistols.

The trembling in Adrianna’s legs increased.

CHAPTER TEN

Hamad Suseel tried to ease the pain in his gut and the anxiety in his heart with the soothing thought that in a very few moments one of two wonderful things was about to occur. The first was that he was finally going to begin his jihad against the unbelievers, and if all went well he would be on his way home before the evening was out, thinking about the victory that he had achieved. And the second was that he was going to begin his jihad against the unbelievers, and if all didn’t go well he would still enter Paradise and meet his mother and father and older brother, and feel joy at such a reunion.

He drove his rental car carefully into the lot of what was called an office park. There were buildings of stone and glass, plain cubes that showed no beauty, no design. Not even that mongrel in this mongrel country, Frank Lloyd Wright, would have enjoyed seeing these pieces of crap built on such rich land. As a younger man, Hamad had dreamed of being an engineer or an architect, learning to construct better homes than those concrete pieces of shit that the UN built for his family and others outside Jenin, but the education he dreamed about never happened, of course. His education involved the endless intifadah, stealing copper wire and other metals for money, throwing rocks and paving stones at Israeli armored cars and tanks, and going to bed hungry at night while his father dozed in the corner and spoke dreamily during the day of the family farm that had been lost, back in 1948.

There was an old black-and-white photo of the family farm, creased and faded, which was passed around family gatherings, like one of the relics the Christians loved to possess and collect, and Hamad never had any patience for this reminiscing. Remembering past glories was the sign of losers. Like the Greeks recalling their ancient knowledge and the Italians their ancient empire, many of his family members and others were content to sit still and moan about their misfortune at the hands of the Jews and the British and the Americans.

But not Hamad. And especially not after that night when an American-built helicopter — an Apache Longbow, built in Kentucky — had been aiming for some visiting Iranian mullah in a Mercedes, traveling down one of the narrow and dingy streets of his village, and the first missile had missed the speeding car and had gone instead into one of those concrete cubes put up by the UN, hiring out corrupt contractors who poured cheap concrete and not enough reinforcing bars, so that when the missile exploded the two stories pancaked into a heap of dust and debris, crushing the bodies of his mother and father and older brother.

No, not after that night. After that night, Hamad cared about one and one thing only: to do whatever was necessary so that in a very short time what was left of America would have its people dreaming about and remembering their past glories, their past achievements, before the righteous in the world had risen up and had ground them into dust.

There. An empty space. He parked his rental car, felt his hands shake for just a moment as he switched off the engine. Where to put the keys? In his pocket? Or leave them in the car? What made the best sense?