Piranha: Firing Point

She was wearing a black miniskirt, holding the ten-foot handle of a paint roller, her feet bare on the wooden platform of a scaffold. It was Eileen. Her blond hair cascaded down past her shoulders as she dipped the roller in the red paint. She arched her body, rolling the red paint onto a curving wall above her, a few paint drops falling on the dress. Suddenly she looked over at him. Her face was a shattered and bloody pulp. He felt a desire to go to her, to hold her, but somehow knew she was angry. He wondered if she was angry at the loss of her face. She seemed so serious, not like herself, as she painted the curving wall in swift yet careful strokes.

Before he could open his mouth, she spoke to him without creating sound, without moving her lips.

Red subs, Mikey. You’re up against the Reds.

She started fading into the distance, the curved wall above her becoming a cylinder, a rudder appearing in the foreground, stern planes, a propulsor-turbine shroud.

The floating dock around the hull. It was the SSNX, its lower stern section now a gleaming red. Eileen still painted as she drifted farther away. She turned to him and shouted. Hurry, we’ve got to go!

“What?” he said, his voice still a phlegmy croak.

“Hurry, sir, we’ve got to go!” The voice wasn’t Eileen’s anymore. It belonged to a man…

“Sir, O’Shaughnessy’s plane is waiting. They said they’d call you — dammit,” Paully White said, picking up the dead phone, tossing it across the room. His voice became high and whining, filling with frustration. “Sir, what are you doing asleep at two-thirty in the damned afternoon? Christ.”

Pacino sat up, looking dazedly at his wrist. His Rolex was gone. He found it on the nightstand. “What are you doing here, Paully? What the hell is going on?”

White had found a remote control and clicked the widescreen to life. Pacino rubbed his hair as the reporter came up in mid-speech.

“… armored divisions crossed the White Chinese border at Zhengzhou and occupied the city within an hour. Meanwhile several tank divisions have crossed the northwest border in what seems to be a rush toward the central city of Xuzhou. In the south, several hundred infantry divisions crossed the border at Quangzhou in what appears to be a march toward Hong Kong. In the central regions, a mountain crossing has been accomplished by a dozen armored and infantry divisions in an attempt to cut off the north of the country from the south. The infantry and tank troops have been supported by hundreds of bombers, fighters, and helicopters of the Red Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

Details from the central campaign are sketchy, but so far White Chinese forces seem to have been completely surprised and overwhelmed, falling back and absorbing tremendous losses as the Reds advance toward the shores of the East China Sea. This is Christie Cronkite reporting for SNN, Tsingtao, White China. Back to you, Bernard.”

“Thank you, Christie. We turn now to Brett Hedley in Hong Kong, which in the last few minutes has come under air attack. Brett, can you tell us what’s going on?

Brett? Brett? We seem to have lost Brett due to technical difficulties; we’ll return to him in a moment. For those of you just tuning in, again, Red China has attacked White China in what looks like the biggest land offensive since the Battle of Iran. We go now to our presidential correspondent outside the president’s compound at Teton Village, Wyoming. Diane—”

White clicked off the widescreen and tossed the remote onto the bed. Pacino stared at the blank screen for a moment, his eyes wide, then looked at Paully White.

“What the hell…?”

“We can watch more of that on O’Shaughnessy’s 777.” Pacino rose to his feet, walking to the bathroom.

“We’re due at Andrews Air Force Base in an hour.”

The water of the shower came on, and Paully called over it. “That gives you about eight minutes to shower and pack.”

White found the remote and turned the TV back on, staring at it, barely blinking.

MARYLAND ROUTE 50 / 1595

OUTSIDE BOWIE, MARYLAND

The Lincoln staff car rocketed ahead at 135 miles per hour.

This time the state police had not been notified, because the phones and radios and Writepad links were otherwise occupied. When a Maryland trooper’s cruiser came up behind them, beacons flashing, the staff driver ignored him. Eventually the cruiser pulled up alongside the Lincoln, waving to pull over. Paully White, on the satellite phone, pushed a button to make his window clear. The black polarization vanished, and the intense afternoon sunlight streamed into the car. Still barking orders into the phone, he held up a sign, handmade by the aide riding in front, reading andrews air force base.

The sign and the emblem of the Unified Submarine Command on the car’s door must have suddenly made sense, for the trooper saluted and sped ahead, turning on his siren.

“You heard me,” Paully White said, again blacking out the window. “Defcon one, all Pacific Force submarines.