Triggers

Kadeem’s breathing was ragged. The air he was taking in was cool, but his memory was of searing hotness. He wanted to shout for Singh to abort, abort, abort! But he bit his lower lip and endured it.

The village was growing closer. Iraqi men in desert gear, women who must have been sweltering in their robe-like black abayas, children in tattered clothes, all coming to see the approaching convoy. Greeting it. Welcoming it.

Kadeem tasted vomit at the back of his throat. He fought it down and let the memory wash over him—all the screams, all the pain, all the evil—one last time.

Sharpshooter Rory Proctor continued to watch the activity on the roof of the White House from what he hoped was a safe distance. He was angry and worried: the nation had been pounded for months now by al-Sajada. How much more was yet to come? How much more could this great country take?

He’d tuned his headset to pick up the appropriate police channel and was listening to the running commentary from the man operating the bomb-disposal robot: “I’m going to try cutting into the side of the enclosure so that we can get at the device. In five, four, three, two…”

Agent Susan Dawson kept flashing back to an episode of Columbo she’d seen years ago, in which Leonard Nimoy had guest-starred as a surgeon who’d tried to arrange the death of someone while supposedly saving his life: when installing an artificial heart valve, Nimoy’s character had used dissolving instead of permanent suture. But as far as she could tell, Eric Redekop and his team had worked fervently to save Seth Jerrison.

“Central to Dawson,” said the voice in her ear. “Justice Horvath is en route to Andrews, but says he can’t proceed without an official death notice. Has the president actually—”

Screeeeech!

Susan yanked her earpiece out; the wail from it was unbearable. The lights in the observation gallery flickered, then died, as did the ones down in the operating room. A few seconds later, emergency lighting kicked in below. Mark Griffin bounded up the steps in the small gallery and opened the door at the back. More emergency lighting spilled in from a ceiling-mounted unit containing what looked like two automobile headlamps.

“Those are battery-operated lights,” said Griffin. “The main power is off—meaning so is that defibrillator, as well as the perfusion pump.” Susan saw someone run out of the O.R., presumably to get a crash cart with a portable defibrillator.

Eric Redekop, starkly illuminated from the upper left by the harsh emergency lights in the O.R., reached his gloved hand into the president’s chest and began squeezing Jerrison’s heart. The surgeon glanced at the paired digital wall clocks—the actual time and the event timer—but their faces had gone dark.

After a moment, the regular lighting flickered back to life. Susan looked down at the surgical bed. Redekop continued to squeeze the heart once per second. Other doctors were frantically trying to reboot or readjust equipment. She turned to Griffin. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “The emergency power is supposed to kick in automatically. An operating room should never go dark like that.”

Susan picked up her earpiece and, after making sure it wasn’t still wailing, put it back in her ear. “Dawson,” she said into her sleeve. “Whiskey tango foxtrot?”

A deep male voice: Secret Service agent Darryl Hudkins, looking up at her from down in the operating room. “Could it be an electromagnetic pulse?”

“Christ,” said Susan. “The bomb.”

“Agent Schofield cutting in,” said another voice in Susan’s ear. “Affirmative. The bomb at the White House has gone off.”

“Copy that,” replied Susan, stunned.

“How are they managing with Prospector?” asked Schofield.

Susan looked through the angled glass at the chaos below. Redekop was still squeezing the president’s heart, but the vital-signs monitor continued to show a flat line. “I think we’ve lost him.”

Rory Proctor had been using his binoculars when the bomb went off. As soon as he saw the flare of light, he lowered them—just in time to see the entire curved back of the White House blow out toward him. A plume of smoke started rising into the gray sky, and gouts of fire shot out of the shattered windows of the east and west wings. Screams went up all around him.

Seth Jerrison’s deep, dark secret was that he was an atheist. He’d managed to secure the Republican nomination by lying through his teeth about it, by periodically attending church, by bowing his head when appropriate in public, and—after numerous reprimands from his wife and campaign director—finally breaking himself of the habit of using “Jesus” and “Christ” as swearwords, even in private.

He believed in fiscal conservatism, he believed in small government, he believed in taking a strong stand against America’s enemies whether nations or individuals, he believed in capitalism, and he believed English should be the official language of the United States.

But he did not believe in God.