Gideon's Corpse

27

Myron Dart stood inside the Doric fastness of the Lincoln Memorial, staring moodily at the expanse of marble beneath his feet. Although it was a hot early-summer day—the kind of muggy, torpid afternoon that Washington specialized in—it was still relatively cool inside the memorial. Dart was careful not to look up at the statue of Lincoln. Something about its awesome majesty, something in the president’s wise and benevolent gaze, invariably choked him up. He couldn’t afford emotion right now. Instead, he turned his attention to the text of the second inaugural address, engraved in stone: With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

Those were good words. Dart made a quiet vow to keep them in mind over the next couple of days. He was dog-tired and needed their inspiration. It wasn’t just the pressure: it was the country itself. It seemed to be falling apart, the loud and discordant voices of demagogues, talking heads, and media personalities drowning out the rest. The immortal lines from Yeats’s great poem came to mind: The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. This crisis had brought out the worst in his fellow Americans, from the looters and financial speculators to the religious nuts and political extremists—even to the cowardice of many average people, fleeing their homes willy-nilly. What in the world had happened to his beloved country?

He must not think of that now, must stay focused on the job at hand. He turned and left the memorial, pausing briefly on the top step. Ahead, the Mall stretched away to the distant Washington Monument, the monument’s needle-like shadow striped across the greensward. The park was empty. The usual sunbathers and tourists were gone. Instead, a convoy of half-tracks rumbled down Constitution Avenue, and two dozen army Humvees were parked behind concrete barricades installed on the Ellipse. There was no civilian traffic to be seen anywhere. The leaves hung limp on the trees, and in the distance sirens droned on and on and on, rising and falling in a monotonous, post-apocalyptic lullaby.

Dart walked briskly down the steps to the approach road, where an unmarked NEST van was idling, flanked by several National Guard troops armed with M4 carbines. He stepped up to the double doors in the rear of the van and rapped on them with his knuckles. The doors opened and he climbed in.

The interior of the van was chilly and dark, illuminated only by the green and amber glow of instrumentation. Half a dozen NEST employees were seated, some monitoring a variety of terminals, others murmuring into headsets.

Miles Cunningham, his personal assistant, approached out of the gloom. “Report,” said Dart.

“The Lincoln Memorial hidden cameras and motion sensors are installed and online,” Cunningham said. “The laser grid should be operational within the hour. We’ll have real-time surveillance capability for a quarter mile around the monument. A mouse, sir, won’t be able to move without us observing it.”

“And the Pentagon, the White House, and the other possible targets?”

“Similar nets are being put in place, all scheduled to be one hundred percent operational by midnight. Every security net will feed back through dedicated landlines to a centralized monitoring node at the command center. We have banks of trained observers ready to work in shifts, monitoring twenty-four seven.”

Dart nodded his approval. “How many?”

“About five hundred, with another thousand NEST personnel in support—not counting, of course, the military, National Guard, FBI, and other liaison agency assets and personnel.”

“What’s the total of deployed personnel?”

“Sir, it’s impossible to say in such a rapidly evolving situation. A hundred thousand or more, perhaps.”

Way too many, thought Dart. The investigation had been, inevitably, a monstrosity from the very beginning. But he said nothing. Practically the entire complement of NEST was on the ground in Washington, pulled in from across the country, resources stretched to the breaking point. But then, it was the same with the army, the marines, the National Guard: the elite of the armed forces of an entire nation had descended on the city, at the same time that residents and government workers were leaving.

“The latest from the Device Working Group?” Dart asked.

Cunningham removed a file. “Here, sir.”

“Summarize it for me?”

“They’re still disagreeing on the size of the device and its potential yield. Size depends greatly on the technical sophistication of the fabricators.”

“What’s the latest estimate range?”

“They say it could be anything from a heavy suitcase bomb weighing fifty kilograms to something you’d have to carry around in the back of a van. Yield from twenty to fifty kilotons. A lot less if the bomb misfired, but even in that case there would be an enormous spread of radiation.”

“Thank you. And the New Mexico branch of the investigation?”

“Nothing new, sir. Interrogations at the mosque have been inconclusive. They’ve got hundreds, thousands of leads, but so far they’ve turned up nothing of real note.”

Dart shook his head. “The fire is here, not there. Even if we knew the name of every single terrorist in on the plot, it wouldn’t help much. They’ve gone to ground. Our real problem now is interdiction and containment. Get Sonnenberg in New Mexico on the horn. Tell him that if he doesn’t start getting results within twenty-four hours, I’m going to start redeploying some of his assets back here to Washington, where they’re really needed.”

“Yes, sir.” Cunningham began to speak again, then stopped.

“What is it?” Dart asked immediately.

“I had a report from the FBI liaison out there. Fordyce. He requested, and received, permission to subpoena Chalker’s ex-wife. She’s living in some kind of commune outside of Santa Fe. He also plans to interview other persons of interest.”

“Did he mention who the other suspects were?”

“Not suspects, sir, just individuals they’ll be contacting. And, no, there were no other names.”

“Has he submitted a report on the ex-wife yet?”

“No. But subsequent interrogations of her by NEST personnel turned up nothing useful.”

“Interesting. A commune? That’s worth following up on, even if it is a little far-fetched.” Dart glanced around. “As soon as the security nets are in place, I want the beta-testing to begin. Assemble the probe teams, start them running. Check for any holes or weak spots in the grids. Tell them to be creative—and I mean creative.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dart nodded. He grasped the handle of the rear door.

“Dr. Dart, sir?” Cunningham asked diffidently.

“What?”

Cunningham cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my saying so, sir, you should take a break. You’ve been going for over fifty hours straight, by my reckoning.”

“We all have.”

“No, sir. We’ve all taken breaks. You’ve been driving yourself without letup. May I suggest you go back to the command center, get a few hours of rest? I’ll let you know if anything urgent comes up.”

Dart hesitated, refrained from making another sharp retort. Instead, he made an effort to soften his tone. “I appreciate your concern, Mr. Cunningham, but I’ll sleep when it’s over.” And with that, Dart opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight.