A Dark Perfection Read online

  A DARK PERFECTION

  Mark James

  HAMPTON HILL PUBLISHING / CHICAGO

  Copyright © 2013 by Mark James.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Hampton Hill Publishing.

  For correspondence/inquiries: [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-615-89053-1

  Cover design by Mark James.

  Cover graphics by Diana Aguilar, www. daguilardesign.com

  Cover photograph of the White House: “The White House at Night” by Rob Young

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  .

  For Maureen, my Lani

  .

  TURNING and turning in the widening gyre,

  The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

  Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold;

  Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…

  W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming

  1

  Aisha was four when she learned about the shadows in men. On that morning, she walked from her family’s small home and looked out on the sand-swept village, turning up and feeling the warmth.

  Looking back down, strangely, she saw he wasn’t there. He should have been near the side of the house, shuffling in the shade and hay, searching for his mother and her milk.

  “Come back inside,” her mother said, turning away.

  “Mama? Baba?”

  “He’s gone,” she said quietly. “Your father said that we needed the meat. We must learn to forget, Aisha. This is our place.”

  Her mother had a tear in her eye as she leaned back over the sink and began cleaning the clothes again, as she had her entire life.

  Her father did not speak to them like he did to others, sometimes not at all, and Aisha, even so young, had always wondered if it was something about her, or was it just his way. He had always wanted sons.

  “Where…Baba?” she had started to cry.

  It was still eight years away from when her father would first come to her at night, pungent in the heat. It was still ten years from when her father would be found murdered, robbers they would say, a wound to his head and blood running black like a snake across his bed, her mother shuffling her out, taking her hand into the desert, burying something far away.

  Would they ever be pure again?

  It was still fifteen years before Aisha would contribute to the sudden deaths of thousands of people.

  2

  Washington, D.C. — fifteen years later

  Robert Monroe Walker, forty-seventh President of the United States, gazed up in silence. A blood moon had turned the colonnades into a soft rose color. Two morning doves huddled on a ledge and cooed down. It was these quiet times that caught him.

  Behind, he could hear the debate continue between his aides, their muffled sounds carrying through the bulletproof glass. The rose garden rustled against the night’s breeze.

  Suddenly, a commotion began inside the Oval Office. From a dozen shadows, Secret Service Agents converged as the doors broke open.

  A man in a perfectly tailored suit approached.

  “Mr. President, my apologies. We have an Erebos incident.”

  The agents coiled around the president and they quickly moved through the Oval Office and into the south hallway. Policy Advisor Martin Tazewell dropped in behind and attempted to match the president’s stride. “Mr. President…”

  “Evening, Marty. What are we looking at?”

  “A Level-5 incursion.”

  “Who we think it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Numbers?”

  “Too early, but Mac’s people are estimating a significant GNP impact.”

  They entered the elevator.

  “No, Marty, the casualty projections.”

  Asking about the people was Bob Walker – the small town boy from Iowa, his folks still on the farm.

  “Very preliminary. Estimated at well over…”

  The elevator doors slid open.

  Two marines guarding the SID entry pivoted and saluted. President Walker pressed his hand on the scan pad and for only the fifth time in his presidency felt the prick as his DNA was extracted and compared. The titanium and panzerholz doors slid open with a hiss.

  NSA Director Mackenzie “Mac” Osborne approached. He and the president had been roommates at Stanford and through a myriad of political wars had become close friends.

  Osborne handed the president an unmarked folder that bore a coded, electronic seal.

  The president looked over, “That’s it?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. Information is in-transit.”

  As they took their seats, Vice-President Harold Palmer entered, followed by his chief of staff and general counsel, Mikhael Présage.

  Before being elected, President Walker and Palmer had barely known each other, with Palmer brought onto the ticket to gain support from the east coast financial establishment. They were cordial with each other, yet they came from different places, different times.

  A glass shield descended silently from the ceiling and slid between the table and a bank of computer consoles, blocking the NSA and CIA analysts from hearing their discussions.

  The president finished reading.

  “Alright, Mac, go ahead.”

  Osborne stood and loosened his tie, “You all have the briefing documents in front of you. The preliminary facts are that at approximately 7:34 p.m. a coordinated attack occurred on numerous high-concentration public targets. We believe that those assets were controlled by Sheik Haroun Amahdi, the fusion cell operative now based in southern Yemen. As you know, such cells are composed of highly trained experts, each member contributing to the whole, as if a fused organism. They still use Arabs for suicide actions, but many are of non-Arab descent. Last year, we captured a computer forensics expert from Finland. It’s as far away from al-Qaeda as you can imagine. There are six such cells that we know of, all tied together like a web. This particular cell has adopted many names, but presently refers to itself as Al-Badiya-rih, which in Arabic means, The Wind.”

  The vice-president had been scanning the report. “But theaters? Who cares about theaters?”

  “I understand, Mr. Vice-President. It will become apparent.”

  “As Vice-President Palmer has noted, the targets comprise twenty-nine Marcus-Oliver cinemas spread across five states – Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa.”

  As he spoke, a screen slid from the ceiling. It showed a satellite image from orbit, the west coast in late afternoon, the Midwest falling into evening.

  “This next image is enhanced.”

  Suddenly, scattered across the Midwest portion of the screen small orange bursts appeared – one in Minnesota, two in the Dakotas, four in Iowa, each joining the next. They burned together like signal fires.

  The president stared at one of the glowing embers in Iowa, near to his parents’ homestead.

  He recalled his father’s gravel voice from their call earlier that week, “Lots to do, actually. Well, there’s that tractor auction down in Elmira. And, of course, your mom has been itching to see that new George Clunét movie. You know, some spy thing. It’s crazy, even way out here that movie house has been packed. I’d love to put her off ‘til after the weekend, but you know your mom…”

  Had they gone to the film? Like a good field general, he showed no emotion.

  “All locations are secured with Pentagon-sourced HAZMAT teams on-site via helicopter drops in twelve
locations, more on the way. No radiation detected, so it appears that a dirty bomb was not the delivery system. Judging by the blast radii from the satellite imagery – and we’re tasking more flyovers as we speak – it appears to be conventional weaponry. Probably a single explosive device at each site, albeit each with a high impact signature. As we have both small and large targets, we’re assuming, for the time being, that the payloads were tailored for each site.”

  “I see the number here, Mac,” the president said, motioning to the report, “but what’s the most recent casualty intel?”

  “Well, we have twenty-nine theaters…” Osborne said quietly, staring at the matrix of numbers. “The crowds varied from two hundred in the small towns to the five thousand seat capacities at the twenty-screen Halo-MAX’s. If we factor in that we had weekend crowds and that three popular films are out…and each target is a high impact detonation with minimal structures remaining…it’s a damn war zone.”

  He paused.

  “From there, if you average the smaller and larger sites, we presently estimate a seven-hundred and fifty person average per site. If that figure holds, we’re looking at approximately 21,000 total dead, collateral fatalities unknown. The company’s computers compile nationwide attendance figures on an hourly basis and we’re gaining access to that information as we speak. We’ll have better numbers by midnight.”

  “I don’t mean to be crass,” the vice-president interjected, “but I must resubmit: why theaters? With so many rich targets, ones that could hurt us so much more, tactically speaking, it simply doesn’t make sense.”

  What the American public had never been told was how deeply the keel of the U.S. economy had been damaged by the 9/11 event. In the aftermath of the attacks, the subsequent urging of the American public to consume had not been a coincidence. If the public had truly known the danger, they would have burrowed up inside their suburban homes, taking their dollars with them and not allowing the economy the time it needed to recover.

  It was only later that the sophisticated spawn from al-Qaeda realized that the U.S. economy, capitalism, was their real target. Al-Qaeda had been extinguished, but, like a virus, its offspring had mutated, and learned.

  Osborne reminded Vice-President Palmer of these highly classified facts.

  “And, Mr. Vice-President, in the theaters, they get everything.”

  The vice-president stared.

  “Specifically,” Osborne continued, “the movie industry is the one sector of our economy that the extremist Muslim world identifies as being dominated by the U.S. Jewish community. In their minds, a strike against the movie industry is a strike at the heart of all Jews. And, thus, it becomes a strike at the heart of Israel itself.”

  “And, importantly, it is also a strike against America. Not merely a physical strike, but a strike against the idea of America.”

  “Ask yourself – historically speaking, what are the three unique cultural inventions of our civilization? Baseball, jazz and, yes, the film industry. The entire world cheers our celebrities and watches our movies. It’s one of our main cultural exports. Three thousand years from now historians will be studying America’s art form: film.”

  “So, be honest with yourself: Tomorrow, how many of you are going out to see a movie? Would you let your children see that animated blockbuster next month, or next year, or even two years from now?”

  “What we need to realize is that this attack may very well lead to the collapse of the entire film industry. The country is just beginning its foundational growth back from the Great Recessions and now this. Even after 9/11, our citizens had the movies. Even after the Aurora killings, they went back. But not this time. I promise you, it will be devastating to the general economy and, just as importantly, to the collective psyche of the American people.”

  The room became still.

  The president turned, “General Hightower, your assessment. What are our capabilities in the Gulf of Aden?”

  A pulsating, blue dot lit up on Osborne’s console, indicating a message from an analyst across the room. The glass shield slid into the ceiling, the memo was delivered and the shield fell back into place.

  Osborne glanced over.

  “Excuse me, general. Mac, do you have something?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. The most recent intel from the Nebraska and Iowa sites indicates a single device at each location, each detonated from directly inside the theaters, as if the bombers were sitting in the audience. It’s not yet known if we are dealing with suicide bombers, or whether the devices were planted and the offenders then left. On-site spectrometers indicate octanitrocubane-4 as the explosive agent. The Yemeni faction would have access to this substance; it’s on the black market.”

  “If I may, Mr. President,” General Hightower said, “octanitrocubane-4 is the most powerful non-nuclear explosive agent known – its brisance factor is very high. Last year, the formulation was stolen from the EU forensic lab computers. It remains a very dangerous situation, one that has been hard for us to put back in the bottle, so to speak.”

  “Brisance?” Commerce Secretary Getz asked.

  “An explosive agent’s shattering capability,” Hightower said. “The intensity and velocity of its wave front. Its…violence.”

  He turned, “Mr. President, we should also be looking out for other agents, such as HBX-3 and the related cyclotols.”

  Hightower looked down the long table, “The labs at Langley will probably tell us more.”

  “We’re on it, Mr. President,” the CIA Director beamed.

  “Alright,” the president said, “back to you, general.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. At present, we have two combat-ready battle groups on maneuvers in the Mediterranean and one carrier outside the Strait of Hormuz. All are moving into combat positions towards the Gulf of Aden. The former carry the newest iteration of the Trident missile. Although, sir, we strongly favor an air strike of F-36’s off the U.S.S. Lincoln. Our Russian and Chinese counterparts have been advised and they remain in stand-down status. De-escalation to DEFCON 3 has been effected and all domestic air routes have returned to normal operation after the initial step-down. We await your order, sir.”

  “So you are aware, Mr. President,” the general added, “we strongly favor the use of the CLEOPs-level strike capability. As you’ll recall from last week’s briefing, the Yemeni compounds are quite deep and have extensive escape tunnels. CLEOPs would ensure a successful mission profile.”

  Everyone at the table held quiet, looking to each other. The CLEOPs devices had never been used.

  The CLEOPs weapon was a “bunker busting” missile and payload that had been developed at the end of the second Obama administration. It was determined at that time that the only means of destroying Iranian nuclear sites buried deep underground was to either use theater-class nuclear warheads, or to invent a new class of conventional weaponry that mimicked the destruction of the low-yield nuclear weapons, yet didn’t leave the radiation signature that was so politically unpalatable.

  Getz, a mother of four, said what needed to be considered.

  “Respectfully, Mr. President, three of those Yemeni sites have medium-sized villages on the grounds above the tunnel complexes. I’m certainly not opposing military action, but perhaps it’s a threshold issue we should address.”

  “You’re right, Pam, thank you...”

  It was a state of mind, of being, that the so-called person-on-the-street could read about, perhaps even consider at length, but a state of mind that could not be truly known – internalized into one’s self – until one actually became the President of the United States: the responsibility for killing masses of innocent people in the service of the country. President Truman had absorbed this truth lying in his bed the night before Hiroshima, the map of Japan seared into his mind. This duty, once exercised, became a dark cinder in your heart, in your mind, that always remained with you. It was why each of our presidents, politics aside, understood each other on some deep
er level.

  “Yes,” the president continued, “women and children...”

  He stood, absorbing his place in this moment.

  “Yet we also know, in our hearts, that this is the world we were born into. I cannot cut the baby in half. Truman knew this. Clinton knew this. Our bombs killed scores of children in Gaddafi’s palace when Reagan made his decision. And later, in Kosovo, the same. It’s been the same throughout history. Will I be judged in the hereafter? I am equally sure of that…”

  “But,” he added sternly, “this is the coldest of facts: whether we use the CLEOPs device, or another category of weapon, these innocent people will die.”

  He turned, “General, you have presidential authorization to utilize CLEOPs.”

  The general rose, “Yes sir, if you’ll excuse me.”

  A blue dot appeared on the president’s screen. The message – sent from across the table – read, “Your parents are okay. Picked up their phone.”

  The president showed only a stone face as he lightly tapped on the table towards Osborne, thanking his old friend.

  President Walker stood a final time, signaling a close to the meeting.

  “I’ll be on air in fifteen minutes. Tomorrow, both houses of Congress will be convened. Suggestions?”

  The table held still.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Osborne said.

  The leader of the free world, the forty-seventh in a line, exited the SID room, the images of the faces – our children, their children – never far in his mind.

  †

  Earlier that day, near predawn, twenty-four men and seven women walked from a remote Canadian fishing lodge, entered a tunnel dug for them three years earlier and passed under the Canada-U.S. border. On the ground above, the dense forests and blue-black lakes stood indifferent, serene.