he had agreed to have his consciousness downloaded into nanites and exiled forever to the past. This was the moment for which he had come.
“Clock’s ticking,” he said with a smile to his comrades. “Don’t miss your flight.” Then he shifted the vehicle into gear and drove away to keep his appointment with Armageddon.
TWENTY-ONE
7:04 A.M.
A SHRILL RINGING stirred Jordan Collier from a deep sleep.
He rolled over, still groggy, and flailed for the phone. His limbs felt heavy and clumsy, as if he were drunk. It took him a few slaps of his hand on the end table before he planted it on the phone’s receiver and plucked it from its cradle.
And to think
, he mused ruefully,
I used to be a morning person
. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he pressed the receiver to his ear and mumbled, “Hello?”
Jaime, his personal assistant, replied,
“Sorry to wake you, Mister Collier. Please hold for the secretary of state.”
There was a click on the line, followed by a man’s voice.
“Mister Collier, this is Secretary Greisman.”
His voice sounded distant and was backed by the weak echo of someone conversing via speakerphone.
“I don’t have time to play games with you, sir, so I’ll come right to the point: Did you and your people cause this disaster?”
At the risk of sounding like an idiot or like someone mouthing a pathetic denial, Collier asked with genuine, sincere confusion, “What disaster, Mister Secretary?”
“Are you serious? Turn on your goddamn television.”
Jordan groaned softly as he sat up and reached for the remote control to his bedroom’s wall-mounted flat-screen TV. “What channel?”
“All of them,”
Greisman said.
“Make it fast.”
He aimed the remote at the TV and thumbed the power-on button. As the screen cycled up from its standby state, there was a knock on his bedroom door. He pressed the mute on his phone and said in a hoarse morning voice, “Come in.”
The door opened. Jaime stepped in holding its knob, and Kyle walked past her and stopped at the foot of the bed, just out of Jordan’s line of sight to the television.
An image of widespread destruction faded up on the screen. Behind the news ticker headline MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATES SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA was a shattered metropolis, its skyscrapers reduced to smears of debris on the ground and replaced by countless towers of smoke rising from the rubble and mushrooming into the sky. “Good God,” Jordan muttered as he unmuted the phone.
“It was a magnitude nine-point-four quake,”
Greisman said, obviously intuiting what Jordan was seeing on the news.
“It hit about thirty minutes ago. Leveled Frisco, L.A., and San Diego.”
Flipping to another channel, Jordan’s eyes went wide at the sight of the collapsed Golden Gate Bridge. All thatremained of the iconic structure were its two colossal red arches; the span between them was all but gone, broken and vanished into the bay.
“There are tsunamis heading for Chile, Hawaii, and Japan,”
Greisman continued.
“We haven’t even started calculating the death toll in California, so there’s no telling what those waves’ll do. But the projections aren’t good.”
“We’ll take care of the tsunami before it makes landfall,” Jordan said. He covered the mouthpiece and told Kyle, “Wake up Raj.” Resuming his conversation with the secretary, he said, “If there’s anything we can do to help with rescue and recovery—”
Greisman let out a short, bitter chortle.
“Like you ‘helped’ in Seattle? No, thanks.”
Hardening his tone, he went on,
“I’ll ask you again, Collier: Did your people do this?”
Turning his baleful stare toward Kyle, Jordan told the secretary, “No, sir. I did not order such an attack, I did not sanction it, and my people did not cause it.” Kyle returned Jordan’s gaze with his own unyielding glare, betraying nothing. Finishing his thought, Jordan added, “As horrible a tragedy as this is, I’m afraid it’s an act of
“Clock’s ticking,” he said with a smile to his comrades. “Don’t miss your flight.” Then he shifted the vehicle into gear and drove away to keep his appointment with Armageddon.
TWENTY-ONE
7:04 A.M.
A SHRILL RINGING stirred Jordan Collier from a deep sleep.
He rolled over, still groggy, and flailed for the phone. His limbs felt heavy and clumsy, as if he were drunk. It took him a few slaps of his hand on the end table before he planted it on the phone’s receiver and plucked it from its cradle.
And to think
, he mused ruefully,
I used to be a morning person
. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he pressed the receiver to his ear and mumbled, “Hello?”
Jaime, his personal assistant, replied,
“Sorry to wake you, Mister Collier. Please hold for the secretary of state.”
There was a click on the line, followed by a man’s voice.
“Mister Collier, this is Secretary Greisman.”
His voice sounded distant and was backed by the weak echo of someone conversing via speakerphone.
“I don’t have time to play games with you, sir, so I’ll come right to the point: Did you and your people cause this disaster?”
At the risk of sounding like an idiot or like someone mouthing a pathetic denial, Collier asked with genuine, sincere confusion, “What disaster, Mister Secretary?”
“Are you serious? Turn on your goddamn television.”
Jordan groaned softly as he sat up and reached for the remote control to his bedroom’s wall-mounted flat-screen TV. “What channel?”
“All of them,”
Greisman said.
“Make it fast.”
He aimed the remote at the TV and thumbed the power-on button. As the screen cycled up from its standby state, there was a knock on his bedroom door. He pressed the mute on his phone and said in a hoarse morning voice, “Come in.”
The door opened. Jaime stepped in holding its knob, and Kyle walked past her and stopped at the foot of the bed, just out of Jordan’s line of sight to the television.
An image of widespread destruction faded up on the screen. Behind the news ticker headline MASSIVE EARTHQUAKE DEVASTATES SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA was a shattered metropolis, its skyscrapers reduced to smears of debris on the ground and replaced by countless towers of smoke rising from the rubble and mushrooming into the sky. “Good God,” Jordan muttered as he unmuted the phone.
“It was a magnitude nine-point-four quake,”
Greisman said, obviously intuiting what Jordan was seeing on the news.
“It hit about thirty minutes ago. Leveled Frisco, L.A., and San Diego.”
Flipping to another channel, Jordan’s eyes went wide at the sight of the collapsed Golden Gate Bridge. All thatremained of the iconic structure were its two colossal red arches; the span between them was all but gone, broken and vanished into the bay.
“There are tsunamis heading for Chile, Hawaii, and Japan,”
Greisman continued.
“We haven’t even started calculating the death toll in California, so there’s no telling what those waves’ll do. But the projections aren’t good.”
“We’ll take care of the tsunami before it makes landfall,” Jordan said. He covered the mouthpiece and told Kyle, “Wake up Raj.” Resuming his conversation with the secretary, he said, “If there’s anything we can do to help with rescue and recovery—”
Greisman let out a short, bitter chortle.
“Like you ‘helped’ in Seattle? No, thanks.”
Hardening his tone, he went on,
“I’ll ask you again, Collier: Did your people do this?”
Turning his baleful stare toward Kyle, Jordan told the secretary, “No, sir. I did not order such an attack, I did not sanction it, and my people did not cause it.” Kyle returned Jordan’s gaze with his own unyielding glare, betraying nothing. Finishing his thought, Jordan added, “As horrible a tragedy as this is, I’m afraid it’s an act of
Similar Books
