LOSS OF REASON Page 18

  “Shouldn’t we—”

  “Hold on,” Everon barked.

  Soldiers ran over, unhooked cables, opened doors on the semi container’s front and rear. They pulled out heavy wires, ran them to one of the hospital tents. A motor cranked up. Bright lights came on. Emergency diesel generator, Franklin realized.

  But as the huge helicopter banked away, the air it moved didn’t calm. Now it was gusty. The wind was picking up again.

  “Everon!” waved a tall salt-and-pepper-haired man in a dark suit from the door of their Lear.

  “Hunt?” Everon called out.

  Hunt Williams, Franklin figured.

  “I see you brought one of your backup generators.” Everon studied the soldiers operating its controls. “Need to find out what’s going on with it?” he added doubtfully.

  “The Army asked me to bring it,” Hunt said, “but no, my pilot could have handled this without me. I came here to talk to you.”

  “Me?” Everon and Chuck rolled the stretcher up against the Learjet’s side door.

  Hunt threw a questioning glance at the charred cocoon as they pushed it back into the jet’s passenger area.

  “My sister and her husband,” Everon said. “We found them on the Upper East Side.”

  “Oh. I’m very sorry,” Hunt said.

  From somewhere along the taxiway Everon had obtained what appeared to be a large rubber—a body bag, Franklin realized. He watched Everon unfold it alongside the bulging Aztec blanket and push one edge underneath, his jaw clamped together, tugging its zipper back and forth between the charred blanket and the jet’s floor.

  Chuck moved in to help lift one side of the cocoon, but Everon gently moved the big man’s arm away as if to say, “I have this.”

  Chuck stood there, silently watching. Franklin couldn’t.

  He scooted Harry’s soup box back beneath the jet’s small side table. Harry slanted his head up at Andréa. She was flipping quickly through a bunch of charts, pulling more from a pouch next to the pilot’s seat.

  Franklin took the seat next to her. Melissa let out a wail.

  “Oh! Who’s this?”

  To a shocked Andréa, Franklin explained as briefly as possible how and where they’d found Melissa in the city.

  “How long has she been wearing that?”

  “Eighteen hours maybe? I don’t know.”

  Andréa put away the maps.

  Together they peeled off his niece’s soiled pink nightsuit. Andréa wrapped a strip of what looked like part of a blue airline blanket between Melissa’s legs, then doubled over the rest and wrapped Melissa up in it, cleverly finishing the job with several strips of white medical tape. Who’s going to take care of her now? Franklin wondered. Grandma Del, I guess.

  Andréa pulled out some milk to warm up in the jet’s microwave.

  “Don’t give her that,” Chuck said.

  He fished a short disposable bottle and a can of baby formula out of his big green case. “Here.”

  A few minutes later Melissa was greedily sucking it down.

  Franklin threw a handful of airline peanuts into Harry’s soup box.

  With Melissa slurping softly, Harry answering in his soft “hup-hup-hup-hup,” Franklin let his eyes close. We have to get out of here, he thought. That cloud is coming.

  “Andréa says you have time in a Gulfstream?” he heard Hunt ask.

  “Uh-huh,” Everon grunted, like he was trying to force the middle of the bag past something.

  Probably that damn piece of metal, Franklin thought.

  “Obviously all the generating plants surrounding the city are out,” Hunt said, “—from Long Island, to over here in New Jersey. What nobody expected was Llanerch, Mercer, Schuylkill, that we’d have so much system damage all the way down through—”

  “What? In Pennsylvania? How far?” Everon grunted, struggling. “I remember you buying this for them, Bro.” Everon wasn’t talking to Hunt now. “A house-warming gift for Steve and Cyn, wasn’t it?”

  There it was again, Franklin could still see it—that Aztec blanket waving in the Pacific roadside Baja breeze. The thick tightly woven wool in orange and scarlet, forest green and lime—lots of lemon and turquoise.

  “And now look at it,” Everon spat out, “all burned and charred.”

  Franklin listened to his brother’s breathing. The pain there had nothing to do with a damaged blanket. Only what was wrapped inside.

  When Everon had been quietly working the bag’s zipper underneath again for half a minute or so, Hunt answered, “We don’t know exactly how far—the damage runs at least halfway across the state.”

  “Did Ted and Stu stick around for the rest of the convention?” Everon asked, worry lines creasing his forehead.

  “Yes,” Hunt answered bitterly.

  Everon said nothing.

  “And now the President’s ordered the nuclear plants shut down,” Hunt said.

  “He has? Why would he do something like that?”

  “He’s worried about a bomb hitting one of the reactors.”

  “It was a sea attack, wasn’t it?”

  “Looks that way.”

  “What an idiot.”

  Hunt nodded. “Gas stations can’t pump gas. Hospitals and prisons are on their emergency generators.”

  “Uh—speaking of hospitals, I better get back,” Chuck said softly.

  The Aztec cocoon was in. Everon slowly zipped up the bag. The wind blew stronger. Franklin felt the plane move as Everon stepped outside. It felt like something darkened the sun.

  “That cloud’s coming in, Hunt,” he heard Everon say. Then, “I don’t know how we can ever thank you.”

  Why would someone do this? Franklin wondered. Killing so many with the push of a button, however it was done. Franklin kept seeing his sister’s smile, a smile he would never see again. Climbing and Cynthia’s love of history had been her own links with Franklin. He was sure Everon already felt the loss of Cynthia’s silly humor, popping up at the oddest times. The greatest sister who ever lived.

  “No problem.” Chuck’s voice.

  Strangers, people the killers would never meet. How could someone even think that way? Franklin wondered. Whoever did this, there’s no punishment, no form of death bad enough.

  Part of him wanted to see the person behind it burning over a spit of fire, twisting painfully—skin bubbling, hair shriveling—chunks of flesh burning off their bones. To watch their blood boil as their marrow exploded into that last vestige of withering consciousness.

  Franklin opened his eyes, suddenly realizing Chuck had gone. I didn’t even thank him? What am I doing thinking like that?

  He jumped from the plane and dodged through the milling crowd.

  “Chuck! Chuck, wait!”

  Chuck turned around, startled.

  “Thanks a lot, my friend,” Franklin said, giving the big man a one-armed hug.

  “No problem,” he said bashfully. “Other circumstances, I’d have said I enjoyed it. Glad to do something useful.”

  The big man walked away.

  So many refugees, Franklin thought, unable to avoid bumping shoulders on his way back. How are they going to get out of here before the cloud comes?

  Inside the plane, Hunt was unfolding a large white map. “Take a quick look at this copy of our power grid . . . Everon?”

  Everon, stepped outside, looked at the sky, turned and quickly climbed back in, a scowl on his face. “We have to get out of here, Hunt.”

  “I understand, what I’m trying to say is . . . ”

  Franklin turned to Andréa. “Could you watch Melissa for me?” He glanced at the owl. “Keep an eye on Harry? Just for a couple of minutes? We need to find some people to fill up this plane.”

  “No problem.”

  “Six, max!” Everon called after him. “And make it really quick, Bro!”

  A Dangerous Sample

  Franklin hurried
along the hospital tents. “Anyone want a ride to Nevada? We’re flying out in a few minutes.” He found half a dozen people wanting to go.

  He was ready to head back when his eye caught on the old Pelican.

  The files in Cynthia’s cabinet! The last remnant of his sister’s life. I should have grabbed them. I should have brought them with us!

  At the Pelican’s open cargo door, Franklin raised an open hand and held it over one of Cynthia’s big crazy plastic flowers on the cabinet’s side. He wished he could take the whole damn thing. It was too big.

  Only the second drawer from the bottom was unlocked. The one he’d found Melissa in. He grabbed up the papers inside, the last few remaining scraps of Cynthia’s life.

  They were nearly swept from his arms. The sound of whirling blades grew in the air. Three light-gray helicopters with U.S. military markings set down right beside him. Even before their blades stopped turning, their pilots were on the ground.

  Running away?

  There were no passengers, Franklin realized. No one had been rescued.

  Chuck’s radiation counter was under the Pelican’s port-side seat. Cynthia’s papers under one arm, he turned it on and moved to the nearest Army helicopter, leaving the audio knob turned down. Its needle swung intermittently.

  He probed the bottom of the chopper’s windshield where a small amount of dark watery goop had collected. The needle arced halfway across the dial. Radiation! They’ve been rained on. Too hot to risk bringing out any more survivors!

  Franklin’s long dark hair lifted lightly off his neck. With a lover’s touch, air drifted across his cheeks. It was, he knew, the coming breath of death. The cloud was coming.

  He swung the probe to where a clot of gray powder clung to the helicopter’s landing strut. The meter slammed hard right off the scale. The gray stuff was deadly!

  Later he would wonder what possessed him.

  On the ground nearby lay a small empty water bottle. Working the lip of the bottle gingerly back and forth, he scooped up a tiny sample of the gray goo. He held the bottle’s bottom uncomfortably, watching the stuff cling to the inside of the bottle’s neck. Careful not to shake the sample down near his fingers, he spun the cap back on.

  He was winding a gray scarf that blew by the helicopter around the bottle, when he heard a voice yell, “Hey! Get away from there!”

  He’d been noticed!

  He backpedaled away from the choppers, turned and ran between two jets.

  “Hey!” another voice yelled after him.

  A Drop Of Rain

  Gasping for breath Franklin fell through the jet’s door. “I think the military’s after me!”

  “Wha—why?” Andréa asked.

  “I took a radioactive sample off one of their helicopters.”

  “Are you nuts?” she shook her head. “Both of you!” exasperated. “We better get going.”

  “I found a family who wanted a ride. Where—” Franklin looked into the jet’s empty passenger area. Everon, Hunt, even the black body bag, were gone.

  “You’re taking Mr. Williams’ Gulfstream home,” Andréa explained. “And you’re taking a bunch of refugees out west with you.”

  Franklin hurried Cynthia’s papers into the soup box next to Harry. Gently shoving the bird aside, he squeezed in the radiation counter. Put the sample in the corner farthest from Harry.

  Andréa carried Melissa; Franklin, Harry’s box. When Andréa got more than a couple feet ahead of Franklin, Melissa and the owl began to let out cries and howls. They really didn’t like being separated.

  Andréa led Franklin to a long white aircraft at the end of the row. He could see Everon through the cockpit window talking rapidly with a tall, thin man dressed in airline whites.

  A young Hispanic woman lurched after her small son out the jet’s open door. A pear-shaped old woman with white hair and a bald old man followed. They bent over heaving red and green bile. The little boy and his mother went to their knees.

  The old woman stopped first and put a hand on the young woman’s back, looked up at Franklin. “I’m afraid,” she coughed, “you’ll have to go without us. They were snowed on. Got us too.”

  “Snow? Did it snow?”

  “That gray stuff. They had it all over their shoes. We think the kid ate some,” she coughed. “On the way here, over in Queens—” gulping as if she was about to let loose again, “—we got hit with that stinging black crap out of the sky.” Her teary eyes turned to the short bald man next to her. “Let’s get Cheri and Johnny to a hospital tent, Louie.”

  Franklin shook his head as they staggered away.

  “And behold,” he mumbled, “a pale green horse: and Hell and pestilence followed with him. And the names of they that sat on them was Death.”

  He turned suddenly to Melissa. Will she get sick too? She’d been outside in that cabinet all night long.

  A hint of wind from the city forced its way between the jets. Franklin looked up. The black mist was right THERE! Maybe a mile away. Coming in fast.

  A man and woman ran up, pulling a little boy and girl by their hands. “Is this the plane going to Nevada?” the man asked.

  “Uh, yes it is.”

  Franklin followed them onboard as Everon glanced at him and said to the man in airline whites, “Here’s my co-pilot now.”

  It looked like word had gotten around. People squooshed over to make room to let the little family of newcomers buckle in. The whole back of the plane was full. To the stares of several passengers, Franklin set Harry’s soup box on the floor, hurried past leather seats filled with refugees.

  Back in cargo he stepped around the fat rubber body bag. It was strapped to the floor with some of his climbing rope. There was a small plastic window on top—like something that would hold a shipping label.

  The words read: Certificate Of Death.

  That sense of directionless rage welled up in him again—unlike anything he’d ever felt—the urge to strike at anything. Not anymore! I’m a minister, for Christ’s sake!

  Franklin found an empty upper compartment and shoved the scarf-wrapped bottle inside. When he got back up front, he took Melissa from Andréa then leaned into the cockpit between Everon and the man in airline whites.

  “We’ve swapped jets,” Everon said. “I’ve agreed to help Hunt fix—where were you?”

  “I was getting Cynthia’s papers. We’ve got to get off the East Coast!”

  “Did you see that wind? It’s almost too late to leave. I don’t know if we should be in the air when the next—whatever’s coming hits. If—”

  “It may be too dangerous to stay! Three Army helicopters just landed back from Manhattan. They came back radioactive. They had to have been in the fallout zone.”

  “Maybe that’s why the military wouldn’t let us south of—”

  Franklin pointed. “There’s another reason we’d better get out of here.”

  A horde of people were coming down the road, like all Manhattan was on its way. Poorly dressed homeless people alongside Wall Street types, others in bathrobes.

  “We may have shot ourselves in the foot, Bro,” Everon nodded, “opening that bridge.” He looked to the man in airline whites.

  The man grabbed his flight bag and left the co-pilot’s seat. “We’re all set. Mr. Williams wants a quick word.”

  Once the Williams man was out, Franklin frowned and asked, “This thing’s pretty big. It only takes one pilot to fly it?”

  “Shhhh! It’s not usually legal,” Everon whispered, “but all standard FAA regulations are temporarily suspended. All flights are subject to military approval under martial law. In other words, it all depends on whether we can get clearance. I can handle it just fine myself—as long as nothing breaks and things don’t get too crazy.”

  Franklin and Melissa followed Everon off the plane.

  “One thing—” Hunt began.

  Everon looked at his own right shoulder.
A dime-sized drop of something dark and thick and wet had fallen on his jacket collar. He glanced at the sky. Moved a finger to touch the stuff.

  “Don’t!” Franklin said.

  The middle of the heavy black cloud was right over their heads.

  Franklin leaned into the jet, pulled Chuck’s meter out of Harry’s box. Turned it on. Waved it around Everon’s collar.

  “Radioactive!”

  Everon jerked off his jacket, threw it to the ground. “Let’s get out of here!”

  The daylight dimmed. A blast of wind came through, gusting violently, then died.

  “One thing—” Hunt rushed as Everon stepped through the big jet’s doorway.

  “What?”

  “Please. No barrel rolls in the Gulfstream.”

  “Second, our job is to control debris!” Colonel Marsh explained. “What search quadrant were you flying?”

  “Seventy-second street. West side. Uh, sir, it’s getting pretty damned hot, even up there.”

  “Mueller’s just yellow!” a second pilot spat through clenched teeth.

  “Sir,” the first pilot shot back, “it’s raining atomic fallout over there! If we fly another mission we’re in danger of being poisoned. We absorbed more that last flight through the chopper’s skin than all our other missions combined!”

  “No reason we can’t wear radiation suits,” the second pilot shot back.

  “How are we supposed to fly in a rad-suit, sir?”

  General Anders roared up in an old staff car, one of the few still working. Shaven head, long military coat with sheepskin collar. He flew from the back seat.

  “Report, Colonel.”

  Marsh began explaining the progress with the tents, power and hospital facilities. The radiation picked up by the last three helicopters he’d sent in.

  “Perhaps we ought to relocate our hospital facilities back some,” Anders agreed.

  “Colonel!” The third pilot blurted as he ran up out of breath. “Unauthorized personnel snooping around our helicopters!” He swallowed and before Marsh could respond, added, “Uh—with what looked like a radiation counter!”

  “We cannot have civilians taking radiation readings off our helicopters!”