* * *
The Arkansas National Guard Jicarilla was approaching fast from the northwest when its pilot saw the moving van pull up outside the equipment yard. Saw armed men emerge, saw the firefight begin. He carried a squad of riflemen in back, but knew at once he’d have no time to set them down. Instead he accelerated and aimed the helicoper, slanting downward. Saw startled faces turn upward toward him, and fired the multi-barreled 7.62 Thrashers, side-mounted on sponsons. Small-arms fire rattled on his armor, spalled his armor-glass windshield, and ended. He veered off, only then informing the troops of the situation. He would examine his results before putting them down.
He wasn’t sure how ready these weekend soldiers were for a firefight, and neither were they, most of them.
* * *
Shaughnessy had jumped from the cab as soon as the truck stopped. Focused as he was on the police, he hadn’t expected intervention. He heard his men fire. The police in the open were cut down almost before they knew anything was wrong. Others had returned fire. A grenade took out two of them. One of Shaughnessy’s men threw the blanket charge on the fence and activated it, but before he could run, rifle fire from behind a bulldozer knocked him down.
Only then did the chopper’s beating vanes register on Shaughnessy’s hearing. He glanced toward the sound, saw and dove, taking cover beneath the motor block. Fire from the chopper’s multibarrelled guns chewed dirt, then men, then ripped into the truck. As the aircraft veered off, the charge on the fence blew.
The gunfire had stopped. Shaughnessy crawled from beneath the cab, then became aware of someone who’d come around the rear of the truck. Turning, he recognized the face.
“Goddamn you, Koskela!” he shouted, and gestured with his pistol. “You’re supposed to . . .”
He didn’t even have time to be surprised; Luther fired half a magazine into him. Shaughnessy’s return shot was purely reflex, the spasm of a dead man. It took Luther through the forehead. Had there been an actual hell, they’d have arrived in a dead heat.
* * *
Florence Metzger sat in the Oval Office with Heinie Brock, Willem Enrico Groenveldt, and Andrea Jackson. They were sharing home-made Mexican pizza from the White House kitchen, and watching CNN. The hour and minute had arrived; they were waiting to hear about the geophysical manifestation.
Again it was Michael Sandow who reported. “This just in. The giant meteor has impacted in the Pacific Ocean thirty-four miles east of Siberia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, in about four thousand feet of water. It has sent a pillar of steam and water some twenty miles in diameter more than four miles into the sky, and is still climbing. That is twenty-plus miles in diameter. Hundreds of cubic miles—that’s cubic miles—of water have been displaced. We’ll bring you more as we get it.”
“My God,” Heinie breathed. “My God!” Intellectually, he’d realized the enormity of what was going to happen, but only now was it real to him.
The President’s phone warbled. For a moment she ignored it, then took it on her handset, for privacy. “Put him through,” she said. Then, “David, what can I do for you?” She listened. “I’ll be delighted to. I’d sound more enthusiastic, but the rogue asteroid just hit in the North Pacific. It’s not just a warning any longer . . .
“You hadn’t heard? The warning was on radio and TV an hour ago. Turn your set on, to CNN. And David, the answer is ‘yes.’ If you’re willing to be married to the President of the United States in times like these, I’ll be glad to have your shoulder to cry on now and then. When I have time. And let’s not put it off. Given the world as it is . . .
“Wednesday? To tell you the truth, I don’t know what the legal requirements are in the District. I’d have to check on . . . You already did. I should have known . . . What about right here in the Oval Office? The White House chaplain can take care of it . . . How about just you and me and a few close friends? A dozen or so: half yours and half mine . . . Look, I’ll call you back. I’ve got a major league emergency.”