Greg Bear - Quantico

He tried not to think about the past-everything his father and grandfather had worked to build being squandered, a country turning inward, distracted by fear and greed. He could not help but see these rough untended roads as the truest, deepest sign of an America once too fat and happy to stand up to the plate and bat a really smart game, and then, after 9-11, too lost in its own paranoia and bitterness to realize that it was being taken for a nasty ride.

It was not so odd that around that same time, in the forests and towns of the northwest, land of both outlandish, Godless liberals and the most rough-hewn pseudo-Christian bigots, he had picked up both the skills and the psychology necessary to play the quintessential anti-Semite.

At first, it had been a performance…Going to the world’s hardest places, learning the languages, putting on the garb and assuming the customs-mortifying his white man’s flesh -a spectacular series of patriot tricks, with himself the ultimate magician. But after 9-11, grimmer and emptier, having burrowed deep into America’s spiritual rectum, having trusted his leaders and committed so many crimes-and having signed on for a mission that even he could not carry out-the smell had finally tainted him.

And then had come 10-4.

And the madness.

On the third day of his journey, Sam turned on the truck’s radio. Keeping an eye on the long straight road, he set the scan button and popped through the spectrum of on-air broadcast stations. Lately, satellite radio had been eating their lunch, but there was still a high-power, hearty breed of broadcaster hiding in small brick buildings beyond the endless cornfields, relaying the ruminations and rants that still drew, last time Sam had checked, over twenty million listeners in the U.S. of A.

Sam finally found the station he was looking for-pay for pray radio.

A preacher was speaking in a steady bass drone. ‘It is now once again a crime to slaughter an innocent and unborn child, but how much greater a crime to mislead a soul into damnation? How much greater a crime to put the ring of sin through a man’s nose and pull him onto the pathway of deception and misery that runs straight to eternal hell, to pain beyond imagination and fire that never ceases to burn? How much greater a crime and a sin to lead to damnation that which is immortal, a man’s soul, by sharing sinful thoughts, by spreading the awful secular hatred of those educated at big city northern universities, or those who speak day in and day out on television and on the Web, in books and movies, passing along their evil delusions? How much greater a crime is that, and why is it not illegal, I say, and punishable by death? We have the power still! We have the center and the heartland! Yea shall these bellwethers, these evil curly-horned and slit-eyed rams of the devil that so mislead our flocks, shall they all be-must they be!-judged by more than the soft hand of Jesus, but by the hard stern hands of God’s sworn and devoted servants, and put to the sword of holy truth…’

Sam wiped his eyes. The heat was enormous. So much searing pain, memory, grief, stoked and banked coals fired by those who spoke for God but refused to listen to Him. Murderers and sinners all.

Sam knew how to deliver vengeance and medicine all at once.

Sam had recharged.

Iraq

Fouad could not get the dead woman’s expression of slack horror out of his thoughts. How she had suffered. Muslims killing innocents again. At least it was to be assumed the guilty ones were Muslims. He leaned his head back against the bulkhead of the Superhawk’s cabin. The soft roar of the engines and the wind had permeated his entire body.

Outside, day had faded to night. The cockpit was lit with red, green, and white, and the pilots’ helmeted heads made little bobbing motions. Beside him Fergus was asleep. Riding with them back to Incirlik, Harris stared fixedly at the port in the emergency access hatch across from him as if sighting on a distant star. Master Sergeant carried his rifle like a baby in the crook of his arm. The crew was forward, leaning over their gear or lost behind thick helmets and goggles, surveying the terrain.

Fouad shut his eyes. He opened them to see a radiance in the cabin. The sun was rising in the southeast. Had he slept so long? No, the light had a brilliant pearl gray cast-spooky, all wrong. Not the sun.

‘What the fuck?’ Master Sergeant said. He shouted forward, ‘We got flares?’

The glow lingered, pulsing, then slowly died through a spectrum of greens, oranges, reds, and finally dull brown.

‘That was no flare,’ the crew chief shouted.

‘What was it? Where?’ Master Sergeant unbuckled and stepped forward to the cockpit door, tapping his headphones with a scowl. ‘Satlinks are out. I’m not getting anything.’

‘We’re going to set down for a spell,’ the co-pilot announced.

‘Why?’ Harris shouted forward.

‘That was a nuke,’ the captain said. ‘A couple hundred klicks away, but definitely a nuke. This chopper is hardened but ITAR rules say we land after any strike. There’s overcast ahead at angels three, so I’m taking her down now.’ ITAR referred to the Iranian Tactical Area of Responsibility.

‘We’re still over the mountains,’ Master Sergeant said. ‘Extreme washboard down there.’

Fergus looked at Fouad, then at Harris. ‘Best guess?’ he asked.

‘Someone took out Shahabad Kord,’ Harris said.

‘Northern Zone, Iran,’ Fouad murmured. He had been studying the maps earlier. His father had taught him to always know where you were going and what you might find there.

‘That’s nuts,’ Master Sergeant said. ‘Who would do that? Israel?’

‘Shahabad Kord has-or had-some intermediate birds on standby,’ Fergus said. ‘Shahab 7s.’

Shahab. Shooting star.

‘Iran’s been using them as a last-ditch bargaining chip. Could be Israel, could be NATO.’ Harris looked both shaken and disgusted. ‘Only a matter of time. Lucky us. We just saw history being made.’

The Superhawk descended at a steep angle. Again, the rotor blades were making that growling steel-drum sound. Fouad could hardly believe what was happening, what he was being told.

Muslims are roasting in nuclear fire.

He felt his stomach leap and pressed his lips together. He could taste the sour acid in his mouth. It made the backs of his teeth feel rough.

‘Hang on,’ the pilot called back. ‘Anyone have a Michelin guide? How about finding us a nice hotel with a big parking lot, some shish-kabob and cold beer?’

Fouad closed his eyes and inclined his head to pray.

Washington State

Rebecca Rose again insisted on driving. William Griffin sat quietly, trying to appear relaxed with hands gripping one knee. Early morning traffic was light as they headed south.

The Federal Detention Center rose dusky gold in the early morning light, a wedge of two pale angled monoliths atop split arcs of brown concrete brick. To William the facility looked like a huge piece of chocolate cake topped by twin Lego slabs. ‘Kind of pretty, don’t you think?’ he asked as they passed under an ornate radius wall, into the shadow of the imposing wedge.

‘I’ve never seen a pretty prison,’ Rebecca said.

They passed their credentials through narrow openings in thick security glass and were shown into twenty feet of curving arches mounted with sensors and interrupted by sampling stations. They were subjected to sniffers, iris-scanned, fingerprinted, gave a little blood, and then opened their mouths for a buccal cell swab. These details were tested, logged, and checked against an unspecified number of federal criminal and citizen databases.