Samuel Florman: The Aftermath

Sitting on the still-unmade bed in their stateroom, wearing an old tanktop and running shorts for a planned two-miler on the track, Jane gripped the telephone impatiently, waiting for the connection to be established, grimacing at the clicking and buzzing that she heard on this her third attempt to get through to her colleagues in Tucson. She had a sick sensation in her stomach about this whole thing, compounded by a guilty feeling that she had “deserted” her post at home.

The cruise had been fantastic, everything she and Jake had wanted it to be. During the days, he was cheerfully busy with his seminar activities; and their evenings were filled with splendid dinners, dancing, and strolls on the wide decks of the luxury ship. The stars—she had never seen them so brilliant and close other than through the business end of a telescope. She gazed up at them like a cockeyed “civilian,” as if she had never noticed them before. The winter constellations of the southern hemisphere, so familiar in theory, seemed startlingly fresh in their present reality—a revelation… Finally a voice on the other end of the line.

“Geoff, is that you? It’s Jane. What’s going on there?”

Despite the tenuous wireless connection, Geoffrey Baird’s voice was clear and crisp, his New Zealander accent unmistakable. “Not good news, Jane luv. Not good at all.”

“What the hell is it? Be specific.”

“The missiles”—he pronounced the second “i” very long; she could hear his labored breathing—“They went awry—or at least one of them did. We don’t know whether it was sabotage or what. Who could possibly be that suicidally crazy? What could their objective be?”

“Stop hemming and hawing, for God’s sake,” Jane said, wanting to reach through the phone and shake her friend and colleague.

Just a few hours earlier, she and Jake had sat in the lounge with a group of other passengers watching news of the intercept on a satellite feed from ITN in Great Britain. Jane understood exactly what was at stake and how the nuclear explosives were supposed to thwart the comet that was hurtling toward the earth. Jake had been sipping a Jack Daniel’s with a blissful grin on his face. He was having one hell of a good time away from his lucrative but stressful consulting business. She had been drinking an iced tea and looking at her watch, thinking about the best time to call her friends at the university, knowing they’d be at the lab monitoring the diversion effort closely.

“Jane, we’re not going to make it. Based upon our rough calculations—”

“What do you mean? Who’s not going to make it?”

“All of us, the entire bloody planet. I’m saying we’re doomed. About six hours from now. The impact—”

She could not hear Geoffrey’s words for the roaring in her ears. What was he saying? It couldn’t be… it just could not be what she thought he had said. The mission a failure? The end of the world? Too fantastic, too horrific to contemplate.

“Slow down, Geoff. Have you been drinking or something?”

“No, but I wish I had a good shot of vodka right about now, Jane. We’re looking at the Big Barbecue. I don’t mean to be flip, but I don’t know what else to say or do. We’re all going under one way or the other. Some of the people here have gone home to their families… others of us have decided to stay, ride it out the best we can. There is a chance we’re wrong. But I don’t bloody think so.”

She felt as if she were choking. She couldn’t breathe, and she struggled to speak in response to his news. “Have you told anyone? What about the press, the government?”

“Oh, yes, the big mucky-mucks called Washington. I think they got to the Secretary of Energy or some such. But it’s too late, you understand. Even if we did tell everybody, there’s absolutely nothing any of us can do. We’re toast, as the kids say—or mine used to say, twenty years ago.”

What a decent, smart, agreeable colleague Geoff Baird was. Yet at this moment nothing he said made any sense to Jane Warner, except the first statement about there being an accident or miscalculation. Even though the chances were infinitesimally small, still, there was always a possibility that the so-called fail-safe system would not work. But how could they have missed by such a margin? With all the backup systems and contingency planning? The first time they had tried it, they had done it without seeming to break a sweat. Why now? What in the world…?

“Geoff, you’re going to have to walk me through this. Please stay on the line.” She dropped the telephone receiver on the bed, grabbed a writing pad from the desk, and picked up the phone again. “Okay, start at the beginning and tell me what exactly happened and what you’re basing your numbers on. I’m going to write all of this down. Maybe there’s something…” She started to say, “something you guys missed,” but she caught herself and did not finish the sentence.

Geoff Baird heard her unspoken words. “Sorry to say, Jane, we didn’t miss anything. We’ve run the calculations at least a dozen times already. But, for what it’s worth—here goes.”

A little boy with a big name, Juan-Carlos Francisco Jaime Triunfo, sat at his mother’s kitchen table organizing his precious collection of Pokemon holograph cards. J. C. was almost nine, a bit small for his age, and he was the youngest of ten children. The day after Christmas was his favorite day. There was, of course, no school. After mass, the family would spend the day together just as they had the day before, and his cousins would come over and there would be kids galore in the Triunfo house—and he would show off his fine collection to all. At midday the family planned a trip to Rizal Park, the greensward in the center of the old Spanish city that looked out onto Manila Bay. There were war monuments and playing fields and picnic nooks, and usually many people throughout the park. The boy loved it, looked forward to it. It was going to be a fine day, indeed!

The old Delco radio with the clock that had stopped working long ago sat on the kitchen table where J. C.’s cards were piled. Only his mother was awake, starting her preparations for breakfast and for the family’s planned picnic lunch, her back turned to the boy. He paid her scant attention; he took her for granted. After all, that’s what mothers did—prepare meals. Nor did he really listen to the music on the radio, or the occasional news broadcast. All was well in the world of J. C. Triunfo.

The Triunfo family was wealthy compared to so many others they knew. The vast majority of people who lived in Manila existed in utter, paralyzing poverty. Foreign visitors who drove the few miles from Ninoy Aquino International Airport into the business center of the city passed the world-class waterfront resort hotels on their left and a high blank wall on their right, which shielded them from the depressing sight of shanty towns and slums. The wall—and the squalor it masked—was a legacy from the Marcos regime. Subsequent democratically elected governments had not improved the lot of these people very much, in part because Muslim rebels in the outer islands drained military and economic resources and political attention.

The table shook slightly, causing the Pokemon cards to move. “Mama…”

Senora Triunfo was paying no attention to her youngest child. She prayed silently as she worked, her lips moving to form the familiar words. It was as natural to her as breathing, as slicing the vegetables into the soup pot or wringing the neck of a chicken destined to be the main dish. The routine of life was a comfort to her, albeit hard, unending labor. Her husband went to work at his factory job at eight A.M. every day except Sunday. He worked only half days on Saturday, Jesus be praised. But he was of little or no help around the house when he was home: he drank liquor and slept, sometimes played cards with friends. He did not beat her or abuse the children in any way. He was a decent man…