The door to the PEOC swung open and a large African-American Secret Service agent rushed in through the vault-like frame of the opening. “Are you okay, Mister President?” he inquired.
Just then, a phone rang. It was in the agent’s left hand. He looked down at it as if seeing it for the first time. The phone rang again. It looked tiny in his huge fist.
“Oh, yes, and some guy keeps calling Sergeant Swan’s mobile,” he said. “Don’t know how he got through the coffin, sir.”
“Did you answer it?” asked the President. It seemed like such an absurd question that Secretary of State Lukas actually laughed. Perhaps it was just a way to release all the tension bottled up in the room.
“Yes, sir. But he keeps calling back.”
“I’m sorry, Mister President,” Sergeant Swan said, rushing in. Decker’s guard snapped to attention and held out his hand.
“It’s not for you,” said the Secret Service agent. “It’s for him.” He pointed at Decker. “He says Special Agent Decker is expecting his call.”
“Who does? Who is it?” asked the President.
“He calls himself Mister X.”
Everyone looked over at Decker. He took the phone from the Secret Service agent and placed it to his ear. “Hello?” he said. “This is Decker.”
“Listen to me. We’re almost out of time,” Mr. X said. “Go back to the virtual world. Together, perhaps, we might have a chance to defeat him. Go quickly, right now. Leave immediately, John. Before it’s too late.”
“Why? What can we possibly hope to accomplish in Cambridge? Hello? Hello?” Decker said but the signal was gone. Not even a dial tone. Just… emptiness.
Lulu stepped in beside him. She brought her face close, saying, “Let me go with you, John? I can help.”
But Decker shook his head. “I don’t need you,” he said flatly. “It would be an unnecessary risk.” He turned toward the President and the rest of his staff. “He wants me to go back to the Education Arcade at the MIT Media Lab.”
“You mean Zimmerman’s VR world?” asked Defense Secretary Pancetta. “Where HAL2 lives?”
“Exactly.”
“If you won’t let me go with you,” said Lulu, “I’ll hack in from the Fort.”
Decker shook his head once again. “You know the equipment at MIT is unique,” he said, turning away. He moved toward the President, who was immediately joined by the Secretary of Defense, his Chief of Staff and General Darius.
“I fear you’re our last and best chance,” said the President. He snagged Decker by the elbow. “I don’t know how HAL2 found out about our operation but now that he knows, there’s little point in pretending. Without our technology, without our gadgets and gizmos, it turns out we’re pretty damned small. I don’t relish the idea of being reduced to throwing spears at a wall of machinery. You have this inside track, this Mister X. And you know where he lives. HAL2, I mean. Where he operates from. You’re the only one who’s been there before.”
“Yes, Mister President.”
“I know you’ve had some difficulties with law enforcement lately but you’ve been a loyal FBI agent for years, an exemplary agent, and I’d hate to—”
“My mother would yell at me if she were alive, telling me that it’s not appropriate and certainly not polite to interrupt the President of the United States, on any occasion, but I’m going to have to stop you right there, sir. I know my duty.”
The President smiled. “I think I would have liked your mother.” He held out his hand.
Decker shook it.
“You’ll have the full power and might of the entire nation behind you,” said the President. “Such as it is these days.”
Decker glanced over at Lulu. She was staring at him with a look of fear in her eyes.
“Don’t worry, Mister President,” Decker said. “As long as we have today, we have everything.”
CHAPTER 56
It was dark by the time Decker and his military escort made it to Cambridge. It had been a largely uneventful ten-hour journey by M1117 Armored Security Vehicle. They had decided to travel by road and it was a good thing they did. The air transport that was allegedly carrying him to Logan Airport in Boston never made it. One minute it was there, off the coast of New Jersey, and then it was gone, simply gone. Three planes — vanished. And, with them, the Decker look-alike that they had very publicly transported from the White House to Reagan National Airport.
Decker thought about his double the entire journey from D.C. to Cambridge. He wondered if he had a family. A wife. Kids. How much he looked like him. Later, when Decker fell asleep in the back of the vehicle, he dreamt about his face. He saw it swimming up out of the deep, in the waters off Asbury Park, a pale moon in the darkness, and he woke up shaking and sweating.
He thought about Lulu as he curled himself up in his flak jacket. He wondered what she was doing. He wondered what was swimming in the depths of her heart.
From time to time, he chatted with the three Army Rangers riding beside him. Based out of Fort Benning, Georgia, they were relatively young — in their mid to late twenties — yet seasoned enough to know how to handle themselves, without any overarching need for nervous conversation or chit-chat, save for the odd joke now and again. There were no anecdotes about home, no stories about where they’d grown up, no cuts about old sweethearts. The squad had served together for over three years. They already knew more than they ever wanted to know about one other. Now, what mattered most was the space in between the words and the sentences.
Only when they came upon abandoned vehicles on the side of the road, or pushed through the remnants of car accidents did they grow animated, alert for possible ambushes. But the insulated nature of the Armored Security Vehicle made the world beyond the confines of the reinforced plastic windows and steel chassis seem, for the most part, largely irrelevant.
When they finally arrived in Cambridge, it became clear that the city had experienced far more damage than they had seen in D.C. The Military Police in the capital had kept Routes 695 and 295 open, and the interstate highways northbound had been mostly empty of traffic. Occasionally, they had spotted fire and smoke emanating from some of the cities and towns they had passed along the way. But nothing prepared them for Cambridge.
The streets were abandoned, littered with burning trash, deserted vehicles, overturned shopping carts. A few citizens appeared in the shadows but most avoided the three ASVs and the four Humvees in their convoy. Street after street was the same. Windows broken. Storefronts looted. The electricity seemed to come on at random, block by block. One minute the streetlights glared normally, the next they went dark.
At one point, after turning off the Massachusetts Turnpike onto River Street, they passed a storefront and saw a few looted television sets sprawled out on the sidewalk. One flat-screen TV on the wall was still on.
“Hold it,” Decker shouted as he caught a glimpse of the screen.
The young Captain driving the ASV pulled over to the side of the street.
Sure enough. It was Decker’s face. Lulu’s too. And there were their names, in bold white letters beneath.
Decker slid open the tiny reinforced plastic window beside the so-called VIP seat between the hull and the air conditioner. With the storefront glass shattered, he could hear the announcer.
“A man once associated with saving this nation when threatened by Islamist eco-terrorist El Aqrab, who prevented the Eastern Seaboard from being devastated by a mega-tsunami, John Decker has now been directly implicated in the terrorist cyber-attacks responsible for causing so much damage across the nation. He and his associate, Xin Liu, are at large and wanted by the authorities. A twenty-five million dollar reward for the capture or killing of either terrorist suspect has been issued by Homeland Security. They were last seen in Cambridge, in the vicinity of the MIT Media Lab. If you come across them, please do not be tempted to apprehend them yourself. Contact your local police immediately.”