Get ready.
That was always the thing. Prior to the last couple of years, nothing in Washington ever happened fast. For a while the network could have put a cardboard cutout of him on the steps without affecting the ratings. That ship sailed, hit an iceberg, caught fire, and sank. Now, instead of having to pad the twenty-four-hour news cycle, there was no damn way to keep up with all of the shit that rained down here every hour or every day. It was Zach’s personal opinion that everyone currently holding office in modern politics was certifiably insane. Didn’t matter which party. Didn’t matter what their job. They were, collectively, a basket of rabid hamsters.
The producer loved that because of the ratings. Zach figured that somewhere in all of that was his first Pulitzer. Oh hell yes.
So, he didn’t complain about the cold or the stage managing of his gradual dishevelment. That was the same process Anderson Cooper used during Hurricane Katrina, and that worked out.
No, Zach was good with it, and he waited for the cameraman to adjust the lighting and the producer to give him a nod.
“The story here in the nation’s capital continues to unfold,” began Zach, “with shocking and tragic new elements being uncovered following the discovery of—”
And then the first shock wave hit.
The first tremblers had been in Virginia, but the real shock punched its way out of the ground before the news of that reached D.C. No one knew it was coming. It did not start small and build. It happened very fast and very big, and lines of force shot along the avenues, up the sides of buildings, across fields, and collectively stabbed the city through the heart.
Suddenly people were running and screaming and… fighting?
Zach stared in dumb horror as the crowds all around him erupted into a mad brawl. The logical part of his mind tried to choreograph it, trying to turn what he saw into a saner flight to safety from the devastation. That worked, too, for maybe three seconds. But the truth won out, even though the truth made no sense of any kind.
People were fighting. Screaming. Smashing their own faces against cars and biting each other and swinging wild punches.
Behind him, Zach heard his cameraman yell, “Say something, you fucker. Why don’t you say something?”
Zach whirled in time to see the cameraman swing his bulky shoulder-cam at Zach’s head. There was one split second where the reporter saw his own horrified reflection in the curved lens, and then the heavy device smashed into him. Zach fell, stunned and bleeding, and lay there while his longtime friend and colleague raised the camera and brought it down again and again.
In one of those perverse twists of probability, the camera still functioned. It caught every last moment. Every newsworthy detail of the utter destruction of Zach Jonas.
The president of the United States was at his desk when the shock waves slammed into the White House. He looked up from the trade briefing and stared in blank incomprehension at what was happening around him. Flowers danced in their vases, paintings rattled against the walls, the carpet writhed, and even the couches juddered against the carpet.
He said, “What…?”
Then the door burst open and two Secret Service agents came rushing into the room, yelling at him. Telling him to move. Ordering him to comply. In his confusion the president slapped their hands away, bellowing with outrage. They overpowered him, though, and began half walking, half dragging him toward the door.
It was only when the wall behind his desk cracked apart with a huge snap and pieces of masonry struck his abandoned chair and desk did he understand.
“Is it an attack?” he demanded as he began running with the agents. “Are we under attack?”
The first fires didn’t start until a few minutes after the first shock wave hit the city. Broken gas lines, wrecked cars, crushed homes — all of these conspired to spill flammable chemicals everywhere. It was inevitable that the worst would happen.
It did.
Then the second shock hit.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Ghost,” I roared, “shield Auntie.”
The command stopped Ghost as he was about to leap forward to kill. Instead, the dog would stand his ground in the gap between me and Aunt Sallie. Anyone who got past me would be savaged and likely crippled, but not killed. It wasn’t nice, but it was what we had. If I’d turned Ghost on the crowd he would keep killing until they dragged him down.
The guy in the bloody sweatshirt lunged at me, and I bashed his arms aside with a chop of my left hand and hit him very hard in the temple with my right palm. I put a lot of thrust into it, not going for a skull fracture but instead wanting to scramble his brains while shoving him at the people behind him. He took four people down with him, and I stepped to my right and front-kicked a fifty-something woman who tried to bite me. She flew backward and bumped down the stone steps.
I pivoted to evade a punch and hit the next person with a reverse elbow shot to the nose, then shoved him, too.
Hands closed on my shoulders, so I ducked, spun, and came completely out of my sports coat, then kicked the grabber in the stomach. Someone else tried to rush past me and I almost kicked her — but then to my absolute horror saw that it was a pregnant woman. Maybe eight months along, and she made a dive for Aunt Sallie.
I am known for never hesitating in a fight, but let’s face it, some things give anyone pause. I froze for maybe a microsecond as my combat mind ran through ten thousand possible responses. If we’d been alone, just the two of us, stopping her without injury would be no problem. If it had been two or three attackers, I could have figured something out.
That wasn’t this. My back and shoulders were hurt. Aunt Sallie was down, and if the woman slipped past me, then things Ghost might do to stop her were appalling. If I punched her, she might fall and hurt the baby. If I broke her leg, ditto. If I grabbed her and tried to quiet her, we’d both probably get swarmed. If I grabbed her hair to try and sprain her neck — and, yes, I can do that with some degree of control — again, she’d fall. My options were insanely limited.
The microsecond ticked slower than the wheels of eternity.
Then time caught up and I was moving. My body turned, and as her foot came down on the step just below Auntie, I lunged and stamped down on her instep. I could feel the bones break. There was no way to tell if she could even feel pain, but broken bones are broken bones. The structural integrity of the foot is part of the overall scaffolding of the body. Gravity is constantly trying to force us down, and the bones have to be intact to fight the pull.
She screamed — more in hate than in pain — but buckled, falling toward me. I caught her and turned, lowering her down as gently as I could while stabbing backward with a mule kick that caught someone else in the crotch.
Once the pregnant woman was down I said, “Sorry!” And punched her in the nose. She fell back, gagging on blood in her Eustachian tubes and feeling the swirl of a light dose of whiplash. She was done for the moment, and although she was alive and the baby safe, there was no way I was ever going to be okay about beating up a pregnant woman. Mr. Hero. Pretty sure I’d book some vacation time in one of the hotter pits of hell for what I just did.