“You’re wrong, McLanahan,” Maureen shot back. “It was way before your heart thing, way before you rigged up your own self-monitoring thing that everyone bought off on. It was the flying in the spaceplane, hanging out at Dreamland, being with your boys and girls out there instead of wanting to be with me. I wanted something more than a part-time relationship.”
“So you picked Gardner? Gardner is your full-time partner…when he’s not screwing Barbeau or his wife or the dozens of other women he’s got on the side.”
“But he was there for me,” Hershel said, almost pleading. “That’s something you never could do — even when you were with me, you were always somewhere else. At least Joe paid attention to me and treated me like I needed to be treated…”
“And we both know what that is, now, don’t we?”
“Hey, buster, don’t give me advice on how to live a good and proper life!” Hershel spat. “We both know how close you’ve come to being in prison for the rest of your life! Not even the President of the United States can keep you under control — but that’s not the President’s problem, it’s yours. Even your son can’t keep you from unnecessarily risking your life or breaking the rules for your own selfish, nihilistic reasons.” That remark seemed to hit Patrick like a physical blow, and he opened the office door.
“I’m not finished with you, mister!” Hershel snapped behind him. “You’re pathetic! You’re a disgrace! The only one besides yourself who could possibly be proud of what you do was Brad Elliott, and look where he is now!” He could still hear her yelling something as he walked out of her office suite and headed for the exit.
“Dad!” he heard moments later. He hadn’t even noticed his ten-year-old son Bradley sitting in the reception area. He came running over to him and gave him a tight embrace, then attempted to pick him up as he always did when they hugged — not too much longer, Patrick knew, he would be able to do it too. “Miss Parks said you were in a meeting with the President and the Vice President. Can we see them? I want to say hi.”
“Not now, Brad. They’re all busy.” He looked a little dejected, but nodded. They started walking downstairs for the exit. “It’s pretty late for you to be up, big guy. Did you have dinner yet?”
“Yes. But I didn’t have dessert. Can we go to Andrews for dessert? They have the best ice cream there.”
“I think it’s too late for ice cream, Brad. But we’ll go out to Andrews tomorrow morning for breakfast. How about that?”
“Good. Are we going flying?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Back to Las Vegas.” He looked for any hint of excitement or disappointment, but didn’t really see either.
“What about school?”
“You get some time off until I sign you up for school in Las Vegas.”
Again, little reaction. Maybe he was getting accustomed to being displaced, having little time to say good-bye to friends and having to face the challenge of finding new friends, just like millions of other kids of military parents had to deal with for most of their youth.
They exited the West Wing and headed toward the parking garage without saying anything else except “good night” to the uniformed Secret Service officers. Patrick had no reason to fear walking the streets of the District of Columbia late at night: since the American Holocaust, there was plenty of federal and District police, and even some National Guard still on the streets, day and night. Patrick felt Brad lagging behind a bit. “Carry me, Dad?” a sleepy voice asked.
He hadn’t asked that in years, or if he did Patrick had to say “no.” Bradley was not heavy but he was tall, past Patrick’s chin and almost to his mouth when standing together. At the very least, carrying him would have been unwieldy. But he stooped down, scooped him up, and cradled him in his arms. “Thanks, Dad,” Bradley said, and fell asleep immediately.
For the first time, perhaps in a long time, Patrick found it easy to keep his mind focused on this important task, rather than the dozens of equally important ones awaiting him.
EPILOGUE
“Crossing the Iranian horizon…now,” Colonel Kai Raydon said. Almost the entire crew of Armstrong Space Station was floating near the radar technicians and displays as the station’s powerful sensors began sweeping Iran with its ultra-precise, high-powered, high-resolution beams.
Tehran had mostly been spared destruction by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Only two Shahab-2 rockets had hit, both on Doshan Tappeh Air Base, resulting in relatively few casualties. The Air Battle Force had destroyed or intercepted a total of eighteen Shahab-2s, plus another twenty-four Shahab-2s and twenty Shahab-3 rockets aimed at targets to the west.
But there was one more missile to be destroyed. They had received indications by their constellations of NIRTSats that the third remaining Shahab-5 missile based near Kermān in southern Iran was preparing for launch. It was too dangerous for the Air Battle Force to send in its bombers to try to destroy the silo, and there were no ships available in the area with conventional cruise missiles. There was only one weapon system available to deal with the big Iranian missile.
“Starting to receive imagery of the Zarand launch site, crew,” Raydon reported. “Genesis, are you receiving?”
“Affirmative, Odin,” Dave Luger responded from the command center at Dreamland. “‘Avenger’ has already approved execution — weapons free.”
“Copy, Genesis,” Raydon responded. “Thirty seconds.” As the station got closer to the target area and the radar’s line of sight became less angled, they could make out more detail. “Looks like the silo door is open, gang,” Raydon reported. “Crew, we have authorization. Weapons free, batteries released. Ann, fire ’em up.”
“Roger that, Colonel,” Ann Page replied from the Skybolt control module. “Crew, attention in the station, MHD magnetic fields coming alive.” The lights dimmed briefly, and then they heard a rhythmic vibration traveling throughout the station.
At that moment Raydon saw a large column of heat burst upward from the Iranian missile silo, completely obscuring their view. The sensor operator zoomed out…just in time to watch a Shahab-5 missile shoot out from inside the silo! “Missile launch, missile launch!” the tech shouted. “Confirmed Shahab-5 missile launch…veering south now, altitude twenty-five thousand, fifteen miles downrange…sensors confirm the target as the north-central Indian Ocean.”
“Bastards — they actually launched a missile against Diego Garcia,” Raydon said angrily. He floated over to the Skybolt control console to be sure that the radar and targeting lasers were locked onto the Shahab-5 missile rising through the atmosphere. “Ann, do me a big favor and destroy that sucker for me?”
“You got it, Kai,” Ann said. “Crew, stand by for weapon release.” She hit a button on her console that commanded the Skybolt system to life:
In the Skybolt laser module, two small nuclear reactors began sending a chunk of molten metal through a non-conducting pipe that had a strong electromagnetic field in the middle. When the metal reached the reactor heads it vaporized into a gas, which shot it back the other way through the pipe. When it moved away from the head it turned back into a solid just as it passed the magnetic field, creating a massive slug of electricity that was stored in a capacitor. As the slug traveled through the pipe and reached the other reactor head, it turned back into a gas and was propelled in the opposite direction to start the process over again. The generator could operate for centuries like this with absolutely no moving parts.