“I did not say destroy, Miss Hunsecker. I said destroy as it is known today. The power plants in question are concentrated within the heaviest areas of population. The metropolises of the East Coast, the larger cities of the Midwest, South, and California. Many will die, tens of millions, but far more will survive and be totally uprooted.”
“Half the population,” Blaine said, considering the potential targets. “Perhaps even more.”
“The survivors in the targeted zones will be forced from their homes, forced to resettle their lives away from the cities that will be no more than steel-and-glass graveyards for a thousand years.
“And, of course, those same steel-and-glass graveyards contain the lifeblood of American existence,” McCracken added. “Information, data. Government and business.”
“Exactly. The United States, especially, is held together by the glue of people pressing keys and switching relays, bringing you your television signals, radio broadcasts, and dial tones. Those major relays and stations happen to be centralized in the very centers that are most at risk. How will your government function? And what of your economic base? Everything will be frozen, suspended.”
“Except the people,” Patty said indignantly. “The ones who can get out will. Resettle, you called it.”
“Yes. Toward the areas of the nation unaffected by the radioactive clouds spreading on the wind. Those areas at present, of course, are the least populated.”
“The corn belt,” Blaine said, picking up Takahashi’s trend of thought. “Areas west of the Mississippi, the mountains and plains.”
Takashashi nodded. “A vast population shift will ensue. Millions flooding areas that lack the capacity to handle them. Goods and services will be at a premium, along with the very rudiments of life and the capacity to effectively distribute them. Necessities such as electricity, water, waste disposal, sewers, all forms of fuel will become woefully inadequate. The panic will continue, even escalate.” He turned his pink eyes toward Patty. “This is what the Children of the Black Rain have laid the groundwork for, Miss Hunsecker. They will emerge from the bunkers they have fled to, in total control of the goods and services so drastically needed, because that is what we arranged their placement for. They will have taken over.”
“They’ll still need the government to do that, Mr. Takahashi.”
“And they’ll have it.”
“You’re not going to tell me the president is one of them.”
“No — the vice president. The final element of the plan will be the assassination of the president before the nuclear plants are destroyed.”
“One of our six killers was dispatched to kill the vice president,” Takahashi continued. “He…failed.”
But McCracken’s mind was elsewhere as he tried to make sense of the pictures Takahashi was painting. The great cities of the United States reduced to skeletons. Massive ghost towns of steel and glass, the raw power of the world’s most advanced nation abandoned to the deadly rads. And in the safe zones the survivors living crowded and cluttered; many already dying, others wishing they were.
But that wasn’t all, was it? The Children of the Black Rain would emerge from the bunkers prepared to take over the nation they had effectively destroyed with a blueprint for remaking American society and the resources to bring it off. The men who had formulated the original plan nearly a half century before were long dead, their legacy perverted by a single rebel standing over the Children, controlling them. And that single member was about to preside over the nuclear devastation of the United States.
“Which nuclear plants?” McCracken asked finally.
“That I do not know. Most are centered along the East Coast, where the prevailing wind currents will blow the deadly clouds over the largest clusters of your country’s populace.” Takahashi paused. “But if you can uncover which ones, the operation can still be stopped.”
“How?”
“The Omicron legion. Everything depends on them successfully sabotaging the nuclear plants. You can stop them. You are the only man who can.”
McCracken looked up. “What makes you say that?”
“Because they fear you. You escaped them in the Amazon and killed one of their number in Rio. You are the one factor the Children’s plan did not account for. You are the one factor that can destroy it.”
Something flashed through Blaine’s mind. “Can you give me a list of the Children?”
“I’ve already had one prepared.”
“What about the locations of the bunkers where they’re hiding out?”
“Unfortunately, I cannot help you there.”
“But you know when this is all going to happen. I can tell that much.”
A thin smile crossed the albino’s milk-white lips and lingered there as he spoke. “When else, Mr. McCracken? December seventh, 1991. The fiftieth anniversary of Pearl Harbor.”
Chapter 29
Mira’s eighth victim proved the easiest to reach of all. Newton Samuels regularly used an escort service, and it was an easy chore for her to replace the woman scheduled to accompany him tonight. As was the procedure, his limousine swung by an assigned spot at the proper time, and Mira climbed into the back. The limousine pulled off instantly, not a word spoken by the driver. She checked herself in the built-in vanity mirror and then pulled the file from her handbag.
It looked like an ordinary nail file, even felt like one, albeit a bit heavier. The file was formed, though, of a high-grade carbon used in sharpening tools. While the limousine slid through the night, Mira busied herself honing her steel-tipped nails to a razor edge. The sight would have looked harmless had the driver been looking.
The car deposited her in front of the mansion, and another of Samuels’s servants led her up the steps and into the study. She counted at least a half-dozen guards present on the grounds now, including two at the front gate. Her options for escape after she dispatched Samuels would be curtailed.
“If you’ll be good enough to follow me, miss,” said the butler two minutes later. “Mr. Samuels would like to see you upstairs.”
The butler brought her to his door and knocked quietly. “You may enter,” he said, without waiting for a reply from within.
Mira did, and closed the door behind her. The room was dark, lit only by the thin spill of light coming from a partially open bathroom door.
“Come here,” Samuels called.
He was seated in a leather reading chair near the rear wall, reclining comfortably. Mira could see he had his tuxedo shirt and tie already on, but was naked from the waist down. She walked across the room and stood over him.
“Now,” he said. “Immediately.”
Mira dropped into a crouch and grasped him.
“Hurry,” he said, sighing.
He grew in her hand, and she lowered her mouth to him. It was going to be easier than she thought, the easiest yet. Her hands climbed past the studs, marking a neat line up his chest, the throat just inches away from her deadly nails. She had to make sure the initial slice was deep enough this time. She couldn’t afford him screaming or crying out before death took him.
The nails scraped against his collar. Mira prepared to flick them.
And realized he had gone limp in her mouth.
She was already into her motion by then and it was too late to correct it, even though she sensed something was terribly wrong. Before her deadly nails could find flesh, she felt her hand being snatched out of the air and twisted violently. She heard her wrist crack an instant before the explosion of pain rocked her. She fought through it and tried to pull away, lashing out with her other hand as she did. But the blow found only air as the figure whirled through the darkness.