Without Warning Part 27

"... it took everyone, Ronnie. Everyone. Who's to say it's not going to jump out here and take the rest of us in two minutes?"

"Nothing," she replied quietly. "Nothing but my faith in the Lord. I know you're not a praying man, Kip. But I say some extra prayers on your behalf every Sunday to make up. And what the good Lord tells me is that nothing he does is without meaning. It all serves a purpose in the end. His purpose. And I do not believe his purpose would be served by laying another tribulation upon us. What is, is. This is for us to endure. For you to bear, Kipper. Whether you're a believer or not."

"I wish I was, Ronnie," he said. "I wish I was."

"So does Jesus, Kipper."

From anyone else, he'd have taken offense. But Ronnie and he went way back and he knew she meant only the best.

"You coming in tomorrow?" he asked.

"As if you need to ask."

"I'm sorry. I'm on the edge of a decision here. I think I'm going to confront Blackstone. Demand that he release the councillors and ease off on the restrictions on people."

"Set my people free?" smiled Ronnie.

"Something like that."

"And what if he throws you in the clink too?'

"Well, we all have our choices to make, don't we?"

"We do. And I'm sure you'll make the right ones."

Kipper didn't reply at first, instead looking out the window at the largely empty city center. "You look after Heather," he said at last. "She's a good girl, but she's lost."

"She wouldn't be the first stray we took under our care. Or the last, I'll wager. And you look after yourself, Kip. Don't sit here all night. Get yourself home. Your family needs you, too."

"I will, Ronnie. Good night."

He turned back to the window as she left, staring out into the rain. The city was dark, with only a few lights burning here and there in offices where he could see other people moving around working. As he watched, a few of them flickered out, too. He tried to pick out the smoldering red light of the Wave but failed. The weather was really closing in.

Ronnie was right. Time to go home.

The walk back to his car was uncomfortable, the rain constant and stinging. They said a big chemical plant had gone up in the Portland blaze, and he thought he could feel it in the pores of his skin where the water soaked through.

The drive home was thankfully uneventful. No riots. No ambushes. Only the usual military checkpoints, through which he sailed without delay, thanks to a new upgraded pa.s.s from Blackstone. He tortured himself the whole way, wondering if he should have followed Barney out the door. If they all should have.

He could see candles burning in the kitchen at home as he pulled up, and a curtain twitched aside. He turned off the motor and hurried up the driveway as the door opened.

"Come in, Kip. Hurry up. That rain's gone bad again they say."

"Hang on, Barb," he said, shaking off as much moisture as he could on the porch, and removing his muddy boots.

"Come on. I've kept some dinner warm by the fire. And I poured you a whiskey."

"Thanks, darlin'. That's just what I need."

"Barney called," she said.

"Oh. He told you."

"Everything ... I'm so sorry, Kip. All those people. You must feel awful."

He dried off with an old towel she handed him and closed the door. It felt good to shut out the weather.

"Yeah. It wasn't a great day," he said wearily. "And this thing with Barney and the council. I'm just..."

Barb shushed him and took him by the arm through the lounge room, where a small fire crackled and glowed in the hearth. A plate, covered in foil, sat near the flames, and a tumbler of whiskey waited for him on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry about this morning," said Barb. "I was a b.i.t.c.h. I shouldn't have put all that pressure on you. I'm sorry."

"d.a.m.n."

He squeezed his eyes shut.

"What?"

He looked at his wife helplessly.

"I forgot the f.u.c.king Piglet video."

She stared at him for a full second before they both burst out laughing.

Honolulu, Hawaii

Admiral Ritchie was right. Jed Culver, of the Louisiana bar, did not take three or four business suits along with him on vacation. He only ever took one, just in case. As soon as he'd learned of the Disappearance, however, he'd gone straight downtown and bought four new outfits, off the rack, but quickly tailored to fit his ample frame. As always they were either blue pinstriped and single-breasted, or charcoal gray, ditto. Two Brooks Brothers. One Zegna. And a rather subdued Armani. He put the charge on one of his European cards, a Visa issued by Barclays Banks in London, where he had worked for three years as an equity partner with Baker & McKenzie before moving home to set up his own firm. The Barclays Visa he normally saved for annual trips to Europe with Marilyn, but as of three days ago none of his U.S.-issued plastic was working. Diners, Amex, and MasterCard, none of them were any good. The local merchants had stopped taking them in payment or their billing systems simply locked up when presented with the account details.

For now, at least, there was no such problem with his English credit card. Even so, aware that some might think his use of credit an imposition on the goodwill and touching naivete of Mr. Rajiv Singh, the owner of the high-tone gentleman's outfitter on Beretania Street where he bought all four suits, Culver explained exactly how quickly Singh needed to lodge his accounts this month, which was to say, immediately.

"And don't take no guff from those sons a b.i.t.c.hes neither," he'd advised. "Get your money fast, and if you're in the market for some further and better advice, get the h.e.l.l out of the suit business, too. Ain't gonna be much call for all these fancy duds soon."

Mr. Singh had not needed telling twice. Eighty percent of his business came from mainland tourists dropping disgraceful amounts of money on exclusive leisurewear. Business attire was a sideline. The next time Jed Culver drove past the shop it was closed. He never saw Singh again.

"Best d.a.m.ned investment I ever made," he said to himself while climbing into the jacket of his new favorite, the Armani.

"What's that, Jedi Master?" his wife called out, distracted, from the lounge room where she was glued to the television.

Culver tugged at his s.h.i.+rt cuffs as he walked through into the main living area of the Emba.s.sy Suitesserviced apartment. Marilyn, his third wife, and definitely his favorite, sat curled up at the end of the lounge nearest the TV, ignoring the glorious vista of Waikiki Beach and Mamala Bay in the floor-to-ceiling picture windows. The pollution storm had not yet reached this far around the world, and the best advice they had was that the worst of it probably wouldn't drift so far south anyway. Intensifying low-pressure systems were likely to draw the poisoned banks of cloud back up to the northern lat.i.tudes. Even so, Marilyn, a forty-year-old who looked thirty and sometimes acted twenty, remained at the end of the sofa, a black three-seater covered in a strikingly dense pineapple motif.

She was, he thought fondly, a bear of little brain, but such a beautiful bear, and so cuddly and loving that he couldn't help but love her all the more. She was just so much easier to live with than the harsh, angular, carnivorous b.i.t.c.hes he'd married by mistake the first two times. (And if there was one upside to the otherwise unmitigated horror of the last week, it was realizing that those two life-sucking trolls had winked out of existence.) In comparison with Vanda and Louise, Marilyn's needs were simple, if expensive, and she gave him so much in return that he could only worry at the change that had come over her since the Disappearance. What she lacked in book smarts, his wife more than made up for in a vast store of emotional, physical, and spiritual resources. She was a woman who rushed at the edge of life, gleefully, like a child, chasing soap bubbles on the breeze.

Jed had never known her to veg out in front of the tube for such a long stretch of time, unless it was in front of Fas.h.i.+on TV in the weeks before they decamped to London and Paris each year. This last week, however, she'd camped in front of the box, channel-surfing between BBC World, CNN Hong Kong, Sky News, and whatever crisis-of-the-moment bulletins the local network affiliates were putting on air. Right now, she was seemingly mesmerized by an interview with some retired British admiral who wanted to blow up the Channel Tunnel and deploy the Royal Navy "to secure the approaches." Distracted by his murmuring in the bedroom for only a moment, she had now sunk back into video torpor. Jed shook his head and let her be.

Of his children, there was no sign, for which he was happy. Melanie, the only positive reminder of his first marriage, had taken the loss of her world like a physical blow. She hadn't wanted to come to Hawaii, and as soon as she realized that her mother and all of her friends back home were gone she'd spiraled into a black whirlpool of survivor guilt, crying in her bedroom for two days. Roger, three years younger, from one marriage down the line, dealt with the shock by putting on a brittle and entirely counterfeit stoicism as his game face. Jed had worried about it cracking open at some point.

"Have you seen Rog around?" he asked Marilyn, interrupting the Chun-nel bomber.

"He's with Debbie," she said, only half paying attention.

"Debbie?"

"A pretty little thing. Down on one of the lower floors. You know. With the Girls Choir from Iowa."

As Marilyn spoke she seemed to emerge from a daze, sitting up and actually dragging her eyes off the screen.

"You met her mom, the air force lady," said his wife. "Remember? At breakfast the other day? When they ran out of m.u.f.fins and toast."

He did remember now. All of the choir girls had at least one parent with them as a chaperone, and a few had come with all of their immediate family, dampening the shock a little. But Debbie's mother, an air force reservist, had been called back to active duty two days ago, and had been forced to leave her daughter in the care of the tour leaders.

"Oh, yes, I remember her. And Debbie. She is a pretty thing, isn't she?"

He was glad the kids had met, because like kids everywhere they were totally self-obsessed, and given the current circ.u.mstances that was a form of strength.

Marilyn stood up, brightening.

"Yes. And Jedi, the girls are doing a concert tonight, down in the restaurant. Do you think you could get back for that? It would be lovely, don't you think, to do something nice? Everyone will be there, and the hotel manager will be hosting drinks afterward. To keep up our morale. I could wear a new dress. If I went out to buy one."

Another man might have brain-snapped at such vacuous babble, but Culver smiled indulgently. The curfew had been lifted somewhat in the islands, allowing people to get out for strictly rationed supplies, but he had no idea whether Marilyn would be able to find a clothing boutique that was still open, or that would accept her credit cards. Doubtless, knowing her, she would have a wonderful adventure trying, however.

"You knock yourself out, honey. And I will move heaven and earth to be at that concert."

He kissed Marilyn on the top of her head and loitered briefly by the picture window, squinting into the morning glare in the hope of picking his kids out of the small, scattered crowds down on the beach. A large but orderly swell pushed regular sets of clean barreling waves up onto the sand, and he knew that they would be somewhere down there, his children, Debbie, a handful of choir girls, and at least one or two parental chaperones, all playing in the surf, trying to keep their minds away from dark places. They were doing well at it, too, all things considered, and he sent a quick, silent prayer of thanks up to the Lord for that small mercy, especially for his daughter, who had found in her new friends a salve for the loss of so many old ones.

On the television the bl.u.s.tering admiral was gone, replaced by a handsome but harried-looking middle-aged man in a white s.h.i.+rt and bright yellow tie. He stood on what looked like the trading floor of some bank or brokerage house, and his thick East London accent was difficult to follow, but certain words tolled like funeral bells. "Meltdown ... crisis ... credit shocks ... market collapse ..." A ticker line of breaking news items scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Ma.s.sed rocket attacks on Israel from southern Lebanon. "Preemptive" Israeli air strikes on dozens of targets in Syria, Iran, and even Egypt. Another American destroyer, the USS Hopper, swarmed by hundreds of Hamas suicide bombers on Jet Skis. Food riots in Berlin. Street fighting between thousands of youths in Paris. More refugees pouring into Guantanamo Bay. A declaration of martial law in six Chinese provinces. A toxic supercell storm forming in the Bay of Biscay.

There was no question in Jed's mind what everyone was doing down on the beach below him. They were trying to ignore the end of the world.

"Bye-bye, honey," he said to Marilyn as he picked up his briefcase and kissed her again, on the forehead this time.

"Okay. I'll see you later, darlin'," she replied, surprising him with a fierce hug that almost pulled the two-hundred-pound lawyer off his feet. When they separated her eyes were puffy and haunted. "Everything's gonna be cool, isn't it, Jedi Master?"

It was one of those questions he wasn't meant to answer truthfully.

"Sure, honey. Everything's gonna be cool."

And he wasn't lying exactly. Things would probably be better for his family than most survivors, because Jed Culver had come flying out of the starter's gate, throwing himself at an overwhelmed administration, impressing the h.e.l.l out of them with his extensive background in disaster management and civil-military relations, two bits of fluff on his resume that might best be described as completely fict.i.tious. Didn't matter. n.o.body was going to be checking his bona fides for a long time, if ever, and the fact was, if you had to put a realistic description on his colorful employment history, you could do no better than saying that Jed Culver got things done and made sure they stayed done.

Indeed, he couldn't think of anyone better qualified to stick his hands into the fire and haul everybody's a.s.ses out with a minimum of singeing and whining. And if the price of that was his family getting looked after because he'd snuggled up tight to the surviving power structure, well then that was just a win-win situation, wasn't it? As he squared his shoulders, still powerful from years of college wrestling, and headed out of the apartment, he was already thinking about that power structure, which was becoming one of his more difficult projects. In his briefcase he had letters from four amba.s.sadors, each putting himself forward as interim president until a new Congress or election could be organized. It wasn't a bad idea, stiff-arming a senior diplomat into the job for a strictly limited amount of time. There were decisions that needed to be made at a national executive level that simply weren't getting made. But the four bozos in his briefcase were all political appointments-one of whom he'd actually played a very sly hand in getting set up-and Culver didn't rate a single one of them much higher than a stale sack of s.h.i.+t. Frankly, anyone seeking power at the moment definitely couldn't be trusted with it.

No, they were going to need someone who actually didn't want the job. Someone who was available but who was nothing like him or any of his peers in the shark tank. They were going to need someone honest. As honest as George Was.h.i.+ngton, or at least a good enough actor that he, or she, could pull it off.

But who?

He was going to have to start doing some digging, finding out what was happening beyond the islands. With winter looming, the Alaskan state government was consumed with the job of making sure its people didn't starve and freeze to death. Seattle and those parts of Was.h.i.+ngton outside of the Wave's effect seemed to be muddling through after some unpleasantness with riots and looting, although it was hard to tell with news coming out of there in a drip feed. Perhaps that might be the place to start looking.

He stalked through the hotel corridors toward the elevator at the end of the hall, brooding on a tangle of competing thoughts, among them how much emptier the Emba.s.sy Suites seemed than just a few days ago. Almost all of the foreign guests had checked out, but there seemed to be fewer Americans in residence, too. Operation Uplift hadn't started yet, and he wondered where they might have gone, since most would have hailed from the mainland. That was less an issue, however, than the lack of maids. Every morning when he'd emerged from his rooms at least three housekeeping trolleys were parked somewhere on his family's floor, but this morning nada. Of course, it might mean nothing, but he made a mental note to check with some of the staff about whether there were problems with their pay, whether some people had just stopped turning up to work, whether there might be any signs of order and organization starting to fall apart. Of the three surviving U.S. states, Hawaii was the least able to sustain itself. Without ma.s.sive amounts of external a.s.sistance the islands would probably be ungovernable, even with a huge armed-forces presence. Both the civilian and military authorities were alive to the very real possibility of starvation and a rapid fraying of the social fabric. Given the s.h.i.+t going down in Europe n.o.body was sanguine about just muddling through anymore.

He walked into the elevator, which was empty, and punched in the b.u.t.ton for the lobby. The elevator stopped only once during the descent, to pick up a German couple and their luggage.

"Howdy." He smiled as they wrestled their bags in. "Heading home?"

"No," the man replied in perfect, clipped English. "We have relatives in Australia we are to visit. Winemakers in the Barossa Valley. Do you know it?"

"No," he admitted. "Not much of a wine drinker, though."

The Germans both nodded as though he'd said something profound.

"So, you think you'll be going home any time soon?" Jed asked when the silence began to stretch out.

"No," the man replied just as quickly as they reached the ground floor. He bowed his head brusquely and said, "My sympathies for your loss," as they squeezed out past Jed with their suitcases.

The foyer would normally have been crowded at this time with guests checking out and conferencegoers arriving for seminars and meetings, but apart from the Germans and half a dozen cabin crew members from some Asian airline, the lobby was mostly deserted. A couple of wet tourists wandered in from the beach with towels thrown over their shoulders, and the gla.s.sy, frozen grins of people desperately trying to avoid looking at the yawning abyss that had lately opened in front of them. It was a look Jed was becoming used to. His eyes scanned the floor and he found his driver standing just outside, sneaking in a last-minute cigarette. He'd given the cancer sticks up himself twenty years ago, after successfully representing British American Tobacco in a suit against one of their many former customers. Or victims, as one executive called them in private.

Bobby Kua, his driver, was a native Hawaiian, a surfer, and Jed shook his head ruefully as he saw the boy suck extra hard on the Marlboro to drag in a few more precious carcinogenic lungfuls as soon as he saw the lawyer approaching.

"I'm telling you, Bobby, you'd be a much better surfer if you gave those things away."

"No way, boss," smiled Kua. "I'm already a weapon. Couldn't get any better."

He drew one last, long puff before stubbing out the b.u.t.t and flicking it into a nearby can. Privately, Jed wondered how long it would be before the young man was pinching off his half-smoked b.u.t.ts to finish them later.

He made a mental note to lay in a few cartons. Within a week or two, some people would sell their souls for nicotine, he was sure.

"So where to, boss?"

"Pearl today," said Culver. "We'll be there all day, too. Then out to the capitol about three-thirty for a meeting. You could probably get away for an hour or so if you needed to. But I'm on a promise to get back here for drinks. Say, seven."

"Got it," said Bobby, leading him over to the nondescript white Chevy Aveo from the government fleet. Gas rationing meant that only the smallest, most fuel-efficient cars could be signed out of the pool for official business, while civilian motorists were restricted to just a few gallons a week, which could only be purchased on alternate days. Rationing had quickly become an unpleasant reality that everyone had to deal with. Armed troopers posted at supermarkets and gas stations made sure of that. Appeals to fairness and civic-mindedness shortly after the Disappearance had achieved nothing but the rapid emptying of grocery-store shelves and at least a dozen incidents of serious violence, including one macadamia-caramel-popcorn related multiple homicide at a supermarket on Kalakaua Avenue.

Culver was grateful that he had no responsibility for the rationing system. It had quickly come to challenge the Disappearance as the open wound on talk radio. The first time an American was told by a heavily armed man in combat gear that they couldn't buy all the Twinkies they wanted tended to come as a deep existential shock every bit as unnerving as the still unexplained cataclysm back on the mainland. Culver himself had quickly emptied the small bar fridge back at the hotel of liquor and filled it with emergency food supplies, as soon as he noticed that the breakfast buffet in the restaurant was looking a bit spare. Frankly, he'd have been much happier if he could have relocated Marilyn and the kids to Pearl Harbor, just in case things got totally out of hand. But they all insisted on staying at the Emba.s.sy Suites, and he was reasonably confident of making himself important enough to grab a safe berth in the event of any European-style uprising.

To that end he strapped himself into the backseat of the car, with room to spread out his doc.u.ments, and got to work while Bobby drove him through Honolulu. More shops were closed every day now. In fact, apart from bars and heavily guarded food outlets there was very little open, and there were very few people on the streets. Marilyn was probably going to be disappointed in her search for a new c.o.c.ktail dress. Soldiers and cops comprised most of the foot traffic, in contrast to the first few days, when huge unruly crowds had gathered and surged back and forth, almost like people running without real purpose on the deck of a sinking s.h.i.+p. Together the rationing and curfew systems tended to keep people at home most of the time.

They slowed down to negotiate a large but docile crowd that had gathered at the Fort DeRussy parklands for a food-distribution point run by the army. A dozen trucks were parked in a line before an avenue of olive-drab tents. Soldiers were unloading hundreds of boxes, stacking them in neat piles guarded by colleagues toting rifles. It was still a bizarre, unnatural sight, Americans lined up like victims of a Honduran earthquake to score a bowl of rice or a jar of baby food. Jed pushed the images out of his mind and returned to his papers, making some untidy margin notes on a briefing he had to deliver later that day to a phone hookup between the attorneys general of the surviving states.

Admiral Ritchie was adamant that the armed forces could not continue drifting through the const.i.tutional limbo into which they had been cast. It was not simply a matter of requiring political direction for the course of the hot war they were now fighting in the Middle East. There were security nightmares springing up like poison weeds all over the world as well as some very basic and uncomfortable questions of sustainability for those forces that remained in existence.

"How do we keep going?" Ritchie had asked Jed late last night.