2030_ The Real Story of What Happens to America - Albert Brooks [24]
“The President’s appointment secretary just asked if you could stay later. The President would like to meet at three.”
“Sure,” Sam said.
“What do we do in the meantime?” Maggie whispered, overhearing the watch. His assistant heard her.
“You are welcome to come to the White House now for lunch and a tour with the First Lady, or you can spend the day however you wish and arrive there shortly before the meeting.”
“We’ll go now and do the lunch and the tour,” Maggie said.
“You heard her,” Sam replied. “That’s the decision.”
“All right, sir. A driver is waiting for you. Did you see the earthquake in Los Angeles, Dr. Mueller?”
“Yes. Horrible.”
“Our office building and lab there were completely destroyed, but nothing dangerous was released. And thank God it was early, so no one was in the building.”
“I know,” Sam said. “Bob called me an hour ago. It’s lucky for us they make it too expensive to do business out there or we would have lost a lot more. I’ll check in with you later.”
Sam and Maggie got into the limousine.
“Where to, sir?”
“The White House.” That felt really cool. Some things never got old.
* * *
The Situation Room was fully active now, as if the country had been attacked. They watched secure feeds of information flowing in, getting the most up-to-the-minute counts on the dead and injured, and watched close-up pictures from space.
Bernstein could never get over these pictures. They weren’t new technology—this had been around for probably fifty years—but they kept getting better. Stupendously clear photos of the smallest objects, with the best sound you ever heard. You could read a Vehicle Identification Number on an automobile from fifty miles up. And you could hear the conversation in the same car. The government had to go through the motions of getting judicial approval to hear what people were saying, although visual spying was allowed—it was odd, you could see someone in bed, you just weren’t allowed to hear him without a court order—but the orders were easy to obtain, and most of the time the government listened anyway and got the permission later.
Today, however, they weren’t interested in conversations. This wasn’t about a conspiracy. It was about a catastrophe. The worst the nation had ever seen.
CHAPTER TEN
The United States had always felt it was just a matter of time before a nuclear device went off somewhere in the country. But its worst fears—that of a full-fledged bomb exploding—had not yet happened. When a dirty bomb exploded in Chicago in 2023, it was handled well. The thing about dirty bombs is that they leave large parts of real estate uninhabitable, but they don’t kill on a large scale.
People were scared to death when it happened, but the explosion itself was over before anyone knew there was radiation involved. The area, about one city block, was sealed off, and remained that way for five years until they were able, with the help of new chemicals, to cleanse the buildings of any measurable contamination. Still, no one moved back there. They almost had to give the land away and they were forced to put up a big electronic Geiger counter, like a billboard, that always registered zero, just to put people at ease. The area was affectionately known in the city as the Hot Zone, and some strip clubs and dance clubs actually made money there, with strippers known as “Xray” and “NewCleo.”
Other parts of the world were not that fortunate. People had always expected the first nuclear explosion to be in the Middle East when Iran got its weapon, or Pakistan or North Korea. But North Korea surprised everyone.
When Kim Jong Il died in 2013, the country fell apart and into the hands of the south. Over the next few years the two countries became one Korea with not only no resistance from the north but almost an attitude of gratefulness. The people in the north had nothing, knew almost nothing about the world, but knew from messages that had gotten through to them from relatives who had escaped a long time ago that they had it as bad as it could get. And once change was offered to them,