Call to Treason - Tom Clancy [85]
When Jacquie was a mile from the base, she pulled over on a narrow back street off Allentown Road. She was just a quarter mile from the Capital Beltway. It was important that she get there as quickly as possible. First, though, there were several things she had to do.
Jacquie slipped the water company signs from the sides of the van. She replaced them with signs she" pulled from under the driver's side floor mat. They read, Interfaith Good News Mobile. She put a bow in her hair and a Bible on the passenger's seat. She placed a different license tag on the back of the van. The police would not think to stop her. No one would.
The wind was blowing hard, and she did not hear the blast when it came.
But she knew the e-bomb had gone-off. The rich blue sky over Andrews Air Force Base took on a brief, magnesium-white glow. It arced low just above and through the canopy of oak trees, a man-made aurora borealis that swiftly shaded to yellow, then green, then blue again as it vanished.
Jacquie smiled as she got back into the van. She drove to the highway, careful not to exceed the speed limit. She would return the van to Herndon, then stay in her house for several days. She would say she was sick with the flu while she waited to see the police sketch of the Op-Center bomber. She would be dieting while she was home. If the sketch happened to look like her now, it would not by the time she "got better."
Ironically, the government would benefit in one way because of what she had done.
The budget for water coolers would go way down.
* * *
THIRTY-ONE
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 2:37 p.m.
It sounded as though someone had popped a very large balloon. Hood's first thought was that one of Op-Center's emergency generators had exploded.
Paul Hood was sitting at his desk, his office door closed. He had been looking absently at the computer wallpaper, a crayon drawing of Los Angeles City Hall that Harleigh had done when she was four. He had been replaying the argument with Mike Rodgers, wondering if it could have gone differently, when he heard the burst from down the hall. It was loud enough to make him wince and to clog his ears for several seconds. A moment later the fluorescent lights above began to glow brightly. In front of Hood, the computer wallpaper was replaced by a strange, milky luminescence.
Hood rose slowly. As his ears began to clear, he heard coughing and shouts from beyond his closed door. He heard the people but nothing else. Not the hum of his computer nor the whir of the air conditioner or even the faint electric buzz of the coffee machine. Hood's left wrist felt warm. He glanced at his watch. The LCD was blank. So was the screen on his cell phone. He removed the watch. Faint ribbons of smoke curled from the battery compartment and also from the cell phone.
"No," Hood said. He suspected that what had hit Op-Center was not just a burned-out generator or a simple power failure.
He hurried to the door and opened it. The corridor be yond Bugs's cubicle was filled with wispy, yellowish smoke. The air was rich with the pungent aroma of ozone mixed with the foul smell of melted plastic.
He later learned that these were from charred outlet plates, electric wires, and telephone lines.
Bugs was standing in the corridor, fanning away smoke, trying to see.
He looked back when Hood emerged.
"What happened?" Hood asked.
"Something blew up in the lounge, I think," Bugs said. "I tried to call the gate to seal the perimeter, but the phones are fried."
"Emergency power is gone?" Hood asked.
"Everything."
"Do we know about casualties?"
"No."
"Are you okay?" Hood asked.
"Yes."
"Start getting people toward the stairwell," Hood said.
"Mike is doing that," Bugs said.
"Help him," Hood said.
"Sure," Bugs said. "Be careful."