"c321" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burt Andrew - Noontide Night)

5:20 P.M., Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Washington, D.C.

"Aww, man!" Zach pounded the tabletop of the oversized cubicle. "What?" Morgan asked, turning aside from his monitor where he'd been scanning for news of New Zealand. Zach appeared to be reading his email. "Puget Sound Energy in Seattle got HERFed! Man, that pisses me off. We spent a whole day locking down their net. A packet couldn't get in or out of their without our blessing. What a fucking waste." "What's HERFed?" Morgan asked. Dan loved to explain things, which suited Zach, since he hated to. "High Energy Radio Frequency. You build a little box about the size of a backpack, get within a few hundred feet of your target, point the thing where you want, and blammo, a 16 megawatt pulse takes out any electronics. It's the Iraqis' latest toy. They're still focusing on hacking in most of the time, but they seem to have snuck a few terrorists into the country with HERF guns. Or probably they built them here. They're not hard to make. You just have to be careful where you stand near it; unless you don't want to have children anyway. We supposedly used them on the Iraqis in the gulf war. I guess they're getting even." He chuckled. Reality didn't seem to affect Dan. "I guess that explains this," Jade said. Everyone leaned over toward her monitor. The headline on the news web page read, "U.S. Declares War on Iraq. President cites terrorist acts, authorizes suspension of habeas corpus." Everyone had an 'oh shit' look on their face. "Habeas corpus, isn't that the thing that says you can't be held in jail without a trial?" Zach nodded, eyebrows raised. Jade read aloud more of the article. "...Iraqi terrorists disrupted power at a dozen utilities around the nation... Sea-launched cruise missiles again hitting targets in Iraq... First president since Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus... Lincoln assumed near-dictatorial powers during the civil war... Talk in congress about second impeachment of Clinton..." Jade sat back into her chair, hugging herself. "And the good news is, tomorrow's weather is supposed to be sunny and warmer." Morgan looked toward the far wall of their office area. Somewhere out there, just a few miles away, President Clinton and Congress had declared war on a country and suspended civil rights. These impacted Morgan in a distant way; he was already a prisoner of the CyberCorps Elite, though he couldn't complain about the treatment. Jerry Seinfeld was scheduled for this Friday's entertainment. It was this morning's email that hit home and personal for him. The Office Mom Squad had forwarded him all they could find so far on the hospital raid. Only one sentence was of any import. "Fatalities ... including one infant." Of course, Morgan rationalized, "infant" was a vague term. There had certainly been other babies in the hospital when he'd left. Please, don't let it have been Jeremy, he begged, unsure to whom exactly he was begging. If there is a God, it would probably sound hollow, he thought, to say I'll believe in you if you spare my son. Hadn't the bible something about Moses sparing the pharaoh's son? Or had the story been about not sparing him? Morgan heaped promises on top of his earlier ones. I'll read the bible from cover to cover, he swore. If it was Jeremy... Desiree will be devastated, he thought. And when she finds out it was my fault... He kept trying to squelch that thought all day. He couldn't possibly tell her. It would send her over the edge. But he couldn't hide that crucial detail. The truth would fester like gangrene; she'd know something was wrong, and they'd drift apart, and she'd be torn apart slowly. What if he brought in witnesses to show how hard he'd tried to contact her? Nate, Littlefield, Ortega, Sam, they all knew. Yet he hadn't done that last little thing—he hadn't actually gone AWOL to make sure she knew about his leap year bug in advance. Granted, he told himself, he didn't know if the generator would even hiccup, or if it would hurt anything if so. But the potential consequences if it did... God! All this because of a stupid date! This is how an ulcer must feel, he thought. I am simply one huge ulcer. I can't tell her. I can't not tell her. His stomach twisted in white hot knots. God, oh, God, a baby was already dead. What if that was his fault? He couldn't live with himself. He was becoming useless to the CyberCorps. He tried to help out the team, and had he been in top form he would have kicked Iraqi butt, but realistically, he was a burnt out husk. He cycled back and forth. To tell, or not to tell. Desiree would hate him if he did. He deserved that. The question was whether Desiree deserved to have that extra pain of knowing. Morgan could spare her that pain, but only by causing her much worse anguish if she found out later. If she found out. The math balanced out. Both stunk to hell. He couldn't stand the thought of living if he'd killed Jeremy. The only sensible solution was that if he found out he had, he'd kill himself. No, that would hurt Desiree too much. It was a lose-lose situation, but there was a way to minimize Desiree's hurt. The only solution was to get killed. Morgan nodded. Rizzuto would know how to arrange that.

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Chapter 32.1

5:20 P.M., Tuesday, March 7, 2000
Washington, D.C.

"Aww, man!" Zach pounded the tabletop of the oversized cubicle. "What?" Morgan asked, turning aside from his monitor where he'd been scanning for news of New Zealand. Zach appeared to be reading his email. "Puget Sound Energy in Seattle got HERFed! Man, that pisses me off. We spent a whole day locking down their net. A packet couldn't get in or out of their without our blessing. What a fucking waste." "What's HERFed?" Morgan asked. Dan loved to explain things, which suited Zach, since he hated to. "High Energy Radio Frequency. You build a little box about the size of a backpack, get within a few hundred feet of your target, point the thing where you want, and blammo, a 16 megawatt pulse takes out any electronics. It's the Iraqis' latest toy. They're still focusing on hacking in most of the time, but they seem to have snuck a few terrorists into the country with HERF guns. Or probably they built them here. They're not hard to make. You just have to be careful where you stand near it; unless you don't want to have children anyway. We supposedly used them on the Iraqis in the gulf war. I guess they're getting even." He chuckled. Reality didn't seem to affect Dan. "I guess that explains this," Jade said. Everyone leaned over toward her monitor. The headline on the news web page read, "U.S. Declares War on Iraq. President cites terrorist acts, authorizes suspension of habeas corpus." Everyone had an 'oh shit' look on their face. "Habeas corpus, isn't that the thing that says you can't be held in jail without a trial?" Zach nodded, eyebrows raised. Jade read aloud more of the article. "...Iraqi terrorists disrupted power at a dozen utilities around the nation... Sea-launched cruise missiles again hitting targets in Iraq... First president since Lincoln to suspend the writ of habeas corpus... Lincoln assumed near-dictatorial powers during the civil war... Talk in congress about second impeachment of Clinton..." Jade sat back into her chair, hugging herself. "And the good news is, tomorrow's weather is supposed to be sunny and warmer." Morgan looked toward the far wall of their office area. Somewhere out there, just a few miles away, President Clinton and Congress had declared war on a country and suspended civil rights. These impacted Morgan in a distant way; he was already a prisoner of the CyberCorps Elite, though he couldn't complain about the treatment. Jerry Seinfeld was scheduled for this Friday's entertainment. It was this morning's email that hit home and personal for him. The Office Mom Squad had forwarded him all they could find so far on the hospital raid. Only one sentence was of any import. "Fatalities ... including one infant." Of course, Morgan rationalized, "infant" was a vague term. There had certainly been other babies in the hospital when he'd left. Please, don't let it have been Jeremy, he begged, unsure to whom exactly he was begging. If there is a God, it would probably sound hollow, he thought, to say I'll believe in you if you spare my son. Hadn't the bible something about Moses sparing the pharaoh's son? Or had the story been about not sparing him? Morgan heaped promises on top of his earlier ones. I'll read the bible from cover to cover, he swore. If it was Jeremy... Desiree will be devastated, he thought. And when she finds out it was my fault... He kept trying to squelch that thought all day. He couldn't possibly tell her. It would send her over the edge. But he couldn't hide that crucial detail. The truth would fester like gangrene; she'd know something was wrong, and they'd drift apart, and she'd be torn apart slowly. What if he brought in witnesses to show how hard he'd tried to contact her? Nate, Littlefield, Ortega, Sam, they all knew. Yet he hadn't done that last little thing—he hadn't actually gone AWOL to make sure she knew about his leap year bug in advance. Granted, he told himself, he didn't know if the generator would even hiccup, or if it would hurt anything if so. But the potential consequences if it did... God! All this because of a stupid date! This is how an ulcer must feel, he thought. I am simply one huge ulcer. I can't tell her. I can't not tell her. His stomach twisted in white hot knots. God, oh, God, a baby was already dead. What if that was his fault? He couldn't live with himself. He was becoming useless to the CyberCorps. He tried to help out the team, and had he been in top form he would have kicked Iraqi butt, but realistically, he was a burnt out husk. He cycled back and forth. To tell, or not to tell. Desiree would hate him if he did. He deserved that. The question was whether Desiree deserved to have that extra pain of knowing. Morgan could spare her that pain, but only by causing her much worse anguish if she found out later. If she found out. The math balanced out. Both stunk to hell. He couldn't stand the thought of living if he'd killed Jeremy. The only sensible solution was that if he found out he had, he'd kill himself. No, that would hurt Desiree too much. It was a lose-lose situation, but there was a way to minimize Desiree's hurt. The only solution was to get killed. Morgan nodded. Rizzuto would know how to arrange that.


back | next home