Authors: David DeBatto
They got directions at the Siasconset general store, where a teenage kid in a fleece sweatshirt with his cap on backward was
washing muffin pans in a stainless-steel sink. The Koenig compound was a mile from town, in the dunes beyond the Coast Guard
station. They left the car at the general store, certain that Koenig would be watching his perimeter, alert to any intruders
and/or cars that might be approaching. Two men on foot would arouse less suspicion. They bought heavy-weather rubber Helly
Hansen raincoats, rubber boots, and neoprene gloves at the general store, but even then, DeLuca was cold. DeLuca purchased
a pair of binoculars, a Boy Scout compass, and a sandwich that he ate as they walked. A massive black Newfoundland dog joined
them as they made their way along the coast road, oblivious to the weather in his heavy fur. DeLuca took it as a good sign—two
Nantucketers out walking their dog would arouse even less suspicion than two men walking alone. DeLuca had his .38 police
revolver as well as his nine-millimeter Beretta. Sami carried DeLuca’s MAC-10 as well as a Glock-9. They’d passed the Coast
Guard station and were walking through a pitch-black night, the freezing rain stinging against their faces, when Sami finally
spoke up.
“It’s probably the lights up ahead,” Sami said. “On the right.”
“Probably,” DeLuca said. He was staring at the Loran radio tower, rising eight hundred feet into the night from the coastal
plain, topped by a blinking red light. The tower was held in place by two separate sets of steel cable stays, one set fixed
to the antennae two-thirds of the way up and a second set with a narrower base circumference attached a third of the way up,
both sets of cables lit with smaller red warning lights. DeLuca examined the array through the binoculars.
“There’s your dish,” he said.
“Dish,” Sami said. “Call me crazy, but I see a tower.”
“The relays are rigged on the stays. The placement on the wires forms a dish shape. You want a look?” DeLuca said, offering
him the binoculars.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Sami said. “David?”
“Yeah, Sami?”
“You know I got your back all the way, and I haven’t said anything until now because it’s your show, but at this point, I
gotta ask. You got some sort of plan in mind, or are we just gonna wing it?”
“I thought we’d wing it,” DeLuca said. “I’ve got a few ideas. He’s got a little more firepower than we do, so there’s no point
going head to head.”
“I guess not,” Sami said. “I still like the idea of bringing in a couple thousand guys and asking him to surrender.”
“That might be plan B,” DeLuca said, plodding on, the going difficult in the thick wet sand. “If he fights, a thousand might
not be enough, and if he doesn’t, two is plenty.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Whatever happens,” DeLuca said, “hold your ground and don’t move.”
The beach road rolled over the dunes between impenetrable hedges of beach plum and dwarf pine, stopping at a salt pond, where
a mailbox in the shape of a sperm whale beside a driveway bore the house number they were looking for. At the top of the driveway,
they passed through an arch of braided vines as the approach opened onto a large yard, buried under a blanket of slush. The
house was a sprawling mansion of five gables and a grand porch facing the ocean, a warm and inviting light glowing amber through
the windows. The siding and roof of the house were of weathered gray cedar shakes, in the grand Nantucket tradition. They
made their way in the darkness, keeping away from the lights and staying in the shadows, until they faced the house, their
backs to the sea, separated from the house by the vast lawn.
“So far so good,” Sami said. “I don’t think he knows we’re here.”
“Yeah, but what good is that?” DeLuca said, putting the battery back into his satellite phone. “Wait here and I’ll be right
back.”
He walked to the house, stopping at the bottom step to the porch, where he saw an old brass telescope mounted on a tripod.
He looked up a moment, looked down, then turned and walked back, stopping at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach.
He gestured for Sami to join him there. Below, nestled into the dunes, he saw a pair of ancient weathered concrete bunkers.
He wondered what was in them. Perhaps it was where Koenig kept his servers, behind hardened shelters.
“You change your mind?” Sami asked.
“I think I should call first,” he said. “It’s rude to just drop in on people.”
He dialed Koenig’s number and waited.
“General Koenig?” he said. “David DeLuca here. I was wondering if I could have a minute.”
There was silence on the other end.
“What do you want, DeLuca?” Koenig asked. DeLuca saw a figure appear in the window, looking out with night vision goggles.
“You’re aware that they might just shoot us,” Sami said, fingering the MAC-10 nervously.
“I know,” DeLuca said, covering the phone, “but they won’t.” He took his hand off the phone. “I want to talk to you, General.
No playing this time. We came alone. You’re not in a good position. I think we can improve it.”
“I’m not in a good position?” Koenig said. “How is that?”
“If we could come inside…”
“Stay where you are,” Koenig said, as DeLuca had expected he would say. “As I see it, you’re the one whose position could
bear improvement.”
“I’m just cold and wet,” DeLuca said. “You’re up shit creek without a paddle. I don’t know if you know this, but my orders
are to kill you. Did Peggy Romano tell you that?”
“Is that a threat, Agent DeLuca?”
“That’s not a threat, General,” DeLuca said. “I wonder if you appreciate what that means. That means the ground you’re holding
is being sold out from under you. It means the people you thought were going to support you aren’t. I know you believe in
loyalty, but you’re not getting any in return, General. Only a fool shows loyalty to a traitor. They’re doing the same thing
to you that they did to your father and the same thing they did to your grandfather. Think about it. They’ve been trying to
get me to believe you’ve been doing this entirely on your own, the rogue general who has to be stopped, and I’m the guy they
wanted to stop you. They don’t want you testifying in front of any congressional committees. Which is exactly what you should
be doing, General. I know you don’t like the media, but if you want your story heard, you’re going to have to go public, because
you know you can’t trust Congress to get you out of this. Only public opinion is going to do that. I think if the public heard
your story, they’d support you.”
“You think so, Agent DeLuca?” the general said.
“Look at Oliver North,” DeLuca said. “Same deal. Got used as the White House’s private soldier and screwed when the White
House turned its back on him, but look at him now—he’s got his own talk show. He pulled himself out of it. You can, too.”
“Jesus, David—you’re offering him a
talk show
?” Sami whispered.
“So what do you suggest, Agent DeLuca?” Koenig said.
“What do I suggest?” DeLuca said.
“He’s keeping you on the line,” Sami whispered to him, covering DeLuca’s phone with his hand.
“I know,” DeLuca whispered, taking Sami’s hand from the phone as Koenig stepped out onto his porch, wearing a thick Navy peacoat
and a watch cap. He recognized the man next to him as Major Huston.
“Good evening, Major,” DeLuca said. “What I suggest is immunity. For both of you. I can get you that. You won’t have to spend
any time in prison. Either of you. I can get Warren Benjamin, Ross Schlessinger, Carla White, and Danforth Sykes behind you,”
he told the general, referring, respectively, to the deputy director of Homeland Security, the deputy director of the CIA,
the White House’s national security adviser, and the cochairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. “I work directly
for them. You give us Carter Bowen, and we’ll make sure you have a soft landing. We know he’s the one you’ve been talking
to.” DeLuca was playing a hunch, but it was an informed one.
“You’re offering me a deal?” General Koenig said.
“I have the power to offer you a deal, yes,” DeLuca said. “They’ve already started to smear you, just in case you do go public.
Did you know that? I have psych evals that say you’re crazy. I know that’s not true. I know that you’ve been following orders.
You come in with me and you’ll get a chance to set the record straight. What’s the alternative? You made one mistake—you fell
in love with a beautiful girl. I think we can even make the case that she had to be eliminated as a national security risk.
They ordered me to kill you, but like you said, I’ve never been too good at staying within the mission. You come in with me
and I’ll set you up with the right people. The only people who can protect you.”
He watched as Koenig consulted Major Huston.
“It’s sort of amusing,” Koenig finally said to DeLuca over the phone. “I have more power at my fingertips than anyone in the
history of the world, and you’re standing there trying to make me think I’m the one in trouble. And you make a good argument,
Mr. DeLuca. I have to give you that—you’re really quite persuasive. I can see why you’re as good at your job as people said
you were.”
“We’re both good at our jobs,” DeLuca said. “The difference is that if I’ve done my job right, nobody knows I’ve done it.
I don’t have to worry about how history is going to see me. You do.”
“History?” Koenig said. DeLuca knew it was a button he could push, and Koenig reacted as he thought he would. “Don’t talk
to me about history, DeLuca. My grandfather commanded the largest navy in the history of the world, over four thousand ships
and two million sailors, and no one even knows his name. They know MacArthur, they know Eisenhower, they even know Nimitz,
but the chief of naval operations is lost to obscurity forever. My father misinterprets a single ruling, a clerical error,
and that’s all he’s remembered for—he goes to his grave because that’s all he’s going to be remembered for. You dare talk
to me about history?”
“General Koenig,” DeLuca said, “I’m trying to help you. I really am. I know this is going to sound cynical, but if your father
or grandfather had accepted help, instead of trying to take it all on their shoulders and go it alone, history might have
judged them more favorably. We have public relations companies these days that can take anything and turn it around. Look
at the last election. We can get the truth out, General. But not by toughing it out. That’s not how the rules work anymore.
And you can’t make it go away by pressing a button.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, DeLuca,” Koenig said. “You’re standing there trying to dictate the terms to me. Do you know what
your problem is, Agent DeLuca? You have an entirely overinflated ego. You’re talking to me about history—what do you really
know, DeLuca? I can
make
history. For the first time since this country was founded, we have the ability to really make this world safe. I don’t know
what you believe in, DeLuca, but I believe in my mission. There’s nothing you could say that’s going to shake that.”
“I believe in my country,” DeLuca said. “I believe in checks and balances. I believe the president should not have the power
to go to war without permission of Congress.”
“The president is an idiot,” Koenig said angrily. “The president froze while this country came under attack on 9/11. The president
sat for seven minutes reading
Pete the Penguin
to schoolchildren when he should have been protecting his country. There’s a lot more we can do in seven minutes today than
we could do in 2001, DeLuca. The president would let a caravan of Al Qaeda terrorists cross a glacier in Afghanistan just
because they’re accompanied by a half dozen so-called noncombatant Pakistani soldiers—I wouldn’t. There aren’t any noncombatants
anymore, DeLuca. If we had Darkstar before 9/11, not a one of those planes would have killed anybody, and that’s the bottom
line. You know what your problem is, DeLuca? You’re filled with pride. Well, you know what they say about pride.”
He took a hand-held computer from Major Huston and held it up for DeLuca to see.
“Think I can’t make it go away with the push of a button, DeLuca?” he called out across the lawn. “Just watch me.”
“Hold your ground, Sami. Just hold,” DeLuca whispered.
Koenig clicked on the PDA.
Instantaneously, the porch of the house was consumed in a column of light. DeLuca saw Koenig and Huston disappear where they
stood, melting into the earth. He grabbed Sami and rolled over the edge of the dune just as a ball of heat passed over his
head. He’d expected a brief flash, but instead, the column of light burned for what DeLuca estimated to be ten or fifteen
seconds, sending a fountain of flame and smoke and debris high into the air, making a noise like a thousand locomotives bearing
down on them. Then the night sky lit up in a massive flash, horizon to horizon, the burst of light originating at the point
in the sky where the column of light ended, as if a supernova had occurred, somewhere just this side of the moon, bright enough
to be visible through the cloud cover. When it was gone, DeLuca had a blue spot on the back of his retinas as bright as if
a camera flash had gone off three inches from his face.
Then it was dark, save for the light coming from the fire that consumed the house.
DeLuca stood and helped Sami to his feet, climbing back over the embankment.
They were able to approach the house, cooled by the freezing rain, until they were close enough to stand at the edge of the
hole made by Darkstar’s directed-energy beam, a perfectly round scar in the earth. When they peered over the edge, they couldn’t
see the bottom, the sides as smooth as if bored by a drill. Sami found a burning timber and kicked it into the hole with his
foot. The red flare disappeared into the darkness, extinguishing before reaching bottom.
“Jesus Christ,” Sami said. “What just happened?”
DeLuca took from his pocket a three-dollar Boy Scout compass he’d bought at the general store and showed it to Sami.