Red Dot: Contact. Will the gravest threat come from closer to home than we expect? (8 page)

“Laura’s at a play rehearsal or some dumb thing,” Carl said.

Scott smiled at the thought of his little girl earnestly rehearsing as a tree or a flower for her second grade play. Laura was a skinny, awkward little girl, lacking her big brother’s social and physical skills. But she was a loving child, and thought her daddy was superman. Scott had a warm place in his heart for her.

“What about your mother?”

“Mom’s inside, talking with Reverend Tomski,” said Carl, who was already halfway to the garage to get his bicycle.

Scott realized that he had seen a strange car parked on the street, and wondered what she was talking to him about. He walked into the living room just as the reverend was preparing to leave.

“Really nice talking with you, Maggie,” said Tomski, a sturdily built, middle-aged man with thinning reddish-brown hair. “And I’ll see you Sunday morning. You’ve always been one of our most beloved worshippers.”

“Thank you, Reverend, I appreciate that,” said Scott’s wife. “And thank you for dropping by.”

“My pleasure,” Tomski said. “Hi, Scott. I was just telling Maggie how much we enjoy seeing your family at Sunday services.”

Scott thanked the reverend and walked him to the door. As he and his wife watched Tomski go to his car, Scott turned and was about to ask her what that was all about.

“Damn fool,” Maggie spat out, watching the reverend with disgust.

Surprised, Scott looked at Maggie’s angry face, which was older and less attractive now. She’d always been cute, with a turned-up nose and dimples that showed when she smiled, which she did often. But these days she seemed mad most of the time. She’d been a bit skeptical of conspiracy theories, but the dire threat she saw from the approaching aliens from another world made her a firm believer. And constant exposure to skillful fear mongering by an online church swelled her fear and anger day-by-day.

Before Scott could ask her to explain, she said, “Tomski noticed we hadn’t been to church in a few weeks, and that busybody Helen—Helen Odell, across the street—told him I was trying to get her to join that online church. It’s a little too strict for the lovey-dovey Baptists, I guess.

“Well, the damn Baptists didn’t do anything to stop the evil that’s at our doorstep now. The Tenth Street Church of Revealed Sainthood will put an end to all the sinful practices that are leading us to damnation.”

Scott hesitated. He completely shared Maggie’s fears in the face of the ET threat, and her determination to do something to protect her family. But it disturbed him that her new church seemed to hate so many types of people; deportation or prison or worse was their answer for illegal immigrants, gays, Jews, and a lot of other groups. And they had a talent for prying hefty donations from their members.

“I don’t know, Mags, they seem to ask for money every time you turn around,” he said with trepidation, knowing she got furious at any criticism of her new church.

“Well, they don’t need as much money as you do to run around and play soldier every weekend,” she said with biting sarcasm, referring to the cost of supplies and dues for the neighborhood militia group Scott had joined.

The remark stung. Scott had always been open to conspiracy theories implicating authorities in plots to harm ordinary people. So many bad things happened in life—sickness, death, money problems. And there were so many terrible things that could happen at any time—terrorism, ebola, government oppression.

Stuff didn’t just happen. Obviously there were powerful outside forces causing a lot of this. The devil and evil spirits caused some of it, and shady government and other groups were responsible for most of the rest. The approach of highly advanced aliens ramped up the danger. Scott decided he had to act. In his mind, he was protecting their family from the real threat of ETs and dangerous authorities on Earth, not just venting hatred at groups that were different from his family.

“Listen,” he retorted. “We won’t have to depend on the government if those space aliens come to kill or enslave us. Christ, the government may come with them. Our militia will have the training and weapons to defend our families.”

Maggie hissed, “That bunch of fat-asses couldn’t defend a dog. The evil that we’ve let pile up has got to be destroyed before we’ll be safe.”

Scott and Maggie stood tensely facing each other, both deeply frightened and confused by the approach of extraterrestrials, and on the brink of another bitter argument.

Why are we angry all the time?
wondered Scott.
Why can’t we go back to being just a regular church-going family, with only bills and growing kids to worry about?

G
LOBAL
C
RISES

T
he ride with
Scott had given Claire a personal view of widespread social and financial stresses facing the US. And there were plenty of other dangers around the world. Many in the Douthart administration had expected that the gut-wrenching fear of potential destruction by the mighty ETs would lead nations and different religious and ethnic groups to work together for their mutual defense. A common mortal threat made allies of the Soviet Union, the US, and Britain in World War II; a polarized American public united after 9/11.

But there was something different about fear of the approaching extraterrestrials. Although it was possible the ETs were friendly, proof of their existence unhinged some leaders and ordinary citizens. From North Korea to Islamic radicals in Iran, nations and groups that based their legitimacy on a rigid, extremist ideology strengthened their own position and shut out or attacked opponents.

President Douthart and Secretary of State Whiteton discussed the unforeseen rise in violence when they arrived early at an NSC meeting to deal with a threat from North Korea about a week after red dots appeared.

“What’s going on Douglas?” the President asked as Council members began to arrive at the Situation Room. “Where’s all this cooperation we expected?”

“We at State think there are two different kinds of fear at work, even though the ETs haven’t made an explicit threat,” Whiteton said. “One is the
degree of fear. We’re not facing tanks or jet bombers. The ETs may have weapons we cannot imagine and may be helpless against. Our staff thinks some groups decided cooperating with others is useless; they decided to focus on their own defense.”

As Douthart gave him a skeptical look, Whiteton said, “I know that doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense either when you’re facing overwhelming weapons, but some groups seem to hope to ride out any alien attack and be the only ones to survive. They seem to count on their own special qualities --in their political or religious beliefs, for example.”

“And there seems to be a different type of fear, not so much about direct physical harm, but about destruction of a self image or belief system that has been constructed to make us feel secure. I think everyone feels shaken by that to an extent. It’s especially severe for those who think their beliefs are the only right ones; everyone else is wrong and being right is a matter of life or death, good or evil. Their system is the center of existence. And then here come these aliens from another world who have managed to develop to an incredibly advanced stage without this or that belief or system. Extremists start to think,
maybe my system isn’t the center of everything
. It seems often their response is to cling even tighter to their belief and attack those with other beliefs.”

Whiteton added, “And they have the advantage that their opponents are stretched thin because of multiple crises around the world.”

“Please put together a memo for the NSC explaining your theory of the motivation of these hostile states,” Douthart said. “Now we’ve got to deal with one in particular.”

By now the meeting was about to start. President Douthart sat with a group of NSC members and other top aides around a table, or in rows of chairs perpendicular to it, all facing two monitors with video feeds from Korea.

One showed a deserted stretch of gently rolling hills between higher, jagged hills and deep ravines in the two-to-three-mile-wide DMZ that separated North Korean forces from South Korean and US troops. Intelligence
reported that North Korea had massed armor and troops on its land just above the gap. This was where an invasion would start.

The other monitor showed a US military position just south of the DMZ. The drone-mounted camera occasionally showed a few troops or vehicles disappearing into bunkers. If North Korea opened up with its massed artillery, this forward position would be one of the first places hit.

Douthart and the others had gathered about fifteen minutes earlier to anxiously watch as the dark scene slowly and then quickly brightened, the sun rising seven thousand miles and twelve time zones to the west.

Communication, photo, and human intelligence pointed to a North Korean attack at dawn. Douthart had personally spent hours trying to persuade the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK) leaders to cooperate with the US and other countries in the face of the approach of D9, rather than attack. The DPRK had one major ally—a reluctant one, in China. Beijing had also warned North Korea against aggression, while telling the US not to overreact to an invasion as it had when it had pushed to China’s border in the Korean War seventy years earlier.

Experts offered two possible reasons North Korea would attack. Fear was one. DPRK leaders loudly charged that D9 and the red dots were part of a US plan to overthrow North Korea’s government. The nation’s leaders also feared not only a physical threat, but a moral and intellectual one; their rigid world view would have to be radically reconstructed to accommodate the existence of advanced extraterrestrial life.

Alternatively, North Korea saw the forces of the US and its allies being spread thin to cope with mounting crises at home and around the world; the US would not be able to reinforce its troops in South Korea as much as it would in normal circumstances. The North might see an opportunity to strike its mortal enemies. Although the factors of fear of a US attack and opportunism seemed contradictory, a combination of motives might cause the DPRK to attack.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Nearly thirty thousand US troops were stationed in harm’s way to help defend South Korea, the Republic of
Korea. The South’s capital, Seoul, and much of its population was just a few dozen miles from DPRK border. And North Korea possessed nuclear weapons, and questionable judgment about using them.

“Any minute now,” muttered Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Marlon Peoples as NCS members quietly stared at the monitors. Within seconds, artillery shells exploded on the US position, like ugly brown and black flowers instantly blooming and quickly wilting. In moments, the other monitor showed North Korean vehicles advancing into the DMZ.

“Mr. President?” said Peoples as Douthart stared grimly at the monitors.

“Yes. Yes. Launch Jack Rabbit,” the President said, authorizing a comprehensive military and cyber attack to destroy or disable DPRK attacking forces, transportation networks, and communications and electrical power capabilities. A minute later, the DMZ monitor showed individual North Korean tanks and armored personnel carriers exploding one by one, hit by missiles from drones.

After being riveted in their front row seats for the start of a war, the President and others in the room began to stir, standing and stretching as a buzz of conversation filled the room.

The President stood up slowly and, after taking a deep breath, looked around the room and said, “OK, ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got another war to deal with—a civil war. If you’re in the Middle East group, take a break if you need to and we’ll get started in about ten minutes.”

Scenes of explosions and gutted and burning armor on the two monitors blinked out, replaced by interactive maps—one of the Straits of Hormuz, and a more detailed map of the area around the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas in the Straits.

Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other oil-rich countries in the region loaded millions of barrels of oil a day, about 15 percent of the world’s supply, onto super tankers in their ports on the Persian Gulf, to ship to global markets. On the way, a dagger-shaped peninsula on the West formed by Oman and the United Arab Emirates sliced into the waterway to form the 173-mile-wide Straits of Hormuz. At less than half the width of the rest of the Gulf, the Straits formed a natural choke point. The major Iranian naval base
in Bandar Abbas on the east side of the Straits commanded a prime position to throttle this vital oil shipping lane. Rebel military units in the Iranian civil war made Bandar Abbas and the Straits a major target. Control of the Gulf’s oil shipments would give the rebels immense economic and political leverage, and weaken Iran’s elected government.

Muslim fundamentalists launched the civil war shortly after D9’s approach was confirmed. Their anger and plans for rebellion had grown for years, as Iranian society became increasingly materialistic and less observant of strict Islamic rules. Then aliens from another world showed themselves. Their existence was better explained by science than by holy teachings, which fundamentalists feared would accelerate the move to a more secular culture. Fundamentalists decided force was the only way to protect their influence and return Iran to what they considered the true path. The decision was made easier when some US and other Western forces that could have protected shipping lanes had to withdraw to deal with other emerging crises.

“What do we know about the fighting around Bandar Abbas?” Douthart asked as NSC members and aides settled into their chairs and arranged their papers.

“It’s still heavy, sir, especially on the northern edge of the naval base, but the government is holding the line so far,” came the audio transmission from Colonel Maxwell Nettleton, Middle East Intelligence Liaison at the Central Command’s base at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“Can they keep holding on and eventually push the rebels back?” General Peoples asked.

“The situation is very fluid,” Nettleton said, after a slight pause for the satellite relay. “If the balance of forces remains the same, the government has an advantage. But if more units go over to the rebels, that could change.”