Triggers (39 page)

Ah, and here he was. Hexley entered the infirmary, but instantly stopped in his tracks; the accompanying Marine stopped, too.

“Agent Dawson!” Hexley exclaimed. Seth was sure that Hexley, like any good Secret Service man, must have immediately taken in everything about the scene, including that Susan Dawson, sitting in a wheelchair, had a gun aimed at the vice president’s chest. “What the hell is going on?”

Seth spoke before Susan could answer. He looked at the Marine with the blond crew cut. “You, there. What’s your name?”

“Collins, sir.”

“Collins, arrest Director Hexley. Agent Dawson has handcuffs. Take them from her and put them on him.”

The young Marine instantly drew his sidearm. Susan, still in the spare wheelchair, let him take her handcuffs, and he quickly snapped them onto Hexley’s wrists, trapping his arms behind his back.

“What the hell is going on?” Hexley asked again. He was forty-seven, with hair like Reed Richards: brown except for silver-gray at the temples. As always, he was wearing a blue suit and a conservative tie, and he had on horn-rim glasses and a fancy Swiss wristwatch.

Seth wondered how best to accomplish what he wanted. He could simply take hold of one of Hexley’s hands—even if they were now cuffed. But although as a politician he’d shaken the hands of a lot of people he
didn’t like, having to touch the man who had presumably organized the attempt on his life was more than he could bear.

Or, he thought, he could try to sock the bastard in the jaw. But he doubted he was currently strong enough to manage it.

As he looked at Leon Hexley—
my God, yes!
—the man’s memories became accessible to him; links were apparently forming now without physical contact.

Memories unveiled; secrets revealed. Hexley had been in Afghanistan, along with Gordo Danbury and Dirk Jenks. All three of them had been converted there, wooed with real riches in this life and the promise of so much more in the next.

Leon Hexley was older than the other two men, and had been with the CIA before the Afghan war; it had been easy enough for him to get a senior position in the Secret Service upon his return to the States, and eventually to become its director, promoting and deploying Danbury and Jenks as he saw fit.

But they had waited until the time was right—until the US had been demoralized by attacks on San Francisco and Philadelphia and Chicago—to strike at the very heart of the American government. Danbury was to have gone out in a blaze of martyrdom killing Jerrison. Then Jenks was supposed to take out Flaherty, or whatever surviving presidential successor became commander in chief after the White House was destroyed: two dead presidents in a matter of hours.

Seth was relieved to learn from Hexley’s memories that only three members of the Secret Service had been compromised; tomorrow, he’d go back to having its agents protect him and his family. But for now…

The Secret Service had originally been part of the Treasury Department; Seth had used that bit of trivia in his classes at Columbia. Since 2003, it had been an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, and DHS was a cabinet department under his direct jurisdiction as leader of the executive branch. “Agent Dawson?” he said.

She was still holding her gun. “Sir?”

“I’m giving you a promotion. Effective immediately, you are the new director of the United States Secret Service.”

•   •   •

JAN
Falconi was lying down now on the couch, her head in Eric’s lap. She was listening to all the voices and reliving all the memories: hers, and those of the veteran named Jack, and those of everyone he’d touched at the Vietnam Memorial, and—

Ah, yes, it was a cold night, and Jack had gone to a homeless shelter. He’d brought in dozens more there, first by touching them, but then, after the total number had reached some critical threshold, merely by looking at them.

Eric’s ornate wall clock made its hourly chime; it was midnight. The TV was still on, and a new program began. Jan laughed, and Eric, who was linked to her, did, too, and so did Nikki, safely back at her house, since she was linked to Eric, and so did Lucius Jono, who was linked to Nikki, and on and on: the laughter cascading not just down the chain, for it was no longer a simple series of links, but out onto the branching, growing network.

The new TV program Jan was watching, and so therefore were all the others, was an infomercial—for a surefire technique guaranteed to improve memory.

Monday

TRIGGERS.

Stimuli that invoke memories.

So idiosyncratic: a fragrance, the way someone holds their head, a pattern woven into cloth, a few bars of music, a taste, a touch, a word. For one person, a memory might be brought to the fore; for another, nothing.

History provides shared triggers. Where were you when you heard President Kennedy had been shot? When Armstrong took that first small step, that first giant leap? When the Twin Towers fell? When they blew up the White House?

But even those were only triggers for a fraction of the world’s population. Still, there were a few general triggers—universally shared experiences—that focused most minds, putting people on the same page, the same wavelength.

The circle had originally been closed.

Then—with triggers figurative and literal—it had opened. More and
more individuals were drawn in. A few dozen minds, then a few hundred, then a few thousand, then more still.

Many of those in the original circle had had trouble adapting to it, but now each new mind that joined in was greeted, boosted, buoyed, embraced by countless others who had already experienced the first moments of connection, who had survived it, and who were now reveling in it all. Calming waves and swelling euphoria washed over the newcomers, enticing them, relaxing them, welcoming them.

And yet, despite the peace felt by those who were linked, despite the tranquility of shared joy, of banished loneliness, there was still something dark, something evil, something
outside.

Those who were already linked considered, contemplated, cogitated, until…

A realization, a revelation—and a resolution.

This madness—the insanity that had cost humanity so much for so long—could not go on.

It could not, or the world would not long endure.

Things had to change—and they had to change
now.

But for the next step, the next leap, a trigger was still needed: a general trigger, a shared trigger, a trigger that would sweep the globe…

DORA
Hennessey had fallen asleep at Luther Terry Memorial Hospital just after 6:00
P.M.
; she still wasn’t dealing well with the time-zone change. A part of her had wanted to stay up to see President Jerrison’s speech on TV, but she’d been too tired.

Dora had been so distraught over the aborted transplant operation and the death of her father—not to mention dealing with Ann January’s memories—that she wasn’t surprised to find she’d slept for twelve hours. But by 6:00
A.M.
, she was wide-awake and so decided to go for an early-morning walk.

Her stitches had been redone yesterday, and she’d been told they would hold nicely until the incision healed. She slowly got dressed, put on the winter jacket that had taken up half of her suitcase when she’d
brought it over from England, and headed down through the lobby and out into the dim pre-dawn light. There were already quite a few cars on the road, and several other pedestrians walking briskly along.

She ambled south on 23rd Street, passing the Foggy Bottom metro station and a Dunkin’ Donuts and the beige edifice of the Department of State. She turned left when she got to Constitution Avenue and was surprised to find, nestled in a grove of trees, a huge bronze statue of a seated Albert Einstein; she hadn’t known there was a memorial to him in Washington. She looked up at his sad eyes.
Everything is relative,
she thought; she felt like a little girl next to this giant man.

Dora had assumed it wouldn’t be safe to go onto the National Mall this early, but there seemed to be a fair number of joggers about, so she crossed to the south side of Constitution Avenue. She knew from the tour she’d taken when she’d first arrived that the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was just to her right, but she continued south, toward the Reflecting Pool. The sun would be up very soon, and she thought it would be fun to watch it rise behind the tapered obelisk of the Washington Monument.

She got in position just in time: a tiny point of brilliance appeared on the horizon, slowly widening into a dome. The monument cast a long shadow pointing toward her. She’d left her phone back at the hospital, which was too bad—she’d have loved to have snapped a picture of this.

The sun quickly became too bright for her to look at directly, but it brought back memories of other sunrises over London’s skyline, over the English Channel, over the desert. Some of the memories were her own: she had indeed pulled all-nighters at college, seeing the sun rise as she hurried to finish essays.

And some of the memories were clearly Ann January’s, including one of her and David watching the sun come up from the deck of a cruise ship during their honeymoon.

But she was startled to also have memories that were neither hers nor Ann’s: neither of them had ever been to Australia, but she had a vivid recollection of the sun coming up over the Sydney Opera House. And neither of them had ever seen a solar eclipse, but she clearly recalled the sun clearing the horizon with a bite already taken out of its disk.

The shadow of the monument gradually shortened as the new day continued to dawn.

SUSAN
Dawson soon realized what Seth Jerrison already had: links were now forming spontaneously, without physical contact. As she looked at Vice President Flaherty, his memories opened up to her, and as she looked at Seth Jerrison, he, too, became an open book. She lowered her weapon; there was no point any longer in keeping the two of them apart.

Soon, everyone at Camp David ended up with their memories intertwined. But even the linked had to sleep, and although some few managed to stay up all night, dealing with the flood of media inquiries after Jerrison’s aborted attempt to address the nation, most had nodded off by midnight. The president, of course, had been through an enormous trauma. Bessie Stilwell normally didn’t need much sleep, but the round-trip to California had left her fatigued. Ranjip Singh never managed to rally much strength that night, and was out cold by 1:00
A.M.
, and Darryl Hudkins was asleep by 2:00.

Susan did manage to stay up all night, sitting in her wheelchair, but she knew it was pointless: the vast majority of those in DC, in Maryland, and in Virginia were asleep, and although that didn’t impede accessing the memories of those who were already linked, those who were unconscious couldn’t reach out to others.

The infirmary had a big window that happened to look east. Although the view was partially obscured by trees, Susan was nonetheless drawn by the rising sun. A memory came to her of a sunrise over the Taj Mahal—seen by Ranjip Singh on one of his trips to India.

Another sunrise came to her, one familiar and yet alien. Familiar, because it was a view through the windows in the East Wing of the
White House, looking across East Executive Avenue toward the Treasury Department—a window she’d often enough looked out herself. But alien because she’d never looked out those windows at dawn, and—ah, more of the memory came to her: and certainly not with the First Lady standing next to…to
him.
It was the morning after their first night in the White House, and Seth Jerrison and his wife had come here to watch the day break.

Ranjip Singh was waking up—they’d eased him onto one of the infirmary beds. The sleep had done him good, it seemed: he was capable of speech again. He looked at Susan, and the first words out of his mouth were, “You can read President Jerrison’s memories.”

“Yes.”

He sounded amazed. “I can recall you recalling
him
recalling a wonderful sunrise seen from the White House.”

Susan nodded. “The beginning of his first full day in office. Yes, it just came to me.”

“This is…is…”

“‘Major league,’ as your son would say,” said Susan.

Singh smiled. “That it is.”

Darryl Hudkins was lying on one of the other infirmary beds. His eyes fluttered open. “Good morning, Miss Susan,” he said, softly, looking at her. But Darryl never
called
her that; in fact, the only person who’d called her that recently was…

Bessie Stilwell.

Susan found she no longer needed the wheelchair. She rose from it and walked over to him. “Bessie?” she said, looking into Darryl’s brown eyes.

“Yes, dear?” he—or she—replied.

Susan swallowed. “Bessie, where’s Darryl?”

“Darryl? Such a nice young…young man.” A frown. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

Susan called over her shoulder. “Ranjip! Ranjip!”

He hopped off the bed and joined her. “What?”

She gestured at Darryl. “His body is awake, but it’s as if Bessie is answering my questions.”

Singh looked at Darryl. “Agent Hudkins?”

“Yes?” said a voice.

“And Mrs. Stilwell?”

“Yes?” said the same voice.

Seth Jerrison woke next, sitting up straight in his wheelchair. His eyes seemed alert.

“Mr. President,” Susan asked, “are you all right?”

“No,” he said. “No, it’s—it’s like when I was dying. I feel distant from my body.”

Dr. Snow must have rallied at some point, because she soon appeared at his side. “Sir, you’re here at Camp David, in the infirmary. You’re
here.
Is there any pain?”

That seemed to be the wrong question. Suddenly, Jerrison’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open and he let out a grunt as if he’d been punched in the stomach—or shot in the back.

“Damn,” said Snow, under her breath. “Sir, it’s all right. It’s all right.”

But it wasn’t. Susan suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest, too. The sight of Jerrison echoing what had happened on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial was triggering her to access that memory, too. And the pain of
being
shot brought back the different pain of
having
shot—the shock and nausea she’d felt after gunning down Josh Latimer.