Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (33 page)

He was eighteen again. It was the day after he had won his wings and ensign bars at Corpus Christi N.A.S. He was a proud member of the squadron VT-51, assigned to the carrier
San Jacinto
…

It was 1945 and he had just married his teenage sweetheart…

Everything blurred at the edges. What had he been thinking about? He knew there was something he needed to do, something highly important.

Russians.

No. Iraqis.

It had something to do with the Iraqis are our enemies our enemies must die die we are all dead America is dying the world is dying my wife is dead our dog is dead and I will never play golf again and—

His mind went totally blank as he sat before the black box, drooling with the slack-jawed expression of an imbecile, his fingers scratching the desktop.

He woke with a start, pain digging sharp talons into his stiffening neck muscles, traces of a dream clinging to his tired, decaying body.

In the dream he had been a young man piloting his Avenger torpedo bomber over the island of Chimi Jima. It was his 50th mission, but one of the engines had been hit and the aircraft was on fire. The
Barbara
was aflame. Intent on completing the bombing run, they’d managed to keep the stricken plane up long enough to finish the attack and had then headed back out to sea. He gave the order to bail out. He made it. His two crewmen didn’t. They and the
Barbara
went down, swallowed by the Pacific. He hand-paddled his life raft against the strong tides which tried to push him backwards towards the island they’d bombed. And in the dream he seemed forever to be fighting against the tide, struggling against overwhelming forces which wanted to send him towards capture and internment in a death camp run by a commander who practiced cannibalism. Then the dream had jumped ahead and he was standing on the conning tower of a submarine, looking towards that island of the living dead. Then the island exploded in a brilliant, blinding mushroom-cloud supernova. Hiroshima and Nagasaki rolled into one as he felt his eyesight melt and his skin peeled from his calcifying bones…

He sat shaking in the gloomy Oval Office, the nightmare tangible, its cold fingers squeezing his heart. For the first time in days, his thoughts were clear. He knew what he had to do. It was the ultimate test of leadership, the gravest responsibility a President carried.

He had to press the button.

Pressing the button wasn’t enough.

There was a code, a sequence of events before it would happen, the silos in Kansas, Nevada, Arizona, California—wherever they were located for God’s sake it didn’t matter—just do it, do it now, do it now, get it over and done with it. We’ve become like that damn camp commander. We are less than human. We’re less than dead. We are the LIVING DEAD. WE ARE DEAD, DEAD, DEAD and we—

He rubbed a hand across his face, coughing, pieces of dried, desiccated skin flaking off as he began to claw his features, trying desperately to remember what he had to do.

There was a second box located in a black briefcase…somewhere.

The box in front of him was no good without the other.

What did he have to do?

He couldn’t remember.

What is it…I have to do?

One box works in relation to the other.

One box…works in…relation to…the other…

His mind blanked. Darkness took him.

He suddenly slumped across the table, sending a pile of papers cascading to the carpet.

The President of the United States of Hell dreamed…

Dreamed of the life he had once lived.

Decorated war veteran.

A young man working in the political arena.

Chief of the CIA.

Vice President of the United States
—
the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth.

President of the…something…President of…of…

The Living Dead

Those who were without souls……………

He awoke for a second time from the dark corridors of sleep—confused, afraid, so alone…

But he knew with a terrible clarity what had to be done. In the cocoon of rotting dreams, his synapses still worked efficiently, electrochemical impulses relaying memory from cells that still functioned despite the fact most of his mental machinery was grinding to a halt.

He had to locate the black briefcase which a senior military aide carried, chained to his wrist, available at all times. The aide had one key, he the other. Without them both he couldn’t open the briefcase. But once the case was open he could connect the smaller black box to the case and interface the codes, initiating the missile program via a modem. The cases were designed either to be activated from Air Force One in the event the Presidential plane had to act as an airborne command center, or from the White House or any of the top secret, lead-lined bunkers situated across the country. Via a high-powered frequency, a fatal signal would be transmitted to Strategic Air Command in Omaha and the NORAD complex situated deep within Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Once the signal was given, the birds would fly.

And it would all be over.

ICBM’s, Minutemen and Cruise missiles would be speeding towards their preprogrammed targets. Once he found the case and sent the signal there would be thousands of warheads in flight and the enemy didn’t have satellite resources to take care of them because we are America the Beautiful, and we have S.D.I. because we ARE THE MOST POWERFUL NATION ON EARTH destined to be the hand of God and smite the wicked from the land and we shall not fail because it is our duty—

(STOP IT!)

Concentrate…

His mind was slipping gears again. It was time for action not thoughts.

Groaning with pain as his stiff joints resisted his desire to stand, the President pressed down on the desk, raising himself from the Kevlar-reinforced chair, and shuffled off in the direction of his personal secretary’s office. He had a vague memory that it was there he’d last seen the Defense Intelligence Agency aide who carried the case. It seemed like as good a place as any to start. All he hoped was that the aide wasn’t at the other end of the White House. His joints cracking, muscles stiff, painful, he walked an old man’s walk from the desk to the door. It was going to be over soon. The thought pleased him.

The President was deeply tired yet he forced himself to stand before the window, looking out across the darkened lawn, a quarter-moon casting rich, inky shadows across the grass. It had taken him a while to locate the aide, and there’d been a problem trying to remove the case from the dead man’s arm. But he’d solved it easily enough with a large, sharp butcher’s knife from the Oval Office kitchen. He was weak, and it had taken forever to hack off the aide’s wrist. He didn’t need the stress, he thought, giggling, a runner of spittle trickling from his mouth as his failing eyesight combed the broken D.C. skyline. Faint traces of fire still pulsed to the South as the countryside continued to burn. But there would be greater burning soon, the Great Fire to End All Fires—a burning the like of which the world had never seen before. Would never see again.

“
Blessed and holy…is…he that have part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath…no power.”

He tried to remember more of Revelations.

“
And he was clothed with a vesture…dipped in…blood: and his name…is…called…The Word of God…”

The Word of God—both of them cast in black metal—sat on his desk, the briefcase plugged into a modem.

“
And I saw the dead, small…and great, stand before God; and the …and the books were opened…”

It was time to open the books, time at last to read the final word of God. And that word would be a mighty noise, a cleansing noise, a thunder of holy wrath.

As he shuffled towards the desk, vague, distant recollections of lines from T.S. Eliot surfaced in his cloudy mind. He’d never much liked Eliot. Too cold, too intellectual. Poetry was…
motion
…poetry in motion movement his joints ached oh how he craved peace and—

The Word of God.

His mind was hazing again. He had to focus. Easing himself into the chair, he took a key from his pocket. The other was already in place, jutting from its slot in the case. He turned it, and the mechanism clicked electronically. Inserting the other key he began to hum Camptown Races, and odd
doodah
escaping his cracked lips.

The box opened.

He connected the two boxes with red wire, typing the first phrase of the code on the briefcase’s keys.

Three Blind Mice.

SEE HOW THEY RUN, the screen flashed.

Farmer’s Wife,
he typed in response.

HELLO, MR. PRESIDENT, the screen replied.

“
Well, hello,” he muttered, typing
Hickory Dickory Dock.

THE MOUSE RAN UP THE CLOCK.

He giggled, rubbing his tired eyes, a chunk of eyebrow falling away in his fingers.
So simple a child could figure it out.
Then his face went slack as his thoughts slowed to a trickle.

He sat there for several minutes, neither blinking nor moving, his breath coming in dry, rasping gasps.

THE MOUSE RAN UP THE CLOCK, the screen started flashing, then:

ABORT?

ABORT?

ABORT?

“
We are the Hollow Men,” he said suddenly, jerking his attention from the brain fugue his decaying cells had locked into. Eliot had written about the world ending with a whimper not a bang. Well, he was about to prove him wrong.

Clock strikes ten
, he typed.

CLOCK STRIKES TEN, the screen flashed.

And the President of the United States of Hell pushed a small black button located in the center of the other box.

Let them hear the Word of God
, he thought.

And he smiled.

—
| — | —

The author would like to thank the following people for assistance in orchestrating an apocalypse:

My first agent, the irrepressible Lori Perkins, for her belief in me, this book, her patience, and for launching my fiction career;

My original editor at Berkley/Jove, John Talbot, for his patience, encouragement and invaluable suggestions;

His assistant, Glen Greenberg, for his waving the flag of enthusiasm over several months—several overdue months;

Donald Hayden, for police department research and a guided tour of a precinct house;

Doug and Lynne Winter, for friendship, hospitality in Virginia and Washington, D.C., and many good times;

Steve Bissette, Chris Golden, Linda Marotta and Michael Zulli, all of whom read the original manuscript in various stages;

David Morrell, for words of wisdom;

John Skipp and Craig Spector, who started the whole bloody mess in the first place;

John Bergin and
Trust Obey
for providing the cover art and the soundtrack to the end of the world;

Shunichiro Nagashima, for purchasing and editing the Japanese edition, published by Bungeishunju, in 2000.

Brett A. Savory, for founding the Official Philip Nutman Web site, and for eagle-eyed editorial input on the tenth anniversary edition;

Dave Hinchberger, le grand fromage de Overlook Connection Press, for deciding it was about time…;

For reasons too numerous to mention: Daniel Farrands, Michael Frost, Randy Hartley, Michael Lang, Dallas Mayr, Darren Stein, Mickey and Isabel Yablans;

And last—but
never
least—my wife, Anya Martin, for love, support, valuable input, copy-editing and services above and beyond the call of duty.

Now get out of here, we’re all dead!

—
| — | —

The Original Short Story

Corvino, pulling the trigger…

…
and the film loop turns again. Twenty years the same image; slight variations, but ultimately the same: blood, death.

The bullet takes the Negro straight between the eyes, exiting the back of the cranium, spraying bone, blood, cerebral matter over the wall.

A professional assassin, his aim is true. A dead shot.

The body of the janitor lies on the floor, legs splayed open in a V pattern. Hat is left of the head lolls to the left. Above the corpse a crimson skid mark.

Corvino, exhaling.

So easy. Squeeze a trigger, snuff out a candle. Another life taken.

He steps between the disorganized desks that clutter the classroom, proceeding to check the supply cupboard.

Empty.

From down the hallway the sound of breaking glass; three rapid-fire shots.

The brain, Harris. The brain.

Silence hangs heavy in the still atmosphere.

(…the white room in the apartment block overlooking the Potomac. Simple, Spartan, befitting an assassin. The two abstract paintings in the style of Pollack. One composed of blue and orange slashes, paradoxically both dynamic and tranquil. The other a red arc on white, like a seppuku mat…)

Harris’s aim is deteriorating under the stress of the past week.

(…his room, his retreat from the insanity of the world’s war zones, where only his eye for accuracy had kept him alive…Vietnam…the Middle East…Nicaragua…)

They call him One-Shot, or Mr. Trigger. Dominic Corvino, the most reliable wet work operative the Department owns. Guns are his friends. In the art of killing he is a master craftsman.

Now the stakes have changed.

(…his sanctuary defiled…the shadowy figure suddenly appearing in the doorway…the hiss of a suppressor…and a white-hot poker of pain piercing his chest…)

Now it is all down to basics.

He sits on a desk, pulling a Camel from his chest pocket, lights it, and exhales. The stench of death an old companion, the taste of a cigarette rare pleasure. Smoke catches at the back of his throat. Too dry, the tobacco stale. Corvino grinds it out with the heel of his right boot as he stands, checking the clip in his .45 automatic.