Edge of Apocalypse (10 page)

"Is he still asking for proof that we didn't provoke the North Korean navy into firing their nukes?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact," Tulrude responded with eyebrows raised. "So this conference would provide an excellent platform for the administration to address the issue."

"Would you say this would be a good opportunity for me to start laying out some of our global agenda?" Corland asked.

"Actually," Tulrude replied, "I would counsel against that, Mr. President. This peace conclave is not a high-profile-enough venue for a personal appearance by the president of the United States. I feel, frankly, that Vance Danburg should be there. Let's have our secretary of state make a short speech. Drop the hint that we might be willing to share our weapons technology. Open up some dialogue...that sort of thing."

"All right." Corland paused to think it over. "Any other suggestions, Jessica?"

"Yes, Mr. President...about the congressional hearings."

"Yes?"

"It is an international embarrassment that this Joshua Jordan, a private defense contractor, is creating the impression that he's holding the president and the U.S. Congress hostage by refusing to release information on his weapons technology."

"That's valid," Corland agreed. "One single private citizen can't be allowed to direct our national defense policy."

"Send a message to Congress," Tulrude continued, "that they had better do their job. Don't tolerate this man's defiance. You must pin Joshua Jordan to the ground."

Tulrude then turned to the flickering TV screens, which were filled with images of truck drivers with zip-tied wrists being hauled off by riot cops.

"Pin him to the ground like you would any other criminal," she added.

SIXTEEN

Joshua Jordan relaxed in his grey sweatpants and one of his old Air Force Academy T-shirts and stretched out on a comfortable chaise lounge. This was one of his favorite escapes. Private. Secluded. Even though it was in the middle of New York City. Out on his lavishly landscaped penthouse terrace, he could see for miles along the skyline and farther, out toward the harbor. Surrounded by a few small potted trees, manicured greenery, and various plants in bloom, up where the birds soared, with the city stretched out below him, he felt insulated...and simultaneously free. But he knew this moment wouldn't last much longer.

Such a euphoric sense of peace was becoming increasingly elusive. Joshua was glad to have slipped away from the political and legal flack that was exploding all around him back in Washington.

But on that Sunday morning, at least for a few precious minutes, he had found refuge. Only one other place on the planet could give him more peace--his massive log-house retreat in the mountains of Colorado. He and Abby would be there soon. But not soon enough for his taste. Now he was simply trying to forget about Senator Straworth and his theatrical strutting and arrogant threats to have Joshua cited for contempt of Congress.

As he took a sip of his morning coffee, he heard Abby's steps on the tiled terrace. She was wearing a bright peach-colored dress and was fidgeting with a simple gold chain necklace.

"Honey, would you hook this for me?"

She sat down next to him and pulled her hair aside to reveal the back of her neck.

His thick fingers fumbled for a while until he finally got the clasp closed on the thin wisp of a chain.

"There, got it. Man, that's a tough one." Then he leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck.

"Do you remember how I got this?" she asked with the flash of a big smile.

Joshua thought for a moment, then shook his head.

"It was the first thing you ever gave me, when we started dating," she said.

"Not very flashy," he replied with a grin. "I'm surprised you stuck with me!"

"I don't need flash," she said, patting his cheek. "I just need you."

"Oh, two points for that one," he shot back with a laugh.
Beauty and brains. I am one lucky guy,
he thought.

Abigail sort of scrunched up her nose, subtly and quickly. Hardly discernable. But Joshua recognized it. That is when he knew that something was up.

"You used to do that when you went into court to try a case," he said.

"Do what?"

"That little thing with your nose," he teased. "It's a dead giveaway. I'm surprised the opposing attorneys didn't catch on. Something's on your mind. I can tell."

"So, you tell me," she proposed, rising to his challenge. "What's on my mind?"

"Hey, I couldn't even begin to figure that out."

"Well, then neither could those other lawyers," she said with a sly grin.

"See, I ought to know better than to try and out-argue my wife, the attorney..."

Abigail then breathed deeply and became silent.

Now he really knew something was bugging her.

"All right, out with it. What's up?"

"It's about Cal," she offered. The smile was gone. It had been replaced by a gentle, motherly kind of expression.

"Has something happened to him?"

"He's okay. But something did happen recently. I thought you should know about it."

"What?"

"It was the day of the missile crisis."

Joshua waited. Abigail continued. "Cal was in New York when it all happened..."

"No, he couldn't have been. He was already on his way back to college," Joshua said correcting her.

"That's what he told us, Josh. But he was actually caught right in the middle of it. He'd just arrived at the train station. He was right next to a woman who...Josh, the poor woman got trampled to death. Right in front of our son."

"Wait...why was he still in New York? I thought he'd left early and gotten safely out of the city."

"Well, he hadn't. He wanted to spend the day at an art lecture with Karen. Then he tried to leave that evening, which is when everything happened--"

"So Cal lied to us?" Joshua was shaking his head with a look as if his son had dared to slap him across the face. He could never tolerate lying from his kids. Never. And he let them know it. Why would Cal disrespect him like that?

"Josh, dear, you're missing the real story here."

"No, I'll tell you the real story. The day before the North Korean attack, he wasn't here with us. I assumed he'd already taken the train back to Liberty. So where was he? Did he spend the night with that girl?"

"He just wanted to spend the day in New York before he went back to college. He was trying to make sense of his life." Abigail's voice was strained and pleading. She was holding her hands out to her husband, cupping them, as if she were caressing something fragile, like a delicate piece of china.

Both of them fell silent for a moment. Joshua's face was tightening. Abigail could see it. That hardness, the stern, unshakable resolve that always served him well in battle, and in business, but was so often his undoing when it came to his own son.

"Let me finish before you judge, Josh," she finally stated. "The whole point is that he was here in New York when the attack was launched. He was alone, trapped. He saw a women killed by a rioting mob. He was almost trampled to death himself in that train station! And he was scared to death."

She paused to let that sink in. Joshua's eyes were fixed on her, but it was as if he were trying to look through her, to someone or something else, off in the distance.

"Your son," Abigail continued, "was paralyzed with fear. But he couldn't admit that to you. Ever. Because you're the war hero. The guy who flew into war zones without blinking. You're the man who saved New York City. How could he ever tell you that he was afraid? You haven't exactly made it easy for Cal to bare his soul."

Joshua tilted his head back and forth just slightly, as if rattling the idea from one side of his brain to the other could make it fall into the right hole. But it didn't fit.

"So he lies, and
I'm
the bad guy--is that it?"

"I didn't say that," she said, "but I do think you're part of the problem. And you're going to have to be part of the solution."

It was quiet again between the two of them.

Finally Abigail stood up. "I'm on my way to church. I'd love you to come with me, but...it's up to you."

Joshua didn't budge

"So you're staying here," she said with a note of finality.

Again, only silence.

"Okay." She then turned and was gone.

Joshua was left alone in his own private place of turmoil. His thoughts turned to two of the most important people in his life.

His son had lied to his face. But there was more to it than that. Joshua remembered his feelings about his son when he had decided not to pursue military school. Then his decision to leave engineering and go into art. At every step, at every crossroad, Cal had ignored Joshua's advice. Even Joshua's cautions about his son's girlfriend fell on deaf ears.

Now Cal was dealing with a lot of baggage, having lived through the panic at Grand Central Station. Joshua understood how seeing someone die in front of you, even for a military veteran, could shake you up like nothing else in life. And Cal was ashamed to talk to his father about it.

Then there was Abby. He loved her like crazy. But there was a kind of uncertainty between them ever since she'd started this spiritual journey of hers. Not that he resented her recent pursuit of a higher purpose. Not really. He tried to respect her choice to disappear into this new world of Bible reading, church going, and God talk. She seemed happy enough. But he had his own goals. And especially now that he'd been drawn into this national crisis over the North Korean attack and his RTS design. His plate had become full to the point of overflowing.

He was a mission-specific guy. And God was not part of his mission. He had nothing against religion. In fact, in the quiet moments he often wondered about what Abby had found that had worked so well in her life. He even questioned what his real motives were in keeping God at a safe distance. Was it a perfectionistic pilot's need for absolute control over his own life, his own "flight pattern"? Maybe too much need for control...So, was that the problem between him and Cal too? Trying to exert too much control over his son?

Just like my own dad? Deja vu?

Joshua's dad was a career airman, a chief master sergeant in the Air Force. In his home nothing was out of place. Not a bed sheet. Not a dirty dish. Not a bicycle left on the lawn. Nothing. God was given a kind of hat-tip. But ultimately, in his house, you figured things out on your own. You took responsibility on your own. Your problems were your own, and you fixed them.

Of course, that kind of order and discipline later served Joshua well in his own career. Mental toughness was a must. Like when he flew five secret reconnaissance flights over Iran, taking pictures of their nuclear sites. On his fifth flyover he got a scrambled code from his air support that he'd "just been made." Iranian radar had apparently picked him up. The sky was about to get jammed with ground-to-air missiles--all aimed at him. But he wasn't done. Joshua patiently kept his recon camera whirling so every last-minute detail of the nuclear plants could be documented, knowing he could be blasted from the air at any minute.

But the missiles didn't come. Only months later did he learn why. An Israeli plant within the Iranian air defense sabotaged their radar at the last minute. The Israeli Mossad agent was found out and brutally executed by the Iranians. But Joshua and his mission were saved.

So from Joshua's perspective, the world was a rough, dangerous place.

But there was still the lingering questions Joshua had, not about the world outside, but about his own family.

Up there on his terrace "crow's nest," as he called it, Joshua had no answers for the loose ends that seemed incapable of being tied neatly together. Personal things that seemed to defy a schematically engineered resolution. He was a decision maker. A problem solver. Lack of resolve was not something he was comfortable with. Least of all with his own son.

Sitting up there alone he knew he needed to find something more tangible to focus on.

He grabbed his small digital newsreader off the garden table and clicked on the InstantNews function. After scrolling through some sections, one headline grabbed his attention.

JORDAN DEFIES CONGRESS IN MISSILE PROBE

"That was a closed hearing!" Joshua yelled out into the air. "Who leaked it?"

As he read the electronic article from the
New York Examiner
he realized someone had given the press a blow-by-blow of the secret session. What was even worse was the way Joshua had been
spun
in the article: "Warmonger...Profiteer."

The report concluded with a scorching personal indictment:

Sources hint that Joshua Jordan may be attempting to drive up the price of his RTS system while haggling with Congress over his design documents.

Joshua grabbed his Allfone and dialed Harry Smythe's private cell number. After several rings, his lawyer picked up.

"Harry, this is Joshua--"

"I know, I know," the attorney interjected quickly. "I just read it--"

"One question," Joshua demanded.

"Ask away."

"How fast can we start fighting back?"

SEVENTEEN

Agent John Gallagher was alone, patiently waiting inside the media conference room of the FBI's New York office, slouched in one of a half dozen black padded chairs that surrounded a large glass table. An imageless HD flat-screen filled one of the room's walls, where agents would routinely gather to watch and dissect recorded witness interviews and review surveillance footage. Gallagher's video interview with New York's favorite shock-jock radio host, "Ivan the Terrible," was cued up and ready to go. But Regional Director Miles Zadernack was running late. Gallagher tried to pass the time by going over in his mind what Zadernack's response to the interview would be, although he already had a pretty good idea of what to expect.

Zadernack was a rule-book fanatic. Straitlaced to the hilt. Gallagher's investigative techniques, though effective, were admittedly eccentric at times. And if there was one thing that his boss, Miles Zadernack, couldn't stomach, it was anything that strayed outside the pages.