Armageddon Crazy

"What in hell is going on out there?" someone asked.

Some of the PD men were on their feet as if expecting a physical attack. What came next was almost as bad. A talking head of Matthew Dreisler appeared on all the TV feed monitors.

"This is to all units," Dreisler a

Kline looked around in bewilderment. Everyone in the room was equally confused – all except Harry Carlisle. He simply looked bleakly alone. He held up his hands for quiet.

"I think it's time that I explained what's really going on here. The signal that was just received indicates that the president has been arrested and forces favorable to restoration of democracy have taken over key government installations all across the country."

Cynthia Kline could not believe her ears. Was that really Harry Carlisle she was hearing? While she had been kept in the dark, a mere cog loading programs and keeping her questions to herself, he had been right at the heart of the conspiracy?

"I haven't been able to give you the real picture up until now in case everything went wrong, but it looks as if the Faithful administration is at an end, and maybe this country has a chance to get back its national sanity. If anyone has a problem with this, I suggest that he speak now."

His words left a stu

"The situation as it applies to us is that we of the police department are currently in control of this complex. The president is being brought here by helicopter."

Reeves was one of the first to recover. "Who arrested him? Who's bringing him here?"

"Deacon Dreisler and some of his IA people."

Reeves face was a picture of contempt. "Dreisler. Dreisler and his headhunters."

Carlisle looked really unhappy. "There are some strange alliances in this business."

"So it would seem."

It took Murphy to voice the question that was in every PD man's mind. "Why couldn't we be told about this from the start, Carlisle?"

"I wanted to give you men the excuse that you were only following my orders."

Murphy's face was reddening. "So you took it on yourself?"

"That's my job."

"Men have died today without knowing what they were dying for."

Carlisle's face was harder than Cynthia had ever seen it. "That's nothing new."

"I'm not sure I like the way you do things, Lieutenant."

One of the deacons was on his feet. He looked around at the other men and waved a fist at Carlisle. "This is treason. The man's a traitor. We should simply arrest him."

He started moving toward Carlisle, but Murphy felled him with a gun butt. The man crumpled, and Murphy stood over him. The other PDs had their guns trained on the remaining deacons.

Murphy stared at Carlisle. "We're with you, Lieutenant, but we still think you should have let us make our own decisions."

Carlisle's shoulders sagged a little, but he quickly recovered and turned to Reeves. "I'm going to the roof. I want you to hold the fort here."

Reeves nodded stiffly.

Carlisle glanced at Cynthia. "Keep an eye on her."

Mansard

"The TV feed's down!"

"What?"

"There's nothing coming through, just a malfunction signal."

Mansard jerked away from what he was doing. "What are those idiots playing at?"

"There's no one responding from the island."

"How can that be? There's a half-dozen TV units on that island, plus deacons and the army."

"Don't ask me. It's like they were all blanked out, just like that."

"Are our people still on the line?"

The PA at the radio nodded. "Loud and clear. It's just the island that's communications dead."

"That's ridiculous."

Someone was shouting from the stern of the yacht. "There are choppers coming up from the island. One of them's the president's."

Two paces took Charlie Mansard to the rail. It was true – there were three helicopters rising from the island. One was Air Force Four; the other two were Herods from the escort. What he was seeing was insane. Was the president leaving in the middle of the show, before he had done his act? Mansard shuddered to think what power might be dragging Faithful away from the TV cameras. Maybe the country was at war.

The PA was beckoning. "There's this weird message coming in. They want us to power down and go back to the island."

Mansard held out his hand for the headset. "Give me that." He held it to his ear. "Who is this?"

A synthivoice was repeating the message. Mansard angrily shook his head. "No fucking robot is going to tell me to cancel the show. Get me Jimmy."

Jimmy Gadd was in the headphones. "What's going on, chief? Are we really calling it off?"

"The hell we are. Power up. People have come for a show, and we're going to proceed as normal."

"Are you sure?"

"Do it! We go right now!" A thought struck him. "Forget about the figure of Christ. We'll go with the other three. We'll give them the monsters. The world seems to be going nuts, so let's go with it." He suddenly laughed. "Maybe we can help it along."

Carlisle

He could still feel their eyes on him as he rode up in the elevator. He knew that he had lost a certain absolute trust, a trust that he would never get back. The men were following him out of pragmatism. He was no longer one of them, just another manipulating leader. The elevator stopped at the top floor, and Carlisle climbed the flight of concrete and steel steps that led to the roof. The wall around the door that opened on the helipad was chewed up by gunfire, and the door had been blown off its hinges. The body of one of his men, a rookie called Kaufman, was half buried in a pile of rubble. He stepped over more rubble to get to the outside. The sun was well below the horizon, and the sky was almost dark. The helipad was a mess. A third of the landing lights had been shot out, but the ones that were left were more than enough to show the other bodies and the debris on the flat landing apron and the way the concentric yellow rings that marked the pad were blackened by grenade bursts.

Donahue was waiting with his squad. They had the covers off the batteries of small Slingshot surface-to-air missiles that were mounted at the four corners of the roof. From the distrust and disappointment on their faces, they had clearly heard from the com center.

"So the president's coming, is he?"

Carlisle nodded. "They should be here any minute."

"And it's going to be a brand-new day is it, Lieutenant?"

Carlisle sighed. He did not know if he could handle an infinity of being treated like Judas. "I sure hope so."

"So do we."

The slap of rotors came from the southwest, and navigation lights twinkled by the black silhouettes of the Trade Center. The lights of the downtown towers had been extinguished for the skywalkers.

"I think this is them now."

The chopper sound came closer, and the men on the roof peered into the darkness. Soon it was possible to see that there were three of them, one large aircraft and two smaller ones – the presidential helicopter and a pair of escort gunships. The pitch of their engines indicated that they were coming fast, then, as they hit the final approach, they slowed. Whoever was in command, presumably Dreisler, was being ultracautious. They hovered a way off from the pad, and sunguns flared in the noses of the escort ships, sweeping the pad with blinding white light. Carlisle shaded his eyes with his hand, thinking that it looked as if UFOs were coming in for a landing. Finally they seemed satisfied and came on in. Only Air Force Four descended to the pad, whipping up a vortex of dust and light debris. The gunships stayed protectively overhead.