Dark Passage

"What's wrong, baby?" he said. "You getting cold?"

"No, it's not that. Deke? Are you, can you, well, I don't know how to ask you this, but do you ever get the impression that events are being driven toward a conclusion. That events aren't just happening randomly?"

"You mean, like God is behind all of these things happening?"

"No, Deke, I mean could it be that exactly the opposite is happening. That there is a conspiracy somewhere, and somehow people are directing events towards an unnatural conclusion. Religious people, perhaps alarmed that there influence is waning, or perhaps people who are willing to go to extreme lengths to prop up their belief systems by constructing a set of self-fulfilling prophesies."

"I guess it must seem that way sometimes, baby. It's a confusing world."

"It's a world gone mad, Deke."

He chuckled at that. His religious moderation simply could not allow for a world view that saw evil triumphant in God's name. God simply wouldn't allow it. "That's not God's fault, Angela," he told her as he held her close to his side.

"And what if there's no God, Deke. Then what is all this suffering for?"

"You got me." He looked from Antares to Angela, and he saw the huge, baleful star reflected in her eyes. The sight unsettled him. "I don't know, really, Angela. If there's no God, does anything, anywhere really matter?"

"Life matters, Deke. Life for it's own sake. And suffering matters, when there are so many things mankind could do to alleviate suffering. Leading a life aimed toward producing good - that matters, Deke."

"But how do you define good in the absence of God. It's impossible!"

"Really? Do you have to know God in order to know that causing needless pain and suffering is wrong? Are you telling me that I have to know God in order to understand that my actions are good? You can't really believe that, Deke?"

He listened to her words, and his initial impulse was to withdraw from her, run from her and her apostasy, but he caught himself, fell back on the love he felt for her. "I don't know, Angela. It's what I've always believed. I know it doesn't make sense sometimes, but there are other times when it's the only thing in the world that does make sense."

She took his hand and held it to her mouth and kissed his fingers.

All thought of God, she could see it now most clearly, simply clouded the human mind from rational understanding. Something old and primitive was roused from an ancient sleep when God was mentioned, and the mind rebelled at the internal conflict that could only be resolved by faith. As she watched Deke fall into the poverty of his contradictions, she felt sorry for him, for his country, for all the blindness that threatened to bring perpetual night to this world, the darkness of ignorance that even now threatened once again to consume all life on this planet once again.

What was it Carl Sagan had called this raging contradiction within the human psyche? The Demon Haunted World?

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al-Zaq finished supervising placement of the last Chinese warhead in the huge lead keel that would be soon be bolted back onto the fifty-one foot Beneteau sailboat. Two of the white-hulled boats were still in the aircraft hangar in Croatia where the work was being carried out; seventeen boats had already been prepared and departed for their targets in Europe and the eastern United States. These final three would be moved by containership to Hawaii, where they would be off-loaded and set sail for California and Washington state.

al-Zaq checked that the extra lead shielding around the weapon was fully intact and secured in-place, and that the electronic jamming device designed to further shield the plutonium from radiologic detection was in place and activated. The last thing he did before the keel was bolted back on the hull proper was to arm the remote detonation circuit; after that was done he kept watch on the crew while the keel bolts were aligned and the hull lowered down on the 3m 5200 saturated keel to hull joint. Men inside reattached and bedded the bolts, then laid down yet another lead shield, which was then fibre-glassed into place. The joint would be allowed to set-up overnight before the boat was moved, but al-Zaq knew his job now was almost finished. He would gather the crews together to go over navigational details one last time, but soon he would have little more to do than wait for the appointed hour.

When the work crew came out of the boat, they were gunned down. He hated it, but it had to be done. God would understand.

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Cleofus Muldoon walked down the subway tunnel with his daughter; she was doing better today with the fresh insulin he had been able to buy that morning, and after he got her bedded down in their home near the abandoned subway tunnel, he would return to 47th Street to panhandle more money for dinner.

He saw a rat skulking in the shadows, and this surprised him.

He thought that all the rats had been killed and eaten long ago.

Maybe he wouldn't have to go beg for their supper tonight after all.

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Entropy is often defined as a degree of disorder or randomness in a system. It affects electronic systems as well as human systems; it's impact is unpredictable, and the effect it has on developing chaos is equally unpredictable. When entropy is taken into account by war-planners, all outcomes presumed to be within expected ranges of probability become elusive. This is euphemistically called the 'fog of war', but to the degree such unpredictability can be factored into calculations of this magnitude, the results are somewhat predictable nonetheless: the boys with the biggest and baddest weapons usually prevail.

Usually.

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"Spirit 2-9 alpha, taxi to position x-ray and hold."

"Two nine alpha, roger," Hayward replied to the controller in the tower. He went over the engine instrument screen one last time; all temps and pressures looked nominal. The nav screen showed the exact route his B-2 would follow over East Anglia and the Channel as he made his way over France for Turkey. He would meet up with the first KC-10 Extender to refuel out over the eastern Med , then move in to loiter over Mecca. Three F-22 Raptors would remain nearby the entire time he was over Saudi Arabia tonight. This was a new twist, one that had become necessary after the scare caused by fighters being scrambled from Syria three weeks ago. It seemed the flames of pan-Arab nationalism had been stoked as never before by the continued over-flights, and there was now concerted talk of a Pan-Arab summit to discuss countering the threat posed by the United States. Russia was, somewhat predictably, rumored to be behind these nascent talks.

Hayward advanced the throttles and turned onto the active runway, then braked once again after the aircraft lined up with the center of the runway. The sun was setting in the western sky, though it was barely visible through scattered thunderstorm that had passed over the airfield not an hour ago. Steam rose from the concrete around the idling B-2 and hovered in the still air before it was sucked into the air intakes and incinerated.

"Two-nine alpha, clear for take off. Contact departure on 243.9. Good luck tonight."

"Two-niner, roger 243.9, and good night." The co-pilot advanced the throttles to their stops while Hayward held the aircraft in place with brakes, then he released these and the ponderously fueled aircraft began to accelerate smoothly down the runway. The Captain flying with him tonight called out speeds and at "Rotate!" Hayward pulled back smoothly on the stick, and the aircraft lifted gently from the concrete and began to climb quietly into the night sky.

"Positive rate of climb," the co-pilot called out.

"Gear up."

"Gear up. 300 AGL."

"Flaps to seven."

"Seven, roger. Speed one-nine-five. 750 AGL."

"Flaps to three."

"Three, roger. Speed two two zero, 1500 AGL."

"Clean it up and give me eighty percent EP, set your bug to thirty five thousand and heading to one four zero."

"Thirty five and one four zero," the co-pilot echoed.

Hayward's immediate world was bathed in the pale red glow of instrument lights and navigation displays. As the heavy bomber climbed over southeast Britain, he looked off toward Cambridge to the right, and Canterbury far off on the distant horizon and just now dead ahead. So many cathedrals, so many people worshiping God, going to war in His name. He held the stick lightly in his hand, felt the aircraft respond to his slightest touch, and wondered what difference there was between his flight tonight and an English Crusaders long journey to Jerusalem almost a millennia ago. The details of going to war had changed, certainly, but how different, really, was the impetus. How constant was the hate that drove men to kill in the name of God.

Passing through thirty thousand feet, Hayward engaged the autopilot. He watched Calais slip under the port side of the long wing, and not too long passed before Geneva slipped by under the starboard side.

"Pressure on two is climbing a little," his co-pilot said.

Hayward punched up the exhaust gas temp screen for engine two, then the oil pressure readout. It looked like a minor glitch, not bad enough to call an abort. "Throttle back on two and three. Set it to, say, forty-five percent. Let's watch it for a little bit and see what it does."

"Forty five it is," the captain said as he throttled back the two inboard engines.

The plane bucked a little as it made it's way into the turbulent air rising over the Alps, and Hayward looked down a few minutes later at the jewel-like lights of Zermatt as they twinkled in the deepening night while Two Nine Alpha slipped by silently through the night sky - unnoticed - above them. For some reason he thought of the Matterhorn, not down there but in Anaheim. Riding the Goddamned Matterhorn bobsled ride at Disneyland. Sitting in a bomber riding over the Alps toward the Middle East - hauling two hundred gigatons of death - and here he was, thinking about Goddamned Disneyland! Taking kids he didn't have to an amusement park, with a woman who might or might not marry him someday.

When this is all over, Hayward said to himself as he drifted down the byways of memory, he was going to go back there. He was going to make this happen!

"Spirit two nine alpha, this is Looking Glass Zulu Bravo."

"Two nine alpha, Looking Glass; go ahead," Hayward said as he toggled the transit button and spoke into his headset.

"Two nine alpha. Case Zebra, repeat, Case Zebra. Authenticate Omega One."

"Two nine alpha, receive Case Zebra, will authenticate Omega One." The co-pilot reached into his flight case and pulled out a compact flash card and slipped it into the slot on his side of the radio console, then keyed in the days authentication code, which was Omega. A list of options popped up on the little screen above his left knee, and he scrolled down to Zebra. He read a moment, then whistled.

"What's the news? Good or bad?" Hayward said.

"Guess it depends on your point of view."

"Put it on my screen."

"Right."

Hayward looked at his screen. EWO EWO EWO flashed across the top of the display. EWO stood for emergency war orders, and was never used, even in readiness drills, unless deep shit was anticipated. He scrolled on to the main body of the text message.

'Joint American-Israeli air strike on nuclear facilities in Iran scheduled to commence at 2200hours Zulu. Anticipate hostile response from regional and supra-regional powers. A/C operating in theater contact Zulu Bravo on designated frequency. Set EWO IFF as per operational briefing.'

"Well, ain't this just ducky!" Hayward said into his oxygen mask, and he leaned over to dial up a large scale map display of the region that was being actively downloaded from the AWACs. Nothing airborne over Israel yet. He looked at his watch: 2145 hours Zulu, or Greenwich Mean Time. He punched more numbers into the display and the KC-10 they were scheduled to refuel from lit up, westbound out of Turkey, scheduled rendevous time in ninety minutes. The Iranian raid would be about ten minutes shy of hostile airspace about the time Hayward's B-2 tanked up, which put him over Mecca about time word of the raid would go public. Everything would be fine as long as the Saudis kept a lid on things. That was, Hayward knew, one Hell of a longshot.

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Cleofus Muldoon walked along the sidewalk above the 47th Street Marina, looking down on the sailboats and huge motor-yachts that dotted this billionaires landscape. He stopped and looked at a woman eating dinner on the fantail lounge of a yacht that must have been, by Muldoon's quite inexperienced eye, as long as a football field. She was chastising an oriental maid, telling the young girl that the shrimp were 'Just awful . . . not nearly enough vermouth on them!' and that the girl should 'get out of my sight this instant!'

Muldoon could smell the meal from the sidewalk . . . it smelled just like his idea of heaven.

The woman looked up at him. "What are you staring at, young man!? Fuck-off!!!"

Muldoon turned and shuffled away from the boat and the foul-mouthed woman. The sore on his leg was spreading, making it harder to walk, and despite the heat of the August afternoon he felt chilled. He had collected almost three dollars, enough to buy some cheeseburgers tonight if he felt like splurging on his daughter, which he almost always did.

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Hayward took the stick after the co-pilot had worked the jet up behind the KC-10, a converted DC-10 airliner that now served as a flying gas station, and he inched the B-2 forward through turbulence behind the huge jets, listening to the boom operator giving readouts and instructions as the B-2 closed on the re-fueling drogue.

"Three feet, two, one . . . contact! Positive pressure."

"Two nine alpha, fill 'er up."

"Roger that, colonel. I'd get the bugs on the windshield, sir, but it's a little cold out."

"That figures. MacDougal? Is that you up there?"

"Yes sir, colonel!"

"I figure we're gonna need about eighty five tonight."

"No problem, sir."

"Ah, two nine alpha, this is the front office. We got an EWO a while ago, told us to orbit here in case you need to bug outta Dodge City in a hurry. Same IP. We can hold here about six more."

"Good to hear there'll be someone out here tonight."

Hayward concentrated on holding the B-2 steady in the roaring slipstream, his eyes squinting at his heads-up-display and the luminous infrared markings on the refueling drogue. Lasers read distances and these figures popped up on the HUD with lightning precision. He felt sweat forming in the small of his back, and his shoulder muscles grew stiff and fiery hot as he worked the stick back and forth, left-right, up-down.

"Colonel, comin' up on 85 in 30."

"Roger. Give me the callout."

"Yessir. Fifteen . . . ah . . . ten . . . five hundred, and ready to break pressure, three, two, one and break-break-break!"

Hayward pushed down and left while the KC-10 climbed and broke right, and they were free. He nudged the autopilot into a slow climb and dialed in the new heading for the next set of coordinates while the co-pilot called in their thank yous and passed frequencies for the possible rendevous later that night. The live feed from the AWACs showed the joint American/Israeli strike force climbing eastbound, now about forty miles south of Baghdad, so still about thirty minutes from penetrating Iranian airspace. The TACAN now put Mecca about thirty seven minutes away from their B-2.

"Zulu Bravo - two nine alpha."

"Two nine go," Hayward replied.

"Two nine, we got two Saudi AWACs headed up, and, uh, stand by one . . . looks like a bunch of Eagles headed up too. Make their heading zero four zero, climbing through ten right now, speed five-fifty."

"Zulu bravo, does it look like there are any Mainstays out?" Mainstays were older Soviet era AWACs aircraft still used by the Russians. They weren't state of the art, but they were effective platforms nonetheless. If they turned up this was going to turn into a cluster-fuck.

"Uh, two nine, negative track on those birds at this time, and very little activity, period. Not even commercial stuff. Got an Iran Air 747 SP tracking outbound from Tehran for Moscow, and that's it."

"Two nine roger, having trouble getting the feed over Saudi. Check your signal, please." Hayward was sure the operator on the E3 was nervous and had forgotten to download the feed to his B-2. Sure enough a moment later a screen on his panel flickered and jumped, then filled with a overview of Saudi airspace. Looked like two E3Bs and fourteen F-15s. Another E3 appeared on his screen, this one headed almost directly toward his estimated position when he would cross into Saudi airspace. Seven Eurofighter Typhoons popped onto his screen seconds later, followed by another seven five minutes later.

"Ah, two nine alpha here. Zulu actual, you watching those Typhoons?"

A tired voice came on: "Roger, two nine alpha."

"Ah, two nine, what do we have up tonight?"

The voice this time was younger, less sure of herself: "Couple of F-22s at your ten and two, fifty out, another at your six, three back. Got a ready alert on the Nimitz in the Red Sea, F/A-18s, and of course some friendlies on stand-by outside of Tel Aviv."

"Ah, Zulu control here, looks like a light-up and sortie forming east of Cairo, and a whole shitload of activity around Damascus. The Reagan is turning into the wind off Bahrain, say they've got some surface action headed there way."

"Two nine alpha," the two star commanding the AWACs said, "suggest you head upstairs now."

"Two nine, concur. We're going up now, and active on ECM." The electronic warfare operator behind Hayward began jamming radar and readying more active countermeasures in case they were needed. He looked at the tactical display again, saw that the Israeli raid was now over the target area and unopposed, and that aircraft were coming up from Syria, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Saudi Arabia. Most of these aircraft were forming up and heading for Israel; Hayward doubted this war would last seven days. Maybe seven hours, but more likely seven minutes.

All but one group of Saudi Typhoons maintained their intercept course towards two nine alpha's projected course toward Mecca. It was time to call National Command Authority and let them figure out what they wanted to do if the Saudis came up after him. It was almost a statistical impossibility that they could find the B-2, but the fact that they were trying to was a pretty big signal that a sea-change in relations between the United States and the Arab world had just occurred.

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The White House

Washington, D.C.

"Mister President," Admiral Leah Hastings of the Joint Chiefs said. "Missions Two Nine Alpha is set to penetrate Saudi airspace in five minutes. AWACs reports a heavy concentration of Saudi fighter aircraft headed toward this aircraft, and the aircraft commander wants clarification of rules of engagement."

"If they make a hostile gesture, knock 'em down. Advise the B-2 that on the first sign of hostile intent, he is to take his aircraft to his primary target and take it out, then proceed to his secondary and take that one out, too!" The president was clearly distracted by this annoyance, as he had for the past hour been focused completely on the Iranian raid.

Word was now coming in that three Mk 94 Bunker Buster nuclear warheads had apparently penetrated the weapons complex, as a huge amount of secondary radiation was beginning to appear on live satellite imagery. The raiders had bypassed Iranian airfields and naval facilities while inbound, and had met with only token interference as they ran back for the Gulf, but word of the attack had already spread to the other countries in the region, and initial political response was savage in it's condemnation of the attack. The President watched the same AWACs feed that Hayward was watching in his B-2, and he smiled when he saw the counterattack against Israel forming up. This could not be going better, he said to himself. All of his acolytes had been transferred to their caves in the Midwest and under the Rockies. Soon he would leave as well.