The Command

And suddenly all was clear. Not by sorcery. By design. Truly, all was written from the opening of time. God Himself was speaking to him, clearly and unmistakably, sinful and imperfect as he was. God alone had delivered the Great Satan into his hands, to strike a blow that would resound across time into Eternity.

“Abu! They’re coming down!”

He did not answer the panicked cry. In his own heart had come now and forever the absolute calm of unconditional faith. He said quietly, face lifted to the sun, “Alhamduill’ah.”

Let it be done, in God’s name.

* * *

Marchetti felt the helo flare out. He snapped the end of the line into the fitting, put his weight on it, then kicked the coil into space. Had to elbow Wilson again, it was so crowded in the compartment he could barely move. He hauled down on the line, testing the shackle. It held. He pulled the descender around on his belt, laid the blue braided line in it, and snapped it shut. Pulled the line forward and back, making sure everything ran free. Cool. Sweet. Good to go. He pushed his legs out the door, pulled the Mossberg around to where he could use it on the way down if he had to. Stand the fuck by, assahollahs.

“Stand by,” Snack Cake yelled into his ear. Machete barely heard him. Son of a bitch! God! He loved this. He even had a hard on!

This was the last thought that passed through his brain before, too suddenly even to glimpse the change, the air, the metal around him, and the very atoms of his body evaporated suddenly into incandescent light.

33

Dan was looking away when it happened. But even looking away, everything around him, sea, steel, cloth, turned the brightness of midday sun. The starboard lookout screamed, dropping his binoculars and clutching at his eyes. The dreadful, burning light went on and on, like someone had opened the scuttle to hell above the eastern Med.

His mind didn’t take in what was happening. Instinct drove him across the bridge, slamming into the chart table, to shove Yerega aside and shout into the mike, “Nuclear detonation, brace for shock!” Then diving for the deck.

Which jolted upward as his body met it, whiplashing him several feet into the air. Dust and paint chips leaped out of the overhead and cable runs to fog the pilothouse. An instant later and all together the windows came in on them with a crack like a bolt of lightning tearing an oak apart. Only it went on and on.

As the hellish light waned to a reddish glow Horn started going over to port. Clanging reached him through the din, like a boiler factory stood on end and shaken until everything jerked loose. Then the glass crashed down and water came with it, shards and debris raining down on the bridge team as they lay gripping what they’d grabbed for anchor and shelter.

A long groan, and the ship staggered slowly back upright. She moved in jerks, as if the sea around her hull had turned sticky. She rolled to starboard, then back to port again. As if she’d been punched hard deep in her guts and was trying to feel how hurt she was.

Through the ringing afterblast penetrated dozens of alarms, beeping and buzzing and sirening. And with them, screams.

Dan picked himself up carefully, checking first legs, then arms, then his face. His hands came away unbloodied, except for cuts on his forearm. But there was something wrong with his neck. He stood rubbing it as the others hoisted themselves to their feet, looking around. Hotchkiss was white-faced, slipping and sliding on shattered plastic and pubs and smashed binocular lenses. She got on the phone to Central, asking for damage reports while Dan felt his way from the nav table to the Furuno, then to the helm console, then out onto the wing.

A queer beige fog hung close above the waves. The junior officer of the deck was hugging the starboard lookout, who still had his hands to his face. When he lifted one, Dan saw the swift reddening of a second-degree burn, an eye that stared but did not seem to see. “I was looking at it,” the man groaned.

“We’ll get you below to the doc. You’ll probably start to see again in a few minutes,” Dan said. But knowing if he’d focused that flash through the glasses, his retinas were probably burned out.

God! What had that been? Could it have been nuclear? He’d seen shells go off at close range, bombs, but never anything like that. He took the binoculars and swept the sea where the trawler had been seconds before. A tan rain was falling. Waves rocked crazily, radiating from an inchoate jumble of boiling whitecaps. A column of dirty-looking vapor towered above the spot, rising from a misty base. No sign of Blade Slinger or the fishing vessel at all.

He turned, and looked the length of his ship.