A door banged open that Saturday morning.
I startled awake, dazed and unsure where I was, and Ali rushed to my bedside and broke down crying.
“Dad,” he blubbered. “We’re all gonna die!”
I sat up, bleary-eyed, still in my clothes, and remembered I’d gotten home past three a.m. and collapsed into bed beside Bree.
I looked over at my wife, who was just stirring, and then back at my son, who was weeping with a pitiful expression on his face.
“We’re all gonna die, Dad!”
“Stop. What are you talking about?” I said, fighting a yawn.
“It’s what they’re saying on the news,” he insisted. “Larkin, he did something against Russia, China, and, like, North Korea. They think it’s war and, like, going nuclear.”
“What?” Bree said, shooting up.
I was already out of bed. I snatched up Ali and carried him downstairs into the kitchen to find Nana Mama in her robe and Jannie in her University of Oregon sweats, both staring at the big screen in the outer room where some talking head was babbling about the entire world being on the verge of war.
My grandmother looked at me, grayer than pale, and said, “It’s like the Cuban missile crisis all over again, Alex.”
Bree hustled into the room. “Explain what happened.”
Jannie said, “Larkin attacked Moscow and Beijing.”
“No,” I said, horrified. “Missiles?”
“No,” Ali said. “Cyberattacks, Dad.”
Nana Mama said, “Larkin ordered CIA hackers to shut down electrical power for ten minutes in those cities and whatever the name of the capital of North Korea is.”
“Pyongyang,” Ali said.
“We can do that?” Bree asked. “Shut down all power?”
“We’ve already done it,” Jannie said.
Up on the screen, the feed cut to President Larkin aboard Air Force One.
He stared into the camera with deep resolve and said, “To authorities in Russia, China, and North Korea, my message is simple. If you continue to hack us, we will be forced to counterattack on a larger scale than what you’ve already seen. If you send missiles, we will respond with quick and devastating force. Your move.”
The screen went blank for a moment and then returned to a flustered morning-news anchor used to delivering fluff. She couldn’t speak at first, and then she broke down. “What’s the point? The nukes could be coming, and I’m sitting in Washington while the president’s off in a jet somewhere trying to start World War Three!”
“See!” Ali said, and he started crying again. “We have to get out of here, Dad!”
“We can’t,” I said. “They’ve still got the city cut off, trying to catch President Hobbs’s assassin.”
Jannie started to cry. “No, Dad, they think he’s already dead.”
“What?” Bree said, shaking her head in confusion.
We’d both been asleep less than five hours, and the world felt like it had changed completely in that time.
Nana Mama was watching the poor news anchor who was being led off camera; her co-anchor looked like he wanted to follow her. My grandmother muted the TV.
She said, “He was in Rock Creek in a wet suit. Some homeless guys living under the Virginia bridge spotted him trying to swim to the Potomac. Multiple soldiers guarding the Thompson Boat Center opened fire on him with machine guns. They feel sure he’s dead. They’re dredging the…there.”
She unmuted the TV. The feed had shifted to a camera on Virginia Avenue aimed at the Thompson Boat Center. Beyond it, police and Coast Guard boats were plying the Potomac, looking for a body.
“Who cares?” Ali said, and he hugged me fiercely. “The Russians are going to nuke us, aren’t they? Or the Chinese?”
Feeling how terrified he was, I kissed him and hugged him back. “No one wants a war like that. Not even our enemies.”
“Then why did the president shut their lights off?”
“Because they were attacking us in the wake of the assassinations. They were trying to see if we were weakened. President Larkin was showing them we aren’t.”
“I’m scared, Dad,” Ali said.
“We’re going to be okay. No one wants a war like that,” I repeated. “You just have to have faith in—”
“But when we can leave, can we?”
I turned to Bree. “Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Nana Mama and the kids to go see my dad in Florida until things settle down.”
“What?” Jannie said. “No, Dad. My spring season’s coming up.”
“How would we get there?” my grandmother asked. “No planes. No trains.”
“We’ll cross these bridges when we—”
My phone buzzed. Ned Mahoney.
“You rested?” he said.
“Barely. You see what’s going on?”
“Yes, which is why they want us back at Andrews ASAP.”