Edge of Apocalypse Read online

  "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 It had been replaced by a gentle, motherly kind of expression.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.

  Gallagher took a couple of gulps from the carton of milk he'd brought with him. It was the only thing that could stop the crushing, burning sensation in his chest. The doctor called it gastric reflux. Jobrelated stress...but that was for the yuppie-types on Wall Street, not for him. Gallagher had his own personal diagnosis and figured the stuff he'd inhaled on 9/11 had finally caught up to him. So he didn't bother filling the prescription. Downing some milk seemed to help. That was good enough.

  "Come on," he muttered as he shot a look at his watch. "It's show-time; let's go."

  Then he heard Zadernack's footsteps in the hallway. Even paced. Not too fast or too slow. His boss stepped into the room, wearing a dark navy suit and solid nonpatterned tie as usual. And unlike Gallagher's, Zadernack's ties never had any hint of stains from his last chili-dog.

  "Morning, John," Miles began in his monotone. "Let's see what you have for us today."

  "Teretsky, the talk-radio guy, better known as Ivan the Terrible," Gallagher began. "I videoed my interview with him. Couldn't believe he agreed without a fight. And no lawyer with him either. That was a shocker."

  "I see the man enjoys litigation," Miles replied, glancing through Teretsky's investigation file. "They must know him pretty well down at the clerk of the court's office."

  "Yeah, I hear they had to build a new wing just to store all the files from his lawsuits," Gallagher quipped.

  Miles gave a courteous smile and said, "Says here he sued the NYPD--twice." Then, in an attempt at a colorful exchange, Miles added, "Looks like he'll sue any guy who wears pants."

  "Yeah, and some who don't." He didn't want Miles, the posterchild for the humorless, to have the last word on anything, especially one-liners.

  Miles closed the file and nodded toward the remote control. Gallagher clicked it and took another gulp of milk.

  On the screen, Ivan was sitting in his studio chair. Just before speaking he reached up and pushed the boom microphone out of the way so he could look straight into the eyes of his FBI interrogator.

  Ivan was bald-headed with a full black beard and a slightly wild, roaming look in his eyes. Ivan adjusted his dark-rimmed glasses.

  "Okay, Mr. FBI man," Ivan began. "You called for this party. So let's p-a-r-t-e-e..."

  Gallagher started with the usual drill. He declared for the record that Ivan was giving his permission for the recording. He gave the date, time, and place of the interview, and that Ivan was speaking with him voluntarily and under no coercion or duress and had the right to have an attorney present but had waived that right.

  Gallagher chose not to give him his Miranda rights for two reasons. Technically he was simply a witness and not a suspect. But more importantly, he didn't want to light Ivan's fire. At least not yet. Not before they'd even started.

  The FBI agent identified the scope of the interview for his interviewee. He told Ivan that they were investigating the North Korean missile crisis and the information Ivan had received regarding the nukes coming toward New York City.

  Then Gallagher started into the details of that day. The time Ivan got to the studio that afternoon. The time he first learned about the missiles. And more importantly, how he found out about them.

  "A telephone call," Ivan said. "It was from some woman."

  "Who?"

  "She said her first name...like I was supposed to know her or something, which I didn't. Can't recall her name now. I think I blanked it out of my head 'cuz of what she said next."

  "Which was?"

  "She started talking really intense at me, but not loud, sort of whispering like she didn't want anyone else to hear, and she said, 'Get out of New York now'...or if I couldn't do that then I was supposed to head for the basement. That there were two North Korean missiles heading for Manhattan. Then she hung up."

  "You went on the air with the fact that New York was under nuclear attack based on a phone call from some woman you didn't know?"

  "'Course not. What, do I look stupid to you? Naw, we then put a call in to a Pentagon contact. He sounded a tad nervous and refused to comment. We made one more phone call, to the woman at the local emergency preparedness office. I posed as an NYPD officer and acted like I knew what was going on...she spilled the beans in two seconds flat."

  "Which phone were you at when you got the original call about incoming missiles?"

  "The call came directly into the studio line," Ivan said pointing to the phone on his desk.

  "Is that the same telephone number the public uses to call into your program?"

  "Naw. The public line's a different number. We use this one in the studio for internal stuff. We have our program guests call this number. Also, our tech guys call on that line."

  "Do you have any kind of electronic log or caller-ID on that line?"

  "Nope. Only on the public line."

  "But your tech staff, and any special guests on your show, someone you're going to interview on-air, they would have this studio number?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'd like to see a list of all your guests for the last twelve months," Gallagher requested from the other side of the camera. "And all your tech people. Anybody with access to that number. Let's start there."

  "Are you nuts?" Ivan blurted out. He was now sitting perfectly erect in his chair, as if he'd just received a low-voltage electrical charge.

  "That's confidential information," Ivan said. "We got rights. My lawyer says we got a journalist's privilege not to disclose information to people like you."

  "Tell your lawyer to go back to law school, Ivan," Gallagher fired back. "The guest list is public information because you've already aired it. And probably put it up on your website. Besides, I could get it from the FCC or from your public file. Do you really want to play the legal game with me? I can have you served with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury. Then you can be forced to testify. Unless you want to claim your Fifth Amendment right, that is. So, do you want to claim your right to remain silent because you might incriminate yourself, Ivan? You feeling guilty about the deaths of those New Yorkers who were killed in the melee that happened because you opened your big mouth on the air without talking to us first?"

  Ivan exploded. "I don't believe this! You saying I'm a murderer?" The shock jock was now on his feet swearing and screaming at his interrogator and putting his fists to the side of his head lik
e he was doing some kind of bizarre ritual dance.

  But Gallagher kept rolling. "Now you don't have to answer my questions. Call your lawyer. We can stop right now. You have that right, Ivan. In the meantime, I'll talk to my lawyers. Only difference is that my federal attorneys have the power to put people in prison. Your attorney, on the other hand, only has the power to send you and your radio station a bill in an amount close to the budget of a small country. So, you wanna rumble? Bring it on..."

  Ivan kept on sputtering. What the video was not catching was the look on Gallagher's face off-camera, grinning at the out-of-control talk-show host. Finally, Ivan started to collect himself. Then he pointed to the camera and shouted, "Turn that thing off!"

  The picture went dark.

  "What happened next?" Miles asked. Gallagher knew his boss and recognized in his voice that strained attempt to keep cool.

  Gallagher reached into his briefcase, took out a substantial pile of papers, and tossed them onto the table.

  "All the names and addresses of each guest on Ivan's talk show for the past year. Plus the contact information for the station's tech staff."

  "Your approach is not protocol," Miles said matter-of-factly, but his eyes were closing nervously as he spoke. "You know the standard procedure. You go to the U.S. attorney's office. They go to the DOJ and get permission for a subpoena to the telephone company for a listing of the telephone calls to Mr. Teretsky's studio. Set a court date. The telephone company responds--"

  "My way's quicker."

  Miles pointed at the video screen. "I don't like what I just saw," he warned. "I'll have to decide whether I write you up because of this."

  "Miles, think about it. We can still get a subpoena if you want. As this investigation continues--"

  "If this investigation continues," Miles threatened with a little less monotone than usual. Then he stood up. "Please secure that videotape in the evidence room," he demanded and turned to leave.

  Gallagher was stunned. He had to chew on that for a minute while he remained in his chair. Finally he reached over and snatched up the papers off the table. He couldn't believe what his boss was suggesting. That the FBI would actually drop an investigation into leaked information which compromised national security.