Dead of Night Read online

  I sat on the edge of the bed, watched the program. It was a UN news report, probably broadcast from across the northern border. A woman in a business-type suit was reading from something in her hands. Behind her on the set was the familiar UN crest. There was a slide barely discernible over her left shoulder, something about The Hague, but I couldn’t make it out. I turned up the volume and just heard the harshness of the static. I wondered if it was due to the poor reception, or if some of the better-armed and better-equipped militia groups out there were jamming the signal. Militia. Such a soft term, I thought. ‘Death squads’ was more harsh, more appropriate, but it was rarely used in polite conversation among the UN groups. Death squads worked in El Salvador and Serbia. They weren’t supposed to be at work here. Not here.

  I tried all the other channels. More static, except on one channel, where I could just about make out an old Michael J. Fox movie. Back to the Future, dubbed in French. I watched that for another minute or so, and then, as Jean-Paul had promised, the power went out and the room got very dark. Back to the future, indeed.

  ~ * ~

  By the faint light of the candle I made sure that the sole window, overlooking the parking lot, was also locked. I drew the draperies closed and fastened them tightly with clothespins that I carried in my rucksack, and made sure that the bathroom door was wide open. In one of his few letters to me, Father had warned me that if gunfire ever broke out in the area I should roll out of bed onto the floor, crawl on my belly and get into the bathtub. Better chance of surviving in a tub if shrapnel was flying around. It was a good piece of advice, probably the best one that the old man had ever given me.

  I put on a pair of shorts and laid out my sleeping roll on top of the nearest bed. Earlier, Charlie had swept the area for booby traps, land mines and other nasty surprises from the militias doing their dirty work, but I was still cautious. In one of the staging areas where I’d spent time before flying up to join Jean-Paul’s group I had heard a story about another UN inspection team like this one, bedding down in an abandoned hotel, and how the sheets and blankets had been salted with ground glass.

  From my rucksack I pulled out a foam pillow, one of the few luxuries I’d brought along. The shape and smell of the pillow helped relax me in the dark, especially after a long day like this one had been. Next out of the rucksack was one of the two paperback books I had brought along. The orders from the UN High Commissioner’s overseer of the field teams had been explicit: I could bring only a bedroll plus one rucksack for my personal stuff and another for my professional gear. After the pillow, clothes, toiletries, assorted candies and spices, I could barely make room for two books. One was a thin paperback of old science fiction stories from the 1940s and 1950s, The Green Hills of Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein. I read that whenever I was in the mood to read the cheerful—and failed—predictions of humans blazing out into the solar system, going first to the moon, then to Venus, Mars and even to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. The other book was a collection of George Orwell’s essays, and I read that whenever I was in a mood to read about humans’ failings and foibles. Lately, this book was all I ever read, and I read slowly, restarting it right away when I’d finished it. I found tonight, though, that I was more tired than usual, and I blew out the candle after only a few pages of George Orwell rather skillfully dissecting the saintliness of Gandhi.

  It would have been fun to have my Nokia cellphone at my side, to call up some buds from my newspaper job at the Star, to hint at what was going on with the world’s biggest story, but the UN had banned those and other hand-held electronic devices for the teams. It was like being stuck on the longest goddamned airline flight ever, for the UN were spooked that these signals could be monitored and traced by the militias and their government sympathizers. So no Nintendo game, no cellphone, no iPod for listening to tunes, though in any case the cost of workable hand-held electronics had skyrocketed since last spring.

  So I curled up in my bedroll, thinking about Charlie out there in the darkness. I’m not sure when and how he slept, but he was always out there, on guard, and that gave me the tiniest bit of confidence to fall asleep. Two nights ago I’d had a full bladder and had made my way out of a tent in an overgrown hayfield, and there had been Charlie, sitting on the bumper of one of the Toyotas, sipping a mug of coffee, just nodding in my direction as I went out to find a tree to water.

  There was another low rumbling and then another as two flights of jet aircraft passed overhead. Then all was quiet and I drifted off, in an abandoned motel in a small village in the state of New York in the troubled land that was known as the United States.

  ~ * ~

  CHAPTER TWO

  I woke up in the dark room with a start, wondering what had disturbed me, and then came the sound of more aircraft, now off to the far horizon. I had that half-queasy moment between sleep and awareness, where you wonder where you are and how you got there. And then the sleeping bag and the smell of the room and the sound of the aircraft brought it all together. I rubbed at my eyes, looked around. For some reason, an odd trick of light made the television screen look like it was glowing gray, as if it was about to come on by itself.

  I stared at the screen.

  Good old television. Able instantly to bring you news and information, no matter how dark and depressing, in a manner of seconds.

  Good old television.

  I stared at the screen some more.

  And remembered.

  ~ * ~

  A day like any other in the Star newsroom, on the fifth floor in our building on Yonge Street, this past spring. I was working on a bright little feature story about the latest in ethnic restaurants to pop up in the Theater District—something called Thai/Korean fusion—when I heard one of the senior news editors at the other end of the room just shout out, ‘Jesus Christ! Will you look at that! Jesus fucking Christ!’

  At that corner of the newsroom three television sets were suspended from the ceiling, showing CNN, MSNBC and our home-grown CBC, and right now, on this beautiful morning, they were all showing the same thing: an enormous plume of smoke rising above an urban landscape, a harbor in the foreground, little boats maneuvering away in a panic. I dropped my notebook and joined the scrum of my fellow journalists, gathered underneath the television screens, looking up, all of us now quiet, all of our mouths hanging open, like worshipers at some obscure rural church, suddenly seeing a sign of the Apocalypse appear before them, causing us to be silent, causing us to stand there, quietly trembling in terror.

  The plume of smoke rose and rose and rose, obscuring the burning buildings, more and more of them now collapsing in their own pillars of smoke and flame, my thoughts going to all those office workers—what must it be like, stuck in your cubicles and offices, and the floors and ceilings all collapsing around you? Smoke was now blanking almost everything out, and the picture was jittery, the same picture coming in from all three networks, from some sort of helicopter-borne camera, and my eyes couldn’t focus on the newscrawl at the bottom of the screen, and some voice, a tired male voice, said, ‘It’s Lower Manhattan. Again.’

  A frantic female’s voice in the crowd asked: ‘But...but... where? Which building?’

  The same tired voice: ‘The whole southern end of Manhattan, that’s what. They came back, even before the 9/11 memorial and that Liberty Tower building were finished...First report over the wires has radiation monitors off the scale. A suitcase nuke, it looks like. The bastards. They finally came back. They finally came back.’

  A great intake of breath, like all of us had been punched in the gut at once, and then the phones were ringing, there were shouts, and we all started scrambling back to our desks, and I knew then that I’d never write that Thai/Korean fusion story, would probably never write another silly little feature story like that ever again, and as I got to my desk there was another shout, and I and the others turned round and the picture on the screen was suddenly sideways, like the helicopter was flying on its side, out of control, a
nd just as our shocked minds were trying to process that odd little image all three television screens went blank.

  And then the lights and the power went out.

  As the rest of the attack against our unfortunate neighbor to the south continued, all during that very long first day.

  ~ * ~

  I unzipped my sleeping bag and got out. I was awake and felt hot and smothered. I needed some fresh air and I went to the motel-room door, carefully undid its three locks, and then opened it, just a bit. I had left the chain on and only wanted to breathe in the cool night air, but I smelled something else, the smell of tobacco. Somebody was out there, smoking, and that could only be one of two persons in our group. So I undid the chain, tossed on my coat, and stepped outside, onto the cold pavement.

  Karen was there, on the paved sidewalk in front of the rooms, her face illuminated by the glow from her cigarette. She said, ‘Jesus, Samuel, scare the shit out of me, why don’t you?’

  ‘Sorry. Needed a bit of fresh air. You OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Needed a nicotine fix and my ... well, let’s say I was told to take it outside.’

  ‘Oh.’

  She smirked. ‘Don’t look so shocked, all right?’

  ‘It’s a deal. I won’t.’

  Karen took another puff. ‘How do you like our little group, Samuel?’

  I shrugged, hands in my coat pocket. ‘Group seems fine. Just wish that... well, I don’t know.’

  ‘Wish what?’

  ‘Wish we were doing more than just driving around, poking and prodding. We’re not talking to people, we’re not really investigating. Just following leads, here and there, leads sent to us from Geneva or Albany. Not sure what kind of progress we’re making.’

  Karen tapped some ash on the ground. ‘Not much, but some days it can’t be helped.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Don’t forget, the people here and in the other refugee zones in my fair little country don’t particularly want the UN around, asking questions and doing our job. The natives obviously wish we’d go away, and even the refugees don’t want us supposedly working on their behalf, because most of them think we’re just aggravating the situation. So when both sides don’t want to talk to you, it’s tough.’

  ‘I know ... it’s just, well, frustrating.’

  I saw a bit of her smile in the glow of her cigarette. ‘Your first assignment. How sweet. Glad to see we haven’t beaten out your idealism yet, but give us time.’

  I smiled in return. ‘Thanks. I hope it takes a long time.’

  ‘Probably not. But even then, I thought most newspaper types were cynical. Guess you’re the exception, eh?’ ‘Maybe so,’ I said. ‘Look. Can I ask you a question?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Why the UN?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I thought most Americans didn’t particularly like the UN. And those who wanted to do relief work, they went elsewhere. Like Oxfam, CARE, WorldVision, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just the exception, then,’ Karen said.

  I said nothing and she laughed and said, ‘Blame it on my grandparents.’

  ‘Your grandparents?’

  ‘Yeah. They were in San Francisco, back in ‘45, when the UN was first really set up. They had minor roles in publicizing it but from what I remember them telling me it was still like being present at the creation of something grand, something wonderful. After tens of millions of people dead during the Second World War, cities obliterated, so much suffering and disease, the UN was just full of possibilities. And I guess they warped my little mind when I grew up, made me think that maybe the world could still use an organization like the UN, as battered and as bowed as she is. So there you go. Satisfied?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  So we stood there for a moment, the wind picking up just a bit. Recalling what I had been thinking just a few minutes earlier, I said, ‘Karen?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Last spring . . . during the attacks...were you in California?’

  ‘Mmm,’ she said, taking a drag. ‘That I was. And lucky to be there, too. I was supposed to fly out to Miami that afternoon for a conference on Caribbean development. I think my flight might have caught the south end of the Kentucky strike ... but I had the flu and stayed home and missed my flight. Lucky me.’

  ‘Yeah, lucky.’

  She eyed me and said, ‘You were in Toronto?’

  ‘At the newspaper. I was writing a restaurant story when we got the word about the Manhattan strike. And a couple of minutes later ...well, us and about fifty percent of Canada lost power when the other strikes happened—took a while for us to bounce back. But we did manage to get a paper out that day, and the rest of the days. There were some back-up generators that weren’t affected, and pretty soon the rest of the country was able to get reconnected. Lots of power coming out of Hydro-Quebec; they were able to divert a lot of it in-country.’

  ‘Lucky you,’ she said.

  It felt good to be out in the cold air. ‘And you?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘What... what was it like for you?’

  Karen held the cigarette in her hand for a moment, the ember glowing hot and red, before taking another defiant puff. ‘You trying to give me nightmares for the rest of the night, Samuel, is that it?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘Just passing the time.’

  ‘Hah. I bet.’

  I thought for sure that she was going to turn around and head back to whatever room awaited her. But instead she folded her arms and said, ‘Nice sunny April morning. I was staying with my sister for a while. Out on the rear deck, wrapped in a comforter, trying to get some fresh ocean air into my lungs. That kind of spring morning that only southern California can put out, you know? Just sitting there, not thinking much about anything, except I was hoping that my breakfast of tea and toast would stay down. Looking out over the ocean, looking at the jets. We were north of LA, so there were always a few jets in the air ...just part of the scenery ... and I don’t know what caught my attention... but I saw the jets...well, they weren’t flying right.’

  Karen turned and looked at me. ‘Sounds so simple. They weren’t flying right. There were three of them. They were losing altitude, their wings were wobbling, back and forth... I remember standing up. Screaming at my sister to come out and see what was going on. The jets wobbled some more, and then one after another, they rolled over and dove right into the ocean—just a big fucking splash of water and spray ... By then I was crying, crying real hard, and my sister came out and told me that all the power was out... and the phones weren’t working. We couldn’t even get our cellphones to work. And then ... some godawful noises from the street... cars sliding into each other ... nasty crashes... we didn’t know what the hell was going on. It took days before we heard about the balloon strikes. Days. What I saw was what happened when those six nukes were set off at altitude. All the electronics on those aircraft and scores more across the country were fried. Those lovely aircraft suddenly become nothing more than pieces of heavy metal, falling to the ocean. The crews ... I know the passengers must have had it bad, dropping into the ocean. But I think it was the flight crews that had it worst. An aircraft that they knew, that they had trained on, had suddenly gone dark, had gone mad. I imagine those last few minutes, in those dead cockpits, must have been the very worst.’

  ‘We were luckier,’ I said. ‘The EMP effect didn’t reach that far north, and we were able to get the local power grids up and running. Most of the border towns and cities got the brunt of the blackout first because of the way the power grid was set up. Still, it took a month or so before all the news made its way north, what with the border problems…’

  And then I let that last sentence just dribble out. Still a sensitive subject back home. Did the PM do the right thing by shutting down the borders? Months later it was still a subject of controversy in Ottawa. Those who say yes said he had no other option; the hundreds of thousa
nds of Americans streaming out of the big cities once the power went out and the water was off and the food deliveries stopped, they would have overwhelmed whatever assistance we could have provided. Those who say no, that the PM did the wrong thing, said a safe and secure Canada, with lights and power and food, could have served as a safety valve for the panicky Americans, could have softened the blow, maybe prevented the later troubles after the strike.