Alas, Babylon

Mark rose and said, “I think I’d better get back to my desk.” The General nodded and smiled thinly. He said, “Thanks for the ninety-five seconds.”

Chapter 5

At first Randy thought someone was shaking the couch. Graf, nestled under his arm, whined and slipped to the floor. Randy opened his eyes and elevated himself on his elbow. He felt stiff and grimy from sleeping in his clothes. Except for the daschund, tail and ears at attention, the room was empty. Again the couch shook. The world outside still slept, but he discerned movement in the room. His fishing rods, hanging by their tips from a length of pegboard, inexplicably swayed in rhythm. He had heard such phenomena accompanied earthquakes, but there had never been an earthquake in Florida. Graf lifted his nose and howled.

Then the sound came, a long, deep, powerful rumble increasing in crescendo until the windows rattled, cups danced in their saucers, and the bar glasses rubbed rims and tinkled in terror. The sound slowly ebbed, then boomed to a fiercer climax, closer.

Randy found himself on his feet, throat dry, heart pounding. This was not the season for thunder, nor were storms forecast. Nor was this thunder. He stepped out onto the upstairs porch. To his left, in the east, an orange glow heralded the sun. In the south, across the Timucuan and beyond the horizon, a similar glow slowly faded. His sense refused to accept a sun rising and a sun setting. For perhaps a minute the spectacle numbed reaction.

What had jolted Randy from sleep-he would not learn all the facts for a long, a very long time after-were two nuclear explosions, both in the megaton range, the warheads of missiles lobbed in by submarines. The first obliterated the SAC base at Homestead, and incidentally sank and returned to the sea a considerable area of Florida’s tip. Ground Zero of the second missile was Miami’s International Airport, not far from the heart of the city. Randy’s couch had been shaken by shock waves transmitted through the earth, which travel faster than through the air, so he had been awake when the blast and sound arrived a little later. Gazing at the glow to the south, Randy was witnessing, from a distance of almost two hundred miles, the incineration of a million people.

The screen door banged open. Ben Franklin and Peyton, barefoot and in flannel pajamas, burst out onto the porch. Helen followed. The sight of war’s roseate birthmark on the sky choked back their words. Helen grabbed Randy’s arm tightly in both hands, as if she had stumbled. Finally, she spoke. “So soon?” It was a moan, not a question.

“I’m afraid it’s here,” Randy said, his mind churning among all the possibilities, including their own dangers, seeking a clue as to what to do, what to do first.

Helen was wearing a flowered kimono and straw slippers, booty from one of Mark’s inspection trips to the Far East. Her chestnut hair was disheveled, her eyes, a deep and stirring blue, round in apprehension. She seemed very slight, in need of protection, and hardly older than her daughter. She was, at this moment, less composed than the children.

Ben Franklin, staring to the south, said, “I don’t see any mushroom cloud. Don’t they always have a mushroom cloud?” “The explosions were very far off,” Randy said. “Probably a lot of haze, or other clouds, between us and the mushrooms. What we see is a reflection in the sky. It’s dying, now. It was much brighter when I first came out here.”

“I see,” Ben Franklin said, satisfied. “What do you think they clobbered? I’d guess Homestead and the Boca Chica Navy base at Key West.”

Randy shook his head. “I don’t see how we could get rocked from that distance. Maybe they hit Palm Beach and Miami. Maybe they missed and pitched two into the Glades.”

“Maybe,” Ben said, not as if he believed they had missed.

It was so quiet. It was wrongly quiet. They ought to hear sirens, or something. All Randy heard was a mockingbird tuning up for his morning aria.

Helen released her grip on his arm. Thoughts seemed to parallel his, she said, “I haven’t heard any planes. I don’t hear any now. Shouldn’t we hear fighters, or something?”

“I don’t know,” Randy said.

Ben Franklin said, “I heard ‘em. That’s what first woke me. I heard jets-they sounded like B-Forty-sevens-climbing. Traveling that way.” He showed them with a sweep of his arm. “That’s southwest to northeast, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Randy said, and at that instant he heard another aircraft, whining under full power, following the same path. They all listened. “That one will be from MacDill,” Randy decided, “heading across.”

Before its sound faded they heard another, and then a third. They all pressed close to the porch screen, looking up.

High up there, where it was already sunlight, they saw silver arrows speeding and three white contrails boldly slashed across morning’s washed blue sky.

Ben Franklin whispered, “Go, baby, go!”