Countdown
Bemoaning our complete lack of privacy, Donna, my girlfriend, had been avoiding my house for more than a week. So she was pleasantly surprised when I called to tell her that I was actually alone, and she happily accepted my invitation to join me for a relaxing evening of watching television and trying to stay awake long enough to greet the New Year.
We were cuddled up on the couch in the living room, watching the preparations for the traditional slow-motion dropping of the ball in Times Square. Donna may have fallen asleep, because she jumped when the phone rang. I glanced at the clock, I vividly remember that it was exactly 10:54 in Dallas, which meant that it was just six minutes to midnight in New York.
"Don't answer that," Donna insisted, groggily.
But I did.
It took me perhaps a full minute to realize that the hysterical woman on the other end of the line was none other than Dr. Malenkov. She was screaming incoherently, perhaps not even in English. I finally got her to calm down enough so that I could understand her, but even then I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I made her repeat it, more than once. She shouted her terrifying message across the phone line over and over again, each time louder than the last. Then her voice fell to a near whisper. "I am sorry," she moaned. "I am so, so sorry." Then she began to cry. Then the line went dead.
What I understood Dr. Malenkov to have said, between the screams and the wails, was that Yuri had made a terrible mistake. "I am so much idiot!" she had yelled at me. "Why Seattle? What did I think?"
Her point, which I managed to piece together from fragments of otherwise incomprehensible sentences, was that Nikolas Van der Rohe had not selected Seattle for destruction after all.
He had chosen New York.
And the "trigger event," the signal that would enable Ajax to unleash its payload and hurl it at the city where I was born and raised, was the dropping of the ball in Times Square. The instant the ball reached the bottom of its trajectory, Ajax would lock a laser beam on its spherical target. Nikolas Van der Rohe would simply press a button and several megatons of destruction would follow that ribbon of light right into the heart of the Big Apple.
I glanced at the clock. It was 10:56 here in Dallas. Four minutes to midnight in New York.
Sheldon had told me that it would take less than five minutes for a missile to fly from the Ajax satellite to any target on the face of the earth. And that once Van der Rohe pressed the button and the laser locked on to its target, the process was irreversible.
New York City had less than ten minutes to live.
I assumed that I was too late even as I raced up the stairs, but I had to try. "Where are you going?" Donna called at my back. I didn't have time to answer.
My compulsive orderliness stood me in good stead, as I was able to locate my October appointment book in a few seconds. And it took me only a few more seconds to find what I was looking for: Sheldon's cell phone number, which I had jotted down from my caller ID when he had returned my call to the CIA.
I glanced at the clock. It was 10:57 in Dallas. 11:57 in New York. Much too late to do anything...
I punched in Sheldon's number, continuing to ignore Donna's sleepy questions that floated up the stairs at me. The phone rang at least half a dozen times. I expected to be forwarded to Sheldon's voicemail at any second. Had I dialed the wrong number? Maybe Sheldon's phone didn't report the right number via Caller ID. Maybe I should hang up and try again...
10:58 here. 11:58 there.
"How'd you get this number?" Sheldon asked in a low, conspiratorial whisper. He seemed more curious than concerned.
"IT'S NOT SEATTLE, IT'S NEW YORK!" I remember that I was trying not to scream. I didn't want to sound hysterical. But I suspect I was screaming hysterically just the same. "DR. MALENKOV MADE A MISTAKE, AJAX IS GOING TO LAUNCH AT NEW YORK WHEN THE BALL DROPS. OH MY GOD, SHELDON, WHAT ARE WE..."
"Take it easy, we know," Sheldon said, calmly. "I'm in New York. We're about to storm his apartment."
"You're about to..." I couldn't finish the sentence, which might have been a question. I couldn't seem to wrap my mind around what Sheldon was telling me.
10:59 in Dallas. 11:59 in Times Square.
"We traced him to an apartment in Times Square," Sheldon explained in the same low, steady voice. "We're gonna take him out. Wish me luck."
But I never had a chance to do that. I heard a shout, and then lots of people were screaming, it sounded loud and confused, then I heard banging and shattering noises, then what sounded like a muffled explosion, then another, then a series of pops that sounded for all the world like gunshots, then a shrill scream...
Then the line went dead.
The next noise I heard was the audio from the TV. I turned and saw Donna standing beside me, remote in hand. The picture slowly sharpened into view, and I heard the last few seconds of the countdown. "THREE, TWO, ONE..."
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©2007 Henry Charles Mishkoff