Page 70 of Cross Down
Well, damn,she thinks,when things go south, there’ll be plenty of photos showing this tiny force being trampled.
The shouting is getting louder. She has ten officers standing back to back in formation, tactical batons in their hands, trying to prevent fighting from breaking out.
She and three others are at the main entrance to the museum, and thankfully, the directors and security managers have emptied the place of tourists, shuttling them out of side entrances, and locked all the doors.
One of her officers, Bailey, steps up to her and says, “Sarge, this is getting out of hand. Can you make another call to dispatch?”
Before she can answer, there are two heavy thumps, the sound beating at her ears and chest, and she thinks,Concussion grenades.
The crowds swirl and shout, scream and yell, and there’s another concussion grenade—thank God it’s not carrying shrapnel—and she sees what’s happening: the grenade explosions are pushing the crowds, like panicked cattle, to the museum’s entrance.
Straight at her.
She stumbles, falls, gets up, is pressed against the stone wall of the building. With her baton, Tempe tries to push back the shouting, yelling, red-faced demonstrators, but it’s like trying to stop an ocean wave with a canoe paddle.
She sees four people in black jumpsuits and black balaclavas pulled over their heads make their way to the locked doors, and there’s quick movement of their hands, and then—bang-bang-bang-bang.
Door charges,Tempe thinks, and the doors are shattered and the crowds roar in approval and move in like a tsunami. Tempe is swept inside; the baton and her uniform cap are pulled away, and hands are tugging at her utility belt, but she keeps a firm grasp on her holstered pistol.
More chants break out, loud and echoing in the main lobby:
“Screw science!”
“No mandates!”
“Moon hoax, moon hoax, moon hoax!”
Tempe is knocked to the floor, and she watches in horror as the crowds go after the displays of humanity’s many achievements in air and space with hammers and crowbars, smashing them off their stands. She tries to get up but is knocked down again, and this time she hits her head hard. Two men are pounding the Apollo 11 capsule with sledgehammers and yelling, “Hoax, hoax, hoax!”
Her last thought before she slips into unconsciousness isWhat has happened to us?
Part Four
Chapter
80
I step outof the air force aircraft back in Tajikistan, a place I never thought I’d be again in my life. The station looks even smaller and grimmer than before. Just off the runway, several horses are hitched to a long line of rope near three old, battered Humvees, and a large tent is flapping in the breeze. Two tan-colored shipping containers have been converted into sleeping and working quarters, and a garage-size building is topped with antennas and satellite dishes.
A black and oddly shaped air force jet maneuvers its needle-shaped nose around this end of the runway; light gray U.S. Air Force roundels are displayed on the fuselage, and a gray American flag silhouette is on the tail. Sunlight gleams off the forward windows, and the pilot revs the two huge boxy engines. The aircraft speeds down the runway, takes off, and starts climbing, and in seconds it disappears into the light blue Tajikistan sky just above the Pamir Mountains that dominate the horizon in this part of the world.
A few seconds pass.
Boom-boom.
I say to Deacon, “I read in thePostlast year that the U.S. Air Force received four test supersonic transport aircraft. And you managed to get one of them to bring us here. Impressive.”
“Yes, I did,” she says, shouldering her rucksack. She starts walking to the main tent.
“That’s one hell of a consulting job,” I say.
“Sure was,” she says. “Just be glad you’re not footing the bill.”
We’re both dressed in traditional local clothing: leather boots, tan trousers, sheepskin-lined coats, and loose brown turbans on our heads. We’re both carrying rucksacks with water bottles, pistols, grenades, and American M4 rifles. A few years ago, if you wanted to blend in here, you carried an AK-47, Russian- or Chinese-made, no difference. But due to an unfortunate chain of events, the Taliban, now in power, had tons of American vehicles, ammunition, weapons, mortars, artillery, and other military goodies.
Deacon goes to the tent and opens a large flap, and the two of us step in onto a wooden plank floor. Topo maps and whiteboards hang from the canvas walls. About a dozen men—all stocky with long hair and beards, wearing a mix of camo and local clothing—look up. Some are sitting around long tables cleaning weapons, others are in front of keyboards, and three are sitting and drinking coffee, legs stretched toward the kerosene heater set in the tent’s center.
An American flag dangles overhead, and a handwritten sign reads:We the unwilling, led by the unqualified to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful.
