John Swinburn

What would you call it?  A daydream? A fantasy?  I don’t know. Whatever you call it, though, I think all of us, every one of us, should have one.  I suspect it won’t be comfortable. In fact, it might be one of the most uncomfortable experiences of our lives. God, that’s probably an understatement. It might be far worse than uncomfortable.  It could be—probably will be—one of the most terrifying ‘experiences’ of our lives.

Here’s what I want you to do. Imagine yourself living through this experience; every second of it.

A sound awakens you at 3:00 a.m.  It might be loud knocks on the front door or maybe it’s the doorbell. The noise is loud, sharp, jarring.  You hear it for fifteen seconds before it finally registers with you, before it finally wakes you up. Your heart races. A thousand thoughts rush through your brain. Is someone trying to break in? Who would be banging on my door at this hour? Is it the police, coming to give me bad news about an accident?  What in the hell is it?!

You swing your legs over the side of the bed, slide your feet into a pair of slippers, stand up, and grab a robe hanging behind the bedroom door.  You turn on the hall light and shuffle to the front door, calling out “Who’s there?” as you flip the light switch for the front porch light.

“Police! Open up!”

“What? What is it?  What do you want at this hour?”

“Open the door! It’s the police. We need to talk to you.”

Looking through the peep hole on the door, you seen four uniformed officers.

“Can I see some ID, please?”

“We’ll show you our ID when you open the door! Now open up, please!”

When you open the door, the officers do not show you ID. Instead, they take you by your arms, twirl you around, pull your arms behind your back and place you in handcuffs.

“You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do or say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?”

“What’s going on? What do you think I’ve done?” You can feel the fear rising in you. Something very ugly is happening. You’re unsure why these officers are at your door, why they have placed you in handcuffs, why they have read you the Miranda warning.

The officers remain unmoved by your pleas. “You’ll find out more when the detectives talk to you.”

Finally, at the station, where you’ve been placed in a small interrogation room, a detective comes in.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

“No! I’ve been asking and they won’t tell me anything! I didn’t do anything! I think I need a lawyer!”

“That’s your right. But if you insist on talking to a lawyer, it’s going to drag this thing out longer than it needs to go on. I won’t be able to ask you any questions I need to ask you and we’ll just have to put you in a cell until you can be arraigned.”

“Arraigned for what! What the hell did I do?”

“Do you want to talk to talk to me or do you want a lawyer?  You can’t have it both ways. I’ll explain why you’re here, but only if we can have a conversation. If  you insist on a lawyer, I’m prohibited from explaining everything to you.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you long enough to know what it is you think I did. But then I’m going to want to have a lawyer in here.”

“Fair enough. Here’s the deal. Your next door neighbor was killed a few hours ago. His wife says you did it, says you came in the front door with a baseball bat and beat him to death. That’s why you’re here.  So, why did you do it?”

“I didn’t do it! I don’t know anything about that! I didn’t know he was dead! This is just surreal. Why would she say I did it? If she’s claiming I did it, she must have done it to protect herself!”

“If she did it, why did we find a bloody bat in your garage? Why were your bloody fingerprints on the front door of their house?”

“I have no idea! She must have put it there. And it’s impossible that my bloody fingerprints were on the front door of their house. I wasn’t there. It wasn’t me.”

No, it wasn’t you. But that doesn’t matter. The evidence, every manufactured bit of evidence, says it was you. You, absolutely innocent of the crime, are in the early stages of a frame-up that will place you behind bars for the rest of your natural life. You feel this. You know this to be true. This is a dream that doesn’t stop.

I entered through the monstrous wrought iron and glass front door of the house, in spite of having been told to enter through the kitchen door in the garage. Entry through a garage is just too casual, in my opinion, especially if the house is over-sized and oozes conspicuous, ostentatious luxury. I wanted to get the full effect of walking into a rich man’s home. After waiting an appropriate time for the door bell to be answered, I opened the  door and stepped inside.

Beyond the castle gate of a door, a huge cavernous entry made me feel tiny. The flooring, slabs of polished jade, reflected the massive chandelier and the clerestory windows thirty feet above.  Thirty yards in front of me, a wall of window twenty feet tall revealed a lush, colorful garden sloping up toward a thicket of pine trees.

“I thought I told you to come in through the garage!” Anchor Steel’s words, spoken in a deep and loud voice, betrayed his anger. As I turned toward the sound of that angry snarl, I saw the shotgun in his right hand. “You’re lucky to be alive, you sonofabitch!”

“Sorry, the light wasn’t on in the garage and I didn’t want to get shot by a concerned neighbor!”

“You see any houses close enough for a neighbor to see you?” His tone suggested he thought I was stupid or lying. Or both.

“Never mind. Come on and I’ll show you.”

I followed Steel past a huge kitchen island flanked by stainless steel and glass cabinetry into a much smaller, dimly lit room. Almost immediately upon entering the door, Steel seemed to plunge in front of me. I paused for a moment, confused by his sudden drop. Ah, a steep stairway. We descended to the bottom, at least fifteen feet.

This was no rich man’s house. This was a cave. The floors were rough, yet moderately level, but the walls were craggy outcroppings of rock.  At the far end of the cave, several lights dangled from a tangle of cords, illuminating what appeared to be a dusty, scratched casket.

“Found it while I was digging for the safe room.”

“Safe room?  Like a storm cellar?”

“No. A room for my safes. Some of my valuables don’t belong on display; this is gonna be where I keep ’em.”

“Ah, okay. Well, what about that casket?” I pointed to it, the only distinguishable object in the room.”

“That’s why I called you over. I want you to appraise it.”

“The casket?”

“No, what’s inside.”

Steel trudged across the uneven floor to the casket and lifted the lid.  Inside, the length of the coffin was taken up by shiny cobalt blue fabric covering something. A corpse? An ample sprinkling of polished stones that looked like emeralds, sapphires, diamonds and rubies filled the folds of the blue fabric. A skull, with dried skin still attached and topped with wisps of black hair, emerged from the blue dress.

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know. And I really don’t care. What I want to know is this: what’s the value of these stones and are they traceable?”

I wasn’t absolutely sure what he was asking, but I had a pretty good idea.

“So, you’d like to sell the stones, quietly, yes?”

Steel looked at me hard.

“I want to know the value of the stones and whether they’re traceable.  And I want assurances you’re as discreet as I’ve been told you are. ”

He still had the shotgun.

“I’m even more discreet than you’ve heard. I’ll need to examine the stones closely and then do some research.”

“All right. But you’ll need to do the examination and research right here. If you need any resources other than what I’ve got here at the house, we’ll go get them. Together.”

Steel’s eyes weren’t hard to read.  They said, in no uncertain terms, “Ruthless.”

The empty streets of Manhattan, Kansas, captured on live internet video cams, seemed surreal to Connor Embleman. Not a living soul stirred in the city that, one week earlier, was home to fifty-six thousand people. Though the streets were absent any traffic, stoplights continued to function, one of the only ways to tell that some of the video feeds—the ones with no trees, no bushes, no movement at all—were not simply still shots.

As fire chief of the Manhattan Fire Department, he had been among the last to leave the city in the wake of the mandatory evacuation order. He—along with Cage Mackey, the chief of police, and the director of emergency management, Sabrina Sammons—had argued against an evacuation.  No solid evidence of a real and imminent threat had been presented to them. The mayor, though, told them the matter wasn’t up for debate. She suggested to the three of them that they not go on record opposing the evacuation. If something did happen, she said, their opposition would destroy public faith in their leadership and ability to protect the public.

Neither the mayor of Manhattan nor the governor of Kansas had ordered the evacuation. The recommendation to  evacuate came from the Pentagon and was ordered by the President of the United States. Contrary to the hundreds of rumors flying at breakneck speed across the city and, indeed the world, the threat was not Al Queda or ISIL.

Shoko Matsumoto, the leader of a Japanese group that called itself Bushidō, issued the threat. Bushidō was formed in 2011 to exact revenge for what Matsumoto considered the most egregious acts of terrorism ever committed, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bushidō had issued direct threats before, but those threats had not made their way into the public discourse for many reasons, not the least of which was the consensus among terrorism experts that the group did not have the capacity to carry out even small-scale attacks.

The consensus about Bushidō’s impotence quickly changed with the detonation of a small nuclear device on Clipperton Island, an uninhabited coral atoll south of Mexico and west of Guatemala.  The blast took place forty-eight hours after a message was delivered, by courier, to the offices of the Consulate General of the United States in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.  The message read as follows:

In two days time, Bushidō will detonate a nuclear device on Clipperton Island to demonstrate our ability to carry out our objectives.

Following the detonation, Bushidō will carry out an act of retaliation and revenge against the United States for its brutal slaughter of innocent Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you follow our instructions, there will be only one act of retaliation and it will be on a far smaller scale than your attacks on our people.

We intend to repay the fruits of your Manhattan Project with our own Manhattan Project, the destruction of Manhattan, Kansas. You must accept the destruction of Manhattan, Kansas as the punishment for your country’s unspeakable deeds. If you allow the destruction to take place without attempting to find our devices or evacuate the city, the score will be settled.

However, if you attempt to find our device or if you attempt to save your people through evacuation, we will visit on you an even more horrific event, death and destruction beyond anything your country has ever witnessed, the total obliteration of another Manhattan, the Manhattan in New York.

The detonation on Clipperton Island was not noticed by the public, nor reported by the media. It was noticed, though, by the U.S. government and the detonation was detected by major global powers including among others Russia, China, Japan, and Germany. Diplomatic channels quickly assured news of the blast would not be disclosed.

Following the President’s order to evacuate Manhattan, Kansas, a second message from Bushidō reached the Embassy of the United States in Ottawa, Canada.

Bushidō is disappointed in your failure to follow our instructions. Shortly after you receive this message, the city of Manhattan, Kansas will cease to exist. One day later, New York City and, specifically Manhattan, will pay for your President’s bad faith decision.”

Connor Embleman’s eyes were on the monitor when the image of empty street disappeared, replaced by broken, chaotic black and white lines.  Sixty miles away, sitting in the Topeka Fire Chief’s office on Southeast Jefferson Street, Connor felt the concussion of the blast.

In Washington, DC, the President of the United States watched as a video feed from a camera trained on Manhattan from thirty miles away displayed the brilliant blast and the ensuing mushroom cloud. The moment the explosion took place, her eyes widened and her lips parted slightly as involuntarily she sucked in air.