“Fellow Americans,” he said, “I come before you tonight to tell you that what appears to be a major natural calamity has struck our dearly loved city of Savannah, Georgia. Preliminary information, from satellite images and reports of the Department of Homeland Security, indicate that the disaster resulted from a tsunami.”
He could add little to what he had heard in the Situation Room shortly before, but he stressed that the calamity was local “and in no way resembles the enormous catastrophes that struck Japan in 2011 or Indonesia in 2004.” He said he had talked to Governor Morrill and assured him the immediate and full resources of the federal government.
“By dawn’s light,” Oxley concluded, “we will be able to fully assess the damage and begin the recovery from the tsunami. Savannah, help is on the way! Meanwhile, I ask all Americans to join Priscilla and me in prayers for that beautiful, wonderful city. Good night and God bless America.”
28
FALCONE AND McHugh, each staring at his own monitor as the President vanished, did not speak for a few seconds. Then, his firm voice wavering, McHugh asked, “Sean, are you familiar with the flag word ‘Pinnacle Nucflash’?”
“I know that a flag word precedes urgent command and control communications. Wait! Nucflash?” What the—”
“Yes. I’m reading from document just handed me. It’s called OPREP-3, the NMCC guidelines for operational reports about events involving nuclear weapons. The flag word ‘Pinnacle Nucflash’ is reserved for messages that refer to quote detonation or possible detonation of a nuclear weapon, which creates a risk of an outbreak of nuclear war. Unquote. One event that mandates a ‘Pinnacle Nucflash’ message is quote accidental, unauthorized, or unexplained nuclear detonation or possible detonation. Unquote.”
“Jesus, Mike. Are you telling me that we—you, NMCC—that you must send out an alert about a possible nuclear explosion?”
“If I follow the book, Sean, as NMCC duty officer I must react to the SBIRS report. I am obliged to put out an urgent message with the flag word ‘Pinnacle Nucflash.’ I have to send it to the Secretary of Defense, to all armed service chiefs, and to all combatant commanders. Each commander can then decide whether to pass it on to subordinate commands.”
“For Christ’s sake, Mike. You can’t do that. It will leak immediately. Start a panic. We don’t know—”
“I know we don’t know, Sean. But the instructions—”
“Fuck the instructions. I’m ordering you not to send out the message.”
“Sorry, Sean. I called you to give you a heads-up. This is not an official communications. You know damn well that you can’t give me an order like that.”
Falcone knew that McHugh was right. The chain of command was clearly from the President to the Secretary of Defense, then directly to the four-star generals and admirals who were combatant commanders. The national security advisor, officially the assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, was not in the chain. He merely gave advice. This was also true for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McHugh’s boss. The Chairman did not have operational command of U.S. military forces. Falcone and McHugh had to work inside that bureaucratic structure, designed to make sure that the source of military power was in the White House, where the Constitution had put it, rather than in the Pentagon.
“Give me ten minutes, Mike. I’ll get you a presidential order.”
“Okay. But it has to be the President himself, not someone speaking in his name.”
Falcone rarely used his direct line to President Oxley, following Oxley’s preference to have communications to him filtered by Ray Quinlan and his staff. When Falcone did make a direct call—as he did now—he knew that Oxley would realize its importance.
President Oxley was still at his desk, wiping off makeup, and the television pool crew was still gathering up equipment, when the URGENT line rang on his telephone console. The sound surprised everyone in the Oval Office, including Oxley.
Oxley picked up the phone and said, “Hold on, Sean.” Oxley put his right hand over the mouthpiece. “Everybody out. Quick. Except you, Captain Spencer.” He pointed to Spencer, who had been sitting at the edge of the seat on a wooden chair to the right of the presidential desk, outside the television image.
As the room cleared, Oxley said, “Okay, Sean. What’s up?”
“Mr. President, I must see you immediately and personally.”
“Okay,” Oxley said, again putting his hand over the mouthpiece. He spoke directly to Spencer: “Sorry, Captain. Go through that door and stand by.” Oxley pointed to a door leading to a small outer office.
“Okay again, Sean. Come on in,” Oxley said, hanging up.
Falcone ran down the hall to the Oval Office and bumped into Spencer, who, looking confused, was exiting through the same door. As Falcone closed the door, Spencer sat on one of the three chairs lined up along a wall across from a desk that had no one behind it.
“Pull up a chair, Sean,” Oxley said. Falcone suddenly thought that this would be Oxley’s last moment of calm for a long, long time.
“It’s about Savannah, Mr. President,” Falcone said. “It does not seem to be a tsunami. It may be a nuclear bomb.”
29
FALCONE TOLD President Oxley about the Nucflash message, along with all that was known up to that moment. He paused, awaiting Oxley’s response. The President sat still and silent for one long minute. Then he stood and walked to the windows behind his desk. Falcone stood, not so much out of respect but as a witness, or perhaps, he thought, as a sentinel.
Oxley, his back turned to Falcone, said softly, “Pinnacle Nucflash. There’s a script for this, isn’t there? ‘Pinnacle Nucflash.’ Yes, I remember those words. In the nuclear briefing I got on the day I was inaugurated.”
He turned around and added, “I listened, and while I was listening I remember I prayed—the kind of prayer that just suddenly rises in your mind. And then I thought, This can’t really happen. It can’t happen.”
He returned to the desk and sat down. It was as if no time had passed.
“Yes, sir. There is a kind of script,” Falcone said, sitting down again. “It begins with the Nucflash message. I suggest that you put in a call to the NMCC and tell General McHugh to hold off transmitting the message until dawn, when we will be able to see Savannah.”
“Or what’s left of it,” the President added, sighing. “Okay. Dawn it is.” He reached for the console, ordered a call to the NMCC, and in a moment was talking to McHugh, who accepted the presidential order with great relief.
“What next, Sean? Off to the Sit Room?”
“First, we need to notify the congressional leadership,” Falcone replied. “I know you think that’s an oxymoron. But we have an obligation to keep them apprised of what we know. I’ll handle those calls. Between now and dawn, sir, I respectfully suggest that you go to the Residence and get some rest. Then—”
“Well, I’ll try. I promise to try. Next?”
“Dawn on the East Coast will be at six fifty-two. Every network will be on the air by six at the latest. I suggest that you explain the Nucflash so that the American public—and the world—will be prepared for all that will be happening as a result.”
“And what will be happening, Sean?”
“A quick list, sir: DEFCON will rise automatically unless you, as commander-in-chief, stop it. And I suggest that you stand back from that. Leave it to Secretary Kane.”
“I’ve got a pile of calls waiting, Sean. Kane is at the top of the list.”
“Let me handle him, sir. I’d like to keep a close watching brief on the Pentagon during this … this … whatever it is.”
The President had a reputation for maintaining total focus under adversity. He looked down at the yellow pad he had been writing on, then looked up and spoke calmly.
“I’ll tell you what it is, Sean. It is a mystery, a basketful of questions: What happened? How could it have happened? Is it a natural occurrence, an act of God? Could it be a
n act of terrorism? If so, who? And how could they pull such a thing off? Why didn’t we see it coming? What is the extent of damage? How do we respond? How quickly can we get help there?”
“We can all but eliminate a couple of possibilities,” Falcone said. “A ballistic missile would have been picked up by our missile-detection system. Same for a cruise missile. I’m about as sure of that as I can expect to be sure of anything. So, at this point, I have ruled out missiles. Maybe it was a Russian suitcase bomb that went to Iran on the black market. But Iran has to know we would liquidate them in a nanosecond.”
“Suitcase bomb?” Oxley asked. “I thought nothing that small existed.”
“Back in 1997, the Russian national security advisor claimed that the Russian military had lost track of more than a hundred suitcase-sized nuclear bombs. Our experts say that it’s technically possible to build a bomb that could fit in a suitcase. We have no solid intelligence that it has been done by the Russians. But we did develop a nuclear weapon that a soldier could carry in a large backpack. More a steamer trunk than a suitcase.
“And there is something more, sir. Iran. You’ll recall that two weeks ago, some U.S. media spread a report that we were planning to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites. The report came out of the Middle East, maybe from Iran, maybe from some nutcase in Israel. We knocked it down as absurd, and that seemed to settle it.
“But two days ago, an Iranian official—on Iranian TV, commenting on Prime Minister Weisman’s visit to the U.S.—said he was here to plan an attack on Iran. The official said Iran would unleash nuclear explosions in America if Iran is ever attacked with nukes. ‘Nuclear explosions’ sounds like they’re claiming to have got their hands on some fissile material. Now we get a nuclear explosion in Savannah.”
“Iran … a suspect, right,” Oxley said. “And our intelligence on Israel—such as it is—says Weisman came here to ask me for safe passage through Iraqi air space, making us accomplices to Israel’s bombing of Iran. So, maybe Iranians got wind of it. Maybe they did do it somehow, thinking they were preempting an attack on them by hitting us and then screaming their innocence to the whole world. It’s pretty far-fetched, but there’ll be some Americans who will want to see us to blame Iran and wipe it off the map, right?”
The question hung in the air.
The President tapped a pencil on the yellow pad. He put the pencil down, carefully squaring it along the top of the pad before he spoke:
“A lot of questions, Sean. I’m the one who is supposed to come up with answers. But it sounds like you’re the one who is looking for the answers. And what you seem to be telling me, Sean, is that you want to tuck me in bed while you handle the crisis.”
“That is one way to describe the situation, sir. But, if I may add, we are operating literally in the dark. Until dawn, all we will have will be that satellite image, a lot of TV speculation—a lot of wild speculation, I expect—and whatever images we get from the recon flight. I’d like to work through the dark, Mr. President, to get you prepared for the dawn. It’s going to be a long day.”
“Let’s say that I agree, Sean. What do you propose to do while I’m … how did you put it … resting upstairs?”
“I believe, sir, that it is imperative that you address the American people shortly after dawn. So, number one, I want Ray or Stephanie to set that up with all the networks.”
“What the hell am I going to say, Sean? ‘Sorry, folks, about the tsunami story’?”
“At five A.M. we’ll have a draft of a short address. You’ll have enough information to take your audience through what we know now and what, for a short time, we thought had happened.”
“Everything?” Oxley asked. “The tsunami that was not there? The Coast Guard helicopter that lost power? The detection of a nuclear flash? Goddamn it, Sean. Everything means that we get people on the ground there. I want eyes and ears there. Firsthand information. I want that now, Sean.”
“Yes, sir. I agree. We’ll get people there as soon as we can. But right now we need to figure out what you say to the American people. Sir, we don’t know what’s down there. We don’t know the level of radiation, the number of casualties, the extent of damage.”
“Christ, Sean. What do we know? I want answers. I want to know who did it.”
“We have no answers, sir. And, I am afraid that you will have to say that. You will have to speak a sentence neither you nor any other American will want to hear. You will have to say, ‘We do not yet know who is responsible for—’”
“For what, Sean? ‘Killing an American city’? Is that the phrase?”
“I suggest, sir, ‘trying to kill.’”
The President stood, as did Falcone.
“I trust you more than I have ever trusted any man,” Oxley said, thrusting his right hand forward to seal his decision with a handshake. “Get to work. I’ll see you at five.”
“There’s one more thing, Mr. President.”
“Yes?”
“Continuity of government. We can’t rule out the possibility of more nuclear explosions. You need to go to Raven Rock or Mount Weather.”
Raven Rock and Mount Weather were code names for the hollowed-out, presumably nuclear-proof mountains—described to the public as “undisclosed destinations”—where federal officials could shelter when the continuity of the U.S. government was threatened.
Raven Rock, also code-named The Rock and Site R, was deep inside a Pennsylvanian mountain about six miles from the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland. The redoubt, operated by the Department of Defense, had been created during the cold war to provide a site where a government whose leaders had been vaporized—“decapitated,” in the term then current—could still manage to function.
Raven Rock, particularly concerned with military continuity, could house a phantom Pentagon in the form of the Alternate National Military Command Center and the Alternate Joint Communications Center.
Mount Weather was one of the names for a large, elaborate bomb shelter burrowed into a Virginia mountain forty-eight miles west of Washington. Select members of Congress had huddled there after nine-eleven and later created the Department of Homeland Security, which now managed the site.
“Absolutely not, Sean. Out of the question.”
“The Secret Service will insist.”
“Last time I checked, they worked for me.”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“No Raven Rock. No Weather Mountain. I stay right here.”
“Very well, Mr. President. But until we know what’s going on, I don’t think it’s wise for you and Max to be in the same place.”
“I see your point. Max goes to Raven Rock. As things ease, he can hop over to Camp David. Get the word to him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What else, Sean? I have that certain feeling that you have a list.”
“Nucflash will generate other events, sir. We need to be prepared for them: Each combat commander will have to raise the DEFCON and take force-protection measures. DEFCON One means the military go to maximum readiness, prepared for an imminent attack. I know that Secretary Kane can keep this under control so it doesn’t look like we’ve blindly decided to go to war—without picking an enemy.”
Oxley nodded and gestured for Falcone to go on.
“We’ll get countless Internet messages about organizations claiming responsibility. All the claims will have to be examined. The media will be competing with our Intelligence Community to get answers. I want you to get ahead of the game. All through the night we will be working to get information for you when you speak tomorrow morning.”
Oxley nodded again.
“I’ll give Bill Bloom a predawn briefing. We’ve got to let our allies know as much—or nearly as much—as we know.”
“And make sure that Marilyn Hotchkiss is at his side, Sean. You know how Bloom depends on her for getting the human side of things.”
“Yes, sir,” Falcone said, convinced that he had a free pass to prepare Oxley for
the dawn.
Oxley took a step toward the door leading to the corridor stairway to the Residence. “You can make the chaos of hell look like planning a picnic, Sean,” he said. “I’m just damn glad you’re with me. Good night, Sean.” He stopped and turned. “Don’t hesitate to call me—I can’t honestly say ‘wake me’—if anything new comes to light.”
“We are working in the dark, sir,” Falcone continued. “But we’re sending a recon plane from Andrews. That’ll give us our first view. If we get anything extraordinary—such as a clue to who did this—I will not hesitate to call. Try to rest … what unlikely words … Mr. President.”
30
FALCONE HAD assumed the recon plane was in the air when he was briefing the President, even though he had been in government long enough to know that he should not assume anything. What Falcone did not know was that the urgency surging through the Situation Room had not yet traveled to Joint Base Andrews.
Navy Commander Wayne Davis, the operations duty officer at Andrews, had reacted to the Situation Room request with his usual caution. This was an unscheduled nighttime mission, and it could not be rushed. Davis was forty-four days away from retirement after twenty years in the Navy.
Davis had dealt with many Situation Room calls. Some were just from someone puffed up by Situation Room duty. This time the caller was some Navy lieutenant. If he did not say “urgent” (and Davis did not record that he had), then Davis felt that he had the right to proceed unhurriedly: the alerting of a pilot, the briefing, the maintenance check, the fueling, the communications protocol, the filing of the flight plan.
When Davis heard that the President would be on television, he held up the mission so that the pilot would better understand the situation. “Doesn’t sound like much more than a major flood with the fancy name tsunami,” he said to the pilot he had selected, Air Force Captain Sarah Bernton, who had racked up more hours of night flying than anyone else in the ready squadron.
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