“Roger, PacEx 178. Good day.”
The pilot pulled back his throttles, and the aircraft began to descend. With the flaps at twenty percent, the increase in drag brought the aircraft down very quickly.
Presidential Caravan, downtown Washington, D.C.
The president was in his limousine with two other men, members of the national press who had been invited to join him for a quick interview as he was driven to an emergency meeting with NATO ministers at the Department of State. The presidential motorcade proceeded down E Street and drove quickly west, then turned south on Virginia Avenue before pulling a U-turn into the parking area outside of Department of State. The president’s closest bodyguard, a senior Secret Service agent code-named Bull, was sitting in the seat opposite him. As always, a small ear plug was stuffed in the Secret Service agent’s ear. He was tense and alert, but intensely fatigued. Being assigned to the president’s detail, he worked sixteen-hour days. Since the nuclear explosion over Gaza, he had hardly slept.
As the motorcade proceeded to the north side of the State building, the president was finishing his interview with the members of the press. Unexpectedly, he heard a sudden chime from the telephone in his armrest. At exactly that moment, an alarm sounded in Bull’s ear. “FLASHDANCE. FLASHDANCE. THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
For just a fraction of a second, the bodyguard didn’t move, a terrified look in his eye. He leaned into his lapel. “Confirm Flashdance!” he said.
“Roger that! Flashdance. This is not a drill!”
Bull frowned. It couldn’t be! “FLASHDANCE. SEVEN MINUTES!” his radio cried.
The Secret Service agent swallowed.
Flashdance in seven minutes.
It was not enough time.
It took at least eleven minutes to get the president out of Washington, D.C. They had drilled it and practiced it at least a thousand times.
Seven minutes was impossible.
Which meant that the president was going to die.
More than two hundred protective agents slipped into gear.
Peeling away from the building, the motorcade began to accelerate, moving past the entrance to the State Department’s secure parking area. The chime continued from the speaker in the armrest, then fell suddenly mute. Three, then six police motorcycles moved in on the limousine, their sirens blaring, their lights flashing bright. The bulletproof window separating the front seat from the presidential cabin rolled up.
The president frowned and looked over. “What’s going on, Bull?”
The Secret Service agent didn’t answer because he was speaking into his lapel. But the president had picked up the code word, and he knew what it meant.
Flashdance. Code for an impending nuclear attack.
The limousine moved fifty feet down the road, and then came to a sudden stop, its wheels screeching on the asphalt, nearly causing several collisions behind it. Bull opened the back door. “GET OUT!” he yelled at the two members of the press. The frazzled men were pushed out the door and onto the street. Three additional Secret Service agents then jumped into the automobile, their handguns drawn, and their eyes wild and darting. They pushed the president into the center of the limo and held his head near the floor. Four other agents wielding Uzi machine guns with collapsible stocks jumped onto metal running boards that had been extended from the lower carriage of the black limousine. They gripped the handholds with one hand and held their machine guns with the other. The limousine moved forward onto 23rd Street, screeching through the intersection, surrounded now by more than a dozen police escorts. Ahead of them there was a sudden squeal of automobile tires, then a solid crunch as a D.C. police car intentionally rammed into the side of a Metro taxi that had proceeded into the intersection in front of the presidential limousine. Jamming his gas pedal, the policeman pushed the taxi out of the way, smashing it into the side of another car. Two Marine Apache attack helicopters swooped down from overhead, sweeping over the motorcade from their security perch. Higher up, an F-16 pilot hit his afterburner until he fell into position over the presidential caravan, his air-to-air missiles armed and ready to go.
*******
The suburbs outside the Beltway passed underneath PacEx 178’s nose. To the pilot’s right, the waters of the Chesapeake Bay sparkled in the afternoon light, the slanting rays creating brilliant, flashing diamonds at the crest of each wave. The sun was low now, but the skies were clear and bright. The pilot passed over Interstate 495, which was jammed with stop-and-go traffic, as always, the fourteen lanes of traffic hardly seeming to move. Rush hour was just getting under way, and the city was packed from one end to the other. To their left, in the distance, the Pentagon parking lot was a madhouse of traffic; same for Bolling Air Force Base that was across the Potomac River from the airport. Directly ahead now, Reagan International Airport’s main runway, eight thousand feet of white concrete, shone brightly against the backdrop of downtown Washington, D.C. The copilot directed his attention below their flight path, keeping the proceeding aircraft in sight while the pilot adjusted his throttles, further decreasing his power. The aircraft continued to descend.
*******
As part of the Flashdance alert, all airline traffic at Reagan International Airport was commanded to hold. Seconds before, a single Delta airliner had taken to the air, too far down the runway to abort without ending up in the Potomac River. The F-16 pilot saw the Delta climb as it tucked in its landing gear. He slammed his throttle forward and was pushed back in his seat. He lowered the fighter’s nose and moved a small piper on his head’s-up display, targeting the Delta airliner with two of his air-to-air missiles. The earpiece in his helmet growled. The airliner was locked up. The Delta airliner continued flying north, taking a path that would place it less than two miles from the presidential motorcade. A small course correction and ten seconds were all it would take to turn the airliner into a missile targeting the president. The F-16 pilot tensed up, his gut in a knot. But he had his orders, and he would not hesitate. He switched his radio to National Guard frequency and cried, “Delta aircraft taking off from Reagan, break left right now! Turn left now, Delta, or I will fire!”
The Delta airliner wobbled, then turned hard to the left, rocking up on one wing, moving away from the presidential motorcade that was now screaming through the city. The fighter pilot drew a deep breath and pulled his finger away from the fire button.
*******
Below the pilot, the presidential limousine raced south on 23rd Street. Bull had a decision to make and only seconds to make it: Keep the president on the ground and try to get back to the underground bunker at the White House, or get him in the air?
“Ground or air evacuate?” the Secret Service controller demanded over his radio.
Bull turned to his watch. A little more than five minutes to go. Not enough time to get back to the underground command center at the White House. “Air evacuate the Cowboy!” he yelled.
The senior agent looked at his men sitting on both sides of the president. “You copy that?” he asked. They nodded their heads. “Twenty-third and Constitution!” Bull commanded into his microphone, telling the helicopters where to land.
“Roger, 23 and C,” the controller replied quickly.
The president remained quiet. He was nothing but baggage now. If he were to say anything, he would be told to shut up.
He sat back and placed a trembling hand over his face, then groaned once in anguish as his limousine screamed down the road. By now there were more than forty police and security vehicles in the caravan. More were joining by the second. The entire district seemed to wail, from the north and the south; flashing lights and police sirens could be heard everywhere. Fifteen miles to the southeast, a flight of two F-16s took off from Andrews Air Force Base and flew in afterburner to set up a combat patrol overhead. Below them, a single Air Force helicopter took to the air, followed by four other emergency evacuation helicopters, all of them heading toward the National Mall. They would set down in the grass out
side the Capitol Building to begin the evacuation of the senior congressional leadership.
The Marine presidential helicopters had moved into position. “Birdeye is ready,” the lead pilot said.
The limousine and its security escorts accelerated down the crowded city street to seventy miles an hour. At the corner of 23rd and Constitution Streets their brakes squealed and burned, hot smoke belching from their tires. The road had already been cleared by Secret Service SUVs, and the two helicopters were sitting down in the middle of the street.
*******
The cargo aircraft continued flying toward the airport. Inside its main compartment, a series of valves opened up, allowing outside air to begin to cycle through.
The cabin pressure inside the aircraft was equal to the outside pressure now.
At 4:49 P.M. local time, PacEx Express Flight 178 passed through three thousand feet. Inside the crate packed with the nuclear warhead, the barometric sensor detected the appropriate altitude.
The final countdown began. Three minutes to go.
*******
“GO!” Bull yelled before the limousine had even come to a stop.
The doors to the president’s black sedan burst open. The agents pushed the president out, nearly knocking him down. Six men were waiting to surround him and they grouped together, forming a protective ring, before shoving him into the second helicopter. The president felt like a child, helpless and weak. A group of other agents propelled a presidential look-alike into a second limousine, and it squealed away. In seconds, it was over. Doors slammed. Tires squealed. Helicopters lifted into the air. The decoy presidential limousines drove away, heading east on Constitution Avenue for two blocks, then split up, each limousine heading in a different direction toward the White House.
Inside the Marine helicopter, the president was surrounded by his men.
“Which way?” the pilot shouted.
Bull did not know. Where was the attack coming from? What was the safest direction to go?
“Give me a vector!” the pilot demanded again as the helicopter lifted into the air.
Bull spoke into his radio. “We don’t know, we don’t know!” was all he heard in reply.
Bull looked north and then south. The helicopter was at five hundred feet. Glancing out his window, he saw the line of airliners flying away from Reagan International Airport. They had all been turned away when the Flashdance had been called.
Could it be the weapon was loaded on one of the airliners? he wondered. It was only a guess, but it was all he had.
“Turn north!” he yelled to the pilot. “Get away from all the airports as quickly as you can!”
The helicopter’s nose dropped as it accelerated. The pilot let it fall, leveling to just above the trees. He steered toward the small canyon that wound its way on the west side of Washington, D.C., following the contours of the Potomac River, seeking cover from the cut-out terrain.
The Secret Service agent looked down at his watch.
Less than one minute.
He took a long gulp of air.
*******
The control tower at Reagan International Airport was set in a panic. The senior air traffic controller’s voice suddenly crackled over the radio. “All aircraft approaching Reagan International Airport, turn away from the airport now! This is an emergency message. ALL AIRCRAFT MUST COMPLY! All inbound aircraft turn away. Proceed under VFR flight rules to your nearest holding point. All aircraft on the ground at Reagan, hold your position now! This is a national emergency and this is not a drill. I say again, all aircraft approaching Reagan, clear this airspace now!”
The PacEx pilots didn’t hesitate. The aircraft banked up and started turning away. They were very low, only three hundred feet in the air. Their gear had been extended. They had been ready to land.
Inside their cargo compartment, the timer continued counting.
Thirty seconds to go.
The aircraft’s wing dipped and the nose climbed as the jet turned away. The pilot shoved up the power and accelerated, then set a course for their hold point on the east side of the city. The aircraft’s landing gear receded into its belly.
They were on the southeast side of the White House by now.
The Potomac River drifted under the aircraft’s nose. To the west, the Pentagon was only half a mile away.
The aircraft continued turning, banking up on its wing.
Twenty seconds to go.
The White House fell in the distance behind it, little more than three miles away.
The aircraft leveled out and kept climbing.
Five seconds to go.
“All aircraft . . .” the controller started crying through the radio once again.
Then there was a bright light, and his world disappeared.
*******
The presidential helicopter was four miles from the epicenter of the nuclear fireball. It was low, seeking shelter among the wide canyons that had been carved by the Potomac Falls. The light flashed from behind it, causing the nuclear-hardened windows to turn opaque instantly. Then the wall of superheated air approached the helicopter at three times the speed of sound. The compressed air smashed the helicopter, sending it up on its side.
The Secret Service agent threw his body across the president to protect him, all the time crying in fear.
*******
The energy released in a nuclear reaction is ten million times greater than in an equivalent chemical reaction. While a conventional bomb derives its power from the rapid decomposition of a burning compound, this reaction only releases the energy from the outermost electrons in the atom. An atomic bomb, on the other hand, reaches deep into the nuclei, destroying the very nucleus that holds it together.
The Pakistani nuclear physicists who designed and built their nuclear warheads didn’t understand everything Einstein taught in his Special Theory of Relativity, but they understood the basics: The combined energy of mass times the speed of light squared equaled a very big bang.
The Pakistani warhead hidden inside the PacEx aircraft was a medium-sized weapon, one of the newest the Pakistani government had produced. It was a simple device similar to the Little Boy that was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan. It was small and yet extremely powerful.
*******
The shelter under the White House was not large enough to protect all of the staff. More than a thousand people worked in the White House, and the underground shelter could take no more than half of them.
General Brighton was on the access list to the shelter, but he remained at his desk for as long as he could. The other staff evacuated around him, but he remained on the telephone. Once he knew that the president was onboard the evacuation helicopter, he made one more frantic call to the Pentagon to tell them what was going on.
He looked down at his watch. 4:50 P.M. Less than two minutes to go.
Standing, he turned and ran for the stairwell. He had drilled it many times, and he knew exactly where to go.
He ran down the hallway, turned right down another hallway and across the Portola porch. Down a flight of stairs, a short hallway. He came to the double doors. He glanced again at his watch as he ran. Fifty seconds to go.
He pushed on the door.
It didn’t move.
He pushed again, and started calling.
The door was locked.
Someone had panicked. They hadn’t waited. The door was shut tight.
He banged the door with his fist, then turned and started running. Up the stairs, on the other side of the hallway, was another set of stairs, another bunker access door.
He started up the stairs, reached the top, and then saw the bright flash of light.
The stairwell collapsed in a fury of white heat and smoke.
But General Brighton felt none of it.
He was already dead.
*******
Over the landscape of downtown Washington, D.C., the bright light flashed across the sky as the second sun appeared.
&n
bsp; The fireball over Washington, D.C., was a horrifying sight, a boiling mushroom cloud capped with a crescent of white from condensation and heat. The fireball was white in the center, with orange and red tints at the rim. Below the fireball, a thick column of fiery dust and smoke reached down to the ground, a solid pillar of fire that seemed to support the fireball like a golf ball on a tee.
There was no time to react, no time even to look up.
The initial destruction of heat was almost instantaneous.
A burst of supersonic pressure moved across the ground, demolishing everything into cinder and smoke. A doughnut ring of debris rolled outward from the center of the explosion. The fireball illuminated the day much brighter than the sun, creating devilish shadows that danced in front of the expanding ring of debris.
The first indication on the ground was a two-second blast of white light and heat. Then the fireball rolled upward through the sky, more than a thousand feet wide. Ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit at the center, the thermal radiation burst outward at the speed of light, burning everything it touched almost instantly. Clothes, flesh, hair, wood, asphalt, paper, shingles, plastic, steel—everything turned to ash underneath the rolling cloud. Then, like thunder after lightning, a high-pressure blast wave followed the burst of radiation by a second or two. It moved across the ground, creating a ring of enormous overpressure at the front of the blast while tornado-force winds rushed in to fill the vacuum behind. Steel buildings blew apart as if they were made of paper and sticks; houses fell over and burst into flames; high-rise hotels blew to pieces. Oak trees snapped at ground level and vanished into ash, smoke, and heat. The sand on the beach along the river was instantly baked into glass, leaving human shadows etched in the glassy formations where children had been playing. Water in the Chesapeake Bay boiled and rose in clouds of radiated steam, then fell almost instantly back to earth as contaminated rain. Ash, dust, and dirt were pulled thirty thousand feet into the air and sucked into the rolling fireball in the upper atmosphere. The fallout blew northeast, toward the city of Baltimore and the suburbs on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.
(Wrath-04)-Breathless (2012) Page 16