“What we do know,” Hathaway continued, “is that the PRC has landed invasion forces on the East and West coast of Taiwan and have established beachheads. From extremely sensitive intercepts of some PRC radio traffic, our analysts believe the PRC suffered very heavy losses of over fifty percent of their invasion force and sixty percent of their deployed air force. The Taiwanese Air Force appears to be kicking ass, despite their somewhat antiquated and badly outnumbered equipment. The few PRC stealth aircraft, both fighters and bombers, have suffered even higher losses. My analysts are not able to determine how the Taiwanese are able to be so successful against those targets. A new EMP weapon has been deployed targeting the Taiwanese defenses, however for a reason unknown to the PLA, its affect has been much more limited than was anticipated. If the PRC continues their all-out offensive and is willing to endure the horrific losses currently being experienced, we estimate the Taiwanese defenses will fall within forty-eight hours.” Turning to Katherine, Hathaway said, “Madam President, PRC losses are approaching one hundred thousand soldiers, sailors and airmen right now. In two days, that figure could be twice that number. Civilian losses are estimated as being four times that.”
The Cabinet and staff were completely silent. A few in the room were stunned by the enormity of the carnage. Far too many seemed to shrug off the numbers as just that, numbers. Marc pretended to be intently reading through notes in his notebook. In fact, he was trying to dam the flood of tears that threatened to leak out onto his cheeks at the tremendous loss of life.
Katherine chose this moment to rise from her chair and said, “Keep me informed. Baxter, Burt make sure my speech for this evening is ready for my review by 1:00 p.m. and that the writer gets it right.” She walked from the room leaving a dispirited pall of murmuring in her wake.
Chapter 61
The New Year - Plus Fifty Days
The White House
1235 Hours EST
Burt bustled into Marc’s office looking, and obviously feeling, disheveled. “Marc,” he said quickly, “have you seen the crap the President’s favorite speech writer just put out? If she wants open rebellion this shit will definitely get it. My God. You’ve got to fix this!”
Marc sat looking at Burt for several seconds before answering. “Burt, you’re aware what he wrote for her was done using notes she gave him. She gave him marching orders, point by point. She essentially wrote the speech, Burt. What do you want me to do?”
“Fix it, Wonderboy!” Burt shouted at Marc, not in anger but in total exasperation.
“How am I supposed to do that, Burt?” Marc’s tone was less than respectful to the White House Chief of Staff.
“Hell, I don’t know, Marc.” Burt’s tone had turned to near anguish. “Maybe you can just re-write it and leave out the worst parts about rounding up revolutionaries that are actively destabilizing the country and threatening her government. At least get rid of the “my government,” part.
“Burt, do you really think that’ll fly?”
“Listen,” Burt said this quietly, leaning over Marc’s desk to come within only a few inches from his face, “if we can’t fix this, her Presidency will be the first since the Civil War to shoot its own citizens in the streets. I’ve been getting reports from DHS that their people have already been fired upon by groups of citizens. Somehow it’s been kept off the major news networks, but there’ll really be an uproar when she informs the country that social media will be censored for the duration of the emergency. Even the liberal geeks will cry blood murder about that!”
Burt almost strangled on his words in order to keep them from carrying outside of Marc’s office. “Marc, I’m haunted by the prospect of a military coup, if this shit keeps up. Please do something!”
“Burt,” Marc asked again, “what do you want me to do?”
“Like I said, re-write it. Let her change it back if she wants to. Please do what you can to save this country. Will you?” The pleading in his eyes and voice were enough to convince Marc to at least make an effort.
“Okay, Burt. I’ll do what I can. You’ll have to handle her at 1:00 p.m. however. I can’t get it done till at least 2:00.”
“Done. And thanks, Marc.”
Marc spent the next hour re-writing Katherine’s speech, toning down the rhetoric and making her outrageous proclamations at least seem reasonable. For each one, he cited the unrest in the country and threats from abroad as justification. He was beyond exhausted when he finished it.
When Burt picked up Marc’s draft of the President’s Speech, he wrote across the top, “Polished by Marc Baxter,” in his own handwriting. He had done everything he could do.
. . .
The Mike Broehm Residence
Outside of Cronin, Kentucky
1610 Hours EST
“Peter, while we’re waiting for Sean and Linda, what can you tell us about what’s happening in DC and on the other side of the world?” Mike asked the question calmly, while, Rollie, Fred, Jim Webb, Lauren, Onie, three security team leaders and two of Sean’s security operators sat in his family room. With his generator running, the 4:00 p.m. news had just come on, with the lead story being the invasion of Taiwan by the PRC and the reaction nation-wide at the Fontaine administration’s lack of response. Mike had cut the sound on the TV just before he had spoken to Peter.
“Mike, I wish I had more information, but that seems to be in really short supply these days. Most of what I have comes from the press, and we all know how reliable those Fontaine toadies have been lately.” An ironic chuckle rose from most who were present. “We know the PRC has wanted to recapture Taiwan, who they view as nothing but a rebel province, since World War II. Until this President, the PRC was pretty sure the full might of the U.S. Navy would be brought to bear on any attempted invasion. The Chinese people are nothing, if not patient. It was clear the Fontaine administration was not going to lift a finger to help Taiwan, as evidenced by U.S. Naval forces having been completely withdrawn from the area. Japan has formally complained to the U.S. State Department and has reportedly begun a rapid program to build nuclear weapons as a deterrent.”
Linda and Sean chose that moment to make their appearance. “Sorry we’re late,” Linda said in a serious tone, “but something that may be important just came up. Oh, Mike, you might want to turn up the volume,” as she pointed at the television.
This just in, the Centers for Disease Control has just issued a statement that is highlighted on your screen. It says, “Reports have been received of a particularly virulent virus that has appeared simultaneously in at least fifteen states. Health officials are advising caution in treating those affected.”
The commentators of the local news both paused to look at each other before one said, “That sounds awfully ominous, don’t you think?” The other commentator agreed, before diverting to a sports story.
“Okay, Mike, you can kill the sound,” Linda said. With a deep breath she looked around the room and continued, “This stuff is very highly classified, but I really don’t think that will matter much longer. By the authority of the SOCOM Commander, SOCOM forces have just been informed that a group of Afghan terrorists, the same bastards that captured me and caused Sean to lose his leg, sent fifteen infected martyrs out into the world to spread a nanotechnology enhanced virus that is extremely contagious and is spread through the air. Operators from the 7th Special Forces Group hit their camp three days ago. The martyrs had already boarded planes to spread the virus to the planet a few days earlier. The martyrs are believed to have traveled throughout at least Europe and the U.S., but possibly all over the world. A surviving American prisoner and test subject provided this information to the operators and the SOCOM commander ran it up the chain to the Situation Room where nothing has been done. The SO
COM commander believes that in light of information he received from the CDC, this weaponized virus, by that I mean a deadly virus that is far more virulent than even Ebola, is currently spreading around the world, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.”
Around the room were faces mixed with disbelief, horror and everything in between.
Rollie was the first to get over the initial shock and ask, “So some political son-of-a-bitch in the Situation Room had the only chance to stop or at least mitigate this, and they chose not to?”
Linda nodded her head sadly, “The communication to the field from the Situation Room was very explicit, saying the operators and SOCOM should stand down until all of the allegations made by the surviving prisoner could be verified. It wasn’t even brought to the attention of the President.”
Mike seized the opportunity to ask, “Sean, Linda, what can we do?”
Sean sank onto a stool before saying, “This is the worst case scenario, especially with what the CDC is announcing. I’ve been thinking about what we should do on the way over here. We need to seal off the neighborhood and stop all coming and going. We also need to quarantine everyone to their homes as much as possible. Travel outside of a sealed environment should only happen with chem/bio protective equipment like a S.C.A.L.P. suit, or something like it, and a gas mask with hood. If this stuff is airborne, the best thing we could do is to seal up our homes with duct tape and the like, and hunker down for a couple of months to let the sun kill off whatever virus cells are floating around in the air. With everyone scavenging right now, and with the power out, that might prove very difficult to convince people they need to just stay closed up in their home. Because of the possibility that someone may have already come in contact with the virus, we better not call another neighborhood meeting. Maybe write up a simple, one page explanation? I can have one of my guys deliver this flyer to each home in the neighborhood. I know we’ve got emergency power and the equipment to produce the letter if you’ll give us the appropriate wording. If this thing is going to sweep the country, it’ll be on the news within the next day or two, before everything begins to shut down. Mike, we better be prepared for that to happen as early as the next twenty-four hours.”
Linda looked at Sean and asked, “Sounds like my security people are going to need to continue to man the perimeter, what about them?”
“Mike, do you know if anyone in the neighborhood has a gas mask?”
Mike chuckled at Sean’s question. “Oh, I’d say about twenty-five percent or more have one or more gas masks. But something that occurs to me is don’t you need to decontaminate the whole outfit before you can strip and be around other people? You can’t just live in the mask and suit can you? How would you eat and drink?”
Linda answered that one. “Of course, you need to be able to decon, which will be very difficult in cold weather, without running water and electricity.”
The rest of the evening the group hammered out the details of a plan to deal with the situation. No one was happy about it, but Mike finally bid everyone good evening feeling like they were protected as well as possible. As Peter was about to leave, Mike asked him to hang back.
“Peter, do you think it’s time for me and Lauren to move over to your place?” A strange look came into Peter’s eye and he paused, before saying, “How about tomorrow afternoon, Mike? I need to take care of some things first. Okay?”
The whole tone caught Mike by surprise, but he nodded his head and said, “Okay, maybe you can just come over and let me know sometime tomorrow afternoon?”
“Will do, Mike.” With that, Peter quickly walked out Mike’s back door.
“Wonder what that’s all about,” Mike thought to himself as he walked outside for more firewood.
Chapter 62
The New Year - Plus Fifty-Eight Days
Command Bunker
Outside of Beijing, China
2015 Hours Local Time
General Hu lay prostrate on the floor in front of Song’s desk, having just been thrown there by two of Lao’s larger security agents. Lao was standing behind him and off to one side.
“General Secretary,” Lao said softly, “here is the man responsible, as you commanded.”
Song merely glared at Hu’s quivering head pressed firmly against the floor. His hands were banded behind his back and his fingers were clearly swelling. After several minutes of silence, Song said in a soft, deadly voice, “Tell me what you have done, Hu. Tell me all of it. Leave nothing out.”
“General Secretary,” Hu said in a whiney voice, “I did everything Minister Lao asked me to do. I created the virus, developed a vaccine, manufactured the vaccine and had the real vaccine sent to those he identified to me as critical to China, while sending only a flu vaccine to those that were not critical. That is all I have done, General Secretary.” He kept his head pressed against the floor throughout the explanation.
Song directed his stare at Lao. “Is this correct, Lao?”
Lao, too bowed his head to Song. “He did not tell me that the vaccine would fail to work, General Secretary.”
From the floor, Hu wailed, “It did work, General Secretary! I tested it on myself after the three of us received our vaccination. The virus has changed! It is more virulent that the one I created! My scientists are working very hard to determine what has been done. It is only a matter of time before they can decipher the code of the virus and create a vaccine.”
“Remove this thing that may have just killed China from my presence, Lao. Have his deputy brought to me.”
Lao opened the door and his two security agents drug Hu from the room. On the way out Song said, “Do not permanently damage him before I know he has no more value.”
With the door closing, Lao himself went down onto the floor. “General Secretary, our sources say the American Special Forces raided the JOTP camp and laboratory ten days ago. They found the laboratory and an American female, who survived exposure to the virus. She informed them fifteen terrorists had been sent all over the world with a nanotechnology enhanced virus. If that is correct, Hu’s stolen virus was somehow manipulated by nanotechnology to make our vaccine worthless. We should be safe in this bunker, however unless Hu’s people can develop a vaccine very quickly, we will suffer the same devastating fate as the rest of the world. Every day the number of people afflicted by the virus grows geometrically. My people estimate that sixteen million currently suffer from the virus, of which well over ninety percent will die. Before they die, they will continue to infect everyone around them, who will travel and infect more. So many infected bodies are scattered throughout China that it will be many months or more before the air carried by the wind will no longer carry the virus.” Lao remained on the floor breathing heavily.
“General Secretary, I request permission to leave this secure bunker and spend what time remains to me with my wife and surviving family members. I do not deserve to survive this disaster.”
Song looked at Lao and said, “I received a call from the American President who told me almost the same story you just did. She said the survivor rescued in Afghanistan had heard her captors say the virus came from China, but that the terrorists had brought in a scientist trained in America who altered the virus through sophisticated nanotechnology methods. Several of the infected terrorists were sent to China, as well as to the rest of the world. Whether we wanted to or not, the scourge of mankind on this planet has been arrested, at least temporarily. We shall see if the virus makes its way into this bunker, or if we will form the nucleus of a new world.”
Song was looking at the ceiling of his office as he made this pronouncement to Lao. For his part, Lao tried not to shiver with the chills his body felt. When it became apparent what had happened, he had gone home to
his wife and discovered she was dying from the virus. He held her closely, injecting her with painkillers until she passed to join her ancestors. He had bathed himself with fluids leaking from her dying body and had insured to covertly touch several objects in Song’s office. Bringing the same death to Song was to be his last and most just accomplishment.
. . .
The Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC)
Beneath the East Wing of the White House
0930 Hours EST
Katherine sat behind her desk in what was referred to as the nuclear bunker reading reports arranged in a neat stack by Susan. The one that had held her attention the most was the one from a Special Forces Captain Charles Schneider. It had several typos in it, but provided a pretty good picture of what had happened. After having read the report just after midnight, she had picked up the secure telephone and had contacted Chinese General Secretary Song. It had taken over two hours before he came to the phone, but it was worth it. She had previously read the reports of the virus’ indiscriminate infection of whomever it touched in China, including the military and civilian elite. That tracked with what Captain Schneider reported. It was particularly gratifying to inform Song that his bloody invasion of Taiwan had been a complete waste of time and blood, as the virus his country had developed would kill almost everyone on both sides. She further informed Song that she would be broadcasting to the world that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory and that a vaccine had been made and distributed only to those deemed important in China. A simple, uneducated terrorist in Afghanistan had stolen the virus and, with the help of a scientist related to the terrorist, the virus had been altered, leaving the Chinese vaccine worthless. The Afghan terrorist had then sent martyrs infected with the virus out into the world to kill as many Infidels as possible, including some to China. All of this was made possible by Chinese General Secretary Song. She ended the call by telling Song, “You have fucked us all, including yourself.” She hadn’t known how prophetic her words would prove to be.
The Final Proclamation (An America Reborn Thriller Book 2) Page 32