He sat back in his chair inside the battle staff compartment of his Looking Glass plane and studied President Sachs on the split screen as she took in everything he said. General Carver’s expression from Omaha seemed to be giving her the benefit of the doubt. But then Carver was a consensus builder who only weighed in at the end after all viewpoints were shared.
General Block, buried under Cheyenne Mountain, looked like he was about to burst. Marshall saw it coming a full minute before Block opened his mouth. “Say the word, Madame President, and we’re ready to point and shoot.”
Marshall groaned inside and watched Sachs start.
“Point and shoot?” she repeated incredulously. “That’s the option you’re giving me?”
Marshall cleared his throat and addressed the screen. “You’ve basically got three decent options, Madame President,” he told her. “Tall, Grande and Venti.”
She said, “Venti, I suppose, means an all-out nuclear attack like General Block is suggesting?”
Marshall said, “Basically.”
Sachs said, “I don’t want to bring an end to China, gentlemen. I want to end this war before it gets out of control. So we can eliminate the Venti option right now. What’s the so-called Grande option?”
“Limited strike,” Marshall said. “We wipe out their artificial islands in the South China Sea. But we spare their most valued targets on the mainland and leave them at risk. That way the enemy has a strong incentive to seek an end to the conflict. As you just said, that’s what we want: an end to the escalation.”
“What if they don’t ‘get’ that we’re only inflicting limited harm? They’re liable to launch everything they’ve got at us. What’s the Tall option?”
Marshall didn’t like the direction this conversation was going. “Something you can reliably recall, like our new B-21 stealth bomber. But instead of the usual thermonuclear weapons we arm it with a nuclear-tipped Maverick surface-penetrating cruise missile.”
“A Maverick?”
“I’m sending the data over right now,” Marshall said, and immediately a 3-D model appeared on the screen. “It’s a next-generation bunker-buster than can burrow through hundreds of feet of earth and concrete and knock out Zhang’s underground headquarters.”
Sachs blinked. “You call that the ‘tall’ option?”
“Yes,” Marshall said. “Just like they took out Washington. Tit for tat. An eye for an eye. An underground detonation means no fallout or wind shift worries and collateral civilian casualties. Might even liberate the Chinese people.”
“Or their DF-5 missiles,” said a voice off screen, and then Marshall saw Nightwatch’s chief communications officer, Captain Linda Li, lean toward Sachs and mumble something.
Marshall knew Li had a point, but it was obvious that Colonel Kozlowski, standing behind Sachs, didn’t like it. Neither did Block or Carver onscreen. Neither did he. It was all he could do to not tempt the fates by reminding Sachs that if she and her kind hadn’t scrapped his proposed Defender anti-ballistic system, this would be an entirely different conversation and her options would look a hell of a lot better than the box she was in now.
Sachs nodded on screen and then said, “Once battlefield nukes are used, it’s too easy for both sides to justify using more destructive weapons. I’m not going to let it get that far.”
“But it won’t get that far, Madame President,” Marshall injected, aware that his voice revealed the first sign of impatience with her. “Because our Mavericks will decapitate the entire Chinese C3I command-and-control structure. Just like they tried with us.”
“Yes, and leave no Chinese government to negotiate a cease-fire or surrender.”
“Not true,” Marshall said. “The government of our ally Taiwan would replace the old regime, and Taipei would become the new capital of China.”
“Assuming the Chinese don’t invade Taiwan or destroy it first.” She paused. “Something is wrong with this picture. I mean, why haven’t our forward-deployed forces in the Far East been attacked?”
Block, who looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel this whole time, finally blurted out, “Who the hell cares? They hit D.C.! For the love of God, lady, make up your mind!”
She ignored the entire “woman-who-can’t-make-up-her-mind” slur. “I need to think this over, before I make an irrevocable decision that could potentially kill millions of people.”
Block could barely contain himself. “Think it over?” he cried. “Think it over? You’re not supposed to think, Sachs. You’re supposed to execute your duties as commander in chief.”
General Carver, clearly sensing this so-called “attack conference” was coming to an unfavorable conclusion, seconded Block. “Not to decide is a decision in itself, Madame President.”
“Let me be clear,” she concluded. “For now, I refuse to escalate this conflict.”
She cut out, leaving Marshall alone facing a blank screen with Quinn standing awkwardly next to him, embarrassed that anyone should speak to the Great American Defender this way.
Marshall simply shook his head and answered the screen, “And if the enemy escalates it?”
29
1436 Hours
Air Force One
Kozlowski stepped outside Sachs’ compartment to give her “time to think,” shut the door behind him and glared at Captain Li. “What the hell were you doing there, Li, spooking the president with visions of DF-5 nukes raining down on us? You and I have no opinions with regards to attack options.”
“I was providing my commander-in-chief with potential consequences of her actions, like she asked.” Li offered no apologies. “You think President Rhinehart would have given us the time of day if he were on board with his VP, SecDef and members of the NSC? History has appointed you and me as the new president’s primary protectors and filters of information. Otherwise, Marshall and the NCA might as well be running the country.”
“That may not be such a bad thing at this point, Captain.” Koz looked at the presidential seal on the door dividing them from Sachs. “What the hell is she doing in there?”
“Maybe she’s dancing to Taylor Swift. Or praying. Or bawling her eyes out. Who besides God needs to know?”
“I do, Captain. I need to know. I have no idea what Sachs is thinking. Only that she is. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“A woman who thinks for herself?”
Koz stared at Li’s black, penetrating eyes. “Of course not,” he said, and then he held up the small action figure USB drive Sachs had given him at his request and handed it to Li. “This belongs to Jennifer Sachs. She’s probably got files on her that might give us a clue to her friends and where she may have gone.”
“Wow, Fembot Fiona,” Li remarked as she took it. “I’ll check her social media too. If she’s not talking to her mom, she might be talking to friends.”
30
1437 Hours
Bedford Hills
Jennifer crouched beneath the kitchen window of her Aunt Dina’s house in terror, staring at Carla’s body, aware of the red lasersights probing through the dark.
She crawled into the adjoining laundry room, rummaged through Carla’s purse and found her phone. She dialed her mom’s number. Then she heard a crash in the kitchen and froze.
They were in the house.
She could hear the soft, quick shuffles of their shoes fan out looking for her. She held her breath and looked around. Her only way out was through the dog door.
She glanced back in time to see a red laser target beam probe the kitchen. She pushed her body through the narrow door, wishing Aunt Dina’s dog Admiral were here right now and not at the kennel. She was halfway out the door when her foot caught on the other side. She tried to shake it loose when she felt a gloved hand grab it and she screamed.
She began kicking furiously and succeeded in shaking the hand loose, but she lost her boot. She scrambled to her feet and crashed through the outdoor patio furniture, all covered for the winter, and ran for the barn out back. But he
r stocking foot slipped in the snow and she fell to her knees, cell phone in hand.
She started to cry as the Green Beret kicked out the laundry room door and stood there in the doorway, staring straight at her with his glowing night vision goggles. He thought he was so cool with his M4 with the attached laser site and grenade launcher. She knew what he was packing from her hundreds of hours playing the Red Glare game, and the one place he was now vulnerable. She jumped up and snapped his picture with Carla’s phone camera, the flash blinding him in his overexposed goggles for a few seconds. Then she ran like hell toward the barn.
She rounded the back of the barn, opened the small side door and ran inside and opened the big double doors. Then she grabbed her saddle off the stake in the wall and ran to Punk’s stall. She strapped the saddle on his back, her freezing hands fumbling with the buckles, trying to get it tight. She slipped her socked foot into the stirrup and hoisted herself up. Punk stamped his hooves and coughed. He didn’t want to go out into the cold.
“Please, Punk. Please.”
She kicked him again with the heel of her one boot, and Punk bolted out of the barn, knocking over the goon with the M4. It went off with a loud crack into the dark skies. She looked back and saw him slip onto his back on the ice while his partner rounded the house and raised his M4.
She slapped Punk’s neck with the reins, and the horse jumped onto the adjoining trail.
Punk slipped on the snow and for a moment Jennifer thought he was going to fall on top of her. But he regained his balance and quickly galloped through the two feet of powder along the neighbor’s wooden fence.
Suddenly the fence seemed to move and Jennifer heard a loud crash. A black Suburban crashed through the wooden rails onto the trail behind her.
“Oh, God!”
Jennifer kicked Punk as hard as she could, almost breaking the horse’s skin with her boot. She screamed in frustration.
The Suburban, its high beams on, was only a yard or so away, its engine groaning loudly.
Punk picked up his pace with a new surge of momentum.
Jennifer looked back to see the Suburban fall behind momentarily. Then with a grunt and a spin of its wheels, it dug into the snow and zoomed up toward her with no intention of stopping.
Jennifer rode Punk along the narrow trail, the Suburban closing the gap as Punk started to tire, his powerful neck bulging with the strain. Just a little more, she thought, steering him toward the old McAllister place near the country club.
“You know where we’re going, boy,” she told him as he galloped. “We placed second in the Fall Hunter Pace, remember?”
They were riding along Guard Hill Road now, following a low stone wall, the Piney Woods Preserve on the other side, familiar territory to both her and Punk.
But the Suburban was moving up faster from behind.
Jennifer counted her paces. There was a break in the wall coming up. But it was hidden by the piled-up snow. Punk could leap through the gap and break through the snow, but he couldn’t clear the wall if she misjudged the distance.
She kicked Punk and they picked up speed, the break coming up fast.
“Jump, Punk!”
She turned into the wall, gave Punk the right tug on the reins and closed her eyes. She felt the horse leap into the air and crash through the snow. The ice stung her face, but when she blinked her eyes open, they were into the trees of the preserve, Punk
digging through the snow, his legs working furiously.
Behind her the Suburban tried to stop but slid past the break in the wall on the trail. She heard a crash of metal. But she didn’t dare look back. Punk galloped on into the woods.
31
1444 Hours
Air Force One
Koz was sitting on the gold sofa when Sachs emerged from the bathroom into the NCA commander’s compartment, which was normally occupied by first-class passengers on a commercial 747. Her hair was wet and slicked back, and he had to admit she did more for the flightsuit that Captain Li had given her than Captain Li herself. Then he was ashamed for even thinking about his commander-in-chief in that way and pushed the thought out of his mind.
"Feeling better?" he asked her. He was sure he had heard her throw up in the bathroom. It was a natural reaction to her stress-inducing meeting with the National Command Authority, although he wasn’t sure she’d admit to something seemingly unpresidential.
“Much.” She sat down in the high-back leather chair at the desk and warily eyed the stack of executive orders he had brought her to sign, along with a steaming mug of hot tea. “Did you make this, Colonel? Or did Doctor Nordquist?”
It was almost funny, but he didn’t dare crack a smile. “Captain Li did, ma’am.”
“OK, I guess I have to trust her now—and you.” Sachs took a sip, exhaled and looked around the compartment. "I just noticed there are no windows in here."
"Flash effects from nukes, ma’am. They can burn your eyes out. What windows we do have on the plane are made from the same stuff you’ll find in your home microwave door."
"Of course," she said with a frown.
At first Koz thought she felt embarrassed by her technical ignorance. Or maybe she thought his microwave remark was as patronizing as Marshall’s coffee order options. But then he decided she was simply sad.
She asked, "Where are we going?"
"We're following a pre-designated route to avoid enemy detection. We should be out of U.S. airspace shortly."
"No," she said. "I don't want us straying from U.S. airspace. We can't leave."
Koz muffled his real reaction, which was to lecture her on the realities of airspace and nuclear cloud bursts. But she would probably learn soon enough.
Sachs leaned forward and looked at the stack of Presidential Emergency Action Documents on her desk. "More proclamations?"
“You gotta sign them while you can,” Koz said.
Sachs stared at the first one, an order freezing wages, prices and evictions. Then she signed with a flourish and said, "And I thought you were all Republicans," she quipped.
Koz cracked a smile. He was beginning to enjoy having her around, especially when everything else about the world right now felt so rotten.
"This one,” he said, “is guaranteed to warm a progressive’s heart."
He pushed another classified document across the desk for her to sign. It was a draft bill authorizing the IRS to collect money via a national sales tax of 30 percent.
“Whoa, Colonel. Even the federal response to the global pandemic never dared go to this extreme. Aren’t we supposed to be printing more money instead of taxing everybody?”
“Different scenario in play here, Madame President. We can’t print our way out of this one. Not without making the dollar worthless and losing its reserve currency status. Then we’re done, like Marshall said. But don’t worry.”
She looked up at him with a frown. “And why not?”
“This will all be over, one way or another, long before your order takes effect. Probably within the next 24 hours.”
“Sure, Colonel. No worries,” she said, signing the order. “And I’m not a progressive or conservative. I’m an American. Anything else?”
Koz slid a thick binder across the desk to her. "The latest National Strategic Target List," he explained. "It ranks more than forty thousand places and things in China, the Far East and elsewhere deemed worthy of destruction."
He watched as Sachs tentatively ran her finger down the list, pausing at a target and moving on. He could tell she couldn't do it, couldn't let her finger rest on any single item, knowing thousands of human beings would die if she did.
She said, “I guess I had forgotten that the United States has considered China its No. 1 enemy since the end of the Cold War.”
“Until 9/11,” Koz said. “General Marshall made his career at the Pentagon with his quadrennial reports stating that the war on terror in the Middle East had distracted America from containing the real threat in China. By the way,
for every target you don't pick, you might as well put your finger on a map of the United States, because that's who will suffer instead."
"Thanks for the 411, Colonel."
"You wanted presidential authority," he reminded her and pushed a second operations manual at her, this one thicker than the first. "Now you have it."
"What's this?" Sachs asked.
"The Single Integrated Operational Plan," he explained. "The plan for destroying the places and things on the target list."
Sachs thumbed through the pages slowly. "This says that even after we and our enemies exhaust all our nuclear warheads and destroy the planet, America still has a secret reserve of nukes to fight on, post-Armageddon."
"That's right," said Koz. "The winner will be the one who can continue the battle and inflict still more damage."
"But there will be nothing left to destroy! There will be no homeland left for our bombers or subs to return to."
Koz said, "They could land or dock at foreign airstrips and ports. As you'll see, secret treaties with foreign allies would enable our government to survive as a political entity even if the United States itself were destroyed."
"It just wouldn't have any people," Sachs said. "Doesn't thinking about this all day drive Marshall insane?”
"You have to be a little insane to dream up these nightmares in the first place."
"So why do we do it?"
"It's an insane planet."
She picked up her mug of tea and curiously looked at the decal on the side, which depicted an F-22 fighter jet and the tag line: Air Force: When it Absolutely, Positively Has to be Destroyed Overnight.
Koz asked, “Something wrong?”
“It’s just that nothing today is playing out like the likeliest scenario detailed in this report.” She tapped her finger for emphasis on a graphic of the Taiwan Strait, the 112-mile strait of water between China and the island of Taiwan. “This says the Chinese would attack Taiwan before they ever risked attacking a U.S. target, let alone our seat of government. It also says with 99-percent probability that such an attack would take the form of a thousand land-based cruise and ballistic missiles in China blasting over the strait to knock out Taiwan’s defense shields, followed by invasion before our fighter jets and carrier groups could arrive on the scene. Even then, China wouldn’t strike the United States itself.”
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