Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel

by William S. Cohen

Beneath the gossamer wings

  of shimmering science,

  will lie the ash-covered

  bones of your defiance.

  I am a force you cannot stop

  and for your sin you’ll join me soon

  in oblivion.

  88

  Jason Getchell, GNN’s White House correspondent, was planted on the northwest corner of the White House grounds, just outside the West Wing. From that spot, which he claimed, as if by eminent domain, he could see who was entering and departing one level below, through the canopied entrance to West Wing.

  Most days were boring, but he tried to look busy and important while watching people shuffling in and out of the corridors of power in the White House. Suddenly, the day changed from boring to mysterious. He sensed a story building.

  A string of four black SUVs came roaring through the Southwest gate and braked noisily to a full stop. Menacing-looking security men, wearing government-issued sunglasses, piled out of the vehicles, their heads swiveling as they quickly scanned the space between the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the White House. It may have been the most secure place on the planet, but the Secret Service boys went through the surveillance routine nonetheless.

  Satisfied there were no assassins hiding out amongst the parked cars—and that GNN was pointing a camera from above them and not an RPG—they opened the rear doors of the second SUV. Out popped Secretary of Defense George Winthrop and General Hector Amador, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Something important must be up, Getchell surmised. Whether due to turf battles between their security teams or because of genuine security precautionary concerns, Winthrop and Amador usually arrived at White House meetings separately. Not today. Why?

  Getchell directed his cameraman to switch to the camera’s long-range lens to capture the faces of the men as they stepped quickly toward the canopied entry.

  Less than thirty minutes passed before General Amador emerged with a tall black man in a gray suit. Getchell could not identify the civilian. Again the long-distance camera caught the faces of the two men in the instant between their stepping from the cover of the canopy to the car door held open by a security man. The armor-plated SUV pulled out and headed, Getchell presumed, back to the Pentagon.

  Getchell took out his cell phone and called GNN’s leading anchor, Ned Winslow, alerting him to what he had just witnessed. “You’re right, Jason,” Winslow said. “It looks like something may be up. Stay on this. We need to be first with the story—whatever it is. We may even make their ride-share a story,” he joked.

  About fifteen minutes passed. Then more large vehicles started to file through the southwest security gate and deposit their passengers at the basement level entrance to the White House. With growing excitement, Getchell recognized the attorney general … the secretary of Homeland Security … the secretary of the Treasury, the secretary of Health and Human Services.… the secretary of … of … Energy. She never goes anywhere, Getchell thought, adding to his sense of mystery.

  “Jesus!” Getchell muttered and reported the newcomers to Winslow: “He’s called an emergency meeting of his Cabinet—at least all who are in town.”

  More cars roared through the security gates, more familiar faces. The Speaker of the House and the minority floor leader—in the same SUV, further astonishing Getchell. Then, in another vehicle, majority leader of the Senate, and the minority leader.

  “Holy shit!” Getchell shouted. He redialed Winslow.

  “Ned, I think we may be about to go to war! Oxley has his Cabinet and the congressional leadership meeting with him right now. Oxley hates Congress, and now he’s got them meeting with him at the same time that he’s holding his Cabinet meeting. It has to be: We’re at war!”

  “Damn! I think you could be right,” Winslow effused. “Kim Jong-un announced last night that North Korea had launched another missile able to carry a nuclear warhead. He said it was a test, but he also warned that he could wipe out South Korea. I’m going to go live with this. Get ready for a standup.”

  Minutes later, a red, flashing NEWS BULLETIN banner appeared on monitors tuned in to GNN throughout the world. Next came Jason Getchell clutching a microphone and looking grim, with the White House behind him.

  “President Oxley may be taking the nation to the brink of war today,” Getchell said soberly. “The President is apparently reacting to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s fanatical leader, who has fired another potential weapon of mass destruction. Oxley responded to the provocative move by convening an unprecedented emergency meeting with members of his Cabinet, top military advisers, and the congressional leadership. Also at the meeting was an unidentified man who could have been an intelligence officer or an expert on nuclear weapons.”

  Getchell padded out his bulletin with names and a few moments of film showing cars going in and out of the White House parking area. He signed off with the usual GNN promise to stay on the story.

  Through his earpiece he heard Winslow’s voice: “Where the hell did that ‘expert on nuclear weapons’ come from? Call me.”

  Getchell immediately called on his cell phone. “A guy from NASA I met at a party said NASA’s getting cozy with a Department of Energy outfit called the National Nuclear Security Administration, which handles our nuclear weapons stockpile.”

  “Well, Jason, that’s interesting. But I guess you didn’t recognize the black guy. He’s Ben Taylor, assistant director of the Air and Space Museum, and he has a PBS television show. Ask your NASA pal what the hell Taylor’s doing with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

  89

  Busts of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin and portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt looked down on a Cabinet Room seething with resentment. Cabinet members don’t like to be summoned by the White House switchboard operator as if they were mere vassals to a sun god. And they were truly annoyed that they had to share their special room with congressional leaders who had been the architects of absolute, flat-out opposition to the President.

  In the center of the long, high-ceilinged room was an oval mahogany table surrounded by leather-upholstered chairs whose design dated to the late-eighteenth century. Engraved on the backs of the chairs were brass plates naming Cabinet positions but not the current names of the secretaries. At the center on one side of the table was a chair two inches higher than the others. On its back was a plaque that said THE PRESIDENT. Directly opposite him was an empty chair with a plaque saying VICE PRESIDENT. Oxley made a mental note to summon home Vice President Sam Reese, who was in New York City raising funds for his as yet unannounced presidential campaign.

  Taylor and Falcone took chairs along the wall.

  When Oxley entered the room from the adjoining Oval Office, all stood, as protocol required. Respect for the office, if not for the man, had narrowly managed to survive the full descent into political indecency.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Oxley began crisply. “I asked you to join me here because we have an existential threat—not just to our nation, but to the planet itself.…”

  An eerie silence suddenly enveloped the room. People swapped astonished glances, some not sure whether they were about to be politically bamboozled, others anticipating that they were part of a monumental moment in history.

  “There isn’t time for me to go into great detail on how this threat came about or why. Suffice it to say, a large asteroid has been detected which, according to some of the world’s greatest astrophysicists, is heading toward Earth. Unless we can destroy the asteroid, it will likely destroy all life on our planet.”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” Morris Bentley, the Senate majority leader, demanded, glaring down the table at Oxley. “A cockamamie lie you think we’re going to swallow?” Bentley was Oxley’s unconditional adversary, routinely questioning Oxley’s policies and even his patriotism.

  “Morris,” Oxley retorted, intending his informality to convey condescension, not familiarity. �
��I … we don’t have time to play any jokes. This monster is going to hit us in little more than a month—unless we do something to stop it.”

  “If you’re not trying to pull a fast one with the truth, Mr. President, you damn well owe us and the American people an explanation. How did you let this happen? Why did you fail us? Why—”

  “Morris, I said I don’t have time to debate with you. Reality—a reality that weighs hundreds of millions of tons—is about to hit us. And I need you to shut up and listen.…”

  Bentley’s face twisted as if he had just been slapped.

  He was about to protest when Bob Cross, the Speaker of the House, tugged his arm and signaled his disapproval of any further repartee.

  “I learned recently, from Dr. Benjamin Taylor, a distinguished astrophysicist whom many of you know, that a certain asteroid, selected for mining by the privately held company SpaceMine, was in an orbit that would put it on a collision course with Earth in 2037. I believed that knowledge of this threat had to be kept secret until the planet’s three major spacefaring nations could find a way to defend Earth from this threat. I confided in President Lebed of Russia and President Zhang Xing of China. Dr. Taylor, along with an astrophysicist from Russia and an astrophysicist from China, have cooperated in working on defense plans.”

  Speaker Cross looked as if he was about to speak—or shout. But he kept quiet.

  “Yesterday,” Oxley continued, “I learned that the asteroid was not where we believed it to be and would strike the Earth in forty days.”

  A collective gasp rose from the silence as Oxley went on, speaking more rapidly. “I have asked Dr. Taylor for a scientific report on this situation, which is unparalleled in human history. For some time, Dr. Taylor, along with his fellow astrophysicists from Russia and China, has been working on ways to thwart the asteroid. At first, they believed that the threat was twenty years off. But today Dr. Taylor told me that recalculations produced the new estimate: forty days. Today is day number thirty-nine. I realized that we have to move immediately.

  “I met this morning with General Amador and Secretary Winthrop”—he nodded to the occupant of the chair to his left—“and they agreed with Dr. Taylor and the other two astrophysicists examining this situation that our only defense against the asteroid is to destroy it with nuclear explosives. President Lebed and President Zhang have also agreed.”

  Speaker Cross could keep silent no longer. “My God! Russia? China? Recalculations?” he yelled. “What recalculations? What else have you been keeping secret?”

  Oxley ignored the interruption and went on, reading from Taylor’s report.

  “According to Dr. Taylor, radar telescopes show that the asteroid is oddly shaped. Think of two roundish rocks mashed together. We have no way of knowing exactly what damage the nuclear explosives will inflict. Assuming the worst, the explosions would occur in such a way that one of the rocks is blown up, leaving much of the asteroid to continue plunging toward Earth. Or there may be a fairly effective destruction of the asteroid so that many pieces are produced.

  “Fragments larger than about thirty-five feet in diameter will not burn up in the atmosphere,” Oxley continued. “They will strike Earth. If the asteroid is metallic, any sizeable fragment produced by the explosion will hit the Earth as an especially powerful projectile. In fact, any fragment that survives a passage through the atmosphere will be disproportionally powerful to its size because of its kinetic energy: Think of the difference of being hit by a baseball lightly tossed and one going ninety-five miles per hour. Now think of a solid metal object bigger than Yankee Stadium heading toward you at forty to fifty-five thousand miles per hour.

  “On their way toward Earth, the fragments push away the air, creating a hole in the atmosphere. Dirt and debris rush into the gap. Enormous amounts of Earth are hurled into the upper atmosphere, blotting out the sun for an unknown period of time, perhaps a year or more.

  “Water covers about seventy percent of Earth’s surface. So the odds favor an ocean impact, which is far more cataclysmic than an impact on land. Large numbers of people concentrate in coastal areas. And a hit in one place can produce catastrophic damage thousands of miles away, not only from the wall of water but also from the debris borne on the towering waves.

  “If the asteroid threatening Earth were to strike an ocean, the impact would vaporize the asteroid and blow a hole in the water eleven miles across and down to the seafloor. The vaporized water would cause huge explosions of steam rivaling the power of the initial impact explosion. And debris from the ocean floor, along with vaporized creatures from whales to zooplankton, will also be propelled skyward.

  “A ring of waves would spread out in all directions. Millions of tons of seafloor and water would radiate out for hundreds of miles. Then the water would be sucked back to the crater, carrying with it a long strip of seacoast and all the people and structures upon it. The in-and-out surges of giant waves would continue for hours.

  “The Pacific Ocean is a highly probable target but there is no way to locate the bull’s-eye. A computer simulation of the probable impact shows waves as high as four hundred feet surging about fourteen miles inland. The tsunami waves may also cause seafloor landslides that produce secondary tsunamis.

  “Two other potential impact areas would be northern Russia and northern North America, depending on how the asteroid blows up and what part of the rotating Earth happens to be under the fragments at the moment of impact.

  “Energy released by the asteroid could generate an electromagnetic pulse that would devastate Earth’s electronics. We do not know exactly how such a pulse would be produced. Such a pulse was first detected—and kept secret—during high-altitude nuclear-weapon testing over the Pacific. Rapidly changing electric and magnetic fields seem to have merged with Hawaiian electrical and electronic systems, producing massive breakdowns.

  “As the asteroid plunges toward our planet, an electromagnetic pulse could invade the Earth’s electrical and electronic systems. The powerful surge would destroy transistors, computer chips, electrical power grids, and power-generating stations, including those controlling nuclear power plants, and solar and wind systems that generate electrical power.

  “There would also be a breakdown of the world’s communications infrastructure: satellite systems, television and radio broadcasting facilities, cell phones, and the Internet. Automobiles’ electronic controls would shut down, as would aircraft, railroad, and marine navigation systems—the network of digital instruments embedded in our society. By its massive power of destruction, the asteroid would change life as we know it.”

  Oxley paused and felt the confusions of fear and disbelief sweeping across the room as he continued, “That is the end of Dr. Taylor’s report—straightforward, scientific, precise. He also reminded me of what happened not too long ago when a NASA official testified before a congressional committee soon after that day when an asteroid exploded over Russia and another one passed close to Earth. He was asked what he would do if an Earth-threatening asteroid were discovered with three weeks’ warning. ‘If it’s coming in three weeks … pray,’ he answered. ‘The reason I can’t do anything in the next three weeks is because for decades we have put it off.’

  “Well, we have thirty-nine days. And we are trying to do something.”

  Nearly a minute of silence followed Oxley’s last words. Then Morris Bentley rose from his chair and, and shaking his fist at Oxley, bellowed, “Deceit! Deceit! In desperation to claim your legacy—”

  “For God’s sake, Morris, shut your goddamn mouth or I’ll shut it for you.” It was the voice of Secretary of Defense George Winthrop in the form of his previous persona, Sheriff Two-shot Winthrop. His shout broke the spell: some let out another gasp, some raised and waved their hands like schoolchildren wanting to be heard.

  Oxley had timed his address to be as short as possible. He politely refused to answer any questions. He stood and said, “Please excuse me for a few minutes. I will be back.”


  A White House communications specialist entered the room pushing a cart carrying a large television set, which he plugged in at one end of the table. The diagonal NEWS BULLETIN banner was still on GNN, and Jason Getchell was finishing his report: “… an unidentified man who could have been an intelligence officer or an expert on nuclear weapons.” On the monitor came a faint image of Ben Taylor’s face.

  Taylor and everyone in the room who could recognize him were momentarily astounded. The screen went blank for a moment. Then Ned Winslow appeared in GNN’s World Newsroom, looking somber and speaking solemnly: “The White House has requested that all networks carry a special address from President Oxley. Please stand by.”

  “Not me, by God!” Morris Bentley yelled. “I’m not standing by for a goddamn Oxley PR stunt.”

  He headed for the entrance door, followed by Speaker Cross. “Holy shit!” Bentley yelled. “Locked! He’s locked us in! We’re prisoners! A coup is on!” He took out his cell phone and held it up. “No signal! We can’t call for help!”

  “Calm down, Morris,” Winthrop said, standing and glaring at Bentley and Cook. “As usual, our phones are blacked out for White House security reasons. It’s routine.”

  “See! See!” Bentley said, pointing at Winthrop. “A coup! A military coup! The secretary of defense is Oxley’s field marshal!”

  90

  As soon as Oxley reached the Oval Office, he made hot-line calls to Lebed and Zhang Xing. “Officials in my government cannot keep secrets,” he said. “I must speak to the American people within fifteen minutes.”

  “I know about your secrecy problem,” Lebed said as his image appeared on the monitor in the Oval Office. “I can accommodate you.”

  Soon after he became President, Oxley had ordered his communications manager to update the venerable U.S.–Russian hot-line by installing Skype imaging. After months of negotiations, Oxley had also recently arranged for Zhang Xing to use the new hot-line system, but with the option of using the Skype.