93
The well-armed prepper was on the monitor when Winthrop walked into his Pentagon office. “It’s wall-to-wall, sir,” a military aide said, taking his eyes from the monitor. “Every minute, every channel.”
“And this is only the first day,” Winthrop said.
Admiral Walter Gibbs, chief of naval operations, and an aide were in Winthrop’s office when he entered. They stood and Gibbs said, “I am reporting to you as assistant chief of staff, sir. From what General Amador has told us, I assume that the President is on the verge of declaring martial law.”
“That’s right, Admiral. Primarily for the evacuation of coastal areas.”
“And … contingencies, sir?”
“You mean rioting? Protection of federal facilities? Yes. We should prepare for that.”
Gibbs, whose career included four years in command of a SEAL team, was the youngest of the chiefs. He sometimes looked uncomfortable with his lofty rank. But he enjoyed the feeling of command, which he likened to the sense of sanctified duty that a priest must feel. Winthrop did not know Gibbs well, but he trusted his judgment and knew from Pentagon gossip that he was the only high-ranking Navy officer who admired and liked Oxley.
“Sir,” Gibbs said, “I suggest that you recommend to the President that we go worldwide to DEFCON Three,” the state of preparedness that means the armed forces are ready to deploy in six hours.
“I agree, Admiral. But I’m going to recommend that he hold off until we get a clear feeling of how the public is reacting to what’s hanging over their heads. And I’m afraid I’ll have to order you to begin getting all Navy surface ships and submarines to shore.”
Gibbs looked as if he had been punched in the stomach. “All, sir?”
“Work out a plan to keep a few ships on station until the asteroid is … taken care of. If the asteroid operation fails and there’s an ocean impact, every ship in that ocean—and maybe beyond—is doomed.”
“Yes, sir. I could begin an orderly withdrawal from sea stations—but to where? Up rivers? Into the Chesapeake or the South China Sea? Where is a safe harbor?”
“So you’re suggesting leaving the ships at sea?” Winthrop asked.
“No matter where the thing hits, sir, some ships will survive. Certainly we should evacuate our shore stations. And we can fly all our aircraft to inland airports. We can cut down on the crews of ships at dock and on ships we bring in from sea. But it will take an all-Navy communication and, as you can imagine, cause a lot of … consternation.”
“You mean panic?”
“No, sir. Sailors don’t panic. Many of them face death and danger every day. They plan, they prepare for storm or war. They pray the storm will pass. But they stay with their ships.”
“Start bringing in what you can. Get as many people as possible on land—and away from shore. I know it’s an almost impossible task, Walt, but it’s on your watch. God help you—and the ships at sea if there’s an ocean impact.”
* * *
Major General Ernest Hodson, who commanded the Pentagon’s Joint Planning organization, was the next officer in Winthrop’s office. Hodson reigned over an electronic information system used to monitor, plan, and carry out mobilization and large troop deployments.
After formal routine greetings, Hodson said, “Mr. Secretary, I anticipate that the President is about to declare martial law.”
“‘About to’? I’m not sure of that,” Winthrop said.
“Sir, Senator Bentley reported that in a GNN interview a few minutes ago.”
“Well, news travels fast in this town, doesn’t it? Okay. Let’s get started. Basically, the first thing I need to know, for planning purposes, is how many military personnel we have available for mass-evacuation duty.”
“What area do you intend to evacuate, sir?”
“All U.S. coasts. To a point at least fifteen miles inland.”
“All coasts, sir?”
“Yes, General. All coasts.”
“And where would the evacuees be removed to, sir?”
“Municipal shelters, military bases, ordinary homes offering temporary housing. It’s only until the end of the emergency.”
“I assume that the end date would be thirty-nine days from today. Or”—he glanced at his iPad—“six March.”
“Right. March sixth,” Winthrop answered. He had never succumbed to the military’s reverse-day-and-month date system.
“We have approximately twenty thousand uniformed troops stationed at our bases in the United States who have been trained to work with state and local officials responding to a nuclear terrorist attack,” Hodson said.
“Yes, General, that’s the way we ‘thought’ it would happen. It turns out we are trying to save ourselves by using a nuclear weapon.”
Hodson knew that, too. He nodded and continued: “And we have approximately 410,000 uniformed troops in the contiguous United States. They are personnel undergoing training at specialized bases or personnel attached to divisions that occupy large bases. Any evacuation has to begin with moving them to evacuation commencement sites. A formidable but relatively routine operation.”
“What about the National Guard?”
“If the President federalizes the National Guard and Air National Guard, about 350,000 additional personnel will be available. But, if a governor calls up the Guard before the President federalizes, opposition in that state could be … difficult.”
“Are you advising against federalization?”
“Yes, sir. Experience has shown that guardsmen are most efficient being on duty under state command.”
“Thank you, General. I will so advise the President.”
“Sir, I believe there may be some … questioning in Congress over the President’s use of federal troops in civilian operations.”
“You mean like in Iraq and Afghanistan?”
Hodson obviously did not appreciate the irony. He looked at his iPad and went on to say, “At the moment, sir, we have 13,350 personnel in the combat zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition to that, we have personnel stationed in more than one hundred and fifty other countries, the major force units being 52,000 in Japan, 25,000 in South Korea, and 63,000 in Europe. Other places include—”
“Thanks, General,” Winthrop interrupted, his mind trying to cope with the numbers that Hodson was pouring out. “At this moment, I am giving priority to the United States. During this short period of evacuation, the overseas troops will have to be self-sustaining, as are the combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“And, in the event that the asteroid impacts, sir?”
“That will depend where the asteroid—or its large fragments—strike. Ocean or land? Urban or rural? We’ll have to deal with that issue with post-impact procedures.”
Hodson looked as if he were about to speak, but he remained silent.
“The task at hand,” Winthrop continued, “is to develop a timetable for the President’s evacuation order. Everything I say from here on is extremely secret until the President speaks again to the American public. Assuming that the launching will take place about two weeks from today. The impact will occur eighteen days later. The President wants the mass evacuation to take place about halfway through that flight time.”
“That is an extraordinarily tight schedule, sir.”
“It certainly is, General. How long will it take for you to draw up a plan?”
“I can lay out some basic facts right now, sir,” Hodson said, hitting a few keys and consulting his iPad. “The evacuation training I mentioned included simulations, realistic drills, and psychological assessments of the people who participated. What we found was that as soon as a decision to evacuate is made and announced to the public, voluntary evacuation immediately begins, triggering panic and disorder. The most basic rule of survival is ‘leave before it gets worse.’”
Hodson scrolled his iPad, then looked up and said, “A mass evacuation was contemplated after the malfunction at the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant in 1979. The evacuation would have moved more than five hundred thousand people out of the presumed danger area. Ultimately, the evacuation never occurred. But after the governor advised pregnant women and school-age children to leave the area, more than one hundred forty thousand tried to flee, creating chaos. Another point, sir: There had been no provisions in the evacuation plan for moving prison inmates or patients of hospitals and assisted-living facilities.”
“Jesus! How could that have been missed?”
“Mistakes are made, sir. And, as the old line puts it, ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’—or, in this case, with reality.”
“What about what happened in Canada a year or so ago?” Winthrop asked.
“You mean, the wildfires that wiped out Fort McMurray?”
“Right.”
“More than eighty thousand people made it out. Damn orderly too. Remarkable. But we’re talking about millions of people, and we don’t have…”
“What about FEMA, General?” Winthrop asked.
“First, one word, sir: Katrina. But there are some good people there.” He tapped his iPad. “Also at Health and Human Services, which produced a report showing, by ZIP codes, populations of Medicare beneficiaries needing wheelchairs and other medical equipment. This will be a valuable resource for determining the evacuation of people with special needs. We’ll also have to set up a coordination system between the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and military prisons and brigs. This would involve robust military police units and civilian corrections officers for the removal of prisoners from civilian facilities in coastal areas and the transfer of them to military prisons.”
He looked down at the iPad again and added, “Of course in the case of the Navy Brig in Norfolk, Virginia, those military prisoners will have to be taken to an Army facility inland.”
“This is a helluva lot more complicated than I realized,” Winthrop said.
“Yes, sir,” Hodson said. “I would suggest that the proposed evacuation be broken down into parts, one of those parts being the model for the larger evacuation to follow. I’ll be back in twenty-four hours with a PowerPoint on the evacuation.”
As soon as Hodson left, Winthrop switched on the television and saw GNN’s new story logo—a flaming asteroid speeding across the words COLLISION COURSE: WHERE AND WHEN?
Those GNN flames were already fanning real, wider fires of panic. The next news bulletin showed a fistfight breaking out in a New Jersey Home Depot. “The rush is on for tanks of propane and whatever people think they’re going to need if the asteroid hits,” Ned Winslow said.
“What do you make of this?” he asked his guest, Professor Bristol, who had swiftly become a new GNN star commentator.
“Panic inspired by distrust,” Bristol replied. “And sheer hate for the President. And I venture there’s more than a few racist undertones involved. Remember, Oxley’s mother is a light-skinned African-American. The fact that Oxley’s father is white doesn’t make any difference to them. The President is still black in their eyes. The ‘one drop’ rule still prevails in America.
“It’s pretty twisted if you ask me.… And when President Oxley and Ben Taylor appear together repeatedly on television explaining the existential crisis confronting us, well, it’s the equivalent of waving a red flag at…” Bristol cut his words off, realizing he was heading straight into a verbal ditch.
“Well, you know what I mean,” he offered lamely.
* * *
The day after Professor Bristol’s comments, a raucous crowd formed in Lafayette Square Park, across from the White House. Many people carried signs saying Out Oxley or Impeach the Traitor. Stan Daly, the director of the Secret Service, became concerned as the crowd grew and became more and more unruly. Daly doubled the size of the uniformed guards patrolling the White House grounds.
On the Internet, the Grudge Report claimed that President Oxley was about to impose martial law to enforce a mandatory evacuation of all coastal areas and provide for the use of military units to distribute food and medical supplies throughout the country. The social media exploded with tweets and Facebook claims that martial law was imminent. Radio talk-show hosts picked up the story, as did GNN, quoting “Capitol Hill sources.”
Then came news that temporarily eclipsed talk of martial law. In coordinated announcements from Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, the three leaders announced that an “unmanned spacecraft” carrying “nuclear explosives” would destroy the asteroid. The statement did not reveal the site or date of the spacecraft launch. GNN soon reported that “NASA sources” estimated that the voyage would take about eighteen days and described “the so-called spacecraft” as “a converted Russian intercontinental ballistic missile capable of destroying an American city.”
People wondered where and when, and in the absence of any official description of the plan, rumors flared: a missile launched from an American aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific.… A launching from one of China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea.… A simultaneous barrage of hundreds of U.S. Minuteman missiles from their underground silos dotted around the Midwest.… Woven through all the rumors were the warnings from hysterical radio talk hosts that the asteroid was a lie fostered by Oxley.
94
On his way to Russia, General Amador thought of his first flight to Iraq. Then as now, he had tried to envision what was ahead. He had quickly realized that much—or all—of what he anticipated in Iraq would not happen. And so he had turned his thoughts to the past. He saw that he had made many decisions and that the overwhelming percentage of them had been correct. At his core, he realized, he was a capable, confident man. By the time he reached Iraq, he had told himself that he would be able to carry out the mission, whatever it might be.
Now, approaching Plesetsk Cosmodrome’s airport, he smiled to himself when he realized that he was again telling himself that he could carry out his mission. This time, though, instead of going to war he was going into the unknown and the mission was the saving of the world.
Marshal Mikhail Paskevich met him at the aircraft, shook hands, and said, in English, “Welcome.” At Paskevich’s side was Dr. Dimitri Shvernik, crouching against the windy cold in a long black coat and a black ushanka fur hat, tightly fastened at his chin. Paskevich, a tall, slim man, was impervious to the cold in his medal-adorned dress uniform. He had the dark eyes and slightly Asian features of Russians who trace their origins to Kazakhstan, the former Soviet Union republic.
Paskevich led Amador and Shvernik to an army vehicle that took them to the cosmodrome headquarters, a modern glass-and-steel structure near the three-story, Soviet-era apartment building where Amador and his staff would be staying. Immediately inside the headquarters was a mural commemorating Russian space achievements. A corridor took them past a suite that Shvernik identified as the cosmodrome commander’s office. Amador expected to be taken in and introduced. But they continued to a smaller suite farther down the corridor. Paskevich made a sweeping gesture and said, by Shvernik’s translation, “For now, my home.” Amador noticed a narrow bed and trunk in a corner.
As soon as they were seated across a table and sipping tea, Amador brought up the principal issue on his mind: “We realize, Marshal, that your scientists and engineers have already begun working on the … delivery system to the asteroid. We would like to have our observers present.”
Paskevich responded so quickly and briefly—and Shvernik translated so swiftly—that Amador assumed he was getting the official political line on the behavior of observers: “President Lebed does not want to allow observers at this time.”
“I’ll inform President Oxley and suggest that he take up this issue with President Lebed,” Amador said. He waited for the translation, then added, “I sincerely hope that during this time of crisis, we’ll work together.” Paskevich smiled and bowed his head.
After a few other similar cordial statements to each other, Paskevich ended the meeting with the inevitable vodka toast, for which
Shvernik raised a glass of tea. “To tomorrow and our mission,” Paskevich said in halting English.
Without donning his greatcoat that hung on the door, he escorted Amador outside to a waiting car, which took him to his quarters. He saw that he ranked as a two-room visitor. Minutes after he arrived, his chief intelligence officer, Navy Captain Kay Anderson, knocked on his door. As soon as he let her in, she raised her right hand and made a circular movement with her upturned index finger, signaling that the suite was under at least audio surveillance.
“Pretty good arrangements,” she said, looking around. “I’m sure all our rooms are as warm—as hot—as yours, sir. A couple of orderlies carried in our luggage and equipment. I had to open everything for inspection. ‘As a security precaution,’ one of them said. I think they were surprised that Craig and I spoke such good Russian.”
Amador nodded and smiled at Anderson’s surveillance warning. He had been thoroughly briefed by half a dozen military and civilian experts on Russian-style surveillance. He also had a military communications team whose members had been given a crash course in the NSA’s latest knowledge about Russian cyber warfare.
Army Colonel Craig Malone, the Joint Chiefs’ leading analyst on Russia, arrived next, followed by two civilians, both longtime NASA employees: Karen Thiessan, formerly of the Near-Earth Object Program, now director of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office, and her new assistant, Dick Gillespie. Ben Taylor had selected them. “Officially, you’ll be observers,” he had told them. “This is a Russian show. They know the hardware, and they know how to reset the software so that the missile is aimed at the asteroid and not at the U.S.” Taylor had meant the remark as a joke. Neither had laughed.
Amador had an impromptu meeting to inform them of the Russians’ decision to keep them from observing the preparation for the launch. “I’ll inform the President of this,” he said, mindful of the probability he was being recorded. “And we stay until launch. There must be at least an American presence here.”
Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel Page 40