FOREWORD
Page 38
“Take a seat,” Yazov offered, closing and locking the door behind him.
When he saw Yazov lock the door, Kalushin began to realize that this wasn’t going to be an ordinary chat. Well, what was ordinary about today?
He pulled up a molded plastic chair and nervously lowered himself into it. Yazov sat on the edge of his bed, no more than three feet away from Kalushin. He was staring straight into the Air Force General’s eyes. Kalushin had the feeling of being probed.
“What is it?” the Air Force General asked, finally breaking the silence.
Oddly, Yazov’s eyes seemed to be dancing with amusement. “Old friend,” he said, “we have succeeded in destroying a planet today. Does that not make you feel like a God?”
Kalushin suddenly felt afraid. He hadn’t seen Yazov in this mood before, and had no way of predicting what might happen next. He hung his head so that Yazov wouldn’t see his expression. “I feel …” He paused, trying to find the right words to describe how he felt. Somehow, no words seemed appropriate except for, “Nauseous. Not like a God, no.”
Yazov firmly patted him on the shoulder, causing Kalushin to look up at him. “Good. Neither do I feel like a God. But we cannot ignore what has been done.” So Yazov had been testing him, Kalushin realized. But why?
“No,” Kalushin agreed, “we can’t. What is your point?”
“My point is that whatever we have done is as nothing compared to what might yet be done. Anatoly Mikhailovich, in all the years we have been friends, I have never known you to lie. You are the one person of whom I can ask this question and be guaranteed an honest answer.”
“What question?”
Yazov glanced up at the door before speaking. “Is Grizov able to seize power?”
Kalushin knew the answer to that question as well as Yazov did. But that didn’t make verbalizing it any easier. It emerged from his mouth as a stammer. “I believe this is already happening.”
Yazov’s worst fears had been confirmed. So it wasn’t a paranoid delusion. Kalushin had noticed it as well.
“Do you realize,” Yazov said, “what will happen if he is allowed to seize control?”
Kalushin said nothing. He didn’t have to. Yazov answered the question for him.
“He will destroy whatever is left. He must be stopped. We must…”
A knock on Yazov’s door stopped him dead in his tracks. “Who is it?” he called.
“Grizov, General,” came the muffled response. Yazov and Kalushin exchanged a nervous glance. Yazov stood and opened the door.
“General Yazov,” the FSB chief said, glancing into the room and seeing Kalushin. His eyes betrayed nothing of what he thought about that. He obviously had something far more important on his mind. “Your presence is required in the war room.”
“Why? What is it?”
The answer caught Yazov unaware.
“China.”
PERSPECTIVE: Positive Control Points for U.S. Strategic Bombers
At this point in the story, each B-1B and B-2A in America’s strategic bomber fleet has been assigned a Positive Control Point. Once they have passed these points, they will proceed to their designated targets inside Russia unless they receive a direct recall order from National Command Authority. At the time of the first Russian attack, they are between three to five hours away from these locations, otherwise known as ‘Failsafe’ points.
Once they have reached their PCPs, the bombers will orbit until they receive an order either to proceed to their designated targets or to turn back. Once an order to proceed has been issued, the bombers take between six to eight hours to reach their targets. After this point, only the President himself may issue a recall order.
The bombers in this scenario have staged out of several bases in the Continental United States and overseas USAF bases in England and Germany. Two hours into the conflict, 179 ACC bombers are airborne with a total arsenal of precisely 902 nuclear warheads.
XII
SURVIVORS
“There are plenty of problems in the world, many of them interconnected. But there is no problem which compares with this central, universal problem of saving the human race from extinction.”
(John Foster Dulles, 1952)
REISTERSTOWN, MARYLAND
Hilary Thomson slammed on the brakes when she saw it in her rear view mirror. The suddenness of that action caused her friend Betsy to jolt forward in the passenger seat.
“What are you doing, you silly woman?” Betsy protested. “You’re gonna get us both killed stopping like that. There could have been something behind us.”
Hilary was staring at her mirror with childlike awe. “Thereis something behind us, Bets. Look.”
The two elderly women turned around to look through the rear window. It was a clear night, and Betsy immediately realized what had caught her friend’s attention. The horizon was glowing a beautiful hue of reds and yellows.
“Oh, what a beautiful sunset,” Betsy cooed. “You don’t see many of those any more, do you? Not since those hairspray cans made that hole in the E-Zone layer.”
Hilary looked at her friend with disdain. “Don’t be ridiculous, Bets. That ain’t no sunset. That’s one of them - what do you call ‘em?” Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember. Judy would know if she were here. Something to do with the sun being somewhere other than where it was supposed to be… “An Ellipse.”
“Eclipse,” Betsy corrected. “And that ain’t no eclipse. An eclipse is something to do with the moon, and I sure as hell don’t see no moon up there. I’m not stupid, Hilary. That’s a goddamn sunset if ever I saw one.”
Hilary shook her head vigorously. “At this time of night? Come on, what do you take me for? That’s an ellipse.”
“Sunset.”
“Ellipse.”
Hilary frowned in annoyance. Sometimes she wondered how somebody as obviously feeble minded as Betsy had managed to raise a family. Long experience had taught her that there was only one way to deal with ignorance, and that was to shout. “Look, this is my goddamn car,” she snapped, “and that there is an ellipse. If my Judy was here, she’d tell you. She’s smart about things like that.”
Betsy shrugged acquiescently, beginning to tire of the argument. She knew she was right, and that was all that mattered. She’d just been trying to educate her friend, that was all. But some people were too stubborn to learn anything. “Oh well, whatever it is, it sure is pretty. I envy your Judy being in DC. I bet she’s got a great view of it.”
A fond smile appeared on Hilary’s lips as she considered that. Her daughter, an important aide to the President, no less. Who’d have thought it? Certainly not Judy’s high school Math teacher, who had told her that she would never amount to anything. Whatever this national emergency was, Hilary knew that her daughter would be at the President’s side, providing wise counsel and insight. “I knew it was a good idea to come out for a drive tonight,” she remarked. “Just think, if we hadn’t come out, we wouldn’t have seen that there ellipse.”
“Or that shooting star we saw earlier,” Betsy reminded her, blissfully unaware that the shooting star to which she referred had in fact been tipped with a five hundred kiloton thermonuclear warhead, and the ‘ellipse’ to which Hilary referred was its consequence. Of course, Hilary was equally unaware that her daughter had been reduced to little more than organic vapor floating on a radioactive breeze.
“Such a beautiful thing, nature,” Hilary chirped, starting up the engine again. “Just think what else we might see tonight.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing a gas station,” her friend complained. “Somewhere we could get a coffee and something to eat. I’m starving.”
Hilary eased the car into gear and headed north towards Connecticut. “There was a gas station a couple of miles back. Why didn’t you say anything then?”
“Because I wasn’t goddamn hungry then,” Betsy snapped. “Besides, it was closed. I checked.”
“Was it?”
“Yep.
In fact,” she added, glancing accusingly at her friend, “everything we’ve passed has been closed. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
Hilary considered that. Now she comes to mention it… “Yeah, strange that. Perhaps they all went to DC to look at the ellipse,” she proffered.
“Sunset.”
“Ellipse.”
And so the two dotty old women continued to drive north, for what reason neither of them were certain, other than because Hilary’s late daughter had told them to, and she always knew what was best. They had no way of knowing that they had, in some small way, been responsible for the partial destruction of their nation. But this was sure as hell the most fun either of them had had for years.
PHELPS, TEXAS
The four children huddled together on the floor. This time, it wasn’t only Gary that was crying; Nina was sobbing into Tabatha’s shoulder and Rhonda was shaking uncontrollably. Even from this distance, the fireball was clearly visible, hanging over what used to be Houston. It was an awesome sight, but it represented the end of everything they’d ever known; their friends, their neighborhood, Dick and Louise. Of all the children, only Gary had no concept of nuclear weapons. Tabatha remembered reading in a history lesson about the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It had seemed so distant, yet so horrific. She couldn’t comprehend that the same thing had just happened to her own country. Her own town.
Al, meanwhile, seemed amazingly calm. He was slouched back in an armchair, the rifle still laid across his lap. As long as he had that rifle, he had authority. He had power. And Al seemed to like having authority and power, for what purpose Tabatha hadn’t yet figured out.
“Look on the bright side, kids,” he sneered. “Seems to me like you got outa town just in time.”
Tabatha stared at him, their eyes locking in the dim illumination afforded by the distant fireball.
“I need to use your bathroom,” she told him flatly. Actually, she’d been dying for a pee for the last two hours. One of the less agreeable symptoms of pregnancy. But she hadn’t wanted to leave the other kids alone. Now she had no choice. Either she went, or she ruined Al’s threadbare excuse for a carpet.
“Sure,” he agreed after considering it for a moment. “Upstairs, first door on your left.”
She touched Nina’s arm, giving her a look that said you’re in charge now. Then she gave Gary a reassuring peck on the forehead. “Be back in a minute, big guy.”
“Don’t try anythin’ stupid,” he warned Tabatha. “Remember, your kin are still keepin’ me company.”
Al watched Tabatha through narrow, piggy eyes as she navigated her way in the darkness, eventually disappearing up the staircase. Then he smiled at the other three children, his face eerily illuminated by the burning remains of Houston.
“Well, seems to me like we’re all stuck with each other for a while,” he whispered, leaning forward as if about to tell a story to the children. “Why don’t we pass the time with a little game? Give Big Sis a surprise when she gets back.”
* * * * *
Tabatha had always prided herself on her acute instincts. They had been prerequisite to survival in her neighborhood. Of course, there was nothing left of her neighborhood now, but Tabatha’s instincts remained. And those instincts were telling her that there was something seriously wrong with this whole picture.
It wasn’t just Al. Neither was it the fact that he had a gun, or even the rancid stench of his house. It was something else. Something she’d sensed in the way he looked at her and the other kids. The sinister glint in his eyes went beyond malice. It spoke of an evil the likes of which she’d never encountered before, and that was truly saying something. He looked at the children as if he were about to devour them. Something told her that he wasn’t planning on letting them leave too quickly, and it was down to her to change his mind about that.
How the hell did we get into this mess?
She reached the top of the staircase and, as much as she wanted to use the bathroom, she was consumed by intrigue. She had to know what Al - if indeed that was his real name - was all about. Not only to satisfy her own curiosity, but also to enable her to prepare for whatever he might have in mind.
Her heart racing with the prospect of being discovered, she tiptoed past the bathroom and headed for the next room. The door was slightly ajar. She opened it with extreme caution, worried that the slightest creak might give her away.
She could see enough in the dim light to know that she was in the bedroom. It looked ordinary enough, despite the strong smell of rotten wood. An unmade king size bed left only enough space in the room for a chest of drawers. Tabatha couldn’t help it. She had to know. Perhaps she wouldn’t find anything. But she still had to be sure.
She took a deep breath and carefully opened the top drawer. To her relief, all she found were balled socks and underwear, arranged in a disorganized fashion. She was about to give up when she noticed a manila envelope placed on top of the chest. For a moment, she stared at it, wondering whether she was doing the right thing.
To hell with the Right Thing, girl. My home is gone, and I’ve got to look out for all of us now.
The envelope felt heavy in her hands, but it had already been opened. That was something, she supposed, not sure how she would have steamed it open otherwise. A check of the exterior revealed no markings to suggest what the envelope contained. Without further hesitation, she emptied the contents onto the bed.
Photographs!
Perhaps she’d been worried over nothing, she thought. There were about a hundred photographs in the envelope. No harm in that. Part of her felt guilty for poking around among Al’s personal possessions, rummaging through what was probably nothing more sinister than family photos. None of my business. All the same, she couldn’t resist the temptation to examine them. She picked up a handful and crept over to the window, where the moonlight and the distant fireball afforded some illumination.
At first, Tabatha thought she was looking at a series of abstract images. She squinted in the dim light, flicking through them, wondering… And then she began to realize that her mind was denying what the images represented. As comprehension dawned, she felt a compelling need to vomit. For a moment, she stared at the photographs, silently praying that her mind was playing tricks on her. But she knew that her mind was incapable of conjuring such horrors of its own accord.
As she inadvertently vomited over the floor, she heard a blood-curdling scream from downstairs.
JOHNS HOPKINS MEDICAL CENTER, BALTIMORE
The grim expressions on the faces of his senior staff were no less than he had expected. Dr Doug Sandler was the Chief Administrator at Johns Hopkins. A portly man to whom middle age had not been kind, he had never pretended to be one of the world’s great medical practitioners. But he was one hell of an organizer, and an even better man manager. If ever he needed those skills, he knew, it would be tonight.
He had gathered together his senior staff in a conference room to review the hospital’s ability to cope with the likely flood of patients from the Washington blast. In fact, the trickle had already started. The first bomb casualty, a teenage boy, had been brought in by his girlfriend less than half an hour after the blast. He had been driving in the vicinity of Washington Cathedral when it happened and, through no fault of his own, had been looking straight at the blast. As a consequence, he had suffered severe chlorioretinal burns. His girlfriend had improvised by wrapping a woolen scarf around his eyes and, sensibly deciding to take him to a well-equipped hospital outside of Washington itself, found her way to Johns Hopkins. He would probably regain his sight eventually, but as Sandler explained, he was likely to be the first of many casualties. Most of those would be suffering from injuries far more serious than flashblindness.
After the blast, the hospital’s emergency generators had kicked into action. But they only had a maximum of twelve hours’ life in them, and nobody imagined that electric supplies would be restored by then. If indeed ever. With the loss of
electricity went the ability to sterilize instruments, and that would mean having to perform all manner of medical procedures in conditions that would be little short of medieval. Although everybody in the room had privately considered this issue, none of them had raised it yet. At this stage, it wasn’t as important as worrying about how to survive from hour to hour. Right now, twelve hours was a small eternity.
“What about radiation?” Dr. Greg Foster asked, his voice laced with concern. He was applying a wet towel to a gash on his head, sustained when a light fitting had fallen on him during the blast. “Who’s to say the water supply hasn’t been contaminated?”
“Early indications are,” Sandler reported, “that the prevailing winds are blowing the fallout to the southeast, away from us. FEMA and the National Guard are trying to evacuate as many people as they can but, as you can imagine, it’s a huge task given the limited time available. The good news - if one can think of anything tonight asgood - is that we should be relatively safe from fallout here. Unless those winds suddenly change direction, of course,” he added as a grim afterthought. “Of more concern right now is our ability - or lack thereof - to deal with the likely influx of casualties.”
That remark provoked an uneasy murmur among those present. Although Johns Hopkins was one of the world’s best equipped and most highly respected medical facilities, it lacked the human and technological resources to deal with an event of this magnitude.
“We could send people to Montgomery and Bethesda,” Foster recommended.
Sandler grimaced. “No way, Greg. They’ll be in a worse state than us. Casualties from the Washington bomb will reach Bethesda and Montgomery long before they get here.”
“What about the FEMA bunker at Olney?” Jo suggested. “We could send non-critical cases there. They’re equipped to deal with something like this, and I doubt that too many of the survivors would ordinarily think of heading there.”