“Well, that’s a matter of some speculation here too,” the Speaker admitted. “We’ve only got half the picture, but it seems that Russia was unable to detect the Ukrainian launch and, when it hit, they thought it was an American attack and reacted accordingly. If that’s the case, then the question has to be asked whether a nation whose early warning systems are so unreliable can be trusted with nuclear weapons. I for one will be exerting pressure on the Mitchell administration to push for a total disarmament of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. By whatever means necessary,” he added flatly.
Something in Halligan’s tone sent a shiver down Sullivan’s spine. “I know you’re busy, Mr. Speaker, and I thank you for your time. I would just like to ask one final question. Is the nuclear war over?” The last sentence sounded terrifyingly surreal to the anchorman even as he asked it.
“I’m afraid, Jack, that for security reasons I’m unable to reveal any details about the current military situation. To be honest, I don’t know much more than you. What I do know, and what I can tell you, is that the strategic forces of both sides are still at the highest state of alert. There have been limited communications between the President and his Russian counterpart, but I can’t tell you what was discussed or agreed.”
Can’t or won’t? Sullivan wanted to ask. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Halligan, and good luck to you.”
“Good luck to you too, Jack,” came the response. “And to everybody watching. I think we’re all going to need it.”
Sullivan turned back to the camera, visibly shaken. “That was George Halligan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, at the Mount Weather government bunker in Pennsylvania.”
He fingered his earpiece again. “And I’ve just been informed that the President will be addressing the nation from aboard his E-4 wartime command plane in just over an hour.”
PHELPS, TEXAS
Over the years, Tabatha had learned to cope with fear like an uncomfortable but necessary jacket, and because of this, she sometimes had difficulty knowing the difference between fear and the other extraneous emotions that she had to deal with on a daily basis. But as she charged downstairs, almost tripping in the darkness, she knew that she had never felt so scared in her life. Her family, her home had been destroyed. Probably most of America with it. And now the only family she had left was in trouble at the hands of -
-what? Her mind screamed. That was the problem. She really didn’t know what she was dealing with. Didn’t know how crazed Al really might be. All she knew was what she’d seen in the photographs, and that had been sickening enough. What if that pungent stench really was -
-Oh God, Oh God!
She ran into the breakfast room, praying that she wasn’t too late but not knowing what she’d do about it even if she weren’t. It took her a moment to comprehend what was happening. Gary, Nina and Rhonda had all been restrained; their mouths and hands bound by duct tape. How the hell did he do that so fast? All Tabatha could make out in the darkness were their eyes, bulging with fear, their screams muffled by the restraints.
Al was standing over them, his rifle pointed at Tabatha. He wasn’t smiling now. His expression was closer to a leer.
“You let them go, you sick motherfucking son-of-a-bitch,” she warned through clenched teeth. But even as she spoke, Tabatha knew that there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to him. Not as long as he had the gun. She had to get that gun off him somehow, and her mind was hurriedly calculating strategies for doing just that.
“Nice language for such a perty girl,” Al drawled. “Now ah’ll tell you how things are gonna be now. You, young lady, are gonna give me just what I want, otherwise the next thing you hear will be the sound of high-velocity steel against your bee-lov-ed little siblings’ skulls.”
The thought caused Tabatha to flinch. “You can’t do that,” she said uncertainly.
Al’s sick smile reappeared. “Sure ah can. You see, things have changed now.” He pointed towards the window, through which the Houston fireball was still clearly visible. “That there bomb means no more cops, no more nothin’. Which means that ah can do anything ah want. You gettin’ the picture?”
She stared at him, terrified, as if her soul was naked before the Devil. But she knew that he was right. They were in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the last nowhere on Earth, she thought. And thingswere going to be different now. Men such as Al would be the masters of the new world. A world in which innocents such as Nina, Rhonda and Gary had no place.
But this is my family, her mind screamed in protest. And I’m responsible for them.
Her mind was racing, trying to think of a way to talk her way out of this. She knew what was coming, of course. The photographs she’d seen had left her in no doubt as to the fate Al had in mind for her. And she didn’t fancy her chances of reasoning with him. He didn’t look like he had the brains or inclination to be reasoned with.
That left only one choice. And as much as the thought disgusted her, she knew it was the only chance she and her family might have to get out of this situation alive.
“I think I am gettin’ it,” she smiled sweetly at him. “You’re right. Things have changed, and I’ve just got to adapt to the way things are, right?”
Al paused uncertainly, the rifle twitching in his hands. “Right,” he said, the same idea occurring to him. “Now strip your clothes, you little nigger bitch.”
Tabatha’s smile didn’t falter. “It don’t have to be nasty, Al. You don’t have to force me. I know what you want, and the fact is, I’ve got needs of my own. You might be the only healthy man for miles, and if I don’t get it from you, then who the hell am I gonna get it from?”
He shifted on his feet, watching her through narrow eyes. “You shittin’ me, you slut?”
She parted her lips seductively. “I’ll give you the best night of your life, Al. I’ll blow you so hard, you’ll think you’ve been hit by a truck. All I ask is that we don’t do it in front of the kids. I can’t focus in front of the kids.” Tabatha couldn’t bring herself to look at her siblings, especially not while she was talking dirty. She’d have to explain to them later. If there was a later, she thought.
Al felt a growing hardness in his pants. That was when his sense of logic ended and other instincts took over. “Where then?”
Tabatha pointed to the greenhouse. “Out there. I love to do it outdoors.” There was another reason for her choosing the greenhouse, of course, but she couldn’t even admit that to herself. Not yet.
“Okay then,” he agreed after a moment’s contemplation. “Git.” With the rifle, he gestured her to the greenhouse. The same greenhouse that Tabatha had been so afraid of ever since entering the house what seemed like an eternity ago. “Remember ah’ve got the gun. If you’re shittin’ me, I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off.”
Tabatha ambled out towards the greenhouse, gently swaying her hips as she did so, calculating the effect such a gesture would have on him. He had the gun, but she had a weapon far more potent.
She could hear his footsteps behind her as she entered the greenhouse. The stench was worse in here than any other place in the house. But that didn’t surprise her. Having seen the photographs, she now understood why that was so.
It didn’t look like the greenhouse had been used for its designed purpose for many years. Shards of broken glass littered the floor, glistening in the moonlight like jewels. Plants rotted in their pots, long dead. Several compost bags were lined up against the far wall, unopened.
Once Al had closed the door behind him, he stood there, leering at her. “Okay, ah kept my side of the bargain. Now take your clothes off, slut. All of ‘em. Let me see what ah’m gettin’.”
He still had the rifle, Tabatha saw. She had no choice but to oblige. But she didn’t simply remove her clothes. She performed for him; just the way she’d seen girls do it in movies; a slow, seductive strip. The fear and revulsion she felt was nothing compared to the obligation she had to her family, and that was perhaps the only reason
that she managed to conceal her true feelings towards Al. She hoped the dance was satisfactory enough for him.
It was. His eyes widened in the bleakness as she stood before him, naked as the day she was born. She noticed that his grip on the gun had relaxed slightly. He had other things on his mind now.
To her concealed horror, he whipped out his already erect penis. For some reason, she recalled an incident at school - only two months’ ago - when a boy had done exactly the same thing in front of her. She’d looked at the boy’s tiny member and sneered at the hapless student, “Is that supposed to impress me, or the bugs you’re gonna use it on?”
But wit wouldn’t help her now. She resisted the temptation to back away as Al moved towards her. As he got closer, she could smell his rancid breath; a slightly harsher smell than that which surrounded her. The stench was blended with that of stale sweat.
He fondled her breasts with his right hand, while his left held the rifle in a much looser fashion than before. She gagged in revulsion, but didn’t let it affect her lustful smile. She had to let him think she was enjoying this ordeal.
She whispered into his ear. “That looks like a cock that needs a good sucking. When was the last time any woman did that for you?”
He shook his head, his face twitching with anticipation. “Ne… Never.”
“Over here.” She led him to the far wall, near the bags of compost. “I can see you better here. I want to see your face when you cum.”
Al didn’t object. He would have quite willingly done it anywhere at that moment. And that was the moment that Tabatha realized she was getting the upper hand. Now it was just a matter of patience.
As he stood there, Tabatha lowered his pants and kneeled before him. She involuntarily gagged at the prospect of taking him in her mouth, even though she had no intention of doing so. Her right hand was trembling as she softly stroked his penis, and her face contorted in revulsion. Not that Al noticed. His eyes were closed, face twisted in ecstasy. And the rifle hung loosely in his left hand.
This was the moment. It had to be now. As much as the prospect terrified her, she knew that she had no choice. Her family was relying on her.
As she took his penis into a firm grip with her left hand, her right hand groped on the floor behind her and picked up a large, crescent shaped glass fragment she’d spotted earlier.
In one swift arcing motion, she drove it hard up into Al’s scrotum. As his eyes bulged in paralyzing, uncomprehending pain, she snatched the rifle from him and, with a carefully aimed swing, cracked his head with the butt.
Al toppled backwards into the compost bags, his hand desperately groping for a scrotum that was spurting blood in all directions. The pain was so intense, he hadn’t even noticed the blow to his head. His screaming echoed in the greenhouse, and for almost a mile around.
“Thass it,” Tabatha cried at him, tears streaming from her eyes. “Thass fucking it. You cry like a girl, you motherfucking sicko.” She cracked his head with the rifle butt again. He keeled over, holding a hand up to protect his face. “You think you can do to my family what you did to those poor motherfuckers in the photos? You think you gonna fuck me, then chop me up and bury me in this greenhouse, you motherfucker?” Her voice was hysterical now as she allowed the sum of her fears to wash over her. “No way, man. You gonna die with your victims. You gonna bleed to death out here.”
Al was still screaming. “You… can’t… leave… me… here,” he sobbed breathlessly.
Tabatha was beginning to regain her composure as she dressed. The nightmares could wait. “Like you said. The world’s changed. No cops, no paramedics. You gonna burn in hell, motherfucker.”
90thSPACE WING, WARREN AFB, WYOMING
Two hundred feet below ground, Pearson reached out to Kurato, whose head had been gashed when her chair was uprooted during the blast.
“You okay, Holly?”
“I’ll live,” she said, applying a handkerchief to the wound.
The only illumination afforded the launch officers was that of the eerie yellow emergency lighting, which tended to cast long shadows over everything, exaggerating the pallor of the capsule’s occupants.
They were in one of the worst locations on earth right now, Pearson thought. Cut off from everything and everybody, they had no way of knowing how bad the nuclear attack had been. No way of knowing whether it had focused solely on military installations, or whether it had been unprejudiced. No way of knowing if there was anything left for them to return to. That was assuming, of course, that they could dig their way out in any case.
All they could rely on now was training and procedure. They had ample supplies to exist below ground for up to three months after the attack. They had also been equipped with NBC suits and sidearms for when they did return to the surface. If all else failed, the Air Force had in its benevolence also given them two cyanide capsules each. Just in case.
Two months alone in a capsule with only each other for company. Well, Pearson imagined that they would be playing cards an awful lot. Perhaps, he thought, they would also discover other activities in which to indulge. He quickly expelled the thought from his mind. At a time like this, all you can think about is sex… You should be ashamed of yourself, Nick Pearson.
“So,” Holly sighed, pulling herself upright, “the war’s over, our job’s done. What happens next?”
“I guess we’ll have time to get to know each other a bit better.” He immediately reproached himself for voicing what he had just thought, and sure enough the flippancy in his voice attracted a withering look from Kurato. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But how the hell should I know what happens next? We can stay down here for two months, that’s all I know.”
“And then what?”
“Well,” he sighed ponderously, “two possibilities. We might get up there and find the place teeming with life. Perhaps they’ll have filled in the bomb craters and built some shopping malls on them.”
“Or?”
Pearson shrugged and gestured up to the ceiling. “Planet of the Apes.”
XIII
THE GLOBAL DIMENSION
“The nuclear weapon is obsolete. I want to get rid of them all.”
Gen. Charles Horner, Commander of U.S. Space Command (1994)
POKROVKA, SINO-RUSSIAN BORDER
It is a fine day for a war, Colonel Lin Paulin of China’s 48thMechanized Tank Brigade thought to himself as he gazed through binoculars across the Amur River; the expanse of water that separated Russia and the People’s Republic. Paulin had never witnessed live combat before, but that held no fear for the forty-two year old Colonel. His heart was too full of excited anticipation to spare room for trepidation.
To his satisfaction, he saw through his binoculars that the Russian border post at Pokrovka lay deserted. Similar reports were coming in from PLA units all along the Sino-Russian frontier. Paulin lowered his binoculars and awaited the order that he knew was imminent. The order for which he’d waited almost his entire career.
It is often said that the most important element in military strategy is that of surprise. What is less frequently admitted, but is still grudgingly acknowledged by experienced military commanders, is that luck can be equally important. In the theater of warfare, the difference between luck and strategic brilliance can be marginal. That was not a lesson lost on the commanding generals of China’s Army, the PLA. For the past several hours, Beijing had been keeping a close eye on the conflict between America and Russia, remaining neutral while it awaited its opportunity. When that opportunity arose, the PLA was ready to seize upon it.
The vast majority of Russian soldiers manning the border posts at Pokrovka and other places along the Amur had deserted their posts soon after news reached them of the American attack on their country. Many of them had fled because they wanted to be with their families, others because they had realized that they now found themselves in one of the most dangerous spots on Earth.
On the Chinese side of the Amur, Colonel Pauli
n and other PLA unit commanders - who had always kept a constant watch on their Russian counterparts - eagerly relayed the news to Beijing.
For many years, many of China’s elite units had been on permanent alert at strategically located bases within a hundred miles of the Russian border. Their state of readiness was such that they were always able to launch a concerted attack against their historical enemy at less than an hour’s notice. But they had never been ordered to test that theory.
Until now.
Paulin had only been briefed on the specifics of OperationLuan a short time ago. But he already knew the essential details. He had been rehearsing such an operation in his head for as long as he had been a professional soldier. There would be no mistakes, for his men were ready. They had always been ready.
No sooner had he received the order to proceed than the roar of low flying MIG-29s filled the air. Their tails were emblazoned with the distinct emblem of the PLA Air Force; a single red star. It would take a several minutes for the few Russians who had remained at their posts on the border to understand what was happening. By then, it would be too late.
China’s MIG-29s had been purchased from Russia in the mid-1990’s during one of the periodic thaws in relations between the two countries. At the time, the deal had been beneficial for both nations. Russia had needed the cash, and China’s military had desperately required modern weaponry. But now only one side stood to benefit from that trade. Many Russian soldiers still hadn’t quite accepted that the huge nation to their south now had Russian-built weapons at their disposal. For this reason, many of the Russian border troops initially thought the overflying aircraft were friendly. Which accounted for their sluggish response.
It was a delay that was to cost Russia dearly.
The MIGs had but one purpose - to clear a path for the PLA ground troops soon to cross the Amur. Each was armed with four air-to-surface missiles whose 1000lb conventional warheads were used to devastating effect against Russian positions. The Chinese missiles were broadly similar to the AGM-650 ‘Mavericks’ used by the US Air Force. Their guidance systems applied optical and IR tracking technology to find their targets, allowing the pilot to ‘Fire And Forget’. This technology also meant that the Chinese jets didn’t have to risk venturing too deep into Russian territory. Their AGM missiles had a range of over thirty miles. In the opening stages of this latest Sino-Russian conflict, these were used effectively against Russian radar installations, SAM batteries and border posts.
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