The two launch officers had been in the capsule for barely a day, and already the conversation was beginning to dry up. The only topic they hadn’t discussed was the future. Partly, that was because neither of them truly believed they had one to look forward to. But even if they did have one, they avoided the subject by unspoken consent.
So instead, they talked about their careers, personal lives, their youth and their families. That covered just about every subject apart from the reason they were stuck in a metal tomb, two hundred feet below ground.
“I don’t have a love life,” Kurato told him, grinning wickedly. For a moment, she could almost convince herself that she back in theGround Zero bar, shooting the bull with her fellow officer. Almost.
“Oh, come on,” Pearson insisted. “You’re a beautiful girl. You must have guys falling at your feet.”
“Yeah, right,” she snorted. “The only ones that fall at my feet are the ones who do so because they’re piss drunk. Or the ones who end up leaving an apologetic note on the bedside table.”
“Perhaps you’re just looking in the wrong places. You know, going to the wrong bars.”
“Thanks for the advice, Dr. Ruth, but I don’t think you pick up decent guys in bars. Perhaps you might,” she joked, “but not me.”
“TouchÀ,” Pearson sniggered. Then he lowered his eyes sadly. “Doesn’t really matter much any more, does it?”
Kurato looked at him and said nothing.
“I mean, it’s over,” he repeated. “The dream is fucking over, right?”
“Nick, don’t,” she pleaded, knowing what was coming. She had always known that if either of them were to lose it, it was most likely to be Pearson. Kurato came from a typical Japanese family in which emotions were always kept tightly bound. That accounted for her logical, methodical nature. Pearson, on the other hand, had always shown a tendency for being highly-strung, something that she was surprised the PRP tests hadn’t picked up.
“Why the hell not?” Hysteria began to creep into his voice. “We need to talk about it sooner or later. The world is gone. It’s just us, right? Just us down here in this motherfucking coffin.” Presently, he slammed the steel wall with his fist and was rewarded with a bolt of agony that shot up his arm. He clenched his fist and held it to his chest, his teeth clamped in a silent scream of pain. Tears began to stream down his cheeks. Not just because of the pain, but because he was beginning to feel the first flutter of mourning for a deceased world.
Kurato moved towards her partner and wrapped her arms around him. Then she inspected his injured hand with the tenderness that a mother might show her child. A cursory inspection revealed that it wasn’t seriously injured. Probably no more than a bruised bone. But the worst of Pearson’s injuries were not physical, and she knew it.
She hugged him tightly to her chest.
They kissed nervously.
They fumbled.
They made love.
After all, there was nothing else for them to do. And both Holly Kurato and Nick Pearson came to realize the truth in the old theory about death being the ultimate aphrodisiac.
GOVERNMENT COMMAND BUNKER, LONDON
General Rhys-Jones found Winterburn sitting on the king-size bed in his private quarters. Since his last conversation with Nielsen, the British Prime Minister had retreated into a state of despondency. He had delegated most of the important decisions to aides and minions. There was nothing more to be done now. The brief conflict with the EU separatist nations had gone much better than planned. Both France and Germany had been quickly cowed, having been caught unaware by the swift and brutal British/Italian strikes against their relative military infrastructures. France’s nuclear capacity had been mostly eradicated; the Plateau d’Albion now no more than a smoldering ruin thanks to the efforts of Britain’s prototype X-40s. Air superiority would be achieved by the Eurofighter squadrons within another few hours. Part of him wondered whether it mattered, whether Britain’s efforts would even warrant a footnote in the great book of history once this war was over. He imagined how such a footnote might read. Loyal until the end, but was destroyed anyway.
“We’re about to start,” Rhys-Jones reported to the Prime Minister.
Winterburn had discarded his silk tie. His immaculately groomed white hair was askew. In his slacks and open necked shirt, he looked nothing like a world leader. But then, who did right now?
He looked up at the Chief of Defense Staff, his eyes tired and devoid of hope.
“Are you okay, Prime Minister?”
Winterburn answered the question with a kindly smile. “I wonder if future historians will look back on this day as the beginning of the second Dark Age? Actually, I wonder if there will be anybody left to study history. What do you think?”
Rhys-Jones furrowed his brow in concern. The British Prime Minister was showing the first signs of cracking under pressure. Like most other world leaders at this moment, he was impotent as the combined nuclear forces of the U.S.A. and Russia prepared to fight the cataclysmic battle that had been foretold for a thousand years. The General said nothing. He couldn’t think of anything appropriate to say to a man in Winterburn’s predicament.
“Oh well,” the Prime Minister sighed, finally breaking the uneasy silence. “Duty calls, eh?”
He stood up and made his way to the briefing room.
The hastily assembled British War Cabinet and senior officials from the three branches of the military awaited Winterburn’s arrival. They were in a soundproofed briefing room elevated above the glass command center where dozens of technicians continued dutifully about their assigned tasks, mostly focused on continuing hostilities in Europe. The room looked out onto the command center, although the glass was one-way, so those outside couldn’t see in.
“Gentlemen,” the Prime Minister said as he took his place at the center of the table. “What’s the latest?”
The Commanding Officer of the Royal Air Force read from a briefing file. “Prime Minister. Our warplanes, in conjunction with the Italian Air Force, have successfully neutralized France’s ICBM complex in the Plateau d’Albion and are now roaming at will, destroying French radar capability. So far, we haven’t encountered much in the way of resistance. Our Eurofighters caught most of the French Air Force on the ground. The remainder are being picked off as and when they pose a threat. The situation is similar on the German front, although they’ve put up more of a fight. Despite the assistance of Polish and Czech air squadrons, we’ve lost two Tornados and a Eurofighter over Germany. No survivors.”
Winterburn winced. He had sent those men into battle - the first British casualties of World War Three, although he imagined their deaths would be shortly rendered insignificant by the next several million.
“At the very least,” the Air Force General continued, “we’re well on the way to clearing European airspace for American bombers.”
“Does Nielsen know?” Winterburn asked.
“I’m pretty certain he’s getting the same information we are,” Rhys-Jones replied.
“That’ll please him,” the Prime Minister snorted. His growing disdain of the new American leader was evident on his face. He had only met Nielsen once before, at a banquet in Washington two years’ earlier. His impression of the then Secretary of Defense hadn’t been favorable. And now the fate of the entire planet rests with him. How comforting.
The next person to speak was the Director-General of MI6, Britain’s foreign counter-intelligence service. “One rather interesting development, Prime Minister. It appears that certain elements of the German government are getting cold feet about this arrangement with France. Apparently, Berger didn’t discuss the issue with his cabinet before entering into agreement with Paris. GCHQ have intercepted several conversations between German ministers. I seem to recall the words ‘vote of no confidence’ and ‘unconstitutional’being mentioned.”
“That’s encouraging,” the Foreign Secretary enthused. “If the Germans pull out of the anti-NATO coaliti
on, the other rats are sure to follow them overboard. Seems like the Frogs are going to find themselves very lonely all of a sudden. Wouldn’t be the first time, of course.”
Winterburn wasn’t listening to Roland’s preamble. His eyes were fixed on the main display board in the control room, which currently showed the positions of American and Russian strategic bombers. A clock in the bottom left hand corner of the screen ticked down the seconds to Doomsday. It currently stood at 18:26.
“Well, as I see it gentlemen,” the Prime Minister remarked grimly, “all of this becomes a moot point in eighteen minutes. Perhaps two hours ago, it might have mattered. Not now, though. Not now.”
Nobody could disagree with him.
GCN STUDIOS, ATLANTA
Jack Sullivan looked solemnly into the camera. Once again, he was improvising for lack of a script. His words were filled with dejection. He hadn’t slept all night, and it showed. He knew this might be the last broadcast he ever made.
The last broadcast - period.
“And now the world can do little but hold its breath. In less than” - he checked his watch - “eighteen minutes, the first U.S. strategic bombers will hit their targets inside Russia. And we have to assume that the Russians will retaliate massively. The fate of humanity rests in the hands of two men. Secretary of Defense Nielsen and whoever is in charge of the Russian Federation right now. But it seems that, at the present time, neither side is willing to be the first to back down.”
He swallowed hard. “GCN will stay with you until the very end. However it pans out.”
UNDERGROUND COMMAND POST, THE KREMLIN
A deathly hush had descended on the room, punctuated only by the relentless ticking of a wall clock upon which everybody’s eyes were fixed.
With every passing second, the prospect of total annihilation became ever more likely. Yazov still harbored a faint hope that his American counterpart was playing a deadly game of bluff and would back down at the last moment. But even he was beginning to accept the fact that such a hope was wildly optimistic. Nobody played bluff with an entire planet.
Kalushin broke the silence. “The American bombers will begin reaching their targets in the next sixteen minutes,” he remarked glumly. And there was not a damn thing Russia’s depleted air force could do to stop them, he didn’t need to add. “Our bombers will reach their targets inside America in twenty-five.”
Nobody acknowledged the remark. They didn’t need to. It was a simple equation. American bombers would have already been laying Russian cities and other targets to waste for nine minutes by the time Russia’s bombers started doing the same to America. And then the submarines of both sides would add to the summary devastation.
“Our submarines will surface for orders in twenty-nine minutes,” Yazov added. “The American submarines may do so before then. Half an hour until the end of all things.”
This time, even Grizov looked frightened.
EXTRACT FROM REUTERS NEWS AGENCY WIRE
261052Z Berlin (Reuters): German President Heinz Tollmeyer has denounced Chancellor Franz Berger for refusing to support NATO in its ongoing conflict with the Russian Federation.
“NATO has kept the peace in Europe for over half a century,” Tollmeyer said in an emergency address, broadcast live on German television and radio. “No single man, indeed no single European state, has the moral right or authority to renege on long standing treaty obligations in our allies’ hour of need.”
Denouncing his French counterpart Jean-Claude Betin as a “renegade”, he added that, “the German people stand shoulder to shoulder with their American allies.”
Tollmeyer concluded his address by urging both the United States and the Russian Federation to “seek a peaceful resolution to the crisis before it is too late for all of us.”
TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK
An air of tense anticipation had replaced the angry cacophony of a couple of hours earlier as over twenty thousand people gathered in Times Square to await the inevitable. It was almost as if they were seeking safety in numbers, even in the knowledge that nuclear bombs had little regard for numbers.
Some people openly prayed. Others tried unsuccessfully to galvanize the spirit of those around them. A few smoked marijuana joints and played music on guitars and boom-boxes. But mostly, the gatherers simply stared at the sprawling visual display mounted high above the square, upon which Jack Sullivan’s broadcast played down the seconds to Doomsday.
There were seventeen minutes to go.
OVER MARYLAND
“Holy God,” Jefferson muttered to himself. He was staring wide eyed through the window of the chopper at the smoldering remains of Washington in the distance. The mushroom cloud had faded, but the fires would continue to burn for many days. It would be that long before there was any hope of getting firefighting equipment and heavy lifting gear close to the bomb zone.
In the back of the helicopter, Lewis followed the Secret Service agent’s gaze towards the dead city. It was the first time he’d ever seen the effects of a nuclear blast for real. He was suitably horrified, and had to remind himself that he was looking at the remains of what this time yesterday had been America’s capital. In his mind, he catalogued all the things that had gone forever: The White House, the Washington Memorial, Capitol Hill, the Library of Congress, Rock Ridge Park, half a million Washingtonians. It still seemed so unreal that something so utterly devastating could happen in such a short space of time. Perhaps, he hoped, if the world survived this next hour, it might learn a lasting lesson. Probably not, the cynical part of him concluded.
The Bell 412 chopper was still maintaining altitude at just under fifty feet. So far, the military had failed to trace it. Perhaps, Lewis thought, that was due to the disruption caused to radar signals by the nuclear blasts, or even the fact that the military had bigger fish to fry right now. But it was just as likely due to the pilot’s skilful evasion techniques. Ever since leaving Baltimore-Washington, he had been zigzagging towards Maryland, making Lewis somewhat nauseous in the process.
“What is it you guys want?” McGuire asked tiredly. His tone of voice suggested to Lewis that he was didn’t really care, but wanted to satisfy his own curiosity anyway.
Jefferson answered the question. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this, Colonel. My name is Special Agent Steve Jefferson of the U.S. Secret Service. This here is Dr. Lewis Stein, National Security Advisor to President Mitchell.”
McGuire’s eyes widened slightly. “You’re Lewis Stein?”
Lewis nodded, too distracted by the apocalyptic vista to offer anything further by way of a greeting.
“Damn. They said you tried to assassinate the President. Is that what this is all about?”
Lewis, who was sitting behind McGuire, leaned forward. “If that were true, do you honestly think a Secret Service agent would be helping me? I assaulted theacting President. And, you know, if I had killed him, the world would be a much safer place right now. We’re here to put that right.”
“What do you mean?”
The former National Security Advisor went on to outline the situation in grim detail; Nielsen’s intention to destroy Russia and the likelihood of massive Russian retaliation. He explained how he had tried desperately to prevent Nielsen committing an act of lunacy, but had instead ended up as a fugitive, flying in a stolen helicopter.
McGuire listened intently throughout. By the time Lewis’s explanation was complete, the Colonel’s jaw had sagged, and he seemed somewhat more concerned with the situation than he had a few moments’ earlier.
“For real?”
“For fry-your-ass real, Colonel,” Jefferson snorted acidly, just managing to suppress his irritation with the Army officer. “Now, are you gonna work with us, or what?”
The invitation startled McGuire. There was hesitation on his face as he considered disobeying orders for the first time in his previously uneventful career.
“We’re coming into Olney,” the pilot called over his shoulder. “They
’ve given us clearance to land on the FEMA helipad.”
Lewis and Jefferson were scrutinizing McGuire’s face, awaiting his answer. Eventually, the Colonel looked up at them. Throughout his short Army career, he had often hungered for some action or at least for a brief shot at glory. Towing the line and keeping his nose clean certainly hadn’t gotten him anywhere. I’m already an accessory to whatever crimes these guys have committed, but they do seem to know their stuff.
“Oh, what the hell?” he muttered. “Yeah, I’ll help you. But if this is bullshit…” He left the rest unsaid.
“I wish it were, Colonel,” Jefferson sighed. “I really wish it were.”
Lewis glanced at the Secret Service agent and offered a cheeky grin. “Well, what do you know, Steve? Looks like we’ve got ourselves a rebel without a war.”
As the Bell began its descent into Olney, McGuire shifted uncomfortably in his seat, pondering that last remark.
XX
CONSTITUTIONAL FIRE
“At this time of day, in the twilight, there is no wind. At this time there is only power.”
(Don Juan to Carlos Castaneda)
U.S. CONSULATE, FRANKFURT
The situation in Europe was changing by the minute, perhaps more so than anywhere else in the world. News had just reached Germany that the French coalition government was on the verge of collapse following the mass resignation of right-wingers outraged at France’s anti-NATO stance. Several countries normally allied to the Franco-German axis had quickly voiced their own opposition to the isolationist policy. The European Union was disintegrating at a rate nobody could have foreseen. The German Government was in chaos. Almost half of its members - including the President - had expressed grave misgivings about Chancellor Berger’s policy of enforced autonomy from NATO. But Berger and a small hardcore of supporters still remained committed to a position on which they found themselves increasingly isolated. Despite France’s hasty retreat from this policy, Berger recognized that he had passed the point of no return. For the sake of his own political survival, he had to stand strong. And if he prevailed, he knew that the likes of France and some of the EU’s smaller members could not survive without Germany.
FOREWORD Page 56