Hugo McIntyre and Tank Stone would never have tried to assassinate the president, under any circumstances. The more she thought about it, the more she knew it just wasn’t possible. She’d known both men for years—worked with them during stressful situations. It just wasn’t in their character to attempt something so dastardly. It would be like a nun robbing a convenience store. Just wouldn’t happen.
That left her with her second possibility—that they’d been framed. Framed by Thad Metzger and Jessie Hruska.
Metzger was an unknown to her—she’d never worked directly with him. He did, however, have a reputation as a hard-as-nails street fighter who’d risen through the ranks by climbing over the bodies of his colleagues. She’d opposed his selection as CDRUSSTRATCOM specifically because of that, but the man had an incredible amount of support in Congress, and at the time, the president had been looking for any way to improve his standing with the legislative branch. Having never worked with Metzger left her with just his reputation. Reputations were word-of-mouth judgments—some accurate, some not. She’d never been able to evaluate him up close and personal. So, he remained an unknown.
Hruska, however, was another matter entirely. Allison had never liked the national security advisor. Why, she wasn’t entirely sure . . . Just an odd feeling in her gut when she’d first met the woman years before. Hruska was capable, efficient, smart, and inquisitive, but there was something about her that simply didn’t sit right with Allison Perez. Like drinking milk a couple of days after the expiration date—not yet sour, doesn’t smell bad yet, but it still tastes a little off.
She remembered how vehemently Hruska had argued for General Metzger when the decision was being made for the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Hruska had been the first one to bring up his name, as a matter of fact. And the president had agreed much too quickly, in her opinion.
Hruska had been controlling the information flow to the president, as well, something he never would’ve allowed under normal circumstances.
It was all starting to become clear.
The president was being co-opted by the national security advisor. How wasn’t entirely clear to her yet, but that wasn’t important.
What was important was the president of the United States had just ordered a nuclear strike—on his own country—and was now airborne with one individual, or possibly two, somehow controlling his decision-making process.
Andrew Smith was quickly becoming less and less president of the United States and more and more a threat to its national security. No, a threat to its survival.
She had to make sure.
Allison pushed her comm button. “Commander, patch me in to Air Force One. I need an immediate videoconference with the president.”
CHAPTER 61
The first bat-winged B-2 Spirit lifted off from the runway at Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana, on its way to Minneapolis-St. Paul. In its belly hung a single silver object—remarkably small, considering the amount of destruction it was capable of producing—roughly thirteen feet long, a little more than a foot in diameter, with small fins at the rear.
The B61 nuclear bomb had been a mainstay of the United States’ nuclear arsenal since the 1960s. Never before, however, had a load of B61s flown on an operational mission. Before the sun set below the horizon in the state of Minnesota, this weapon would detonate.
The B-2—a marvel of modern technology developed during the height of the Cold War—was designed to roam freely across the Soviet Union, undetected by radar, dropping its nuclear war load at will. Its basic structural design made detection by conventional radar almost impossible—supersecret radar-absorbent coatings made the bomber nearly invisible, but it could still be seen by the good old Mk1 eyeball. If an enemy could see it, he could kill it. For that reason, combat missions flown by the select crews of the 509th Bomb Wing—the unit to which the B-2s were assigned, the same unit that had dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on the Imperial Japanese during the waning days of World War II—were flown exclusively at night in the safety of darkness. The United States military still owned the night; no other country had been able to employ night-vision equipment with the precision and reliability to stop these invisible weapon systems, but they had—on occasion—been lucky. The Golden BB—a lucky shot—had taken down stealth systems in the past. But it had been just that: a lucky shot.
In the daylight, however, it was a different story.
The B-2s were big, black, lumbering targets. Vulnerable.
As the bomber turned north and began its slow climb toward its cruising altitude—its target roughly two hours away—the other two B-2s sitting in a secluded portion of Barksdale’s ramp began their preflight checks.
The second bomber, once airborne, would reach Oklahoma City in about an hour.
The third bomber would hit Little Rock in forty minutes.
The clock was running.
CHAPTER 62
“Now that’s odd.”
“What’s odd, Carolyn?” Garrett asked. It struck him funny that he would ask such a question, considering he was two hundred feet underground in a classified biowarfare research facility, dead tired from lack of sleep, studying the innards of two bone-like casings that held what were once a rat and a human being—both of which had mutated into some kind of terrible monsters and were now apparently reverting back to their original state. If that wasn’t odd, nothing was.
“It’s the brains. Look. They’re different.”
Garrett looked at the screen and didn’t even try to pretend he knew what he was looking at. “You’re going to have to explain this one to me. We never covered brain structure in infantry school.”
Carolyn smiled. “Oh, really? That’s a shock.”
“Come on now, infantrymen have brains.”
“Hooah?”
“Yes, hooah. Now show me what you’re talking about.”
She pointed at the screen. “Look, here. Near the center, inside the thalamus. That’s not supposed to be there.”
“What is it?”
“I have no idea. It’s a mass of some kind, almost like a . . . Oh hell, I don’t know.” She rubbed her eyes. She too was suffering from lack of sleep.
“Why don’t you go catch a few winks.”
“I can’t.”
“You should. Even a few will do you some good.”
“I’m not that tired.”
“Yes, you are.”
“There’s too much to do and—”
“I know how you feel. You don’t want to break away from what you’re doing because if you do, you’ll feel like you’re shirking your responsibilities.”
“It’s not that, I—”
“Yes, it is.”
“Garrett, there’s going to be more trouble tonight if I don’t keep working on this.”
“There are other people here who can do what you’re doing, Carolyn.”
She glared at him.
He continued anyway. “You’re exhausted. When you’re tired, you can miss things. Important things.”
“This is my baby, Garrett. I know exactly what I’m doing, and I’m not about to step away from it and let someone else do this. Am I tired? Yes! I’m damned tired, so are you, and so is everyone else down here. Countless people have died, and more will die unless we figure out how to stop this.”
“Fifteen minutes of shut-eye. That’s all I’m asking. Fifteen minutes, and you’ll be amazed how you’ll feel,” he said.
Carolyn shook her head and turned back to her screen.
“Fifteen minutes, Carolyn.”
She ignored him.
“Fifteen minutes.”
Ignored again.
“All right, if you’re going to be insolent about it, then I’ll make you get some sleep.”
Before she could say, And just how are you going to do that? Garrett barked orde
rs to one of the guards.
“You! Over here!”
“What are you doing, Garrett?”
“I already told you,” he said. The guard stood in front of him. “What’s your name, soldier?”
“Specialist Blevins, sir.”
“Blevins, you will escort Ms. Ridenour here to the back room. She’s going to get some sleep.” He glanced at Carolyn, and to both of them said, “That’s an order.”
“Yes, sir. Ms. Ridenour? Will you please come with me?”
“I will not leave my station.”
The specialist looked at Colonel Hoffman, a questioning look in his eyes.
“Blevins, you have your orders,” he said. “If you have to pick her up and carry her, you’re authorized to do so.”
“Ma’am?” Blevins said, hoping he wouldn’t actually have to pick her up.
The look in Carolyn’s eyes was beyond icy as her glance slowly bored twin holes through Garrett’s skull.
But maybe he was right, Carolyn thought. She was tired. No, more than just tired. She was spent. She could be missing something important.
“All right, Specialist. I’ll go. Lead the way.”
Three minutes later, Carolyn was sound asleep.
Three minutes and thirty seconds later, in a chair in the corner of the clean room, Garrett was, too.
CHAPTER 63
Allison stared at the screen, waiting for Andrew to appear. A man whom she thought she knew so well had ordered a nuclear strike against three American cities without so much as a whisper to her.
A nuclear strike.
The very thought chilled her.
Although nuclear weapons had been a part of the American psyche since August of 1945—even if it seemed as if they’d been around forever—their actual use was something entirely different. She remembered the hokey Civil Defense films she’d seen on TV as a child, the “Duck and Cover” film clips that taught American children that the flesh-searing heat and unimaginable overpressure from a nuclear blast could be avoided simply by jumping under your desk at school. She remembered the pictures of the home fallout shelters people had built during the 1950s, as if a robust version of a storm cellar would keep a family from being poisoned by radiation, or simply incinerated, for that matter.
She remembered the dreams she’d had as a kid: standing in her front yard looking up into the sky, watching the sun glint off the aluminum skin of what she knew was a Soviet bomber leaving stark, white contrails across the blue Colorado sky, and then seeing a small, black object falling from its bomb bay. She would stand and watch the thing fall, hoping she was far enough away, and then a fiery mushroom cloud would bloom in the distance. The beginning of the end.
She’d dream of a war that, thankfully, never happened.
It had been so surreal then. A fact of life parked in the back of everyone’s minds, unavoidable, yet accepted. Dreamt about, but never experienced.
When she was growing up, there had been well over a thousand American missiles on strategic alert, ready to launch. Hundreds of American bombers sitting on alert ramps at Strategic Air Command bases around the country, their crews waiting for the Klaxon to sound, to call them to their aircraft so they could get the birds on their way to Mother Russia before they were obliterated on the ground. Command and control aircraft—the “Looking Glass”—flying twenty-four-hour airborne alert, ready to take the helm if Washington were suddenly destroyed by one of the many Soviet ballistic missile submarines lurking off the coasts of the United States.
It had been a scary time.
But the ever-present fear had been manageable.
Because nuclear war could never really happen.
Couldn’t happen.
People weren’t that crazy.
Or so she thought.
As she rose through the government after her time in the US Coast Guard—and her security clearance rose as well—she’d become aware of just how many close calls there’d been.
On both sides.
Too many times when a blip on a radar screen nearly started World War III. Too many times when a fail-safe system failed. Too many times when a collection of seemingly unimportant, unrelated events swirled together at just the right time to place fingers on buttons that would unleash Armageddon.
Somehow, those buttons had never been pressed.
Until now.
And it was the president of the United States pressing the button, against his own country.
The situation was grave. She realized that.
But not that grave.
Not yet.
She knew she had to act fast.
“Madame Vice President, the secure comm link is established. The conference will begin in ten seconds.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
Nine seconds later, the smiling face of Jessie Hruska filled her screen.
It didn’t surprise Allison at all. In fact, she’d expected it.
“Madame Vice President, the preside—”
“Where in the hell is President Smith?”
Allison watched Hruska’s smile quickly fade. “The president is in conference with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Madame Vice President, and he told me to—”
“Cut the crap, Jessie. I want to see the president immediately.”
“The president is not available, Madame Vice Presi—”
“God damn you! Let me make this as clear as I possibly can. I am the vice president of the United States of America. I have requested to speak with the president—immediately—and I don’t give a flying fuck who he happens to be in conference with at the moment!”
Hruska’s smile reappeared. Reptilian. “Yes, ma’am. Please stand by.”
The screen went blank.
“Commander?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I need the Eagle Seven Four comm codes. Now.”
The naval officer quickly exited the vice president’s cabin.
“Allison. Andrew Smith. What can I do for you?”
Allison was startled by the president’s voice, as well as his odd, almost formal introduction. She turned to face the screen. “Mr. President, I need to speak to you about operation Three Kings.” She noticed Hruska and Metzger standing at the rear of the president’s cabin. “Alone,” she added.
“There’s nothing to discuss, Allison. I’ve ordered the strike to destroy the casings on the ground while we still can.”
Allison noticed neither Hruska nor Metzger budged an inch. “You’ve ordered a nuclear strike against three American cities! Three cities! There are still innocent people on the ground who haven’t been evacuated!”
“It had to be done, Allison. I had no other choice.”
“Negative. There are always alternatives! You learned that after the Cleveland attack, didn’t you? Nuking every Middle Eastern capital was the easy answer, but you knew there had to be another way.”
“This is different. Our country is dying. We have to act now, before it’s too late and—”
“I need to speak to you alone, Andrew.” She’d never called the president by his first name unless they’d been alone. Never. But she had to get through to him.
For a moment, Andrew’s face drew a blank. He was obviously confused. “I . . . I can’t do that.”
“Why, Andrew?”
“I can’t.”
Allison addressed the two people in the shadows. “Ms. Hruska, General Metzger, I need you to remove yourselves from the president’s cabin. This is a private conversation, starting now.”
“Allison . . .” the president said. “I . . . They have to stay.”
That’s it, she decided. It was time.
Allison stared intently into her screen, and into the eyes of someone she didn’t entirely recognize anymore. She hoped at least a part of the man
she’d known as President Andrew Smith still remained somewhere behind those blank, confused eyes. “Mr. President, Andrew, I need to ask you a question.”
Allison watched Hruska emerge from the shadows. “The president is fatigued, Madame Vice President. This conversation has gone on long enou—”
“Who are you, his fucking nursemaid now? Andrew, are the Aussies on board with this?”
The president’s face revealed a moment of clarity. “Are the Aussies on board with this? Of course they are. The Aussies are on board.”
Allison immediately cut the secure comm channel.
She’d heard all she needed to hear.
The commander reentered the cabin, carrying a locked briefcase. “The Eagle Seven Four comm codes, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Commander.” Entering a combination known only by the vice president of the United States, Allison unlocked the case.
Inside was a plain manila folder holding a single sheet of paper signed by President Andrew Smith. “Commander, I need you to play back the final portion of my conversation with the president.” She handed the single sheet to the naval officer.
With the push of a button, the commander listened to the president’s words. He verified them against what was printed on the single sheet of paper and handed it back to the vice president.
“Verified, ma’am.” He slipped a chain from under his uniform blouse. At the end of the chain hung a small metal key.
From her blouse, Allison removed a similar key hanging on a similar chain.
Using separate keys, they unlocked a small metal box inside the briefcase. Inside was a laminated card with a five-character code word imprinted on its face in bold, black letters.
“This needs to go worldwide. All comm systems, in the clear.” Allison handed the card to the commander. “After transmission, I need a Flash Immediate Decision Conference with all ground and airborne command and control nodes. Got it?”
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