Nightwatch

by Richard P. Henrick

  Seconds later, the Suburban on the formation’s left flank also blew up in a billowing fireball, leading Morrison to believe that he knew how these blasts had been triggered.

  “Hit the brakes — minefield!” he shouted into the two-way.

  The remaining three cars of the formation skidded to a halt, and though the barricade invitingly beckoned less than thirty yards away, the SAIC had no choice but to order the column to carefully back up and return to the new section of pavement.

  The drivers did a splendid job of retracing their routes, and they made it safely back onto the newly laid asphalt, with the two Suburbans all the while filling their windshields with the glow of flame.

  A mortar round detonated close by, and Morrison played the last of his options. With a minimum of ceremony, the President and Major Ryan were transferred into the last surviving Suburban, along with Satchel Alpha, their portable SATCOM phone, and all the ammo that the other agents could spare. As the SAIC climbed into the crowded backseat beside Alexi Kosygin, he flashed Special Agent Moreno, and the other brave men who would be traveling in the limousines, a supportive thumbsup.

  The plan was to try to find an escape route through the forest.

  Since the four-wheel-drive Suburban had the best chance of surviving such a punishing trip, it would lead the way. The limousines would follow, with the hope that they’d chance upon an old logging road.

  A trio of exploding mortar rounds spurred them onward. The Suburban left the road with a jolt, and sped off into the tree line.

  Because of the great age of these woods, there was a fair amount of open space between the individual trunks. Without letting up on the accelerator, their driver expertly circumnavigated the maze of stately pines, the route made all the more difficult by the ever-present fog.

  When he wasn’t hanging on for dear life, Morrison was able to turn around from time to time and check on the progress of the limousines. When the fog swallowed the last distant headlight, he contacted them via radio. As expected, they were having a difficult time, often forced to slow down to a virtual crawl because of their bulky size and weight. It was a lack of all-terrain capability that eventually led to their doom.

  The SAIC’s heart was heavy as he listened to Special Agent Moreno’s latest radio update. The spare limo carrying the President’s staff had gotten itself stuck in the bottom of a creek bed.

  Moreno’s vehicle was in the process of backing up to render assistance, and had just come under small-arms fire, when it too found itself trapped in a soggy depression. And the last Morrison ever heard from his colleague was as Moreno signed off, the crackle of gunfire clearly audible in the background.

  Though a part of Morrison wanted to go back and help them, a greater responsibility was now his. Considering their predicament, the President was displaying remarkable composure, and had even managed to summon the strength to trade concerned small talk with Alexi Kosygin. When the Suburban wasn’t careening over a pothole or bounding over a pile of brush. Major Ryan was able to activate the portable, battery-powered SATCOM phone to pass on an “all clear” Situation Report to Nightwatch.

  In such a way they were able to inform the NCA that the President was still alive, and that Satchel Alpha hadn’t been compromised.

  They would continue to broadcast these brief SITREPs as long as possible, this being their last means of contact with the world beyond.

  “Is that the remains of a road up there on the other side of the clearing?” asked the Special Agent buckled into the passenger seat.

  This question immediately caught the attention of the four men gathered in the backseat, as well as the vehicle’s driver, who excitedly replied, “I believe it is!”

  The SAIC anxiously sat forward and peered out the streaked windshield. He could see little outside but the two bouncing shafts of light coming from their headlights, and as he scanned the clearing ahead of them, an exploding tongue of flame flashed from the blackness. It wasn’t until a heavy metallic round bounced off their roof that he identified it as a muzzle flash.

  They were headed straight for the weapon, and the driver reacted instinctively.

  He stomped on the brakes, causing the truck to violently lunge forward, then shifted hard into reverse. He waited to build up traction before hitting the gas, and they shot backward. Only a few feet from the woods, he lifted his foot off the accelerator and whipped the wheel to the left. The Suburban started skidding, and as the President slammed into Morrison’s shoulder, the driver jerked the gearshift into forward and once more stepped on the accelerator.

  The superbly executed reverse-180-degree turn surely saved their lives, for as they sped off into that portion of woods they had just traveled, a barrage of bullets peppered off the back window.

  Morrison felt a bit queasy, and as he reached down to pick up the fallen SATCOM device, the driver shouted, “There’s that road again!”

  The Suburban plowed over a group of saplings, careened over a rough stone-filled draw, and settled onto the remains of an abandoned earthen roadway. It was just wide enough to hold them, and definitely offered the smoothest ride yet experienced.

  “We’re heading west!” exclaimed the driver after checking the dashboard-mounted compass.

  “Mr. President, we’ll get you out of this bind yet!”

  That statement proved to be a bit overly optimistic, for seconds later, they ran over a steel-spike tank trap and punctured the two front tires. The truck nose-dived forward, and the driver alertly hit the brakes.

  “Can’t you drive on a flat?” asked the SAIC.

  “Not with two of them,” the driver answered.

  “But not to worry, sir. We’ve got a spare and a can of flat fixer. Just give us a sec, and we’ll be good to go.”

  The driver nodded to his seatmate, and both of them exited the vehicle to initiate the repair process. Morrison grabbed his submachine gun and joined them.

  It was pitch-black and deathly quiet outside. The swirling fog hugged the floor of the forest, the heavy pine boughs peering down like silent sentinels.

  A metallic, scraping sound broke the silence, and Morrison watched his men emerge with the spare. They proceeded to jack up the front end, and went to work replacing the flat right tire.

  With his MP5 in hand, the SAIC circled the vehicle, his gaze locked on the tree line. On any other occasion, he would have loved to be in such a forest, where the air was clean and sweet with pine sap. Yet here the scent of death was in the air, and he couldn’t wait to be gone from this cursed grove.

  “Comrade Morrison,” whispered Alexi Kosygin from the barely cracked rear window.

  “There seems to be a problem getting the SATCOM on line.”

  Back inside the truck, Morrison took a close look at the briefcase-sized transmitter and found that the rough ride had jarred one of the battery cables loose. He pushed the connectors together and watched as the green “transmit” light began glowing.

  “I think I saw something move out there.” Major Ryan pointed into the trees in front of them.

  Without bothering to switch off the transmitter’s open microphone, Morrison looked in the direction that the MIL AIDE was highlighting, in time to see two brilliant muzzle flashes emanate from the blackness. There were a pair of distinctive pops, and Kosygin dared to stick his head out the window to check the men’s progress.

  “Dear God, they’ve both been shot!” he exclaimed.

  This was all the SAIC had to hear to dive over into the front seat and grasp for the ignition.

  “The friggin’ keys are gone!”

  He madly searched the seat and floorboard, and when this effort failed to produce the keys, he knew he’d have to go out there and get them.

  “Alexi, Major Ryan, if you’d be so good as to cover me with your weapons.”

  Morrison readied his submachine gun, took a deep breath, and jerked open the door, ill prepared for the hard wooden butt of the Kalashnikov assault rifle that caught him full on the fo
rehead.

  He crumpled to the ground at the side of the truck, his vision blurred, on the cusp of unconsciousness. With a nightmare’s ponderous pace, he struggled to his knees in time to see a heavily camouflaged soldier materialize at the opposite doorway.

  This individual’s face was covered in green and black greasepaint, and all Morrison could see were the whites of his cruel eyes as he raised his rifle and pointed it into the backseat.

  “Who the hell are you, and what do you want?” asked Kosygin, his voice faltering.

  An ear-shattering trio of shots rang out, and with Alexi Kosygin silenced for all eternity, the gunman flipped on his laser sight and projected the glowing red beam squarely in the center of the President’s forehead. Samuel Morrison fought back a wave of nauseated dizziness to reach for his side arm, all the while fighting to get to his feet and stand.

  “For God’s sake, I’m the President of the United States. Don’t shoot!” implored America’s Chief Executive.

  The assassin appeared to be relishing this moment of power, and he made certain that the dazed Morrison was still incapable of interfering, before issuing a deep laugh and pulling the trigger.

  The President’s head exploded like a pumpkin, bits of bloody flesh and bone cascading onto the cowering MIL AIDE

  Though he held a fully loaded submachine gun in his lap, Major Bob Ryan was in no emotional shape to use it. The assassin knew this, and lowered his rifle to scoot into the backseat himself.

  “So now that your President is dead, you’re the one,” said the assassin in Slavic-accented English.

  There was a certain coolness to his tone of voice, and he displayed little emotion as he shoved the President’s lifeless body out of the way, tossed aside Ryan’s weapon, and directed his glance to the black briefcase that was handcuffed to the MIL AIDE wrist.

  “And what do we have here?” he asked.

  “My name is Major Bob Ryan,” the MIL AIDE managed to say while he tightly cradled Satchel Alpha snug against his chest.

  “And my serial number is four-nine-one—”

  “No, you fool!” interrupted the assassin.

  “I don’t need your name, only the infamous football that you carry. And don’t bother swallowing the key.”

  Like a zombie, the SAIC continued watching this horrific drama unfold. His severe concussion kept him dazed and comatose; unable to summon the coordination to grasp his pistol, he looked on as the assassin whipped out a razor-sharp K-Bar knife and proceeded to slice through the MIL AIDE wrist. And the last thing Samuel Forrest Morrison II remembered, before the 7.62mm shells exploded from the forest and ripped into his chest to end this nightmare, was the demented screams of Major Bob Rican.

  Chapter 11

  Friday, July 2, 1847 Zulu

  Nightwatch 676

  The occupants of the conference room sat in stunned disbelief as Major Bob Ryan’s pained screams sounded from the overhead speaker. This real-time transmission from the backseat of the limousine arrived via the SATCOM’s open microphone, along with the series of exploding gunshots that signaled the apparent death of the President.

  With forehead cradled in the palms of his hands. Admiral Trent Warner sat at the head of the table, facing a detailed topographical map of the Salgir River valley that was projected on the aft video screen. To his immediate left was Colonel Lyford Pritchard, the CO of the 747’s operations team, with Brittany Cooper positioned on Warner’s right. The rest of the table’s six positions were occupied by select members of the emergency action team. All of them were attired in matching green flight suits, and displayed somber expressions on their weary faces.

  The occupants of the conference room collectively flinched when another gunshot sounded, and the demented screams were replaced by the crackle of static.

  “We’ve lost the SATCOM feed,” advised Red over the speaker.

  “Very well. Master Sergeant,” replied Pritchard into his chin mounted mike.

  “Keep the line open, and let us know the second you get the slightest hint it’s still operational.”

  All of the personnel gathered around the table knew inwardly that it was a lost cause, and all eyes went to the head of the table for an inkling of what to do next. Though they had constantly drilled on many a similar scenario, this was reality of the harshest sort, and the staff of Nightwatch now found themselves leading players in one of the most tragic moments of American history.

  Well aware of their great responsibility, the Chairman smoothed back his thick mane of silver hair, sat up ramrod straight and scanned the faces of his rapt audience, saying, “It’s only too obvious that our country has suffered a great loss this evening. Our Commanderin-Chief has been taken from us in one of the most despicable crimes in history. All of us aboard Nightwatch mourn his passing, but we have no time for tears.

  Duty calls like never before, and we shall not let our fellow countrymen down.

  “Per the continuity of government protocol, as the senior ranking officer of the National Command Authority, I am now assuming supreme control of U.S. strategic forces. Colonel Pritchard, you are to immediately inform your operations team of this fact, and to deactivate Satchel Alpha and activate Satchel Bravo.”

  Pritchard spoke into his chin mike, and waited less than thirty seconds before verbally relaying the acknowledgment that he received over his headphones.

  “A multi-frequency scrambled alert has just been broadcast to the NMCC, informing them of your assumption of power, the deactivation of Satchel Alpha, and the activation of the SIOP codes contained inside Satchel Bravo. We are awaiting confirmation and implementation.”

  While they waited for this all-important reply, Brittany Cooper found herself subconsciously fingering the key that hung from her neck. Of all those gathered around the table, she had had the closest relationship with the man whose screams of pain had filled the airborne conference room these past couple of minutes.

  That could very well have been her down there, and Brittany found herself fighting the inner demons of confusion, shock, and fear.

  To regain her composure, she began a series of deep, even breaths. Ever afraid that Warner would note her anxiety, she tried her best not to meet his gaze, and she looked instead to the aft bulkhead, where four digital clocks were mounted at the bottom of the projection screen. The glowing red digits of the black, rectangular clock on the upper left showed that it was lunchtime back in Washington, where the Pentagon’s NMCC was situated.

  The clock beneath showed Zulu, or Greenwich Mean Time, while the clock on the upper right displayed local time in the Crimea.

  The clock below showed: 0. Brittany noted that it suddenly activated and began counting off the seconds, moments before Colonel Pritchard readdressed them.

  “We have received a legitimate transfer-of-power acknowledgment from the NMCC. Satchel Alpha has been deactivated.

  Admiral Warner, you are now the recognized Commanderin Chief until the Presidential successor relieves you.”

  Brittany’s pulse quickened, her glance pulled to the head of the table and the man destiny had picked to accept this unprecedented transfer of power. No oaths of office had been uttered, with no public inauguration on the steps of the Capitol. Specifically designed for a crisis such as this one, the continuity of government protocol had just inserted an unelected military officer as the acting President of the United States of America.

  “Captain Richardson,” said the Chairman to the crew-cut Air Force officer seated to Brittany’s right.

  “As our FEMA representative, you are authorized to activate the emergency locator system.”

  Richardson rapidly attacked the keyboard of his computer, and cleared his voice before replying.

  “I’ve already taken the liberty of activating the system, sir. If you’ll just bear with me a second, I should be able to transfer the results onto the projection screen.”

  The map of the Salgir River valley faded from the screen, and as they watched it go blank, the
Chairman grabbed one of two white telephones within arm’s reach and punched in two numbers.

  “Major Foard,” he said into the handset.

  “Please be informed that the transfer-of-power protocol that we talked about earlier has been completed. It’s time to go home. Major. I’d appreciate it if you’d initiate an immediate course change back to CONUS, with an initial entry point at Andrews.”

  No sooner did Warner hang up the phone than the 747 began a steeply banked turn. Brittany found herself tightly gripping the edge of the table, and she watched as Colonel Pritchard’s half filled spill-proof coffee mug slid sideways and bounced onto the carpeted deck, along with several unsecured pencils. As an aide scrambled to retrieve the mug, the plane began to level out, and Brittany was able to release her death grip.

  “Ah, here it is’ said Captain Richardson, in reference to the map of the United States that now filled the projection screen.

  There was a pair of blinking stars visible, a blue one in the center of the country and a red one on the East Coast, and Richardson went on to reveal their significance.

  “As of ten hundred hours Eastern Daylight Time, the blue star indicates the location of Vice President Chapman, with Speaker of the House Pierce highlighted in red.”

  “Where the hell’s the VP? Arkansas?” quizzed Pritchard.

  Richardson cleared his throat again before answering.

  “Actually, sir, he’s in the southern Missouri Ozarks on a wilderness float trip.”

  “Oh, that’s just great,” Pritchard replied with a disgusted shake of his head.

  “You would have thought he would have stuck close to Washington like the Speaker, with the President so far out in the field.”

  “Who knows, with that feud and all, maybe the President didn’t even bother to tell Chapman he was leaving the country,” offered Major Steve Hewlett, a Marine serving as the op team’s SIOP advisor.

  “We don’t have time for scuttlebutt. Major,” scolded Warner.