by John Price
31
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
Prentice Women’s Pavilion
Chicago, Illinois
This is the part of being a doctor that I hate the most Doctor Harold Campbell thought. In his twenty one years as an OBGYN he had frequently been required to disclose to patients that they had cancer, in many cases that they were short-termers. In his outer office were seated a delightful forty-three year mother of four and her husband. Doctor Campbell again reviewed the test results. There was no question. Sharon Larson had pancreatic cancer. The worst variety.
The doctor turned in his chair, staring out his office window on Chicago Avenue in downtown Chicago. In the distance he could see the city’s impressive lake front skyline, including its imposing condominium towers. He had several times considered buying a condo in the 700 Lake Shore Drive building, with its sweeping 360 degrees view of Navy Pier and downtown Chicago. Had he made the purchase he could have dramatically shortened his commute time to Northwestern Memorial Hospital from his home in Evanston, where he almost finished raising his children. Maybe someday, he mused. But, he realized he was just trying to delay the inevitable. It was almost noon, and he didn’t like to delay his patients beyond their appointment time, unlike most of his colleagues. It was time. He buzzed his assistant to bring in his doomed patient.
Not one to avoid bad news, when necessary, as soon as Sharon Larson and her husband were seated, Doctor Campbell launched into his report, saying, "Mrs. Larson, I don’t have good news for you. The tests show that y…."
"It’s cancer….it’s cancer, isn’t it?"
Sharon Larson was already wiping tears from her cheeks.
Once the doctor had confirmed her worst suspicions, reading to her the lab results, he then described how fast acting was her type of pancreatic cancer and that modern medicine had no known cure.
Don Larson asked, "How long does she have, Doc?"
The timing question was inevitable, but Doctor Campbell nevertheless was loath to tell a fellow human being how many days they would have on the earth. He glanced up at the clock on his wall above their heads, noticing that it almost noon, the second hand sweeping up the left side of the clock, about to confirm twelve noon as the time.
"Mr. and Mrs. Larson, I am so sorry to have to tell you that, with this virulent form of pancreatic cancer, you will only have two….at the most….three….months."
Both Larsons were now in tears. Don Larson tried to wipe away his tears, not able to look at the doctor, instead fixing his eyes out the window at the looming silver-windowed condominium towers on Lake Shore Drive. Doctor Campbell looked away from his grieving patient and her spouse, noticing as he did so that the second hand had just marked that it was now twelve noon.
As Don Larson stared away at the condo towers, suddenly from high up on one of the silver towers a brilliant flash of light enveloped Chicago. The nuclear device in the tower instantly vaporized not only Doctor Campbell and his grieving patients, but the entire women’s pavilion, all of the buildings in the medical complex and every structure within five miles, along with their human occupants. Frame houses as far away as Oak Park were instantly flattened, or if built of brick or stone, ignited in flames.
Sharon Larson didn’t live to see her estimated final two to three months.
32
THE MALL
WASHINGTON, DC
Abdul Azim Mahaz drove his carpet store labeled cargo van east on Independence Avenue near its intersection with 1st Street. Abdul had been driving a circuitous route north on 1st Street, which runs between the U.S. Capitol and the Supreme Court, west on Constitution Avenue, then south on 14th Street, back to Independence Avenue. Abdul earlier mapped out the route so that his van would be as close as possible to the Capitol and to the Court at 1 PM.
Abdul’s brother, Yaqubi, drove his automobile glass repair labeled van on a route just south of the White House. His route along 14th Street, Constitution Avenue, 17th Street and Independence Avenue circled the Washington Monument.
Abdul was concerned that his wife, Naveen, who was driving the third van, bearing the name and logo of a non-existent house remodeling company, might not do well trying to follow a prescribed route. Instead, she was to drive the length of the mall from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Monument. Abdul told Naveen not to be concerned where her van was located as the hour came.
12:53 PM (EST) – Abdul stopped at the red light at 27th Street and Independence Avenue. He was sweating profusely, though the temperature both inside and outside of his van was moderate. He knew he would soon be vaporized, along with hundreds of thousands of others. He wasn’t concerned about the people he saw walking along Independence Avenue, they were after all, all heretics, part of the Great Satan. He wiped his brow, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel of the van. Reciting his prayers. ‘Allah Hoo Akbar. Subhaana Rabbiyal Azeem. Looking at his watch. Looking again. He was still about a mile from 1st Street and Capitol Hill. ‘When would this light change’, he asked no one.
12:54 PM – Yaqubi turned north on 15th Street. He could see the Washington Monument to his left and the Ellipse across Constitution Avenue. Having driven his route now several times he knew that he would most likely be just south of the White House very close to 1 PM. He smiled, thinking of the waiting virgins who would greet him soon as a hero of Islam.
12:55 PM – Naveen was not smiling. Women in Islam are not promised sexual adventures in paradise. She knew that she would soon be no more. Her children, she had repeatedly been told, would call her blessed for her efforts to strike America. Naveen was committed to her assigned role of killing Americans, but in her deepest core she had a level of doubt. If Islam is the only true faith, she asked herself, then why do we have to kill the infidels? Why not just let them discover how marvelous are the five pillars of Islam, Shahadah, Salat, Sawn, Zakat and Hajj? Without killing them? But, she shook it off, turned left on 17th Street, then looked down the length of the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. She pulled over to the curb and parked, keeping her gaze on the large Presidential marble statue surrounded by Greek columns.
12:58 PM – Abdul looked at his watch as he pulled up to the curb on 1st Street on Capitol Hill. He put his van in park, exited the van and rolled out his prayer rug on the grass next to sidewalk. He knew that it was too late for a law enforcement officer who might see this unusual scene to stop and do anything. Allah Hoo Akbar, Allah Hoo Akbar.
12:59 PM – Yaqubi looked to his right as he came to the South Lawn of the White House. He noticed that a section of the metal fence appeared to be newly installed. Rumors of a coup de’ etat attempt the prior year had been rampant in the world outside of the U.S. As he pulled his right two tires up on the narrow grass strip in front of the fence, his last thought was whether or not the new fence was where the trucks had breached White House security.
1:00 PM – Captain Roger Rice’s US Airways Flight 127 had just been cleared by his FAA controller to land on main runway 61 at Reagan International Airport. He banked slightly left, flattened out and began his descent. Captain Rice first saw an enormous flash of white hot light straight ahead of his plane, behind the U.S. Capitol’s white dome. As he was processing what he had just seen, the pilot immediately saw two other immensely bright fireballs flash further down the Mall near the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. Within five seconds the shock waves coming from the nearly simultaneous blasts tore the Captain’s US Airways Airlines 737 into multiple pieces, bursting it into flames from the immediate heat and fire that followed the shock waves. Flight 127 was no more.
Had the Captain been alive to see it, he would have witnessed the instant vaporization of Reagan Airport’s terminals, parking garages and support buildings. The three nuclear devices totally destroyed and leveled to the ground every structure from the airport and the Pentagon on the south, up past DuPont Circle more than a mile north of the White House, from the Marine Corps Memorial in Virginia to the west and twenty blo
cks east of Capitol Hill. Gone were the limestone temples of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court and the White House. The Jihadists’ nuclear weapons were equal opportunity destroyers, taking out the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the American federal government. The head of the executive branch, though, at the time of the detonations was safely in Air Force One on his way to a fund raiser in California.
33
Air Force One –
Over the Arizona – California State Line
The world’s most famous airplane was at 43,000 feet preparatory to making its final vector approach to Los Angeles, now less than forty-five minutes away. The President had showered, shaved and dressed on the plane for the noon luncheon fund raiser in downtown Los Angeles. The time in Washington DC, which the President always maintained on his Rolex, was 12:56 PM.
In spite of the President’s insistence, the Pentagon had not been able to explain to the President what had been happening in Israel. They had video. They had on the ground reports. What they didn’t have was any clue as to what weapon system was being used to fire on the foreign troops invading Israel, nor who used the weapons. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had just informed the President on an encrypted call to Air Force One that the military was still working on solving the weapons mystery. He was able to report that the weapon systems, whatever they were, combined with the deluge of rain and a devastating earthquake, had decimated the invading troops. Preliminary body counts of dead invading troops, he said, could be in the hundreds of thousands. The remaining troops, the Chairman told the President, were being tracked by satellite imaging heading back north and east, out of Israel.
The President was slouched in his executive leather chair, gazing out the window at the barren areas below in Southern California. What in the world happened? He couldn’t call Vladimir. Not right now. Not after he may have lost most of his front line troops. He knew, of course, that his friend Vladimir was going to invade Israel. Vladimir didn’t ask him for permission. The President had simply let Vladimir know that the U.S. wouldn’t get involved in what the two decided in advance to call a regional controversy. But, what the President was worried about now was simple. Would Vladimir think that the US had somehow developed and kept secret this fireball weapon? Would he think the U.S. attacked his troops? Would he lash back at the U.S.? It wouldn’t be seemly, he concluded, to call Vladimir and deny knowledge of the fiery weapons. That could just fuel his suspicions and move him to conclude that the U.S. had attacked Russia and her allies.
The President again looked at his watch. It was 12:59 in DC. What to do? Call Vladimir? Don’t call Vlad…… "WHAT WAS THAT?" he shouted as a flash of white hot light filled the office cabin of Air Force One. He grabbed the phone next to his leather chair connected with the pilot. "What was that? That huge flash….the light….what…."
"Mister President," the pilot replied, "this is not good. We ‘re a hundred miles out, but….it sure looks like a nuke just lit up….flash and cloud over LA….oh, oh….oh….Here comes the shock wave….belt in….belt in….We’re going to take a hit and….". The pilot didn’t finish as he fought to control his pitching and yawing aircraft. The shock wave pushed the nose of the plane sharply up, then the plane pitched to the right, followed by a slow dive towards the ground.
The President wrestled with his seat belt, finally getting it secured and grabbed the wide arms on his chair. His eyes wide, adrenalin pumping, he struggled to look out his window to see if he could make out what the pilot had just described. As the massive modified 747 began to level out, now down to under 20,000 feet, the President could see a distinctive shape on the horizon, a growing mushroom cloud. He again called the pilot, "Where….where….are we heading now?"
"Mister President, thank your lucky stars that we were twelve minutes delayed due to head winds. Otherwise we would have been close enough that the shock wave that just threw us around would have knocked us out of the sky….That cloud and the shock wave could only come from a nuke….sorry to say, sir…..To answer your question, sir, we’ have few options. San Diego’s out, too much chance of radiation blowing south out of LA. Same problem with San Bernardino. Looks like Phoenix, maybe an Air Force base. We’re pulling choices, now. It will take us about. Whoa….wait a minute. Mister President….You’ll want to have Jeff get your monitors up. I just heard an FAA controller say that there appears to have been another nuke….so not limited to just LA....repeat….repeat sir….another nuke. Appears to be Las Vegas, sir."
The President couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move, as he felt locked into place. All he could do was stare out his window at the mushroom cloud over Los Angeles. What had caused this disaster? Why didn’t we have a warning? Why? Why? A sliver of thought crossed his mind. Did I blow it by refusing to come to the assistance of Israel? Surely not, he thought, as he immediately discarded the thought. What he hated most was the thin possibility that the religious pests, whom he referred to as ‘Bible thumpers’, who had warned him that these things would happen, may have been correct.
34
Hannah and Gary’s Family Room
Birmingham, Alabama
The sun over Birmingham had been up for three hours. Six adults who were nervously sipping coffee, visibly on edge, looked over at the television frequently to see if anything had yet happened. The children appeared to be happy, playing in the back yard or on their i-pads, as their parents had kept them out of school for the day.
Gary toggled back and forth between CBS and Fox on the theory that anything that would happen of a catastrophic nature would either be reported on one of the networks, or alternatively, that one or both would go off the air.
Beau, Gary and Scott were talking quietly around the television while Audrey, Hannah and Sally were busying themselves in the kitchen, preparing sandwiches for lunch later in the day.
Gary glanced up at the clock on the family room wall. It was just now 1 PM. Gary suggested, "If we don’t hear anything by four or so this afternoon, then maybe we should….oops….look….CBS just went to black screen….let’s see what Fox is doing." Gary pushed the button on his remote control. "Oh oh….nothing but snow….no signal. How could both go off at the same time, unless…."
Beau choked and said, "Unless….New York City just got hit. Both CBS and Fox are in New York. Go to channel 13….WVTM….it’s an affiliate with NBC, but it’s all local for Birmingham news. Let’s see what, if anything, they’re reporting on New York."
Gary changed the channel to the local channel. A soap opera was playing. Scott exclaimed, "Look at that. They are barely dressed. Good grief. I haven’t watched daytime TV for years. Many years. I didn’t know you could show on over the airwaves television what that couple is doing."
"Beau replied, "Scott, the FCC took away the final barriers a couple years ago. The networks argued that cable could air indecent shows, so why not allow the networks to do so. It’s just further evidence of the status of America of the Mother of Abominations….Now, come on….he’s removing her…."
The television screen switched to a screen saying CHANNEL 13 EMERGENCY NEWS ALERT. The screen stayed up, with no sound. Gary yelled into the kitchen, "Hannah, you guys better come over here and watch this."
Audrey, upon seeing the news alert on the screen said, "Oh….no….no….oh, please Lord help us."
Eventually the silence on the television screen was broken as the news alert screen was removed. The screen showed the station’s well-watched news broadcaster looking down to adjust his lapel mike, then glancing up to see that the red light on camera one was on, confirming that he was being broadcast live.
"UH….We’ve….uh….interrupted our regular programming in order to…." WVTM’s leading newscaster stopped speaking as he pushed his hand up to his right ear, leaning into his ear bud, concentrating on what he was hearing from the station’s control room, and not addressing his TV audience. The newscaster appeared to be speaking to his control room, saying, "Are you sure?....I
can go with that?....OK….Umh….Sorry….As I said, we’ve interrupted our regular programming to bring you breaking news….Umh….We are being informed by foreign news sources, because our normal wire services are not currently functioning, that there have been….multiple detonations of what appear to be nuclear weapons….in….America. Reuters is just now carrying an emergency news feed reporting that Washington DC and New York City have experienced nuclear weapon detonations. Let me repeat that….international news services are reporting that at least two American cities, Washington DC and New York City, appear to have been hit by nuclear explosions."
All six people in Hannah and Gary’s family room were in tears. Two were down on their knees praying. Scott was on his cell phone alerting the other small group letters who may not have yet heard the news.
The WVTM newscaster was again silent, pressing his ear bud, then he continued, "Oh my….I regret to announce that the BBC is reporting that satellites over the US appear to have detected as many as eight, one source says as many as possibly twelve, separate nuclear explosions at almost exactly the same time, across America. The nearest nuclear weapon detonation to the Birmingham area appears to be in Atlanta, I am very sorry to report. Viewers in our most eastern Birmingham viewing area are calling to tell us that they are seeing what appears to be a mushroom cloud on the far horizon, in the approximate location of Atlanta….As we learn more from either US sources or from foreign news services….we will….we will certainly inform you. Unfortunately, we can’t switch you to our normal network coverage out of New York, or….or….apparently any other major city from which we would normally get news coverage. Until we can get more news, our program director tells me we will return to our regular pre-recorded programming." The screen changed to two actors in the act of an intimate relationship.