Dead Heat

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  to President MacPherson and Vice President Oaks—was that of Admiral Jack Allenby, the

  commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. The only four-star admiral of the Coast Guard,

  Allenby, fifty-eight, had been appointed to a four-year term by President MacPherson and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. But he was stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. So were his vice commandant, his two area commanders, and his chief of staff, all of whom were three-star vice admirals. Now the Coast Guard's central command center had been obliterated. Did that mean all of the Guard's senior officers were gone too? Who, then, was authorized to make decisions?

  Before 9/11, Sanders had been taught, the Coast Guard had served under the direction

  of the secretary of transportation. After 9/11, a sweeping federal reorganization put the Guard under the secretary of Homeland Security. Everyone in the Guard knew the revamped

  mission. Sanders certainly did. It had been drilled into her from day one.

  "As part of Operation Noble Eagle, the Coast Guard is at a heightened state of alert protecting more than 361 ports and 95,000 miles of coastline, America's longest border The Coast Guard continues to play an integral role in maintaining the operations of our ports and waterways by providing a secure environment in which mariners and

  the American people can safely go about the business of living and working freely. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Coast Guard immediately mobilized more than 2,000 Reservists in the largest homeland defense and port security operation since World War II."

  Clearly this was no longer peacetime. America had been attacked. America was at war.

  That meant the Coast Guard now served under the command of the secretary of the navy. But Sanders had already heard that the secretary, who lived with his wife and three kids in D.C., was missing and presumed dead. Sanders had also heard that all of the Joint Chiefs were missing and presumed dead. Ultimately, of course, the chain of command led to the

  secretary of defense and the president of the United States. But with the Pentagon

  virtually destroyed and the National Military Command Center barely functional, it

  wasn't yet clear to Sanders or anyone around her who was making operational decisions.

  And one decision had to be made immediately.

  Sanders picked up the phone and speed-dialed the command duty officer.

  "I'm sorry to bother you again, sir, but it just hit me," she began. "Has anyone ordered a strike against the Liberian container ship?"

  "That just hit you?" the CDO snapped. "What do you think I'm doing on the phone? I'm trying to get authorization for a strike, but I still can't get anyone on the line that can pull the trigger."

  "Sorry, sir. But what if the enemy is preparing to launch another missile? Can't you just authorize a strike yourself, before it's too late?"

  "Sanders, you're out of line."

  "I am serious, sir," Sanders insisted. "Can't you order a cutter out there to intercept the ship and send in a boarding party?"

  "I've already done that," the CDO said. "But the closest cutter is an hour away.''

  "What about choppers?" Sanders asked.

  "What about them?" the CDO asked.

  "Sir, you launch choppers for search and rescue out of Atlantic City and Virginia

  Beach all the time. Why not now?"

  "You want me to send a Seahawk out there with a couple of rescue swimmers? Forget

  it, Specialist. You're wasting my time."

  But Sanders wouldn't let it go.

  "No, not Seahawks. I'm saying, order a couple of MH-68s out there to take this ship out.

  They've got night vision. They've got the firepower." "Not to sink a container ship."

  "Well, at least to disable its engines."

  "That's not enough," the CDO said. "Not if the ship is preparing to fire another missile. We need to sink it, and sink it fast. Look, I'm with you. I get it. But I've got a protocol I've got to follow. Now let me get back to it."

  "No!" Sanders shouted, shocked at her chutzpah but not nearly as shocked as her CDO.

  "What did you just say?" he demanded.

  "Sir, there's no time for the protocol," she insisted.

  "Watch it, Sanders. You're about to cross a line you really don't want to cross. Now get back to work and call me only if you get more Intel." Still Sanders wouldn't give up.

  "With all due respect, sir, this is my work—guarding the coast and the people of the mid-Atlantic. And, sir, I'm telling you, we've got a ship out there that has fired two ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads, and we have to assume they're preparing to fire

  again. Now the chain of command has been compromised. The rear admiral is gone. The

  commandant is gone. You've got to go to the navy."

  "Are you out of your mind?"

  "No, sir. You've got to skip the Guard protocol, get a naval base commander on the line, give him the coordinates of the Liberian container ship, and tell him to scramble some jets and blow that ship out of the water—now."

  "Specialist Sanders, that's enough," the CDO shouted back. "You are hereby relieved of duty. Report to my office immediately."

  9:41 P.M. EST-NAVAL AIR STATION, JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

  Was he ready?

  He had always thought so. Suddenly he wasn't so certain. Bill Oaks knew he had to

  start thinking differently. He knew he had to start thinking as a president, and a wartime president at that. It wasn't going to be easy.

  Oaks had never really aspired to the presidency. He had never had any intention of running to succeed James "Mac" MacPherson. Eight years earlier, he and Marie had agreed to help a lifelong friend run the country. Ever since, it seemed, they had wondered if they had done the right thing. The hours. The stress. The travel. The time away from their sons. It was all too much. With the second term winding down, they'd been eagerly looking forward to retiring and spending time with their children and grandchildren.

  And now this.

  Two terms as the nation's vice president and a lifetime of government service certainly made him better prepared than most. But there was something different about actually

  becoming the leader of the free world that changed a man and demanded that he summon

  something more.

  Marine One touched down at the third largest naval installation in the United States, home of twenty-three thousand military and civilian personnel, all of whose jobs were to keep him safe. But to his shock, the Secret Service didn't move him to the gleaming blue and white 747 emblazoned with the great seal, as he had fully expected. Instead, with a coat covering his head and face, they rushed him onto the Gulfstream V that was idling on the tarmac not far from the 747, sealed the doors, and prepared to take off with an urgency that suggested they might be expecting an imminent attack.

  "What's going on here?" he asked the head of his new protective detail.

  "Good evening, Mr. President," the agent-in-charge said.

  "There's nothing good about it, young man," the president-to-be shot back. "Now why are we on this G5, and where's my regular detail?"

  "I'll explain everything in a moment, sir," the agent replied. "Right now I need you to take a seat and buckle up fast. We need to get you in the air and out of harm's way as

  quickly as we can, Mr. President."

  Oaks wasn't happy, but he could see the anxiety in the agent's eyes. There wasn't time to get a full briefing on the threats to this base, this plane, just yet. So he did as he was told and ordered Bobby Caulfield to do the same.

  "Mr. Caulfield, you're going to want to tighten that seat belt a bit more," the agent said as they moved into the first position for takeoff.

  "Why's that?" the young man asked, still somewhat dazed and confused by the rapid pace of events.

  "You'll see," the agent said, tightening his own belt and then giving the pilot the thumbs-up sign and saying, "Get this thing off the ground,
Lieutenant—now."

  * * *

  The Gulfstream hurtled down the runway.

  It was racing to catch up with the 747 that had taken off before it, and from the moment the Gulfstream lifted off the ground, Caulfield knew why his seat belt had to be as tight as possible. This wasn't going to be a normal ascent. They weren't going to climb gently into the night.

  Sure enough, the pilot pulled back on the stick and took the G5 nearly straight up, as if it were the space shuttle. They all felt themselves snapped violently against the backs of their seats by g-forces rarely, if ever, experienced by civilians.

  Seconds later, they were already racing past ten thousand feet. Then

  twenty thousand. Then thirty. Then forty. Only when they approached fifty thousand

  feet did the G5 begin to level off. Only then did an air force officer get up from his seat and bring the president a stack of briefing papers that someone at USNORTHCOM had faxed to

  the plane. And only then did the Secret Service agent-in-charge speak again.

  The agent quickly briefed everyone on the plane on the nuclear attacks, the death of

  President MacPherson, and the emergency game plan they were now executing. A few

  years before, he explained, this military-owned Gulfstream had been retrofitted with

  rocketlike engines, similar to the ones on board Air Force One. The purpose, he said, was to make it possible for any plane carrying the president to get off the ground and out of range of shoulder-mounted rockets and Stinger missiles as rapidly as possible. Such

  tactics were rarely used in peacetime, of course, unless the president was flying in and out of a war zone. But with America at war and much of the federal government wiped out in the past hour, every precaution possible was being taken.

  Caulfield's mouth was dry. His hands were perspiring. He felt confused and

  disoriented. With every moment that passed, he feared for his divorced mother and his four younger brothers back in the Bronx. Were they alive? Were they safe? He had to track

  them down. He had to know and get word to his older brother, Derek, a staff sergeant with the Eighth Army along the DMZ in South Korea.

  "I still don't understand—why aren't we taking Air Force One?" Caulfield asked finally. "Wouldn't that be a whole lot more secure?"

  "Usually, yes," the agent said, "but right now we need something more."

  "What's that?" the young aide pressed.

  "The element of surprise."

  "Meaning what?" Caulfield asked.

  "Given all that's going on," the lead agent continued, "we have to assume that someone's

  trying to target Air Force One. If that's the case, they are most likely to target that 747 in front of us. So I decided to run the 747 as a decoy and put the president on this G5.

  Technically, of course, any plane that carries the president is Air Force One. But on the radios, we're letting the 747 use the AF1 call sign, not us."

  "What's our call sign?" Caulfield asked.

  "I'm afraid that's classified," the agent replied.

  "With all due respect, sir, I've got the highest possible security clearance," Caulfield explained. His clearance was a necessity in working so close to the top.

  "Not that high, son," the agent replied. "This isn't just a war. It's a nuclear war."

  Every muscle in Caulfield's body tensed. Everything was different. The world had

  changed forever, and these guys weren't taking chances.

  "How many people know we're on this plane instead of the Boeing?" Caulfield didn't want to think about the horrors unfolding all around him. To the extent he could, he

  preferred to think only about the bubble around him, and just how secure that bubble was.

  "Just us," the agent said, "and three of the agents on the other plane. Most of the crew up ahead doesn't even realize the president isn't aboard. Two of my agents put a coat over the head of a fellow agent, rushed him on board the Boeing, and locked him in the president's private quarters. As far as most of the crew knows—even the pilots, for that matter—

  POTUS is on their aircraft. And right now, that's exactly how we want it."

  "Where's the vice president's regular security detail?" Caulfield pressed, knowing that if he didn't ask, his boss certainly would.

  "With all due respect, young man, he is not the vice president anymore," the agent explained. "Under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, he is currently acting as the president of the United States. He's about to be formally sworn in as such."

  A different designation meant a different detail. Caulfield was scared. He'd been rattled from the moment he and the vice president had been rushed out of Ponte Vedra on Marine One. But it was worse now. All hell was breaking loose, and he was powerless to do anything about it.

  He swallowed hard and stuck out his hand. "Bobby Caulfield, sir," he said quietly.

  "Curt Coelho," the man replied, shaking Caulfield's trembling hand with firmness meant to inspire confidence. "Don't worry, son. We'll be fine."

  Caulfield wasn't so sure.

  Agent Coelho then turned to the acting president and vowed to do everything in his

  power to keep him safe. Oaks unbuckled his seat belt, stood, thanked Coelho, and asked

  him to get word back to the agents who had served on his VP detail how grateful he was

  for their service.

  "That's very thoughtful, Mr. President," the agent replied. "But you'll be able to thank them yourself soon. They're all on Air Force One. Once we get on the ground in the Springs, I'll figure out a way to integrate them onto my own team. They know you well and have served you faithfully for years. And to be honest, Mr. President, we're going to

  need all the help we can get."

  9:45 P.M. EST-U.S. COAST GUARD COMMAND CENTER, CURTIS BAY, MARYLAND

  Sanders was stunned.

  Her hands were shaking. She closed her eyes and tried to think. She had to do

  something. Somebody had to do something. But what?

  She picked up the phone again and tried to speed-dial colleagues at Coast Guard

  stations throughout the Fifth District, but all the landlines were down. She was getting busy signals, recordings, or static. She tried calling the Eleventh District, covering

  California. Nothing. She tried calling numbers in the Guard's Thirteenth District, covering Seattle. Again, nothing. Had everyone been taken out? Or was it just the

  communications systems that had been destroyed or compromised?

  She glanced at her watch. She was supposed to report to the CDO immediately. How

  much longer could she stall before he sent someone to arrest her? A few more

  minutes, she figured. She might as well make the most of them.

  She tried to log on to the secure military intranet system, but a message kept popping

  up saying the main system was temporarily down, and she didn't have clearance for the top secret channels. Should she try a satellite line? Whom should she call? What would she say?

  Desperate, she pulled out her own private cell phone and speed-dialed her boyfriend,

  Tomas Ramirez, a plebe at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. She wanted to make sure he

  was safe, of course. But she also wanted

  the phone number of Tomas's brother, Carlos, a fighter pilot based out of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach. Carlos's squadron was known as the "Gunslingers." They flew F/A-18E Super Hornets, the fastest and deadliest fighter jets in the navy.

  Maybe, just maybe . . .

  The phone began to ring. That was a good sign. But it kept ringing, and Sanders

  started to worry.

  Finally, on the fifth ring, Tomas answered, in a whisper. "Babe, it's me—you okay?"

  "I'm fine," she whispered back. "And you?"

  "Okay for now, but they're evacuating us."

  Sanders gasped. "What? Why?"

  "They say the winds are bringing the radioactivity from D.C. towar
d us," he explained.

  "Where are you now?"

  "I'm on a bus," Ramirez said. "I have no idea where they're taking us. I'm not even

  supposed to be using my phone. That's why I'm whispering. Can I call you back later?"

  "No. Listen—I'm right in the middle of this thing and I don't know what to do. I'm in contact with the captain of a ship who actually saw the missiles launch from a container ship near him. He knows exactly which ship attacked D.C. We've got them, Tomas. I

  know where they are."

  "Really? That's incredible. Have we sunk it yet?"

  "No, not yet," Sanders said. "That's just it. I can't get anyone to do anything."

  "Why not? What's the problem?"

  "Nearly all our communications have been knocked out. Power is out over much of the country. Most of the Guard's ranking officers are dead. And my supervisor doesn't know

  what to do. He's panicking. But we've got to move fast."

  "I'll say," Ramirez said. "What if that ship fires again?"

  "Exactly," Sanders responded, relieved not just to hear her boyfriend's voice but to find someone who shared the urgency she felt. "That's what I've been saying. But no one's listening."

  "Fog of war," Ramirez said. "Textbook case."

  "So what do I do?" Sanders asked.

  "What do you need?"

  "I need a pair of fighter jets—fast."

  Ramirez suddenly got it. "Carlos."

  "Would you call him?"

  "Absolutely—just hold on, and pray I can get through to him."

  "Will do, Tomas, and thanks. I love you."

  "Love you too, babe. Now stay safe, and I'll see you soon."

  Sanders hung up the phone and bowed her head. Then she radioed the captain of the

  Double Dolphin. If they had any chance of success, she needed to have the latest Intel and be able to pass it up the chain of command at a moment's notice.

  Had the Liberian ship moved? she asked the captain.

  No, he said. Its engines were running but it didn't appear to be going anywhere. Not yet, anyway.

  Could he see any movement on deck?

  Yes, he said. There were lots of people scrambling about. They seemed to be opening one of the containers on the bow. They seemed to be constructing something, though he couldn't tell what and much of his view, he admitted, was obstructed by stacks of containers.