by Bobby Akart
Owen replied in all seriousness, “As soon as I can shut down my computer and walk out the door, I’ll be on my way.”
She glanced at the time. It normally took Owen an hour or a little longer to travel from Sunnyvale out to their house in the hills overlooking Hayward.
“Tucker and I are gonna run to Safeway. We should be back about the same time you get here.”
“Are you gonna pick up dinner?” asked Owen.
Lacey reached up to close the garage door again. “Something like that. Love you!” She disconnected the call and backed out of the driveway.
“Mom, what’s the plan?”
Lacey set her jaw. “We’ve got some shopping to do, son.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Monday, October 21
Oval Office
The White House
It had been a long day, and President Helton was exhausted. He’d just been briefed on the airstrikes at the Pakistani nuclear facility. He was beginning to be concerned the American military presence in the region was being stretched too thin. They simply didn’t have sufficient assets deployed to fight a conflict in the Middle East and defend their Indian allies in South Asia. Tensions needed to be tamped down, and he tasked his most loyal cabinet member, the secretary of state, to handle it.
He had a scheduled meeting with the Iranian ambassador in thirty minutes. It was a rare face-to-face opportunity for the man who was capable of spewing more lies than any propagandist the president had ever met. However, because Iran stubbornly continued to block the Strait of Hormuz with no apparent achievable goal, President Helton wanted to deliver a personal ultimatum. Get out of the way, or we’re going to sink every ship in your fleet.
The Pentagon was prepared to back up the threat, and military assets were being positioned to carry out his orders. But then the government in New Delhi gummed up the works. Their preemptive attack on Pakistan wasn’t a bad idea; it was the timing that caused problems for American interests. Now, with the intelligence confirmed that Pakistan was maneuvering its nuclear warheads into position via mobile launchpads, the region was a powder keg with a short fuse.
He’d asked his advisors how bad it could get. They equivocated in their response. China was the wild card in the region. The Kashmir region, the source of the ongoing military hostilities in addition to the cultural ones, was in the Himalayas at China’s border. A ground invasion would almost certainly draw their attention and likely lead to a declaration of war by Beijing. The land was beautiful, and it had certain religious ties to the Pakistanis, but President Helton couldn’t fathom why it was worth fighting a war over. Especially a nuclear war.
To their credit, both India and China had maintained a no first use doctrine in which India promised to use its nuclear weapons only in response to Pakistan’s first strike. Pakistan had refused to issue any clear doctrine to that effect.
For years, U.S. presidents have grappled with the possibility a false-flag terrorist attack might generate a nuclear response. Through some mishap or error, the nuclear missiles could fly. An escalation in Kashmir could be another cause. Certainly, the air strikes were a very bold provocation, one that angered most world leaders.
President Helton planned on taking the lead in deescalating the conflict. He was going to ask for restraint and demand both countries come to the negotiating table to work toward a long-term fix. He would impress upon them that the last thing either government, or the world for that matter, needed was more mushroom clouds.
With this on his mind, he turned his attention to the Iranian ambassador, who was about to get a promise of his own. Get out of the Strait of Hormuz or prepare to deal with the full brunt of America’s military might.
Tomorrow, he’d deal with Pakistan and India.
Part V
One Week in October
Day five, Tuesday, October 22
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tuesday, October 22
South Asia
Pakistan convened its National Command Authority in an undisclosed location many miles from any population centers. It quietly relocated its highest government officials and their immediate families into the wilderness near Tajikistan, as far away from India as possible. Its citizens were given a siren warning the moment after the launch sequence was triggered.
In Islamabad, the nation’s capital, residents had less than twenty minutes to rush into a fallout shelter that could hold less than eight percent of the population. Those with wealth were able to buy their way into a bunker. Others had to look for basements of buildings built on a rocky landscape.
On both sides of the Pakistan-India border, across the entire subcontinent of South Asia, home to nearly two billion people, nuclear war had broken out. Virtually all the residents of these two nations were on their own as the nuclear warheads flew.
India, with a population of one-point-four billion, had more to lose in terms of human life. Fifty of its cities had populations in excess of one million. Five had over five million. Across the country, because nuclear power formed an important part of India’s energy mix, Pakistani targets included nuclear reactors and atomic power plants in addition to missile launch sites.
Both nations relied upon a combination of medium- and long-range missile systems deployed close to their mutual border and in hardened silos within striking distance. Some of the targets included the silos, but the moving targets, the rail/road mobile launchers, were constantly relocated. History proved these strategic weapons to have been the deadliest. They were virtually unstoppable, especially at such close range.
Like Iran, and unlike Israel, both nations placed an emphasis on nuclear deterrence through an ever-growing arsenal. Following the twentieth-century model of mutually assured destruction, both governments presumed the other would show restraint. Recently, a reporter from the Washington Times had reached out to the Indian Home Affairs Minister and asked how his government was planning to protect its people from a nuclear strike. He laughed at the question, replied utter nonsense, and hung up the phone.
There was nothing nonsensical about the regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It made the Six-Hour War in the Middle East look like a short quarrel between lovers. The nuclear arsenals possessed by the South Asian nations might have been inferior to the nuclear stockpiles of Russia, China, and the U.S., but the sheer volume of weapons launched during the daylong war was astonishing.
Pakistan and India hosted some of the most densely populated cities on the planet. Calcutta, Karachi and Mumbai contained more than sixty-five thousand people per square mile. By comparison, New York City’s population density was less than half that.
Each of the two nations’ forty-kiloton nuclear warheads created a firestorm that covered fifty square miles. The immediate effects of the detonations—the fireball, the overpressure wave, and resulting radiation burns—killed hundreds of millions in the region. The larger, one-hundred-kiloton warheads had a greater blast radius, and the overpressure waves reduced hardened structures to rubble while increasing the death toll fourfold.
And that was just the beginning. Like Tehran and Tel Aviv, major cities in South Asia would suffer slow, lingering deaths due to radiation exposure. Their healthcare and other critical infrastructure had collapsed. The nuclear blasts triggered deadly firestorms far worse than the deadly napalm bombings had done during World War II in Tokyo.
As the rest of the world watched in horror, billions said prayers for the dead and begged for peace. Many in America were thankful the nuclear war hadn’t taken place in their country. They hugged their families and comforted one another in the thought that the nuclear exchange wouldn’t affect them.
Sadly, they were wrong.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Tuesday, October 22
Driftwood Key
“Let’s do this!” exclaimed Hank as he pressed the throttles down on his forty-five-foot Hatteras Sportfish yacht. He and Erin exchanged high fives at the state-of-the-art upper helm s
urrounded by next-generation electronics and comfortable seating. It was truly another beautiful day in paradise on the smooth coastal waters off Driftwood Key.
Earlier that morning, Hank, like always, made his way to the beach to find solace after a restless night. His mind raced to all of the possibilities raised by Peter’s phone call. With the help of a warm brandy and after reading several chapters from a new novel about a massive earthquake along the Mississippi River, he finally drifted off to sleep. He awoke refreshed and anxious to search out Erin, as he hadn’t seen her since Sunday.
The smile that broke across his face when he approached the water’s edge could’ve shattered glass. She stood alone, facing the main house, with a breakfast smoothie in each hand. He picked up the pace and was practically jogging toward her after he noticed her standing there.
“I have a special delivery from Phoebe!” she’d said loudly as he arrived. “She told me to give you a lecture on not taking care of yourself and chastise you for skipping your smoothie.”
“I’m not drinking both, mom,” Hank added jokingly.
“One’s for me,” she said as she tipped the cup to her mouth, leaving a creamy mustache above her lip.
Hank burst out laughing, and like his new friend, he pushed the straw aside and recreated the act. Only, his mustache was a little too runny, and he looked more like Cujo, the crazed dog in the Stephen King story.
They shyly admitted they’d missed one another yesterday, and without getting into serious subjects, Hank offered to take Erin fishing. Thirty minutes later, with Jimmy’s assistance in preparing the Hatteras to sail, the two kids were off for a day of sun and fun.
The Albright boat was in excellent condition because Hank, like his father, was meticulous about maintenance. The Hatteras was used by the resort to take its guests fishing, usually captained by Hank or Jimmy, plus a new captain who was used sporadically. Both of them treated it with care, and therefore one never knew it had plenty of hours on it.
“Where are we headed?” she asked as she sat on the raised seat next to him at the helm.
“It’s still warm, so reef fishing will probably be a little slow. I love grouper and snapper, but I don’t wanna sit around if the waters aren’t cool enough. This is a pretty good time to fish offshore for wahoo and blackfin tuna. If you’re up for a ride, I say we head out about a hundred fathoms and see how we do.” To landlubbers, one hundred fathoms was equal to about six hundred feet of water.
“Whatever you say, Captain!” she replied enthusiastically.
Hank, caught up in the moment, turned on the audio system to fire up his favorite playlist of beach and island songs. Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney and other artists randomly blared through the speakers. Caught up in the moment, they pumped up the volume and began to sing along.
Once they reached one of Hank’s favorite spots to fish, he set up the fighting chair on the aft deck and prepared the rods in their strategically placed holders. As he did, he explained to Erin his thought processes, and she eagerly soaked in the tutorial. Throughout, the two flirted, laughed, and became more physical with one another. Subtle touches of the arm and back. Occasional tender moments of moving Erin’s hair out of her face or allowing Hank to wrap his arms around her as she reeled in a fish. They had a mutual attraction to one another that seemed to move to another level each day.
Hank had just pulled out a picnic basket of food and wine packed by Phoebe, when he glanced toward the back of the boat. He startled Erin with his outburst, but then she joined in the excitement.
“Big fish on! Here we go!” He abruptly set down the basket and sprang across the fiberglass deck to the back of the boat. Erin was hot on his heels and set herself in the fighting chair. As Hank had taught her, she strapped in tight because, as he’d said, you never know what’s gonna take the bait.
A blackfin tuna could stretch to three feet and forty pounds. The wahoo was a more formidable adversary. Some of them have measured nearly eight feet and a hundred seventy pounds. Then there was the grand prize of them all, the blue marlin, although it was very late in the season for them.
Hank turned to Erin and asked, “Ready?”
She nodded eagerly with a bit of trepidation. She’d learned enough from their morning session that the line told the fisherman a lot about what was on the other end. The five-and-a-half-foot carbon-fiber rod bowed like a tall palm tree in a Cat 5 hurricane.
Hank studied Erin. Believing she was up to the task, he gripped the pole and heaved it from the rod holder. He placed it in the fighting chair’s solid stainless steel rod gimbal. Erin held on tight, her muscles protesting as the fish zipped out the line.
Hank hustled to reel in the other trolling lines as a large crested dorsal fin splashed out of the Gulf in the middle of the boat’s frothy wake.
Erin was glad she was all buckled up because the powerful fish would’ve certainly pulled her hundred-thirty-pound body overboard. “Hank! Is it what I think it is?”
“It’s a bluey, baby! Hang on. Keep the rod steady. Make sure the butt of the pole stays firm in the holder. It’s gonna be a helluva fight!”
“Maybe you should—?”
“Nope. You got this!” Hank dashed up to the flybridge to grab his binoculars. He cranked up the Jimmy Buffett song “Fins to the Left” to offer Erin encouragement. The song was ostensibly about shark fins, but the blue marlin’s zigzagged path from one side of the boat’s wake to the other called for some lively music. Erin was in for a real fight.
He arrived by her side and studied the marlin. He dropped the binoculars and then looked again. She noticed his movements.
“Is it big?” she said, readjusting her grip as her hands began to cramp.
“Two hundred. At least,” he said just loud enough to be heard over the music. “Let’s give it another hundred yards. Let it swim a little.”
Erin adjusted her grip and let out the line as Hank had taught her. The marlin was now tugging on four hundred feet of line in a primal war of man versus king of the sea. Blue marlin was one of the world’s most sought-after game fish. Hank could take a dozen trips during a season and not even see one. Yet here they were, at the most unlikely of times, with a relatively inexperienced angler in the chair battling a real beauty.
“Hank, my arms are on fire!”
“Okay, let me help while you relax.”
Hank wrapped his arms around Erin and gripped the rod. Frankly, he hadn’t expected to reel in a blue marlin in late October. He was not muscular by any means. Tanned and toned in an island sort of way would’ve better described his physique. Had he known what was on the other end of the line, he might’ve taken the lead on this. Reeling in a blue marlin was no easy task, even for a fit and experienced angler.
Hank began reeling the beast in. He fought the tension, reeling and pulling with everything he had. Erin relieved him with a vigor and sense of purpose that astonished Hank. Maybe it was the effort he made in assisting her? Maybe it was the fact the two worked as a team to bring in the mighty fish? Either way, she put the muscle to the task and set her jaw, with determination in her eyes.
“There is no answer on their cell phones either,” said Sonny as he nervously stood among the three men who’d suddenly appeared on the front porch of the main house. They were all dressed in dark suits, starched shirts, and blue ties. There was little doubt to the streetwise Sonny that they were from the government. Regardless, he insisted upon seeing their identification. They were with the Secret Service.
“The secretary knows better than being out of communication with her staff,” one of the men said. “Where are they?” he asked as he looked out into the Gulf. There wasn’t a boat in sight.
“I don’t know,” replied Sonny. “Hank has a number of spots that he prefers. He may have gone flats fishing up around Duck Key. If he wanted to take a nice ride, they might’ve gone offshore.”
“Good god,” the agent said with a huff. He tapped one of his agents on the arm. “Call
the Coast Guard. Deploy a couple of choppers to sweep the inshore areas. The boat is a forty-five-foot Hatteras flybridge. Two passengers. Once identified, have them intercept with one of their Defender-class boats. There’s no time to waste.”
He turned to Sonny, who asked a question. “Can you tell me what this is about?”
The agent sighed and thought for a brief moment. “I guess you’ll see it on the news soon enough. Pakistan and India are at war.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Sonny asked, genuinely confused.
“Nuclear war.”
Sonny stood a little taller, and his eyes got wide. Prior to that statement, he’d been helpful but not the model of cooperativeness.
“Come with me, sir. Let’s take a look at the map. I can narrow down your search area.”
“Prepare to be boarded!”
The voice blared over a loudspeaker that practically muted Kenny Chesney’s singing and Hank’s encouragement of Erin’s efforts.
He spun around to find the source of the demand. Two Coast Guard vessels were easing up to the Hatteras on both sides of his bow. The twenty-five-foot boats abruptly slowed to a stop but brought their wake with them, causing the Hatteras to sway violently from side to side.
Erin turned her head to see what was happening. Her relaxed grip on the rod and loss of concentration ended the fight. The fish sensed a change in dynamic and cut toward the boat. It broke the plane of the water and launched itself into the air. The massive blue fish whipped its head back and forth in a flash, propelling the hook out of its mouth just before it splashed back down in the water.
