“That’s the same question Harrison and I had,” Jack said. “Based on Space Command’s annual survey of space objects, the satellite is quite new. It must have been launched into space sometime within the last six months. We’ve studied all of the space launches in that time period, and we suspect the Russians might have sent it up there for him shortly after Nightfall. Either that or it was Vega’s own rocket launched under Russian auspices.”
“Morgan, at the time, they were attempting to seize the advantage in space.” Jack said, averting his gaze. “And they still are. We don’t have tangible evidence that Vega is working with the Russians. Yet.”
“If our suspicions are correct, both China and the U.S. are being played by Anton Vega, a corrupt Russian oligarch, and their stooges to carry out some secret agenda.” She paused for a moment and then said, “We need to warn the president.”
“She does need to know about everything.” His tone was unusually dull.
“Unfortunately, I’ve been locked out of my building and stripped of my ID,” Morgan said, ignoring the sudden dip in his demeanor. “And no one will answer my emails or calls. Do you have any way to get back into the White House?”
Her uncle laughed out loud. “The Secret Service is practically breathing down my neck. If you really want to get back into the White House, you’re going to have to find a way in on your own. But I was secretly hoping you’d consider another option.”
“What other option?” Morgan asked, her eyebrow raised.
Jack leaned in and said in a low voice, “My jet is standing ready on the tarmac at Dulles. I want you to come with me.”
Morgan heaved a breath. “You’re fleeing the country.”
He nodded. “Secret Service will be coming for you soon. But it’s not too late if you come with me now.”
Morgan shrank back. “If I run, I’ll look guilty… and I’ve done nothing wrong.” Her thinking blurred for a moment, followed by a sudden moment of clarity.
“That won’t stop them from interrogating you and putting you through hell on my account,” Jack said.
Morgan took a deep breath and shook her head. “I’m staying. I have to warn the president about Anton Vega and the Russians.”
Jack sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He pulled something out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. “This might be helpful. It won’t comfortably get you through the front door of the White House, but it will get President Tolley’s attention once you’re inside.”
It was a small USB drive. Morgan turned it over in her hands several times and gave her uncle a quizzical look. “What is it?”
“It would be better if you didn’t know. Otherwise you’d have to lie to the president. I expect Tolley will be looking for this very soon,” he said. “You should give it to her. Say you got it from me and don’t know what it is. Tell her Harrison gave it to me right before he died. Tell her Grayson has a copy.”
Morgan blinked a few times.
Grayson has one too?
“Will this get you in trouble?” she asked, holding up the thumb drive.
“I’m already in trouble. But it should get you out of it since it points blame in the right direction.”
Morgan frowned. She didn’t like it when her uncle spoke to her in code.
Jack’s eyes became moist. “Whatever happens… I want you to know that I’ve always loved you like a daughter. I’ve made some big mistakes. But everything I did was in the interest of the United States. No matter what the evidence says, you have to believe that I’m innocent.”
Morgan nodded briskly. “I believe you.” She knew better than to ask where her uncle was going or when she’d see him again. He wouldn’t want to put her in a tough position by telling her.
Jack rose from the table. “Good. Because I’m going to need your help to clear my name.” He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. Then he headed out of the café and didn’t look back.
Morgan watched him walk down the street and disappear around the corner. Her eyes darted back to her office building where the same guard secured the side entrance.
I have to find a way to get back in.
47
Command and Control
SUSAN
1630
Oval Office
The White House
“Admiral, why didn’t you raise this issue during the meeting?” Susan asked with a deep frown. She squinted at him, trying to hide the extreme discomfort of her headache. Susan stood in a huddle with Admiral Waller and Colonel Martinez just inside the door of the Oval Office. Her arms were crossed, and she tapped her foot impatiently.
Admiral Waller cringed. “I’m sorry, Madam President. The notion began nagging at me when Grayson mentioned the loss of communication with Polaris toward the end of the meeting. I don’t have any tangible evidence to support my gut instinct, so I didn’t bring it up. But I’m compelled to tell you now. Between the tweets, the deep fakes, and now, this missile launch hoax… it feels more and more like someone wants us to focus on the conflict with China. Maybe so that we’re too distracted to notice something else?” He shuffled his feet, apparently uncomfortable with any form of speculation.
“You mean like a red herring?” Susan asked. “You think the Russians might be up to something? And they want us to keep our eyes on China?”
Admiral Waller nodded. “Ma’am, the issue with Polaris is particularly troubling without Constellation. The Department of Defense is desperately trying to replace the layer of space sensors as we speak. But until we do, we’re rather vulnerable to a surprise attack with hypersonic missiles because they can evade our radar systems. And if we don’t have operational satellites with infrared sensors, we can’t even detect their launches.”
Susan stared down at the edge of the oval carpet at her feet, biting her lip. “You’re saying that if our early warning satellites go dark, the ARC system can’t see hypersonic missiles coming toward us at all.”
“We would be operating blind,” Admiral Waller said. “At least until hypersonic missiles hit their targets.”
“Madam President, if I may.” Colonel Martinez took a small step toward her and blinked rapidly. “On that note, there’s another issue you should be aware of.” He looked a bit peaked, and he rubbed the back of his neck as if he were uncertain about speaking up.
Admiral Waller snapped his head toward Martinez, apparently surprised by the intervention. Even so, there was no flicker of irritation on his wrinkled face. Susan had always been impressed by his ability to remain calm no matter what the circumstances. It was for this reason that she found the admiral’s uncertainty about the U.S. early warning system especially upsetting.
Susan’s skin tingled. She was unaccustomed to seeing a high-ranking U.S. Marine display any obvious signs of distress.
What could possibly be more important than the detection of missile launches?
“What is it, Colonel?” Susan asked, giving Martinez an encouraging smile.
“I’m concerned that ARC may be misreading signals from China as aggression,” Martinez said, avoiding direct eye contact. “That means—”
Admiral Waller raised his eyebrow and interjected, “What are you trying to say, Colonel?” There was a hint of strain in his voice now, and he widened his stance. “You attended the same test with me today, and ARC performed better than we both could have imagined during a conflict with China. Afterwards, you reassured me there was nothing to worry about.”
“That’s the thing, sir. After we spoke, I learned something new—”
“Madam President!” Elise came running through the door, her face dotted with red blotchy spots and her eyes as round as saucers. “Ma’am, I need you to come to the Situation Room right away.” Then she noticed the admiral. “You too, sir.”
“What now?” Susan said, putting her hand on her forehead. She desperately needed to take some pills for her headache.
Elise waved urgently at them to follow her. “NORAD has conf
irmed missile launches from China’s submarines in the South China Sea.”
Susan held her breath. “What? But I thought… missile launches?” She stopped in her tracks, froze, and stared at Elise’s face. “Wait, why didn’t NORAD detect them before?”
Are these the same missiles from social media?
“Ma’am, I don’t know the details, but there’s no time to lose,” Elise said, holding the door and motioning for them to hurry. “C’mon. We need to move. Now.”
Susan marched into the Situation Room to find her advisors sitting stiffly at the conference table. When they noticed her arrival, a chilly tension filled the air, causing the hair on her arms to stand on end. Everyone rose from their chairs as dictated by protocol, but she urged them to quickly take their seats again. Admiral Waller and Colonel Martinez filed into the room after her and found their seats.
Everyone turned to look at her expectantly. The stark silence among the country’s top civilian and military leaders felt like a vacuum, sucking up every bit of hope she had left. Her body tensed, and time seemed to slow way down. A burst of adrenaline caused her head to throb even harder than before.
Susan paused for a moment before sitting down to survey the new features in the room. A panel had opened up at the center of the table to reveal one of the ARC system’s servers and a small projector, which shone light from its lens. A blue and white hologram of the ARC dashboard hovered above the table. A small number keypad sat on the table near her chair.
Her advisors around the table seemed entranced by the red blinking lights on the dashboard. Her eyes darted to several white flashing missile markers located on the world map. From a quick glance, it appeared that several missiles were emanating from the South China Sea.
Susan had only seen the hologram dashboard once before when she’d received her initial technical briefing on the ARC system. Even as a demo, the notion of watching nuclear war unfold in real time had haunted her imagination for several weeks.
This was it, the point of no return. Susan had the feeling she was about to face the biggest nuclear crisis of her generation, maybe even the worst in world history. And it was her job to navigate a clean way out of the mess. It was up to her to save millions of lives and perhaps even life on the planet itself. As if doubling the force of the Earth’s gravity, the burden of that responsibility pulled on every muscle in her tired body.
From the head of the table, she nodded at her advisors around the room and then at the large divided video screen on the wall on which the commanders of NORAD, Strategic Command (STRATCOM), and Indo-Pacific Command tuned in over secure video conference. The screen next to it broadcasted video footage live from the National Military Command Center where a gaggle of sober-looking Pentagon senior leaders gathered in the war room.
Susan took a deep breath and then raised her eyebrow. Everyone was present except for one notable figure. “Where’s General Burke?” she asked, turning to Elise as she sank into her chair.
Elise shook her head. “Ma’am, we weren’t able to catch him in time. He headed straight back to the Pentagon right after the last meeting concluded. He will tune in from there shortly.”
“No,” Susan said quickly. “Call him now. Have him go directly to Andrews Air Force Base.”
“But ma’am,” Elise said. “This isn’t… um… is it?”
Susan knew the question her chief of staff was asking, but she couldn’t afford to fathom the possible answers. Not now. Even if Susan might be living through her last few minutes before the start of a nuclear war, she couldn’t acknowledge that fact yet. No, Susan had to pretend there was a small chance she could figure out a way to prevent a nuclear war from happening.
“Just do it,” Susan said. “Burke can call into the meeting from Air Force One. But I want him in the air and on the way to Raven Rock in less than thirty minutes. Do you hear?” Susan grabbed Elise’s arm and pulled her closer. Now whispering in her ear, she said, “Have Secret Service collect Blake, Lucy, and Penny and bring them to the bunker. I’ll be able to think more clearly if they’re down there.” She ignored the painful stab in her gut at the thought she might never see her family again.
Elise nodded quickly and departed the room to make the calls.
Susan swallowed hard and swiveled her chair around to face the room again. The irony of Burke surviving an initial nuclear attack while all of them perished deliberating in a conference room tasted bitter in her mouth. But she couldn’t worry about that and needed to focus on the task at hand. Susan turned to her military commanders on the screen with a sense of haste. “Sirs, please fill me in on the situation.”
“Madam President, our early warning satellite network has gone completely offline,” the NORAD Commander said on the video screen. “That’s why we failed to detect three nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles launched from China’s submarines in the South China Sea.”
“These are the same ones reported on social media by the fishermen?” Susan asked, holding back a scowl since she already suspected the answer.
“Yes, ma’am. We picked them up on our sea-based radar for only a few seconds, but long enough to get some data. They were traveling near the coastal waters of the Philippines, but we lost them again. Without Constellation, it’s extremely difficult to track them.”
Susan glanced at her watch. “But that was more than ten minutes ago now. I assume they would have reached their targets by now.”
“You are correct, ma’am,” the NORAD Commander said. “We believe the test launches were part of China’s war game. We assume the missiles armed with conventional warheads must have landed in the ocean somewhere nearby, but we couldn’t see them without our eyes in the sky.”
Susan exhaled a breath of relief and relaxed her shoulders. Then her brow furrowed as she absorbed the bad news. “Do we know why our early warning satellite system has gone offline? Does it have anything to do with the loss of Polaris communications earlier?” She looked at Grayson for answers.
Grayson dipped his head before speaking up. “Ma’am, I haven’t had time to confirm the details. But it would appear that a hacker has gained control over Polaris and used it to corrupt our entire early warning satellite network, as well as other military intelligence satellites—”
Susan wrinkled her forehead. “Other military satellites? Are you saying we can’t see anything overhead at the moment?”
“Ma’am, we lost so many of our space assets during Nightfall that we temporarily networked many of the remaining ones with other satellite networks,” Grayson said. “We also doubled up our sensors on each satellite to compensate for the loss in our capabilities. But that made our network of networks more vulnerable to cyberthreats, especially in the event that one satellite was compromised. As far as detecting any nuclear missile launches goes, it looks like we are now operating in the dark. At least until our radars pick up signals from ballistic missiles after the boost phase.”
Susan’s eyes darted to Elizabeth, who was unusually quiet without her arch nemesis in the room. “Have we heard anything from the Chinese?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “No, ma’am. They’ve not said anything on official or unofficial channels. But whatever we do, I believe reassuring the Chinese of our peaceful intentions must be the first step in any response plan. I think we should call the Chinese ambassador to clarify our position… before it’s too late.”
Susan looked at the ARC dashboard again. The blinking white missile indicators nagged at her. “Why hasn’t ARC updated the status of the three missiles launched from the South China Sea? I thought we decided they landed in the ocean somewhere.” She pointed to the hologram dashboard and then stared at her military commanders on the video screen.
“Ma’am, that’s because ARC doesn’t have any information to verify the status of those missiles,” the STRATCOM commander said.
Susan nearly laughed out loud but caught herself just in time. The system has no common sense.
The STRATCOM commander
paused for a moment, giving her a strange look on the video screen as if he were trying to see better. When she said nothing, he continued. “ARC relies upon the data it receives from our early warning satellites, radar systems, and other sensors to reach its conclusions. Because ARC currently can’t detect the launch of the missiles, determine what type of missiles they are, or see the missiles land in the ocean at the moment, it can’t update the status. The ARC system is waiting for some sort of definitive signal before drawing a final conclusion.”
Are you fucking serious?
Susan recoiled. “But can’t ARC derive their status from the lack of radiation or electromagnetic pulse? Doesn’t the complete absence of signals suggest the obvious outcome?”
“Ma’am, the hypersonic missiles were nuclear-capable, and we’re assuming they were armed with conventional warheads in the absence of either indicator,” the STRATCOM commander said. “Since explosions caused by conventional warheads don’t produce easily detectable signatures like nuclear weapons, ARC doesn’t have the necessary data to update the missile status.”
Admiral Waller leaned forward. “Ma’am, if I may suggest something.”
She nodded.
“We discussed increasing the alert status to DEFCON 3 earlier, and you were going to take time to consider your decision,” he said. “Unfortunately, I think that time has come sooner than you’d hoped. If we increase the alert status of U.S. nuclear forces, we would unlock the barrier between ARC’s ISR component and the rest of the system. This allows the ARC system to receive a data infusion just like it does in advance of its monthly tests. That would improve the fidelity of our situation awareness which, I think, has become critical given the complete lack of data from our satellites.”
Susan scratched her head as she wondered what other shocking limitations ARC would demonstrate in a crisis situation. Before she could formulate her next question, Elise jumped out of her seat and whispered something in her ear.
Rescind Order Page 31
