The Land of the Free

by Krakondack

  “Reports are all over the map, Madam Secretary. Some say it’s Chinese, some say they’re Americans. You’re probably dealing with a mix.”

  “Any word from Andrews?” asked Torres.

  “It’s fallen, Sir. I’m afraid there’s no quick way out for you now.”

  “Is there anything in the area we can call on?”

  “Quantico and the Pentagon had the only forces that could put up any kind of fight. The others all have administrative and ceremonial functions. Now they’ve fallen too. Nobody else even has enough soldiers on site to protect themselves, never mind save us here.”

  There was an awkward silence in the situation room as the gravity of what they were facing began to sink in. As a result of their posturing over an island on the other side of the world, they had left the nation’s capital undefended. They had done this repeatedly over the years, sure that they could never be attacked, and were now confronting the gravity of their miscalculations.

  “If it were an invasion fleet we would have seen them and been ready,” said Mac Johnson, to no particular effect. The staff in the situation room did not even look around at each other trying to size up the situation. There was no posturing, no attempts to outshine colleagues. All anyone did was to stare down at the table or the floor. Some wiped moist eyes. They had been caught off guard, and they had all contributed to the assumption of invincibility that had led to this tragedy.

  Torres finally spoke up. “How secure are we here in the White House?”

  “We have Secret Service staff of around 20. Perhaps a few dozen Marines nearby,” said Johnson. “Beyond that, Capitol Police and Security are all that stands between us and them. If we’re a target we should assume we can’t hold anyone off for more than an hour or two.”

  “Are there any reports of troops in DC yet?”

  “Actually no, Sir. It appears they’re securing all possible sources of resistance first. But I can’t see it being too long.”

  “Can we get any troops here from outside the region?” asked Torres.

  “I don’t know Sir,” said Johnson. “First of all we don’t have many stateside to begin with. “Secondly, I’ve been getting unconfirmed reports that Air Force bases around the country have come under attack by some sort of Special Forces. They’re armed with heavy stuff, the latest weapons. Any plane that leaves the hangar is destroyed, and the bases are falling to the attackers.”

  “How did China get that stuff to begin with, never mind get it into the country?” asked Torres.

  “They didn’t,” interjected John Corson. “The Chinese troops are only securing lightly defended targets right now. Your Air Force bases are under siege by Morningstar Security mercenaries. They’ve been at the core of this all along, and I’d bet a good dollar they’re the ones behind the massacre at the Pentagon.”

  “Ellis!” exclaimed Torres with disgust. “So that’s what he had in mind.”

  Bill Connolly burst into the room and interrupted everyone. “I just got a video from the commanding officer at Laughlin AFB. It had that Border Patrol Agent who disappeared recently also. He’d been abducted in northern Mexico and held at a massive base staffed by Chinese troops until he escaped. They crossed the border into the United States early this morning. It’s the Chinese. They’re behind this.”

  “Get him on the line,” said Torres.

  “We can’t Sir. Laughlin’s been taken over. There’s nothing standing between that army and most of the underbelly of the United States. Lackland in San Antonio’s fallen too.” Connolly opened his laptop and played a video for the group. It showed the massive base at San Gustavo, interspersed with snippets of Cam Burrows speaking about being abducted by Chinese forces in Mexico. Torres watched it with a frown and an occasional shake of his head.

  “We’re facing a highly coordinated operation,” said Morgensen.

  “It’s a wonder that they haven’t taken us already,” said Kurdi. “Command and control are always the first objective.”

  “We’ll operate under the premise that time is short,” said Morgensen, walking into the room and turning off her cell phone. “We assume that we are a target, that we need to put together a response quickly, and evacuate the President to safety in a hurry.”

  As she took her seat, an aide entered and whispered something into Mac Johnson’s ear. Johnson turned in alarm and asked, “This is confirmed?”

  The aide nodded, adding, “Yes Sir, I’m afraid so.”

  Johnson then said, “You need to tell the room what you just told me. Include any other details you know about.”

  “There appears to have been a high-altitude nuclear detonation in the vicinity of our forces in Taiwan. Communicating with our forces is impossible at present, as the atmosphere is charged with so many ions.”

  “EMP (21)?” asked Johnson.

  “Looks like it,” said the aide.

  “Then we’re dead in the water,” replied Johnson. “You can forget about using any of the equipment over there.”

  “Explain!” demanded Torres. “What’s EMP? And why can’t they do anything?”

  “Electromagnetic pulse Sir,” said Johnson. “A nuclear explosion at high altitude doesn’t destroy anything on the ground with its fireball or shock wave. But it floods the region with an enormous wave of electrically charged particles. It’s like a localized version of what a massive solar storm could do, but it can be far more intense in the region of the detonation. On a small scale, you can use a conventional device to wipe out a small grid. The outcome is that any microchip in the area experiences a surge in induced current so massive, it’s destroyed.”

  “You mean our military microchips are not shielded against this?” demanded Torres.

  “Certain ones are shielded,” replied Johnson. “But it’s only a relative shielding factor. A true nuclear EMP can overwhelm even most of those. And our biggest vulnerability is that the number of shielded chips is small. The proliferation of electronics in weapons systems has run far ahead of our ability to go back and retrofit shielded chips everywhere. A weapon system might have some surviving subsystems, but also a number of dead ones, and the whole can’t work without all its parts.”

  “And you also used Chinese chips,” said Millie Howe. “When my husband was still active in the Navy, he identified a flaw in Chinese chips that made them particularly vulnerable to EMP of just this kind. He tried to get the Navy to exclude them from any combat system, but couldn’t get your predecessors to take him seriously. He retired shortly after that. Today the vulnerable chips are included in the majority of military electronics.”

  “Great news!” said Torres, sarcastically. “What about casualties, what are we going to see?”

  “Any plane in the air will probably crash, though the pilots may survive if they’re lucky. Ships may not be mobile,” said Johnson. “The blast itself won’t sink ships or destroy buildings on the ground. Troops won’t develop any radiation sickness. I should also say that after the static in the atmosphere clears, we may be able to communicate with at least the biggest ships. Some communication systems were systematically hardened for EMP resistance, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Then we have no way of responding?” asked Torres.

  There was silence in the room for a long five seconds or so. Connolly finally responded, “There’s always the nuclear option.”

  “I’m guessing you don’t mean that metaphorically, Bill,” said Torres.

  “No Sir, I mean it quite literally,” said Connolly.

  “All my life, I’ve believed it’s a complete failure of statesmanship and war craft to have to resort to nuclear strikes,” said Torres, somberly.

  “But it’s definitely complete failure of governance and vigilance to allow your nation to be defeated and occupied, particularly in this fashion,” replied Morgensen. “What else would you do now?”

  Torres said nothing in reply. After another pause, Mac Johnson spoke up. “Our surface forces in the region are incapacitated
right now. But EMP doesn’t penetrate the water too deep, so our subs could still launch their Tridents. And we have our ICBMs – InterContinental Ballistic Missiles – here at home. They should be ready.”

  Everyone in the room could feel the crushing weight that had just descended onto Torres’ shoulders.

  “Mindful of the President’s reservations, we have to explore every alternative,” said Hanna Morgensen. “And the value of our investments in China is not to be taken lightly.”

  Jess Linssman became sick to her stomach at the thought that the principal argument against a nuclear strike on China was the value of corporate investments. She excused herself and left the room.

  Torres took the departure as a signal to winnow down to a small number that would have to make the decision. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to go into executive session now. Mr. Corson, Mr. Ferguson, please stay on.” John and Lyle were in the process of getting up, but sat back down at the President’s request.

  Chapter 73: Executive Session

  The only ones left after the room was cleared were Morgensen, Connolly, Kurdi, Johnson, Corson, Ferguson and Torres. “I don’t know who I can trust anymore, so I’ve asked Mr. Corson and Mr. Ferguson to stay on. They know more about this than any of us, and I need to keep everyone honest.”

  Torres placed a call to the Chinese embassy, which had to scramble to find the ambassador. When he finally appeared by video-conference, Torres demanded that “You immediately withdraw your forces back to the secure port facilities, and back across the Mexican border.”

  The ambassador reacted as though he had been asked to stop an invasion of Martians. “Sir, I assure you China has done no such thing. The embassy is operating normally today. We have no special instructions of any kind. It is inconceivable that my government could have ordered such a thing.”

  Frustrated by the exchange, Torres hung up the line. “He’d react like that regardless of the truth behind it.”

  He turned to the group. “Defense and retaliation are the questions now. Defense is easy. I’ll call home whatever forces are able to respond and come home. It’s retaliation we need to discuss.”

  “Retaliation against the Chinese?” asked Morgensen.

  “Of course, who else?” said Torres.

  “Rhetorical question, Mr. President,” said Morgensen. “We don’t have irrefutable proof they are responsible.”

  “And we likely never will,” said Connolly. “The urgency of this situation demands action in the absence of such proof. They know that US policy is never to exclude first use of nuclear weapons. It was the foundation of our deterrence policy. To not use it now would eviscerate the very concept of deterrence. And secondly what’s with this crap that we don’t have proof? It’s Chinese soldiers, Chinese guns, Chinese FN-6 missiles taking down our aircraft before they can get off the ground. And given our covert operations lately, they have the motive of retaliation. What more do you want?”

  “I’m afraid I have to agree,” said Morgensen. “The situation is now beyond the capabilities of the conventional forces that remain at our disposal. At the end of the day, what we are contemplating does not constitute a first strike, since our forces were technically attacked by a nuclear weapon. We have to strike back now and retain the capability for further strikes. The negotiations to come will not be pretty, and we need credible threats. Use the ICBMs now, and keep the Tridents as a further threat to force withdrawal.”

  “Could we hit them with an EMP?” asked Torres.

  “There’s no time to reprogram the ICBMs,” said Johnson. “Our EMP-producing missiles are on our ships. Guess where those ships are.”

  “So what the hell were they thinking?” asked Kurdi. “To invade the US and not assume you will be sent back into the stone age, glowing?”

  “That’s troubled me from the start,” said John Corson, who had been quiet to this point. “I had to decide early if what we’d stumbled on was plausible. In the end I decided that if it was real, there had to be a plan to neutralize the nuclear response. Otherwise, it was irrational. When did this all start? Maybe eight hours ago? And here we sit, still able to launch the nuclear strike? Right now it’s looking pretty irrational.”

  “As of this moment, our ICBMs are online,” retorted Johnson. “How long that remains the case, I can’t say. You have to assume also that our ability to communicate will only last as long as it takes them to seize control of our facilities. And at that point, our ability to retaliate is in fact neutralized. Mr. Corson, we may only have a small window of opportunity before any plan to neutralize our ICBMs comes into play. The Chinese plan probably factored in the time we would waste arguing about the matter.”

  “Are we in agreement then, that a prompt nuclear retaliation is in fact our only viable option?” The Cobra was finally showing her hand. “I hate to rush such a decision, but it will soon be out of our hands completely.”

  “Give me five minutes, Hanna,” said Torres. “It’s my name that will be attached to this decision in history, not yours. John and Lyle, come with me to the Oval Office.”

  “Five minutes may be all you have, Mr. President,” said Morgensen. “There are reports of troops in DC now.”

  …

  “Gentlemen, I’m probably the most manipulated man in America, and now’s not the time to be taken in by bullshit. Did anything in there strike you as off?” Torres sat down in his chair across the desk from John and Lyle, who were still a little overwhelmed.

  “Sir, the whole premise is fishy.” said John. “We’ve been aware of the attack for close to an hour now, and it began long ago. You’ve had time to launch a counterstrike and so far as we can tell, there’s been no move to take out that capability, nor to occupy the White House and capture you before you can give the order. The Chinese ambassador was correct. It’s inconceivable that they would order this and leave themselves open for annihilation. Surely they have an idea of how trigger happy those people are in the situation room.”

  “Are you suggesting it’s not the Chinese behind this?” asked Torres.

  “Chinese assets and Chinese soldiers are being used Sir, there’s no doubt about that,” said John. “But is the Chinese government involved? There, I’m beginning to develop some doubts.”

  “I can trace things back to a visit I had from a Chinese envoy that was adamant that we couldn’t pay our debts back, and that they wanted compensation of a different sort. I thought they meant Taiwan. Secretary Morgensen steered me into massively fortifying Taiwan. That’s how we overcommitted our troops over there to begin with. Now that it’s happened, she wants me to launch a nuclear strike with no more deliberation than if I were to order some kind of training exercise. I don’t think the prospect of 500 million deaths means anything to her. And what you saw in there, with her holding back her opinion, was that she was pretending to be neutral at first and then to be swayed by the situation. She knew all along where she wanted this to go.”

  “One other thing has always sat badly with me, Sir,” said John. “Derek Ellis captured Frank and me, and initially demanded to know everything we knew. I let on that I knew it was China backing him, which I didn’t know with certainty at the time. He seemed to squirm when I said it, which kind of made me believe it. But something else changed right then. He broke off the questioning and we were allowed to escape fairly easily soon after that. I now think he may have been playing me.”

  “I understand that, John,” said Torres. “The Cobra’s been playing me all along. We never let word get out, but I was almost killed by some ninja on the golf course. He was a Chinese national with some mental problems. The Cobra was quick to pick up on those details. So quick that I came to suspect she’d arranged the whole deal to make me think the Chinese were after me.”

  “If she was playing you Sir, perhaps the envoy was also,” said John. “Unless you’ve spoken to the Chinese premier directly, I wouldn’t trust anything you’ve heard. I can add that Connolly is a traitor. I’m sure about tha
t. I don’t know about the others. But it’s possible that there’s been a big Kabuki theater put on for your benefit. My gut says that’s a lot more likely than China plotting this takeover.”

  “There’s another point I should add,” said Lyle. “Back in the situation room, Mr. Connolly mentioned it was Chinese FN-6 missiles taking down our planes while still on the ground. If you see the missile at work, you’d call it a Stinger missile because that’s what the US calls its version. The FN-6 is something we saw back in Israel and I think it was stocked for when an attack had to have deniability. I’d recognize it if I saw it. I saw a lot of weapons down in San Marcos, but no FN-6 missiles. And as I understood it, the air bases are under attack by Morningstar, not the Chinese troops. So there’s no way he could know they were FN-6 missiles, and they probably weren’t. His comment that FN-6 missiles were used here strikes me as a Freudian slip.”

  “Me too,” said Torres. “But what’s the objective here?”

  “The objective is to manipulate us to destroy China while they neutralize our power and occupy us. It removes two superpowers from the scene in a single blow,” replied Lyle. “The classic strategy used by plotters without enough power to achieve their objectives directly.”

  “And who?” asked Torres.

  “Whoever Morgensen works for. And Ellis. And Connolly. You probably have a better idea of the powers behind the scenes than we do,” said John.

  “Unfortunately I don’t,” said Torres. “All I know is they control the world’s central banks, they own the world’s economic and political systems, and they send people like Morgensen to steer governments.”

  “Maybe it’s a foreclosure,” said John. “You and your predecessors spent the country into ruinous debt, and now the owners are taking what they feel is their property.”

  “Sure, after having insisted on the reckless spending and borrowing in the first place,” said Torres, leaning back in his chair to assert himself. “Look, my time is short, John. They’ll be here any second now. I’m not launching that strike, and that may be my last decision as President.”