Act of War aow-1

by Dale Brown

  “I understand, Mr. President,” Chamberlain said. “I’ll see you when you get back. Thank you, Mr. President.” The connection went dead, and Chamberlain returned the phone to its cradle with a stunned expression on his face.

  “What’s going on, Robert?” Donna Calhoun asked.

  “The President will be back in Washington within the hour,” he said, quickly composing himself. “He wants to address the nation as soon as he returns. I want a complete report on Kingman City, our defense status, and the world situation in twenty minutes. I’ll transmit it to Air Force One so the President’s communications staff can draft a speech.” He paused, his mind racing furiously; then he added: “He wants it to be a tough, no-nonsense, decisive speech. He wants blood. He doesn’t want to reassure the nation, or offer his condolences—he wants action, and he wants heads to roll.” He paused again, thinking hard, until he realized that the National Security Council staff members present were looking rather concerned. “On my desk in twenty minutes.”

  “Is there something else, Robert…?”

  At that instant the phone rang again, and Chamberlain snatched it up as if it had electrocuted him. He listened for a moment; then his eyes widened in surprise, and he motioned excitedly to a staffer. “Turn on the damned news,” he shouted, “now!”

  Another computer screen came to life, and all heads turned to watch. It showed a person in a silver radiation protection suit inside a helicopter, talking into a handheld video camera. The captions read KRISTEN SKYY, SATCOM ONE SENIOR CORRESPONDENT and LIVE OVER KINGMAN CITY, TEXAS.

  “Holy shit,” someone murmured. “It looks like Kristen Skyy is going to fly over ground zero!” No one had to ask who Kristen Skyy was: she was by far the most well-known, popular, and trusted foreign affairs journalist on television since Barbara Walters. Her beauty, on-camera ease, and charm would have been enough to get her international attention, but it was without a doubt her drive, ambition, determination, and sheer courage that made her a media superstar.

  No one, therefore, was that surprised to see her in the middle of a nuclear death zone.

  “I thought the airspace over the entire nation was closed down!” Chamberlain thundered. “What in hell is she doing up there?”

  “She’s on the ground in five minutes, sir,” Hanratty said, picking up a telephone in front of him.

  The sound was gradually turned up, and they heard, “…assured repeatedly that it was safe at this point to fly near the blast site, the danger from radioactive fallout has subsided, my cameraman Paul Delgado has a radiation counter with him and as you can see the needle is hardly moving so I think we’re all right…”

  “The radiation will be the least of her problems once I get done with her,” Hanratty murmured angrily. Into the mouthpiece, he shouted, “I told you, Sergeant Major, I’m watching her right now. She’s broadcasting live from a helicopter right over the damned blast area. I want an Apache up there to force her away and back down on the ground in five minutes, and if she doesn’t comply I want a broadcast warning her that she’ll be shot down. And when they land, arrest all of them. And I want the persons producing her news program to be arrested as well right now.”

  “…been told that the FAA is ordering us to land,” the correspondent went on. “It’s an order apparently from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, but we think this story is just too important to simply fly away. We’ve been told that there are injured people at a park on Swan Lake, about a mile and a half from ground zero. Emergency responders are ordering everyone away from the blast area, so no help has arrived from Galveston or League City.”

  “Are there any rescue units heading toward that area?” Chamberlain asked.

  “All traffic for five miles around ground zero is being stopped, and that includes traffic on Galveston Bay,” Calhoun responded. “Radiation levels hit the danger mark at two miles out. No one can get close enough to the area to attempt any kind of rescue.”

  “So what in hell is that reporter doing out there?” Chamberlain asked. “And why isn’t her radiation meter picking up anything?”

  “Either she doesn’t have it on or she’s got it set up incorrectly,” Hanratty said. “Our detectors definitely picked up danger levels of radiation out to three kilometers. Kristen Skyy is going to get hurt if she stays out there—I don’t care what kind of suit she’s got on. And if that pilot and cameraman don’t have suits on, or if they’re not fitted or sealed-up properly, they’re dead—they just don’t know it yet.”

  “Get them out of there, General!” Chamberlain shouted. But they could do nothing else but watch in horrified fascination as the report continued:

  “We can see the blast area, ground zero,” the reporter in the radiation suit went on. “It looks like a forest after a huge fire, with nothing but blackened sticks sticking out of lumpy rocky black soil. The fires look like they’ve gone out, but we see what used to be the refinery and petroleum storage tanks still smoking. Here and there we see immense piles of metal glowing reddish-orange, like a pool of lava. I see what the term ‘vaporized’ means, because everything looks as fragile and decimated as ash on a cigarette. I apologize to the families of the victims of Kingman City for my harsh graphic descriptions, I’m not being insensitive, it is hard to put this nightmarish scene into words.

  “Okay…okay, I understand…ladies and gentlemen, my pilot is telling me that he is getting some high-temperature readings from our helicopter’s engine, so it may be time to turn around; apparently the incredible heat still emanating from ground zero is superheating the air and causing some damage. The military is now warning us that they will shoot us out of the sky if we don’t leave. I don’t care what the military says, but if our helicopter can’t stand this heat then maybe it’s time to leave. We can’t help any survivors if we can’t safely evacuate them. The air is bumpy, obviously from the turbulence created by the heat, and it’s getting harder and harder to breathe in these suits, so I think we…hey, Paul, swing around over that way—my God, I see them! There appears to be an overturned school bus about a kilometer east of us, right at the edge of Swan Lake!”

  “Oh, Christ,” Chamberlain breathed. And a few moments later, the camera focused on an overturned bus, which appeared to have either been blown over by the blast or the driver had steered or been pushed off the road and the bus flipped onto its side. They could count at least two dozen men, women, and children lying on the ground, motionless or writhing, obviously in pain. Several adults and children were in the lake, trying to stay away from the intense heat, but it was obvious that the water itself was getting uncomfortably hot as well—adults were carrying several children on their shoulders, trying to keep screaming children out of the water. There was a playground nearby; watercraft of all kinds were scattered around the edge of the lake, along with more bodies. The earth was scorched a pale gray, with “shadows” of natural color where larger objects had blocked the roiling wave of heat energy from the nuclear blast.

  “Paul, tell him to go over there…yes, set it down over there!” Skyy was saying. “We’ve got to help those children out of there. Maybe if we can get them on the boats we can save them!”

  “We’re watching it,” Hanratty said on the telephone. “Get some choppers out there to rescue those civilians in the lake. I want all other aircraft kept away from that entire area—yes, you are authorized to fire warning shots if necessary.” Chamberlain nodded when Hanratty looked to him for confirmation of his order.

  “What are their chances, General?” Chamberlain asked.

  As if to respond to his question, suddenly the image being broadcast from the SATCOM One news chopper swerved and veered. They heard a man cry out, but at the same time they heard Kristen Skyy say, “Oh, shit, it looks like the engine has seized up, and we’re going down. Paul, drop the camera and hold on, for Christ’s sake!” Chamberlain had to admire her courage—the cameraman was screaming like a child, but Skyy was as calm as ever. She even sounded embarrasse
d that she let an expletive sneak past her lips.

  The image showed the view out a side window as the helicopter headed earthward. They saw the deck heel sharply upward moments before impact, and then the camera bounced free and went dark. “Shit—more civilians in the hot zone. How soon can we get some rescuers out there, General?” Chamberlain asked.

  “Several have already tried, sir,” Hanratty replied. “We’ve got more on the way, but they’re running into the same problems. The heat is just too great out there.”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay,” they heard Kristen Skyy say. “Paul, are you all right? What? Your back…oh, Jesus…Paul, we’ve got to get out of the chopper, it might catch on fire…if you can move, get out and get away from the chopper…no, screw the camera, just get out…I know you signed for it, Paul, jeez, okay, okay, take it if you can, but just get the hell out and head toward the lake. We’ve got to get out of this chopper, Paul—the heat is getting worse and it might set off the fuel. I’m going to check on the pilot.” They heard rustling and opening and closing helicopter doors. “The pilot is unconscious but alive. Can you help me, Paul? I don’t think I can carry him by myself. We’ve got to get him out of here.” They could see the image jostling about as Kristen and her photographer pulled the injured pilot, wearing no protective gear but a Nomex fireproof flight suit and rubber oxygen mask, out of the cockpit.

  The camera was picked up a few minutes later, focusing unsteadily on Kristen Skyy, running toward the playground in her radiation suit. “I’m okay, and I hope you can hear me,” she said via a wireless microphone. The radio connection was scratchy but still audible. “Paul will stay with the pilot in Swan Lake. I’m going to check to see if there are any survivors.” She checked the first body. “Oh God, it’s a teenage girl. She didn’t make it.” She rolled her over onto her face, exposing severe burns on her back. She went quickly to the next. “This one, thank God, is alive. Maybe her boyfriend or brother.” She dragged him to the edge of the lake, where others taking refuge there helped him into the relatively cooler water. Then she went back to check on another.

  “She’s got guts, I’ll say that,” someone said.

  “The ground feels very hot, like I’m walking on very hot sand,” Skyy said. “The air is very uncomfortable, like a sauna, but not moist—very dry, like a desert, like the Mojave Desert. I’ll go over to the bus and see if…hey, it looks like a rescue helicopter has arrived. Paul, can you see the helicopter coming? It looks like an army helicopter.”

  “That was quick,” Chamberlain said. “Who is it, General?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Hanratty said. “I’ll try to get a confirmation.”

  The photographer swung his camera up, and they could see a twin-rotor Chinook helicopter quickly approaching. It had a small device slung underneath the fuselage. “It’s carrying something under neath,” Skyy said, “like a raft or maybe a net of some kind of…well, I can’t make it out, but it’s coming toward us fast so we’ll find out in a moment. I wonder if he can land and take all of us out of here in that thing, it certainly looks big enough. We should… ” And then she paused, and then exclaimed, “What the heck is that?”

  The officials in the Situation Room stared in amazement as the cameraman zoomed in. The object the helicopter had slung underneath looked like a man…no,ithadthefigureofaman,butit looked like a robot. “What the hell is that?” Chamberlain exclaimed.

  “I have no idea, sir,” Hanratty responded. “It looks like someone in a protective suit, but I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s like some kind of high-tech deep-sea diving suit.”

  Robert Chamberlain turned to a soldier in battle dress uniform standing behind him, calmly standing at parade rest while the action swirled around the room. He was of average height and build, and his pixilated camo BDUs were adorned with only a few badges—most notable were helicopter pilot’s wings, master parachutist’s wings, a Combat Infantry Badge, and a Ranger tab—but the man exuded an indefinable aura of power that prevented anyone in the room from locking eyes with him or even coming near him, even the three-and four-star generals. “Sergeant Major, get someone from the Pentagon to identify that…thing, whatever it is.”

  “No need, sir—I know exactly what it is,” Army Command Sergeant Major Ray Jefferson responded. The blue-eyed, wiry Ranger looked at the monitor carefully, then nodded. “I didn’t know it was ready for the field, but if it is, sir, it might be the only thing that can save those people now.”

  “We’re going to redline in about two minutes,” the Chinook pilot said. “Sorry, sir, but we’ve got to leave ASAP.”

  “You copy that, Jason?” Ariadna Vega asked on their tactical communications frequency. “The chopper is going to melt in a few minutes. How are you doing down there?”

  Jason Richter saw the temperature and radiation readouts in his electronic visor, and he couldn’t believe it. The outside temperature was over sixty degrees Centigrade, even suspended twenty meters under the Chinook by a cable, but inside the Cybernetic Infantry Device’s composite shell it was still a comfortable twenty degrees Celsius. “I feel okay,” he responded. “Everything seems to be working fine so far. Let me down and I’ll get to work.” The helicopter slowed and quickly descended. As soon as Jason’s feet touched the ground, he disengaged the cable. “You’re clear. Get out of here before your engine goes.”

  “We’re outta here, Jason,” Vega said. “Good luck, dude—you’re gonna need it.”

  God, Jason thought, am I nuts? I’m wearing a contraption that has hardly been tested, let alone ready for exposure in a nuclear environment. Oddly, Jason felt as if he was standing naked, although he was surrounded by forty kilos of composite material and electronics. He experimentally moved his arms and legs and found the limbs remarkably easy to move and control. Jogging was effortless. He saw the survivors down by the lake, about two kilometers away, and started to pick up the pace…

  …before realizing he had hit fifty kilometers an hour, and was standing at the edge of Swan Lake in seconds. Kristen Skyy and her photographer stood before him, motionless—but the photographer was not stunned enough to stop filming. Jason scanned the radio bands from his suit’s communications system and found her wireless microphone’s FM frequency. “Can you hear me, Miss Skyy?”

  “Who in hell is this?” Skyy asked. “How can you be on this channel?”

  “My name is Major Jason Richter, U.S. Army.”

  “Where did your helicopter go? Can’t it come back and take any people away?”

  “The heat is damaging its engine, like your helicopter. I’m here to get you out.”

  “How do you think you’ll do that—carry us out two by two? Most of these people can’t make it. If they leave the water, they’ll die—and if we stay here much longer, we’ll die.” Jason looked around, saw the school bus lying on its side, and went over to it. “Get your helicopter to come back,” she was saying, “and put a cable on…”

  Jason simply reached down, grasped the edge of the roof of the bus, picked it up, and pushed with his legs. The bus flipped over onto its wheels, its springs bouncing wildly.

  “Oh…my…God…” Skyy watched in pure amazement as the man…robot…whatever it was…as he walked to the front of the bus, picked it up with one arm, and walked it around until the back of the bus was facing the lake. Then he began to push…and in less than a minute had pushed the rear end of the bus into the lake.

  “Let’s go, Kristen!” Jason shouted. “Get them on board now!” In moments, the survivors had waded through the water and were helped aboard. The inside of the bus was almost unbearably hot, but it was their last hope. Kristen sat down at the wheel and, after a few frantic moments, got the engine started. With Richter pulling from the front, the bus moved out of the lake. Kristen managed to drive it over the sand and grass until they reached the park road before the engine died, but by then Jason was able to push the bus with ease along the road. With Kristen steering, they reached the highway leading
to the town of Bayou Vista a few minutes later, and five minutes after that reached the police roadblock outside the blast area.

  Kristen Skyy’s photographer captured it all, live, to astonished television viewers around the world.

  The men and women in the Situation Room were on their feet, stunned into complete silence, motionless, almost unable to breathe. Finally, Robert Chamberlain put his hands on the conference table as if unable to support himself otherwise. “What…did…we…just…see, Sergeant Major?” he asked, his head lowered in absolute disbelief. “What in hell is that thing?”

  “It’s called CID, sir—Cybernetic Infantry Device,” Jefferson responded. “An experimental program run by the Army Research Lab’s Infantry Transformation BattleLab in Fort Polk, Louisiana. It’s an Army research program trying to find ways to modernize the combat infantryman.”

  “I’d say they’d found it, wouldn’t you, Sergeant Major?” Chamberlain asked incredulously. “What is it? Is there a man in there?”

  “Yes, sir. CID is a hydraulically powered exoskeleton surrounding a fully enclosed composite protective shell. The system is fully self-contained. A soldier doesn’t wear it like a suit of armor, but rides in it—a computer interface translates his body movements into electronic signals that operate the robotic limbs. As you saw, sir, it gives the wearer incredible strength and speed and protects him from hazardous environments.”

  Chamberlain’s eyes were darting around the room as his mind raced again. Finally, he looked at Jefferson as an idea formed in his head, and he pointed at his aide, his voice shaking with excitement. “I want a briefing on this CID thing before close of business today,” he said, swallowing hard, “and I want that…that suit of armor, whatever it is, its wearer, and the men and women leading that research program here to meet with me as soon as possible for a demonstration. That thing is going to be our new weapon against terrorists.”