by James Philip
“If this is as bad as it looks,” he said, attempting not to be melodramatic, “places like Bellingham may be the only ones left standing. It could be that there will be a lot of people from the big cities looking for someplace to live. The roads may be blocked and food, gas, all that stuff might not get through for a while. People get kind of territorial when something really bad happens. My Pa was in the Navy in the forty-five war. His ship went in to British ports during that war, to refuel and stuff like that. He said some of the places he saw were like ruined from end to end. The Brits held it together back then but they had time to get used to being attacked, it didn’t all happen overnight...”
“The Government won’t let things get crazy,” Judy declared, not really convinced.
“Yeah,” the man agreed, even less convincingly.
What if there is no Government?
Chapter 17
04:58 Hours Eastern Standard Time
Sunday 28th October 1962
The Oval Office, The White House, Washington DC
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States of America pushed away the mug of strong black coffee and rose stiffly to his feet. He listened to the conversations going on around him, trying hard to tune out the background noise. Last night he had made the most terrible decision any man in history had ever had to make; and sometime in the next few minutes he knew he had to make another, possibly even more monstrous decision.
Jack Kennedy’s closest civilian advisors and all the military men had been appalled when he had decided to stay at his post ‘in the White House’. He was adamant; if the American people did not have anywhere to run their President was morally bound to stand with them. By then War Plan Alpha had been activated and the clock to Armageddon was remorselessly ticking.
The chain of command was secure; the Vice-President was high above the Mid-West in SAM 26000, the specially modified long-range Presidential Boeing 707. If the White House was nuked Lyndon Baines Johnson would ‘run with the ball’.
McGeorge Bundy, the United States National Security Advisor, was prowling the middle of the Oval Office with a telephone pressed to his ear trailing a long cable haphazardly across chairs, sofas, and between the feet of White House staffers and the stone-faced officers from the Pentagon. Bundy’s high brow was furrowed but throughout the last fraught hours he had remained cool, calm, collected and oddly dispassionate.
He clunked the receiver down onto its rests and balanced the phone on a chair before approaching the President.
“The Chiefs of Staff need to know if we’re executing War Plan Alpha Zero-Two?” He half asked, half-stated.
Jack Kennedy nodded acknowledgement.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy and McGeorge ‘Mac’ Bundy were probably going to go down in history as the greatest mass murderers of all time; and now they were about to discuss compounding their sins.
“We seem to have a bit of a crowd in here, Mac,” the President observed.
While he waited for his National Security Advisor to winnow the ‘crowd’ down to a more appropriate and manageable size, for the thousandth time that night he replayed the events which had brought the Unites States of America to all out nuclear war. Less than twenty-four hours ago the situation had been bad, a crisis, but the idea of actually going to war over Cuba had still seemed a distant, unlikely prospect. The blockade of Cuba was in place, the CIA had eyes in the sky on the missile sites on the island, his younger brother Bobby and Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, were still talking to the Soviets. Nobody really wanted war. And then everything had begun to unravel and once the genie was out of the bottle there had been no way to get it back in.
First the Cubans, or the Russians – it did not matter who, what or why – had shot down a U-2 over Banes near the western extremity of Cuba, and Major Rudolph Anderson had become the first casualty of World War III. Shortly afterwards destroyers attached to the USS Randolph’s task group had been attacked by a Soviet submarine in international waters. The submarine, believed to be one of four Foxtrot type diesel-electric vessels en route to Cuba from Murmansk, had fired a Hiroshima yield nuclear-tipped torpedo. The USS Beale had been lost with all hands and two other vessels seriously damaged. After that things had raced out of control. Within two hours missiles launched from Cuban soil had killed tens of thousands of Americans in Texas and Florida, and after that there had been no alternative to ‘taking out’ the Soviet missiles on Cuba.
Discovering that the Air Force had no plan in its locker for ‘surgical’ nuclear strikes on the island; he had authorised ‘Operation Sledgehammer’, the one sure fire way to ensure that no more Cuban-launched missiles fell on the cities of the South. If at any time there had there been an unambiguous statement of ‘good intent’ or of non-escalation from the Soviets perhaps, War Plan Alpha could have been put on hold. There had been no such statement; to the contrary, the Soviet leadership had said nothing...
“Mister President?”
Jack Kennedy realised he had been lost in his brooding.
His National Security Advisor’s composure was finally fraying a little around the edges; otherwise he was businesslike, in control.
Forty-three year old Boston born Bundy was the second son of a wealthy Massachusetts family inextricably involved in Republican politics. Emerging from Yale he had spent Hitler’s war in US Army Intelligence; after the war, he had co-authored Henry L. Stimson’s – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Secretary of War’s – autobiography, On Active Service in Peace and War. Stimson had been a family friend for over two decades and in the way of such things, Mac Bundy’s brilliant early career had encountered very few obstacles. This was not to say that his career would have been just as brilliant with or without Stimson’s influence; because Mac was that sort of guy. In 1949, aged only thirty, he had joined the Council on Foreign Relations – along with giants of the international stage like Dwight Eisenhower, Allen Dulles and the veteran diplomat George Kennan – to study the Marshall Plan. In 1954 Bundy, aged just thirty-four, had been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Art and Sciences. At the time he had become Jack Kennedy’s National Security Advisor many considered Bundy the most brilliant of ‘best and the brightest’ men surrounding the President.
Bundy cleared his throat.
“General LeMay reports that eighty-seven bombers are airborne or at quick reaction alert status and available for an immediate second strike,” he reported. “Surviving aircraft from the first strike are now landing back at continental bases. LeMay says losses have been very heavy but it may be possible to refuel, re-arm, and re-crew a ‘small number’ of the returning aircraft and to re-task them for subsequent strikes if required. However, few if any of these returning aircraft are likely to be ready in time to participate in a second strike within a time window of less than twelve hours. LeMay says most of the returning aircraft will have suffered potentially disabling EMP – electro-magnetic pulse – damage to their flight, navigation and targeting systems and are likely to be grounded for several weeks. The Chief of Naval operations reports two of our Polaris boats did not launch any of their birds during the first strike. One was under the Arctic ice and never received the ‘shoot’ command and the other was attacked by Soviet destroyers in the Barents Sea. Several other Polaris boats experienced technical issues and failed to fire full salvoes. The CNO says he can contribute at least forty-three Polaris submarine launched ICBMs to a second strike. From what little we can tell the British seem to have pretty much shot their bolt,” this last was said with nakedly mixed emotions. Bundy and his President both felt bad about the way they had treated the Brits; not trusting their old allies with any advanced notice of the first strike was going to have generation-long consequences down the road. But that was for the future and their problem was very much the here and the now. “We have no communications with tactical or theatre deployed units equipped with nuclear weapons in Germany
or Turkey.”
Jack Kennedy stifled an inner groan of despair.
“Do we have any direct communications with the British?”
“No, Mister President.” Bundy did not linger on this point. “In the Mediterranean the Sixth Fleet remains intact but communications are ‘spotty’ due to post-exchange atmospheric conditions. In the Pacific the C-in-C Seventh Fleet reports that three of the SSNs operating in the north-west of his command area – that is, the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk – have been authorised to conduct unrestricted submarine warfare operations against Soviet naval units. The Chief of Naval Operations endorses this on the basis that intelligence reports indicate the Soviets have been putting medium range ballistic missiles on surface ships and submarines, in addition to equipping the latter with nuclear-tipped torpedoes as we have already discovered off Cuba.”
The President of the United States of America could not remember what he had done with his coffee. This worried him and he let it go on worrying him.
“General LeMay says that because we lost so many aircraft in the first strike, and because initial tracking telemetry indicates that several of our ICBMs veered off course,” Bundy went on, now nearly at the end of his latest briefing, “he is not one hundred percent confident that all high priority targets have been ‘suppressed’ at this time.”
Jack Kennedy did not want to ask the question that, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of America he had to ask next.
“What is the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff?”
“The Joint Chiefs recommend the immediate execution of War Plan Alpha Two-Zero, Mister President.”
A second strike mounted with all available ‘assets’.
The President of the United States of America summoned his courage.
“Inform the Joint Chiefs that I will take their recommendation under advisement, Mac.”
Jack Kennedy’s National Security Advisor raised an eyebrow.
“This is not a thing we can put off, Mister President.”
“I know that.”
“I wasn’t suggesting...”
The President shook his head. The enormity of the tragedy would be his epitaph and he did not begin to know how he was going to live with the knowledge of what he had done.
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds...
Jack Kennedy sighed and looked his national Security Advisor in the eye.
“Forget it, Mac. I mean,” he shrugged helplessly, “do we even know for sure if there is anything left in Russia to bomb?”
Chapter 18
05:39 Hours Eastern Standard Time
Sunday 28th October 1962
Oak Hill, Wethersfield, Connecticut
“You should come inside,” Gretchen Betancourt declared firmly. However, no amount of ‘firmness’ was penetrating Dan Brenckmann’s hardening carapace of fear, loss and despair. His parents and his kid sister were most likely dead in Boston and Buffalo, his big brother was probably at sea in the middle of World War III, and his not so ‘little’ sibling Sam, well, nobody ever knew where he was. For all Dan knew his whole immediate family was gone.
A while ago Mrs Nordstrom had come out onto the cold, damp porch and spread a blanket around his shoulders. Periodically, the rain blew under the overhanging roof when the wind gusted around to the east. With every breath he took Dan Brenckmann half-expected to taste burning.
“You should come inside!” Gretchen snapped, growing testy.
“Why?” He asked numbly.
“Fallout, you idiot!”
Dan shrugged. Through his roiling angst it all seemed so unreal. He had personally seen nothing whatsoever untoward in the last few hours and yet the sirens had sounded and he had hunkered down in that cramped basement in New Haven with the others, and later run for the country - figuratively for ‘the hills’ - with Gretchen. For all he knew the radio reports might be a monumental hoax; Orson Wells and the War of the Worlds repeated on a grander, crueller, unimaginably more horrific scale. He had not personally witnessed mushroom clouds rising over the cities of the Republic; he had seen no traumatised refugees fleeing from the devastation, no troops on the street. Out here in the rolling forested hills of New England nothing seemed to have changed.
And now he was spending the last night of his life with Gretchen Betancourt; the one girl he had ever ‘dated’ who was never, ever going to come across for him just because it was the end of the World.
The woman patted his shoulder.
This drew no response so Gretchen punched his shoulder.
As hard as she could.
“Ouch!”
“You can’t just sit there!”
The funny thing was that if Gretchen had been the sort of girl who would have jumped into bed with him just because it was the end of the World, Dan would have been mortally disappointed...
“I know this is horrible for you,” Gretchen was saying. “But giving up isn’t the answer to anything, Dan!”
“What’s it to you?” He retaliated, stung badly without knowing why. “You don’t even like me!”
The woman recoiled as if he had struck her. Folding her arms across her breasts she stood up, turned away and unaccountably, instantly thought better of it. She swung around.
“That’s not true,” she protested with untypical equivocation. “It is just that we don’t have any,” she seemed suddenly aware of the chill in the air, “future together, that’s all.”
Dan could not help but laugh, albeit sourly at this.
What future did any of them have?
“It isn’t funny!” Gretchen snapped in a foot stamping put down. “Something very bad happened tonight. It may still be going on but look around you, Dan. If this bit of America is still in one piece other pieces will be okay, too. Tonight isn’t the end of everything it may just be a new beginning.”
If he had been sitting in the parlour at home in Cambridge that’s exactly the sort of thing his Pa would have said. Except he might have framed it in more specific terms. For example: ‘That’s exactly what you’d expect a Republican to say!’
It was then that something truly weird happened.
Gretchen, with a theatrical flounce, deposited herself on the top step of the porch beside him; and her right had sought out his left hand, which she proceeded to squeeze ever so gently.
In a moment she had requisitioned her half of the blanket around his shoulders and was resting, ever so lightly, against him.
And there they sat, silently thinking their thoughts waiting for the breaking of twilight’s first dawning on the day after the apocalypse.
Chapter 19
03:46 Hours Pacific Standard Time (06:46 Hours Washington Time)
Sunday 28th October 1962
Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, California
The cops were in a hurry. Miranda had been crying, she was emotional and upset and she stank of weed and vomit, so the cops had bundled her in the back of the San Francisco Police Department cruiser and dumped her at the nearest lockup.
Miranda suddenly had time on her hands to piece together exactly how her life had taken its latest, downward turn.
In hindsight seducing – well, throwing herself at – the big black guy and goading him to ‘fuck me stupid’ on Johnny Seiffert’s circular love altar had not been the best way to stay best friends with the little shit. Johnny was not the forgiving type. Now as she looked around the holding cell at the other women; a hooker with a bloody nose, a middle-aged Hispanic woman curled up on the floor snoring and a teenage black girl with resentment-filled angry eyes, Miranda was forced to contemplate the ramifications of her downfall. A small voice in her head said she ought to be more worried about World War III but nobody had dropped a bomb on San Francisco yet – so far as she knew, fuck it she had been off her head most of the last week – and she had other stuff deal with.
Much though she detested herself for thinking it, even for a moment, she missed Sam Brenckmann. She
hated how he was so laid back about things, the music business, practically everything, but he was nice guy and she should not have pleaded with Johnny line up the deal with a bunch of no hopers like the Limonville Brothers. No, that was just plain mean of her. Maybe, ending up in a shit hole like this was God’s way of telling her she had been a bad girl once too often lately.
She had been sick in the cruiser.
That had really pissed off the cops; afterwards she felt a lot better.
The big black guy, his name was Wayne, or at least she thought that was what he said, had taken her like a whore and basically, she had loved it. He either had not noticed or did not care that she was out of her head and had puke in her hair. Some guys were like that; Sam would have cleaned her up and put her to bed, probably watched over her while she slept it off. Sam would definitely not have fucked her so hard she kept passing out...
Johnny had gone ape shit when he walked into the bedroom. He had chased Wayne, or was it John? Anyway, he had chased the big black guy out of the house waving a Navy Colt. She had been so out of it that she thought that was kind of funny at the time; right up until Johnny came back upstairs and pulled the same number on her.
A gentleman would have let her find her panties and her shoulder bag before he threw her out onto the street in the middle of a fucking nuclear war!
As Sam once told her: ‘What’s a guy to do, babe? The age of chivalry is over...’
“Miranda Margaret Sullivan!”
That name sounded familiar.
“MIRANDA MARGARET SULLIVAN!”
Shit! That’s me!
“Yeah,” Miranda muttered. She was dreadfully weary and just wanted to lie down and to go back to sleep.
Strong hands grabbed her arms above the elbows and walked her out of the holding cell.
“Jesus, Miranda!”
She peered bleary-eyed at the reassuring bulk of her parents’ San Francisco lawyer.
