by Scott McEwen
They each grabbed an end of the lump and heaved it aboard the aircraft. The guy in flip-flops climbed in on the copilot’s side, and the younger-looking Arabic fellow got into the back with the green lump.
Fivecoat saw the bone-frog tattoo on Flip-flops’s arm and realized he was a Navy SEAL.
“Get us out to sea as fast and as far as you can!” the SEAL said over the whir of the rotors. “And keep it on the deck. We only got five minutes until the damn thing goes off.”
Fivecoat stole a startled look in the back, where the younger man sat against the bulkhead staring at what he now saw was a green metal box. “Until what thing goes off?”
“That!” Brighton said, pointing into the back. “The nuke. They didn’t tell you?”
Fivecoat shook his head, feeling cruelly betrayed. “Nobody told me shit—just to get the hell over here!”
“Fuck! You were supposed to be a volunteer!”
“I didn’t volunteer for a goddamn thing!”
“Four minutes!” Samir shouted from the back.
Brighton looked Fivecoat in the eyes. “The choice is yours, son. You can take off and die a hero by saving San Diego Bay, or you can sit here on the ground and die with half a million other people. I’m sorry those are your only options, but we’re outta fuckin’ time here.”
Fivecoat’s mind went numb as his training kicked in, and he put his feet on the antitorque pedals. He twisted the collective lever to lift the helo back into the air and eased the cyclic forward, nosing the aircraft toward the Pacific Ocean. “If you’re gonna jump out,” he heard himself say, “now’s the time.”
Brighton smiled. “We’re coming with you.”
Fivecoat nodded, minding the power lines as the helo picked up speed and left the base behind, flying barely 150 feet off the deck toward the southwest. “If we fly due west,” he said, grabbing a headset and handing it to Brighton, “we might still be too close to Point Loma when it goes off.”
“Understood.” Brighton pulled on the headset and adjusted the mike. “We go wherever you take us.”
“Three minutes!” Samir called out.
“Does he gotta call out the time like that?” Fivecoat asked over the mike.
Brighton glanced into the back, where Samir’s eyes were glued to the timer. “Yeah, I think he does. He’s hoping it won’t go off because of the corrosion.”
Fivecoat nodded. “Okay, we’re at a hundred forty-six knots. Maxed out at a hundred seventy miles an hour.”
Brighton returned his gaze to the northeast, still able to see Point Loma. “Can you squeeze a little more out of it?”
Fivecoat frowned at him. “Who’s flying this thing?”
Brighton could see the conflicting emotions in the young ensign’s eyes: mixed feelings of betrayal and determination. “Look, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry as hell about this.”
“It’s not all bad,” Fivecoat said, looking forward at the horizon, wondering if he would feel anything when it happened. “I’ll be the twenty-ninth Indian to win the Medal of Honor. That’ll make my mother proud.”
“I’m sure she’s proud already.”
“Two minutes!”
“Barely time enough to sing a song,” Brighton muttered, thinking about his son. He hadn’t called his wife because he was too afraid, too afraid of making her cry, something he’d been putting off for months now.
He chuckled ironically, befuddled by how much easier it was to die than to break the heart of a woman who did not deserve it.
He heard Fivecoat’s voice asking him in the headset, “What’s funny?”
“Nothing really. Just pondering my cowardice.”
Fivecoat gave him a look. “You’re willingly riding a fuckin’ nuke into the wild blue yonder.”
“Yes, I am,” Brighton said. Then he laughed. “You bet your ass I am.”
“One minute!”
Brighton looked into the back, the mirth still visible in his eyes. “Any last confessions?”
Samir looked at him for a sorrowful moment, but then his face finally cracked into a grin. “I used to jerk off to my aunt Rida when I was kid! She doesn’t speak any English, but she’s got great tits.”
Brighton laughed. “Mine’s worse. I was going to leave my wife for another woman.” He smacked Fivecoat on the helmet. “What about you?”
Fivecoat looked at him with a melancholy smile. “One time I was—” He spotted the silhouette of a trimaran-hulled warship a thousand yards to starboard steaming due north at flank speed. “Oh, shit . . . we’ve killed the Coronado.”
Brighton whipped his head around, seeing “The Crown of the Fleet,” the USS Coronado (LCS-4), an independence-class littoral war ship designed with stealth technology to combat potential asymmetric threats in the littoral zones close to shore.
Brighton touched the glass with his fingertips. “Sorry, guys.”
The RA-115 detonated just under seven miles southwest of Point Loma with a blast of 1.8 kilotons, vaporizing the helo and everyone aboard in a microsecond. The shock wave shot out to a radius of two kilometers, wiping out not only the Coronado but also three trawlers and a handful of sailboats. Hundreds of tons of sea water flash-boiled, and the mushroom cloud zoomed to almost twenty-thousand feet over the next few minutes, visible for miles inland.
84
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA,
Edwards Air Force Base
The UAV did not follow the helo out to sea. It remained on station over San Diego Bay, with its powerful lens keeping the SAR helo in view as it picked up speed over the ocean less than two hundred feet off the surface.
“I don’t understand,” Hagen said, staring at the screen. “Why did those EOD men get on the chopper if there’s nothing they can do?”
General Couture gave him a cutting glance, holding his elbow in one hand and resting his chin on his fist as he watched the helo drawing out across the ocean. He turned to the naval liaison, asking in a low voice, “It’s a little late for me to be asking this, Ken, but have your coastal vessels been alerted?”
“Yes, sir,” the navy captain replied, “but it looks like we may lose the Coronado. We don’t know what happened, but she didn’t get the message to leave the area until a few minutes ago.”
The president turned around. “We’re going to lose a war ship?”
“Unfortunately, Mr. President, it looks that way. We don’t know if she misinterpreted the initial message to evacuate the area or if it was something else, but she was steaming directly toward the bay until a few minutes ago. If I had to speculate, sir, I’d guess she misinterpreted the initial message as a request for evac assistance back at NASNI. She does have a pair of Sea Stallions on deck.”
“How many crew?”
“Seventy, Mr. President—give or take.”
The president turned back around just in time to see a brilliant flash of light on the screen. Most everyone in the room let out a startled “Oh, my God!” The video feed briefly broke apart into fragmented pixels, but the interference quickly passed, and the growing mushroom cloud drew into focus just shy of the horizon from the UAV’s elevated point of view.
From sea level, the explosion had taken place four miles beyond the visible horizon, which was approximately three miles out to sea.
The president turned to the acting director of Homeland Security. “Are your people converging on San Diego?”
“As we speak, Mr. President. Every single available plane, helicopter, truck, and rail car. We won’t arrive organized, but we’ll arrive more quickly than we did for Katrina. We’re going to sort it out on the scene, just like they did at Normandy, Mr. President.”
“Well, goddamnit, it’s about time somebody gets it!” the president declared. He turned to Couture. “Please kill the feed, General. I don’t want any distractions while I’m talking.”
Cou
ture signaled for the air force lieutenant to turn off the monitor.
“Listen up now,” the president announced, more to his cabinet than to anyone else. “By the grace of God and through the self-sacrifice of some very brave men, we have managed to save a city from devastation, but the people of San Diego are going to be terrified of nuclear fallout. They are going to need our hands-on assistance and moral support. So get on the phones to your respective offices and make sure your people are ready to move on this in every way possible. If your particular office doesn’t have a prescribed way of assisting in a crisis of this nature, I want you to invent one! Also . . . be advised you will all be joining me in San Diego just as soon as it’s deemed safe by the NRC.” Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
He turned to Couture. “A word in private, General.”
The two men stepped off to the side, with Hagen tagging along to stand just off the president’s elbow.
“Mr. President,” Couture said, “allow me to apologize for my outburst before. There’s no excuse. I’ll tender my resignation forthwith.”
The president shook his head. “That’s forgotten.” He put his hand on the general’s shoulder, obviously deep in thought about something. “General, I want you to draw up plans for another SMU as soon as possible, a Special Mission Unit purpose-built for domestic operations . . . something like ST6/Black, but more specialized. You’ll work out the details with your people, but the unit’s sole purpose will be dealing with nuclear weapons smuggled onto US soil. They should all be spec ops people, and there should be multiple teams on both coasts, able to respond to multiple threats at once. Also, they should be a classified unit—at least in theory. Understood?”
Couture hid his surprise well. “Yes, Mr. President.”
“Now for the crazy part,” the president continued. “Bob Pope will run the SMU, and he will answer directly to the Office of the President. As far as I’m concerned, if there’s no gap between the president and the launching of a nuclear weapon, there shouldn’t be any gap between him and the team that hunts them down. I know Pope’s a pain in the ass, but he’s obviously the most qualified man we’ve got for the job right now.”
Tim Hagen stepped close to the president. “Sir, now may not be the best time to start invoking new policies. Perhaps we should talk about this after—”
The president looked at him with an expression of annoyance. “Tim, I’d like your resignation by the end of the week.”
Hagen’s mouth fell open as the president led Couture away, continuing to verbalize his train of thought.
“This isn’t the last nuke we’re going to have to deal with, General. These people are going to try and try and try until they get us. I’m convinced of it now. Do you agree?”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid I do,” Couture replied. “It’s the emerging threat of our time. What about Master Chief Shannon? Should I suggest to Pope that he be placed in charge of training this new SMU?”
The president nodded. “Yes. If you think Shannon will agree to it. Though, by now I believe he’s likely to say to hell with us all.”
Couture smiled. “Despite what we’d like to believe, Mr. President, men like Shannon and Pope don’t work for us. They serve a higher power—an ideal. It’s just our job to keep them in check. They’re valuable assets, no doubt about it. But we’re lucky they’re as rare as they are.”
EPILOGUE
A month after the detonation of the RA-115 off the San Diego coast, Master Chief Gil Shannon sat between his wife, Marie, and Senior Chief Terry Leskavonski (aka Alpha) among a large but intimate crowd of family and interested US Navy observers at Arlington National Cemetery, where four wooden caskets were displayed beside photos of Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Jedidiah Brighton, Ensign Joseph Fivecoat, Petty Officer First Class Adam Samir, and Navy SEAL Petty Officer Second Class Christian Santiago. Only Santiago’s casket contained a body.
Back in San Diego, hospitals were still heavily burdened with people seeking treatment for radiation sickness both real and imagined. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), under the egis of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), had arrived in force within twelve hours of the detonation event, and, despite a great deal of confusion, redundant actions, and rolling blackouts, they had succeeded in averting a citywide breakdown of emergency services like the one experienced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
As usual, the news networks were busy making famous numerous heroic and indefatigable Americans who stood out against the backdrop of the disaster . . . doctors who’d refused to abandon their patients in zones where fallout was the worst; police officers and firefighters who had remained in contaminated areas without adequate Hazmat protection until the last of the residents had been evacuated; and everyday Americans, for rescuing perfect strangers from assorted perils during the terror and mass panic that had gripped the city in those first twenty-four hours of contamination and darkness.
Parts of the city would remain deserted or quarantined for months, possibly years to come, and only time would tell how long before the dreaded signs of cancer would begin to appear, though some preliminary estimates were forecasting as many as thirty thousand deaths over the next ten years due to thyroid cancer resulting from exposure to the radioactive isotope iodine 131.
Al Qaeda and Chechen terrorist factions worldwide had been strangely silent in the days following the event, with no one claiming immediate responsibility for the attack. The talking heads on television had offered every explanation for this, from shock, to fear, to a “false flag” attack. By the tenth day, however, factions of both Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Riyad us-Saliheyn Martyrs’ Brigade in Chechnya had not only claimed responsibility for the nuclear attacks but also had gone so far as to threaten a third attack within the year, which had immediately caused a brief panic among a very jumpy American populace; a nuclear threat was no longer just a threat, it had become an effective form of terrorism all its own.
For now, however, the nation was beginning to calm itself, though the “San Diego Event” was still just about all anybody talked about. The detonation may have occurred on 9/11, but the practice of referring to a disaster by its date had quickly become passé. It seemed the term “Second 9/11” just hadn’t played all that well among early media focus groups, and the term “New Mexico Event” had already sort of set the standard for naming the nation’s future nuclear attacks.
The president of the United States stepped up to the podium without notes of any kind, and there were no TelePrompTers or television cameras. The national memorial service for the four heroes was to be held the following day, and all the news networks were eager to cover it.
“It is an honor to speak here this morning,” the president said, looking very solemn and presidential in the warm glow of the rising sun. “First, I’d like to ask that you excuse the informal nature of my address to you. Since we’re gathered so privately here in this beautiful, most reverent of places, I’d like to speak to you with a bit more familiarity than would normally be possible for a man of my position.” He cleared his throat and allowed his eyes to glide over the four deceased heroes’ immediate families, who were seated in the front row. “We’ve gathered here for the purpose of remembering four brave men to whom this nation owes a debt we can never begin to repay. Men who willingly laid down their lives so that thousands of others might live. This type of sacrifice is not unheard of. It happens all too often.
“But seldom has such a sacrifice had such an acute impact on the human race. In fact, I’m not sure there’s ever been a sacrifice in all of human history that compares—with the possible exception of the Crucifixion, for those of us who believe in it.” He gestured toward the caskets and photos positioned to his right. “Because of these four selfless Americans, there are still, quite literally, tens of thousands of generations waiting to be born, and that’s an incredible thing when you stop to think about it.
It truly is. And this fact alone is reason enough to immortalize these brave men for the rest of human history.”
The president spoke for another ten minutes, and when he was finished, he stepped aside, allowing Lea Brighton a few tearful minutes at the podium, followed by the elderly and well-composed Cheryl Fivecoat. After Mrs. Fivecoat finished telling everyone how proud her son Joseph had been of being a helicopter pilot, a devastated Sheila Samir went to the podium. She broke down completely before finishing half of what she’d planned to say, and spent an entire minute sobbing in the arms of the president, who was unable to prevent his own tears from spilling as he attempted to comfort her.
There was not a dry eye in the crowd by this point. Even Gil had to wipe his eyes, turning to whisper to Marie, “I have to give the man credit. He didn’t have to do this today, but he wanted the widows to have a chance to be themselves before going to the national ceremony tomorrow. Kind of like a dress rehearsal.”
Marie nodded, tears rolling down her own cheeks.
The day before had been their day of personal trial, attending a large funeral on the far side of that same national cemetery in which two SEALs from Gil’s team, along with Buck Ferguson and his two youngest sons, all three of them former US Marines, had been lain to rest. Of the five, four of them had given their lives defending Marie and her mother, Janet, who was still in the hospital but due for release in the near future. (Both Special Agent Spencer Starks of the FBI and Oso Cazador were recovering nicely as well.)
Once Sheila Samir regained her composure, the president walked her back to her chair and helped her sit down beside Nancy Santiago, who was too shy to take the podium.
A US Navy rifle party standing fifty feet away and consisting of seven sailors dressed in the service dress blue “crackerjack” uniform, complete with the white “dixie-cup” cover, then executed a three-volley military salute with M14 rifles. A few moments after that, a US Navy bugler, dressed in the same uniform and standing out among the headstones a hundred feet away, began to play the bugler’s cry of “Taps.”
