Dead Heat

by Joel C. Rosenberg

  in Seattle alone would soar into the hundreds of thousands within hours. An enormous

  mushroom cloud, crackling with toxic radioactive dust, now formed over the city. Those

  not blinded by the initial blast could see the lethal, glowing plume from miles away. It was certainly seen on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, just ten miles away, and as the

  killer winds began to blow, death and destruction soon followed. It was only a matter of time. There would be no escape, and no place to hide.

  Surely first responders would emerge from surrounding states and communities, eager

  to help in any way they possibly could. But how would they get into the hot zones? How

  would they communicate? Where would they take the dead? Where would they take the

  dying? The power grid went down instantly. All communications went dark. The

  electromagnetic pulse set off by the warhead's detonation had fried all electronic circuitry for miles. The electrical systems of most motor vehicles in Seattle—from fire trucks and ambulances to police cars and military Humvees, not to mention most helicopters and

  fixed-wing aircraft—were immobilized completely or, at the very least, severely

  damaged. Most cell phones, pagers, PDAs, TVs, and radios were rendered useless as

  well, as were even the backup power systems in hospitals and other emergency facilities throughout the blast radius.

  The same was true in Washington, D.C., and New York. No amount of emergency

  planning had prepared anyone for something of this scale. Raging fires and radioactive

  winds were killing everyone in their paths, yet fleeing for safety was difficult if not impossible. Shock paralyzed millions. The lack of electricity paralyzed millions more, as did the inability to communicate. What had just happened? What was coming next?

  Where could one go to be safe? And how in the world should one get there?

  And then the City of Angels became the City of Demons.

  * * *

  Jackie Sanchez picked up the secure phone on the console in front of her and took the

  priority-one call from General Briggs at NORAD. She could barely believe what he was

  telling her, but she had no time to argue. They had a minute, if that, to get the president to safety.

  She slammed down the phone and quickly shouted a series of coded commands into her

  wrist-mounted microphone. Her team reacted instantly, just as they'd been trained. She

  wasn't sure if it really mattered. Perhaps all their efforts would be in vain. Maybe they wouldn't save any lives. But they had to do it anyway. They had to try. They had taken an oath, and they would be faithful to the end.

  On the bank of surveillance monitors in front of her, she saw a dozen of her best

  agents—guns drawn—suddenly rush the convention stage, surround the president, grab him

  by the arms, and literally carry him away, his feet barely touching the ground. Sanchez then bolted out of the command post and met the president's protective detail backstage and ordered them downstairs, into the makeshift bunker.

  "Go, go, go," she yelled as they raced the president down one corridor after another, into a heavily guarded stairwell, and down five flights, eventually bursting into the

  basement, where all the convention center's FIVAC systems were housed. They turned one

  corner and then another, ducking pipes and ducts along the way. A moment later, they raced the president into a large storage freezer, slammed the door shut behind them, and worked feverishly to put him in a protective suit, gloves, and mask, pre-positioned there by the army's nuclear, biological, and chemical fast- reaction team.

  That done, Sanchez and her agents began to suit up themselves. But just then, Sanchez

  felt the ground shake violently beneath her feet. She could hear the deafening blast. She could suddenly feel the scorching heat. She had enough time to realize that her best efforts to protect the president had failed, that it was over, and then, sure enough, it was.

  9:13 P.M. EST-VICE PRESIDENT'S COMPOUND NEAR JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

  The waves lapped gently, rhythmically, upon the shore.

  A full, majestic moon hung over the Atlantic and a balmy breeze swept in off the water, carrying with it the distant cries of seagulls and the horn of a freighter veering a bit too close to the shore. The mood was festive, and everyone was drinking champagne and

  eating chilled shrimp as the vice president's small but loyal staff huddled in the living room of the gorgeous summerhouse on a six-million-dollar stretch of exquisite beachfront property, just outside of Jacksonville in a community called Ponte Vedra.

  They had gathered to watch the president's third, final, and most important address to a Republican convention. They had gathered to see how James MacPherson's daring new

  policy would play before the country, and the world. But suddenly, they saw nothing on the vice president's new plasma screen but snow.

  Bobby Caulfield, the VP's twenty-three-year-old personal aide, quickly grabbed the

  remote and switched from FOX to CNN. The picture was out there as well. His fellow

  staffers groaned. Caulfield switched to MSNBC. Nothing. Next he flipped through each of the broadcast networks, but they, too, all seemed to be knocked off the air.

  "What in the world . . . ," he muttered to himself as he clicked his way through nearly two hundred cable channels in the next sixty seconds.

  He found some still functioning. A food channel here. A travel channel there. An

  exercise show or two. But none of the networks carrying the president's address at the

  Republican convention was working, and he could feel the small crowd of senior staffers turning on him, as though somehow this were his fault.

  Caulfield didn't dare look at his boss. He just stayed focused on trying to figure out

  what was wrong, checking the batteries in the remote and playing with the wires in the

  back of the console to see if any of them were loose. None of them was. It didn't make

  sense.

  Without warning, six Secret Service agents—including the head of the detail—burst into

  the room, grabbed the VP, and hauled him out, shouting back for Bobby to join them—

  fast.

  Caulfield grabbed his BlackBerry and raced to catch up, leaving the rest of the

  staffers with their jaws open, as bewildered as he. But as he ran through the kitchen, he stopped suddenly and turned back.

  "Caulfield, let's go; move!" an agent shouted.

  "One minute," he shouted back.

  "No, now!"

  Caulfield scanned every counter, the table, the floor. Where was it? It had to be here somewhere. His heart was racing. Then an air raid siren went off and he could hear the sound of Marine Two powering up. He couldn't leave it behind. Where was it?

  He raced back into the living room in a panic, running headlong into the vice

  president's executive assistant, her face drained of all color.

  "Looking for this?" she asked, holding Caulfield's briefcase.

  "Last chance, Caulfield," another agent shouted over the roar of the rotors. "Let's go.

  Let's go."

  They were about to close the chopper door and lift off.

  "Thanks," Caulfield told his colleague.

  He grabbed the bag, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and bolted out a side door toward the VP's green and white Lockheed Martin VH-71. Even as he did, Caulfield became more

  confused. Marine Two was surrounded now by at least thirty or forty heavily armed agents. What in the world was going on? he wondered as he jumped into the helicopter, climbed into the seat behind the vice president, and buckled up as quickly as he could.

  Two Black Hawks suddenly roared into view. Caulfield could see two

  Apache helicopter gunships racing up the coast. Marines toting machine guns were

  taking up positions around
the VP's compound. Whatever this was, it had to be bad. It

  couldn't be a drill. He'd been through several of those, but the Secret Service wouldn't be stupid enough to hold one in the middle of the president's speech.

  Then Bobby Caulfield heard words that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on

  end. As soon as the doors of the chopper slammed shut, the lead pilot said into his radio,

  "Checkmate is secure. I repeat, Checkmate is secure. All airborne support, move into formation. Marine One is lifting off"

  Caulfield repeated the words in his mind. Had he heard the pilot correctly? Marine One?

  It had to be a mistake. But Marine pilots didn't make mistakes. Not that one, at least. So what was going on? Why was everyone acting as though the president were on

  board?

  * * *

  The vice president took the call on a secure line.

  "Sir, this is Lieutenant General Charlie Briggs at NORAD. Can you hear me?"

  "I can, General, and you had better have a good explanation for this," Oaks replied, having no idea why he'd been dragged away from his family, friends, and staff at such a time as this.

  "Sir, I don't exactly know how to say this," Briggs began.

  "I'm in no mood for games or exercises," Oaks shot back. "The president of the United States is giving a major address, General. I'm not exactly supposed to be missing it. Hear what I'm saying?"

  "Yes, sir," Briggs said. "I understand that, sir."

  "Then what in the world is going on here, General?" Oaks insisted. "Sir, I'm afraid it's my duty to inform you . . ." Briggs hesitated again.

  Oaks was rapidly losing patience. "What?" he demanded.

  "Sir, the United States is under attack."

  "Under attack?" Oaks asked in disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

  "Sir, in the last few minutes, four American cities have been hit by ballistic missiles--

  Washington, New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle." "My God ... ," Oaks gasped.

  "Each of those missiles was equipped with a nuclear warhead," the general continued.

  "I can't tell you what kind. I can't tell you what size. Not yet. But casualties in each city are extensive. Damage in each city is extensive."

  "How extensive?" Oaks pressed as a chill shuddered through his body.

  "Sir, the White House and Capitol are gone," Briggs explained. "The Supreme Court, the FBI building, and all of the Cabinet agencies are gone. The Pentagon is badly

  damaged. Langley has been completely wiped out as well. The entire city is a hot zone,

  sir. Nobody's going to be able to get in there for . . . well, a long, long time. And . . . well .

  . . I regret to inform you, sir, but USNORTHCOM is operating under the belief that the

  president is dead."

  Oaks couldn't say anything.

  "Hello?" Briggs asked. "Sir, are you still there?"

  Oaks tried to process the magnitude of what he'd just heard. But how could he? How

  could this actually be happening?

  "Tell me this is some kind of drill, General."

  "It's not, sir."

  "Did you just tell me that the president of the United States is dead?"

  "Yes, sir," Briggs replied. "I'm afraid so. Staples Center received a direct hit. There's nothing left."

  "Four nuclear attacks?" Oaks repeated, still not able to believe what he'd been told.

  "Actually, five, sir," Briggs corrected. "Washington was hit twice—once downtown and once in northern Virginia. Langley, to be precise."

  "It can't be," the vice president said. "It must be some kind of mistake."

  "I wish it were, sir, but its not," Briggs said, his voice now surprisingly calm and professional under the circumstances. "It will take days to assess the damage, sir, but there are a few critical things you need to know right now."

  Oaks loosened his tie. "Start with my family. Is someone getting Marie?"

  "We have another chopper picking her up and bringing her to you," Briggs explained.

  "What about my boys?"

  "We have agents picking up David and his wife in Phoenix and Tom in Atlanta,"

  Briggs said. "They'll both be taken to secure facilities until we figure out exactly what's happening."

  "You sure they're okay?"

  "I don't have any word on them yet, but I will get you an update as soon as I can."

  "I want them all brought to me."

  "Yes, sir," Briggs said. "Now there are a few things I need to go over.

  "Go ahead."

  "First of all, sir, I need to inform you that under the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution, you are now the president of the United States."

  Again Oaks couldn't think of anything to say. He sat in shocked silence.

  "Mr. President, are you there?" Briggs asked. "Sir?"

  "No," Oaks suddenly shot back. "Don't call me that, General. Not unless you have

  absolute proof that President MacPherson didn't survive the initial blast."

  "He couldn't have, sir," Briggs replied.

  "Why not?" Oaks demanded. "How do you know?"

  "No one could have survived that blast," Briggs explained. "Our initial

  assessment is that Los Angeles was hit with a warhead between one hunt

  dred fifty and two hundred kilotons in size. It will take us time to know for sure. But one thing I can tell you for certain, sir—the casualties will be in the millions, sir, starting with President MacPherson. I know it's hard to hear, sir, but there's no question about it.

  The president is dead, God rest his soul."

  9:26 P.M. EST-MARINE ONE, EN ROUTE TO JACKSONVILLE

  Oaks felt nauseated.

  He heard the words but they didn't compute. It wasn't possible. How could it be? He had known Jim MacPherson most of his adult life. They had been through so much together.

  They had served side by side through perhaps the most difficult eight years of any American administration, at least since FDR's tenure during World War II or Lincoln's term during the Civil War. Terrorists had tried to take them both out multiple times, and nearly

  succeeded. But MacPherson couldn't really be dead. Not now. Not at the pinnacle of his

  career.

  Hadn't they just turned a corner in the global War on Terror? Weren't things starting to get better? With Russia neutralized, along with Iran and Syria, the world was getting quiet.

  Or quieter, at least. Wasn't it?

  And then it suddenly struck him. It wasn't just MacPherson who had been killed in

  the blast. The First Lady must be dead too, and the MacPhersons' daughters. Bob Corsetti.

  Jackie Sanchez. The entire leadership of the Republican party.

  Oaks unfastened the top button of his dress shirt. He was having trouble breathing.

  His pulse was racing. He could barely grasp the magnitude of what was happening to his

  country. But the death of so many of his friends made it personal. If Washington was gone, so was Marsha Kirkpatrick at State. Scott Harris at FBI. Ken Costello at the NSC. Danny Tracker at CIA. All their staff. The entire White House staff. They were gone. All of them.

  He would never see them again. It was more than he could bear, but General Briggs didn't give him time to mourn.

  "Sir, I know it's a lot to deal with," the three-star said, empathy in his voice. "But there's more I need to tell you."

  "Lieutenant, could you give me some air back here?" Oaks asked the lead pilot. He took a few deep breaths and tried to steel himself for what more was coming.

  "Continue, General," he said after a few moments. "I'm listening." Or trying to, he said to himself.

  "Sir, once you're on board Air Force One, we'll feed you live satellite images of each of the affected cities, beginning with Los Angeles. I'll put my experts on a videoconference to walk you through the specifics and answer every question you have. After you board,

  you're going to be met by
the chief U.S. district judge out of Jacksonville. I don't have her name in front of me, but you'll have a full dossier on her in a few minutes. She is going to administer the oath of office. We need a commander in chief immediately, sir. We're going to war."

  "With whom, General?" Oaks demanded. "Who's behind all this?"

  "I don't know, sir," Briggs conceded. "Not yet. But I will soon. And when I do, I'll give you a package of possible response options. For now, though, that's getting ahead of

  ourselves. First things first. I'm so sorry to have to say this, but as best as we can tell at the moment, you have virtually no Cabinet to speak of, sir, and most of the National Security Council is dead as well."

  Oaks gasped. It wasn't possible.

  "You're absolutely certain, General?" he asked. "Couldn't any of them have survived?"

  "No, sir, I'm afraid not," Briggs said. "All but two members of the Cabinet were in D.C. at the moment of impact, and D.C. is gone. The White House has been completely

  destroyed. So have the Capitol, all of the Cabinet agencies, the Supreme Court, the FBI building. They're gone. All of them. And Washington's going to be uninhabitable for a

  century, sir, maybe longer."

  Oaks was certain he was going to be ill. He motioned to Caulfield— horrified by the bits and pieces of news he was overhearing—to get him a bottle of water as quickly as possible; then Oaks peered out the window and noticed that they were on approach not to the

  Jacksonville International Airport as he had expected but to the Naval Air Station, a few miles away.

  All nonessential air and ground traffic had been shut down. A detachment of heavily

  armed marines was moving rapidly to boost base security, and Oaks noticed that Air Force One and an unmarked Gulfstream jet were already out on one of the runways, flanked by two F/A-18 Hornets, armed with air-to-air missiles and ready for emergency takeoff. He

  wasn't sure why the Gulfstream was there, but he didn't have much time to think about it either.

  He took the bottle from Caulfield's hands, drank a third of it in a matter of seconds, and then asked, "Who's left?"

  "As far as we know, sir, only Secretaries James and Trainor are left," the three-star continued. "Secretary James is in Boston. The SecDef is still inbound from Tokyo."