George and the major carefully studied the footage for any sign of survivors. “Whoa!” said George pointing at the video screen. “I think I saw some movement over there in that rubble. What is that area? The Senate office complex?”
The major centered the gyrostabilized camera on the location George indicated and read the GPS coordinates from a display on the console. “Yeah, it’s what left of the Russell Building. Let’s zoom in for a closer look.”
“Right there!” said George, pointing to the screen. “Someone is crawling out… it’s a woman!”
“It sure is! Good eyes, George! She must have been on the underground train between the Capitol building and the office building when the blast went off. There’s no other way she could have survived!”
George yelled across the room to an army first lieutenant manning the search and rescue radio. “Call in the SAR helicopter,” he ordered. “Give them the exact position — the Russell Senate Office Building so they can minimize their exposure time in the radiation zone.”
“Yes, sir. SAR helo is on its way,” answered the lieutenant.
The major turned to George. “Since Reagan National and Andrews are both unusable, they’ll airlift her to a staging area outside the danger zone. Local hospitals are flooded, so depending on her condition, they’ll fly her out of Dulles or Baltimore to another area of the country for treatment.”
After the SAR helo picked up the woman and left the area, George and the major continued to search the rubble for another half-hour with no luck.
George grew frustrated. “There’s just no way to find anybody in this mess! If they’re buried in the rubble, we’ll never see them, and if they’re not, they’re nothing but charred bones.”
“I have to take a break,” said the major, motioning to the army first lieutenant to take his place at the Predator controls. “I can’t look at any more of this right now,” he muttered and headed rapidly for the door. George saw him slump over as he stepped outside the control van, nauseated from the sights on the display screen.
“We’re over Capitol Hill, Lieutenant,” George quickly briefed the replacement pilot as he sat down at the controls. “Let’s head over to the White House.”
“Yes, sir.” The pilot flew the Predator back down the mall as he typed in the coordinates for the White House. The GPS navigation system directed them to the right, and the pilot made a right turn near ground zero, across the Ellipse, to the area where the White House had once stood.
“Sorry about the circuitous route, sir. I would have flown straight down Pennsylvania Avenue, but I couldn’t make it out on the video. There aren’t any landmarks left.”
“That’s all right,” George answered understandingly. “Are you telling me we’re there?”
“Yes, sir.”
George studied the screen carefully. “There’s nothing here.”
“No, sir.”
“Nothing at all. From my understanding, the president, vice president, secretary of state, and cabinet members were all working in the White House at the time of the attack.”
“Yes, sir. There’s an underground nuke-proof bunker, but apparently they didn’t have enough warning to get in there in time.”
“How can that be?” George asked incredulously. “The report I read said the cops reported there was a nuke on the mall at least ten minutes before it detonated.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Well those of us in strategic forces studied depressedtrajectory ballistic missiles and figured there would be about ten minutes warning if a Soviet boomer in the Atlantic fired one at the East Coast. So the president’s emergency system was designed to get him to safety in less time than that.”
“Uh, a Soviet what?” asked the lieutenant.
“What?” George was puzzled. He wasn’t following the lieutenant’s question.
“You said something like a Soviet bomber firing a ballistic missile. I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Oh, sorry,” answered George, realizing the army lieutenant was probably not familiar with navy slang. “That’s “boomer”, not bomber. In the submarine community, we refer to ballistic missile submarines as boomers. It’s easier to say, and descriptive as well!”
“Oh, okay. That makes a lot more sense,” said the lieutenant.
“Anyway, with ten minutes warning, why weren’t the president and his staff in the bunker?”
“I don’t know, sir. I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure.”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, I heard some people saying there was some sort of miscommunication between the Park Police, the DC Police, the Secret Service, and the White House staff. I guess the president just didn’t get the word in time.”
“That’s just unbelievable!” George exclaimed. “They can round up several hundred people on the mall and cram them into a Metro station, but they forgot to warn the president?!”
“I don’t think anyone forgot, sir. It’s just that the president’s emergency communication system is designed so that he gets immediate warnings from NORAD of a nuclear missile or bomber attack. But there wasn’t, you know, a hotline kind of connection with the police. They had to call in through regular channels, and I guess the call just didn’t get through in time.”
George buried his face in his hands and shook his head in disbelief. Tears of sorrow and anger welled up in his eyes. The sudden realization that, by all rights, the president and his cabinet should have survived this attack was too much to bear. The brave policemen who stayed on the mall and got the word out with more than ten minutes to spare shouldn’t have died in vain. They should have the legacy of a living president. What a tremendous boost it would be for the country if the president had emerged safely from the attack. And what a message it would send to the terrorists! But because of some stupid mistake — some flaw in our communications — the president was dead.
“All this time and effort on homeland security, and they can’t make a simple phone call!” George said in exasperation.
“Sir, in all fairness, I worked as a liaison to the Homeland Security Department for the last two years. There are a lot of fine people in that organization, and they have been working as fast as possible to plug every hole in our security net. There were just too many holes.”
Regaining his composure, somewhat, George turned to the young army lieutenant. “I know, Lieutenant. I’m just frustrated. I could make similar statements about our submarine force failing to make a difference, but what’s the use?”
“The job was just too big, sir. From the time we got the wakeup call on 9/11, we just didn’t have enough time to fix every security problem.”
George shook his head again. “You’re right. We lived as a free and open society for so long… there were probably hundreds of holes al-Qaeda could have taken advantage of.”
“A few more years, and we would have plugged those holes, sir.”
“Yeah, maybe so. But at the same time, we tend to do a lot of stupid things that make it easier for terrorists to kill us.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, for instance, we allow people to post information on Web sites showing how to construct a nuke. And then we allow them to post information showing the effects of a nuclear blast in any city you want to pick. A terrorist could pick a location in any major city, pick a warhead size, and see what the effect would be if that warhead detonated in that location.”
“I’ve seen one of those sites.”
“Well, no doubt, they were very useful to al-Qaeda in planning the size of their weapon and its placement. You think they found such a perfect location by accident?”
“No, sir.”
George struck the top of the console with his fist. “We are so stupid! We know they’re out to kill us, and we give them every tool they need to maximize the body count! When will we ever learn?”