She was privately grateful there wasn’t a mirror to be found. She knew she must look horrible, but Jon didn’t seem to care, and it made her love him all the more.
“By the way,” he said, as if reading her thoughts, “has anyone told you how beautiful you look today?”
She tried to shake her head.
“Good.” He smiled. “I’d have to punch them in the nose.”
Her smile broadened, and as it did she finally felt the new pain relievers coursing through her veins. Could the pills really be working so quickly? Maybe it was something in the IV instead. At any rate, her eyelids were getting heavy, though she was determined not to lose this moment.
“So, did the doc say anything? Besides, of course, how desperate I was to see you?” he asked.
She shook her head ever so slightly.
“Dr. Kwamee didn’t give you your diagnosis yet?”
Again she shook her head just enough to make the point.
“He didn’t give you your prognosis?”
“No,” she managed to whisper.
“Then perhaps I should fill you in.”
Erin felt herself drifting, but she did everything she could to focus as Jon explained that she had bacterial meningitis, explained how it was affecting her, how she would be treated, and how long it would probably take to recover. Erin was relieved to hear it wasn’t something worse, and she squeezed his hand when he was finished to thank him for being the bearer of such good news. After all, God only knew what other diseases she could have contracted in this place. She had made out like a bandit, she thought, and hoped now she could let herself drift away in a long and peaceful nap. She could see Jon soon enough. But she really needed to sleep, perchance to dream….
But Jon wasn’t finished.
“Actually, sweetheart, there’s a little bit more,” he said.
He had a curious look, she thoughT — as if he was hiding something, though something not altogether bad. It almost looked like he was trying to look grim.
“What?” she whispered.
“You sure you want to know?” Jon asked.
The drugs were making her feel so groggy, so dreamy. But yes — she nodded; she wanted to know, and soon, before she slipped away for another few hours.
“You’re sure?” he teased. “It’s been a long night, after all, and you really need your rest.”
Her eyes pleaded with him to tell her, and as always, it didn’t take much to win him over.
“Very well, Erin Christina Bennett,” he began, leaning in close and kissing her softly on the forehead. “I have the pleasure of suggesting that you not make any plans for May third of next year… plans that don’t include being in a hospital, that is.”
She had no idea what he was talking about. She wanted to, but it didn’t compute, and Jon’s face was already beginning to blur. Her eyes were closing. She tried to hold on, tried to think of what she might possibly have planned for May of next year. She blinked hard and tried to refocus, but it was a battle she was quickly losing.
He leaned close to her face and put his finger to her lips. “Finally, a little good news, sweetheart,” he whispered at last.
“What?” she managed to ask.
Bennett paused for a moment, then whispered, “You’re pregnant.”
Erin’s eyes suddenly opened wide. Her heart felt as if it skipped a beat. Had she heard him right? Or had she fallen asleep and dreamed it? But the look in his eyes told her all she wanted to know. She hadn’t dreamed a thing. She was going to have a baby, with the man she had longed to marry since the day she had met him. How could she be so lucky? Why had she been so blessed?
The room began to spin. She was dizzy with joy. The drugs probably had something to do with it too, but it wasn’t only the drugs. She began to giggle a little. Her face ached from smiling, but she couldn’t help it. Every minute with Jon Bennett had been an adventure, and she had loved each moment of their lives together.
Erin suddenly realized that she had never felt as safe as she did at this moment. Somehow, in a way she loved but couldn’t explain, a soothing, comforting peace seemed to wash over her disease-ravaged body like the cool waters of a gentle mountain stream. And as hard as she had fought to stay awake, she surrendered to the narcotics and slipped into a sound and dreamless sleep, with a smile on her lips and her best friend at her side.
She never heard Dr. Kwamee burst in a minute later and say, “Mr. Bennett, come quickly; something terrible has happened.”
17
Carrie Sanders waited for instructions from her superiors.
But they weren’t coming. Sanders and her colleagues were horrified. They were tracking a flood of fast-breaking intel reports on the missile attacks around the country. They now knew for certain that the mysterious reports of rockets being fired off container ships near the ports of Baltimore, Newark, Seattle, and Long Beach were all true. They knew more missiles might be out there on more ships, preparing to launch at any moment. They knew the president was dead. They just didn’t know what to do next.
Sanders’s supervisor was frantically calling his way up the chain of command, but without success. Most calls didn’t even go through. Those that did either weren’t answered or were rerouted to other Coast Guard command posts around the country that had even less information than Sector Baltimore. Chaos and confusion were everywhere, and for the first time in Sanders’s tour of duty, she began to experience real fear.
This was real. This was the nightmare scenario. This was the grand finale the analysts at Langley and DIA had been warning about for years. A terrorist network or terrorist regime had actually hit the American homeland with nuclear weapons. They had apparently decapitated the American government. They had clearly crippled the American military’s command and control system, or at least so disrupted it as to render it ineffective in the most important early stages of the war. Now what?
Rear Admiral Scott Conklin was commander of the Fifth Coast Guard District, based in Portsmouth. He was responsible for the mid-Atlantic region, stretching from New Jersey to North Carolina. A gruff, chain-smoking, fourth-generation admiral, Conklin had previously served with distinction at Coast Guard headquarters in D.C. as director of port security. In fact, Sanders knew that in Washington, Conklin had been largely responsible for making sure a scenario like this — a sea-based attack on the capital — never happened. He had helped draft the new maritime security regime covering all U.S. ports and vessels and operational security protocols covering all eight thousand foreign vessels coming in and out of U.S. ports every year. If anyone knew how to handle a crisis like this, Sanders thought, it would be Conklin.
But no one at the ops center in Annapolis could find the rear admiral or any of his five senior deputies. All of them were scheduled to be in Manhattan the next morning for a U.N. conference on maritime security. Were all of them now dead? Were they alive but severely wounded? Were they alive but unable to communicate back to the ops center? What did that mean? Who was in charge?
The face in the picture on the wall of her Communications Center — in the frame next to President MacPherson and Vice President Oaks — was that of Admiral Jack Allenby, the commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. The only four-star admiral of the Coast Guard, Allenby, fifty-eight, had been appointed to a four-year term by President MacPherson and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. But he was stationed at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington, D.C. So were his vice commandant, his two area commanders, and his chief of staff, all of whom were three-star vice admirals. Now the Coast Guard’s central command center had been obliterated. Did that mean all of the Guard’s senior officers were gone too? Who, then, was authorized to make decisions?