Bocks followed suit and then picked up the phone and started dialing some more.
Within ninety seconds of the colonel hanging up on Bocks, a message was transmitted worldwide on a secure Department of Defense information network called DEFNET. The message said:
FLASH PRIORITY ALPHA
ALL STATIONS
COMMENCE CASE SUMTER
COMMENCE CASE SUMTER
COMMENCE CASE SUMTER
ALL STATIONS ACKNOWLEDGE
Within sixty seconds of the Flash Priority message being sent across DEFNET, certain pre-planned events began to occur.
The President of the United States was at a resort hotel in Sun Valley, looking forward to a day of fly fishing on the Snake River, when armed Secret Service agents came into his hotel room and bundled him out to a waiting armored Chevrolet Suburban. Before he could ask what in hell was going on, agents had placed him in a biowarfare protective suit, complete with respirator, and he found that he could only make himself heard by yelling.
So he kept quiet until he was in Air Force One, which went airborne in twenty minutes and headed north to Canada. By the time it reached cruising altitude, it was joined by four F-16 fighters of the 119th Fighter Wing of the North Dakota Air National Guard out of Fargo, ND, and the President was receiving the first of many briefings that were to be conducted over the next several hours.
The Vice President was at his official residence at the US Naval Observatory outside Washington DC when his Secret Service detail grabbed him and placed him in a specially modified Humvee with its own air-control and filtration system. Within a half-hour he was in a secure location that as yet had not been disclosed by those enterprising members of the Fourth Estate.
The Speaker of the House was taken by Blackhawk helicopter from his apartment at the Watergate in Washington DC and was flown north to a rural area in West Virginia. Approximately fifteen minutes away from landing at another government retreat facility, the pilot of the Blackhawk misjudged his altitude and the tail rotor of the helicopter struck a high-tension power line belonging to the Appalachian Power Company. The subsequent crash of the helicopter killed the crew, three members of the Secret Service, and the Speaker of the House, the second-in-line in the presidential succession.
All across the United States, as the wreckage of the Blackhawk helicopter in West Virginia continued to burn, members of the Cabinet, members of the US Senate and US House leadership and other government officials were brought — sometimes forcibly — to retreat areas that were designed to withstand not only nuclear attack but airborne biological and chemical attack too. As this retreat took place, US embassies across the globe went on Threat Condition Delta, as did the armed forces of the United States. Very soon the major news organizations in the United States became aware that something terrible was underway.
Two minutes after the President was awoken in Sun Valley, Idaho, a phone call was made to the Northern Command of the US Air Force stationed at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The on-duty commander who received the call — Lt General Mike McKenna — said one thing when the call came in and he was briefed on the situation: ‘This is real world, correct? Not a drill?’
‘That’s correct, general, not a drill,’ said the male voice. ‘This is real-world.’
‘Understood,’ General McKenna said as he hung up the phone. His office was a glass-enclosed cube overlooking the rows of terminals, desks and overhead display screens that observed the airborne space over Canada and the United Stations. His adjutant, Colonel Madeline Anson, looked on from a nearby chair.
‘Sir?’ she asked.
The general said, ‘We have nineteen aircraft airborne over CONUS,’ he said, referring to the continental United States. ‘It’s believed they may be carrying an airborne agent of some kind. Sarin, plague, anthrax — not sure at this time.’
‘Shit,’ said the colonel. ‘Where did they come from?’
The general grimaced. ‘Memphis. They’re aircraft from AirBox.’
‘General Bocks’s company?’
‘The same,’ he said. ‘Madeline, execute Strike Angel. Now. I want those nineteen to have company within the next thirty minutes and we’ll need to brief our FAA rep.’
‘Sir,’ she said, getting up from her chair.
‘And one more thing. I need to talk to Bocks. ASAP.’
‘Yes, sir.’
When his adjutant left McKenna waited, his hands folded. Thoughts were racing through his mind, were pressing against him, and he was pleased that so far he was keeping on top of things. He looked up at the clock. A few hours from now his shift would have ended and another general officer would be at this desk, with this responsibility.
McKenna looked at his empty coffee cup. He would need some caffeine, and soon, and he refused to feel sorry for him-self. Shift change or not, this was his job, his duty, and right now his duty meant that—
The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. Colonel Anson said, ‘Hold for a second, sir, for General Bocks.’
‘Thank you, Madeline.’
A very long second indeed, McKenna mused, and the concept of his duty came back to him as he finished the thought.
Duty meant a lot of things, and at this very moment it meant explaining to the head of a company why it was necessary to shoot down his nineteen aircraft and kill their crews.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Brian Doyle was in an empty terminal, looking for somebody, anybody, when he saw a man approach him from around a ticket counter, whistling. The man had on a dark blue janitor’s uniform and a bundle of keys at his side and was pushing a wheeled bucket with the handle of a mop. Brian strode over to him and showed him his ID.
The older man whistled. ‘NYPD. You’re far from home, pal.’
‘That I am.’
The man asked eagerly, ‘You ever been on NYPD Blue? That’s my favorite show. Even though it’s off the air, I do love it so. I see all the repeats.’
Brian looked at the man’s eyes, and sensed the intelligence back there was that of a teenage boy. He hated to lie but he had no time. ‘Sure. A couple of times. As an extra. You know, just part of the crowd.’
The man laughed, showing bad teeth. ‘That’s wonderful. That’s truly wonderful. What can I do you for?’
‘AirBox.’
The janitor nodded. ‘Know it well.’
‘That’s good. Because I need to see the people who run it. Not the office types, the guys who keep track of the air-craft.’
The janitor said, ‘Lots of police and troopers out there tonight. There’s some sort of emergency. They’re not letting people through from one terminal to another.’
‘That so?’
The janitor grinned again. ‘But for a real true NYPD Blue, I can get you there real quick. Skip the places where the blockades are. That sound good?’
Brian said, ‘Best news I’ve heard all night.’
Alexander Bocks heard a click on the other end of the phone. He said, ‘Bocks here.’
‘Sir, this is Lt General Mike McKenna, Northern Command.’
‘Yes.’
‘I understand you have nineteen aircraft outbound from
Memphis, carrying canisters that may contain airborne pathogens. Correct?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘Are the crews aware of this situation?’
Bocks said, ‘Not yet.’
‘Do you intend to notify them?’
‘Of course. The crews… they have a right to know what’s going on.’