With this on his mind, he turned his attention to the Iranian ambassador, who was about to get a promise of his own. Get out of the Strait of Hormuz or prepare to deal with the full brunt of America’s military might.
Tomorrow, he’d deal with Pakistan and India.
PART V
ONE WEEK IN OCTOBER
Day five, Tuesday, October 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Tuesday, October 22
South Asia
Pakistan convened its National Command Authority in an undisclosed location many miles from any population centers. It quietly relocated its highest government officials and their immediate families into the wilderness near Tajikistan, as far away from India as possible. Its citizens were given a siren warning the moment after the launch sequence was triggered.
In Islamabad, the nation’s capital, residents had less than twenty minutes to rush into a fallout shelter that could hold less than eight percent of the population. Those with wealth were able to buy their way into a bunker. Others had to look for basements of buildings built on a rocky landscape.
On both sides of the Pakistan-India border, across the entire subcontinent of South Asia, home to nearly two billion people, nuclear war had broken out. Virtually all the residents of these two nations were on their own as the nuclear warheads flew.
India, with a population of one-point-four billion, had more to lose in terms of human life. Fifty of its cities had populations in excess of one million. Five had over five million. Across the country, because nuclear power formed an important part of India’s energy mix, Pakistani targets included nuclear reactors and atomic power plants in addition to missile launch sites.
Both nations relied upon a combination of medium- and long-range missile systems deployed close to their mutual border and in hardened silos within striking distance. Some of the targets included the silos, but the moving targets, the rail/road mobile launchers, were constantly relocated. History proved these strategic weapons to have been the deadliest. They were virtually unstoppable, especially at such close range.
Like Iran, and unlike Israel, both nations placed an emphasis on nuclear deterrence through an ever-growing arsenal. Following the twentieth-century model of mutually assured destruction, both governments presumed the other would show restraint. Recently, a reporter from the Washington Times had reached out to the Indian Home Affairs Minister and asked how his government was planning to protect its people from a nuclear strike. He laughed at the question, replied utter nonsense, and hung up the phone.
There was nothing nonsensical about the regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It made the Six-Hour War in the Middle East look like a short quarrel between lovers. The nuclear arsenals possessed by the South Asian nations might have been inferior to the nuclear stockpiles of Russia, China, and the U.S., but the sheer volume of weapons launched during the daylong war was astonishing.
Pakistan and India hosted some of the most densely populated cities on the planet. Calcutta, Karachi and Mumbai contained more than sixty-five thousand people per square mile. By comparison, New York City’s population density was less than half that.
Each of the two nations’ forty-kiloton nuclear warheads created a firestorm that covered fifty square miles. The immediate effects of the detonations—the fireball, the overpressure wave, and resulting radiation burns—killed hundreds of millions in the region. The larger, one-hundred-kiloton warheads had a greater blast radius, and the overpressure waves reduced hardened structures to rubble while increasing the death toll fourfold.
And that was just the beginning. Like Tehran and Tel Aviv, major cities in South Asia would suffer slow, lingering deaths due to radiation exposure. Their healthcare and other critical infrastructure had collapsed. The nuclear blasts triggered deadly firestorms far worse than the deadly napalm bombings had done during World War II in Tokyo.
As the rest of the world watched in horror, billions said prayers for the dead and begged for peace. Many in America were thankful the nuclear war hadn’t taken place in their country. They hugged their families and comforted one another in the thought that the nuclear exchange wouldn’t affect them.
Sadly, they were wrong.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tuesday, October 22
Driftwood Key
“Let’s do this!” exclaimed Hank as he pressed the throttles down on his forty-five-foot Hatteras Sportfish yacht. He and Erin exchanged high fives at the state-of-the-art upper helm surrounded by next-generation electronics and comfortable seating. It was truly another beautiful day in paradise on the smooth coastal waters off Driftwood Key.
Earlier that morning, Hank, like always, made his way to the beach to find solace after a restless night. His mind raced to all of the possibilities raised by Peter’s phone call. With the help of a warm brandy and after reading several chapters from a new novel about a massive earthquake along the Mississippi River, he finally drifted off to sleep. He awoke refreshed and anxious to search out Erin, as he hadn’t seen her since Sunday.
The smile that broke across his face when he approached the water’s edge could’ve shattered glass. She stood alone, facing the main house, with a breakfast smoothie in each hand. He picked up the pace and was practically jogging toward her after he noticed her standing there.
“I have a special delivery from Phoebe!” she’d said loudly as he arrived. “She told me to give you a lecture on not taking care of yourself and chastise you for skipping your smoothie.”
“I’m not drinking both, mom,” Hank added jokingly.
“One’s for me,” she said as she tipped the cup to her mouth, leaving a creamy mustache above her lip.
Hank burst out laughing, and like his new friend, he pushed the straw aside and recreated the act. Only, his mustache was a little too runny, and he looked more like Cujo, the crazed dog in the Stephen King story.
They shyly admitted they’d missed one another yesterday, and without getting into serious subjects, Hank offered to take Erin fishing. Thirty minutes later, with Jimmy’s assistance in preparing the Hatteras to sail, the two kids were off for a day of sun and fun.
The Albright boat was in excellent condition because Hank, like his father, was meticulous about maintenance. The Hatteras was used by the resort to take its guests fishing, usually captained by Hank or Jimmy, plus a new captain who was used sporadically. Both of them treated it with care, and therefore one never knew it had plenty of hours on it.
“Where are we headed?” she asked as she sat on the raised seat next to him at the helm.
“It’s still warm, so reef fishing will probably be a little slow. I love grouper and snapper, but I don’t wanna sit around if the waters aren’t cool enough. This is a pretty good time to fish offshore for wahoo and blackfin tuna. If you’re up for a ride, I say we head out about a hundred fathoms and see how we do.” To landlubbers, one hundred fathoms was equal to about six hundred feet of water.
“Whatever you say, Captain!” she replied enthusiastically.
Hank, caught up in the moment, turned on the audio system to fire up his favorite playlist of beach and island songs. Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Chesney and other artists randomly blared through the speakers. Caught up in the moment, they pumped up the volume and began to sing along.