General Rice shook his head. “Sir, I vehemently disagree. It is critical that we be measured. The use of nuclear weapons must be proportional and targeted appropriately.”
The national security advisor frowned. “Think of the long-term ramifications. We have an advantage now. That could be gone tomorrow. We have the justification we need. This would be a defensive measure—”
General Rice said, “What do you propose? That we wipe out their entire military? Do you know where their military bases are? Do you know how many hundreds of millions of people would be killed? Their population centers are dense and coastal. And a strike of that size would have global implications. Nuclear winter.”
“There were nuclear detonations in Korea!”
“North Korea isn’t the US.”
“Does it matter?”
“Mr. President, we don’t have much more time…”
The voices broke out into arguments.
“…The Russians have thousands of nukes. If they see us launch…”
“…limited strike options. We can attack only Chinese strategic nuclear targets…”
“…simultaneously use backchannel communications with the Russians…”
“I don’t recommend that, sir…”
“…but if we’re trying to reduce risk…”
The president put up his hand, and the room went silent. “If I was to go with the limited nuclear response, what are my options?”
General Rice looked up at the colonel, who held the Football.
The colonel removed three large plastic cards. “Sir, based on the conversation with the National Event Conference, I understand that you wish to pursue a retaliatory strike on the Chinese military using assets from the nuclear triad. Am I correct in that assessment?”
The president nodded. “I’m giving the order. A limited strike.” He removed the ID card from its case, holding it up.
The colonel read a challenge code. He looked up the code on his Biscuit card and responded appropriately.
The colonel looked at General Rice. “Sir, please verify that—”
“I verify that the order came from the president.”
The colonel then nodded and typed the code into the hardened communications device within the suitcase. The message was coded, encrypted, and transmitted around the world via ELF radio transmitters.
The United States had just activated the nuclear triad.
Seconds later, the four General Electric GF-6 engines of Air Force One roared to life as it began making its takeoff from the runway.
4
Lieutenant Ping’s team of Chinese commandos had been specially trained for this mission. They were the elite of the elite. Young and less experienced than their US special operations counterparts, but skilled and determined nonetheless.
Ping’s team had been waiting in a rural section of Maryland for the past week. Twelve shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missiles, the latest generation of Chinese technology, were loaded into the back of two pickup trucks and driven to the top of a hill on the farm property. Ping had received the radio signal to prepare for the EMP detonation. He had quickly instructed his men to wait in their vehicles, eyes trained on the floor, until the event was over.
The flash lasted almost two full seconds. It made no audible sound, over one hundred miles up. But Lieutenant Ping watched as the bright white light of the EMP painted his knees while he sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle. When the world went dark again, he began issuing orders.
“Power up the weapons and radar. Check that everything is working.” He hoped that the engineers who had planned for this mission had performed their calculations correctly. It would be a shame if the EMP had wiped out his ability to detect and target air contacts.
“Radar functioning normally. Op checks passed with no flags.”
Ping nodded.
“We are in the window,” the senior enlisted man told Ping.
Ping looked at his watch. Timing was everything. It was possible that they wouldn’t get the opportunity to use their training. But if they did, it could change the war.
A decapitation on day one would send a powerful message. It could throw America into further chaos. He would be a hero.
“Contact!” one of his men shouted. The soldier was monitoring the returns from a hardened laptop computer, connected by wire to a set of six radar dishes, each aimed at the horizon. Together they formed a miniature phased-array. Again, the latest Chinese technology. No expense had been spared for this assignment. Still, it would require a bit of luck. Their mission required Ping’s team to remain undetected. This meant that limited-range shoulder-mounted weapons had to be used.
Would their target venture into the range of these weapons? If the aircraft turned out to sea before acquisition or stayed low and traveled south… they would not get a shot off. But based on the threat, the intelligence experts from Beijing had expected the flight pattern to be to the northwest. Hence their current location in rural Maryland.
Two of his men were kneeling, aiming the shoulder-mounted weapons at the correct angle, and finished with their preparations.
“Stand by,” called out the soldier monitoring the radar. They were each wearing hearing protection, so his voice was muffled.
The officer in charge walked over and stood behind him. He was nervous, double-checking his men’s work even though he knew they almost never made mistakes.
“Target confirmed,” one of the other men said, looking at a satellite phone in his hand. One of their men was sitting in a parking lot only a few miles from the runway where Air Force One had just taken off. “Turning to the north.” Excitement in his voice.
“Coming in range. Almost there… in range.”
“Fire at will,” the officer shouted, louder than he had intended. Nerves.
The night sky lit up, and his ears, even over the hearing protection he wore, were filled with the thunderous sounds of the surface-to-air missiles firing off into the distance.
The president and his men stared silently at each other for a moment. Now that the nuclear launch order had been given, they sat in numb shock. The SecDef looked ashamed. General Rice was scribbling notes on a piece of paper, a phone to his ear, his eyes shifting between the president and the others in the room. The national security advisor looked pleased and strong. The president’s chief of staff left the room in a rush, his face green.
“What’s next?” the president asked.
“We’ll continue to get updates as our order is executed, sir. The first volley will be from our land-based missiles near Cheyenne Mountain…”
A panicked voice came over the speakerphone. “General Rice! Sir… we have an important status update. Our ballistic missile data has been updated with new sensor information. Sir, the four missiles that we had been tracking have all fallen into the sea. There are no inbound missiles headed towards the US mainland. Repeat, no inbound missiles headed towards the US.”
The president stood and leaned forward, hands on the desk. “What does that mean? What about the Chinese missiles? The second set of—”
“Sir, we have a few active systems coming online. As a result, NORAD has a full picture. There are no Chinese missiles inbound. We don’t know what happened to them. But we can now confirm that there are no further ICBMs headed to the US.”
A stunned silence filled the room.
The president had just ordered a nuclear attack on China, but now he was hearing that they had not fired first. This was no longer a proportional response, even if China had launched the EMP attack.