“Time to go,” Jake said, throwing himself behind the wheel and gunning the engine, “and let’s just hope there’s no more nukes coming.”
THE SYSTEMATIC APPROACH
Saturday 10:30 p.m. Local Time, Beijing
The dark-suited woman had taken a small break, swiping a keycard into the unmarked suite of secure offices in the building one floor up from the command center. She had showered, put on the same dark suit and pale blue blouse this time. Now that she smelled and felt clean, she took two more of the stimulant tablets she had been surviving on for two days and washed them down with water.
Walking out of the frosted glass doors she refused to wait for the elevator for a single floor and took the stairs. Whether it was quicker or not was irrelevant; she was not the kind of woman who could stand still. She strode straight back into the secure command center, bypassing the security station entirely as though they weren’t even there, and walked unchallenged onto the floor. She glanced around, saw that the old man had taken himself away, and asked for a report on what she had missed. The supervisor looked nervous, mostly because he had little to report seeing as she’d only been gone for about forty minutes.
“Bombing is underway,” he told her, trying to stick to the bare facts in case he annoyed her. “We are getting reports of successes for military camps, airfields, naval bases, infrastructure, emergency response…” He trailed away, not sure what else she wanted to hear.
She said nothing but lit another cigarette without taking her eyes off him.
“Good,” she said finally, putting the lighter back into a jacket pocket, “when will the second wave be ready?”
He swallowed, checking the information on his tablet even though he knew the answer. “Bombers are returning now, they should be refitted and refueled and back in the air in less than three hours.”
She turned to regard him coldly. She knew as well as he did that the inescapable laws of physics were just that: inescapable. Both of them knew that there was no way to get more planes in the air any faster, nor could anyone issue an order for an ICBM launch as the Americans had already proven their anti-ballistic weapons shield was more than operational. Their prototype nuclear submarine was sailing south in the Atlantic to take on more missiles, then it would be back to prowl the eastern seaboard. It was there primarily to prevent any other countries coming to the aid of the Americans, and their backup was already steaming toward them to complete the underwater shield.
Their carrier group, on the other side of the continent, was steaming eastwards to close the distance and increase their ‘play’ time. The net was pulling tight, the rest of the world still had no idea that they were responsible, and within twelve hours they would have boots on the ground other than their insurgency teams.
Every target which could offer them resistance, every military base which could slow the advance of their invasion, was being systematically destroyed state by state, and the population was being driven from the big cities on the coast where the survivors could be corralled, catalogued, and put to work.
The ministry had done their shady work, and had successfully puppeted the rogue Americans into taking out the leadership with the ability to counter-launch nuclear missiles, and with the president and the vice president both in the White House when it was obliterated by nuclear fire, their enemy had nobody available with the authority to order any such strike, even if they knew who to launch against.
Saturday 10:40 a.m. – Highway 64, Outside Charlestown
Speaker of the house, Madeline Tanner, sat in the back of the lead Chevy Tahoe as it sped east. Her secret service detail of five men and one woman drove fast, nose to tail, with their lights flashing. Weaving through the sparse traffic like an angry black snake, the radio in the front seat barked to life and prompted them to slow.
“What’s going on?” Madeline asked as she leaned her head through. She wasn’t used to riding in the lead car, as they normally held her securely in the middle car with protection front and rear. The head of her team, Drew Briar, a former US Marine with more than enough experience of vehicle convoy ambushes, liked to mix it up and keep any potential threat guessing as to which car she was in. Leaning back to shout over the road noise, he answered her whilst keeping his eyes on the road. “We need to get off the highway, ma’am,” he told her, “got reports of aerial bombardments and need you away from population centers.”
Madeline sat back, wishing now that she had read the Secret Service protocols for keeping their principles safe.
“We paint by numbers,” he called behind his shoulder again, “we need to get you secured and see what we’re dealing with.”
Madeline nodded, not realizing she had forgotten to answer him out loud. She had been born into a life of politics, although she had never once regretted it. Working on her father’s campaign for Governorship of their home state even before she had started school, she had loved the life and had always shown a talent for it. Her rise to the Senate via state Governor was, for her and everyone who knew her, an inevitability.
A short term as majority whip led to a fortuitous placement when the last speaker retired, and Madeline found herself appointed by the house. The president and the VP had both come up the political ranks with her, had both served in the Senate with her, and she considered both to be something nearing friends. Learning that both were now dead, and that the Capitol was annihilated by a nuclear strike, had turned her world upside down.
It was fortuitous timing again that had saved her from sharing their fate, as she had left her office at a dead run not forty-eight hours before when her sister had called to say that their mom had suffered a stroke. Drew, implacable as ever, had called for three cars to be ready and taken two thirds of her entire detail. There was little chance of calling up a chopper for the journey, instead he had led the convoy as he did now only with sirens blaring and local law enforcement standing by to escort them. In the end, she had been too late to see her mother before she passed, but she stayed to console her sister who had been with her until the very end. She was glad that her mom had passed, for the simple reason that she would never know their beloved country now lay a third in ruins, with worse yet to come.
So now she sat back, shot a glance at her terrified head of staff who had insisted on accompanying her, and trusted her security detail to do what they did best. They were getting her off the highway, and after that god only knew what would happen.
Saturday 10:59 a.m. – Greenbrier Mountain, WV
“Gardner, Dillon,” came the low voice in Troy’s earpiece. He had taken his turn on stag relieving Miller and Jackson—two Marines with as dizzying a skillset as the rest of his team—and was sat still in line of sight with their quietest member. Although usually paired on missions with Chalky, he would not let both of their nominal commanders be away from the command center at the same time.
“Yeah,” he said into his mic, “what’s up?” Radio discipline was for the grunts.
“Incoming message via secure satellite server,” Dillon told him. “I’ll need to decrypt it first.”
Troy, his interest more than piqued, cast a look over to Ghost. He had heard the same transmission, everyone on their secure squad net had heard it, so Ghost simply nodded to say that he was good until someone else came to take over Troy’s duties. Ghost’s real name was Clay, and he had left law enforcement and the LAPD SWAT team behind to join the 101st Airborne, but much else about the man was a mystery. He could glide in and out of rooms without people knowing he was there, which had quickly earned him the nickname. Normally Troy would need to know a lot more about a man before he stayed on the team, as personalities clashed horribly sometimes, but Ghost was not a man to upset people, and his insane infiltration skills and ability to defeat locks was a major pull. He had stayed, and he was happy being the silent partner in the team. That wasn’t to say that quiet was his default setting in combat, and his uncanny skill at skydiving was testimony to his bravery.