“Drew,” he said, shaking Dillon’s hand as he rose from the chair to greet him. “Marine Corps, retired obviously.”
“Same, brother,” Dillon told him. “I was F.A.S.T,” he said, pronouncing it ‘fast.’ Drew’s eyebrows raised. The Fleet Antiterrorist Security Teams of the United States Marine Corps were a small unit tasked primarily with high-value target protection, and many in the services thought of them as privileged security guards. Drew had served with a guy who was recruited and never seen by his old unit again. Drew didn’t need to say that he was impressed by Dillon or any of others, and to say so out loud would make him seem like an excited kid. Troy left the two of them to run over the facts as they knew them and picked up the last message from the remaining elements of command. He had already heard the news, but reading the facts made it seem worse than he thought.
Endeavor eyes only:
Nuclear attacks confirmed on both eastern and western seaboards by missile and air bombardment. Targets of populations centers. Reports of aerial insertion from south America confirmed, all states not directly affected by nuclear attack are reporting hostile forces engaging civilians and officials. Await orders for targets and report all intelligence.
Drew knew this, and was eager to get back on the ground to test the resolve of these hostile forces to see if they could handle Endeavor as well as they could handle civilians. He confidently doubted they could. The second paragraph was what really took his breath. On a separate sheet were some printed words which he was to get Madeline Tanner to read aloud in the presence of all witnesses available.
Endeavor Actuaclass="underline"
Conduct inauguration ceremony of Pres. Tanner at your earliest possible.
Jesus, thought Troy, they want me to do it? But there wasn’t anyone else, least not anyone in charge and no Congress or White House to do it at any more. Their bunker was now effectively their nation’s capital. Turning to Dillon to ask him how to use the bunker’s announcement system, he grabbed up the mic and depressed his thumb on the switch.
“All personnel,” he said, his voice echoing out along the underground halls of their fortress, “meet in the canteen” —he flipped over his wrist to check his watch— “at nineteen-thirty hours. No exceptions. Gardner out.” Then he left to go and knock on the door of the rooms which should, in essence, be assigned to him.
“Come on in,” came the rich, accented voice from behind the wooden door.
He opened the handle and squeezed himself through the doorframe, feeling giant in the confined space with the two smaller women inside. Troy still hadn’t removed his full war gear, nor was he likely to unless he stood down for any length of time, which he guessed wouldn’t be any time soon.
“Ma’am,” he said formally, feeling brutish with his array of weapons and heavy body armor. “I’m sure you heard the announcement?”
“I did, Captain, and I thank you,” Madeline said as she rose to stand before him. She was not a short woman, but she had to crane her neck at that distance to meet the eyes of the man who stood at a shade over six foot two, but was just one of those generally big all over people.
“I need to give you this to read out in front of everyone,” he said, handing her the separate sheet of paper he had pulled from the printer. Her eyes scanned it, seeing the familiar words which she knew by heart but was sure she would forget if she had to read them herself for real, and thanked him again.
“Troy?” she said to his retreating back as it blocked the artificial light from the corridor.
“Ma’am?” he asked turning back, pleased that she had quickly learned to drop the formality of rank when talking to him.
She opened her mouth but no words came out. She seemed lost in thought for the right way to say what she meant, to convey all her feelings and emotions, but she couldn’t find the words.
“You’ll be fine, ma’am,” Troy reassured her. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to see if any of my devils own a Bible.”
Troy knew exactly where he would find a Bible, and sure as anything their resident jumper produced it from a pouch and handed it to him as soon as he asked. Bruce, as he was known simply because his last name was Lee and he trained in martial arts, never went anywhere without the battered, leather-bound book. Where other soldiers would grab ten minute’s shut-eye whenever they could, Bruce liked to leaf through the thin pages carefully and find references to the everyday things he saw in the Scriptures. He said it gave him peace to know that he and Jesus saw the same things in life, even if Jesus didn’t specialize in jumping out of aircraft and finding new ways to get to earth safely in war zones.
With the book in one hand, he stood facing the smaller woman as their entire personnel gathered round them in the mess hall. He watched as she placed her left hand on the book and raised her right.
“I do solemnly swear,” she said, swallowing and continuing in a louder, more authoritative voice, “that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States, and will do to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.” She swallowed again, giving a tiny shake of her head to flick an errant strand of hair away from her eyes, and fixed Troy’s gaze with her own. “So help me God,” she finished.
And so help him, God, he believed her words and the conviction in her voice.
“Madame President,” he said solemnly.
“Captain,” she replied, a gleam in her eye.
At the northern tip of the state which now contained the first female president of the United States of America, four wet and shocked passengers drifted south on the Ohio river. The blood from their cuts, sustained when their truck had caught the full impact of the collision just aft of the rear tires and spun them out violently, had been washed away by their panicked flight into the river.
Of all the supplies they had successfully recovered and carefully stacked into the truck, they had only managed to salvage their weapons, a couple of bags of food and water, and, luckily, the cooler stacked with insulin, which Louise clung on to as though her life depended on it.
It does, thought Cal as he saw her shiver and moved closer to put his arm around her for warmth and comfort. Her grip on the box didn’t relax, but she rested her head on him.
The outboard motor which Ricky had managed to get running had lasted them for just over an hour before it spluttered into silence, and now they drifted as Jake tried to keep their slow course to the center of the wide waterway and away from the sides where other people and bad things were. Nobody spoke, because nobody knew what to say. They had been in the middle of a terror attack, seen the country devastated by nuclear explosions and bombing runs, seen anarchy and mob rule take over normal people and had now watched troops parachute to the ground where they tried to round up the population.
They were exhausted, scared, and they had little to no clue where they were headed. For now, drifting south on the Ohio River with enough food and water to last maybe two days, they were just happy enough to be away from land.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
Sunday 00:03 a.m. Local Time, London
An emergency meeting of COBRA, or the UK’s Cabinet Office Briefing Room to be long-winded as the British liked to be, was called late in the evening. The prime minister was surrounded by senior politicians, as well as the entire raft of armed forces high-ranking officers and their advisors. The doors were sealed shut, and the noise quickly faded away.