“Thank you, Commander. That will be all.”
The commander closed her cabin door on his way out.
Allison ran through the different possibilities. If there had been an assassination attempt against the president — by Hugo McIntyre and Tank Stone — there must’ve been a damned good reason for it. Chances were they were attempting to prevent the nuclear execution order she now held in her hands. If the story were true.
A second possibility was that Hugo McIntyre and Tank Stone had been framed. Someone had made it look as if they were killed during a botched assassination attempt. And those someones would be General Thad Metzger and Jessie Hruska, who were now with the president on Air Force One. And if that were true…
It didn’t matter which scenario was true. They both came down to one thing — the president of the United States was under duress. He never would’ve given a nuclear execution order without consulting her first. His decision earlier to release chemical weapons without consulting her — although out of character — was still somewhat plausible. But nukes? No way. When he’d considered using nuclear weapons after the Cleveland attack, he’d bent her ear like it had never been bent before. This time, he’d kept her completely in the dark.
Hugo McIntyre and Tank Stone would never have tried to assassinate the president, under any circumstances. The more she thought about it, the more she knew it just wasn’t possible. She’d known both men for years — worked with them during stressful situations. It just wasn’t in their character to attempt something so dastardly. It would be like a nun robbing a convenience store. Just wouldn’t happen.
That left her with her second possibility — that they’d been framed. Framed by Thad Metzger and Jessie Hruska.
Metzger was an unknown to her — she’d never worked directly with him. He did, however, have a reputation as a hard-as-nails street fighter who’d risen through the ranks by climbing over the bodies of his colleagues. She’d opposed his selection as CDRUSSTRATCOM specifically because of that, but the man had an incredible amount of support in Congress, and at the time, the president had been looking for any way to improve his standing with the legislative branch. Having never worked with Metzger left her with just his reputation. Reputations were word-of-mouth judgments — some accurate, some not. She’d never been able to evaluate him up close and personal. So, he remained an unknown.
Hruska, however, was another matter entirely. Allison had never liked the national security advisor. Why, she wasn’t entirely sure… Just an odd feeling in her gut when she’d first met the woman years before. Hruska was capable, efficient, smart, and inquisitive, but there was something about her that simply didn’t sit right with Allison Perez. Like drinking milk a couple of days after the expiration date — not yet sour, doesn’t smell bad yet, but it still tastes a little off.
She remembered how vehemently Hruska had argued for General Metzger when the decision was being made for the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Hruska had been the first one to bring up his name, as a matter of fact. And the president had agreed much too quickly, in her opinion.
Hruska had been controlling the information flow to the president, as well, something he never would’ve allowed under normal circumstances.
It was all starting to become clear.
The president was being co-opted by the national security advisor. How wasn’t entirely clear to her yet, but that wasn’t important.
What was important was the president of the United States had just ordered a nuclear strike — on his own country — and was now airborne with one individual, or possibly two, somehow controlling his decision-making process.
Andrew Smith was quickly becoming less and less president of the United States and more and more a threat to its national security. No, a threat to its survival.
She had to make sure.
Allison pushed her comm button. “Commander, patch me in to Air Force One. I need an immediate videoconference with the president.”
CHAPTER 61
The first bat-winged B-2 Spirit lifted off from the runway at Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana, on its way to Minneapolis-St. Paul. In its belly hung a single silver object — remarkably small, considering the amount of destruction it was capable of producing — roughly thirteen feet long, a little more than a foot in diameter, with small fins at the rear.
The B61 nuclear bomb had been a mainstay of the United States’ nuclear arsenal since the 1960s. Never before, however, had a load of B61s flown on an operational mission. Before the sun set below the horizon in the state of Minnesota, this weapon would detonate.
The B-2—a marvel of modern technology developed during the height of the Cold War — was designed to roam freely across the Soviet Union, undetected by radar, dropping its nuclear war load at will. Its basic structural design made detection by conventional radar almost impossible — supersecret radar-absorbent coatings made the bomber nearly invisible, but it could still be seen by the good old Mk1 eyeball. If an enemy could see it, he could kill it. For that reason, combat missions flown by the select crews of the 509th Bomb Wing — the unit to which the B-2s were assigned, the same unit that had dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on the Imperial Japanese during the waning days of World War II — were flown exclusively at night in the safety of darkness. The United States military still owned the night; no other country had been able to employ night-vision equipment with the precision and reliability to stop these invisible weapon systems, but they had — on occasion — been lucky. The Golden BB — a lucky shot — had taken down stealth systems in the past. But it had been just that: a lucky shot.
In the daylight, however, it was a different story.
The B-2s were big, black, lumbering targets. Vulnerable.
As the bomber turned north and began its slow climb toward its cruising altitude — its target roughly two hours away — the other two B-2s sitting in a secluded portion of Barksdale’s ramp began their preflight checks.
The second bomber, once airborne, would reach Oklahoma City in about an hour.
The third bomber would hit Little Rock in forty minutes.
The clock was running.
CHAPTER 62
“Now that’s odd.”
“What’s odd, Carolyn?” Garrett asked. It struck him funny that he would ask such a question, considering he was two hundred feet underground in a classified biowarfare research facility, dead tired from lack of sleep, studying the innards of two bone-like casings that held what were once a rat and a human being — both of which had mutated into some kind of terrible monsters and were now apparently reverting back to their original state. If that wasn’t odd, nothing was.
“It’s the brains. Look. They’re different.”
Garrett looked at the screen and didn’t even try to pretend he knew what he was looking at. “You’re going to have to explain this one to me. We never covered brain structure in infantry school.”
Carolyn smiled. “Oh, really? That’s a shock.”
“Come on now, infantrymen have brains.”
“Hooah?”
“Yes, hooah. Now show me what you’re talking about.”
She pointed at the screen. “Look, here. Near the center, inside the thalamus. That’s not supposed to be there.”
“What is it?”
“I have no idea. It’s a mass of some kind, almost like a… Oh hell, I don’t know.” She rubbed her eyes. She too was suffering from lack of sleep.