Only a matter of time until the terrorists — any one of a multitude of radical extremist groups sworn to destroy the Great Satan — would explode a device in his country.
He’d grown to expect that possibility.
But this…
The red circles on his status board were supposed to be caused by them, not by American bomber crews.
“Admiral, Northeast Air Defense has lost radar contact with Air Force One. They think he’s flying low to—”
“Where?”
“Over Kentucky, sir. They have fighters inbound to intercept. Two F-15s. The vice president’s orders are to escort Air Force One back to Andrews and shoot it down if it doesn’t respond.”
The last few days had seemed like a nightmare, completely unreal, unimaginable.
He’d watched as the reports had rolled in, reports of some kind of mutated things literally devouring cities full of people, reports of mutated birds—birds, for Christ’s sake — tearing people to shreds where they stood. Doubling their numbers during the day, killing as darkness fell.
And now, he had three nuclear detonations glowing on his status board.
Three major cities blasted into oblivion.
A rogue president being hunted by American fighter planes.
Orders to shoot down Air Force One if it didn’t comply.
He wondered what could possibly happen next.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have to wait long to get his answer.
“Admiral, this just came into the NMCC.”
“What is it?”
“The Brits closed their airspace to all inbound commercial flights from CONUS, and they’re directing all CONUS-bound flights to turn back. They’re threatening to shoot down any airliner that attempts to land.”
“They’re what? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
“No, sir. One of their Typhoons fired on a United 767 attempting to land at Heathrow. He’s over the Atlantic right now trying to find an alternate field before he runs out of fuel. None of the other European countries are clearing him to land, either.”
“What the hell do they think they’re doing? I want to know how many airliners we have over the Atlantic right now, and how many are going to have fuel problems if they aren’t allowed to land.”
“Yes, sir.”
The alarm sounding in the background immediately shifted his attention to the worldwide status board. It was an alarm usually heard only during exercises. Combat exercises. “Status!” he shouted.
“Admiral, we have a Mayday from a FedEx 747!”
A green triangle popped up on the status board showing the aircraft’s location over the Sea of Japan, just east of Vladivostok, heading south.
“He states he’s being fired on by Russian fighters, sir.”
“He’s nowhere near their sovereign airspace!”
Three red triangles appeared on the status board, tracking with the 747. Right on top of him.
The green triangle suddenly disappeared.
The 747 was gone.
For a second, the command center was quiet.
But only for a second.
“Get me the vice president. Now!”
CHAPTER 72
General Rammes and Colonel Hoffman returned from topside. Carolyn saw a troubled look on the general’s face, and Garrett looked as if he’d just witnessed his troops being slaughtered at the airport all over again.
She knew they didn’t have good news.
“Carolyn, how long until—”
“About twenty minutes, General. Sundown topside should be in twenty minutes.” She walked over to the Plexiglas wall and said, “At the current rate these things are falling apart, they should be completely dissolved at roughly the same time. Have we heard anything about the ground casings? The birds?”
Garrett spoke first. “Things are bad topside, Carolyn.”
“What’s happened?”
“The president ordered nuclear strikes to destroy the bird casings in Minneapolis, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City.” He paused. “They’re gone, Carolyn. All three cities are gone.”
“Oh my God.”
“The president ordered the strikes under duress. The vice president believes the national security advisor and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs are controlling the president’s actions. The vice president tried to stop the strikes, but there wasn’t enough time.”
Carolyn looked at both men in disbelief. The president of the United States, under duress? Nuking his own country?
Insane.
It was all insane!
Rammes continued. “All of our communications have been cut off. I was able to speak to a duty officer at the NMCC for a few minutes, but the call went dead. I don’t know if it’s an after-effect from the nuclear detonations — the electromagnetic pulse frying our comm systems — or if our lines have been intentionally cut. The NMCC is completely swamped right now trying to figure out who is siding with whom. From what I can tell, we’re smack in the middle of a constitutional crisis, with part of the country answering to Andrew Smith, and another part answering to Allison Perez.”
“Who’s in charge?” Carolyn asked.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s the vice president. This facility will answer to her, and to her alone, until the situation with the president is resolved.” He then answered her next question without being asked. “There’s no question topside about who’s in charge. This base is still taking orders from me. There’s no picking sides going on up there. I guarantee it.”
“Do we know anything about the other casings?”
He checked the clock and realized that the sun had already set where the ground wave casings were entrenched. “I’m sorry, Carolyn. I didn’t get any of that info.”
“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” She looked at the casings, which had deteriorated enough in the last few minutes to make them appear almost transparent. Through the thin casing walls, the bodies of the two creatures could be seen, curled in what appeared to be fetal positions.
Waiting to be born again.
The thought caused a chill to crawl down her back.
She knew they might be witnessing the birth of entirely new species — one humanoid, the other, some sort of rodent.
And the worst part was, she had absolutely no idea what to expect.
“Carolyn, if they’re normal again, could this be over? Could the mutations have run their course?” Garrett asked.
“It’s not over, Garrett. I don’t know how or why any of this happened the way it did today. These two creatures should’ve mutated into two distinct beings inside those casings. For the life of me, I can’t explain it.”
“Any explanation for the masses in their brains?”
“Not a clue.”
“Well, whatever they are, I think we’re going to find out. Right now,” Rammes said, pointing at the Plexiglas wall.
THE FOURTH NIGHT
CHAPTER 73
The first F-15 flashed by Air Force One’s cockpit with an earsplitting roar, its dual afterburners throwing twin tails of blue flame nearly one hundred feet to the rear of the sleek fighter jet.
Air Force One had been intercepted right before it touched down at Louisville International Airport.
“Come on, almost there!” the pilot yelled, lowering the landing gear and flaps while holding the massive airplane in a fifty-degree bank, turning hard to line up with the runway. The airplane was so low, the left wingtip looked as if it were about to plow a furrow in the ground. His engines were screaming, each one capable of producing nearly fifty-eight thousand pounds of thrust, pushing the gigantic, four-hundred-ton aircraft through the air. “Come on, baby, don’t stall on me…”