35
Marshall felt the shockwave too from his general’s quarters aboard the Looking Glass plane. He had escaped there a few minutes earlier to collect his thoughts and run through his checklists away from the crew. Now an alarm was sounding and there was an expected knock on his door.
“General Marshall, sir!” It was Quinn’s quivering voice.
Marshall said, “Enter.”
Quinn walked in, EAM printout in hand. “We lost Strategic Command, sir. Our home base!”
“Then the day has finally come, Colonel,” Marshall said calmly. “Launch authority transfers to us here aboard Looking Glass. Shut the door.”
Quinn, not quite understanding, turned to close the door. When he again faced Marshall, there was an open bottle of Jack Daniels on the desk. Marshall poured two glasses and handed one to Quinn, who didn’t look like much of a drinker.
“Courage, Colonel, before the storm,” Marshall said and raised his glass in a toast and gulped it down.
Quinn took a sip and coughed. “Sir, we have to get to our posts.”
“We are at our posts.” Marshall set down his glass. “Remember when I asked you for your launch key and told you to shoot me next time?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This is next time.” In one fluid movement, Marshall drew out his M9 sidearm and shot Quinn between the eyes.
The officer crumpled to the floor. With the ease of a weightlifter, Marshall grabbed Quinn’s body by the leg with one hand and dragged it into his open closet. Then, before he closed the door, he bent over and removed the launch key from Quinn’s neck and put it around his own.
36
Sachs was on the floor groaning when the emergency lights kicked on and Kozlowski rushed over. She thought she heard him say, “Are you OK, Madame President?” But she wasn’t sure. Her ears were ringing. “What was that?” she asked as she let him help her to her feet. She felt wobbly.
He told her, “Omaha, I think.”
She heard more ringing, but it was her desk phone beeping. Captain Li came through on the speaker. “NORAD has confirmed another nuclear detonation in the continental United States. General Block at Northern Command is onscreen in the conference center.”
She felt Koz reach over her shoulder to the button and say, “The president is on her way.”
The ringing had faded for the most part by the time she entered the conference room. Block’s sour face was already on the big screen when she sat at the end of the table. Koz stood by her side. This was going to be ugly.
Sachs asked, “How many hits did we take, General Block?”
“Two,” Block growled. “They took out our Tier-One Defender anti-ballistic missile site in Alaska and paused, glaring at her, “and Strategic Command.”
Sachs swallowed. “General Carver?”
“That’s right, Madame President,” Block said, holding his stare. “This country has lost yet another great leader today, this time because of your indecision.”
Sachs felt herself shaking. She desperately wanted to hold her voice steady. “Unleashing our Minutemen III missiles wouldn’t have saved Carver.”
“No, but he would have died like a soldier in the line of fire and not like a sitting duck,” Block shot back. “And with our puny excuse for what was supposed to be a full, four-tier Defender system taken out, we have no way of intercepting the next wave.”
She exhaled and paused. “General Block, what happened to all those other missiles the early warning systems said were supposed to hit?”
Block grew quiet. “Ghosts, ma’am. They were ghosts.”
Sachs blinked. “How can several independent warning systems project so many false radar images?”
“At this point, ma’am, we have to assume it’s the work of the War Cloud, like you suggested.”
“But why would they do this, knowing we might have launched?”
Block said, “I believe they did this to prove they knew you didn’t have the political will to act, ma’am, and to prove their cyber superiority. If they can do this, they own our defense networks.”
Sachs was bewildered. “Maybe. But what’s the point of destroying the Strategic Command in Omaha if all its planes and nukes were already in the air?”
“Hard to say, ma’am,” Block said. “Because Marshall can still launch our land-based ICBMs from Looking Glass.”
Sachs started. “Pardon me?”
“The Post Attack Command Control System, ma’am,” Block explained. “If nukes destroy the Strategic Command or other command centers on the ground, Looking Glass can command American forces from the air and launch our ICBMs by remote control.”
“Let me guess,” Sachs said. “The man who designed this brilliant Post Attack Command Control System is Brad Marshall?”
Block paused. “Uh, yes.”
37
Marshall had assumed his command post in the battle staff compartment and was reviewing his NSTL targets in China on his digital tablet when Major Banks beeped him.
He ignored the interruption. That he could reprioritize targets with a simple drag and drop on a handheld touch-screen display was something he never would have imagined even five years ago. Harney and Wilson, meanwhile, were establishing the SIOP operations plan with 50 ground-based launch control centers that controlled more than 300 Minuteman III nuclear missiles.
Banks beeped him again. He saved his screen and spoke into the comm.: “You’re patching me to our B-2s with the Mavericks, Major?”
His hope was that President Sachs would finally use the simplest strategy he had gift-wrapped for her: the decapitation of the Chinese high command with the Maverick bunker-busters, followed by the swift threat of nuclear annihilation to any successors.
“I’ve got AF1 on line,” she said instead, her voice hard and edgy. “Colonel Kozlowski is asking for Colonel Quinn.”
Marshall noted several of the battle staffers, not part of his team, exchange glances before they got back to their work. He was playing for two audiences now. “Put him through on speaker.”
“Here he is, sir.”
Marshall pressed the button. “Marshall here. Has the president assessed the damage yet from the Alaska and Omaha hits, Colonel Kozlowski?”
