based at Fort Campbell. Most have been killed in fire fights in the far western part of the state. We expect those numbers to increase.”
President Ross had gathered his key advisers in the Oval Office to discuss the rapidly worsening military picture in Kentucky. The governor, interviewed in hiding by a cable television crew, had explained his reasons for armed resistance. Ross had watched the tape five times. He had to admit that Governor Parker had eloquently stated his opposition to a plan to detonate a nuclear device in his state. He’d called it madness and questioned the president’s sanity, pledging to the people of Kentucky that he’d do whatever was in his power to stop the blast, even if it meant armed opposition. He told them that federal troops had attacked elements of the Kentucky National Guard, who were defending themselves.
That last part wasn’t true, but Ross was going to make no mention of it when he addressed the American people within the next hour.
All in all, Parker had been impressive. Just the right mixture of somber gravity and determination.
The president’s science adviser, Steve Draper, had been on a special satellite hookup almost constantly with the seismologists in Memphis. He’d given Ross a list of arguments for detonating a one-megaton bomb deep in a coalmine near the town of Benton in southwestern Kentucky.
It was anything but a unanimous decision. In fact, a narrow majority of the scientists opposed the idea as too risky. Those in favor of the plan thought it had no more than a fifty-fifty chance of success.
“Are there any other options?” Ross asked. He kept coming back to that
Draper shook his head. “They’ve offered none.”
“Do they still think we’re going to get hit with another big quake?”
“They do,” Draper said. “Opinions on when vary from a couple days to months.”
“Then we go ahead as planned,” Ross said. The scientists were going to let him make the call. So be it. He’d known that all along. The decision—and the blame—would be his. That was as it should be. He didn’t mind. As he saw it, he had no choice. It was either gamble and try to defuse the quake with a nuclear explosion, or do nothing and face unspeakable devastation.
He asked about evacuations. Soldiers were trying to remove everyone within a thirty-mile radius of the Golden Orient mine. It was a huge undertaking and there wasn’t much time. The difficulties were aggravated by the lack of communications and the earthquake-damaged highways.
Fortunately, the area wasn’t densely populated. Still, an estimated 200,000 people lived in the danger zone.
“Where’s the convoy from Texas?”
Draper glanced at his watch. “They should be in Missouri about now, Mister President. Estimated arrival time is 10:00 P.M. So far, the trip’s been uneventful.”
“We’ve sent two companies of paratroopers to meet them on the Missouri side of the river,” said General Frank Simmons, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’m worried about the crossing. It’s a damn big river down there with a lot of places to launch an attack on that pontoon bridge.”
They were going to cross the Mississippi in extreme southeastern Missouri a few miles downstream from its confluence with the Ohio. The crossing was about 150 miles north of Memphis. With the flooding rivers far out of their banks, the pontoon span that stretched to the Kentucky shore was nearly three miles long.
“Do whatever needs to be done to secure the area,” the president told the general. “If there’s fighting, we won’t be the ones who start it. But I want that bomb delivered.”
BULLETINS had already flashed on radios and television screens, announcing that the president was going to address the nation at 7:00 P.M. EST “on a topic of greatest urgency.”
The cameras were set up in the Oval Office. When the hour came, Ross wore a blue suit and tie. It was the first time he’d shaved in several days. He knew it would be the most important speech of his life.
“Good evening, my fellow citizens,” he said, echoing the words John F. Kennedy had used when he announced his arms embargo on Cuba in 1962.
Ross began by explaining the scope of the damage from the earthquake that had struck only five days earlier. The tremors had been felt as far northeast as Montreal, as far west as Albuquerque, New Mexico, and as far south as Biloxi, Mississippi.
“It’s the worst natural disaster ever to befall our country,” Ross said. “I don’t have to tell you that. The odds are you felt the main earthquake and continue to feel some of the aftershocks. Nearly sixty percent of the population live in areas that have experienced shaking. If you live on the East Coast, you’re facing shortages of food and heating oil. If you live in middle America, the heartland, my part of the country, you’re coping every day with a horror that’s hard to imagine.
“In my own state of Illinois, more than two thousand people have been killed. Most of them in the southern part of the state near the quake zone. In Memphis”—he paused, looking down at some notes—“the death count is estimated at twelve thousand men, women, and children.”
There were gasps among the assembled reporters listening to the speech in the press room in the East Wing. These were the first official death counts. And they were staggering.
“Some towns have been destroyed. Paducah, Kentucky, no longer exists. Neither does Caruthersville, Missouri. Memphis has been devastated. Little Rock, St. Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati have been hard hit. Chicago has been damaged.
“My fellow Americans, I want you to see the names of some of the cities and towns that have suffered fatalities. The list I’m going to show you is only partial.”
The president spent the next ten minutes reading the casualty list. As he spoke, the state-by-state list was shown on television screens.
The death toll had edged over 130,000.
As he finished reading the appalling list. Ross looked up at the cameras. He said that one, possibly two more quakes in the magnitude 8 range or greater were extremely likely.
There were more audible gasps from the news corps and from some of his own staff members who hadn’t been privy to these details.
Ross announced what they were going to do. Explode a nuclear bomb underground.
And why.
Some reporters dashed out of the press room and began calling their news desks. Ross went on to describe the evacuations.
“Even as I discuss these grave issues with you, efforts are under way in the state of Kentucky. I know the thought of a nuclear explosion can be frightening. The scientists say it’s the only way we can hope to defuse another earthquake, turn it off in the ground by releasing some of its energy.
“There is disagreement among the experts about whether this will work. I’d be lying to you if I said most of them supported this approach. The truth is otherwise. Most are opposed. I’ve decided to side with the minority who have argued—persuasively, in my opinion—that we have no other choice. There is sufficient evidence from ground surveys made by satellite that energy continues to build at a frightening rate in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, especially along a newly discovered fault, which slices through the heart of west-central Kentucky.”
He told them the kind of bomb they planned to explode and the anticipated yield. He didn’t give specifics on where it would be detonated. That would remain top secret for as long as possible.
“The truth is we already have experience with a nuclear explosion in the Mississippi Valley.” He mentioned a five-kiloton blast near the tiny Mississippi town of Salmon, about thirty-five miles from Hattiesburg. The shot in 1964 was a successful effort to hollow out a salt dome as a possible storage site for oil reserves. No radioactivity had vented from the explosion, which was done at a shallow depth of less than 400 feet.
“They barely felt it over in Hattiesburg,” the president said. “This explosion will be considerably larger. The geologists say it will have the short-range effect of a magnitude 6.5 earthquake. I have to tell you that this will probably cause some additional damage.”
Ross paused and in his firmest voice went on: “I believe the damage will be nothing compared with the
