on Harkness, as the entire nation seemed to believe.
There was a coup taking place, and Jennings looked like the bad guy to the American public. How could he disprove these unspoken charges?
Cervera.
Jennings had never really trusted his Secretary of Defense. He had respected Cervera’s courage in War Three and the Quebec War, but…Well, especially since what happened to Old Washington, you just didn’t trust people.
So Cervera had Styx working for her…
Bad, bad feeling…
Nuclear weapons and Styx. What an unstoppable combination.
Santa Fosca.
With all of the confusion of dealing with the PR hyenas, he had overlooked the Styx island. The island that had started all of this…
Jennings had seen the hologram of Santa Fosca, completely obscured by a thick haze. What evidence had he seen that the island had been destroyed?
None.
The pieces slid together all too well…
Cervera had faked the Santa Fosca bombing to cover up her alliance with the remaining Styx. She had somehow gotten them off that island and used them to overtake Sawyer AFB and steal a B-4. And to cover her tracks, she had bombed Harkness…
He felt the reassuring weight of the pistol hanging from the hidden holster on his chest, and below that, the dull weight of the polyalloy bullet-proof vest underneath his shirt.
He would be prepared.
He was terrified of the unseen, mysterious forces that entered his life only the day before.
No one was going to start another war with America.
No one.
The morning papers.
Headlines…
“CHAOS IN WIND RIVER: President Orders Nuclear Strikes in Guam, Michigan” —The Post.
“ATOMIC HORROR IN MICHIGAN” —The Tribune.
“Federal Troops Evacuate Town Before Nuke” —The Herald.
“COVERUP? D.C. DENIAL!!” —The Daily.
“PRESIDENT SILENT ABOUT NUKES, TROOPS” —The Times.
“JENNINGS MEETS WITH ALIEN AMBASSADOR!! PHOTOS INSIDE!” —The National Enquirer.
The Red Room.
Jennings looked over a copy of some trashy tabloid with mild interest. Apparently he had met with the aliens that crash-landed in Michigan, and they had given him the secrets of the universe. There was even a picture of him shaking hands with a short, egg-headed creature, gray with black almond eyes.
Nice.
The door slid open, and Cervera walked in, flanked by two Marines. They stood resolutely, silent. Armed.
Jennings tapped the hidden security button below the desk with his foot. He had anticipated that this might happen.
“Cervera.” He felt the reassuring heft of the gun against his side. His heart throbbed within his chest.
“Mister President, we’re here to ask you to step down.”
Calm…“I see.”
“Your actions within the last twenty-four hours have been unjustified. We’re asking you to step down peacefully, Jennings. Don’t make us use these.”
“You make me sick, Antonia. This is quite a show you’re staging. Who’s paying you for the B-4? Is it Quebec? France? Indochine? Another backwoods Pact country?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re jumping at shadows, Jennings.”
“The threat is real.”
“What threat? You’re seeing conspiracy everywhere now, aren’t you? Would you be nuking your own country if your wife hadn’t died?”
Jennings visibly flinched.
“She wasn’t the only one to die that day.”
Rage. Jennings stood so suddenly his chair overturned.
“You’re one of them, Cervera, aren’t you?”
Cervera swung her weapon up to Jennings’ face.
“This is your last chance to step down peacefully, you crazy son of a bitch.”
Jennings faced the gun, unblinking.
Cervera pulled back the hammer.
Jennings’ eyes glanced to the left for an instant, just long enough for Cervera’s own eyes to widen in terror before the sound of two gunshots filled the room, and her Marine guards fell lifeless to the floor behind her. Cervera distracted, Jennings wasted no time in swatting the revolver from her hand and drawing his own weapon, which hung inches from her face. His Milicom guards stood in the open doorway, assault rifles trained on Cervera.
“You think you have loyalists, Tony? So do I. And I’m going to expose you as the Styxie traitor you are.”
Cervera uncertainly looked behind her at the armed Milicom troops, weapons still pointed at her. Blood had stained the neutral gray carpet a sick crimson.
“You won’t get away with this.”
Jennings grinned. “Oh, but I will. I’m the President of the Allied States of America. And I believe that the penalty for treason is death.”
Cervera’s jaw dropped and she inhaled sharply before Jennings pulled the trigger. A fine mist of blood mingled with the gunsmoke in the confined space of the room, and Cervera’s lifeless body fell with a meaty thud to the floor, head torn apart by the armor-piercing bullet.
“Get them out of here.”
Jennings’ guards bent, began to drag away the bodies. Jennings casually righted his chair, slumped back into it. He placed his now-heavy revolver on the desktop. He watched blankly as Cervera’s bloody corpse was dragged from the room. The shield door cycled shut, and he was alone.
Seconds later, there were gunshots from down the hallway.
Jennings bolted upright, startled.
Gunshots.
One of his loyal Milicom officers burst into the room, blood pouring from a flesh wound on his arm.
“Mister President, they have the White House surrounded! All of Wind River’s been cut off. Cervera’s men, they killed three of—”
“Is there any way out?”
“All the entrances have been taken by her loyalists. They’re coming this way, sir.”
“Air Force One?”
“It’ll take twenty minutes to prep her.”
“Are there any other planes down there?”
“The Spear you ordered hasn’t left for Santa Fosca yet, sir.”
“Looks like that’s our only way out, son.”
More gunshots, closer.
“Come on!” They ran to the back of the Red Room, where an express elevator led down to the White House hangar. Hearing more gunshots from above, Jennings and the soldier descended into the hangar, where a VTOL Spear-4 stood ready for takeoff.
They ran as quickly as they could to the ramp of the near-vertical jet. The launch doors slid open many stories
