“Sir, if I may explain?” said Dr. Theodore Pascal, a scientist with the United States Geological Survey, or USGS. “This is my first opportunity to attend a briefing of this nature. I am the leading volcanologist for the USGS.”
“Volcanoes?” asked the president.
“Yes, sir. Although my area of expertise has routinely been applied to nuclear detonation analysis.”
“Okay, proceed.”
“Mr. President, at the period of peak energy output, a one-megaton nuclear weapon can produce a temperature of one hundred million degrees Celsius at its center. That’s four to five times the temperature at the center of the Sun. This sudden blast of energy results in enormous emanations of light and heat for hundreds of miles.
“The light can cause blindness, but the biggest threat, in addition to the direct impact, of course, can come from the ferocious hurricane of fire pushing away from ground zero. These fires, once initiated, will not only destroy everything in their path, but they will, very efficiently I might add, heat large volumes of air near Earth’s surface.
“As this heated air rises, cool air from beyond the vast burning area rushes in to replace it. The ground-level winds will reach a hundred miles per hour or more, forcing the superheated air into the stratosphere. This air will be full of radiated debris together with lethal toxic smoke and combustion gases.”
The president held his hand up, directing Dr. Pascal to pause for a moment. “I assume this happened in South Asia and the Middle East to an extent.”
The volcanologist nodded. “South Asia especially. The nuclear warheads may not have been as strong as what North Korea delivered, but the sheer numbers have resulted in a climate catastrophe unsurpassed since the last eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano.”
Chief of Staff Harrison Chandler asked, “This is devastating, to be sure, but how does it factor into casualty estimates?”
Dr. Pascal responded, “Sir, the standard model for calculating deaths and even nonfatal injuries from hypothetical nuclear attacks assumes the same casualty rates will occur from blast overpressure as those which occurred at Hiroshima at the end of World War II. We call this the blast effect or blast scaling. It’s standard methodology used by government agencies to estimate casualties in nuclear war.
“I maintain this methodology is wholly inaccurate because the Hiroshima death tolls didn’t take into account the deaths resulting from the superfires and contamination of the atmosphere. I and most of my colleagues at the USGS and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena believe the death toll will be four to six times what the generally accepted methodology allows.”
“Mr. President, if I may,” interjected the secretary of Homeland Security. “This issue is important because the natural inclination is to rush into the blast zone to look for survivors and provide them medical assistance. This may sound callous, but we can’t help them, sir. We can, however, as Dr. Pascal will confirm, help those outside the immediate blast area.”
“That’s correct, Mr. President,” added Dr. Pascal. “In our estimation, as it relates to the fires, those within a one-hundred-mile blast radius cannot be helped. It’s possible to provide assistance beyond that on a city-by-city basis.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the president.
“Sir, by way of example, each of the West Coast cities have been subjected to a fireball so hot that it began to violently expand outward from ground zero at several million miles per hour. It was slowed only by its hunger for combustible materials. As this shock wave pushed farther away from the point of detonation, it expanded for hundreds of miles, an unstoppable force immune to any form of firefighting methods.”
“What can we do?”
“Find a way to notify survivors of what is coming their way.”
“And tell them what?” asked the president as he leaned forward in his chair.
“Run.”
Part II
Day nine, Saturday, October 26
Chapter Nine
Saturday, October 26
Fair Oaks Mall
Fairfax, Virginia
After making another run into the mall, Peter Albright slept until the next day. He woke up refreshed but very sore from the beating his body had taken when the bomb was detonated in DC. He lay there in the dark, doing a medical self-assessment. He put his body through an examination, searching for any feeling or sensation out of the ordinary. He breathed deeply in a prone position and then standing with his arms high over his head. He really didn’t know what he expected radiation poisoning to feel like, but thus far, he wasn’t showing symptoms of anything other than muscle soreness, hunger and an incredible thirst.
Before he urinated in the store’s toilet, he opened up one of the LifeStraws and tried it out. He removed the tank lid of the toilet and partially submerged the plastic device into the water for about twenty seconds. Then he primed the pump, so to speak. He took five quick sips through the opening to get the water flowing. Once it was filled, he took a tentative draw on the capped opening. This was his first time drinking toilet water, and he wasn’t overly eager about the concept.
The taste was musty and somewhat chalky, but it didn’t repulse him. He took a longer sip this time, even swirling the water around his mouth to reach every parched area.
“Not bad,” he said with a laugh. As he peed, he blew the excess water out of the LifeStraw to keep the filter clean. He glanced down at the toilet bowl and wondered if the LifeStraw would filter his urine. He hoped it would never come to that.
In addition to waking up refreshed and well rested, Peter had a new sense of clarity on the situation he faced. He also was able to recall some of the things he’d learned about a post-nuclear world over the years. His mother had
