Plan of Attack

“Sounds like it, sir.”

“Then advise ATC that we’re landing at Offutt,” Samson ordered. “If they still want you to divert, declare an emergency for national security reasons and proceed to Offutt.”

“Yes, sir.”

Samson hung up the intercom, picked up the in-flight phone, and dialed his command post’s number. No response. He tried his office number — still no response. “Well, what the hell is going on?” he muttered. “I can’t get through to anyone.”

“Maybe we ought to land at Lincoln as they ordered,” Houser suggested nervously, “and then sort it out on the ground.”

“We’re less than forty miles from landing — we’re not going to divert an extra fifty just because ATC has got a bug up their ass about something,” General Samson said. “Besides, if something’s going on, the best place for us to be is at Offutt in the command center. We’ll go there, even if we have to land on the taxiway.” Samson had a bit of trouble relaying that desire to the pilot, but once the C-21 pilot was reminded exactly who in the back of the plane was calling the shots, the decision was quickly made.

They watched out the small jet’s windows as they broke through a thin overcast layer and caught a glimpse of the air base off in the distance. Nothing looked out of the ordinary — no smoke or fire from a plane crash, no signs of any sort of terrorist attack or of an approaching tornado or severe thunderstorm. They appeared to be lining up for a straight-in approach. Gary Houser felt relieved when the landing gear came down, indicating they were cleared to land.

On the five-mile final, Houser was busy packing up his briefcase and getting ready for landing when he noticed a bright flash of light, like a nearby bolt of lightning. At that exact moment, the lights inside the airplane cabin popped out.

“Holy crap!” Terrill Samson said, “I think we just got hit by lightning.”

“It sounds like the engines are spooling down, too,” Houser said. It was hard to tell with the noise from the landing gear and flaps — or was that noise from the gear…or something else? This was bad. They might be able to drag it in from this altitude, but these jets didn’t glide too well. He tightened his seat belt and waited for the impact. He could hear the jet engine’s starters roaring and the igniters clicking as the pilots frantically tried to restart the engines. They had flown through that thin overcast, but there didn’t seem to be any thunder-heads nearby — where did the lightning come from? He glanced out the window.

And saw what he thought was a huge tornado, like something in a disaster movie, that had instantly materialized out of nowhere right in the middle of the base. It was an immense column of dirt rising vertically, at least a mile in diameter — with what looked like orange, red, and yellow volcano-like rivers of fire mixed in. He opened his mouth to yell out a warning to the cockpit when he heard an earsplitting blast, like a thousand crashes of thunder.

Then he felt, saw, and heard nothing.

7

Aboard Air Force One

A short time later

President Thomas Thorn sat at his desk in the executive office suite in the nose section of Air Force One, staring at a computerized map of the United States. Several dots on the map, representing military installations, were blinking; others had red triangles around them. Another flat-panel digital monitor had images of the vice president at the Mount Weather Continuation of Government Special Facility, known as “High Point,” in Berryville, West Virginia; another showed images of Secretary of Defense Robert Goff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Venti, both airborne aboard the E-4B National Airborne Operations Center, orbiting out over the Atlantic Ocean with two F-15C Eagle fighters in formation with it. Several members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the ones that managed to make it to Andrews in time for takeoff — were also present in the NAOC’s conference room and listening in on the teleconference, but were not visible on the screen.

“NORAD is showing no more tracks, Mr. President,” Goff said somberly over the secure videoconference link. “Looks like the attack is over.”

It was over, all right — over for thousands of military men and women, their families, and many thousands more innocent civilians living near the military targets.

As hard as he tried, Thomas Thorn found himself growing angrier by the second. He knew before receiving any estimates that the death toll was going to be huge — ten, twenty, maybe thirty times greater than the number of lives lost in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11. How could the Russians do something like this? It was such an unbelievable act of pure homicidal madness. Calling this an “act of war” just didn’t seem to cut it. This was an act of insanity.

“You okay, Thomas?” Vice President Busick asked over the secure video teleconference. “You look like you’re flying through some rough air.”

“I’m okay,” Thorn replied.

“I know what you’re feelin’, Thomas,” Busick said. “You wanna go wring someone’s neck.” Thorn glanced at Busick’s face in the monitor. “Get over that, Thomas. You have a lot of dead Americans out there, and a lot more that want to know what’s gonna happen next. You’re the man that’s going to need to have some answers. Let’s get organized.”

Thorn stared blankly at a window — thick silver curtains had been installed over all the windows in Air Force One to prevent injury by flash blindness, should any more nuclear warheads explode nearby. He felt helpless, overwhelmed. He and a handful of military and government advisers were locked up in an airplane, flying over the ocean, far away from the capital. Bits of information were dripping in, but for the most part they were disconnected from the rest of the country. They were cut off.

No, even that wasn’t exactly true. They were running. They had abandoned the capital and were doing nothing more than fleeing to save their own lives, while the rest of America had to sit and take whatever the Russians were going to fire at them next.

He had faced many such unexpected disasters in his years as a special-operations officer in the U.S. Army. When an operation went wrong or when they were discovered, the team went into a sort of mental shock. They had planned and sometimes rehearsed many alternate and emergency-contingency missions, but when the shit hits the fan for real, the only plan they usually thought of was escape. It was confusing, chaotic, and, frankly, it didn’t look very heroic. Weeks and sometimes months of planning gave way to a headlong, almost irrational fleeing instinct. Some of the more experienced troops remembered to tell the others important things — like which way to go, what to watch out for, and to remember to collect up things like maps, comm gear, weapons, and fallen comrades. But for everyone the bottom line is simple: Get out. Save yourself. Run.

Once they had escaped, rendezvoused, and inventoried themselves and their equipment, the very next thing they did was look to the team leaders, the officer and NCO in charge, for guidance and a plan of action. They didn’t want anger, or vows of revenge, or signs of grief and sorrow — they wanted and needed leadership. That’s what President Thomas Thorn had to provide—now. Even if he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do, he had to have the strength and courage to gather up his forces and get them moving.

Thorn drew in a deep breath, retrieved a bottle of water, took a deep swig, then turned back to the video teleconference camera, “facing” his team of advisers. “Analysis?” the president asked simply.

“I’ve got a very preliminary tally, Mr. President,” General Richard Venti, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, responded. He took a deep breath, steeling himself to deliver a report he thought he would never, ever have to present:

“First to be hit was Clear Air Station in Alaska,” he began. “Clear is…was…is a major radar and command- and-control base for the entire state of Alaska and the approaches into North America. The attack destroyed several radar systems, communications facilities, and a ground-based interceptor silo complex being built for the ballistic-missile defense force. Clear was the main ballistic-missile and aircraft-tracking station in the north, manned by approximately one thousand men and women. It was hit by a total of eight low-yield nuclear weapons, some