Just then the sound of an air-raid siren started wailing throughout the facility — but it could not drown out the sound of explosions overhead that slowly but relentlessly drove closer and closer, until the lights flickered and went out, the ceiling of the underground facility caved in, and there was nothing but waves of fire, shock, smoke, and flying debris all around him…and then nothingness.
I’ve got secondaries already, One-one,” radioed the mission commander aboard Bobcat Two-four, the second EB-1C Vampire bomber on the attack run. “Two-three opened something up right under those coordinates we received. I think we found it.”
“Roger,” Patrick McLanahan responded. “Launch all of your Wolverines on those coordinates. I’ll withhold mine in case we get any more tips from the Russian chief of the general staff.” Patrick’s EB-52 Megafortress was thirty minutes behind the two Vampire bombers. The two Vampires had sped on ahead of the lone surviving Megafortress bomber, launching antiradar weapons at Novgorod to plow a way through Russia’s air defenses. Although Patrick had targeted the Ryazan’ alternate military command center as soon as he escaped the devastation at Yakutsk seven hours earlier, he didn’t really know exactly where to launch his weapons.
Until the call came from Ryazan’ itself, from a man calling himself General Stepashin, the chief of the general staff, reading off the exact geographic coordinates of the underground facility and even describing its location so it could be found by reading a street map! The first Vampire bomber launched two Wolverine cruise missiles with penetrating thermium-nitrate warheads on the coordinates, still not prepared to believe that the information was factual — but when the secondary explosions revealed the underground complex below, they knew they had the right spot.
“It looks like a volcano down there, sir. We hit either that command center or some huge underground weapons-storage area, or both,” the mission commander said. “What next, boss?”
Patrick plotted a course that would take them through southwest Russia, the shortest path to the Kazakhstan border — near Engels Air Base, it so happened, the base Patrick’s bombers had attacked the year before, the attack that apparently drove Anatoliy Gryzlov crazy enough to first engineer a coup in Russia and then wage nuclear war with the United States. Patrick then deconflicted the course with all available intelligence data, then beamed the flight plan to the two Vampires.
“Next we get the hell out of here,” Patrick said. “Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
So help me God.”
The chief justice of the Supreme Court shook hands with the newly inaugurated president, but unlike in past years when the new president of the United States completed his swearing-in, there was now no applause, no “Hail to the Chief” playing in the background, and no cheering. The crowd was just a fraction of its normal size, just a few hundred people — vastly outnumbered by troops, law enforcement, and Secret Service agents surrounding the venue, a large tent set up in what remained of a farmer’s home, just a few miles outside what once was Offutt Air Force Base.
The chill January winds sent icy bits of frozen rain swirling through the tent, which made everyone inside skittish. They were assured that there was no longer any danger of radioactive fallout, but even so, many attendees took the opportunity of the cold to cover their faces tightly with scarves to avoid directly breathing the air.
“Good luck, and may God watch over you, Mr. President,” the chief justice said.
“Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice,” President Kevin Martindale said. The fifty-two-year-old Republican had just repeated history: He was only the second president in U.S. history, after Grover Cleveland, to be elected president after being previously voted out of office. Like Cleveland, Martindale was a bachelor, so rather than having one of his Hollywood-actress girlfriends hold the Bible for his swearing-in, his vice president, former secretary of state under Thomas Thorn, Maureen Hershel, held it for him.
Hershel was likewise unmarried; for her swearing-in, Maureen had asked Lieutenant General Patrick McLanahan do the honors. When President Martindale stepped up to the podium, Maureen stepped back beside Patrick on the dais, and her hand slipped into his. He looked at her and smiled — and then she saw him glance over her shoulder toward the empty, snow-covered fields and beyond toward the devastated Air Force base. She had grown accustomed to the “ten-thousand-yard stare,” as many called it — instantaneous and jarring remembrances of death and near-death, destruction, and horrifying events.
But Patrick was not the only one she saw with that look — many others in America had it these days, men and women in the military especially, but many others whose lives were forever and utterly devastated by the nuclear attacks on the United States.
“My fellow Americans,” President Martindale began, “I want to thank you, and especially thank President Thomas Thorn, for allowing me the privilege of changing the venue for my inauguration from Washington to Nebraska. The security difficulties in granting this request were enormous, but President Thorn accepted responsibility for all the logistics necessary to honor my request, and for that I thank him.
“Normally, inaugurations are supposed to be joyous occasions: joyous because we as Americans celebrate the pride, the respect, and the gift of another peaceful transition of power. Events have overshadowed the joy. It may have been in the best interest of the nation for us to celebrate, butthis nation has been deeply scarred, and wounds so deep take a long time and much personal reflection and community strength to heal.
“I know that the attacks of last year hurt us, emotionally as well as personally. I was saddened by President Thorn’s decision not to run for reelection, and I was equally saddened when no other candidates chose to run and the voter turnout was so low. But I also understand that America needed time to heal, and healing means drawing and lending strength and support from family and community. Politics means little to a country that has suffered so greatly as America has suffered.
“But as I stand here before you today, on an American’s property that was leveled by the attack on Offutt Air Force Base just a few miles away, I call upon my fellow Americans to join me to begin to put America back as leader of the free world. It is time, my friends, to stand tall again. America is still strong. Although its military has suffered incredible losses, we are still safe from any enemy that threatens us, and I promise you we will become stronger still.
“We have been forced by circumstances and evil intentions to rebuild our military forces. I promise you, with the shades of the men and women of Offutt Air Force Base and the other bases destroyed and damaged by nuclear attack as my witnesses, that I will build the most modern, the most effective, and the most powerful Air Force the world has ever seen. I once challenged our military leaders and planners to ‘skip a generation’ in developing our military forces, to discard the remnants of past wars, ineffective strategies, and outdated thinking. Unfortunately, the events of last year force us now to do exactly that. The structures and weaponry that served us so well for decades have been ripped from us. Now is the time to rebuild them, better and smarter than ever. With God’s help and your support, I will do just that.
“I once chided President Thorn when he didn’t show up for his own inauguration, choosing instead to march directly into the White House one minute after his term of office began and getting immediately to work. I thought, how can any man be so uncaring, so ignorant of what had just transpired? Here there was taking place a peaceful transition of power of the most powerful nation on Earth, and the new president was completely failing to acknowledge that event in history.
“Some may well be ridiculing me after this, but I’m going to continue President Thorn’s example today: I’m going back to Washington, and I’m going to get to work rebuilding our nation and our military forces. I know that few Americans feel like celebrating anyway. But I want all Americans to celebrate, each in your own way. Celebrate by hugging your children, by raising your voices in song, by lowering your heads in prayer, and by offering your strength and your help whenever you can. Celebrate the continuity of the greatest nation on Earth, and do everything you can to make sure our flag still flies and our nation still stands strong and proud.
