Plan of Attack

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.

“I assure you, America still has heroes we can look to for the strength, leadership, and wisdom we need to rebuild.” He paused, turned, looked directly at Patrick, and nodded before turning back to the microphone. “We lost many good men and women in the American Holocaust of 2004, but I can tell you, my fellow Americans, that the soldiers who served us so well trained an entire new generation of capable men and women to take their places. Thanks to them, America is in worthy hands.

“As the new commander in chief, I’m telling you this: Mourning time is over. It’s time to start the rebuilding. The wounds are well on their way to being healed — now it’s time to start exercising the muscles, retraining the mind for the challenges that lie ahead, and getting back into the race — the race to ensure and defend peace, democracy, and freedom here in America and around the world.”

And with that, the inauguration of the forty-fourth president of the United States was over. Again there was no applause, no music, no marches, no parades, no cannon salutes. The officials on the dais were quickly led to waiting armored, stretch Suburbans and whisked away, and the crowd was left to depart the ceremony in cold, stony silence, ushered off by troops in full combat gear.

Maureen Hershel and Patrick McLanahan sat in the back of their armored car, holding hands, staring silently out the thick smoked-glass windows. A television broadcast was replaying the swearing-in and address, but they had the sound turned off. No one spoke. The only sound came from Maureen, a quiet gasp of surprise as they passed the skeleton of a billboard on the main highway, blackened and crumpled from the effects of one of the four nuclear blasts that had devastated this area. A single tear rolled down her cheek; she did not have the will to wipe it away.

It felt as if she were on a state visit to some Middle Eastern or African nation that had been embroiled in a long and bloody civil war, like Lebanon or Sudan. But this was America, and she was the new vice president of the United States. And that damage hadn’t been caused by rioting, vandalism, or civil war — it had been caused by several thermonuclear explosions, right here in the heartland. It was her problem now.

“It’s okay, Maureen,” Patrick said. “It will be rebuilt. All of it.”

She turned and saw him looking at her carefully, and she smiled contentedly. They hadn’t seen very much of each other since he’d returned from combat operations in Siberia and she’d gone on the campaign trail, understated as the campaign had been. But since the election, they’d seen quite a bit of each other. She was with him and his son, Bradley, when he received his third star from former president Thomas Thorn at a Pentagon ceremony, and today he’d been with her at her swearing-in as vice president.

But now she was on her way to Washington, and…well, she might be the vice president, but she had no idea where Patrick was going. She and most of the world had fully expected McLanahan, the hero who’d ended the American Holocaust by leading a sneak attack on Anatoliy Gryzlov’s underground bunker and killing the Russian president before he could launch another nuclear strike on the United States, to be chosen as Kevin Martindale’s running mate. But Patrick was a military airman, not a politician. Besides, he and Martindale had too much of a history of doing things by circumventing established procedures, if not outright lawbreaking. America didn’t need that kind of worry now.

“Billboards — or air bases?” she asked.

“Maybe neither,” Patrick said. “It’s like the president said, Maureen — we’ve been forced to rebuild. The question becomes, do we rebuild the same things all over again, or do we build something new and different? If there’s a better billboard or a better air base, now is the time to make it a reality.”

“Martindale got that from you, you know.”

“I think I got it from him and Brad Elliott a long time ago,” Patrick said. “Brad never looked at a system or attacked a problem like others did, even if it hurt his reputation and his career. Kevin Martindale was smart enough to let him do his thing, even if he was hurt politically. I was content to be a bomber jockey until I met Brad Elliott and Kevin Martindale.”

Maureen took a deep breath, and Patrick could hear the little catch of apprehension in her throat. “Jesus, I’m scared,” she said. “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m the vice president of the United States, and I have no idea what that means.”

“Yes you do,” Patrick said. “You might not know it now, sitting in this cold limo driving past farms and homes leveled by a nuclear bomb, but when you sit down at your desk in the White House and assemble your staff around you and the president asks for your advice, you’ll have an answer. You’ll know what to do.”

She looked at him and smiled, thankful for the reassurance. “Will you come to Washington with me?” she asked.

“If you’d like me to, I will.”

“I couldn’t do it without you.”

“Yes you could,” Patrick said. “I’d be happy to be with you, in Washington or anywhere.” He turned and stared blankly out the window. “I think the third star was a retirement present from Thorn. He knew I was on my way out before I did.”

“You’re not out unless you want to be,” Maureen said.

“I’ve led crews and units and commands long enough — I think it’s time to support some important people for a while,” Patrick said. He turned back and looked at the vice president seated beside him, clasping her hand tightly. “Could you stand to have Bradley and me hanging around, Maureen?”

“Of course I could,” she said, a little laugh of joy escaping from her lips as she spoke. But then she averted her eyes, and when she raised them back to his, they were deeply probing, careful to look for any sign of hesitation or equivocation. “The question is, Lieutenant General Patrick Shane McLanahan — could you stand to be hanging around anywhere, for any length of time?”

And her heart, which was moments ago filled with such happiness and love, broke — because he hesitated, and he looked away, and he stared that damnable ten-thousand-yard stare. She held on to his hand tightly, and he did likewise — but she knew he was gone.

The car phone rang in the distinctive two-ring style. An aide reached for it, but Maureen, still unaccustomed to others answering her phone for her, picked it up immediately. “Yes, Mr. President?” she said.

“Call me Kevin in private, Maureen,” Martindale said. “Our first order of business once we get back to Washington is to start lining up the Cabinet and senior-adviser posts. We meet with the congressional leadership first thing in the morning, and I want our names and talking points nailed down tight. Too bad we can’t fly back together, but that’s the rules.”

“I’ll be ready when I get back, Kevin. You’ve got my list and my bullets; send over your changes, and we’ll merge them together.”

“Hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to steal Patrick away from you on the trip back. We’ve got a lot of things to discuss.”

Maureen hesitated, looked at Patrick’s faraway expression, then said in a sharp but pleasant voice, “In fact, I do mind, Kevin.” Patrick glanced at her with surprise through narrowed, quizzical eyes. “When we get back to Washington, you can have him. He’s mine until then.”

Martindale chuckled. “You crazy kids,” he said. “Put him on.”

Maureen handed the phone to Patrick. “Yes, Mr. President?” he said.

“I’ll tell you the same thing I told Maureen, Patrick: If we’re going to work together, I want you to call me Kevin. Save the formalities for the public. I may be the senior partner, but I consider you my partner. Clear?”

“Not exactly, Kevin.”

“Feel like wearing a business suit instead of a flight suit for a while?”

“Doing what, sir?”

“Special assistant to the president,” Martindale said. “I’m going to ask for an emergency two-hundred-fifty-billion-dollar budget to quickly rebuild strategic offensive and defensive forces. You know there’s going to be a huge food fight on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon on what the new force should look like once those kinds of budget numbers are introduced. I want you to help me sort through the noise and help me pick the right programs to support.”

“I’m a bomber guy, Kevin,” Patrick said. “You know that. Folks think I’m already too biased.”

“Can you be honest with me and everyone you deal with, Patrick?” Martindale asked. “I think you can. You saw firsthand what we faced. You need to find the right systems that will help prevent a repeat of those attacks. What do you say?”

Patrick looked at Maureen, took a deep breath, and said, “I’ll do it, Mr. President.”

“I knew you would. Meeting tomorrow at ten-thirty in the Oval Office — you know the way. Be ready with your plan of action. I want to hit the press with the plan in time for tomorrow’s prime-time news. Thanks, my friend. Good to be working with you again.” And he hung up.

Patrick replaced the phone on its hook. Maureen looked at him closely — and her heart leaped again. He had that faraway gaze once more — but this time there was fire in those blue eyes. He was no longer looking back into the dead eyes of his friends or scenes of blackened devastation; he was staring into the future, and she could see the excitement lighting up his face.

Maybe someday, she thought, I’ll light up his face like that. It was too soon to know if she would ever get that chance, but at least perhaps he was going to be around long enough for her to try.

“Got some phone calls to make, General?” she asked.

“Yes,” Patrick replied. He reached over to her face, pulled her gently to him, and kissed her lips. “Just take a minute.” He then spoke, “McLanahan to Luger.”

Go ahead, Muck,” David Luger responded. He was sitting in the superviser of flying’s radio truck, out at the approach end of Battle Mountain’s twelve-thousand-foot-long runway. His driver’s-side window was open slightly, enough for the interior not to fog up and so he could raise a pair of binoculars to his eyes occasionally.

The parking apron and taxiways on the isolated base in north-central Nevada were beehives of activity. Along with the few surviving EB-52 Megafortresses, EB-1C Vampires, and the one remaining AL-52 Dragon aircraft, the two surviving B-2A Spirit stealth bombers had been relocated to the 111th Bombardment Wing at Battle Mountain to undergo modification as QB-2 unmanned bombers. In addition, the first QA-45C “Hunter” unmanned combat air vehicles — slightly smaller versions of the B-2 stealth bomber, capable of carrying ten thousand pounds of ordnance or sensors and attacking targets with pinpoint precision — had been deployed to Battle Mountain for operational tests. The surviving E-4B National Airborne Operations Center command posts, RC-135 reconnaissance planes, KC-135R tankers, C-21 transports, and EC-135 intelligence-gathering aircraft that had been based at Offutt Air Force Base had also been reassigned to Battle Mountain. The Battle Management Center had been redesignated the new U.S. Strategic Command battle-staff area.

“I need you in Washington tonight,” Patrick said. “I need the strategic-transformation report we’ve been working on updated with the latest intelligence and industrial-research data.” He paused, then added, “And pack for an extended stay.”

“I’ll be there,” Dave said. He raised the binoculars and focused them on an aircraft preparing to turn base leg in the visual pattern. “Break. Luger to Furness.”

“Go ahead.”

“You guys just about done playing around? I’ve got a flight to catch to Washington.”

Aboard the EB-1C Vampire bomber in the visual pattern, Major General Rebecca Furness shook her head. “I figured as much,” she said. “I’m glad we got our flying in early. You need me to watch the store for a few days?”

“Might be for a lot longer than that, Rebecca.”

“Roger that,” she said. She turned to her mission commander and remarked on intercom, “Sixth or seventh time the boss has been called away. I have a feeling he’s not coming back this time.”

“I agree,” her mission commander, Brigadier General Daren Mace, replied. He still bore some of the scars on his face and extremities from frostbite after spending almost three days in a life raft in the Bering Sea, but he was now back on full flying status after his rehabilitation.

“I think we’re ready to take charge of this place, don’t you, General? I’ll run the Air Battle Force, and you take over the One-eleventh Bomb Wing. How does that sound?”

“I hate to admit it, Rebecca,” Daren said, “but I think I’m ready for a desk job. I love flying, but I think these high-tech birds are getting smarter than me. And I can’t keep up with these young sticks. They’re trying to tell me I’m too old for this shit, I think.”

“They’re trying to tell you to stay here, with me. We’ll run this place the way we think it should be run, and we’ll show these hot-shot young techie nerds how the war is supposed to be fought,” Rebecca said. “Then, in a few years, when they put us out to pasture, let’s build a ranch out here so we can raise a few head of cattle and some horses, take long dips in the hot tub together, and keep an eye on this place — from a distance. How does that sound to you?”

“Perfect,” Daren said, patting Rebecca’s gloved hand on the center-console control stick of their Vampire bomber, his eyes dancing. “Just perfect.”