The Longest Night & Crossing the Rubicon

Prelude

“Mister President, the Missile Defence Agency confirms a nuclear detonation in the ten megaton range, one minute ago above Sydney, Australia.”

The President was still looking at the speaker, hoping that this was some communications error and that Commander Willis would continue.

“My God, what do I do now? How do I respond to that?”

The earlier heady feeling that all was going well following the report of the sinking of the Chinese ballistic missile submarine Xia, had evaporated.

“Henry?”

The President looked for the Chief of the General Staff but saw faces staring back at him, shocked and unbelieving despite the awful toll already racked up in the war, or they still stared at the wall speaker.

The incoming-call lights were still flashing on the telephones, and each of those calls was from an agency either with information for the people in the room, or they required information and instructions.

Terry Jones replaced the receiver he had been holding and clapped his hands, breaking the spell for some and having to raise his voice sharply to snap the others out of the unbelieving state they were in, back to the job at hand.

This was a job General Henry Shaw had fulfilled without effort. By professional inclination, Terry Jones, CIA Director and former field agent, was not naturally attuned to stepping onto podiums to take charge. He had not survived his first twenty years in the CIA by being high profile. Terry was most comfortable at the back of the crowd, and preferably stood behind someone taller. Henry, however, had walked out the moment he heard the sound of his daughter’s and his eldest son’s ships vaporizing in Sydney Harbour.

“Listen in people.” He addressed the room. “Game heads on, now!” Clapping his hands again for emphasis, he pointed to the telephones.

“You have jobs to do, so do them.”

“Where did General Shaw go, Terry?” the President asked him.

“I do not know sir, but I do not think that anything anyone says to him right now can be of any real use.” Terry said with concern. “However, I think you will agree that we do need General Carmine in here to represent the military because now is not the moment for a timeout.”