The War Cloud

12

The Blue Line Metro shot down the tunnel, packed with suits and uniforms, all oblivious to the flashing red light behind the front axle of the chassis as the train screeched along the rails.

Inside the cars, faces were buried behind the pages of the Washington Post when the intercom crackled and the conductor’s voice announced:

“Next stop, the Pentagon.”

The caution lights lining the edge of the platform ahead began to blink. As the commuters began to queue up, a beam of light from the Metro stabbed out of the tunnel.

Six Special Forces troops burst onto the platform and fanned out, parting the sea of commuters into waves of panic and confusion. Their commanding officer, Lt. Matt Omar, was once an Azerbaijani national in Baku, trained by the CIA and Oklahoma National Guard to fight terrorists, before Wanda Randolph of the U.S. Capitol Police brought him stateside and helped him become an American citizen. She had argued that anyone already putting his life on the line for America deserved it.

“Down there!” shouted Omar.

On the track, attached to the rail’s tie-plate, was a small black box on which an even smaller red light was blinking. The security cameras had missed it.

Omar dove for the device even as the Metro shot out of the tunnel and into the station. He desperately tried to disengage the signal box. He looked up helplessly at his partners a second before the Metro, brakes squealing, mowed him down, tripping the signal box and detonating the nuclear warhead bolted to the train.

Suddenly there was a blinding white flash.