The War Cloud

19

Colonel Kozlowski looked around the empty conference table. The empty chairs were for the president and his staff. The Secretary of Defense. The National Security Adviser. Anybody else that survived, of which there were none.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Koz sat alone at the head of the table and stared at a wall of display screens. The displays showed that American bombers were en route to their positive control points outside the Far East, where they would circle until they received further orders from the president-designate. Other displays showed that American submarine and missile crews were also awaiting executive authorization.

The only problem was that there was no president-designate to issue the launch authorizations. For that, Koz needed Deborah Sachs, of all people.

Northern Command’s confirmation that Washington was gone — and with it Sherry — was devastating enough. Upon learning the news, in fact, Koz proceeded to spend several private minutes in the presidential bathroom throwing up the cold breakfast Sherry left for him.

Now the FEMA Central Locator confirmed that the SecDef was not at Edwards AFB in California after all but in Washington. Which meant he was dead and the presidential mantle had fallen to nearly last-in-line Deborah Sachs.

So Koz ordered a change in course, and Nightwatch was en route to its rendezvous with the president-designate at an as-yet-undamaged airfield, in this case the local airport in White Plains which had one runway barely long enough to handle an emergency 747 landing.

President Sachs. It just didn’t sound right. “Madame President” would be the protocol. Unless she preferred Ms. President. Koz cringed at the thought.

Whatever his private opinions of the woman, Koz knew he had sworn an oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution, and right now that meant Deborah Sachs.

The red phone next to his seat rang. He picked up. It was Captain Li. “We’re cleared for approach,” she said.

“Fine.”

“And we’ve got footage from ground zero.”

“I’ll be right there.”

He hung up and left the emptyom and walked into the battle staff compartment where fifteen of his officers huddled around their monitors.

A traffic chopper from a local Baltimore TV station was offering the world its first look at what had really happened in Washington, D.C.

Koz took a deep breath and looked over his crew. All eyes were glued to their monitors as the chopper was fast approaching a ridge of black trees.

“This is Chopper Dave,” the traffic reporter pilot radioed from the cockpit. “Approaching ground zero.”

Koz shook his head. Unless Chopper Dave’s blades were shielded for radiation like Nightwatch, the traffic reporter was filing the last story of his life.

Chopper Dave was soaring over the ridge when suddenly there was…

Nothing.

A flat wasteland rolling on beneath gray skies.

Koz felt a pain in his stomach, like a knife had gone clean through, in and out.

“Oh, God.”

He thought of Sherry and realized she deserved that Purple Heart after all. At the moment of impact she was probably sitting in her chair in Senator Vanderhall’s office in the Hart Building, scripting some stupid sound bites for the self-important ass to parrot in reaction to the president’s State of the Union address. Little did any of them know that a new president was going to have to address the fact that the state of the Union was shit.

The monitors in the battle staff compartment displayed what Chopper Dave saw: devastation beyond recognition. Heaps of rubble, once buildings, lay scattered across the parched earth. A dark, snakelike fork was all that was left of the Potomac River. Radioactive fallout had already settled along its banks. Sporadic fires and black smoke completed a portrait straight out of Dante’s Inferno.

“I’m circling the capitol.” Chopper Dave’s voice crackled over the intercom. Koz wasn’t sure if it was the traffic reporter’s voice or the reception breaking up. “No survivors in the impact area. Repeat. No survivors.”

The battle staffers were watching the images, offering guesses as to the landmarks. “That stump is the Washington monument!” gasped one, pointing. “There!”

Koz wasn’t sure. But the location looked right. His trance was broken when Captain Li came into the compartment to apologize for the bumpy landing.

“I didn’t even know we touched down,” Koz said.

The Nightwatch plane taxied to a stop along the runway. Hydraulic steps unfurled from the belly of the plane, and Koz climbed down to the tarmac where federal agents and vehicles were waiting.

“Where’s the president-designate?” Koz demanded.

The special agent in charge, clearly a greenhorn from the bench, threw up his hands. “God knows, Colonel. Our boys called in to say she was picked up by two Black Hawks fifteen minutes ago.”

“Should have been here by now,” said Koz as he searched the dark skies in vain. He felt like some schmuck waiting for his blind date, fearing she was standing him up.

Captain Li, who had been standing at attention beside Koz, tugged his elbow. “Sir,” she whispered. “We’re vulnerable on the ground. I suggest we take off and continue to circle, or we’re going to look like those images we just saw on TV after the next strike.”

She was right, Koz realized, although he didn’t want to leave. Finally, he said, “Tell De Carlo to keep the engines hot and prepare for take-off.”

“Yes, sir,” Li said.

“Tell him we’ll circle for ten minutes,” Koz said. “Then we follow the predesignated flight path out of the United States and proceed to the territory of an unattacked ally in the Southern Hemisphere.”

“We’re going south?”

Koz nodded. “Fallout free.”