The War Cloud

50

Sachs watched blue-hathel pour her a cup of Kona blend coffee while the TV blared the downing of Air Force One and her death. It was freezing with the shattered windows, and a dozen AF1 crew were taping plastic sheets from the surplus store in back to keep out the cold. Koz, meanwhile, was still on the pay phone talking to Block, having been unable to connect his phone with its satellite in space. They were trying to set up a call with General Zhang for her, to confirm he knew the U.S. was standing down and requesting the same.

Ethel, who had an old military tattoo on her arm and a Tea Party pin on her apron, asked her, “You really the president?”

Sachs said, “So they say.”

Ethel snapped her gum. “You spoiled everything, you know. Women have been running the country just fine for two hundred years, only our men didn’t know it.” Then she winked and walked off with her pot of coffee to serve the rest of the AF1 crew. All 48 had been accounted for, thank God.

Koz walked over with a frown on his face. “Looking Glass landed at Grand Forks, but Marshall and three crew were missing.”

Sachs stared at him. “How can they be missing?”

“They must have bailed in flight.”

“From a 747? Is that even possible?”

“Not at 35,000 feet and 500 knots,” Koz said. “But the pilots report that Marshall had ordered them down to 18,000 and 150 knots before everything went berserk. That altitude and speed are about what the top extreme skydivers use, and Marshall and his threesome are trained paratroopers. Looks like they shot their way out the rear transport hatch on the cargo deck. There were lots of bodies on the floor and four sky suits with oxygen masks missing from the racks.”

“But where did they go? What does he hope to accomplish?”

Koz shrugged. “I have no idea. Looking Glass by definition circles the Midwest in a nuke attack, to be close to the missile fields. But there must be a reason he stuck close to the badlands of North Dakota. Only problem is that the only active missile fields are a couple of hundred miles away at Minot. There’s nothing in this immediate area except abandoned missile silos. Maybe he’s going to hide out in one and keep us hunting for him for as many days as possible.”

Sachs heard a grunt. It was Ethel. “He’s right, you know,” she said. “We used to have a full missile wing here associated with Grand Forks AFB, until they closed it down, moved almost everything to Minot. That cost us a lot of jobs.”

“Almost everything?” Sachs asked, glancing at Koz.

Koz said, “They still keep a few weapons storage areas around here that hold nuclear contingency weapons. And there’s the old Safeguard complex in Nekoma, but that’s been abandoned even longer than the silos.”

“You sure about that?” Ethel said, clearly unable to help herself. “I’ve served more than a few strangers in recent—”

The cups and saucers on the counter started shaking again. The whole diner started to shake.

“Lordy, here we go again,” Ethel said.

But Sachs knew there wasn’t another Air Force One about to make an emergency landing outside. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a flame trail on the hor

Koz and Captain Li had already burst outside through the plastic sheet.

She ran out to join them and stopped cold at the sight of a 60-foot Minuteman III ICBM missile lift off into the sky at 15,000 miles per hour like a space shuttle launch. The ground quaked from the Boeing first-stage rocket’s 200,000 pounds of thrust.

“Oh, no,” Sachs said. “Marshall.”

Another Minuteman blasted off.

And another.

And still another.

Sachs counted ten flame trails lifting off from the fields in a ring of fire that turned the evening into day.