Read Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller Online
Authors: Doug Norton
Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller (5 page)
A Web
addict
,
Kim went to Google and entered “sea container tracking.”
It produced
over a
hundred thousand hits. Scanning the
advertisements on the right of the
screen, he read, “Track your assets around the world. RFID satellite tracking.”
Kim clicked it. He learned that a small device could report the location and
operation of vehicles, worldwide. It had a one-year battery life and gave its
owner the ability to track it anywhere in the world as long as it stayed within
range of a satellite or a cell phone network.
Kim laughed as he read on. From any
computer anxious parents could locate the family car and see how fast their
teenager was driving, as well as obtain a history of locations and speeds. If
the parents wished, they could send a signal locking or unlocking the car doors
and even disabling the ignition.
One of those devices could be paired with
each bomb, linked to the firing circuit in such a way that, if the device were
tampered with, the bomb would be disabled and a small explosive would destroy
the bomb and the tamperer. With the device in place and functioning, Kim would
know where the bomb was and could, if he chose, disable it. Tomorrow he would
tell the Arabs it was a deal, one he of course would dominate by selling old
plutonium weapons that had never worked powerfully in tests.
Having solved the problem, Kim returned
to his theater and
On the Waterfront
.
Sadly for Dugan, the Mob killed him for taking their whiskey.
Later, riding through the deserted
streets, Kim briefly considered the U.S. presidential election of the
previous week. Since Kim’s view of the world was Kim-centered, he viewed all
others as either threats or oppo
rtunities. And since
all
his life
he had
his way in nearly everything,
he tended toward opportunity when assessing people. None could match him
anyway, he thought. He had long ago accepted his own genius and his destiny to
create the perfect society for his dear people.
Martin would be another opportunity.
Chapter
7
President Martin entered a small, drab
room smelling of mildew. Cabinet officers and the few others rose, their faces
mostly neutral. Some nodded and smiled slightly as his eyes met theirs. Others
didn’t hold eye contact.
Yesterday’s press conference had ended in
fiasco with the power failure and stampede. After Wilson’s
command Rick sat thinking, for just a moment, of people trapped in collapsed
buildings in Las Vegas.
As Martin was pushing away emotions, Wilson
had tensed at a voice sounding in his earpiece. He then growled, “No fire, Mr.
President, just some fuckin’ idiot with an overactive imagination! We’ll let
the herd run away and then walk out of here. The generators will be back up in
a few minutes.”
Today the journalists, not wanting to
admit they had panicked over a five-minute power outage, spun a narrative of
the administration’s failure to be prepared.
I’m not
going to think about the people in Las Vegas
, Rick vowed silently.
If I do, I’ll become as paralyzed as Walter
there
, he thought, contemplating the secretary of education. He slid the
memory into the vault where he kept unwanted things.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Now we
begin. The day before yesterday was, literally, the first day of the rest of
our lives. The country expects us to aid the victims and prevent another
attack. With God’s help—and Congress’s—we’ll do that!
His face earnest, a look he could turn on
and off at will but now was sincere, the president leaned forward, fingers
interlaced in front of him on the table.
“I believe that each of you is up to the
job. I’m not expecting perfection, but I am expecting best efforts, twenty-four
seven. I need to hear what
you
believe, not just what I want to hear. We can’t have leaks, not only for
security reasons but for the other reason we all know. Fear of being hung out
to dry causes people to hold back. I pledge to you this is a Woodward-free zone
and you must each make the same pledge to me and to each other.”
A brief ripple of smiles held Rick’s
attention, and he missed the frown that flitted across the vice president’s
features. Bruce Griffith’s square face and ruddy complexion were topped by
longish, white-blonde hair, carefully blow-dried and combed forward to conceal
a receding hairline. But acne scars in his cheeks and chin kept him from
looking like an aging movie star and seemed to connect him to ordinary folks,
saying, “my life hasn’t been all roses either.”
“I also want to say that, as horrible as
this is, it offers opportunities,” continued Martin. “We need to keep them in
mind, and I see that as one of my own key contributions going forward. Maybe,
just maybe, other countries will be frightened enough for themselves to get
behind a U.S.
initiative to really, finally, end the spread of nuclear weapons.”
The president gestured to National
Security Advisor John Dorn, who nodded to Secretary of Homeland Security Sara
Zimmer, whose face sagged with fatigue.
Zimmer’s brownish hair, flecked with
grey, hung barely to her shoulders and was tucked behind her ears, revealing
high, flat cheekbones and chiseled jaw muscles beneath pale skin. She was just
short of gaunt, no fat on a frame that, though normally wheelchair-bound,
remained athletic from daily swims. Recalling her army service as pilot of an
Apache helicopter gunship, cabinet colleagues readily imagined her swooping low
over panicked infantry, cutting them down with efficient, well-aimed bursts of
fire.
“Mr. President, medical personnel and
other first responders are still trying to stabilize the situation. It’s
chaotic. There was an initial surge of thousands out of the no-go zone into the
triage points at the edge of it. We decontaminate them, triage them, move them
to temporary shelter, and as soon as possible evacuate those expected to
survive. None of that is as orderly as it sounds, as we’ve all seen on TV and
YouTube. But that’s our process, and as we get more resources and more
experience, it will get better.
“In addition to police and firefighters we
have help from a lot of Eric’s people—paratroopers, medics, engineers, military
police, plus helos and transport planes. You want to speak to that, Eric?”
Secretary of Defense Eric Easterly was a
compact man whose broad, flat nose dominated his creased and battered face. The
dark pupils of his eyes contrasted sharply with their whites, which in turn
contrasted with his mahogany skin. Something hard lurked beneath his polished
manner, something that was almost visible every year when he ran in the Marine
Corps marathon.
“Sure, Sara. As you know, Mr. President, we
deployed the ready battalion of the Eighty-second Airborne about twelve hours
after the attack. They were prepared to jump in, but the C-17s were able to
land about thirty-five miles away at Creech Air Force Base. Most of the
Seventeenth Airborne Corps is now on-scene, or on the way, to patrol the no-go
perimeter and help out with decontamination, first aid, meals—anything they can
do. The Transportation Command has already made a few relocation flights
getting survivors out.”
Rubbing her eyes, Zimmer resumed. “I’d
like to bring in the surgeon general to give us the medical and public health
picture.”
The surgeon general, in a chair wedged
against the wall, attempted to stand in the space between it and Zimmer’s
wheelchair. There wasn’t room. With a shrug, he dropped back into his chair,
peering around Zimmer until he made eye contact with Martin.
“Mr. President, it’s a grim picture. We
have tens of thousands of dead and even more injured. Needless to say, we need
more medical people and more treatment facilities! Right now, most of the dead
are in the no-go zone, but within a few days to a few weeks large numbers of those
who were able to reach the perimeter will die, mostly from radiation sickness.
“That’s a big issue we need to face.
Thousands of survivors are going to die. There’s no way to prevent that; all we
can do is keep them comfortable.” He sketched quotation marks in the air.
“While it might seem that the best for
them would be to die in a hospital, any hospital, evacuating them will mean the
majority will die among strangers. Most families won’t be able to be with them.
It’ll also mean returning thousands of bodies to Nevada. And if we put the certain fatalities
in hospitals, we won’t have enough beds for people with a chance to survive. On
the other hand, if we continue to set up field care units nearby, family
members can be with them, and the handling of remains is not such a problem. It
won’t be pretty, but I think it’s the kindest and most practical way to go;
plus it saves hospitals for those who benefit most from them.”
Rick glanced at his chief of staff. Bart
Guarini’s green eyes flashed out of deep, heavy-browed sockets, screened by
partially lowered eyelids. The effect was a bit like a pair of snipers firing
from formidable concealment: attract their ire and you die. Bart understood as
if it were his own thought: Rick wants some pushback.
“Doctor, what do we say when survivors
with radiation sickness and their families complain they’re being warehoused to
die, and warehoused in terrible conditions at that? The average high this time
of year must be around a hundred degrees,” said Guarini.
“We tell the truth: that they’re going to
die in any case and we need hospital beds for those who can live if they reach
one. “
“That’s a hell of a bedside manner you’ve got,
doctor!”
“What would
you
tell them, Mr. Guarini?”
The chief of staff reddened as he formed
a retort, but Eric Easterly was quicker.
“Doctor,” said the secretary of defense,
“Once we reach the period when most of the radiation deaths occur, how many can
we expect a day?”
“I don’t know how many received fatal
doses . . . considering that about five hundred thousand were probably exposed
. . . easily five to ten thousand deaths a day, beginning about a week after
the explosion.”
“Bart, I don’t know about our national
hospital capacity, but I
do
know
about airlift,” said Easterly. “Even with full mobilization of the civil
reserve air fleet, I think moving that many bodies in addition to those with a
chance to pull through, plus uninjured but homeless survivors, would overwhelm
our capacity. And you’re right about the temperature, which makes it even more
critical to quickly evacuate those who
can
survive.
“We’re in a war, and we have to adopt
wartime measures. We bury people where they die, like in World War II, and
later return the remains to relatives for burial.”
No
, thought Rick, unconsciously shaking his
head,
we’re not going there! I am
not
calling this war. Once that horse is out
of the barn, diplomacy is dead.
“Eric, I take your point, but not the way
you’ve expressed it. I want everyone clear on this: we are
not
at war. We’ve been the victims of a terrorist attack. Until we
know who’s behind it, we have no country to go to war
with
.”
The president’s gaze swept the table like
a death ray as he said, “We have terrorists to identify and apprehend, not a
war to fight!”
Bruce Griffith kept his expression
attentively neutral, but his mind shouted:
Victims!
I hate that word! It implies powerlessness, helplessness. We’ve been attacked;
we’re going to find who did it and strip them of the power to attack us again.
That’s how I would put it, how most Americans want to hear it. And,
“Apprehend.”
Apprehend? We should kill
the bastards who did this!
Chapter 8
Martin shifted his gaze to Dorn, who
said, “OK, let’s turn to what Homeland Security is doing. Then we’ll hear from
Justice and National Intelligence.”
Opening a
folder, Zimmer began.
“We’ve made some assumptions; we’ll
adjust them as facts come in. First is that terrorists don’t have man-portable
weapons, suitcase nukes. So, we’re concentrating on vehicles, rail, aircraft,
and ships as possible means of delivery. The coast guard, with help from the
other services, has the lead in searching all ships in our ports.
“We’re assuming the next target is
another large metro area. So, the FAA is diverting all flights to large cities
or ordering them cancelled. We’ve banned freight trains from major metro areas
but allowed passenger trains under heightened inspection. DOE deploys Nuclear
Emergency Support Teams—NEST for short—to sweep for nukes whenever we find
something suspicious.
“Cars and trucks are of course the
biggest challenge. A few big metro areas, like Manhattan, have limited ingress and egress
anyway, plus highway radiation portal monitors already in place, but everywhere
else we have to use cops with handheld equipment. Frankly, it’s a hell of a
mess!”
She scanned their faces without apology.
“What’s the plan if you find a nuke or
something that appears to be one?” said the secretary of energy.
“It’s one recommended by your NEST
people: We check for booby traps and then move it to the nearest airfield,
where it goes aboard a cargo aircraft with a military crew and a team of
nuclear weapon engineers. The plane climbs to high altitude and heads out over
the ocean, where th
e engineers go to work
.
They take photographs and record everything they observe, especially anything
indicating origin. It’s all immediately data-linked to your people at Sandia
Labs and the Pantex plant. Then the engineers try to disarm it. If they are
successful, the plane delivers it to Pantex. If not—assuming it doesn’t blow—they
dump it in deep ocean before coming home.”
Rick squirmed to ease his aching back and
cut his glance to the secretary of defense. Obediently, Dorn said, “Anything
more, Eric?”
“Well, in addition to what Sara has
already mentioned, we’re sending field hospitals to Vegas and putting two
hospital ships in port LA, a forty-five minute flight from there. And since
every non-military aircraft is a potential nuclear bomb, we’ve
reinstated the measures
used after Nine-eleven: If a
flight leaves its route and heads for a major city, fighters shoot it down if
it won’t turn away.”
Easterly continued, but Rick’s thoughts
stayed with those words.
Somebody has to
give that order. Should it be me? Whoever says shoot is ordering the immediate
death of innocent passengers, maybe on a mistake. Could I do that? Is it the
right thing to do? By what right do I take the lives of maybe a hundred people
in order to prevent an attack that might or might not be happening? But by what
right do I withhold permission to shoot and maybe sacrifice a city and many
thousands of people who are just as innocent as those in the airplane?
Martin held up a hand. “Eric, let’s go
back to those fighters. Who’s going to make the decision to shoot?”
“Sir, that’ll be the call of our general
commanding the North American Air Defense Command or his deputy, a Canadian
general. One or the other will always be in the command center.”
“No!” The president made a stop gesture
with his right hand. “I’m not gonna deal with the fallout of an American general
ordering a Canadian airliner shot down, or vice versa. Find another way!”
“OK, then I recommend each nation take
responsibility for making that call within its own airspace. For us, it will be
the flag officer on watch at the National
Military Command
Center.”
“Agreed. What
else?”
“Mr. President, we’ve sent army and air
force units to support customs and border protection patrols.”
“What results?”
“Well sir,
they’ve located and stopped a number of four-wheel drive vehicles. They’ve all
turned out to be what CBP calls the usual stuff: smugglers with Mexican
illegals and lost hikers along the Canadian border. Unfortunately, a couple of
vehicles coming from Mexico
ignored halt orders and had to be stopped by fire. There’ve been three killed
and about half a dozen wounded, all Mexicans.”
Snapping his head leftward, Martin looked
at Anne Battista, who shrugged. “Nothing yet from Mexico. I’m sure we’ll hear from
them soon.”
Rick was surprised, then had a rare spike
of anger.
Good God! We can’t go lurching
around smashing things like some wounded Godzilla. That’s just what terrorists
want us to do!
He glared at the secretary of defense.
“Eric, you and Sara have to find a better
way! We can’t go on shooting harmless illegals or start winging wandering
hunters. It seems to me that if the vehicles are away from populated areas it
should be OK to pursue and stop them eventually, without shooting them up.”
Easterly’s jaws worked as he absorbed the
rebuke and then responded. “Yes, Mr. President. We’ll put together new rules of
engagement immediately and bring them to you for review.” He glanced at
MacAdoo, who nodded and left.
