Digital Winter (19 page)

“Help me up.” Again, the president tried to rise. No one moved to help. He slumped back on the bed. “Who's the commander in chief in this room?”

Jeremy helped Barlow up, letting the president's legs dangle over the edge of the bed. The man's face flushed but then quickly returned to its normal color.

“Anyone got a robe? I could use a pair of slippers too.”

An Army physician crossed the ward. “Mr. President, you shouldn't—”

“Go away. That's an order.”

“Sir—”

“You said my life wasn't in danger. I'm just banged up. I can handle the pain. I deal with congress all time, and I've survived that. Now leave me alone.”

“Yes, sir.” The doctor turned.

“Before you go, Major.” Barlow waited for the man to turn. “Thank you. I owe you big-time.”

“I'm here if you need me, sir. Please, no tennis.”

Barlow screwed up his face. Jeremy couldn't imagine playing tennis with broken ribs. One of the nurses brought a robe and a pair of slippers to the president.

Jeremy had seen many secret things and secret places in his life. He had strolled hallways in the National Security Agency that few had walked. An underground lair didn't surprise him. The country had many such places, but he had never seen anything like this. It was a small town several stories below grade. Seeing a full-fledged hospital with an ER and operating theater had surprised him, and he thought he was beyond surprises. Although he had not received a full tour, he was pretty sure a few hundred people could live down there for many months, maybe even a few years.

Jeremy followed the president as the small entourage left the hospital behind and entered a wide corridor with an arched ceiling. General Holt was on Barlow's right, Colonel Sherwin on his left. Jeremy followed behind. The corridor was well lit, and Jeremy wondered about the power source. He guessed the generators were below grade with vents to the surface. Now wasn't the time to ask.

“Okay, folks, we are dealing with something beyond imagination here.” The president seemed to gain strength with each step. “Before I left the White House, I invoked National Security Presidential Directive 51 and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 20. We are now the government.” He shook his head. “You know, conspiracy theorists think we keep a shadow government down here, people with the rank of cabinet members. Counterparts to those in Washington.”

“A duplicate government,” Holt said. “I'm aware of the folklore.”

“At the moment, I wish it were true.” The president drew a deep but careful breath. “When George W. Bush signed the presidential directives, he did so in the shadow of rising terrorism. In 2001 we learned that we are vulnerable to attack. What we've seen in the last day proves it again. Our enemies have struck—although I'm not sure which ones. But the electromagnetic pulse came from space-borne platforms, which limits the number of potential actors.”

“Agreed, sir.” Holt said.

Barlow turned to Sherwin. “I've only been here twice, and it's been more than a year since the last time. Remind me of the way to my office?”

“If I may, sir.” Sherwin stopped at a blue phone hanging on the wall of the wide corridor and punched in a three-digit number. A few moments later, an Army staff sergeant arrived with an electric golf cart. The man slipped from the driver's seat and saluted.

“I've got this, Sergeant,” Sherwin said. “Dismissed.”

“Yes, ma'am.” The soldier stepped to the side. Sherwin helped the president into the cart and then sat behind the wheel. She drove slowly as the whine of the electric motor echoed along the hard surfaces of the corridor. The corridor was wide enough to drive a pickup truck through. She made several turns and then entered a section of the complex that was unlike the Spartan wing they had left. Planters and trees flourished under grow lights recessed into the walls and ceiling. The smell of cherry blossoms in January caught Jeremy off guard.

A few minutes later they were in the presidential wing. It was not as ornate as Jeremy remembered seeing on his few trips to the White House. He had never been in the president's residence, but he imagined it followed the same basic interior design as the rest of the White House.

They entered a lobby replete with thickly padded leather chairs and warm, red oak side tables and coffee tables. Tiffany-style lamps were spaced around the area. A narrow hall led from one side of the room.

“Do you want to go to your residence or your private office, sir?” Sherwin asked.

“Private office.”

“Yes, sir. We'll have to walk from here.”

“I can manage, Colonel.”

They exited the vehicle and walked through the lobby and down the hall. Two armed soldiers stood on either side of the hall. One held post halfway down the seventy-foot length.

“Shall I tell your wife you're here?” Sherwin had taken the president's arm again. His steps seemed a little less sure.

“Call her from the office, but I want you in on this meeting.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

The president's subterranean private office was of CEO quality. Wide and well-appointed with an antique desk, the office looked almost identical to the Oval Office except for the shape of the room. The furnishings included two sofas with a flower print and three leather side chairs.

Barlow made for the largest leather side chair and lowered himself in. Perspiration speckled his brow. “Okay, that was more taxing than I expected.”

“I'll call for the doctor,” Sherwin said.

“No need. I just need to sit for a bit. Please, everyone, sit. We need to talk. Oh, and I need Senator O'Tool in here.”

“The way I see it, we have two overriding concerns. The first is maintaining a government. We have a legal responsibility to continue the government and its operations. Right now the government is me and Senator O'Tool here. One from the executive branch and one from the legislature isn't much.”

“At least we're both elected, sir,” O'Tool said. “That makes it constitutional, or close to constitutional.”

“Agreed, but we need to get as many cabinet members here as we can ASAP. If it's true they're dead or incapacitated, we need to bring in the undersecretaries. Somehow, we have to get them here. Am I to understand that no vehicles are operating?” He looked to Sherwin.

“Nothing aboveground, sir. The pulse fried anything with a computer chip, including all modern cars. Not only that, the pulse was strong enough to send current through wires, damaging other electrical components. There are a few things still working, like emergency exit lights. I suspect that's because of their simplicity—just a battery, a sensor, and LCD bulbs.”

“To be accurate,” Jeremy said, “there were multiple pulses, not one.”

“I want to come back to that,” Barlow said. “But first, I want to know if we can get something in the air or, at very least, something rolling along the ground.”

“We can try, sir, but early reports make it doubtful.” Sherwin didn't sugarcoat things, something Jeremy appreciated.

Barlow frowned, but Jeremy couldn't tell if Sherwin's words or his own ribs caused the pain. “Do what you can. Use your resources, Colonel. You have several hundred people on the surface and down here. There's got to be a genius in the mix.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The other main concern is establishing communications with the military and the rest of the world. We also need to know what's going on in the streets. Any ideas how to make that happen?”

“The FEMA radio network is set up to make those connections, but their radios may be beyond repair.”

“You have radios down here,” Jeremy said. “Correct? I mean, you don't communicate with FEMAs equipment for security ops, right? And you mentioned shortwave.”

Sherwin nodded. “That's an idea, Colonel. Of course, we can use our radios, but listeners will need working units as well. For now, the shortwave is our best, first choice. Also, radio is going to be line of sight and whatever we can skip off the ionosphere. Without satellites, we're limited.”

“How widespread do you guess the damage is?” Barlow asked. He moved in his seat and winced again. Jeremy had been told the president had refused all but the most basic pain reliever. No doubt the man would love a shot of morphine.

The three military officers looked at each other. Holt answered. “We have no way of knowing until we get some intel, and that's going to be thin until the people out there can talk to the people in here.”

“Best guess?” The president's tone was terse.

Holt sighed. “I think the country has been thrown back to the early 1900s. Worse in some ways. People then had lanterns they could light. The modern world is electricity dependent. I have no doubts every state is in chaos.”

“So you see this as countrywide.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeremy had to force himself to speak. Delivering bad news to a person of power was always difficult. There was a reason the ancients often killed the bearer of bad news. “I think it's global.”

“Global!” Barlow fixed his gaze on Jeremy, and for a moment Jeremy felt like a candle in a pizza oven. “I didn't authorize the use of EMP weapons. I didn't have time.”

“But they're up there, aren't they, sir?”

Barlow hesitated. “Not by my authorization.”

“Sir…Forgive me, sir. I'm not looking for someone to blame. I…” Time to start over. “I suppose it is possible that the power outages and the EMP weapons are precursors to invasion and war. I don't deny that, but that explanation doesn't feel right.”

“Feel right? I need more than a gut feeling, Colonel.”

Neither Holt or Sherwin looked his way. “True, we can build a case that some country knocked out our power. Really, it doesn't even have to be another country. The digital age has made our country extremely vulnerable. I mean, General Holt and our team have made it our career to keep that from happening. True, China, Korea, and Russia have planted malware in our infrastructures. These things can spread over the Internet. That means a small group of people could bring a country's power down—a cadre of foreign corporations, anarchists, homegrown terrorists…It's a long list. But something is bothering me—”

The president raised a hand. “Wait. Doesn't the fact that EMP satellites were used prove we're dealing with a hostile foreign country?”

“No, sir. It doesn't.”

“I've got to hear this.” Barlow shifted again.

“Remember, sir, we're dealing with a worm, a computer program that can spread on its own.”

“Like Stuxnet,” Holt added.

“Exactly. Stuxnet spread from computer to computer and network to network, searching for a specific kind of program that operated a specific kind of centrifuge used to refine uranium. It bypassed other systems. It was aimed at the Iranians, not the devices in the United States or friendly countries. That's why many analysts think the US was involved.”

“If we were, I don't know about it, but then again, that was before my tenure.” Barlow motioned to encourage Jeremy to continue.

“If the goal was to knock out just the grid in the US by means of electromagnetic pulse, then bringing down the power grid by infecting it with a worm is redundant. Let me ask something if I may, sir. If this is above my security clearance, just say so.”

Barlow chuckled without humor. “Right now you guys are the only cabinet I have. Ask.”

“Have the Chinese, Koreans, or Iranians mobilized their forces in any way to suggest they plan to attack us or one of our allies?”

“I get a security briefing every morning. As soon as we had the first blackout, I asked that very question. But be careful here. The goal may not be an invasion. Simply crippling us for a while could be the goal.”

Jeremy shook his head. “Our country owes the Chinese boatloads of money, sir. The Russians are dependent on selling us oil, and their economy is too weak to be bothered with kicking us to the curb. Iran and Korea are led by madmen, so I can see that happening, but they don't have access to EMP satellites. I think we're looking at one problem. I think the worm—we're calling it Moriarity—made its way to the satellites over the communication networks between ground-based computers and space-borne ones.”