The Book of Truths (28 page)

But Major Preston wasn’t the only one who had a means of communication out of the White House.

Moms had to make a decision. This was like Whac-A-Mole with Cherry Tree. No matter how hard they tried to isolate those infected, the efforts to keep runners inside the White House was infecting more. There seemed a tremendous urge among those infected to get out, to tell someone the truth. Whether it was a spouse, a child, a parent, someone they had wronged, someone who had wronged them… whatever. That was more dangerous than Cherry Tree.

They had seventy-two people isolated in the White House and at last count, twenty-two were infected. The latest news from
Ms. Jones, via Hannah, via some operative the Cellar had, was that Cherry Tree burned out in four hours.

Moms sat down in the Pantry on the first floor, as isolated as she could get, and reached in her pocket and called Ms. Jones on her satphone.

“Yes?”

“I need to talk to Doc,” Moms said without preamble.

“Certainly.” There was a series of clicks and then Moms heard Kirk’s voice.

“Moms! Are you all right?”

“Get me Doc. Hell, Kirk, put me on the team net so I can get feedback.”

“Wait one.”

A few seconds later, Doc’s calm voice came over the net and Moms realized how much she missed her team, not only for mission support, but just support.

“Everyone else there?” Moms asked.

“Roger,” Nada said, followed by Eagle and Mac.

“I need help here.” In her usual succinct manner, she laid out the problem in the White House ending with: “I don’t think we can keep a lid on this forever. Either someone is going to get out, or the story is going to go on so long that no one will believe it’s an exercise. Plus, even though the president and First Family should be through their four hours soon, it will look awkward bringing them out and yet continuing to isolate others.

“On top of that, we’ve got a bigger problem. There’s no way we can keep seventy-two people quiet after they come off of Cherry Tree. The shit is going to hit the fan. Thoughts.”

There was just static for a few moments, then Doc spoke. It only took him a minute to outline the solution to the spread of
Cherry Tree, but Moms nodded when he was done. “Excellent idea. And for the second problem?”

And as she had hoped, it was Kirk, who had cheated his way through Ranger School, who had the answer.

“Outstanding,” Moms said. “Nada. What’s the status of your mission?”

“We’re waiting for target location,” Nada said. “Then we’ll go take care of our little problem.”

“Do you have enough support?” Moms asked.

“Definitely,” Nada said. “You need to take care of your bigger problem there.”

“Roger. Out.”

If there was a hell on Earth, the Nevada Test Site was it. It was definitely the deadliest location, with many places so radioactive, a human being wouldn’t last ten minutes. Large swathes were splattered with subsidence craters from underground nuclear explosions crowding each other out for space.

Seven hundred and thirty-nine nuclear devices had been exploded in the Nevada Test Site. Lagging way behind were Alaska (three), Colorado (two), and Mississippi and New Mexico duking it out with one each. The rest were places like the Marshall Islands where the US government had paid out $759 million so far to say, oops, sorry we nuked your islands. Even obliterated one.

The Department of Energy, which technically controls the site, likes to say
devices
and not
weapons
, because there were
those who had tried really hard to harness nuclear explosions for things other than death and destruction.

Which was why the largest man-made crater was there: Area 10’s Sedan Crater, part of the Plowshare Program, was 1,280 feet wide and 320 feet deep. Plowshare’s concept was to use nuclear warheads for peaceful purposes, aka Isaiah 2:3–5:
“And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

They tried. A Pan-Atomic Canal across Nicaragua was one concept. Detonating twenty-two nuclear bombs to clear the way for I-40 in the Bristol Mountains was another.

So they blew a 104-kiloton bomb on Yucca Flats that produced the Sedan Crater and also sent a radioactive dust plume across the country that reached the Mississippi River.

After $770 million spent, it was decided Plowshare sort of, kind of wasn’t the smartest idea a bunch of scientists had come up with.

But the weapons testing went on until 1992 when a treaty was signed halting all nuclear testing, the diminutive grandfather of SAD.

Left sitting out in this wasteland were the facilities and devices being prepared for further tests. Orphaned, they were snatched up by Pinnacle, which to that point had been using abandoned missile silos and a scattering of “retired” bombers kept in barely flyable condition at the Tucson “Boneyard.”

Pinnacle was consolidated at Icecap, a large tower that housed the drill needed to tear into the desert floor and position another device for testing. Alongside Icecap stood a warehouse with the gear needed to support the project. Three four-mile-long sections
of rail track extended out from the tower, going nowhere in particular. Their purpose was to allow the three diesel engines in the tower to pull their flatbed carrying an ICBM missile out to launch. There was also a missile on the top of the drilling platform, just underneath the retractable roof.

That gave Pinnacle the ability to launch four missiles, which was double the number ever used in actual war. Which meant Pinnacle had the ability to start a war.

The entire facility was manned by three men but defended by an array of automated defenses that had been skimmed from developmental programs over the past decades.

The ultimate defense, of course, was the radiation. The three men were ensconced in a shielded bunker fifty feet under the desolate landscape. Housed above them were twelve other nuclear warheads, all primed with self-destruct. The men spent one month on, two months off, rotating with two other crews. They were all paid top dollar and they were all committed to the cause.

The really scary thing that Neeley had learned from Brennan was that this facility, while the heart of the Pinnacle, wasn’t all there was to it. There were other nuclear warheads wired into it, the exact number even Brennan or the men manning it didn’t know. The years had buried the locations and numbers with the men who’d held the secrets.

The one in Nebraska had been one of those. How many more were out there was anybody’s guess.

With General Riggs delivering the correct password, the tall doors on three sides of the drill house slid up. The automated diesel locomotives began powering up. At the top of the drill house, the roof slid aside, revealing an ICBM.

A button was pushed and the preparation for launch sequence began.

“With the White House compromised and the PEOC occupied by General Riggs,” Ms. Jones said, “we do not have our usual last-ditch backups.”

“She means cruise missiles armed with nukes,” Mac said to Roland by way of explanation.

“We should receive word shortly on the location of Pinnacle,” Ms. Jones continued, “and the optimal solution would be to wipe it out completely, unless, of course, it’s located among civilian targets.”

“I doubt that,” Eagle said. “They’ve hidden this stockpile somewhere deep and inaccessible would be my estimation.”

“I concur,” Ms. Jones said. “But I still believe we are going to have to be surgical with our strike when the time comes. We don’t want word of this to get out. It would cause considerable consternation among the populace to learn there’s been a rogue nuclear arm to our military.”

“It would be a clusterfuck,” Mac said to Roland. The big man smacked the smaller man on the back of his head.

“I get it,” Roland said.

“Yes, Ms. Jones,” Nada said, “but we have to assume they’ve got a self-destruct. They had one in Nebraska. And I don’t think we’re going to get lucky again.”

“Mister Nada…” Ms. Jones began, but hesitated.

Everyone turned to look at the team sergeant. Ms. Jones never hesitated.

“Yes?” Nada prompted.

“I need you to get something from the Vault.”

Nada was on his feet. “Yes, ma’am. And that is?”

And when she told him, they all knew why she’d hesitated.

But Nada didn’t. He gestured at Eagle. “You drive.”

And the two of them headed for the Humvee parked nearby to drive into the bunker built in the side of Groom Mountain where the Vault containing the Nightstalkers’ support was located.

The breach team General Riggs sent down the tunnel to the basement of the White House outnumbered the Secret Service guards in hazmat suits three to one. They also had superior firepower. They also wore the uniforms of the US military, which caused the Secret Service agents to hesitate. The soldiers did not.

Within seconds the three agents were flex-cuffed to a pipe that ran along the wall, cursing at their fellow federal employees and warning of infection as they opened up the barricaded door. Standing on the other side was Major Preston, an unconscious Secret Service agent at his feet.

Preston stepped through and the door was shut again. The party made its way back to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.

“General,” Preston said as he put the football on the conference table in front of Riggs.

Everyone in the room fixated on the case.

Riggs smiled and touched a blue button set into the tabletop in front of him. The entire wall along one side of the room split apart, each piece rumbling to the side to reveal a massive screen. It was currently dark.

“Good job,” Riggs said as he indicated for Preston to open the case.

Preston unlocked it and flipped the lid up. Riggs grabbed a cable from the interior of the case that came out of the transmitter and plugged it into an outlet on the edge of the conference table. The dark screen flickered and then came alive with an electronic map of the wall. Overlaid in “nonessential areas” such as the South Pacific, Antarctica, most of Africa, Greenland, and other places were boxes filled with data. The data indicated the number of nuclear platforms available at this exact moment: missiles, submarines, aircraft.

At the very top, in the whiteness of the Arctic, was a red digital display. It currently read:

0:00:00

“Seal the room,” Riggs ordered.

His sergeant major pulled a red lever just inside the door. Steel plates slid down with solid thuds.

Riggs sat down and pulled items out of the case: the black book, which he placed in front of him; the list of classified sites, which he tossed in the trash bin; and finally the three-by-five card with the authorization codes.

Riggs picked up the black book. Originally, when the first version was prepared, it was the size of a long screenplay, over 150 pages in very small type and so complicated even the team preparing it despaired of completely understanding all the options.

It was President Carter, the only president with a degree in nuclear engineering, who’d actually spent the time to try to read the black book one day. He’d thrown his hands up in disgust and ordered a simplified version, a “Denny’s breakfast menu” summary so to speak. In keeping with that theme, the target listing was broken down into three main categories: rare, medium, or well done.