The World's End Series Book One: Dymond's World (18 page)

"As for his mini-me, the Vice President is flying around for the fourth day - safely up in one of the new Air Force One planes.  My guess is that they'll land in a day or two - with The Spare on board, the liquor supply has got to be running low by now."

Regina knew that the Speaker was safe with thirty of his colleagues in a bunker in his home state of West Virginia.  She didn't expect any missiles to rain down on Washington, but they had to be careful.  Her Dad was in the deepest bowels of the Pentagon.

She asked, "Have they sealed the doors at Cheyenne?"

He liked to be called by his title and first two names.  Speaker John Washington said, "No.  They think they'll have enough warning if things get dicey.  They're still trying to cram in last minute supplies and there's a long list of VIPs trying to get in.  I hear our war hero senator is one of them.  I told the President this morning that it would be a good idea to welcome him inside."

Regina smiled.  Few deserved it more than that pompous ass, Senator John Canbridge.

Regina looked up and studied the faces of each member of her team.  She could detect no signs of weakness or uncertainty.  Each of them appeared to be calm, waiting for her to speak. "Then gentlemen, it's time to start World War Three.  Hopefully, it'll be over by dinnertime."

They all went to work, lifting phones and issuing orders.

Regina was silent and still as she watched them.  Her thoughts drifted to Jason and Ashley Hamn and to a host of others she had sacrificed to get to this point.  Their ghosts tried to taunt her, but she pushed them away.

The XO had a distressed look on his face as he walked towards Captain Joshua Jennings of the USS Pennsylvania.  "The Penn," as its sailors called it, was a Boomer - an Ohio class submarine that had only two jobs.  First, it had to be practically invisible and that meant being quiet - it could go just about anywhere and no enemy would know.  In this instance, quiet was needed because they were in the Barents Sea just off shore from the Russian Northern fleet headquarters at Severomorsk.  They had received orders to move to this location right after the EMP event.

Its second job was to be prepared to launch up to twenty four Trident nuclear missiles to any targets within their 9500 mile range.

"We have an action order, Captain."  He handed a printed copy of the order to the Captain and looked to him for permission to pass out copies to the three other officers who would authenticate the orders.  The Captain nodded his agreement.

The paper had only a series of letters and numbers on it in groups.  All five officers had to look up the codes on their own.  The codes changed on a random basis, sometimes twice in an hour, so that no enemy could send a launch command to a sub.

One by one, the four officers spoke, "I have an authentic action order."  Captain Jennings looked them over and said, "I concur."  It was the real thing.  They had trained for this moment hundreds of times, but now it had arrived.

"Denote seven, eight and nine," the Captain ordered.  This caused a ripple of activity to spread throughout the boat.  Sailors input coordinates into guidance computers both onboard the Penn and in the brains of the missiles.  The missiles were awakened from their slumber as internal gyros were brought to life.  This happened early in the process since they took several minutes to spin up.

Systems were checked and double checked to make sure the missile was ready.  If there was any kind of failure with any one of them, they would shut it down and choose another.  Their orders called for the launch of three missiles at three different targets.

Almost in unison, the five officers removed a chain from their necks.  On that chain was a key.  Each of them had to insert their key to first unlock a metal box covering a switch and then again to activate the switch.  If any of them failed to perform their part of the choreography, the launch could not happen.

All five keys were used.  The status board in front of the Captain glowed green.

"Flood seven, eight and nine," he ordered.  Normally the launch tubes were dry, but with sixty feet of sea water pressing down on the ship, the tubes had to be flooded in order to open the launch hatches.

Given their present position, this was a dangerous time.  The sound of water filling the launch tubes could be heard - and since they were very, very close to most of the Russian Northern fleet it probably would be heard by someone.  Captain Jennings hoped it would be some low ranked sailor, drowsy from lack of sleep and suffering from a hangover.

The XO announced, "All green, Captain."

This was his cue.  "Fire Seven."  They felt the ship shudder as a massive wave of compressed air forcibly ejected the missile away from the boat and upwards through the water until it broke the surface.  At that time, its rocket motors ignited and it was on its way.

"Seven away, Captain."

"Fire eight."

All three Tridents were launched successfully.  Captain Jennings ordered a crash dive to 300 feet and set a course that would take him away from the shore.  The sound of missiles actually being launched would most certainly be heard.  They needed to slip away and become invisible again.

***

It had become common for U.S. boomer subs to sail near this base.  It was a confidence builder for the crew to find out, for real, just how quiet they were.  Sailing around with Russians only a few hundred yards away was scary at first, but everyone on board soon learned they were indeed invisible.  Also, once they left and were in the relative safety of the open sea, the captain authorized a "Kiss My Ass, Ivan" event where everyone on board celebrated with a holiday-style meal.

There would be no such party for the crew of the Pennsylvania this time.  Russian Captain Ivan Redhov could hear the sounds of missiles being launched through the hull of his boat even without the sonar sweeps he had just ordered.

"Contact, Captain."  He called out a course towards the intruder and ordered four torpedo tubes to be flooded.

The intruder tried to maneuver his boat in an attempt to escape, but Captain Redhov knew such attempts were in vain - the water was just too shallow this close to shore and there simply wasn't room to make a real run for it.

"Fire One," he ordered and then, seconds later, "Fire Two."

Seventeen seconds later the Fire Control Officer let out a yelp of delight.  A few seconds passed before he did it again.

***

General Zhang had the duty tonight.  As a member of the Chinese ruling Central Committee, his job was to monitor happenings in the world and communicate with the other members if the situation required.  This night was likely to be quite busy with the crisis that had engulfed the world only a few days ago.  He also had a second job as the Commander of the Second Artillery Corps - the command tasked with launching China's nuclear ICBM missiles.

China had fared much better than other countries, having suffered a loss of power only over about twenty percent of its land mass.  Their satellites had been made unreliable, but, with the exception of their very long range radars, their defenses were functional. 

Zhang had attended a briefing only an hour ago in which it was reported that one of their assets inside the American government had confirmed that the attack had been initiated by Russia.  The Americans were defeated, helpless; their super power status soon to be a memory. 

It was agreed that perhaps the Russians had done the world a favor - and the lack of damage to China might be a sign that they saw the new world alignment as having two spheres of influence - an occidental one, and an oriental one.  If so, it was an interesting gambit since a final clash between the two would be almost inevitable.  It was obvious to the entire Committee that Russia would wait until they could strike China in the same way they'd done the Americans.  One of their analysts suspected that they had already tried to bring China to its knees like they'd done America, but that their weapon had failed, only taking out satellites.  It was a chilling theory, so the entire country was on high alert.

Zhang had just settled himself behind the polished wooden Commander’s desk when a radar operator called out, "Possible launch, Commander.  Northern Russia.  Momentary contacts reported by long range radar.  Appeared to perhaps be three missiles on ascent.  Screen now shows nothing."

Zhang felt irritation that their radar from the border was still not fully online, but the man was right to alert him even with this fragmentary report.  "Watch carefully, comrades."

Seventeen minutes later, the same operator reported, "Confirmed three missiles passing our border.  One seems to be targeted at Beijing," he paused as if trying to puzzle out what he was seeing.  "The second looks to be on a course with . . . it looks like Hong Kong or Guangzhou."

Zhang felt his blood run cold.  It was happening on his watch - they were under attack.  "And . . . the third target.  Can you estimate it?"

The radar operator’s voice was quiet, full of what sounded like wonder.  "They are now descending, Commander.  I can estimate the third target is . . . It is us, Commander!  They are trying to make sure we will not be able to retaliate for this aggression!"

Zhang thought of all those western children, going to sleep still hugging their stuffed animals and dreaming of the toys built for them by Chinese labor.  Their country had put all their efforts into making things for the west in exchange for peace and money.  Now the damned Russians had taken it all.  In minutes China would be naked with no ability to fire the land based ICBMs that he commanded.  He was ashamed that they had only twenty six missiles ready to launch.

He ordered them into the sky with Russian cities and military bases as their targets.

He sat and waited with his men.

***

Zhang's Russian counterpart was named Kostava.  He was a General of the Russian Army, though he thought of himself as a General of the Soviet Union.  Things had become smaller over the years - their empire and their aspirations.  The people had been lured away with western jeans and that stupid hip-hop music.  Today, it seemed that all the Russian women dressed like whores and all the Russian young men acted like Mexican cartel leaders.  The women wanted the men and would do literally anything to get them, and the men wanted money and cars and western currency - and drugs, of course.

General Kostava wondered for the thousandth time if they were worthy of himself and his men.  He thought of his command as pure - his men all real Russians, dedicated to socialism and equality.  But the people only wanted their iPads and smart phones - service to the motherland was not even a second thought for them.

That explained his happiness at the intelligence reports that he had heard today.  An asset deep in the US government had told them that the Americans were likely damaged beyond repair - the rumor was that the President would soon broadcast their surrender to whoever had attacked them and beg to be allowed to begin the long process of rebuilding.  So the Americans had finally been made to grovel, to beg.  That part felt indescribably good.

However, that same asset had disturbing news.  They knew they had not launched an attack against the United States and that the logical culprit was China, but to hear it confirmed was still a shock.  The asset said that the Chinese had tried to take out Russia in the same way, but their EMP weapon had malfunctioned.  He warned that they might now try using "conventional" nuclear weapons.

And so when General Kostava received word of a massive launch from six separate sites inside China, he was not particularly surprised.  This type of treachery was exactly what the damned slant-eyed bastards would do.

As soon as it was obvious that Chinese missiles were on their way, he ordered their own launch, along with launches from their three boomer submarines that were capable of responding.

All the missiles were targeted at China.

China saw them coming and responded with their remaining assets.

***

Pakistan managed to detect many missiles in the atmosphere, but not their precise targets.  It seemed to them that at least some must have come from India.  They fired their missiles in response and India followed suit.

Iran sent a massive armada of aircraft towards Israel, who responded with an armada of her own - a nuclear tipped armada of over eighty weapons.

North Korea detonated two warheads on their own soil.  No one knew why.

***

That night, just as she sat down alone for dinner, Regina called her father.  They agreed to detonate additional EMP explosions in space so that the rest of the world would go almost instantly dark.  She also ordered drones, equipped with top secret chemical laser weapons to take off and patrol the skies.  As of now, no aircraft except those under her control would be allowed to fly.

***

Somewhere over Kansas, the Vice President was crying.  The latest reports were that ICBMs had been launched from Russia.  Their estimates were that they were heading towards targets in China.  Their communications with both Russia and China had been sketchy at best, but a few minutes ago they abruptly stopped altogether.

He hated the nickname "The Spare," but being number two meant that number one was the one who had to make all the hard decisions.  His hand shook as he refilled his glass with expensive scotch and looked out the window on the almost brand new 747-8 jet.  This plane was easily twice the size of the previous plane that was used as Air Force Two.  It had every luxury you could want, but right now The Spare wanted to take a walk in his garden in the country.  He wanted to look out over the Georgia hills and spot a deer in the distance.  He wanted anything except to pick up that red phone and be told that the missiles were on the way towards the U.S.

Just five minutes ago, he had been informed that the President had ordered the sealing of Cheyenne Mountain.  That was, at least, welcome news.  It meant number one was safe and number two could finally land and get out of this gilded prison.

He looked outside and could see moonlight glint off the wing of one of the two escort planes that were flying in formation with his.  The Spare had asked how they were able to cycle these fighter jets into the sky for days, but could not get decent communications back online.  No one could provide an answer.  "The EMP burst was bigger than we planned for.  It'll likely take a few more days," is the only answer he got.

He took a sip and was thinking about landing in Atlanta when he saw a bright flash.  He blinked his eyes to clear them of the ghost images of the light.  Everything appeared to be normal outside.

And then he realized there was a difference.  The escort plane was gone.

Almost instantly, the giant Boeing rolled to the right and went into a steep dive.  Another flash occurred outside and then another.  The Spare watched in horror as both engines on the left side of the great plane burst into flames.  He realized they were under attack.