Without Warning (31 page)

Fifteen men and women had squeezed into the small room for the briefing, including Lieutenant Colonel Pileggi, who’d flown up from Joint Task Force Bravo in Honduras the previous day. The senior SOUTHCOM representative sat in the front row with a notepad and pen at the ready. She and Musso were supposed to present a plan to Ritchie that evening to evacuate any and all U.S. citizens who wanted to go, from south and central America to an as-yet-undetermined location. It meant moving hundreds of thousands of people God only knew where. But certainly not to Gitmo. It already had a diabolical refugee problem.

Musso thumbed a control stick and brought up the first set of images. Still shots from the downtown areas of both cities.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing new to report here,” he said. “Just better imaging than we’ve had so far. The power grid in both cities has failed, meaning there’s less chance of a catastrophic urban firestorm starting, although spot fires continue to break out here and there for whatever reason.”

Musso examined the Kansas City screen, which displayed the footage of a burned-out QuikTrip on Armor Boulevard, across from a U.S. post office and a couple of larger buildings in Northtown. He never could keep all of Kansas City’s various townships and municipalities straight when he was there. The Heart of America bridge, along with the Paseo and Hannibal bridges, showed evidence of multivehicle pileups, some of which had combusted and later burned out in the schizophrenic weather of the Midwest. A train had derailed on the ASB bridge next to the Heart of America and dumped itself into the Muddy Mo. One of the towers, he couldn’t tell which one, looked like it had been slashed with something, probably a Cessna or a Learjet from the downtown airport.

On the other screen a Wal-Mart supercenter on Eighty-eighth Street in Miami had been reduced to a smoldering shell. Several watercraft in a variety of flavors and sizes had washed up on the beaches and canals. Musso couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity to images stolen from blasted landscapes throughout the Balkans and in Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion. There was one major difference, of course. No bodies.

“We chose these two cities for the Hawks, partly because they remain comparatively undamaged and also because local weather patterns have temporarily cleared away some of the pollutants choking the air pretty much everywhere else. That won’t last.”

He thumbed the control again, and the twinned displays appeared to blink, as they switched to a different video stream.

“You’re now looking at imaging taken from Montgomery, Memphis, and St. Louis as the first bird made its way up to KC.”

The screens reformatted into a series of windows, all showing bleak, gray landscapes that reminded Musso of photographs of old industrial towns, where soggy ash and acid rain permanently blanketed the landscape, leaching the color from everything. A couple of low grunts and a curse or two were evidence that some capacity to be surprised remained in his audience.

“This nuclear-winter effect has been replicated across the continental U.S., although not uniformly. As you might expect, the concentrations of airborne pollutants are most dense at the source, and data from our weather satellites indicates that a significantly thick tail measuring about a hundred and fifty to two hundred miles extends east from each of the largest cities to have burned. In some areas of the country, in certain parts of the Rockies and on the West Coast well to the north and south of the LA basin, the concentration of particulates is not yet at critical levels. Because of a low-pressure system sitting off the coast last week, Seattle did suffer some contamination
from the megafires that burned out Portland and Spokane, but that system moved east and dragged a good deal of the plume with it.”

The scratch on his head was bleeding again, forcing Musso to dab at it with another tissue. He patted down his pockets, unable to find one, until Colonel Pileggi passed him a Kleenex from a handbag down by her feet.

“Thanks, Susan. Feels like I’m bleeding out here.”

“Don’t worry, General. Chicks dig scars.”

A strained chuckle ran through the tightly packed group and eased just a little of the utter hopelessness that had begun to take hold. Musso turned back to the briefing with at least some sense of purpose.

“Okay. Average temperatures under the particulate cloud are up to twenty degrees cooler than average, although again that varies from one locale to another. The variations are much more pronounced inland than by the sea, and proximity to a major source has an effect, too.”

“That solves Gore’s global-warming problem.” Major Clarence snorted.

“Quiet on deck,” Colonel Stavros shouted.

Musso ignored the distraction and brought up satellite coverage of the Eurasian landmass.

“The plume has moved across Europe and is within two days of reaching the eastern seaboard of China. It is largely contained within the Northern Hemisphere between thirty and sixty degrees latitude. The climatic effects are less severe than on the North American continent, but they remain significant, and I’m told they’ll probably deteriorate for another two to three weeks, before stabilizing for six to twelve months.”

“There’s a lot of wiggle room in those figures, General,” said Pileggi, as she looked up from scribbling in her notebook.

“Enough of a margin to mean the difference between a lot of people living and dying,” he agreed. “I’ve been on to PACOM to tighten them up, but that’s as good as they’ll commit to for now. You know what scientists are like,” he added, shaking his head. The specter of Professor Griffiths still haunted the briefing room.

The display returned to top-down street scenes in Miami and KC. Not a living thing moved anywhere in either city.

“The weather data are important to us because they directly affect our mission, the evacuation of all U.S. citizens who want it, to a secure location,
as yet to be determined.”
Musso turned to Pileggi while he dabbed at his cut again. “Your airfield is going to be vital in that effort, especially if we evacuate to Australia, New Zealand, or our allies in Asia.”

“I understand, sir. If I may, what about defense assets?” Pileggi asked.
“Castro is gone, but Chávez isn’t. I do not have any air cover to speak of outside of our allies in the region, and their air power isn’t quite up to dealing with Hugo if he gets froggy. Plus, we’re going to need to secure the Canal.”

“I know,” agreed Musso. “I’ve been on to PACOM about it. Pearl’s promising whatever they can spare, but at the moment, that’s nothing.”

The colonel persisted anyway.

“If they’re serious about the refugee problem they need to find that support,” she said. “My staff have planned our side of any evacuation based on being able to ship people through Panama. If the government collapses—a pretty good bet—that canal is going to stop working. These locks are a century old and require ground crews to run them. At some very narrow points, the ships are actually pulled by tugs. All of these locations are extremely vulnerable to attack.”

Musso threw up his hands.

“I know all about it, Colonel. But at the moment, it’s a tenth-order issue for them. I’ll see what I can do to change that. We need to plan for the worst, though.”

“There are some contingency plans, but they are almost uniformly awful,” said Pileggi. “Some ships could try to head to Nicaragua and cross there. Most of Nicaragua can be crossed by traveling upriver to a point where the trip overland to the Pacific side is maybe eight to ten miles. The navy could pick up folks on the other side, but it would require heavy combat power on the ground to secure any transit, especially if Nicaragua goes under. Alternately, a convoy could sail around the tip of South America. But that route is vulnerable to Chávez and his navy. I also imagine there will be a significant rise in piracy throughout those waters should there be a breakdown in state control. Another option is to disembark any civilians on the Atlantic side of the Canal Zone, where our own forces could establish a defensive position of sorts. Those civilians would then be escorted overland to the Pacific side or to a usable airfield. Another nightmare.”

“I’ll talk to Ritchie,” said Musso.

There was no avoiding it. More than a hundred civilian craft lay at anchor down in the bay, most of them carrying U.S. nationals who’d gravitated to the nearest and most obvious symbol of American power still in existence in this part of the world. Just feeding them and supplying enough fresh water each day was a herculean challenge. They couldn’t stay. But moving them was a nontrivial problem, too. From Musso’s perspective, maintaining control of the Canal was still a number-one priority for the United States. At least in the short term. He was responsible for the transport and protection of any American refugees who requested it, and that meant putting most of
them through Panama. Where they went after that was a matter for diplomatic negotiations under way at Pearl.

“It’s the low season for tourism, so we have plenty of spare beds, but nobody’s figured out how it would work. Who’d pay? What arrangements might we need over the longer course? Whether you’d be looking at permanent resettlement and residency or eventual citizenship? But Canberra has authorized me to assure you that we’ll take as many as you can send.”

Admiral Ritchie thanked the Australian ambassador—the new ambassador, of course. The previous one had disappeared in Washington. His colleague from New Zealand added that her government would likewise accommodate as many “displaced U.S. citizens” as possible. New Zealand’s diplomat preferred not to use the term “refugee” and had twisted herself into linguistic knots once or twice trying to avoid it.

Ritchie placed a checkmark in a small hand-drawn box next to the letters “A/NZ.” He looked over to the Japanese consul general, seated near the window giving onto a pleasant view of the small garden outside his office. A riot of color framed the small, dark-suited man, a pink and orange spray of flowering bougainvillea.

“Mr. Ude?”

“My government is more than happy for you to initially house as many of your countrymen and women as you can within your military facilities on our soil, and with the suspension of the academic year, there are a number of temporary rooms available on some college campuses …”

Ritchie couldn’t help but notice the heavy qualifications in that statement, and he could feel the “but” coming somewhere in the next few seconds.

“However,” Mr. Ude continued, “you will appreciate that accommodation is severely limited on the Home Islands, and cultural factors mean that resettling many of your citizens within our borders is likely to be so difficult as to be … unfeasible.”

Ritchie stamped down on his annoyance and cut to the point.

“But you’ll take them in, for now, if we bring them?”

Ude nodded, seemingly thankful for having something to offer. “Yes. Within such limits as are to be confirmed by my government.”

Ritchie checked the box next to “Japan” but then placed a small question mark after it and wrote “Limits.” A similar notation sat next to “France,” which maintained a number of colonial outposts in the Pacific, all of them well served by tourist infrastructure. In fact, a small forest of question marks surrounded the check he’d placed next to France. His direct negotiations
with the authorities in Nouméa and the decolonized French territory of Vanuatu had initially gone well, but they had since referred all of his inquiries to Paris, and getting any kind of timely or useful response from Chirac or de Villepin was becoming nigh on impossible. Still, with firm commitments to help from Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and Chile, in addition to all of the larger independent island states such as Fiji, Ritchie could begin to stitch together a patchwork of temporary refuge for most of the five million souls in the American Diaspora. He had about a quarter of a million berths he could call on throughout the rest of the region, but Ude was right. Countries like Japan and Korea weren’t swimming in spare room, and many Westerners simply would not cope with the culture shock of being dropped in there at the best of times.

Ritchie twice tapped the ballpoint of his pen on the notepaper, as if sealing the deal, and leaned back from the conference table around which sat a dozen civilians, most of them foreigners. The only American not wearing a uniform was the lawyer Jed Culver, sitting in for Governor Lingle’s office. His blue pin-striped suit was a every bit as crisp as the day they’d met at the state capitol, and Ritchie could only wonder where the man was getting it cleaned. He surely couldn’t have brought more than one suit on vacation, could he?

Culver’s presence, although much appreciated for the way he could smoothly negotiate a passage through the most impenetrable thicket of bullshit, only served to remind Ritchie that very little had been done to settle the issue of executive authority. Indeed, given the mess in Seattle, it was only getting worse. General Blackstone was cracking heads there, but Ritchie was beginning to wonder whether he was stomping down a little too hard. He’d virtually cut the state off from the outside world, save for aid shipments and chartered flights for foreign nationals. And under any other circumstances you’d have to describe some of his tactics as a touch excessive. But Ritchie had no time to go meddling in Blackstone’s command with a ten-thousand-mile screwdriver. Stopping that nut-hatch city from imploding was probably beyond the abilities of any normal man. Mad Jack was welcome to the job.

Ritchie turned to the lawyer now, formally introducing him to the meeting.

“Mr. Culver, who’s here as a representative of the governor, the highest civilian authority we have at the moment, has a number of issues he needs to work through with you ladies and gentlemen regarding humanitarian aid and any possible resettlement scheduling.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” said Culver, smiling at the group.

“But if you’ll excuse me,” Ritchie added, “I’m not needed for the next part
of this meeting, and I do have an important teleconference. Please, stay seated …”

He waved the Japanese ambassador back down into his chair and withdrew as Culver thanked the diplomats for their countries’ help so far.