Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05 (86 page)
Read Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05 Online
Authors: Chris Stewart
He glanced at Bono, who had closed his eyes and tilted his head, as if he were listening to something in the night. Sam watched him a moment. “Bono?” he asked.
“Yeah buddy,” the other captain answered.
“You know that King Abdullah ordered the nuclear attack on D.C.”
Bono was silent a moment. “That’s what we’re hearing.”
“Then you know, once they confirm that, they’re going to take him out. No way the United States isn’t going to go after him. They’re going to bring him down. Drag him to the gallows. And if they do, they will use us. The Cherokees will go.”
Bono hesitated a moment. “Probably right,” he finally answered as he pulled his poncho around his neck.
Sam folded his arms, holding them near his chest. “I guess I need to repent, then.”
“Why’s that, buddy?”
Sam shifted his weight, leaning toward his friend. “He killed my dad. Two hundred-fifty thousand of my countrymen. Brought our nation to its knees. Now I want to be the one who gets him. I want to be the guy who gets revenge.”
WRATH & RIGHTEOUSNESS
[Episode Five]
CHRIS STEWART
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used factiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locals or persona, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Mercury Radio Arts, Inc.
1133 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
Original Edition © The Shipley Group Inc. (Published by Deseret Book Company)
Condensed Edition © 2012 The Shipley Group Inc. (Published by Mercury Radio Arts, Inc. under license from Deseret Book Company)
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Cover design by Richard Yoo
The technologies depicted in this book and their potential effects upon society are real and accurately portrayed. While the possibility of an electromagnetic pulse (“EMP”) attack and the widespread devastation it would cause are well-known among the military and intelligence community, they are much less known among other government offices and the general population. Why this is the case I have often wondered, but have no explanation.
There is a great deal of information available regarding the subject. I encourage interested readers to pursue their own research and would suggest the Senate reports referred to in the narrative as a good starting place.
“When the war of the giants is over the wars of the pygmies will begin.”
Winston Churchill
Raven Rock (Site R), Underground Military Complex, Southern Pennsylvania
The president of the United States was almost dead.
His helicopter had not survived the shock wave that blew outward at the speed of sound from the core of the nuclear explosion. The burst of super-heated air tore the rotor blades from Marine One, sending the helicopter tumbling toward the ground a few miles up the Potomac River, the shattered fuselage crashing against the rocky shore. Advanced engineering saved the president from instant death, the crash-resistant steel frame around the presidential cabin absorbing most of the shock. Baffles braced the occupants against the impact, while foam-filled fuel tanks negated the post-impact fire.
Still, it wasn’t enough. Twenty-five gs of impact tore the cabin apart, ripping the president from his seat belt and sending him through the air to crash against the cabin wall.
Another Secret Service helicopter, half a mile ahead of Marine One and protected behind a rocky bluff along the river, had circled back to the crash site. The agents had pulled the president from the wreckage and evacuated him to Raven Rock.
But they were too late. By the time the president’s stretcher rolled into the compound, he was just a few minutes from death. Too much damage had been done. His heart was in the process of rupturing, the left aorta beginning to tear away from the left ventricle, his chest filling with blood, the pressure compressing his lungs. One by one, his organs were beginning to shut down, his blood pressure cascading with each beat of his torn heart. His breath grew shallow in his chest. His lips were turning blue, and his face was ashen.
Yet he fought the falling darkness, concentrating all of the power and emotion that had carried him to become the most powerful man on earth on simply taking another breath.
Still, the heavy blanket of darkness kept falling.
He cursed the fading light.
No! Not now! Not this way!
He yelled to himself.
The darkness grew heavy.
Still, he forced himself to breathe.
He forced himself to think.
He forced himself to
live.
But with each breath, he felt shallower, more peaceful, more filled with light. . . .
He imagined himself walking, his feet stumbling over sharp and jagged rocks. Just a few paces ahead, he saw the soft moss and wet grass. Then a cliff, with a bright blue sky stretched beyond it. He kept on walking. The ground grew marshy, his steps soft and light. The rocky edge. He stepped toward it. No more pain. No more anguish. No more disappointment or regret.
Relief was right there before him, at the edge of the cliff.
He took another step and then stopped. Hesitating, he turned around.
It cannot end like this!
he screamed inside himself.
He
would not
pass away, stepping over the cliff. Not with his nation wounded, bent and bloodied and brought to its knees. He had sworn a sacred duty, and his work was not yet done.
So he took another breath, then turned away and forced himself to walk back.
* * *
The president choked and the military doctor leaned toward him. Turning the president on his left side, the physician cleared the airway and then gently laid him back down. The president reached up and took the doctor’s hand, the doctor returning his desperate grasp.
The physician watched the president very closely. He had been in combat. He had watched others die. He had seen the look before: the desperate face, the moving lips, the fluttering eyelids fighting to keep the light. And he knew what was going on inside the blood-stained head.
He watched the dying president, his heart racing in his chest.
The physician had heard unspeakable things pass through dying men’s lips. So he braced himself as the president tried to talk.
Could they trust a dying man to make the most important decisions a president had ever made? Could they trust a dying man to do the right thing against the greatest crisis the nation had ever faced?
A new fear grew inside him as the president began to whisper through clenched teeth.
* * *
“Tell me what you’ve learned,” the president gasped to the army general who was kneeling at his side. The four-star general told him what he could. “There was a nuclear detonation over D.C.,” he started. “It’s very early, sir. We don’t really know what’s going on.”
“Who did it?” the president demanded.
“We don’t know, sir. We know the warhead wasn’t delivered by a missile, but that’s about all we have. It could have been a ground package, a small watercraft coming up the Chesapeake Bay, inside a private aircraft—”
“Who did it?”
The general shook his head. “Sir, we don’t know—”
“Find out. You understand me?” The president’s fist tightened up.
“We will, sir. We think we have enough information in our database to track the fingerprint of the uranium explosion to its source, but it might take a couple of days—”
“Where is Caddy Johnston?” the president demanded, looking for the vice president.
“Again, sir, we don’t know.” The four-star general’s voice fell into a whisper. Far too many
don’t knows.
“There has been no contact with him or anyone from his office. We are thinking—”
“Who is left? Who will be in charge here?”
“Sir, we are trying to establish communications with your offices in D.C.”
“Will
you
be in command, then?” the president hissed, using every ounce of breath.
The protocol for the chain of command inside Raven Rock was very well established. And yes, besides the president, with no other civilian authorities in the mountain, the four-star general was in charge.
The general finally answered. “Sir, if you should become incapacitated, I would be in command of Raven Rock.” It was clear from the pain on his face that the general wished that wasn’t true.
The president lifted his head, forcing himself toward the general while pulling desperately on his hand. “Don’t you let them get away with this!” he breathed. “You understand me, General Hewitt? Don’t let this go unanswered. I’m dying, that is obvious, but I am of sound will and mind, and I’m ordering you, as your president, to retaliate. I’m initiating a
WhiteWolf.
Do you understand?”
The general nodded slowly. “I understand,” he said.
“Say it to me, General Hewitt. I want to hear you say the words.”
The general hesitated, glancing anxiously over his shoulder to the other officers and civilian officials standing near. “You are initiating war plan
WhiteWolf
,” he repeated after turning back to the president.
The president struggled to pull himself into a sitting position, a trickle of red drool forming at the corner of his mouth. He glanced past the commanding general to the other nearest officer, a female captain who was the army general’s aide-de-camp. “You copy that?” he demanded. “I said
WhiteWolf.
Understand?”
The captain nodded slowly. “
WhiteWolf
,” she repeated.
The president fell back, his lungs deflating as he rested on the pillow once again. Then he slowly closed his eyes, his face relaxing with relief.
The doctor watched him, almost crying with desperation and despair.
A dying man had spoken. He was still the president, and they had their orders. Now there wasn’t any choice.
Minutes after the president took his last breath, Hewitt moved into the Command Center, followed by several military aides. The Command Center was high-ceilinged and semi-dark, damp, almost moldy, cave-like, and chilly because of the cold rock and the cooling systems designed to protect the multimillion-dollar computer systems that had been jammed into every square foot of available space.
Built in 1956, rebuilt in 1974, the underground emergency command post known as Raven Rock had been neglected as the Cold War wound down, and then had been upgraded seriously after the 9/11 attacks.
With a full-time staff of three hundred fifty people, including representatives from all major military commands, enough room for two thousand six hundred more (most of them bunked four to a room), seven hundred thousand square feet of underground office space, a secret tunnel that connected the underground command post to Camp David (which was only a few miles away), a thirty-ton blast door, air vents hidden deep in the woods, a gym, a television and media studio, five hundred thousand gallons of purified water, a small hospital and pharmacy—pre-stocked with every known prescription currently being taken by all of the senior senators, representatives, military advisers, and presidential aides—Raven Rock was capable of administering the continuity of the U.S. government without coming up for air.
Adequate, but all business, the amenities inside the underground command post were sparse. Fake windows with landscapes had been painted on a few of the cement walls, and the lighting in the hallways was adjusted on a twenty-four-hour cycle to simulate the rising and setting of the sun. Small, cramped, and bleak, the quarters had perpetually damp floors, and the constant hum of equipment and computers permeated the air.
