Wrath & Righteousnes Episodes 01 to 05 (87 page)

A private conference room had been built at the back of the Command Center. The darkened glass was soundproof as well as bulletproof, though no one understood exactly why. The four-star army general marched into the room, where he found most of the senior staff. “Anything from the Pentagon?” he demanded.

“We’ve established com with the Command Center underneath the Pentagon,” the director of communications answered quickly. “Colonel Jackson is the duty officer today, but he’s the most senior member that we have so far.”

“You’re kidding?” the general shot back.

“No sir. The Pentagon command post had less than three minutes’ warning. The evacuation plan was under way but there was some confusion regarding whether it was a
Blackjack
, which would have ordered the senior Pentagon staff into the command post, or a
Swordfish
, which would have ordered the evacuation of the premises. At any rate, it wouldn’t have mattered; most of the members of the Chiefs of Staff were already at the White House for the weekly briefing.”

The general lifted his hand. “And the vice president?” he questioned. His voice was low and absurdly calm. Devoid of emotion, he was rolling through the checklist, stone-cold and expressionless, not really feeling or thinking anymore.

He knew the procedures. He had drilled this a dozen times in his career. Then suddenly, despite his low voice and stony expression, something deep inside him started screaming,
This can’t be real!

The communications officer, a marine captain who was in his mid-twenties but looked like he was getting ready for his junior prom, shook his head. “Nothing from the vice president’s office, sir, but every indication is that he is dead. Like the president, he was in a motorcade on the streets in D.C. when we received the warning. We got the president out on the choppers, but the vice president headed back to the Situation Room at the White House. It looks like he might have been above surface when it happened.” The officer nodded to the aerial footage of downtown D.C. that was being flashed into the Command Center from the military satellite, allowing the blackness and carnage to finish the thought for him.

“Anyone from Congress? The White House Situation Room?”

“The White House Situation Room is just coming on line, sir. The NSA is not there. Colonel Brighton didn’t make it either, sir. Last report, he was still at his desk. He’s the one who called the president and the Pentagon. He saved an unknown number of lives by his actions, at the apparent sacrifice of his own. As far as civilian leadership, we’ve confirmed that Congressman O’Brien and a couple dozen others have been evacuated to Mount Weather—”

“Who in the world is O’Brien?!”

The marine officer glanced down to his cluttered console and his notes. “He’s the third-ranking member of the House Military Appropriations subcommittee.”

The general’s face turned pale. “The third-ranking member. . . .”

“Actually, sir, he’s the third-ranking
minority
member. He was en route to Philadelphia—”

The general cut him off. He didn’t care. Some second-term congressman from Topeka wasn’t going to help him right now. “Who else? There must be someone!”

“The line of succession has been cut way, way down the chain. The vice president, the Speaker of the House, the president pro tempore of the Senate, who would be third in the line of presidential succession—all of them are missing. We can’t presume until we know, but all of them were, you know, in the city at the time.”

“There has to be someone else, some civilian authority that we can turn to?”

“No one at this time, sir.”

The general flinched as if he had taken a punch. Again, his mind was screaming,
I must be dreaming! This can’t be real!

He quickly looked around, taking in his staff. The Continuity of Operations Command Center inside Raven Rock had been designed for one purpose, to administer the Continuity of Operations Plan, or COOP, the formal plan for keeping the government operating, even if at only a minimal level, during a time of severe national crisis. Looking around, the general shivered. He had never thought the civilian chain of command would be so severed that he would actually be in charge.

Twenty, maybe thirty, staff members manned the Command Center. Staring into their terrified faces, he realized that he was not alone. Like he, the junior officers and civilian administrators who had been roped into manning Raven Rock—in exchange for the promise of a top-notch job to follow—had never expected to actually see the day when the COOP would be put into place.

Now they seemed so young. All so young.

Or did he seem so old?

Swallowing the wad of dry spit caught at the back of his throat, he turned away. No way was he going to let them see his anguish. No way would he telegraph his despair.

The room was deadly silent, the air purifiers and cooling fans the only sounds he could hear. It was more than thirty seconds before he turned back to his staff. When he did, his gray eyes were expressionless, his face tight and as determined as any soldier’s face should be.

Fine. The Fates had willed it. Ugly as it was, this was his war. He would follow the procedures. He would do what he had been told. If, somewhere up above him, the world was coming to an end, it didn’t matter. Who was dead, who was alive now, time would have to sort it out.

For now he had his orders. Follow the checklist. It was the law. He had no choice.

“All right, people,” he commanded in a booming voice. “At 00:47:34 Zulu, the president of the United States directed a
WhiteWolf
operation. His orders have been formally confirmed by National Command Authority and my staff.

“We’ve prepared for and war-gamed this for more than fifteen years. You know all the procedures. Now it’s time to get to work.”

* * *

The Rules of Engagement, or ROE, for a
WhiteWolf
were extensive and complicated but unequivocally clear. In part, the war directive read:

CONTINUITY OF OPERATIONS PLAN (COOP) WHITEWOLF

IN THE EVENT OF A:

—DELIBERATE AND HOSTILE NUCLEAR DETONATION OVER THE UNITED STATES, ITS TERRITORIES OR DESIGNATED “SAFE HOUSE ZONES” (see OPPLAN WILMA for definition of possible criteria of designated U.S. Safe House Zones)

AND,

—ONCE PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY HAS INITIATED
WHITEWOLF
, THEN

—ALL NECESSARY CIVILIAN AND MILITARY ASSETS WILL BE DESIGNATED/ASSIGNED TO DETERMINE, WITHOUT DELAY, THE SOURCE OF THE HOSTILE WEAPON (see OPPLAN OUTBACK for information regarding possible fissionable material tracking and nation coding).

NOTE:
WHITEWOLF
, by definition, assumes the hostile detonation of a nuclear device by an unknown and/or non-recognizable organization/‌government/nation-state. The initial thrust, and the most critical element, of
WHITEWOLF
is to aid in the identification of hostile parties by relying on the Nuclear Material Tracking Database (NMTD) so as to promptly and appropriately retaliate.

DURING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF
WHITEWOLF
, ALL INITIAL EFFORTS MUST BE DIRECTED TOWARD:

(1) PREVENTING FURTHER/SUBSEQUENT ATTACKS;

(2) SECURING NATIONAL BORDERS, TERRITORIES, OVERSEAS MILITARY INSTALLATIONS, LOCATIONS OF NATIONAL INTEREST, STRATEGIC RESOURCES (OVERSEAS FOSSIL FUEL FIELDS, PORT FACILITIES), ETC. (see Appendix 1A-3c for comprehensive list of known strategic assets); AND

(3) WORKING WITH ALLIED NATIONS TO ASSURE MUTUAL SECURITY.

WHILE WORKING WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE ABOVE, THE NEXT HIGHEST PRIORITY IS TO DETERMINE THE SOURCE OF THE NUCLEAR MATERIALS.

—ONCE THE SOURCE OF THE NUCLEAR MATERIALS USED AGAINST THE UNITED STATES HAS BEEN DETERMINED,
WHITEWOLF
WILL PROVIDE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (POTUS) OR THE PRESIDENT’S SUCCESSOR WITH TARGET OPTIONS IN ORDER TO RETALIATE.

NOTE:
WHITEWOLF
RECOGNIZES THAT, AT THIS POINT, POTUS HAS DETERMINED THAT NUCLEAR RETALIATION IS THE LAST REMAINING OPTION. UNDER THIS ASSUMPTION, THE ATTACK MATRICES (Appendix 1A-3e) WILL HELP TO DETERMINE WHICH MIX OF WEAPONS PLATFORMS AND FACILITIES WILL BE MOST EFFECTIVE. . . .

* * *

The plan, options, directions, summaries, and appendices for
WhiteWolf
were more than four hundred-pages long, but Hewitt noted that some earlier officer, evidently figuring he could save a little time, had summarized the war plan on his own. Across the front page, he had written:

WAR PLAN
WHITEWOLF
SUMMARY:

Find out who did it.

Bring their world to an end.

And that was it, in essence. That was
WhiteWolf
at its core. Use every resource available to the United States to find out who had attacked them, and then retaliate in kind.

So it was that, two hours after the attack on Washington, D.C., as the rest of the nation stumbled through a mixture of hate, shock and dread, scrambling to deal with what appeared to be the loss of their national government, a group of men and women working deep within the underground complex in southern Pennsylvania began to put the pieces in place so that the United States could strike back.

Against whom they were going to retaliate, they didn’t know yet.

It would take them a few days to find out.

Then they would retaliate and kill them.

Because that was the plan.

Lucifer looked out on the devastation that he had created in Washington, D.C.

He stood alone, his callous face dull and lifeless. Even here, in the nonmortal world, the eyes were still the windows that looked into the soul—and his eyes, once so bright and full of joy, had narrowed to angry slits that boiled from the filth in his being.

The problem was, he knew. He knew, more than anyone, what he had given up.

He would never have a family. He would never hold a child. He would never have the joy of knowing that, despite all the trials of mortal living, he had done the right thing.

He would never feel the peace of knowing that Christ was at his side.

There was no hope. No optimism. No light or sun in his life.

There was nothing left for him but emptiness, pain, misery and hopelessness.

Yet he was alive. Like every other creature, he had no choice but to live.

So he stood alone, always angry, looking out on the putrid world he had made into what it was now.

The smell of smoke from the nuclear explosion over Washington, D.C. hit his nostrils: burning trees, melting steel, scalded flesh, and smoldered clothes. The scent of destruction. His lips turned up at the smell. But there was more, something else, another scent in the air. Like a hyena smelling fear, he sensed the despair that filled the world.

He shuddered with delight.

How he cherished that smell.

The fires were still burning, the smoke thick and black as it billowed in the air. The very land seemed to wail. Portable hospital units had been put up everywhere. Washington, D.C., wasn’t a city any longer, just a collection of hospitals and morgues. Lucifer cracked another smile. What horrible scenes did the men and women inside those hospital rooms endure! Bodies were being piled on the streets, waiting for disposal. And there was more to come. Much more.

Lucifer, the father of pain and lies, looked upon it all and growled. Lifting his hand, he raised his dark chain, swinging it easily. Flashing like a bullwhip, the last link
snapped
a clap of thunder through the air.

A dark murmur of expectation rose behind him and his angels crowded near. A few of them cowered, having felt the sting of the chain before, but most wanted to be closer to the smell.

He snapped the great chain again and the darkness grew more dense, the sun more distant, the day more dim. The horde of dark angels froze, anticipating another snap of the chain.

Lucifer turned toward his servants, the great chain curling to his feet.

Silence.

Deadly silence.

No one breathed. No one spoke. No one moved.

The tendons in his neck pulled tight as he screeched. Shrill, cold, and piercing, the noise rolled toward the crowd.

To some it sounded like a scream. To some it sounded like a growl. But those few who knew him best recognized it as a laugh.

The bitter angels snorted around him, then added their jeers to the ugly sound.

The king lay on top of his bed. The sun was setting now, and the enormous bedroom fell dim as the light faded against the desert sky, the failing sunlight that filtered through the forty-foot windows washing from yellow tint to dark orange to deep red.

Lying there, he shuddered, then sat up suddenly.

He didn’t hear it, but he felt it.

He didn’t see it, but he knew.

He felt the darkness laugh around him. He felt his master’s cry.

Pushing himself from his bed, he reached out for his robe.

His master was in the battle.

So much work yet to do.

“And it shall come to pass after this, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophecy: your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.”

Joel 2:28

Tucked between the rolling mountains, Front Royal was on the north end of the Shenandoah Valley, which was green and fertile, and now full of people as tens of thousands of citizens had fled west, seeking the protection of the mountains, though none of them knew what the valley really had to offer or why they were there. The Appalachian Mountains ran south and west of the small southern town, providing an emotional wall if not any real protection from the devastation in Washington, D.C.

The Shenandoah River ran on the outskirts of the town. From where Sara Brighton stood, she could hear the croaking frogs in the lowlands that fed into the river. It was a beautiful night, and from the balcony of the old hotel she could see the outline of the mountain peaks: dark, tree-filled mounds rising up to meet the light of the moon. Gentle and rolling, not like the Rockies, certainly not like the Alps, the rising shadows around her were still a comforting sight.