“Like I said, for you it’s evacuation. Head north on this highway. Stay off the shoulders. The mines are already active there. You’ve got about two hours before the mines under the center of the roadbed are activated.”
“And what are you going to do?” Richards asked. Hart didn’t answer except by his silence. Richards understood. “All right, then,” he said sadly. There was an awkward pause before Richards said, “Captain Hart, I bid you farewell. Good luck.” He held out his hand, which Hart shook. Richards settled behind his motorcycles’ handles, but then turned back to his American ally. “Captain Hart… win this war. Stop the Chinese. And let’s have a beer — on me — to celebrate when this whole thing is over.” Major Richards soundlessly drove off.
Though now all alone, Hart answered the Brit’s question about the orders he’d received. Romeo Alpha, he thought. Seek targets of opportunity while awaiting further orders. “And by targets of opportunity,” the colonel commanding the 5th had said, “we mean kill as many Chinese soldiers as you possibly can.”
A cheer had risen in the crowded Birmingham auditorium from the 5,000 men assigned to South Alabama.
Hart revved his silenced engine and took off down the road into the black night.
Bill Baker watched Chinese troops disgorge into Mobile Bay on a large, ultra-high-definition screen. Roll-on/roll-off landing craft were beached twenty across. Ten thousand men marched up the slight rise. “How’d we get these pictures?” Bill asked.
“Special Forces,” General Cotler replied.
“But who?” Bill asked again. “Was it five men, or ten, or a hundred who went and put it there, or was it only one?”
Cotler took a deep breath and said, “We’ll find that out, sir.” He made eye contact with a colonel, who nodded and rushed out.
The water was gray. The burned-out environs of the camera were gray. The predawn sky matched the gunmetal gray of the missile-laden Chinese cruiser and several destroyers. An occasional gray helicopter made furtive flights from ship to shore, not risking an altitude of even 200 feet for fear of being detected by loitering, infrared-seeking, probably gray American missiles.
The mood in the room was somber. The conversations were muted. Bill was the focus of everyone, but he was all alone. Each of the Joint Chiefs and the secretary of defense had whispered to him about this concern or that. It was now Air Force General Latham’s turn.
“Sir, we’ve got a firm fix on them in Mobile Bay. There are at least three hundred thousand troops packed into those transports, and they haven’t deployed their ground-based missile defenses yet. They’re still not on U.S. soil. The radioactive contamination would be minimal.”
Baker was tired. “They’ll retaliate,” he replied.
“We could still employ the ‘Heartland Defense,’ “Latham quietly suggested.
“I will not see America’s coasts destroyed!” Baker shouted and slammed his fist onto the table. Latham didn’t look around self-consciously at the suddenly stilled NSC. He stared Baker straight in the eyes. “Fifty percent of our population,” Baker explained, “our culture, and our industry lie within 100 miles of our three coasts. You said yourself that they would penetrate and destroy targets up to 100 miles inland if the nuclear war lasted thirty days. What’s to stop the war from going sixty days? Ninety? What’s to stop both sides from launching weapon after weapon as fast as they can manufacture them for years? How deep would their warheads reach by then, General Latham? Two hundred miles inland? Three? Five?”
Baker turned his attention to the dozen or so men and women standing and sitting around the room, who stared silently at the president. “We will defeat this invasion at sea! We have to regain mastery of the sea! To do that, we have to remain a seagoing nation! That means we need ports, and shipyards, and navies! There will be no ‘Heartland Defense’! I will not authorize the use of nuclear arms because I will not destroy this nation to save it! Don’t come to me with targets of opportunity! This is a strategic decision, and I — and I alone — have made it!”
The long seconds of tension that followed was broken by the opening of the door. An army colonel entered and whispered into General Cotler’s ear. Baker turned to Cotler, spread his hands in air, and asked testily, “What?”
“That picture, sir,” Cotler replied. He nodded at the now brilliant blue water of Mobile Bay. The sun had risen. White shores and lush green pine forests rimmed a sparkling sea. White radar domes festooned the upper decks of ships.
On the screen beside it, the smiling photo of an athletic-looking young twenty-eight-year-old soldier appeared. Data on the man flashed in a window. Cotler said, “The camera was planted by one man, Captain Jim Hart, who had along with him a major in the Royal Marines observing the Chinese landing in order to report to London.”
Bill stared at the American captain. In the several-years-old picture, he looked too young even to be in the army. Tanned after obviously just getting his green beret, he seemed carefree and proud. “What’s this man going to do next?” Baker asked. “What are his orders?”
Cotler’s aide fumbled when handing the general an old-fashioned paper folder. Cotler read the downloaded file. “We’ve got three Special Forces Groups — the 5th, the 7th, and the 20th Alabama National Guard, about 15,000 Green Berets in total — positioned in South Alabama, South Mississippi, and North Alabama, respectively. Captain Hart has the same orders as the vast majority. ‘Mission Romeo Alpha’: sabotage, assassination, espionage, training and arming of resistance, and special missions, as ordered by controllers,” he put the folder down, “and otherwise targets of opportunity.”
Baker stared at the boy as he had been in his mid-twenties and wondered whether he would live to his mid-thirties? If he does, Bill thought, he’ll be different. They’ll all be different. We’ll all be different, he knew, and it sickened him.
When Clarissa arrived at work, she went to get coffee. A secretary with dark bags under her eyes stood by the machine, complaining to a co-worker. “Whenever my boss says ‘Anvilhead,’ I’m supposed to cancel doctors’ appointments, vacations, dates!”
Clarissa asked, “What’s ‘Anvilhead’?”
The two women looked at each other. The exhausted secretary who had been voicing her workplace grievances replied awkwardly that she couldn’t really talk about it. Her friend waved her off and said, “She’s the head of theChina Desk, for Christ’s sake! The speaker of the house’s daughter! She’s got Top Secret clearance.”
The secretary proceeded to whisper Baker’s plan to counterattack the Chinese invasion forces.
In the still and quiet of her office, Clarissa loaded the anonymous router, replied with the password, “Now is the time…” et cetera, et cetera, and began to type an E-mail. “Baker is letting Chinese forces land virtually unopposed so that he can counterattack them later on!” It was lunacy! Madness! She was livid. When she was done, she dispatched the report and quickly “shredded” the file with the standard Department of Defense — provided utility.