She paused, listening. Her eyes widened.
“Stepan, don’t do this,” she said. “That attack probably wasn’t ordered by the government. China is dealing with the same problems you are — you know they wouldn’t risk a war with Russia. If you retaliate, all you’ll do is kill innocent people.”
She listened. Her eyes closed. That was it, just her eyelids closing, and everyone in the room knew Morozov’s answer.
Blackmon opened her eyes. They burned with anger and frustration.
“The United States objects in the strongest possible terms,” she said. “The world is on the edge of collapse. This will push us even closer.”
There was a pause, then she hung up the phone.
Blackmon took a moment. The room waited for her. She squared her shoulders and spoke.
“President Morozov feels compelled to retaliate. What will Russia’s likely target be?”
Vogel rubbed at his bald scalp, rubbed hard. “Probably a city comparable in size to Novosibirsk,” he said. He tapped at his keyboard, glanced at the main monitor as he did. “The closest Chinese city would probably be… Ürümqi.”
The image on the screen shifted, showing a city nested between three snowcapped mountain ranges. At the center, the word Ürümqi. If Murray hadn’t heard Vogel say it, he would have had no idea how to pronounce it.
Blackmon nodded once, as if she knew the city of Ürümqi was the only obvious answer. “And that city has one-point-five million people?”
“Closer to two-point-five million,” Vogel said. “Three-point-five in the prefecture, so the death toll would depend on what weapon the Russians use.”
Murray shook his head in amazement. Three-point-five million: about the size of Los Angeles, America’s second-largest city.
Blackmon’s hands clenched together again. The world’s most-powerful human being had no power at all to stop a massive slaughter.
“Admiral Porter, how would Russia strike that city?”
“Tupolev bomber,” Porter said. “Likely a Tu-160 flying out of the Engels-2 air base near Saratov. You can bet it’s already in the air. It will launch a Kh-55 cruise missile, probable warhead yield of 200 kilotons.”
A series of concentric circles appeared on the screen, overlaying the city. The center circle was a bright red, surrounded by one in red-orange, which in turn was surrounded by orange, and finally a ring of yellow. More words appeared on the screen, showing districts or suburbs, Murray wasn’t sure: Qidaowanxiang, Ergongxiang, Xinshi, Tianshan, Shayibak and more. The names all fell within the bands of color. Murray didn’t know those names, probably couldn’t even pronounce them, but the names made everything more real.
People lived in Xinshi, people lived in Qidaowanxiang… people who were probably going to die.
Vogel turned to Admiral Porter, looked at all the Joint Chiefs.
“We have to do something,” Vogel said. “Do we have any resources in the area? A carrier, anything?”
The air force admiral started to speak, but Blackmon cut him off.
“We do nothing,” she said. Her voice was cold, unforgiving. If her heart felt anything, she refused to let those emotions reach her brain.
Vogel looked shocked. “But Madam President, a strike could kill millions of people! We have to try to stop it!”
Blackmon stared straight ahead. “Russia has been attacked and will retaliate. If we try to intervene, we…”
Her voice trailed off. She closed her mouth, licked her lips. She gathered herself, continued.
“If we intervene, Russia could interpret that as an act of war. America is in dire straits — we can’t risk doing anything that would put our troops in conflict, and we cannot risk nuclear weapons being launched at our shores. Russia has the right to defend herself.”
Vogel slumped back into his chair. He was stunned, just like most of the people in the room, just like Murray. Wasn’t the president of the United States supposed to be able to reach out and stop injustice?
And yet, Murray knew Blackmon was making the right call. If the USA stuck her nose in the middle of this fight, the next mushroom cloud might rise over Miami, Seattle, Phoenix… any number of American treasures. Blackmon had no choice other than to make sure Russia didn’t see the United States as an enemy.
Admiral Porter cleared his throat. “Madam President, if I may offer a suggestion?”
She waved her hand inward: go ahead.
“We think the Chinese nuke was launched by a rogue element,” Porter said. “However, it is also very possible that the government was testing Russia, seeing if the infection had impacted Russia’s ability to respond to attack.”
“Russia’s ability has not been affected,” Blackmon said. “Which the Chinese are about to find out firsthand.”
Admiral Porter nodded. “Of course. But, if China actually was testing Russian resolve, their next test could be against us. We need to prepare our own retaliatory response. The Chinese — or whoever is running things there — will see us preparing for launch. They’ll know the United States is ready to hit back.”
Three nuclear powers at play, inches away from an all-out exchange. If Murray had wondered how things could get any worse, now he knew.
Vogel knocked twice on the table. “Porter is right,” he said. “The Chinese will see us preparing. So will the Russians, just in case they get any bright ideas while they’re lobbing nukes into China.”
Murray shook his head. “Are you warmongering assholes really this obtuse? You want to make things worse by spinning up our birds?”
The admiral glared at him. Vogel chose to look elsewhere.
The president raised a finger. “Director Longworth, let’s keep this civil.”
“Sorry, Madam President.”
She turned back to Porter.
“Admiral, you’re sure about this? You really think prepping for launch will be interpreted as a warning and not a threat?”
There was a gleam in the admiral’s eye. Maybe Murray was imagining that, but this man — all the Joint Chiefs, for that matter — had spent a lifetime training and preparing for a situation this severe.
“China has already used a nuclear weapon,” Porter said. “Russia is about to do the same. The seal is broken, Madam President. It’s a lot easier to justify the second strike than it is the first.”
Russia would launch at China, maybe one of them would launch at America, and then America would launch at both — just to be sure — and then…
Murray stood up. The action seemed to surprise the other people at the table. It even surprised him.
“This is what it wants,” he said, the words rushing out. “These people, the Converted, they aren’t monsters. They aren’t zombies. The destruction of Paris made that clear. The bomb that hit Novosibirsk — if it wasn’t the Chinese government, it wasn’t truly rogue, either. That was a calculated attack, because this disease wants to kill us all. Vogel, put our disease tracking numbers back on the screen.”
Vogel did so. Murray pointed at the top number.
“Sixty percent immunized,” he said. “Soon to be seventy, then eighty. We’re in the lead, and the other industrialized nations are close behind. Don’t you see? We’ve stopped the spread. We’ll have millions of infected to deal with, sure, but we’ve stopped the spread. The Converted… they can watch the news just like we can. They know the score. We’ve checked the contagion, so now they’re looking for other ways to take us out. We just so happen to have tens of thousands of other ways in the form of nuclear missiles. Don’t you get it? We’re beating them now because we’re organized, because we have communication — if a nuclear shooting match starts, all that goes away. They want to destroy us. If they start a nuclear war, then we do their work for them.”