The major wrenched his gaze away from the tablet and snapped to attention. “Sorry, sir! I didn’t see you come in.”
“At ease,” said the president. “Do we know where it’s headed?”
The officer’s posture became marginally less rigid. “Not yet, sir. NORAD confirms that the launch point was in eastern Cuba, and the missile is following a depressed trajectory optimized for STOF. They’re calculating the impact footprint now.”
“STOF?”
“Short-time-of-flight,” the major said.
“How short?”
“That depends on the range to the target location, sir, as well as any last-second warhead maneuvers during the descent phase.”
“Give me worst case.”
“Intel assumes that the missiles are either Rodong-2 series, or something with similar performance characteristics. If their assessment is accurate, the flight time for a depressed trajectory shot could be less than seven minutes.”
President Bradley’s gaze shifted to the wall-sized video display. The screen was dark. “Meaning that the missile could reach its target any time now.”
“Affirmative, sir.”
Following the president’s eye, the major raised his tablet and studied the available menu options. “My apologies, Mr. President. We weren’t prepared for your arrival. We just received the launch alert a couple of minutes ago. The operations staff are on their way down now.”
He made two additional taps on the tablet’s glass interface surface. The video wall flickered on, the giant screen depicting a geographic display of Cuba and the eastern United States.
The missile trajectory appeared as a curving red line running from the eastern end of Cuba to a point about a hundred miles west of Macon, Georgia. There, the solid line split into a triangular area of translucent red, with its westernmost corner near Corinth, Mississippi and its easternmost corner touching Knoxville, Tennessee.
This was the target zone, and the warhead could strike anywhere within its borders. The triangle enclosed about fifteen percent of Georgia, the upper third of Alabama, the entire central region of Tennessee, and a tiny sliver of Mississippi. The weapon’s impact footprint encompassed Atlanta, Huntsville, Chattanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, and many smaller cities and towns.
In some way that President Bradley would never be able to describe, seeing the symbology on the screen brought home the reality of the situation. This was not a training scenario or a theoretical exercise. This was death, screaming out of the stratosphere at some multiple of the speed of sound, hurtling toward the inhabitants of a city still not identified. At this very instant, an unknown number of American citizens were thinking their final thoughts, speaking their final words, taking their final breaths. Some of them would be outside right now, looking up at the sky, watching the streak of incandescent plasma as a nuclear bomb plummeted out of the heavens toward a rendezvous with destruction.
On the huge display screen, the red line grew steadily longer and the target zone shrank by a corresponding amount as the geometries of terminal flight reduced the size of the area where the warhead might fall.
“What about interceptors?” the president asked. He recognized the tremor in his own voice, and made a deliberate effort to steady it. “Is there any possibility of shooting that thing down?”
“Negative, sir. The flight time isn’t long enough. Interceptors from our West Coast BMD sites have no chance of engaging before the missile reaches target.”
The major didn’t have to say the next part. There were no East Coast Ballistic Missile Defense sites. The Pentagon had done studies on five locations for possible installations, but the bases had never gone beyond the exploratory planning stages. All of America’s probable nuclear adversaries were west of California. No one in government or the military had foreseen the possibility of a second Cuban Missile Crisis.
“What about Patriot batteries?” the president asked hopefully.
“Not for anything in the target zone,” the major said. “There are Patriot sites covering some of the major cities. Also, there are Navy BMD ships positioned to protect certain cities in coastal regions.”
“Such as Washington, DC.”
The major nodded. “Affirmative, sir. We’re well covered here.”
That last remark was probably intended to be comforting, but it wasn’t. The government was sitting cozy under a missile shield that didn’t extend to the ordinary public. The people inside the shrinking red triangle on the display screen had no such protection. In a few more seconds, some of them were going to be blasted to radioactive cinders.
The trajectory line on the screen was still growing longer, the impact footprint still getting smaller. It enclosed only one city now: Franklin, Tennessee — the three sides continuing to narrow in on what was clearly the target.
Chaz wanted to do something. Help those people. Stop this from happening. But presidential authority holds no sway over the law of gravity, or the physics of inertia. There was no order he could give; no switch he could throw; no policy he could enact that would make the slightest shred of difference.
The triangle shrank to nothing, and the red line completed the last section of its arc. The missile had reached its target.
As if on cue, the elevator doors opened, disgorging a group of military and civilian personnel who all scurried for their respective duty stations within the operations room. The attack was over, but the staff of the PEOC had arrived.
CHAPTER 32
As usual, eleven-year-old Stevie Bishop trailed a dozen paces behind his father and older sister as they left the warmth of the heated Macy’s store to brave the winter winds of the parking lot. Stevie was always lagging behind. He was an ambler. A slow-footed world-watcher, moseying through life at the leisurely tempo dictated by his roving eyes and his insatiable curiosity.
Dad and Tiffany were already off the sidewalk and threading through the light mall traffic before Stevie rambled out the exit doors. Without looking back, Dad spoke over his shoulder. “Get a move on, Stevie. We haven’t got all day.”
That proclamation had been issued at least a thousand times in Stevie’s memory, by parents, teachers, siblings, and even friends. It had been ignored just as often. Stevie Bishop moved at the speed of Stevie Bishop. No faster, and no slower.
He checked both ways for traffic and then started across the asphalt. He glanced left and saw two women standing next to a silver Volvo, both of them staring up at the sky. He glanced right. More people standing outside of their cars, faces turned upward.
He ambled the last few feet to get out of the traffic lanes, and then stopped and looked up.
There was a glowing line across the gray February clouds. A streak of radiant smoke, curving downward toward the Earth like a giant meteor or something.
Stevie broke into one of his rare trots, closing the distance on Dad and Tiffany. “Dad! Are you seeing this?”
But Dad was too busy looking for the car to pay attention. Tiffany’s focus was welded to the screen of her iPhone; texting, or snapchatting, or whatever.
Stevie ran up behind Dad and grabbed his elbow. “Dad! Look up!”
Dad turned back with an exasperated expression. “Stevie, for God’s sake—”
Stevie jabbed a finger repeatedly toward the sky. “Up, Dad! Look up! Now!”
His father sighed heavily and turned his face upward. Then he caught sight of it. “Good Lord! What is that?”
The trail of glowing smoke was much closer now, and much larger. There was still not a sound from it. The strange spectacle was utterly silent.