“Submarine launches. From the Yucatan Channel near the Cuban coast.”
“Christ. What do the missile trajectories show?”
“Looks like they’ve targeted Baton Rouge.”
Alice slumped. “Condor?”
“Harpoon’s got some kind of trouble on the ground.”
Alice slowly turned back toward his map. He ran his eyes over the green dots. They clustered around Moscow and Leningrad, then became random and isolated as they spread across the expanse of Russia. Smaller clusters at Plesetsk and Tyuratam. Single dots here and there. Command posts. Leadership bunkers. Places where men plan wars. Turn them on. And off. The general allowed the air to whoosh out of him. Opposition. You aren’t making this any easier, comrades.
In the dark of the Maryland night, Sedgwick had a small fire going. But the cold still worked through to the marrow of his bones. The rear section of Nighthawk One lay nearby, where it had settled after ripping away from the rest of the chopper in the blast-wave crash and sliding down into this black gully. Far off, Sedgwick could hear strange sounds. But in four hours the sounds had not come closer. He had no idea where he was. He could see no lights. It was as if they had dropped off the edge of the world, and yet he knew he could be no more than a dozen miles from Washington.
On the other side of the fire the President lay quietly under several blankets which Sedgwick had spread over him after pulling the unconscious man from the wreckage. The President had been out since—only an occasional groan or a painful grunt letting the young naval officer know his Commander-in-Chief was still alive. Sedgwick stared at the bundled form. The President’s labored breathing caused the blankets to rise and fall ever so slightly. Sedgwick knew he had to get the man out of here soon or the blankets would stop heaving. But he didn’t know how.
III
The Grand Tour
Every civilization must go through this. Those that don’t make it destroy themselves. Those that do make it wind up cavorting all over the universe.
EIGHT
• 1000 Zulu
Outside, incandescent flares floated slowly downward like wounded fireflies, spreading the harsh white light of phosphorous through layered levels of the southern night’s drizzle and smoke. No more than one hundred yards from the E-4’s wingtip, Harpoon could see the outlines of an overturned and smoldering half-track. The periphery line had been set there, with the shadowy outlines of men crouching behind it and other troops stretching into the darkness on both sides. Beyond, the airport terminal building was burning, orange flames licking into the void and casting different shadows on milling masses of pushing, shoving forms. A quiet, low moan rose and ebbed in the distance, undulating in a haunting sound that cut through the impatient whine of the giant aircraft’s engines. This was a safe area, more than 150 miles from the nearest nuclear detonation. The pop-pop-a-pop of automatic-rifle fire, then the quick clatter of a not-too-distant machinegun burst, snapped Harpoon back to the job at hand. Beneath him, slightly below the only open hatch of the rescue plane, men shouted at him. Harpoon leaned down toward a ramp that did not quite reach the high door of the plane. He grasped a hand mat slipped immediately out of his grip, forcing him to reach down a second time, clasp the wrist, and hoist the man the final few feet into the darkened doorway.
Harpoon probed through the gloom for a look at the man he had hauled aboard. “Mr. President?” he asked tentatively.
The man breathed in heavy wheezes. “Barely,” he replied with great effort. “Just barely.”
“Are you injured, sir? Do you need assistance?” Harpoon signaled a nearby Air Force captain.
“No, no,” the man replied. His voice sounded very shaky. He started to droop against the bulkhead and the captain rushed to prop him up. “No!” he snapped. “Just get the others so we can get our tails out of here. Before the whole consarned state of Louisiana rushes us!” The captain drew back.
“How many others?” Harpoon asked.
“Four.”
The admiral craned his head out the door into the half-light. On the platform, several feet below, two rotund figures clambered desperately to get aboard. Two less frantic men stood behind them, their backs to the plane, their obscured hands occupied. A group of men in combat gear, their automatic rifles turned outward from the aircraft, shuffled uneasily on the stairs. In the distance Harpoon heard the sharp crack of high-powered rifles, deer rifles, and then a burst of popping return fire, military issue. Near the half-track an airport fuel truck burst in flames, the flare of the explosion capturing a camera-flick image of men and women charging the periphery. He wheeled on the captain. “Get those four aboard and seal this bird up fast,” he ordered.
Harpoon took the elbow of the dark figure next to him and felt a shiver run through the damp cotton of the man’s shirt. The presidential successor withdrew his arm quickly, as if to hide any hint of fear. Don’t cover it, Harpoon thought. You’ll need every ounce of fear you can muster, you poor bastard. The admiral had no idea who he was getting—couldn’t even remember his name, he had been buried in the isolated subterranean world of Omaha’s war-gaming computers so long. Just Number Eight, the Secretary of the Interior, code-named Condor. Harpoon was tired, overwrought, and edgy. He also was severely disillusioned four hours after he had seen his computer games become real life. All he knew was that he badly wanted a man with a healthy dose of fear, a dose as potent as his own.
“No time for pomp tonight, sir,” he said. “Would you please follow me?” The man edged gratefully away from the door and followed the tall, white-haired military man down a hallway toward dimmed lights. It was a strange aircraft aisle, its contours second nature to the admiral but disorienting to his companion. On one side the wall bent concavely, being the inner side of the aircraft’s outer shell. No windows looked out. Instead, occasional windows looked inward from the aisle’s other wall. They were thick panes through which the successor peered curiously at beehive compartments of men and women laboring with such preoccupation that they seemed totally unaware of the jungle world out of which he had just emerged. Their jungle, through which they struggled without a glance at their new leader, was a tangled maze of wires, cables, loose data boards, and crippled computer hulks.
“Lord A’mighty,” the man said wearily, “ol’ Harry Truman said he felt like a bale of hay landed on him. Must say I feel like I got the whole barn.”
“Afraid so, sir,” Harpoon replied, his impatience yielding to sympathy. “Maybe more.”
The man still peered in the window, his back to the admiral. “How bad is it?”
“Bad.”
“We losin’?”
Harpoon paused. He didn’t know how to answer.
“I asked you if we were losing.” The drawl disappeared from the man’s voice, a bite replacing it. From the back he looked like a cowboy. As the drawl faded, however, the cowboy appearance dissolved with it. Even dirty and rumpled, Harpoon observed, the jeans were a bit too stiff, the outdoors-man’s shirt a touch too new.
“I’m not sure that’s the issue, Mr. President,” the admiral volunteered cautiously. “You need to be briefed.”
“Not the issue?” The man spun on Harpoon, his face shimmering white in the hallway lights. His hand moved reflexively to his forehead, rubbing at dried blood that was not his own. “Believe me, mister,” he said firmly, no drawl left at all, “winning and losing are the only issues. I don’t need a briefing to know that.”