The Seventh Angel - Страница 19

“Yes,” Petrov said. “At least until our reliefs show up in about an hour.”

“Good,” Noviko said. His right hand came out of the pocket of his greatcoat, and Petrov had barely registered the presence of the automatic pistol when he heard the crack of the first bullet.

Borodin dropped to the frozen concrete like a sack of potatoes. Shubin raised his hands and took a rapid step toward the militia officer, but the gun whipped around quickly, and a bullet hammered through his forehead. His body collapsed beside Borodin, blood spilling among the ice and snow.

Stunned by the suddenness of the attacks, Petrov’s only thought was to run. He turned, his boot heels slipping on ice, but Noviko’s pistol barked again.

He felt himself slammed forward, as though someone had punched him in the spine. He pitched forward, and fell to the pier. The impact with the frost-covered concrete was somehow more painful than the bullet.

He lay in the ice and snow, his faced turned toward the nearer ship. Men were coming down the cargo ramp now. A lot of men. Soldiers. In black uniforms.

Petrov’s vision was failing by the time the first squad of soldiers came near. He couldn’t turn his head for a better look, and he couldn’t see them clearly. But as his brain processed his very last rational thought, he wondered why the strangers were speaking Chinese.

CHAPTER 15

WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, DC

WEDNESDAY; 27 FEBRUARY

3:12 AM EST

President Chandler nearly dropped the phone before his sleep-numbed fingers managed to fumble the receiver to his ear. “Yes?”

“Mr. President, this is Lieutenant Colonel Briggs, the Situation Room Watch Officer. I’m sorry to wake you at this hour, but we have a developing situation that requires your attention, sir.”

The president muffled the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand and yawned heavily. When the worst of it was past, he uncovered the receiver. “Situation room?”

“No, sir,” the lieutenant colonel said. “This is a National Command Authority issue. The Secret Service is going to want you in the bunker, Mr. President. And the National Military Command Center is requesting permission to initiate COG protocols.”

The president sat upright in bed, the sudden movement jerking the phone to the edge of the bedside table, where it teetered precariously. COG was short for Continuity of Government. COG protocols were rapid action plans for moving designated cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to secure locations outside of the Washington, DC area, to protect the succession of national leadership in situations that directly threatened the survival of the American government. In theory, COG protocols were intended to react to unknown threats as well as known. In practice, that was understood to mean one of three things: extraordinary natural disasters, terrorist acts of nearly unimaginable scope, or impending nuclear attack.

The thought drove the last vestiges of sleep from President Chandler’s brain. “Are we under attack?”

“No, sir,” Lieutenant Colonel Briggs said. “Fighting has broken out in Kamchatka. We don’t have many details yet, but it appears to be some kind of revolution or military coup. There are a relatively large number of Russian long-range nuclear missiles stationed in Kamchatka, and we don’t know who has control of them at this time.” He paused for a few seconds. “I can’t go into details over a non-secure phone, Mr. President. We should have more information for you when you get down to the bunker.”

As if on cue, there was a light knock on the door. A second later, it opened to reveal a pair of Secret Service agents. “Mr. President? We have orders to escort you down to the bunker.”

The president hung up the phone and looked over at Jenny, still snoring softly beside him. He peeled the blankets off his legs and turned to put his feet on the carpet. “I’ll wake up Jenny,” he said. “Make sure the agents assigned to Susan and Nicole get them down to the bunker, and try not to frighten them any more than necessary.” He lifted his robe from the back of a chair and began pulling it on.

The nearer agent nodded. “We’ll wake up your family if you’d like, sir. But Command Post is online with the National Military Command Center, NORAD, the National Reconnaissance Office, and the 21st Space Operations Center. If there’s a launch, missile flight-time from Kamchatka will give us about thirty minutes warning. In the event of a nuclear launch alert, we can evacuate your family to the bunker in under five minutes. If I may offer a suggestion, Mr. President, it would probably be less frightening to let them sleep, for the moment at least.”

The president shook his head and opened his mouth to repeat the order to wake his family. Then, he caught himself. His own concern for his family’s safety grew out of the love he felt for his wife and daughters. The Secret Service’s motivations were professional rather than emotional, but they were at least as powerful. He had no doubt that any member of his protection detail would willingly step in front of a bullet to protect his wife and children. It was their profession, their sworn duty, and the central tenet of their entire way of life. Reminding them to consider his family’s safety was entirely unnecessary, and probably insulting.

He checked his head shake and turned it into a nod. “Fair enough,” he said. Then the father-husband instinct made a last quick attempt to override logic. “Don’t let anything … I mean, if there’s any doubt about their safety …”

The agent nodded. “You have my solemn word, Mr. President. If there’s any doubt at all, we won’t waste a second in moving your family.”

President Chandler pulled the belt of his robe tight and took one more look at the sleeping form of his wife. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Three levels below the East Wing of the White House was a tube-shaped citadel known officially as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, or PEOC. Unofficially, the shelter was called the bunker, a nickname that had emerged during the Reagan administration when nuclear war with the Soviet Union had seemed like a very real possibility. Protected by a forty foot blast shield of high-tensile ferroconcrete, Kevlar, and armored steel plating, the bunker housed office facilities, sleeping quarters, computer systems, communications equipment, and a command center that duplicated the functions of the West Wing’s Situation Room.

According to popular rumor, the bunker was designed to survive a direct nuclear blast. But despite its extraordinarily reinforced architecture and multiply-redundant life support systems, no engineer familiar with the physics of nuclear warfare had ever made such a claim. In the evaluation of most experts, the bunker could provide a high-degree of survivability against a near-miss. Where nuclear weapons were concerned, that was as good as things got. Even the massively protected NORAD facility, tunneled deep into the hard Colorado rock of Cheyenne Mountain, was only estimated to have a 70 percent probability of surviving a multiple-megaton nuclear strike. Against high-yield nuclear warheads, words like ‘bomb proof’ and ‘impenetrable’ lost all meaning.

Conspiracy buffs had long conjectured that the bunker contained enough food, water, and bottled air to last three years. In reality, the size of the facility limited the provision stockpiles to months, not years. Despite the claims of the supermarket tabloids, there were no secret preparations to keep the president, his family, friends, and cabinet members alive for decades following the nuclear annihilation of the American people. In the event of a full scale nuclear attack, it was hoped that the bunker and similar emergency preparations would keep the president alive long enough to coordinate retaliatory strikes and the last ditch defense of the country. But if America died — the president, his family, and all of his friends and political allies — died right along with it.

When President Chandler walked through the heavy blast doors, he bypassed the entrance to the operations room, detouring to his emergency sleeping quarters for just long enough to throw on some clothes. He chose simply: khaki trousers, a pullover shirt embroidered with the University of Iowa logo, and loafers. He didn’t want to waste time on a suit and tie, but neither was he willing to preside over an emerging nuclear crisis in his bathrobe and slippers. He dressed quickly, and was sliding into his chair at the head of the conference table within two minutes.

A tall dark-haired woman in a white U.S. Navy uniform came to attention until he was well seated. “Good morning, Mr. President. I’m Commander Kathryn Giamatti, the Deputy Situation Room Watch Officer. Lieutenant Colonel Briggs is engaged in a secure conference call with the Secretaries of State, Defense, Treasury, and Homeland Security, so I’ll be handling your initial briefing, sir.”

The president nodded. “Thank you, Commander. Has the national security advisor been notified?”

The commander nodded. “Affirmative, sir. Mr. Brenthoven is on his way to the White House. We’re expecting him any time now.”

“Correction,” said a voice from the other side of the room. “Mr. Brenthoven has arrived.”

National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven stood in the doorway. His suit was rumpled and there were dark circles under his eyes, but his gaze was focused and alert. He nodded toward the president. “Good morning, sir. Sorry I’m late. I was in Foggy Bottom when I got the call.”