The War Cloud Read online

  She tried to swing her feet back onto the ladder, but a couple of bullets pinged off the rungs. She looked up. Above Koz, a woman in uniform was leaning over the open ceiling door, firing down at them. Koz fired back one-handed, and the woman cried out and staggered back out of view.

  55

  1640 Hours

  Safeguard Complex

  Inside the 30-foot-tall turret of the pyramid, Marshall was booting up his Defender air traffic controller post when he heard the gunfire erupting below. The only reason he had kept the floor’s door open for the ladder was for Harney and Wilson, but he would close it if he had to and they would have to fry.

  “See what’s going on downstairs with Harney and Wilson,” he ordered Major Banks, who was setting up the landline communications system and running a line on the floor.

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  Everything in the turret had been hardened to withstand nuclear impact: The walls, ceiling and floor were lined with an 11-gague steel liner plate. Mounted on the floor were open frame racks for circuit boards, and built into each of the four slanted walls was a gigantic, 20-foot disc — the complex’s phased-array antenna. Suspended overhead was a shock-isolated platform for Cold War support equipment long gone. The only thing it supported now were the servers that hosted the War Cloud cyberweapon program.

  He turned his attention back to his radar screens and to opening a clear line of communications with his Defenders on the secret frequency. He was using one of Raytheon’s newer STARS, or Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System equipment, to get a clear picture of aircraft operations over the Pacific airpace.

  The digitized blips on the screen represented his ten top-secret Defender 747s armed with laser canons. They were the Tier 3 component of his Defender system, based on America’s Airborne Laser Test Bed program. Each Defender plane could direct energy to attack multiple targets at the speed of light, at a range of hundreds of kilometers, and at a lower cost per intercept than missiles.

  He could only imagine the look on General Zhang’s face any minute now when he launched his DF-5s in response to the incoming American Minutemen nukes. The onboard sensors of the U.S. Defenders would detect the boosting Chinese missiles and track them with a low-energy laser. A second low-energy laser would measure and compensate for atmospheric disturbance. Finally, the Defender would fire its megawatt-class high-energy laser, heating the boosting DF-5 to critical structural failure.

  And General Zhang would see the futility of his response even before the incoming Minutemen killed him.

  Marshall spoke into his headset, “All Defenders report.”

  Defender One reported, “All clear.”

  “All clear,” reported Defender Two.

  Every Defender, save Defender Six, was almost in range to shoot down any outgoing ICBMs from China that General Zhang might launch before he lost them to incoming Minuteman. Zhang’s window was closing fast to make a decision, and so was Marshall’s to make sure the Defenders could take out any Chinese missiles.

  “Defender, climb to 38,000 feet,” Marshall ordered.

  Marshall knew from personal experience as a fighter pilot that the hardest part of mission flying was reading the clouds. Aiming a laser canon in flight was infinitely harder. Volatile temperature and barometric pressure might bend the beam just enough to miss an outgoing missile, or jiggle the plane enough to blow the shot.

  Defender Six updated its position. “Barometric pressure stabilizing.”

  Marshall said, “Maintain course, Defender Six.”

  Marshall had trained these pilots well, and the beauty was that nobody in the current situation knew about them. Not General Zhang in China nor General Block at Northern Command. Only President Rhinehart and General Carver at Strategic Command, who allowed Marshall’s program to proceed behind Congress’s back. Now they were both dead.

  Best of all, at this time of year in January, Beijing was cold but dry, with an average of fewer than two days of rain.

  In short, clear skies were perfect for lasers.

  Marshall heard Banks cry out and turned to see her stagger back from the open door in the floor and collapse. He pulled out his M9 and walked over. She was spitting up blood, suffering, eyes pleading for help.

  Marshall gazed down at her for a moment. She reached up her hand, and he took it in his left even as he lowered his right hand holding his M9.

  “Mission accomplished, Major Tom.” There was pride but no pleasure in his voice. “You are honorably discharged,” he said and shot her in the head.

  The light went out of her eyes instantly, and her head rolled to the side.

  Marshall moved to the open door in the floor and peered over the edge, cautiously. He saw none other than Colonel Joe Kozlowski coming up the ladder, with what appeared to be Deborah Sachs some way behind him. Kozlowski was pointing a gun up at him, and Marshall moved back as a bullet whizzed by his ear.

  Marshall stuck his hand holding his gun over the edge and sprayed several bullets straight down until Kozlowski stopped firing.

  56

  1645 Hours

  Safeguard Complex

  Sachs heard the gunshots and called out Koz’s name. But instead of an answer she saw him suddenly lose his grip and fall toward her. She grasped the next rung of the steel ladder with one hand and swung out of the way. She watched in horror as Koz’s body hit the concrete floor at the base of the ladder far below.

  She screamed. “Oh, my God!”

  “I’m up here!” Above her, Marshall’s face lingered in the opening, gun in hand, but then withdrew from sight.

  She froze on the ladder. She desperately wanted to crawl down to Koz and run away from that monster Marshall above her. But run to what? A world that Marshall destroyed? There was no turning back, she realized. This was either kill or be killed, and she had to keep going. Jennifer and at least a billion American and Chinese were counting on her.

  Sachs willed herself up the ladder, one rung at a time, hand over hand, boot over b until she reached the opening. She wanted to stick a hand up through the space with a gun, but she needed two hands to pull herself up and over onto the steel floor.

  She instantly sprang to her feet and whipped out her gun, breathing hard. She looked around cautiously, but there was no one there except for the dead radio operator sprawled against the wall, an M9 on the floor beside her.

  Sachs kicked the pistol over the edge of the floor door and scanned the austere, two-story-tall turret. Dominating the chamber were something like huge loudspeakers in each of the four slanted walls. The effect was like being inside the bell tower of some monstrous cathedral from the Dark Ages — the Church of Armageddon. And the altar seemed to be a console with communications and radar instruments.

  She noted the large, square radar screen with a Raytheon logo on the bezel and a large brown keyboard with four different sets of keypads grouped on it, along with the biggest metal computer mouse she had ever seen.

  The whole thing looked like some Doppler weather radar. But the icons and numbers on the screen told her it was some kind of air traffic controller’s radar screen.

  It showed ten arrow-like icons, and the mass they were moving toward looked like China.

  The Defenders aren’t anti-ballistic missiles. They’re airborne.

  And they were poised off China to shoot down any Chinese missiles.

  There was a step behind her. She turned and raised her M9 as Marshall dropped down from an overhead platform, a pistol in one hand pointed at her. He was far more imposing and intimidating in person than on TV, his ice-cold blue eyes revealing an iron will of a warrior on mission, even as his cruel mouth smiled with bemused approval.

  “Why, Secretary Sachs, is that a standard-issue U.S. military sidearm you’re waving at me?” he said. “I didn’t know you had it in you. Better be careful, you might hurt yourself.”

  Sachs raised her gun at Marshall. “I will kill you, Marshall.”

  “You know I’ve al
ready given my life for my country,” he said, taking a step forward. “You think I’m not ready to die to see this through? I’m a patriot.”

  “Of course you are, Marshall. You’re the Great American Pretender.”

  “Defender, Sachs,” Marshall said sharply, his smile disappearing. “Defender.”

  “Defender,” she repeated, trying to put everything together that she had seen. “You were so confident we could win this war with minimal casualties.”

  “Maybe we can,” Marshall said.

  The radio crackled. “Defender Ten, all clear.”

  “Defender Nine, all clear.”

  Sachs realized Marshall had established the secret frequency she needed to recall the Defenders. If only she could reach the radio. “You actually built your Defender system, didn’t you?”

  Marshall cracked a grin. “I’ve got ten airborne COIL lasers that can pinpoint and destroy enemy missiles hundreds of miles away.”

  “So you blew up Washington?” Sachs said accusingly.

  Marshall grew scarily calm, but his eyes were ablaze with purpose. “It was clean, Sachs. I took out buildings. Not people.”

  “What do you call four thousand Americans?”

  “Not much more than 9/11,” he said. “Any reasonable president would have launched under attack. But you wouldn’t.”

  “So you blew up SAC headquarters,” she said. “And you went after my daughter!”

  “Something worth thinking about now, Sachs, if you want her to live.”

  Marshall took another step closer, and Sachs took a step back. Suddenly she wondered why he hadn’t killed her yet.

  “What do you want with her, Marshall?”

  “Just a little leverage,” Marshall said, raising his gun to her head. “I might need you to make one more address about your attack on the Chinese.”

  “Oh, my God,” she said, realizing that Marshall — and history — was going to blame this apocalypse on her failed leadership.

  “You’re going to take a bullet for America, Sachs,” he told her. “You think the Chinese promote multiculturalism or celebrate diversity like you want your students to? You’ve seen the trends. You’ve seen the future. You really want your daughter to grow up under red skies? Or, worse, a multi-polar world of war and chaos? I have to protect western civilization before people like you piss it away.”

  “How convenient,” she said. “Is that what you’re going to say the day after?”

  “This is the day after,” Marshall told her. “Now hand over the gun, Sachs. We both know you can’t pull the trigger.”

  She said, “Not until I can see the enemy.”

  She felt the veins in her hand throb as she gripped the gun. She could barely catch her breath, her heart was racing so fast. One way or another, she told herself, she was going to take a bullet. Whether she took the shot or not, she was going to die. She had to take the shot. She had to pull the trigger.

  Marshall smiled. “Those who can’t, teach,” he said, coaxing her. “Come on. Give it to me.”

  Sachs, her hands trembling, started to lower her arms. He was only a few feet away now, more confident than ever, his hand swinging up with his gun.

  Sachs jerked up her gun and fired three times fast, one bullet snapping his head back, the others catching him in the chest, driving him against his radar equipment. He bounced off and fell onto the liner plate floor, a stream of blood trickling into a crack like waste in a gutter.

  Hands trembling, gun smoking, she dropped the pistol on the floor with a clank.

  “Decapitation, Marshall. Your own philosophy.”

  Marshall was lifeless. Powder burns surrounded the black hole in his forehead. His piercing blue eyes remained wide open in surprise. Sachs stood there numb, staring at Marshall, her heart sick, her stomach swelling.

  The crackle of the radio broke her trance: “Defender One, update.”

  Sachs staggered over to the console. She felt weak as she grasped the microphone with her hand and then saw blood on it. She looked down at her body. More blood. Somewhere along the line she already had taken a bullet. Now she had to recall the Defenders before that bullet took her last breath.

  57

  1649 Hours

  The Pacific / Northern Command

  High over the Pacific Ocean, ten 747 jumbo jets were strung out like white pearls in the moonlight. Inside their respective cockpits, President Deborah Sachs’ very weak voice came through the secret frequency: “Arm your phasers,” she said. “Target is now U.S. Minutemen missiles entering Chinese airspace. Repeat. Target is now ten U.S. missiles entering Chinese airspace.”

  • • •

  Inside Northern Command, General Block heard her too, thanks to the Defender One pilot who was patching everything through for verification since General Marshall had ceased transmission.

  “Good God,” Block told his senior controller. “They’re really up there, fully operational. Ten actual airborne Defenders.”

  “They’re requesting confirmation for the destruction of outgoing U.S. missiles in place of potential incoming Chinese missiles,” the senior controller said.

  Even now, Block realized, elements of his own armed forces still refused to heed the words of their new commander-in-chief. “You tell them they heard right.”

  • • •

  Floating at 35,000 feet, Defender One swung into position. Mounted on its nosecone, a large swiveling laser cannon turret containing a beam director and infrared sensor scanned the horizon for missile launches.

  The beam director shot a low-powered laser beam to track the missiles and measure atmospheric distortion.

  Meanwhile, inside the forward fuselage of the Defender, a mirror adjusted while the displays of a computer console flashed. One display read Atmospheric Distortion 34.222. Another display read: missile tracking: locked.

  The mirror locked into place.

  Inside the rear fuselage of Defender One, walls of transparent storage tanks lined both sides of a narrow aisle—30,000 pounds of chemicals moving at supersonic speeds, mixed in a rocket engine-like chamber. A flash in the mix lit up and shot through the clear shaft.

  The laser burst out through the beam director in the nosecone of the 747.

  Over the Pacific Ocean, the first Minuteman exploded over black waters.

  • • •

  Not cheers but stunned silence lay like a cloud over the Northern Command headquarters as one by one the blips representing Minuteman missiles coming down on China disappeared.

  Block exhaled with both admiration and horror. “Goddamn Marshall.”

  It didn’t take long for General Zhang to call.

  Block picked up his red phone. “What do you want, Zhang?”

  Zhang said in perfect American English, “We wish to cease hostilities.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Block said. “You saw that we can destroy our own missiles. Which means we can destroy yours too.”

  Zhang continued, “We suggest an immediate, verifiable cease-fire.”

  “Lucky for you, President Sachs agrees. But she wants a long-term, verifiable treaty we’ll work out later.”

  “Agreed.” Zhang said. “Over.”

  Before Zhang cut off, Block caught several more words in Mandarin that he didn’t understand. He hung up and looked at his senior controller, who was fluent in Mandarin.

  “Tough broad,” he translated. “But what can we do?”

  “You got that right,” Block said. “Tell her we’ve got teams from Grand Forks on the way to her with medical attention.”

  But his senior controller said, “She’s not responding anymore, sir.”

  58

  1650 Hours

  Bedford Country Club

  Jennifer came to a half hour later, struggling as the Green Beret on top of her forced her against the floor caddyshack, one hand grabbing her hair and snapping her head back, the other pawing at her breasts. Her clothes were still on, nothing open so far, thank God. This drunken perv
had only dry humped so far, but his grinding repulsed her like nothing before in her life.

  “This isn’t frickin’ Afghanistan!” she screamed, kneeing him in the groin. “You can’t just rape girls!”

  He bellowed in pain but didn’t let go of her, pulling her tighter until she winced in pain. “Oh, I’m going to like you,” he told her, forcing his mouth on hers.

  She reached for his empty Sam Adams bottle on the floor beside them. Her fingers fumbled, then grasped one by the neck but couldn’t get a firm hold. She was about to lose it as he shifted on her.

  She grimaced, then slipped her tongue into his mouth and he came alive. She used the moment to grab the bottle and club him across the side of his head.

  “Bitch!” he cried out, staggering to the side as she hit him again, sending him face down on the floor.

  “Believe it, asshole!” She kicked him out of the way, the rage in her so strong that this time instead of opening the front door, she just kicked it open with little difficulty and ran out to blazing lights and guns and froze.

  A dark, thin figure emerged from the lights, like one of those aliens from the movies.

  “Jennifer, I’m Sergeant Wanda Randolph of the United States Capitol Police. Your mother sent me to help you.”

  Jennifer wanted to cry like a baby. Instead she fixed her eyes on the long sniper rifle Randolph’s hands. “That’s a sweet Barrett M107 50 caliber. Can I hold it?”

  59

  0631 Hours

  The Day After

  The Safeguard Complex

  It was the 91st Security Forces Squadron team that reached Sachs first at the Safeguard complex. She was unconscious on the floor under a console, her clothes, hands and hair a bloody mess. But she was breathing, and they stabilized her quickly then moved her outside.