The War Cloud Read online

  Koz shook his head. Unless Chopper Dave’s blades were shielded for radiation like Nightwatch, the traffic reporter was filing the last story of his life.

  Chopper Dave was soaring over the ridge when suddenly there was…

  Nothing.

  A flat wasteland rolling on beneath gray skies.

  Koz felt a pain in his stomach, like a knife had gone clean through, in and out.

  “Oh, God.”

  He thought of Sherry and realized she deserved that Purple Heart after all. At the moment of impact she was probably sitting in her chair in Senator Vanderhall’s office in the Hart Building, scripting some stupid sound bites for the self-important ass to parrot in reaction to the president’s State of the Union address. Little did any of them know that a new president was going to have to address the fact that the state of the Union was shit.

  The monitors in the battle staff compartment displayed what Chopper Dave saw: devastation beyond recognition. Heaps of rubble, once buildings, lay scattered across the parched earth. A dark, snakelike fork was all that was left of the Potomac River. Radioactive fallout had already settled along its banks. Sporadic fires and black smoke completed a portrait straight out of Dante’s Inferno.

  “I’m circling the capitol.” Chopper Dave’s voice crackled over the intercom. Koz wasn’t sure if it was the traffic reporter’s voice or the reception breaking up. “No survivors in the impact area. Repeat. No survivors.”

  The battle staffers were watching the images, offering guesses as to the landmarks. “That stump is the Washington monument!” gasped one, pointing. “There!”

  Koz wasn’t sure. But the location looked right. His trance was broken when Captain Li came into the compartment to apologize for the bumpy landing.

  “I didn’t even know we touched down,” Koz said.

  The Nightwatch plane taxied to a stop along the runway. Hydraulic steps unfurled from the belly of the plane, and Koz climbed down to the tarmac where federal agents and vehicles were waiting.

  “Where’s the president-designate?” Koz demanded.

  The special agent in charge, clearly a greenhorn from the bench, threw up his hands. “God knows, Colonel. Our boys called in to say she was picked up by two Black Hawks fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Should have been here by now,” said Koz as he searched the dark skies in vain. He felt like some schmuck waiting for his blind date, fearing she was standing him up.

  Captain Li, who had been standing at attention beside Koz, tugged his elbow. “Sir,” she whispered. “We’re vulnerable on the ground. I suggest we take off and continue to circle, or we’re going to look like those images we just saw on TV after the next strike.”

  She was right, Koz realized, although he didn’t want to leave. Finally, he said, “Tell De Carlo to keep the engines hot and prepare for take-off.”

  “Yes, sir,” Li said.

  “Tell him we’ll circle for ten minutes,” Koz said. “Then we follow the predesignated flight path out of the United States and proceed to the territory of an unattacked ally in the Southern Hemisphere.”

  “We’re going south?”

  Koz nodded. “Fallout free.”

  20

  1230 Hours

  Black Hawk One

  “What are you doing?!” Sachs stared at the barrel of Colonel Kyle’s M-16 and glanced at Special Agent Raghav, who put up his hands as the even younger Secret Service agent next to him reached for his Uzi.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Kyle warned. Before the words were out, a Green Beret hit the young agent’s head from behind with the butt of his M-16. There was a sickening crack, and the agent collapsed to the floor.

  “You crushed his skull!” Raghav yelled as another Green Beret expertly relieved him of his weapon.

  Sachs looked down at the boy’s body. The sight of hair matted in blood sickened her. She looked up at Kyle in horror. “Why?”

  “Ours is not to reason why, Ms. Sachs,” Kyle replied, sliding open the Black Hawk’s door. A blast of freezing air whooshed in, and Sachs found herself staring at the treetops below. “It’s a tragic thing when accidents happen on military craft.”

  Sachs turned to Raghav and said, “Tell me you only look like a Secret Service agent. You’re really an ex-SEAL or martial arts expert or something.”

  “I’m an ex-law student with a G-4 salary grade at the Treasury Department, ma’am,” Raghav replied.

  “Shut up!” Kyle kicked Raghav in the groin. Raghav dropped to his knees in agony and moaned. Sachs saw Kyle swing the butt of his M-16 across Raghav’s face, knocking him to the floor, unconscious. Then he trained his machine gun on her. “On your knees.”

  “No,” Sachs said. “I will not submit to your animal brutality and disregard for life, whatever the damn national security.”

  Kyle grabbed her by the hair. She struggled as he forced her down, choking back her urge to scream. “Think about what you’re doing!”

  “I’m thinking how I didn’t serve my country to see it fall into the hands of a woman who was supposed to be fired today.”

  As Kyle put his M-16 to her head, Raghav stirred to life and lunged at Kyle’s jumpboots. Kyle lowered his M-16 to fire, but Raghav pulled him off his feet.

  Kyle’s M-16 spat out its automatic rounds. The bullets caught two Green Berets in the throat and drilled holes through the ceiling, making a sweeping arc of destruction over Kyle’s falling body until they finally popped the pilot

  The Black Hawk started to pitch and roll. The rest of Kyle’s Green Berets were thrown back. Raghav grabbed Kyle’s M-16, turned and unloaded a round into the rear compartment before the Green Berets could recover. Fire shot out of the muzzle as Raghav jerked the trigger, raining dozens of smoking shells around Sachs, who was sprawled on the floor, hands clapped over her ears.

  Suddenly, the shooting stopped. Sachs could hear only the rotor of the Black Hawk’s blades and the howling wind. Or was that ringing in her ears?

  “Are you OK?” asked Raghav, helping her up.

  Sachs looked across the floor at the bodies and blood. Raghav impressed, after all. But she felt something awful rising up inside her, grabbed her stomach and started to heave.

  Raghav gave her a helpful pat on the back and looked around. “Guess they took you for a liberal.”

  Sachs noticed Raghav’s lapel pin on the floor and picked it up. “You dropped this.” She turned it over to see conservative TV talk show host Glenn Beck smiling back at her.

  Sachs straightened and handed the button to Raghav. The young Republican cheerfully pinned it to his blood-stained lapel with trembling fingers. “Thanks.”

  Suddenly the Black Hawk banked sharply. Sachs turned to see the pilot slumped over in his seat.

  “Oh, God.”

  Raghav climbed over the seat, pushing the pilot’s corpse aside. He then took the controls and tried to level off.

  Sachs climbed into the seat next to Raghav. “I suppose you can’t fly, either?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then let me.”

  “You can’t fly,” Raghav said incredulously.

  “No, but I watched my husband fly his planes, and I probably have more hours in the air than you do.”

  Raghav hesitated, and then the radio headset crackled. It was the pilot from Black Hawk Two. “Black Hawk One, you’re trailing smoke.”

  Sachs watched Raghav struggle with the stick. It was a miracle they were still airborne. “If you or I respond, he’s going to know Kyle’s out,” she said. “What’s he going to do then?”

  “Shoot us down if he’s in with Kyle, or help us land if he’s not. But we can’t take a chance.”

  Sachs saw Raghav flick a switch to arm the sidewinder missiles and stopped him. “You can’t even pilot this thing, and you’re going to try and down that chopper with your own men on board?”

  “You are the priority, ma’am, and they know it.”

  The radio crackled again. “Black Hawk One, please copy.”
>
  “Shit, they’re locking missiles on us,” Raghav said, looking at the dashboard.

  Sachs said, “Radio your men, Rahgav, and tell them to take over that chopper. Now.”

  Raghav nodded and spoke into his lapel microphone. “Do not reply. Repeat. Do not reply. This is a Code 33. You have to take over that bird. Repeat. Code 33.”

  looked out at the Black Hawk behind them and to the left. It suddenly dipped as she saw a flurry of shadows inside. Then its guns exploded. Sachs and Raghav jumped in their seats as bullets chewed holes around them.

  “They’ve opened fire!” Raghav said.

  Sachs replied, “I can see that!”

  Raghav said nothing, and Sachs felt a shiver up her spine. She glanced over at Raghav next to her and with a shock realized the handle of a knife was protruding from his neck. Her eyes widened as a bloody, monstrous Colonel Kyle reared his ugly head from behind and removed the red-stained blade.

  “You’ll never get sworn in,” Kyle said, as he thrust the blade at her.

  Sachs leaned away into the windshield, escaping the first thrust. Then the chopper banked sharply, Raghav’s corpse weighing heavily on the stick, throwing Kyle off balance and her head against the windshield.

  The flurry of bullets hit nearly everywhere. Dazed, she dragged herself forward and looked up to see Black Hawk Two spiral out of control, a fight for control in the cockpit.

  Sachs tried to crawl into the pilot’s seat. She had just about pushed Raghav’s body out of the way when she felt a tug at her legs and looked back to see the bloody face of Colonel Kyle come to drag her back to hell.

  “Get off me!” she screamed and kicked him in the face, her high heel spiking his eye.

  Kyle loosened his grip and slid back limply as the chopper started to climb.

  Sachs gripped the back of Raghav’s bloody head, hoisted herself up on top of him and grabbed the stick. She saw the runway of the White Plains airport dead ahead.

  She wiped her wet eyes and took a deep breath. The ground was coming up fast in the windshield, and the chopper began to spin with its own cloud of black smoke, going wobbly as it approached the small airport.

  Sachs peered through the cracked windshield, straining to see. Then the curtain of smoke parted for a moment and she could see a team of federal agents and their vehicles waiting on the icy tarmac. A gigantic white jumbo jet dominated the runway.

  She strapped herself into the pilot’s chair, so tight she could barely steer. Everything seemed to be whooshing around her, and she felt her stomach drop with the chopper. She could see several Air Force personnel rushing toward her as she plunked the chopper down with a heavy thud. Then something seemed to give way as the chopper tipped over on its side and everything went black.

  21

  1315 Hours

  Nightwatch

  Colonel Kozlowski studied Sachs as she lay on the fold-out surgical table in the Nightwatch plane’s medical center. Her eyes were closed beneath the high-intensity lights, an IV attached to her arm. Her black hair was brushed back from her face, her shoes removed and the belt around her skirt loosened.

  The young medic had finished stitching a gash on her shoulder and was studying her with awe. Her bloody blouse was gone, and he gazed at the size C cups of her bra rising and falling as she breathed. He let out a low whistle. “Hail to the Chief.”

  “It’s president-designate, Lieutenant Nordquist,” said Koz, feigning indifference. “Nothing official until I know she’s fit for office. Is she fit?”

  “She’s in better shape than those Green Berets on that Black Hawk, that’s for sure.” Nordquist started tapping up a chart for her on his tablet computer. “What the hell was that all about, anyway?”

  That’s what Koz wanted to know. What kind of remarkable woman could survive that kind of battle? Or cause it?

  “You tell me,” said Sachs, opening her eyes.

  They were soft and brown, Koz noticed, but her voice was dry and cracked. It was probably the cabin air. He wondered how much she had heard. “Dehydration, ma’am.”

  “There’s got to be a better explanation for their behavior than a lack of Gatorade.”

  A sense of dry wit too, thought Koz.

  “No, ma’am. You’re the one dehydrated. We’ll give the IV another 20 minutes and take you off when we’re at cruising altitude.”

  She started. “You mean we’re in the air?”

  “Thirty thousand feet,” said Koz. “Welcome aboard the presidential Advanced Airborne Command Post.”

  “Then I want to see the president,” she demanded, and Koz didn’t know if she seriously didn’t understand the situation or was testing him.

  He paused. “Why?”

  “Because those soldiers sent to pick me up tried to kill me,” she said.

  Koz blinked. “The Army Green Berets?”

  She nodded. “Who sent them?”

  “Uh, I did.” He saw her eyes widen. “But I can assure you that I did not give Colonel Kyle orders to harm you or anyone else. He must have gone rogue.”

  She looked at him with a glint of paranoia. “Don’t insult me with a lone gunman theory. Because he had a dozen others with him, all wearing the uniform of this country.”

  Koz exchanged a glance with Nordquist. “Physically, she checks outs,” the medic said with a shrug. “Mentally, who knows? She’s pretty shaken up.”

  “I’m fine,” she said flatly. “Where’s Special Agent Raghav?”

  “Didn’t make it, ma’am.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she dropped her head. “He was brave.” Then her head snapped up again. “Jennifer,” she said with a start, and swung her badly bruised and cut legs over the side of the table. “I want to talk to my daughter right now.”

  She tried to stand up, but a wave of dizziness seemed to pass over her and she started to sway.

  Koz put a hand on her shoulder and braced her. “Easy now. I’m sure she’s been taken care of.”

  “Like your Green Berets tried to take care of me?” she shot back.

  “We’ll find her, ma’am, I promise, and make sure she’s safe.”

  “You do that, Colonel,” she said, then noticed she had nothing but a bra on above her waist. She folded her arms over her chest, wincing as her shoulder flexed. “May I have my blouse back?”

  “Try this.” Koz opened a locker closet and pulled out an Air Force bomber jacket. He draped it over her shoulders.

  “Thank you,” she said with a shiver.

  A beeping sounded in the medical compartment. Sachs jolted, turning to see if it was one of her medical monitors. But Koz walked over to the intercom on the wall and punched a button. “What is it?”

  Captain Li’s voice squawked over the speaker: “Sir, we have NCA commanders on screen for the attack conference.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he replied, and turned to leave.

  “You’re just going to leave me here?” Sachs demanded. “I don’t think so.” She took two steps and was restrained by her IV feeds like a dog on its leash. “I demand you take me to see the president, Colonel Kozlowski, even if it’s in the mirror.”

  Kozlowski looked back at her without answering her implicit claim, although he felt a pang of guilt mixed with uncertainty. “I think it’s best that you’re confined to these quarters pending a thorough medical review.”

  “Are you serious, Colonel?” Her tired, brown eyes seemed to search his face and heart for something Koz felt was no longer there.

  Koz gave a cool nod to Nordquist, who was already preparing a syringe. “We want to avoid any panic until our forces are in place.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Sachs shouted as Koz put his hand on the door.

  “Trust me, it’s for your own good,” he said, and walked out.

  An alarmed Captain Li was waiting for him in the hallway as the door slid shut behind him like a coffin on a protesting Sachs and syringe-wielding Nordquist.

  “Where is she?” Li
asked as he brushed past her toward the battle staff compartment. “What’s going on in there?”

  He said, “She’s recuperating.”

  Li was on his heels like a terrier. “Recuperating? Hello? Are we back in the USSR or what?”

  “Can it,” he said as he marched into the next compartment.

  Li would not let up, nor would he expect her to. “She is our only legal president, and our respect for a higher authority, in this case the Constitution, is the only thing that separates us from the boys in Beijing.”

  Koz nodded as they entered the battle staff compartment. “Let me feel out the others on the conference call.”

  “You’re talking about a coup, sir.”

  Koz caught a few stray glances from the young crew as they passed by. A little louder, Li, he thought.

  “She’s delirious, Captain,” he told her, waiting until they had entered the empty briefing room. “She accused me of trying to kill her. How much credibility is she going to have with her commanders if she starts making wild charges like that? You really want her in charge?”

  “What I want and what is right are often two different things, sir.”

  “Let me put this another way, Captain.” He turned to face her, square on. “America has just suffered its worst blow in history. We’re on the brink of universal Armageddon. As president, Deborah Sachs is not some civilian politician but our commander-in-chief. Would you follow this woman into battle?”

  Her answer was firm and unwavering. “Yes, I would.”

  Koz studied Li’s stoic, determined face. “Well, I’m not so sure.”

  Li simply stood there, not giving in.

  Koz took a breath. “OK,” he told her. “While I speak to the NCA, I want you to check DOD records and see if this guy Kyle has a history with anybody who could have given orders to kill Sachs. But discreetly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He could see the approval in her face.

  “And while you’re at it,” Koz said, “check out the last communications between the White House and Pentagon. Check anything unusual that happened in the city within the past two or three days. Everything should have been backed up at remote DOD mainframes before the blast.”