
Crisis

Book Zero of American Sulla

A novel by

Thom Stark

**Copyright Notice**

This work is copyright © 2013 by the author. All rights to it are reserved thereunto. No part of this work may be dramatized, illustrated, reproduced or transmitted for any purpose by electronic or mechanical means, including, but not limited to, photocopying, recording, or digital reproduction or transmission, without the express written permission of the author.

**Dedication**

This book is dedicated to my beloved wife Judy, without whose unwavering belief and support it could not have come to pass.

**About the cover**

The cover image for this ebook is based on WhiteHousenightphoto.JPG by 350z33 at en.wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

It has been altered in accordance with that license by Thom Stark, and it has been superimposed over a public-domain Department of Defense photograph of the Priscilla above-ground nuclear test. Thom Stark is the author of the resulting image for copyright purposes.

**Acknowledgements**

The author wishes gratefully to acknowledge the persons, organizations, and institutions upon whose contributions he has so heavily depended to make the content of this work as accurate and readable as possible. The reader should keep in mind, however, that any errors or mischaracterizations of fact it may contain are entirely and exclusively the responsibility of the author, and not those named below.

The friends, family members, and strangers who sponsored the author's failed Kickstarter and successful Indiegogo fundraising campaigns are all exemplary human beings. Without their help, the author might have found himself homeless well before this book could be finished. A complete list of those who contributed to one, the other, or both efforts can be found at the end of this volume.

For the description of the May Day nuclear explosion, the author is indebted to Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions, Section 5.0: Effects of Nuclear Explosions at nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html. The author made extensive use of Google Maps, Street View, and Google Earth to establish geographical locations, exterior descriptions, and latitude and longitude, where those are specified, and of Google proper to find documents, maps, images, and other resources that added greatly to the background and detail of this book. For information regarding the floor plan and general architectural details of the White House, www.whitehousemuseum.org was invaluable. For details of the layout of the White House Situation Room, the author relied heavily upon NBC's May 2, 2012 Rock Center special "Inside the Situation Room". For research regarding military ranks and ratings, insignia, uniforms, unit designations, and weaponry, Wikipedia articles were the author's almost-invariable starting point.

Susan Thornton, author of the short novel _From Time to Time_ , did yeoman work proofreading the earliest draft of this book, persuading the author to spell-check the ms, and generally cheerleading. David Strom, editor and author of hundreds of technology-related articles, two books, and the weekly _Web Informant_ column (www.strominator.com), was kind enough to act as a beta reader for the book. He pointed out an embarrassing geographical blunder the author hastily – if sheepishly – corrected, and provided welcome encouragement. Finally, Hilary Lauren, author of _Killing Karl_ , generously volunteered to edit the ms. She was instrumental in persuading the author to rethink his determination to reproduce regional dialects at the expense of readability, and also offered a host of other general and specific recommendations whose adoption has, in the author's opinion, significantly improved the narrative. Any violations of his or her preferred stylebook guidelines ( _e.g._ – the use of punctuation within and surrounding quotation marks) that the critical reader may encounter are the results of artistic choices by the author, and exist in the text despite Ms. Lauren's editorial advice, rather than because of it. Hilary rocks.

Prologue. 9

West Street, New York, NY.. 9

1 World Trade Center, New York, NY.. 14

May 1, 2020, 9:00 am PDT (12:00 pm EDT) 17

The Commonwealth Club, San Francisco.. 17

North Cove Marina, New York City.. 19

The Presidential Limousine, Highway 101, San Francisco, CA.. 20

50 Hudson St., Jersey City NJ. 22

Air Force One, somewhere over Nevada.. 23

1st St., Hackensack, NJ. 26

Air Force One, somewhere over Colorado.. 27

MTA Subway Line 7, New York City.. 30

Air Force One, somewhere over Nebraska.. 33

Interstate 90 westbound, Watertown, MA.. 35

Air Force One, somewhere over Ohio.. 36

New Jersey Turnpike, Elizabethport, New Jersey.. 38

Air Force One, entering Washington, DC Special Flight Rules Area.. 40

Northern State Prison, Newark, NJ. 42

The House Chamber, Capitol Building, Washington, DC.. 45

Patriot Radio Studio 1, Athol, ID.. 47

Northern State Prison, Newark, NJ. 49

The Oval Office, Washington, DC.. 54

Wooten Rd., Sandston, VA.. 57

The Cabinet Room, Washington, DC.. 59

Easau Piltch's living room, North Monroe Street, Arlington, VA.. 62

The Cabinet Room, Washington, DC.. 65

May 2, 2020, 12:03 am EDT. 70

Cathedral Heights, Washington, DC.. 70

The President's Bedroom, Washington, DC.. 73

50 Hudson St., Jersey City NJ. 75

Clay St., Hackensack, NJ. 76

40°24'26.74" N, 73°35'19.95" W, Atlantic Ocean.. 77

Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY.. 81

Wooten Rd., Sandston, VA.. 83

Central Park, Schenectady, NY.. 84

North Cove Marina, Lower Manhattan, NY.. 85

NYISO Primary Control Center, Rensselaer, NY.. 88

Northern State Prison, Newark, NJ. 90

The Cabinet Room, Washington, DC.. 92

Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY.. 98

The West Wing Press Briefing Room, Washington, DC.. 100

The White House Situation Room, Washington, DC.. 104

Clay St., Hackensack, NJ. 107

Wooten Rd., Sandston, VA.. 108

Yale Farm Road, Romulus, NY.. 110

Clay St., Hackensack, NJ. 112

The White House Living Room, Washington, DC.. 114

Hanover County Municipal Airport, VA.. 117

Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY.. 120

Over the Potomac River.. 121

The White House Living Room, Washington, DC.. 123

Over the National Mall, Washington, DC.. 128

Author's Note. 130

Cast of Characters. 131

Sponsors. 135

About the Author.. 136

# Prologue

**May 1, 2020, 11:38 am EDT**

## West Street, New York, NY

The box van – stolen in New Jersey two weeks earlier, and since heavily modified – turned left at the traffic light off West Street onto Albany, then left again onto Washington. It descended into the gaping maw of the World Trade Center's delivery entrance. No one noticed its springs sagging despite the super-duty suspension upgrade it had received. The radiation detectors above the ramp that led down into the WTC delivery level registered no unusual neutron flux from its malignant cargo.

The driver's paperwork appeared genuine. His vehicle's New York license plates (purloined in the Bronx, just two hours earlier) raised no suspicion, so the guards in the gatehouse at the bottom of the ramp allowed him to pass through to the complex's underground traffic circle. He followed the signs around the perimeter of the WTC Plaza, until he turned off at the loading dock for 1 World Trade Center. At the direction of the building's cargo master, he backed up his vehicle to the waist-high secondary dock. Carefully setting the parking brake, he turned the engine off, and the four-way flashers on.

The driver – whose laminated photo badge identified him as Arlington Joseph Smith, but whose real name was Tariq Abdullah Aziz – climbed out of the van, and carefully locked the driver's door. He walked around to the rear of the vehicle, and unlocked the double doors. With visible effort, he tugged them open.

Nestled on a flatbed dolly inside the oddly thick, dull-gray walls of the cargo compartment was what appeared to be a heavy-duty Canon copier/printer. Aziz extended a short, reinforced ramp between the rear of the van's cargo compartment and the lip of the loading dock. Muscles bulging with the effort, he pushed the dolly and its deadly cargo out of the van, onto the dock's surface. His face was already shiny with sweat.

Locking the van's cargo doors, Aziz pushed the copier-laden cart across the loading dock toward the freight elevators. A bored security guard asked for his paperwork. He gave it a cursory examination.

"Sixty-third floor," he said. He pointed to an elevator at the far end of the bank. "Take number four."

Aziz nodded, reclaiming his paperwork from the guard.

"T'anks," he replied.

Carefully controlling his breathing, Aziz pushed his burden down the hallway to the fourth elevator, the cart's tires softly thumping over the joints in the tile floor. Straining, Aziz positioned the cart directly in front of the elevator's doors, then pressed the button to summon the cage.

The doors parted to reveal the padded walls of the elevator compartment. Summoning all his strength, Aziz shoved his cargo over the slight gap between the elevator cage and the doorframe. Quickly, he followed the cart into the elevator. Before it could crash into the back wall of the cage, he pulled mightily on its handle to counter the copier's momentum. He wanted to make sure he left sufficient space between the back wall of the elevator cage and the front of the cart to allow him to push, rather than have to pull, his burden out at his destination.

Once the doors closed, leaving him alone in the elevator for its swift ascent of the first 40 floors, Aziz allowed himself the luxury of filling, and refilling his burning lungs with one deep, racking breath after another. Pulling off his baseball cap to wipe his streaming, shaved head on his sleeve left the khaki material wet with his sweat. Soon, though, the express portion of his ride came to an end. He replaced his ball cap and, with a major effort, forced himself to breathe normally.

To his relief, no one else entered the elevator before it reached the 63rd floor. When the doors opened there, Aziz braced his back against the wall of the cage and, exerting his maximum strength, forced the copier-laden cart over the gap and into the hallway of Global Financial Corporation's Private Banking department. Leaving his burden sitting in front of the freight elevator, Aziz strode down the hallway to the auxiliary reception desk which guarded the entrance to the actual suite of business offices.

"Gotta delivery here," Aziz told the fashionably-dressed Asian receptionist.

She appeared to be in her mid-twenties. The nameplate on her desk identified her as Alicia Takahashi.

"Whom is it for?" inquired the receptionist, looking up to meet his eyes.

Her tone was professional, neither hostile nor friendly, her voice an accent-free contralto.

Aziz pretended to peruse his clipboard, then shrugged.

"Name uh the guy is Carson..." He squinted at the paperwork in his hand, "... or mebbe Carlson?"

Aziz looked up at Alicia Takahashi, and grinned ruefully.

"Never can read that dispatcher's chicken scratches," he confided, "Guy shoulda been a doctor."

"Let me see, please," Takahashi requested, reaching out for the clipboard.

She examined the slightly sweat-dampened, multi-part form.

"That will be Randy Carlson, one of our office assistants," she said.

Takahashi handed the paperwork back to Aziz.

"I'll page him for you," she told him. "Please have a seat over there."

She gestured to a utilitarian grouping of chairs and a couch around a coffee table next to her desk.

Aziz walked over to the seating area, but did not sit. Instead he stood, facing the wall, and pretended to examine a large abstract painting that hung there, over the couch. The shapes and colors meant nothing to him. Instead, his mind was focused on keeping his breathing slow and regular, and on his rising excitement at the fast-approaching end of his mission.

"Mr. Carlson will be right with you," Takahashi told him, re-cradling the multi-line phone on her desk.

She returned her attention to the textbook on business administration she had been studying when Aziz first approached.

"T'anks," said Aziz

He turned back to his apparent inspection of the jumble of shapes and colors before him.

\- _It's happening._ \- he thought, taking care to conceal his exaltation at the prospect. - _All that training, all that preparation. And now, at last, it's finally happening._ -

One of the enameled, metal doors on the other side of the reception desk opened. The young, dark-featured man Aziz knew as Ali bin Hamzah emerged, dressed in a white polo shirt and tan chinos.

"Mr. Carlson is here," Takahashi announced.

"Thanks, Alicia," Hamzah said.

He crossed to where Aziz, who had stepped into the center of the corridor, stood waiting, clipboard in hand.

"I'm Randy Carlson," said Hamzah, putting out his right hand, "You have a delivery for me?"

"Yes, sir," responded Aziz, handing him the clipboard. "You ordered a Canon Imagemaster Advance, Model 2020?"

"Yes I did," said Hamzah.

He nodded at the gleaming machine sitting on its cart in front of freight elevator number four.

"That it?" he enquired.

"Yes, sir," Aziz replied.

"Great," said Hamzah. "Let me give you a hand with it."

"T'anks."

The two men strode down the hall to the copier. Together they pushed it back up the corridor to the double metal doorway.

Aziz felt a tremor of excitement run through him, as Hamzah punched in his access code on the keypad beside the doors. With a soft click, they unlocked. Hamzah opened both doors, and set their stops, then helped Aziz push the laden cart across the threshold, into the exclusive precincts of Global Financial.

Re-closing the doors, Hamzah pointed left, down the carpeted hallway.

"The copier room is this way," he said.

Aziz took Hamzah's continued pretense as a sign that unbelievers might be listening. He nodded, grateful for the months of acting classes that allowed them both to pretend so convincingly to be strangers.

"Yes, sir," he responded.

Aziz and Hamzah pushed the cart down the hall. Its tires left deep grooves in the carpet behind them. Along the way, they passed several glass-walled offices, whose occupants appeared to be absorbed in the data on the monitors that cluttered their desktops. At last, they reached a doorway on their right, which opened into a large room. Illuminated by overhead fluorescent panels, it was crowded with office machines of various kinds. Across the room was a ten-foot-wide gap along the wall, to which Hamzah gestured.

"It goes there," he instructed.

"Yes, sir," replied Aziz.

Together, the two men maneuvered the heavy cart across the room. Grunting with effort, they pushed the copier into position. Hamzah picked up its electrical cord, and plugged it into an outlet on the wall.

Hamzah glanced over his shoulder to be certain there was no one else within earshot.

In a voice pitched just above a whisper, he said, "Brother, you should have the honor."

"Insha'Allah, my brother," replied Aziz.

He reached for the copier's keypad, noting with pride as he did, that his hand did not tremble. Methodically, he keyed in the digits 01052020.

"Allahu akbar," he cried.

Then he pressed Enter.

**May 1, 2020, 11:56 am EDT**

## 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY

The explosive shaped charges surrounding an approximately 11-pound sphere of plutonium at the heart of the Canon Imagemaster instantly crushed it against the beryllium reflector at its center. The storm of neutrons from the resulting critical mass shattered atomic nuclei in the compacted ball of Pu-239, disgorging an exponentially-increasing cascade of free neutrons. The energy released by the fissioning atoms caused the resulting plasma to expand, until the distance between its individual nuclei grew too great to sustain their chain reaction. At that point, slightly over half a microsecond after the explosion began, the plasma ball reached its maximum temperature of nearly 100,000,000 degrees Centigrade – 10,000 times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

Most of that energy radiated away as gamma and X rays, forming an isothermal sphere. The sphere began rapidly cooling, as it expanded. By the time it had grown to 13 meters in diameter, its temperature had declined to a mere 300,000 degrees Centigrade. Its expansion had also slowed, to the point that it began transferring some of its kinetic energy to the material surrounding it: consuming metal, glass, plastic, wood, textiles, and people in the process. They all became part of the highly ionized plasma. The growing fireball now emitted a flash of light in the visible and near-ultraviolet spectra that was 10,000 times as bright as the noonday Sun – and continued to expand.

When it reached the desk of Alicia Takahashi, the isothermal sphere was still hot enough to instantly convert her, the book she was reading, and the desk itself into plasma – into ions, stripped of their outer electron shells, rather than atoms – and incorporate all three into itself. Its expansion continued.

Traveling at the speed of light, the electromagnetic pulse generated by the explosion reached to the horizon in something under a half a millisecond. It caused the circuitry of every silicon-based, electronic device within a dozen miles that was not protected by a Faraday cage to melt, and fuse into inert junk. Cell phones, electronic ignition systems, computers, television sets, pacemakers, and a myriad of other technological staples of city life, all went instantly, permanently dead. Every battery within miles died, as well.

The high-temperature superconductor bus line that connected the massive substation beneath the tower at 7 World Trade Center to the heart of the Financial District efficiently transferred the gargantuan electrical surge to Wall Street, a half-second before the blast front arrived. The rampaging EMP methodically slew New York City's electrical grid. It induced massive current flows, destroying transformers, meters, and switches so swiftly, they were ruined beyond repair before the circuit breakers designed to protect them could be tripped. The massive imbalance in the Northeastern Power Grid caused by the abrupt disappearance of New York City's load crashed the system within minutes, as section after section automatically shut down to protect itself from hundreds of megawatts of electricity run wild.

When the shock wave reached a diameter of 220 meters – about 15 milliseconds after the nuclear detonation began – its rate of expansion slowed to a mere four kilometers per second. It began to separate from the surface of the isothermal plasma sphere that generated it. That separation triggered a second flash of light, which appeared to observers much brighter than the first, because its radiative surface was so large, even though its surface temperature now was a mere fraction of what it had been.

By the time the fireball grew to its maximum 600 meters in diameter – about three-quarters of a second after the chain reaction began – its temperature had fallen to the point that it had almost stopped emitting light. By then, it had completely vaporized most of the Freedom Tower, as well as portions of several adjacent buildings. The expanding shock wave pulverized what remained of 1 World Trade Center, along with square blocks of the nearest skyscrapers. The atmosphere rushing in to fill the vacuum created as the fireball began to collapse blew hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive dust into which the buildings and their contents had been transformed up and into the sky, to form a gigantic mushroom cloud.

The heat of the explosion now fell off rapidly. At a distance of a kilometer from the hypocenter, it was finally incapable of causing fourth- and fifth-degree burns, and its ionizing radiation was no longer invariably fatal. Fully a third of those exposed to its effects could at least theoretically be expected to survive the experience – assuming they did not first succumb to shock, dehydration, infection, or physical injury.

Meanwhile, the shock wave continued to expand in all directions, diminishing steadily in strength as it spread. By the time it reached two kilometers in diameter, its impact alone was no longer capable of killing a human being outright. However, the storm of debris it drove before it and carried behind was still lethal. The blast front remained powerful enough to shatter every window it struck for more than a mile in every direction – and to spray the insides of the buildings they had adorned with shards of deadly, glittering shrapnel – as well as to puncture the eardrums of every person within a mile of the hypocenter.

When the blast front reached its limit of expansion, close to two kilometers from Ground Zero, the pressure wave reversed direction. The atmosphere immediately flooded in to fill the vacuum the collapsing shockwave created. The in-rushing air swiftly fanned the flames the fireball had ignited into a towering firestorm.

Lower Manhattan began to burn.

# May 1, 2020, 9:00 am PDT (12:00 pm EDT)

## The Commonwealth Club, San Francisco

William Orwell Steele, President of the United States, stood at the podium looking out over the crowded hall.

\- _Power suits and power ties._ _Captains of industry. Masters of the Universe. Movers and shakers all. God help the mark._ \- he thought.

Tall and lean, with a thick shock of mostly-brown hair, Steele had deep blue eyes, a long, straight nose, a firm mouth, and a strong chin with a faint cleft. During his campaign, media commentators had routinely described him as "movie-star handsome." He knew that to be only a slight exaggeration. More than three years in office had lined his forehead, and grayed his temples, but he still radiated strength and command.

He took a sip from the glass of water on the top of the podium, and began to speak.

"Members and directors of the Commonwealth Club, honored guests, and members of the Fourth Estate, I thank you for inviting me here to speak to you this morning," he said. "At the invitation of the Club's Board of Directors, I take as my subject the topic of multi-lateralism in the evolving world economy."

\- _A topic on which I used to think I was well-qualified to speak. It's amazing how much humility three-and-a-quarter years in the White House shoves down your throat._ -

The President allowed himself a disarming smile.

"Please contain your excitement," he requested.

Laughter filled the room at this sally.

"America's status as the single remaining superpower has been in decline for nearly two decades now," he continued. "With our disastrous adventure in Iraq, and the descent of that country into what it is now clear was inevitable civil war upon our departure, the notion that we should naturally become the world's policeman in the 21st century has become little more than a sad joke. At the same time, with the confluence of near-universal outsourcing of our domestic industrial production to developing countries, and the persistent global economic recession – which has shrunk our middle class to near-extinction, and pushed far too many of our working-class citizens into impoverishment from which they have little prospect of escape – our rank as the mightiest economic engine in the world has suffered badly, as well. Now, we are economically beset on all sides, and facing a teetering mountain of national debt that has only grown higher and steeper, thanks in large part to our chronically-deadlocked Congress. We have finally reached the point where we have no choice but to admit to ourselves that our long, and dearly-held national belief in America's inherent exceptionalism is, in fact, merely a collective delusion."

Steele paused to gauge the effect of his opening salvo. He noted reactions ranging from stony politeness to outright hostility from most of those in the first few rows of the audience. Here and there among them was a scatter of nodding heads and thoughtful expressions – but they were in the distinct minority.

"To the contrary," the President told them, "the truth is we are every bit as as vulnerable as the next country - vulnerable not only to bad decision-making by our politicians, but also to foolish choices by our corporate leaders, to irresponsibility on the part of our regulators, and to partisan myopia on the part of our highest courts. It is now painfully clear that we must fundamentally change the way we think of ourselves and others; must elementally alter the way we treat the citizens of our own and other countries; and, most crucially, must transform the way we lead this nation, both in the public and the private sectors. As a society, we can no longer afford the luxury of parochial arrogance, heedless cupidity, and smug isolationism. It is time – indeed, it is well past time – we admitted that we need the rest of the world as much as it needs us. No longer can we deny that our economy has become so inextricably entwined with those of the rest of the developed, and developing world that, from hence forth, we all stand or fall together."

\- _The wingnuts will be all over me like a coat of paint for that_. _Fuck 'em. It's the truth, and these people need to hear the truth, if anyone does_. -

"Falling," he observed, "seems like a bad choice to me."

There was an encouraging murmur of agreement from his audience.

"So," Steele posited, "the question then becomes: 'What specific steps must we take to implement these changes?' What is our optimum path forward?"

He paused to sip from the cut-crystal glass atop the podium.

As he set the glass back down on the podium, Special Agent Roger Waters, head of his Secret Service detail strode up to him, and whispered urgently in his ear. For a moment, the President's face was a study in shock and horror – but only for a moment. Then he straightened, unconsciously squared his shoulders, and turned back to the microphone.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I regret to say we'll have to leave it at that, for now. I thank you for your attention, but I'm afraid I have urgent business to attend to."

Without another word, William Orwell Steele turned, and walked away, as his Secret Service phalanx fell in around him.

**May 1, 2020, 12:05 pm EDT**

## North Cove Marina, New York City

Clarabelle Wong shuffled towards the Hudson River, her arms outstretched before her, like a zombie in a cheap horror movie.

Melted flesh hung in tatters from her arms. Her hair and ears were blackened crusts. She remained clothed, only because what remained of her red track suit was fused to the skin of her sides and shoulders. Her back, her buttocks, and the backs of her legs were more than naked – they were burned to the bone. So was the back of her skull.

After nearly two weeks in New York City, Clarabelle had almost completed the list of must-see attractions on her vacation itinerary.

When the bomb went off, she was standing on the Esplanade at the Southwestern end of North Cove Marina. Facing away from Manhattan, she was focused on taking a cell phone photo of Ellis Island, a kilometer distant across the Hudson River. The tower of the World Financial Center had partially shielded her from the blast, so she had escaped being more-or-less instantly vaporized. Instead, the pressure wave slammed her hard against the seawall; the heat flash had burned the flesh from her bones; and the gamma and X-ray radiation had stormed through the genetic material of her body's cells like the Visigoths through Rome.

As yet, she felt no pain. Shock spared her that, at least. But she was terribly, terribly thirsty, and she felt feverish, and sick to her stomach. Water was what she wanted, more than anything else – cool, refreshing water.

Overhead, the mushroom cloud over lower Manhattan blotted out the Sun.

**May 1, 2020, 9:21 am PDT (12:21 EDT)**

## The Presidential Limousine, Highway 101, San Francisco, CA

"Let me get this straight," asked William Orwell Steele, "The explosion was how large?"

"We estimate – that is, the DoD estimates – it was in the 20 kiloton range, sir," responded Ronald Wheaton, his Deputy Security Advisor.

"Goddamnit," the President scowled, "I don't know what that means. Translate it into terms a non-expert can grasp."

"Well, sir," Wheaton replied, "it was about the same size as the bomb we dropped on Nagasaki."

"Okay, that helps," Steele responded. "Go on."

"However, this one did a lot more damage, sir," Wheaton added.

"Why?" the President challenged.

"Well, sir," Wheaton said, "for one thing, it was contained within the Freedom Tower. Just for a few milliseconds, of course, but that was long enough to ensure that most of the blast's force was horizontal..."

"And?" Steele prompted, impatiently.

"And that meant that it destroyed most of Lower Manhattan, sir," Wheaton told him.

" _Most_ of Lower Manhattan? My god."

The President's face was gray with shock.

Wheaton nodded.

"Unfortunately, sir," he said, "that's not even the worst news."

"It's not?" Steele demanded. "Then what is?"

Wheaton shook his tousled, ever-so-slightly-graying curls.

"Sir," he replied, "I'm afraid the worst news is that, because it vaporized most of the World Trade Center, the explosion has generated a whole lot more radioactive fallout than the Nagasaki bomb did. And, again unfortunately, the wind is blowing that fallout straight up the coast toward Boston."

"Jesus H. Christ," said Steele. "Is there anything we can do about that?"

"Other than to alert the people in the path of the fallout cloud to evacuate, if they can? No sir. I'm afraid not," Wheaton replied.

"Jesus H. Christ," the President of the United States repeated. "Jesus H. _fucking_ Christ."

**May 1, 2020, 12:38 pm EDT**

## 50 Hudson St., Jersey City NJ

Aragorn Northcutt Hardcastle, Senior Vice President of National Treasuries Trading for North America, awoke in darkness, silence, and pain.

The last thing he remembered was the incredibly brilliant flash of light, that had jolted him out of his focus on the bank of monitors that ringed his desk – and distracted him from noticing they had all gone blank simultaneously. He recalled standing, to stare through the glass of his office on the 35th floor of the Goldman Sachs Building at the giant, roiling fireball blossoming across the Hudson River; straining to comprehend the horrible, repellently beautiful spectacle unfolding before him.

\- _My god!_ \- He remembered thinking. - _It's an atomic bomb! A fucking atomic bomb!_ -

Then... _something_ had happened. Thinking about it now, he still couldn't wrap his mind around just what it had been. He knew only that he was blind, and deaf, and in horrible, excruciating pain. He tried to move his right arm, which was draped across his face. The wave of agony that instantly crashed over him at the effort caused him to black out once again.

When he awoke, some unknown time later, he smelled smoke.

**May 1, 2020, 9:47 am PDT (12:47 pm EDT)**

## Air Force One, somewhere over Nevada

William Steele sat behind the desk in the tiny communications studio aboard Air Force One, waiting for the red light atop the unblinking eye of the television camera to glow. His mind was awhirl with the data with which he had been bombarded since his conversation with Ronald Wheaton, his Deputy National Security Advisor, in the limo on the way to San Francisco International Airport.

Beside the camera, crouched the floor director – Bob something-or-other – counting down the final few seconds to what would be perhaps the most important speech of his presidency. The temperature in the little room was stifling from the intensely-bright television lights, despite the continuous soft whir of air conditioning.

The floor director, holding up all five fingers of his right hand, announced, "Five." His thumb folded across his palm. "Four." His index finger bent to cover his thumb. "Three." Folding his middle finger down against his thumb and forefinger, Bob mouthed, "Two." His ring finger joined the others. His little finger came down to make a fist. He raised his index finger and brought it sharply forward to point directly at the President, as the red light mounted on the camera lit up.

For a long moment, the President sat silent, looking not into, but beyond the camera, as if gathering his energy. His demeanor was calm, his expression grim, his gaze intense.

"My fellow Americans," he began, "it is with great sorrow and great anger that I come before you today. I am sorry to report that, at noon today, thus far unidentified forces of terror detonated a nuclear weapon in the heart of New York City. It destroyed much of the island of Manhattan, and created a cloud of nuclear fallout that is expected to reach Boston within the next 36 hours.

"I am therefore declaring a state of national emergency," Steele continued, "and invoking martial law, beginning immediately. I have ordered all civilian air traffic grounded, and our national borders sealed. This means only active duty military, and State Department personnel on official business will be permitted to leave the United States, and only American citizens bearing valid passports will be permitted to enter.

"I have requested that Congress meet immediately to ratify these declarations. I am now on my way back to Washington to meet with my Cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, my advisors on national security, and the leaders of both parties in Congress, so that we can begin the important work of rescuing and caring for the survivors of this cowardly attack."

The President's grim expression softened to one of concern.

"If you are in the path of the fallout cloud, you will receive instructions from local authorities on when and how to evacuate. In the meantime, I urge you to remain indoors. If you are currently at work, please stay there. If you are at home, do not leave, particularly if you live, work, or go to school anywhere in the New York City metro area. It is dangerous for you to be outside – nuclear radiation is invisible, but, if you are exposed to it, it can make you very sick, or even kill you." Steele's hands came up in supplication. "I urge you to wait for your local authorities to tell you when to evacuate, and to give you instructions on how to do so safely.

"I have directed the National Guard to mobilize along the expected path of the fallout cloud, and around the New York metro area. I have also ordered the call up of our nation's military reserve forces. I will be dispatching units of the Army and Marines to these areas, as well. Please cooperate with them. If they ask you to leave your home, your school, or your place of employment, please do not argue with them. Take comfort in knowing that these are your fellow Americans, and that they have your safety and well-being as their highest goal."

The President paused for a moment. His expression once again became flinty.

"Know this, too," he said. "In time, we _will_ identify those responsible for this outrage, and we _will_ bring them to justice. That is not our first priority. At the moment, our prime responsibility is to the thousands – and perhaps even millions – of injured and homeless victims of this cowardly assault, and to those of you who are in danger from the approaching fallout cloud. But believe me when I say that identifying, seeking out, and returning a full measure of retribution upon those who have dared to wreak this outrage on our country, and our fellow citizens _is_ a priority to which we shall turn our full attention at the earliest possible moment." Unconsciously, Steele clenched his fist. "Let those who are responsible for this crime understand that they will pay for it, in full – and soon."

The President again paused. The anger faded from his features.

"I will speak to you again," he promised, "after I return to our Capitol, and have had the opportunity to more fully assess the damage this attack has caused, and make more detailed plans to cope with its aftermath. In the meantime, my fellow Americans, we must not give in to fear and panic. That would surely mean victory for those who perpetrated this crime. Instead, let us have courage and confidence that our nation _will_ survive this time of trial, and that we _will_ soon emerge from it; still strong, determined, and proud. Let us demonstrate to the world that America is, as it has always been, the greatest country on Earth – and that we, its people, are, as we have always been, our nation's greatest strength.

"I thank you for your attention, and your cooperation," Steele concluded. "May God bless America."

For a lingering moment, the red light atop the camera continued to glow, as the President sat, gazing intently into the camera's lens, jaw set, deep blue eyes resolute. For that moment, to his unseen audience, William Orwell Steele seemed to embody the very American virtue his final words had celebrated. For that moment, President William Steele _was_ America.

Then the red light winked out. A moment later, Steele slumped tiredly in his chair.

\- _So much for the end of American exceptionalism_. -

**May 1, 2020, 1:01 pm EDT**

## 1st St., Hackensack, NJ

Nakeesha Gramble pedaled her Big Wheel up First Street. Her short legs pumped furiously. The tricycle's plastic wheels rumbled rewardingly on the concrete sidewalk.

Nakeesha loved her Big Wheel. Her Momma's boyfriend Donell had given it to her for her fifth birthday, just two months earlier. Nakeesha loved Donell, too. He was always nice to her. He brought her presents all the time: clothes, Barbies, her precious Big Wheel. He smelled nice, and he looked _fine_ , and her Momma really liked him. But Donell had stopped coming around, all of a sudden, a couple of weeks after her birthday. Momma said the Po-Po got him.

Nakeesha hated the Po-Po, because they made Donell stop coming around.

Nakeesha hated Momma's new boyfriend, Marq, too. He did things to her, when Momma took one of her naps – things Nakeesha didn't like. Momma took a lot of naps, now that Donell had stopped coming around, so Nakeesha had taken to riding her Big Wheel around the neighborhood, every time Momma's head started to nod. She'd call, "'Bye, Momma!" and race out the door, before Marq came out of the bathroom.

As she pedaled past the parking lot of the Center for Food Action, sudden darkness descended over Nakeesha. Then big, fat raindrops began to fall on her. The raindrops were black. They made ugly blotches where they landed on her sky blue jumper.

Ordinarily, Nakeesha paid little attention to the weather. Sunshine was nicer than rain, of course, but even being rained on was better than letting Marq do things to her. But there was something about this rain that frightened Nakeesha. It seemed wrong for it to be black. It smelled funny to her, and the raindrops were so big that, when one of them landed on her hand, it hurt a little. Then one hit her in the eye. It burned something awful.

Growing more afraid, Nakeesha turned her Big Wheel around in the very next driveway. Legs pumping furiously, she fled toward home and the comfort of Momma's presence. Somehow even Marq seemed less scary than the black rain.

Around Nakeesha, the sprinkle of oversized black raindrops abruptly turned into a roaring downpour.

**May 1, 2020, 11:30 am MDT (1:30 pm EDT)**

## Air Force One, somewhere over Colorado

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?"

Yvonne Clevinger, the President's Press Secretary, paused for a moment to allow the members of the press pool to settle down. There was a low rustle of notepads and pens being readied, then quiet descended on Air Force One's press cabin.

Clevinger glanced briefly down at her notes, then back up at the assembled journalists, attentive in their airline-style seats.

"The President has asked me to apologize to you all for the delay in briefing you," she told them. "He wanted us to have as much information as possible available for you at this first briefing, which is why it has taken this long."

Softly, she cleared her throat.

"As you know from the President's speech," she went on, "at approximately noon today, there was a nuclear explosion in New York City. Satellite imagery indicates that the blast originated at the site of the World Trade Center, and that, most likely, the actual Ground Zero was the Freedom Tower, at 1 World Trade Center."

A buzz of interest filled the room. This was the first members of the press had heard this particular detail, and it shook them all.

"The World Trade Center has been destroyed, as has much of Lower Manhattan," Clevinger continued. "Brooklyn and Jersey City have sustained blast damage, and infrared satellite imagery leads us to believe that much of Manhattan is currently on fire."

Gasps and murmurs swept the room.

"Due to the electro-magnetic pulse from the explosion," the Press Secretary resumed, "all radio, TV, cell phone, and Internet communications with the city have been disrupted. We currently have no contact with anyone on Manhattan Island, at all. Because of severe radiation danger, we have not yet been able to send any members of the National Guard, the Army, or the Marines into New York proper, although units of all three branches of the armed services are now being marshaled near the perimeter of the blast zone. We expect reconnaissance missions by air and ground to begin within the next few hours." She looked up from her notes. "There is no reliable data on casualties yet, and we expect that accurate figures will take weeks to compile – if not longer."

Unable to contain themselves, journalists began hurling questions at Clevinger. She held up a hand to forestall them.

"Please hold your questions until I'm done telling you what we know," she requested.

"But, what about...?" Reed Bullock, the Fox News reporter demanded.

"Please." Clevinger stared him down, her hazel eyes unyielding. "Otherwise we'll never get through this."

She lifted the sheaf of papers on her podium, then let them fall back to its surface.

"As the President announced," she continued, "a cloud of extremely radioactive fallout from the bombing is traveling up the Atlantic coast. With winds currently from the south-southwest at approximately 15 miles per hour, we expect the cloud to reach the Boston area sometime within the next 24 hours."

"How radioactive is it?" came a voice from the back of the room.

Clevinger recognized it as that of Preston Hollingsworth, the White House reporter for MSNBC.

"We can't be sure what the level of radioactivity will be once the fallout cloud actually reaches Boston," she replied, "but we believe it's virtually certain to be lethal to anyone caught outside without protection."

A collective gasp of horror filled the room. The implications of Clevinger's statement were clear enough. This would be a nuclear nightmare far worse than Chernobyl or Fukushima, and it was happening on American soil. Clevinger could almost smell her audience's fear.

"Because this cloud is dropping a stream of highly-radioactive dust particles as it travels," she explained, fighting to keep her voice from trembling, "even once it moves out over the ocean, it will leave behind an extended zone of contamination that will render large areas of the Northeastern seaboard uninhabitable for months, or possibly even years to come."

"Oh, God," someone said. Sheila Cubbins, the NPR reporter, began to cry.

"Obviously, evacuating those in the path of the fallout cloud is our highest priority," Clevinger said. "For that, we're counting on you folks to help us get the word out."

"What about the people in areas the cloud has already passed over?" demanded Bullock.

The Press Secretary blinked solemnly.

"It may already be too late for them," she said. Her voice broke.

"Most of them will probably die," she told them.

**May 1, 2020, 2:10 pm MDT**

## MTA Subway Line 7, New York City

Eydis Finnursdottir welcomed the clamor of voices that was becoming audible in the darkness ahead.

She had been a passenger on the 7 line when the power failed, and the subway train on which she was riding ground to a halt. That was somewhere beneath Sixth Avenue, halfway between the Grand Central and Times Square stations. The blackness aboard the stalled train was absolute – even the emergency lights had failed to come on. Around her, the initial calm of the other passengers – phlegmatic New Yorkers, for the most part, accustomed to the occasional breakdowns of the MTA's flagship technology – eventually began to give way to the same creeping panic that groped her heart with clammy fingers.

"Dis is takin' a long time," came one nasal, female voice with a strong Brooklyn accent.

"No shit," agreed a deep, male voice, in tones of purest Bronx.

"Where are da Goddamn lights?" questioned another Bronxian.

"And why doesn't my cell phone work?" a woman demanded, her voice rising in fear.

"Hey, mine don't work neither!" cried a man, his baritone voice cracking.

"What da fuck is goin' on here!" someone shouted.

After that, all semblance of conversation had disappeared. Fear ran rampant through the stranded crowd of passengers, until, finally, a commanding voice cut through the panic with a roar.

"Shut up!" it demanded. "All of yez, just _shut up_!"

What had been well on its way to becoming a mob almost gratefully accepted the admonition of this Brooklynese apparition. Quiet descended.

"Alright," their new leader said. "This ain't no normal-type power failure, like. There oughtta be emergency lights out there, and in here, but there ain't none."

There was a general murmur of agreement with this observation. Obvious as it might have been, no one else had realized there were supposed to be battery-powered emergency lights at regular intervals along the subway track.

"All our cellies is out, too," the Brooklynite observed. "That ain't normal, neither. That means we prob'ly ain't gonna get rescued any time soon."

A renewed hubbub broke out at this prediction.

"Shut _up_ , I said!" he barked.

The panic again receded.

"Now, the way I see it," he told them, "we can sit here and wait til the MTA pulls its thumb outta its ass – an' who knows when _that's_ gonna happen – or we can get our shit together, and rescue our own selves."

"How?" asked the woman from Brooklyn.

"Easy-peasy," the leader replied. "First of all, I gotta open the emergency exit. That's right here..."

There was a sliding noise.

"... an now it's open," he continued. "Now, all you people gotta come here, so's we can all hold hands, like."

Tentatively, Eydis rose from her seat. Blindly groping, she made her way toward the voice in the blackness. With her hand outstretched before her, she blundered into the back of someone in a wool coat.

"Please excuse me," Eydis apologized.

"Not to worry," said the woman from Brooklyn.

They had fumbled for each other's hands, clasping them together, before continuing their creeping progress toward the voice of authority at the end of the car. Both women were grateful to be actually doing something – anything – rather than simply waiting helplessly in the dark.

Slowly, the passengers assembled, urged on by their anonymous leader. Eventually, they stretched in a line, hand-in-hand, down the aisle from the subway car's emergency exit.

"Okay," said the Brooklynite. "I'm gonna climb down here, like. Then all of you gotta climb down onto the tracks after me. Don't worry, I'll help you. Then we're all gonna join hands, and walk back to Times Square Station. Okay?"

They had done so, stumbling along in a single file, holding hands to keep themselves together.

Their leader had cautioned them to, "Stay clear of the third rail. If the power comes back on, you could fry like a egg."

It was slow going, despite the dim light from their otherwise-useless cell phone screens.

The Brooklynite who led them – whose name, Eydis learned, was Robert "call me Bob" Bildinsky – frequently barked his shins on unexpected obstacles. Each such encounter was marked by fluent cursing. Once he had actually fallen, and Eydis had learned a whole new set of English vulgarisms as a consequence. But, as time crept by in the penumbral gloom, they made steady progress towards Times Square Station. Now, at last, they were within earshot of their destination.

Eydis was grateful beyond measure.

The track had been dry when they started off, but water had begun to rise around their ankles some time after their journey had begun. Now it was almost up to their knees, and wading through it was difficult, and frightening. Soon, though, in fact, any minute now, Eydis expected there would be light, and their ordeal would come to an end.

\- _What a tale I will have to tell, once I am back in Reykjavik!_ -

Then they arrived at Times Square Station. Hands reached down to lift them up, onto the platform. Eydis felt she might faint with relief.

It was crowded. Very, very crowded. In fact, it was jam-packed with bodies. The heat and the stench of terrified humans on the unventilated platform was overwhelming. Eydis struggled to understand why the crowd didn't simply take the stairs up to the street, and simply leave this stinking, dark, broiling-hot place.

Then someone who had seen the explosion told her about the bomb. And the gray, snow-like drifts of fallout covering the streets of Manhattan. And the black rain.

Suddenly, Eydis was more afraid than ever.

**May 1, 2020, 1:34 pm CDT (2:34 pm EDT)**

## Air Force One, somewhere over Nebraska

"It's simply not going to be possible to evacuate everyone, Mr. President," said Stephen Dawkins, the President's Science Advisor, speaking by radio from Washington, DC.

His voice, emanating from a speakerphone on the conference room table, was blurred by crackling static, and a persistent high hiss.

"Unless the wind shifts to the East in the next 12 hours or so – and NOAA says that's unlikely, with tropical storm Beth moving up the coast – the Fallout Zone will stretch as far as 50 to 75 miles inland, by the time the cloud reaches Boston," he continued. "New England freeways and secondary roads are already jammed with traffic. It's total gridlock in the Boston area, now. God only knows what's going to happen by tomorrow morning."

"What about an airlift? Can't we rescue at least some people that way?" asked the President.

"We're looking into that, Mr. President," Dawkins replied. "The problem is, Boston Logan is already one of the busiest airports in the country. Hanscom Field, Worchester Regional, Beverly Municipal, and Norwood Memorial aren't much better – and most of those runways are too short to accommodate jumbo jets."

"What about military airfields? Can't we use those?" Steele suggested.

"All closed years ago, sir," Dawkins responded, "except for those on the Massachusetts Military Reservation – and that's nearly 50 miles from Boston. I'm sorry."

"Fuck," said the President.

There was silence in the conference room for several uncomfortable seconds.

Then, "What about evacuation by sea?" he asked.

Over the speakerphone, the baritone voice of Admiral Harlan Adams, Chief of Staff of the Navy, replied, "Unfortunately, Mr. President, we've already ordered all naval vessels in the Fallout Zone to weight anchor and head Southeast at flank speed."

"What... Why? And why was I not consulted?" Steele demanded, his jaw tightening.

"I apologize, Mr. President," Adams replied. "The Chiefs unanimously agreed it was necessary to act immediately, if we're to save any of our fleet assets in the area from serious contamination. As it is, some of the slower boats – oil tenders and the like – are liable to get pretty heavily dusted, regardless. They just don't have the legs to avoid the fallout."

"I see," said Steele. Again there was silence in the room.

"Here's the thing, sir," Dawkins ventured, at last, "If people stay in their homes, they'll probably receive a lot less radiation than they will if they're caught in their cars when the cloud arrives."

"How so?" the President inquired, his curiosity aroused.

"The air gap between the roof and the ceiling of most buildings will considerably reduce the amount of primary radiation they'll experience," Dawkins explained. "We can thank the inverse square law for that. In a car, they'll be a lot closer to the primary emissions source – the fallout, that is – and they'll get a lot of secondary emissions from primary collisions with the metal in their car roofs."

"In other words..." Steele prompted.

"In other words, sir," Dawkins told him, "they'll fry a lot faster in their cars – and an awful lot of them will be in their cars by the time the cloud arrives."

"That's unacceptable," the President protested.

"It gets worse, sir," Dawkins said, grimly. "Even staying in their homes, they'll receive a lethal dose within days. It'll just happen faster if they're in their cars. Unfortunately, once the fallout cloud arrives, the whole environment will likely be too contaminated to permit us to rescue most of them – and, even if they survive until help arrives, the radiation they'll be exposed to during the rescue attempt will probably kill them."

"And there's nothing we can do about that?" Steele asked.

"No, sir, there's not. I'm sorry, sir," Dawkins told him.

There was silence in the room.

**May 1, 2020, 3:15 pm EDT**

## Interstate 90 westbound, Watertown, MA

Sean Halloran Sr. swore mechanically at the traffic sitting motionless all around him. His heart wasn't really in it, though. He had already exhausted his store of stock and original profanity, vulgarity, and general malediction twice over, along with his reserves of vehemence. Now he was coasting on linguistic momentum alone.

"What the fuck is the holdup?" he demanded for the dozenth time, despite knowing very well what was causing the gridlock.

Every driver around him had evidently turned on his or her radio when the power failed, just as Sean had done. Like him, they all had heard the same, unbelievable news. Like him, they had listened with mounting panic to the President's speech. And, like him, they had all made the same decision: to run, as fast as possible, away from the approaching fallout cloud.

"Honey, calm down," his wife Fiona replied – for the dozenth time. "It's just a traffic jam. It'll clear up soon."

"Ya think so?" Sean responded. "Ya think so? 'Cause I don't think so. No, I don't think it's gonna clear up any fuckin' time soon, Fiona. An' ya know why I don't think it's gonna clear up any fuckin' time soon? Do ya have any fuckin' idea why I don't think it's gonna clear up any goddamn time soon?"

Fiona cringed.

"Because of the bomb?" she offered, timidly.

"You're goddamn right, 'Because of the bomb!'" Sean roared, pounding his fist on the steering wheel of his idling 2016 Chevrolet Sierra crew cab pickup truck. "Because of the fuckin' _bomb_ , Fiona! Because of the fuckin' _bomb_!"

Fiona began to cry. Sean Jr., who was strapped into his car seat in the back of the Sierra, began to cry, too.

**May 1, 2020, 3:30 pm EDT**

## Air Force One, somewhere over Ohio

"To be honest, Mr. President, at this point, we have no clue who's responsible."

Arleigh Solomon's rumbling basso sounded clearly from the speakerphone. The Secretary of Internal Security – the recently reorganized, and renamed Department of Homeland Security – was famous for his unapologetic bluntness.

"Half-a-dozen different groups, from someone calling themselves 'Al Qaeda in America' to the Afghani Taliban, have claimed responsibility for the bombing on Jihadi websites. It's unlikely any of them is the true culprit. My guess is that whoever is actually behind this is going to keep as low a profile as possible for the foreseeable future. They'll remember what happened to bin Laden and his crew, and stay on the down low. The NSA agrees with me on that, by the way."

"And the CIA?" asked the President.

"Not as much," admitted Solomon. "But, quite frankly, sir, those guys still couldn't find their collective ass with both hands and a roadmap."

Steele sighed.

Since his administration assumed office, a series of highly-public _faux pas_ on the CIA's part had highlighted serious shortcomings in the Agency's core competence – and helped make the reorganization of the cumbersome dinosaur into which the DHS had evolved politically unavoidable. The bungled assassination of the head of Pakistan's Directorate of Inter-Service Intelligence just six months ago had been the final straw. The United States' relations with the Islamic nuclear state – never close or comfortable – had teetered on the brink of total rupture ever since.

"What about state actors?" the President asked.

"Very possible, sir," Solomon replied. "In fact, if I had to bet, that's where I'd put my money."

"Pakistan?" Steele suggested.

"Seems like the obvious suspect, doesn't it, Mr. President? On the other hand, it'd be just like the _Pasdaran_ to pull something like this, and let us blame it on the obvious suspect. Those Iranian bastards are subtle." Solomon snorted. "Hell, come to that, I wouldn't put it past the Israelis, either – except that, if it was them, I'd've expected them to plant clues pointing to Iran, instead."

"If I understand you correctly, Arleigh," Steele observed, "clues are in somewhat short supply at the moment."

"Yes sir, that's a fact," Solomon agreed. "At the moment, we can't even access the scene of the crime, so to speak – and I doubt we'll find much to go on, once we do. I'm afraid nuclear weapons are pretty effective at erasing fingerprints."

Steele sighed. "Keep digging, Arleigh. Find out who did this. I don't care what it takes – _find_ those assholes."

"Yes sir," Solomon promised. "We'll find them."

**May 1, 2020, 4:00 pm EDT**

## New Jersey Turnpike, Elizabethport, New Jersey

Colonel Arif Fahrood Khan wiped his vomit-flecked lips on his sleeve, tossed his dirty-blond hair out of his ice-blue eyes, and staggered back through the bushes to his stolen bicycle. He had left it parked on its kickstand, on the shoulder of the otherwise-vacant northbound Long Island Expressway. Wearily, he remounted the Schwinn, and continued his now-increasingly-laborious journey south towards Washington D. C. and the sanctuary of the Pakistani embassy.

\- _Allah has passed judgment on me. I will die the death of a fool, instead of that of a martyr. Ah well. Allahu akbar._ -

He knew he deserved his fate, not because of the deaths of so many infidels – that was a reason for pride, not regret – but for having failed to consider the consequences of the Sword of Allah's EMP on the vehicle he had chosen for his escape from the bomb's deadly effects. He had failed to take into account that all modern automobiles depended on electronic ignition and other computer-controlled systems. As a result, the bomb had rendered his Subaru immobile, along with all the other cars in the Bronx he might have stolen in its place. Trapped by his own foolish oversight, Khan had been reduced to stealing this ridiculous bicycle in his effort to escape the Sword's deadly power.

At least he had the sense to torch the garage in which Tariq Aziz's box van had been modified with lead shielding, and a super-duty suspension. He had taken pains to make it look like an accident, just in case any arson investigation might ever be conducted.

\- _Not that that's bloody likely. The infidels will have their filthy hands full enough, just coping with the dead._ -

The thought comforted him, as a coughing fit shook him, forcing him to stop until the spasm passed.

There was death in his lungs. That he knew. The painter's mask he had worn during the initial stage of his journey had not been effective enough to protect him from inhaling particles of the gentle, gray snow of fallout that had drifted down all around him, as he pedaled through the deserted streets of the Bronx. Nor had the baseball cap and raincoat he'd worn at first – long since abandoned, as he reached the verge of heat prostration – kept the deadly stuff from accumulating on his head and shoulders.

Khan – Colonel Arif Fahrood Khan of the Inter-Service Agency to his supervisors and his teammates, Timothy Hilliard according to the passport tucked into his shirt pocket – despaired now of ever reaching Washington. It was clear he had already absorbed a more-than-lethal dose of radioactivity; clear that he would soon be incapacitated; clear that he would never again see his beloved Peshawar. Never again would he hear the blessed words of his beloved imam, and never again hold his beloved wife Roshina.

\- _Ah, Roshina – truly the light of my life. May Allah forgive me for loving you more than Him._ "

Khan spat on the roadside. His spittle was threaded with blood.

\- _Not a good sign. I wonder if I will last long enough to find a car to steal? Perhaps then I can make it to our Embassy before I die? Insha'Allah – it will be as Allah wills._ -

Sighing, he stood on the Schwinn's pedals, and resumed his slow journey South.

**May 1, 2020, 4:30 pm EDT**

## Air Force One, entering Washington, DC Special Flight Rules Area

"Let me get this straight, General," the President said, "you're telling me there won't be boots on the ground in Boston any earlier than midnight – and you would prefer holding off on sending in the first wave of troops until the day _after_ tomorrow?"

"Yes, sir," responded General Winston S. Chung's voice from the speakerphone, "that's the course of action the Chiefs of Staff unanimously recommend."

"Damnit, General, _why_?" demanded William Orwell Steele.

"Mr. President," Chung replied, "forgive me for being blunt, but 'boots on the ground' aren't useful, if the troops wearing those boots aren't prepared to do anything other than stand around in them. It's true we could physically get at least a token force to the Boston area inside of the next couple of hours – but it would not be equipped to accomplish anything useful. Most of the troops we will be committing to this mission are currently stationed at Ft. Bragg. To get them to the Boston area, along with all the ancillary support, command-and-control, logistics, and other infrastructure they'll need to actually accomplish the assignment you've tasked them with, requires a good deal of planning and organization.

"Your own science advisor's forecast indicates that, by tomorrow night, the greater Boston area is going to be a radioactive killing zone. If you insist on ordering me to commit our troops, without giving us sufficient time and resources to prepare for their deployment, they will arrive there, to be optimistic, perhaps 18 hours ahead of the fallout cloud. They will have with them no anti-radiation suits, no radiac units, no radiation-shielded command-and-control or logistics facilities, and no vehicles equipped to allow them move around in the area without being exposed to lethal doses of radiation. Sir, I cannot more strongly advocate against so pointlessly putting our people in harm's way, to no useful purpose – and I assure you that the other Chiefs are in full agreement with that position."

There was a long moment of silence.

Finally Steele said, "Thank you for your honesty, General. I appreciate it."

He paused to gather his thoughts.

"All right, I'll tell you what I'd like you to do..." the President announced.

"Sir?" Chung asked.

"Get your ducks lined up to start moving troops – and all their associated impedimenta – into the region the moment we develop a reliable picture of where the borders of the Fallout Zone are likely to be," he instructed. "I want their deployment to commence no later than 0600 Monday morning. In the meantime, get with the Energy Department, and start working on a plan to evacuate as much of the civilian population as possible from the Zone, without exposing your personnel to unnecessary risk in the process."

"Yes sir," Chung replied. "Right away. And... thank you, sir."

**May 1, 2020, 5:03 pm EDT**

## Northern State Prison, Newark, NJ

Donell Jackson was worried. Arun "Big Sugar" Washington had sent word he wanted to speak to Jackson – and a summons from Big Sugar was more than enough to worry any sane con. Washington was a powerful _don_ , even by comparison with other gang bosses in Northern State Prison. The thought that he might inadvertently have done something to earn his ire made Jackson's heart race with fear.

Donell had once stumbled into Big Sugar in the prison dining hall. Some joker had hooked his foot, as he was making his way through the checkerboard of crowded tables. Jackson discovered the arm on which he had caught himself was as hard as oak, and bigger around than his own thigh. Sweating with terror, he had profusely apologized to Washington, explaining that he'd been tripped.

"I am aware of that," Big Sugar replied, before turning back to his meal in dismissal.

The next morning, the body of the inmate who was responsible for tripping Donell was discovered in his cell, drowned in his own toilet. The dead man's cellmate swore he had seen and heard nothing. A 30-day stretch in Administrative Sequestration had done nothing to change his story.

Donell had lived in fear of the huge, soft-spoken gang boss ever since.

Now he was being ushered into the boss's own cell. Jackson's nerves were twanging with vigilance and anticipation.

Washington nearly overflowed an easy chair that might as well have been a throne.

"Hello, Donell," he said, motioning Jackson towards the cell's single bunk. "Please have a seat."

Donell sat.

"Would you care for some pruno?" Big Sugar asked.

"Uhh... sure," Jackson replied, then hastily added, "I mean, 'Yes, thank you, Big Sugar.'"

Washington regarded him levelly. "I see that you're afraid of me," he observed. He motioned for one of his underlings to pour Jackson a cup of the prison-made wine.

Donell, accepting the proffered beverage, found himself tongue-tied. He tried to speak, but failed, and settled for nodding vigorously, instead.

"I know you are an intelligent man," Big Sugar continued. "If nothing else, your fear demonstrates that. It's clear to me that you're also an educated man. You've been very skillful at concealing both of those things from your fellow inmates, which I take to mean you're also a wise man. I find that combination of traits interesting."

Jackson gulped, and managed to croak, "What... what makes you think I'm educated, Big Sugar?"

Washington smiled, revealing a mouthful of elaborate gold inlays.

"Today, in the yard, I overheard you say, 'That's a nuclear bomb!'" he responded. "Were you as under-educated as the typical penitentiary resident, you would most likely have said, 'That's an A-bomb!' or perhaps, 'That's a nook-u-lar bomb!' That you correctly used, and pronounced the word 'nuclear' reveals your education to me."

Donell well remembered the moment the Eastern sky had lit up, brighter than the noonday sun, casting harsh horizontal shadows of him and his fellow inmates against the Admin building. He had turned, startled, towards the fading brilliance, watching in awe as the erupting cloud of smoke and dust over Lower Manhattan formed into the iconic mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. For nearly a full minute, he stood in the exercise yard, watching the cloud grow and expand, before the remnants of the shock wave reached Newark, still powerful enough to feel like a slap against his body. He had been unaware Washington was listening – unaware even that he and his crew were nearby – and equally unaware of his own surprised comment on the spectacle they had all witnessed.

"Uh... excuse me for saying so," Jackson replied, "but you sound as if you're pretty well-educated yourself, Big Sugar."

"Please, Donell," Big Sugar responded, "call me 'Suge'. And, yes, I, too, have benefited from a higher level of education than the majority of our peers."

"That's... interesting," Jackson said.

He took a sip of pruno to give himself a moment to think before continuing.

"So... Suge... may I ask why I'm here?" he inquired.

Washington smiled broadly.

"Indeed you may, Donell," he replied, "I have called you here to invite you to join my organization."

Jackson was instantly wary, although he was also flattered by Big Sugar's invitation.

Joining Washington's mob would bring with it an instant upgrade in Donell's status among the prison's population. On the other hand, it would also likely make him a target, not only of inmates jealous of his new eminence, but of Northern State's Correctional Officers, who closely monitored the prison for gang activity. His status as a newly-minted mobster would raise his profile with the bulls. That could easily result in his being reassigned from the general population – where he was free to walk the yard six hours a day, and was allowed to work in the laundry five days a week – to the Security Threat Group Management Unit.

Jackson had already done one 30 day trick in Administrative Sequestration for fighting, beginning on day one of his term at Newark. Some hog had chin-checked him, and he'd had no choice but to clock the sucker back. That was fine with him. The way Jackson figured it, it was better to do 30 in AdSeq than to be turned out as a punk, and spend the rest of his bid getting ass-raped every night.

But 30 days was more than enough. The very last thing Donell wanted was to be sent to GMU – Northern State Prison's maximum-security gang unit. There were some seriously bad dudes in there, and spending 23 hours a day in lockdown wasn't what he'd call easy time. There was also the issue that membership in Big Sugar's crew would undoubtedly carry with it obligations he might find less than welcome – and, once accepted into its ranks, leaving them might well prove impossible.

"Again, if you don't mind my asking, Suge, why?" Jackson replied, playing for time. "I mean, why me – and why now?"

Big Sugar nodded, still smiling.

"I do not at all mind," he responded. "Asking questions, rather than blindly agreeing, demonstrates an admirable and intelligent, caution, on your part. Donell, I have invited you to join us primarily because I am constantly in search of talent. As you might imagine, I have my pick of brawn – a resource in which Northern State is especially rich – but intelligence and education are a different, and much rarer, quality. My organization can always use a bright, educated man. The prospect of conversation with an intellectual peer is a minor personal inducement, as well, but it is the good of the organization that is my paramount consideration. As to why I have chosen to extend the invitation at this particular moment, the fact is that I anticipate a major disturbance in the near future, and I wanted to recruit you before it begins."

Donell was shocked. "You're expecting a riot?"

Washington nodded gravely, his expression inscrutable.

"Yes, Donell," he confirmed. "I am expecting precisely that."

**May 1, 2020, 6:30 pm EDT**

## The House Chamber, Capitol Building, Washington, DC

"Mr. Speaker, Members of this House, Senators, and distinguished guests, thank you for inviting me here to speak to you tonight," the President said. "I have come to urge you to pass – without delay, and without amendment – a bill, sponsored here by Representatives Karman and Hardin, and in identical form in the Senate by Senators Roland and Kurzweil, that will ratify my declaration this morning of a nationwide state of emergency and martial law, effective immediately, and for the duration of the current emergency.

"As you know, at noon today, this great nation suffered an act of nuclear terrorism against its largest, and most populous city. Tens or hundreds of thousands – perhaps even millions – of our fellow Americans were killed in the blast. Hundreds of thousands or millions more were injured or rendered homeless. Even now, an unknown number of our nation's citizens remain trapped in the rubble, exposed to radioactivity they can neither see, nor taste, nor smell, but which is nonetheless silently killing them.

"As I speak, the cloud of radioactive fallout from that attack is making its way up the coast toward New England. By this time tomorrow, that cloud will be passing over Boston, with potentially horrific consequences. It will leave behind it a trail of invisible poison which my Science Advisor, Professor Steven Dawkins, and Dr. Ramamurthi Singh, my Secretary of Energy, tell me will persist and remain deadly for as long as years to come."

Steele paused to survey the chamber, crowded with the powerful, before continuing.

"The challenges we face in the coming days – and, yes, months, and even years – will be epic in scope and difficulty. Meeting them will demand of us both great effort, and the expenditure of vast amounts of our national treasure. But they are challenges we cannot, must not, and will not decline – for millions of our fellow citizens' lives hang in the balance.

"Nor are these trials the only challenge that confronts us. At the moment, we have no way of knowing whether or when our enemies will strike next. It is conceivable that this bombing is merely the beginning of an extended campaign of nuclear terrorism by the so-far faceless forces of evil. So we have no choice: we must be vigilant, we must be resolute, and we cannot afford to compromise, for we cannot afford a repeat of today's events. We must be free to employ all necessary methods to discover who is responsible for this unparalleled atrocity; to find them, and to bring them to justice – for we must, and we _will_ bring them to justice.

"Tonight I ask, for the good of the country we all love, that you join together to swiftly authorize this measure. I beg you: give us the power we need to marshal all our resources to cope with this national emergency. Allow us to deploy American military forces on our own soil, so that they may help rescue, and provide succor to the survivors of the blast and the fallout cloud, prevent civil disorder, and keep the peace domestically. Do not hesitate, and do not delay. Your countrymen are counting on you. You must not let them down.

"I thank you, in advance, for your patriotism. And may God bless America."

The standing ovation lasted for nearly 20 minutes.

**May 1, 2020, 7:00 pm MDT (9:00 pm EDT)**

## Patriot Radio Studio 1, Athol, ID

The red "on air" light lit, as Merlin Friend's earphones filled with the sound of distant trumpets. The tread of pounding hoofs passed from right ear to left, and off into the distance.

Friend leaned forward, his lips close to the Neumann BCM 705 microphone that dangled from the boom in front of him, and confided in his distinctive baritone, "Good evening, Patriots. This is your friend Merlin, coming to you, for what may be the last time ever, live from Patriot Radio Studio 1, in Coeur d'Alene. Tonight, the traitors and dupes in our Congress are, even as I speak, handing that socialist spawn of Satan, William Orwell Steele, the sword he will use to sacrifice our blessed Lady Liberty upon the alter of the New World Order, and deliver our helpless nation into the clutching hands of the Bilderbergers, the Trilateralists, the Masons, and the other embodiments of the worldwide Illuminati conspiracy!

"These are dark days, indeed, my friends. Just seven hours ago, our self-appointed Tyrant directed the CIA to set off a nuclear weapon inside the Freedom Tower – a false-flag operation that was specifically designed to give him an excuse to seize absolute power, by declaring a nation-wide state of martial law! Even now, our elected representatives in that den of cowards, thieves, and traitors we call Congress are voting to ratify his declaration! Imagine that: an avowed socialist, the handmaiden of the New World Order, will, in just hours, become the first-ever, officially-sanctioned American dictator! Mark my words, Patriots, our beloved country will never emerge from its subjugation to this evil Tyrant, unless _you_ act _now_ to __ stop __ him!"

Friend had backed away from the microphone, so as not to overload the delicate ribbon of the Neumann's acoustic transducer, as he allowed his voice to rise to a shout. Now he paused for dramatic effect, admiring his own sense of theater.

"My friends," he continued, leaning forward again, " _you_ are America's final hope – its last remaining Patriots. It is _you_ , and _you alone_ , who must rise up against the Tyrant, before the minions of that evil despot can wrest away your ability to resist him. This is why _you_ have so long, so fiercely defended your sacred Second Amendment right to bear arms – so that _you_ can oppose this evil incarnate, and thwart the Tyrant's malevolent determination to enslave our helpless nation!"

Friend leaned back from the microphone, and raised his voice.

"The black helicopters are on their way – _right now_!" he cried. "The FEMA death camps are ready and waiting – _right now_! The gun-grabbers are at your door – _right now_! And only _you_ can stop them! _Only you_! _You_ cannot count on your neighbors to stop them; _you_ cannot count on the police; _you_ cannot count on the Constitution. Only _you_ can stop them. Only you."

Friend's lips were almost touching the microphone now.

" _You_ are America's last, best hope, my friends," he murmured. " _You_ are Lady Liberty's last line of defense. Thomas Jefferson himself told us, 'The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants.' _This_ is that time. William Orwell Steele is that Tyrant. And _you_ , my friends, are those patriots. Do not be afraid. Do not allow yourselves to hesitate. Our country needs you. It lies helpless, desperately in need of your courage, your determination, and your patriotism. Only _you_ can save our country. Only you."

Friend paused for effect. The silence stretched, nearly to the breaking point, before he spoke again, this time in a businesslike tone and at a normal volume.

"We'll be right back," he said, "after this word from our friends at Goldmine."

**May 1, 2020, 7:53 pm EDT**

## Northern State Prison, Newark, NJ

The riot began just as "Big Sugar" Washington predicted it would.

The correctional officers were attempting to herd the prisoners of Housing Unit A out into the prison yard, towards the dining hall. A convict named Alvin "Cowboy" Clemson was at the head of the file of the cons walking the yellow line down the long corridor to the outside. When the door swung open, Clemson nearly leaped backwards in fright.

Big Sugar's gang had spent all afternoon industriously juicing the grapevine with word that the fine sifting of gray ash and dust that had covered the yard was radioactive poison. Like everyone else who'd heard the rumor, Clemson was deathly afraid of coming into contact with it.

He shook his head so violently that Donell Jackson could hear his ears rattle.

"Uh-uh, boss!" Clemson objected. "Ah ain't a-goin' out there, no how!"

A beefy, harassed-looking guard named Timothy Timmons – the inmates called him "Tim-Tim" – belly-checked Clemson into the wall.

"You looking for a write-up, Cowboy?" Timmons demanded.

Clemson defiantly gave him the eye. "You put yo pen to the wind, Tim-Tim," he invited, in a strong West Texas accent. "Ah still ain't a-goin' out in that pizen. No how, no way."

Enraged, Timmons grabbed Cowboy by the shirt front – an act forbidden by prison system rules. The beefy CO hauled him off his feet, into a nose-to-nose confrontation.

"You giving me attitude, chump?" Timmons growled. "'Cause I'll red-tag your ass right now. You hear me?"

"Fuck you, Tim-Tim," Clemson said. His voice was level and calm. "Y'all kin write my ass up all you want, but Ah still ain't a-goin' out theah. Furilla, son."

"Bet me," Timmons snarled.

Then he physically threw Clemson out the door, into the yard. Cowboy sprawled on his back in the poison dust.

Pandemonium erupted.

What had been a docile, if resentful, line of convicts instantly turned into a raging mob. Each man was grimly determined not to be forced out into what Big Sugar Washington's rumor mill had convinced them was certain, agonizing death. Every inmate was now convinced the guards were intent on doing exactly that. The men in French blue tried their best to use their nightsticks, and pepper sprays, and physical presences to cow the rioters into submission – but there were far too few of them, and their weapons were much too puny to cope with the angry, highly-motivated throng of prisoners fighting for what they were convinced was their very survival.

Within seconds, the mob overwhelmed their guards, and stripped them of their arms. The prisoners formed savage circles around each officer; kicking them and beating them with their own batons.

Then Big Sugar's gangsters swung into action. With calculated brutality, they blindsided those who had taken the COs' truncheons, confiscating those weapons for themselves. Washington's minions mercilessly wielded them against unprotected heads, throwing back those who had been assaulting the now-helpless men in uniform.

Washington himself disdained the use of armament. He relied instead, on his enormous physical strength, and his sheer size and mass to bend the shouting, struggling convicts to his will. When one unfortunate was foolish enough to take a swing at him, Big Sugar calmly broke first his arm, then his neck. He casually tossed the still-twitching corpse into a knot of wild-eyed prisoners, flattening them against the wall.

In no more than two minutes, half-a-dozen bruised, but still very much alive Corrections Officers were huddled behind a cordon of Washington's men. The seething mob was forced to stand off in helpless fury, howling their murderous rage. Donell Jackson, who had, to his surprise, somehow acquired a billy club during the melee, stood with Big Sugar's gang, confronting the mob of bloodthirsty convicts.

Jackson found himself deeply impressed, not only with Washington's physical prowess, but with his generalship. Big Sugar had accurately predicted both the timing of the riot, and that the bulls' attempt to force the inmates to enter the contaminated prison yard would precipitate it. He had properly briefed, and deployed his men so as to take maximum advantage of the situation. They had swiftly gained complete control of both the COs and the mob, all while sustaining neither casualties to their own forces, nor to the officers who were now their hostages.

\- _If the motherfucker was white, he'd be Batman._ -

Washington moved quickly to leverage his control of the guards. He began by advancing into the no-man's-land between his gang and the furious mob. Once there, he imperiously raised one hand to focus attention on himself. The crowd, stung by curiosity, quieted momentarily. Big Sugar took advantage of the opportunity to raise his head, and stare directly into the video camera which was mounted in a wire cage in a corner of the corridor.

"I know that you are watching," he announced to the unseen officers in the control booth, "and I know that you can hear me. I want you to unlock all the doors in the tier. If you do not comply with my demand, I will turn Officer Timmons over to these gentlemen, to do with as they will."

That statement was met with a feral howl from the mob, so brimming with menace that it caused the hair on the nape of Jackson's neck to stand up.

"I will give you 30 seconds to comply," Big Sugar told the unseen COs.

Slowly, the seconds ticked by. The crowd was silent, expectantly counting to itself. When, by Jackson's reckoning, nearly a minute had elapsed, Washington spoke over his shoulder, without turning away from the mob.

"David," he requested, "would you be so good as to bring Officer Timmons to me?"

David "Little Boy" Shabazz, Big Sugar's chief enforcer – a man nearly as physically imposing as Washington himself – immediately turned to pluck Tim-Tim from the floor. Little Boy hustled Timmons forward, to stand shakily beside Washington.

Timothy Timmons was in sad shape. His blue uniform shirt was torn, and stained with blood that had flowed from his badly-broken nose down the front of his blouse. Both his eyes were blacked. Lumps were rising all over his face. One earlobe had been raggedly bitten off. Tears leaked from the corners of his swollen eyes. He trembled like a kicked puppy.

The mob bayed its blood lust. It surged toward the trio of men.

Big Sugar merely lowered his gaze from the video camera to the scrambling crowd. He thrust out his arm, palm up, like a traffic cop.

"Halt," he commanded.

The mob obeyed.

Washington again lifted his eyes to confront the unblinking gaze of the surveillance camera.

"I shall count to ten," he said, in the sudden silence. "One."

At "Seven" the mob began to mutter in excitement.

At "Nine" Officer Timmons fainted, his 200-pound frame sagging in Little Boy's iron grip.

Before Big Sugar could form the word "Ten", there was a loud clack, as the remotely-operated door locks disengaged.

The crowd of cons moaned its disappointment, but Big Sugar Washington merely smiled an ineffable, Buddha-like smile, knowing he had won.

Within an hour, every Corrections Officer in the building surrendered to Big Sugar's men. They were safely locked in a cell, guarded by Washington's underlings. Donell alone accompanied the capo to the control room, where he spent much of the next hour negotiating by telephone with Nathaniel Lundegran, the Warden of North State Prison.

"Come now, Nathaniel," Big Sugar was saying, "we are both men of integrity. Let us focus on solutions that benefit us both."

Lundegran's voice cracked with umbrage at Washington's unwanted familiarity.

"'Men of integrity?' _You_?" he scoffed. "You're nothing but a common thug, Washington!"

"To the contrary," Big Sugar replied, his tone unruffled, "I am a most uncommon thug, Nathaniel. At the moment, I am an uncommon thug, who literally holds the lives of several dozen of your officers in the palm of my hand. It therefore behooves you to treat me as if I were, indeed, the man of integrity I claim to be, does it not?"

"You'll pay for this, Washington," Lundegran growled, "I swear it."

"In the next world, perhaps," Washington agreed cheerfully. "In the here-and-now, however, I expect you will thank me, in the end."

"What?" Lundegran exploded. "Why, you scumbag, when I get through with you, you'll be lucky to get life without parole! In solitary!"

"Come now, Nathaniel," Big Sugar replied. "Consider that, had I not intervened, six of your men would now be deceased in ways that would have mitigated in favor of closed-casket funerals. You have me alone to thank that they are, if somewhat the worse for wear, still very much alive. I assure you that I intend them to remain in that condition, regardless of the outcome of our little colloquoy. I ask you, are these not the actions of a man of integrity?"

"Get to the point, Washington," Lundegran rasped. "What the fuck do you want?"

The mob boss smiled at Jackson.

To the Warden, he responded, "Ah, the sweet sound of reason, at long last."

"Fuck you, Washington," said Lundegran, tiredly. "Just give me your demands."

"I have none," Big Sugar replied.

"Fine," the Warden snarled, "I'm hanging up now."

"I do, however, have some suggestions I believe you may find have merit," Washington continued, unperturbed.

There was a moment of silence, which elicited another grin from Big Sugar.

"I'm listening," Lundegran admitted, eventually.

"Let me begin by pointing out that which is now common knowledge," Washington replied, "At approximately noon today, New York City was destroyed in a nuclear explosion."

"So what?" Lundegran snorted.

"Just this," Big Sugar told him, "that explosion produced copious quantities of nuclear fallout. Northern State's exercise yard – in fact, the entire exterior of this facility – is now liberally covered in that deadly substance. When your officers attempted to compel the convicts whom I now control to march through that poison, they rather naturally objected. That speaks poorly of your own understanding of the hazard we all face – and I speak not just of me and my men, but of you and yours, as well. If I am not mistaken, it is a danger with which we will have to cope without assistance from outside forces for the foreseeable future."

"Like I said," Lundegran interrupted, "cut to the chase, Washington. What the fuck do you want? Other than to bore my ass to death, I mean."

"What I most assuredly do not want," Big Sugar said, "is to be forced to choose between radiation poisoning and starvation. That is an issue which should concern you, as well, Nathaniel. Tell me, how many of your second-shift officers reported for duty today?"

"Go fuck yourself," the Warden replied. "That's classified."

"I thought as much," Washington responded calmly. "So you are short-handed. I suspect that condition, too, will continue for some time to come. Understand, Nathaniel, we are an island in a radioactive sea. If we do not all work together to survive, we shall all soon drown in that sea."

"What. The fuck. Do you _want_?" Lundegran demanded. His question was punctuated by thumps, as if the Warden were pounding his fist on his desk.

"Here is what I propose..." Big Sugar told him.

**May 1, 2020, 9:30 pm EDT**

## The Oval Office, Washington, DC

"Mr. President," announced Ardin Wildehoof, William Steele's private secretary, "the Congressional delegation has arrived."

"Thank you, Ardin," said William Orwell Steele. "I'll see them now."

He snugged up his black-and-red-striped tie, and smoothed back his slightly graying shock of brown hair.

"Yes, sir," replied Wildehoof.

Seconds later, Marlon Roosevelt, Steele's personal aide, opened the door through which Wildehoof had departed, and held it to admit the Congressional party.

Vice President Diana Hunter, in her capacity as President of the Senate, led the delegation. Hunter was elegant, as always, in a Donna Karan suit, her frosted, auburn hair impeccably pinned up in her trademark French twist. Immediately behind her stumped Alvin Spreckels, the Republican Speaker of the House. Spreckels was a hulking bald man in a Navy blue Armani suit, his jowls spilling over the four-in-hand knot in his crimson-and-silver rep tie. Following them came the Senate Majority and Minority leaders, Vittorio Donofrio and Hale Davies: Donofrio a squat fireplug in a custom-made Italian suit, and yellow, watered-silk power tie; Davies a florid blimp in an off-the-rack navy suit, and vest, sporting a red polyester tie.

Bringing up the rear were Kendall MacMillan, and Darcy Peligroso, the House Majority and Minority leaders. MacMillan, who was gaunt, yet sported a discrete paunch, wore a double-breasted midnight-blue suit with cuffed pants, and a blood-red power tie. Peligroso resembled a dump truck wearing a Navy pinafore over a parti-colored blouse. Her bulldog face was unflatteringly framed by a gray, pageboy haircut. Harry Walters, the official White House photographer, followed a respectful three paces behind them.

Steele stood to greet the dignitaries.

He walked around the Resolute desk, to the pentagonal rug which bore the Great Seal of the United States, on which stood the nation's top legislators. The President held out his hand to his Vice President, who had been his principal opponent for the nomination, four years earlier. Steele leaned forward to put his cheek next to hers, as if delivering an air-kiss.

"How's Ben?" he murmured.

The Vice President moved as if to offer her other cheek to him.

"Not good, I'm afraid," she whispered. "But thanks for asking."

Hunter gracefully backed away. She regarded him for a long second, her expression unreadable. He was startled by the fatigue lines around her tawny eyes.

Steele knew her husband had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in February, and that his prognosis was poor. For many years, Benjamin Hunter had been a power player in Washington politics. The Vice President had depended on him for advice and support as heavily as Steele had once depended on his beloved wife Julia. He and Diana Hunter had been distant, since their rough-and-tumble rivalry during the last Presidential campaign, but he felt great sympathy for her now.

Aloud, in a firm, steady voice, Hunter said, "Congratulations, Mr. President. The Senate has ratified your declarations of national emergency and martial law for the duration by a vote of 99 to zero, with one abstention."

"Thank you, Madam Vice President," replied Steele. "Do I take it the abstention was by the senior Senator from Vermont?"

"It was, indeed, Mr. President," Hunter confirmed.

"Ever the conscience of the Senate," observed Steele. "Well, good on Vincent."

The President turned to Spreckels, and offered him his hand.

"Mr. Speaker," he said.

"Mr. President," Spreckels responded. "It is my pleasure to announce that the House has also ratified both of your declaration – although I regret to announce that there were six votes opposed."

"Really," Steele said, making it a statement, rather than a question.

"Yes, sir," Spreckels replied.

Steele turned to MacMillan, eyebrows raised. The Pennsylvanian shook his head, jowls wobbling, magnificent, pure-white toupee undisturbed.

"Mr. President, I am ashamed to say that all six of those voting 'Nay' were, indeed, members of our caucus," he confessed. "I assure you, however, that I did my best on your behalf. If I had had another 24 hours, I believe the vote would have been unanimous."

Steele smiled, and offered MacMillan his hand. "I'm certain you did all you could, Ken. The resolutions passed, and that's the important thing."

He put out his hand to Donofrio.

"Thank you, Vittorio," he said

"My pleasure, Mr. President," responded the Senate Majority Leader.

"And I thank you for your support, and for that of your party," the President said, turning to the senior Senator from Mississippi, and offering his hand.

"You are very welcome, Mr. President," replied Davies. "In such circumstances, we must all put aside partisan differences for the good of the nation."

"Absolutely," said Steele, looking Davies directly in the eye.

After a long moment, he turned to shake hands with Peligroso.

"Thank you, Darcy," he said.

"No need to thank me, Mr. President," Peligroso responded. "Duty demanded it."

It was no secret that there was little love lost between the President and the House Minority Leader. Steele thought of Peligroso as an insufferable boor, while Peligroso considered the President a meddling upstart. Their mutual dislike was always cordial, but the coolness between them was evident even to casual observers.

"Mr. President," interrupted Harry Walters, "If I could impose on you for a moment...?"

"Of course, Harry," replied Steele. "Ladies, gentlemen, if you don't mind, Harry would like to take a few photos to document this historic occasion ..."

**May 1, 2020, 10:00 pm EDT**

## Wooten Rd., Sandston, VA

Richard Wayne Lee – R. Wayne, as he preferred to be known – sat at his kitchen table.

His pistols were laid out in an arc above the Big Shot gun cleaning kit from Cabela's on his left, and an ashtray, a butane lighter, and a pack of Marlboros positioned to his right. He had just finished scrubbing out the bore of his Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum Stealth Hunter with a brass brush. Now he was screwing the pad holder onto the end of the cleaning rod, preparing to clean out the filings and excess gun oil. It was a Friday night ritual he treasured – cleaning his guns while listening to Merlin Friend's radio show, live from Patriot Studio 1.

"We're back," Friend's voice confided, "live from Patriot Studio 1 in Coeur d'Alene."

Lee silently parroted the line.

It was a ritual, like cleaning his gun collection, and it comforted him at least as much as reading his Bible. Much as he loved the Lord God, and his only Son, fervently as he believed in them both, his guns were like the children he'd never had. And Merlin Friend was... was his friend. A better friend than any of his old Post Office co-workers had ever been, that was sure. A friend who confided in him, who _agreed_ with him about so many of the things that troubled him about the people who ran their country, and the world.

Merlin – he liked to call the pundit by his first name – was a friend who taught him things, too. Merlin drew connections other people didn't seem to see: connections between that socialist traitor William Orwell Steele and the damn Bilderburgers, for instance; connections between the traitors at the Federal Reserve and the infernal international Jewish banking conspiracy, for another. And Merlin gave him advice. Valuable advice, like investing in gold Krugerrands through his sponsor, Goldmine. With the economy the way it was – in the crapper and circling the drain – it only made sense to put his retirement money in gold, where it would be safe when the monetary system collapsed.

Not that he'd be likely to live to see that, of course. Damn cancer would get him, soon enough.

"Grade 4 small cell carcinoma of the lung, Stage IV," the damn doctors called it.

He coughed; a rusty, hacking noise, and spit black stuff into the wastebasket beside his chair. For a moment, he felt light-headed. But that was just the damn drugs, of course. He'd never even been much of a drinking man, and now he was taking narcotics day and night, like a common street junkie. It just wasn't fair – not to a man who'd spent 30 years working for a living, carrying that damn bag in every damn kind of weather, through rain, and snow, and sleet, and, yes, dark of night, too. And now, just two years into his retirement, the damn doctors had handed him a death sentence – and made a damn drug addict out of him, to boot.

It just wasn't fair.

"It wasn't enough for him to try to raise our taxes," Merlin sneered, "It wasn't enough to make us taxpayers carry all the welfare cheats: the professional 'single mothers', the shirkers on Medicaid and SSI. It wasn't enough to make our proud nation the laughingstock of the world. No, Patriots, that wasn't nearly enough treason for William Orwell Steele! Determined to completely enslave us to the socialism to which he owes his true loyalty, earlier today our so-called President – although I assure you he is not _my_ President, because _I_ didn't vote for him – ordered the CIA to set off a nuclear weapon in New York City! And, less than an hour ago, the traitorous swine in our invertebrate Congress handed him the sword he demanded they give him to stab Lady Liberty in the heart, cut off her head, and mount it on a pole on the White House lawn!"

Friend's voice was thick with contempt.

"Mark my words, Patriots," he predicted, "there will be no Presidential election this coming November – just wait and see. In fact, there will never be a Presidential election in this country again... unless _you_ act to stop this evil man, and his evil plot."

\- _Damn right._ \- Lee nodded his agreement.

He set the Stealth Hunter back in its accustomed place on the far right of the array of weapons on his kitchen table. Picking up the Sig Sauer P220 Carry .45 automatic next to it, he set it down in front of him. Then he began unscrewing the patch holder from the cleaning rod.

"Only _you_ , Patriots. Only _you_ can stop this madness."

"Damn right, Merlin" Lee said aloud, as he reached for the .44/.45 brass brush. " _Damn_ right."

**May 1, 2020, 10:30 pm EDT**

## The Cabinet Room, Washington, DC

"I think we have to assume the worst, Mr. President," said Secretary of the Treasury Anderson Connaught IV. "The NYSE is finished. Even though its data should, in theory, be current, up to within a second or so of the event, it will be months before it can resume operations. As you know, Wall Street was so close to Ground Zero that it had to have been completely destroyed in the explosion. So we have to assume the entire brain trust is gone, along with the physical infrastructure that supported it. The German Bourse, the InterContinental Exchanges, the London Stock Exchange, The Nissei, all will take staggering losses. And the insurance sector will undoubtedly be bankrupted by – well, the physical asset losses in New York City alone will easily total several trillion dollars, not to mention its liabilities in the Fallout Zone. Likewise, the health care industry will probably collapse from the financial strain. The effect on the Federal Government in Social Security, disability, and unemployment claims will be devastating, as well – and we can't forget the costs of rescuing, transporting, housing, and feeding all those refugees."

"So we're in for a major economic recession, then," William Orwell Steele replied.

Connaught shook his head.

"Mr. President," he demurred, "I'm afraid that would be a best-case scenario. Given the state of the Chinese and European economies, and our own pre-existing issues with balance of payments and persistent stagflation, I'd say we're in for a severe – and probably prolonged – global depression."

"How long do you think we have before it starts?" Steele asked, visibly shaken.

"Until Monday, I would think," replied the Treasury Secretary.

"Monday?" Steele demanded, incredulous.

"I'm afraid so, sir," said Connaught. "In fact, the Asian markets – the Hang Sen and the Nikkei, primarily – are a day ahead of us, so we'll get some indication of just how bad things will be on Sunday. But I suspect we won't know the real extent of the damage until Monday, when the European markets will have their first opportunity to react."

"And just how bad do you think it will be, Andy?" the President asked.

"I'd expect that world markets will drop by a minimum of 50 percent in value, Mr. President," replied the Treasury Secretary, "although 70 to 80 percent is more likely."

"You expect stocks to lose 80 percent of their value on Monday?" Steele asked.

"Yes, sir, I do," responded Connaught. "Perhaps more."

"Damnit," the President remarked.

The Cabinet members sat silent around the long table.

"All right," Steele said, at last. "Is there anything we can do about it? Anything to reduce the severity of this... global depression?"

Connaught shrugged.

"Nationalizing the insurance industry might help," he suggested. "But it'd cost us big time in inflation."

"Quantify 'big time' for me," Steele requested.

"Mr. President," Connaught replied, "the Chinese are in no position to absorb the amount of new paper we'd have to issue. The Saudis will help – they're not going to have a lot of choice about it – but we're still talking about creating something on the order of 20 to 50 _trillion_ dollars in new public debt, in order to purchase the insurance industry's liabilities for this disaster. The _only_ way we can do that is to print money. And, keep in mind, sir, that we're going to be on the hook for the costs of everything from dealing with the refugee crisis to decontamination of the fallout zone, in addition to the price of propping up the insurance industry."

He sighed.

"That's a _lot_ of paper, Mr. President," Connaught observed. "A lot. At a guess – and, at this point, it's only a guess – I'd say we'd be looking at a 100 percent annual inflation for the foreseeable future, at a minimum."

"At a minimum." Steele made it a statement, not a question.

"Yes, sir," Connaught said. "Worst case? I couldn't give you an upper limit, with any degree of confidence. If we add 50 trillion dollars to the existing debt crisis, we could easily be looking at Weimar Republic numbers."

"So, we're completely screwed," said Steele, "economically speaking."

"Yes, sir," said Connaught, "I'm afraid so. If we decline to bail out the insurance sector, it will collapse. That much is certain. The only thing that's uncertain is whether that would be worse for the country – economically speaking – than nationalizing the industry. At this point, I can't predict which option would be the least unpalatable. I can, however, say with a high degree of confidence that the banking sector is going to suffer every bit as badly as insurance will."

"How so?" inquired the President.

"Because the banks have a lot of money invested in stocks and bonds – and a lot of money tied up in the insurance sector, as well, sir," Connaught explained.

"So, the economic crash you're expecting... ?" Steele left the question hanging.

"Will wipe them out," replied Connaught. "Completely."

Once again, there was silence in the Cabinet Room.

**May 1, 2020, 10:30 pm EDT,**

## Easau Piltch's living room, North Monroe Street, Arlington, VA

"We're back," said the voice of Merlin Friend, "and on this segment of Patriot Radio 1, we'll be talking live with Representative Easau Piltch, of our very own 1st Congressional District. Congressman Piltch was one of the handful of patriots who voted against making the Tyrant William Orwell Steele the military dictator of these United States. Welcome, Congressman!"

There was an immediate, earsplitting shriek of feedback from the home entertainment system in Easau Piltch's living room.

"You have to turn your radio down, Congressman," Friend told him.

"Well, why didn't you say so?" Piltch asked him.

He leaned over to turn the volume control on his receiver/amplifier down one notch. Then he sank into an overstuffed recliner, directly in front of one of the entertainment system's speakers.

"Thank you, Congressman," Friend said.

There was another instantaneous blast of feedback, this one so loud that it made Piltch's eyes water.

"Please turn your radio _all the way down_ , Congressman," Friend said, in a voice that carefully concealed his mounting impatience with the Honorable dolt from the 1st Congressional District. "You can turn it back up after we're done talking, all right? For now it'll just be you and me on the telephone, talking like normal people."

"Sorry about that, Merlin," Piltch apologized. "I'm not used to being on the radio like this."

"Congressman Piltch," Friend said, speaking for the benefit of his audience, "you are one of the six patriots in the House of Representatives who had the courage to look William Orwell Steele straight in the eye, and tell him, ' _No!_ _No_ , I will not hand you the sword you seek to stab Lady Liberty through the heart! _No_ , I will not vote to make you Dictator of these United States! _No_ , I will not hail you as William the First, King of the United States of America! _No_ , Mr. President, this I will not do!'"

Piltch felt his heart swell with pride. By God, it was nice to hear praise like this, especially from Merlin Friend! Why, the way his fellow congressmen had behaved, you'd think his "no" vote had been somehow tantamount to treason, instead of the pure act of true patriotism and courage that Merlin Friend just told everyone it had been. True to his name, Merlin really was a friend – a friend with a radio show that almost everyone in his district listened to. That made this the perfect opportunity to seal his upcoming re-election bid!

"That's why the voters of the 1st Idaho Congressional District elected me, Mr. Friend," Piltch explained. "To represent their best interests in Washington, DC – and to defend their liberty to my dying breath."

"Let me just say that we, the voters of the 1st Congressional District, appreciate your courage, and your patriotism," said Friend. "And, please, call me Merlin."

"I'd be honored to, Merlin," Piltch told him.

"Congressman Piltch," Merlin asked, "Given the nefarious actions of William Orwell Steele – ordering the destruction of New York City by nuclear fire, seizing unlimited power to rule by decree, fitting the shackles of socialism to the helpless citizens of these United States – isn't it time our listeners exercised their Second Amendment right to take matters into their own hands? Has the time finally come for armed resistance?"

Piltch gulped at the man's audacity. His eyes darted about the living room of his oversized Tudor revival rental house.

He wanted to scream.

\- _Are you insane, Merlin? We just ratified Steele's declaration of martial law, and you're advocating an armed rebellion? Good God, man, have you no common sense at all?_ -

Instead, he said, "Er, no, Merlin, I think that would be... premature."

"But, they're coming for our guns, Congressman," Friend maintained. "Surely you're not advising your fellow Sons of Fallen Patriots to sit idly by, and permit themselves to be stripped of their inalienable right to bear arms?"

"Of course not, Merlin," Piltch assured him. "But, there's such a thing as due process. As you know, I myself am a member of the Sons of Fallen Patriots, as well as a lifetime member of the NRA. I assure you I am as committed to preserving the Second Amendment as I am to worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior. But we are a nation of laws, Merlin. We must give those laws a chance to work, before we declare that all is lost, and call our brothers to the barricades."

"But, with Congress backing his declaration of martial law, hasn't the Tyrant placed himself beyond the reach of the law?" Friend insisted.

"Not at all," Piltch assured him. "In fact, on Monday, I will introduce on the floor of the House of Representatives, a bill of impeachment of President Steele."

"Really?" Friend queried.

He sounded impressed. He really _was_ impressed, despite himself. Piltch evidently had more on the ball than Friend had credited him with. Even if the bill was quashed – and Friend fully expected it would be – the fact that it had been introduced at all would raise the visibility of the Sons in the public's eyes. And, when the President's allies in Congress tried to make it go away, he'd have a field day decrying their perfidy... yes, there was definitely hay to be made there!

"Congratulations, Congressman!" Friend said. "By this time, Monday, you will have earned the thanks of a grateful nation, twice over. You heard it here, first, Patriots! On Monday, Congressman Esau Piltch will introduce a bill to impeach the Tyrant! Call your own Congressman _right now_ , and urge him to vote for Congressman Piltch's bill! It's up to _you_ , Patriots! Only you can bring this monster down! Only _you_!"

He let the silence stretch two more, delicious seconds, before he continued, "We'll be right back, after this word from our friends at Goldmine. Stay with us for more with Congressman Esau Piltch after the break."

**May 1, 2020, 11:30 pm EDT**

## The Cabinet Room, Washington, DC

"... and FEMA will focus on providing housing, food, medical care, and support services to the refugees," the President summarized.

Dr. Marcus Aurelius Clement, his personal physician, leaned forward from his seat behind William Orwell Steele, to whisper briefly in his ear.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the President announced, "Dr. Clement has advised me that I've been awake since 0330, Washington time, and I urgently need to get some rest. I agree. So, is there any other issue that simply can't wait until tomorrow?" His gaze swept the table.

"All right, then," he concluded, when no one spoke up. "This meeting is adjourned until – let's say 0900 tomorrow morning."

Steele stood, turned to Andover Philips – his Chief of Staff, his former campaign manager, and one of his oldest friends.

"Join me in the Residence, Andy," he invited.

"Of course, sir," Philips replied.

The President caught his physician by the sleeve.

"You, too, Marcus," he insisted. "I hate to drink alone."

"It will be my pleasure, Mr. President," Clement assured him.

Steele gathered up the papers sitting on the conference table in front of him. He made his way around the chairs that fringed it, and exited to the corridor outside the Cabinet Room. At the end of the passageway, he passed through the cloakroom, and out the door to the West Colonnade, which was held open for him by a Marine in full dress uniform. The President strode past the darkened Press Corps offices.

He didn't bother to check whether he was being followed.

After all, he was the President of the United States of America. Of _course_ he was being followed. He would be followed all day, every day, for the rest of his life. After almost three-and-a-half years in office, he was, if not exactly comfortable with that state of affairs, at least thoroughly resigned to it. True privacy was a luxury Presidents could not afford – and even ex-Presidents had to be protected from maniacs and extremists. He had long since accepted the fact that he and his Secret Service detail would very likely grow old and gray together.

Steele entered the Palm Room, through a door held open by another Marine. Trailing his entourage, he passed into the Center Hall of the Residence's ground floor. At the elevator lobby, Harold Burley, the operator, still wearing his tuxedo, despite the hour, held the door for him.

Andy Philips, Marcus Clement, and Roger Waters, the head of his Secret Service detail, all entered the cage with the President. Their ascent to the second floor was brief. The little group crossed the Center Hall, where Waters left them to make a final security inspection for the night.

Special Agent Nicolas Mason, Chief of the President's third-shift Secret Service detail, opened the double doors to the Presidential living room for them. The three men were greeted by Steele's six-year-old Great Dane, Duke. The excited animal demanded a thorough petting by each of the three men, which all seemed happy to supply.

Eventually, Steele told him, "That's enough, Buddy," and the dog retreated into the President's private quarters.

As they entered the large room, still furnished largely as it had been during the previous Administration, Steele asked, "Andy, would you do the honors?"

"Certainly, sir," responded Philips. "Scotch for you?"

"As usual," Steele confirmed.

"Laphroig okay?" Philips asked.

"Absolutely," Steele assented.

"Doctor?" the Chief of Staff inquired.

"Oh, red wine, I guess," said the President's physician, absently. "I'm not picky."

"Anderson Valley Cabernet or Napa Valley Merlot?" Philips asked.

"Merlot is fine," Clement told him.

Philips handed out their drinks: a double Scotch, neat, for Steele, a glass of Merlot, along with the split bottle from which it came, for Clement, and a shot of Makers Mark black label on the rocks for himself.

They took seats around the coffee table. Philips and Clement each chose wingback arm chairs. The President sprawled across a matching loveseat, facing them, with Duke sitting on the carpet beside him. The Great Dane rested his big, square head on his master's knee, his eyes fixed adoringly on Steele.

"Well, this a fine kettle of crap, ain't it?" the President observed, sipping his single malt.

"Outstanding, sir," opined Philips, his expression sour.

"The question, as I see it," Steele said, idly scratching Duke's massive head, "is not so much, 'What can we do to help?' as it is 'What can we do to keep things from dissolving into absolute chaos?'"

"Surely it's not that bad, Mr. President," objected Clement, frowning.

"Oh, it most assuredly is that bad, Marcus," the President replied.

He gestured to his Chief of Staff.

"Tell him, Andy," he directed.

Concerned, Clement turned to Philips.

Philips gazed into his drink for a long moment, his expression grim.

"It's like this, Doctor," he said, at length. "The only good news is that this will undoubtedly guarantee the President's re-election. He won't even have to campaign... much. Which is good, because he's going to be up past his ass in alligators for the foreseeable future."

"If that's the only good news, what's the bad news – apart from the obvious, I mean?" Clement responded.

Philips looked across at Steele, who shrugged.

"Well, let's start with the economy," Philips said. "It's going to crash – hard. And it won't just be us. We're going to take the whole world down with us. Then there's the international relations problem."

"Which is what?" Clement inquired.

"Dr. Clement, how is it you can live in this hothouse Beltway atmosphere, and not have any feel for politics whatsoever?" Philips asked.

"Clean living, regular exercise – and I don't own a TV," the physician replied.

"I'll have to try that some century," Philips mused, pulling a face. "Basically, the problem is that, as President Steele was saying as recently as this morning, the economies of the major powers have become so hopelessly interdependent that our downfall is going to pull Asia, the Euro sector, and the Russians all down with us. India, South America, and the Middle East will follow us down the drain, as well. And Africa – well, Africa was a basket case before this morning's events... and I sure don't see this making things any better for them."

"So, is that it?" Clement queried.

Philips shook his head.

"Oh, no," he replied. "You see, sooner or later, we're going to find out who did this to us."

Clement frowned in puzzlement. "But, that'll be a good thing, won't it?"

Steele and Philips exchanged a glance.

"No, Marcus," said the President, "It won't."

"How so?" Clement asked, adding, "Mr. President," as an afterthought.

Philips answered.

"Because the odds are that one – or more – of our valued allies in the war on terror is behind this attack," he explained. "And we're going to have to punish that ally, or those allies, in a spectacularly unpleasant and public fashion."

"You don't mean... I mean, you're not thinking about..." Clement stammered.

"Going nuclear? Indeed we are. In fact, I don't see any way around it," Steele told him.

"Jesus Christ!" Clement replied. "That's... terrible."

"Indeed it is," Steele agreed. "It's terrible, it's inevitable, and it's unbelievably dangerous in a world where every two-bit dictator on the planet currently has, or is trying his level best to get his hands on, nuclear weapons of his own."

"But... for God's sake, why then?" the physician demanded. "Why risk it?"

"The Pee-pul," said Philips mockingly. "The fucking, pinheaded pee-pul."

Clement turned almost pleadingly to Steele.

Steele nodded.

"I'm afraid Andy's right, Marcus," he agreed. "Either we nuke the perpetrators into the pre-Cambrian, or the loyal and wise people of the United States of America will have our heads on pikes – and force the folks they replace us with to nuke 'em, instead. The people will want revenge, and nobody and nothing is going to talk them out of it."

"And that means...?" Clement asked, his voice trembling.

"War." Steele and Philips spoke as one.

# May 2, 2020, 12:03 am EDT

## Cathedral Heights, Washington, DC

Colonel Arif Farood Khan knew he was swiftly nearing the end of his strength.

The well of the passenger seat beside him reeked of his vomit. He had repeatedly befouled his trousers. Were it not for his determination to reach the sanctuary of the Embassy of Pakistan, he would long since have given up. Like a dying dog, he would have sought out some hiding place in which to curl up and wait for the end. But duty and fanatical resolve drove him on beyond the ragged end of his stamina.

"Turn right on Connecticut Avenue in 100 feet," directed the clinical female voice of the GPS unit built into the dashboard of the stolen Toyota minivan.

Khan wiped at the crusts in the corner of his eyes with the back of his hand. When he glanced down, he saw streaks of blood there.

"Turn right now on Connecticut Avenue," the GPS unit instructed.

He made the turn, feeling feverish. His mind felt strangely detached from his failing body, as if he was observing himself from some great height. In the back of the minivan, the carcass of its owner shifted with the centripetal force. Is lolling head thumped softly against the rear hatch.

Khan sighed.

The infidel woman's body was a burden of which he had been unable to rid himself.

In his anxiety to flee the scene of the carjacking, he had simply lifted her lifeless legs into the cargo compartment, leaving her cart full of groceries standing in the parking lot. Making his escape, he discovered the shoulders of the New Jersey turnpike lacked sufficient cover to allow him to simply pull over, and roll her carcass out of the minivan. By then, he no longer possessed the necessary strength to carry her corpse any distance from the vehicle. So it and his damnable bicycle had both accompanied him all the way to Washington, as unwanted cargo.

"Turn left onto Van Ness Street Northwest in 100 feet," the GPS advised.

Khan put on his blinker. A surge of nausea hit him, and he retched in strangling agony. He could taste the bile – and the blood – on the back of his tongue, but his stomach was utterly empty. Nothing came out of his mouth except his gasping, foul breath. His mouth was so very dry.

"Turn left now onto Van Ness Street Northwest," the GPS demanded.

Khan had to hold onto the steering wheel with both hands to keep from falling over as he made the turn.

\- _Just a little longer. Insha'Allah, just a little longer._ -

His vision was fading rapidly now.

He realized he was gradually going blind shortly after he had entered Maryland. Now he knew that, even if he lived that long, he still would not see the dawn. It did not matter. He had done his duty.

He had struck a greater blow against the infidel than anyone before him – greater than Salah ad-Din, greater than Osama bin Laden, greater than any _Jihadi_ before him. Surely, on _Yawm al-Qiyamah_ , he would enter through the _Jihadi_ gate _Bab ul-_ _G_ _ihad_ , into _Firdaws_ , the most exalted realm of _Jannah_ , there to dwell in the company of the prophets – including the Prophet himself, might blessings and peace be upon him – along with the most pious of believers, and his fellow martyrs to Islam.

\- _And my beloved Roshina, restored to virginity again, to be with me forever._ -

"Turn right onto International Court Northwest in 100 feet," the GPS directed.

Khan shook his head to clear the clinging cobwebs from his brain. It made him dizzy. He was taken again by a fit of retching.

"Turn right now onto International Court Northwest," the GPS instructed.

Khan complied. Right turns were easier than left turns – the driver's door supported him. It kept him from falling over.

\- _Just a little longer. Allah give me the strength to last just a little longer._ -

"Turn left to stay on International Court Northwest in 100 feet," the GPS informed him, as he passed a row of parking spaces on his right.

His sight was steadily darkening now. All but a narrow tunnel of vision was swirling blackness. His mouth hung open, and his breath whistled ominously in his lungs.

"Turn left now to stay on International Court Northwest," the GPS ordered.

Khan turned left. The Embassy of Brunei passed unseen on his right. The semicircular driveway of the Nigerian Embassy came and went on his left. Then he was at the end of the cul-de-sac, pulling into the driveway to the Embassy of Pakistan. His desperately-husbanded strength entirely gone, Khan tried and failed to shift his foot from the gas to the brake. Coasting now, the stolen Toyota crashed into the Embassy's wrought-iron gate.

"You have arrived at your destination," the GPS announced.

**May 2, 2020, 12:30 am EDT**

## The President's Bedroom, Washington, DC

William Orwell Steele stared at the barely-seen canopy over his bed, waiting for sleep.

It was at times like this that he most acutely missed Julia – his beloved wife, _confidante_ , partner, and muse – dead now nearly four years. He missed her gentle breathing, the smell of her, the taste of her lips and her sex, her warmth, and the familiar topography of her lean, athletic, responsive body. The assassin's bullet that had struck her down that September afternoon in Cleveland had taken from him the most important person in his life. The immense, instantaneous wave of public sympathy that followed her murder made it obvious that he would win the Presidency – but the taste of his inevitable victory had been ashes in his mouth.

The media had gone into a feeding frenzy at Julia's death.

Around-the-clock coverage of her funeral was only the beginning of its obsession with the "Death of an American Princess", as MSNBC had labeled it. There had been endless, extended obituaries, testimonials, remembrances, anecdotes, each framed by images of his frozen-faced grief, as he waited by her grave for the funeral cortege. Their weeping daughter Artemis, Julia's grief-stricken parents, the massive crowd outside the cemetery gates, all had been fodder for the insatiable 24-hour news cycle.

None of that had mattered to Steele. He had lost his other half, and the emptiness of that loss had become his entire universe. Everything and everyone else was merely an intrusion on his private grief. He had gone through the motions of formal mourning like a zombie, lost in his pain. He remembered almost none of it.

Andy Philips – then his campaign manager – practically dragged him back out on the campaign trail. Philips insisted that it would be good for him to immerse himself in the non-stop parade of photo ops, debates, and interviews. Slowly, he had begun to recover. But his pain and loss never really went away. They had merely been buried under the relentless tide of his obligations as his party's standard bearer.

He had been elected President in a landslide greater than Reagan's 1984 victory. His days immediately were filled with details and responsibilities much graver and more momentous than any he had experienced during the campaign.

His days were full, and the distraction was welcome. It was at night, at moments like this, that he felt the loss of his soul mate most keenly. Alone in the bed that Julia had never had the opportunity to share with him, he mourned her afresh.

He had refused Dr. Clement's offer of an Ambien to help him sleep. Now he began to regret that decision. He was profoundly exhausted, both mentally and physically, and tomorrow promised to be every bit as demanding as today had been. Still, sleep eluded him. Despite the staggering burden of his responsibilities, and the myriad critical issues that clamored for his attention, it was her memory that dominated his thoughts.

\- _Oh, Jules! How am I going to get through this without you?_ -

**May 2, 2020, 01:30 am EDT**

## 50 Hudson St., Jersey City NJ

Aragorn Northcutt Hardcastle lay awake in the ruin of his office on the 35th floor of the Goldman Sachs Building.

He was freezing, but the agony of his shattered body was so great, he barely noticed the cold. Outside, stars were visible through the gaping hole that had been the wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor glass window that looked out across the Hudson to Lower Manhattan. He could not see them. Hardcastle had always treasured that view. Now he saw nothing but darkness.

Hardcastle was sure he would die soon. He longed for it. Anything – _anything_ – would be better than this unending torture. His twisted, broken body was an unendurable burden to him, his thirst, an unbearable torment. His blindness was a mortal blow.

He had prided himself on his tennis game. Even should he somehow survive, somehow be rescued, and nursed back to health, he knew he would never again serve a corner court shot with the Pure Drive racket his opponents so often admired. Never again would he thrill to the whistle of the air through its strings, never again magnanimously offer "Good game" to another easily-crushed opponent.

Nor, he knew, would he ever enjoy the talented mouth and equally talented pussy of that gorgeous – and profoundly ambitious – little Vanessa from Arbitrage on the 34th floor. God, how that bitch could suck! But she would never want anything to do with a blind man. That was over, just as his career was over. Over and done with. Gone with the wind.

Hell, his wife would probably divorce him, too. He'd made all the money he was going to make; which undoubtedly meant she'd take him for all she could. A goodly chunk it would be, too. She'd want their estate in the Hamptons, and she'd probably get it. And the summer place on Martha's Vineyard, and the winter home in the Keys, as well. Not that it would matter to him.

After all, what good is a fortune to a blind man? If he couldn't _see_ the beautiful things he possessed, he might as well not have them. He owned two Jackson Pollacks – _two_ of them! They might as well be blank canvases, for all the enjoyment he'd get out of them.

Awash in self-pity, Aragorn Northcutt Hardcastle lay awake in the ruin of his office, and suffered. And longed for death.

**May 2, 2020, 02:30 am EDT**

## Clay St., Hackensack, NJ

Nakeesha Gramble could not sleep. She was dizzy and nauseated. It felt as though there were ants crawling all over her.

The oily, black rain that had made such ugly splotches on her pretty blue jumper had soaked her corn-rowed hair. But, when she got home, the power was out, and she was scared to take a bath in the dark. So, she settled for rubbing her hair dry with a towel. Then she went to see if her Mama would give her the reassurance she needed.

Her Mama was still napping. Nakeesha could not wake her, even though she shook her and shook her. The only good thing about it was that Marq was napping, too, so she didn't have to let him do bad things to her. Feeling very alone, she'd gone to her room to play with her Barbies, until it started to get dark outside.

Her Mama and Marq woke up at about the time the streetlights normally came on. The power was still out, so her Mama found some candles, and lit them, which cheered Nakeesha up, for a while. The stove didn't work, so her Mama made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.

But Nakeesha wasn't hungry. In fact, Nakeesha was starting to feel sick at her stomach. She was so sick, she'd gone into the bathroom – now a darker and scarier place than ever – and thrown up. Afterward, she'd felt a little better for a while, but then she'd been sick again. That time, there wasn't anything left in her stomach for her to throw up. But she'd tried, gagging and retching and managing to bring up only a little vile-tasting liquid. The effort left her weak, and her ribs were sore, and she really, really wanted her Mama to tell her it would be all right, and hold her head for her. But by then her Mama was taking another nap.

Marq made her do the thing with her mouth that she hated so much. That made her feel even sicker. Nakeesha started to cry, but Marq made her finish, anyway. Then he had stuck himself with the needle he kept in Mama's bedroom, and went to lie down with her Mama. Nakeesha started feeling cold. After another bout of dry heaves, she had gone to her bedroom. She crawled under the covers, curled up into a small, tight, Nakeesha-shaped ball, and cried herself to sleep.

But now she was awake in the deathly stillness. Invisible ants crawled all over her. Very, very soon, she knew, she would again have to go to the scary, dark bathroom to throw up.

**May 2, 2020, 03:30 am EDT**

## 40°24'26.74" N, 73°35'19.95" W, Atlantic Ocean

Commander Anson McDonald, Captain of the Virginia-class nuclear submarine USS Alligator, stood on the tiny bridge of his boat. He scanned the sky with a pair of Avangard night vision goggles, desperately wishing for another cup of coffee.

Lieutenant Morris Abrams had wakened McDonald less than an hour earlier. The third watch Officer of the Deck had handed him his first mug of joe, along with an "eyes only" VLF radiogram. The 'gram directed him to surface the boat, report its position via satcom radio, and await rendezvous with a UH-1Y copter. Additional orders would be hand-delivered, post-rendezvous.

With its clip-on 6x magnifier, the AN/PVS8 was heavy and awkward. Its Kevlar head strap assembly gave McDonald a headache every time he used it, so he'd been taking frequent breaks from scanning the skies.

The voice of Lieutenant Abrams issued from the annunciator bolted to the bridge's handrail.

"Radar contact, Skipper," Abrams told him. "Bearing 270."

McDonald grunted in annoyance. Despite the superb optical and radar capabilities of the mast array at his back, and the advanced displays available on the command deck, he had irrationally that expected he would spot the approaching Super Huey first.

\- _Must be getting senile._ -

"Roger that," he responded, "All stop. Chief of the Boat to the aft deck."

"All stop, aye," Abrams replied. "COB to the aft deck, aye."

McDonald allowed himself the luxury of scanning the sky to the west, looking for the approaching Super Huey. A minute later, he spotted it, just as it cleared the horizon.

\- _Hell, the radar mast has 45 feet on me. No wonder it saw the damned thing first. I_ am _getting senile._ -

Aloud he muttered, "You kids get off my damned lawn!"

He pushed the annunciator button with his thumb, and said, "I'm on my way down."

"Captain is vacating the bridge, aye," the OOD acknowledged.

McDonald clambered down the ladder until his head was level with the deck, then unhooked the massive hatch, and pulled it closed behind him. He paused to spin the wheel that extended the lugs to secure the hatch, then continued down to the deck below the sail. He made his way through the narrow passageway to the lockout trunk – the advanced airlock system that allowed Virginia-class subs to deploy and retrieve SEAL frogmen, while the boat itself remained fully submerged. He passed through the watertight door, and stepped into the trunk itself. Careful to seal the door behind him, McDonald ascended the ladder to the aft deck of the 'Gator.

Chief Petty Officer Arthur Mueller, Alligator's Chief of the Boat, stood on the now-wallowing submarine's aft deck, awaiting the Super Huey's arrival. He snapped off a crisp salute, as McDonald emerged from the lockout trunk. The Captain nodded, and returned Mueller's salute.

"As you were, Chief," he said.

The COB responded by relaxing only marginally.

"What's the scuttlebutt?" McDonald inquired.

Mueller shrugged.

"'Need to know', Skipper," he replied laconically. "Some of the men are wondering why we're surfaced, but they know better than to ask too many questions."

"What's your take, Chief?" McDonald asked.

"I don't know, Skipper," Mueller responded. "It must be something important, is all I can say. I guess that's pretty obvious. Sir."

"I suppose we'll find out Real Soon Now," McDonald said.

"Aye, sir," Mueller agreed.

The fast-approaching Super Huey was now visible to the naked eye.

"Wave her in, Chief," McDonald told Mueller.

"Aye, sir," Muller acknowledged.

Using red, lighted, signal wands, he directed the chopper to the aft deck. It set down moments later, slewed sideways, so that its cargo doors were facing fore and aft on the sub's narrow deck. They slid back, and men in Marine MARPAT camouflage began piling out. One of them – a tall, black man in his late twenties with a shaved head and lieutenant's silver bars on his collar – approached McDonald. The junior officer came to attention, and saluted the Alligator's Captain.

"Lieutenant Roger Young reporting, sir," he told McDonald.

McDonald returned his salute.

"At ease, Lieutenant," he replied. "Welcome aboard the Alligator. I understand you have orders for me?"

"Yes, sir," responded Young, handing a large, sealed, red envelope to McDonald.

McDonald tore open the envelope. His eyebrows rose, as, turning to take advantage of the portable floodlights Mueller had rigged, he began reading the Operational Order. It was from Admiral Harlan Adams, Chief of Staff of the Navy. With the thumb of his free hand, the Alligator's skipper unconsciously stroked the pencil-thin mustache that adorned his upper lip.

In the military-standard, five-paragraph format, the OPORD directed him to transport Alpha Team, Force Reconnaissance Company, 2nd Marine Division, to 40°42"47.27N, 74°01'31.64W – the New York Vessel Traffic Area. Alpha Team was to deploy, via Combat Rubber Reconnaissance Craft, to conduct a recon and radiation survey mission in the Lower Manhattan blast zone. Alligator was to retrieve Alpha's members, upon completion of that mission. McDonald was specifically ordered to take "all necessary steps" to ensure that his boat was not contaminated in the process. Those steps were to include jettisoning all of Alpha Team's clothing, equipment, and supplies. Once Alligator had retrieved Alpha Team, he was to contact COMSUBLANT via satcom radio, for further instructions.

McDonald thoughtfully folded the OPORD in quarters, and stuffed it into one of the leg pockets in his working uniform. Then he turned to Lt. Young.

"Well," he said, "I have my orders. I assume you have yours?"

"Yes, sir," Young replied, patting one of his own breast pockets.

"Then we'd best be about them," McDonald observed. "The Chief will show you where to stow your gear."

He waved offhandedly in the direction of the equipment storage compartments in the towering sail structure.

"Are you permitted to fraternize with my crew?" he asked.

"No, sir," Young responded.

"Then, once you get your gear squared away," McDonald told him, "the Chief will see you to the lockout trunk. He'll get your team chow and beverages. I think you'll find we have one of the best cooks in the service."

"Thank you, sir," Young replied, "but, if it's all the same to you, my people will probably just want to sack out until shortly before we deploy. It's been kind of a long night."

McDonald nodded. "By all means, Lieutenant. Whatever – as we swabbies say – floats your boat."

A brief grin flashed across Young's face. "Aye, sir," he said.

**May 2, 2020, 04:30 am EDT**

## Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY

Eydis Finnursdottir lay curled into a tight ball on the cold tile floor of the Times Square Port Authority Bus Terminal, surrounded by a sea of other, similarly-uncomfortable humans. Head pillowed on her day pack, she tried desperately to will herself to sleep.

It had taken hours to worm their way through the packed multitude on the subway platform, as unseen water steadily rose over her shoe tops. Gratefully, she had followed her new friend from Brooklyn up the motionless escalator, through the echoing halls of the subway station, to the Port Authority building. They had gingerly felt their way, hand-in-hand, through the utter darkness, until they reached the relative sanctuary of the gigantic terminal building. Long after she was sure she must burst from the pressure in her bladder, they had at last found a rest room. It, too, was crowded. In the profound darkness, Eydis had become separated from her companion.

Only then did it occur to her that she had never thought to ask her new friend's name. Despairing, she nevertheless found a sink in which to rinse her sticky face, and quench her burning thirst. Then, alone, she had groped her way back out of the restroom, and into the vastness of the main terminal floor.

It was... less dark... than the subway had been. The sun had long since set, but some slight glimmer of light allowed her to make out, not the features, but at least the shapes of those around her.

She was dreadfully hungry. Her last meal had been breakfast, some 18 hours earlier, by her reckoning – but, as she discovered, the restaurants in the terminal had sold out of their food stocks hours ago. The kiosks and carts likewise had been stripped of their edible wares by the ravenous horde of refugees. There was not so much as a candy bar or a bag of chips to be had at any price.

Eydis's empty, complaining belly added to her misery, as she lay huddled on the tile floor, part of the carpet of bodies that covered every available inch of space. Every so often, as those around her also strove to find a less-uncomfortable position, she would be jostled into full wakefulness – struck by a random limb, or poked by an unseen knee or elbow. Still, it was hard for her to be resentful, when she thought back to the nightmare of the subway platform. Bad as her present circumstance was, she knew well how much worse it could have been, had her nameless, lost friend from Brooklyn not rescued her from that packed crush of humanity, down in the airless heat, fetid stench, Stygian darkness, and rising water of the platform.

But she was still hungry, and the floor was cold and uncomfortable. And sleep would not come, no matter how she longed for it.

**May 2, 2020, 05:30 am EDT**

## Wooten Rd., Sandston, VA

Richard Wayne Lee lay – or half-sat, rather – in his bed. His upper torso was propped on a pile of pillows that allowed him to breathe, despite the spreading cancer in his lungs. He was wide awake, with the words of Merlin Friend echoing over and over again in his mind.

\- _Only you._ -

It was almost as if Merlin Friend's was the voice of Jehovah, speaking directly to him – and he, R. Wayne Lee, was a latter-day Job, put to the ultimate test of faith.

\- _Only you._ -

How, though? How could one retired postal carrier with terminal cancer strike the blow that would free his beloved country from the yoke of the socialist Tyrant? And why should it be _him_? Wouldn't some other, younger, more able-bodied man be better suited to the task?

\- _Only you._ -

Then inspiration struck R. Wayne Lee.

Lately, he had begun to think about disposing of his possessions. He had no wife, and no children to whom he could will them. His sister was dead, his younger brother a hateful stranger.

\- _A damned Democrat! He probably even voted for that socialist Tyrant, Steele._ "

He'd been planning to sell his precious Cessna 140, since he could no longer pass a flight physical. The only question had been where the money from that, his house, and his gun collection would go after his death. Now, suddenly, he was grateful he had put off the sale – because now he finally understood how he could use the Cessna as part of that blow for freedom that Merlin Friend had told him he must strike.

\- _Only you._ -

Yes, indeed.

\- _Only me._ -

**May 2, 2020, 06:30 am EDT**

## Central Park, Schenectady, NY

Sean Halloran Sr. rubbed his bleary eyes. He reached for the pack of Marlboros on the dashboard of his Chevy Sierra. It was already light enough for him to see there were only three cigarettes left in the pack.

"Goddamnit," he said, in a tired near-whisper.

He guiltily looked over at his wife, huddled against the passenger-side door frame. Her coat was tucked around her shoulders, as a blanket to ward off the night's chill. His muttered curse hadn't wakened her. Fiona was still gently snoring. Halloran switched his gaze to the rear-view mirror. He was further reassured to see his son slumped forward in his car seat, each breath blowing bubbles of drool that slid down his chubby cheeks, as he slept.

\- _Fuck it, then. I'm havin' one. Three should be enough to get me through til breakfast._ -

Sean Sr. was frustrated, angry, and exhausted – but his strongest emotion was one of fear. That his family had been reduced to sleeping in his truck, because none of the motels at which they had inquired along Interstate 90 had had vacancies was a source of shame and frustration. But the thought that their home and his livelihood were both now lost, 100 miles or more to the east, and the prospect of replacing either one seemed dim, and downright terrifying. There simply wasn't much stretch left in their credit cards, and their checking account balance was miniscule, at best.

The previous night had been a long and sleepless one for Halloran. It had not so much been his physical discomfort, as his emotional turmoil that had kept him awake. Fear had played the largest role in his insomnia – fear for his family, fear for his country, fear for the future.

\- _We're fucked. Completely fucked._ -

And now he was almost out of cigarettes.

**May 2, 2020, 07:30 am EDT,**

## North Cove Marina, Lower Manhattan, NY

Lieutenant Roger Young, Commanding Officer of Alpha Team, Force Reconnaissance Company, 2nd Marine Division, watched awestruck, as the F470 Zodiac Rubber Combat Reconnaissance Craft in which he rode steered its careful path through the debris that covered the surface of the North Cove Marina.

A half-hour earlier, as he had surveyed the destruction that was Lower Manhattan from the deck of the U.S.S. Alligator, none of what he had seen looked real to him. Instead, the vista possessed the visual aspect of a big-budget disaster movie, with state-of-the art computer graphics. From the half-kilometer distance of the 'Gator's deck, each particular had seemed too pixel-perfect to be authentic – exquisitely detailed and elegantly rendered. Every nuance seemed too-carefully thought out; each element painstakingly placed for maximum effect; the details of devastation just so. From the ominously-smoldering circular mountain of rubble surrounding what had been the Freedom Tower, to the grayish-black coating of dust covering every surface. From the towering column of smoke rising from the still-burning wreckage, to the black V's of circling birds, and the light haze softening the harsh disaster-scape's edges, it had all seemed somehow illusory, somehow dreamlike.

There was nothing the slightest bit dreamlike about what he observed around him now. Corporal Pruitt, handling the tiller, carefully steered the Zodiac through the densely-littered waters of the almost totally demolished North Cove Marina. Privates Kelly and Gonzales, in the bow, used the oars he had not expected they'd need to fend off the floating tangle of broken masts, dead fish, life preservers, splintered sections of boat hulls and decking, and bloating bodies that covered the surface of the Marina's brackish waters, threatening to foul their little boat's propeller.

Lt. Young had never been in combat – his commission was still too new, his country at precarious peace with the rest of the world since his enlistment. Training simulations had not sufficiently prepared him for the reality of his first encounter with mass civilian casualties. Nor had his imagination readied him for the spectacle of mobs of ravenous gulls battening on the bodies of fish and humans alike.

Kelly pushed aside the corpse of a middle-aged, Asian woman, fused to the remains of a red track suit. He stretched to grab hold of a cleat on the remnant of one of the stubby docks that had, until yesterday, held the Marina's fleet of small, rental sloops.

Now those craft were sunk or demolished. The initial blast, and the reverse-pressure wave that followed, had smashed them, and their proud and extravagant larger cousins into each other, and into the Marina's docks, breakwater, and sea wall. All but two of those structures, and most of the wooden wharf from which they had projected were gone, now just components of the flotsam through which Alpha Squad's F470 had just picked its way.

Gonzales handed Kelly a line. Kelly secured the Zodiac to what remained of the wharf. At the rear of the craft, Pruitt angled the tiller to push the rubber boat's stern against the dock, as well. Private Weisbogel snubbed another line around a second cleat, mooring the F470 to the partially-intact structure.

"All secure, sir," reported Sergeant Cukela, Young's second-in-command, his voice distorted by the vocal port on the M50 General Purpose mask he wore.

Young mentally shook himself from his horror-stricken reverie.

"Let's get topside," he ordered.

For the next few minutes, Alpha Squad busied itself with the task of transferring its personnel and equipment to the remnants of the partially-ruined dock, and the badly-damaged wharf to which it was attached.

Their task was hampered by the Mission Oriented Protective Posture Level 4 clothing they wore. The cumbersome masks hampered their vision, the protective hoods limited their heads' range of motion, the heavy rubber gloves impaired their ability to grasp and manipulate their equipment, and the over garment and rubber boots interfered with their movement. Despite the relative cool of the early May morning, even modest activity in their MOPP 4 suits was sweaty and dehydrating work.

\- _Thank God for small favors. At least we didn't have to wear body armor, too._ -

Using a folding, Portal boarding ladder's swivel hooks to anchor it to the top of the seawall, Alpha Squad clambered onto World Financial Center Plaza. When he set foot on the Plaza, it took Young, who was second-to-last of the six to climb up onto the concrete surface, a moment to comprehend what he was seeing.

The Freedom Tower, which should have been plainly visible from the Plaza, was entirely gone. Both the World Financial Center and Three World Financial Center skyscrapers had collapsed in the blast. Their wreckage had fountained down upon the Plaza, in piles so deep they had spilled over the seawall on both sides of Alpha Team's entry point. The Securities and Exchange Commission building, which had sat between them, was completely buried under their ruins. Only a modest declivity between the twin mounds of debris marked its grave.

On the portion of the seawall that was not buried under debris, there were human-shaped shadows, but no corpses were visible. Young saw no intact structures in any direction, although the smoldering mountains of rubble from disintegrated buildings effectively blocked his view of anything beyond the blast's epicenter. A foot-thick layer of grayish-black dust covered everything in sight. The air was thick with what would have been choking gray smoke, were it not for the protection of the team's M50s.

Private Weisbogel, whose job it was to monitor the IM-174A/PD radiac, spoke up, breaking Young's reverie.

"Lieutenant, sir," he reported, "begging your pardon, but it's fucking _hot_ here!"

"How hot?" Young asked.

"Off the scale, sir," Weisbogel replied.

"That's bad," Young observed.

"Yes, sir," Weisbogel agreed. "The scale tops out at 500 centi-Gray per hour, so..."

"I get it, Private," Young responded.

He turned to his squad.

"Okay, listen up, team," he told them, "we're taking serious rads just standing here. Kelly, Gonzales, you get samples of this dust. Don't touch 'em with your hands, even through your gloves. Use the sampling spoons – and throw the spoons away once you have your samples. Sgt. Cukela, take photographs. Private Weisbogel, you walk to the end of the marina and back, if you can. Take and record readings every ten feet. We rendezvous back here in five minutes."

"And then, sir?" Gonzales inquired anxiously.

"And then we bug the hell out of here," he replied.

Lt. Young started forward.

He was determined to climb the steep pile of rubble to the top of what he had decided to call SEC Pass. Young wanted to see for himself – assuming that turned out to be possible, within the five minute time limit he had just laid down – just what Ground Zero of the Freedom Tower bombing looked like. He did so despite knowing he would be exposing himself to significantly higher radiation levels than the dangerous dose he was already absorbing on the Plaza.

\- _It's all in a day's work. And I have a report to make._ -

**May 2, 2020, 08:30 am EDT**

## NYISO Primary Control Center, Rensselaer, NY

Walter Watson ran the fingers of his left hand through his thinning red hair. His hand came away wet with sweat, which he absently wiped off on his khaki Dockers. He glanced up one final time at the wall of giant monitors that displayed the status and recent history of the hibernating New York state power grid.

Watson began to speak into the red telephone handset pressed against his right ear.

As the Chief Operator of the New York Independent System Operator's day shift, he had been on duty at noon the previous day, when Consolidated Edison's New York City power distribution systems abruptly disappeared from NYISO's Energy Management System dashboard.

Every one of ConEd's FACTS devices had stopped reporting within milliseconds. The resulting electrical power imbalances brought down not only NYISO's own distribution network, but every connected system in the Northeastern Grid. Like toppling dominoes, the region's power plants – including every nuclear generator in the northeastern United States and Eastern Canada – had been forced into emergency shutdown. Every protection Intelligent Electronic Device attached to the system had tripped its relays. Every static and dynamic Volt-Amphere Reactive compensator across nearly a quarter of North America's largest cities had gone offline within less than a minute. Homes, factories, and businesses from Quebec to Virginia all went dark.

Field crews from the each of the power producers, system operators, and distributors who together made up the Northeastern Grid worked frantically around the clock to repair the damage that was done when rogue currents induced by ConEd's sudden disappearance rampaged through the network. Every kind of apparatus, from the largest substations to local poletop transformers, had to be checked. Many needed to be reset, repaired, or replaced. That job was far from complete, even now. Within the Fallout Zone stretching northeast from New York City, there were tens of thousands of Phasor Data Concentrators and other data collection devices that could now only be accessed remotely, because the radiation danger made it impossible for even the hardiest field crews to safely check them in person.

But, bless their hard-hatted hearts, the field operations boys had worked their collective asses off. In Watson's opinion, the result was little short of a miracle. Yesterday afternoon, he would have bet his left testicle it would be at least a week before the system could be restored. In point of fact, it would be far more than a week before power returned to the Fallout Zone, or the upwind boroughs of New York City. Even so, what had been accomplished thus far amazed him.

"All right," Watson said, "NYISO is good to go. Nine Mile Point, let's start with you. Please bring Unit 1 online."

On the wall of giant display screens, power level indicators began to rise, as the nuclear reactor complex on the shore of Lake Ontario began feeding steam to its generators. Data point lists on the Predictive Grid Control System GUI, which heretofore had been just solid columns of zeroes, began to fill with numbers.

A spontaneous cheer erupted from the Operations floor, as the Eastern Grid began, slowly and cautiously, to rise from the grave.

**May 2, 2020, 9:30 am EDT**

## Northern State Prison, Newark, NJ

He hadn't gotten a wink of sleep, but Donell Jackson wasn't complaining. Far from it. He had spent the night as Big Sugar Washington's envoy. Shuttling from cell block to cell block, he had explained Washington's deal with Warden Lundegran to one gang boss after another. It hadn't been easy. He'd had to deal with a lot of skepticism – and he was frequently grateful for the company of David "Little Boy" Shabazz, whom Big Sugar had assigned as Jackson's bodyguard.

Washington had persuaded Warden Lundegran to allow gangs of convicts – including at least one representative from each tier – to use fire hoses to sluice the gritty fallout dust off the yard. Correctional Officers were to coordinate their efforts via walkie-talkies. That would clear the way for the prisoners to march to the dining hall in relative safety, and go a long way towards cooling off the seething resentment the attempt to force them to walk through the fallout had created. Big Sugar also got Lundegran to agree not to lock down the general population, so long as there was no additional rioting. That had taken hours of negotiation, but the capo's remorseless logic had finally prevailed.

Then the real work – getting Northern State's many gang bosses to agree to be bound by the agreement Washington had patiently worked out with the Warden – had begun. Big Sugar himself dealt only with the most powerful mob bosses in Northern State. Jackson carried Washington's message to second-tier gang leaders. Nonetheless, they were still formidable men in their own right, and dangerous if crossed.

Over and over, Donell hammered across the same points. Northern State was surrounded by a sea of radioactive poison. Attempting to escape was tantamount to suicide. The badly-outnumbered and exhausted Corrections Officers had to be protected from reprisals by inmates, because, sooner or later, the government was going to show up in force. And they would all suffer, if the Feds found they had allowed the guards to be mistreated.

Having delivered the bad news, he then stressed the positive parts of Big Sugar's deal. Lundegran had agreed not to lock down the general population, so long as there was no more rioting. Because the prison's guards were so badly over-stretched and under-staffed, the mob bosses themselves would be responsible for policing the pop. They would therefore enjoy greatly increased power, with the Warden's actual blessing.

The experience had often been frustrating, but overall, it had been enormously rewarding, as well. Watching the wary gangsters slowly, grudgingly come to accept the situation that Washington had instantly, and intuitively grasped gave Jackson a feeling of accomplishment unlike any other he had experienced. He thought he now understood why teachers spent their lives educating children. It exhilarated him to witness comprehension dawning in the eyes of the gang leaders whom he had spent so many hours persuading to support Big Sugar's treaty.

Now, that difficult task was accomplished. Washington and Jackson had gotten all the necessary parties to sign off on his deal with the Warden.

"You've done well, Donell," the mob leader told him.

Jackson basked in Washington's praise. What he'd accomplished last night gave him a feeling of accomplishment. Having Big Sugar publicly acknowledge his achievement in front of his entire gang felt like winning a medal.

Washington swept the cell with his gaze.

"I think Donell has earned his place in our organization," he said.

There was a general murmur of agreement.

Big Sugar turned back to Donell.

"Well then," he announced, "that leaves only your initiation ceremony to make it official."

Donell Jackson's heart sank. This – and the unlikelihood of ever being allowed to leave – was the hardest part of joining a mob. He had hoped that Washington would spare him the ordeal. It certainly was nothing to look forward to.

Big Sugar Washington smiled at him.

"Don't worry, Donell," he said, "your new brothers will be gentle. Won't you, boys?"

The gang exploded into raucous, mocking laughter.

Then the beating began.

**May 2, 2020, 10:30 am EDT**

## The Cabinet Room, Washington, DC

"What about the refugee situation?" asked William Orwell Steele.

Jefferson Raymond, Director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency – now once again a stand-alone agency, after the Department of Internal Security reorganization – responded to the President's question.

"As we see it, Mr. President," he replied, "the optimum choice for a primary intake facility and relocation camp is the decommissioned Seneca Army Depot. The Depot is on the Finger Lakes, about halfway between Syracuse and Rochester, New York. It has the advantage of several hundred currently-unused, existing structures, mostly former munitions bunkers. They could easily be repurposed as temporary shelters. It's only ten miles or so off Interstate 90, which, as you know, has become the main evacuation route for Boston refugees. As an alternative, we're considering Fort Monmouth, NJ. It's less developed than Seneca, and is also rather inconveniently far away from the New England coast. However, we think it makes better sense to hold Fort Monmouth in reserve, to house evacuees from New York City, when and as we're able to rescue them."

The President nodded.

"That makes a good deal of sense," he told the FEMA Director.

"Mr. President," Raymond continued, "we're projecting that 80 percent of the Fallout Zone evacuees will choose not to take advantage of government-provided shelter – and I should note we have a high level of confidence in that number. Even so, that leaves potentially tens of millions of newly-homeless citizens for whom we will have to provide at least temporary living quarters. Obviously, the Seneca camp alone will be incapable of accommodating all the refugees we anticipate. Although it will require repairs, the former Sampson Air Force Base runway, which is immediately adjacent to Seneca, could be returned to service fairly quickly. It is long enough for even C-5A's to land and take off, which means we can use Seneca as a point of departure to disperse fairly large numbers of refugees to other relocation camps around the country."

Diana Hunter spoke up. "Excuse me, Mr. President, but may I suggest that, as a matter of policy, we not refer to these facilities as 'relocation camps'? Instead, I think we should call them 'temporary housing facilities'."

Raymond frowned, but Steele held up a hand to stop his objection.

"Could you explain your thinking on this issue, Madam Vice President?" he asked.

"Certainly, Mr. President," she said. "Speaking bluntly, conspiracy-theorist bloggers and pundits are already actively promoting the idea that this administration intends to abuse its martial law powers to create a permanent dictatorship. FEMA 'relocation camps' are as much a part of their standard vocabulary as black helicopters. I strongly suggest we take care to choose our own terminology so as not to play into their hands. 'Temporary housing facilities' doesn't fit their dictatorship meme, whereas 'relocation camp' does."

"Good point, Diana. 'Temporary housing facilities' it is."

The President turned back to Raymond.

"Jeff," Steele inquired, "how long will it take to get Seneca up and running as a 'temporary housing facility' for Fallout Zone refugees?"

"We can begin accepting applications later today, Mr. President," the FEMA Director replied. "I believe we can have Seneca fully operational as what the Vice President has termed a 'temporary housing facility' by..."

He turned to conduct a whispered conference with his assistants, who were seated behind him, then continued, "... late Sunday or early Monday. As you might imagine, making that happen will, for the most part, be a matter of logistics."

"The sooner the better," Steele told him. "Draft the local National Guard, if you need to, but get it done."

Raymond rose to his feet, "If I might be excused, then, Mr. President?"

"By all means, Mr. Director," Steele agreed.

He turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"General Chung," he asked, "what resources do we have available to begin evacuating New York City?"

Chung said, "Let me defer that answer to Admiral Adams, Mr. President."

"Admiral Adams?" Steele inquired.

The Navy Chief of Staff replied in a raspy voice, "Well, sir, luckily our newest supercarrier, the John F. Kennedy, is conducting shakedown exercises off Newport News. If we offload her aircraft, she can handle a couple of thousand refugees at a time. The problem, of course, is radioactive contamination. If we use her to transport civilians from the Fallout Zone – and especially from Manhattan – we risk exposing her crew to potentially unacceptable levels of contamination. Meanwhile, the ship herself will essentially be out of service, until such time as she can be thoroughly decontaminated."

"Mr. President?" Steven Dawkins, the President's Science Advisor spoke up.

"Dr. Dawkins?" Steele replied.

"Sir," Dawkins replied, "in my opinion, Tropical Storm Beth – which is bearing down on New York, as we speak – could be a significant factor in the Manhattan rescue effort. In fact, it may be something of a mixed blessing."

"How so, Steve?" The President asked.

"Well, sir, Dawkins told him, "admittedly, high winds will pose challenges, both in sheltering the refugees on JFK's exposed flight deck, and in transporting those refugees safely. On the other hand, Beth is expected to drop a significant amount of rain on New York – six inches or more, if NOAA's most recent forecast is accurate. That should help the effort in two ways: first, by washing much of the fallout off New York's streets, and into its storm sewer system; second, by virtually eliminating airborne radioactive dust particles. While that inevitably will create an environmental nightmare in the Hudson River, Long Island Sound, and Raritan Bay estuaries in the long term, in the short term, it should help minimize the refugees' exposure to radiation. That could greatly reduce the problem of decontaminating both them and the JFK."

"That's good to hear, Doctor," Steele responded.

Dawkins nodded. "In fact, Mr. President," he continued, "decontaminating most of the refugees – at least the ones we're likely to see in the first few trips – may be as trivial as requiring them to discard their shoes before boarding the JFK."

"Dr. Dawkins," Steele smiled, "you have just made my day."

The President turned back to the Navy Chief of Staff.

"Admiral," he asked, "how long will it take to offload the JFK's planes? And what effect would leaving them aboard have on her passenger capacity?"

"Sir, she can easily fly any and all of her aircraft to NAS Oceana or Patuxent on her way to New York," Adams explained. "As for leaving them aboard, although that certainly is an option, it would cut her passenger capacity approximately in half. She can safely carry... let's say 1,200 civilians on her flight deck. With her hangar deck available, she could accommodate roughly twice that number."

"What about the other ships in her strike group?" Steele asked.

"The other vessels in JFK's battle group consist of a cruiser and two guided missile frigates, Mr. President," Adams replied. "None of them has a lot of deck space, and there's not a lot of room to spare below decks, either. And, if I may speak frankly, sir, decontaminating them would be a bitch."

"Very well, let's leave them out of our calculations for the moment," Steele said. "What other resources can the Navy bring to the party?"

"Well," Adams began, "nominally there are more than a dozen COMLANT Sealift vessels home ported at Norfolk."

"I sense a 'however'," Steele predicted.

"Yes, sir," Adams agreed. "'However,' the majority of them are currently deployed to the Persian Gulf and/or the Indian Ocean. Therefore, they're effectively unavailable to participate in the New York rescue effort – at least, in the near term. If I recall correctly, there are currently two cargo carriers in port, but they are both undergoing refit, and neither of them is currently seaworthy."

"So you're saying there are no other ships available, besides JFK?" Steele demanded, incredulously.

"By no means, Mr. President," Adams replied. "What I'm saying is that there are no other Sealift vessels – which is to say, ships belonging to the U.S. Navy – available. However, what's available in relative abundance are U.S.-flagged civilian craft. In fact, unless they've already run for it, there are very likely a fair number of such ships currently docked in and around New York City. And, if push comes to shove, under martial law, you have the authority to commandeer foreign-flagged ships, as you deem necessary. Sir."

"Well, damn," Steele said. "I suppose I do, at that."

He looked down the table at Kenneth Watanabe, the White House Counsel.

"I do, don't I, Ken?" he asked.

"Yes, Mr. President," Watanabe replied, nodding. "The Admiral is correct."

"All right, get me a list of those ships..." Steele commanded, looking around the table for a recipient of the order.

"My job, I think," Secretary of Commerce Marcy Collins volunteered, getting up from her seat. "Mr. President," she added.

"And mine, Mr. President," said Ricardo Guitierrez, Secretary of the Navy. "I suspect our database of Merchant Marine vessels will prove useful to Secretary Collins," he explained.

"By all means," Steele replied.

He stretched in his seat, and glanced at the wall clock.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it's now nearly 10:00. I for one feel a pressing need to unload about a gallon of coffee."

Laughter greeted the President's confession.

"Unless there is business you think is more urgent than that," Steele told them, "I suggest we take a short break and reconvene here at 10:10."

With welcome smiles on most of the participants' faces, the Cabinet meeting began to dissolve.

"Mr. President?" said Diana Hunter, rising to her feet as Steele passed her seat, "Might I have a word in private?"

"Can it wait, Diana?" Steele responded. "I really do have to pee."

"Yes, sir. It's regarding a... private matter, you might say."

Steele frowned.

"My schedule for the day is overly full, as you might imagine," he said. "Would it be acceptable to have that 'word' tonight, at the Residence? Say, nine-ish?"

"Mr. President," Hunter replied, "Walter Reed's visiting hours extend to 11:00 for oncology patients – but Ben is likely to be unconscious by eight or so. So, yes, thank you, nine-ish should work."

Steele looked grave.

"It's that bad?" he asked.

"Mr. President, my husband is dying," the Vice-President replied.

"I am so sorry, Diana," the President said. "Is there anything I can do?"

"No, sir," the Vice President demurred. "But thank you for asking. May I give Ben your regards?"

"By all means, please do," Steele told her.

Benjamin Hunter had been his wife's campaign manager in the race for their party's nomination. His was the hand behind some of the most vitriolic and damaging attacks of what had been a particularly brutal primary season. But that had been four years ago. From Steele's perspective, Hunter's impending death earned him a large measure of forgiveness for his political sins.

"Would you care to join me for dinner?" the President asked.

"That would be lovely," the Vice President responded.

**May 2, 2020, 12:02 am EDT**

## Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY

Eydis Finnursdottir sat sobbing. She hugged her knees to her chest, curled into a tight ball of misery.

Eydis was exhausted and starving. Her hair and skin felt greasy, and she was overwhelmed with despair and loneliness. She had eaten nothing in more than a day. During her long night on the cold, hard floor of the terminal, she had managed only snatches of sleep. Because of her exertions and the terror of her experience on the subway platform yesterday, she was sure she smelled bad, and looked worse. Everyone who knew and cared about her was more than 2500 miles away. She was a stranger, alone in an alien city in an alien land, trapped in a building full to bursting with foreigners, surrounded by drifts of radioactive death.

"Are you all right, Miss?" asked a warm, concerned, male voice.

Eydis looked up to find the voice belonged to a 20-something man.

He was dressed in hipster black from his untied Converse All-stars to his stylish scarf. He had curly black hair, a short, straight nose, a neat v-shaped soul patch under his lower lip, and a small, pointed chin. A subtle ring of eyeliner surrounded the deepest, darkest eyes she had ever suddenly, unexpectedly, longed to throw herself into, and drown.

"I..." she faltered. "It's nothing. I am just tired."

She managed a wan smile. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a bird, trapped and trying to escape.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" the gorgeous stranger asked, crouching to bring his eyes level with hers.

\- _Yes, yes, please_ yes _! Rescue me from this horrible nightmare, take me away to your castle in the clouds, bathe me in soothing oils, feed me ambrosia, and make love to me until we die of ecstasy!_ -

"You're very kind," she husked, instead, "but I am all right, really."

"You have a lovely accent," the man observed. "Is it Scandinavian?"

"Icelandic," she confessed. "I am from Reykjavik."

His dazzling smile stormed her heart.

"I'm sorry," he confessed, "I'm afraid I don't know much about Iceland... but I love Björk, if that's any help."

Eydis laughed. "Well, now I am jealous of Björk," she told him.

"Don't be," he instructed. "It's strictly a physical thing with her... I just like to dance."

His smile was blinding.

"May I sit with you?" he asked.

\- _Forever!_ -

"Yes," Eydis said, her emerald eyes shining, "Please do."

He plopped down beside her. Half-turning to face her, he stuck out his hand.

"I'm Greg Shergold," he said.

"I am Eydis Finnursdottir," she said, shaking his hand awkwardly.

"Eydis? A beautiful name, for a beautiful woman," he told her.

Eydis felt her insides melt completely away. She was left breathless, and filled to bursting with joy.

**May 2, 2020, 1:22 pm EDT**

## The West Wing Press Briefing Room, Washington, DC

"And, finally," White House Press Secretary Yvonne Clevinger told the assembled Press Corps, "the President has declared tomorrow a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the May Day bombing. The official commemoration will begin with a noon service at the National Cathedral, at which the House and Senate chaplains will co-officiate. The President and Vice President will attend the service, of course, and we expect that most of Congress will also be there. Tomorrow afternoon, there will be a memorial concert at the Kennedy Center. The President and a number of other dignitaries will speak, followed by event-appropriate musical selections from a variety of artists. As of right now, the National Choir of Men and Boys, and the Washington Metropolitan Youth Orchestra are the only confirmed acts. Unfortunately, due to the current ban on civilian air traffic, many other excellent performers will be physically unable to appear, but I'm sure there will still be quite a few additions to the list before the end of the day."

Clevinger looked up from the podium.

"That concludes the scripted part of today's briefing," she stated.

The Press Secretary smiled, a wan, but genuine smile.

"I'll take a few questions," she announced, "but I ask you to please be brief – in other words, no two-parters."

Hands, including many clutching pens, notepads, and smartphones, shot up all over the room. Clevinger decided to pick a potentially hostile questioner first.

"Mr. Bullock?" she called.

Reed Bullock of Fox News began, "Regarding the FEMA relocation camps..."

Clevinger looked pained.

"Please, Mr. Bullock," she corrected, "they're 'temporary housing facilities', not 'relocation camps'."

Bullock waved her objection away, as if it were a pesky insect.

"Po- _tay_ -to, po- _tah_ -to," he said dismissively. "The question is, where are you going to stash all those people, and, once they're in the camps, how long will it be before you let them out?"

"Mr. Bullock," Clevinger said firmly, "anyone who takes advantage of FEMA's offer to provide temporary housing will be free to vacate that housing any time he or she chooses to do so. These facilities will be open to inspection by the press. And no one – I repeat 'no one' – will be forced to accept these accommodations against their will. They're being provided as an option, not a mandate."

Bullock started to speak. Clevinger interrupted him.

"Uh!" she warned, holding up an admonitory finger. "As for locations other than the Seneca Army Depot, those will mostly also be decommissioned military bases – at least, to begin with. The President has chosen them primarily because of logistical concerns: they all have airstrips capable of landing jumbo jets adjacent to them, and most have vacant structures that can readily be converted to temporary housing. Also, because the Federal government owns them, the paperwork and expense involved in requisitioning them for FEMA's use will be minimal. Our displaced citizens demand, and deserve immediate action to assist them in their time of need, and the President is determined to provide that assistance in as timely – and cost-effective – a manner as possible. Next question?"

She ignored Bullock's attempt to follow up, and instead pointed to the MSNBC correspondent. "Mr. Hollingsworth?"

"Does the Administration have any idea yet who was behind the attack?" asked Preston Hollingsworth.

"Not that I'm aware of," the Press Secretary replied. "Please keep in mind that, as he announced yesterday, the President's immediate focus is on the victims of the attack, rather than on its perpetrators. Yesterday, President Steele promised he will see to it that those responsible for the nuclear bombing of Manhattan will be found, and made to pay the price for their crime. I can assure you that he means every word of that promise."

"I ask," Hollingsworth responded, "because there are rumors going around that a revived Al Qaeda network is responsible."

"And, from what I understand," Clevinger shot back, "there are also rumors that Martians were responsible. If there's any substance to either of those rumors – or to any of the dozens, or hundreds of others making the blogosphere rounds – I can only tell you that I have not personally been so informed. Mr. St. John?"

Martin St. John of Reuters, asked, "When, exactly, do you expect the USS Kennedy to reach Manhattan? And will the media be permitted to cover her mission?"

"Weather permitting," Clevinger told him, "the JFK should reach Manhattan sometime before midnight tonight. Obviously, tropical storm Beth will have an influence on her actual schedule."

There was a general nodding of heads at that _caveat_.

"As for press coverage," she continued, "it would be up to her captain whether or not to allow it – but I suspect that physically getting your reporters onto the JFK without violating the civilian no-fly rule currently in effect will be your real obstacle."

"Then the Administration does not intend to make an exception to those rules for the media?" Bullock demanded.

"Not as far as I know," the Press Secretary replied. With an internal sigh of resignation, she said, "Mr. Bonsalle?"

Bernard Bonsalle, was the correspondent from the Libertyfire blog – and the current representative of the rotating pool of reporters from independent blogs.

He stood, and declared self-importantly, "As I'm certain you are aware, there has been significant pushback against President Steele's declaration of martial law. There's been talk that he'll cancel the upcoming Presidential election, and that democracy may, in fact, never be restored to the American people. Are you prepared to confirm Steele's intention to cancel the election, and make himself dictator-for-life of the United States?"

Clevinger's hazel eyes flashed with anger, as a murmur of disapproval at Bonsalle's act of _lèse majesté_ spread across the Briefing Room.

"First of all," she replied, biting off each word as if it were Bonsalle's head, "there is no greater champion of democracy alive today than _President_ Steele. I can assure you he issued yesterday's declaration of martial law only with the greatest reluctance. No one looks forward more eagerly than the President does to its end. I also think it's important to point out that, last night, Congress voted overwhelmingly to approve his declaration – in fact, the vote in favor was nearly unanimous. Just as importantly, I'd like to note that your characterization of the amount of pushback against the President's declaration of martial law as 'significant' is misleading, at best.

"In point of fact, only a small number of extreme-right-wing bloggers, and podcasters have voiced any real objection – your employer being one of them."

She held up a hand to forestall Bonsalle's objection.

"Right now," she continued, "the President is completely focused on the tasks of rescue and recovery from this national disaster. The Presidential campaign is at the very bottom of his current list of priorities. I'm absolutely certain he has no plans to cancel the upcoming election. I'm equally sure he hopes that martial law will be a mere historical footnote, long before November 3rd comes along. Finally – and this is my own personal opinion – the notion that President Steele has any desire to become 'dictator-for-life' of the United States is utterly ludicrous. As far as I'm concerned, only a raving lunatic would seriously suggest such a thing."

Clevinger made a visible effort to calm herself.

"Ms. Colson?" she invited.

Susan Colson of ABC asked, "Will the President himself be holding a press conference any time soon?"

"I don't know," Clevinger replied, "but I imagine so. I'll ask him about it the next time I see him."

She gathered up the papers on the podium before her, and swept the room with a glance.

"That's all for now," the Press Secretary concluded. "Thank you for your time and attention."

**May 2, 2020, 2:28 pm EDT**

## The White House Situation Room, Washington, DC

William Orwell Steele sat at the head of the long, rectangular table that dominated the Situation Room. His national security staff and the Joint Chiefs were arrayed to his left and right. General Winston Chung, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was just finishing up his summary of the radiation data collected from flyovers of Manhattan by unmanned aerial vehicles. Those readings were shown as overlays in a spectrum of colors on a satellite photo of the island, which was displayed on the giant video wall at the end of the table.

"This next set of images was taken by a Marine reconnaissance squad that Admiral Adams dispatched to do a ground survey of Lower Manhattan this morning," Chung concluded. "I'll let him describe them for you, sir."

Admiral Harlan Adams, the Chief of Staff of the Navy, accepted the remote control from Chung.

"Mr. President," he said, his deep voice rasping, "this first shot was taken from the World Financial Plaza, looking approximately northeast toward the remains of the World Trade Center."

The digital photograph showed the "pass" between the mountains of rubble that had been the World Financial Center and Three World Financial Center towers, with the figure of Lt. Roger Young, otherworldly in his bulky MOPP 4 suit, climbing the unsteady pile of debris.

"I'm not familiar enough with that part of Manhattan to understand what I'm looking at," Steele complained.

"For comparison's sake, Mr. President," Adams clarified, "here's a Google Earth image of approximately the same view, as it would have appeared two days ago."

The image of Lt. Young climbing the ruins was replaced on the big screen with a view across the Plaza. It showed the intact Freedom Tower soaring in the distance, behind the low dome of the Securities and Exchange Commission Building, which squatted in the foreground. The towers of the World Financial Center skyscrapers loomed on either side of the SEC headquarters.

"Jesus fucking Christ," said Steele.

Intellectually, he had known that the destruction the nuclear bomb had wreaked on Lower Manhattan had been devastating. The contrast between the two images made the concept horrifyingly real to him on an emotional level he had not previously experienced. For a long moment, he sat dumbstruck. The room was quiet around him, as the others surrounding the table absorbed the impact, as well.

"Let me see the previous one again," Steele said, in a shaken voice.

Adams manipulated the remote control. The photo of Lt. Young climbing the pile of rubble reappeared on the big screen.

"Jesus!" Steele repeated.

There was another long moment of silence, as he got his emotions under control.

Then the President said, "Proceed, Admiral," in a voice as devoid of emotion as his reaction to the two contrasting images had vibrated with it.

"Yes, sir," Adams said. "This next photo is of Ground Zero itself. It was taken by Lt. Roger Young, whom you saw climbing the remains of the SEC Building in the previous photo."

The Google Earth image briefly flashed on the big screen, followed by a picture of the melted-looking stub of the Freedom Tower and the rubble-strewn, glassy crater that surrounded it. All of the skyscrapers around One World Trade Center appeared to have collapsed. They formed a nearly-continuous ring of smoldering wreckage, surmounted by a still-dense cloud of smoke, with the misshapen base of the Freedom Tower at its center. What had been the National September 11 Memorial was now buried in debris. The effect was that of a Moonscape: barren, lifeless, alien, and somehow unreal.

"Unbelievable," Steele said. After a moment, he asked, "Are there more?"

"Yes sir," said Adams, summoning the next image.

It had been taken from the same position, but angled towards what had been the Goldman Sachs Building and 101 Barclay Street. Both were now just part of the ring wall of shattered skyscrapers, with Midtown Manhattan invisible behind the obscuring columns of smoke from their still-burning remains. After a moment, Adams brought up the following photo. It looked southeast toward the ruins of 5 World Trade Center and the Equitable Life Building. Again, nothing but devastation was visible.

"Is there a closer view of Ground Zero?" Steele asked.

"No sir," replied Adams.

"Why not?" Steele demanded.

"Mr. President," Adams said, "the levels of radiation in, and immediately around Ground Zero are extremely high – high enough that they interfere significantly with both the imaging and control systems of our unmanned aerial vehicles. As it turned out, this task was one which men could do, while robots, unfortunately, could not. I say 'unfortunately', because, in the process of obtaining these photographs, Lt. Young absorbed what will probably turn out to have been a fatal dose of radiation. I feel I should also add that, in my view, he went well beyond the call of duty in doing so. The other members of his squad took very high doses of radiation, as well, although none of them was nearly as heavily irradiated as Lt. Young. Had he attempted to get any closer, he probably would not have survived to bring us the pictures you've just seen."

"You're saying that man's a hero," Steele observed.

"Yes sir," agreed Admiral Adams. "They all are."

**May 2, 2020, 4:31 pm EDT**

## Clay St., Hackensack, NJ

Nakeesha Gramble dreamed she was an angel.

She had been lying huddled in her bed, when, all at once, she started floating up into the air. The ceiling disappeared, and she rose high into the sky. Nakeesha looked down on her house, and spotted her Big Wheel sitting in the driveway. That made her smile. Her Big Wheel always made her happy.

She hadn't been happy at all, for what seemed like days and days now.

The last time Marq had come into her room, he had grabbed her by her braids, like he always did now, to use her mouth as if she were some kind of appliance – a mere object for him to gratify himself with. But her braids had pulled right out of her scalp in Marq's hands. With them had come patches of her burning scalp, revealing to her molester's horrified eyes the raw bone of her skull.

Shaken, her Mama's boyfriend had fled from Nakeesha's bedroom, leaving her to sink back into the stupor from which he had roused her. That slowly-deepening coma had protected her for the last several hours from having to experience her own suffering.

But that was in the past.

Now – right now – Nakeesha was flying way up high in the sky. Her neighborhood was all spread out below her, like a map. There was the Center for Food Action. Across the street was the funeral home, with the big, showy trees in front of it. And there were her Mama and Donell, somehow together again, and walking hand-in-hand along 1st Street.

Nakeesha waved to her Mama and Donell.

They smiled, and waved back at her. Nakeesha was so happy her Mama and Donell were back together that she felt like she would burst. Now they could be a family, and the Po-Po could never, ever take Donell away from them again.

She was flying very high, now

Hackensack was so tiny below her that she had to laugh at how absurd and toy-like it looked. Above her, she saw a bright, white light beaming down, setting her wings gloriously aglow. Nakeesha just wished her Mama and Donell could see her now. Her angel wings suffused with radiance, her white robe rippling in the air, she joyfully flew higher and higher.

Into the light.

**May 2, 2020, 5:46 pm EDT**

## Wooten Rd., Sandston, VA

Richard Wayne Lee hadn't gotten much sleep.

Then again, he never got much sleep any more. That was all right. After tonight, he'd never need to sleep again. In the meantime, there was an awful lot for him to do.

He'd just finished unloading the five plastic, five-gallon gas cans, steel funnel, and 22-quart Tramontina stock pot he'd purchased at the Mechanicsville Walmart Supercenter. Now, he was transferring a double armload of styrofoam cups and plates to the insides of his garage.

He hadn't been able to locate any benzene, but that wasn't too big a problem. The recipes for homemade napalm he'd found on the Internet had made it clear that benzene just made the stuff more flammable. With its wings full of avgas, his little Cessna was going to make a pretty good ignition source. The whole point of the napalm was simply to make sure the fire couldn't be extinguished easily. He figured 25 gallons of it ought to accomplish that pretty well.

R. Wayne whistled, as he dumped the plates and cups on the floor of the garage, and headed back through the rain to his gleaming F150 for another load. Thunderstruck, he suddenly realized that he was actually _happy_. It was an unfamiliar sensation – he hadn't been truly happy in quite a long time. In fact it had been decades, now that he thought about it.

\- _There's nothing like having a purpose in life to make a man feel good about himself._ –

R. Wayne savored the wisdom of the insight.

Dumping the final load of supplies on the garage floor, he went back outside to lock the tonneau cover on his truck bed. Re-entering his garage, he pulled the door down behind him.

\- _Nosy damned neighbors can kiss my wrinkled, gray ass._ -

The image made him laugh out loud.

Lord almighty, he felt good! Dilaudid kept him from feeling bad – at least, most of the time – but today he felt like his old self. Better than his old self. In fact, he felt fan-fucking- _tas_ tic. Nearly as good as the first time he'd flown solo, all those years ago, by God!

Still whistling, he hoisted the stock pot up onto his sturdy wooden workbench, then heaved one of the sloshing gas cans up beside it. He'd made it a point to fill each of the cans at a different gas station on the way home from Walmart. No point in setting off alarms with DIS. He'd paid in cash for four of the fill-ups, too. Unscrewing the knurled plastic cap, he manhandled the gas can up onto his shoulder, and began pouring its contents into the stock pot. The fumes from the hi-test gasoline made his head swim.

\- _Use only in well-ventilated conditions._ –

The last of the gas gurgled into the pot.

He set the can back on the garage floor. Then he put the cap on the work bench, and started towards his kitchen, to fetch the long-handled spatula he used for barbequing.

\- _Tonight in Hell, they'll be serving barbequed tyrant._ -

_Lord_ , he felt good!

**May 2, 2020, 7:28 pm EDT**

## Yale Farm Road, Romulus, NY

"Goddamnit!" shouted Sean Halloran, Sr., pounding on the steering wheel of his Chevy Sierra pickup truck, "this fuckin' traffic hasn't moved for a fuckin' _hour_!"

As usual, the 8-year-old truck ignored his rage, while his wife could not. Fiona cowered against the passenger's door. She knew better than to think anything she could say would calm her husband, when he was in this black a mood. Better to simply take what cover she could, and try to weather the storm, than to risk re-focusing his wrath on her.

Strapped into his car seat behind them, Sean, Jr. began crying lustily.

"Aw, for fuck's sake," said Sean Sr. "Fiona..."

"I'm sorry, Sean," his wife told him, "he's just scared... and prob'ly hungry, too."

"What the _fuck_ am I suppos'd to do about that, huh?" demanded Sean, Sr. "What the _fuck_ am I suppos'd to do?"

"I know it's not your fault, Honey," Fiona hastily assured him, in her most sympathetic tone. "But little Sean's just a baby. He can't understand, like I do."

Suddenly contrite, Sean Sr. reached across the cab to gently squeeze his spouse's knee.

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart," he told her. "It's just that we're almost outta gas – and it's gonna be dark, soon. I'm just worried, is all."

A sudden surge of affection for her husband swept Fiona. He really was a good provider, and she had no doubt that he loved both her and their son with all his heart. It really wasn't his fault. He just had a little problem controlling his temper, when things didn't go exactly his way. That was all. Sean was just trying to protect them.

Sean, Jr. abruptly stopped crying. He began to hiccup, instead.

Fiona decided to unbuckle her seat belt, so she could turn around and fish Sean Jr.'s bottle out of the cooler beside him on the rear seat. She hoped a little apple juice would make him feel better.

"Why don't ya turn the engine off, Sean?" she asked, as she rummaged in the cooler. "Ya know – to save gas?"

"Fuck, Fiona," Sean Sr. replied, "ya know the line's gonna move the second I do."

"But isn't that what ya want?" Fiona asked.

Sean Sr. opened his mouth to respond. Then he thought better of it. When she was right, by God, Fiona was fuckin' right.

He turned the truck off, but left the ignition switch in the utility position, so they could listen to the radio. The temporary plastic signs, positioned every 100 yards or so along Yale Farm Road, instructed drivers to tune to 710 AM for instructions. Mostly, those instructions consisted of telling those drivers to remain in their cars, and to be patient. All applications for temporary housing would be processed in the order of the applicant's arrival.

\- _That's just fuckin' fine – for the assholes who got here early._ -

Halloran thought his family would be among them, but he hadn't counted on the sheer number of his fellow Boston-area exiles. All of them, it seemed, had set out at once on Interstate 90, headed west from Schenectady. By the time the Hallorans turned south on highway 96 toward Romulus, traffic had already slowed to the pace of an arthritic turtle. It was now painfully apparent to Sean, Sr. that they weren't the only ones in need of FEMA's "temporary housing". Ever since a state trooper stationed at the intersection of 96 and Yale Farm Road waved them off the highway – along with everyone else who couldn't show an ID proving they lived in the area – they'd been stuck creeping along the narrow country road, at well under a mile per hour. Their only diversion had been the occasional Humvee or six-by-six truck, roaring by in the otherwise-vacant opposite lane.

Frustrated, Sean Sr. fished in his pocket for his pack of smokes.

\- _Only four left._ -

Given his luck so far, there was a good chance that, even when they eventually reached their destination, cigarettes were likely to remain a scarce commodity for at least the next day or two.

\- _And I prob'ly won't be able to find any beer there, either. Goddamnit!_ -

Once again, Sean Halloran, Sr.'s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.

**May 2, 2020, 8:02 pm EDT**

## Clay St., Hackensack, NJ

Sprawled across her daughter's bed, Latonya Gramble lay weeping. Her shoulders heaved with sobs, her shaking arms desperately clutched Nakeesha's still, cold corpse.

Latonya had awakened from her heroin-induced daze only minutes earlier. She had gone stumbling through the rented duplex in search of her lover, Marqus Collins, and the promise of another fix. Instead, she had found only silence and gloom, until she had entered the bedroom where her mutilated daughter's corpse lay. It was already stiffening in death.

She had wailed like a lost soul. Falling to her knees, she gathered her precious baby's lifeless form to her, in an agony of loss and loneliness.

Nakeesha had been everything to Latonya. At least, she had been everything, until Latonya accepted heroin into her life. Then Nakeesha, along with every other aspect of Latonya's old existence, faded into insignificance next to her all-consuming passion for her new best friend forever, smack.

Her most recent boyfriend had introduced her to brown sugar.

Marqus had come into her life after Donell Jackson had been arrested while breaking into a house on the other side of Hackensack. Donell was convicted of violating his parole, and sent to finish out his original five-year term in Newark. That had been a terrible event in the life of Latonya Gramble. Donell had been so good to her, and to Nakeesha, that his loss had sent Latonya into an emotional tailspin. Even after Marqus, with his suave good looks, had insinuated himself into their lives, his frequent compliments about her fine booty and DSL hadn't really affected her depression. Nakeesha had never really warmed to him, either, so Latonya's relationship with Marqus had been a strictly casual thing – until H entered her life.

"Just try it, Baby," Marqus told her, "Ain't no big thing."

So she had tried it, using a rolled-up dollar bill to snuff up a small pile of the stuff off a hand mirror from the bathroom.

The horse made her feel all warm and drowsy. More importantly, it made her troubles seem to fade away into nothing. Donell's absence no longer hurt so much. Latonya no longer felt so alone and helpless. And the relentless financial pressure of being the single mother of a pre-schooler retreated safely behind the cozy blanket of well-being that first hit of scag had given her.

Naturally enough, after that initial, blissful experience, the next time Marq – he was Marq, now, rather than the more formal Marqus – offered her a snort, she eagerly accepted it, disappearing into the snug, wooly insulation from her problems it provided. Not too long afterward, she began skin popping.

"It's better, Baby," Marq had assured her. "You'll see."

And she had. And it was. And one thing led to another. Inside of a month, she was mainlining.

Now the all-consuming comfort of her last hit was wearing off. Marq was nowhere to be found. Her beautiful, sweet baby Nakeesha was dead in her bed, her beautiful braids ripped out of her blood-soaked head. Latonya was all alone in the dark.

And starting to jones.

Mourning the loss of her daughter, her lover, her fix, and her future, Latonya Gramble gave voice to an extended, wordless, animal cry of primal pain.

Outside, it began to rain.

**May 2, 2020, 9:08 pm EDT**

## The White House Living Room, Washington, DC

"Excuse me, Mr. President," said Special Agent Richard "Dick" Wright, head of William Orwell Steele's second-shift Secret Service detail.

Steele looked up from the report he had been skimming on Iranian _Quds_ Force covert activities in the Republic of Central Iraq, the Sunni-dominated fragment of the sundered Islamic Republic of Iraq.

"Yes, Dick?" the President asked.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir," Wright said, "but the Vice President's security detail reports that Mrs. Hunter left Walter Reed ten minutes ago. Her ETA at the east gate is six minutes."

"Thank you, Dick," Steele replied.

He closed the red Top Secret folder, and placed the _Quds_ Force report on top of a two-inch stack of similar red folders on the coffee table in front of him. Sitting next to it was a second, three-inch stack of unread reports, most of them also enclosed in red folders. Steele knew that, by nine o'clock the next morning, there would be another five-inch stack of reports waiting for him. Only some of them would be holdovers from the current "pending" pile. He envied President Kennedy's purported ability to speed-read 2500 words per minute. Even skimming the text for key passages, his own pace was considerably slower – and the flow of new information the President was expected to absorb was never-ending.

Steele stood, and stretched.

"Tell Mrs. Hunter's detail I'll meet her at the North Portico," he instructed.

The President stopped to use the restroom, and spent a moment scratching his Great Dane behind the ears. Accompanied by Agent Wright and his beloved dog, he started for the second floor elevator. Two minutes later, he was standing on the gray marble steps of the North Portico, flanked by uniformed Secret Service members. Wright and two other Special Agents stood in front of him.

Duke, sitting beside the President, whined in anticipation. He recognized the signs of an impending visitor – someone who would inevitably want to pet and praise him.

It was raining heavily, and the infamous North Portico winds were cutting. Steele, determined to greet the Vice President himself, refused to retreat into the glass vestibule that separated the front door to the White House from the Entrance Hall within. To his surprise, he felt like a schoolboy awaiting his first date; nervous and unsure of himself; filled with anticipation, but looking forward to Diana Hunter's arrival. Luckily, the Vice President's limousine pulled up the driveway only a minute or so later.

The President, descended the six steps to the curb, as Hunter stepped out of the car.

"Hello, Mr. President," she greeted him. "Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?"

"Madam Vice President," Steele replied, "it is not."

Offering her his arm, he added, "Shall we run for it?"

"That," she responded, "would not be very dignified, would it?"

"Nope," agreed the President.

Detouring around the delighted Duke, whose frantically-wagging tail shook his entire hindquarters, the executive couple made tracks for the vestibule. They were chased by a uniformed Secret Service agent trying desperately – and ineffectively – to shield them from the downpour with an umbrella. The First Dog crowded in after them. As he vigorously shook himself dry, Duke sprayed them both with second-hand raindrops.

Hunter laughed, forestalling Steele's apology.

"There went our dignity," she observed.

"Dogs," Steele nodded. "You gotta love 'em."

"And I do," the Vice President replied.

Suiting action to words, she took Duke's massive head in her hands, and energetically scrubbed him behind the ears.

"Who's a good boy?" she cooed. "Who's a good boy?"

The overjoyed animal responded by laving Hunter's carefully-made-up face with his handkerchief-sized tongue.

"Oh, God, Diana," the President told her, "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Hunter replied. "Doggy kisses are always welcome."

"Your diplomacy is showing," Steele observed. "I see you're flying solo tonight."

Hunter nodded.

"I thought one freeloader at the President's table would be plenty, so I gave my staff the night off," she said.

"You're a very considerate guest, then," Steele replied. "I don't usually have that pleasure."

"Thank you for the kind words," Hunter said. "But I'm simply being selfish. Tonight I wanted your undivided attention."

"That you have," the President affirmed, smiling. "So, can I buy you a drink, or would you rather eat first?"

"Food before alcohol, always," Hunter replied. "And, frankly, I'm famished. But first," she gestured to her slobber-covered face, "I need to make a few cosmetic repairs."

Sandy Wilkerson, the White House night usher, approached the two executives.

"Pardon my interruption," he inquired, "but would the Vice President care for a moist towelette?"

"Thank you," Hunter said. "And then a quick trip to the powder room, perhaps?"

Steele grinned. "You're in good hands with Sandy, Diana. Shall we plan on meeting at the Family Dining Room in, say, five minutes?"

"That works for me," agreed the Vice President. Turning to follow Wilkerson, she looked back over her shoulder and favored the President with a warm smile.

**May 2, 2020, 9:28 pm EDT**

## Hanover County Municipal Airport, VA

Richard Wayne Lee turned right off rain-slicked Air Park Road into the Hanover County Municipal Airport parking lot. At the entrance, he turned left, and pulled up to the secondary gate that extended from the airport perimeter fence to the HOVA aircraft maintenance and repair shop. Leaving his immaculately-maintained F150 pickup running, Lee got out of the vehicle to inspect the gate. As expected, he found it secured with a padlocked chain.

\- _Not a problem._ -

Lee walked around the passenger side door of the gleaming red pickup truck. He leaned into the F150, and pulled out the pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters he'd brought along for just such a contingency. Moments later, there was a snapping sound, and the lock and chain fell away from the gate. R. Wayne slid the chain-link gate aside.

He got back behind the wheel of his truck, drove onto the tarmac, parked, and returned to slide the now-unlocked gate closed. He cut around the engine and airframe shop, and drove the short distance to the end of the second row of tie-downs, where his beloved Cessna was parked.

Lee backed his pickup in next to the passenger door of the little fabric-winged aircraft. Getting out, he went around to the rear of the F150, and unlocked the tonneau cover. He dropped the pickup's gate to give himself easier access to his homemade napalm. Then he unlocked the airplane's passenger door, braced it open with a tieback, and folded the passenger seat down.

\- _No sense in making the job any harder than it has to be._ -

"What the Hell you think you're doing, Mister?" demanded a gruff voice behind him.

A flashlight beam threw his shadow, sharp and black, against the maroon-and-cream-painted fuselage of the Cessna.

"Well, hello, Curtis," Lee said cheerfully, recognizing the voice.

He turned to face Curtis Suggs, the air park's night watchman, carefully shielding his eyes from the blinding light of Suggs's torch.

"Mind pointing that flashlight somewhere other than my peepers?" he requested, mildly.

"R. Wayne? That you?" demanded the elderly African-American security guard.

Suggs lowered the powerful light, to throw a pool of illumination at Lee's feet.

"What you doin' out here this time of night?" he demanded.

"Just wanted to put my hands on the old girl," Lee told him. "You know how it is – couldn't sleep – and hurt too damned much to just sit at home. Besides, I'm overdue to turn her over. Got to keep that Lycoming lubed, y'know."

"How'd you get in here, anyway, Mr. Lee?" asked the watchman. "I know the gates is all locked. I done locked 'em myself."

R. Wayne shrugged.

"Well, the one by the shop wasn't," he told the elderly guard. "Maybe you missed it."

"Uh huh," replied Suggs, doubt plain in his voice.

Lee sighed.

"Tell you what, Curtis," he said, "since you're here, can I get you to turn the prop for me? You'd really be doing me a big favor."

"You cain't fly that airplane, you know," the guard told him. "The President done said so."

"I know that, Curtis," R. Wayne said, his tone appeasing. "Of course I know that. I just want to fire the engine up, and maybe taxi the old girl up and down the runway one time. You know – just to make sure her engine is properly lubricated. I don't want it to rust, while I'm waiting for the President to let us start flying again is all. Think you could give me a hand?"

"Well, I don't know," replied Curtis Suggs.

His brow furrowed in thought.

Lee kept a friendly smile firmly pasted across his face. He and Suggs had known each other for years, and he had no reason to expect his request would be refused.

At length, the elderly watchman grudgingly allowed, "I guess I might could. Don't you go tellin' nobody, though."

R. Wayne's smile became genuine.

"Cross my heart," he promised, suiting action to words, "and hope to die."

"Well, alright then," Suggs said.

Lee led the guard through the drizzle to the nose of the Cessna. He had Suggs face the double-bladed Sensenich propeller, and instructed him to "give that sucker a good yank" once he himself threw the ignition switch. The gray-haired watchman nodded his comprehension of the task.

"You're gonna need to use both hands," R. Wayne told him. "She'll be a little stiff."

Suggs nodded. "I kin turn it," he predicted, turning off his flashlight, and slipping it into its holster on his belt. "Just you wait and see."

"I believe you can, at that," Lee said in a sincere and encouraging tone.

He unlocked the right-hand door, and hoisted himself into the pilot's seat. Centering the rudder, he pumped the primer three times, put his hand on the throttle, and turned the ignition switch.

"Hit it!" he called.

Suggs put both hands on the prop blade, and gave a mighty heave. The Lycoming O-235-C1's magnetos spun. Lee fed it fuel. With a cough and a sputter, emitting a blast of blue smoke, the horizontally-opposed four-cylinder motor roared to life. R. Wayne gave Suggs a thumbs-up, and a broad grin. He checked to be certain the Cessna's brakes were set, and then hopped back out of the aircraft.

"Good job, Curtis," he shouted in the guard's ear.

"See," the watchman yelled back, "I told you I could do it."

Richard Wayne Lee nodded in agreement, and shouted, "I knew you could."

Then he shot Curtis Suggs twice in the chest, at point-blank range, with the Smith & Wesson .44 Stealth Hunter he had pulled from the waistband of his fatigue pants.

The elderly black guard, a look of utter shock on his face, toppled backwards onto the glistening tarmac like a felled tree. His skull hit the blacktop with a soggy thunk. Lee leaned over him, and put a final shot from the Stealth Hunter through Suggs's forehead, one carefully-aimed inch above his eyes.

"Sorry Curtis," he told the corpse. "Every revolution has its casualties. I guess you get to be the Crispus Attucks of this one."

Then, whistling cheerfully, R. Wayne set about loading his five cans of homemade napalm into the cargo space behind the Cessna's seats.

**May 2, 2020, 9:58 pm EDT**

## Port Authority Bus Terminal, New York, NY

To her sheer astonishment and profound delight, Eydis Finnursdottir was happy. Utterly, deliriously happy, in a way she had never before experienced. True, she was still a foreigner in a foreign land, dirty, tired, and surrounded by radioactive death. But she was no longer alone in her predicament. And – because the Terminal's food vendors had decided that afternoon to give away the swiftly-defrosting contents of their non-functioning freezers – she was no longer quite as ravenously hungry as she had been before she met Gregory Alan Shergold.

\- _Greg Shergold._ -

She savored the syllables.

Just thinking his name made Eydis nearly swoon with joy. He had been her constant companion since... forever, it seemed. Although it had been only hours ago that he had inquired whether she needed help, it seemed to her now as though they had somehow always known each other; had always been together.

They had spent the intervening hours talking endlessly, telling each other everything about themselves. She told him about her girlhood in Reykjavik; about her training as a _Róverskátar_ ; about her study of architecture at the Academy of the Arts; about the along _Laugavegur_ , and the night life that never really got going until after midnight; about her father's work and her mother's career; about her older brother's job; her younger brother's love of football; her dog Snorri; her dreams, hopes, and ambitions. He had regaled her with tales of growing up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan; of his lawyer father, and socialite mother; of his rebellion against their predetermined plans for his life; of his little sister Cissy and her dedication to all things Barbie; of his childhood collection of postcards from around the world; of his classes in fine arts and design at Parsons; of his dog Colonel Mustard; of his hopes, dreams, and ambitions.

They had discussed music; talked politics; spoken of travel, philosophy, and literature. Finally, they talked themselves out. Now, like two ancient souls who had at last found one another again, lifetimes after their last parting, they simply stood, leaning together.

Each had a hand in the other's back pocket. Her head rested on his shoulder, as they looked out through the glass windows of the Terminal at the formless darkness. Spellbound, they listened to the roar of the rain, and the howl of the wind, watching as the full fury of Tropical Storm Beth clawed, and bit at Manhattan.

For the moment, it was more than enough for happiness.

**May 2, 2020, 10:22 pm EDT**

## Over the Potomac River

R. Wayne Lee wiped his sweating palms on his khaki cargo pants: first the left, then the right, careful to keep one hand on the control yoke at all times. He was proud of the flying he'd done this night – although he was acutely aware that the most demanding part of the journey still lay ahead. Nonetheless, R. Wayne thought he'd done better than most pilots could have.

He'd kept the little Cessna barely high enough to clear the treetops and power lines, flying parallel to Interstate 95 from Richmond to just beyond Fredericksburg, then cutting over to the Potomac below Quantico – all by Visual Flight Rules. At night. Through pounding rain that would have kept most VFR pilots grounded. Buffeted for the past half-hour by frighteningly-powerful horizontal gusts of wind and stomach-churning vertical shear. All without the aid of GPS; navigating strictly by dead reckoning; using only his compass, wrist chronograph, and airspeed indicator to find his way.

\- _Damned fine flying, if I say so myself._ -

He was feeling lightheaded. The wooziness was not just from the extra Dilaudid he'd dry-swallowed 20 minutes or so earlier, but also from the gasoline fumes emanating from five open containers of homebrew napalm jostling in the cargo space behind him in the cramped little cabin. He had deliberately left their caps lying back on the tarmac at ODT, alongside his abandoned F-150 pickup truck.

\- _When I hit the White House, it's not just me that's going to splash._ -

Looking to his left, Lee realized with a start that the ghostly mansion he saw perched on a hilltop must be Mount Vernon, home of George Washington.

\- _You'd be proud of me, General. I'm battling tyranny in my time, just as you did in yours._ -

His radio was on, and tuned to 121.5 MHz, the general aviation distress frequency. So far, there had been no attempt to contact him. Of course, he was flying with his transponder turned off. Without running lights, the little Cessna was nearly invisible to ground observers. Likewise, the howling rainstorm through which he'd been flying covered the plane's engine noise, and helped cloak him from the extensive radar coverage inside the Washington Air Defense Information Zone. Just as importantly, he was flying right down on the deck. That was extremely dangerous, given the devilish turbulence he'd been fighting – not to mention the Potomac's penchant for generating fog. But he'd made it this far. Now he was actually inside the Restricted Flight Zone for the Washington ADIZ West Sector, with no one in Washington's officialdom seemingly the wiser.

\- _Surely the Lord is my shepherd – and, soon enough, I'll be lying down in His green pastures._ -

He chuckled.

\- _Yea, though I fly through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil._ -

**May 2, 2020, 10:21 pm EDT**

## The White House Living Room, Washington, DC

"So," the President said, raising both his cut-crystal whisky glass and his eyebrow, "is this the moment of truth?"

"I suppose it is," the Vice President replied.

She raised her own glass.

"To truth," she toasted.

"To truth," William Orwell Steele repeated.

He knocked back a healthy slug of Lagavulin.

Diana Hunter took a swallow of Maker's Mark. She set her half-filled glass down on the coffee table, next to Steele's stack of unread Top Secret folders. Taking a deep breath, she looked Steele directly in the eye, her gaze steady, her expression serious.

"First of all," she began, "I want to apologize to you for all the mean, vicious – and untrue – things we said about you during the 2016 primary."

"Please," Steele replied dismissively, "That was just political rhetoric. Everyone does it."

Hunter reached for his hand. Her tawny eyes flashed.

"No," she contradicted. "Everyone doesn't. You didn't."

Steele set his drink down beside hers, to give himself cover while he formulated a response.

"Di, I assure you that was purely a matter of strategy," he said.

Hunter shook her head.

"No it wasn't," she insisted. "I have it on very good authority that Andy Philips tried to persuade you to go negative, and you overruled him. Not once, but over and over again. Will, I've observed you more closely than you think, not just during the campaign, but during the past four years, as well. I've seen that you can make the hard decisions when you have to, but at heart, you're still very much a Boy Scout."

\- _Am I blushing? It sure feels that way._ -

Aloud, he said, "Courteous, kind, thrifty, brave... I forget what all else a Boy Scout is supposed to be... but I'm not really very many of those things. A President can't be."

Hunter took both of his hands in hers. Her grip was fierce.

"I'm deadly serious," she said. "Please don't make light of this!"

Steele was instantly contrite. "I'm sorry, Di," he said. "Speak your piece. I'll shut up."

"I mean what I say," Hunter insisted. "I'm sincerely apologizing to you for those attack ads. I'm ashamed that they were products of my ambition... and, yes, of Benjamin's guidance. But I gave in to his pressure to go negative, while you refused to give in to Andy's pressure to do the same to me." She looked down for a moment at her lap, where her fists lay clenched in embarrassment, before continuing, "As far as I'm concerned, that's a measure of the difference in our characters. You had the strength to follow your ethical compass, regardless of your own campaign manager's advice. I didn't. And now, four years later, after watching how you've handled yourself in office, I've come to truly admire that quality in you, both as a man and as a President."

"Di..." Steele began.

Hunter shook her head emphatically.

"Please let me finish," she insisted, gripping his arm to punctuate her plea.

"You've been a good and effective President, so far, despite our pitiful excuse for a Congress," she told him. "Now, suddenly, you've been presented with the opportunity to become a great President. Yes, the circumstances are unthinkably bad... but surely you're familiar with the cliché that the same Mandarin character means both 'danger' and 'opportunity'?

"I think... no, I _know_... you have the makings of one of the greatest leaders this country has ever known. I've seen in you the qualities it will take to pull America through this crisis: your ability to lead by example, your determination to hold to the right, and the _vision_ your predecessors have for so long lacked. I'm convinced that you – and perhaps _only_ you – can change this country in the ways it so desperately needs to be changed... to return it to the greatness it once had. I'm equally convinced that, because of the opportunity this crisis presents, you _will_ accomplish those things." She looked directly into his eyes. "I want to help," she said.

"Well, of course..." Steele responded.

"Up until now," Hunter interrupted, "I've been very much the traditional Veep: the warm body in waiting, a heartbeat away from relevancy. I've chaired task forces. I've been your political bird dog with Congress. I've done all the standard tricks that Vice Presidents do: sit up, beg, roll over, play dead."

She shot a look at Duke. The President's Great Dane was lying upside down on his dog bed, all four paws in the air, blissfully unconscious.

"None of that has been meaningful," she said, dismissively. "None of it has _mattered_ – because none of it _had_ to matter. But now..."

The Vice President looked down at her lap for a long moment, before continuing.

"Will," she said, at last, "this country is either going to rise to greatness again, or it's going to collapse. Which of those alternatives happens will, in large measure, depend on the leadership _you_ provide. I know the pressure you'll face in the process will be enormous. To do what must be done, to guide our country back to greatness, you will need all the help you can get. I want to provide some of that help. My purpose in asking for this meeting is to persuade you to let me share the burden – and the responsibility – of leadership with you."

She put a finger to the President's lips, forestalling his reply.

"This evening at Bethesda, Benjamin's medical oncologist told me it's time to think about transferring him to hospice," she told him.

"Oh God, Diana!" Steele said. "I'm so sorry to hear that!"

"I know, Will. I know," she assured him. "Despite the fact that Benjamin masterminded those attack ads, I'm convinced you sincerely mean that. That's a sign of your character in itself. For you, bygones really are bygones. For me? Less so... at least, up until recently. But, now that Benjamin is passing, I want to master that art of forgiveness. I want to put all that selfishness – that focus on ambition for my personal political future, rather than on the future of this country – behind me. I want to learn to forgive... because I, too, want a chance at achieving greatness."

She watched his expression change to one of distaste. Clutching at his hands again, she spoke quickly and earnestly.

"Please don't misunderstand, Will," Hunter implored. "My husband is a wonderful, warm, witty, _loving_ man – and one of the great political minds on the planet. I owe him so much more than I will ever have the opportunity to repay – not just because I literally would not be here, now, in this room with you, if it were not for his guidance and wisdom, but because he has always been so very, very _good_ to me. He has truly been my rock, my anchor, my one true love. But his cancer has robbed us of all of those things. All that's left now is a Benjamin-shaped husk, incapable of doing anything but suffering, and longing for death."

She paused for a moment, and blinked back tears, before continuing, "Earlier this evening, Dr. Ellison informed me that, once he goes into hospice care, they'll put Ben into a medically-induced coma to control his pain. He'll die that way, never again having regained consciousness. You _do_ see, don't you? The truth is that, in every important way, my husband – the man I love with all my heart and soul – is already dead."

"Diane, I'm so sorry," Steele said helplessly.

He was beginning to regret his initial revulsion at her confession.

"Believe me, I know that," Hunter replied. "Your compassion is so much a part of what makes you the man you are that it could hardly be otherwise. If you will only give me the chance, I hope, by apprenticing myself to you, to develop in myself that greatness of character – greatness of, for want of a better term, 'soul' – that you have in such abundance. Please, I beg of you: won't you give me the chance at that kind of greatness?"

Her gaze implored his belief.

"I ask only that you let me work beside you," she told him. "Test me. Delegate _real_ responsibility to me... and let me prove to you what I have to offer. It needn't be a public role. I don't care about getting credit, or about building political capital. I swear to you that I'm not seeking glory. Will, what I'm looking for is... call it 'redemption'. Let me earn that... and I swear to you that I will try my very best to be worthy of the trust you place in me. Please, Will, let me be your partner in greatness... and let us do great things together."

She placed her hand upon his arm in supplication.

A long moment passed, as the President and his Vice President gazed into one another's eyes. Steele felt a surge of admiration and respect for Hunter's candor sweep through him. That... and something more: a stir of emotions he had not experienced in nearly four years. Perhaps because of those feelings, he sternly suppressed the quiet inner voice that urged him to caution, insisted he consider her past history, and warned him to guard himself against the possibility of betrayal or disappointment.

Having bared her political soul to Steele, Hunter herself experienced an inner wave of neediness. It was swiftly followed by an equally strong swell of determination not to submit to her weakness. Grimly, she braced herself for his rejection of her plea.

"Diana..." Steele began.

He was interrupted by an urgent knock at the door. Agent Wright burst into the short hallway between the outside corridor and the Presidential sanctum.

"Mr. President, Madam Vice President," he announced, his expression grim, "I need you to come with me right now. The White House is under attack."

**May 2, 2020, 10:31 pm EDT**

## Over the National Mall, Washington, DC

R. Wayne Lee banked left, away from the brightly-illuminated spire of the Washington Monument. His tiny aircraft crossed Constitution Avenue, and began flying over the Ellipse, at treetop level. Coordinated, low-intensity laser beams from several different building tops began sweeping his cockpit with a continuous, repeating pattern of red, then red, then green flashing light.

From his flight radio, an urgent voice blared, "Attention unidentified aircraft! You have violated a Restricted Flight Zone! Turn around _now_ , or you will be fired on!"

R. Wayne laughed in exaltation.

\- _Too late, traitors! The tyrant's time has come! Lord, let me smite him in Your name!_ -

He was right down on the deck, now.

The Cessna's wheels almost touched the manicured lawn of the Ellipse. Behind him trailed a cloud of turbulence-whipped water droplets from his wing vortices. R. Wayne was pushing the little aircraft's throttle to its maximum, and the Lycoming engine roared like a wounded beast in response. His airspeed indicator was pegged at over 140 knots – well above the Cessna's "never exceed" speed.

Ahead of him, tiny flashes of light winked from the ground, as uniformed Secret Service officers began firing at him with handguns. He pulled up slightly, to give himself maneuvering room, and began jinking left and right, to make the Cessna a harder target to hit. There was an audible crack, and the windshield in front of the folded passenger seat suddenly had a thumb-sized hole, surrounded by a spider web of crazed fractures.

\- _Yea, though I fly through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil, for the Lord is my shepherd!_ -

He pulled back lightly on the yoke, long enough to gain sufficient altitude to clear the wrought-iron fence around the White House. He passed the Presidential basketball court, and began banking slightly to his left. R. Wayne aimed the Cessna at the far end of the mansion, where, according to the Internet, the Tyrant had his private quarters.

At that instant, flame lanced from the top of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The Avenger anti-aircraft battery installed there for close-range defense had fired a single, Stinger missile at the intruder. In the driving rain, the Avenger's integrated radar targeting system had trouble acquiring the little fabric-winged craft, but its Forward-Looking InfraRed sensors easily locked on the Cessna's straining, overheated engine. The FLIR unerringly guided the Avenger battery's Stinger to intercept R. Wayne's little aircraft. The two flying objects met, while the 140 was still over the South Lawn.

The Stinger detonated.

A bright, red fireball lit up the night sky. Sheer momentum carried the flaming wreckage forward, raining flaming blobs of jellied gasoline as it came, to impact against the trees in front of the Map Room on the mansion's ground floor, setting them furiously ablaze. Two uniformed Secret Servicemen standing directly in the path of destruction were splashed with R. Wayne's homemade napalm. Both instantly turned into screaming human torches.

The rain-drenched night filled with the earsplitting screech of air raid sirens, the shriek of fire alarms, the urgent shouts of uniformed and plainclothes Secret Service personnel, and the swiftly-dying screams of burning men.

TO BE CONTINUED...

# Author's Note

This ebook is an excerpt from the novel _American Sulla_. Its 38,000 words amount to just over one-quarter of the first volume, _May Day_. The complete novel, in three volumes, will run to more than 400,000 words.

It is my hope that you, the reader, will like what you have read enough to want to purchase all three volumes of this novel, beginning with _May Day_ , which you can find on Amazon.com in both Kindle ebook and 7" x 10" trade paperback format.

Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FT8U6IO

Paperback:

http://www.amazon.com/May-Day-American-Sulla-Volume/dp/0615915159

There is an _American Sulla_ Facebook group, where you can keep up with news and communicate with other fans of the novel:

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanSulla

The author maintains a page on Goodreads.com:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8265262.Thom_Stark

and on Amazon.com:

http://amazon.com/author/thom_stark

and American Sulla has its own page on the author's website:

http://www.starkrealities.com/Sulla.html

# Cast of Characters

Tariq Abdullah Aziz/ Arlington Joseph Smith – Driver of the delivery van that carries the WTC nuclear weapon.

Alicia Takahashi – Auxiliary receptionist for Global Financial Corporation's Private Banking department.

Ali bin Hamzah/ Randy Carlson – Terrorist mole within Global Financial Corporation's Private Banking department.

William Orwell Steele – President of the United States.

Special Agent Roger Waters – Special Agent in Charge of POTUS first shift Secret Service detail.

Ronald Wheaton – Deputy National Security Advisor.

Clarabelle Wong – Tourist from San Francisco.

Aragorn Northcutt Hardcastle – Goldman Sachs VP.

Robert Whiting – Video Floor Director aboard Air Force One.

Nakeesha Gramble – Five-year-old girl in Hackensack, NJ.

Donell Abraham Jackson/Jack Donnellson – Former boyfriend of Latonya Gramble.

Marqus "Marq" Collins – Current boyfriend of Latonya Gramble.

Yvonne Clevinger – Presidential Press Secretary.

Reed Bullock – Fox News White House reporter.

Preston Hollingsworth – MSNBC White House reporter.

Sheila Cubbins – NPR White House reporter.

Eydis Finnursdottir – Icelandic tourist.

Robert "Bob" Bildinsky – General contractor.

Steven Dawkins – Presidential Science Advisor.

Admiral Harlan Adams – Chief of Staff of the Navy

Sean Halloran Sr. – General contractor.

Fiona Halloran – Sean's wife.

Sean Halloran, Jr. – Sean and Fiona's year-old son.

Arleigh Solomon – Secretary of the Department of Internal Security.

Colonel Arif Fahrood Khan/Timothy James Hilliard – Operation Sword of Allah team leader.

Roshina Khan – Arif's wife.

General Winston Chung – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Arun Mansour "Big Sugar" Washington – Gang boss.

Representative Walter Karman – Representative (D) from New York's 15th District.

Representative Ellen Hardin – Representative (R) from Massachusetts's 4th District.

Senator William Roland – Senior senator (D) from Connecticutt.

Senator Irwin Kurzweil – Junior senator (R) from New York.

Ramamurthi Singh – Secretary of Energy.

Merlin Friend – Radio pundit.

Alvin "Cowboy" Clemson – Northern State Prison convict.

Timothy "Tim Tim" Timmons – Correctional Officer at Northern State Prison.

David "Little Boy" Shabazz – Big Sugar Washington's chief enforcer.

Nathaniel David Lundegran – Warden of North State Prison.

Ardin Wildehoof – President Steele's private secretary.

Marlon Roosevelt – President Steele's personal aide.

Diana Hunter – Vice President of the United States.

Alvin Spreckels – Speaker of the House. Representative (R) from Florida's 16th District.

Vittorio Donofrio – Senate Majority Leader (D, New York).

Hale Davies – Senate Minority Leader (R, Mississippi).

Darcy Peligroso – House Minority Leader. Representative (D) for California's 12th District.

Kendall MacMillan – House Majority Leader (R, Pennsylvania).

Harry Walters – Official White House photographer.

Benjamin Hunter – Husband of the Vice President.

Julia (Jules) Harper Steele ( _née_ Grey) – Wife of William Orwell Steele.

Vincent Govan – Senior Senator from Vermont (D).

Richard Wayne Lee – Retired postal carrier.

Anderson Connaught IV – Secretary of the Treasury.

Easau Piltch – Representative (R) from the 1st Congressional District of Idaho.

Marcus Aurelius Clement – President Steele's personal physician.

Andover "Andy" Philips – President Steele's Chief of Staff.

Harold Burley – White House elevator operator.

Special Agent Nicolas Mason – Chief of the President's third-shift Secret Service detail.

Duke – William Orwell Steele's Great Dane.

Commander Anson R. McDonald – Captain of the USS Alligator.

Lieutenant Morris Abrams – Third watch Officer of the Deck of the USS Alligator.

Chief Petty Officer Arthur Mueller – Chief of the Boat of the USS Alligator.

Lieutenant Commander Michael Valentine – Executive Officer of the USS Alligator.

Lieutenant Roger W. Young – Commander of Alpha Squad, 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division Radiological Survey Team.

Sergeant Louis Cukela – Member of Alpha Squad

Corporal John Pruitt – Member of Alpha Squad

Private Albert Weisbogel – Member of Alpha Squad

Private John Kelly – Member of Alpha Squad

Private David Gonzales – Member of Alpha Squad

Walter Watson – Chief Operator of NYISO day shift.

Jefferson Raymond – Director of FEMA.

Kenneth Watanabe – White House Counsel.

Marcy Collins – Secretary of Commerce

Ricardo Guitierrez – Secretary of the Navy

Gregory Alan Shergold – 23-year-old greeting card designer.

Evan Spitzberger – Attorney General of the United States.

Martin St. John – Reuters White House Correspondent.

Bernard Bonsalle – White House Correspondent for Libertyfire blog.

Susan Colson – ABC White House Correspondent.

Special Agent Richard "Dick" Wright – Chief of POTUS second shift Secret Service detail.

Latonya Gramble – Nakeesha Gramble's mother.

Curtis Suggs – Night watchman at the Hanover County Municipal Airport.

Cissy Shergold – Craig Shergold's younger sister.

# Sponsors

The author is deeply grateful to the following individuals who believed enough in this project to put their money where their mouths were, by pledging contributions via the Kickstarter and Indiegogo crowdfunding sites. Some of their names will be familiar to the keen-eyed reader, because the author named a character after those sponsors who vouched $50 toward each campaign.

**Kickstarter:**

John Bowditch, Paul McConnochie, Richard Reinholdt, Brian Ruth, Joe (no last name given), Zach Copley, John Parks, Susan and Kevin Thornton, Mary Stark, Chris Murdock, Eric Forste, Bill Plein, Mary Hogan

**Indiegogo:**

Eric Forste, Fred Bowditch, Zachary Copley, Abby Cobelli, Bill Plein, Manny Ponce, Evan Prodromou, (six other sponsors contributed anonymously)

# About the Author

 Thom Stark has been a professional writer – which he defines as "one who gets paid for it" – since 1995, when his _@internet_ column began appearing in the pages of _LAN Times Magazine_. He is probably best-known as a columnist and feature writer for the late, great _Boardwatch Magazine_. He maintains an archive of past columns and articles on his website at www.starkrealities.com.

Mr. Stark currently lives in Chillicothe, Ohio, with his wife Judy and their lovable mutts Wanda and Watson, where he is hard at work on _War –_ Book Two of _American Sulla_.
