The Last Air Force One Page 4

  “They’re going in on weapons hold. We’re launching a show of force to tamp down looting and rioting.”

  “Hmm,” Sharon pursed her lips. “Weapons hold? Sounds like something Sam talked you into.”

  Dutch gritted his teeth. He rankled a little when Sharon second-guessed him like that, even if no one else was listening. It made him sound like a puppet, and he was nobody’s puppet.

  “It was my call and my call alone. Activists on social media are claiming that the power outages are a calculated act of oppression against the racial minorities. Rioting tonight could get out of control.”

  “And the people are believing it? That the blackouts are intentional?”

  “Not quite. The activists are saying that available power is being channeled to white neighborhoods and away from low income areas.”

  “You should tell the nation it’s a cyberattack.”

  “Good idea. Actually, it’s a great idea. We’ve been hoping the power outages would be less severe and that we could write them off as too many air conditioners running at the same time. If Americans hear that we’re under attack, they’re likely to come together and stop burning their cities.”

  Sharon didn’t look entirely convinced. “We’ll see. I hope it was okay with you that I let Sam send troops to our parents’ homes. I know how you hate special treatment.”

  That made Dutch think about the track suit and the extra clothes stored in the closets and drawers in the executive suite on Air Force One. He wondered what had happened to the clothing of previous presidents? Peril loomed over America and Dutch worried about wasted resources.

  “We just need to get through tonight and everything should be okay.”

  Again, Sharon made that face, the one where her eyes glazed over in thought, her cheeks going a little slack.

  “What?” Dutch asked.

  “I’m just thinking about what you said concerning the social media rumors and electricity. That can’t possibly be true, can it?”

  Dutch harrumphed. “Not hardly. The only thing less likely than the power companies coordinating to screw the minorities would be the power companies coordinating to protect their own damn computer systems. Doing anything in this beast of a system takes about fifty times more effort and luck than anyone would imagine. I can’t even get FEMA to move their asses into a nuclear strike zone in a timely manner, and I’m the damn president. There’s no chance that the power companies are being cute. They have no motive, for one thing.”

  Sharon held out a hand to Dutch. “Right. But how is it that people have become so jaded and quick to assign malicious intent? Life’s been pretty amazing for the past fifty years, hasn’t it? Why do people turn to believing the worst in one another so quickly?”

  Dutch held Sharon’s thin hands like a lifeline. “Even thirty years ago, I think I could’ve predicted how Americans would react to a crisis like this. Something changed, and now I’m not so sure. So many times in our history, when the chips were down, Americans have come together and defeated evil. We’re facing one of those times again, Sharon, and it came on our watch. And this time, when the Lord takes the measure of our virtue, I’m no longer sure where America will stand.”

  11

  “What am I looking at?” Dutch asked Sam Greaney as he stared at the LCD screen in the conference room of Air Force One. Dutch and Sam sat at the polished mahogany conference table.

  “I’ve had the tech geek overlay the map of troop deployments against our map of power outages. The troops are orange and the blackouts are black.”

  “Looks like Halloween,” Dutch observed. “Why are the orange spots all just dots?”

  “We’re still in the process of issuing orders and mobilizing forces, sir. Most of the troops haven’t left base yet.”

  “It doesn’t look like any of them have left base. How long since they received orders?”

  “Some of them, in the last hour.” The secretary of defense looked at his watch.

  “Some of them?” Dutch asked.

  “Orders pass through channels sir, especially with something this unconventional,” Sam explained.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Sam?”

  “Some of the unit commanders are questioning the orders—seeking confirmation that they’re actually supposed to march on U.S. cities.”

  “We’re not asking them to shoot civilians,” Dutch emphasized, his hands clenching. “How many officers are questioning our orders?”

  “It’s hard to say. Most of them at first. But we need to give this a little time, Dutch. I’m sorting through those who will and those who won’t take orders and making changes where they’re needed.”

  “What does ‘making changes’ mean, Sam? Are you firing officers who object to our orders?” Dutch knew the answer already. The situation had grown hairier than anticipated, and it had only taken a couple hours.

  Sam’s face flushed red. Some men never did take well to following other men, Dutch reminded himself. Sam didn’t answer Dutch’s question, which was answer enough.

  Dutch stood. “Sam, I want to be clear on this: if an officer objects to my orders on constitutional or legal grounds, he is NOT to be reprimanded or his career tarnished. Not in any way. Are we in agreement?”

  “Mister President,” the SecDef exhaled, gathering a head of steam. Sam Greaney began to raise his voice. “I need you to understand this, Dutch, in no uncertain terms: if we do not enforce your orders with swift action, we cannot expect to complete this mission. And I should remind you that the mission is to save the United States!”

  “Do you think I don’t know that, Sam? I’m trying to put this in the context of history—about what happens a year from now when everyone’s forgotten how damn scary—”

  “History?” Sam interrupted, shouting. “Wake up, Dutch! There won’t be any fucking history if we don’t shut this rioting down right fucking now!”

  Dutch felt rather than heard thundering footsteps down the hall. The doors burst open and his secret service detail swept the room with their Glock 17s. They didn’t point their handguns at the secretary of defense, but they didn’t point them entirely away from him either.

  “Stand down, gentlemen,” Dutch ordered, his hands held out in front of him. “Everything’s fine here. We’re just working through some hard choices. Please return to the security section.” Dutch herded the four men toward the hallway. “Sam’s just blowing off steam. Everything’s fine,” Dutch repeated.

  As his secret servicemen backed into the hallway, they came up against the secretary of defense’s security detail in military kit with AR-15 rifles dangling across their stacks of rifle magazines. Two of the four secret servicemen rotated to confront the Delta operators as though they were a threat to the president. The other two kept their guns pointed in the direction of the conference room. The Secret Service had formed a circle around Dutch.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m ordering all of you to go back to your seats. Immediately. Holster those weapons,” Dutch shouted.

  Sharon appeared, peering out from the executive suite. A handful of others from the presidential staff goosenecked into the hallway, alarmed by the ruckus.

  More slowly than he would’ve preferred, Dutch’s secret servicemen returned their handguns to their shoulder holsters, yet they remained in a protective posture. Dutch physically pushed them into the hallway, stepped back into the conference room and closed the doors behind him. On the other side of the door, he hoped everyone was ratcheting down their testosterone and returning to their seats.

  “Control yourself and act like a goddamn professional,” Dutch seethed at Greaney. “This is no time to lose your cool.” Dutch smoothed his tie. “Now, how do you propose to handle objectors? I want to know exactly what you’re planning to do with those officers.”

  12

  As evening descended on the Eastern seaboard, President of the United States, Nathaniel “Dutch” McAdams spoke to America. His staff had debated delaying the speech until
5 p.m. on the West Coast so that more of the country could tune in, but with the power outages and the severe stock market interruptions, nobody was likely to be at work on the West Coast anyway.

  The stock markets hadn’t been open for more than twenty minutes total that entire day; with huge sell-offs causing the protective algorithms to halt trading within minutes of opening.

  A new wrinkle had arisen to curse the equity markets. Considering the massive damage to California real estate, few insurance companies were safe from the threat of bankruptcy, and their stock values plummeted based on that uncertainty. Even though homeowner’s insurance almost never covered atomic war, it almost always covered damage from civil disorder, and that was enough to send the value of insurance shares into a tailspin.

  On top of regular homeowner’s insurance, thousands of bond issues and other forms of insurance covered corporations, buildings and public works. Something called “re-insurance” covered the insurance companies from too many claims, and of course, those re-insurance mega-corporations were running for cover now as well. With Southern California quite possibly devastated, the markets for bonds, securities and insurance were in free fall.

  Runs on banks had become commonplace. Although it was Wednesday, comparisons to the Black Friday of the Great Depression rang across news channels, and the media settled on the catchy, but unhelpful moniker of Black Autumn to describe the sudden, terrifying fall of the financial industry.

  Blackouts in the East rolled back and forth, not leaving the East and Midwest entirely without power, but depriving people of any confidence that the power grid would return. Dutch began to suspect that the Russian hack, if it was a Russian hack, was intentionally designed to keep them guessing.

  In his speech, Dutch decided to bet all his chips on honesty with the American people. And if honesty failed, he would cash in on anger.

  “My fellow Americans,” the historic speech began.

  Dutch told America the whole story insomuch as he knew it. He revealed everything he knew about the nuclear attack—that it had been a small bomb with few casualties and that the radiation readings showed no appreciable risk to Los Angelinos, particularly if offshore winds held. He told America about his suspicions that Iran had been responsible for the attack on Saudi Arabia. Then, Dutch told America about the cyberattack and his personal belief that a foreign nation had used a hack to capitalize on America’s current misfortunes.

  Dutch pled for calm. He begged people to return to their homes and their jobs. More than anything, he urged law and order.

  Dutch addressed the question of “Fair Power” directly and assured the American people that he had personally telephoned several CEOs of power companies, and he had received their assurances that everything possible was being done to provide electrical power to all people and in all neighborhoods.

  Dutch laid it on the line, delivering one of the best, most authentic speeches of his career. By accounts among the staff on Air Force One, the speech bordered on heroic, and they broke into applause the moment after he signed off.

  More than anything, Dutch told the whole truth.

  Much later, as he looked back on the events of Black Autumn and on his speech, Dutch would conclude that everyone might have been better off if he had concocted a helpful lie instead.

  13

  “Mister President,” Sam Greaney interrupted a late dinner between husband and wife.

  “Yes, Sam?” Dutch wiped his mouth and steeled himself for news.

  “At least seventeen major cities are in full-scale riot. I have troops in eleven of them and columns approaching two more. It didn’t take long for the rioters to figure out that our men won’t shoot, given that the rioters are well informed from social media. Our troops are unable to control the civil disorder. Mister President; we need approval to go weapons free, and we need it now or servicemen will die.”

  Dutch looked to Sharon, but other than her full attention, she had nothing to offer this dilemma.

  “I’m going to need a minute to think about this, Sam.” Dutch got up to move into his suite, his intention to pray.

  “While you’re both here,” Sam hesitated, “I heard back from the teams we sent to your parents’ homes. Sharon, your parents weren’t there. Their condo complex appears to have been evacuated en masse and our team is trying to figure out where they went.

  “Dutch, I don’t know how else to say this, but we found your mother and father deceased in their home. I’m very sorry.”

  Dutch sputtered, “How can that be? They don’t live anywhere near L.A.. They’re hours from the city.”

  “The town of Bishop is only two hundred miles from Los Angeles—less than a tank of gas. My guys made it to your dad’s ranch in a Blackhawk helicopter from China Lake in fifteen minutes. The roads were packed solid, and people from Los Angeles have been picking everything clean anywhere near a highway. It looks like your dad went down fighting. I had my men return your parents’ bodies to the Naval weapons base nearby, awaiting your orders.”

  Dutch reached for the edge of the table to stop the world from spinning. His mom and dad were in their eighties, and Dutch had been preparing himself to lose them for a long time, and the fact that they had both lived into their eighties had been a blessing. Still, losing them both at once hit Dutch like a haymaker. “Could you please excuse us, Sam?”

  “Of course.” Sam closed the conference room doors behind him.

  Dutch turned to Sharon, who had a hard look in her eyes, following Sam as he left the room. Seeing his grief, she softened. “Oh, Dutch, I’m so sorry.”

  “I can’t believe they’re gone. It doesn’t make sense. I just spoke with my dad last week…”

  “I’m sorry, Dutch.” The couple held onto each other for a long time, letting the waves of grief wash over them. Sharon pulled back to look Dutch in the eyes.

  “Dutch, I don’t want to make this any harder than it is, but… your parents have a gate and a wall. They have loyal staff. Their neighbors are country people. Your dad refused secret service coverage because his ranch was already so secure. Are you buying this story?”

  Dutch blinked away the fog floating around his head. “I hadn’t thought about not buying Sam’s story. There’s no reason for him to lie… denial is a part of grief, Sharon.”

  “Maybe. But only two bodies? What about the others? Your mom and dad wouldn’t have been fighting alone. A lot of people care about them and they wouldn’t have left them alone with refugees marching down the highway.”

  Dutch didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Sharon pulled her husband to the couch and sat with him while their dinner cooled on the conference room table.

  14

  Dutch gazed at the E-4B Nightwatch through the bullet-proof glass window beside his desk in the Oval Office. It was just past 11 p.m., Eastern Time, and his staff had left him alone for an hour, no doubt giving him time to grieve his father and mother.

  While Americans on the ground ran in fear from rioting, looting and fresh terrors, Dutch was left to grieve his 87-year-old father and mother. How many lives would this grieving cost? How many would die while the president got his personal shit together and headed back to business?

  The Nightwatch plane blinked its mindless wingtip code of red and green. It looked like it was just off the wing of Air Force One, but Dutch knew that aeronautical distances were deceiving. The companion plane was probably more than a mile away.

  Dutch understood Sharon’s doubt of Sam Greaney. She had never liked the man—never fully supported Dutch’s decision to tap him for SecDef. In her words, Sam Greaney always thought he was the smartest guy in the room. While Sam showed outward respect for Dutch’s office as president, Sharon didn’t buy it. She pegged him as a climber; a man pretending to defer to the Commander in Chief as a rung in his own ladder of ambitions.

  Sharon had loved Dutch’s mom and dad, maybe even more than Dutch loved them, and he had seen her do this before; letting emotions get out a
head of clear thinking. But Dutch could hardly blame her. The nation had plummeted into a downward spiral and all Dutch could do was dwell on his personal grief. Who was he to judge Sharon’s emotional bias against Sam Greaney?

  “Robbie, are you up?” Dutch hit the intercom on his desk and called back to the staff area.

  “Yes, sir,” Robbie answered, sounding like he hadn’t slept in days.

  “Please grab Janice and anyone else you need, and let’s get to work. I’d like a brief on the rioting and the impact of the speech. Nothing fancy.”

  “Yes, sir. We’ll join you in the Oval Office in five minutes.”

  Getting back to work satisfied his grief like four fingers of bourbon. He'd feel better for a little while, but there’d be hell to pay come three o’clock in the morning.

  In five minutes, Robbie Leforth and Janice Foster sat in the Oval Office and Robbie began his brief.

  “Mister President, I tried to gather response data from your speech tonight—I thought it was an amazing speech by the way, truly one of the great speeches of all time—but the polling firms have gone offline, and half the people called in sick from our NSA signals and intelligence group, which might not have mattered since they don’t do consumer polling anyway. Usually, the media polls our moves, but they’re either understaffed or focusing on their own ideological positions. I couldn’t find any media polls relating to your speech. Basically, all I can show you is my own review of the social media reaction, which might be the most accurate, since we don’t know how many people even had the ability to tune in on television. While cell batteries hold, and while cell towers continue to function, almost all media is being consumed on smart phones.”

  Dutch nodded for him to continue.