The Last Air Force One Read online

  “On your personal Facebook page and the White House page, you got over one-point-seven million reactions, mostly ‘likes.’ There were over a hundred thousand comments and they expressed a lot of support overall. I did notice a substantial number of comments expressing distrust of your relationship with the electrical company CEOs, since you said that you called them personally. A substantial minority of comments criticized your motives as a ‘white, patriarchal male’ and made unflattering comments about you having the kind of friendship with large corporations where you could call them. But I emphasize that critical comments were in the minority.”

  “And what about the reality on the ground? What impact did the speech have on civil disorder?”

  “We have reports of major rioting in seventeen cities, and we expect more before the evening is through. The riots in California have intensified. I don’t think we can say Los Angeles is ‘rioting’ anymore because I don’t think there’s a coherent police presence in most of the Greater Los Angeles area. It’s more like anarchy—”

  A knock interrupted Robbie’s report and Sam Greaney stepped into the Oval Office, his face set hard like the prow of a Greek fighting ship. “Dutch, we have lost our first military personnel. Three men were just killed in hand-to-hand fighting against rioters in Detroit.” He handed Dutch a piece of paper that looked like a report of some kind. “It’s now or never, sir,” Sam prodded.

  Dutch didn’t like being backed into a corner, but he’d learned that sometimes you played the cards you were dealt. He might never know the ultimate impact of his speech, but it seemed clear at this point that the kind of people who rioted probably weren’t the kind of people who watched speeches from the White House.

  “Order our men weapons free,” Dutch said, putting the nation and his presidency in God’s hands.

  15

  “How much longer should we stay in the air, Sam?” Dutch ran into Sam Greaney walking down the hallway at first light.

  “We just mid-air refueled and we’re waiting for confirmation that the riots are under control. Going weapons hot stopped the bastards in their tracks, Dutch. Looks like we might have this licked.”

  “How many dead?” The President listened intently.

  “I’m not sure. Sounds like two or three hundred dead in thirty cities, sir. We’ve suffered thirteen casualties among our military personnel, but I’m still waiting for reports. We are experiencing some…communications difficulties.”

  Dutch sensed something lurking beneath the words. “Tell me what that means, Sam.”

  “You already know that we lost a few officers over legal objections when we ordered them into American cities. I already covered most of those losses with inline promotions.”

  Dutch pictured the kind of men who would object to his order to shoot at civilians and couldn’t help feeling like he might have been among them.

  “A couple more commanders withdrew troops to their base when we made the call to go weapons hot. I’m working on getting those officers replaced. A couple of our bases have gone radio silent.”

  “Radio silent?” Dutch couldn’t believe that the hardened military communications systems had been impacted by a cyberattack.

  “Some of our bases and also units in the field have stopped communicating with us. Mister President, I’m guessing that some of them are objecting to orders and others are losing cohesion of force.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sir, I believe we are experiencing absenteeism and desertion in some of our units, mostly admin and support. Combat troops are holding up better.”

  Dutch imagined how servicemen and women might feel about the power outages, the nuclear attack, the riots and the stock market crash. Many would have a strong desire to rally around their families rather than stay at their jobs. The ragged truth: their duty to family might be stronger than their oath to the country. Dutch could understand that feeling, especially today, with his father’s body lying on concrete in an airplane hangar somewhere in the California desert. At some point, family would become everything, regardless of oaths.

  “Why are we still in the air? We’re seeing no missile launches, no ground forces and no planes threatening our airspace. Why aren’t I on the ground talking to these officers personally?”

  Sam paused and scratched his stubble. “Sir, we’re seeing a statistically-manageable attrition rate in our forces. It’s not like we need a hundred percent force to put down civilian riots. It’s not as though they’re armed with RPGs. You’re missing the point: we’re getting these cities under control. Please come look at the battle screen and you’ll see what I mean.”

  They moved from the hallway to the conference room. The big screen TV looked like Christmas and Halloween had been thrown in a blender, then tossed on a map of the United States.

  “I know the black areas are blackouts and the orange areas are troop concentrations. What are the red and green areas?” Dutch asked.

  “Red areas are active civil disorder and green areas are pacified.” Sam pointed to Detroit, which was still red with an orange blob at the periphery. Then he pointed to Atlanta, which was black with a green blob in the center. “We’ve pacified Atlanta, but we haven’t pacified Detroit yet. There’s a combined force of Michigan state guard and regular army from Fort Custer closing in on Detroit now. The jammed roads are slowing them down, but we expect they’ll reach the city soon.”

  “Well, I can see why we’re still in the air,” Dutch tapped the screen over the Washington D.C. area, a large, red blot without any orange or green inside.

  “The cyberattack seems to be hitting the area around D.C. particularly hard—Richmond has been dark for thirty-six hours and our forces at Fort Lee are entirely occupied with city-wide civil disorder there. To the north of D.C., Baltimore is an absolute shit-show. Andrews and the White House are hemmed in by four hot spots and the roads are blocked. The Marine Corps barracks at 8th and I St. have barricaded themselves in and they’re waiting for mechanized support. Sir, we cannot land back in D.C. until we make some substantial progress in that area.”

  “Please walk me through the situation on the ground in D.C.. I need to understand what’s happening.”

  “I’m not sure D.C. is a good example, Dutch. We’ve had an asymmetrical reaction to our peacekeeping force in some cities, including D.C.. Marines from Quantico immediately responded to my call to move on the White House, but they were on weapons hold, so they couldn’t do much more than look nasty. Here’s where it gets weird; they were driven back to their beachhead by a coordinated force of armed civilians—gangbangers, they thought. The Marines took a lot of incoming fire.”

  “What do you mean by ‘a coordinated force of civilians?’” Dutch tried to picture it—gangbangers squaring off against Marines—and he couldn’t.

  “The Marine ground commander said that civilians were maneuvering on the Marines in a coordinated fashion, flanking their forces and trying to cut off their avenue of retreat. His exact words were that the civilians—‘urban irregulars,’ he called them—fought like Chechen Muslims in Iraq.”

  “Wait. He said they were Chechens—Russians?” Dutch interrupted.

  “No. He thinks they were gangbangers. He later compared them to trained fighters. Chechens in Iraq were trained by the Russian military before becoming Islamic terrorists. In other words, the Marine ground commander thought that these gangster guys maneuvered like trained warfighters.”

  “Were enemy troops inserted into D.C.?” Dutch’s worldview threatened to take a precarious turn.

  Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’re working a few theories. In any case, the Marines will crush them now that they’re weapons hot.”

  “Tell me about the theories?”

  “Nothing substantial. The CIA had a few uncorroborated reports of military age males from the gang population engaging in militia-like training in the woods of Virginia. We wrote it off as urban legend. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe some Mexican ca
rtel was preparing to take advantage of civil disorder. The only entities we could think of who might do that would be the cartels or the Russians or maybe both.”

  “That’s insane, Sam. Now you’re sounding like one of those alt-right talk show hosts. I know you have a bit of a burr under your saddle about the blacks and Hispanics, but you don’t actually believe this, do you?”

  Sam Greaney shrugged. “Is anything really beyond the realm of possibility right now? Strange came out of the woodworks last night. Some smart criminal or maybe a rogue nation prepared for this. It’s just a few hot spots in a few cities, but some of the gangbangers are more than just pissed-off criminals. They’re insurgents. And social media isn’t doing us any favors. They’re recruiting much faster than we are.”

  “Until we’re talking about more than just a couple of firefights, let’s put these theories on ice, Sam.”

  Dutch didn’t like his SecDef’s worldview. The president had entered the zone of regret when it came to sharing leadership with Sam Greaney. Dutch reluctantly admitted to himself that he may have taken the “Team of Rivals” thing too far. He’d imitated the personal leadership style of Abraham Lincoln by building a cabinet of bullheaded critics and devil’s advocates. It had played well for Dutch, but that didn’t mean the strategy was bulletproof. His misgivings about Sam Greaney churned in his gut like last night’s Thai food.

  The racism thing was coloring Sam’s judgment, but that didn’t necessarily mean Sam was wrong. It did mean he was insecure though, and insecure people with power could be dangerous.

  The conundrum wasn’t worth pursuing. They had bigger problems than Sam’s daddy issues—or whatever they were.

  “There are a lot more troops around D.C. than just the Marines from Quantico. What’re we doing to take our capitol back?”

  Sam stepped up to the map, as though to show troop movements, but the scale was too large. Still, Sam pointed at Washington D.C., a red blob that bled into the red blobs of Baltimore and Richmond.

  “There aren’t as many combat troops as you might think near D.C., sir. We’re tapping some ceremonial and administrative units, but they’re still soldiers and Marines. First Battalion, Third Infantry is moving out of Fort Meyer to form a cordon to the south of the capitol and expand the zone of control southward toward Richmond. Mechanized and MP units out of Fort Bragg are en route, but they are experiencing delays due to massive traffic jams. When they get to D.C., they will set up a blocking force to the north, facing Baltimore. 91st Engineer Battalion from Belvoir will split in two and help the battalions from Meyer and Meade clear roads north and south, enforcing a growing area of order. They need to clear Highway 1 into D.C. first. That’ll take a day, maybe two. Our ground units at Andrews are going to expand out from the base, linking up with the Marines and the D.C. Guard to create a protected corridor back to the capitol. The Marines at Quantico will serve as shock troops for the D.C. Guard in taking back the streets of D.C.. We’ve called up the Virginia Guard and they’ll be joining with the Strykers at Fort Pickett to clear the 95 toward Bragg. We would like to get the 7th Transport Group from Fort Eustis in the game, but we’re having trouble reaching their commander. Either he’s tied up with civil disorder in Richmond or they’re intentionally not returning our calls. Take your pick.”

  “When can we land?” Dutch asked again.

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, sir. There is no major command-and-control base with a big enough airstrip where I can guarantee your safety. If you land, it might generate a surge of protest among civilians. Men could die defending you. Virtually all major airbases are near population centers. I need more time to pick the right base and to create a buffer zone around it.”

  Dutch wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Landing at a new base might exacerbate the problem. Maybe he was more useful in the air, as miserable as it was.

  “I’d like to land as soon as we have a reasonably secure landing area—somewhere I can take command and de-escalate the situation from the ground. In the meantime, what’re we doing to get the stock market under control?”

  “That’d be a question for Secretary Avenall. The last contact we had with him was ten hours ago in D.C..”

  Dutch looked at D.C. on the television screen, a red area with tentacles reaching toward Richmond, Baltimore and even Frederick, Maryland, with the Secretary of the Treasury buried somewhere in the middle.

  “Let’s reach out to the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, then. Thank you, Sam.”

  “No problem, sir. We’ll win this. Things are looking good. Troops are on the move and they’re making a difference.” Sam Greaney again promised. “We have over four hundred thousand combat troops in-country, and no sane civilian throws rocks at a Stryker armored fighting vehicle.”

  16

  Like a nervous suitor at a father’s door, Air Force One circled over the heartland of the United States, unable to return to D.C. and unwilling to give up its mission. Seven days after the crash of the stock market, the President and his retinue still hadn’t touched ground.

  Dutch had received three military briefings each day for the last seven days, and he had come to know the feeling of Thor, unable to lift his hammer.

  Launching troops from their bases had triggered an entirely-unexpected effect: civilian truck drivers drove home and stayed there.

  Such a devilishly-forgettable factor—uncomplicated men with a demanding job and significant autonomy. Truck drivers had no reason to risk themselves or their trucks in the midst of riots, during a military show of force.

  The Los Angeles riots of 1992 had demonstrated the foolishness of a truck driver entering a city while it rioted. Reginald Denny had been dragged from of his semi-truck cab and beaten while news cameras filmed overhead, which forever burned one simple truth into the minds of truck drivers: there are no medals pinned to the chest for delivering product during a riot. Only potential beatings.

  While Sam Greaney battled the current war—civil disorder from rolling blackouts—the next war slipped in under their noses. Within days, they faced catastrophic food shortages. Rioters were no longer hapless teenagers and opportunistic gangbangers. Now their mothers and grandmothers lined up to shout at the army and national guard troops. Rioting had gone mainstream.

  What had once been demonstrations in a hundred metropolises became serious civil unrest in nearly every city over ten thousand people. A hundred riots became twenty-six hundred riots within forty-eight hours of sending troops into the big cities. Regular Americans could abide a power outage during early fall. What they could not abide was hunger.

  The sheer size of the United States contributed to Dutch’s defeat. 400,000 combat troops sounded like a massive number—enough to defeat any army in the world. But helicopter gunships and Tomahawk cruise missiles don’t stop angry fathers and mothers, and troops on the ground can’t be everywhere at once. In squads of thirty, 400,000 troops can only hold 13,000 street corners in 2,600 cities. If each city has a hundred such street corners, then infantry can only cover five percent of a city while desperate urbanites loot out the other ninety-five percent. Panic-stricken Americans didn’t need to defeat soldiers in order to steal supplies. They only needed to move over to the next block.

  Before the collapse, when doomsayers talked about grocery stores only having food for three days, they hadn’t factored in hoarding. The moment blackouts extended past a couple of hours, people raced to the markets and vaporized everything remotely edible. Stores that attempted to lock their doors were broken down and overrun. People who came late for the frenzy went crazy with fear, committing criminal acts of petty violence and theft that would’ve been inconceivable a week earlier. The specter of empty shelves drove good people into a very bad place. And the panic devolved with each passing day, going from bad to apocalyptic.

  Sam Greaney wasn’t coming entirely clean about the state of the troops. Dutch had set up a back-channel communication with three Army generals—frien
ds from college. In a half-dozen satellite phone conversations, Dutch gathered the truth: that absenteeism in the troops had skyrocketed. The “four hundred thousand American combat troops” had declined to something approximating half that number. Especially among national guard units, men and women returned to their families rather than guard street corners while they watched their own cities burn.

  Robbie Leforth, the President’s chief of staff, sat in the Oval Office on Air Force One and Dutch could smell him. Robbie looked like shit. While the President and first lady had a suite full of clothing, Robbie hadn’t had a chance to grab more than the one suit he was wearing.

  “What’s the shower situation, Robbie?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re on severe rationing, and the flight crew is allowing only one shower per four days. I know I must look and smell awful.”

  Robbie had been an exceedingly loyal chief of staff, and somehow seeing his friend wrinkled and oily brought the nation’s predicament all the way home for Dutch. Millions were suffering hunger and violence miles below the gleaming airship. The thought hung on Dutch like a clouded nightmare, a memory of some almost-forgotten sin. But his dirty assistant could not be denied, and he nearly brought tears to Dutch’s eyes.

  “You know, Robbie, you’re a good man. I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you for your service to this country,” Dutch choked up.

  “Thank you, sir. It’s an honor, particularly to serve you.”

  Dutch waved away the compliment. “What’s the latest news on your family?”

  “Thank you for asking. Michelle and Regina are with my parents in Maine. I haven’t heard from them in two days. The cell towers must’ve stopped working in that part of the state. As you know, Jeremy is stationed in Germany. I got through to him and he said something about Muslim immigrants causing trouble in Stuttgart.”

  Dutch furrowed his brows. Unchecked European immigration had been a ticking time bomb, and he could easily see Muslims rising from the civil disorder as an organized threat. Hopefully, he was wrong.