Apache Dawn: Book I of the Wildfire Saga (32 page)

“Is this confirmed?” the President asked.
 
He looked over the Secretary of Defense’s shoulder and got a roomful of somber nodding heads.
 

Admiral Bennet, the leader of America’s navies, stood up.
 
“Sir,” he said, smoothing out his white dress uniform liberally coated with ribbons and medals.
 
“We haven’t had reliable, let alone consistent communications with about 80% of our naval forces since the attack on our satellites.
 
Mr. President, that was nearly 36 hours ago.”
 
The nation’s top sailor rolled a shoulder and adjusted his dress uniform.
 

“Ships still in port,” he continued, “have access to landlines, but any forces out at sea are…hit and miss.
 
Sometimes we can hail a Carrier Strike Group but most of the time, all we get is static.
 
We are—essentially—defenseless without the ability to coordinate forces.”
 
The grizzled sailor frowned at his Air Force counterpart.
 
“There could be entire
fleets
approaching our shores at this very moment and we wouldn’t know it.”

“Don’t look at me, Roger,” said the Air Force Chief of Staff. “We’re in the dark too.
 
We still have a secure link with the Football,” he said at the Air Force officer standing quietly at the edge of the room.
 
The officer was holding a large briefcase, handcuffed to his left wrist.
 
The Air Force Chief of Staff then stood up in his dress blues, with an equally large display of medals and ribbons as his Navy counterpart on his puffed out chest.
 
He nodded toward the President.
 

“Sir, it’s true, most of our satellite capability has been shut down, but we’re working with the NSA to use some backdoors we re-discovered.”

“’Backdoors’?” said the President with an arched eyebrow.
 
He struggled to push a suggestive image of Jayne from his mind and cleared his throat.
 
“’Re-discovered’?”

“Yessir.
 
Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, we figured the Russkies would try some anti-satellite warfare, so we built in some emergency access systems into a select batch of civilian birds, like geostationary weather sats.
 
If the Russians took out our military and spy satellites, we could tap into our weather sats and possibly neutral, international communication satellites to carry our own comm-links.”

“You hacked international satellites?
 
That doesn’t sound very diplomatic.”
 
The President could just see the negative headlines flash across the screens.

“Yes, sir,” said the Air Force general.
 
He looked surprised that the President was surprised.
 
“Uh…sir, England, France and Germany, among others—back in the early days—paid us to launch their satellites.
 
We shouldered the risk,
we
designed and paid for the technology, we
supplied the workers, and we
supplied the launch facilities.
 
Everything was on us.
 
It wasn’t very hard for our techs to add some extra functionality to those satellites before launch.”
 
He gave a weak shrug.
 
“They never said we couldn’t add some extra communication functionality—and we never asked.”

The President frowned.
 
“Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission, right?”

“Yessir.”

“All that being said,” growled the Secretary of Defense, “we still are nowhere near the capability we had just last week.
 
We can get through to a few units and bases when these old clunker satellites pass overhead.
 
After that, we have to wait until the next flyover. It’s primitive technology we’re working with, but it’s all we’ve got and it’s working.
 
Barely.
 
It’s leaving us pissing in the wind.
 
If someone decides to take out a few of our forward bases in Iran…they could be wiped out before we even know what the hell is happening.”

“Is that all we have?” asked the President in a gasp of disbelief.

“At the moment, yessir,” said the Air Force general sadly.
 
He sat down with a sigh.

“So.
 
Mr. President, as I said, we are blind, deaf, and mute,” the Secretary of Defense said.
 
“We have North Korean troops taking ground in Los Angeles and—here’s the real kick in the balls—the last image we had over the Pacific is not good.”
 
He stood up and passed a glossy 8 x 10 photo to the President.

“Why isn’t this on the screens?” asked the President, motioning to the bank of monitors along the entire length of the far wall, displaying current information about the casualties in Atlanta, the fighting in Los Angeles and half a dozen other crises the nation currently was facing.

“Ancient tech, sir,” offered the head of the National Security Agency with a dangerous glance at the Air Force Chief of Staff.
 
She nodded at the photograph. “It’s the best we can do with these old satellites.
 
They weren’t designed for the workload we’re asking of them.
 
It’s a miracle they’re even still in orbit.
 
If Space Command had actually taken command of space instead of just watching—”

“Our hands were tied and you know it,” snapped the Air Force Chief, the sudden burst of venom in his voice shocking everyone.
 
“The Star Wars program was scrapped decades ago,” said the Air Force General with an accusing finger at the NSA head.
 
“We had no defensive capability or strategy in place because Congress defunded us to funnel money into your programs to spy on American citizens!
 
And we all know how well
that
worked out…”

“Let’s settle down people.
 
This is not the time for infighting.”
 
The President cut the political blame game short.
 
He turned back to the Secretary of Defense.
 
“So, what am I looking at?”

In the image, a brownish coastline was on the right, or eastern side.
 
The blue waters of the Pacific stretched far to the west and covered 3/4 of the photo. “That, is California and part of Oregon.
 
Those
,” said the Secretary of Defense, indicating the small oblong shapes with white lines trailing them, “are surface vessels.
 
Cargo ships.
 
Battleships.
 
A massive fleet—we’re thinking just about everything North Korea has.
 
God knows how may subs are with them.
 
I would bet my career that there’s more than a few Chinese vessels mixed in there.”
 
He shook his head.
 
“Either way, they’re about a day from arrival.”

“That’s…” he cleared his throat.
 
“That’s a
lot
of boats,” the President said.
 
He suddenly felt very inadequate at his new job.
 
Reginald never said anything about a North Korean invasion.
 
A very heavy weight seemed to settle on his shoulders and threatened to crush him into the plush chair in which he sat.

“It’s a Goddamn armada,” grunted the Admiral.

“I’m getting word from Beijing that it’s a routine merchant fleet,” offered the Secretary of State.
 
She pushed designer glasses up her thin nose and sniffed as if the matter were closed.
 
The President took an immediate dislike to the woman, one of Denton’s favorites.

“
Bullshit.
 
This is an invasion,” said the Army Chief of Staff.
 
He pointed at his own copy of the satellite image.
 
“Hell, they could have two divisions—complete with support vehicles and materiel—on that number of ships.
 
If we can’t get the Navy to take care of this or at least get some airstrikes launched…This is going to hurt.”

“Why now?” asked Admiral Bennett.
 
“They’re going to lose a lot of men to the flu when they land…” asked the Admiral.

The President felt his anger rising.
 
Reginald had said there would be an expedition from the Koreans, but nothing of this magnitude.
 
The plan was that he would have his own private army, to hold the peace while the weaponized-flu burned itself out.
 

Granted, the use of foreign troops on American soil was bitterly distasteful and he wished he could accomplish his goals without having to resort to such heavy-handed tactics, but the President’s plan to solidify his power for the coming changes required swift and resolute action.
 

But, now the timetable was off.
 
Way
off.
 
Denton got himself sick on some damned fool campaign stop and died. Harold frowned, his fingers caressing the polished edge of the great desk.
 
He was supposed to enjoy a few months of solo control before the North Koreans arrived.
 
Why had they moved so early?
 
And what the hell were the damn North Koreans doing invading California?
 
They were supposed to police it for him.

He glanced at the red phone sitting on the desk in front of him.
 
That would be the ultra-secure, untraceable phone that Reginald would contact him on in the future.
 

The President looked up to see every face in the room focused on him.
 
He had to throw them back on the defense.
 
He deepened his frown and reached into his bag of tricks to pull up a stern, disapproving fatherly look.

“How the hell did we let all this get past us?
 
What about NORAD?” he barked.

“Sir, without those satellites, NORAD is next to useless,” the Air Force general said.
 
He shook his head.
 
“We’re trying to establish landlines but…
everything
is dependent on geo-synchronous satellite communications these days.
 
I can only imagine the chaos that is about to hit the rest of the country when people realize that there’s no more TV, cellphones, or Internet service.”

The heads of the Air Force and the NSA started bickering again, blaming funding cuts on each other.
 
The Secretary of Defense started to argue it had been Congress that had screwed things up—that the conservative minority had been trying to add money for Defense spending for years but the liberals had—

“There’s plenty of blame to go around here, people,” said the President in his best mediator voice.
 
Inside he was shuddering in revulsion.
 
Once again, that innocent little code that he’d given to Reginald was proving to be a major problem coming home to roost.
 

“Any word from State?” the President asked, desperate for anything to keep the military from attacking Reginald’s forces.

The Secretary of State flipped through some the papers in her lap.
 
“Sir, I have a message that came in just as we lost communications.
 
It states that the United Nations stands ready to assist us during the flu crisis.”

“That’s it?” the President asked.

“That’s it.”
 

That son of a bitch…
he thought, trying to keep his face calm as he looked at the picture of the East Coast again.
 
Reginald
took down our entire defense system, killed the satellites, launched the flu…he’s going to bring the whole country down!
 
He could have at least had the decency to warn me about this…

Okay,
he told himself.
He’ll get in touch with me soon.
 
I just have to hold the military back until he calls.
 
But he’d better call soon, before these puffed up bastards over-react and really screw up my plans…
 

The President rubbed his eyes.
 
That heavy, impossibly heavy weight that had settled on his shoulders was now threatening to drive him into the ground.
 
All those Americans that had died in Atlanta…that he had killed…and that was just the opening act.
 
The death toll was starting to trickle in from California, but he felt in his bones that number was about to skyrocket.

What was he supposed to do?
 
He could almost feel the lynch mob’s noose around his neck.
 
He loosened his tie and undid the top button, getting air under his shirt.
 
He needed to think.
 
He needed to drink.
 
He needed Jayne.
 
But right now, I just need to keep the Joint Chiefs focused on blocking the Koreans, not wiping them out.
 
I still need them until I can get the military on my side…

“Sir,” said the Secretary of Homeland Security.
 
The obese black man shifted awkwardly in his spot on the couch.
 
“I have to ask you to assign priority-status to the mission to retrieve Chad Huntley.”

The President shook his head.
 
“Who?”

“Sir, he’s the sole-remaining source of our vaccine that stopped The Pandemic ten years ago.
 
I requisitioned a unit of Rangers to pull him out of Glacier National Park when the CDC…and Atlanta…” he paused and put his hands together, looking extremely nervous.
 
He swallowed audibly, then continued:
 
“We’ve confirmed the strain of flu that’s afflicting our nation is
not
the strain of H5N1 that caused The Pandemic, but we think—at least from what
I’ve
seen, it could be a mutation that—”