Digital Winter (18 page)

Holt placed a hand on Jeremy's shoulder but said nothing.

Lieutenant Commander William “Rocky” Rochester was flying at Angels 22—22,000 feet above the Atlantic—and banking left as he patrolled the three-mile limit of US territorial waters. He was one of several aircraft patrolling the skies. The country was on high alert, and a terrorist attack was assumed. His job was to intercept any unauthorized aircraft inbound and splash it if necessary. All commercial flights had been grounded, and civilian flights were diverted to the nearest airports. The only things in the air were either government-sanctioned flights, military aircraft, or possible threats.

He was outbound from the USS
Ronald Reagan
, which patrolled a hundred miles due east of Washington, DC. The night sky glittered with stars, and for a moment, Rocky wished this were a pleasure flight.

Rocky triggered his radio to report his position when the engines suddenly shut off and the heads-up display disappeared. The stubby-winged craft slowed, and the nose lowered.

He attempted to restart the engines, but they didn't respond. The craft was dead, something that should never happen. The F-22 slowed even more and then began to gain speed as the nose dipped more and gravity began its work. He triggered his microphone and attempted to call his ship. No response.

“Come on, come on.” Again he tried to kick-start the Pratt and Whitney turbofan engines and got nothing. The $150 million craft was gliding to the dark ocean. Rocky worked the stick, but with no electricity, there was no computer assisted flying, no fly-by-wire.

It was one thing to lose engines, but to lose everything was impossible. There were too many redundancies. The control surfaces refused to respond. He had been in a bank at the time of the power outage, and the craft continued to turn.

His rate of descent increased. Rocky was determined to ride the craft as long as possible before bailing out.

He was thankful that his ejection seat was activated mechanically, not electrically. F-22s didn't float well.

Above him, flashes of light blinked from space. Below, a wide black ocean waited to receive him.

Roni had finished another surgery when the lights went out again. She sat on a worn sofa in the doctors' lobby and sipped a black fluid someone called coffee. She had doubts. The nervous chatter of medical personnel and patients pressed through the door. Two other physicians were in the room with her. An ER doc sat in a chair with his head back, snoring softly. A surgeon, who Roni knew was a week from retirement and endless days in a motor coach plying the roadways of the US, rested his head on his arms like a first-grade student during rest time.

Roni had her eyes closed as well, but the sound of people grumbling interrupted her rest. She set the cup down and moved from the lounge.

“What's happening?” The nearly retired surgeon stood by her side.

“Lights are out again.”

He shrugged. “They'll have the generator running again. Probably just ran out of gas.”

Roni hoped he was right, but she had trouble stirring up some optimism. She moved down the hall to one of the exit doors.

She didn't like the look of the sky.

It had taken Stanley two hours to work his way through downtown traffic and drive over the San Diego–Coronado Bridge. Royce had left before he had and made better time because most of her driving was down the I-5. Traffic was thick, but there were no intersections with dead traffic lights to deal with.

The elevators were out, so Stanley and Royce had walked up ten flights of stairs, the most exercise he'd had in a year. His legs still ached. They stood at the window, looking at the dark skyline of San Diego. The bay that separated Coronado from San Diego normally reflected the light of the high-rise towers and low-rise buildings. It was one of the most spectacular sights in the city. But tonight, only moonlight danced on the water. Every building was dark, including those in their condo complex—except their unit. Stanley insisted on keeping the lights off to avoid attracting attention.

“Good thing we left when we did.” Stanley gave Royce a squeeze. “The bridge and the road up the Strand is blocked. Not a single car is moving.”

“I don't understand.” It was the third time Royce had said that in the last half hour. “Why do we have power when no one else does?”

Stanley turned to Donny's room. The soft glow of computer monitors served as night lights for the sleeping man-child. “I have no idea.” He looked at Rosa sleeping on the sofa. “I'm glad she decided to stay. She'd be stuck in that mess out there. She's safer here, especially since her husband is on the road.”

“Stanley,” Royce whispered. “I'm scared. I'm really, really scared.”

“Me too, sweetheart.” He tightened his embrace.

S
omebody tell me I'm wrong.” Barlow had two busted ribs and a knot the size of a golf ball on the side of his head, and he had barely been rescued from a burning helicopter, but he still had a lot of energy—angry energy.

Jeremy and Holt stood next to the president's hospital bed in the below-ground facility of Mount Weather. “I wish we could, Mr. President,” Holt said. “We believe your assessment to be correct.”

“Star Wars satellites? I'd prefer to be wrong.”

“With all due respect, sir, we wish you were wrong too.” Holt kept his bandaged hands clasped in front of him. Both hands had been injured when he crawled his way to the top of the crashed craft, and they received further injury helping haul up the president and the rest of the passengers. The pilots came to just as the president's wife was being hauled out of the smoky cabin. They were able to help themselves out. The chief pilot was in a bed nearby, nursing a concussion and whiplash. The copilot had fared better but was still stiff and filled with aches and pains.

“Those couldn't have been our birds. Our EMPs are over China, Korea, and Russia.” The president started to sit up but then winced and gave up on the idea. “Do we have word from NORAD about whose satellites those were?”

Holt didn't budge, but Jeremy could feel the tension. “We're having to make contact through off channels. The electromagnetic pulse knocked out all our communications satellites. The only radios that work are in this facility. NORAD is also a hardened facility, so we assume their electronics still work.” The North American Aerospace Defense command's operation center was buried deep in Cheyenne Mountain, not far from Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“But with no working satellites or landlines, we're cut off. I assume ANR and CFB Winnipeg are out of touch.”

“Yes, sir. No word from the Alaskan and Canadian regions.”

“We have to be able to talk to them.”

“We should have contact soon, Mr. President.” A tall, slim woman entered the hospital area. Army Colonel Jill Sherwin was in charge of Mount Weather. Jeremy had never heard of her and assumed that was by plan.

“Where have you been?” the president snapped.

“Checking on the other helicopter that went down after dropping off the general and colonel. I've sent out a team to search the wreckage.”

“Of course. I apologize for my attitude. I get testy after every brush with death.” Sadness crossed the president's face. His secretary of state was dead, and he feared…“There's no way to know the status of the other inbound choppers?”

“Not yet, sir. I have communication with the search team, but that's only because our radios are stored down here. No aboveground radio is working. To be more accurate, nothing electrical is working above ground. The squad has a manpack. Right now they make contact with a man topside who relays it to us. We're repairing our antennas. The pulse did a job on them.”

“Have they reached the downed chopper?” Jeremy didn't want to hear the answer.

“Both pilot and copilot are dead.”

There was a long pause. No one wanted to ask the next question. Barlow gave voice to it. “The VP?”

Sherwin was working hard to keep her Army composure. Jeremy felt sorry for the woman. This was, to his knowledge, the first time Mount Weather had been fully utilized, and it was all going wrong.

“I asked a question, Colonel.”

Sherwin nodded. “Yes, sir. My apologies. We have no word about or from Marine Two or from the craft carrying the heads of congress and the senate. We hope for the best but assume the worst.”

“Why do you assume the worst?” Holt asked.

“Well, sir, we know the time of departure, route, and cruising altitude of each craft. At the time of the event, all of them would be at travel altitude, which means that even the closest helo would be several hundred feet aboveground. It's possible that they could autorotate and come down a little slower.” She shrugged. “We just don't know.”

“I heard the pilot call for autorotation before we hit. It didn't do us much good.”

Sherwin nodded. “Yes, sir. My understanding is that your forward speed was very slow as the pilots prepared to hover for landing. Autorotation requires forward motion so the air forces the rotors to turn. Not a gentle drop, but better than plummeting.”

Barlow drew a hand across his face, a motion that made him wince. Jeremy understood—the strained muscle in his back was killing him.

“Let me see if I have this right: My secretary of state is dead, my chief of staff is still unconscious, the vice president and his crew are probably dead or dying in the midst of some wreckage, and all the key leaders of congress are in the same boat.” He looked at Sherwin. “Should I assume the same is true for the craft carrying the Joint Chiefs of Staff and my cabinet?”

“I'm afraid so, Mr. President. We were getting direct information from radar operators at Langley AFB and other places until the EMP, so we know where each helicopter was and it's altitude at the time of the pulse. Survivability is close to zero, sir.”

“When can we start sending and receiving messages, Colonel?”

Sherwin didn't hesitate. “Phase one, sir, is to fix the antennas. We are set to transmit on all military frequencies and in shortwave if need be, but we'll only be able to talk to bases like NORAD who have hardened communications facilities. Even FEMA's National Radio Station is out of communications, so we can't contact other military or first responders. I have no idea how long it will take them to get outside communications. Everything aboveground and in space is fried, sir. Communication is going to be limited for some time.”