“Sir, we have not yet confirmed that the Japanese have destroyed all of their launchers, nor have we confirmed the neutralization of their weapons. You see–”
“General, that’s an order,” Ryan said quietly. “I can give them, you know.”
The man’s back braced to attention. “Yes, Mr. President.”
Ryan flipped through the rest of the binder. Despite his previous job, what he found was a revelation. Jack had always avoided too-intimate knowledge of the damned things. He’d never expected them to be used. After the terrorist incident in Denver and all the horror that had swept the surface of the planet in its aftermath, statesmen across continents and political beliefs had indulged themselves in a collective think about the weapons under their control. Even during the shooting war with Japan just ended, Ryan had known that somewhere, some team of experts had concocted a plan for a nuclear retaliatory strike, but he’d concentrated his efforts at making it unnecessary, and it was a source of considerable pride to the new President that he’d never even contemplated implementing the plan whose summary was still in his left hand. LONG RIFLE, he saw, was the code name. Why did the names have to be like that, virile and exciting, as though for something that one could be proud of?
“What’s this one? LIGHT SWITCH .. . ?”
“Mr. President,” the general answered, “that’s a method of using an EMP attack. Electromagnetic pulse. If you explode a device at very high altitude, there’s nothing–no air, actually–to absorb the initial energy of the
94
detonation and convert it into mechanical energy–no shock wave, that is. As a result all the energy goes out in its original electromagnetic form. The resulting energy surge is murder on power and telephone lines. We always had a bunch of weapons fused for high-altitude burst in our SIOPs for the Soviet Union. Their telephone system was so primitive that it would have been easy to destroy. It’s a cheap mission-kill, won’t really hurt anybody on the ground.”
“I see.” Ryan closed the binder and handed it back to the warrant officer, who immediately locked the now-lighter document away. “I take it there’s nothing going on which is likely to require a nuclear strike of any kind?”
“Correct, Mr. President.”
“So, what’s the point of having this man sitting outside my office all the time?”
“You can’t predict all possible contingencies, can you, sir?” the general asked. It must have been difficult for him to deliver the line with a straight face, Ryan realized, as soon as the shock went away.
“I guess not,” a chastised President replied.
THE WHITE HOUSE Protocol Office was headed by a lady named Judy Simmons, who’d been seconded to the White House staff from the State Department four months earlier. Her office in the basement of the building had been busy since just after midnight, when she’d arrived from her home in Burke, Virginia. Her thankless job was to prepare arrangements for what would be the largest state funeral in American history, a task on which over a hundred staff members had already kibitzed, and it was not yet lunch time.
The list of all the dead still had to be compiled, but from careful examination of the videotapes it was largely known who was in the chamber, and there was biographical information on all of them–married or single, religion, etc.–from which to make the necessary, if preliminary, plans. Whatever was finally decided, Jack would be the master of the grim ceremony, and had to be kept informed
95
of every step of the planning. A funeral for thousands, Ryan thought, most of whom he hadn’t known, for most of whose as yet unrecovered bodies waited wives and husbands and children.
“National Cathedral,” he saw, turning the page. The approximate numbers of religious affiliations had been compiled. That would determine the clergy to take the various functions in the ecumenical religious service.
“That’s where such ceremonies are usually carried out, Mr. President,” a very harried official confirmed. “There will not be room for all of the remains”–she didn’t say that one White House staffer had suggested an outdoor memorial service at RFK Stadium in order to accommodate all the victims–“but there will be room for the President and Mrs. Durling, plus a representative sampling of the congressional victims. We’ve contacted eleven foreign governments on the question of the diplomats who were present. We also have a preliminary list of foreign-government representatives who will be coming in to attend the ceremony.” She handed over that sheet as well.
Ryan scanned it briefly. It meant that after the memorial service he’d be meeting “informally” with numerous chiefs of state to conduct “informal” business. He’d need a briefing page for each meeting, and in addition to whatever they all might ask or want, every one would be checking him out. Jack knew how that worked. All over the world, presidents, prime ministers, and a few lingering dictators would now be reading briefing documents of their own–who was this John Patrick Ryan, and what can we expect of him? He wondered if they had a better idea of the answer than he did. Probably not. Their NIOs wouldn’t be all that different from his, after all. And so a raft of them would come over on government jets, partly to show respect for President Durling and the American government, partly to eyeball the new American President, partly for domestic political consumption at home, and partly because it was expected that they should do so. And so this event, horrific as it was for uncounted thousands, was just one more mechanical exercise in the world of politics. Jack wanted to cry out in rage, but what else
96
was there to do? The dead were dead, and all his grief could not bring them back, and the business of his country and others would go on.
“Have Scott Adler go over this, will you?” Somebody would have to determine how much time he should spend with the official visitors, and Ryan wasn’t qualified to do that.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“What sort of speeches will I have to deliver?” Jack asked.
“We have our people working on that for you. You should have preliminary drafts by tomorrow afternoon,” Mrs. Simmons replied.
President Ryan nodded and slid the papers into his out-pile. When the Chief of Protocol left, a secretary came in–he didn’t know this lady’s name–with a pile of telegrams, the leftovers from Eighth and I that he hadn’t gotten to, plus another sheet of paper that showed his activities for the day, prepared without his input or assistance. He was about to grumble about that when she spoke.
“We have over ten thousand telegrams and e-mails from–well, from citizens,” she told him.
“Saying what?”
“Mainly that they’re praying for you.”
“Oh.” Somehow that came as a surprise, and a humbling one at that. But would God listen?
Jack went back to reading the official messages, and the first day went on.
THE COUNTRY HAD essentially come to a halt, even as its new President struggled to come to terms with his new job. Banks and financial markets were closed, as were schools and many businesses. All the television networks had moved their broadcast headquarters to the various Washington bureaus in a haphazard process that had them all working together. A gang of cameras sited around the Hill kept up a continuous feed of recovery operations, while reporters had to keep talking, lest the airwaves be
97
filled with silence. Around eleven that morning, a crane removed the remains of the 747’s tail, which was deposited on a large flatbed trailer for transport to a hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. That would be the site for what was called the “crash investigation,” for want of a better term, and cameras tracked the vehicle as it threaded its way along the streets. Two of the engines went out shortly thereafter in much the same way.
Various “experts” helped fill the silence, speculating on what had happened and how. This was difficult for everyone involved, as there had been few leaks as yet– those who were trying to find out what had happened were too busy to talk with reporters on or off the record, and though the journalists couldn’t say it, their most fertile source of leaks lay in ruin before thirty-four cameras. That gave the experts little to say. Witnesses were interviewed for their recollections–there was no tape of the inbound aircraft at all, much to the surprise of everyone. The tail number of the aircraft was known–it could hardly be missed, painted as it was on the wreckage of the aircraft, and that was as easily checked by reporters as by federal authorities. The ownership of the aircraft by Japan Airlines was immediately confirmed, along with the very day the aircraft had rolled out of the Boeing plant near Seattle. Officials of that company submitted to interviews, and along the way it was determined that the 747-400 (PIP) aircraft weighed just over two hundred tons empty, a number doubled with the mass of fuel, passengers, and baggage it could pull into the air. A pilot with United Airlines who was familiar with the aircraft explained to two of the networks how a pilot could approach Washington and then execute the death dive, while a Delta colleague did the same with the others. Both airmen were mistaken in some of the particulars, none of them important.