Any Means Necessary (a Luke Stone Thriller-Book #1)

Chapter Twenty Nine

2:35 p.m.

Mount WeatherEmergencyOperationsCenter - Bluemont, Virginia

The meeting was chaos. It had dragged out for well over an hour now.

Thomas Hayes was trying to preside over an unruly mob of frightened people. It wasn't working. These were smart, clever, inventive people for the most part, normally the best and brightest. But fear had shut down their creativity, and it was choking off their initiative. They couldn't even figure out where everybody was. Hayes could barely believe how disorganized the evacuations were.

An aide was making a report. "Sir, at approximately 12:30 p.m., the Airborne Communications Command aircraft, codename Nightwatch, took off from Joint Base Andrews and flew west. It is currently over eastern Missouri, cruising at forty thousand feet."

Hayes looked across the conference table at a line of blank faces.

"Who authorized that?"

No one said a word. Nightwatch was only supposed to take off in the event of a nuclear war. The missile codes were on that thing.

Hayes glanced around the room. A Secret Service agent was standing near the door with a leather satchel in his hand. The bag was strapped to the man's wrist with a steel cord. Hayes knew that inside the bag was an aluminum ZERO Halliburton case. He grunted in something like mirth. ZERO Halliburton, long the manufacturer of the President's nuclear football, was now the wholly owned subsidiary of a Japanese luggage company. Traditions were a funny thing.

Hayes looked at the aide. "Son, are we at war that we know of?"

"No sir."

"Well, who's on board the goddamned plane?"

"Sir, Senator Edward Graves of Kansas is on board the plane, along with a handful of Pentagon officials."

Thomas Hayes felt his shoulders slump. Ed Graves was Chairman of the Armed Forces Committee, and among the dumbest members of either Congressional body. The man had all the brainpower of a tree stump. He never met a war, or even a border skirmish, that he didn't like. And considering that the Nightwatch plane was designed as a place where the President could order retaliatory nuclear strikes, that made Ed Graves dangerous. Hell, he probably thought being in the plane made him President.

Hayes spoke to the room at large. "Can someone do me a favor and get him down? Please? St. Louis, Kansas City, whatever's closest. Tell him I said so."

Hayes rubbed his forehead. He was tired, and he had a headache.

David Halstram was in the corner of the room. He moved in when he saw the state Hayes was in.

"Okay, everybody. Let's do this. Let's break this up for half an hour, use the restrooms, get some coffee, relax, whatever you like." He looked at his watch. "That would mean coming back at ten to three. You know what? Let's make it forty minutes and come back at exactly three o'clock. These are serious problems, I understand that, but they're not going anywhere. They'll all still be waiting for us forty minutes from now."

"Thank you, David," Hayes said. "That's a good idea."

Susan Hopkins raised an open palm. It looked like a STOP sign. "Thomas, can I say something?"

"Susan, I wish you wouldn't."

"Thomas, I think this is important, and I'm not sure it can wait until three o'clock."

Hayes was out of patience. He might have snapped at anyone who spoke right now. But it was the Vice President, and the sheer absurdity of their relationship made it worse than it otherwise might have been. The words were out of his mouth before he could catch them.

"This isn't a bake-off, Susan. And we're not organizing a fashion show. What's so important that it can't possibly wait?"

She didn't speak. Her face flushed a deep crimson. Without another word, she stood and walked out of the room.