Bridge to Nowhere

Allies and Foes

Washington, DC–12:10 A.M. Thursday Morning

The drive to the White House is slow. Wrecked and burning cars block the roads. Debris from toppled buildings spill into the streets. Fire trucks, ambulances, and police cruisers struggle to move around the city in the deep, gritty fallout.

People bewildered by the strange events crowd the sidewalks, stepping clumsily through the thick dirt. They don't understand what has happened. The air is hot. Dust rains down. This is not a peaceful and tranquil storm. Rocks and fragments up to five feet in diameter fall randomly from the sky slamming into cars, buildings, and people.

The twenty-minute drive to the White House stretches past sixty minutes. The dirt is now nearly two feet deep. The black four-wheel drive Suburban advances slowly in soft deep grit. Dennis drives judiciously, careful not to get stuck behind wrecked cars. Tug is anxious. They aren't far from the White House, but they're moving too slowly. Tug looks at his wife. She gazes out the window with a blank stare.

Tug has not let a minute go to waste. He's been on the sat phone the entire time. After several calls, he has a grip on the big picture. "Dennis, quit pussyfooting. Get us to the White House, posthaste, or I'll toss you out and drive this rig myself."

Dennis does not require additional motivation. He drives on the sidewalk to the end of the street, then turns right on to Seventieth Street NW. They are now just blocks from the northwest gate.

The large Suburban drives around the barricades at Seventieth and Pennsylvania Ave NW. The wind knocked over the guard shack, but Marines stand post. One of the Marines waves the vehicle through and minutes later it comes to a stop outside the West Wing, where a medical team waits to greet the Secretary of Defense and his wife.

Tug helps the medical team get Joan onto a gurney. "These fellas will take care of you. I need to see Cliff. I'll check on you soon." Tug leans down and gives his wife a soft peck on her dusty, blood-streaked cheek. Tears well up in reaction to her husband's unusual public show of affection.

U.S. Secret Service personnel lead Tug to the Deep Underground Command Center. Video screens cover the walls displaying news streams. Tug looks across a large conference table and observes Cliff Baker, Mitch Campbell, and Jerome Hargrove all looking exhausted. Tug assumes they have been working tirelessly to assess the cause of the explosion, gather damage reports, and direct recovery efforts. He doesn't know they are battling the effects of a whiskey drunk that's wearing off.

Cliff Baker drowsily looks across the conference table. "Tug! You made it. Tell us what you know. Where is General Mahon?"

Tug stands rigidly at the end of the long conference table. "The city is in ruins. What didn't topple over is burning. Two feet of gritty fallout blankets the city. Most vehicles can't get through the stuff."

Jerome wakes when he hears the word fallout. He pulls off his VUE in panic. "We've seen the dirt piling up on the news reports. It's fallout? You mean it was nuclear?"

Cliff jumps in. "You said it wasn't nuclear. You're saying it was an attack?"

Tug is too tired for overreacting politicians. "Gentlemen, I am using the term fallout to describe debris that results from an explosion. It could be from a big bomb or a volcano. I believe we can rule out the volcano, so the fallout accumulating across the city is from one hell of a huge bomb, or something else. As I said before, I don't believe it's nuclear—just my gut feeling. It's too early for radiation burns to appear. If we're dead three days from now from radiation sickness, you'll know I was wrong."

Jerome hurriedly checks his VUE and types in the air, apparently searching for the effects of nuclear radiation. A few moments later he mumbles, "Oh, my. Oh, dear."