The War Cloud Read Online Free PDF Page A

corridor came a shout.
    “Away from the glass!”
    Sergeant Wanda Randolph, head of the Capitol Police’s special reconn and tactics or RATS squad that patrolled the underground tunnels the U.S. Capitol Complex, sprinted across the rotunda’s marble floor, waving her 50 caliber sniper rifle at the screaming, fleeing kids.
    She tried to radio her man at the Pentagon as she ran, “Omar!”
    “We’re on it, boss,” Omar’s voice crackled in her earpiece. “Get yourself some cover!”
    “I got a hole to crawl into,” she said. “Just one more thing.”
    Using whatever speed was left from her days as a track star at Howard University, Randolph ran the race of her life toward the display, knocking over two kids.
    “Hey!” Mrs. Chan yelled.
    Randolph hurdled three kids crouched in front of the display in one jump. She unlocked a switch and breathlessly watched the display case sink into the floor and drop hundreds of feet down its shaft.

10

1148 Hours
Andrews AFB, Maryland

    C olonel Kozlowski and Captain Linda Li jogged across the tarmac to the awaiting Advanced Airborne Command Post. Unlike the tamer, civilian Air Force One, the militarized E-4B jumbo jet, code-named Nightwatch, was built to soar over mushroom clouds.
    “I was worried we were going to have to take off without you, sir,” Li said.
    “You saved my lifeKozlowski told his diminutive communications officer. “Again.”
    Li smiled. “Any time, sir.”
    Kozlowski had been staring into the barrel of his gun back at the hotel when the call from Li came in. Out of habit he picked up and heard her clear, chipper voice letting him know there had been a roster change. It seemed that General Marshall was logging a shift aboard Looking Glass that morning, and would the colonel mind reporting to base as a Suburban was waiting for him at the hotel entrance. “Unless you have something better to do, sir,” she added.
    Kozlowski had looked down at his gun again. He suspected that Brad Marshall was not why she really called. She was always looking out for him, even though he knew she didn’t approve of his off-duty life. Hell, how did she even know he was at the Hay-Adams? He swore she was psychic. She called it the spiritual gift of discernment. But she had aroused his curiosity. Brad Marshall was never one to languish in obscurity, even for eight hours. So Kozlowski had switched on his gun’s safety and told her he’d be right down.
    Now he found that he had arrived in the middle of a full-blown Alert One nuclear situation.
    “Where’s the President?”
    “No time, sir,” Li said.
    Of course not, thought Kozlowski. He himself would never have made it. God bless Captain Li.
    The whine of the engines was deafening now as they approached the towering, 231-foot-long plane.
    Li shouted, “We have orders to pick up the Secretary of Defense at Edwards AFB.”
    Kozlowski nodded as they ran up the hydraulic steps into the belly of the fuselage. They made their way through a long communications section manned by six Air Force officers and then entered the battle staff compartment. Fifteen more officers, conducting their pre-flight checks, saluted.
    “Let’s get the hell out of here!” Kozlowski shouted and strapped himself into a jump seat.
    Li plunked down next to him, breathless. The GE 80-series engines wound up into a deep-throated roar and the jumbo jet started moving down the runway.
    Kozlowski leaned back against his seat as the plane left the ground. He never felt more alive in his life.

11

1148 Hours
The White House

    P resident Rhinehart paced the floor in the bunker while his national security adviser gave him the latest.
    “Marshall is on Looking Glass, Mr. President.”
    Rhinehart nodded. Whatever political challenges the general had presented him, he was a genuine military asset. “And my doomsday plane?”
    “Nightwatch just took off from Andrews,” Jack Natori said.
    “Send Nightwatch to California to pick up Bald Eagle at Edwards,”