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gold JSCAN telephone started beeping in SC Commander Duane Carver’s office. Carver, a lean, low-key man, picked up and heard the news from Block.
    “Yes, sir,” he replied and stepped out onto his balcony overlooking a floor half the size of a football field where SAC officers manned their consoles deep beneath Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha. Display screens told them which bombers were in the air, which were sitting on runways and how long their engines had been running. “I’m on it.”
    Carver hung up and picked up the red telephone to the Primary Alerting System. As soon as he did, an alarm warbled and a rotating red beacon flashed.
    On the surface, sirens blared as blue trucks rushed pilots to their awaiting bombers and tankers already lined up for a quick escape.
    “Alert crews to your stations,” blared the senior controller’s voice over the base speakers. “This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill.”
    On the runways, B-2, B-52 and FB-11 bombers and their supporting KC-135 tankers began to blast off in Minimum Interval Take Offs (MITOs), one after another with less than twelve seconds between them, collectively armed with enough nuclear warheads to destroy the world’s 25 largest cities.

15

1149 Hours
Looking Glass

    T he Looking Glass plane had reached its 30,000-foot cruising altitude among the thunderclouds when Marshall heard the ominous
click-clack
of an Emergency Action Message or “go code” print out in the battle staff compartment. Wilson ripped it out and walked it over to him.
    “Northern Command confirms a first strike on U.S. soililson said in a trained monotone stripped of all emotion. “The ANMCC says we’ve lost the Pentagon, White House and most of the nation’s elected leadership.”
    Marshall read the EAM, his mind racing. Without a star in charge and only a junior grade skeleton staff, the Alternate National Military Command Center at Raven Rock was about as valuable now as a call center in Bangalore, India. That left General Duane Carver at Strategic Command, General Norm Block at Northern Command, and himself aboard Looking Glass as the essential National Command Authority to run the country.
    They would be contacting him any second now, Marshall thought, when
    Major Tom’s voice came on the speaker from the communications compartment.
    “Sir, I’ve got Generals Carver and Block for you in the conference center.”
    “I want a launch poll, Major Tom,” he told her as he rose to his feet. “I want to know what assets got off the ground, what assets are on the ground and which ones are in the ground. And I want it waiting for me when I get there in thirty seconds.”
    Marshall found the two faces of his last remaining superiors staring from the big screen when he sat down in the conference center: Block, the squat cigar-chomping warrior from the old schools, and Carver, the tall, wiry egghead from the new. Laurel and Hardy in uniform, except Block was white and Carver was black.
    “Damage reports, Marshall?”
    “Early reports indicate a ground burst,” Marshall said, glancing down at the screen beneath the surface of the table. “One hundred fifty KT. Blast radius three miles. Casualties estimated at about four thousand. Looks like snow kept most nonessential federal workers at home.”
    “So we caught a break,” Block said. “That puppy’s bark was worse than its bite.”
    “I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” General Carver said dully. “Marshall, the launch poll.”
    Marshall glanced down again. The poll had just popped up. It was everything they already knew, but protocol demanded acknowledgment.
    “We’ve lost the Commander-in-Chief at the White House and the Joint Chiefs at the National Military Center at the Pentagon. But we still have command posts at Northern Command, Strategic Command and the ANMCC at Raven Rock,” Marshall reported. “We are the National Command Authority now.”
    Block looked relieved on screen. “So the actual