Had Novosibirsk been the opening act? Was Murray watching World War III unfold?

“Xining, on the left,” said some nameless a.s.sistant, there to stand in for one of the Joint Chiefs. “The right side is Lanzhou.”

Murray didn’t know those places. They looked big.

“How many?” he said. “How many people?”

“Uh, checking,” the a.s.sistant said. “Xining has, or had, before all of this … two-point-two million.”

The size of Houston, a little bigger.

“The other one,” Murray said. “Lanzhou? How many?”

“Lanzhou has … Jesus.” The a.s.sistant looked up, face ashen, drenched with despair. “It had three-point-six million.”

Another Los Angeles, or maybe Chicago if you include enough suburbs.

Albertson’s shaking hand raised the shaking mug to his lips. He took a sip. Only a little coffee spilled onto the table.

“Was it the Russians?” he said. “Why didn’t we see these missiles when they launched?”

Admiral Porter rested his elbows on the table, hands pressed against the sides of his head. Even he, the stoic one, was worn down by the nonstop horror show.

“There wasn’t a launch of any kind,” he said. “That means the bombs had to be driven in. It wasn’t the Russians this time — the Chinese nuked themselves.”

Murray knew what those words meant. If the Chinese were desperate enough to bomb themselves, they wouldn’t think twice about launching missiles against another nation.

The screen suddenly switched to an image of Blackmon. She had been sleeping aboard Air Force One. She wore red pajamas. Her hair was a tangled mess. Eyes narrowed by fatigue-fueled rage, she stared out, locking eyes with several people in that spooky, I-see-you-and-you-see-me connection enabled by the screen’s telepresence.

“Tell me,” she said.

Albertson stood. “Madam President, we—”

“Not you,” she said sharply. The face on the screen turned, locked eyes with Murray. “You, Longworth. I want to hear it from you.”

Murray felt all the eyes of the Situation Room upon him. Blackmon should have heard from her next in line, Albertson, or at least from Admiral Porter.

“Uh, sure,” Murray said. “I mean, yes, Madam President.”

“I want straight, simple language,” Blackmon said. “Out of everyone there, you do that best. And if you need to curse to get the point across, I don’t really care anymore.”

Murray nodded. He recognized the look in her eyes, the anxiety at not being front and center, the desperate need for accurate intel. He again flashed back to his days in Vietnam, when he had been the one forced to make every decision and give every order. Men had lived and died based on what he told them to do. Back then, he’d relied on Dew Phillips, his top sergeant, to provide no-bulls.h.i.t information, to help make those impossible choices.

Now Murray was playing that role to the president of the United States.

He quickly gave her the bad news, using the comparisons to Houston and Los Angeles so she understood the scope.

When Murray finished, Blackmon closed her eyes. Her lip quivered slightly. Murray hoped the president of the United States wasn’t going to cry, because that would just be too G.o.dd.a.m.n much for him to take.

“Why, Murray? Why would the Chinese do this?”

“Those cities must have been overrun,” he said. “Far beyond any hope of saving them. If this was an act of the Chinese government, I a.s.sume the goal was to kill as many of the Converted as possible before they could radiate to surrounding areas. If the government has fallen and the Converted detonated the nukes, then … well, I’m not sure those motherf.u.c.kers really need a reason.”

Blackmon nodded. The lip quivered a little more.

“Any word from Beijing?”

“None, Madam President,” Murray said. “If anyone is in charge, we don’t know who it is.”

Blackmon sat up straighter. She sniffed in sharply, regained her composure.

“All right,” she said. “If anyone there is still watching us, waiting to see how we’ll respond, we have to let them know that the United States of America is still ready to defend herself by any means necessary.”

She looked away from Murray, took in the whole room.

“Admiral Porter, take us to DEFCON 1.”

A GOOD DAY FOR A SWIM

Paulius Klimas’s head broke the surface of Lake Michigan. His goggled eyes looked out at the empty sidewalk and eight lanes of Lakesh.o.r.e Drive. A few streetlights were still working, enough to illuminate the burned-out cars blocking the entire road. Beyond, dark buildings rose high against a darker sky; only a few panes glowed with light.

Frank Bogdana surfaced off to Klimas’s right, D’Shawn Bosh off to his left. Not far behind him, Luke Ramierez did the same.

Even if there had been anyone standing on that sidewalk, on the road, or in Lake Sh.o.r.e Park beyond, the four SEALs would have been all but invisible; just tiny, moving b.u.mps of wetness in an infinite inland sea.

Paulius slid beneath the waves. He swam forward a good fifteen meters, pushing his M4 carbine in its shoot-through dry bag before him, then held his position underwater for another minute before rising up enough to peek above the surface. He again looked at Lakesh.o.r.e Drive, the sidewalk, the park. Bosh and Bogdana did the same, searching for anything that might be a threat.

They saw nothing.

Paulius and his men moved forward. They would leave their rebreather gear below the water, fixed to the metal-and-concrete seawall. Whether they would need that gear again remained to be seen. If all went well, he and his men would fly back to the Coronado instead of swim.