Devon Ford - The Fall

Madeline sat back, wishing now that she had read the Secret Service protocols for keeping their principles safe.

“We paint by numbers,” he called behind his shoulder again, “we need to get you secured and see what we’re dealing with.”

Madeline nodded, not realizing she had forgotten to answer him out loud. She had been born into a life of politics, although she had never once regretted it. Working on her father’s campaign for Governorship of their home state even before she had started school, she had loved the life and had always shown a talent for it. Her rise to the Senate via state Governor was, for her and everyone who knew her, an inevitability.

A short term as majority whip led to a fortuitous placement when the last speaker retired, and Madeline found herself appointed by the house. The president and the VP had both come up the political ranks with her, had both served in the Senate with her, and she considered both to be something nearing friends. Learning that both were now dead, and that the Capitol was annihilated by a nuclear strike, had turned her world upside down.

It was fortuitous timing again that had saved her from sharing their fate, as she had left her office at a dead run not forty-eight hours before when her sister had called to say that their mom had suffered a stroke. Drew, implacable as ever, had called for three cars to be ready and taken two thirds of her entire detail. There was little chance of calling up a chopper for the journey, instead he had led the convoy as he did now only with sirens blaring and local law enforcement standing by to escort them. In the end, she had been too late to see her mother before she passed, but she stayed to console her sister who had been with her until the very end. She was glad that her mom had passed, for the simple reason that she would never know their beloved country now lay a third in ruins, with worse yet to come.

So now she sat back, shot a glance at her terrified head of staff who had insisted on accompanying her, and trusted her security detail to do what they did best. They were getting her off the highway, and after that god only knew what would happen.

“Gardner, Dillon,” came the low voice in Troy’s earpiece. He had taken his turn on stag relieving Miller and Jackson—two Marines with as dizzying a skillset as the rest of his team—and was sat still in line of sight with their quietest member. Although usually paired on missions with Chalky, he would not let both of their nominal commanders be away from the command center at the same time.

“Yeah,” he said into his mic, “what’s up?” Radio discipline was for the grunts.

“Incoming message via secure satellite server,” Dillon told him. “I’ll need to decrypt it first.”

Troy, his interest more than piqued, cast a look over to Ghost. He had heard the same transmission, everyone on their secure squad net had heard it, so Ghost simply nodded to say that he was good until someone else came to take over Troy’s duties. Ghost’s real name was Clay, and he had left law enforcement and the LAPD SWAT team behind to join the 101 stAirborne, but much else about the man was a mystery. He could glide in and out of rooms without people knowing he was there, which had quickly earned him the nickname. Normally Troy would need to know a lot more about a man before he stayed on the team, as personalities clashed horribly sometimes, but Ghost was not a man to upset people, and his insane infiltration skills and ability to defeat locks was a major pull. He had stayed, and he was happy being the silent partner in the team. That wasn’t to say that quiet was his default setting in combat, and his uncanny skill at skydiving was testimony to his bravery.

“Bones, Gardner,” he said into his mic again as he stood and made for the bunker entrance.

“On my way,” came the response, needing no answer. It left a feeling of satisfaction in Troy’s chest that his team were just as switched-on as ever, despite the shit storm they were all now in.

Bones, real name Andy Bonham, was the team’s only SEAL; a fact which he was never allowed to forget. The majority were marines, albeit from different specialisms to give their team the vast array of skills needed as a collective, and both Troy and Chalky were Rangers through and through, but their resident SEAL was alone in his discipline. As the team medic, medic being a technical term as he was so highly qualified and experienced that in just about every country in the world he would be called a doctor, he had been introduced as their new sawbones, and the nickname had stuck from day one. Whether he had a nickname already was a fact not featuring on the relevance scale, but he had demonstrated his ability not only to diagnose and undertake emergency field surgery to save the life of a marine injured by an explosion on their last tour, but he had done so under sparse cover and whilst being the subject of a half-dozen interested Taliban, each showering him with gifts of incoming 7.62. He had completed the surgery in record time—record time for a surgeon in a hospital—closed off the bleeding arteries and stitched the guy back up. He then pulled the guy’s camera from the pouch on his webbing, snapped them a blood-soaked selfie as the injured man raised a shaky thumb and cracked a grin through the pain, then went on to assist in eliminating the enemy threat. Troy suspected that the man’s heart beat maybe two or three times a minute, because he never once seemed under pressure.

The two men passed in the entrance, exchanging a nod as they squeezed in to make the necessary space for two big men in full war gear, and Troy carried on to the command center where Dillon was showing a woman with dark hair how to reprogram their radios. Dropping his multitasking with Gina, the young pilot who always seemed to be pissed at Troy, he tore off the sheet of paper which had been decrypted and was just finishing rolling off the old-fashioned printer. Without reading it first, he handed it to Troy who calibrated the appropriate arm length to read the small print; he still refused to admit that reading glasses were an enemy looming over the near horizon. Troy read in silence before lowering the paper and hitting his radio transmit button.

“Everyone to the briefing room,” he called simply. Knowing that the sentries posted outside would assume that this didn’t include them, he added, “Bones and Ghost too.” He glanced at Gina. “Round up the rest of the Night Stalkers, ” he instructed, prompting a smile of pride at his use of her unit’s special moniker. He looked to Dillon, “Get the Apache crews?” Dillon nodded, and Troy was left alone looking at the report again.

“Command elements are still active in Alaska,” Troy told the assembled and extended team, all crammed into the small room. “Anti-Ballistic Missile site is still active but bombing and nukes have crippled the military and law enforcement. We have no carriers stateside, and just about every base has been hit.” He paused, not relishing giving the information he was about to repeat. “That includes Fort Campbell. Anyone still on base as of 0900 is gone.” He let that hang, hoping that they all got the subtext that they were likely the only intact unit to escape the base.

He scanned for reactions in the room. His operators all wore stony expressions; no weakness broke through their exteriors but the pilots all reacted. They weren’t top tier operators, but they were experienced and disciplined enough not to shout out pointless questions.

“And now for the bad news,” Troy said, earning a few raised eyebrows from his team. “D.C. is gone so we currently have no Commander in Chief. Also,” he said, telling them that shit did indeed get worse, “Alaska is tracking a serious amount of incoming. Likely an invasion force.” That did spark a question, and it came from Air Force Colonel Simon. Troy looked at the man, seeing his slightly pale but intense face wearing a mask of thinly veiled murder. “NorKs?” he asked.