Keith
Hurst’s secure telephone rang, waking him from a sound sleep. He opened
his eyes and looked at the LED clock on his nightstand. It said 3:12.
As national security advisor to the president of the United States,
middle-of-the-night calls were common. His staff did their best to
filter out the less important matters until his morning brief, but there
were times when an emergency forced sleep into second place.
Hurst grabbed the handset by the second ring. He had to wait for the encryption to handshake before he could say, “Hurst.”
“Good
morning, sir. This is the night watch officer. We have several NSA
intercepts from the following countries: India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan,
Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia all placing their
militaries on high alert. We’ve had sporadic reports of multiple air,
car, and rail accidents, resulting in thousands of deaths. Many radio
and television stations have gone off the air in those countries.”
Hurst snapped on his bedside light and sat up. “Accidents? Do we know the cause?”
“No,
sir. The strange thing is, NSA claims many of the foreign military
units that were signaled never acknowledged the alert. There also
appears to be a major communication disruption with U.S. CENTCOM units
in Afghanistan and our embassies in the aforementioned countries.”
“Are
the comms being hacked, or is there some sort of natural phenomenon
like sunspot interference?” Concerned about the call, Hurst looked at
the empty space beside him. His wife had left him several years before,
directly because of the election campaign and the late-night calls.
“No, sir. Not that we can see. The circuits are up, and the phones are ringing, but no one is answering.”
Hurst swung his legs out of bed. Has
someone come up with a way to simultaneously disrupt communications
with American bases, embassies, and headquarters, or is this some sort
of terrorist attack? “Does NRO have anything on overhead imagery?”
“No, sir. No major troop movements in the CENTCOM area. In fact, NRO reports minimal movement overall.”
“I’ll
be in the office in thirty-five minutes. I’ll want everyone in for an
early brief for the president. Get the joint chiefs and SECDEF up to
speed. Warn the Secret Service that we may be moving POTUS with short
notice. If this is an attack, I want to stay ahead of it. See if we can
get drone surveillance of any U.S. bases in Afghanistan ASAP. We need
answers.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hurst
hung up and hit the bedside crash button to summon his protection
detail. This was no time for subtlety. He needed to be in the White
House as soon as humanly possible.
Told once ‘You have to be an author, then your craziness becomes eccentrics’, Shyla Colt has always been in love with the written word and possessed a desire to write.
