Target America: A Sniper Elite Novel Read Online Free Page A

temperature at the center of the explosion reaching millions of degrees Fahrenheit. A few milliseconds after that, the earth and rock covering the explosion were heaving upward, compelled by a giant bubble of high-pressure gas and steam as the heat and expanding shock wave melted or vaporized still more rock, creating a molten cavity within the bubble. This expansion continued on for another few tenths of a second until the pressure within the bubble began to equalize with that of the outside atmosphere. Then, when it could no longer sustain the rate of the expansion, the bubble collapsed back in on itself, leaving a giant subsidence crater more three hundred feet wide and sixty feet deep.
    The tiny Mexican border town of Puerto Palomas was devastated by the shock wave that traveled through the alluvial plain to knock out all power not only there but also to the city of Deming. Ground tremors were felt as far away as Roswell, New Mexico. And forty miles north of the blast, the US Geological Seismographic Station at Cookes Peak registered a seismic event of 5.1 on the Richter scale.
    Though most of the blast’s radiation had been contained by the encapsulating earth and rock, the open shafts at both ends of the tunnel had allowed twin jets of fallout to blast ten thousand feet into the sky, resulting in a deadly cloud of radioactive dust and debris that was soon drifting eastward toward El Paso, Texas.

4
    WASHINGTON, DC,
The White House
    “You still haven’t told me what the hell it was,” the president of the United States said to the director of Homeland Security. “Was it a meteor? An atom bomb? What? Why is it taking so much time to get information?”
    DHS director Merrill Radcliff was on the hot seat. They were standing in the hall outside the Oval Office flanked by numerous representatives from nearly all US security branches. The Joint Chiefs were there, the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOD—and of course, the White House chief of staff, the ever-present Tim Hagen, a distasteful young fellow whom Radcliff couldn’t stand.
    He drew a breath and held out his hands. “We just don’t know yet, Mr. President. It’s a very isolated, very remote area, and it’s taking time to get resources into—”
    The president cut him off. “Are you telling me you people still haven’t learned a damn thing from the Sandy and Katrina debacles—that you’re still not ready to react when something happens?” The question was very obviously not rhetorical.
    “Mr. President, we’ve learned a great deal from those disasters, but it takes time to get resources in place, to get things organized. We can’t just—”
    “You’re relieved,” the president said, shocking everyone present and turning to Hagen. “Get the deputy director of DHS into position to take over for Mr. Radcliff.” He then looked to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General William J. Couture, who was just stepping from the Oval Office, cellular phone in hand. “General Couture, the military will be in charge of handling this crisis from here on—effective immediately. Now, what do you need from me?”
    The jagged scar on the left side of Couture’s face made him a fierce and daunting presence, but he exuded an undeniable confidence. “Mr. President, I’ve already ordered a swift reaction team of army NBC specialists prepped and ready.” NBC stood for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological. “They’re standing by at Fort Bliss in El Paso awaiting orders to move into the impact area and begin taking readings. All I need is your clearance, sir.”
    “Get ’em in there,” the president said. “If we’ve been attacked, we need to know now, not a few days from now.”
    “I’m afraid there’s more, Mr. President.”
    The president’s brow furrowed. “Go ahead.”
    “I’ve just been on the phone with General Cruz at Fort Bliss. All indications there are that this was a nuclear event, Mr. President, not seismic and definitely not meteorological. Radiation