McCrea helped them doff their rucks and handed them to the E-8, who would be slumming as their driver. “First Sergeant, put these in the back, please.” Once the family was inside, McCrea closed the door behind them, then climbed into the shotgun seat. The driver closed up the cargo bed, slid behind the wheel and they were on their way.

“Mom, you said we’d talk about what’s happening once we were in the car,” Caleb reminded. “We’re there now.”

Mrs. Emerson ignored her son. “Major McCrea?”

He turned in his seat to look at her.

“Why are the roads clear? Why haven’t our phones squealed with an emergency alert? Why don’t things seem more urgent?”

“I’m not the policy person, Congresswoman. Congressperson?”

“Victoria is fine in private,” she said. If this were a different day, she’d have asked to be called ma’am, but not tonight. While she was senior to every military officer in the country, and they needed to know that, this was going to be stressful enough without adding unnecessary formality to the mix.

She was tempted to press for an answer when a piece fell into place for her. The NCA—National Command Authority, collectively the president and secretary of defense—wanted the elements of the federal government ensconced in safety before the possible retaliatory strike could be launched. They couldn’t alert the media or the general public without alerting the enemy.

“Oh, my God,” she said. “We’re launching the first strike, aren’t we?” She directed her words to the back of McCrea’s head, but she was surprised to hear them spoken out loud.

She’d almost nailed it. Actually, Israel was going to launch a strike on Iran, but McCrea hadn’t been briefed on what she was cleared to know. He stayed silent.

“Mom?” Luke said through a choked voice. “What are you talking about?”

“Are we going to war?” Caleb asked. He sounded even more frightened than his brother, but a kid couldn’t possibly understand the ramifications of war.

“I think we might, sweetie,” she said.

“You’re a congresswoman,” Caleb protested. “Don’t they have to get your permission first? We studied that.”

“Only for a declared war,” she answered. “The president has wide discretion short of that.”

And we gave her that power, McCrea thought. The United States had not fired a bullet in a declared war since Japan’s surrender in 1945, but it had nonetheless sent thousands of its sons and daughters to die in conflicts all around the world.

Victoria was only in her third two-year term in the House of Representatives, having won each time by huge margins in her district, and while she was as aware as any news junkie of the growing troubles between the U.S. and Iran and Russia, with Israel being the focus of all, she was nowhere near the top secret inside scoop on impending war.