Maybe the soldiers on the roof could use it to get out. Not my immediate problem.

Ten feet from the stairs Torres fell. She took a last staggering step and then went down. I waved Chang and the other agents on. Top and Bunny stood guard while I knelt by the wounded cop.

Except she wasn’t a cop anymore. Everything that had been Officer Torres was gone. Her eyes stared up at nothing and her last breath rattled out between slack lips.

“Cap’n . . . ” said Top. “We have to leave her.”

It hurt to do it, but that’s what we did.

We ran up the stairs and into Air Force One. I found the president hunkered down at a small desk in his private office, and an aide was helping him open a small leather case and he was speaking on a tan-yellow satellite phone. He had Chang and the two other agents with him, all of them armed.

“Sir,” I said urgently, “do you have the response protocol? Can you stop the plague?”

He looked up at me with a triumphant smile as he lowered the phone. “I just did.”

“What is it? A counter-agent or . . . ”

My words trailed off as I realized what that leather case was. My mouth went totally dry.

“I just spoke with the Secretary of Defense,” he said in a weirdly calm voice. “I confirmed the gold codes, Captain.”

The gold codes.

Good god.

The protocol is complex and yet frighteningly simple. The leather case contained a secure device that allowed him to input a set of codes. It nominally follows the two-man rule, but the Secretary of Defense can’t really act without those codes from the president. Once they were given, once an agreed protocol was initiated, the machinery would move with terrifying swiftness and efficiency.

“Are you out of your mind?” I demanded, and the Secret Service agents moved to get up in my face. I ignored them. “What are your targets, for Christ’s sake? We aren’t at war with a foreign power.”

“We are at war, Captain. The cities are falling. New York, D.C., Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles . . . ” His voice trailed off and he shook his head. “All of them are overrun. The only chance we have is to remove those centers of congestion and limit the spread of the infection to the suburbs and rural areas. People are already being told to evacuate.”

“You can’t do this.”

“It’s done,” said the president. “We’re going to take back this great nation. We will make it ours again.”

I knew those words. They were trademarks from his campaign speeches. Make it Ours Again had been his platform.

“You’re going to drop nukes on the major U.S. cities? What about fallout? What about living people trapped in the blast areas?”

“There is always collateral damage in war.”

I don’t know that I have ever heard that phrase used with less humanity or more coldness. The engine whine of the plane was increasing.