Bunny, who was a hulking kid from Orange County, mouthed the words “one hundred percent.” His face had gone pale beneath his volleyball tan. Top, the oldest of the three of us, looked stricken.

“What’s the response protocol?” I demanded.

Another beat. Longer this time. Then Pruitt said, “We have one chance, Captain. One, and it’s slim. But that’s why I’m calling you. The White House, Camp David, and the other secure locations here on the east coast are compromised. Half of the Joint Chiefs are dead, and so is most of Congress. The president flew from D.C. this morning to San Diego, where he met with senior military staff and was scheduled to go to the Blue Estate.”

The Blue Estate was a codename for a government safe house near El Cajon in Southern California. It was a massive bunker built half a mile below a faux warehouse on a remote corner of the National Guard base.

“But he never made it,” I said, knowing where this was heading.

“No,” said Pruitt, “his detail was attacked, sustaining heavy losses. The crucial materials for our only viable response were in a briefcase carried by one of the president’s aides. That aide was killed in the convoy attack and his body—and the briefcase—cannot be recovered. A backup briefcase is aboard Air Force One, which is at Gillespie Field in El Cajon, twenty miles from the president’s current location. He is barricaded in a suite of rooms at the Marriott Marquis Marina in San Diego, next to the convention center.”

“What about local law?”

“San Diego has fallen,” said Pruitt bleakly. “The city is a war zone. Infrastructure failure has collapsed and there is rioting in the streets. We are unclear as to whether that rioting is predominantly panic and looting, or if the citizens are fighting the infected.”

“Okay, how about National Guard? They’re in El Cajon, too, a couple of miles from Gillespie Field.”

“A detail has been sent to protect Air Force One, but the majority of their forces have already been mobilized. There are over three million people in the San Diego metropolitan area. If even one percent of them are infected, that means there could be as many as three hundred thousand violent vectors in play.”

Top closed his eyes and Bunny looked around like he wanted to run. The big, empty airplane offered no avenues for escape from the truth.

“What do you need from us?” I asked.

“Find the president,” said Pruitt, “and get him to El Cajon before our window of opportunity closes.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Almost none at all,” he said. “I’ve taken the liberty of rerouting your plane.”

As he said it I could feel the big bird tilt and the engine whine rise to a roar.

— 6 —

On the approach to California I went aft where I could be alone and placed a call to my wife, Junie. She answered on the first ring, as if she’d been waiting for my call.