Reaping The Harvest (Harvest Trilogy, Book 3) by Michael R. Hicks Read Free Book Online Page B

say the strike was a failure.”
    “Mr. President,” Vice President Andrew Lynch said through the videoconferencing television at the front of the room, “you can’t possibly be considering following the Russians’ lead. You’ve always been vehemently opposed to any use of nuclear weapons, especially on American soil. Look what a disaster Sutter Buttes was for Norman Curtis! I doubt nuking our major cities is going to earn us any points in the polls.”
    Miller slammed a hand down on the mahogany conference table, making everyone in the room flinch. “To hell with the polls! Have you seen the latest news reports from New York City? How about Chicago? Or maybe right here in D.C.?” He leaned forward, his face a mask of fury. “ Our constituents are being eaten alive! ”
    After letting that sink in, Miller sat back. “Okay, so the Russian gambit looks like a failure.” He pointed to the Secretary of State. “Find out what the Russians are doing. Tell their president that we’ll render whatever aid we can, and make it clear that we’re their allies. Got it?”
    The Secretary of State nodded. “Yes, Mr. President.”
    “So,” Miller said, turning back to the DNI, “what other disasters do I need to know about overseas?”
    “Brazil has effectively collapsed,” the DNI told him. “Brasilia has been totally overrun and has been set ablaze by the Army and Air Force. The Brazilian government still exists in name if not much else. The president and his cabinet have relocated several times, but São Paulo, Rio, and the other major cities are as bad as Brasilia. They finally decided to plant their flag on a cruise ship and are sitting in the harbor at Rio.”
    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs grunted. “That’s not a bad idea. It would be a hell of a lot easier to secure from harvester attack or infiltration, although resupply might be a problem.”
    “Do we have anything like that in the works?” Miller asked.
    The Chairman offered a grim smile. “You’ve got every ship in the Navy at your beck and call, Mr. President.”
    “I appreciate that, but warships aren’t exactly suitable for running a government, especially taking Congress into account. Too many people are involved. I know we have several large underground bunkers other than Cheyenne Mountain that are being prepared, but I want some alternatives to all of us living like moles. Maybe it’s a latent sense of claustrophobia, but I don’t like the idea of all of us being trapped underground while the harvesters run rampant over top of us.”
    “I’ll get someone on it right away, sir.”
    “Speaking of bunkers,” the Secretary of State interjected, “the British Government and the Royal Family are in the process of moving into a bunker complex at Corsham, about ninety miles west of London.”
    “What, the old Site 3 bunker?” The DNI frowned. “That was decommissioned back in the early 1990s.”
    The Secretary of State nodded. “It was, but they’ve reactivated it. They must have every construction contractor that’s still in business working on the place.”
    “What in blazes is Site 3?” Miller asked.
    “Sorry, Mr. President,” the Secretary of State said. “It’s an old Cold War bunker complex in an underground quarry that they built as a leadership relocation facility. The existing facility has enough room to house four thousand people, and they’re expanding into some of the available space in the underground caverns to house even more.”
    “We’ve had unconfirmed reports that most or all of China’s leaders have gone to ground, too, at the Shanghai Complex,” the DNI added. “Unfortunately, we don’t have much on that one, other than it’s huge. It can supposedly house two hundred thousand people.”
    “Well,” Curtis said in a wry voice, “the Chinese have always thought big. But what about the situation with the harvesters?”
    “From what we can tell from intelligence collected by the National