13th September – Judgement Day
A red light flashed and a siren sounded in the Doomsday Bunker.
‘Wycombe and Topeka can’t complete the mission,’ said Carson in alarm.
‘They’ve certainly triggered the warning signal,’ Hemmingway replied, rushing to sit at a computer terminal. We’ll have to assume the worst and launch US cruise missiles in the UK against Northchester Cathedral. It would have been better to have Wycombe and Topeka specifically target that control room, but now they’ve probably failed, we’ll have to destroy the whole cathedral to take out that launch base.’
Hemmingway typed some instructions on the keyboard. ‘Have you created today’s presidential password?’ he said to Carson.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘And we’re the only people in the world who will know that today.’
Hemmingway did not have to ask what the password was. He and Carson had chosen it together. ‘Judgement Day,’ he said. ‘Capital J, capital D, and with a gap between the words. He typed the password on his keyboard and pressed the Enter key.
Carson had not been quite correct about who would be party to that presidential password: just along the corridor from the bunker’s main control room, Maria silently repeated to herself: ‘Judgement Day – capital J, capital D, and with a gap between the words.’