Jack Ryan 7 - The Sum of All Fears (105 page)

A
UTHENTICATOR
:T
IMETABLE
T
IMETABLE
T
IMETA- BLE

R
EPLY FROM
M
OSCOW

P
RESIDENT
F
OWLER
:

W
E HAVE NOTED THE EVENT.
P
LEASE ACCEPT OUR DEEPEST SYMPATHY AND THAT OF THE
S
OVIET PEOPLE.
H
OW IS SUCH AN ACCIDENT POSSIBLE
?

“Accident?” Fowler asked.

“That was awfully fast, Robert,” Elliot observed at once. “Too damned fast. His English isn't very good. The message had to be translated, and you take time to read things like this. Their reply must have been canned—made up in advance . . . what does that mean?” Liz asked, almost talking to herself, as Fowler formulated his next message. What's going on here? Who is doing this, and why. . . ?

P
RESIDENT
N
ARMONOV
:

I
REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT THIS WAS NOT AN ACCIDENT.
T
HERE IS NO
A
MERICAN NUCLEAR DEVICE WITHIN A HUNDRED MILES, NOR WERE ANY
US
WEAPONS IN TRANSIT IN THE AREA.
T
HIS WAS A DELIBERATE ACT BY UNKNOWN FORCES.

“Well, that's no surprise,” Narmonov said. He congratulated himself for correctly predicting the first message from
America
. “Send the next reply,” he told the communicator. To his advisers: “Fowler is an arrogant man, with the weaknesses of arrogance, but he is no fool. He will be very emotional about this. We must settle him down, calm him. If he can keep control of himself, his intelligence will allow him to maintain control of the matter.”

“My President,” said Golovko, who had just arrived in the command center. “I think this is a mistake.”

“What do you mean?” Narmonov asked in some surprise.

“It is a mistake to tailor your words to what you think of the man, his character, and his mental state. People change under stress. The man at the other end of that telephone line may not be the same man whom you met in
Rome
.”

The Soviet President dismissed that idea. “Nonsense. People like that never change. We have enough of them here. I've been dealing with people like Fowler all my life.”

P
RESIDENT
F
OWLER
:

I
F THIS IS IN FACT A DELIBERATE ACT THEN IT IS A CRIME WHOLLY WITHOUT PRECEDENT IN HUMAN HISTORY.
W
HAT MADMAN WOULD DO SUCH A THING, AND TO WHAT PURPOSE
? S
UCH ACTION MIGHT ALL TOO EASILY LEAD TO GLOBAL CATASTROPHE.
Y
OU MUST BELIEVE THAT THE
S
OVIET
U
NION
HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS INFAMOUS ACT.

“Too fast, Robert,” Elliot said. “'You must believe'? What is this guy trying to say?”

“
Elizabeth
, you're reading too much into this,” Fowler replied.

“These responses are canned, Robert! Canned He's answering too fast. He had them prepared in advance. That means something.”

“Like what?”

“Like we were supposed to be at the game, Robert! It looks to me like these were tailored for somebody else—like Burling. What if the bomb was supposed to get you, too, along with Brent and Dennis?”

“I have to set that aside, I told you that!” Fowler said angrily. He paused and took a deep breath. He could not allow himself to get angry. He had to stay calm. “Look,
Elizabeth
—”

“You can't set that aside! You have to consider that possibility, because if it was planned, that tells us something about what is going on.”

“Dr. Elliot is right,” NORAD said over the open phone line. “Mr. President, you are entirely correct to distance yourself from this event in an emotional sense, but you have to consider all possible aspects of the operational concept that may be at work here.”

“I am compelled to agree with that,” C
IN
C-SAC added.

“So, what do I do?” Fowler asked.

“Sir,” NORAD said, “I don't like this 'you must believe' stuff, either. It might be a good idea to let him know that we're ready to defend ourselves.”

“Yeah,” General Fremont agreed. “He knows that, anyway, if his people are doing their job right.”

“But what if he takes our alert level as a threat?”

“They won't, sir,” NORAD assured him. “It's just how anybody would do business in a case like this. Their senior military leadership is very professional.”

Dr. Elliot stirred at that remark, Fowler noted. “Okay, I'll tell him we've alerted our forces, but that we don't have any evil intentions.”

P
RESIDENT
N
ARMONOV
:

W
E HAVE NO REASON TO SUSPECT
S
OVIET INVOLVEMENT IN THIS INCIDENT.
H
OWEVER WE MUST ACT PRUDENTLY.
W
E HAVE BEEN THE VICTIM OF A VICIOUS ATTACK, AND MUST TAKE ACTION TO PROTECT OURSELVES AGAINST ANOTHER.
 A
CCORDINGLY
I
HAVE PLACED OUR ARMED FORCES ON A PRECAUTIONARY ALERT.
T
HIS IS ALSO NECESSARY FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC ORDER, AND TO ASSIST IN RESCUE OPERATIONS.
Y
OU HAVE MY PERSONAL ASSURANCE THAT WE WILL TAKE NO OFFENSIVE ACTION WITHOUT JUST CAUSE.

That's reassuring,“ Narmonov said dryly. ”Nice of him to let us know about the alert."

“We know,” Golovko said, “and he must know that we already know.”

“He does not know that we know the extent of his alert,” the Defense Minister said. “He cannot know that we are reading their codes. The alert level of their forces is more than precautionary. The American strategic forces have not been at this readiness status since 1962.”

“Really?” Narmonov asked.

“General, this is not technically true,” Golovko said urgently. “Their ordinary level of readiness is very high for American strategic forces, even when their military posture is Defense Condition Five. The change to which you refer is inconsequential.”

“Is this true?” Narmonov asked.

The Defense Minister shrugged. “It depends on how you look at it. Their land-based rocket force is always at a higher level of alert than ours because of the lower maintenance requirements of their rockets. The same is true of their submarines, which spend far more time at sea than ours do. The technical difference may be small, but the psychological difference is not. The increased level of alert tells their people that something horrible is underway. I think that is significant.”

“I do not,” Golovko shot back.

Marvelous
, Narmonov thought, two of my most important advisors cannot agree on something this important . . .

“We need to reply,” the Foreign Minister said.

P
RESIDENT
F
OWLER
:

W
E HAVE NOTED YOUR INCREASED ALERT STATUS.
S
INCE MOST OF YOUR WEAPONS ARE IN FACT POINTED AT THE
S
OVIET
U
NION
WE MUST ALSO TAKE PRECAUTIONS.
I
SUGGEST THAT IT IS VITAL THAT NEITHER OF OUR TWO COUNTRIES TAKE ANY ACTION THAT MIGHT SEEM PROVOCATIVE.

“That's the first time he didn't have it canned,” Elliot said. “First he says 'I didn't do it,' now he says we better not provoke him. What's he really thinking?”

Ryan looked over the faxes of all six messages. He handed them to Goodley. “Tell me what you think.”

“Pure vanilla. Looks like everyone is playing a very cautious game, and that's what they should be doing. We alert our forces as a precaution, and they do the same. Fowler's said that we have no reason to think they did it—that's good. Narmonov says both sides should play it cool on provoking the other side—that's good, too. So far, so good,” Ben Goodley thought.

“I agree,” the Senior Duty Officer said.

“That makes it unanimous,” Jack said. Thank God. Bob, I didn't know you had it in you.

Rosselli walked back to his desk. Okay, things appeared to be more or less under control.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rocky Barnes asked.

“Hot Line room, things appear to be fairly cool.”

“Not anymore, Jim.”

General Paul Wilkes was almost there. It had taken nearly twenty minutes to get from his house onto I-295 and from there to I-395, a total distance of less than five miles. Snowplows had barely touched this road, and now it was cold enough that what had been salted was freezing to ice anyway. Worst of all, those few D.C. drivers who were venturing out were showing their customary driving skill. Even those with four-wheel-drives were acting as though the additional traction made them immune to the laws of physics. Wilkes had just passed over
South Capitol Street
, and was now heading downhill towards the
Maine Avenue
exit. To his left, some maniac in a
Toyota
was passing him, and then came right, to head for the exit into downtown D.C. The
Toyota
skidded sideways on a patch of ice that front-wheel drive didn't master. There was no chance to avoid it. Wilkes broadsided the car at about fifteen miles per hour.

“The hell with it,” he said aloud. He didn't have time for this. The General backed up a few feet and started to maneuver around before the driver even got out. He didn't check his mirror. As he changed lanes, he was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer doing about twenty-five. It was enough to drive the General's car over the concrete divider and into the face of another car. Wilkes was killed instantly.

— 39 —

ECHOES

Elizabeth Elliot stared blankly at the far wall as she sipped her coffee. It was the only thing that made sense. All the warnings they'd had and ignored. It all fit. The Soviet military was making a power-play, and targeting Bob Fowler had to be part of it. We should have been there, she thought. He wanted to go to the game, and everyone expected him to, because Dennis Bunker owned one of the teams. I would have been there, too. I could be dead now. If they wanted to kill Bob, then they also wanted to kill me . . .

P
RESIDENT
N
ARMONOV
:

I
AM  GRATIFIED THAT WE AGREE ON THE NECESSITY FOR CAUTION AND REASON.
I
MUST NOW CONFER WITH MY ADVISERS SO THAT WE MAY ASCERTAIN THE CAUSE OF THIS HORRIBLE EVENT,  AND ALSO  TO  BEGIN RESCUE OPERATIONS.
  I
WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED.

The reply that came back was almost immediate.

P
RESIDENT
F
OWLER
:

W
E WILL STAND BY.

“That's simple enough,” the President said, looking at the screen.

Think so?" Elliot asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Robert, we've had a nuclear explosion at a location that you were supposed to be at. That's number one. Number two: we've had reports of missing Soviet nuclear weapons. Number three: how do we really know that it's Narmonov at the other end of this computer modem?” Liz asked.

“What?”

“Our best intelligence suggests the possibility of a coup d'etat in
Russia
, doesn't it? But we're acting as though such intelligence did not exist, even though we've had what very easily could be a tactical nuclear weapon—exactly what we think is missing—explode over here. We are not considering all of the potential dimensions here.” Dr. Elliot turned to the speaker phone. “General Borstein, how hard is it to get a nuclear device into the
United States
?”

“With our border controls, it's child's play,” NORAD replied. “What are you saying, Dr. Elliot?”

“I'm saying that we've had hard intel for some time now that Narmonov is in political trouble—that his military is acting up, and that there's a nuclear dimension. Okay, what if they stage a coup? A Sunday evening—Monday morning—is good timing, because everyone's asleep. We always assumed that the nuclear element was for domestic blackmail—but what if the operation was more clever than that? What if they figured they could decapitate our government in order to prevent our interference with their coup? Okay, the bomb goes off, and Durling is on Kneecap—just like he is right now—and they're talking to him. They can predict what we're going to think, and they pre-plan their statements over the Hot Line. We go on automatic alert, and so do they—you see? We can't interfere with the coup in any way.”

“Mr. President, before you evaluate that possibility, I think you need some outside advice from the intelligence community,” C
IN
C-SAC said.

Another phone lit up. The yeoman got it.

“For you, Mr. President, NMCC.”

“Who is this?” Fowler asked.

“Sir, this is Captain Jim Rosselli at the
National
Military
Command
Center
. We have two reports of contact between
U.S.
and Soviet forces. USS Theodore Roosevelt reports that they have splashed—that means shot down, sir—a flight of four inbound Russian MiG-29 aircraft—”

“What? Why?”

“Sir, under the Rules of Engagement, the captain of a ship has the right to take defense action to protect his command. Theodore Roosevelt is now at DEFCON-TWO, and as the alert level changes, you get more latitude in what you can do, and when you can take action. Sir, the second is as follows: there is an unconfirmed report of shots being exchanged between Russian and American tanks in
Berlin
. SACEUR says the radio message stopped—I mean, it was cut off, sir. Before that, a U.S. Army captain reported that Soviet tanks were attacking the Berlin Brigade at its base in southern
Berlin
, and that a tank battalion of ours was just about wiped out, sir. They were attacked in their lager by Soviet forces stationed just across from them. Those two things—the reports, I mean, were almost simultaneous. The reported times were just two minutes apart, Mr. President. We're trying to reestablish contact with
Berlin
right now, going through SACEUR at
Mons
,
Belgium
.”

“Christ,” Fowler observed. “
Elizabeth
, does this fit into your scenario?”

“It could show that they're not kidding, that they are serious about not being interfered with.”

Most of the American forces had escaped out of the lager. The senior officer on the scene had decided on the spot to turn and run for cover in the woods and residential streets around the brigade base. He was a lieutenant-colonel, the brigade executive officer. The colonel commanding the brigade was nowhere to be found, and the XO was now considering his options. The brigade had two mechanized infantry battalions, and one of tanks. From the last, only nine of fifty-two M1A1s had gotten away. He could see the glow from the rest of them, still burning in their lager.