October's Ghost (12 page)

“You can share some of your empathy,” Drummond suggested playfully. The feeling that he was alone in the world was finally subsiding.

“Time for teamwork,” Bud said. “I’ll keep the President from getting only a rosy picture of things, and you keep your boss from tripping over his satisfaction.”

“Mike will be glad to know it’s not just him and me against the world anymore.” The DDI got up and started for the door.

“Your duet just became a trio.”

“Wanna try for an orchestra?” the DDI asked with a smile, then left the NSA alone in his office.

Solitude was conducive to thought, and thought to worry, in situations such as this. What had begun could not be stopped. Herb Landau’s words might have said the same more poetically, but neither statement could tell Bud what lay ahead. That was his question of the moment and was sure to be the one of the hour, day, and week until there was a resolution to that which he really had no control over. Influence was the best he could hope to offer, and that only in limited quantities.

But he did have his own operation of sorts to see to, one that was itself gaining steam. He looked at the clock. The convincing move in the plan to assuage any final fears in the Kremlin was about to take place. After that things would happen too fast to turn back. That was his hope. It would also become his fear in short order.

*  *  *

“This is our force-monitoring panel, Marshal Kurchatov.” CINCNORAD gestured across the five-foot console and directed the two Russians to take the seats on either side of the watch officer, an Air Force major. “NORAD is an alternate command center, as you know. Our normal mission in any strategic conflict would be to monitor, track, and advise the National Command Authority. If necessary, though, we can run the show.”

“How do you say...redundancy?”

CINCNORAD nodded. “If the command center above is knocked out, the one below takes over immediately. And so on. The same as your forces, Marshal.”

“Yes, the same,” Kurchatov agreed, lying as best he could behind the smile. The Americans would be horrified to know how little redundancy their Russian counterparts had built into their strategic systems.

“For our purposes today, though, we will not actually have control. We will be monitoring orders given by Strategic Command. These displays will show you the status of every strategic system we have. Even the missile subs,” Walker added with some coolness. “This is the first time even I’ve known where they all are. They usually go where they want within a very large patrol area.”

“It is true, then,” Kurchatov said with some surprise. “Your raket submarines elude even you?”

General Walker nodded. “That’s their job: to disappear. Except for right now.” The general’s plaster-like smile masked the difficulty he was having with this as he noted the positional notations of the United States’ ballistic-missile subs, which were out of their element, not hiding in the protective waters of the oceans but tied up at dock. Up and down both coasts the subs were spread, many at bases that usually handled only attack subs. This was done to keep observant eyes from noting unusually large numbers of the metal leviathans at their usual ports of Bangor, Washington, and Kings Bay, Georgia.

Colonel Belyayev took the one eared headset lying on the console’s flat deck and slid it on. There was none for the defense minister, but then, he was an observer. His presence was to add credibility and surety to the operation, so that any unforeseen happening would not need to be explained to Moscow by a junior officer. The fact that there was none more senior than Kurchatov made his presence all the more desirable.

Belyayev touched the trackball to his right, which operated a digitized pointing device on the large display before him, though not as large as the screens in a separate room—actually more of a theater—of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex where the activities of “enemy” missiles inbound on the United States would be watched. He deftly moved the arrow-shaped pointer to each of the notations that corresponded to the subs, his lips moving as he counted. Russian satellites had done passes over the ports on both coasts that serviced the American missile subs, verifying that the electronic images Belyayev was seeing were not just ghostly manipulations. One leg of the American strategic triad—land-based ICBMs and long-range bombers were the other two—was being temporarily taken out of service. Except...

“
Pennsylvania
,” Belyayev said, the pointer circling the sub base at Kings Bay, Georgia. “He is not here.”

General Walker knew this was coming. The last Russian satellite pass, whose information had been quickly transmitted to his two guests from Moscow, had shown the
USS Pennsylvania
, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile sub, still not in port. When the orders went out two weeks before instructing individual subs—none knew that
all
of their kind were coming in—to return to port and tie up by a specified time,
Pennsylvania
had acknowledged the transmission as expected. But now she was overdue, though not technically in Navy terms. Missile subs generally had a twenty-four-hour window in which to arrive when returning to base. This was no ordinary return, however, and
Pennsylvania’s
twelve-hour delay was beginning to sound alarms.

“She may have some mechanical problems,” CINCNORAD posited. It was both a guess and a sincere hope.

“She.” Belyayev remembered that the Americans referred to their ships and submarines the opposite of the Russians. “She was due in Kings Bay, yes?”

CINCNORAD nodded. “She and four others.” Norfolk and Groton would split the remainder of the missile boats in the Atlantic.

“You do not know where she is?” Marshal Kurchatov inquired seriously. The joviality had left his manner.

“Like I said, their job is to disappear. Strategic Command doesn’t even know.” The Strategic Command, a joint-service command headed by a Navy admiral, had replaced the Strategic Air Command, and was keeper of the nation’s entire nuclear arsenal.

“Have you tried communicating with hi— her?” Belyayev asked.

General Walker paused for just a second. “Yes, we have, and there has been no reply.”

“It is possible, then, that
Pennsylvania
is lost?” Marshal Kurchatov wondered, looking briefly to Colonel Belyayev.

“We hope not. In a few hours we will have to assume the possibility, though, and begin a search.” The United States had never lost a boomer, and now was by far the worst time for that first to occur.

The marshal, resplendent in his dress greens and breast of medals and ribbons, looked briefly to his subordinate. A decision had to be made. If the Americans were lying, concealing one of their missile submarines out in the waters of the Atlantic, then the Motherland would be vulnerable to a surprise attack once her radar-warning system was shut down. He glanced at the highly technical displays to his front. Could some electronic wizardry perpetrated by the Americans mask a secret launch by the
Pennsylvania
? Was he being duped?

Or were they telling the truth?

A brief moment of reflection convinced the marshal of the latter. “Let us hope it is simply a mechanical difficulty.”

“Yes,” General Walker agreed. “Shall we begin?”

“Yes.”

CINCNORAD gave the go-ahead to the duty officer. The major pressed a single button on his communication console. “Red Bird, Red Bird. This is NORAD Alternate Command Console.”

“This is Red Bird,” the major’s counterpart at Strategic Command acknowledged.

“Red Bird, CINCNORAD requests execution of RANDOM LANCE.”

There was a brief silence. “RANDOM LANCE approved.”

All eyes shifted to the largest display. Colonel Belyayev already had a zoom box squared around the area in southern Wyoming that they were watching. A click brought the magnification up to reveal an electronic representation of the missile fields surrounding Francis E. Warren Air Force Base. The Minuteman missiles of the 90th Strategic Missile Wing, spread over 12,600 square miles, had dwindled in number after the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) from two hundred to just eighty. The MIRVed LGM-30G Minuteman IIIs remaining had given up two of their three 335-kiloton Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicles to comply with START, and one of those missiles, number six in Hotel Flight, had recently had its single warhead replaced with a benign-range instrumentation package, a common payload for test launches.

“Notify PMTC,” CINCNORAD ordered. The tracking radars supporting the Pacific Missile Test Center, headquartered at Point Mugu in California, normally watched launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base, just miles from Mugu, or from White Sands in New Mexico. It took a few minutes for the radars to be slewed in the proper direction to cover the launch from the Northeast.

“PMTC is ready,” the major reported. “Red Bird, Alternate is ready.”

“Hotel One reports launch ready.” Strategic Command was relaying word from the launch control center of Hotel Flight’s ten missiles that number six was ready to fly. All that remained was for the two officers buried deep underground in the LCC to concurrently turn their keys jointly to the “enable” position.

“Colonel, on your word,” the major said.

Colonel Belyayev focused his attention on the informational readout printed next to the number-six silo on the display. “Launch.”

The order went through the open channel to the LCC. Miles from the underground control center, the heavy concrete blast lid was propelled away from Hotel Six, exposing the silo. Immediately the Minuteman III missile bolted upward from the silo using the cold-launch technique, which allowed the undamaged silo to be reloaded (in theory). Its first-stage solid-rocket engine ignited fifty feet above the prairie and rapidly accelerated the former weapon, now little more than a big radar target, toward the Pacific Missile Range in the Southwest.

“I verify launch,” Belyayev stated. The notations on his display changed as the missile left its silo. He looked away for the phone he was supposed to use.

“This one,” the major prompted. “Just pick it up. It’s pre-dialed.”

The colonel lifted the black handset to his ear and was immediately connected with the headquarters of
Voyska PVO
, the Russian Air Defense Forces. “This is Colonel Belyayev,” he said in Russian. “Have you detected a launch?”

“Yes,” the male voice answered in its native tongue. “Warren Air Force Base. Missile number six, Hotel Flight. We show a thermal launch signature.” Several minutes of silence followed as they waited for the still-operating Russian BMEWS to pick up the missile as it rose above the radar horizon. “We show a missile track, southwest course, high to low aspect. Confirm launch and flight, predicted target is in Pacific Ocea n.”

Marshal Kurchatov turned back to General Walker. “Very fine. Very fine.”

“You now have as much access to the monitoring systems for our strategic forces as I do.”
And more than I would have given you...
“If a missile is launched, it will be registered right here. If a bomber as much as taxis, you’ll know it. And the subs, well, you’ve seen it.”

“Except for the
Pennsylvania
,” Colonel Belyayev said, his eyes locked with CINCNORAD’s.

“That will not be a problem,” Kurchatov said. “Colonel?”

“Not a problem.”

“Good,” General Walker said. “Major, the duty officer is from this point forward to report any occurrences directly to Marshal Kurchatov and Colonel Belyayev. They will be in the VIP quarters.” CINCNORAD looked back to the Russians. “Right through those doors. You’ll be twenty feet away, and you are welcome to monitor the console with the duty officer at any time.”

“Very fine. Yes.” Kurchatov thanked the major and stood. “The colonel will remain here, General Walker. I must now inform my government to proceed.”

Maybe this was good, Walker thought. If the Russians were willing to trust them with one boomer still out there, then they might not just be blowing smoke. He sure as hell wouldn’t have trusted them had the situation been reversed. Things really were changing. He’d waited more than thirty years to believe it, and the feeling wasn’t all that bad.

“I’ll show you to the com center, Marshal,” General Walker offered. “Then maybe we can talk about those Siberian reindeer you’re so boastful about.”

*  *  *

He sat ramrod-straight in the chair, his hands loose at his side. Bad guys were on both sides and behind in the darkened room. A window was to his left, behind the reflective surface of which were the witnesses to his fate.

The beeper on his watch sounded, and he closed his eyes behind the polycarbonate glasses.

Boom!

The door was directly to the front of Major Sean Graber, ten feet away. It folded downward under the force of the entry charge. From both sides forms in black entered, four in all, their faces hidden by ungainly-looking devices that covered their eyes and protruded in a single Cyclops-like lens. Two went high, two low. Three fired in rapid succession, quick double taps on their pistols, long, oversized weapons that emitted little sound.

Sean kept his eyes closed until the shooting ended. Twelve shots, four for each bad guy. “Exercise over!”

The lights came up in the hostage room, and in the observation room behind the thick bulletproof glass. Sean stood and turned to the left. The five visitors were exchanging amazed looks and words of wonder at the display they had just seen. The major motioned to Captain Chris Buxton, squad leader of the unit that had just “rescued” the number-two man in command of Delta from three cardboard cutouts.

“Unbelievable!” the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee commented as he entered from the observation room. The smell of gunpowder was heavy in the room but was purged by exhaust fans a few seconds after the entourage, all members of the congressman’s staff, entered.

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Sean responded. He wasn’t really, but selling the capabilities of Delta to what his superior, Colonel William Cadler, called “the briefcase brigades” had become part of his duties. That meant occasional shows for whomever the secretary of defense deemed in need of convincing. Budgets! Now they were quibbling over how many rounds of ammunition Delta should be burning in their training!