Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (30 page)

           
Bates looked down. The lower part of
his left leg was sticking out at a peculiar angle from his body.

 
          
“Oh
God ... I think I broke my leg.”

 
          
“Can
you make it to the airlock?”

 
          
“Admiral,
this is Connors. I can suit up and—”

 
          
“Not
if you haven’t been pre-breathing,” Woods told him. “Everyone, make a fast
station check, report any damage, then get on the cameras. Find Seedeck.
Connors, Matsumo, get a POS and start pre-breathing. Bates, can you make it
back to the airlock?”

 
          
Bates
grabbed the handhold. He expected a tough time hauling himself upright but
suddenly found he had to keep from flinging himself up out of the cargo bay in
his weightless condition. Slowly, he began to haul himself back toward the
airlock hatch.

 
          
“Bates,
what happened out there?”

 
          
“God,
it looked like . . . like one of the damn
projectiles
detonated,” Bates said as he crawled for the airlock. The X-ray laser
satellites had numerous safety devices to prevent an accidental nuclear
detonation, but the reaction chamber needed a big explosion to start the atomic
chain reaction, and those explosives had no safety devices. Something, some massive
burst of energy, had set off the five hundred pounds of high explosives in the
satellite’s reaction chamber.

 
          
Just
as he safely reached the airlock, Bates looked back to
Ice Fortress.
It took him a moment to spot it again, several
hundred yards from where it had been a few moments before. It was lazily,
almost playfully spinning away, its radars and antennae and electronic eyes and
spindly arms flopping about as if it was waving goodbye. Occasionally a shower
of sparks erupted from its surface. And a trail of debris hovered in its wake,
as if it were dropping crumbs on the trail to help find its way back . . .
Commander Richard Seedeck left nothing. Nothing was left of him.

 
          
T
he President examined a large
wall-sized chart projected on the rear wall of the White House Situation Room.
He ran a finger over the black line, making sure it ran right through Kavaznya.
The line wasn’t quite straight—drawn by a computer, the Great Circle course was
a series of straight lines representing dozens of heading changes. But it was
the shortest distance, the President knew, to an encounter that now seemed
unavoidable.

 
          
General
Wilbur Curtis and his aide stood behind their chairs watching the President.
Curtis knew that the President was looking at something no other American
president had ever seen—a chart of an actual peacetime attack plan against the
Soviet Union
. Even though hundreds of such plans
existed, none had ever been presented to the President for his direct approval.

 
          
After
quickly examining the chart, the President took his seat at the head of the
oval table. Curtis kept watching the President as the other advisers all took
their seats after him. Dark rings had formed around the President’s eyes, he
was noticeably thinner, and his shoulders drooped.

 
          
Well,
it was a terrible strain on all of them, because this young President relied so
heavily on his advisors in foreign affairs. He was extremely effective when it
came to domestic problems and he was immensely popular at home, but overseas it
was a different matter. He and his Cabinet had tried to convince the world that
the
Soviet Union
was threatening the
United States
,
trying
to provoke a conflict—but few believed him, mostly because they were afraid to
find out it was the truth. The consequences of that were too scary. The war of
words had reduced Secretary of State Marshall Brent as well. His usual polish
and spirit were noticeably dimmed.

           
Now, the laser had taken another
life, and the President was looking at what he feared most—a direct assault
against Kavaznya. In the U.S.S.R      

 
          
Assembled
were his National Security Council, his Cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
They had already held a hastily formed meeting of their own. Now it was time
for them to present the plan they had come up with.

 
          
“Let’s
have it, General,” the President said, prompting the chairman of the Joint
Chiefs. Wilbur Curtis nodded and stood.

 
          
“Yes,
sir,” the general began. “Two B-1B
Excaliburs
from the new Tenth Bombardment Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base will execute
this mission. Yesterday they were flown from Dreamland, where they were
undergoing design modification, to Ellsworth, where each was armed with two
AGM-130
Striker
TV-infrared-guided
bombs. Per your order, sir. It’s the largest non-nuclear standoff weapon in our
arsenal. It uses a small strap-on rocket motor to glide as far as fifteen miles
from a low-altitude release, and it has the explosive power of one ton of TNT.
The bombardier can steer it to its target using a TV eye in the nose, or it can
lock-on to a target with an infrared seeker.”

 
          
“Two
Strikers
, General?”

 
          
“An
added insurance factor, sir. Two weapons targeted for the same point. If the
first weapon fails to detonate, the second, impacting five seconds later, will
take out the target. If the first works, the second bomb will be destroyed in
the blast. The second aircraft insures destruction of the primary target and
has the additional task of air defense suppression.”

 
          
There
was a rustle of uneasiness, even from those who had been in on the entire
Kavaznya crisis from the start. This was not an exercise or simulation Curtis
was talking about.

 
          
“The
bombers have been equipped with the standard coded switch and
permissive-action-link security arrangements,” Curtis continued. “Those are the
electronic switches between the weapons and the bombardiers’ control panels.
We’re treating the
Strikers
just like
nuclear weapons—no prearming or launch possible without a coded strike message
from you, sir, transmitted via satellite communications or normal UHF traffic
and entered into those switches. Two of the most experienced
Excalibur
crews will fly the
missions—both senior Standardization-Evaluation crews. They’ve been briefed and
are standing by.

 
          
“The
aircraft will follow the routing as shown,” Curtis said, pointing to the large
computer-drawn chart. “From Ellsworth, they’ll fly through
Canada
and then through
Alaska
. They’ll be refueled by two KC-10 tankers
out of Eielson Air Force Base, then proceed northward to the
Arctic Ocean
. They’ll orbit just north of Point Barrow,
in their SNOW-TIME exercise orbit area, and wait for your first authorization
message. The SAC Green Pine communications center at Point Barrow will relay
the message.

 
          
“They
will not be allowed to prearm the weapons at this point. If they are ordered to
remain in this orbit area, it will appear to any outside observers as just
another SNOWTIME arctic defense exercise. SAC holds them several times a year.
Both the Russians and the Canadians are accustomed to our bombers orbiting the
Arctic Ocean
on training missions.

 
          
“If
they receive the first strike authorization, the aircraft will continue
southwest to approximately sixty-seven degrees north latitude, escorted by the
second group of KC-10 tankers. They will orbit in open airspace over the
Chukchi Sea, north of Siberia, and wait for the second strike authorization
message—if we haven’t transmitted both messages at the same time. If they
receive the second authorization, they finish their final refueling and head
toward the target.’’

 
          
“How
accustomed are outside observers to bombers orbiting so close to
Russia
?’’ Secretary of Defense Thomas Preston
asked. “That’s not one of our usual operating areas.”

 
          
“True,
sir,’’ Curtis replied. “But the B-ls will still be well outside Russian radar
coverage and still well within international airspace. It’s unlikely they will
even be spotted. If the Russians do detect them, they may be suspicious, but we
feel it’s unlikely they will mount any counterforce. Air defense forces are
extremely light this far north.’’

 
          
“Any
chance of that laser attacking the B-ls?’’ the President asked. He still could
not believe the explanation he had been given for why the laser had managed to
knock out
Ice Fortress.
By timing
their attack when they did, the Russians had managed to hit the space platform
when the X-ray satellite launch cylinder was open and exposed. Had they waited
only a few hours later, all the X-ray satellites would have been armed and the
cylinder would have been closed.

 
          
“No
chance, sir.’’ The President looked skeptical.

 
          
“The
Soviets have to find a target before they can hit it, sir. The B-ls won’t be in
range of the main tracking radar at Kavaznya until much later, within twenty or
thirty miles of the target—they’ll be terrain-masking in the mountains along
the Kamchatka peninsula until then—and by the time the radar does spot them
they’ll be within range of the
Striker
glide-bomb.’’

 
          
“But
the orbiting mirror?’’

 
          
“They
used the orbiting mirror against an ICBM four hundred miles up,” Curtis said.
“An ICBM with its motors running and red-hot climbing through the atmosphere is
an easy target to be tracked by infrared-seeking satellites, and the Soviets
have a data-link setup with the laser to attack ICBMs tracked by satellite. An
aircraft flying only seven miles high can’t be tracked accurately by an enemy
satellite. They can’t hit what they can’t see. But if they somehow
did
fire the laser against the B-ls, we
feel the dissipation of heat from shooting through the atmosphere, then
reflecting the beam down through the atmosphere again would dilute the energy
sufficiently for the aircraft to escape. No, sir, the B-ls are safe from the
laser until close to Kavaznya. Then, the standoff range of the
Strikers
will keep them away from the
laser. The laser should be destroyed before it can get a shot off.”

 
          
Curtis
now moved his pointer down into
Asia
. “Our
people encounter little resistance or even chance of detection until fairly
close to the target. They drop to low altitude just prior to crossing the north
coast of
Sibera
, just before entering high-altitude warning
radar coverage around the town of
Ust-Chaun
, but they can return to high altitude all
across eastern
Siberia
to save fuel until approaching the northern
edge of the
Kamchatka
peninsula. They drop to terrain-following
altitudes down the Korakskiy and Sredinny mountain ranges to the target.”

 
          
Curtis
changed the slide, showing a greatly enlarged overhead photograph. “This is the
latest satellite reconnaissance photo we have of Kavaznya, Mr. President, taken
early last year. The B-l’s primary target is here.” Curtis switched to an even
more highly magnified view.

 
          
“This
is the mirror housing, a large dome maybe forty feet in diameter from which,
the CIA believes, the laser beam is projected into space. Two
Strikers
will be programmed to impact
here. Another glide-bomb is programmed for the main laser tracking radar, and
another is programmed for Ossora Airfield north and east of Kavaznya.

 
          
“As
you can see, sir, the mirror housing is very isolated—the rest of the complex,
except for the nuclear power plant, is underground. The nuclear power plant is
considered an alternate target. If the crew experiences—” “TVb, ” the President
said. “Not the power plant, for God’s sake. We might as well drop a nuke on
them if we destroy a nuclear power plant. I won’t be blamed for another
Chernobyl
. No alternative target. If the B-ls can’t
attack the mirror dome, they don’t go.”

 
          
Curtis,
not altogether happy with that, nodded, then again switched to a map of the
North Pacific. “After their attack, the B-ls get back into the mountains and
stay there at terrain-following altitudes until they exit low altitude radar
coverage, then cross the water toward
Alaska
. Possible landing sites are
Attu
, Shemya, Elmendorf, and Eielson.

 
          
“After
landing, they’ll refuel and return to Ellsworth . . . undoubtedly they will be
regenerated and put on hard SIOP strategic nuclear alert.”

           
“If the base still exists,” someone
muttered.

           
The President stared at the sortie
chart. “It seems too . . . easy,” the President muttered.

 
          
“I
beg your pardon, Mr. President?”

 
          
“It
seems too simple,” the President said, not much louder. Curtis strained to
hear. “Where are the defenses? You’ve told me for years about stiff Russian air
defenses. Here . . . there’s no threat?”

 
          
“The
target area is still heavily defended, the defenses include—”

 
          
“The
Excaliburs
can make it, General?” the
President interrupted. “They can get in?”

 
          
Curtis
turned to Lieutenant-General Bradley James Elliott, who stood and faced the
President.

 
          
“General
Elliott,” the President said. “Good to see you again. Well, what’s your
opinion, Brad? Can they make it?”

 
          
“I
think so, sir. With the new equipment we’ve tested at Dreamland and built into
these B-ls, they should stand a hell of a chance. At low altitude, the Russians
won’t even see the
Excaliburs
until
forty, fifty, maybe sixty nautical miles from the target. At nine miles a
minute, the
Excaliburs
will be on top
of them before fighters could ever launch—and at two hundred feet in the
mountains it’ll be impossible to find them. If they are attacked the
Excaliburs
have the fuel reserves for a
supersonic sprint across the target, and they have specialized jammers,
antiradar missiles, and even flying decoys to handle surface-to-air missiles.
But the
Strikers
will be launched
fifteen miles from the laser facility, so the B-l’s can stay in the mountains
all the way.”