Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 01 (5 page)

 
          
“Very
good, boys,” McLanahan said, finally opening his eyes. “Nav, you have
navigation. I’ll call post-release information, and then I’m going to take a
piss. Guns, don’t let us get shot down. Not now, after all that work.”

 
          
“Go
take your piss, radar,” Brake replied. “You’re as safe here as if you were in
your mother’s arms. Or Catherine’s arms. Whichever.”

 
          
“Wait
a minute, radar,” Houser said. “Before you unstrap—which, I might add, is
illegal as hell while we’re low-level but par for the course for you—how about
those releases? How far off track were we?”

 
          
“Not
sure,” McLanahan replied. “Might have been two or three hundred feet.”

 
          
“Keep
dreaming,” Martin said. “It looked close, but not that close.”

 
          
“C’mon,
really,” Houser said.

 
          
“I
took into account all the turns and the changes in airspeed,” McLanahan
deadpanned. “I was waiting for the Doppler to go out, you know. I knew it
would.”

 
          
“Case
of beer says you pitched it long,” Martin said.

 
          
“Thanks
for the confidence, double-M,” McLanahan replied, “but you’re on.” He turned to
Luger. “What do you think, nav?” he asked.

 
          
“I
think ... I think you’re way off, radar,” Luger said.

 
          
Martin
laughed. “Want to call it off, radar?”

 
          
“It
was a shack,” Luger said. “Zero-zero. Perfect. Better than the others. I don’t
know why . . . but it was.”

 
          
T
wo thousand miles to the west of where
the Strategic Air Command was holding its annual bombing competition, a drama
of a different sort— this one carrying consequences far more serious for the
crewmembers involved—was playing itself out. Two types of surveillance machines—
one a U.S. Alpha Omega Nine Satellite traveling in a geosynchronous orbit at an
altitude of twenty-two thousand three hundred miles, the other a U.S. RC-135
surveillance aircraft flying at an altitude of forty thousand feet—were
following courses that would bring them roughly over the same part of the globe
in a matter of minutes. The RC-135, with a crew of twelve men and women, had
penetrated the Soviet Air Defense Zone to gather data on a strange radar that
had begun tracking the aircraft as it passed within a hundred miles of the
Soviet coast on its way home from
Japan
to
Alaska
.

 
          
Suddenly
the world got very bright.

 
          
The
pilots aboard the RC-135 were bathed in an eerie red-orange glow for several
seconds, wiping out their night vision. They felt as if they had stepped inside
the core of a nuclear reactor—every inch of their bodies felt warm and viscous,
as if their skin was about to melt away.

 
          
When
the red-orange illumination disappeared, the cabin went to black. Several tiny
spotlights and some engine gauges operating off the aircraft’s batteries could
still be seen, but everything else snapped off. The roar of the engines began
to subside.

 
          
“All
of the generators went off-line,” the RC 135’s co-pilot said.

 
          
“We’ve
lost engines two, three and four,” the pilot said. “Airstart checklist.
Fast.
”

 
          
“Crew,
this is the pilot. We are starting engines. Check your oxygen, check your
stations, report in by compartment damage and casualties.”

 
          
All
departments reported in with only minor equipment malfunctions. The pilot gave
an order to code a message to SATCOM. Suddenly the aircraft’s reconnaisance
officer came on the interphone. “Radar targettracking signal strength is
increasing.”

 
          
The
pilot pushed on the yoke, forcing the RC-135’s nose steeply downward. “That
last shot was aimed at something else, now it’s us . . . We’re going down to
one thousand feet.”

 
          
“Pilot,”
the RSO said, “signal strength increasing . . . blanking out my—”

 
          
He
never finished his report.

 
          
An
intense beam of orange-red light slashed across the top and sides of the
RC-135. Once it had pierced the aluminum skin of the jet, the beam found little
resistance. It tracked precisely along the center of the aircraft, instantly
superheating the heavy oxygen atmosphere and creating a huge bubble of plasma.
The resulting explosion turned the two hundred million dollar aircraft into
flecks of dust in a fraction of a second. The beam ignited the vaporized fuel
that erupted from the disintegrated airplane and added the force of fifty thousand
pounds of jet fuel to the detonation.

 
          
As
fast as it had begun, it was over. The fireball grew to three miles in
diameter, then hungrily feeding on itself in the intense plasma field,
dissolved into the black Siberian night.

* * *

 
          
General
Wilbur Curtis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood at ramrod attention
as the President of the
United States
entered the White House Situation Room, the
emergency alternate conference center and shelter. The President was followed
closely by Marshall Brent, the Secretary of State, and Kenneth Mitchell,
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Trailing behind them was a man in
civilian clothes but with a short military haircut. He carried a black leather
briefcase.

 
          
The
President, wearing a blue and red athletic warmup suit, glared at Curtis as he
sat down at the head of a large oblong table. His thick brown hair was tangled,
and beads of sweat dropped from the ends and trickled down his neck. Curtis
went over to the steel vaultlike door and checked that it was locked.

 
          
The
President unzipped the warmup suit half-way and picked up a telephone on the
table in front of him.

 
          
“Jeff?”
he said. “Have some coffee and croissants brought down to the Situation Room
right away. And see if you can move the morning Budget Committee meeting to
this afternoon. If you can’t, let me know and I’ll try to shake loose . . .
what? No, I don’t know how long this will be.” He slammed the receiver down on
its cradle.

 
          
The
man with the briefcase set it down at a console in a far corner of the room. He
put on a headset and punched a series of numbers into the keyboard. He spoke
briefly, then watched the indicators on the console. A few moments later, he
nodded and turned to the President.

 
          
“Full
connectivity, Mr. President,” the man said. “Sir, your helicopter is fifty
seconds from touchdown on the south lawn. Air Force One is ready for immediate
takeoff.”

 
          
The
President said nothing. The man at the communications console was in charge of
the “football,” a tiny transceiver and several sets of authentication and
coding documents packed inside the briefcase. That briefcase was always within
arm’s reach of the President. In case of a surprise attack or other emergency,
the President could instantly direct all of the
United States
’ strategic forces by typing a series of
coded instructions into the miniature portable transceiver. Now, in the
emergency command post under the White House, the President had instant
communications capability with command centers all over the world.

 
          
“All
right, General,” the President said. “This seems to be your little party.
Another unscheduled emergency exercise? If so, it couldn’t have come at a worse
time. I was in the middle of my first workout in a week, and I’ve got a—”

 
          
“It
is no exercise, sir,” Curtis said. “Exactly fifteen minutes ago, we received
confirmation that an Alpha Omega Nine surveillance satellite was lost. It—”

 
          
“A
satellite?” the President said. “That’s all?”

 
          
“This
particular satellite,” Curtis went on, “was this nation’s primary
missile-launch detection vehicle for eastern
Russia
and the western Pacific areas. Currently,
Mr. President, we have absolutely
no
missile launch detection capability for an estimated one-fifth of the Soviet’s
ground- and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

 
          
“Surely,
you’re exaggerating,” Kenneth Mitchell said. “We have dozens of surveillance
satellites—”

 
          
“But
only one over eastern
Russia
,” Curtis interrupted, “specifically
designed to warn us of an ICBM launch from sea or land. Now we have none—at
least, until we can reposition another satellite over that area. That may take
some time.” Curtis turned back to the President. “Meanwhile, sir, we need to
have you available to evacuate
Washington
in less than ten minutes.”

 
          
“Why
ten minutes?” the President asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

 
          
“That
Mr. President, is how much warning time we have,” Curtis explained. “Ten
minutes from when the Soviet ICBMs cross the horizon in the mid-course phase
until the warheads impact. We believe none of those missiles would be targeted
on
Washington
, but we can’t take the chance.”

 
          
The
President was quiet for a moment. The stillness was broken by the arrival of
the President’s chief of staff, Jeffrey Hampton, followed by an aide with a
tray of coffee and pastries. The aide circled the table, making sure that
everyone’s coffee cup was filled.

 
          
“I
couldn’t reach all of the Committee members, Mr. President,”
Hampton
said. “I’ll keep trying.”

 
          
“Never
mind, Jeff,” the President said. “We’re going to wrap this up shortly.’’

 
          
General
Curtis stiffened. This President, he noted, was never very serious during the
few simultions they had held, testing the emergency communications and
evacuation plan. Now it was the real thing, and he was already anxious to leave.

 
          
“I
have more news, sir,’’ Curtis said, not touching his coffee. “We lost an RC-135
reconnaissance plane near
Russia
sometime this morning.”

 
          
The
President closed his eyes and let his coffee cup clatter back onto its saucer.
“How? Where . . . ?”

 
          
“It
was on a routine training mission from Japan to Eielson Air Force Base in
Fairbanks,” Curtis said, “when it diverted to investigate some strange signals
somewhere between the submarine base at Petropavlovsk and a large research
complex north on the peninsula called Kavaznya.”

 
          
The
President nodded. “Any survivors?”

 
          
“None
so far,” Curtis said. “Search teams from
Japan
are just arriving on the scene. Soviet
searchers have been out there, but they haven’t found anything.”

 
          
The
President nodded. “How many . . . ?”

 
          
“Ten
men, two women.”

 
          
“Damn.”
The President pressed his fingers of his right hand to his temple and gently
began to massage it. “What the hell happened? Why were they over there?”

 
          
“A
routine radar mapping sortie—a spy mission,” Mitchell, the CIA director, chimed
in. “They fly off the coast, trying to get the Russians to bring a threat radar
up against them. They plot out the radar’s location, identify it, see what it
does.”

 
          
“How
close to the coast were they?” the President asked. Curtis hesitated. “How
close?”
the President asked again.

 
          
“It’s
closest approach was about thirty-five miles,” Curtis replied. “When we lost
contact with the plane, they were about ninety miles from the coast.”

 
          
“Well,
dammit,” the President said, “I’d be upset if a Russian spy plane was thirty
miles from
Washington
.” The President turned to Brent, the
Secretary of State, who anticipated the President’s next question.

 
          
“Technically,
Mr. President, they stayed in international airspace as long as they did not overfly
Soviet territory,” Brent said. “However, the Soviets guard their ADIZ—the air
defense identification zone—quite zealously. The ADIZ extends one hundred and
twenty miles from shore.”

 
          
“How
did they shoot them down?” the President asked. Again, Curtis hesitated.
“General?”

 
          
“We
. . . we’re not sure, Mr. President,” Curtis replied. The President looked at
the oak-paneled walls around him as if they had begun closing in on him. “Sir,
at this time we can’t even confirm that the Russians did in fact down the
plane.”

 
          
“You’re
not sure . . .”

 
          
“There
was no way we could be sure what happened.”