Executive Intent (25 page)

“Understood, Kai,” Patrick said. “I'll drop you a line when I get the okay.”

“Roger that, sir.”

“I'll see you in Palo Alto for McCallum's service. Fly safe.”

“Will do. Good to talk with you again, General.” And he broke the connection.

“Raydon?” Ann asked, silently reminding Patrick that he was not yet part of any investigation.

“Yep. He couldn't say anything until the board is seated.” Ann looked relieved, and Patrick noticed that. “You probably shouldn't say anything else to us either, Boomer.”

“You're probably right, sir. But I'll start taking notes on what I remember and pass them along to the board for the record.”

“Good.” He extended a hand, and Boomer shook it with his left hand. “I hope you'll feel up to attending McCallum's service.”

“I'll be there, General.”

“We'll understand if you're not. You've been through an extraordinary emergency.”

“I'll be there,” Boomer assured him. Patrick nodded, and he and Ann departed.

Back in his car, Ann said, “I was starting to get worried about you asking questions and then calling Raydon, Patrick. Be careful about contaminating the integrity of the investigation before you get seated.”

“Ann, I would fall over backward in a dead faint if I was appointed chair of that investigation board,” Patrick said, “or any other government position except maybe in charge of beach sandals and boogie boards in Alaska. There's no way on earth President Gardner would allow Banderas to select me.”

“Why not? You're by far the highest-ranking astronaut in the world; one of the best-known and well-respected military officers in the nation; you're available; you know the space systems and the hazards; and you can work for the traditional one-dollar stipend,” Ann said. She looked at Patrick carefully. “I remember all that stuff about the president wanting you pulled off Armstrong after those attacks in Turkey and whatever happened in Nevada. I also remember you suddenly disappeared off the station after convincing everyone you were too sick to stand the stress of reentry, after which suddenly the pressure was off, you were retired, and the space defense program was back on track. What happened after you returned to Earth…or shouldn't I ask?”

“You shouldn't ask,” Patrick said evenly. “In fact, you're probably in pretty deep already, since some would assume I'd already told you everything.”

Ann swallowed apprehensively after hearing that. “Then maybe you
should
tell me.”

“No, not yet,” Patrick said. “We'll see how this plays out.”

Ann fell silent for a few moments as Patrick drove; then: “So if you are so sure you won't get the appointment, why the press conference?”

“To try to put a little pressure on the White House,” Patrick said. “I won't get the appointment, and folks will wonder why not. Hopefully it'll focus a little more attention on the investigation so
the results won't be swept under the rug.” Ann Page looked carefully at Patrick, then smiled when he glanced at her. “What?”

“Look at you—you're starting to sound like a damned political hack,” she said. “You're talking about putting pressure on the White House like you probably used to talk about planning a bomb run.”

“I worked in the White House for a couple years, Ann—it's no different than any other ally or adversary,” Patrick said. “Elected officials, appointees, career bureaucrats, employees, consultants, advisers, all the characters who roam around the place—they all have wishes, desires, objectives, fears, and suspicions. They respond to pressure, real or perceived. Nothing wrong with letting them have a little of it.” He glanced at her again. “Would there be a problem of you getting me a copy of the data from Armstrong?”

“If you're not on the board, I don't think they'd allow it, Patrick,” Ann replied. “And my head would be on a platter in a New York minute if I leaked it. Sorry.” She paused, smiled at him, and added, “Kind of tough just being a regular civilian again? Can't just snap your fingers and get classified data anymore—it's gotta be frustrating.”

“Sure, sometimes,” Patrick said. “I believe in the Space Defense Force and the advancement of military space, just like I believed in the manned bomber years ago, and I'd hate to have politics get in the way of what I believe will be the weapon system of choice in the near future.”

“Good speech, General McLanahan,” Ann said with a chuckle. “Let me know when you plan to deliver it—I want to be there.”

T
HE
B
ERING
S
EA
, 300 M
ILES
N
ORTHEAST OF
K
LYUCHI
, K
AMCHATKA
P
ENINSULA
, E
ASTERN
R
USSIAN
F
EDERATION

T
HE NEXT MORNING

The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's
Atago
-class destroyer
Ashigara
was in the first month of a three-month-long routine patrol of the Sea of Okhotsk and western Bering Sea. The destroyer was an improved Japanese version of the American Navy's DDG-51
Arleigh Burke
–class destroyer, with Japanese-made defensive weaponry as well as American-made weapons, the AN/SPY-1D Aegis radar system, and fore and aft vertical-launch-system cells with surface-to-air and ASROC rocket-propelled torpedoes; the big difference was its full helicopter hangar along with its landing pad. It was one of the world's most powerful warships and was well suited for the usually harsh winter weather conditions of the Bering Sea.

The Japanese navy, along with the United States and other Pacific countries, made regular patrols in the area not only to show that they were not shy about operating so close to Russian shores, but to plot and observe all the military activity and listen in to the variety of electronic signals being broadcast in the area. The Russian Pacific Fleet had a major submarine and naval aviation base at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, about three hundred miles south, with Delta-III nuclear ballistic-missile submarines and Akula attack submarines, Tupolev-142 naval attack bombers, and Mikoyan-Gureyvich-31 long-range interceptors based there. In fact, the
Ashigara
had made a weeklong port call to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky naval base and had been warmly welcomed by the Russians. But the
Ashigara
's objective on this part of the cruise was three hundred miles north of Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky: the Klyuchi Test Range,
an isolated part of the northern Kamchatka Peninsula, heavily instrumented and used to record the accuracy of reentry warheads carried aloft by intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from western Russia.

A lot of activity had been observed in and around the Klyuchi Test Range in recent weeks. The United States made regular ship and air patrols of the test range, and the long-range COBRA DANE radar at Eareckson Air Station on Shemya Island also kept watch, but since the
Ashigara
was already in the area, it was diverted to cruise the area and observe.

Instead of reentry vehicles, the crew of the
Ashigara
were observing numerous fighter sorties in the Klyuchi Test Range. Yelizovo Airfield at Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky had a regiment of MiG-31 “Foxhound” supersonic fighters, designed to intercept lowflying bombers and cruise missiles hundreds of miles from shore at over twice the speed of sound. The MiGs were not dogfighters, but instead used large, powerful radars to launch advanced radar-guided air-to-air missiles…except the MiGs in the Klyuchi Test Range weren't practicing attacking bombers, but were simply cruising out to the range, climbing steeply, then heading back to Yelizovo.

The
Ashigara
soon found out what the MiGs were up to. As the captain and combat officers of the Japanese destroyer watched in fascination, one MiG-31 accelerated to over two and a half times the speed of sound, then made a steep climb. The fighter roared to over sixty-five thousand feet at just over the speed of sound, then released a single missile slung under its belly centerline stores station.

The missile was a 50N8 Graza, or “Storm,” long-range surface-to-air missile, modified as an air-launched antisatellite weapon. The Russian antisatellite missile climbed quickly on its first-stage motor for about fifteen seconds, climbing to over 200,000 feet, then coasted for a short period as it dropped its first-stage motor section.
The second stage ignited moments later, and the missile quickly climbed to five hundred miles' altitude before the second stage separated.

Because it did not have enough speed to enter Earth's orbit, the third stage began to descend. At four hundred miles' altitude, the third stage separated, leaving the kill vehicle to continue the descent. Using short blasts of hydrazine, it adjusted its course using inertial, GPS, and datalink course guidance; then, as it closed in on its target, it used its own radar for precise terminal guidance. It scored a direct hit on a deactivated Yantar-4K2 target reconnaissance satellite just minutes later.

M
EMORIAL
C
HAPEL
, S
TANFORD
U
NIVERSITY
, P
ALO
A
LTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

L
ATER THAT AFTERNOON

“I'd like to conclude with these words,” Vice President Ken Phoenix said. “It was found written on a slip of paper in a trench in Tunisia during the battle of El Agheila during World War Two, but it is just as appropriate here today as we honor the memory and the extraordinary life of First Lieutenant Jeffrey McCallum, U.S. Space Defense Force. It read: ‘Stay with me, God. The night is dark, the night is cold: my little spark of courage dies. The night is long; be with me, God, and make me strong.' Rest in peace, Lieutenant. Job well done.”

After the service concluded, the vice president followed along with the pastor and family members as the pallbearers wheeled the casket to the front of the chapel, and then the Air Force honor guard carried the casket to the waiting hearse. The family had requested that the burial at Holy Cross Cemetery in Menlo Park be for family only, so the vice president waited at the bottom of the steps as the hearse and cars for the family departed. He greeted hundreds of students, faculty, and other mourners who had attended the service, then was escorted to his armored Cadillac limousine.

Already in the car were Patrick McLanahan in the left forward-facing seat and Ann Page, Kai Raydon, and Hunter Noble in the aft-facing seats. “Thank you for attending the service, Mr. Vice President,” Patrick said once they were all seated and the motorcade headed toward Phoenix's hotel in San Jose. “I know the family appreciates your visit very much.”

“Thank you, Patrick,” Phoenix said. He patted Patrick on the shoulder. “It's good to see you again after Iraq. I had some doubts we'd get out of there alive.”

“Same here, sir.” Patrick had been a private contractor working in Iraq when the Turkish army invaded northern Iraq, and he and the vice president, who was there as part of a cease-fire-negotiating team, were trapped near Mosul as the fighting intensified.

“I'd like to get my hands on whoever leaked the details of the accident and McCallum's actions to the press,” Ann Page said bitterly. “McCallum was an American astronaut, but the press has been calling him incompetent and cowardly, even before the poor guy was buried.”

“Unfortunately, a lot of the radio transmissions from space were unsecure and easily intercepted,” Kai Raydon said, “so anyone with a big enough dish could have picked them up.”

“The only other people who knew were either in the Pentagon or the White House,” Phoenix said, “and if it was from either of those places, I'll find out, and then I'll let you have first crack at them, Secretary Page.” Ann nodded, and her expression left little doubt that she was looking forward to that moment. “General Raydon, what's the latest on the Kingfisher explosion?”

“Nothing definite yet, sir,” Kai said. “We did find a closed arming circuit, so we're going over the entire arming system to find out why that circuit was closed. The boards that McCallum replaced initially reported in the green when the garage was powered up, but then the circuits closed and the thing blew.”

“You've got to find out what happened, General, as quickly as possible, if you want your program to survive,” Phoenix said. “The president already wants the ground-attack weapons removed from the garages, and he's thinking about a unilateral moratorium on antisatellite weapons ahead of a global initiative to ban antisatellite weapons completely.”

“Ban
all
antisatellite weapons? Even defensive ones?”

“Unless we figure out a foolproof way to distinguish defensive from offensive weapons, yes,” Phoenix replied. “We've got China, Russia, and other countries like Pakistan complaining about weap
ons in space, and both China and Russia racing each other to test out a new antisatellite weapon. The Russians fired off an air-launched antisatellite missile earlier today, timed so that it could be observed by a Japanese Aegis warship.”

“The
Kamareeniy,
or ‘Mosquito,' sir,” Boomer said. He shuffled uncomfortably under his heavily bandaged right shoulder, but went on: “We first saw it about three years ago; it's based on our ASM-135 ASAT from twenty-five years ago. The Russians didn't make a big deal out of it until recently, like the Chinese and their Dong Feng-21s. Fairly mature technology, a lot cheaper than directed-energy antisatellite weapons like lasers or microwaves, and easier to move and conceal. It was supposedly one of General Andrei Darzov's favorite programs when he was the Russian air force's chief of staff—the guy is a space superfreak.”

“And now he's the Russian military chief of staff,” Patrick said. “Truznyev is a powerful president, but Darzov may hold even more sway, especially in the military—soldiers never got along well with spies. I would guess that Darzov would never allow Truznyev to sign a treaty banning space weapons of any kind. Not exactly an opportune time to start talking about eliminating antisatellite weapons.” He looked at the vice president. “Rumor has it that you are going to head up the Space Policy Review panel, sir.”