The War Cloud
Authors: Thomas Greanias
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by Thomas Greanias
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Depictions of certain U.S. defense systems, protocols and weapons have been intentionally altered in the interests of national security.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Greanias
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First @lantis Books eBook edition November 2010
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For such a time as now…
0500 Hours
Offutt Air Force Base
Omaha, Nebraska
E
very minute of every day since February 3, 1961, a Strategic Command “Looking Glass” plane carrying an Air Force general has been circling the Midwest, ready to seize control of America’s nuclear arsenal should a surprise attack destroy command posts on the ground. The program officially ended with the Cold War, but actually carries on under various guises and aircraft. Only once, in the skies of September 11, 2001, has a Looking Glass plane ever been spotted by the general public. Even then the Pentagon denied its existence.
This morning it was General Brad Marshall’s turn to play God.
Marshall gazed at the converted military Boeing 747-200 “Doomsday” jumbo jet waiting for him in the pre-dawn darkness as his black Chevy Suburban, wipers working furiously, braked to a halt and he stepped out.
The ice on the tarmac crunched under his brisk, powerful strides. The snow was coming down harder now. He turned up the collar of his overcoat and bore through the curtain of white to Looking Glass, its gigantic GE 80-series engines winding up to takeoff power. Originally, the plane was an EC-135C, then an E-6 Mercury. The new model, a modified E4-B conscripted from Operation Nightwatch, had triple the floor space and was practically a dead ringer for the president’s Air Force One. Only the small white dome on top betrayed its enhanced military capabilities.
So this is what Siberia feels like,
Marshall thought, both of the bitter cold and his new obscure-if-critical posting. A “promotion to general” hatched by an insecure president to keep a war hero as far away as possible from TV crews.
At the base of the tall stairs leading up to the six-story-high plane stood an intelligence officer Marshall had never seen before, although he recognized him from a file somewhere.
The officer saluted as he approached. “General Marshall, sir.”
Marshall frowned. “What happened to Colonel Reynolds?”
“Flu, sir,” the intelligence officer explained eagerly. “I’m Colonel Quinn. I’ll be your second.”
Marshall looked Quinn over. He had handpicked the Looking Glass crew himself. This kid was strictly second-string, and although the switch wasn’t entirely unexpected, that General Carver at Strategic Command hadn’t bothered to give him an official heads-up about such a critical assignment bothered Marshall. It only confirmed just how routine and insignificant these flights had become to the Department of Defense.