by Tom Clancy
“Where to?” Andy Bowler asked.
“We’re going to the command center—shopping center. Should be nice and cold there. You take the samples back and run them through the spectrometer.”
“You should come along.”
“Can’t,” Parsons said with a shake of the head. “I have to call into D.C. This isn’t what they told us. Somebody goofed, and I gotta tell them. Have to use a landline for that.”
The conference room had at least forty phone lines routed into it, one of which was Ryan’s direct line. The electronic warble caught his attention. Jack pushed the flashing button and lifted the receiver.
“Ryan.”
“Jack, what’s going on?” Cathy Ryan asked her husband. There was alarm but not panic in her voice.
“What do you mean?”
“The local TV station says an atomic bomb went off in Denver. Is there a war, Jack?”
“Cathy, I can’t—no, honey, there’s no war going on, okay?”
“Jack, they showed a picture. Is there anything I need to know?”
“You know almost everything I know. Something happened. We don’t know what exactly, and we’re trying to find out. The President’s at Camp David with the National Security Advisor and—”
“Elliot?”
“Yes. They’re talking to the Russians right now. Honey, I have work to do.”
“Should I take the children somewhere?”
The proper thing, and the honorable and dramatic thing, Jack told himself, was to tell his wife to stay home, that they had to share the risks with everyone else, but the fact was there was no place of safety that he knew. Ryan looked out the window, wondering what the hell he should say.
“No.”
“Liz Elliot is advising the President?”
“That’s right.”
“Jack, she’s a small, weak person. Maybe she’s smart, but inside she’s weak.”
“I know. Cathy, I really have things to do here.”
“Love you.”
“And I love you, too, babe. ’Bye.” Jack replaced the receiver. “The word’s out,” he announced, “pictures and all.”
“Jack!” It was the Senior Duty Officer. “AP just sent out a flash: shooting in Berlin between U.S. and Soviet forces. Reuters is reporting the explosion in Denver.”
Ryan got on the phone to Murray. “You have the wire services?”
“Jack, I knew this wouldn’t work.”
“What do you mean?”
“The President told us to shut the networks down. I guess we goofed somewhere.”
“Super. You should have refused that one, Dan.”
“I tried, okay?”
There were just too many redundancies, too many nodes. Two satellites serving the United States were still up and operating, and so was nearly all of the microwave-repeater system that had preceded them. The networks didn’t merely run out of New York and Atlanta. NBC’s Los Angeles bureau, after a surreptitious call from Rockefeller Center, took over for that network. CBS and ABC accomplished the same out of Washington and Chicago, respectively. The irate reporters also let the public know that FBI agents were “holding hostage” the network news headquarters people in the most heinous abuse yet of the First Amendment. ABC was outraged that its crew had been killed, but that was a small thing compared to the scope of the story. The proverbial cat was out of the bag, and phone lines at the White House press office lit up. Many reporters had the direct number to Camp David as well. There was no statement from the President. That only made things worse. The CBS affiliate in Omaha, Nebraska, had only to drive past SAC headquarters to note the beefed-up guard force and the empty flight line. Those pictures would be on nationwide in a matter of minutes, but it was the local news teams who did the best and the worst work. There is scarcely a city or town in America that lacks a National Guard armory or a base for reservists. Concealing the activity at all of them was tantamount to concealing a sunrise, and the wire-service printers reported activity everywhere. All that was needed to punctuate those reports was the few minutes of tape from KOLD in Denver, running almost continuously now, to explain what was going on, and why.
The phones at the Aurora Presbyterian were all being used. Parsons knew that he could have forced his way onto one, but it was easier to run across the street to a largely deserted shopping center. He found an FBI agent there, wearing a blue “raid” jacket that proclaimed his identity in large block letters.
“You the guy from the stadium?” Parsons’ headgear was gone, but he still wore the metallic coat and pants.
“Yeah.”
“I need a phone.”
“Save your quarters.” They were standing outside a men’s clothing store. The door had alarm tape on it, but looked cheap. The agent pulled out his service pistol and fired five rounds, shattering the glass. “After you, pal.”
Parsons ran to the counter and lifted the store phone, dialing his headquarters in Washington. Nothing happened.
“Where are you calling?”
“D.C.”
“The long-distance lines are down.”
“What do you mean? The phone company shouldn’t be hurt from this.”
“We did it. Orders from Washington,” the agent explained.
“What fucking idiot ordered that?”
“The President.”
“Outstanding. I gotta get a call out.”
“Wait.” The agent took the phone and called his own office.
“Hoskins.”
“This is Larry Parsons, NEST team leader. Can you relay something to Washington?”
“Sure.”
“The bomb was a ground burst, less than fifteen kilotons. We have samples of the residue, and it’s on the way to Rocky Flats for spectroscopy. You know how to get that out?”
“Yes, I can do that.”
“Okay.” Parsons hung up.
“You have pieces from the bomb?” the FBI agent asked incredulously.
“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? That’s what fallout is, bomb residue that gets attached to dirt particles.”
“So what?”
“So we can figure out a lot from that. Come on,” he told the agent. Both men ran back across the street toward the hospital. An FBI agent, Parsons decided, was a useful fellow to have around.
“Jack, got something from Denver, came in through Walt Hoskins. The bomb was a ground burst, fifteen or so kilotons. The NEST guys have residue and they’re going to test it.”
Ryan took his notes. “Casualty count?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Fifteen kilotons,” the S&T man observed. “Low for what the satellites said, but possible. Still, too goddamned big for an IND.”
The F-16C wasn’t exactly ideal for this mission, but it was fast. Four had left Ramstein only twenty minutes earlier. Put aloft by the initial DEFCON-THREE alert, they’d come east to what they still referred to as the inner-German border. They’d not even arrived there when new orders had sent them toward the southern end of Berlin to get a look at what was happening at the Berlin Brigade’s kazerne. Four F-15s from Bitburg joined for top cover. All eight USAF fighters were loaded for air-to-air missions only, with two extra fuel tanks each in the place of bombs for the F-16s, and conformal fuel cells for the Eagles. From ten thousand feet they could see the flashes and explosion on the ground. The flight of four broke into two elements of two each, and went down for a closer look, while the Eagles orbited overhead. The problem, it was later decided, was twofold. First, the pilots were simply too surprised at the turn of events to consider all the possibilities; adding to this was the fact that American aircraft losses over Iraq had been so minor as to make the pilots forget that this was a different place.
The Russian tank regiment had both SA-8 and SA-11 missiles, plus the normal complement of Shilka 23mm flak vehicles. The antiair company commander had waited for this moment, not illuminating his radars, playing it smart, as the Iraqis had singularly failed to do. He waited until the
American aircraft were under a thousand meters before giving his order.
Barely had their threat receivers come on when a swarm of missiles rose from the eastern edge of the Russian encampment. The Eagles, high up, had a much better chance at evasion. The F-16 Fighting Falcons, descending right into the SAM trap, had almost none. Two were blotted out in a matter of seconds. The second pair dodged the first wave of SAMs, but one was caught in the frag pattern of a second-wave SA-11 it almost but not quite evaded. That pilot ejected successfully, but died when he landed too hard on the roof of an apartment building. The fourth F-16 escaped by skimming the rooftops and screaming west on full burner. Two of the Eagles joined him. A total of five American aircraft crashed into the city. Only one of the pilots lived. The escaping aircraft radioed the news to Commander U.S. Air Forces Europe at Ramstein. Already he had twelve F-16s arming up with heavy ordnance. The next wave would be different.
PRESIDENT NARMONOV:
WE SENT SOME AIRCRAFT INTO BERLIN TO INVESTIGATE THE SITUATION THERE. THEY WERE SHOT DOWN WITHOUT WARNING BY SOVIET MISSILES. WHY WAS THIS DONE?
“What does this mean?”
“‘Shot down without warning’? There’s a battle under way, and that’s why the aircraft were sent there! The regiment has antiaircraft troops,” the Defense Minister explained. “They only have short-range, low-altitude rockets. If the Americans were just looking from a safe height—ten thousand meters—we couldn’t even have touched them. They must have been lower, probably trying to support their troops with an air attack. That’s the only way we could have gotten them.”
“But we have no information?”
“No, we have not established contact yet.”
“We will not answer this one.”
“That is a mistake,” Golovko said.
“This situation is dangerous enough already,” Narmonov said angrily. “We do not know what is going on there. How can I respond when he claims to have information which I do not?”
“If you do not respond, you appear to admit the incident.”
“We admit nothing!” the Defense Minister shouted. “We could not even have done this unless they were attacking us, and we don’t know whether it really happened or not.”
“So tell them that,” Golovko suggested. “Perhaps if they understand that we are as confused as they, they will also understand that—”
“But they won’t understand, and they won’t believe. They’ve already accused us of launching this attack, and they won’t believe that we have no control over the area.”
Narmonov retreated to a corner table and poured himself a cup of tea, while the intelligence and defense advisers traded—arguments? Was that the right word? The Soviet President looked up at the ceiling. This command center dated back to Stalin. A spur off one of the Moscow subway lines built by Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s pet Jewish anti-Semite and his most trusted henchman, it was fully a hundred meters down, but now his people told him that it was not truly a place of safety after all.
What was Fowler thinking? Narmonov asked himself. The man was undoubtedly shaken by the murder of so many American citizens, but how could it be possible that he was thinking that the Soviets were responsible? And what was actually happening ? A battle in Berlin, a possible clash between naval forces in the Mediterranean, all unrelated—or were they?
Did it matter? Narmonov stared at a picture on the wall and realized that, no, it did not matter. He and Fowler were both politicians for whom appearances had more weight than reality, and perceptions more importance than facts. The American had lied to him in Rome over a trivial matter. Was he lying now? If he were, then none of the past ten years of progress mattered at all, did they? It had all been for nothing.
“How do wars begin?” Narmonov asked himself quietly in the corner. In history, wars of conquest were started by strong men who wished to grow stronger still. But the time for men of imperial ambition had passed. The last such criminal had died not so long before. All that had changed in the 20th century. The First World War had been started—how? A tubercular assassin had killed a buffoon so unloved that his own family had ignored the funeral. An overbearing diplomatic note had prompted Czar Nikolay II to leap to the defense of people he hadn’t loved, and then the timetables had begun. Nikolay had the last chance, Narmonov remembered. The last of the Czars had held in his hand the chance to stop it all, but hadn’t. If only he’d known what his decision for war would mean, he might have found the strength to stop it, but in his fear and his weakness he’d signed the mobilization order that had ended one age and begun another. That war had begun because small, frightened men feared war less than showing weakness.
Fowler is such a man, Narmonov told himself. Proud, arrogant, a man who lied in a small thing lest I think less of him. He will be angered by the deaths. He will fear additional deaths, but he will fear displaying weakness even more. My country is at the mercy of such a man.
It was an elegant trap Narmonov was in. The irony of it might have evoked a tight, bitter smile, but instead the Soviet President set down his tea, for his stomach would take no more hot, bitter liquid. He could not afford to show weakness either, could he? That would only encourage Fowler to yet more irrationality. Part of Andrey Il’ych Narmonov asked if what he thought of Jonathan Robert Fowler might also apply to himself.... But he had to reply. To do nothing would display weakness, wouldn’t it?
“No answer?” Fowler asked the chief yeoman.
“No, sir, nothing yet.” Orontia’s eyes were locked on the computer screen.
“My God,” the President muttered. “All those people dead.”
And I could have been one of them, Liz Elliot thought, the idea coming back to her like waves on a beach, crashing in, ebbing away only to crash back again. Someone wanted to kill us, and I am part of that “us.” And we don’t know who or why....
“We can’t let this go any farther.”
We don’t even know what we are trying to stop. Who is doing this? Why are they doing it? Liz looked over at the clock and calculated the time to the arrival of the Kneecap aircraft. We should have gone out on the first one. Why didn’t we think to have it fly to Hagerstown to pick us up! We’re stuck here in a perfect target, and if they want to kill us, this time they’ll get us, won’t they?
“How can we stop it?” Liz asked. “He’s not even answering us.”
Sea Devil One-Three, a P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft out of Kodiak Naval Air Station, was buffeting through the winds at low altitude, about five hundred feet. It laid the first line of ten DIFAR sonobuoys ten miles southwest of Maine’s position. In the back, the sonar operators were strapped tightly into their high-backed seats, most with a vomit bag close by as they tried to make sense of their displays. It took several minutes for things to firm up.
“Christ, that’s my boat,” Jim Rosselli said. He dialed Bangor and asked for Commodore Mancuso.
“Bart, what gives?”
“Maine reported a collision, shaft and screw damage. There’s a P-3 riding shotgun on her right now, and we have Omaha heading toward her flat-out. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Maine was tracking an Akula at the time.”
“She was what?”
“Harry sold me and OP-02 on the idea, Jim. Too late to worry about it now. It should be okay. The Akula was way off. You heard what Harry did to Omaha last year, right?”
“Yeah, I thought he stripped a gear.”
“Look, it should be okay. I’m surging my boats right now, Jim. Unless you need me for something else, I’m kinda busy.”
“Right.” Rosselli hung up.
“What gives?” Rocky Barnes asked.
Rosselli handed over the message. “My old sub, disabled in the Gulf of Alaska, and there’s a Russian prowling around.”
“Hey, they’re quiet, right? You told me that. The Russians don’t even know where they are.”
“Yeah.”
“Cheer up, Jim. I probably knew some of those F-16 drivers who got s
nuffed over Berlin.”
“Where the hell is Wilkes? He should have been here by now,” Rosselli said. “He’s got a good car.”
“No tellin’, man. What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know, Rocky.”
“We’ve got a long one coming in,” Chief Orontia said. “Here it comes.”
PRESIDENT FOWLER:
WE HAVE NO INFORMATION FROM BERLIN ON THE MATTER TO WHICH YOU REFER. COMMUNICATIONS HAVE BROKEN DOWN. MY ORDERS HAVE GONE OUT TO OUR TROOPS, AND IF THEY HAVE GOTTEN THEM THEN THEY WILL TAKE NO ACTION EXCEPT IN SELF-DEFENSE. PERHAPS THEY FELT THEMSELVES TO BE UNDER ATTACK BY YOUR AIRCRAFT AND ACTED TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. IN ANY CASE WE ARE TRYING EVEN NOW TO REESTAB LISH CONTACT WITH THE TROOPS, BUT OUR FIRST ATTEMPT TO REACH THEM WAS STOPPED BY AMERICAN TROOPS WHO WERE WELL OUTSIDE THEIR CAMP. YOU ACCUSE US OF HAVING OPENED FIRE, YET I HAVE TOLD YOU THAT OUR FORCES HAVE NO SUCH ORDERS, AND THE ONLY DEFINITE WORD WE HAVE TELLS US THAT YOUR FORCES WERE WELL INTO OUR ZONE OF THE CITY WHEN THEY STRUCK.
MR. PRESIDENT, I CANNOT RECONCILE YOUR WORDS WITH THE FACTS WE HAVE. I MAKE NO ACCUSATION, BUT I KNOW OF NOTHING MORE THAT I CAN SAY TO ASSURE YOU THAT SOVIET FORCES HAVE TAKEN NO ACTION WHATEVER AGAINST AMERICAN FORCES.
YOU HAVE TOLD US THAT YOUR ALERTING OF YOUR FORCES IS DEFENSIVE ONLY, BUT WE HAVE INDICATIONS THAT YOUR STRATEGIC FORCES ARE IN A VERY HIGH STATE OF ALERT. YOU SAY YOU HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT WE ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS INFAMY, YET YOUR MOST ALERT FORCES ARE THOSE ARRAYED AGAINST MY COUN TRY. WHAT DO YOU WISH ME TO THINK? YOU ASK FOR PROOF OF OUR GOOD INTENTIONS, BUT ALL OF YOUR ACTIONS APPEAR TO LACK THEM.
“He’s blustering,” Liz Elliot observed at once. “Whoever it is over there is rattled. Good, we may get the upper hand here yet.”
