by Bob Mayer
Thorpe gave her a determined, crooked smile. "Then that's what we'll do."
* * *
The atmosphere in the War Room was not a pleasant one. "How come neither the president nor I know about Omega Missile? Or this REACT computer?" Hill demanded.
"It's in his strategic nuclear briefing packet that—'' General Lowcraft began.
Hill snorted. "That damn packet is six hundred pages long. I sat in on the briefing you gave him before he took office and no one mentioned this thing!" Hill shook his head. "As I see it, you've taken the president out of the loop!"
Lowcraft clenched his teeth. "Omega Missile exists because of the very high possibility that the president and those immediately below him in the NCA chain will get knocked out of the loop in the first moments of any nuclear exchange. Omega Missile exists to keep our nuclear system from becoming immobilized if incapacitated by an enemy first strike."
"Oh, come on—" Hill began.
"You want to talk about the loop?" Lowcraft cut in angrily. "You know the red phone in the Oval Office?" The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn't wait for an answer. "Well, after Kennedy had been in office a few months, he happened to look around and he couldn't find the infamous red phone. He was told that Eisenhower had kept the phone in his desk. They checked all the drawers and still couldn't find the damn thing. Turns out Jackie had switched desks and they'd simply unplugged the red phone and taken it out with the old desk. So maybe the guys who do the dying don't trust that you civilians necessarily have their best interests at heart."
Hill stared at Lowcraft. "That's over thirty years ago. Jesus, General, get—"
"You want to talk about the present administration?" Lowcraft poked a finger at Hill. "How many times have we tried to get the president to come down here to run a command post exercise? To at least let our people brief him on the SIOP in the football that follows him everywhere. Tell me that, Hill. Hell, do you even know what SIOP stands for?"
The officers nearby had all stopped working, and although military etiquette prevented them from staring at the two senior men, it was obvious that they were listening.
Hill simply stared at the fuming general for a little while, letting the other man calm down. From long experience he also knew that Lowcraft was right. The president, as had every recent president before him with the exception of Carter, who was an Annapolis grad, had had one briefing prior to taking office about the nuclear launch structure and the SIOP and that was the extent of their knowledge of the country's nuclear war plan and launch procedure.
Those in the administration defended that lack of interest by saying the president was a very busy man. It was hard to believe, however, that he could be too busy to study the plans that might end mankind. Hill knew that the main reason there was so little focus by politicians on nuclear war planning was fear. Even at the top levels of government, there was a distinct discomfort about focusing on the country's nuclear arsenal. If one stared too long at the product of over forty years of paranoia and fear, the underlying insanity became too obvious. So it was ignored like a crazy aunt kept in the attic. Ignored until times like this when the banging on the floorboards couldn't be ignored. Hill had only one priority right now: keep the banging from bringing down the whole house.
Contrary to Lowcraft's angry words, as national security adviser for this and two other previous administrations, Hill knew what SIOP stood for: Single Integrated Operation Plan, a misnomer if ever there was one. Hill had read the seventy-five laminated pages in the black football carried by a warrant officer that followed the president everywhere. The plan presented a multitude of retaliatory launch options for the president that Hill found stupefying. He was a ruthless man and the prospect daunted even him. He knew the president would be even more overwhelmed if the football ever had to be opened and used under the stress of incoming missiles with just minutes to make a decision.
On the other hand, though, the reluctance of those in the administration to look at the nuclear system allowed Hill the free hand to use the Red Flyer missions and events like Operation Delilah to further the U.S.'s interests in the political arena.
But Lowcraft wasn't done. "You asked me about the beach in Lebanon when you came in. We were left out of the loop on that one, weren't we?"
Hill stabbed a finger in the other man's chest. "You watch your mouth, General."
"What exactly was going on there?"
"None of your business."
Both men fell silent and glared at each other.
"All right," Hill finally said. "The only question is, General, can we control Omega Missile?"
Lowcraft's answer was carefully worded. "Right now it's not under our control."
"Then what's going on?"
"I don't know. I don't even know why it was launched. Barksdale Air Force Base reported a strike warning, but their headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain didn't send it. There was a large explosion next to the base that looked like a nuclear explosion, but there's no sign of radiation. Frankly, I don't know what's going on."
Hill ran out of patience. "Well, General, you'd goddamn well better find out what's going on before I have to talk to the president."
*****
"Is our little demonstration ready?" McKenzie asked.
Kilten didn't say anything. He just sat in his seat, staring at McKenzie. The events of the day so far had sapped the sick man's strength.
McKenzie's mood abruptly changed as he slapped the desktop. "We're here now! We're committed. Do you understand?"
Still, Kilten didn't say anything.
"When you approached me with this, you said you were going to break the law for the greater good, do you remember?"
Kilten finally nodded.
"We've crossed the line," McKenzie continued. "We're criminals. That's not going to change. What can change is the results of our actions. If you stop now, the only result will be that those who died and will die, will have died in vain. There are many who died long before today because of this. And millions more will die if we don't follow through. That's what your own calculations say, correct?" He leaned forward until his face was only a few inches from Kilten's. "Hell, you're dying now. You have to follow through on your plan."
Kilten finally spoke, but it seemed as if he were talking to himself. "Yes. All right. Follow through on the plan. I can still do that."
*****
Lowcraft was receiving reports from those in the front of the War Room every few seconds and interpreting the important ones for Hill. "We can't access the Omega Missile REACT through MILSTAR. Someone's in the launch facility and has locked out all outside transmissions, maintaining control through that REACT console which has override. The cable from Barksdale is down. Probably cut in the explosion."
"Can't you cut in? Or jam them?"
Lowcraft's fingers were pressing on the desktop. "You don't understand. We spent billions of dollars designing REACT, Omega Missile, and MILSTAR to prevent someone from doing exactly those things."
"Can you shoot the missile down?"
Lowcraft pointed to the front display. It currently showed the western hemisphere. A bright red dot was centered above Kansas. "That's Omega Missile. It's out of the atmosphere by now and in a geosynchronous orbit, always maintaining contact with a MILSTAR satellite so it can issue launch commands. We don't have anything that can hit it at that altitude."
"Does it stay up there forever?"
"No. It will reenter in a little under three hours and burn up on the way down. So unless something else goes wrong, we'll be all right in three hours. But we still don't know who set the blast off outside Barksdale and why ..." He paused as Colonel Hurst indicated he had something.
"Sir, we have an unauthorized transmission coming in on MILSTAR. It's from someone who says he has taken over the Omega Missile Launch Control Center."
Lowcraft briefly closed his eyes. "Put him on speaker."
The noise of activity in the War Room came to a halt as a voice b
oomed out of the speakers.
"This is Professor Kilten. With whom am I speaking?"
Lowcraft started as he recognized the name. "General Lowcraft. Professor Kilten, what the hell are you doing?"
Lowcraft didn't have time to say anything else as Kilten continued. "Good to talk to you again, General. Maybe you'll give me more time and attention now than at our last meeting. Who is there representing the National Command Authority?"
"This is Michael Hill. I'm the president's national security adviser."
"What a coincidence!" Kilten said. "Just the man I wanted."
Hill's voice was level, as if he were talking to an errant schoolboy. "What exactly are you doing, Professor Kilten?"
"I've taken over Omega Missile and its controlling computer, REACT."
"For what purpose?"
"So you'll listen to me: You're listening, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"See? It's working."
There was a long pause.
"All right, we're listening," General Lowcraft finally said. "What do you want?"
"First, for security reasons, if the radar in this facility picks up any aircraft within five miles of this location, I will have REACT order Omega Missile to fire a nuclear weapon from a submarine off the Atlantic coast at a target of my choice in the continental United States. The missile is already programmed with a target and the EAM is ready to be transmitted. Is that clear?"
Lowcraft signaled to Hurst to relay that command. "We'll keep the airspace free."
"Good. These are my demands.
"One. All U.S. nuclear systems except two nuclear submarines now on station, the Ohio and the Michigan, will be brought off-line at noon today."
"That will leave us defenseless!" Lowcraft sputtered.
"Let's be realistic, General, which is the whole point of this exercise. The Ohio and the Michigan, one in each ocean, have more than enough nuclear throw-weight between them to keep the Russians or anyone else from launching. Besides, the other nuclear powers have no reason to launch on us right now, do they? We are at peace, aren't we?"
Kilten didn't wait for an answer. "Actually, I'm making this easy on you. This first demand really isn't something you have to do anything about because I'm going to make it happen from here at noon. I'm just letting you know what's going to happen so there's no overreaction."
"Second, I want all files on a mission code-named Delilah and an operation code-named Red Flyer to be declassified and released to the press."
Hill clenched his teeth as General Lowcraft turned a questioning gaze toward him. As Lowcraft opened his mouth to speak, Hill drew a finger across his throat and shook his head.
"Next, I want to speak to the president personally. I want him to read my memo, which Mr. Hill never forwarded, on both those items. I also want him to read the attached report on the lack of nuclear safeguards."
Lowcraft's face was red. "You son-of-a-bitch, you're making it all happen to—"
"General, there's something you should have read in my report. My basic hypothesis, which is universally supported in the scientific community, is that if something can happen it eventually will. Not just here with Omega Missile, but with every nuclear system and operation. Delilah is another wild card that will be played someday. And if it is played, then the Samson Option will be played also, won't it, Mr. Hill? The whole house of cards will come tumbling down."
"The Samson Option is fiction," Hill said.
"Oh, I don't think so, Mr. Hill," Kilten said. "You know what classified files I hacked into before you caught on and sent your little pet, Lugar, after me. Where do you think I've been the last several weeks? Holed up in a cave, saying my prayers and waiting to die?
"You need to listen to me very carefully. If a nuclear system exists, eventually it will be used, either by design or by accident. Either way, the result will be disaster. All I'm doing is making this one happen under my control. But I'm going to make a clean sweep of the board through this one incident. Omega Missile was the most vulnerable link for me to attack because I designed it, but it is a very powerful system as you are now discovering."
"The entire nuclear system was invented by man. I should know since I've been in charge of its design for the past ten years and worked on it for thirty-five years. And everything that man has invented, he has eventually used, whether deliberately or by accident."
"I am not alone in that thinking. Mathematical theorists have predicted that in the next five years there is a ninety-six percent chance that if nuclear weapons continue to exist, they will be used again."
"It is the same sort of scientific statistical projection that predicted the Challenger shuttle disaster. If something can go wrong, it eventually will. And of course, the world will continue to have nuclear weapons five years from now, won't it? Unless, of course, someone does something rather drastic to change that, which is the situation we're in right now."
"Trust me, in a week you, and the rest of the country, will be thanking me for doing this."
"I don't think so, you twisted—"
Lowcraft put his hand on Hill's shoulder. "Quiet. Let him speak."
"Good for you, General. You understand, even if Mr. Hill doesn't. Of course, he knows things you don't. Let me continue."
"I also want the president fully briefed on Omega Missile, Operation Delilah, Red Flyer, and the Samson Option. Our nuclear defense system cannot be used as a political tool. That introduces a variable that I never took into account forty years ago. I am forcing your hand to realize this very important truth."
"If you want an example, I give you the Red Flyer missions. Mr. Lugar told me they were tests, but imagine my surprise when I found out that their primary goal wasn't testing at all. Mr. Hill is using them as a way to threaten other governments with our capability to put an untraceable nuclear weapon inside their borders. You used it against Israel to counter the Samson Option."
The two men in the back of the War Room looked at each other in mutual suspicion as Kilten continued speaking.
"Omega Missile was designed to be used after Washington is nothing but a smoking hole in the ground and the civilian leadership of this country is wiped out. And Delilah was an operation conducted for political goals that ignore military and practical realities. I want a presidential inquiry. It's the same request I politely made in my report."
"I want my report to be published in the New York Times tomorrow along with the Red Flyer and Delilah papers. Not the entire thing, of course; that would be unreasonable. Just a synopsis of each. I want the American public to understand what sort of doomsday system the Pentagon has set up with their money. A system that will be used only after most of them are nothing but ash. I want the Samson Option outlined so the public will be aware of the threat. I want the people to know how their safety is compromised by people like Mr. Hill for political expediency. This is a democracy, gentlemen, and the people have a right to know."
Lowcraft and Hill just stared at the speaker. "I also want twenty-six-million dollars in used currency now being held pending destruction at the Federal Reserve Bank in Charleston to be packed into a Special Operations resupply pod. The pod—"
"You're just a lowlife thief, you—" Hill began, but again he was cut off.
"The money isn't for me, and, frankly, I wouldn't call anyone controlling this nation's nuclear arsenal a lowlife. It reflects badly on all of you in that War Room.""Mr. Hill, you are satisfied abusing your position for power; the men working for me are more interested in money."
"To continue. The pod is to be placed, as it is designed to be, into the warhead space of a Tomahawk cruise missile on board the USS Shiloh docked at Charleston Naval Base. A disk with flight path, radio frequency, and release code for the cruise missile is on my desk there in the Pentagon. The disk is to be used to program the cruise missile via modem. The missile is to be launched at exactly 1030 hours. I will have control of the pod ejection code. If these demands are not met by noon, east coast time,
on the dot—"
Everyone in the War Room looked up at the red numerals on the digital clock above the main display, which read 0905.
"—I will launch nuclear weapons, unactivated, into the remote Pacific Ocean. One every minute. To prove to you that I am serious, please have the camera on board your KH-12 spy satellite presently over the mid-Pacific zero in on the USS Kentucky's location, currently heading toward Hawaii."
Lowcraft was rubbing his temples. "How do you know we have a KH-12 in orbit at that location? And where the Kentucky is?" he asked in a weary voice.
"General, please stop wasting time. There's not much of it left."
Lowcraft pointed and people got to work.
"It should take you no more than two minutes," Kilten said. "I will call back at that time."
The speaker went dead.
"What is he going to do?" Hill asked.
"He's going to launch." Lowcraft talked to a naval officer. "Get me the captain of the Kentucky on ELF radio immediately!"
"A nuclear missile?" Hill asked.
"Yes!" Lowcraft spat.
Hill picked up a red phone. "Patch me through to the president!"
"I have the Kentucky on ELF, sir," the naval officer called out.
"Who's the commanding officer?" Lowcraft asked.
The naval officer had a binder open in front of him. "Captain Rigby, sir."
"Put him on speaker," Lowcraft ordered.
There was a hiss of static. "Reception will be weak, sir," the naval officer said, "as the Kentucky is submerged."
"Captain Rigby, this is General Lowcraft."
The captain's voice was strained and rushed.
"General, we're in the middle of an EAM."
Lowcraft winced. "We have a problem, Captain, and not much time. Omega Missile has been taken over and launched by a terrorist force. I'm ordering you to stand down from your EAM and launch procedures."
There was a long silence, filled with the hiss from the radio, then finally Rigby's voice came back. "Sir, I have a confirmed Emergency Action Message."
Lowcraft spoke slowly and carefully. "I'm aware of that. But it has not been authorized."
