by Dale Brown
Zhoram went over to the guidance control officer’s console and hit the button that told the difference between the inertial navigation system’s position, heading, and velocity values versus those of the last fix—they were indeed well within tolerances. He checked the master target coordinates and verified them against the flight plan—good, all was in order.
His targets were sets of geographical coordinates in the northern Indian Ocean, about two thousand kilometers downrange. The target area was surrounded by Iranian patrol vessels and warships that would document the test package’s accuracy as well as to keep out any spy ships. But the general secretly hoped that an Israeli or American submarine or spy satellite would be on hand to witness the results of this important test flight, because he knew it was going to be a successful one—and then the world would know that Iran had a powerful, fast-response weapon that could threaten any enemy.
“Very well,” Zhoram said. “Prepare to release batteries on my order.”
There was a brief flurry of activity on another console as the master launch crew ran their checklists, then waited for ready indications from the individual controllers. Normally a Shahab-5 launched via commands issued from the master control vehicle, transmitted by radio with a hardwire fiber-optic cable backup, but each launcher was able to launch independently as well, and they had to be prepared to do so in an instant if communications were cut or jammed. Zhoram watched carefully, making sure all proper procedures were being followed. “Standing by, sir.”
“Send to all units, stand by for launch.” Zhoram picked up the phone datalinked directly via satellite to Pasdaran headquarters at Doshan Tappeh Air Base in Tehran. He listened for the encrypted satellite link to connect, then spoke: “Faraz, Faraz, this is Heydar, Sorush, I say again, Sorush.”
“Reza,” the reply came. “Reza. Acknowledge.”
“Heydar copies Reza,” Zhoram responded. “Out.” He turned to his command-post controller. “Send to all units…”
At that instant there was a loud “BANG!” like a car accident, but ten times as loud, reverberating the walls of the command vehicle. “Sir, lost connectivity with unit…!” There was another loud crunch of metal, followed by a tremendous explosion that shook the command vehicle on its tires.
“Stay at your posts!” Zhoram shouted. “Secure all systems and prepare to move immediately!” The general dashed out of the command vehicle, knowing that it was a violation of procedures to open the pressurized cab, but he had to see for himself what was going on. He stepped into the airlock, sealed the door behind him, donned a chemical weapon protective mask and gloves, un-dogged the outer door, and stepped out…
…into the midst of a raging inferno. The Shahab-5 missile launch pad to the northwest was ablaze, with thousands of liters of burning rocket fuel spreading quickly across the ground in all directions. He picked up the phone inside the airlock: “Move the command vehicle one kilometer to the northeast, and do it now, or you will all roast to death within sixty seconds. Go!” He sealed the outer door to the command cab and jumped clear of the vehicle just as the hydraulic legs began to retract.
How in hell could this happen? Zhoram shouted to himself. They were at least twenty kilometers from the nearest bit of civilization, and they had three hundred security personnel deployed all around this area. It was impossible for any commando to…
…and out of a corner of an eye, he saw it—a flash of dawn sunlight in the sky, directly overhead. He stood, transfixed, as his eyes scanned, then saw another glint of light, even closer this time…headed right for him.
The command vehicle had moved no more than fifty meters away when the object from the sky slammed into it, directly in the center. The metal top of the vehicle splintered and collapsed like balsa wood, then blasted straight up into the sky as the power transformers, backup batteries, and high-pressure air conditioning units inside ruptured and exploded. In seconds, huge belching streams of fire were gushing from the top and bottom of his command vehicle. As he watched, he saw several more objects hit the vehicles again, but of course by that time they were consumed by the immense fireballs that were once his rocket and command post.
They were under attack! Zhoram screamed at himself as he watched his launcher and command vehicles ablaze. Someone had launched some sort of precision-guided weapon at them from above that destroyed them almost instantly.
Realizing immediately that there was nothing he could do to rescue any of his comrades from the twin infernos, his thoughts turned to the investigation that he knew would commence within hours. No one was going to believe him when he reported that it was an attack—his superiors would argue that it was some sort of malfunction or error in pre-launch procedures. He knew better—but he had to do his best to convince his commanders of it. If he survived the inquisition and punishment phase that he knew was going to begin very soon, he vowed he would find out who carried out this attack from the sky, and do everything he could humanly do to avenge himself on him. God willing, he was going to make them pay…
CHAPTER 1
“If you’re looking for a sure way to make enemies, change something.”
—PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON
THE WHITE HOUSE,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A SHORT TIME LATER
“Is this how you usually get into the White House, sir?” Captain Hunter Noble asked as they turned into a guarded underground parking structure a couple blocks from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Only when I’m in a flight suit,” Lieutenant-General Patrick McLanahan responded. Both he and Noble still wore the plain black Dreamland-style flight suits they were wearing on their suborbital flight in the XR-A9 spaceplane less than two hours ago. “The boss thought we might attract too much attention going in the main entrance.”
“Doesn’t want to be seen with the line grunts, eh?”
“Doesn’t want to have to explain you, me, and the Stud to the world…yet,” Patrick corrected him. “Believe me, the President is on our side. Once the Stud goes public, I’m sure he’ll want to be the first sitting president to fly in space.”
In the very back part of the parking garage they came upon a nondescript locked steel door with a sign on it that read “DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE.” Patrick opened a hidden panel a few steps away, punched in a code into a keypad, returned to the steel door, and waited. Moments later Boomer heard a buzzing noise, and Patrick pulled the door open. They stepped inside a very small, dark room, and Patrick secured the steel door behind them. A few moments later they heard another buzzing sound, and Patrick pulled another door open. They entered a long, dark, concrete-floored hallway illuminated with bare lightbulbs wired up with surface conduit. Steel and PVC pipes snaked overhead, some leaking. The air was dank and it felt most definitely claustrophobic.
“Ooo. Secret hallway,” Noble murmured. “Very cloak-and-dagger. I suppose there are lots of these hidden hallways around the capital.”
“I suppose. I only know about two of them, and the one between the Pentagon and the White House isn’t that secret.”
“I didn’t know about that one.”
It was a very long walk, during which they passed several cameras in the ceiling. At the end of the seemingly endless hallway there was yet another steel security door. Patrick picked up a telephone on the wall and spoke briefly to someone inside, the door buzzed, and Patrick pulled it open. They entered another small room with a uniformed Secret Service guard sitting behind a thick bulletproof glass. Patrick and Boomer exchanged ID cards for ID necklaces, signed in, and were buzzed inside.
The hallway they entered was just barely nicer than the long tunnel they just crossed—it was carpeted and better lit, but it still had that musty, wet smell and feel to it. “Your usual entrance, sir?” Boomer asked.
“That was one of the Secret Service alternate entryways and emergency exits,” Patrick explained. “They let me use it when I need to. It’s closer to my office.”
They weaved around boxes of fil
es stacked up in the hallway and old copy machines scattered here and there, then went down another flight of stairs to an even dirtier, mustier level. There were even fewer signs of life down here. Boomer had a peek into an open lavatory door, which looked like a fifties-era Army barracks latrine with a concrete floor complete with large drain in the middle, trough urinal, open showers, polished metal mirrors, metal shelves for towels and cleaning supplies, and very dated toilets and sinks, although it was clean enough.
The door they entered was a few down from the latrine, and unlike most of the other ones on this floor it was thick, new-looking, and well-maintained. Inside the feel was actually pretty comfortable—thick light-colored carpeting, plastered sheetrock walls with a few photographs and award plaques on them, a coffee pot and small refrigerator, computers, copy machines, a couple upholstered chairs, a convertible sofa, nice bookshelves, and a small but nice desk. “Nice office, General,” Boomer commented. “After seeing your latrine, I was expecting the modern version of the dungeons in the Tower of London.”
“That’s exactly what it was before I started working on it,” Patrick said. “I’m not much of a handyman, but I think I did okay. They don’t encourage self-help projects in the White House, but I think they took pity on me down here. Make yourself comfortable.” He picked up the phone and punched a button. “Hi, Miss Parks, General McLanahan here…Yes, just got in…Yes, he’s here too…Utilities OK, do you think? That’s all the captain has…OK, we’re on our way.” Boomer had just made his way over to the coffee machine and was just getting out supplies. “Sorry, no time,” he said as he replaced the receiver on its cradle. “We’ll get some coffee upstairs.”
“Upstairs? You mean…?”
“Yep. Let’s go.”
“Then I gotta use your facilities first, sir,” Boomer said, and he stepped quickly to use the latrine. His ears were fairly buzzing with excitement, and he found his own plumbing wouldn’t work as advertised, so he gave up, washed up, took a nervous gulp of water (ignoring the old, corroded fixtures), and headed out.
They retraced their steps upstairs, then walked up one more flight of stairs beyond where they entered. The sights, sounds, and smells were noticeably better now. They passed by a dining hall, where Boomer recognized several politicians and senior White House staff members from TV. They ascended one more flight of stairs, had their IDs checked yet again by a plainclothes Secret Service agent, and made their way into a circular outer office with a secretary, pictures of presidents on the walls, a fireplace with a small sitting area with a couch and several chairs before it, and several more chairs arrayed against the walls, most of them occupied. There seemed to be an almost constant parade of persons coming and going down the hallway leading to the Oval Office. “Who are all these people?” Boomer asked.
“Congressmen, senators, aides, staffers, assistants, constituents, reporters…you name it, they flow through this place constantly,” Patrick responded quietly.
“Is it always this…chaotic?”
“Yep. Twenty-four seven. Not only does this place never sleep…it never even rests.”
At that moment Vice President Maureen Hershel emerged from the doorway leading to the Cabinet Room, walking alongside Secretary of Defense Joseph Gardner. Gardner, the former two-term senator from Florida and Secretary of the Navy, was an immensely popular and well-liked politician, widely considered a front-runner in the upcoming presidential elections. Tall, impossibly handsome, and instantly likable, he was one of the most influential and important members of Kevin Martindale’s administration. He whispered something into Maureen Hershel’s ear as they headed out of the Cabinet Room, and it made Patrick feel good to see her smile and laugh. As if sensing Patrick’s presence, she turned, saw him, and gave him a relieved, pleased smile. She nodded at Gardner and let him pass, then gave Attorney General Ken Phoenix a few parting words, clasped him on the shoulder, then motioned to Patrick with two fingers.
Phoenix, a younger-looking clone of President Kevin Martindale with longish dark hair, thin glasses, and piercing dark eyes, shook his head woefully at Patrick as they passed in the hallway. “You should have brought your flying helmet, General,” he whispered to him as he flipped open his cell phone. “You’re going to need it.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, sir,” Patrick said. Patrick motioned for Boomer to follow him.
Maureen Hershel intercepted Patrick in the hall just outside the door to the Cabinet Room. She had always been trim and shapely, but the office had taken a toll on her and made her thin. She kept her brown hair long but tied up in a French braid behind her head, off the collar of her brown business suit, which only served to make her face seem even thinner. Her blue eyes still shined behind her simple rimless glasses, but the worry and edginess of her position had deepened the lines around those beautiful eyes.
“I knew you wouldn’t make it,” she said.
“Sorry.” He reached out with his right hand and touched her left in their little expression of love in that very public of places, but her hand was as cold as stone, as cold as her voice. “Traffic was murder.”
“I don’t think anyone’s in the mood for jokes, Patrick,” she said. She gave Boomer a nod and shook his hand. “You two okay?”
“We’re fine, Miss Vice President,” Noble said.
“Good.” She was all business again. “It’ll be you two meeting with the President, myself, SECDEF, NCA, and CJCS. The press somehow got wind of the spaceplane proposal, and they might have info on the flight you just took.”
“We knew they would, ma’am.”
“Why is that? The project is supposed to be classified.”
“We began daylight ops two weeks ago, Miss Vice President,” Patrick said. She noticed Maureen’s eyes narrow a bit when Patrick addressed her formally—she knew it was only proper, but she felt isolated and detached from him whenever he did it. “I warned everyone it was going to be just a matter of time before it was all over the press. We saw the first ‘LakeSpotter’ reports four days later on the Internet…”
“We were notified that the report was coming out in tomorrow’s paper just this morning,” Maureen said. “No requests, no opportunity to squash it—just notification. Everyone’s pissed.”
“It’s no secret who wants what, Miss Vice President,” Patrick said. “Congress has made that quite clear. Everyone has got their own ideas, and none of them include the Stud.”
“You’re still going with your original recommendations, Patrick?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Maureen’s lips went hard and straight with concern, but she nodded. Miss Parks, the Oval Office assistant, approached and informed her that the meeting had been moved to the Oval Office and the President was waiting. “Okay. Ready?”
“Ready.” He tried to reach out again to her, but she had already spun on her heel and headed toward the door to the Oval Office. He swallowed his feeling of dejection, then turned to Hunter. “Ready to do it, Boomer?” Patrick whispered.
“Do I have time to change my shorts first, sir?” Noble asked.
“Negative. Follow me.”
Maureen peeked through the peephole in the door, saw nothing out of the ordinary, knocked lightly, then thrust open the door, and before Boomer knew it they were inside. Like much of the rest of the place he had seen, the Oval Office was not the largest or most ornate office he had ever been in—in fact, it was pretty plain. Boomer expected that, but what he was waiting for was the experience of feeling the aura of power that was supposed to emanate from this historic room. This was the place, he knew, where hundreds of decisions a day were made affecting the lives of billions of people all over the world, where the word of a single man could commit the resources of the most powerful nation ever to inhabit the planet to a goal.
But he didn’t sense that either. This was a workaday office—he felt nothing more. No sooner had they walked into the room than the outer office assistant came in and handed papers to the Secretary of Defense, J
oseph Gardner, and hustled out, only to be followed by someone else a few moments later. There was no sense of anticipation, no excitement, no…nothing, really, except for a sense of business, perhaps with a slight undercurrent of uncertainty and urgency.
The one thing he did notice was the large rug in the middle of the room with the presidential seal on it. Boomer knew that before World War Two the eagle’s head had been turned toward the thirteen arrows it was clutching in its talons; after World War Two, President Harry Truman redesigned the seal so that the eagle’s head was turned toward the olive branches, signifying a desire and emphasis for peace. But after the attacks on the United States, President Martindale ordered the eagle’s head on the seal turned back toward the arrows, signifying America’s de facto perpetual readiness for war.
Boomer wasn’t sure if he agreed with that sentiment or not, but clearly the President did, and it hung heavy like a fog in the famous historic room.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General William Glenbrook, looked as if he was going to get to his feet when Maureen Hershel stepped into the room, but he kept his seat. Apparently there was some informal but clearly understood rule that no one rose for the Vice President entering any executive office unless she was the senior official present or unless the President did, and he was too distracted by his chief of staff, former U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Carl Minden, to notice. Minden himself noticed, but he only scowled and turned back to whatever he was showing the President. Finally the President impatiently looked up from his desk, wondering when his next meeting was going to start and finding the participants waiting on him.
Kevin Martindale was a long-time fixture on Capitol Hill and the White House. A former Congressman and former two-term vice president, he served one term as president before being defeated by the ultra-isolationist Jeffersonian Party candidate Thomas Thorn. He had been gearing up for another run at the presidency when the Russian Air Force attacked the United States. Amidst Thorn’s decision not to seek a second term and with only twenty percent voter turnout, Martindale and Hershel—the only candidates to run for the White House that year—were elected. “Well well, the rocket boys,” he said jovially. “Welcome home.”
