The Red Effect (Cold War)

by Black, Harvey

  The cameraman gave the President the signal to start.

  “I’m coming before you tonight about the Korean airline massacre, the attack by the Soviet Union against 277 innocent men, women and children aboard an unarmed Korean passenger plane. This crime against humanity must never be forgotten, here or throughout the world...

  “...and make no mistake about it, this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the standards of decency which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism, born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life, and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations...

  “...we have informed the Soviets that we’re suspending negotiations on several bilateral arrangements we had under consideration...

  “...I’ve told you of the negotiations we have suspended as a result of the Korean airline massacre, but we cannot, we must not give up our effort to reduce the arsenals of destructive weapons threatening the world...

  “...we are more determined than ever to reduce and, if possible, eliminate the threat hanging over mankind...”

  Chapter 6

  CONTROL CENTRE OF THE NUCLEAR BALLISTIC MISSILE WARNING CENTRE, SERPUKHOV−15, RUSSIA. OCTOBER 1983.

  THE RED EFFECT −9 MONTHS.

  The Soviet junior lieutenant placed the cup of coffee on the metal desk in front of his duty commanding officer.

  “I’ve just finished the duty roster for the next month, Comrade Colonel. Would you like me to bring it in now, sir?”

  The duty officer picked up the cup, sniffed the aroma, then put it back down next to his peaked cap with its light blue band and piping, the large saddle-shaped crown face down.

  “Smells good, Azarov. No, I’ll look at it later. Who is manning the console?”

  “Captain Bezrukov, sir.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Perov sat back, swinging his highly polished booted feet up onto the desk in front of him, leaning his weight back, precariously supported on the two thin legs of his uncomfortable metal chair. He swung forward, grabbed his coffee again and then leant back, rocking slightly the spindly chair. He took a sip from his favourite porcelain cup, a gift from his wife on her return from a trip into East Germany the previous year. It was Mycin, significantly superior to anything that was made in Mother Russia, he thought. He felt guilty for a fraction of a second about his disloyal thoughts, but then accepted that his motherland couldn’t expect to be perfect at everything.

  “OK, I’ll do a tour of the site once I’ve finished this.” Perov held his cup up towards his junior officer.

  The lieutenant left to carry on with his duties, leaving Perov to his own thoughts. The forty-four year old Soviet Air Defence Lieutenant Colonel was the senior officer on duty at the command centre for the Oko Nuclear Ballistic Missile Warning Centre, south of Moscow. The Oko satellites, in Molniya, highly elliptical, and geosynchronous orbits were used to identify the launches of ballistic missiles, primarily from the continental United States. This command post at Serpukhov-15 was one of two Oko control centres, the other one being at Pivan-1 in the Russian far east. This western control centre, in the Moscow ablast, communicated with four of the geosynchronous satellites on four of the seven locations looking over the Atlantic. The other three, casting their eye over the Pacific, were controlled by Pivan-1.

  Perov finished his coffee with a sigh, lurched forwards so his chair was on all four legs and placed his cup down on the desk, checking his watch: still six hours of duty left. He didn’t resent what he did; he was completing an important duty: protecting the motherland from a potential nuclear strike. Although he couldn’t prevent it happening and many would be killed, at least he could contribute to the retaliatory strike on the NATO aggressor. He was about to pull himself up out of his seat when Azarov came charging into his room. At that very moment, an alarm started sounding in the control centre.

  “Sir, sir, there’s been a launch!”

  Perov leapt up and strode briskly after his subordinate, straight into the operations centre that adjoined his office, his private space. He headed straight for the tracking monitor where Captain Bezrukov was hunched over, and quickly spotted the blip blinking back at him, indicating the launch of a US Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. The bunker was alive with activity, alarms blaring, red lights flashing, and officers and NCOs manically tearing around the control centre.

  “Quiet!” he yelled. “I can’t bloody hear myself think.”

  The anxious staff got a grip of themselves and calmed down. A sense of order fell over the monitoring station.

  “Another one, sir,” Captain Bezrukov informed Perov, turning to his colonel who was looking over his right shoulder.

  Perov looked on. Another blip appeared, captured by the satellite warning system, indicating a second launch. He rubbed his chin and mused, “Why only two? There should be more.”

  “Shall I sound the alert, Comrade Colonel?” Asked Azarov.

  Perov turned to him and snapped, “No!”

  “A third, sir,” pointed Bezrukov, his voice strained. Trepidation was starting to set in.

  All were starting to feel the cold fingers of fear as it slowly dawned on them that the United States had launched a nuclear attack on their country.

  “Sir, we must inform the early-warning command centre,” insisted the captain as he tracked a fourth launch. “We need to launch our own missiles before it is too late.”

  “It is our job to validate first, Captain.”

  “But—”

  “No. Get me Pechora now.”

  “But, sir—”

  “Now, Captain.”

  Major Shvernick’s boots crunched on the snow and he shivered as he walked towards the small building ahead of him. The Pechora early-warning radar station was draped in a white blanket, the cold of the northern Russian winter was biting hard. He made his way through the door and headed for the centre of the room where he lifted a wooden hatch, crafted into the wooden floorboards. Lifting it, he exposed a two-metre wide, circular steel hatch beneath it. He twisted the handle, lifted the hatch and dropped down inside, placing his feet carefully on the rungs of the steel ladder as he descended.. He pulled the hatch down after him and twisted the handle again until it was secure. He slowly climbed down the ladder, facing the concrete-lined wall to which the ladder was secured, into the dimly lit gloom below. He passed the first two levels, each containing a bright yellow diesel-electric set, the upper one throbbing as it provided power and compressed air to the Unified Command Centre.

  The thirty-metre-long, three and a half-metre-diameter, 12-stage metal container he was inside of, weighed twenty-five tons. The circular tube, mounted in a regular missile pit, supported by its own shock-absorbing framework, was part of the Russian missile launch system, and was designed to be used in an emergency under the threat of war. It contained the necessary communication and missile launch systems.

  The major continued climbing down, cursing that they were testing the back-up communications for the radar site above, and that he was having to enter the dirt and smell of this dark and dank place rather than the relative comfort of the usual operations centre above. He climbed past the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh levels, which housed the control systems, electric power supply and the missile launch apparatus, until he reached the penultimate level, number eleven, the final room being the operations room for the duty staff. He stopped outside a large, washed-out green door, with the number eleven stencilled on it in large black numerals, and pulled the lever. He pushed the heavy, oblong steel door, its curved shoulders bedded into the circular steel tube, and stepped into the small control room, the captain on duty leaping to his feet.

  “All quiet, Comrade Captain?”

  “Yes, Comrade Major.”

  “Are the links set up? Is the feed coming through from the radar control room?”

  “Yes, sir.
Is the exercise going on for long?”

  “As long as our General wishes it, Comrade Captain. We need to test our emergency procedures in case the unexpected happens. If there is a failure in the control centre above then this is where we will need to operate from.”

  “Of course, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  “Anyway, a bit of discomfort won’t do you any harm. Some of these men,” he pointed to three others in the cramped control room, “have to spend hours at a time every day down here.”

  At that moment, the phone, attached to the communications desk, buzzed and the lieutenant who was sitting there unplugged one of the connectors and popped it into another directly below where a white light was flashing.

  “Communications Officer, Pechora early-warning centre, Lieutenant Igoshin speaking.”

  The two other officers looked over, hearing the tinny voice reverberating in the earpiece of the handset. The lieutenant looked flustered.

  “Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir.”

  The officer held out the handset. “It’s Comrade Colonel Perov for you, sir, from Serpukhov-15. He says it’s urgent.”

  Major Shvernick made his way over to the wall-mounted communications block, the orange radar screen to the right flickering but showing no activity, and grabbed the handset.

  “Major Shvernick, sir.”

  “Are you getting any indications of a missile launch, Major?”

  “No, sir, nothing.”

  “Are you certain?”

  The major peered at the orange screen which received the input from the giant radar above. The ‘Russian Woodpecker’, as it was known, was notorious for the radio signal that could be sporadically heard on shortwave radio bands worldwide. It sounded like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise, hence the nickname. The high-powered, 10MW output, over-the-horizon radar system was another link in the anti-ballistic missile warning system chain.

  “Nothing, sir, clear as a bell.”

  “Has it been tested recently?”

  “Yes, sir, prior to our exercise starting. It is functioning perfectly. If there was a missile launch, we would have seen it by now. Is there a problem, sir?”

  “No, Major, no problems. Thank you.”

  Shvernick replaced the handset into its wall-mounted cradle. “Strange.” He shrugged his shoulders and ordered, “Right, Captain, I want to do a full tour of the facility and it had better be at 100 per cent. Lead the way.”

  Back at Serpukhov-15, Perov handed the receiver to the duty communications officer.

  “Well, sir, anything?”

  “No, they’ve picked up nothing. It’s all clear at their end.”

  “Shall I call a general alert, sir?”

  “No, stand down.”

  “But, sir, there are five missiles heading straight for the motherland. We have to retaliate,” insisted Lieutenant Azarov, a slight panic in his voice.

  “They’ve gone,” jumped in Captain Bezrukov. “They’ve just disappeared off the screen.”

  Perov peered over his shoulder. The five blinking lights of potential intercontinental nuclear ballistic missiles heading towards the Soviet Union had gone. The screen was blank, with only a little atmospheric noise remaining.

  Chapter 7

  CHANTICLEER, UK GOVERNMENT EMERGENCY WAR HEADQUARTERS, CORSHAM. 4 NOVEMBER 1983.

  THE RED EFFECT −8 MONTHS.

  The Prime Minister’s chauffeured car, an armour-plated Jaguar, followed by a Range Rover containing her close protection team, drove at a fairly leisurely speed down the A4, Bath Road, in between the village of Corsham and Lower Rudloe. They passed a triangular- shaped copse on their right; hidden within it, one of the many concealed sections of the secret complex they were heading for.

  A hundred or so yards further on, the driver turned left onto leafy lane, making their way towards Westwells Road. They passed a large grassed mound on their right; Personnel-Lift-1 concealed within, its two entrances disappearing inside; alongside it, the guardhouse controlling who would be admitted and who could leave by this route. Continuing east, and after only a short drive, the driver swung left into Old Shaft Road, being waved through at the checkpoint by a Ministry of Defence police officer as the Prime Minister’s party was expected. Parking up next to the Personnel-Lift-2, the PM’s close protection officer slid out of the passenger seat of the Jaguar, scanning the area quickly, even though they were in a secure area. The Range Rover pulled up a few yards away, disgorging the rest of the close protection team; the armed, plain-clothes policemen securing the area to ensure their charge, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Harriet Willis, was protected.

  A second Ministry of Defence policeman escorted them to the upper landing of Lift 2. Two lifts were available for them to use. Heaving back one of the blue-green, heavy concertina lift doors, followed by the inner secure cage door which rattled back until it was flush against the right-hand wall, the lift was now accessible. The policeman, the Prime Minister and a close protection officer entered the spacious, wood-panelled lift, a row of half a dozen wooden, collapsible chairs lined each side. The policeman slid the door shut with a clang as it locked into the latch, followed by the cage; then he manipulated the brass rotary controller and the lift car, installed in 1941, descended the one hundred feet to the lower level.

  The Prime Minister made small talk with the security officer, a long-serving member of the MOD police force who had met the PM on a previous occasion. The lift lurched to a halt and the officer excused himself as he pulled back the internal lift gate on the opposite end, followed by the heavy concertina door. A slightly dank, musty smell, filled the air and the PM’s nose wrinkled slightly. The Prime Minister, met by an aide, exited the lift, followed by her tall, suited protection officer, and stepped out onto the lower lift landing. She was offered a ride on one of the battery-powered vehicles used to move around the underground site, but she refused, preferring to walk.

  The PM, the aide and her CP officer, headed for their destination: the map room in Area 14. Their footsteps reverberated in the large concrete and sometimes brick-lined area of the bunker complex. The fluorescent lights cast an eery, unnatural glow over their route. Crossing the main road was a broad underground roadway, a kilometre long, that stretched from west to east, linking Personnel-Lift-1 to Personnel-Lift-2, the one they had just exited. Above them, some four metres in height, the concrete ceiling looked cold and damp, lined with pipes, ducting and cables, feeding the entire complex.

  The Government Emergency War Headquarters, GEWHQ, was situated amongst a 260-acre network of government buildings below which lay, half a kilometre long and 600 metres wide, an underground blast and radiation-proof bunker. Construction of the bunker had begun in the late 1950s, requiring a fairly substantial upgrade at the onset of the intercontinental ballistic missile era. As well as blast-proofed, it was self-sufficient and could sustain the intended 4,000 occupants, in the event of a Cold War nuclear attack, in isolation from the rest of the country, for up to three months. It was, in effect, an underground city, equipped with a hospital, canteen, kitchen, laundry facilities, dormitories, storerooms and even an underground lake, along with a water treatment plant, that would provide them with all the water they would need.

  The party entered a corridor between Area 12 on the left, the kitchens and dining area, and Area 13 on the right that housed the Ministry of Power and the Ministry of Agriculture. As the country was not at war, both areas were currently empty. They soon arrived at Area 14, the zone designated as the Prime Minister’s Office, Cabinet Offices, Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet. Other areas within the labyrinth housed a general post office, a GPO telephone exchange, plant, such as generators, government communications centre, the War Office, Air Ministry, a BBC studio and more.

  The map room in Area 14 was a bleak space in comparison with the cabinet rooms back at number 10 Downing Street, twenty metres by twenty metres, with concrete walls, floor and ceiling lit by fluorescent tubes. A group of tables had been pushed togethe
r to form one long conference table in the centre; a dozen wooden chairs, with red padded seats, were placed around it. To the left of the room, three large floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Cabinet Office conference room; to the right, a large three-metre by two-metre-wide map of the world was on display.

  Chairs scraped back as six men stood up, two wearing suits, four in the military uniforms of their respective services. Lawrence Holmes, the Secretary of State for Defence, his thick shock of greying hair brushed back at the top and sides, strode forward to greet her. “Prime Minister, welcome to our salubrious map room.” He smiled, his prominent eyebrows raised slightly as they shook hands. The Secretary of State for Defence and the Prime Minister were often at odds with each other, but today they were on neutral ground.

  “Thank you, Lawrence.” She walked to the end of the conference table. Jeremy Chapman, her Home Secretary, two small, dark curls prominent on his forehead, his hair starting to recede at the sides, also came forward to greet her. “Prime Minister.”

  The PM shook his hand then turned to the four men lined up on the other side of the table. “Thank you for attending today, gentlemen. We shall try not to keep you away from your duties for too long.” She walked around and shook the hand of each one in turn: the First Sea Lord Alistair Palmer; Air Marshal Edward Walker; Thomas Fletcher, Chief of the Defence Staff; and Dominic Hamilton, resplendent in his full general’s uniform, Chief of the General Staff.

  “Well, gentlemen, let’s get to it, shall we?” She walked back to the head of the table and sat down, an aide in the process of pouring her a glass of water. “It’s not from the underground lake, I hope?”