Dale Brown - Flight Of The Old Dog

by Flight Of The Old Dog [lit]

  "Understand no structural damage," Watanabe reported back. "Could not copy the rest. Send a runner forward with a report on the double. The ship is on Condition Yellow. Repeat, Condition Yellow."

  "Copy."

  Markham dropped the phone back on its hook.

  "All right, now hear this," he called out into the pitch-dark intel section. "The ship is on Condition Yellow. Everyone, one more check of your area for damage and sing out. Kelly!"

  "Yes... yes, sir?"came the broken, timid voice again.

  "You wanna leave so fast, here's your chance. Get up here. "The young seaman ran forward. "You're the runner for our section. You don't go topside without a parka, arctic mittens, life vest, and a lifeline-and this time use the damn thing."

  Markham pushed the youngster aside and peered into the gloom of his now-impotent electronic stateroom. "Listen up.

  Any damage?Water?Cracks?Gas?Strange sounds?Sing out.

  No reply "Move out, Kelly Tell Watanabe no damage. Tell him I'll give a report on operational status myself later. "Kelly nodded and disappeared through the useless magnetic-lock security door and into the storm beyond.

  Markham started to make his way aft through his dark, dead multimillion dollar intelligence section. "Anything?"he asked no one in particular. "Battery backups?Printer buffers?

  Anything?"

  "I've got nothing," one operator asked. "That entire battery backup system we had installed is dead. It doesn't work for shit."

  "What the hell hit us?"someone else asked. "All my sensors and screens flared, like a huge power surge.then-POOF."

  "All right, all right," Markham said, pulling on an orange life vest.

  "if you don't have anything recoverable, forget it.

  Pair up and start collecting your hard copy printouts. You'll have to use the hand-crank shredders if Engineering can't get the power back on. If that doesn't work, or if you start to backlog, we'll bag the printouts and start a bonfire in the dumpster on deck. Masters, Lee, suit up and get that dumpster now. No sense in waiting until the Russians start boarding us.

  The two men hurried off.

  "Printer ribbons, handwritten notes, logbooks, memos, scribbles," Markham recited as he began to pace the aisle, monitoring the destruction preparations. "Astleman, goddamnit, put that life vest on!"Markham made his way over to Garrity's station and knelt down to face the veteran intelligence man.

  "What was it, Garrity?"

  Garrity ripped the cover off his computer printer's ribbon cartridge and wadded up the ribbon. When he turned toward Markham, there was genuine fear in his eyes.

  "I could see it comin'," he whispered. "It was like...

  like a wave of energy It kept on building up, then everything went dark."

  "Kavaznya?"Markham whispered. "Did it come from Kavaznya?"

  Garrity nodded, wiping a carbon-blackened hand across his sweating forehead. "Whatever the Russians got out there, Commander, if it didn't blow us out of the Pacific, it at least tagged something' else for sure WASHINGTON, D.C. "Where the hell is he?"Curtis asked Jack Pledgeman, the President's press secretary, who was trying to ignore the four star general.

  "He's late," Curtis said, loud enough for everyone in the White House Conference Room to hear. Fortunately, the only ones who paid any attention were members of the President's immediate staff and Cabinet who were quite accustomed to Curtis' outbursts. The two dozen cameramen and technicians, Fill, putting in final touches to their extensive camera and lighting gear, were too intent on their work to notice. And the members of the White House press corps and other correspondents were outside, hoping to corral the President in the hallway for one on-one questions before the scheduled morning Cabinet photo session.

  Curtis punched a palm in irritation. "When he hears what-" "Dammit, General, keep it down," Pledgeman interrupted.

  "Those tapes are rolling over there."

  "They won't be-" "I asked you to-" Pledgemen didn't get to finish. At that instant, the President strode quickly into the room. The men and women at the large oblong conference table rose to their feet. The President was followed closely by a tight knot of reporters and correspondents. Cameras and lights clicked on and filled the room with a buzz.

  The President brushed deep, thick brown hair from his forehead and waved toward the seats. "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats. "Nobody sat down until the President had stepped over the yards of sound and light cables taped to the rich carpeting and reached his executive's chair.

  A bright floodlight snapped on directly in front of the President, right over the Secretary of Health and Human Services' head. "If you don't mind?"the President said, scowling at the light. "You're going to fry one of my people."

  The light was immediately extinguished. The President nodded his thanks, removed his half-lens Ben Franklin glasses, and wiped them with a handkerchief. Pledgernan quietly admonished the photographer and pointed to a twelve-inchsquare opening in a distant corner where he could set up his camera.

  "Quite a crowd today, eh, Jack?"the President said to his press secretary. Pledgeman nodded. The President replaced his glasses on his nose and looked over his agenda for the meeting, a shortened and mostly staged version of a formal Cabinet meeting.

  A network television anchorwoman, microphone in hand, was stepping quickly into the place vacated by the cameraman.

  General Curtis steered himself around her, maneuvered around the backs of the chairs occupied by the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, and finally made his way to the President's side. He arrived just as the anchorwoman took one last glance at her notes and smiled at the President. She, not Curtis, had the President's full attention.

  "Mr. President, before we get started, I'd like to ask you-" Simultaneously, Curtis bent down between the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Preston, and the President. He said in a halfwhisper, "Mr. President, I have some important developments that can't wait.

  The President, eyes drawn to the attractive Oriental newswoman, scarcely noticed Curtis. The general's deep voice interrupted the woman's question.

  Pledgernan, on the alert for this sort of embarrassing scene, stepped between the newswoman and the Secretary of Agriculture at the conference table.

  "Problem, General?"Pledgeman asked quietly.

  General Curtis leaned closer to the President. "Sir, I must speak with you immediately. There are new developments at that... power facility we talked about.

  "After the Cabinet meeting," Pledgeman said.

  Curtis hesitated.

  "Wilbur, it has to wait," the President finally said."is it an immediate emergency?"

  Everyone watched Curtis. No one knew exactly what an "immediate" emergency was, but it would be plastered all over page one of every newspaper in the country if he said yes. "Coming directly from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the classification "immediate emergency" ould mean only one thing. He'd have some tough explaining to do.

  "It'll have to wait, General," Pledgernan said, repeating the President's words. "We must get started here."

  "I'll be in my office as soon as I'm through here, General," the President said as Curtis was ushered out by one of Pledgeman's associates.

  As the door to the conference room slammed behind him, Curtis turned on his aide.

  "Colonel Wyatt, you will stand here and wait for the President. The instant he comes out of that room, you are to confront him and remind him that I am waiting for him in the Oval Office. Tell him that it is now a matter of national security. Don't speak with anyone else but the President. If Pledgeman or anyone else tells you differently, you have a direct order from me to bust him in the chops. All clear?"

  Wyatt, amazed at his boss' behavior, nodded and watched as the general marched down the corridor.

  "It's incredible. Absolutely incredible."

  The President of the United States stared out the window of the White House Oval Office, making the announcement to the gently falling flakes of snow outside. General
Wilbur Curtis collected the sheaves of notes and computer printouts, glanced at the Secretary of Defense, Thomas Preston, and sat down.

  Secretary of State Marshall Brent stood at the opposite side of the President's cherry desk, looking over copies of the intelligence analysis Kenneth Mitchell, the CIA director, had shown the President.

  United Nations Ambassador Gregory Adams sat on a couch, seething as he thought of Karmarov's apparent duplicity at the Security Council session.

  "Merry goddamn Christmas," the President muttered.

  For the first time in months, Curtis felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders. He's finally beginning to believe me, Curtis thought. It had taken the deaths of twelve men and women and the loss of a billion dollars worth of military hardware, plus the new evidence in hand.

  "But how can we be sure that this is an orbiting mirror, General?"the President asked over his shoulder, not bothering to turn away from the window. He was holding an eleven-by-fourteen black-and-white enlargement of a large, rectangular object. The object was silvery and slightly curved, with a surface resembling a reflective quilted blanket. A thin web of girders surrounded it, along with several oblong tanks and other vessels.

  "Mr. President, the evidence indicates that-" "The President asked you a specific question, General," Tom Preston interrupted. "How can we be sure?"

  "We can't be sure, Mr. President," Curtis asked. "That photo could be various things-solar collection panels, solar shielding but look at the facts: Our RC-135 recon plane records massive energy discharge from the Kavaznya facility.

  Simultaneously, we record the destruction of a geosynchronous satellite directly over the complex in space. I believe the RC-135 was destroyed by another energy blast to keep it from reporting the data it was gathering.

  "Less than two weeks later, the Lawrence intelligence vessel we sent over there to monitor the site records another massive energy blast from the Kavaznya site. Seconds later, the third stage of our Midgetman missile prematurely ignites and we are forced to destroy it.

  Information from the Lawrence exactly matches the data on the blast that we received from the RC-135 before we lost contact-" Secretary of Defense Preston interrupted. "So how does that prove there's an orbiting mirror, General Curtis?"

  "Before the energy blast, the Lawrence reported unusual data signals being transmitted from the Kavaznya radar," Curtis went on. "Their information is still being analyzed, but the experts on the Lawrence have described data transmissions between the radar at Kavaznya and two Soviet satellites in Earth orbit.

  "They believe the first satellite was furnishing position data to Kavaznya during the time that the Midgetman missile was in the boost phase. The Kavaznya radar was tracking a second satellite and was also furnishing steering signals to it. Such sophisticated steering signals could be used to align a mirror on the missile.

  "After the destruction of the Javelin missile was reported, I ordered a simple backtrack. Assuming a lesser blast from Kavaznya-which we didn't know at first since the Lawrence's report hadn't reached us yet-and again assuming an orbiting mirror, we computed all the possible points where a mirror would have to be placed to hit the Javelin, and used our Spacetrack optical space tracking telescope at Pulmosan, South Korea to photograph those sections of the sky.

  "You have the result, sir," Curtis said, forcing down his anger. To be fair, he told himself, it wasn't that the President did not believe him --he didn't want to believe him. "The mirror is one hundred and fifty feet long, seventy feet wide. It is attached to the underside of Salyut Nineteen, which has been in orbit for almost a year. The satellite has docking bays, large fuel tanks, and small crew quarters although we do not believe it's manned.

  arsa Brent motioned to the President, who passed the photograph to him.

  He examined it quickly.

  "I assume your experts analyzed this photo for you, General?"Brent asked.

  "Yes. Why?"

  "Because to the untrained layman's eyes, this could be a photograph of anything," Brent asked. "Any satellite. An aircraft.

  "But it's not-" "It could even be faked?"Brent was testing, which he considered his job.

  "Do you want me to send a Shuttle full of U.N. members up with Brownies to take snapshots?"

  Brent started to reply but was cut off by the President.

  "General, I think I believe your analysis," the President said unhappily. "But who is going to believe such a thing exists?

  And we risk much by accusing the Soviet Union of murder The President turned to Kenneth Mitchell. "Kenneth, you said you had information on that site. Can you give it to me now?"

  "Yes, sir. "The Director of the CIA nodded to an aide, who stood nervously and faced the President.

  "Analysis of data from the missing RC-135 aircraft as well as information obtained from the Lawrence has been completed. Much of it is still speculative, sir."

  "Go on," the President said irritably.

  "Most of our analysis centers around the nuclear power facility, sir.

  They have built what appears to be a five hundred megawatt facility in the middle of nowhere, without any associated power transmission facilities such as transformers or transmission towers nearby.

  Therefore, the power plant is at the exclusive disposal of the complex itself. The complex is located on the northeast corner of the Kamchatka peninsula, in what used to be a small fishing village. Its small supply airfield was rebuilt into a full-scale military airfield, originally for construction supply but now used as a headquarters for the site's defenses. About ten thousand people live in the area, civilian and military."

  The aide shifted nervously as all eyes focused on him. "The intelligence vessel Lawrence has provided valuable data on the energy blasts reported from the complex, and we have concluded that a laser blast of approximately two or three hundred megawatts could have caused the electronic interference reported in the area and could indeed have sufficiently damaged both the Alpha Omega satellite and the Javelin missile. The power of the tracking radar could only have come from the nuclear power plant."

  "Weren't we watching the construction of the facility?"the 1

  President asked. "How could they build something of this magnitude and then spring it on us so suddenly?Why were we so surprised?"

  "CIA and DIA have been watching the construction of Kavaznya for four years, sir," Mitchell said, "but... well, to tell the truth, sir, we really didn't think too much of their activities there. It has been impossible to get informants anywhere near the complex. We had noticed activity akin to weapons experiments or construction there, so we pegged it simply as a new weapons research facility. The powerful radar wasn't found until the RC-135 mission. We never imaginedwe had no idea that the Russians were building an antisatellite or antiballistic-missile laser there."

  Are we really that arrogant," the President said to everyone in the room. "If the Americans can't do it, nobody can. Is that it?"

  Mitchell was quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat and nodded to his aide to continue. The President didn't let him.

  "So we are decided," the President asked, "that there exists a powerful antiballistic-missile laser device at this Kavaznya complex?"

  Mitchell glanced at Preston, then at Curtis. "The data seems all but conclusive, Mr. President."

  "Goddamn," the President murmured, then nodded at Mitchell's aide: "Go on."

  "As I've said, the Soviets have constructed a huge power plant exclusively for use by the killer laser. They can easily pump over three hundred megawatts into their laser, and they can continue to do so shot after shot. We believe, once they've worked the kinks out-it won't be long now-that they can fire the laser at full power twice every second. Potentially, over a hundred satellites a minute."

  "Or I.C.B.M warheads," the President said.

  "That's only a projection, sir," Mitchell interjected. "Hitting a geosynchronous satellite is a relatively easy trick.

  Besides, the Omega was only blinded-th
e Air Force had to push it into the atmosphere themselves because it was out of control and they were trying to retrieve it intact if possible.

  That means the laser is not as powerful as we originally believed.

  "And the Midgetman missile was only slightly damaged by the laser. We had to abort it," Mitchell continued. "As a matter of fact, we don't agree with General Curtis that the laser caused the missile to malfunction. There are a number of things that could have caused the premature third stage ignition-" "The laser could easily have caused it to malfunction," Curtis said.

  "General, I agree it could," Mitchell said, raising a hand.

  "But that's your conclusion-not the CIA:s. Finding and hitting an I.C.B.M warhead is infinitely more difficult than finding and hitting these other targets we've been talking about. The Omega the Soviets downed is several times larger than an I.C.B.M warhead, and it was stationary.