The crated parcels from Raytheon Corporation had been stolen in the month prior to Green being brought onboard the project. He knew that all he had to do was pull the trigger and the illegal weapons from the United States would do the rest. The seeker heads had been changed out in San Diego before their shipment to South Korea-they were now the largest heat seekers the world had ever seen.
The two Vought ASM-135 ASAT missiles had gone through extensive testing at Raytheon in the late eighties, and then when the antisatellite missile treaty was signed between the United States and the Soviet Union they were crated and stored at the testing facility, never to see action.
Tommy Green had been offered $3 million for this one mission, with more money and missions to follow, but after speaking with the financial backer many times in prison, through the thick glass of the visitor center, Green had decided he was doing it because that’s what the Lord wished him to do. The money had been declined on the promise that he would have the opportunity for all of the missions if they became viable.
A man in a dark pair of slacks and a nice pullover shirt stepped up and slapped Green on the back.
“Well, the Chinese launch in twenty minutes, at 0615,” James McCabe said as he looked the pilot over. “You’ll taxi at exactly the same time. I am told to tell you good luck, Captain, and that your martyrdom, if it happens, will be the plague that brings down Pharaoh.”
“Praise the Lord,” Green said as he slid on his black helmet. “I only wish I could call out to the world as the hand of God reaches out for the heathen’s rocketry and say, Thou art great!”
McCabe watched the man climb up the ladder and into the cockpit. He shook his head and stepped back. He now knew why so many millions upon millions of deaths had been brought on by religious wars. It was because the true believer was the most dangerous animal of all. He waved his hand one last time as Green looked his way and saluted.
McCabe stepped away as the twin GE turbofans started turning on the old and venerable F-14 Super Tomcat. As the hangar doors rose and the morning sunlight diffused the bright fluorescents inside, McCabe turned and left for the car that would take him to his private jet, where he would fly out before all international airspace was closed-and before the Chinese started looking in earnest for the murderers of their space crews.
“The fireworks are about to begin,” McCabe said as he settled into the backseat of the limo. The powerful F-14 Tomcat pulled free of its hangar with two gleaming white claws attached to its sides in the form of the most powerful anti-satellite missiles ever created.
The F-14 received immediate clearance to taxi to runway 3B. The controller watching from the large tower glanced out the window and saw the polished white jet as it sped to the taxi line. The voice on the Tomcat’s radio had an American accent, but as the controller adjusted his binoculars he saw for the first time that the American-built aircraft had South Korean military markings on its fuselage and wings. As he pondered the strangeness of the plane’s identification, his eyes widened. He saw what was strung along the underbelly of the large naval fighter. Because Inchon International was so close to the North Korean border, it was agreed between North and South that no military aircraft could take off armed as this one obviously was. The South Korean air force was not even allowed to place dummy bombs and missiles on their aircraft, as this was not a military airfield and the North might just mistake the flight as a first strike attempt.
The controller lowered the glasses and reached for the large alarm button on his console. He knew he had to alert the airport security staff and the air force of this attempted military flight. Just as the alarm sounded the controller knew he would be too late even as all controllers calmly told their departing flights to hold at their present locations.
The F-14 Tomcat roaring down the runway was the last to lift into the blue sky.
The ASM-135 ASAT space weapons were about to spread their wings for the first time in actual space combat.
JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER, GOBI DESERT, CHINA
The ten active launch pads at Jiuquan were guarded heavily after the debacle in Kazakhstan. The People’s Republic had brought in five hundred specially trained army personnel to oversee the security aspects of the flight center.
Launch pads 1-C and 7-A were active for the historic Chinese flights. This was the first Chinese manned mission intended to reach the lunar surface. Two massive Long March 8s, the second largest rocket system in the world, sat at their launch towers complete with the Zihuang lunar landers. Each Long March had a crew of ten Chinese air force personnel aboard. The mission had been planned so rapidly that the Chinese engineers were still evaluating the return specs for the two-capsule twenty-man flights. Nothing had been assured, not even a successful landing on the Moon.
The three-staged Long March launch system had four solid rocket boosters attached to the mainframe of the rocket. The main system itself had four powerful Shang-7 engines, almost equal in thrust to the American version from which the engines had been “borrowed” in the late seventies. At T-minus thirty seconds and counting, all four hundred engineers in the nearby control center watched with wide eyes as the elevator system and fuel hoses started popping free of the two giant rockets. Television cameras from China’s state-run facilities were carrying the launch to over 800 million Chinese on a five-minute delayed “live” broadcast.
The first rocket and crew to be lifted from the pad was named Glorious March. The second was Magnificent Dragon. Each was hastily built and each of the twenty-man crews knew that an explosion was more likely that a clean liftoff. But no crew member, even the military personnel who were prepared to do battle if necessary, would have traded places with any other man or woman on Earth. Every rocket had a glorious red band separating each of its three stages, and each band had the golden Chinese stars encircling it, with the stars ultimately shooting off toward the next stage in line. Other than that bit of color, each system was ivory white and stood out magnificently against the clear morning sky above the Gobi. Finally, at T-minus ten seconds, the loudspeakers came to life as the crowds of reporters watched on the chilly morning.
“… ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, we have main engine start,” the Chinese announcer called from the mission control building as the four main engines fired, sending a tremendous cloud of gases and fire free of the spacecraft. “… two, one, we have solid booster ignition on all four solid rocket boosters.”
Every journalist present could hear the excitement in the voice of the announcer as he watched the cloud of hot gases pour out of the engines on launch pad 1-C. The cameras zoomed in as the first movement of the giant rocket became apparent. The extending arms that carried oxygen and fuel to the main engines finally separated and the vehicle started to move. The clock was now running on Glorious March as its bulk lifted free of the Earth. Before it cleared the tower’s uppermost reaches, the ten-second countdown of Magnificent Dragon began. The same sequence sent the main engines to flame as Glorious March fully cleared the giant tower. Men and women, engineers from around the world, couldn’t help themselves, from Houston to Guiana, to Baikonur Cosmodrome, men and women from every country stood and cheered or pounded their fists as the two Chinese rockets cleared the restraints of Earth’s gravity. No one ever wanted to see astronauts die or an attempt at space fail. It was a human weakness to see greatness and cheer it.
The two massive rockets rotated, sending their bulk dangerously close to the stall point as they rolled 15 degrees in the clear sky above the desert. Reporters from the world over were stunned at the power of the Long March launch system as the ground still shook beneath their feet. The Glorious March led the way, followed four miles behind by Magnificent Dragon as the first stages separated.
The Chinese mission to the Moon had begun.
***
The F-14 Tomcat climbed at a 45 degree angle. Then, as Green watched with his dark visor down, he saw the bright red and gold plumes of the two launches out o
f the Gobi. His radio was crackling with warnings from the North Koreans and the Chinese that the Tomcat was in violation of their joint airspace. Green reached out and shut down his communication system. He then pushed the Tomcat’s throttle as far forward as it could go, sending JP-4 jet fuel into the exhaust of the nacelles. The exhaust rings expanded and the F-14 was pushed into afterburner. Green pulled the stick straight back into his belly and the Tomcat turned nose up as it started its climb through the Earth’s lower atmosphere.
As he climbed, Green raised the small protective cover on his control stick and pushed the blue button. The seeker head in the first ASAT came to life as it started its infrared sweep of the area in front of the F-14. First one and then the other missile locked on its particular target-each of the two Chinese rockets as they climbed for high Earth orbit.
“It’s in God’s hands now,” Green said, as he thumbed the red switch. He closed his eyes and again whispered an almost silent prayer as the first ASM-135 ASAT left its launch rail. With the Tomcat facing straight up into the air, the missile’s exhaust streamed back along the clear canopy of the jet, fogging the plastic. The plane was starting to shudder as it fought for altitude against the turbulence created by the giant ASAT, which was now trying desperately to close the gap between it and the second stage of the Long March rockets. The Tomcat’s GE engines fought and struggled for air in the high reaches of sky.
As Green switched seeker heads and missiles, he locked on to the Magnificent Dragon as it lagged behind the first rocket. He pushed the trigger and waited three seconds as the powerful engine of the ASAT cleared the aircraft. Green immediately pulled away as his starboard engine started to flame out due to a lack of breathable air. Green swung the jet over onto its back and then he rolled and fell into a nose-down dive for the deck. It was at that exact moment that his threat radar illuminated from the west and the east. He was being tracked by air-to-air weapons.
“Thank you, Lord, for this final challenge, this last test of my faith and my allegiance to your cause,” he said into his oxygen mask as he saw the eight radar blips on his screen. Chinese and North Korean fighters were trying to prevent him from reaching the Sea of Japan, where his rescue boat was to be waiting for him. Green smiled and switched the control stick selector to guns, as he knew he had no defensive or offensive missiles left. In fact, they had never been loaded. “As I walk into the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…”
The Tomcat dove straight into the advancing communist fighters as the first ASAT found its target.
***
The giant first stage separated with a bright flash as the controllers followed the ascending rockets on the long-range telemetry and photo analysis provided by a MiG-31 chase plane. As the fighter climbed on afterburners, its cameras, three still and two video, transmitted a continuous stream of pictures to mission control. Suddenly, a dark object streaked toward the leading Long March just as its first stage separated from the second. All eyes watched as the bright flash of exploding bolts and the ignition of the second stage blurred the picture momentarily, and when it cleared they saw the object and were horrified when they recognized it as a streaking missile. Just as the ASAT’s radar and IR seeker head came into the thirty-foot-diameter target range, the missile broke apart and a ten-pound explosive charge detonated, sending out five thousand ball-bearing-sized steel projectiles. The bulk of them struck the empty first stage as it fell back to Earth, but enough fought their way through the disturbed air and heat to connect with the three engines of the second stage. They struck the exhaust bells of the engines and punctured through the fuel lines that provided the combustion chambers the needed oxygen and nitrogen mix.
As millions of eyes watched in horror, the second stage simply vanished in a white and red plume of fire. The second and third stages fell apart in the expanding fireball that sent the lunar lander smashing up and into the ten-man compartment of the crew module. The debris expanded even further, slowly spiraling in all directions as the Long March ceased to exist in the blink of an eye.
The witnesses to the tragic happening then noticed another streak of light as it plowed through the remains of the first rocket. A second antisatellite missile shot upward and was on track to strike the Magnificent Dragon as the first spent stage went flying past the ASAT. As luck and fate would have it, a fortuitous accident occurred. The remaining fuel of the solid propellant rocket boosters was being spent even though the first stage had separated cleanly. As they spun out of control, falling back toward the Earth, a sudden burst of flame shot from the exhaust nozzle of one of the boosters, catching the ASAT as it flew past. The heat was tremendous and burned through the hard plastic nose cone of its seeker head. With molten circuit boards and damaged processing units, the ASAT exploded before its outer casing could be blown free; thus the ball bearing shrapnel was slowed by 50 percent of its normal velocity. The particles shot up and over the second stage, scraping along the aluminum fuselage and then past the third stage where only five of the steel balls penetrated the outer casing into the lunar lander’s protective shell. The rest, over a hundred fragments, hit the crew module, three of them penetrating.
The crewmen reacted fast, even though they had little training in this event, as it had not been foreseen. The three holes threatened to destabilize their environment, and as the second stage fired and separated from the third, the crew managed in spite of the g-forces that threatened to crush them to place three plastic patches against the holes that appeared as if by magic.
The ten-man crew didn’t know what had happened either to them or to the Glorious March, but they did know that one of their three computer systems was out along with their radar. The communications module was damaged and they were leaking oxygen.
On the ground, multitudes watched as the third stage of the Magnificent Dragon reached lower orbit and kept climbing, barely escaping the death that had caught her sister ship. All at once a thousand voices started shouting out their troubles from the various telemetry stations.
The Magnificent Dragon had achieved orbit, but no one knew yet if it could stay there, much less continue on to the Moon.
***
Sixteen miles away, Tommy Green didn’t know if his crusade had achieved the desired effect as he scrambled to get the F-14 out of North Korean airspace. There were now ten MiG-31s on his tail and he doubted if escape was in his future, but he suspected it had never been in the plans of his employers. He should have been angry, or disappointed, but he knew he had been given the choice, and God had helped make the decision for him.
With no thought of regret or remorse, Thomas Green, former captain in the United States Navy, and a devout follower of Samuel Rawlins, turned the F-14 Tomcat around and headed straight toward his pursuers. He released the clip on his oxygen mask and started saying the Lord’s Prayer as he pointed the Tomcat’s nose at the flight leader and opened fire with his rotary cannon. To his surprise, the barrel started its electrically driven spin, but no twenty-millimeter rounds came out of the rotating barrel. Green smiled and shook his head, not feeling betrayed in the least. After all, he thought, the mission parameters were such that his trail could not lead back to McCabe or Rawlins. Their work was far from complete, while his duty to God was.
Green closed his eyes a split second before six Chinese-made Luoyang PL-12 active-radar-guided missiles slammed into his Tomcat, scattering small pieces over the Sea of Japan.
8
BERLIN, GERMANY
The four men listened to the BBC radio broadcast and heard the news just after midnight in Berlin. None of them could believe the audacity and firepower the unseen forces were bringing to bear. Jack and the others knew now that it had to be McCabe behind what was happening. The memory of the crated weapons systems haunted the men as they sat listening to the report on the loss of life involved in the Chinese incident.
“These nuts are serious,” Everett said, staring out of the windshield at the darkened street beyond.
“It seems to me that all of these governments would be more than ready to stop this foolishness and cooperate now that people are dying for nothing,” Ellenshaw said from the backseat, as he stared without interest at his McDonald’s cheeseburger.
“You’d think,” Jack said, as he adjusted the small dome light. He had begun reading the file the German commando had delivered to him. “You’ll soon learn, Charlie, that once a course of action has been initiated by any government, it’s harder to stop than an avalanche.” Jack stopped talking when he came across a picture captioned “1947-Spandau.” He saw the face he had been looking for. It was a group photo of sixteen American officers lined up in front of the Spandau military prison.
“Here’s our boy,” Jack said, as he slid the photo out of the file and handed it to Everett.
“That’s him, all right, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t look as familiar as he did before. He’s a lieutenant colonel, I can see that. But I can’t see his shoulder patch. The commanding officer of the prison is listed, but his staff isn’t.”
“Here’s the list of the only seven prisoners ever kept there,” Collins said, passing the list to Carl, who handed the photo to Golding and Ellenshaw in the backseat. “Notice something odd?”
Everett read the list aloud. “Rudolf Hess, life sentence, died 1987. Walther Funk, life sentence, released 16 May 1957. Erich Raeder, life sentence, released 1955. Albert Speer, twenty-year sentence, released 1966. Baldur von Schirach, twenty-year sentence, released 1966. Konstantin von Neurath received a fifteen-year sentence but was released in 1954. Admiral Karl Donitz served a ten-year term and was released in 1956.” Everett scanned the rest of the original roster and he indeed noticed something. “No mention of our boy Joss Zinsser.”
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