by Ben Bova
“Watch everything,” Harry said. “And everybody.”
Reyes nodded. Rosenberg said, “And who’s going to watch you, el jefe?”
Karen Christopher heard O’Banion’s voice in her headphone, clipped and businesslike. “Message from Andrews coming through, ma’am.”
“Put it through,” she commanded.
“It’s printing out. No voice.”
Colonel Christopher glanced over at Kaufman in the right-hand seat. He’d just come back into the cockpit after flaking out on one of the bunks built into the rear of the flight deck. Still, he looked pouchy-eyed, weary.
“How do you feel, Obie?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” he said, clicking the safety harness over his shoulders.
Kaufman hesitated a heartbeat, then asked, “You know the routine for aiming at a missile?”
She nodded. “Point the nose at the rocket exhaust plume. Easy.”
He nodded back at her. “Yeah. Easy. In the simulator.”
Christopher heard the sarcasm in his tone. She thought about her copilot for a couple of moments, then decided to sweeten his life a little.
“Can you handle it by yourself for a few minutes?” she asked the major.
“Sure!”
Christopher smiled inwardly. That was every copilot’s answer whenever he was asked to take the controls. Sure! They want to fly, not watch the boss do the flying.
“Okay,” she said, unbuckling her safety harness. “It’s all yours.”
“Right,” said Kaufman.
The colonel slid out of her chair, took off the heavy flight helmet and left it on the seat, then stepped through the cockpit hatch. Lieutenant Sharmon was at his station, a stack of charts on his lap and still another map on his console’s main screen.
The lieutenant looked up at Christopher. “Rendezvous in fifty-three minutes,” he said.
“Fine,” said Christopher. She gave Sharmon a light pat on the shoulder and turned to O’Banion, who was pulling a freshly typed sheet from the printer built into his communications rack. She could see TOP SECRET emblazoned on it in bright red capital letters.
O’Banion passed it to her without reading it.
From Brad again, she saw. Major General B. B. Scheib, Deputy Commander MDA. Skipping past the formalities, she got down to the meat of the message.
1. Refueling tanker experiencing engine troubles, diverted to Misawa AFB for repair. Refueling rendezvous now scheduled for 1100 hours ZULU.
Christopher made a swift mental calculation. We’ve crossed the date line; eleven hundred Zulu time is 9:00 a.m. here.
2. If refueling rendezvous is further delayed, you have the option of canceling rendezvous and diverting to Misawa AFB and awaiting further orders.
She stared at the sheet of paper, noticing that it was shaking like a trembling aspen in her hand.
I’ve got to decide whether we hang out here over the ocean and wait for the tanker to find us or abort the whole mission and land at Misawa.
I’ve got to decide if we try to stop those damned missiles when they’re launched or put down safely in Japan.
Brad’s left it to me to decide. He’s dropped the hot potato in my damned lap.
Spokane, Washington: Northwest Regional Electrical Power Headquarters
Karl Dieter Olbricht hated trees. It had not always been so. As a youth, growing up on the windswept prairie of Nebraska, he had loved to climb the lone apple tree on the front lawn of his house. But once he started working for the local electric utility as a rugged, handsome blond lineman, he began to acquire a hatred for trees. Not all trees. Only those close enough to electrical power lines to bring the lines down if they were blown over in a storm.
If Olbricht could have his way, every tree within two miles on either side of a power line would be cut down, carted away, its roots dug up or dynamited.
He was standing with his back to the big electronic wall map at the regional headquarters, looking out the windows on the other side of the big command center. Snow was whipping past and the trees out on the parking lot were swaying as their branches loaded up with ice.
The wall map was blank, and had been since the satellites had gone dead. Olbricht had to rely on the already overloaded telephone lines to get some semblance of a picture about the situation over the three-state area. And phone lines were getting knocked out too. Cell phone service was spotty, at best.
The National Weather Service was next to useless, and without satellite data to work with, the regional power combine’s own weather forecasters were no better. In short, this storm was going to cause a mess, a frightful, dangerous, perhaps fatal mess.
The president of the regional combine burst into the command center, stamping snow off her boots. She was a large black woman who had yet to prove that she was more than affirmative action window dressing.
“What’s the story, Karl?” she called to him as she pulled off her long fur-trimmed coat and flung it on the nearest desk. “Where is everybody?”
Fewer than half the desks were occupied.
“My people are having a hard time getting through the snow,” he replied as she came up close enough for him to smell her heavy perfume.
“Tell me ‘bout it,” she said. “Highway’s blocked by a jackknifed semi. I had to detour all around hell and back. Damned near got stuck in a snowdrift coming into the parking lot.”
“It’s going to be bad,” Olbricht said gloomily.
“It’s already bad.”
He nodded. “We’re getting calls from here and there about outages. It’s spotty so far, but...”
“It’s going to cascade, isn’t it?”
“Damned right,” Olbricht muttered through gritted teeth. “We could see half a million families without power before this is through. More.”
The president looked around the half-empty command center, then back at Olbricht. “Okay. Tell me what needs doing. Give me a desk and put me to work.”
His respect for her bounded upward several notches. But he still hated trees.
The Pentagon: Situation Room
Brad Scheib walked out of the situation room, past the two Air Police men lounging in the corridor who snapped to attention at the sight of a two-star general, and headed for the men’s room, two dozen paces down the hall.
He had written the order and sent it. Karen should have it in her hands by now, he thought, unless they’re still dicking around with Need to Know crap. No, the Coggins woman said her office has set up direct links, Top Priority. If the White House can’t get a message through to Karen nobody can.
In the lavatory he went straight to the nearest sink and started washing his hands. When he realized what he was doing he laughed to himself sardonically. How biblical, he thought. Like you can get rid of your guilt with a little soap and water.
Karen’s piloting ABL-1, he said to himself. I’d like to get whatever genius assigned her to that job and stuff his balls up his nose. Like that’s going to help.
She’s out there over the North Pacific, heading toward Korea. Probably over Japan by now or close to it. The tanker’s going to be late, if those guys at Misawa get it off the ground at all. So Karen has the option of loitering around waiting for the tanker to refuel her or aborting the mission and landing at Misawa.
She’s tough, Scheib remembered. Tougher than I am. When the shit hit the fan and the board of inquiry called her in, she didn’t say a word about me. Wouldn’t tell them a thing. They thought that’d crack her, sticking her with a bus driver’s job on a stupid test program.
But now she’s in the middle of a real situation. Nuclear war, maybe. It all depends on what she does. What she can do. She won’t abort the mission. Not Karen. She’ll stooge around over the water until that tanker shows up or she runs so low on fuel she’ll have to glide back to Misawa.
Scheib almost laughed as he went from the sink to the urinal. The brass thought they were punishing her, but they’ve stuck her in the hottest spot any Air Forc
e pilot could be in right now. As he unzipped his fly, the general thought, She could come out of this a hero. Or dead.
Looking down at his penis as he stood at the urinal, Scheib muttered, “See the trouble you’ve gotten me into?”
At Misawa Air Force Base, Major Hank Wilson glared red-faced and fire-eyed at one of his oldest friends, Major Joe Dugan. Like Wilson, Dugan was squat and burly, built like an old-fashioned fireplug.
“In one hour?” Dugan squawked. “Are you nuts, Hank?”
“In one hour,” Wilson said, his voice murderously low. “I want that frickin’ tanker out of here within sixty minutes after it lands.”
The two men had known each other since their Air Force Academy days. Now they were rushing— sprinting, almost—across the tarmac toward the base maintenance depot.
“Can’t be done, Hank,” said Dugan, puffing slightly from the unaccustomed exertion. “My guys’ll need—”
Wilson stopped suddenly and Dugan trotted several steps before stopping and turning around to face his old friend. The sky above the airfield was turning gray, but the only thundercloud Dugan could see was Wilson’s slab-jawed face.
Looking around to make certain that no one was within earshot, Wilson lowered his voice a notch and explained, “Joe, I got a message straight from the frickin’ White House. The National Security Advisor signed the order personally. Absolute top priority.”
“That don’t mean—”
“What it means is that we gotta get that tanker back in the air one hour after it lands. Or quicker. That’s what it means.”
“But we don’t even know what’s wrong with its engine!”
“Get another engine on the flight line. Swap it out.”
“That’s crazy! We can’t—”
“The hell you can’t. I want a crew ready to swap out the engine soon’s that tanker rolls up to the apron.”
Dugan looked as if he’d just swallowed a dose of rancid cod liver oil. He glanced up at the sky. “It’s gonna rain,” he grumbled.
“Clear out a hangar and roll the bird into it.”
“Hank, this is crazy and you know it.”
“Yeah, yeah. But get it done.”
San Francisco International Airport
Sylvia tried to keep her terror hidden from the girls. She had never flown in a plane this small. Commercial airliners were so big that she never felt afraid. It was like sitting in a bus, really, especially if she had an aisle seat and didn’t look out the windows.
But this flimsy little thing was barely big enough for herself and her daughters. And the pilot. He was a good-looking older man, his short-trimmed hair silvery gray. And he had a sporty little moustache the same attractive color.
Sylvia was sitting in the right-hand seat, her daughters behind her. She couldn’t help looking out the windshield at the mountains down below, and the ocean. What if the engines stop? she wondered. We can’t land on a mountainside—or in the water. We’ll all die!
The pilot kept up a friendly chatter, but she had stopped listening to his words as she sat rigidly and felt every bump and shudder that the plane went through. There’s nothing between us and those mountains but empty air! Sylvia realized. She fought down an urge to vomit.
“Oh-oh,” said the pilot.
“What’s wrong?” Sylvia squeaked.
Tapping the bulbous earphone on the left side of his head, he said over the rumble of the plane’s twin jet engines, “Traffic control’s ordered us to orbit the field.”
“Orbit? In space?”
He laughed. “No, it just means they want us to ride around the airfield for a while.”
“How long?”
“Until Air Force One lands.”
From behind them, Denise said, “Air Force One? The President’s plane?”
“Yep,” said the pilot. Pointing past Sylvia’s nose, he said, “There she is, right there.”
Sylvia saw a huge four-engined plane painted sky blue and white. It looked terribly close, she thought.
“All traffic in and out of SFO is suspended until the President gets out of his plane,” the pilot said, as if he hadn’t a worry in the world.
Sylvia wondered how long they’d have to stay in the air, waiting. And if they had enough fuel.
ABL-1: Battle Management Compartment
“You’re probably wondering why I called you into this meeting,” said Harry. He knew it was weak to the point of inanity, but he couldn’t think of any better way to break the ice.
Wally Rosenberg snorted derisively. Taki Nakamura made a polite smile, obviously forced. Monk Delany looked disgusted and Angel Reyes looked worried.
Harry had brought them together in the battle management compartment. Usually manned by six people, it had more seats than any other section of the plane except for the cramped compartment where his team stayed during takeoffs and landings. Now they sat at the row of silent consoles, turned around to face Harry, who stood grimly before them.
“You all know that somebody pulled the optics assembly out of the ranging laser,” Harry said.
“It’s all fixed now,” said Delany. “No problem.”
“You replaced the assembly?”
“Yep. No sweat.”
Rosenberg asked, “How’d you get that fat ass of yours into that cramped little housing, Monk?”
“All I had to do was get one arm in. The assembly slides in and clicks in place nice and easy. It’s designed that way, Wally.”
Taki pointed out, “You’ll have to check the alignment when the tanker shows up.”
“No problem,” Delany repeated.
“That’s not the point,” said Harry. “The point is that one of us deliberately tried to screw up this mission. One of us” he emphasized, waving a finger at his four teammates.
“What do you want to do about it, Harry?” Reyes asked, his voice small, soft.
“I want the person who did it to stand up and admit it and swear that he won’t do anything else to mess us up.”
“He?” Delany asked, turning slightly to look at Nakamura.
“Whoever,” Harry said. “I figure that the guy did it before we were told we’re going against a real live missile. I don’t know why he did it and I don’t care. I just want to know that he—or she—won’t try anything more.”
Dead silence, except for the vibrating drone of the plane’s engines.
“No questions asked,” Harry promised. “Whatever happened, for whatever reason, it’ll be strictly among us. Nobody else has to know.”
“You told the pilot, didn’t you?” Rosenberg asked, almost accusingly.
Harry nodded. “I had to. But I can always tell her I made a mistake, that the optics assembly was taken out for inspection.”
“And that Air Force colonel’s gonna believe a cockamamie story like that?” Delany challenged.
“She’ll have to, if we all stick together on it.”
Silence again. Harry stared at the four of them, wishing he were a mind reader.
“At least tell me there won’t be any more of this crap,” Harry pleaded. “We’re going to a shooting war, for Chrissakes, we don’t need somebody trying to screw us up.”
They glanced back and forth at each other. Nobody said a word.
Then Rosenberg cleared his throat noisily and said, “Well, I’m not going to mess with anything, Harry.”
“Me neither,” said Reyes.
“I didn’t in the first place,” Taki Nakamura said, almost defiantly.
Delany broke into a lazy grin. “Hell, it’s dangerous enough up here without trying to louse up the works.”
Harry heaved an involuntary sigh. “Okay,” he said. “I have your word on it?” They all nodded.
“Good enough.” Harry realized that this was the most he was going to get from them. “But from now on nobody works alone. Understand that? I don’t want any one of you out of sight of one of the others.”
“Cheez, Harry, that ain’t gonna work,” Delany complained. �
��We’ve each got our own stations and—”
Harry cut him off. “Until we get into a real battle situation, you guys work in pairs. I’m not kidding. I want you to keep an eye on one another.”
Reyes nodded solemnly. “Okay, Harry. But who’s going to keep an eye on you?”
It took Harry a moment to realize that Reyes was smiling gently. Gruffly, Harry said, “Don’t worry about me.”
They broke up. Nakamura went with Delany forward to the optics station, Rosenberg and Reyes aft toward the COIL and its fuel tanks.
Harry stood alone in the empty battle management section, thinking that one of his four team members must have sabotaged the laser at the field test out in the Mohave and killed Pete Quintana in doing so.
Karen Christopher was stretched out on the bunk in the rear of the flight deck. Her eyes were closed, but she couldn’t sleep.
The tanker’s delayed. That one thought kept running through her mind. That and an image of the fuel gauges on ABL-1’s control panel. We’re over Japan now. We could break off this mission and put down at Misawa, nice and easy. Nobody gets hurt and nobody would blame me for aborting the mission.
And the North Koreans launch their missiles.
We could stop them! She knew that as certainly as she knew her heart was beating. If I can get this clunker of an airplane into the proper position we could shoot down those bastards before their rocket engines cut off.
But you need another long drink of fuel to get there, she said to herself. You need that tanker. And if you stooge around over the ocean long enough waiting for it, you could run out of fuel and go down into the ocean.
That’d be a great career move, she thought. Sink a billion-dollar airplane, the only one of its kind. Sink your career in the Air Force with it.
Christopher wondered how much of a career she had to look forward to. She remembered the board of inquiry, the cold, hard faces of the Advocate General’s panel of judges.
“You refuse a direct order to name the officer you’ve been sleeping with?” The crusty old brigadier was smirking at her, seeing dirty pictures in his mind.
