by Ben Bova
“Two hundred? Is that legal?”
“I checked the regs, Colonel. Twelve miles is the international standard for territorial rights, but some countries claim exclusive economic rights out to two hundred. They don’t allow fishing boats or stuff like that.”
Colonel Christopher puzzled over that for a moment. “Better check with Washington and see what they recommend.”
“It’ll take awhile; communications are still all fuck… er, all snarled up.”
The colonel nodded to herself as she thought, We need to get this bird as close to the shoreline as possible. When those gooks pop their missiles we’ve got to be close enough to nail them right away. Close enough to take more than one pop at them if we have to.
O’Banion came back on the intercom. “Colonel, Mr. Hartunian’s asking to talk to you.” “Where is he?”
“Down in the battle management compartment.”
She turned to Kaufman. “Obie, take over. Stay on this heading until we’re twenty miles off the coast. Holler if I’m not back by then.”
Kaufman looked resentful, as usual. But he said, “Twenty miles. Right.”
Colonel Christopher nodded at her navigator and communications officer as she went through the flight deck and down the ladder to the tiny niche between the beam control and battle management compartments. Hartunian was standing behind the Asian-American girl, the expression on his face somewhere between grim and determined.
“Any problems, Mr. Hartunian?” the colonel asked, barely loud enough to be heard over the rumble of the plane’s engines.
Hartunian gestured toward the galley as he said, “I think we’re ready, Colonel.”
“You think?” Christopher felt her brows knitting. She had wanted to make her tone light, not accusative. No sense making the nerd get sore at you, she told herself. But her words had come out as challenging, demanding.
Hartunian seemed not to notice as he stepped through the open hatchway and waited for her to enter the galley. Then he closed the hatch behind her, softly, as if he didn’t want anyone to hear it shut.
“Well?” Colonel Christopher said.
“The hardware’s in operating condition. We tested the ranging laser on the refueling plane and it’s working okay.”
“Good.”
With a shake of his head, Hartunian went on, “But I don’t know about the people. We’re just a skeleton crew. And one of us tried to sabotage the mission.”
“You still don’t know who.”
“No idea.”
Christopher thought it over for all of two seconds. Then she muttered, “Well, let’s hope it’s not some fanatic who’s willing to kill himself.” Then she added, “Or herself.”
Hartunian said, “I’ve been thinking about that. Whoever it was tried to screw up the mission in the least dangerous way possible. Knock out the ranging laser and we’d have to abort the test and turn back for home. But now that he knows this mission is for real...” His voice trailed off.
Christopher went to the coffee urn and poured herself a mug. “If you’re right, that means whoever it was sabotaged your laser when he—or she— thought this flight was only a routine test.”
“Right,” Hartunian agreed. “Which means that whoever it is wanted to give Anson Aerospace a black eye. He’s not an enemy agent, he’s just a damned industrial spy, working for one of Anson’s competitors.”
The colonel stared at Hartunian for a long, silent moment. Then, “You think so?”
The engineer smiled bitterly. “Either that or we’re all dead.”
San Francisco: St. Francis Hotel
As he spoke earnestly into the telephone, the President hardly glanced at the magnificent view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the penthouse suite’s windows. It was raining out there anyway, a steady, gray, cold-looking rain.
Norman Foster sat on the luxurious Louis XIV sofa and ran a hand over his bald pate as he watched his friend and boss chatting away on the phone, charming one moment, intimidating the next. Moscow, Tokyo, NATO headquarters in Belgium: he’d been trying to get world leaders lined up with him despite the maddening slowness of the battered global communications system.
At last the President put the phone down. Before he could get out of his chair, Foster said, “The Air Force wants to send some F-15s to escort ABL-1.”
“A fighter escort?” the President. “Why do they want a fighter escort?”
Foster knew that they’d have to change into fresh suits before heading out to the Cow Palace. He glanced at his wristwatch before replying, “The laser plane’s a big four-engine 747. If the North Koreans or the Chinese try to intercept it, she’ll be a sitting duck.”
“This request came from NSA?”
“From the special situation team. They sent it through the Air Force, who passed it up to the Secretary of Defense,” Foster said.
“From Lonnie Bakersfield?”
“None other.”
“This request came direct from Lonnie himself?” the President asked.
Spreading his hands in a gesture of uncertainty, the President’s chief of staff replied, “Nothing’s direct just now. Communications are in a mess. SecDef sent this request nearly an hour ago.”
“And you just got it?” the President snapped.
“It came to Air Force One and they transferred it to your security team’s briefcase.”
“God Almighty! How can we manage this crisis when we can’t even get telephone calls through?”
Trying to calm his boss, Foster said, “The communications system is working; it’s just slower than normal, that’s all.”
“That’s all? You said this request came from that situation team you put together, through the Air Force chain of command, up to the Secretary of Defense, and now to me.”
“That’s right.”
The President glared at his old friend. “Where’s that laser plane now?”
“According to the latest report, it’s over the Sea of Japan, heading for the coast of North Korea.”
“You think the North Koreans might try to shoot it down?”
“Or force it to land in North Korea. It’d make terrific propaganda for them. Not to mention the technology they’ll be able to get their hands on.”
“We’re staring nuclear war in the face and you think they’re aiming for propaganda?”
Foster made an exasperated grimace. “Yeah. What the hell do I know.”
Standing in the middle of the sumptuously furnished room, the President scratched at his long jaw once, then decided. “No fighter escort.”
Foster could feel his brows hike up.
Waving an extended forefinger like a schoolteacher trying to get a lesson across to a backward pupil, the President said, “You get our fighter jocks into the same airspace as their fighter jocks and you’re going to start a war.”
“But if they launch those missiles we’ll have a war anyway. A nuclear war.”
“The laser plane’s supposed to shoot the missiles down.”
“Suppose the North Koreans shoot down the plane instead?”
“Then they launch the missiles and we go to war. But I don’t want to have some fighter jock get us into a war if we can avoid it.”
Foster got slowly to his feet. “Mr. President, that just doesn’t make any goddamned sense.”
“Maybe not to you, Norm. But that’s my decision. If there’s a way to avert this disaster I’m willing to take it. Now let me see if I can get the British Prime Minister on the phone before we have to head down to the Cow Palace.”
The Pentagon: Situation Room
General Scheib looked up from his laptop. “No fighter escort,” he said, his face dark, grim. General Higgins stepped over to where Scheib was sitting and stared at the decoded message on Scheib’s screen, as if he couldn’t believe it unless he saw the words for himself.
“From POTUS,” he muttered. With a shake of his head he added, “Can’t go any higher in the chain of command than that.”
Scheib looked up into Higgins’ florid, big-nosed face. “ABL-1 will be a sitting duck if the North Koreans send out fighters.”
Zuri Coggins, standing by the newly replenished coffee cart, spoke up. “Maybe they won’t. If Pyongyang honestly wants to prevent the rebels from launching those missiles, they won’t interfere with our plane.”
“How do they know what our plane is?” Scheib snapped. “What if they think it’s a strategic bomber, the first part of our counterstrike against them?”
“We’ll have to tell them,” Coggins said.
“How? Send ‘em a frigging telegram?”
Coggins looked stricken, realizing that there was no North Korean ambassador in Washington, no diplomatic relations with the DPRK at all.
“We’ll have to go through China,” she said. “Get the message to Beijing and have them relay our intentions to Pyongyang.”
Scheib gave her a disgusted look. “And by the time that’s done ABL-1 will be sinking to the bottom of the Sea of Japan.”
“Maybe not,” Michael Jamil said.
Scheib glared down the table at him, but asked, “What do you mean?”
Jamil licked his lips before answering. “Whoever’s orchestrating this has some pretty good intelligence sources. Maybe they know about ABL-1.”
General Higgins plopped into the chair next to Scheib. “You’ve given the plane a lot of publicity, Brad. I bet there’s some gook intel officer who reads Aviation Week.”
“Or an intelligence officer in Beijing,” Jamil said.
Higgins gave him a sour look. “You still think the chinks are behind all this? Dr. Fu Manchu, maybe?”
Jamil’s brows knit. “Who’s Dr. Fu Manchu?”
The general rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
But Coggins headed down the table toward the young analyst. “Do you really believe this situation is being orchestrated by Beijing?”
“Yes, I certainly do.” Jamil started ticking off points on his fingers. “The North Korean nuclear program hasn’t produced anything more than a test device. They don’t have nuclear warheads; they had to get them from somewhere else.”
“China?” Coggins asked, taking the chair next to Jamil’s.
“Or Russia. Second point, Pyongyang’s government is in turmoil, but it would be suicide for a group of their army officers to steal those missiles and launch them at the United States.”
“They’re fanatics,” General Higgins snapped. “Orientals. They don’t have the same values that we do.”
“But they’re not fools. They must believe that they have the backing of someone powerful enough to protect them from their own government.”
“China,” Coggins said again.
Nodding, Jamil went on. “China launched surveillance satellites two days ago. I’m betting that they’re hardened against the North Korean nuke and they’re in orbit to watch the President’s arrival in San Francisco.”
Scheib growled, “Not that again! They can’t hit San Francisco. We know that for a fact.”
Jamil ignored him. “They knocked out our own satellites so we couldn’t see their government leaders heading for their underground shelters.”
“Our milsats are still working,” Higgins objected. “We haven’t seen any such movement.”
“Have you looked?” Jamil challenged. “Have you ordered the NRO analysts to specifically look for a flow of high-up government vehicles out of Beijing?” Higgins fell silent.
“The Chinese have wanted Taiwan since 1949,” Jamil said. “It’s a matter of national pride to them. A matter of face.”
“And they’re willing to risk nuclear war over it?” Coggins demanded.
With a shake of his head, Jamil retorted, “That’s not the question. The question is, are we willing to risk nuclear war over it?”
“Aw, that’s just nonsense,” Higgins insisted.
But Coggins murmured, “I’m not so sure.”
“Look,” Jamil said, almost pleading for understanding, “The Chinese economy is in the toilet—”
“Whose isn’t?” Higgins muttered.
“There’s a lot of unrest in China. People got accustomed to a rising economy, rising expectations. Now they’re sinking. Getting Taiwan would be a great boost to the government in Beijing.”
“And you think Beijing is willing to let a few hundred million of their people die in a nuclear exchange ?”
“You still don’t get it, General. Are we willing to lose a hundred million people or more over Taiwan?”
General Scheib spoke up. “But Taiwan’s got nothing to do with this! It’s North Korea that’s threatening us.”
“I know, I understand that. But look at the big picture. North Korea attacks us. We have the option of retaliation or negotiation. If we retaliate, if we hit North Korea, China will come in on their side. They’d have to. They can’t sit and do nothing while we attack their next-door neighbor. Remember how they came into the Korean War when it looked like we were going to conquer the north.”
Coggins nodded slowly, reluctantly agreeing with his logic.
Jamil continued. “If we let the North Koreans get away with attacking us, killing the President—or maybe just blowing out Honolulu or Fairbanks— then our influence in Asia goes down to zero. So we have the choice of nuclear war with China or allowing China to remake the map of Asia.”
Higgins shook his head ponderously. “I just don’t believe it.”
Coggins said, “They’d reunify Korea, with North Korea in command. China would take over Taiwan. They’d force Japan to get rid of our bases there . . .”
“Chinese hegemony in the Far East,” Jamil said. “And we’re humiliated worldwide.”
The conference room fell absolutely silent. Jamil could hear the faint buzz of the air circulation fans in the ceiling.
General Scheib broke the spell. “Okay. So what do we do if they shoot down ABL-1?”
ABL-1: COIL Bay
Harry ran his hand along the smooth, cool metal tubing that ran the length of the COIL bay. The mixture of iodine and oxygen gases would flow down the main tube at supersonic speed when the laser was activated, producing more than a million watts of infrared energy once it raced through the lasing cavity. More than a megawatt, Harry thought. Sounds like a lot, but it’s about the explosive equivalent of a lousy hand grenade.
Still, slap a hand grenade against the side of a boosting rocket and you blow it apart. That’s what we’ve got to do, Harry told himself.
Wally Rosenberg sidled up to him with his usual crafty grin.
“El jefe’s down among the peons, huh?” Rosenberg pronounced the word “pee-ons.”
Ignoring Wally’s sarcasm, Harry said, “A pinpoint leak anywhere along the tubing could louse up the COIL. Maybe blow up the plane and us in it.”
“We ran a nitrogen purge through the system not more’n twenty minutes ago. No leaks.”
Angel Reyes came up, looking intent, totally focused on his job. “Don’t worry, Harry. Everything back here is okay.”
Harry nodded absently. “We’ve got to make this baby work right. The first time. We won’t have the chance to tinker with her and try again.”
Reyes straightened up to his full height, barely taller than Harry’s chin. “It will work,” he said. His voice was soft, but the intensity in his eyes was iron-hard.
Harry looked at the two of them: Reyes standing as if he were facing a firing squad; Rosenberg in his usual slouch, his sly grin fading into something less certain.
“I’ve got to ask you both,” Harry said slowly, “and I swear to you this’ll go no further than the three of us: Did one of you pull the lenses out of the ranger?”
Reyes looked surprised, then hurt. Rosenberg gave Harry a disgruntled huff.
“I haven’t gone farther forward than the fuckin’ galley since we took off, Harry,” said Rosenberg.
Then he amended, “No, wait, I took a piss in the forward toilet.”
“I used the toilet back
aft here,” Reyes said, clearly insulted at Harry’s suggestion.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Harry said. “I had to ask. One of us tried to screw up the mission and—”
“It wasn’t me,” Rosenberg snapped. For once he looked serious.
“Or me,” said Reyes.
Harry puffed out a weary sigh. “Then it had to be Monk, or Taki.”
Rosenberg’s crafty half-grin returned. “What’s Tiki-Taki’s religion, Harry? She wouldn’t be a Muslim, would she?”
In the cockpit, Colonel Christopher said into her lip microphone, “Brick, where’s that message from Washington? Haven’t you got it decoded yet?”
“One more minute, Colonel,” the communications officer replied. “This one’s in a red priority code.”
“Jon, how far from the coast are we?”
Sharmon’s deeper voice immediately answered, “One hundred and fifty miles, ma’am.”
Christopher nodded. Off on the horizon she could see a smear of clouds that must have marked the coastline. Her flight helmet felt as if it weighed a ton. But we’re too close now to take a break, she told herself. Got to sit here until we’re finished.
She glanced across the console of throttles at Major Kaufman. Obie looks calm enough. He had the sweats when we were waiting for the tanker, but he looks okay now.
“You need a kidney break, Obie?”
He shook his head hard enough to make his helmet wobble.
“Won’t have time for it once the shooting starts,” she prompted.
Kaufman frowned, then grumbled, “I was okay until you mentioned it.” He unstrapped and hauled himself out of the copilot’s seat.
Christopher chuckled to herself.
“Got the scoop from Washington, Colonel,” O’Banion called.
“Hand it to me.”
The redheaded comm officer ducked through the hatch and gave Christopher a flimsy sheet of paper. She read its two lines quickly. “North Korean missile launch imminent. No fighter cover for your mission.”
Fighter cover? Christopher was surprised at the idea. She hadn’t even thought about having fighter planes escorting her. But it made sense. We’d be a sitting duck if the gooks sent fighters up to intercept us.
