by Ben Bova
“I know.”
It took half a second for her words to be relayed off the satellite and his response to get back to her.
“You have the option of turning away and exiting North Korean territorial waters.”
“We’re not over their territorial waters. We’re twenty miles off their coast.”
Again the delay, longer this time than normal. “I repeat, you have the option of turning around. You may abort your mission if you deem it necessary.”
She heard what he was saying. I love you, Karen. I don’t want you to be killed. I don’t care if it starts World War III—I want you safe.
But then she realized that instead of ordering her to turn tail and leave the mission unfulfilled, he had placed the choice in her hands. Come back to me, that’s what he was saying. But the responsibility is yours. The choice between nuclear war or not is yours. I love you, but I don’t have the guts to take the blame for what happens next.
ABL-1: Battle Management Compartment
Taki looks cool as a cucumber, Harry thought as he sat beside Nakamura and watched her run through the diagnostics on her console. If she’s the one who stole the optics assembly she sure doesn’t look nervous or scared about it. Harry felt relieved; he hadn’t wanted to believe it was Taki. Wally, yeah, maybe, he thought. That wiseass might be up to it. Probably not Angel; he’s too straight-arrow. Monk? Why would Monk try to screw up the mission? Why would any of them?
The answer came to him: for money. Whoever it was did it for money. When he thought this was just a test flight he tried to ruin it so that we’d look bad to the Air Force and DoD would cancel Anson’s contract and give it to one of our competitors.
Great deduction, Sherlock, Harry said to himself. So which one of them was it? Which one needs money so bad he’d sabotage a flight test? Wally gambles on the football pools. He makes no secret of that. Angel? I don’t see Angel getting himself into a hole that way. The kid’s worked too hard to get where he is to hand his money over to gamblers. Still, you never know.
Monk? Harry tried to remember if Monk ever took plunges with gamblers. Not that he could recall. Monk wasn’t the gambling type. Hell, even when they were all making bets on who would be named leader of the team, Monk threw in only a couple of bucks. Harry remembered Monk’s knowing grin when he put his money down on the pool.
“I’m the favorite,” he’d told Harry. “I can’t get decent odds.”
No, Monk’s too smart to get into debt with gamblers.
“Are you with me, Harry?”
It took an effort to snap his attention back to Taki, back to the mission and the reality of an impending nuclear war.
“I’m sorry,” he said, flustered. “I was thinking . ..”
Nakamura looked slightly disappointed. “I asked you if you’d double-check the board for me. Looks to me like everything’s ready to go, but it’d be better if you double-check.”
“Right,” Harry said. “Sorry.”
The gauges and screens on the consoles showed the status of every segment of the laser’s system. Harry ran his eyes across both the console he was sitting at and Taki’s, beside him. Everything looked okay. The COIL was pressurized and ready to fire. Ranging laser ready. Electrical power in the green. Computer humming.
“Looks okay to me, Taki,” he said. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”
She nodded. The only sign of apprehension on her face was the tightness of her lips. Without a word she unlatched the covers on the amber arming and red firing buttons.
“So who was Annie Oakley?” she asked.
“Where are those fighters?” Colonel Christopher asked into her pin mike.
O’Banion quickly answered, “Thirty miles behind us, seven o’clock. Closing fast.”
“Between us and the coast,” Major Kaufman said.
Christopher nodded. “I wonder what their orders are.”
“Shoot to kill.”
She almost laughed. “Maybe not. Maybe they just want to shoo us out of their territorial waters.”
“We’re not in their fucking territorial waters,” Kaufman grumbled.
She clicked the intercom and called, “Jon, exactly how far off the coast are we?”
“Twenty miles, Colonel, just like you ordered. Uh, actually it’s twenty-two, just at this point. We haven’t been closer than twenty, though, not once.”
“Do you have an accurate navigational fix on all that?”
“Yes, ma’am. I do.”
“Pipe it back to Washington. I want our people to know exactly where we are, that we’re not in North Korean territorial waters.”
“Yes’m,” Lieutenant Sharmon replied.
Kaufman gave her a sour look. “So they can drop a wreath in the water where we went down,” he muttered.
U.S. Route 12, Bitterroot Mountains, Idaho
Charley Ingersoll knew he couldn’t get lost, even in this damnable snowstorm. All he had to do was plow straight ahead down the road. The gas station was along the side of the road. His legs flared with pins and needles, his face felt numb, he’d never been so cold in all his life.
But he slogged forward. The snow was almost knee-deep now, and it took a real concentrated effort to pull his freezing feet out of the stuff and take another tottering step forward. He thought about praying, but then he realized that it was the Lord who had put him into this mess. Why? he asked heaven. Why me? No answer. So he staggered on.
Step by step, Charley said to himself. Closer and closer. Somewhere from the back of his mind came the faint memory of some comedy act where a guy says that. Something about Niagara Falls. Step by step. Closer and closer.
At least Martha and the kids are okay. Even if the van runs out of gas it’ll stay warm inside for a while. They’ll be all right. I’ll get to the gas station and they’ll come out in the tow truck they’ve got there and we’ll all be okay.
But you’ve got to get to the gas station first, said a voice in Charley’s head.
He blinked against the snowflakes whipping into his face. Can’t tell where the road is anymore. Everything’s covered with snow. White, white, white everywhere. Maybe this is what heaven’s like, he thought: everything is white. Or hell. There were parts of hell that were freezing, he remembered from his Sunday school days, all snow and ice. Then he realized that there were snowbanks on either side of the road, left by the plows that had scraped the highway earlier. Stay in between the snowbanks, Charley, he told himself. Stay in the middle.
He plodded ahead, his legs like a pair of rigid boards that shot pain up along his spine every time he tried to move them. Lord, help me, he pleaded. You put me into this, help me get out of it!
Something coming up the road!
Charley saw a shape up the road ahead, a dark bulk moving through the blinding white, slowly, patiently, soundlessly.
A car? No, too big, more like a truck. Awful slow, but it’s coming this way. No noise. Maybe I’ve gone deaf. Maybe my ears are frozen.
The shape slowly coalesced out of the wind-whipped snow. It’s a moose! Charley realized. Or is it an elk? Too big to be a deer. What’s a moose doing out here in the middle of the road?
The animal was walking calmly, with great dignity, up the road toward Charley. Strolling along as if this blizzard didn’t trouble it in the least.
It’s a sign, Charley thought. A sign from God. My deliverance is near.
For a wild instant Charley thought he might jump on the animal’s back and ride the rest of the way to the station. But as he staggered toward the beast it stopped in its tracks, snuffled once, then turned and bounded up the snowbank on the right shoulder of the highway and disappeared into the blinding whiteness of the storm.
Charley stood there dumbfounded. It just pranced up that snowbank like it was nothing, he thought.
This blizzard don’t bother it at all. And I’m alone again. Alone and cold and scared.
Why’d it run away? he asked himself. I wasn’t going to hurt it. What�
��s it doing out here, anyway? Then he realized the reason. Wolves. Where there’s moose or elk or whatever that beast was, there’s wolves. Charley strained to hear the howl of baying wolves. Nothing but the keening of the wind. They hunt in packs, he knew. They’ll come after me.
He sank to his knees. God help me! he screamed silently. God help me.
ABL-1: Cockpit
Major Obadiah Kaufman sat in the copilot’s seat looking out at the dark smudge on the horizon that was the coast of North Korea.
Colonel Christopher said, “Keep your eyes peeled for their launch, Obie.”
“Right,” he said, glancing sideways at her. Sixteen years in the Air Force, he thought, and I’m in the fucking right-hand seat while she gives me dumbass orders. Obie. Like she knows me well enough to call me Obie. How’d she like it if I called her Karen? Or Chrissie? The plane’s radar will pick up their fucking launch. She knows that. But she’s got to make sure I know she’s in charge and I’m just her goddamned stooge.
I graduated fourth in my class at the Academy. Where did she come in? Who the hell put her in here over me? It isn’t fair, it’s not fair. Hotshot B-2 jockey. She gets herself in hot water screwing some general and they bounce her out of the B-2s and break her down to this test program. This is a fucking demotion for her! But they push me into the right-hand seat so this slut of a colonel can take over my place. I worked hard to get to fly this bird! But they just push me aside and let her have it. The Air Force. Screw you every time.
He heard Colonel Christopher call to O’Banion, “Where are those fighters, Brick?”
“Coming up fast, ma’am. They haven’t gone supersonic, but they’re pulling in closer.”
“Jon, keep us on a course that parallels the coast. I don’t want to get any closer.”
“Yes, Colonel,” Lieutenant Sharmon replied.
Christopher toggled the intercom and said, “Mr. Hartunian, you and your people better strap in. We’ll be in action any minute now.”
Hartunian’s voice answered, “Seat belts. Yeah.”
Kaufman spoke up. “You’ll have to swing around and point us at the coast when they launch.”
“I know, Obie. I just don’t want to give those fighters any excuse to open up on us until I have to.”
“But you have to be pointing at the missiles when they launch. Point the nose at them and—”
“And let the tech geek’s laser system acquire them. I know. I flew the simulator, Obie. I just don’t want those fighters to shoot us down before we nail the missiles.”
Kaufman stared at her. She looked like a little kid, sitting in the pilot’s chair with the safety harness over her shoulders and the big white flight helmet sitting on her head like some ostrich egg.
He knew he shouldn’t say it, but Kaufman didn’t care anymore. What the hell, he thought, we’re going to get our asses shot off anyway.
So he said, “Maybe I should take over now. I’ve had more experience handling this bird. I can—”
“No.”
“But you don’t—”
The look on Colonel Christopher’s face could have etched solid steel. “Obie, I’m the pilot here. That’s that. No further discussion.”
He wanted to spit. But instead he shrugged inside his safety harness and said nothing. The plane droned on for a few moments, then Christopher asked mildly, “You ever read Moby-Dick, Obie?”
Puzzled, he replied, “Saw the movie, I think.”
“You remember where Ahab tells his first mate, ‘There’s one God in heaven and one captain of the Pequod.’ ”
Kaufman felt his cheeks redden with anger.
“That’s the way it’s got to be, Obie. I didn’t ask for this job, but I’ve got it. Now let’s do what we’re here to do.”
O’Banion’s voice crackled in his earphone, “Message incoming from the gooks, Colonel.” “Let’s hear it.”
The same calm, reedy voice they had heard before said, “Unidentified aircraft, this is Air Defense Command of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. You have invaded DPRK airspace. You will follow the two fighter planes we have dispatched and land at their base. If you fail to do so, they have orders to shoot you down. They are armed with air-to-air missiles. You will execute this order now.”
San Francisco: The Cow Palace
Vickie leaned her elbows on her knees and peered down at the platform where the President was supposed to speak.
“How long is it going to be?” she asked no one in particular. “These seats hurt my backside.”
Sylvia tried to smile at her elder daughter. “Just be patient. It’s not every day you get to see the President of the United States in person.”
“With ten zillion other people,” Vickie muttered.
“I think it’s cool,” said Denise, sitting on Sylvia’s other side. “Nobody else from my class is here, I bet.”
“So what?” said Vickie, with the airy disdain of the senior sibling. “He’s a drip, anyway.”
“He’s the President!” Sylvia snapped, shocked. “Show some respect.”
“He said he was going to do a lot for education,” Vickie retorted. “I haven’t seen any improvements. Have you, Dee?”
Denise thought a moment, then replied, “Well, we got more money for the school orchestra.”
“Big deal.”
“They were going to have to close it down altogether,” Denise pointed out.
“But it wasn’t federal money,” Vickie countered. “That extra money came from Sacramento.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
Sylvia swiveled her head right and left as the sisters argued back and forth, suppressing an urge to grab the two of them by the scruffs of their necks and rap their skulls together.
Norman Foster appraised his boss with an experienced eye. He’s winding himself up tighter, thought the President’s chief of staff. He gets high on moments like this. The crowd, the cameras, the band playing and people getting to their feet and cheering: hell, it gives me a thrill; it’s positively invigorating for him.
The President was pacing briskly up and down the little bare-walled room where they waited for the ceremonies to begin. Senator Youmans was beside him, scurrying breathlessly to keep up with his long-legged strides. She would introduce the President—after her own speech. The agenda gave her five minutes, but Foster knew she’d stretch that allotment.
His phone buzzed. Four Secret Service agents tensed for a moment, but Foster grinned at them as he pulled the iPhone from his jacket pocket, thankful that the military commsats were still working.
He squinted to read the text message on the tiny screen. “Urgent from Pentagon. Missile launched.”
That’s it, Foster thought. In half an hour we could all be dead.
ABL-1: Cockpit
“Look!” Kaufman pointed at the bright plume of rocket exhaust rising above the horizon. “That’s it!” Karen Christopher shouted.
“Turn into it!”
“Turning.”
She banked the big 747 to the left, swinging the plane so that its nose pointed toward the missile plume. Dumb jumbo jet turns like a freight train, Christopher said to herself, slow and ugly.
The colonel flicked a switch on her communications board. “Hartunian, they’ve launched.”
Down in the battle management compartment Harry heard the urgency in Colonel Christopher’s voice. “We’ve got them on the radar.”
His eyes scanned the console. Iodine and oxygen pressurized and ready to flow. All systems in the green.
“Taki?”
Sitting next to Harry, Nakamura’s lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line. “This is it,” she muttered as her hands played over her console’s keyboard.
“Ranging laser,” Harry said.
“Acquisition.”
On the screen that displayed the ranging laser’s data Harry saw a thin yellow line curving slightly toward the right.
“Locked on!” Nakamura called out.<
br />
“Distance?”
“One hundred fourteen miles.” Too far, Harry thought. The COIL’s range isn’t more than a hundred miles.
“Armed and ready,” Taki called. Harry yelled, “Fire!”
“Firing.”
From deep in the plane’s innards Harry heard the thundering roar of the laser, like a rocket bellowing: iodine and oxygen racing down the main channel, mixing, streaming through the laser cavity and surrendering more than a million watts of pure energy.
“We’re on it,” Nakamura said. “We’re hitting it.”
But is the COIL delivering energy to do the job? Harry wondered. At this range—
The yellow line on Harry’s screen abruptly cut off. He blinked at it.
“Did we get it?”
In the cockpit, Colonel Christopher gaped at the explosion. It was too far away to hear anything, but they could see that the missile’s white smoky exhaust plume ended in an orange-red blossom of fire. “We hit it!” she shouted.
“Sure as hell did!” Kaufman echoed, staring out at the dirty gray cloud expanding out by the horizon.
“Bull’s-eye!” Christopher pumped a fist in the air. Kaufman laughed hoarsely. “Scratch one missile!”
“Where’s the other—”
Out of the corner of her eye Christopher saw the flash of a missile’s smoky exhaust streak straight into the 747’s number two engine. It exploded inside the nacelle, blowing the engine to bits. The plane bucked and slewed so badly the control yoke jerked out of Christopher’s hands.
“Jesus Christ!” Kaufman bellowed.
“We’ve been hit!” Christopher grabbed at the controls, but the 747 was sliding into a shallow dive, bucking like a wild horse, its left inboard engine nacelle shredded and aflame.
“Fire extinguishers, Obie!”
Kaufman, staring goggle-eyed at the flames streaming from where the engine nacelle had been, shuddered for a heartbeat, then slammed the fire extinguisher system’s number two button almost hard enough to punch through the control panel.
