USS Towers Box Set

by Jeff Edwards

  The LEAP weighed only twenty pounds, and it carried no explosive charge. It didn’t need one. The kinetic warhead was moving more than 5,900 miles per hour. Combined with the orbital speed of the target satellite, this yielded a closing velocity of 22,783 miles per hour.

  Thirty seconds prior to impact, the LEAP detached itself from the third stage booster. Its onboard sensors acquired the target without difficulty, took a final GPS fix, and utilized a series of rapid pulses from its maneuvering thrusters to refine the angle of approach.

  * * *

  The Chinese Haiyang HY-3 satellite was hardened against shock damage. It was designed to withstand micro meteor impacts, and collisions with manmade space debris. It was not designed to survive 96,000,000 foot-pounds of brute mechanical force from a twenty pound projectile with a combined impact velocity of more than 22,000 miles per hour.

  Exactly 297.352 seconds after launch, the LEAP warhead obliterated Redbird One with 130 megajoules of thermo-kinetic energy. A human observer, had any been present, would have been instantly and permanently blinded by the fierce intensity of the resulting flash.

  But the only human witnesses were 130 miles below, watching the engagement from their radar screens. Their sensors and display systems would recognize and record the fact of the satellite’s destruction, but they would carry no sense of the raw power that had just been unleashed on their command.

  USS Towers:

  “TAO—Air. We have confirmed intercept on Track Zero Zero One. We are picking up a growing debris field downrange from the projected impact point.”

  The Tactical Action Officer turned toward the captain. “I’d call that a kill, Skipper.”

  Bowie acknowledge the report, and looked around CIC until he spotted OS2 Kenfield. The beefy Operations Specialist was huddled over an electronic plotting table.

  Captain Bowie caught the man’s eye, and nodded. “Hey, Big Country… Give us a song.”

  The big Sailor grinned. “Is that an order, sir?”

  “You bet your ass it is,” Bowie said.

  The Sailor nodded. “Aye-aye, Captain!” He cleared his throat and took a very deep breath.

  Commander Silva was now familiar enough with OS2 Kenfield’s musical repertoire to know what was coming next. She suppressed an urge to cover her ears.

  If anything, Big Country’s rebel yell was even louder than the last one. It seemed to rattle the very air, and—as before—it was instantly joined by the yells of every man and woman in Combat Information Center.

  Bowie smiled in approval and appreciation.

  As the collective bellow trailed off into silence, Commander Silva leaned closer to Bowie. “Before we get too carried away with the celebration, somebody better make sure that the Disney Channel is still on the air. If we just whacked the wrong satellite, we’re all going to have to change our names and move to Cleveland.”

  CHAPTER 39

  WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, DC

  MONDAY; 01 DECEMBER

  1:09 AM EST

  President Dalton Wainright sat alone in the Oval Office, hunched over his desk. His forehead rested on the polished wooden surface that had once been the hull timbers of HMS Resolute. With the exceptions of Johnson, Nixon, and Ford, every U.S. president since 1880 had used the Resolute desk, either in the Oval Office, the presidential office that had preceded the oval, or president’s study in the White House residence.

  Wainwright wished that he could somehow use the desk to mentally summon the wisdom of his predecessors. Perhaps if he concentrated deeply enough, their collective knowledge and insight would well up from the russet-colored wood and seep into his brain.

  In 1899, William McKinley had signed the treaty with Spain from the Resolute desk, bringing a formal end to the Spanish-American War. Nearly a half-century later, the modesty panel had been installed to cover the kneehole, because Franklin D. Roosevelt preferred to keep his leg braces out of public view. Roosevelt had died before the modification was completed, leaving both the desk and the closing chapters of World War II in the hands of Harry Truman.

  Truman had sat at the desk while agonizing over whether or not to drop atomic bombs on the cities of Japan. John F. Kennedy had coped with Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis from this spot, managing to drag the world back from the edge of nuclear war, despite Nikita Khrushchev’s promise that the Soviet Union would ‘bury’ the United States of America.

  So much history had been made at this desk. So many bills had been signed into law or vetoed here. The futures of nations had been decided from the very place where Dalton Wainwright now sat.

  But if there was such a thing as genius loci, Wainwright could not tap into it. For all its impressive legacy, the desk was not a talisman. It contained no power and conferred no special insight.

  He raised his head about two inches and then let it drop back to the wooden surface with a dull thud.

  “I’ve told you before, Dal” a voice said, “you’re not going to get anywhere by banging your head on the desk.”

  Wainwright sat up. No one entered the Oval Office without an invitation, especially not at one in the morning.

  Standing in the doorway of the presidential secretary’s office was former president Frank Chandler, Wainwright’s old boss, and the man who had dumped the presidency in his lap.

  Wainwright stood up. “How the hell did you get in here? Did somebody forget to take your key when they booted you out of the building?”

  Chandler grinned. “Nah. I left a window open so I can sneak back in whenever I want.”

  The two men walked toward each other. They met near the middle of the room and shook hands.

  “Damn, it’s good to see you, Frank,” the president said. “But seriously, how did you get in here? Am I going to have to fire the Secret Service or something?”

  Frank Chandler shook his head. “Nope. I’m here as the personal guest of your Chief of Staff. He called and told me that you were banging your head on the furniture again, so naturally I came right over.”

  “Ratted out by my own people,” Wainwright said in mock disgust. “Where is my faithful Chief of Staff, anyway? I want to kick his ass for hauling you in here without talking to me first.”

  “I think he’s skulking in his office,” Chandler said. “Probably hoping that you won’t kick his ass for hauling me in here.”

  “I’ll fire the little traitor tomorrow,” Wainwright said. “Or maybe I’ll have him shot.”

  Chandler glanced toward the Resolute desk. “That thing is a national treasure, Dal. If you’ve got to thump your skull on the furnishings, we can get you something from IKEA, so you don’t go damaging presidential heirlooms.”

  Both men laughed. They found seats in the big circle of chairs, and settled in comfortably. And suddenly, the humor was gone from the room.

  “I wouldn’t have called you,” Wainwright said. “But I’m glad you’re here.”

  Chandler loosened his necktie. “Well, you know the old saying… I serve at the pleasure of the president.”

  Wainwright stared at his former chief executive for a few seconds, but there was no trace of irony in the other man’s voice.

  “I’m in over my head,” he said finally. “I mean, I knew that I was out of my fighting weight the moment you asked me to be your running mate. But I didn’t really think we could win the election, and a vice-presidential bid seemed like a nice way to finish out my political career.”

  Chandler shrugged. “I didn’t expect to win either,” he said. “I think you knew that when I invited you on to my ticket. But here we are…”

  President Wainwright nodded. “Here we are… Or at least, here I am. Because you left me holding the bag, Frank.”

  The former president shrugged again. “My political career was dead after Kamchatka. You know that, Dal. I was the first president to order a nuclear attack since Harry Truman. And unlike Harry, I hadn’t just accepted the surrender of the Nazi powers.”

  Cha
ndler sighed. “If I hadn’t resigned, I would have been impeached. Either way, you were going to end up sitting in the big chair. So I decided to go gracefully, while that was still an option.”

  “I know you didn’t have much of a choice,” Wainwright said. “And I know you played the best hand you could with the cards you were dealt. But what I don’t know, is what I’m supposed to do now…”

  Frank Chandler leaned back in his chair. “Oh… That’s simple. Listen to your people, but think for yourself. And try to make the best decisions you can.”

  He wiped his hands briskly, as though brushing off the dust at the end of a job well done. “If that’s all you need to know, I’m going to get back on the plane and head home.”

  “I’m not joking,” the president said. “I’ve got serious problems here.”

  “I’m not joking either,” Chandler said. “And that was a serious answer. It may seem trite, but I just told you everything you need to know to handle this job.”

  Wainwright snorted. “Look, I’m not sure how much you know about the situation in Asia, but the whole damned continent is getting ready to implode.”

  He looked at his watch. “A little over an hour ago, we shot down a Chinese surveillance satellite over the Bay of Bengal. About forty-one hours from now, the Republic of India is going to conduct a crippling attack against the national infrastructure of the People’s Republic of China. Unless my military advisors and the entire intelligence community are completely out to lunch, China is probably going to respond with a strategic nuclear strike. And the only way I can get the Indian government to back down, is to step into the fight and help them take on the Chinese military.”

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “No matter what I do, the shit is going to hit the fan.”

  “You’re probably right,” Frank Chandler said. “But you can’t let that stop you.”

  The president opened his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “It sounds to me like you’re trying not to screw up.”

  “Of course I’m trying not to screw up,” the president snapped. “If I handle this the wrong way, a lot of people are going to get killed over there.”

  Chandler turned his hands palm-up. “Well, I don’t exactly get Sit Room briefings any more, but from what I’ve seen on CNN, people are getting killed over there already. Tibetan protestors. A whole village full of Indian civilians. Chinese sailors. Indian sailors. Some of our own fighter pilots. And it’s only going to get worse as this situation drags on.”

  The president stared at him. “What’s your point?”

  “My point is this,” Chandler said, “you can’t lead by trying to avoid trouble.”

  He smiled. “Let me share a piece of genuine wisdom with you. Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in trying not to do the wrong thing that we forget to do the right thing.”

  “That sounds familiar,” the president said.

  Chandler nodded. “It should sound familiar. You said it to me about six hours after my first inauguration.”

  Wainwright waved a dismissive hand. “I was babbling. As I recall, we went to nine or ten different inauguration parties that night. The champagne was getting to my head.”

  Chandler shook his head. “Pardon me for saying so, Mr. President, but that’s pure unadulterated horseshit. You were as sober as a judge. And that turned out to be a damned useful piece of advice. It kept me moving forward every time I found myself with a tough choice that I didn’t want to make.”

  He smiled again. “So, now I’m handing your own advice back to you. Stop trying not to screw up. That’s a recipe for permanent indecision. Forget about it, and concentrate on doing what you believe is right. There might be consequences. Hell, there almost certainly will be consequences. That’s the nature of the game.”

  He stood up. “Listen to your people, but make your own decisions. It’s all you can do. That’s all anyone has ever managed, including the men who sat in this office before us. And now, Mr. President… It’s your turn to do it.”

  Without another word, Frank Chandler walked to the door and was gone.

  * * *

  The president sat for several minutes after the former commander-in-chief had left the room.

  Finally, he stood up, walked to his desk and picked up the phone. He punched the number for the Situation Room Duty Officer.

  “This is the president,” he said. “Start waking people up. I want the full battle staff in the Sit Room in an hour.”

  He hung up the phone. It was time to get to work.

  CHAPTER 40

  FOX NEWS CHANNEL STUDIOS

  1211 AVENUE OF THE AMERICAS

  NEW YORK, NEW YORK

  MONDAY; 01 DECEMBER

  5:30 AM EST

  The screen filled with an establishing shot of a computer-generated globe, circled continually by a swarm of CG satellites, each casting a translucent ring of simulated coverage on the rotating earth below. Superimposed over the lower left hand corner of the screen was the red, white, and blue logo of the Fox News Channel.

  The voice of early morning news anchor, Ted Norrow, cut in—providing background narration for the animatic.

  “This is low earth orbit, where approximately thirty-eight-hundred manmade satellites are circling the world at any given time, providing telephone communications, television broadcasts, GPS navigation signals, weather tracking, internet access, and many other services that are indispensible to modern civilization.”

  The view cut to a close-up of Ted Norrow’s handsome face, staring into the camera with a charmingly somber expression. After two beats, the camera pulled back to a medium shot of the Fox News studio desk, with the satellite animatic reduced to a cameo window over Norrow’s left shoulder.

  A teaser bar at the bottom of the screen flared with the Fox logo and a wireframe graphic of a satellite bracketed by an artist’s conception of targeting crosshairs. The words ‘Breaking News’ appeared in simulated chrome lettering below the graphics.

  “Approximately seventy percent of the satellites in low earth orbit are commercially owned and operated,” the news anchor said. “The other thirty percent belong to the militaries and intelligence services of the United States, and other countries.”

  The animatic changed to a close-up of a satellite hanging in the blackness of space.

  “According to unconfirmed reports,” Norrow said, “approximately five hours ago, a U.S. Navy warship engaged and destroyed a Chinese military surveillance satellite in orbit over the Bay of Bengal.”

  “Again,” Norrow said, “I have to emphasize that these reports have not yet been confirmed. We’re expecting a statement from the Department of Defense shortly, but for the moment, we do not have corroboration from a reliable source.”

  The scene cut to a moving helicopter shot of the Pentagon. Ted Norrow continued in voiceover. “In view of the escalating hostilities between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China, the downing of a Chinese satellite could have serious international repercussions.”

  Another cut revealed a pair of side-by-side video windows, each containing a head-and-shoulders shot of a man in a suit. The man on the left was middle aged, with an immaculately tailored charcoal jacket and a maroon necktie bearing the Harvard crest. His political opposite in the window on the right was younger and more casually dressed, in a rumpled tweed sport coat and an open necked shirt.

  The news caster’s voiceover continued. “From our Fox affiliate studios in Arlington, Virginia and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we have Dr. Martin Crane from the National Institute for Strategic Analysis, and Jason Walsh from the Center for Global Progress. Gentlemen, thank you both for joining us at this early hour.”

  The older man nodded. “It’s a pleasure to be here, Ted.”

  The younger man smiled and nodded as well. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “Dr. Crane, let’s start with you,” Norrow said. “If this report is true, and the U.S. Navy has—in fact—downed a Chinese military s
atellite, what are the most likely implications for the current conflict? And, perhaps more importantly, could this be the beginning of an escalating cycle of satellite warfare?”

  The man in the left hand window straightened his necktie. “First, let me say that it’s a little early to be jumping to conclusions. We don’t have any reliable information about the engagement, if—indeed—it even took place. Second, if we assume—for the sake of discussion—that the U.S. Navy has destroyed a Communist spy satellite, then we can’t judge the wisdom or the implications of that action until we understand the circumstances in which it was supposedly carried out.”

  The screen cut to a three-shot, with Ted Norrow shown in profile at the anchor desk, facing the video windows containing his interview subjects.

  The anchor man nodded. “Can you expound on that?”

  Before Dr. Crane could respond, the other interviewee laughed. “That’s a silly question, Ted. You should know by now that our learned doctor can expound on anything, whether he understands it or not.”

  Crane ignored the barb. “We have to look at the situation in the Bay of Bengal,” he said, “beginning with China’s unprovoked attack on two U.S. Navy aircraft, and the death of an American pilot in the hours leading up to the satellite incident. And even before that, when the Chinese crippled the Indian aircraft carrier, INS Vikrant. What Mr. Walsh doesn’t seem to understand—”

  The other interviewee cut him off. “I’ll tell you what I don’t understand, Dr. Crane. I don’t understand why we’re getting involved in yet another military confrontation that doesn’t concern us. I don’t understand why we’re still trying to play policeman to the entire world. Didn’t we learn anything at all from Iraq and Afghanistan?”

  Ted Norrow raised a hand. “Just a second… Are you suggesting that the stability of Asia is not a legitimate concern of the United States?”

  Walsh shook his head. “I’m not saying that at all. But why do we keep assuming that military intervention is an effective tool for regional stabilization? When has that ever been the case?”