Arc Light (92 page)

The director of the CIA reached over the President's shoulder and hit the mute button. “We have no idea if what he's saying holds water, sir.”

“The code bore the initials and ages of Gorbachev and his wife Raisa.”

The President brushed the director's finger off the mute button. “What does the code do?”

“It is intended to prevent the possibility of unauthorized use of nuclear weapons, Mr. President. Specifically, of use in a Russian civil war—to prevent a nuclear civil war.”

“Does it work?” the President asked.

After a long pause, Razov said, “I don't know.” There was another silence during which the President stared back at the faces of the men down the conference table, all of which were turned his way.

“You must,” Razov said, “you absolutely
must
call off your attack on the Bastion. The fail-deadly policy, sir—it was not a ruse. It was not disinformation. It
is,
it truly
is
the nuclear control policy that became effective for those submarines upon Zorin's choice of launch control orders.”

“I'd like to speak to Mr. Lambert,” the President said.

During the momentary pause, Thomas looked at his watch and then over at the Chief of Naval Operations, who was doing the same. The Kara Sea naval and air forces were over their targets or very near them.

“Yes, Mr. President?” Lambert said.

The director of the CIA held up his hand to silence Costanzo. “Lambert,” he said, “did you hear Razov's story?”

“Yes, I did.”

The President started to speak, but the director held up his hand again. “Were you with Razov the whole time he went through the launch authorization procedure.”

“Yes.”

“Can you supply more details?”

Thomas stared at the speaker during the pause. “No, Goddammit,” Lambert replied, slow to remember the coded phrase. “I'm not under any duress!”

The director nodded at the President. “Greg,” the President said, leaning forward closer to the speakers, “you were there. You watched him. What do you think?”

There was no pause this time. “I believe General Razov, sir. I believe he is telling the truth.”

Thomas watched as the President puffed his cheeks out and blew into his hands as if they had grown cold. Still holding his head, he looked up at the CNO and said, “Admiral, call off the attack on the Bastion.”

As the CNO repeated the reports fed to him over the two telephones planted to his ears and the Secretary of Defense kept track on a yellow legal pad, Thomas's eyes were glued to the one screen showing the flight deck of the U.S.S.
United States,
the newest of the Nimitz-class of nuclear supercarriers, as she plied the Kara Sea.

“Destroyers
Laboon
and
John Rogers
acknowledge abort,” Admiral Dixon said, and the Secretary of Defense wrote their names under the “Destroyer” heading. The aircraft carrier was growing busy again, having spent over half an hour launching eighty-odd aircraft at breakneck pace from the four catapults down each of its two angled flight decks as the attack began. Now Thomas watched as an F-14, its wing and fuselage pylons still heavily laden with unexpended air-to-air missiles, came roaring in, its tail hook snagging just past the center arresting cable in the controlled crash that was a perfect landing.

“Attack submarines
Salt Lake City
and
Indianapolis
and frigates
Robert G. Bradley
and
Stephen W. Groves
acknowledge abort,” Dixon said, and the Secretary wrote.

“General Razov,” the President asked in a raised voice, “are you still there?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Razov said over the speakerphone.

“Chancellorsville
and
Leyte Gulf
—cruisers—acknowledge,” the CNO said in a lowered voice.

“What about the remainder of the terms?” the President asked.

“They are acceptable, Mr. President.”

“And you represent to us that you can speak for the entire Russian military establishment?”

“Yes, sir. I am confident my orders will be obeyed.”

The door opened and an air force sergeant walked around the table with a message for the director of the NSA. The President muted the telephone and turned to Thomas. “Should we call off the ground attack on Moscow too?”

Before Thomas could answer, the NSA director said, “Just a second, sir.”

“Cruisers
Philippine Sea
and
Vincennes,
destroyers
John Paul Jones
and
Deyo,
frigates
Ford
and
Klakring,
and attack submarines
Albany, Jacksonville, Tucson
and
Newport News
report acknowledged,” Admiral Dixon said as the NSA director walked around the table to stand beside the CIA director behind the President.

“We just got satellite imagery in from a pass over Nizhni Novgorod,” he said as Thomas listened, his eyes fixed on the carrier's flight deck for the landing of the ungainly E-2C, its props on full power in case of an abort and its huge radar dome like an umbrella over its thick fuselage. “The Russian Army groups in the east are
dispersing. Units have left their staging areas and displaced into the countryside. Initial analysis is consistent with action orders called for under the Russians' Operation Samson.”

The President's finger remained firmly fixed on the mute button. Thomas's previously dark feeling about aborting the attack grew black. “What's the status of the recalls, sir?” Thomas asked the Secretary of Defense.

He counted down the list. “All the attack subs report aborts,” he said, his pencil tapping down the vessel names. “All the frigates are okay.”

“The carriers, of course, reported back immediately,” the CNO supplied.

“We have the
Comte de Grasse
still out,” the Secretary said.

“They're not in any shape for offensive operations,” Admiral Dixon said but pulled the mouthpiece of one of the telephones to his lips and said, “Frank, get me an acknowledgment from the
Comte de Grasse.”
He listened for a second before saying, “She turned turtle four minutes ago. Search and Rescue is on the scene.”

“That means all the destroyers have reported or are nonoperational, Mr. President,” the Secretary of Defense reported, “but we still have one cruiser—an Aegis class, the
Anzio
—from which we've heard nothing.”

“Frank?” the CNO said. “What's the deal with the
Anzio?”

“One of her
LAMPS
helicopters reported a few minutes ago that she was engaged in an attack run,” the Secretary of Defense said. “Her communications were knocked out in a missile attack from a Russian cruiser, which she in turn sank with Harpoons.”

“We've got to stop her,” the President said.

“The
John S. McCain
” Admiral Dixon said, the hands holding the two phones sagging to the table, “one of the reporting destroyers, is signaling the
Anzio
with lights and has fired a warning shot across her bow.”

“What's her range from target?” Thomas asked.

“She's getting close.”

“Sink her,” the President said. Thomas and the CNO looked at him, and he said, “Order the
McCain
to sink the
Anzio”

Admiral Dixon froze, staring back at the President. “Do it!” Thomas ordered.

“Frank,” the CNO said, “do you have the
McCain
on—?”

The CNO fell silent mid-sentence. From the look on his face as he listened, his eyes falling closed, Thomas knew it was too late. He looked back at the screen with its scene of the busy carrier deck. In the background, the deep blue sea met the light, crisp blue of the sky. It was almost as if it were a dream, a nightmare. One second,
the smooth blue sea was cut only by the white spray from the bow of a distant frigate. In the next, there erupted the first white streak from the horizon, a fiery arrow riding its blazing tail into space as the first of the Russian submarines fired.

“The
McCain
reports eight ASROCs fired by the
Anzio,”
Admiral Dixon said.

“Mr. President,” Thomas said wearily, “I recommend that we resume the attack with all possible speed and you immediately authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons.” He nodded at the screen on which had appeared half a dozen streaks from various points along the horizon.

“Oh, my God.”

“Mr. President,” Razov said calmly.

The President's shouts poured from the telephone as Lambert stood to the side of the credenza, still staring down the rifle muzzle pointed loosely at him by Filipov, who leaned against the conference table.

“You must not fire your missiles at my country,” Razov said in a raised voice. “Mr. President! Mr. President, if I could—” Razov grimaced. “I am aware that the submarines' missiles are headed toward the United States, sir, but if we are to discuss an allocation of responsibility for this crisis—moral, political, and otherwise—do I need remind you that you were warned of the fail-deadly firing orders under which the Bastion's submarines operated?”

Lambert could hear the President's shouting die down as Razov listened. “I understand completely that your attacks into the Bastion will continue, Mr. President, and under the circumstances it is with the heaviest of hearts that I must hope for your success against the submarines that still have unexpended missiles.” Again the President's shouts interrupted Razov, and again Razov listened patiently. “No, sir, I do not call dozens of warheads falling onto your military installations and cities to be ‘success' in any absolute sense of the word, and I must tell you that in all probability that number will grow into the hundreds, if not thousands, before your submarines and antisubmarine aircraft can again maneuver into firing positions.” He listened again. “I understand, but even if you use tactical nuclear weapons the submarines will still launch more missiles.”

This time, the President's shouted interruption drew a clench from Razov's jaw. “My communications with you earlier were
not
a trick to convince you to call off your attack on the Bastion so that I could order the submarines to fire!” The squeaky sound of shouting could be heard through the tiny speaker of the earpiece. “Mr. President, those submarines fired because they were attacked,
not
as a result of the codes I input into the communicators!”

Ice water shot through Lambert's veins at the possibility that such a thing might be true, that Lambert had stood by, rifle in hand, while Razov ordered the launch of the submarines' missiles at hundreds of U.S. cities. His mouth went dry. He looked at Filipov, and Filipov stared back at him past the black, open hole of his rifle's muzzle.

Razov held the telephone out to Lambert with a sigh, cupping the mouthpiece as the President's voice could be heard shouting, “ . . . want me to do then? Another
mistake?
My country is destroyed, a few million more of its population killed, and I'm supposed to chalk it up to another Russian
mistake
and hold my
fire!
Goddamn you, Razov, why didn't you recall those submarines if you were so stupid as to give them fail-deadly firing orders? What am I supposed to think? How am I supposed to believe that you didn't sucker us into this murderous endgame because you had just lost the war, huh?”

“Your President is about to order the launch of your country's remaining nuclear arsenal for the purpose of destroying the population of my country,” Razov said, holding his hand over the phone. “If he does this, I will fire the two hundred ICBMs that have been reloaded by our Strategic Rocket Forces, which have a separate code set from the old control system and are quite unaffected by the command to the submarines' missiles I entered earlier. I want you, Gregory Lambert, to convince him to hold his fire.”

“Well, it's not going to work, you son of a bitch!” Costanzo's shouts came over the phone. “I am not going to go down in history as the biggest dupe to have ever lived! Even Livingston had the guts to launch on warning and not wait for those
first
thousand or so warheads that your people ‘accidentally' fired to impact.”

Lambert took the phone. “Mr. President?” Lambert said.

“Tell him that the first strikes were counterforce,” Razov whispered.

“What?” the President snapped.

“Tell him that he has nothing to lose by waiting this time,” Razov coached, “that these warheads aren't aimed at your weapons and he can always counterattack if those warheads do in fact detonate.”

“Razov says you have nothing to lose by waiting,” Lambert said, unconvinced.

“Nothing to
lose!”
the President screamed. “Nothing to lose? How about three quarters of our productive
base
and sixty or seventy million
people
if the winds are all wrong?”

“Tell him that the missiles will not detonate,” Razov said, “that their fusing circuits have been safed—locked by the codes I put in—so that they cannot detonate their warheads.”

Lambert cupped his hand over the telephone as he heard the President, in the background, shout, “Open that thing up!”

“What if that inhibit code you entered,” Lambert said—thinking,
If that was what you did
—“didn't get through in time? Or what if it just doesn't work?”

“Mr. Lambert,” Razov said, “what difference does it make? In twenty minutes, your country will either be destroyed or it will not be destroyed. In either case, your nuclear arsenal, the several thousand nuclear devices that sit atop missiles in your submarines, or in bomb bays in your airborne bombers, or in cruise missiles aboard practically every combat ship in your navy, will remain intact and ready for immediate use. And, Greg, your troops will still be fighting their way block by block through the capital city of my country.”