Red Hammer 1994 (19 page)

Thomas nodded approvingly at his boss. He had done well. Alexander acknowledged Thomas. The secretary had recited the proper script, but his heart was crushed. This was a different Alexander than Thomas had ever witnessed. A nearly broken man, heroically battling the odds as the strength drained from his body.

“I don’t consider launching our entire ICBM force as a proportional response,” replied the president angrily.

“Mr. President,” interrupted the secretary of state, “We must get you out of Washington immediately and arrange a rendezvous with NEACP. We’ll have the bulk of our strategic forces intact, believe me. Launching our ICBMs will only convince the Russians that we are committed to massive retaliation. Ask the chairman what types of targets will be hit with 2M. It’s more than ICBM silos.”

“Is that true?” asked the president, sounding wounded.

“Yes,” answered the chairman directly, “there are other key military targets. But they’re necessary to break up the Russian attack and stop a second wave.”

“Are any of the targets near Moscow?” barked the secretary of state.

“God damn it!” shouted the chairman, “We’re at war. The sons of bitches attacked us; tens of thousands of Americans will be slaughtered. I’ll be damned if we should sit by and let the bastards detonate over one thousand nuclear warheads on our soil without lifting a finger. Mr. President, we need a decision!”

“I say we explore every alternative before we commit national suicide, Mr. President. It’s our only hope,” countered Genser.

“Will other weapons be used, General?” asked the president wearily. The talk of numbers of this and that had cluttered his brain.

“A small number of SLBMs. Any bombers in the air will be recalled and sent to designated recovery locations to await further orders. I must emphasize that we’ve only ten minutes to decide.”

“Very well,” responded the president, emotion choking his words. “I wish to confer off-line with Secretary Genser.”

“Yes, sir,” answered the chairman and Alexander softly in unison.

Those two, plus Thomas, stood wearily, shifting from foot to foot, the strain permanently implanted on their faces. Collectively they eyed the big board, soaking up the disparate pieces. When the first-ever hostile nuclear weapon detonated on US soil, a small, white symbol mushroomed over Cape Cod AFS, site of the East Coast Pave Paws radar. The computer-generated icon expanded to a circle, the size proportional to the calculated damage radius from the blast.

“Those bastards,” shouted the chairman at the air, “those no-good, lousy bastards!” Other white icons peppered the map as Russian SLBM warheads methodically worked their way inland. The watch commander turned to the chairman. His voice cracked as he passed the grim news. NORAD had confirmed nuclear detonations, and that Loring, Plattsburgh, and Griffiss, all STRATCOM bases, had been destroyed. Installations further inland would be hit momentarily. At that moment, Thomas had lost personal friends, murdered by the Russians’ treachery.

Thomas felt helpless, more helpless than he had ever felt in his life, watching the nuclear explosions march across the eastern United States, reducing his country’s military power to useless rubble. He wrestled with the contradictions. They could capitulate unconditionally and limit American casualties or strike hard to punish Russian aggression. Reward Russian duplicity but spare the world from the horrors of all-out nuclear war, or accept the consequences of retaliation to prevent world domination by a renegade nation? He didn’t have the answer. He doubted anyone did, let alone the president of the United States.

“General, Mr. Secretary, the president is back,” said the chairman’s aide.

The president had surrendered to the dark forces. His stiff words came deliberately. He got to the point.

“I accept your recommendation,” he stated haltingly. “I hope to God that by doing this, it will stop here, that the Russians will realize they have to negotiate, and that the casualties can be limited.” He sounded like a man who didn’t believe his own words.

No one said anything. The sudden release of apprehension triggered a letdown. It was as if someone had suddenly let the air out of an inflated bag. The decision, the one they had vehemently endorsed, left them empty. “I’ll ensure your orders are carried out,” said Alexander sadly. “You’ve made the right decision, Mr. President.” He actually believed it. They all did.

“I hope so; I truly hope so,” the president said weakly. “I won’t be leaving Washington,” he continued. “We must end this insanity, no matter how much we detest the Russians. There must be a solution that will preserve our nation and the world.” The line went dead once more.

In less than one minute from when the president had authorized release, multiple airborne command posts swiftly transmitted emergency action messages (EAMs) to the American nuclear forces poised for a powerful counterstroke.

CHAPTER 17

Intermittent rain showers had hit the Texas Panhandle and northeastern New Mexico. Approaching the rugged eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, the graceful bomber broke through towering thunderheads into clear, open skies, dotted with irregular cumulus clouds. Puffy and white at the tops, and splashed with a pallet of grays at the bottoms, they looked like a fleet of rusty tramp steamers resting at anchor in a calm, blue sea.

The trek across the Rockies was spectacular. Only the highest peaks retained splotchy, off-white traces of winter. Alpine lakes dotted the treeless landscape, partially masked by the late-afternoon shadows, creating a camouflage of light purples, grays, and browns.

“Perfect for a low-level run,” mused Grant, glancing out the small window to his left. The B-1B’s subdued paint scheme would melt into the natural mosaic, playing havoc with an interceptor’s hopes for a visual ID.

Grant guided his plane diagonally across northern Utah, crossing the Idaho border on a course that would take them fifty miles north of Boise. Grabowski happily reported that they had picked up a few minutes from favorable winds. At 4:26 Mountain Time, half an hour from McChord, a UHF satellite transceiver in the forward avionics space began to hum, keyed by an air force AFSAT communications package riding piggyback on a navy FLTSATCOM bird high above the equator.

“Holy shit,” Ledermeyer shouted into the intercom. His voice had a sharp edge. “Emergency Action Message.” For a moment, he was frozen. A jab from Jefferson brought him to life.

EAMs, short messages repeated over special, war-reserve communication frequencies, had to be recorded, verified, and authenticated. Ledermeyer would verify that the message was complete and correct, but only Buck and Joe could authenticate. Sophisticated error detection and correction schemes kept bit error rates to a minimum, countering enemy jammers and radio-frequency propagation disruptions from nuclear explosions tearing at the atmosphere.

Joe stared incredulously at Buck, his face shifting from puzzled to confused. “What the hell is going on?” he asked.

Buck calmly reached forward and punched a small red button to acknowledge the cockpit alarm. “Beats me,” he answered. Outwardly he remained composed, but inwardly was a different story.

The plane’s main flight computer had digested the digital input from the crypto device downstream from the UHF transceiver and then spit out the results to a thermal printer next to Ledermeyer’s ejection seat. He studied the brief message, checking the header, then, word by word, verifying the format of the text in the body. Buck removed his bulky flight gloves and retrieved a small plastic box containing a two-inch computer diskette. He inserted it into a drive on the front of the flight computer. The codes stored on the diskette would be displayed on the screen next to those extracted from the message body. If identical, Buck and Joe would make a final comparison to the hardcopy for an exhaustive authentication. Buck waited nervously.

Ledermeyer thrust the printed message forward into Joe’s hand at the same instant the nuclear release codes contained on the little diskette cascaded down the computer display. Joe’s eyes were riveted on the screen, momentarily darting back to the message gripped in his glove. “Shit,” he said excitedly. “Think it could be a mistake?”

Buck pulled a thin folder from the doomsday case. “It’s real,” he said, balancing the red folder in his lap. He ran his finger down a short list of message types, stopping at the one where the message format exactly matched that in the EAM. “We’re to orbit north of the Canadian border. Then wait for the go code—if it comes.”

Joe leaned back in his seat. His world had just exploded. Ledermeyer and Johnson were silent, the normal chatter on the intercom had disappeared with the stunning realization that they might be going to war. It seemed impossible, unfathomable. Less than twenty-four hours before, they had been on a training mission, clicking through a canned mission scenario, which culminated with a perfect drop of dummy B-61s on an instrumented range. They could do it in their sleep. But now the bombs in the belly weren’t dummies, and the bad guys weren’t computer-driven emulations. Living, breathing Russians would be trying to kill them.

Buck wrestled with the orders resting in his lap. “A mistake?” he wondered for a moment. “Fat chance,” he muttered to himself. To sortie the bomber force and place them in holding patterns meant war. There was no other explanation. The pause was nothing more than a breather for the NCA to weigh the attack options.

Slouched in his seat, Buck stared at the sky and mulled the odds. As the aircraft commander, his crew would look to him to bring them home—to what he couldn’t imagine. STRATCOM felt that 30 to 50 percent of the B-1s would return, or so they said. Buck thought less than 20 percent was a far more realistic number, and that’s if they got lucky. The kicker was the assumption that tankers would service the bombers on the homeward leg. Buck had always been fatalistic; it suited his temperament.

Gazing out the Plexiglas windshield, his thoughts turned to family and friends—it hurt. The crystal-clear definition of being a bomber pilot in the United States Air Force whacked him across the face. He shook off the self-pity and returned to the task at hand. It was his job, one that he had committed to and trained for much of his adult life. He reassured himself that he would do it well.

Topping-off fuel tanks was the first order of business. The gas would be provided by a lone KC-135 tanker assigned to the 301st Air Refueling Wing based at Malstrom AFB. The unglamorous tankers were the lifeblood of the strategic bomber force. They were every bit as important as the bombers striking the targets and a high-priority target for the enemy. Their movements would be closely scrutinized to destroy them on the ground or in the air. Raze the fields, and the army starves. It was as old as history.

The mating dance scheduled over Canada between bombers and tankers was a masterpiece of planning, but frail. The slightest disruption would create a bow wave of chaos that would cascade through the force. Once committed, the bombers were particularly vulnerable. Bringing them down short of their objectives, loaded with weapons and fuel, at some civilian airfield or backwoods recovery site was courting disaster. On foreign soil, the results would be catastrophic. Once topped-off, they had perhaps half an hour to orbit before they would have to either head north to war or south to sanctuary, far from the reach of Russian bombers and ICBMs. Already, support teams were dispersing to sites in northern Mexico where they would wait for crippled aircraft to limp south.

Buck glanced at his watch. 4:40 p.m. Rendezvous would be in twenty-five minutes. His crew monitored instruments and referenced manuals, anything to divert their attention. He felt their pain.

Suddenly, another alarm flashed on the instrument console. Buck tightened. Joe slumped in his seat.

“I want a status report from all stations,” Buck ordered. An infusion of formality marked his tone.

On the bridge of USS
Texas
, the captain stewed in his chair, perched four feet off the green linoleum deck. He leaned back, his shoes resting on the bulkhead under the thick glass bridge windows. His chin was cradled by his thumb and forefinger. It was a fair day, with relatively calm seas for this high latitude, a stiff breeze blowing from the northwest. He had been up before daybreak to keep a close eye on the Russian frigate five nautical miles off the starboard beam. She had been shadowing
Texas
for over ten hours and had worn out her welcome.

Texas
had been steaming in circles for the past three weeks. Her captain felt cramped, boxed in by Russian combatants on three sides, and constantly overflown by Bear and Backfire aircraft. They could unload on
Texas
with no warning, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. So far they had behaved. His orders cautioned against pushing too hard, which suited him just fine.

Texas
was ideally suited for this tough operation. Nuclear propulsion meant endurance—no need to gas up every few days. She could remain on station for weeks, months—if need be—only needing an occasional drop of groceries. She bristled with Harpoon and Tomahawk anti-ship missiles, complemented by Standard surface-to-air missiles, making her more than a match for the Russian ships nearby.