Red Hammer 1994 (38 page)

“Plot the calculated impacts.” A keystroke caused a series of four magenta ellipses to blossom on the CRT. Three blotted out a green dot, which now flashed a plea for action. To the right of each popped up a digital counter that decremented toward zero—the time to impact and detonation.

“Data looks good, sir,” reported the captain calmly. They had done this so many times in the past twenty-four hours that they were doing it in their sleep. “Launch the birds, General? Five minutes for a commit.”

McClain’s concentration left the screen and zeroed in on Thomas. He was hunched over the adjoining console, quizzing a sweat-soaked major.

“It’s up to General Thomas,” announced McClain. All eyes fixed on Thomas. He ignored McClain, not even looking up to acknowledge the statement. He wasn’t about to be baited.

“Give me the current list of Russian targets,” Thomas instructed the major. A mouse click triggered a cascade of tabular data, which presented a priority listing of Russian targets. One field displayed a confidence level. Thomas rapidly scrutinized the list, honing in on the game changers then tapped screen repeatedly like an instructing school teacher.

“Call up those.”

The target table dissolved, and a brilliant Russian map appeared. The designated targets were displayed as icons. The symbols on the screen pointed to where Thomas wanted to drop the hammer.

“Lay down the Mark 12 footprints here, here, and here.” The major did as ordered, creating three large north-to-south ellipses. A MIRVed missile could disperse its deadly cargo over an area governed by missile-bus design and fuel consumption. The bus couldn’t be flown anywhere they pleased. In the Minuteman’s case, the footprint was large, over hundreds of miles on the longitudinal axis.

“Drop these two and pick up the ones here.” The farthest-west ellipse shifted northeast. “That’s it. Send the release order along with the targeting data,” Thomas instructed.

The major was caught off guard. He twisted and cocked his head at his boss. His surprised look transmitted the message. McClain nodded approvingly, just as surprised.

“Yes, sir,” he replied smartly, righting himself in his chair.

In ten short minutes, the Minuteman IIIs blasted skyward. They would root out hardened command bunkers and deeply buried nuclear storage sites. The launch brought a sense of satisfaction to those in the tent.

Thomas studied his watch. Two minutes to spare. McClain was chagrinned.

“Well done, General Thomas. I couldn’t have done better myself.”

The tension engulfing the Center lifted like a fog bank before the morning sun. McClain’s deep blue eyes displayed respect for his service brother. Perhaps a workable relationship could be forged after all. Thomas stepped over, wiping the sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve.

“How about the storage site? Can’t anything be done?” McClain had his hands on his hips, waiting for word from the Minuteman Wing.

“It was a secondary location,” McClain answered, not looking up. “We had twenty-five or so bombs there, no big deal. Close-by is a site that has old cruise-missile warheads, hundreds of them. Thank God that wasn’t it. Maybe the weapon will fall short. That’s why we placed the sites so far south. But don’t count on it. Russian ICBMs have more range than we thought.”

“What if one of those had been heading our way?”

McClain shrugged. “Evacuate as many people as possible. The vans can get underway in five minutes and cover ten miles in the next fifteen. Identifying escape routes is part of the site-selection process. Ten miles might just be enough. But then we’d expect them to hit us with a pattern of five or more RVs. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that one out, and Lord knows they have enough RVs to do it. Sooner or later, they’ll catch us with our pants down. It’s only a matter of time.”

The general’s fatalism confirmed what Thomas suspected. They all lived with the threat of death at any moment.

CHAPTER 31

The sharp retort of steel-toed paratrooper boots slapping concrete echoed through the dimly lit corridor. Moments earlier, Thomas had been rushed through the disguised entrance that hid the command bunker in the picturesque north Georgian mountains. Resting overhead was a clever rendition of an abandoned 1950s vintage filling station, complete with a ransacked, boarded-up country store. The underground complex had been someone’s brainchild during the early 60s nuclear war scare then put on the shelf. Resurrected ten years prior as part of a major command-and-control upgrade, the complex had never been finished due to lack of funds. Jury-rigged comm lines ran to truck-mounted satellite dishes in the tall pines, while diesel generators hummed under camouflage netting. Nervous radar operators scanned the skies. Rumor had Russian Backfire bombers flying out of Cuba on armed reconnaissance sorties.

Thomas strained to see as he slowly adjusted to the weak light thrown off by the fluorescents. The muggy, stale air hung thickly in the corridor, making it an effort to breathe. Perhaps it was the strain that sensitized Thomas’s body to every minute change in temperature or humidity. He felt out of synch with the natural world. It took a determined concentration to husband the last remaining pockets of clarity and rational thought.

The STRATCOM escort stopped at a heavy steel door. Thomas forced it back and stepped into the well-lit operations center. The interior had the unkept appearance of a storage shed, with stacks of wooden crates and cardboard boxes intermixed with half-assembled equipment consoles. Off to one side was an oblong table, the men seated around it resembling a meeting of the mafia at some abandoned warehouse.

“You’re late,” barked Hargesty. People didn’t even bother greeting one another anymore. Small talk and courtesy had disappeared after seventy-two hours of uninterrupted hell. The government had become a physiological and psychological laboratory experiment. The fierce weeding-out unfolded before everyone’s eyes. Many had simply collapsed, wounded by exhaustion and emotional terror. For others, it was angina or stroke. In many ways, they resembled torture victims, their overloaded brains frozen in a mindless daze. The rest, the survivors, struggled to maintain some semblance of sanity.

“Plane trouble,” answered Thomas bluntly. No one cared about the question or the answer. Thomas took a seat next to McClain; Hargesty was opposite. The others included senior officers from STRATCOM and Forces Command, none that Thomas recognized. The players changed so rapidly, he couldn’t keep score. Every encounter brought fresh faces. The growing casualty lists proliferated like the darkest days of the Civil War.

Hargesty rubbed his leathery brow while he read a message from a theater CINC. CINCPAC had reported the navy’s attack submarines were slaughtering the Russians. Two more missile-laden submarines had been added to the tally in the last twenty-four hours. The Russian sea-based strategic reserve was basically gone. A couple of surviving boats fled to coastal havens, safe from US attack submarines, but also out of missile range of most continental US targets.

“PACOM has the Russians on the run.” Hargesty tossed the message into the center of the table for public consumption. No one picked it up.

“The same reports are coming from the Atlantic,” added McClain. “Their SLBMs are no longer a threat, thank God.”

“And the rest of their fleet is on the bottom,” seconded an admiral. “The sea lines of communication are in our hands. We’ll mop up the odds and ends in the next few weeks.”

Hargesty tossed a nasty look McClain’s way. “Well, the navy’s done their part, General. When are you going to get the mobiles?”

McClain’s nostrils flared. “It’s not that easy, and you know it. I don’t have the aircraft to search every inch of Russian territory. Lacrosse has performed well against the rail targets, but we can’t find the fucking SS-25s in the forests.”

Hargesty wasn’t sympathetic. The painfully long silence left all to wonder what they were there for. After all, he had called the short-notice meeting. And the concentration of so many senior leaders made them all nervous.

“They still have over two hundred deployed,” Thomas said, breaking the ice. “We think it’s all they have left, but it’s enough. Negotiations will be tough as long as they have them.” Thomas had touched on a sore spot.

“Are you still pushing that cease-fire crap?” snorted McClain. “It’s hopeless and you know it. Why don’t you level with the president? This won’t end until the Russian forces are completely destroyed.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not crap, John. You still think we can win this thing. The president’s trying to end it on the best terms possible. If we’d pushed forward like you wanted, we’d have shot our wad for nothing, and the Russians would still have their mobiles. The president was right. He’s still right.”

Thomas was thoroughly disgusted. He pushed his chair back and stood. He had tried his best to walk the tightrope between service to the president and sensitivity to the military commanders. “Your boys are exhausted, and you can’t risk losing any more planes. We need to end this now. The country’s crippled, bleeding and broken.” His face hardened as he fell into silence. No one met the challenge.

“Sit down, Bob,” ordered Hargesty, unimpressed. He was still officially the senior officer in the US military.

Don’t alienate the generals, Thomas warned himself. You need their support. He was no good to the president by pissing-off everyone in uniform. He plopped down sourly. He still admired Hargesty’s judgment but was leaning more toward the president and his inner circle. The military men seemed oblivious to the wrenching task of reconstruction. The civilians, on the other hand, tended to stick their heads in the sand concerning military matters, but overall, they erred on the side of national survival. His role as the president’s military advisor had created a very real barrier between him and his service peers. They didn’t quite trust him anymore.

After Thomas’s retort, McClain searched for a graceful exit. “Fine, you were right about not committing to a massive strike on day two; I’ll grant you that. But we can’t stop fighting because you’re grasping at straws.”

Thomas shifted from anger to frustration. “We’ve covered this before. We’re not fools. Nobody seriously thinks the fighting will completely end, but we have got to stop lobbing nukes at each other. Another two or three days, and there won’t be anybody to negotiate with—on either side.”

Hargesty’s role was to play devil’s advocate, flushing out the arguments. It was tough to tell whose side he was on. “What do you propose, Bob, ignore the mobiles, focus on a cease-fire?

“I’ve talked to the president, and he understands the significance of the SS-25s. But he wants to regroup. We need a breather. Then push militarily if diplomatic efforts collapse.”

Hargesty had a sour look. He was getting sick of Thomas referring to personal talks with the president. “He’s said the same to me,” said Hargesty testily, “but I don’t agree. We can’t let up the pressure. Not now.”

“There’s another way,” offered Thomas. “We can go after the mobiles with special operations forces. SOF is the only hope of finding the 25s. Root them out one by one”

“It’s a suicide mission,” scoffed an army general. His Army Special Forces Groups would bear the brunt. It was listed as one of their assigned missions in OPLANs, but no one had ever taken it seriously. The logistics were overwhelming, and most in the community considered it a one-way mission. The actual scenario called for such action before a nuclear exchange, not after. “You’re just going to drop them in and walk away?” he added.

Thomas was piqued by the comment. “That’s right. Air-refueled MC-130s and MH-53s can carry teams and their vehicles out of England and Germany. Teams are staged as we speak. The Europeans have been reluctant to let us use any of our conventional forces, but they’ve agreed to let SOF slip by. As to the suicide comment, with millions already dead, I hardly think that rates an answer. That’s their job. They’ll go where they’re ordered.”

“Of course they will,” said the general, “I was just saying that we would be wasting valuable forces. We may need them later, for something else.”

“There’s no higher priority mission,” said Hargesty. Thomas was pleasantly surprised by the intervention. “OK, Bob, we get them in, and then what?”

Thomas leaned forward slowly and folded his hands on the table. He considered sending in SOF the last resort. The army general was right—they didn’t have a chance.

“Two possible tactics. The first is direct action, DA. The teams would haul in their own standoff weapons. Problem is the SS-25s deploy with company-level security and plenty of decoys. A small team in Humvees armed with TOWs or AT-4 rockets would be outgunned.” Thomas paused and looked around for a map. An aide scrambled, anticipating an order. He figured the captain knew what he wanted and turned back to the others.

“Another option would be for the teams to locate, identify, and designate the targets for air strikes.”

“Are you talking about orbiting bombers?” asked McClain. “It would never work. I don’t have the aircraft for that. You even said so yourself.”