Flight of the Old Dog Page 3

  When the red-orange illumination disappeared, the cabin went to black. Several tiny spotlights and some engine gauges operating off the aircraft’s batteries could still be seen, but everything else snapped off. The roar of the engines began to subside.

  “All of the generators went off-line,” the RC-135’s copilot said.

  “We’ve lost engines two, three and four,” the pilot said. “Airstart checklist. Fast.

  “Crew, this is the pilot. We are starting engines. Check your oxygen, check your stations, report in by compartment damage and casualties.”

  All departments reported in with only minor equipment malfunctions. The pilot gave an order to code a message to SATCOM. Suddenly the aircraft’s reconnaisance officer came on the interphone. “Radar target-tracking signal strength is increasing.”

  The pilot pushed on the yoke, forcing the RC-135’s nose steeply downward. “That last shot was aimed at something else, now it’s us … We’re going down to one thousand feet.”

  “Pilot,” the RSO said, “signal strength increasing . blanking out my—”

  He never finished his report.

  An intense beam of orange-red light slashed across the top and sides of the RC-135. Once it had pierced the aluminum skin of the jet, the beam found little resistance. It tracked precisely along the center of the aircraft, instantly superheating the heavy oxygen atmosphere and creating a huge bubble of plasma. The resulting explosion turned the two hundred million dollar aircraft into flecks of dust in a fraction of a second. The beam ignited the vaporized fuel that erupted from the disintegrated airplane and added the force of fifty thousand pounds of jet fuel to the detonation.

  As fast as it had begun, it was over. The fireball grew to three miles in diameter, then hungrily feeding on itself in the intense plasma field, dissolved into the black Siberian night.

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  General Wilbur Curtis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stood at ramrod attention as the President of the United States entered the White House Situation Room, the emergency alternate conference center and shelter. The President was followed closely by Marshall Brent, the Secretary of State, and Kenneth Mitchell, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Trailing behind them was a man in civilian clothes but with a short military haircut. He carried a black leather briefcase.

  The President, wearing a blue and red athletic warmup suit, glared at Curtis as he sat down at the head of a large oblong table. His thick brown hair was tangled, and beads of sweat dropped from the ends and trickled down his neck. Curtis went over to the steel vaultlike door and checked that it was locked.

  The President unzipped the warmup suit half-way and picked up a telephone on the table in front of him.

  “Jeff?” he said. “Have some coffee and croissants brought down to the Situation Room right away. And see if you can move the morning Budget Committee meeting to this afternoon. If you can’t, let me know and I’ll try to shake loose … what? No, I don’t know how long this will be.” He slammed the receiver down on its cradle.

  The man with the briefcase set it down at a console in a far corner of the room. He put on a headset and punched a series of numbers into the keyboard. He spoke briefly, then watched the indicators on the console. A few moments later, he nodded and turned to the President.

  “Full connectivity, Mr. President,” the man said. “Sir, your helicopter is fifty seconds from touchdown on the south lawn. Air Force One is ready for immediate takeoff.”

  The President said nothing. The man at the communications console was in charge of the “football,” a tiny transceiver and several sets of authentication and coding documents packed inside the briefcase. That briefcase was always within arm’s reach of the President. In case of a surprise attack or other emergency, the President could instantly direct all of the United States’ strategic forces by typing a series of coded instructions into the miniature portable transceiver. Now, in the emergency command post under the White House, the President had instant communications capability with command centers all over the world.

  “All right, General,” the President said. “This seems to be your little party. Another unscheduled emergency exercise? If so, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. I was in the middle of my first workout in a week, and I’ve got a—”

  “It is no exercise, sir,” Curtis said. “Exactly fifteen minutes ago, we received confirmation that an Alpha Omega Nine surveillance satellite was lost. It—”

  “A satellite?” the President said. “That’s all?”

  “This particular satellite,” Curtis went on, “was this nation’s primary missile-launch detection vehicle for eastern Russia and the western Pacific areas. Currently, Mr. President, we have absolutely no missile launch detection capability for an estimated one-fifth of the Soviet’s ground- and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles.”

  “Surely, you’re exaggerating,” Kenneth Mitchell said. “We have dozens of surveillance satellites—”

  “But only one over eastern Russia,” Curtis interrupted, “specifically designed to warn us of an ICBM launch from sea or land. Now we have none—at least, until we can reposition another satellite over that area. That may take some time.” Curtis turned back to the President. “Meanwhile, sir, we need to have you available to evacuate Washington in less than ten minutes.”

  “Why ten minutes?” the President asked, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “That, Mr. President, is how much warning time we have,” Curtis explained. “Ten minutes from when the Soviet ICBMs cross the horizon in the mid-course phase until the warheads impact. We believe none of those missiles would be targeted on Washington, but we can’t take the chance.”

  The President was quiet for a moment. The stillness was broken by the arrival of the President’s chief of staff, Jeffrey Hampton, followed by an aide with a tray of coffee and pastries. The aide circled the table, making sure that everyone’s coffee cup was filled.

  “I couldn’t reach all of the Committee members, Mr. President,” Hampton said. “I’ll keep trying.”

  “Never mind, Jeff,” the President said. “We’re going to wrap this up shortly.”

  General Curtis stiffened. This President, he noted, was never very serious during the few simulations they had held, testing the emergency communications and evacuation plan. Now it was the real thing, and he was already anxious to leave.

  “I have more news, sir,” Curtis said, not touching his coffee. “We lost an RC-l35 reconnaissance plane near Russia sometime this morning.”

  The President closed his eyes and let his coffee cup clatter back onto its saucer. “How? Where … ?”

  “It was on a routine training mission from Japan to Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks,” Curtis said, “when it diverted to investigate some strange signals somewhere between the submarine base at Petropavlovsk and a large research complex north on the peninsula called Kavaznya.”

  The President nodded. “Any survivors?”

  “None so far,” Curtis said. “Search teams from Japan are just arriving on the scene. Soviet searchers have been out there, but they haven’t found anything.”

  The President nodded. “How many … ?”

  “Ten men, two women.”

  “Damn.” The President pressed his fingers of his right hand to his temple and gently began to massage it. “What the hell happened? Why were they over there?”

  “A routine radar mapping sortie—a spy mission,” Mitchell, the CIA director, chimed in. “They fly off the coast, trying to get the Russians to bring a threat radar up against them. They plot out the radar’s location, identify it, see what it does.”

  “How close to the coast were they?” the President asked. Curtis hesitated. “How close?” the President asked again.

  “Its closest approach was about thirty-five miles,” Curtis replied. “When we lost contact with the plane, they were about ninety miles from the coast.”

  “Well, dammit,” the President
said, “I’d be upset if a Russian spy plane was thirty miles from Washington.” The President turned to Brent, the Secretary of State, who anticipated the President’s next question.

  “Technically, Mr. President, they stayed in international airspace as long as they did not overfly Soviet territory,” Brent said. “However, the Soviets guard their ADIZ—the air defense identification zone—quite zealously. The ADIZ extends one hundred and twenty miles from shore.”

  “How did they shoot them down?” the President asked. Again, Curtis hesitated. “General?”

  “We … we’re not sure, Mr. President,” Curtis replied. The President looked at the oak-paneled walls around him as if they had begun closing in on him. “Sir, at this time we can’t even confirm that the Russians did in fact down the plane.”

  “You’re not sure . .

  “There was no way we could be sure what happened.”

  “Goddammit, General,” the President said. “We’ve lost twelve men and women and an unarmed spy plane and you can’t tell me what happened?”

  “We don’t have all the data in yet, sir.”

  “But you are accusing the Soviets of shooting down that plane?” Marshall Brent asked. “Without evidence?”

  “It had to be the Soviets,” Curtis shot back. “There was no way—

  “Well, what have you got. General?” the President asked impatiently, pouring himself and Brent more coffee. “From the beginning. And it better be good.”

  Curtis cleared his throat and began: “Sir, the RC-135 concentrated its patrol on a large research area north of Petropavlovsk—”

  “We’ve received intelligence about secret weapons research activities there,” Mitchell interjected. “They’ve built up defenses there, too. They have an airfield and fixed surface-to-air missile batteries almost as large as at the sub pens at Petropavlovsk. But all we’re certain of is a huge nuclear power plant at the facility.”

  “That may not be all,” Curtis said. “We received data from the RC-135 about several new long-range early-warning and surveillance radars in the area, including one of tremendous power. It was powerful enough to disrupt the data coming from the RC-135 in all bands.”

  “They were jamming us?”

  “Not jamming,” Curtis said. “Interference. They blotted out a wide frequency spectrum with that one radar.”

  “So what is it out there?” the President asked everyone in the room. “Are you saying it’s a new antiaircraft site? A jammer? What?”

  “We have reason to believe, sir,” Curtis replied, “that the Soviets have been conducting research into high-energy antisatellite and antiballistic missile lasers at Kavaznya. That radar has enough power and enough capability to find and track objects in Earth orbit. Sir, we believe they may have a laser defense system in operation there.”

  The President’s jaw lowered. He looked quickly at Mitchell and Brent.

  “Jesus, Curtis,” Mitchell said, giving the General an exasperated look. “Pure speculation. You don’t have enough information to—”

  “Do you know what they do have out there, Mitchell?” Curtis asked.

  “Of course,” the CIA chief said. “A huge reactor, a large airfield, increased air defense sites—but not some pie-in-the-sky laser defense system. We suspect they have a myriad of weapon experiments being conducted out there—nuclear warhead production, nerve gas, maybe some particle-beam and laser experiments dealing with future antisatellite and ABM devices. But an operational system? Impossible.”

  “That radar is immensely powerful,” Curtis said. “They could easily have constructed a radar with far less power to guide missiles to an atmospheric target. This one can track targets, we estimate, as far as our highest orbiting satellite—as far as thirty thousand miles.”

  “Suspect. Possibly. Estimate.” The President glanced at his watch again. “Is that it? Nothing more definite?”

  “We know it is a giant research facility,” Curtis said, trying to regain his lost credibility. “They have the energy source and a tracking and targeting capability. They’ve also spent enough money on that complex to achieve spectacular results—”

  “We also know,” Mitchell interrupted, “that despite the massive amount of money the Soviets have spent on research, they are still at least twenty years from developing a laser sophisticated enough to deploy a credible laser-based ABM system.”

  “How far are we?” Brent asked, his curiosity piqued.

  “At least ten years for a laser system,” Curtis said. “Turn of the century at most. But we have a working antisatellite system now—the two F-15 antisatellite groups operational at Andrews and Tacoma. Plus we have the Ice Fortress polar missile defense space station project. We can put it up next year on the Shuttle if we want to. We can upgrade it to a rail-gun or kinetic energy ASAT system by—”

  “We cancelled Ice Fortress, didn’t we?” the President asked absently as he sipped his coffee. He turned to Brent. “We cancelled it, right?”

  “Absolutely, sir,” Brent said. He turned to Curtis. “I hope the fact has merely slipped your mind. General, that launching Ice Fortress would be a flagrant violation of the first ratified arms agreement we’ve had with the Soviets in over twenty years.”

  “Ice Fortress isn’t at issue here,” Curtis said. “The point is: we can’t simply double the estimate of our own technology and apply it to the Soviets. This ‘just because we don’t have it the Russians can’t have it’ is nonsense. The Russians play by a whole different set of rules than we do. They don’t answer to Congress, the press. the public, or the world. They don’t cancel projects, close plants, lay off workers, or worry about a budget. If they want a laser defense system now, they build one. If they need more money, they buy twenty percent less meat and thirty percent less toilet paper and to hell with public opinion.”

  “C’mon, General,” Mitchell said, “I’m on your side, but our information just doesn’t support your theories. The technology involved in creating a laset:based antisatellite system that can hit even a geostationary satellite is tremendous. It is almost mind-boggling to apply that same technique to shooting down warheads a little bigger than a yard in length. The degree of accuracy required is enormous.”

  “And just because we can’t do it,” Curtis said, “the Russians certainly can’t, eh, Mitch?”

  “All right, all right,” the President said. “Let’s stop trying to win debating points.” He ran a hand through his sweaty brown hair and tried hard to think. “All I see is two of our country’s leading experts arguing and contradicting one another. You say that complex could house a Soviet antisatellite or anti-ICBM laser, but then you say they don’t have the technology to deploy such a system. Excuse my impertinence, gentlemen, but it sounds like paranoia to me.”

  “I assure you, Mr. President,” Curtis said quickly, “that it’s not—”

  “Mitch, we need more information on that facility in Siberia,” the President said, turning to the CIA director. “Can you get it for us?”

  “We have some possibilities, sir,” Mitchell replied. “At the very least, we should be able to get a more detailed diagram of the complex. I’ll give you a complete progress report as soon as possible.”

  “Good.” The President glanced at his watch again. “General, I realize the importance of insuring my fast departure from Washington in case of an emergency, but I simply don’t think the world situation warrants this degree of caution. I’ve got a heavy schedule today and I can’t interrupt it.”

  Curtis looked at the President disbelievingly. Wasn’t there any way to convince him of the seriousness of the damage done to the nation’s defense?

  “I want details of that plane crash as soon as possible. If the Russians aren’t cooperating in the search, I want to know about it.

  Plane crash, Curtis thought. Not downing. Not destruction. Not murder. He’s totally disregarded my suspicions.

  “We have no evidence of any lack of cooperation, sir,” Curtis said quietly. br />
  “Marshall, I think it’s time for you to put some feelers out to the Russians,” the President said. “Start at the U.N. See if we can get a special Security Council meeting together. We’ll hit Karmarov with whatever information we can present there and see how the Russians react. Tell Greg Adams to hit ‘em hard—accuse them of everything. See how that polite bastard Karmarov reacts. Maybe we have to jerk off these guys a little to find out what they’re up to.”

  “I’ll avoid … ‘jerking’ anyone off, Mr. President,” Brent said, blanching at the locker room words as if they had a foul odor.

  “Do what you have to,” the President said. He turned to Curtis. “Wilbur, I’m truly sorry for the loss of your people. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough information to accuse the Russians of foul play. We have to treat it as an accident. There’s no sign of survivors, the Russians claim they don’t have the bodies or the wreckage, and there was no cockpit voice recorder or flight data recorder even if it was recovered, is that right? A tragic loss.”

  “Analysis of the signal data from the plane and the destroyed satellite haven’t been completed yet, sir,” Curtis said. “I’ll report to you when that’s finished.”

  “That’s fine, General,” the President said. “Report to me directly about—”

  “I’d also like authorization to develop a response in case we find they do have an ASAT and ABM laser at that complex,” Curtis added quickly.

  “ ‘Develop a response’?” the President asked. “That sounds like militarese for an attack plan.”

  “This is getting quite out of hand, General,” Brent said. “I don’t feel it’s necessary to—”

  “Hold on, Marshall,” the President said. He looked closely at General Curtis. “Go ahead, Wilbur. What kind of response?”

  “I’m talking about what this Administration will do,” Curtis said, “if it is discovered that my suspicions are correct.”