by Walt Gragg
O’Neill went by his office and threw off his jacket, scarf, hat, and gloves. He returned to the hallway and headed toward the operations center. Other than a few lights being on that normally wouldn’t have been at this time of night, things appeared quite normal. Maybe this really was nothing more than a dream.
At the end of the hallway, he entered the code into the cipher lock and threw open the door to the Defense Information Systems Agency’s European Division Operations Center. In the middle of the white windowless room, four metal desks were pushed together. Next to each was an assortment of communication equipment—printers, computers, telephones, microphones, and speakers. From this room, all American strategic communication from Iceland to Turkey was managed.
Around the clock every day of the year, the operations center was manned by a shift of four. The four—an officer and three NCOs—controlled three hundred communication facilities, three satellite systems, and a trio of huge, computerized message centers. As the agency’s members knew, you couldn’t get a pencil to Europe without the communication system they controlled.
Rather than finding four people when he entered the operations center, O’Neill found fifteen. All but two were members of the agency. The strangers—a three-star general and a captain who was most likely the general’s aide—stood at the far end of the modest room beneath a large map of the European communication system. The general was talking with the agency’s director, Air Force Colonel John Cossette. Standing at the edge of the group was the agency’s deputy, Marine Colonel Charles Hoerner. O’Neill was too far away from their conversation to hear what was being discussed.
George O’Neill was one of the specialists assigned to the Defense Information Systems Agency’s European Division. The organization was manned by seventy handpicked soldiers, airmen, sailors, Marines, and Department of Defense civilian employees. In theory, the assignment of each service’s top communication specialists to the agency sounded good. In practice, however, the agency was bound to struggle in the coming days while trying to find a way to let the generals control the conduct of this war. For political reasons, it was staffed by people from each service. Yet the vast majority of the worldwide military communication network was operated by the Air Force and Army.
The sailors assigned to the agency were excellent electronic technicians. They were far superior to their Army counterparts, but they were trained for shipboard and ship-to-shore communication, a vastly different system than was used on the ground in Europe. The agency’s twenty-eight sailors and Marines would be of little help in the days to come. Much of the remainder of the staff were officers or civilian electronics engineers whose sole purpose was to design orders in response to new circuit requests. In neither the Air Force nor the Army did the officers play any active role in running the communication facilities. Since the development of the worldwide communication net in the 1950s, the system had been under the total control of the NCOs of both services.
As O’Neill stood in the operations center, he counted the number of people within the agency with enough on-site experience to keep the system going in a crisis. There were six. Six NCOs to direct all strategic communication within Europe and from Europe to America. Besides O’Neill, there were two Army Sergeants First Class, Rojas and Mitchell. There were three Air Force NCOs—his coworker in the quality-control section Senior Master Sergeant Denny Doyle, and Technical Sergeants Goldsmith and Becker, both of whom worked on operations-center shifts not presently on duty. While he looked around the room, he realized of the six people who would lead the fight against the chaos that was bound to follow, he was the only one present.
The other five NCOs lived in the military housing complex at Ludwigsburg, twenty-five miles north. With the autobahn essentially shut down by the blizzard, it would be some time before any of them would arrive.
Next to the four controllers’ desks, the communication equipment was chattering wildly. The shift, consisting of an inexperienced Navy lieutenant, a petty officer first class, and two Air Force NCOs, looked overwhelmed. Other than the general’s animated conversation with Colonel Cossette, everyone in the room was just standing around.
Marine Major Michael Siebman, O’Neill’s lunchtime jogging partner on those rare occasions when college classes weren’t in session, spotted him standing by the door. Siebman wandered over.
“When’d you get here?” Siebman asked.
“Just a minute ago, Major. How long have you been here?”
“About twenty minutes, I guess.”
“What in the world’s going on?”
“Word is the Russians attacked a little over an hour ago. Full-scale assault, from what I’ve overheard.”
“I . . . I . . . Major, I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I. But there’s no doubt about it, Russian tanks have crossed the border. From the looks of things, their war games were apparently just a ruse to hide their true intentions.”
“Who’s the general talking with Colonel Cossette?” O’Neill asked.
“General Oliver, Chief of Operations for European Command Headquarters.”
“What’s he doing over here?”
“EUCOM’s mad as hell. Their circuits to the Pentagon and many of the major European commands were knocked out when we lost Langerkopf. The entire system’s in disarray.”
“Lost Langerkopf?”
“Yeah, we lost Langerkopf a few minutes after the Russians attacked. No one seems to know for sure what happened, but we do know that sappers hit Donnersberg and Feldberg at about the same time that Langerkopf went off the air. Donnersberg’s fine. Feldberg survived, but they lost one of their two supergroups to Martlesham Heath and their satellite ground station. Almost everything between Germany and England’s been knocked out. And apparently there’s little communication going into and out of the air bases at Ramstein and Spangdahlem.”
O’Neill didn’t have to look at the map behind the general’s head to know what it all meant. No one in Europe knew the American communication system better than he did.
“What have they done about it so far?” O’Neill asked.
“I don’t know. I guess that’s why the general’s over here. From what little I’ve overheard, no one seems to know what to do.”
“Aw shit!”
O’Neill brushed past the major and headed for the Navy lieutenant sitting in the lead controller’s chair.
CHAPTER 19
January 29—1:22 a.m.
Defense Information Systems Agency, United States European Command Headquarters
Patch Barracks, Stuttgart
“Lieutenant Templeton, have you ordered the sites to start rerouting the highest-priority circuits?” O’Neill asked.
“What?”
“What have you guys done to reroute the highest-priority users we lost when Langerkopf went down and we lost a supergroup between Feldberg and Martlesham Heath, and the Feldberg and Langerkopf satellites, sir?”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant. I don’t understand.”
“What I mean, sir, is that we should’ve started determining an hour ago who the highest-priority users are and rerouting them onto the remaining sixty channels to England. We then need to see which of the most critical circuits going to our air bases at Ramstein and Spangdahlem went through Langerkopf so we can reroute the really important ones through Donnersberg.”
The general and the colonels stopped their conversation in midsentence. General Oliver rushed across the room to where O’Neill was standing. The others followed in his wake.
“Sergeant,” the general said, “are you saying we can do something to restore our communications with England and the States?”
It certainly wasn’t every day that a staff sergeant had a conversation with a general. But O’Neill understood, despite his uneasiness, that the situation called for him to ignore the stars on the general’s uniform and do
what needed to be done.
“Yes, sir. The 20 percent of our communications on the fiber-optics system is still safe and will likely remain that way. Of the rest, we’re not going to be able to restore everything. But we can give you some of it. We’ve still got sixty channels on the microwave system into Martlesham Heath. We’ve lost our two major satellite terminals, but we’ve still got twelve channels on the old satellite from Landstuhl to Arlington, Virginia. We can also give you forty-eight more channels to the States through Coltano, Italy, and onto an undersea cable there. After that, or whenever you want if you need them sooner, we can give you a few circuits into the air bases at Ramstein and Spangdahlem.”
“Why wasn’t this done before now?”
“It should’ve been, sir. Forty years ago, the entire process was supposed to be computerized so that it would automatically happen in this kind of situation. Unfortunately, Congress cut the project from the budget when the phasedown in Europe began, so it never got started. I’ve been told back then our communications was almost as good as anything AT&T could’ve provided. But without the funds, there has not been any real change to the system in all that time. So we’ll have to do the rerouting and restoration manually.”
“How long will that take, Sergeant?”
“Sir, you tell us what you want, and we’ll get you a circuit back online about every five minutes. All that’s necessary is for you and your staff to let us know what you need and when you need it, within the limits I just gave you, and we’ll take care of the rest from here.”
The general scooped up the nearest phone and dialed the European Command Operations Center in the middle of the base.
“This is General Oliver. Give me Colonel Morrison immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” Colonel Morrison said a few moments later.
“Charlie, look I’m still over here at DISA. They tell me that if we let them know what our priorities for circuits are, they can handle it for us. Get the staff on it right away. I’ll be over in a few minutes to give you the details.”
“Will do, sir.”
The general hung up the phone. He turned back to O’Neill. “They’re already on it. We’ll start letting you know what we’ve absolutely got to have just as soon as I get back to my office.”
“That’ll be fine, sir.”
“Anything else, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. Just tell your staff not to wait. As soon as they know the first few circuits, get back to us. We’ll start working on getting them in immediately.”
“Very good.”
Without another word, the general turned and headed for the door. His aide was right behind him. When the door closed behind them, the two agency colonels turned back to O’Neill with relieved looks on their faces.
“Thanks, Sergeant O’Neill,” Colonel Cossette said. “Are you certain you can do what you just promised the general?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“What are you going to need from us?”
“Sir, the first thing I’m going to need is access to the routing databases for every circuit in Europe. There are over four thousand of them, and we lost about a thousand when Langerkopf went down. So it’s going to take some effort to get the most important ones working again. All I really need at the moment is to get into Lieutenant Templeton’s computer so I can bring up the database files.”
The colonel motioned for Templeton to make room. O’Neill grabbed a nearby chair and slid in next to him.
“What else?”
“As soon as EUCOM calls back, we’ll need someone to work the phones. Lieutenant Templeton will do just fine. Finally, we need anyone not involved in the restoration of communications to go somewhere else. We’re going to need all the room we can get.”
“All right. Is there anything I can do?”
“Lots of things, sir. Mainly we’ll need you to run interference with the brass. We can handle the technical end of it from here, but only if we don’t have every general in Europe trying to give us orders. So I’d like you or Colonel Hoerner to be in here at all times.”
“Don’t worry about that, Sergeant. You concentrate on doing what you promised General Oliver, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
“Sir, it’s really not a problem. It’ll just take a little time.”
It was only a matter of minutes before the phone on Templeton’s desk rang.
“Sergeant O’Neill,” Lieutenant Templeton said, “General Oliver’s on the phone for you.”
O’Neill took the phone from the lieutenant. “Staff Sergeant O’Neill speaking, sir.”
“Sergeant, we’re ready on this end. There are twelve circuits we’ve got to get in as soon as we can. I’m going to turn the phone over to my chief of staff, Colonel Morrison, to work with you guys.”
“That’s fine, sir. We’re all set here. General, this will work better if we keep someone on both ends of the line at all times until we get everything up and running. These first few are going to take awhile until we get the bugs out of the process and everybody’s working together.”
“I understand, Sergeant. We’ll keep someone on this end of the phone until we get the job completed. Here’s Colonel Morrison.” Oliver handed the phone to his deputy.
“Sergeant O’Neill, is it?” the colonel said.
“Yes, sir.”
“General Oliver tells me you’re going to be able to handle this for us.”
“Yes, sir. Just give me the four-digit designator for the first twelve circuits, and we’ll take it from there.”
“Well, let’s see. We must have Kilo-Quebec-Seven-Victor, our primary presidential strike command circuit, back in just as soon as we can. Make that your top priority. I’m sure the President’s nowhere near ready to order any kind of nuclear strike or anything like that against the Russians, but should he at some point decide it’s come to that, without that circuit, he won’t be able to do so.”
O’Neill wrote the circuit designator on the notepad on the senior controller’s desk.
Colonel Morrison continued to talk. “Then we’ve got to have Echo-Charlie-Twenty-Seven from here to Air Force Headquarters at Ramstein and also Alpha-Six-Thirty-One, as soon as we can get it, for the National Security Agency folks in Augsburg to be able to talk to their headquarters in Virginia. The next . . .”
• • •
“All right, sir, I’ve got it,” O’Neill said. “It’ll probably take an hour, possibly a little more, to get these first twelve up. In the meantime, I’m going to turn you over to Lieutenant Templeton. Each time we get a circuit back, we’ll notify you so someone can verify the circuit’s working. Just keep on giving the lieutenant a list of the circuits you want, and we’ll work it throughout the night.”
“Okay, Sergeant, we’ll do that.”
O’Neill handed the phone to the lieutenant. He took his notes and started working through the database. The typically shy O’Neill certainly had no desire to be in the spotlight. But shy or not, he understood the significance of the job he was doing. Without an ability to communicate, the war effort would be fragmented and disjointed. In all likelihood, that would prove fatal. All the fancy American technology would be of little value if they couldn’t fully coordinate its use. And no matter how uneasy he felt when dealing with higher-ups, O’Neill wasn’t going to let the fact that he’d been shoved into the limelight stand in his way.
He found the correct database and located the appropriate pages to begin working on returning the presidential strike command circuit to service. He ran his finger down the screen, checking the crucial communication channel’s routing—the White House to the Pentagon, up through Nova Scotia and across Greenland, from there to Scotland, to Martlesham Heath on the English coastline, through a relay in Holland, to Feldberg on the supergroup the saboteurs had destroyed, then to Donnersberg, and finally arriving in Stuttgart.
&nbs
p; O’Neill visibly relaxed, his confidence growing. He knew they all wouldn’t be this easy. But this one was a piece of cake. Just one leg of the four-thousand-mile journey to worry about, and communications with the White House would be restored. All he had to do to allow the President to talk to his European Headquarters was to move the circuit at Feldberg onto the working supergroup to Martlesham Heath. From there they’d be home free.
He located a lower-priority circuit to preempt and wrote down its position on the Feldberg–Martlesham Heath link. O’Neill picked up the microphone in front of him. By pushing the microphone button, he would be in instant contact with every communication facility in Europe.
“Feldberg, this is DISA.”
“DISA, Feldberg,” came a voice from the battered mountaintop.
“Martlesham, this is DISA.”
“Go ahead, DISA,” said an airman at the Air Force site on the English coast.
“Okay, guys, we’re starting with Kilo-Quebec-Seven-Victor. Feldberg take it from Supergroup One, Group Three, Channel Eight, to Martlesham and move it to . . .”
Five minutes later, a first critical communication circuit was up and working. With the highly skilled George O’Neill taking the lead, more would soon follow.
The Russian plan to eliminate American command and control had so far failed. The Americans had been staggered by the sabotage. But General Yovanovich’s promise to Premier Cheninko to sever the American head hadn’t yet occurred. The Americans had been crippled by the commandos, but they were far from dead.
What the Americans didn’t know, however, was that Valexi Yovanovich still had a few tricks up his sleeve.
The monumental chess match between the gangly American sergeant and the implacable Russian general had many more moves yet to play before the war would reach its end.
At stake were the outnumbered Americans’ chances of controlling the burgeoning conflict.