Patrick McLanahan Collection #1

by Dale Brown

  He hadn’t used nuclear weapons, of course—but did that really matter? The attack on Engels had killed thousands, including some civilians, and nearly destroyed one of Russia’s main military air bases. McLanahan’s attack on the air-defense site had killed almost two dozen, and that was against a completely defensive weapon system. Was Gryzlov a worse leader just because he was using nuclear weapons? Was Patrick McLanahan the real provocateur in this entire matter after all?

  The door to Marine One opened, and two Secret Service agents, a general officer, and several armed soldiers stood outside in the driving rain, waiting excitedly for the president to alight. He did not need to glance at his watch to know that time was running out—no, time had run out a long time ago. Time had run out when he’d failed to deal with McLanahan, when he’d let his secretary of defense, Robert Goff, talk him out of punishing the general.

  “Listen to me, President Thorn,” Gryzlov went on. “I need to know what you decide. Will you retaliate?”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then, depending on the threat to my government and my people, I will have to respond in kind,” the interpreter responded.

  “Following your sneak attack with more threats, Gryzlov?”

  “Allow me to remind you again, Mr. President: This attack, although preemptive and heinous, makes us even. For the first time in history, Russia and the United States are at a strategic parity, with the United States definitely holding a technological and, at least for the time being, a moral advantage. If you retaliate, you’ll be condemning the world to nuclear disaster. You will be the aggressor.”

  There was a rustling of sound on the phone, and then General Anatoliy Gryzlov’s voice, speaking in halting and heavily accented English, took over from that of the interpreter. “Mr. President, you have made remarks in the past saying that a limited nuclear war is not just possible but probable. You have seen nuclear weapons used by the People’s Republic of China, the former North Koreans, and even Ukraine against Russia itself. Surely you have given this topic much thought. You know your answer. You know that the risk I have taken is great, but the risk you take by retaliating heightens the danger to the world a thousandfold.”

  “Mr. President, I want you into a shelter in five minutes,” the chief of the Presidential Protection Detail said sternly. Thorn’s internal “commando clock” told him there was less than twenty minutes before the first warhead would hit. “We have to go now.”

  “President Thorn?” Gryzlov asked. “What will you do?”

  Thorn looked at his PPD chief, then at the floor of the VIP cabin of the helicopter. Taking a deep breath, he raised his head and said, “What I’m going to do…is not talk to you any longer, Gryzlov,” the president said. “You launch nuclear weapons at my country and then tell me that you won’t launch any more unless we do—and you say it as casually as apologizing for accidentally splashing mud on someone? I’ll do what I have to do, without conferring with you beforehand.” Gryzlov was saying something in Russian in the background, but Thorn hung up before the interpreter could translate.

  He leaped out of the helicopter. The general officer saluted, and Thorn returned his salute. “Mr. President, I’m Major General Robert Lee Brown, commanding general,” he said. “This way, sir, quickly.” Brown motioned to a waiting staff car, and they drove off, surrounded by Army military-police escorts. They drove to a traditional-looking three-story brick building; inside, it looked anything but traditional. There was a welcome area featuring several large computer screens where visitors could watch images of computerized tank and helicopter battles, with captions underneath showing which units were participating in the mock battle. All of the screens were dark now, shut down to prevent damage in case of an electromagnetic pulse, and the area was deserted except for a few worried-looking soldiers in battle-dress uniforms stepping hurriedly past.

  The group took a concrete-and-steel stairway down two floors, followed a long minimally decorated corridor, and entered an office complex with a secretarial staff area flanked by several large office suites. “This is the computer operations hub for the National Simulation Center, which conducts several different types of battlefield combat simulations,” Brown said. “This office complex is the most secure location on base, and it is also equipped with secure high-speed communications facilities. You should be safe down here for as long as you need to stay. We’re not hardened against EMP, nor are we equipped with biochem filters, but this is the safest place on post. We should be safe if Whiteman or McConnell is attacked.”

  “That’s okay, General,” Thorn said. “We’ll be on our way as soon as we’re able. Thank you. Please see to your command now—make sure everyone is safe.” The general saluted the president, shook his proffered hand, then departed. “Mark, get me the NMCC.”

  The Secret Service agent got a quick briefing on the phone system, then dialed the National Military Command Center, checked in, and activated the speakerphone. “This is the president, secure,” Thorn said. “Situation report.”

  “Sir, this is General Venti. Secretary Goff and I are en route to Andrews to take the NAOC airborne.” The NAOC, or National Airborne Operations Center, was the flying version of the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, a converted Boeing 747 able to communicate with government, civil, and military forces around the world. “We are still in an Air Defense EMERCON. Four bases in Alaska have been struck by small-yield nuclear missiles—all radar sites and ballistic-missile defense installations. NORAD is now tracking several dozen inbound very-high-speed cruise missiles over south-central Canada. Estimated time to first impact: nine minutes, twelve seconds; target: Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota.”

  “I spoke with Gryzlov—he confirmed he launched the attack and warns us not to retaliate,” Thorn said grimly. “Status of the government and military command-and-control network?”

  “Good and bad, sir,” Venti said. “Most of the cabinet and congressional leadership have checked in with the comm center. Most are staying in Washington, unless there’s evidence that they might try to strike the capital. Since there are no tracks detected heading toward Washington or anywhere east of the Mississippi, the vice president relocated to High Point instead of going airborne. We’ll take several members of Congress and other agencies airborne with us. Secretary of State Hershel is airborne in a C-32 from Phoenix. Attorney General Horton hasn’t checked in, but his deputy said he was en route to Andrews, along with the director of the FBI.”

  “I want you and Secretary Goff airborne ASAP, General, as soon as you arrive at Andrews,” the president said. “As soon as both of you are on board, lift off. Don’t wait for stragglers.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “What’s the bad news, General?”

  “The bad news, sir,” Venti said grimly, “is that we’re going to get clobbered, and there’s nothing we can do about it except watch—and wait for the casualty counts to come in.”

  Site 91-12, North Dakota

  That same time

  Their day had started at seven-thirty the previous morning. Captain Bruce Ellerby and Second Lieutenant Christine Johnson, his assistant crew commander, met at the 742nd Missile Squadron to review tech-order changes and alert notes. They wore royal blue Air Force fatigues with white name tapes and insignia, along with squadron scarves.

  After a series of briefings to the entire oncoming crews, including launch-facility status, intelligence, weather, and standardization/evaluation reports, the crews piled their tech orders, manuals, and other bags into assigned vans and headed out to their assigned launch-control facilities. Both Ellerby and Johnson were taking correspondence classes while on alert, so they brought backpacks filled with books: Ellerby was working on his master’s degree in aviation-maintenance management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, while Johnson was working on both Squadron Officer School and her master’s degree in computer science from the University of North Dakota.

  After dropping off ano
ther crew, Ellerby and Johnson made their way to their facility and checked in with the security-forces commander around noon. A security-alert team was sent out to check ID cards and access badges, and the van was allowed to approach the launch-control facility. The crew checked in with the “House Mouse,” the noncommissioned officer who controlled access to the facility, to get the security and operational status of the site, and then placed a lunch order with the cook. By then the House Mouse had checked in with the offgoing crew, received verification of crew change and code words, then opened the elevator-shaft access door for the ongoing crew.

  Despite its being only an eight-story ride, it took four minutes for the elevator to reach the bottom. Their first task after reaching the subterranean level was to manually pump open the locking pins securing the ten-ton outer blast door leading to the launch-control electrical bay. Despite being heavy, the door was so well balanced on its hinges that it was easy for Ellerby and Johnson to pull it open. Once inside, the crew completed their preflight checks of the high-voltage electrical systems, switching panels, generators, and batteries, which would supply electrical power to the launch-control facility in case city power was disrupted. Once the checklist was complete, the crew closed the big door and pumped the locks back in.

  Meanwhile, the offgoing crew in the launch-control capsule was pumping open the blast door to the capsule. By the time Ellerby and Johnson were finished, the door was open, and they walked across a narrow tunnel leading to the launch-control capsule, an egg-shaped room suspended from the ceiling by enormous spring shock absorbers designed to protect the crew from the blast effects of all but a direct hit by a nuclear weapon.

  The offgoing crew commander briefed the ongoing crew on the status of the facility and on any scheduled maintenance or security-team inspections that were to be performed on the facility itself or any of the ten primary and ten secondary missiles under their supervision. The final task was for the offgoing crew to remove their combination locks from the red safe above the deputy commander’s launch console and cut off the tamper-evident truck seals securing the safe. The oncoming crew checked the authentication documents and launch keys, logged the new seal numbers, then closed, locked, and safety-sealed the safe. With the changeover complete, the offgoing crew turned over their sidearms to the new crew and departed. A final one hundred pumps on the handle, and the capsule was closed. After a check-in with the squadron’s other four launch-control facilities and assessment of equipment status, the twenty-four-hour alert tour began.

  Normally, pulling alert in a missile launch-control facility meant hours and hours of boredom, punctuated by a few hours of busywork and a few minutes of excitement. This tour was anything but normal. After a fairly quiet day and early evening, the communications system became more and more active as the evening wore on, with several communications and status-report queries from wing and Twentieth Air Force headquarters. Tensions were obviously high. The crews were fully aware of the events that had taken place in Central Asia in recent weeks and months, and of the overall heightened degree of distrust and suspicion of the Russians.

  The tension exploded early the next morning with a loud, rapid deedledeedledeedle! warning tone, signaling receipt of an emergency action message. Christine Johnson, taking a nap in the crew bunk, immediately bolted upright and hurried over to her deputy crew commander’s seat. Ellerby was already in his seat, and he had his codebook out and open. Seconds later a coded message from the wing command post was broadcast, and both crew members copied the message in their codebooks with grease pencils and began decoding it.

  The first indication that this was not going to be a normal day: The message decoded as an “Actual” message, not an “Exercise,” and although they had received several “Actual” messages already that shift, getting another so early in the morning was not normal. “I decode the message as a Message Eleven,” Ellerby announced.

  “I concur,” Johnson said, her mouth turning instantly dry. She stood up and removed her lock and the truck seal from the red safe while Ellerby joined her. He removed the proper authentication card from the outer compartment. “Card Bravo-Echo.”

  “Checks,” she said. He snapped open the foil card and tore off the top, exposing a combination of six letters and numbers underneath the foil, then laid it down on the message book. The characters were exactly as Johnson had copied.

  “Authenticators match and are in exact sequence,” Ellerby said.

  “I concur,” Johnson said, her heart pounding now.

  This time both crew members did everything together, slowly and carefully. They decoded the rest of the message, entering the proper date-time group and instructions on another page in the message book. When they were finished, they looked at each other—and realized they were about to do something neither one of them had ever done except in a simulator.

  Ellerby removed his lock from the red safe, cut off the second truck seal, and opened the main compartment. He handed Johnson a key and three more authenticator cards, then took a key and his cards back to his console. The two consoles were fifteen feet apart, separated to avoid any one person from touching the other’s console—especially the switch into which the launch keys were inserted. Meanwhile, Johnson looped the launch key over her neck, strapped herself into her steel seat with a four-point harness, and tightened the straps.

  Both crew members began running their checklists as directed in the emergency action message: They notified the other launch-control facilities in the squadron that they had copied and authenticated a valid message; they began the power-up and data-transfer and alignment sequence; and they alerted the aboveground security and maintenance crews that they had received a launch-alert message. The crew was in a hair-trigger readiness state, waiting for the next message.

  The next message arrived a few moments later, with retargeting information. On day-to-day alert, the Minuteman III missiles at Minot and elsewhere had “open-ocean” coordinates programmed into the missiles, so in case of an accidental or terrorist launch, the warheads would not hit any real targets. Now real targets had to be entered back into each missile’s warhead. It did not take long to do, but it was scary for the crew members to realize that they had taken the next step toward actually firing their missiles in anger. If the missiles left their silos now, they would strike their assigned targets minutes later—there was no abort, no recall, and no retargeting while in flight.

  After the retargeting was completed, there was nothing to do but sit back and wait to copy and authenticate an execution message, which would direct them to complete their launch checklist. The final step was to insert their launch keys into the launch switch and perform simultaneous key turns, which would enter a launch vote into the time-shared master computer. Successful key turns by at least two launch-control capsules with no INHIBIT commands from any other squadron LCCs was necessary to launch the missiles; three successful key turns in the squadron would send a launch command, no matter how many other INHIBIT commands were entered. The master computer would then decide when each missile would launch, automatically holding some missiles while others launched so the warheads would not destroy each other after—

  Suddenly the entire launch-control capsule heaved. The lights blinked, then went out, then came back one by one. The air became heavy, then hot, then seemed to boil with moisture and red-hot dust. The capsule banged against something solid—probably the bottom of the facility—and then bounced and shook like a bucking bronco. Both crew members screamed as their bodies were hurled against their restraints. Equipment, books, and papers started flying in every direction around the capsule, but Ellerby and Johnson didn’t notice as they fought to stay conscious against the tremendous pounding. The heat began to build and build….

  And then it all exploded into a wall of fire, which mercifully lasted only one or two heartbeats, until everything went forever dark and silent.

  Over Central Utah

  That same time

  Attention
all aircraft on this frequency, this is Salt Lake Center, I have received an emergency notification from the U.S. Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security,” the message on the radio said suddenly. “You are instructed to divert to the nearest suitable airport and land immediately. Any aircraft not in compliance within the next twenty minutes is in violation of federal air regulations and will be prosecuted, and you may be shot down by ground or airborne air-defense weapon systems without further warning.”

  Patrick McLanahan, sipping on a bottle of cold water while at the controls of his own Aerostar 602P twin-engine airplane, nearly gagged when he heard that announcement. He immediately punched the NRST button on his GPS computer, which gave him a list of the nearest airports. Luckily, there were a lot to choose from in this area—a few minutes farther west, out over the vast high deserts of western Utah and eastern Nevada, and he’d be in big trouble.

  His Aerostar was a rather small, bullet-shaped twin-engine plane, built for speed, with short wings that needed a lot of runway for takeoff, so he had to choose carefully or he might have trouble departing; Patrick also remembered that thousands of air travelers had been stranded for several days after they were grounded following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and several hundred general-aviation aircraft were grounded for weeks if they were based near Boston, New York City, or Washington, D.C. The nearest airport to him now, Nephi Municipal, was only six miles away, which would take him about two minutes, but Provo Municipal was only twenty-eight miles farther north and would only take him an extra nine minutes to reach; it had a longer runway and better airport services. He figured he’d be much more likely to get a bus or train ride home from Provo than he would from Nephi.

  The channel was clogged with voices, dozens of pilots all trying to talk at once. “All aircraft on this frequency, shut up!” the controller shouted. It took several such calls for the frequency to clear. “Everyone, listen carefully and cooperate. Don’t acknowledge my calls unless I ask you to, and keep all channels clear unless it’s an emergency—and by God, it had better be a big emergency.