by Peter Bryant
The President smiled. "Thank you, General. Let me assure you I have not taken the decision lightly."
Well, Steele thought, they would see. Meanwhile, he could rely on Franklin holding the wings where they could be sent in to their targets with the minimum delay.
The President looked at the map again. He gazed particularly at the heavy brown shading of the Urals. He said, "Get me Moscow. I want to speak to the Marshal himself. No-one else will do."
The senior of the two presidential aides said nervously, "Mr. President, it’s possible the Marshal will not be available."
"Tell him this," the President said, his words coming slowly and distinctly. "Tell him in an hour and a quarter from now his major cities, including Moscow, will be taken out. He’ll be available."
"Taken out?" the aide queried.
"Taken out, destroyed, obliterated, phrase it how you like. The words don’t matter. The cities and the people do." He paused, considering carefully what else there was to be said. "Tell him also," he continued very quietly, "I’m greatly afraid I won’t be able to prevent it."
The aide hurried away. The President glanced at his watch. It was five minutes to six, Washington time. He turned briskly to the group. "Now gentlemen, things to be done. NORAD alerted. Steele?"
"It’s been done, Mr. President."
"Good. The fleets at sea, Admiral Maclellan?"
"They’ve been alerted, sir."
"All right. I don’t consider there is a need to evacuate the cities yet. Any threat against them won’t develop for some time. Maybe," his voice was thoughtful, "for some considerable time. I’ll need a complete communications system between this room and Moscow. At least a dozen independent outlets. The Russian Ambassador will be arriving shortly, and I want him brought right in with no unnecessary formalities. Yes, Keppler?"
Keppler flushed. He did not like bucking authority, but this was madness. Within minutes of entering the War Room the ambassador could not fail to assimilate the most vital of all defence secrets. "The communications system is easy, sir. We already have all the outlets here we need. It’s just a question of hooking them to a radio net." He paused, not too sure just how far he should go. "About the Russian Ambassador," he began hesitantly.
"He enters on my personal orders." The President’s voice was quiet, but firm. "Now I wish to talk to the Joint Chiefs in private."
Individuals broke away from the group and dispersed down the room. At the long table they merged into a group again, as though the table acted as a focal point, bringing them together to converse in low, excited voices. Twenty yards away, the President was talking to the three service officers.
"A few moments ago," he said, "I made a decision you thought was military nonsense. As far as your information and your knowledge goes, I’ll agree that it was. But I happen to know a little more than you.
"I’m now forced to let you into a secret which up to the present has been known only to the President himself and the Secretary of State. It was passed on personally to me by my predecessor when ill health finally forced him to relinquish the Presidency. In my opinion, the knowledge he had to bear contributed directly to the decline in his health, but that is by the way. There are reasons you have not been allowed to have this information. The most important of them is that once you have it, you will see than an all-out attack on Russia is futile. Obviously, that would affect your attitude to your duties, and that would have been fatal, for it would have encouraged the enemy to attack, in the knowledge that though our defences are strong, yet we would hesitate to use our powers of retaliation.
"General Steele, I can see you don’t agree. Let me ask you a question. Could you, as Chief of Air Force, order an all-out attack on Russia if you knew that attack would inevitably mean the destruction of the United States?"
"Mr. President, the premises are false. If I ordered an all-out attack on Russia now, the United States would not be destroyed."
"You’re wrong. Not only would the United States be destroyed, but all the rest of the world too. Not spectacularly, and not at once, but quite inevitably. Radio-activity, you will agree, can destroy life just as effectively as blast or heat?"
"In the long run," Steele said. "But the big bombs we’re using aren’t rigged that way. There’s no reason the fall-out should exceed that of a small atomic explosion."
"And the Russians’ bombs?"
"They don’t affect the issue. If this attack goes through and is followed up, those bombs will never be delivered."
"Not on this country, no. But do they need to be delivered here? Now I am going to give you the information which was passed on to me by my predecessor. It is a quite simple idea, but if you look at it carefully you will see it really is the ultimate deterrent. You take a couple of dozen hydrogen devices. They don’t need to be bombs, no airplane is going to be called on to carry them. You jacket those devices in cobalt, and you bury them in a convenient mountain range. They can be exploded at the press of a button. All of them. How long would you give human life on this earth after such an explosion?"
The President paused, looked at each of the three faces in turn. They were thoughtful, puzzled, perhaps a little frightened as discernment came to them. "The Atomic Energy Commission were given that question as a theoretical exercise. Their answer was this. That all life would cease in the northern hemisphere between eight and fourteen weeks after the explosion. The southern hemisphere would last longer, depending on the time of year. Five months at the minimum, ten at the maximum. There would be no escape from the radio-active cloud. It would enshroud the entire earth, and poison every living organism. It would retain its lethality for hundreds of years. It would mean the end of the world. Literally."
Admiral Maclellan shook his head. "But that would be sucide," he said slowly. "The nation or person who set off such an explosion would die with the rest."
"Exactly," the President said. "But the rest would die. Gentlemen, we have incontestable proof the Russians have buried at least twenty, maybe more, of these devices in the Urals. It is my belief, based on a lifetime’s study of the Russian character in particular, and also the behaviour of dictators facing defeat in general, that if they see they are beaten they will not hesitate to fire those devices.
"Have you any doubt Hitler would indeed have brought the world down in flaming ruins if he had had the power to do so when Berlin was under siege? Fortunately, he did not have the power, he could only destroy himself. But notice that he did destroy himself, rather than endure defeat. In every dictatorship which is tottering, there is an urge towards destruction. Of self, if that only is possible. Of the world, if that is. Gentlemen, I am convinced if the eight forty-third wing carry out their mission, and with such success it is obvious to the Russians they have lost, then they will press the button. And if they do, within ten months from now our Earth will be as dead as the Moon.
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* * *
Chapter 10
"Alabama Angel"
* * *
10.55 G.M.T.
Moscow: 1.55 p.m.
Washington: 5.55 a.m.
"That does it, Captain. Check main switch off." Garcia’s voice indicated satisfaction and relief.
"Main switch off."
"Check bomb release link switch off."
"Bomb release link switch off," Lieutenant Engelbach said.
Brown looked at his watch. The first of the weapons had been armed in a little under nine minutes. Pretty good. The best time they had recorded in the synthetic trainer back at Sonora was eight minutes three seconds. But that was in a trainer, running the drill on a dummy bomb. It made a difference, a whole heap of difference, when the bomb was real and you were arming it for a real attack.
Brown thought he could use a cup of coffee. The arming up had been a big strain. There was no possibility of accidental detonation in the bomb bay. But there was a real possibility the bomb would not detonate at all when it was dropped if they slipped up on the drill.
They had not slipped up. All the circuits glowed green. When the time came, the first weapon was ready.
He decided a cup of coffee would have to wait until the second bomb had been armed. "O. K., Garcia, what do you say. Let’s get the time down on this one, huh? Then maybe a cup of coffee."
"Sure thing, Captain." Garcia sounded confident and cheerful. That was natural enough. He and Minter had just performed their duty competently and well. No matter just what the duty was, they had the satisfaction which comes to any man who has done a good job.
"Right. Number two, then. Arm and fuse for air burst at twenty-five thousand."
"Air burst, twenty-five. Release trigger primer for number two."
"Releasing." Again the drill with the switch on the right side of the panel, the button pressed simultaneously on the left side. Both controls had to be operated, and at the same time. If they were not, the trigger primer remained locked in its insulated steel container.
"I have it," Garcia said. Very delicately he removed the device from the container, whose side door had slid open when Brown operated the two controls. Minter bent over Garcia, and accepted the device from him.
The trigger primer contained no sort of nuclear charge. It was a simply a number of high explosive cartridges, wired in series for electric detonation. Its function was to hurl a certain mass of plutonium down a tube rather like a gun barrel into another mass. On their own, the two masses, were harmless. When flung violently together an uncontrolled reaction took place and an atomic explosion occurred. The plutonium triggers of the bombs carried by Alabama Angel were themselves several times as powerful as the atomic weapons which wrecked Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Surrounding the atomic trigger was a core of tritium, hydrogen of triple weight, which when ignited by the atomic explosion burned hot enough and long enough to detonate the main charge of the bomb, made of deuterium. The deuterium charge gave each bomb the equivalent power of fifteen million tons of T.N.T.
The bombs were fifteen feet long and about six feet across at their widest part. They were roughly cylindrical in shape, with a short, blunt nose and stubby tail fins. They were not very good ballistically, but could be dropped with an average error of between a half and two thirds of a mile. Since everything within ten miles of ground zero would certainly be destroyed by the heat and blast effects alone, inaccuracies of that degree were quite acceptable.
Garcia slid back the cover of a fat steel tube. Minter very carefully fitted the primer into the tube, sliding the four raised flanges on its sides into the grooves cut for them on the inside of the tube. He pushed the device home, stood away, and let Garcia slide back and screw down the cover.
"Trigger primer in contact tube. Cover secured," Garcia reported.
"O.K.," Brown said. "Let her down." He glanced at his watch. Under three minutes so far. The boys were on the ball.
Minter pressed a button built into the side of the tube. The primer began its slow journey down the tube, the flanges sliding smoothly in the four grooves. When it reached the level of the cabin floor the thick lead wall at the bottom of the tube slid back, a tell tale indicator showing its movement to Garcia and Minter. The primer went down past the protective wall, which slid back into place as soon as it had passed. Ten seconds later, a green light on the arming panel showed that it was securely in position within the bomb.
Garcia said, "Primer in position. Contact tube sealed."
"O.K. Good going fellows. Check circuits."
Garcia and Minter worked rapidly, not getting in each other’s way. They tested each of the sixteen leads to the firing cartridges. Then they checked bomb release leads, emergency circuit leads, radar altimeter and barometric fuse circuits. All were in order. They made the final formal check for cabin radiation. "Main switch off, Captain," Garcia said.
"Main switch off." Brown looked at his watch again as Garcia checked the bomb release link switch with Engelbach. Exactly eight minutes. "Men, you’ve earned some coffee. Eight minutes flat." He sounded very pleased.
Garcia grinned. Minter managed a fleeting, economical smile. "Coffee coming right up," Garcia said.
Brown looked at his count-down clock. Fifty-nine minutes to go. He accepted a cup of coffee from Garcia, sipped it. It was good and hot. "How long before we cross in, Stan?"
"We should cross in at eleven twenty-two. Sixteen minutes from now."
"O.K." Brown finished his coffee. "Speed working out all right?"
"I think so. Let you know a little later."
"All right, men. Combat ready. Have the pressurisation and emergency oxygen ready and set for full, Federov."
"Set for full, Captain."
"O.K. Everyone make sure your oxygen supply is linked to emergency as well as normal." Brown checked that his own supply was doubly connected. He wasn’t anticipating trouble yet. That would come later, when the coastal radar had identified them as hostile and the defences had been alerted. He felt sure from what he knew about the Russian radar net on this coast they hadn’t even picked up Alabama Angel yet. But it never hurt to be prepared. Maybe nothing would get through to hit the bomber. But if it did, and if the pressure cabin was perforated, then the emergency oxygen and the pressure breathing system linked to it would enable the crew to live while he took the bomber down below forty-six thousand feet, where breathing was possible without pressure systems.
Lieutenant Owens, radar officer, said, "You see Kolguev Island yet, Stan?"
"I don’t think so," Andersen replied. He adjusted the brilliance control of his radarscope, which was a repeater fed from Owens’ scope.
"11 o’clock, about a hundred and thirty." Owens’ attention was suddenly drawn to his other scope. Two flashes of light had appeared where no flashes should be. There they were again. "Holy cowl" he yelled. "Missiles, captain. Sixty miles off, heading in fast from twelve o’clock. Steady track, they look like beam riders."
"Roger, keep watching them." Brown’s voice was calm and assured. Well, they’d soon know if the Wright Field boys had been on the ball. He reached forward and took the controls out of auto-pilot. Strangely, he felt not in the least scared. They were committed. The missiles were on their way. Maybe the brain could divert them, maybe not. There was nothing he could do about it.
"Forty-five," Owens said. His voice was higher pitched than usual, but he was not conscious of that. "Still coming straight and fast."
"Any idea on speed?"
"Between two and three thousand."
"Keep watching. Call them every five miles."
"Roger. Thirty-five. Still straight."
The crew waited silently. They too accepted the fact there was nothing they could do. Goldsmith’s hornets were no use against things travelling at that speed. They would have to sweat it out. Mellows concentrated on his set. Federov made a few meaningless notations on his fuel analysis sheet. Minter was apparently unmoved, but Garcia found himself repeating words he had not used since he was a boy. He was unaware that it was a simple prayer.
"Thirty. Still twelve o’clock. Speed around two thousand six hundred."
Brown became conscious he was tightening his grip on the controls. He eased it off. The palms of his hand were wet and cold.
"Twenty-five. Still straight."
Stan Andersen completed another series of calculations. They were starting to run behind time. He heard Owens call the missiles at twenty miles. They’d have to beef up the power a little. Another two or three hundred revolutions would be enough. But that could wait until after. After? He shrugged, and returned to the private world of abstruse calculations and meticulously accurate plotting that was his own.
"Fifteen. Still straight."
Brown felt a sudden irritation on his forearms, the kind of irritation that comes with a bad dose of prickly heat. It had to be soon now. One way or the other.
"Ten miles, still heading straight. Hey, wait a minute, they’re splitting up. One’s showing ten o’clock now, going away. That won’t hit us. The other’s
coming into five. Five now, still coming. Still twelve o’clock, maybe a little to starboard, it’s swinging away. Four miles, two o’clock, three miles, three o’clock, it’s going past to the starboard. They’ve gone, Captain, both of them."
Brown grinned. He had caught a glimpse of the missile that passed them to starboard, seen it momentarily as a bright red streak across the sky. "Well, fellows, that’s it. Let’s not relax, but I guess we can all feel a little happier. The brain works," he said.
"Man, I would like to do something for the guy dreamed up that brain. For him I would do anything. But anything." Goldsmith’s voice was happy and relieved.
"Even make him a present of your little black book, hey Herman?" Andersen asked quietly.