by Dale Brown
limits. But Tyler knew the schedule of all alert crew exercises,
especially for the E-4 and EC- 135 aircraft-if enemy warheads were
inbound, Tyler himself would transfer his flag of command and take an EC
135 airborne-and this wasn't a scheduled exercise. His pace quickened
as he grabbed for the radio; his tennis partners sensed his sudden
anxiety, saw the rotating lights, and immediately made their way to
their staff cars as well. With Stone standing a discreet distance
away-he had a Top Secret security clearance but was not yet recertified
for the 510P, or Strategic Integrated Operations Plan, after losing his
command in the PhilippinesTyler keyed the mike to turn off the beeper
and spoke: "Alpha, go ahead."
"Colonel Dunigan, Command Center, sir, " came the voice of his command
center's duty senior controller, Colonel Audrey Dunigan. Dunigan was
the first woman senior controller, rising through the ranks from KC-135
tanker pilot all the way to a Headquarters senior-controller slot.
Dunigan was now the senior controller of the busiest shift in the
Command Center, in direct communication with the Pentagon and all the
SAC's military forces around the globe, and she seemed to take charge of
the place like no one else before her. "Zero-Tango in ten minutes.
Command Center out."
"Alpha copies. Out, " Tyler replied. Turning to Stone, he said, "Let's
go, Rat Killer. In my car. We'll have a little impromptu on-the-job
training." He dropped his racket on the bench and loped toward his
waiting sedan, not even bothering to make apologies to his staff-whom he
knew would be right behind him anyway. Stone piled into the front seat
beside Tyler's driver and they roared off. "We got a Zero-Tango
notification, " Tyler told Stone. "You should be familiar with that:
notification by NCA or Space Command directly, teleconference of the
NCA, JCS, specified and unified commanders, all that stuff."
"I've only been in one, " Stone replied, "and I was the one who called
it. Just before the Philippine elections last year, Manila was a war
zone. I thought Clark was going to be overrun. I had to kick General
Collier at PACAF in the butt to do something. I raised a ruckus that
obviously went right to CINCPAC, but he finally made the call and we got
the support we needed."
"I remember that, " Tyler said. "From what I read in the messages, Rat,
Clark could have looked like the American em bassy in Tehran in '79.
Landing that Marine Expeditionary Unit on Luzon may have seemed like
overkill to most of the Pentagon and the press, but it defused the
situation perfectly." "Sure it did, " Stone added dryly. "And I got
shit-canned for even suggesting it."
"Best thing that could have happened to you was getting bumped out of
Pacific Air Forces and coming to work at SAC, Rat, " Tyler said. "You
know as well as I do that everyone will remember the last commander of
Clark Air Force Base. Wherever you went in PACAF, that stigma would
have followed you. It would have hurt your chances for promotion-I know
it sounds shitty, but shit happens. Here at SAC, I get a topnotch
expert in the Pacific Theater and maritime warfare, and you get a fair
shot at your third star." A coded message was being read over the radio,
and Tyler squelched it out. Stone said, "You're not going to monitor
the alert network?"
"The messages are for the crews, not for me, " Tyler replied. "When I
try to second-guess those messages, I give myself ulcers. Now I try to
relax, think about what I need to do, and think about what I should be
hearing when I get to the Battle Staff area. "And the whole staff gets
notified and called in?"
"Yep, " Tyler replied, hanging on to the seat back as Meers negotiated a
tight turn, switching on the siren to clear some traffic out of an
intersection. "At this time of day it's no problem. When we get one at
two in the morning, it can get real hairy."
"How often do you get these notifications?"
"Not very often lately, " Tyler admitted. "A lot of the notifications
can be expected-the riots in Lithuania just before their independence,
the SCUD missile attacks during DESERT STORM, the assassination in Iraq,
shit like that. You can read the evening paper and pretty much
anticipate that a Zero-Tango was going to be called. But things just
aren't all that critical in the real world these days." They were
approaching SAC Headquarters, a low, generally unimpressive building in
the center of the base. The building was unimpressive because only
three stories were above ground-there were five more stories underneath.
Stone could see the Minuteman I missile out in front of the building, a
lone dedication to the thousands of SAC crew members who spent as much
as a third of their careers on twenty-four-hour alert, sitting near
their planes, in underground missile-launch complexes, or in windowless
command posts, ready to respond in case deterrence failed-in case they
were called on to fight World War III. He also saw the weeping willow on
the lawn in front of the headquarters building, and the sight struck
Richard Stone as oddly ironic. Fifty feet under that lone weeping
willow, men and women were ready, at the direction of the President of
the United States, the Secretary of Defense, and the man in the car with
him, to unleash thousands of megatons of explosive power all across the
planet with uncanny precision. The location of the willow, Stone
realized, was even a little absurd-several nations probably had their
thermonuclear weapons aimed at that precise spot, ready to knock out the
two-thirds of America's nuclear forces controlled from this one
location. No wonder Tyler turned off his radio, Stone thought. Even in
these days of relative stability and peace, the thought of being
flattened and vaporized by the first incoming warheads was enough to
drive a guy crazy. "In ten, Sergeant Meers, " Tyler told his driver.
"Got it, sir." "Keep your badge in sight and follow me in, Rat, " Tyler
told Stone. "We might have to put you in the 'press box, ' but you're
certainly cleared inside the Command Post. It should be fun, whatever
we got going here." Stone blinked at the four-star general. "General,
you mean you don't know what's happening?" A grim-faced expression from
Tyler gave Stone his answer. At the outer gate to the parking lot /
security perimeter around SAC Headquarters, a security guard had his
M-16 rifle in one hand, and with the other hand he held up four fingers.
Meers flashed the guard five fingers, then one finger, and the guard let
him through. If Meers had added wrong and flashed the wrong number-he
had to add the right amount of fingers to the guard's fingers to equal
ten, the security number that Dunigan had relayed to Tyler in the
notification message and the one that she would have relayed to the gate
guardsthey would probably have had their tires shot out by two or three
well-trained guards, and their noses would be pinned to the pavement a
few seconds later. They had to pass through a second gate before
eight fingers so Meers had to raise only two fingers in response. Meers
stopped the car just outside an enclosed doorway, guarded by a single
security policeman. Tyler and Stone ran past him, not bothering to
return his salute, and Tyler punched in the code to the Cypher-Lock
beside the steel door. The door buzzed, and Tyler yanked the heavy
steel door open, ran inside, flashed his security access badge to a
guard in a bulletproof booth, and trotted to the private elevator that
would take him four floors down, directly to the underground Command
Center. The guards, Tyler noticed, all wore subdued smiles as he dashed
by-it must be fun for them, he thought, to see a two- and four-star
general in warmup suits running around the place. One more guard in a
bulletproof booth checking ID badges, through a metal-detector device,
another guard, two blast doors, past the Command Center weather station,
and they were in the SAC Command Center itself. The Command Center
consisted of three areas, separated by thick soundproof glass and
remote-controlled privacy shutters-the Battle Staff area on the main
auditorium floor area, the Essential Elements area behind the main
auditorium, and the Support Staff area in a balcony over the auditorium.
All three areas could see the "big board, " the eight 5-by-6-foot
computer screens in the front of the Command Center, but depending on
the security classification of the activity and the occupants, the
senior controller could seal off either area to prevent eavesdropping-an
unclassified briefing could be going on in the Support Staff area while
a Top Secret briefing could be given in the Battle Staff area, with
complete security. Tyler glanced up at the Command Post status board
just inside the entrance and found red lights flashing near the signs
that read "Battle Staff" and "Essential Elements"-the rooms were both
classified Top Secret. Tyler pointed to a doorway to their right. "Take
those stairs up to the Support Staff room, Rat, " he said. "They'll
direct you from there." Stone did not argue or hesitate, but went
through the door, which locked behind him. A set of stairs took him up
to the glassed-in observation area overlooking the Battle Staff area,
where a technician had him put on a pair of headphones as he sat down to
watch. The shutters remained open, which meant he could watch the big
board but not hear any of the conversation going on below. The Battle
Staff area below him resembled a small theater, with forty seats of
three semicircular levels facing the big board in the front of the
Command Center. Tyler took his seat in front row center, behind a
director's computer console with two phones, a keyboard, and four
19-inch color monitors. The seat beside him was already occupied by the
Vice Commander in Chief of the Strategic Air Command, Lieutenant General
Michael Stanczek. Around them were arranged the various deputy chiefs
of staff of the Command, most of whom were already in place by the time
Tyler had arrived from the tennis court. Each staff position had two
flip-up color computer monitors, a small keyboard, a telephone, and a
microphone. The first thing Tyler did after taking his seat in the
Command Center was check the rows of digital clocks above the computer
monitors. The first row of clocks had times in various places in the
world-Washington, Omaha, Honolulu, Guam, Tokyo, Moscow, and London.
London was labeled "Zulu, " the time along the zero-degree-longitude
Greenwich meridian used by SAC as a common time-reference point. Below
that were three event timers, and one was already activated-it read
00:15:23. The third row of timers and clocks were thankfully still
reading zero-those were the clocks that set reference times used by
American strategic nuclear forces to execute their nuclear strike
missions. Two of those timers, the L-hour and A-hour, were set by Tyler
himself, but the other one, the ERT, or Emergency Reference Time, could
be set by the National Command Authority if the President himself
ordered a nuclear strike. Tyler hit the mike button on his console:
"Alpha in position. Log me in, please, and let's get started." A voice
on the auditorium's loudspeaker immediately chimed in: "Major Hallerton,
with an Event One situation briefing." Hallerton was the shift's ADI,
or Assistant Chief of Intelligence. "Approximately fifteen minutes ago,
Space Command was alerted by a FOREST GREEN nuclear-detonationwarning
sensor on three different NAVSTAR satellites. The event remained
unclassified by NORAD and DIA for several minutes until verification
could be made by DSP resources, and they have not made a conclusive
evaluation yet. However, by authority of CINCSPACECOM, an Event One
warning was issued to us and to JCS and Zero-Tango conference initiated.
SPACECOM is currently reporting a high probability of a small-yield
nuclear explosion in the South China Seas region near the Philippines.
Tyler felt his jaw drop. "Ho-ly skit." Stanczek just sat there, a
blank expression on his face. Tyler asked, "Just one explosion?"
"Yes, sir, " Hallerton replied. "No other large-scale weapon
detonations detected might suggest counterattacks. However, SPACECOM
advises that the three NAVSTAR satellites have gone off the air and no
other DSP or AMWS resources are on station to confirm any reports.
"Estimate on yield?"
"No official reading yet, sir. "Well, anyone got an estimate?" Tyler
grumbled. The sheer magnitude of the thing was bad enough, but being in
the dark about even the smallest detail was worse. "Anyone got an
educated guess?"
"Sir, the only other indications we have are that COBRA DANE or BMEWS
have not detected missile tracks from landor submarine-launched
missiles, " Hallerton said uneasily. The long-range over-the-horizon
radars would have picked up the tracks of international missiles long
ago. "All other stations are quiet, and intelligence reports no buildup
of strategic forces or mobilization. This incident cannot be part of
any massive attack against the CONUS." Tyler couldn't believe it. A
real nuclear detonation. But not a prelude to general war-or was it?
"When was the Pentagon notified and what did they say?" "NCA was
notified five minutes ago by Space Command, sir, " Hallerton replied.
"They requested follow-up notification from Teal Ruby satellite data on
incoming missile tracks and received a negative reply. They are
assembling the commands for a teleconference." Tyler looked surprised.
"That's it? A teleconference?" He turned to Stanczek. "What's our
status?"
"The notification message from Space Command didn't direct any
particular posture or DEFCON, " Stanczek said. "There's a breakdown in
communications somewhere. Anyway, since I didn't have a checklist to
work off, I went right to the posture-four checklist and ran it. I
heard the word 'nuclear' and thought the crews should be heading to the
ramp." Tyler nodded agreement. Most of SAC's forces were positioned at
/> the discretion of the National Command Authority, either directly or
through the Joint Chiefs of Staff acting as military advisers to the
White House. Although Tyler could position his forces in almost any way
he felt prudent, most of his decisions came from guidance or direct
orders from the President or the Secretary of Defense, in the form of
DEFCON, or Defense Configuration, orders. But in any case, especially
when communications had broken down or the President wasn't in the
position to make decisions like this, Tyler had the responsibility to
see his men and machines were ready to fight. He did this by setting
postures for SAC alert forces. "Good decision, " Tyler told Stanczek.
"I wonder what the hell the Pentagon is waiting on?" Sounds like nobody
was doing anything, Tyler thought-they didn't see any incoming missiles,
so everyone hesitated, waiting for someone else to act. Well, now was
the time. "Colonel Dunigan, place the force officially at posture four,
" Tyler ordered. "Then get the Pentagon on the line and inform them
that I upgraded the SAC alert force posture and I'm recommending a full
DEFCON change."
"Yes, sir, " Dunigan replied. Part of the awesome responsibility of
CINCSAC was his control over SAC's nuclear strike forces. It was his
responsibility to keep the bombers and landbased ICBM forces safe and
viable. Tyler had a long list of options, all designed to put the
nuclear strike forces in the best possible position to survive an attack
against the United States but to avoid unnecessarily moving too many
nuclear weapons around or causing undue alarm to either the enemy or to
American citizens. Launching the bombers, either to dispersal airfields,
airborne alert orbits or to their fail-safe positive control orbits,
probably wasn't warranted yet. What was warranted, however, was stepping
up everyone's overall readiness a couple of notches until the White
House and the Pentagon figured out what was going on. That should have
been automatic as soon as they discovered that it was in fact a nuclear
explosion, but at least now it was getting done. In the Essential