Trinity's Child

by William Prochnau

  Harpoon continued staring. “Promised to save that honor for you, colonel. Mister Burr will now yield.” The admiral handed him the light pointer.

  Quickly the colonel signaled the projectionist, then turned his full attention to the successor. The map of the Soviet Union fluttered once more, a set of green dots appearing. Many were clustered near Moscow and Leningrad, but others were scattered in more remote regions.

  “Unlike the admiral,” the colonel began, “I will keep my words brief, clear, and devoid of defeatist philosophy. Victory is possible, sir, and it is not that complicated.”

  Harpoon's wan smile faded. Little bastard's got balls, he thought. Too bad somebody planted them between his ears instead of his legs.

  “To call back our bombers would not move the Soviets. They would see it as a sign of weakness. They exploit weakness, as they did at Yalta and countless times at Geneva. But what if they did respond and turned their bombers? You observed, quite accurately, that we have lost. The Soviets have reduced us to their level. Their system and their philosophy are still intact. Is that an acceptable outcome for an American President?” He paused, peering in challenge over his glasses.

  “Sir, it has been the well-conceived policy of this government to squeeze the Soviets until they collapsed from within. President Reagan predicted that fall. Your predecessor pursued the policy still further. The attack on us is the very proof that the policy has been working. The Premier's message to your predecessor, intentionally deceptive, acknowledged as much. You, sir, now have the opportunity to put the final nail in the coffin of aggressive Soviet communism.”

  Harpoon looked at the colonel in fascinated disbelief, struggling between silence and grim laughter. Nail in the coffin. He's got his symbols right.

  “I predict, sir, as President Reagan did, that the Soviet people will now throw off the yoke of totalitarian dictatorship which has oppressed them so long. They will do it as surely as they overthrew the czars during the First World War.”

  Harpoon could not control himself. “In the next half-dozen hours?” he erupted. “For Christ's sake, colonel, they won't even be able to find them.”

  The colonel turned toward Harpoon with a look of triumph. “No, admiral, they will not. But we will. And you want to withdraw the very weapon with which we can do it.” He abruptly turned away and directed the light pointer at the map.

  “Mr. President, the green dots represent Soviet leadership bunkers. Inside those bunkers are the party hierarchy, the Presidium, KGB leaders, the military command, and almost surely the Premier or his successor. They are the head of the Soviet chicken. Cut off that head, and the body dies. The system dies. Forever.”

  The colonel paused, gazing expectantly at the successor.

  “You telling me that a handful of B-52's can do that?”

  “The perfect instrument, sir.” The colonel smiled. “Those bunkers are hardened much like an ICBM silo. Submarine missiles are not accurate enough to take them out. B-52's are manned. Most of them are carrying at least four one-megaton bombs plus SRAM or cruise missiles. They can drop those babies right down the smokestack. One aircraft could take out half a dozen bunkers, probably more.”

  Harpoon studied the successor's face carefully. The man seemed deep in perplexing thought. Suddenly he turned toward the admiral. “Harpoon?”

  “It's madness, sir.”

  “Well, it seems we just got madness piled on top of madness tonight, admiral.”

  “The theory's been examined thoroughly and discredited thoroughly.”

  The colonel blustered in, his voice venomous. “Discredited by men who insist on keeping communications lines open to bandits and murderers and assassins. Men who want to send smoke signals”—the words oozed animosity—“to barbarians who have perpetrated the most despicable, the most heinous act in the history of mankind.”

  Harpoon shook his head. “Men who want some remnant of America down there when this plane lands, colonel. We can't stay up here in our splendid cocoon forever. For God's sake, man, what about the Soviet bombers? What about the thousands of warheads they have in land-based reserves?”

  “Victory has its price, admiral,” the colonel replied coldly. “The Soviet forces are a reality. Your smoke signal isn't going to stop them. And, frankly, I believe you've been duplicitous about the Soviet bombers.”

  “Duplicitous!” Harpoon started to move on the colonel, then retreated.

  “They are not due for five hours. Our communications should be functioning at least minimally by that time. We do have some fighters. We also have thousands of commercial jets available. Use them.”

  “You're joking.”

  “Ram the bastards.”

  Harpoon slowly seated himself. “Colonel, I cannot believe you are serious. I really cannot. Do you actually believe this country— a country full of panicked Baton Rouges—is in any condition to put together a plan like that?”

  The successor suddenly stiffened. “Harpoon, are you implyin' that ramming is a possible defense against bombers? Damn you, are you saying that's possible?”

  Harpoon was beginning to feel woozy. “Sir, for God's sake—”

  “Are you saying that, damn you?”

  “In isolated cases, sir,” Harpoon said wearily. “But a hundred and fifty bombers coming in low level from all directions? With our radar out? Even if we got ninety percent of them—which we wouldn't—do you know what fifteen bombers would do? Fifteen of those blue circles”—Harpoon gestured despondently at the map of the United States—”would instantly turn red.”

  “Harpoon,” the successor said, his eyes gleaming angrily, “I don't think I've been getting the whole story. I don't cotton to that thought. Don't cotton to it at all.”

  Harpoon bristled. “What you're getting now, sir, is maniacal nonsense. What the devil does the colonel want to do about the ICBM's? Call the goddamn CIA? Get all our moles to run around Russia putting their fingers in the silos? Good God, man, there is no defense against this stuff.”

  The colonel methodically tapped the pointer against the map. “The defense,” he said confidently, “is the Soviet people. Take away those green dots—take away their oppressors—and they will stop the ICBM's. The defense is to cut the head off the chicken.”

  Harpoon took a long, deep breath and then riveted his gaze on the successor. “You're a westerner, sir. Raised on a farm?”

  “You find that a disqualification, Harpoon?”

  “Not at all, sir. I'm a farmboy too. Kansas. We raised chickens. Got them ready for my mother's stewing pot with one stroke of the hatchet.”

  “Done it myself. Very effective.”

  “Yes, eventually. As a boy, I hated it. The chicken didn't die right away. It flapped around, headless, splattering blood all over the barnyard.”

  The successor smiled thinly at Harpoon's analogy. “Then it collapsed, Harpoon, and ended up in the pot. This here chicken's already been spreading a lot of blood around.”

  “The world's the only barnyard we've got, sir. I can't believe you would risk it. Are you saying that's your decision?”

  The man reached over and picked up the Seal. “Nope,” he said, smiling enigmatically. “I'm sayin' I finally got me some options. I also have a few minutes. I'm going to think on it.”

  With that, he stood and began to leave for his quarters, pausing briefly to ask: “Would you like to join me, Colonel?”

  Beneath him, tugging perversely, Kazaklis could feel the strong drag of the bomb-bay doors. The shifting winds of the low Arctic mountain ridge buffeted at the open panels, swirling up inside the cavernous hold and changing the aerodynamic flow in ways he had not felt before. No practice-run radio chatter interrupted his concentration. Just the quiet drone of Tyler's drained voice. They were past the thirty-second mark—ready . . . ready . . . now—heading directly at the hastily determined drop point—on the racetrack .just over the top of the next and last ridge.

  In front of the pilot new lights glimmered. The
Master Caution light, reacting to the buffeting, flickered on and off, Moreau punching it with a gloved forefinger each time it warned them of what they already knew. The other lights remained on, three yellow squares in a sequence of four, only the third still dark. Bomb Doors Not Latched. Bomb Doors Open. Bomb Doors Not Closed and Locked. On the red screen, computer-scrambled, Kazaklis could see the last ridge racing at him. Significant terrain, twelve o'clock. . . . Not so low this time, pal, no belly-scraping, no spine-snapping on this one.

  “Bandits five-point-five miles and closing,” Tyler radioed. Kazaklis reached for the red lever, pulled it in sequence with two of his four crewmates, releasing the last safety mechanism.

  Briefly the pilot wondered if the Russians could see the looming doors, spot them somehow in the glimmering white starlight, pick up a minuscule distortion on their radar screens. The thought faded, the commitment made. The ridge filled the screen, the ground-tracking thermometer plummeting as the frozen slope raced up at them. Two hundred feet, one hundred, seventy-five. That' s it. Ka.-whack! The plane shuddered again, less agonizingly this time. The ridge disappeared, the red screen opening to the flat panorama of the river flats. Kazaklis nosed the aircraft over slightly, taking it down the far side, where it would disappear briefly from the eyes of his pursuers. He counted down the last seconds, a fireproofed thumb poised on the release button. Briefly he and Moreau arched the B-52's nose to give the weapon one small lift before gravity caught it. The pilot depressed his thumb.

  A split second of unholy silence pervaded the airplane, blotting out the engine roar. Then the five crewmen felt a slight lurch, sensed an eerie weightlessness, imagined the low groan of the bomb rack rotating to move the next weapon into place.

  “Bomb away,” Kazaklis said. The fourth yellow light glared at him from the flight panel. Bombs Released. No duds, Kazaklis prayed silently. Oh, God, no duds.

  Briefly, as her mind's eye had seen on the mission drill, Moreau saw the bomb lift heavenward, hover, and then roll over for its short descent, the drogue parachute popping to slow its fall. She began the turning, lifting escape maneuver and felt the controls tugging back at her, a hand on her arm. She turned toward the pilot.

  “Not this time,” Kazaklis said. “Straight at the river mouth. Low.”

  Moreau stared at him. Then she understood and her skin crawled. The Russian pilots, suspecting or unsuspecting, still had almost thirty seconds to launch their missiles. Kazaklis wanted no telltale escape maneuvers to tip them off. She drew in her breath. The winds from a one-megaton explosion would whip unimpeded across the open flats, tailing off from more than five hundred miles an hour at the ridge to better than one hundred miles an hour five miles away. The blast wave—a moving wall of crushing pressure—would be worse, far worse. Kazaklis was playing the odds on outrunning the effects rather than outrunning more missiles. Percentage baseball. Moreau accepted that.

  In the back, Halupalai sat alone, feeling helpless and useless. And empty. Downstairs, Radnor alternately watched his screen and his crewmate. Since the flailing outburst with the broken pencil, followed by the tearful threat, Tyler had lapsed into a near-catatonic state. He said nothing to Radnor, his only words coming in mechanical and scrupulously precise instructions to the cockpit. Radnor felt no fear, either. Just a deep and pervasive sadness he found impossible to shake. On his screen he saw the four Foxbats racing relentlessly toward the ridge, following their path. “Plus fifteen seconds,” the wooden voice said. “Bandits five miles and closing.” Radnor watched Tyler's eyes move quickly to the little Kodak print above his console, seeming to see nothing, and then dart back to his screen. “Plus twenty seconds . . .” Radnor also turned back to his screen.

  In the cockpit both Kazaklis and Moreau were counting silently. Tyler's voice synchronizing perfectly. “Plus twenty-five . . .” No launches, Moreau pleaded under her breath. No duds, Kazaklis beseeched. “Plus thirty seconds . . .” Kazaklis shuddered. Come on, baby, come on. “Plus thirty-five . . .”

  “Goddammit!” Kazaklis shouted. “Blow, damn you, blow!”

  “Detonation,” Tyler droned.

  Kazaklis and Moreau jerked simultaneously. “Climb! Climb! Climb!” Kazaklis yelled, but Moreau had already begun, the two of them pulling together.

  “Launches?” Kazaklis demanded of the crew downstairs.

  “Plus forty seconds . . .”

  “Bandits?” Kazaklis asked.

  “Plus forty-five . . .”

  “Tyler!” Kazaklis thundered. “Damn you! Bandits?” The pilot looked at the altimeter. Five hundred feet, six hundred.

  “Plus fifty seconds . . .”

  Kazaklis groaned in frustration.

  “It's not Tyler, sir.” The awestruck voice of Radnor came on. “Oh, God in heaven . . .” His voice faded briefly. Then he murmured, “There's nothing to see, commander.”

  In the navigation compartment, Radnor's eyes were glued to his screen. In the center half a white ball expanded furiously, like a malignant brain. The fireball was almost two miles wide and seemed burned into the screen, for Radnor's senses knew it had expanded and disappeared already. A ghostly plume began emerging from the top, almost as wide, rising a thousand feet a second. The remainder of the screen warped in dancing lines like heat rivulets in the desert. Radnor knew the rivulets were the blast wave, rolling at them just beyond the speed of sound, and also just beyond the speed of the aircraft. “Plus sixty seconds . . .” It was going to be now. Radnor braced himself.

  Kazaklis and Moreau held the craft at twelve hundred feet, their knuckles aching. Suddenly they seemed weightless again. A feather wafting in splendid silence. Then the thunder crack snapped at them. The feather lifted high, sank, and lifted again. Kazaklis could hear the rivets groaning. Then it was past. “Friendly little kick in the rump, huh?” he asked, jauntily trying to cover the crack in his voice. Moreau said nothing. “Bandits?” Kazaklis asked again.

  “Nothing came through that, commander,” Radnor said very quietly. “Nothing.”

  The admiral sat alone in the briefing room, the maps blank now. He picked up the yellow phone. A thousand miles north, the Looking Glass general picked up his black phone instantly in response.

  “Alice? Harpoon.”

  The line was remarkably clear. Harpoon thought he could hear the general's sigh of relief.

  “You made the snatch?”

  “Condor's nested and fed.”

  “You had our dongs shriveling, Harpoon. Rough down there?”

  “Ummm. How many Buffs we got left?”

  “We might be moused.”

  “Alice, old friend, we're having enough trouble hearing ourselves tonight.”

  “Suppose. Hard to say. Baker's dozen? They used Foxbats. Strange. My hunch is they were leading the Bears and Bisons in, looking for our advance interceptors. Found some Buffs instead. Musta surprised 'em. Next surprise is for their bombers.”

  “Alice?”

  “When we start throwin' rocks at 'em.”

  “Ummm. Plan down here is peashooters and Delta Air Lines.”

  “Delta Air Lines?”

  “Skip it.”

  “Must say SAC produced some damn good crews. One of 'em nuked the buggers. Four Foxbats comin' right up their tail. Made a perfect bomb run. Laid the egg—a megaton, for God's sake— right in front of 'em. Poof. No more Foxbats. How's that for a new air-to-air weapon system?”

  “Used a bomb, did they? Maybe it saved the Soviet postmaster.”

  “Harpoon?”

  “I think I snatched a chicken-eater.”

  In the Looking Glass, Alice paled. He looked at his primitive wall map, covered with multicolored dots. All he saw was green.

  Until the moment just past, the crew of Polar Bear One had never dropped a live bomb—never seen a nuclear explosion, except in films. They operated almost entirely on theory, having studied the sterile statistics of escape velocities from both incident and reflected shock waves as well as the punishment their commu
nications and navigation gear might sustain from gamma rays, X rays, skyflash, EMP, ionization, and other phenomena.

  Kazaklis did a routine damage check, expecting none and finding only minor radio static as the atmosphere ionized above them. EMP was not a threat from this kind of blast, its effects coming only from extremely high-altitude explosions. He was mildly surprised that EMP hadn't struck them hours ago, shortly after takeoff. But he assumed that, located in the far Northwest corner of the country, they had been outside the rim of the EMP circle, and about that he had been correct.

  Except for the routine damage-control checks with each crew station, not a word had been spoken since Radnor's quiet confirmation that the MIG's no longer existed. The altimeter read six thousand feet and Moreau silently pushed the craft higher and higher, back on the northerly course. About four minutes had passed.

  “Bank it left,” Kazaklis said.

  “No.”

  “Bank it left.”

  “No. I don't want to see it.”

  “Bank it left.” There was no command in the pilot's voice, just persistence and a haunting echo of curiosity. She banked left and Kazaklis slowly drew back the curtain.

  The shock of the light stunned Moreau, and at first, she threw an arm up over her good eye. The moonless Arctic night was not dark at all, and the glare, even four minutes later and now forty miles away, overwhelmed all images. Then slowly, over the barrier of her arm, shapes formed and colors bloomed. In the kittywumpis tilt of the aircraft window, the horizon cut diagonally one way and the majestic stem of the cloud the other. Lightning strikes, purple and violet, darted throughout the pillar. The radioactive gases and debris and water vapor churned inward on each other, over and over, the full twelve-mile length, snakes coiling on each other, devouring each other, and then emerging in ugly anger again. It was satanic. As she looked upward at filaments burning at the edge of the troposphere, the power seemed to touch heaven and holiness itself. It was godly. But as she looked down, where the drogue parachute had floated and the mountain ridge now floated in tumult unimaginable, the power seemed to emanate from other regions altogether. No training film, no lecture, no mathematical equation—no amount of psychic numbing—would prepare someone for this.