"No answer?" Fowler asked the chief yeoman.
"No, sir, nothing yet." Orontia's eyes were locked on the computer screen.
"My God," the President muttered. "All those people dead."
And I could have been one of them, Liz Elliot thought, the idea coming back to her like waves on a beach, crashing in, ebbing away only to crash back again. Someone wanted to kill us, and I am part of that "us." And we don't know who or why....
"We can't let this go any farther."
We don't even know what we are trying to stop. Who is doing this? Why are they doing it? Liz looked over at the clock and calculated the time to the arrival of the Kneecap aircraft. We should have gone out on the first one. Why didn't we think to have it fly to Hagerstown to pick us up! We're stuck here in a perfect target, and if they want to kill us, this time they'll get us, won't they?
"How can we stop it?" Liz asked. "He's not even answering us."
Sea Devil One-Three, a P-3C Orion antisubmarine aircraft out of Kodiak Naval Air Station, was buffeting through the winds at low altitude, about five hundred feet. It laid the first line of ten DIFAR sonobuoys ten miles southwest of Maine's position. In the back, the sonar operators were strapped tightly into their high-backed seats, most with a vomit bag close by as they tried to make sense of their displays. It took several minutes for things to firm up.
"Christ, that's my boat," Jim Rosselli said. He dialed Bangor and asked for Commodore Mancuso.
"Bart, what gives?"
"Maine reported a collision, shaft and screw damage. There's a P-3 riding shotgun on her right now, and we have Omaha heading toward her flat-out. That's the good news. The bad news is that Maine was tracking an Akula at the time."
"She was what?"
"Harry sold me and OP-02 on the idea, Jim. Too late to worry about it now. It should be okay. The Akula was way off. You heard what Harry did to Omaha last year, right?"
"Yeah, I thought he stripped a gear."
"Look, it should be okay. I'm surging my boats right now, Jim. Unless you need me for something else, I'm kinda busy."
"Right." Rosselli hung up.
"What gives?" Rocky Barnes asked.
Rosselli handed over the message. "My old sub, disabled in the Gulf of Alaska, and there's a Russian prowling around."
"Hey, they're quiet, right? You told me that. The Russians don't even know where they are."
"Yeah."
"Cheer up, Jim. I probably knew some of those F-16 drivers who got snuffed over Berlin."
"Where the hell is Wilkes? He should have been here by now," Rosselli said. "He's got a good car."
"No tellin', man. What the fuck is going on?"
"I don't know, Rocky."
"We've got a long one coming in," Chief Orontia said. "Here it comes."
PRESIDENT FOWLER:
WE HAVE NO INFORMATION FROM BERLIN ON THE MATTER TO WHICH YOU REFER. COMMUNICATIONS HAVE BROKEN DOWN. MY ORDERS HAVE GONE OUT TO OUR TROOPS, AND IF THEY HAVE GOTTEN THEM THEN THEY WILL TAKE NO ACTION EXCEPT IN SELF-DEFENSE. PERHAPS THEY FELT THEMSELVES TO BE UNDER ATTACK BY YOUR AIRCRAFT AND ACTED TO DEFEND THEMSELVES. IN ANY CASE WE ARE TRYING EVEN NOW TO REESTAB LISH CONTACT WITH THE TROOPS, BUT OUR FIRST ATTEMPT TO REACH THEM WAS STOPPED BY AMERICAN TROOPS WHO WERE WELL OUTSIDE THEIR CAMP. YOU ACCUSE US OF HAVING OPENED FIRE, YET I HAVE TOLD YOU THAT OUR FORCES HAVE NO SUCH ORDERS, AND THE ONLY DEFINITE WORD WE HAVE TELLS US THAT YOUR FORCES WERE WELL INTO OUR ZONE OF THE CITY WHEN THEY STRUCK.
MR. PRESIDENT, I CANNOT RECONCILE YOUR WORDS WITH THE FACTS WE HAVE. I MAKE NO ACCUSATION, BUT I KNOW OF NOTHING MORE THAT I CAN SAY TO ASSURE YOU THAT SOVIET FORCES HAVE TAKEN NO ACTION WHATEVER AGAINST AMERICAN FORCES.
YOU HAVE TOLD US THAT YOUR ALERTING OF YOUR FORCES IS DEFENSIVE ONLY, BUT WE HAVE INDICATIONS THAT YOUR STRATEGIC FORCES ARE IN A VERY HIGH STATE OF ALERT. YOU SAY YOU HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT WE ARE TO BLAME FOR THIS INFAMY, YET YOUR MOST ALERT FORCES ARE THOSE ARRAYED AGAINST MY COUN TRY. WHAT DO YOU WISH ME TO THINK? YOU ASK FOR PROOF OF OUR GOOD INTENTIONS, BUT ALL OF YOUR ACTIONS APPEAR TO LACK THEM.
"He's blustering," Liz Elliot observed at once. "Whoever it is over there is rattled. Good, we may get the upper hand here yet."
"Good?" CINC-SAC asked. "You realize that this frightened person you're talking about has a whole lot of missiles pointing at us. I don't read it that way, Dr. Elliot. I think we have an angry man here. He's thrown our inquiries right back in our face."
"What do you mean, General?"
"He says he knows we're alerted. Okay, that's no surprise, but he also says that those weapons are pointed at him. He's accusing us of threatening him now--with nukes, Mr. President. That matters a hell of a lot more than the piss-ant business in Berlin."
"I agree," General Borstein added. "He's trying to bluster us, sir. We asked about a couple of lost airplanes, and we get all this tossed back at us."
Fowler punched up CIA again. "Ryan, you got the latest one?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do you make of Narmonov's mental state?"
"Sir, he's a little angry right now, and also very concerned about our defensive posture. He's trying to find a way out of this."
"I don't read it that way. He's rattled."
"Well, who the hell isn't?" Jack asked. "Of course he's rattled, the same as everyone else."
"Look, Ryan, we are in control up here."
"I never said otherwise, Liz," Jack replied, biting off what he really thought. "This is a grave situation, and he's as concerned as we are. He's trying to figure out what's happening the same as everyone else. The problem is nobody really knows anything."
"Well, whose fault is that? That is your job, isn't it?" Fowler asked testily.
"Yes, Mr. President, and we're working on it. A lot of people are."
"Robert, does this sound like Narmonov? You've met the man, you've spent time with him."
"Elizabeth, I just don't know."
"It's the only thing that makes sense...."
"Liz, who says that any of this has to make sense?" Ryan asked.
"This weapon was a big one, right, General Borstein?"
"That's what our instruments tell us, yes."
"Who has bombs that large?"
"Us, the Russians, the Brits, the French. Maybe the Chinese have weapons like this, but we don't think so; theirs are big and clunky. Israel has warheads in this range. That's it. India, Pakistan, South Africa all probably have fission weapons, but not large enough for this."
"Ryan, is that correct information?" Elliot asked.
"Yes, it is."
"So if it wasn't Britain, France or Israel, then who the hell was it?"
"Goddamn it, Liz! We don't know, okay? We do not know, and this isn't a fucking Sherlock Holmes mystery. Eliminating who it wasn't doesn't tell us who it was! You can't convert the absence of information into a conclusion."
"Does CIA know everybody who has weapons of this type?" Fowler asked.
"Yes, sir, we think we do."
"How confident are you in that?"
"Until today I would have bet my life on it."
"So again you are not telling me the truth, are you?" Fowler observed coldly.
Jack stood from his chair. "Sir, you may be the President of the United States, but don't you ever accuse me of lying again! My wife just called here to ask if she should take the kids somewhere, and if you think I'd be so goddamned dumb as to play games at a time like this, you, sir, are the one who needs help!"
"Thank you, Ryan, that will be all." The line clicked off.
"Jesus!" the Senior Duty Officer observed.
Jack looked around the room for a wastebasket. He just made it in time. Ryan fell to his knees and vomited into it. He reached for a can of Coke and washed his mouth out, spitting back into the basket. No one spoke until he rose.
"They just don't understand," Jack said quietly. He stretched, then lit a cigarette. "They just don't understand.
"You see, this is all very simple.
There is a difference between not knowing anything and understanding that you don't know. We have a crisis, and all the players are reverting to type. The President is thinking like a lawyer, trying to be cool, doing what he knows how to do, running down the evidence and trying to make a case, interrogating the witnesses, trying to reduce everything, playing that game. Liz is fixed on the fact that she might have been blown up, can't set that aside. Well." Ryan shrugged. "I guess I can understand that. I've been there, too. She's a political scientist, looking for a theoretical model. She's feeding that to the President. She has a real elegant model, but it's based on crap, isn't it, Ben?"
"You left out something, Jack," Goodley pointed out.
Ryan shook his head. "No, Ben, I just haven't gotten there yet. Because I can't control my fucking temper, they won't listen to me now. I should have known, I had my warning--I even saw it coming--but I let my temper get the best of me again. And you know the funny part? If it wasn't for me, Fowler would still be in Columbus, Ohio, and Elliot would be teaching shiny young faces at Bennington." Jack walked to the window again. It was dark outside, and the lighted room made it into a mirror.
"What are you talking about?"
"That, gentlemen, is a secret. Maybe that's what they'll put on the stone: Here lies John Patrick Ryan. He tried to do the right thing--and look what happened. I wonder if Cathy and the kids will make it...."
"Come on, it's not that bad," the Senior Duty Officer observed, but all the others in the room felt the chill.
Jack turned. "Isn't it? Don't you see where this is heading? They're not listening to anybody. They're not listening. They might listen to Dennis Bunker or Brent Talbot, but they're both air pollution, little bits of fallout somewhere over Colorado. I'm the closest thing in town to an adviser right now, and I got myself tossed out."
41
THE FIELD OF CAMLAN
The Admiral Lunin was going too fast for safety. Captain Dubinin knew that, but chances like this did not come along often. This was, in fact, the first, and the Captain wondered if it might also be the last. Why were the Americans on a full-blown nuclear alert--yes, of course, a possible nuclear explosion in their country was a grave matter, but could they be so mad as to assume that a Soviet had done such a thing?
"Get me a polar projection chart," he said to a quartermaster. Dubinin knew what he would see, but it wasn't a time for remembrance, it was a time for hard facts. The meter-square sheet of hard paper was on the table a moment later. Dubinin took a pair of dividers and walked them from Maine's estimated position to Moscow, and to the strategic rocket fields in the central part of his country.
"Yes." It could hardly be more clear, could it?
"What is it, Captain?" the Starpom asked.
"USS Maine, according to our intelligence estimates, is in the northernmost patrol sector of the missile submarines based at Bangor. That makes good sense, doesn't it?"
"Yes, Captain, based on what little we know of their patrol patterns."
"She carries the D-5 rocket, twenty-four of them, eight or so warheads per rocket...." He paused. There had been a time when he'd been able to do such calculations in his head instantly.
"One hundred ninety-two, Captain," the executive officer said for him.
"Correct, thank you. That includes nearly all of our SS-18s, less those being deactivated by treaty, and the CEP accuracy of the D-5 makes it likely that those one hundred ninety-two warheads will destroy roughly one hundred sixty of their targets, which, in turn, accounts for more than a fifth of our total warhead count, and our most accurate warheads at that. Remarkable, isn't it?" Dubinin asked quietly.
"You really think they're that good?"
"The Americans demonstrated their marksmanship ability over Iraq, didn't they? I for one have never doubted the quality of their weapons."
"Captain, we know that the American D-5 submarine rockets are the most likely first-strike tool..."
"Continue the thought."
The Starpom looked at the chart. "Of course. This is the closest one."
"Indeed. USS Maine is the point of the lance aimed at our country." Dubinin tapped the chart with his dividers. "If the Americans launch an attack, the first rockets will fly from this point, and nineteen minutes after that, they will hit. I wonder if our comrades in the Strategic Rocket Forces can respond that quickly ... ?"
"But, Captain, what can we do about this?" the executive officer asked dubiously.
Dubinin pulled the chart off the table and slid it back into its open drawer. "Nothing. Not a thing. We cannot attack preemptively without orders or grave provocation, can we? According to our best intelligence, he can launch his rockets at intervals of fifteen seconds, probably less, really. The manual becomes less important in war, doesn't it? Say four minutes from the first to the last. You have to do a ladder-north strike pattern to avoid warhead fratricide. That doesn't matter, if you examine the physics of the event. I looked at that while I was at Frunze, you know. Since our rockets are liquid-fueled, they cannot launch while the attack is under way. Even if their electronic components can withstand the electromagnetic effects, they are too fragile structurally to tolerate the physical forces. So unless we can launch with confidence before the enemy warheads fall, our tactics are to ride it out and launch a few minutes later. For our part here, if he can launch in four minutes, that means we have to be within six thousand meters, hear the first launch transient, and fire our own torpedo immediately to have any hope of stopping him from firing his last rocket, don't we?"
"A difficult task."
The Captain shook his head. "An impossible task. The only thing that makes sense is for us to eliminate him before he receives his launch order, but we cannot do that without orders, and we have no such orders."
"So, what do we do?" "Not very much we can do." Dubinin leaned over the chart table. "Let's assume that he's truly disabled, and that we have an accurate position fix. We still have to detect him. If his engine plant is down at minimums, hearing him will be nearly impossible, especially if he's up against the surface noise. If we go active, what's to stop him from launching a torpedo against us? If he does that, we can fire back--and hope to survive, ourselves. Our weapon might even hit him, but then again it might not. If he does not shoot as soon as he hears our active sonar ... maybe we can get close enough that we can intimidate him, force him down. We'll lose him again when he goes under the layer ... but if we can force him down ... and then stay atop the layer, blasting away with our active sonar... perhaps we can keep him from going to missile-firing depth." Dubinin frowned mightily. "Not an especially brilliant plan, is it? If one of them suggested it"--he waved to the junior officers conning the ship--"I'd tear a strip off their young backs. But I don't see anything better. Do you?"
"Captain, that makes us exceedingly vulnerable to attack." The idea was more accurately described as suicidal, the Starpom thought, though he was sure Dubinin knew that.
"Yes, it does, but if that is what is required to prevent this bastard from getting to firing depth, it is exactly what I propose to do. I see no alternative."
PRESIDENT NARMONOV:
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE POSITION WE ARE IN. THE WEAPON WHICH DESTROYED DENVER WAS OF SUCH A SIZE AND TYPE AS TO MAKE IT VERY UNLIKELY THAT THIS CRIME WAS COMMITTED BY TERRORISTS, YET WE HAVE TAKEN NO ACTION WHATEVER TO RETALIATE AGAINST ANYONE. WERE YOUR COUNTRY ATTACKED, YOU TOO WOULD ALERT YOUR STRATEGIC FORCES. WE HAVE SIMILARLY ALERTED OURS, ALONG WITH OUR CONVENTIONAL FORCES. FOR TECHNICAL REASONS IT WAS NECESSARY TO INITIATE A GLOBAL ALERT INSTEAD OF A MORE SELECTIVE ONE. BUT AT NO TIME HAVE I ISSUED ANY INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMENCE OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS. OUR ACTIONS TO THIS POINT HAVE BEEN DEFENSIVE ONLY, AND HAVE SHOWN CONSIDERABLE RESTRAINT.
WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT YOUR COUNTRY HAS INITIATED ACTION AGAINST OUR HOMELAND, BUT WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOUR TROOPS IN BERLIN HAVE ATTACKED OURS, AND HAVE ALSO ATTACKED AIRCRAFT ATTEMPTING TO INSPECT THE AREA. WE ARE SIMILARLY INFORMED THAT SOVIET AIRCRAFT HAVE AP
PROACHED AN AMERICAN CARRIER GROUP IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
PRESIDENT NARMONOV, I URGE YOU TO RESTRAIN YOUR FORCES. IF WE CAN END THE PROVOCATIONS, WE CAN END THIS CRISIS, BUT I CANNOT TELL MY PEOPLE NOT TO DEFEND THEMSELVES.
"'Restrain your forces'? Goddamn it," the Defense Minister swore. "We haven't done anything! He's accusing us of provoking him! His tanks have invaded East Berlin, his fighter-bombers have attacked our forces there, and he just confirmed the fact that his carrier aircraft have attacked ours! And this arrogant madman now says that we must not provoke him! What does he expect us to do--run away everywhere we see an American?"
"That might be the most prudent thing we can do," Golovko observed.
"Run like a thief from a policeman?" Defense asked sarcastically. "You ask that we should do that?"
"I suggest it as a possibility to be considered." The First Deputy Chairman of KGB stood his ground bravely, Narmonov thought.
"The important part of this message is the second sentence," the Foreign Minister pointed out. His analysis was all the more chilling for its matter-of-fact tone. "They say that they do not believe this was a terrorist attack. Who is left as a likely attacker, then? He goes on to say that America has not yet retaliated against anyone yet. The subsequent statement that they have no evidence to suggest that we perpetrated this infamy is, I think, rather hollow when juxtaposed with the first paragraph."
"And running away will only make it more clear to him that we are the ones who started this," Defense added.
"'More clear'?" Golovko asked.
the Sum Of All Fears (1991) Page 95