by Tom Clancy
Parsons ran to the counter and lifted the store phone, dialing his headquarters in Washington. Nothing happened.
“Where are you calling?”
“D.C.”
“The long-distance lines are down.”
“What do you mean? The phone company shouldn't be hurt from this.”
“We did it. Orders from Washington,” the agent explained.
“What fucking idiot ordered that?”
“The President.”
“Outstanding. I gotta get a call out.”
“Wait.” The agent took the phone and called his own office.
“Hoskins.”
“This is Larry Parsons, NEST team leader, can you relay something to Washington?”
“Sure.”
“The bomb was a ground-burst, less than fifteen kilotons. We have samples of the residue, and it's on the way to Rocky Flats for spectroscopy. You know how to get that out?”
“Yes, I can do that.”
“Okay.” Parsons hung up.
“You have pieces from the bomb?” the FBI agent asked incredulously.
“Sounds crazy, doesn't it? That's what fallout is, bomb residue that gets attached to dirt particles.”
“So what?”
“So, we can figure out a lot from that. Come on,” he told the agent. Both men ran back across the street towards the hospital. An FBI agent, Parsons decided, was a useful fellow to have around.
* * *
“Jack, got something from Denver, came in through Walt Hoskins. The bomb was a ground burst, fifty or so kilotons. The NEST guys have residue, and they're going to test it.”
Ryan took his notes. “Casualty count?”
“Didn't say.”
“Fifty kilotons,” the S&.T man observed. “Low for what the satellites said, but possible. Still, too goddamned big for an IND.”
* * *
The F-16C wasn't exactly ideal for this mission, but it was fast. Four had left Ramstein only twenty minutes earlier. Put aloft by the initial DEFCON-THREE alert, they'd come east to what they still referred to as the inter-German border. They'd not even arrived there when new orders had sent them towards the southern end of Berlin to get a look at what was happening at the Berlin Brigade's kazerne. Four F-15s from Bitburg joined for top-cover. All eight USAF fighters were loaded for air-to-air missions only, with two extra fuel tanks each in the place of bombs for the F-16s, and conformal fuel cells for the Eagles. From ten thousand feet, they could see the flashes and explosions on the ground. The flight of four broke into two elements of two each, and went down for a closer look, while the Eagles orbited overhead. The problem, it was later decided, was two-fold. First, the pilots were simply too surprised at the turn of events to consider all the possibilities; adding to this was the fact that American aircraft losses over Iraq had been so minor as to make the pilots forget that this was a different place.
The Russian tank regiment had both SA-8 and SA-11 missiles, plus the normal complement of Shilka 23mm flak vehicles. The antiair company commander had waited for this moment, not illuminating his radars, playing it smart, as the Iraqis had singularly failed to do. He waited until the American aircraft were under a thousand meters before giving his order.
Barely had their threat receivers come on when a swarm of missiles rose from the eastern edge of the Russian encampment. The Eagles, high up, had a much better chance at evasion. The F-16 Fighting Falcons, descending right into the SAM trap, had almost none. Two were blotted out in a matter of seconds. The second pair dodged the first wave of SAMs, but one was caught in the frag pattern of second-wave SA-11 it almost but not quite evaded. That pilot ejected successfully, but died when he landed too hard on the roof of an apartment building. The fourth F-16 escaped by skimming the rooftops and screaming west on full burner. Two of the Eagles joined him. A total of five American aircraft crashed into the city. Only one of the pilots lived. The escaping aircraft radioed the news to Commander U.S. Air Forces Europe at Ramstein. Already, he had twelve F-16s arming up with heavy ordnance. The next wave would be different.
* * *
PRESIDENT NARMONOV:
WE SENT SOME AIRCRAFT INTO BERLIN TO INVESTIGATE THE SITUATION THERE. THEY WERE SHOT DOWN WITHOUT WARNING BY SOVIET MISSILES. WHY WAS THIS DONE?
“What does this mean?”
“'Shot down without warning'? There's a battle under way, and that's why the aircraft were sent there! The regiment has antiaircraft troops,” the Defense Minister explained. “They only have short-range, low-altitude rockets. If the Americans were just looking from a safe height — ten thousand meters — we couldn't even have touched them. They must have been lower, probably trying to support their troops with an air attack. That's the only way we could have gotten them.”
“But we have no information?”
“No, we have not established contact yet.”
“We will not answer this one.”
“That is a mistake,” Golovko said.
“This situation is dangerous enough already,” Narmonov said angrily. “We do not know what is going on there. How can I respond when he claims to have information which I do not?”
“If you do not respond, you appear to admit the incident.”
“We admit nothing!” the Defense Minister shouted. “We could not even have done this unless they were attacking us, and we don't know whether it really happened or not.”
“So, tell them that,” Golovko suggested. “Perhaps if they understand that we are as confused as they, they will also understand that—”
“But they won't understand, and they won't believe. They've already accused us of launching this attack, and they won't believe that we have no control over the area.”
Narmonov retreated to a corner table and poured himself a cup of tea, while the intelligence and defense advisors traded — arguments? Was that the right word? The Soviet President looked up at the ceiling. This command center dated back to Stalin. A spur off one of the Moscow subway lines built by Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin's pet Jewish anti-Semite and his most trusted henchman, it was fully a hundred meters down, but now his people told him that it was not truly a place of safety after all.
What was Fowler thinking? Narmonov asked himself. The man was undoubtedly shaken by the murder of so many American citizens, but how could it be possible that he was thinking that the Soviets were responsible? And what was actually happening? A battle in Berlin, a possible clash between naval forces in the Mediterranean, all unrelated — or were they?
Did it matter? Narmonov stared at a picture on the wall and realized that, no, it did not matter. He and Fowler were both politicians for whom appearances had more weight than reality, and perceptions more importance than facts. The American had lied to him in Rome over a trivial matter. Was he lying now? If he were, then none of the past ten years of progress mattered at all, did they? It had all been for nothing.
“How do wars begin?” Narmonov asked himself quietly in the corner. In history, wars of conquest were started by strong men who wished to grow stronger still. But the time for men of imperial ambition had passed. The last such criminal had died not so long before. All that had changed in the twentieth century. The First World War had been started — how? A tubercular assassin had killed a buffoon so unloved that his own family had ignored the funeral. An overbearing diplomatic note had prompted Czar Nikolay II to leap to the defense of people he hadn't loved, and then the timetables had begun. Nikolay had the last chance, Narmonov remembered. The last of the Czars had held in his hand the chance to stop it all, but hadn't. If only he'd known what his decision for war would mean he might have found the strength to stop it, but in his fear and his weakness he'd signed the mobilization order that had ended one age and begun another. That war had begun because small, frightened men feared war less than showing weakness.
Fowler is such a man, Narmonov told himself. Proud, arrogant, a man who lied in a small thing lest I think less of him. He will be angered by the deaths. He will fea
r additional deaths, but he will fear displaying weakness even more. My country is at the mercy of such a man.
It was an elegant trap Narmonov was in. The irony of it might have evoked a tight, bitter smile, but instead the Soviet President set down his tea, for his stomach would take no more hot, bitter liquid. He could not afford to show weakness either, could he? That would only encourage Fowler to yet more irrationality. Part of Andrey Il'ych Narmonov asked if what he thought of Jonathan Robert Fowler might also apply to himself… But he had no reply. To do nothing would display weakness, wouldn't it?
* * *
“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 anti-submarine 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 towards 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. M Y 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. I N ANY CASE WE ARE TRYING EVEN NOW TO REESTABLISH 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 ON 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 COUNTRY. W HAT DO YOU WISH ME TO THINK? YOU ASK FOR PROOF OF MY 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 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?”
“God damn 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 waste basket. 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.