by Tom Clancy
The submarine's towed-array sonar was drooping well below the level of the boat, and the sonar crewmen were now concentrating as they never had.
“Contact,” Lieutenant Rykov called. “Sonar contact, bearing one-one-three, single screw… noisy, sounds like a damaged submarine…”
“You're certain it's not a surface contact?”
“Positive… surface traffic is well south of this track because of the storms. The sound is definitely characteristic of a submarine power plant… noisy, as though from some damage… southerly drift… bearing one-one-five now.”
Valentin Borissovich turned to shout into the control room: “Estimated distance to target's reported position?”
“Seven thousand meters!”
“Long, long shot… southerly drift… speed?”
“Difficult to tell… less than six knots, certainly… there's a blade-rate there, but it's faint, and I can't read it.”
“We may not get more than one shot,” Dubinin whispered to himself. He went back to control. “Weapons! Set up a torpedo on a course of one-one-five, initial search depth seventy meters, activation point… four thousand meters.”
“Very well.” The lieutenant made the proper adjustment to his board. “Set for tube one… weapon is hot, ready! Outer door is closed, Captain.”
Dubinin turned to look at the executive officer. Ordinarily a very sober man — he scarcely drank even at ceremonial dinners — the Starpom nodded approval. The Captain didn't need it, but was grateful for it even so.
“Open outer door.”
“Outer door is open.” The weapons officer flipped the plastic cover off the firing switch.
“Fire.”
The lieutenant stabbed the button home. “Weapon is free.”
* * *
“ Conn, sonar! Transient, transient, bearing one-seven-five — torpedo in the water bearing one-nine-five!”
“All ahead full!” Ricks shouted to the helm.
“Captain!” Claggett screamed. “Belay that order!”
“What?” The youngster at the helm was all of nineteen, and had never heard a captain's order countermanded. “What do I do, sir?”
“Captain, if you goose the engines like that, we lose the shaft in about fifteen seconds!”
“Shit, you're right.” Ricks was pink beneath the red battle lights in the control room. “Tell the engine room, best safe speed, helm, right ten degrees rudder, come north, new course zero-zero-zero.”
“Right ten degrees rudder, aye.” The boy's voice quavered as he turned the wheel. Fear is as contagious as plague. “Sir, my rudder is right ten degrees, coming to new course zero-zero-zero.”
Ricks swallowed and nodded. “Very well.”
“ Conn, sonar, bearing to torpedo is now bearing one-nine-zero, torpedo going left to right, torpedo is not pinging at this time.”
“Thank you,” Claggett replied.
“Without our tail, we're going to lose track of it real quick.”
“That's true, sir. Captain, how about we let the Orion know what's going on?”
“Good idea, run up the antenna.”
* * *
“Sea Devil One-Three, this is Maine.”
“ Maine, this is One-Three, we are still evaluating that torpedo we dropped and—”
“One-Three, we have a torpedo in the water one-eight-zero. You missed the guy. Start another search pattern south of us. I think this bird is engaging our MOSS.”
“Roger, on the way.” The Tacco informed Kodiak that there was a for-real battle going on now.
* * *
“Mr. President,” Ryan said, “we may have some useful information here, sir.” Jack was sitting down in front of the speaker phone, his hands flat on the table and wet enough to leave marks on the Formica top, Goodley saw. For all that, he envied Ryan's ability to control himself.
“What might that be?” Fowler asked harshly.
Ryan's head dropped at the tone of the reply. “Sir, the FBI has just informed us that they have information on two, possibly three, confirmed terrorist suspects in Denver today. Two of them are believed to be on an airliner inbound to Mexico. I have people in the area, and we're going to try and pick them up, sir.”
* * *
“Wait a minute,” Fowler said. “We know that this wasn't a terrorist act.”
“Ryan, this is General Fremont. How was this information developed?”
“I don't know all the details, but they have information on an automobile — a truck, I think, a van, that was at the site. They've checked the tag number and the owner — the owner turned up dead, and we ran the other two down by their airline tickets and—”
“Hold it!” CINC-SAC cut Ryan off. “How the hell can anyone know that — a survivor from the bomb site? For Christ's sake, man, this was a hundred kiloton weapon—”
“Uh, General, the best number we have now — it came from the FBI — is fifty-KT, and—”
“The FBI?” Borstein said from NORAD. “What the hell do they know about this? Anyway, a fifty-kiloton weapon wouldn't leave any survivors for over a mile around. Mr. President, that cannot be good information.”
* * *
“Mr. President, this is the NMCC,” Ryan heard on the same line. “We just received a message from Kodiak. That Soviet submarine is attacking USS Maine. There is a torpedo in the water, Maine is attempting to evade.”
Jack heard something, he wasn't sure what, over the speakerphone.
“Sir,” Fremont said at once, “this is a very ominous development.”
“I understand that, General,” the President said just loudly enough to hear. “General — SNAPCOUNT.”
“What the hell's that?” Goodley asked quietly.
“Mr. President, that is a mistake. We have a solid piece of information here. You wanted information from us, and now we have it!” Ryan barked rapidly, almost losing it again. His hands went from flat to fists. Jack struggled with himself again, and regained control. “Sir, this is a real indicator.”
“Ryan, it looks to me like you've been lying and misleading me all day,” Fowler said, in a voice that hardly sounded human at all. The line went dead for the last time.
* * *
The final alert signal was sent out simultaneously over dozens of circuits. The duplication of channels, their known function, the brevity of the message, and the identical encipherment pattern told the Soviets much, even before the receipted signal was input into their computers. When the single word came out, it was reprinted in the Kremlin command center only seconds later. Golovko took the dispatch off the machine.
“SNAPCOUNT,” he said simply.
“What is that?” President Narmonov asked.
“A code word.” Golovko's mouth went white for a moment. “It's a term from American football, I think. It means the set of numbers used before the — the quarterback takes the ball to begin a play.”
“I don't understand,” Narmonov said.
“Once the Americans had the code word C OCKEDPISTOL to denote complete strategic readiness. The meaning is unambiguous to anyone, yes?” The KGB's Deputy Chairman went on, as though in a dream: “This word, to an American, would mean much the same thing. I can only conclude that—”
“Yes.”
42
ASP AND SWORD
PRESIDENT NARMONOV:
I SEND THIS TO YOU, OR YOUR SUCCESSOR, AS A WARNING.
WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED A REPORT THAT A SOVIET SUBMARINE IS EVEN NOW ATTACKING AN AMERICAN MISSILE SUBMARINE. AN ATTACK ON OUR STRATEGIC ASSETS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED, AND WILL BE INTERPRETED AS THE PRECURSOR TO AN ATTACK AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
I MUST FURTHER ADVISE YOU THAT OUR STRATEGIC FORCES ARE AT THEIR MAXIMUM STATE OF READINESS. WE ARE PREPARED TO DEFEND OURSELVES.
I F YOU ARE SERIOUS IN YOUR PROTESTATIONS OF INNOCENCE, I URGE YOU TO CEASE ALL AGGRESSIVE ACTS WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME.
“'Successor'? What the hell does that mean?” Narmonov turned away for a moment, then
looked at Golovko. “What is happening here? Is Fowler ill? Is he mad, what goes on here? What's this submarine business?” When he finished talking, his mouth remained open like that of a hooked fish. The Soviet President was gulping his breaths now.
“We had a report of a disabled American missile submarine in the Eastern Pacific, and sent a submarine to investigate, but that submarine has no authorization to attack,” the Defense Minister said.
“Are there any circumstances under which our men might do this?”
“None. Without authorization from Moscow, they may act only in self-defense.” The Defense Minister looked away, unable to bear the gaze of his President. He had no wish to speak again, but neither did he have a choice. “I no longer think this is a controllable situation.”
* * *
“Mr. President.” It was an Army warrant officer. He opened his briefcase—“the football”—and removed a ring binder. The first divider was bordered in red. Fowler flipped to it. The page read:
SIOP
MAJOR ATTACK OPTION
** SKYFALL **
* * *
“So, what the hell is SNAPCOUNT?” Goodley asked.
“That's as high as alerts go, Ben. That means the pistol is cocked and pointed, and you can feel the pressure on the trigger.”
“How the hell did we—”
“Drop it, Ben! However the fuck we got here, we are here.” Ryan stood and started walking around. “We better start thinking very fast, people.”
The Senior Duty officer started: “We have to make Fowler understand—”
“He can't understand,” Goodley said harshly. “He can't understand if he isn't listening.”
“State and Defense are out — they're both dead,” Ryan pointed out.
“Vice President — Kneecap.”
“Very good, Ben… do we have a button for that… yes!” Ryan pushed it.
“Kneecap.”
“This is CIA, DDCI Ryan speaking. I need to talk to the Vice President.”
“Wait one, sir.” It turned out to be a short “one.”
“This is Roger Durling. Hello, Ryan.”
“Hello, Mr. Vice President. We have a problem here,” Jack announced.
“What went wrong? We've been copying the Hot Line messages. They were kinda tense but okay until about twenty minutes ago. What the hell went wrong?”
“Sir, the President is convinced that there has been a coup d'etat in the Soviet Union.”
“What? Whose fault is that?”
“Mine, sir,” Ryan admitted. “I'm the jerk who delivered the information. Please set that aside. The President isn't listening to me.”
Jack was amazed to hear a brief, bitter laugh. “Yeah, Bob doesn't listen to me very much either.”
“Sir, we have to get to him. We now have information that this may have been a terrorist incident.”
“What information is that?” Jack ran it down in about a minute. “That's thin,” Durling observed.
“It may be thin, sir, but it's all we got, and it's a goddamned sight better than anything else we've got in.”
“Okay, stop for a minute. Right now I want your evaluation of the situation.”
“Sir, my best read is that the President is wrong, it is Andrey Il'ych Narmonov over there. It's approaching dawn in Moscow. President Narmonov is suffering from sleep-deprivation, he's just as scared as we are — and from that last message he's wondering if President Fowler is crazy or not. That is a bad combination. We have reports of isolated contact between Soviet and American forces. Christ knows what really happened, but both sides are reading it as aggressive acts. What's really happening is simple chaos — forward-deployed forces bumping, but they're shooting because of alert levels on both sides. It's cascading on itself.”
“Agreed, I agree with all of that. Go on.”
“Somebody has to back down and do it very fast. Sir, you have to talk to the President. He won't even take my calls now. Talbot and Bunker are both dead, and there's nobody else he'll listen to.”
“What about Arnie van Damm?”
“Fuck!” Ryan snarled. How had he forgotten Arnie? “Where is he?”
“I don't know. I can have the Secret Service find out real fast. What about Liz?”
“She's the one who came up with the brilliant idea that Narmonov isn't there.”
“Bitch,” Durling observed. He'd worked so hard and wasted so much political capital to get Charlie Alden into that job. “Okay, I'll try to get through to him. Stand by.”
“Right.”
* * *
The Vice President is calling, sir. Line Six." F
owler punched the button. “Make it fast, Roger.”
“Bob, you need to get this thing back under control.”
“What do you think I've been trying to do!”
Durling was sitting in a high-backed leather chair. He closed his eyes. The tone of the answer said it all. “Bob, you have made things worse instead of better. You have to step back from this for a moment. Take a deep breath, walk around the room — think! There is no reason to expect that the Russians did this. Now, I just talked to CIA, and they said—”
“Ryan, you mean?”
“Yes, he just filled me in and—”
“Ryan's been lying to me.”
“Bullshit, Bob.” Durling kept his voice level and reasonable. He called it his country-doctor voice. “He's too much of a pro for that.”
“Roger, I know you mean well, but I don't have time for psychoanalysis. We have what may be a nuclear strike about to be launched on us. The good news, I suppose, is that you'll survive. I wish you luck, Roger. Wait — there's a Hot Line message coming in.”
* * *
PRESIDENT FOWLER:
THIS IS ANDREY IL'YCH NARMONOV COMMUNICATING TO YOU.
THE SOVIET UNION HAS TAKEN NO AGGRESSIVE ACTS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES. NONE AT ALL. WE HAVE NO INTEREST IN HARMING YOUR COUNTRY. WE WISH TO BE LEFT ALONE, AND TO LIVE IN PEACE.
I HAVE AUTHORIZED NO ACTION WHATEVER AGAINST ANY AMERICAN FORCES OR CITIZENS, YET YOU THREATEN US. I F YOU ATTACK US, WE MUST THEN ATTACK YOU ALSO, AND MILLIONS WILL DIE. WILL IT ALL BE AN ACCIDENT?
THE CHOICE IS YOURS. I CANNOT STOP YOU FROM ACTING IRRATIONALLY. I HOPE THAT YOU WILL REGAIN CONTROL OF YOURSELF. TOO MANY LIVES ARE AT RISK FOR EITHER OF US TO ACT IRRATIONALLY.
“At least we're still getting these,” Goodley noted.
“Yeah, it just makes things so much better. It's going to set him off,” Ryan announced. “This one's really going to do it. You can't tell an irrational person that he's losing it… ”
“Ryan, this is Durling.” Ryan fairly leaped at the button.
“Yes, Mr. Vice President.”
“He didn't — he didn't listen, and then this new one came in, and he reacted rather badly to it.”
“Sir, can you open a channel to SAC?”
“No, I'm afraid not. They're on a conference call with NORAD and Camp David. Part of the problem, Jack, the President knows he's vulnerable there and he's afraid — well…”
“Yeah, everyone's afraid, aren't we?”
There was silence for a moment, and Ryan wondered if Durling felt guilty for being in a place of relative safety.
* * *
At Rocky Flats, the residue samples were loaded into a gamma-ray spectrometer. It had taken longer than expected, due to a minor equipment problem. The operators stood behind a shield and used lead-lined rubber gloves and yard-long tongs to move the samples out of the lead bucket, then waited for the technician to activate the machine.
“Okay — this is a hot one, all right.”
The machine had two displays, one on a cathode-ray tube, with a back-up paper print-out. It measured the energy of the photo-electrons generated by the gamma radiation within the instrument. The precise energy state of these electrons identified both the element and the isotope of the source. These showed as lines or spikes on the graphic display. The relative intensity of the various
energy lines — shown as the height of the spike — determined the proportions. A more precise measurement would require insertion of the sample in a small reactor for re-activation, but this system was good enough for the moment.
The technician flipped to the Beta Channel. “Whoa, look at that tritium line! What did you say the yield on this thing was?”
“Under fifteen.”
“Well, it had a shitload of tritium, doc, look at all that!” The technician — he was a masters candidate — made a notation on his pad, and switched back to the Gamma Channel. “Okay, plutonium we've got some 239, 240; neptunium, americium, gadolinium, curium, pro-methium, uranium — some U-235, some 238… I — this was a sophisticated beast, guys.”
“Fizzle,” one of the NESTers said, reading the numbers. “We're looking at the remains of a fizzle. This was not an IND. All that tritium… Christ, this was supposed to be a two-stager, that's too much for a boosted fission weapon — it's a fucking H-Bomb!”
The technician adjusted his dials to fine-tune the display. “Look at the 239/240 mix… ”
“Get the book!”
Sitting on the shelf opposite the spectrometer was a three-inch binder of red vinyl.
“ Savannah River,” the technician said. “They've always had that gadolinium problem… Hanford does it another way… they always seem to generate too much promethium…”
“Are you crazy?”
“Trust me,” the technician said. “My thesis is on contamination problems at the plutonium plants. Here's the numbers!” He read them off.