He would return, she decided. This crisis would blow over, and he would come home safely, resign his commission and get a normal job. After all, he was a smart guy, wasn’t he? A lot of employers would love to have someone with Martin’s brains working for them. Perhaps she’d put in a good word with that friend of hers who ran a software company down in KC. They did a lot of work for the military, and Beth knew that many of the people who worked there were former USAF officers. Martin would feel right at home. He would get a good salary, a company car, and he’d be at home at weekends.
The absence of traffic – indeed, of any human life – on the roads leading north was starting to bother her. It was almost as if everybody had chosen to stay home with their loved ones and wait for updates on the TV. Well, Martin had thought his loved ones would be better off getting a head start on the rest of the population, and she trusted his judgment implicitly. He wasn’t the type to overreact. Therefore, she just had to assume that the rest of America wasn’t quite as smart as her husband.
She turned on the radio, earning a terse look from Cathy. The radio was playingHammer To Fall by Queen.
“I’m just trying to find out what’s happening,” Beth explained. “It could be over by now, for all we know.”
‘Those who stand up tall and proud, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud…’
“Well turn it down a bit then,” Cathy told her. “Damn awful racket.”
Beth reached for the volume switch.
‘What the hell are we fighting for? Close your eyes and it won’t hurt at all.’
She drove past a gas station. In the forecourt, a minibus stood abandoned, its doors wide open, driver nowhere to be seen. Beth wondered what could have…
‘We’re just waiting for a Hammer to Fall…’
“You’re listening to WKTM on 106.6 FM,” the DJ enthused, “The heart and soul of RRRRRRo..Ro..Rock and Roll! Over to our news desk for the latest on what’s shakin’. What’s shakin’, Chuck?”
“As I speak, reports are coming in,” announced the newsreader, “of three nuclear detonations near the Russian cities of Volgograd, Tula and the capital, Moscow.”
Unbidden, Beth pressed hard on the gas. She had one hand on the steering wheel, and was using the other to wipe away the tears that had begun to streak down her face.
“Holy God,” Cathy muttered, glaring at her husband. She acidly imitated his voice. “Of course they won’t do it, he says. What the hell do you know?”
“You expect me to know everything, woman?” he retorted, leaning forward in his seat so he could hear the news report. “Just shut up and listen to the goddamn radio, will you?”
Cathy narrowed her eyes as if she was about to slap her husband. “Don’t youdare presume to tell me what to do. I’m as …”
“Shut up!” Beth screamed. Cathy and Patrick both stared at her with saucer-eyed shock. They weren’t accustomed to their daughter-in-law raising her voice. “Please, both of you. Shut the fuck up.”
“… waiting for further updates. Meanwhile, the White House is remaining tight-lipped on rumors that the government is evacuating from Washington. This follows a report on the AP wire, suggesting that plans are underway to move the President and other vital government personnel to secure locations around the country…”
Beth’s speedometer passed 95mph. She didn’t imagine the Missouri Highway Patrol would be bothering her today.
UNDERGROUND COMMAND POST, THE KREMLIN
Yazov was still dazed, both from the psychological impact of the nuclear blast and from the physical impact of banging his head on the desk. His first thought, as his bodyguards hurriedly ushered him into the underground command post, was that he would have one hell of a headache when he woke up tomorrow.
His next thought was to wonder whether there would actually be a tomorrow.
“… hit somewhere to the south of Moscow,” Suronev was explaining to Yazov as they rushed through a maze of dank subterranean corridors towards the Command Center. “That’s why we’re still alive, General. The American missiles weren’t as accurate as they were meant to be.”
Reality began to creep up on Yazov as he entered the Command Center, 200 feet beneath the Kremlin. Several Marshals from the STAVKA High Command were already present, as were a number of Generals and cabinet ministers - though not, Yazov noted, Nikolai Stefanovich Pushkin. He guessed that the ousted President was probably dead. He eyed Suronev with puzzlement as he fingered the swelling bump on his head. “Americans? That doesn’t make sense. Why would they do such a thing when they know how we’ll react?”
Kalushin strode into the room, his pallor accentuated by harsh overhead lighting. He managed only a thin smile of relief when he saw his old friend.
“Gennady,” he sighed, briefly embracing Yazov. “Thank Heavens you’re safe.”
Other people - mostly aides and officers from the Defense Ministry, which provided a secondary access point to the bunker - started to fill the room, engaging in urgent sounding conversations with each other. Yazov only managed to catch snippets of these conversations. He knew that he had to get a grip on the situation and think. Only he didn’t have much time to think, did he? His understanding of the situation to date was, to say the least, vague. And vagaries left only speculation in their wake.
“Our Early Warning systems have been incapacitated,” Suronev was saying. “We are blind…”
Yazov began to mentally prioritize the most important questions:
Point 1. Moscow has been attacked with nuclear weapons. By whom?
Point 2. Is Moscow the only target, or is this part of a wider campaign?
Point 3. Are our strategic forces sufficiently functional to stage a response?
“Are you feeling okay, General?” Kalushin inquired with genuine concern, noting the obvious bewilderment in Yazov’s eyes.
Yazov’s head was turning from left to right. He was trying to focus on one of the numerous conversations taking place around him, but was failing to do so. It seemed to him almost as if everybody was speaking a foreign language.
He raised a hand.
“Gentlemen,” he announced in a firm baritone. “Please. Stop talking.”
A deathly hush settled on the room, all eyes turning to the General (he would always think of himself as a military officer, even if others came to think of him as a political leader).
He turned to Kalushin. “Anatoly. What do we know?”
A chorus of voices simultaneously shouted their opinions. Yazov angrily slammed his fist on the conference table, once again bringing silence to the room.
“I asked General Kalushin what weknow ,” he growled, “not what wethink we know. I can speculate, and there will be time enough for that later. Right now, I need facts. General, please continue.”
Kalushin’s head was bowed. He was not dealing with this very well, Yazov thought. Well, who was? “There have been three thermonuclear explosions over the cities of Moscow, Volgograd and Tula,” he told his new President. “We detected the impacts shortly before we lost our Early Warning systems. There may be more. I don’t know. The impacts all yielded between a two hundred fifty and five hundred kilotons.”
“Origin?”
Kalushin and Colonel Alexander Grizov, the FSB Director, momentarily locked eyes as if they disagreed about the answer to that question. The look didn’t go unnoticed by Yazov, who glanced curiously at both of them in turn.
It was Suronev who finally answered. “There are only six countries in the world who have weapons this big. Ourselves, the Americans, the British, the French, the Israelis and the Chinese.”
A white-haired Marshal leapt to his feet. “Mikhail Olegovich, you cannot simply identify the aggressor by a process of elimination. We’re not dealing with a detective mystery, for Heaven’s sake. Do we know the method of delivery?”
“Early eyewitness accounts suggest an airburst,” Kalushin answered. “That would be more indicative of a missile attack, rather than a bomber attack.”
“Then why was no warning given?” Yazov demanded to know. Actually, he already suspected he knew the answer, but hoped that he was wrong. “Why did PVO not detect any missile tracks?”
“We are presently unable to contact PVO to ask them,” the same white-haired Marshal reported apologetically, adding with a grimace, “Our communications have been severely damaged. Probably by the EMP effects of the airburst.”
“Perhaps there was a systems malfunction at PVO,” Kalushin proffered. “It wouldn’t be the first time. It is possible that the atmospheric effects of our own strikes damaged our detection systems.”
“There is a more likely explanation,” Grizov said.
“Explain,” Yazov snapped.
“That the Americans destroyed our orbital detection systems before they attacked. We know that they have the means to do this.”
Again, the room erupted into cacophony as everybody tried to make their opinions heard. Yazov locked eyes with Grizov. The General raised his hand to restore order, then nodded firmly at the FSB chief. “Why would they do that, Alexander Stephanovich?”
Grizov ran a hand through his thinning gray hair and paced the room as he outlined his theory with the crisp delivery of a defense lawyer addressing a jury, which actually wasn’t a bad analogy given the current situation, he thought. “We warned the Americans that we were planning to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. They reacted by increasing their alert levels, which is precisely what we expected them to do. A precautionary measure, yes? We took the decision that it was pointless to increase our own alert levels in response, that the crisis would run its course and die a natural death. These facts are undisputed, are they not, General?”
Yazov frowned impatiently, wishing that Grizov would get to the point. This was no time for him to be showboating. Time was of the essence now.
“Minutes before the first blast over Moscow, American television was reporting that their government was being evacuated from Washington. This was nearly two hours after we warned them about the attacks on Ukraine. Why would they wait so long to evacuate?”
He allowed his own question to hang in the air for several seconds before providing the answer. “The only logical explanation is that they somehow found out about the transition of power taking place here in Moscow, and chose to seize upon what they perceived as a window of opportunity to attack us. They took advantage of our political instability.”
Yazov shook his head vigorously. “No! No! No!” he insisted. “They would never do such a thing.”
Grizov pointed angrily at the ceiling. “Then who did that?” he barked. “Over a million Muscovites are dead or dying up there.” He placed a hand on Yazov’s shoulder and lowered his voice. His words were spoken in the manner of a parent consoling a petulant child. “Face the facts, Gennady Andreiovich. The Americans betrayed us. For what reason, we don’t know. But it is obvious that they intended to kill you, me and the rest of our government.”
“Why?” Yazov still refused to accept an insane logic that actually wasn’t quite so insane in the context of the situation.
This time, it was Suronev who explained. His tone was bleak as he outlined his theory. “Because, General, their nuclear doctrine has always advocated the destruction of the enemy’s political leadership in order to break the chain of command and inhibit the enemy’s ability to retaliate.”
But I’m not a political leader, the President’s mind objected.
“They didn’t kill us,” Suronev added. “That means we have a second chance to stop them. We may not get a third.”
Grizov cleared his throat before speaking. “General, we have to face some hard realities here,” he said solemnly. “Our communications are crippled. Even if this were not the case, it is impossible to say whether any of our early warning systems are still operational. We’re pissing in the dark. So, for all we know, there could be a thousand ICBMs on their way to Russia at this very moment. They may already be laying our country to waste and destroying our ability to respond.” He checked his watch. “Every second is critical now. We must retaliate massively before there is nothing left for us to retaliate with.”
Systematically checking the faces of every man in the room, Yazov realized that the consensus was almost universal. While his conscience continued to wrestle with the powerful logic of the argument presented by Grizov and Suronev, he was acutely aware of his own political vulnerability. Were he to act against what seemed to be the overwhelming consensus, men such as Suronev could quite easily replace him with somebody willing to retaliate against the Americans with undiluted vengeance, and that would surely trigger a nuclear war of such magnitude as to wipe out all life on earth. Thus, he was learning the lesson that so many of his predecessors had been forced to learn. The choices he made as President were not so much his own as those of the shadowy figures that silhouetted the nucleus of power. Yet, as the commanding officer of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, he understood better than anybody else in the room the consequences of what he was about to do.
“Very well,” he said finally, his eyes closed as if in silent prayer. “We will respond with an attack pattern designed specifically to reduce their strategic capability. Primary targets will include ICBM and SSBN bases, Command and Control facilities and Early Warning stations. Only three cities are to be attacked, roughly equivalent to the three Russian cities that weknow to have been hit. Since Moscow was one of their targets, Washington must be one of ours. Alexei,” he said to an Army Colonel, “I want an estimate on civilian equivalencies within the next three minutes. Other than that, civilian and industrial targets are to be avoided at all costs.”
Alexei nodded and hurried out of the room to perform his duties.
“But why would they only attack three cities?” Grizov objected. “Why not three hundred? It doesn’t make sense. We may never get another chance to strike. You cannot limit the strike tojust three cities.”
Yazov rubbed his temples, beginning to get the first warnings of a migraine. “If we receive confirmation that their attack has been more widespread, then we can use our submarines to respond in kind. In the meantime, I want no effort spared to reestablish communications with their government.” He turned to Kalushin. “General. I want you to send out general alert orders to all strategic air squadrons on UHF. Those who have survived will respond. I want those bombers in the air.”
“I believe PVO will already have initiated that order automatically,” Kalushin advised. “But I will issue a confirmation order, just to make sure.”
The Commanding Officer of the Russian Navy added, “I will see whether we can establish communication links with our submarine fleet.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Kalushin pointed out. “As of a few minutes ago, ORION was still on line.” ORION was the highly encrypted Russian communication satellite used as a back-up system for issuing launch orders to ICBM and SSBN crews.
“Good,” Yazov said. “Then until we have better information, our response will be selective.”
Grizov tried again. “But, for all we know…”
Again, Yazov cut him off. “Precisely. Wedon’t know. That is my point.” He locked eyes with the FSB chief. It took only a few seconds for the older man to back down under the penetrating stare of the General.
The tension was broken when Alexei returned with a sheet of paper.
“General, we have run an equivalency algorhythm against the American attack. It suggests that we should target the cities of Houston, Seattle and Washington D.C.”
Yazov wondered what factors were involved in the algorhythm. Population density? Administrative importance? Economic status? Probably all three, he guessed, plus quite a few more variables that he couldn’t think of.
With a wave of his hand, he summoned the two RVSN officers seated quietly in a far corner of the room. Their twochyorny chemodanchiki - little black suitcases - contained the codebooks and communication devices required to authenticate the use of nuclear weapons.
Both men stood and opened the metallic cases on the conference table, unlocking them with a combination which only they and their relief officers knew.
Yazov understood the procedure better than almost any other man alive, having himself enhanced many of the existing safety protocols in his capacity as Commanding General of the RVSN. He withdrew a small plastic card from his pocket. On the card were seven groups of nine-digit numbers. Only one of these groups would initialize the communicators, and only he knew which one. As he read it out aloud, both officers simultaneously tapped the numerical sequence into their communicator keypads. Immediately, a red light blinked on both devices to confirm that a valid authentication code had been entered.
The two officers then validated this with another four-digit code. Each officer had a different code from the other, and these were recorded only in their own heads. An additional safeguard designed to prevent a renegade RVSN officer from launching unilaterally.
The red lights turned green.
Both officers produced identical two-inch thick red books from their briefcases. The more senior of the two handed his book to Yazov. It contained a multitude of attack options converse yet similar to those represented by the SIOP attack options that would be generated for the U.S. President. Yazov quickly found the targeting profile that best suited his objectives. It read:
ATTACK OPTION B2Z
AUTHENTICATION/TYL-07-YVP-92-BBOR
ICBM Counterforce Profile - Continental USA
OBJECTIVE:
Reduction of American strategic nuclear capability,
Disruption of administrative functionality
FOREWORD Page 23