by Mike Jenne
Tew said, “And although this is largely a theoretical exercise, we have been allocated sufficient funding to build critical systems that would otherwise require too much lead time to construct. Obviously, we’re already pursuing the Block Two computer we’ve discussed. We’re also fabricating a very small number of Gemini-Interceptor spacecraft. All of this hardware will be maintained in secure storage, so if a significant threat presents itself, we can respond in a matter of weeks instead of waiting months for equipment to be produced or modified.”
“That ain’t all, bub,” added Wolcott. “Besides saltin’ away the hardware, we’re also training stand-by crews. We operate a full-blown mission simulator, the same as NASA’s, but modified to meet our requirements. Our crews are constantly working in there to evaluate and refine the intercept procedures. As a matter of fact, the two boys you met at Aux One-Oh—Carson and Agnew—are in the Box today.”
Ourecky resisted an urge to gasp. It was all almost overwhelming. Not only were the two generals describing a program to secretly launch military astronauts into space, but there were actually pilots currently training for the flights. Granted, it didn’t sound like it was likely that they would ever fly, but the two men he had met at Eglin were genuine astronauts!
Wolcott added: “Last but not least, pard, we need to explain where you’ll be riding in this great big rodeo. We want you to wrangle two functions. The first is to refine the intercept profiles and distill the guidance procedures down to the point where they can be written into a computer program for the Block Two.”
Ourecky quietly whistled. “Uh, sir, I’ll do my best, but I don’t have much experience with computers. There’s a computer at the Ordnance Lab at Eglin. It’s an IBM 360 Model 40, top of the line. It’s available to us to run our calculations, but I’ve found that by the time the keypunch girls punch and stack all my cards, I can work all of those equations myself.”
“Duly noted,” Tew said. “Now, let’s discuss your second task. We’re assuming that we’ll receive our new Block Two computer in time, but there’s always an ugly possibility that we may be ordered to intercept a hostile satellite even before the Block Two is available.”
Wolcott interjected, “And to address that contingency, pard, we’re going to ask you to formulate protocols to enable a Gemini-I crew to go up on their own, with just the old computer and with minimal assistance from the ground. Of course, we’ll send a sextant up with them to make star shots for their celestial nav, but they’ll be relyin’ almost entirely on what you provide them. Do you feel up to the task, young lieutenant?”
“I think so, sir,” answered Ourecky. Now, he wasn’t entirely confident that he wasn’t in over his head. Perhaps way over his head.
“Good.” Wolcott leaned forward in his chair, pointed at the leather briefcase in the chair next to Ourecky and said, “Ronnie Paster tells me that you always tote around some notebooks, and that whenever you land a spare moment, you’re workin’ equations. Rendezvous and what not. Is that true, pardner?”
“Uh, yes, sir. I’m trying to stay on top of it for the future, just in case I land a shot at MIT.”
“Well, is there any chance those are what you’re totin’ in your satchel there?”
“They are,” replied Ourecky proudly. “I brought them because Colonel Paster said you might want to look at them.” He dug into his leather attaché to retrieve the three notebooks filled with several years’ worth of his work on orbital mechanics. He placed them on the table before the generals. They perused them for several minutes as he watched the clock on the wall.
Scratching his head and squinting his eyes, Wolcott examined a diagram that Ourecky had been sketching this morning on the flight from Atlanta. His face bore a perplexed expression.
“Something wrong, sir?” asked Ourecky.
“Yeah. B . . . E . . . A. What in tarnations is a BEA?” asked Wolcott. “I ain’t seen that one before. Is it some sort of formula or engineering shorthand?”
BEA? thought Ourecky. What was Wolcott looking at? Finally he figured it out. Grinning, he replied, “Nothing, sir. Just a name I was trying to remember.”
“Very impressive,” said Tew, scanning over the notebooks. “And this is your own work?”
“Sir, yes it is. All of it.”
“Fascinating. Virgil, do you have anything else for Lieutenant Ourecky?”
Wolcott was right in the middle of jamming a wad of Red Man chewing tobacco in his mouth. He sputtered, and waved his hand. “Nope, no, nothing here,” he said.
Ourecky nodded. He stood up and then reached over the table to pick up his notebooks, but Tew scooped them up first.
“We’ll maintain these here,” said Tew sternly. “For safekeeping. Just so we’re perfectly clear, intercept missions against hostile targets, rendezvous, orbital mechanics and space vehicles are not to be discussed outside of this facility, at any time, under any circumstances. These things are no longer your hobbies, they are your assignment, and that assignment is not to be spoken of outside of this building. Not out there on the sidewalk, not at the Officer’s Club, and definitely not at Eglin. Do you understand?”
Ourecky straightened up, and assumed the position of attention, much like he had done as an ROTC cadet back in Lincoln. “Sir, I understand, sir. By your leave, sir?” he asked, throwing his hand up in a salute, formally requesting permission to depart the premises.
Wolcott grinned; miniscule bits of damp tobacco stuck to the left side of his mouth. “Relax, pard,” he said. “We ride this herd pretty loose, but we keep everything on the ranch. So long as you cotton to that, we’ll be just fine. Now, you need to head downstairs to talk with Ted Seibert, he’s going to have some security paperwork for you. I caution you to take your time and read every bit of the fine print. Doin’ so may save you an unpleasant holiday at Leavenworth.”
“Understood, sir.”
“One other thing, Ourecky,” added Wolcott, talking around the lump of tobacco. “Unless we tell you otherwise, the next time you come up, leave your uniform back at Eglin, at least for the time being. Got that, pard?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now git,” said Wolcott. “Time’s a’ wasting. Fetch your paperwork upstairs to the Personnel shop and then see what you can do for us in the basement. Stop back by here on Friday. If there’s anything you need while you’re here, don’t hesitate to let us know.”
“Welcome to Blue Gemini, son,” added Tew. “But always remember: what you see here stays here.”
Ourecky saluted again, sharply pivoted around in a snappy about face, and headed out the door and into his bright new future.
9
THE IDEA THAT REFUSED TO DIE
Headquarters of the General Staff of the Soviet High Command
Arbat Military District, Moscow, USSR
9:29 a.m., Friday, April 26, 1968
With instructions that he was to receive a new mission, Rustam Abdirov had been called to appear before the General Staff of the Soviet High Command. The General Staff oversaw the activities of the Ground Forces, the Air Defense Forces, the Air Force, the Navy, the Strategic Rocket Forces, and numerous other entities of the Soviet armed forces.
One of the senior generals audibly gasped as Abdirov entered the ornately decorated meeting chamber. It never failed; his grotesque visage never failed to evoke at least one horrified response, even from hardened men who had known him for years. He marched stiffly to the chair provided for him, stood at attention, saluted briskly, and waited for instructions from the Chief of the General Staff.
“Have a seat, Abdirov,” said the Chief cordially. “I hope that you are well.”
“As well as can be expected,” replied Abdirov, slowly lowering himself into the seat, assisted by an aide. “Much better than I deserve, sir.”
“We have a new task for you,” declared the Chief. “You are to immediately assume command over all aspects of the Skorpion space-based nuclear bombardment system. You will be granted personn
el and technical resources to establish a bureau specific to this mission, and you will be allocated a special operating facility at Kapustin Yar for research and testing.”
The aide proffered a leather folder and fountain pen to Abdirov. The folder contained the formal orders appointing him to his new duties. Abdirov quickly reviewed them, verified his name and service number, signed the bottom of the document, and handed the folder and pen back to the aide. He waited as the aide gradually made his way around the Staff’s table, pausing for each member to sign the document.
As Abdirov waited for the final step—a wax seal embossed by the Chief—to render the orders official, he pondered the assignment he had been given. He resisted the urge to laugh. He had heard of the Skorpion project before but mostly in rumors. He was aware that there had been an aborted launch only a few months before, in which a nuclear payload was nearly lost, which could have readily resulted in a significant catastrophe.
Not only was this notion dangerous, it was also highly impractical, but it seemed as if it could not be stopped. It was an idea that refused to die, relentlessly slogging forward, despite concerted attempts to kill it. How could this be? While Abdirov was a steadfast believer in the Soviet system, he knew that centralized planning had its limitations. One immense drawback was something that he labeled bureaucratic inertia, in which an idea or plan persists long after it has outlived its usefulness or has been overcome by events, simply because it has gathered such inertia that it cannot readily be halted. Certainly, this concept was a perfect example; Khrushchev had declared to the world that we could put nuclear weapons in orbit, so the River Styx be dammed if we didn’t. Never mind that Khrushchev had since been ejected from his position of power and influence, and disregard the fact that all of Uncle Nikita’s engineering expertise would likely fit neatly into a thimble with considerable room to spare.
If not because of bureaucratic inertia, there was likely another reason that some high level leaders remained committed to the development of a space-based nuclear bombardment system. While the General Staff itself was composed of very practical men, they were compelled to answer to their superiors within the Defense Council and the Collegium of the Ministry of Defense, who in turn took direction from the civilian leadership of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Somewhere within this hierarchy, someone of significant power—more likely a group rather than a single individual—obviously remained obsessively true to Khrushchev’s dream of placing nuclear weapons in orbit.
Again, how could this be? The most probable answer lay in the complicated calculus of nuclear annihilation. While there was considerable evidence that the Soviet Union had sufficient land-based missiles and bombers to achieve parity with the United States, if not outright superiority, the United States possessed a powerful card that could not readily be trumped. The Americans had far surpassed the Soviet Union in the development and fielding of undersea technology, and their peerless nuclear-powered submarines—each bearing an arsenal of thermonuclear ICBMs—silently traversed the oceans of the world with absolute impunity.
But if some powerful cabal—perhaps led by Brezhnev himself—persisted in advancing this idea, surely the same buffoons could be made to understand that there were simpler avenues to achieve nuclear parity with the West. If nothing else, the millions of rubles invested in this project could have funded the development of ballistic missile submarines on par with or even superior to the Americans’ vaunted Polaris boats.
Abdirov’s thoughts were interrupted by the Chief’s voice. “You will receive several detailed technical briefings concerning Skorpion before you travel to Kapustin Yar to survey your new facilities, but in the meantime, do you have any questions of the General Staff?”
“Da,” replied Abdirov. “Respectfully, Comrade General, I am greatly honored to be of service, but I must assume that there is a multitude of technical obstacles to overcome. Assuming that I might require resources outside of my own bureau, what authority am I granted to seek resources and assistance from other bureaus?”
“You are granted absolute autonomy over all aspects of this project,” stated the Chief. “You may seek resources and assistance as you wish, within reason.”
“Within reason, Comrade General?”
“Da,” replied the Chief. “But be aware that any significant changes to the existing design must be approved by the General Staff. Any other questions?”
“Nyet, Comrade General. By your leave?”
“Go. You have much work to do, as do we. Planning for the invasion of Western Europe demands our present attention.”
Assisted by the aide, Abdirov quietly grunted in pain as he rose to his feet. He saluted stiffly, gradually turned, and left the chambers.
10:26 p.m.
After sitting through several excruciating hours of technical briefings, Abdirov retreated to his small suite in a military hotel, slowly stripped out of his uniform, and poured himself a tumbler of Stolichnaya. Sitting naked on the edge of his bed, he gulped down two codeine tablets to alleviate the incessant pain that wracked his body. He chased the pills with the vodka, and reflected on the day’s events.
It hadn’t taken very long for him to comprehend that the Skorpion plan was grossly flawed. First, the designers seemed compelled to adhere to an almost exact interpretation of Khrushchev’s words, even though his grandiose speech was essentially just propaganda directed at the West. The idiots were literally trying to orbit the biggest warhead they could, which was why they were willing to risk the recent launch with the largely unproven UR-500 booster. The whole notion smacked of inter-bureau rivalry; mightily opposed by Chief Designer Korolev, who thought hypergolic propellants were too dangerous to handle, Chelomei’s bureau built the massive UR-500. If it was so damned imperative to put atomic bombs in orbit as a deterrent to the West, mused Abdirov, wouldn’t it be far more practical to send up several smaller warheads instead of a single giant one? After all, Korolev’s ubiquitous R-7 Semyorka rocket had proved its reliability time and again and would be the perfect launch vehicle to loft an entire constellation of nuclear-armed satellites. Moreover, the existing Zenit reconnaissance satellite, which also served, with few modifications, as the Vostok manned spacecraft, could be readily adapted to the task.
There were other nagging issues with Skorpion, but perhaps the most troubling was the control system. Like most Soviet satellites, to include manned spacecraft, the nuclear-armed satellite was controlled from the ground. In the present design, reentry instructions were to be relayed up by radio, which in turn would be automatically executed by Skorpion’s onboard control systems. At present, they were restricted to launching satellites into relatively high inclination orbits; as such, if the United States was the intended recipient of the warhead, it was possible that at any given time, several hours—up to an entire day, in some instances—might elapse before a satellite actually passed over North America. In the meantime, if the Americans had executed a first strike without warning, or had reacted effectively to a Soviet first strike, the Skorpion control stations could very well be obliterated. And even if the control stations weren’t physically demolished, there was now plenty of empirical data to indicate that their electronic guts might be destroyed by powerful energy pulses emitted by nuclear detonations.
He had to laugh; in assigning him the Skorpion mission, the General Staff solved two problems at once. First, they knew as well as he did that the existing design was faulty, so they were foisting it off on the perfect scapegoat. Without a doubt, they wanted to hang this reeking albatross around his neck and then wash their hands of it. They could be assured that he would fail and that the repercussions—for them, at least—would be minimal. Second, and perhaps more to the point, their action provided them with a means of subtle reprisal against Abdirov, who at first had been Nedelin’s pet, and now was Brezhnev’s fair-haired child. Although he had been authorized his own special facility at the Kapustin Yar cosmodrome, they might have well banished
him to the far side of the moon. He was sentenced to toil in distant seclusion, like a hideous hunchback sentenced to a bell tower.
At this point, given the hand dealt him, he could readily concede that the task was just too damned difficult. Certainly, he could return to the General Staff in the morning, beg for relief due to his poor health and then just slink away into retirement. The Skorpion task would be levied on some other unfortunate recipient, who was sure to fail, and then perhaps the seemingly indomitable idea would finally expire.
But what if he stayed the course and made it work? He jotted a few notes as he finished his vodka. While the existing Skorpion concept was asinine, there were some aspects that could be salvaged. He felt that the key was in the control system. The ideal weapons platform would be autonomous, to a large degree, so that it was not dependent on ground control stations. While this degree of autonomy was certainly the goal, Abdirov was aware that it would require furnishing the satellite with considerable computing power, which would require a powerful computer much lighter and smaller than what was currently available within the Soviet Union. Where could he find such a machine?
He switched off the lamp by his bed. Clearly, the General Staff had positioned him for his downfall, but Abdirov saw the potential for redemption instead. If this thing was done right, it would not only work, but he might actually give the Americans something to truly fear.
10
UNWELCOME
Auxiliary Field Ten, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida
6:15 p.m., Thursday, May 9, 1968
Matt Henson and the other candidates had just returned from the multi-purpose weapons ranges, where they had spent most of the day firing pistols and shotguns. Piling off the trucks, they formed four neat files, patiently waiting their turn at the pull-up bars. Their training cycle had started with fifty-four candidates, but had since dwindled to thirty.