Wargames

by David Bischoff

  The sound thundered over them this time, emerging from the crest of the trees. A spear of light swung through the air, slashing through the dimness in a sweeping search.

  They were both frozen and blinded as the light found them, and the helicopter swooped straight toward them, rotors flashing in the reflected light.

  “Let’s get out of here!” David cried, grabbing Jennifer by the arm and pulling her behind him. They stumbled over the rubble and a collection of strewn driftwood.

  The chopper pursued them like some maddened giant insect of the night.

  David tripped and fell into the wet sand, bringing Jennifer down with him. The machine swooped over their heads, sending up a huge cloud of windblown sand.

  David was so furious, he was almost in tears. “The bastard turned us in!”

  The helicopter turned around.

  “It’s coming back for us!” Jennifer screamed.

  What was it going to do, David wondered as he desperately picked himself up, strafe them?

  But as he helped Jennifer to her feet, the helicopter stopped, hovering in the air for a moment. Then it drifted slowly, ominously toward them.

  And landed, gently, kicking up more sand.

  “I say,” came a voice from the side of the cockpit. An interior light illumined the face of Dr. Stephen Falken. “Do you two fancy a rather exotic game of life and death? I believe it’s our move now.”

  David turned to Jennifer. “He made the call.”

  Jennifer whooped joyfully, and they ran toward the waiting helicopter. Falken helped them in.

  “Rather fancied one last flight before I cashed in my chips,” Falken said with a smile.

  “What did they say?” David asked as the rotors picked up speed.

  “Oh, they were rather astonished to hear from me, and were delighted at the thought of having you back, but they seemed awfully preoccupied with other things! I tried to tell them what was happening, but the lovely folks wouldn’t believe me. McKittrick included. So I’m afraid we’re going to have to make a little visit.”

  “Okay!” said David, grabbing onto the proffered shred of hope and grasping Jennifer’s hand as the helicopter lifted from the island and headed east.

  Chapter Ten

  Riding at an altitude of twenty-two thousand miles, sentinels of war and peace, hang the most important United States missile attack warning satellites of the Defense Support Program (DSP). Their orbits are synchronous—they travel in stationary equatorial orbits, maintaining the same position, the same constant vantage point. One satellite in the eastern hemisphere keeps track of launches from Soviet and Chinese territory. Two western hemisphere satellites detect SLBM launches from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. These items of technology scan their assignments every ten seconds, seeking the telltale strong infrared signals from rocket plumes behind missile boosters. Earth-based computers can then plot the general direction of flight of the missiles from this information.

  Backing up this system is the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS) radar stations in England, Alaska, and Greenland, to detect the incoming ICBMs and estimate landing points. The PAVE PAWS radar stations on the East and West coasts of the United States watch for Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles.

  The DSP satellites give twenty-five minutes of warning for an ICBM attack and seven to ten minutes’ warning for a SLBM attack.

  In the Crystal Palace, deep in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, a claxon suddenly shattered the tense silence of the technicians.

  “We have a launch detection,” a bodiless voice said over a loudspeaker. “We have a launch detection!”

  A map of the Soviet Union suddenly flashed onto one of the array of screens. A multitude of missile launthes appeared, scattered through the Russian heartland.

  The battle floor instantly erupted into frenzied activity.

  “BMEWS has confirmed a massive attack,” a voice announced.

  Another voice overlapped: “Missile warning. No malfunction.”

  Someone said, “Confidence is high, I repeat, confidence is high!”

  “Negative,” said another voice. “This is not an exercise, Cobra Dane.”

  John McKittrick stood in the command balcony, feeling helpless and impotent, watching the deadly events unfold.

  Though it was early morning outside, eternal twilight reigned in the Crystal Palace. McKittrick had been up most of the night with Berringer, working with the machines. Deep in his gut, desperation was slowly turning to fear.

  General Berringer still rode command staunchly despite his own lack of sleep. He watched the Soviet map with a grim but cynical acceptance as Captain Newt turned to him to say, “General, DSP is tracking three hundred inbound ICBMs.”

  Berringer shot a look at McKittrick that was easily equal to the power of several megaton missiles. “Tell me this is one of your simulations!” he shouted at the computer expert.

  McKittrick flinched, then wearily shook his head. “Jack, I wish I could. No one’s running anything down there.”

  Berringer swung toward Colonel Conley manning the communications chair. “You better flush the bombers and get the subs ready. We’re at DEFCON 1. Right now,”

  McKittrick looked up at the scoreboard. It changed to DEFCON 1, and although his love Pat Healy, was nearby, he did not think of her now, nor did he think of himself. He thought of Randy and Allen, junior high school students even now rousting themselves out of bed to catch their buses on time, and he thought of Elinor fixing oatmeal or scrambling eggs and fixing bag lunches, and a terrible pang of regret shot through him.

  He tried to allow his professionalism to push away the dread, the anticipated grief, the helplessness, but even that failed. Unaccountably, an image intruded upon his mind: sitting with his sons, watching TV in the living room. Nothing special, just a remembrance of tranquillity, of calm happiness, just a wave of satisfaction flowing through his mind—something peculiar in a life generally so fraught with dissatisfaction. It was dissatisfaction with his wife that had thrown him into the arms of a younger woman. Dissatisfaction with the system had driven him to attempt to improve it, single-handedly. Dissatisfaction with life itself had driven him to search for power through his machines—to build a world where he was king and sorcerer.

  And now, missiles from a foreign land were arching toward him to smash his dreams, to obliterate even the smallest satisfaction, to start the nuclear chain reactions that would destroy them all.

  John McKittrick fidgeted, fighting for control of his breath. Duty, he thought. I must concentrate on my duty.

  He moved over behind the WOPR terminal. Major Lem was manning it now, his balding head gleaming in the strip light, his face dotted with moisture, the odor of perspiration and Right Guard pervasive throughout the area. His delicate hands were clenched into fists as he stared at the terminal screen.

  “What have we got, Major?” Berringer barked tersely.

  “Just a moment, sir. I’ve already queried,” returned Major Lem, staring resolutely at the screen. McKittrick noticed the remains of a torn styrofoam cup by the rollers of the major’s chair. “It’s coming, just a moment.”

  The screen’s cursor left a trail of white letters over the green background. Major Lem read, somehow keeping the quiver that was in his face and neck from showing in his voice: “Initial attack profile: massive Soviet counterforce strike. Anticipated losses: eighty-five to ninety-five percent of our land-based strategic forces.”

  General Berringer closed his eyes in a moment of obvious pain. His voice was dry. “What does the WOPR recommend, Major?”

  On a larger screen of the War Operations board, a map of the Soviet Union appeared, littered with Xs.

  Lem hit a button, and the readout screen wiped. New letters quickly took its place.

  “Full-scale retaliatory strike, concentrated on enemy command, strategic, and industrial targets,” Lem reported.

  “I need a machine to tell me that?” Berringer said.
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  McKittrick noticed Colonel Conley in his communications position, swiveling around. The chair squeaked.

  “Sir,” he said to General Berringer, “the President is on his way to Andrews to join Airborne.Command. Sir, we’ve got to give him a launch option.” Conley’s eyes were wide and bloodshot and nervous.

  Berringer said, “Has he been in contact with the Premier?”

  “Yes, sir,” Conley said. “The Soviets continue to deny everything.”

  Berringer looked at McKittrick, and suddenly McKittrick felt a wave of compassion for the man. Here he was in a position of incredible responsibility—a position of power that he had fought and bullied his way up the ranks for through decades of military service—at a moment of supreme national importance. And it was clear from the look on his face that General Jack Berringer would rather be somewhere else. He looked suddenly like an old man.

  A voice blared from the PA. “No submarine launch detection as yet.... Monitoring.”

  McKittrick watched as Berringer gazed hopelessly at the big board, at the missiles nearing their country, at the gathering submarines off the coastline, pregnant with death.

  “Let’s go into a launch mode,” he said. “Close up the mountain.”

  David Lightman had experienced twinges of airsickness in the rough flight in the Air Force plane from Oregon, and now he felt more than a little carsick in the back of the Air Force jeep racing and jouncing its way toward Cheyenne Mountain. He sat in the backseat with Jennifer,while Falken, in a jolly mood, sat next to Sergeant Jim Travis, the driver.

  The wind buffeted the canvas top of the jeep as it advanced through steep meadowland. Snowcapped peaks stuck up before them, craggy and dark.

  “Majestic!” Falken cried, exuberantly. “In my island retreat I had forgotten the delights of the Rocky Mountains. Proud, beautiful, and virtually uninhabitable!”

  “Ah’m from Louisiana, sir,” said Travis, “and I do know what you mean.” Jim Travis was a lanky, short-haired man whose eyes sparkled with enthusiasm when he worked the gearshift of the jeep—which he did much too often for David’s taste.

  “How can you sit and admire the scenery at a time like this,” Jennifer said, peering past Travis, as though searching for their destination.

  “Got the pedal on the floorboard, ma’am,” Travis drawled. “Goin’ ’bout as fast as we can go right now.”

  “Thank God it’s a nice day,” David muttered.

  “Oh, yes,” said Falken, “and I can hear the dear old President ending his Hot Line chat with Andropov... ‘Have A nice day, Premier.’”

  Falken had been this way the whole trip—bright and cheery, full of jokes. “My dear boy,” he had said to David, “this is merely my particular brand of sheer lunatic panic.” But even that was said with a grin.

  “We’re there!” Jennifer said, pointing toward the complex of buildings and parking lots up ahead. “We’re there!”

  David looked through the windshield, over Falken’s slumped shoulder. As the jeep rounded a curb, an Air Force truck barreled toward them. The truck slowed to a stop, blocking the road. David could see other signs of activity past the truck: vehicles moving, troops running, pedestrians scattering.

  A mustached airman pushed open a door of the truck and hopped to the ground, running toward them, gesturing frantically.

  “Hey, go back. Everybody’s got to divert to shelter area four,” he yelled, pointing. “There’s some really strange shit going on!”

  Travis got out of the jeep. “These men are on top priority. I’m taking them to NORAD command.”

  “No way, Sergeant,” the airman said, shaking his head. “Barricades are up on the main road and they’re gonna button up the mountain.”

  David had long since forgotten his car sickness. He watched as the airman jumped back into his truck and began to head for the designated shelter. Sergeant Travis vaulted back into the jeep.

  “Looks like a bit of a do!” Falken said, for the first time an edge creeping into his voice.

  “You think...” said Jennifer, “you think they’re starting the war?”

  David said desperately, “Can’t we go around the barricades... or through them?”

  A good-ole-boy grin stole over Sergeant Travis’s face. “We can sure as hell try. We ain’t the Dukes of Hazzard, and this thang ain’t the General Lee—but then, the General Lee ain’t got four-wheel drive!”

  He shifted into first, and left a rooster tail of dust behind as he peeled out, pulling off the road and racing down a steep embankment.

  For once, Stephen Falken had nothing to say. He hung on to his seat belt with one hand and braced himself, his face blanching. Jennifer grabbed hold of David, clinging for dear life. David managed to get knees and hands between himself and the front seat, thus bracing himself so that he only bounced a little.

  “Whoooeeee!” Travis yelped, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “These thangs sure do move if you let ’em off their leash!”

  The jeep seemed to gallop through a meadow, tearing up grass and dandelions, jouncing and shaking him so much that David couldn’t make out what was ahead of them: a sea of green or an expanse of blue sky. Soon, it was all just a blue-green blur.

  “You’re choking me, Jennifer!” he objected, gasping.

  “Sorry,” she said, but did not let go her panicked grasp until the jeep seemed to level out.

  Suddenly the vehicle tilted at an incredible angle.

  “Did we take off?” Jennifer wanted to know, her eyes clenched shut.

  “Not yet,” answered David. “But it looks like—”

  They climbed a steep embankment, Sergeant Travis shifting gears like a madman, a manic grin still plastered on his face.

  David was peering through the windshield. Up ahead was the crest of a ridge.

  “Travis! Travis, slow down!” Falken said.

  “Geronimo!” cried Sergeant Travis as his jeep seemed to grow booster rockets in its rear, its engine growling as it leaped over the ridge.

  David heard a scream and, with a shock of surprise, realized that it was his own.

  Inside the Crystal Palace, Lieutenant Rick Haldeman put down the phone and turned to his assistant, Sergeant Ed Rodrigues.

  “It’s a go,” the curly-haired lieutenant said grimly.

  “Jesus, I hope it’s just a precaution,” the sergeant said, getting out his checklist and handing it to the lieutenant. He swiveled back to face the bank of monitors, each showing different views of the surrounding area and approaching roads. His hands hovered over a field of buttons and switches.

  “Well, precaution or the real thing, the general says to seal Cheyenne Mountain, so let’s do it, Sarge.”

  “Right.”

  “Initiate internal power.”

  Sergeant Rodrigues’s hand deftly flicked the proper switches, tapped the proper buttons. Then he checked his meters. “Generators on and functioning.”

  “Disconnect external power...”

  A few more switches, a few more buttons, a query from a readout screen, an override, and it was done. “External power disconnected.”

  “Seal off ventilation shafts....”

  “Shaft locks sealed,” Rodrigues said. His eyes flicked again over the monitors, catching movement in one of them, which showed the outside access road.

  Something was coming up over the ridge, fast.

  My God, it’s a jeep!

  It leaped over the embankment, landed hard, and zoomed toward the gate.

  “Sir, there’s someone trying to make the entrance,” Sergeant Rodrigues said.

  The lieutenant did not even look. “You know the rules. We’ve drilled on this before, Sergeant. Now continue sealing procedures.”

  “Yes, sir said Rodrigues, and he continued flicking switches just as the lieutenant ordered.

  The jeep slammed onto the road, hard, jolting David Lightman out of place, nearly sending him and Jennifer Mack sailing over the seat into Stephen Falken’s lap.
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br />   Sergeant Travis struggled for control of the wheel. The car slewed back and forth on the road, then straightened.

  “Yahooooooo!” Travis yelped, gunning the engine, speed-shifting the gears. “Now all we got to do is to deal with the gate!”

  David hoisted his head up, disentangling himself from a dazed Jennifer. Through the windshield he saw up ahead a wide expanse of gate.

  A closed gate.

  He waited for Sergeant Travis to slow down, but Travis’s right foot showed no sign of straying from its position, clamped hard onto the floorboard.

  “Get down and brace yourselves!” Travis commanded.

  The gate approached, loomed, and then seemed to be all around them like a net, as the jeep crashed through with a scream of torn metal.

  “We did it!” Travis cried. But no sooner had the words left his mouth than he lost his grip on the steering wheel. The vehicle veered out of control, skidding around. The surroundings seemed to swirl about David Lightman’s head. The next thing he knew, the jeep was on its side and Jennifer was sprawled over him.

  The canvas roof had torn off. Falken and Travis were in a tangled heap a couple feet away, struggling to separate themselves. David picked himself up and helped Jennifer to her feet. She seemed woozy, but definitely conscious. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” she answered.

  “How about you guys?” He turned to Travis and Falken.

  “This don’t happen to Duke Wayne!” Travis said, mortified.

  “Well, I do believe that is the way,” Falken said, pointing to the tunnel entrance. “Let’s go before the idiots close it!”

  They raced on foot to the tunnel. “Hurry up!” Jennifer called, running well ahead of them, David and the others puffing behind. “There’s a big door up there...and it’s starting to close!”

  Stephen Falken opened his mouth as though thinking about emitting a witticism, but apparently decided to save his energy for the dash.

  Their footsteps echoed around them as they entered the tunnel. David Lightman looked up and saw what Jennifer had seen: The thick blast door at the end of the tunnel, seemingly miles distant, was beginning to close.