Wargames

by David Bischoff

  “We got thirty seconds!” Sergeant Travis yelled.

  David Lightman suddenly wished he had exercised more.

  Chapter Eleven

  In November 1979 a NORAD technician accidentally fed the wrong tape into the main computers.

  Not realizing that they were watching a computer war game, NORAD commanders observed a classic nuclear attack pattern developing on their display screens, with Soviet missiles headed straight for SAC bomber bases. So real seemed the alert that the President’s command jet took off before the generals realized what was going on.

  In June 1980 a faulty microchip worth perhaps forty-six cents created a series of ghost attacks on the boards.

  General Jack Berringer had been in charge of NORAD then, and he had made certain with the help of John McKittrick’s staff that there were plenty of backup systems to detect just such faulty warnings.

  All of these systems agreed with the boards now: the United States was being attacked by Soviet missiles.

  There could be no doubt of that.

  Berringer watched as his battle staff prepared for the upcoming combat conditions, notifying the various civilian and military defense posts throughout the world by phone and radio.

  Major Lem turned to Berringer from his control board. “All wings report missiles targeted and enabled, awaiting launch codes.”

  “We are in a launch mode,” came Colonel Conley’s voice over the loudspeaker.

  Berringer turned to Major Lem and said, “Lock out changes.”

  Lem leaned over his terminal and began to type in the instructions.

  Jack Berringer had suppressed all feeling by now. He was pure action, pure adrenaline, pure duty.

  He watched as his people and his machines worked in their deadly symbiosis; watched as the screen spelled out the obvious:

  MISSILES TARGETED AND ENABLED.

  CHANGES LOCKED OUT.

  When the call had come last night from Dr. Stephen Falken, Patricia Healy had been on the command balcony, aiding the WOPR monitor, and John McKittrick had been down with his machines.

  In lieu of McKittrick, she had been put on the line. “Hullo, John, I hear you’ve a bit of a mess over there,” the British-accented voice had said.

  “I’m sorry, this isn’t Dr. McKittrick, this is his assistant, Patricia Healy,” she said in measured tones. Finally she was talking to the infamous Falken. “I’m afraid Dr McKittrick is busy with the computers.”

  “Ah, just thought I’d give a ring from the dead. Only a few folks know I’m still kicking about. As you express no shock, I suppose you’re one of them,” the voice went on. “Now then, since I can’t reach John, perhaps you’d better give me General Zeppelin or Berlitzer or whatever his name is.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she had answered. It took some convincing, but Pat finally got the fatigued commander onto the phone. “Falken!” the man said gruffly. “Thought you were dead.... Can’t talk, we have a ticklish... What?... Well, bring the little monster in.” Long pause. “I find that very difficult to believe, sir. McKittrick assures us that this is not a simulation, and he’s been working on these machines a lot longer than you have.” Pause. “Look, fella, I don’t care if you did create the Joshua program, we’re dealing with the Russians now, so if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work.”

  The phone had been handed back brusquely to Pat, and she had to deal with Falken.

  “My goodness, a very dense fellow,” Falken had said. “Now then, maybe you can help me, Patricia. I believe what you are now observing on your boards is a continued war game. Joshua always fancied himself quite the Napoleon and—”

  “Wait. I’ve been through the readouts... we even did work on the CPUs, Falken,” she said. “John... I mean, Dr. McKittrick is the finest mind presently working on defense computers in the world, and he can find no indication of any faulty operation in our computer system.”

  “Oh that McKittrick was always the nitwit,” Falken said. “Look, I can see there’s no good in talking to you; apparently I’m going to have to zip off for Colorado myself, so could you have the grace to inform John of my imminent arrival and could you please prepare our security clearance—that’s for myself and a very persistent pair of teenagers. It would be rather a shame to go for the best seat for End of the World, and find yourself without a ticket. There’s a good girl; now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to call in a few favors from the United States Air Force.”

  Now Patricia Healy stood by the huge blast door, waiting for Falken’s arrival. The sealing orders had just come over the loudspeakers, and where was Falken, anyway?

  “Hurry!” she said under her breath. “Hurry, dammit!”

  She’d given Falken’s call a lot of thought during the sleepless night.

  When she’d told McKittrick about it, he had only sighed.

  “I wish it were so, but there’s no indication of a simulation this time, Pat, you know that.” Then his dark eyes had narrowed. “You don’t suppose that Falken himself has sold out to the Russians?” McKittrick grunted. “You don’t know what a few years will do for a man, do you?”

  And that was that. McKittrick had refused to talk about the subject any further.

  Damn, he could be so bullheaded sometimes! Pat had wanted to scream and pound his head, but she was just too weary. If Falken was right, he’d be able to prove it. But first he’d have to get here.

  So Patricia Healy, in her rumpled skirt and smeared makeup, gazed hopefully up the entrance tunnel to the Crystal Palace. No sign of Falken, whatsoever. From the way McKittrick talked about Falken, he seemed almost mythological. The man had laid much of the groundwork for the computer net here at NORAD—architect of the Holy of Holies in the pantheon of John McKittrick. A puckish deity, head in Olympian clouds most of the time. But the exile was returning home now. To save the day? Hard to say, Patricia Healy thought, but at this point she was willing to grasp hold of any shred of hope.

  From what she had heard of him, and from the evidence of her studies of the computer system he had set up, if there was any hope, it rested with Falken. He had created the WOPR—a program so advanced that at times Patricia Healy had almost considered it intelligent.

  John McKittrick insisted that someone from outside had tampered with the program, creating the problems—all part of a Russian scheme. The proud man would not admit the possibility that Falken was right; that somehow his program—which he called “Joshua”—was playing World War III for real.

  So if there was anyone now who could convince General Jack Berringer of this possibility, it was Dr. Stephen Falken.

  But where was he?

  A pair of guards stood by the door each wearing the look of stunned professionalism peculiar to the career soldier in combat.

  The first of the massive blast doors, more than three feet thick and with a swing weight of twenty-five tons encased in a concrete collar was beginning to close.

  “We better get ready to move on, ma’am,” one of the guards, a slim, handsome blond fellow, said, anxiously eyeing the other blast door fifty feet away, which would close next.

  “We’ve got thirty seconds,” Pat Healy said.

  “Oh yeah,” the other guard, a corporal, said. “Lots of time!”

  Desperately, Patricia Healy turned back to the tunnel, hoping against hope that Falken and company would make it, realizing that it was now most likely they would not and—

  Suddenly there were four figures running toward the door their steps echoing through the tunnel.

  “Folks you been waitin’ for, ma’am?” the corporal asked.

  “Pray to God they are!” Pat Healy said.

  “Ma’am, I been prayin’ for a couple of days straight.”

  “Amen!” said the other guard.

  The hydraulics of the blast door hissed away the seconds.

  At the forefront of the party was a young girl, sprinting like an athelete, yards ahead of her companions. Trailing her was an Air Force sergeant; then
came that boy, David Lightman; and finally a tall, loping older man—

  Dr. Stephen Falken!

  “They’re going to make it!” she said joyfully.

  “Yeah, with a healthy five seconds to spare!” said the guard, getting out of the way as Jennifer Mack charged through the narrowing space between blast door and collar. The others were right behind hey Falken barely making it as the heavy door clunked shut.

  “They’re cleared... they’re cleared!” Patricia Healy said.

  “Well, we can’t kick ‘em back out now, that’s for sure,” said the guard, “C’mon, we gotta get through that other door, folks.”

  “I say,” Falken puffed. “Chariots of Fire stuff, eh?”

  “I’m Patricia Healy,” Pat said as she ran with the party to the next blast door, which was already beginning to close. “I’m Dr. McKittrick’s assistant, and I presume that you’re Stephen Falken.”

  “He is! He is!” David Lightman said.

  “Oh dean my cover is blown,” said Falken. “Do not ask for Hume the Bell Tolls!”

  Feeling as though his lungs were on fire, David Lightman followed Patricia Healy through the double doors leading into the Crystal Palace.

  The place was a madhouse.

  Despite the fact that the actual temperature had not risen, David could see droplets of sweat formed on the brows of technicians. He could almost smell the fear as machine sounds and human voices bounced about like static. Engineers and technicians dashed back and forth between stations, while others leaned over their consoles, tension creased on the faces. Others simply looked up at the big board, straining to keep the horror from their eyes.

  Patricia Healy separated herself from the others and rushed up to the command balcony. Falken halted, gazing around the command center, then glanced up at the global automated battlefield he had helped to create.

  David looked up at the board, and felt Jennifer’s hand urgently gripping his arm. “Oh, dear God, David. Look at that!”

  The big board was glowing, brilliant and rainbow-strewn with the blipping lights of incoming Russian ICBMs.

  David could hear a dim voice saying, “DSP is still tracking three-hundred inbound ICBMs presently MIRVing to approximately two thousand four hundred impact points.”

  David Lightman felt as though he stood at the heart of a vast computer, at the very core of a mesh of humanity and machine. Standing here with the man who had made such an operation possible should have swept him up in intellectual awe—but now, considering the circumstances, he was riven with instinctual anxiety.

  “I do believe that we’re here, as the saying goes, in the nick of time, David,” Falken murmured.

  A loud, irate voice cut through David Lightman’s reverie.

  “Stephen!”

  David turned, immediately aware of the physical presence of John McKittrick storming toward them. McKittrick’s eyes were sunken, his hair tousled. The man’s looks defined the word haggard.

  “Stephen,” McKittrick continued, drawing up even with them. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re gonna be able to do here....”

  There was a defensiveness to the man’s belligerence that had all the earmarks of a grown pupil confronted by his master.

  “John!” Falken smiled faintly, his hands thrust in the pockets of his gray cardigan. “How good to see you.” He eyed the top of McKittrick’s rumpled blue dress shirt. “I see the wife still picks your ties.”

  McKittrick flustered. His eyes narrowed as he glanced down at David Lightman. If looks could kill, thought David.

  “Look,” McKittrick said, “I don’t know what this kid has told you...”

  “It’s all a bluff, John,” Falken said, making an airy gesture to the big board as though it were nothing.

  McKittrick blinked. “This is not a bluff, clan-unit! This is real!” His face reddened. “Everything is ready for the President to order a counterstrike, and we’re advising him to do it immediately.”

  Stephen Falken shook his head, gave McKittrick one disparaging glance, then brushed past his former assistant, heading for a point on the floor just below the command balcony.

  “Hello up there!” he called.

  When he got no response, Falken cupped his hands to improvise a megaphone and yelled, “I say, hello General Jack Berringer. Could you lend an ear? I need only a few seconds of your time.”

  Falken’s quite theatrical baritone attracted attention.

  General Berringer stood and made his way to the lip of the balcony.

  “‘But, soft! What light through yonder window...’” Falken said to McKittrick and David, then straightened up as Berringer scowled down at him.

  “Falken! Well, you picked a hell of a day to visit!” Berringer growled, basso profundo.

  “General, please, in all seriousness.” Falken pointed to the brilliantly lit map depicting the commencement of Armageddon. “General, what you see on those screens up there is fantasy! A computer-enhanced hallucination! Those blips are not real missiles. They are phantoms!”

  Berringer stared down silently at the party on the floor below him.

  “I say, John, did the old boy inherit Brezhnev’s eyebrows?” Falken asked.

  “Jack,” said McKittrick, “I have absolutely no indication of a simulation run!”

  “Believe me, dammit!” Falken said, losing his humor “I know my program... it all follows... makes sense. Joshua has developed to the point where he could do this!”

  “Two minutes to impact!” cried out an airman to General Berringet

  Throat dry, desperate, David ran up alongside Falken and called up to Berringer. “General, your system is trying to bluff you. It’s trying to get you to launch an attack because it can’t launch one of its own!”

  Jennifer stepped up to David and grabbed his hand.

  Berringer was called away by one of his aides to a switchboard. “Sir! Airborne Command.”

  Berringer grabbed the proffered phone, but did not answer it. Instead, he shot an inquiring glance down to McKittrick, as though to ask, Could this be possible?

  McKittrick said, “Like I told you before, Jack, we’ve checked and rechecked everything. And everything in our computers is working perfectly!”

  Falken stepped to a position that neatly upstaged his former assistant. “But General, think! Does it make any sense?”

  Berringer was clearly perplexed. “Does what make any sense?”

  Falken thrust a forefinger toward the main board. “That, for God’s sake! General, are you prepared to destroy the enemy?”

  Berringer stiffened, as though about to salute an invisible American flag. “Yes. Fully.”

  “Do you think they know that?” Falken asked. Berringer barked a sarcastic laugh. “I believe we’ve made it about as clear as we could.”

  “Don’t fire any of your half-cocked missiles until you’re sure that the Russians have fired theirs! Tell the President to ride out the first bit of attack... and then, if it’s real, by God, you can nuke the Russkies all you want!”

  “Ninety seconds!” a voice reported.

  “Sir!” a voice nagged at General Berringer. “They need a decision.”

  Falken continued, emphatically and convincingly. “General. Do you really believe that the enemy would attack without provocation, with so many missiles, bombers, and subs so we would have no choice but to totally annihilate them? General, you are listening to a machine! Do the world a favor and don’t act like one yourself!”

  General Jack Berringer stared at the swarm of warhead missiles moving toward their targets. Troubled doubts registered on his tired face. He looked down at Falken, his gaze shifting to David.

  David Lightman felt like going down on his knees, begging. But instead he held onto Jennifer tightly, and met General Berringer’s eyes for a full, pleading second.

  Berringer broke the eyelock. He picked up the phone and answered.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” he said, and there was the longest moment tha
t David Lightman had ever experienced as the President spoke to the general on the other end of the line.

  “Sir,” said General Berringer, looking back down at Falken. “At this point in time I cannot positively confirm the inbounds. There’s reason to believe they may not exist.”

  As Berringer listened to the general’s response, David released his breath in a sigh. He had not even realized that he’d been holding it. Jennifer buried her head on his chest. Her hold on him relaxed.

  “Yes, sir,” Berringer continued. “That’s affirmative. Yes, sir, so do I,” he said somberly, then handed the phone back to Colonel Conley. He took a deep breath and asked, “Who’s first and how soon?”

  Major Lem at the WOPR console said, “Initial impact points—Loring Air Force Base in Maine, Three-nineteenth Bomb Wing at Grand Forks, North Dakota, and Alaskan Air Command headquarters at Elmendorf. Impacts projected in just a little over one minute, sir “

  “Get me the senior controller at each station,” Berringer ordered. “I want to talk to them myself.” General Berringer knew that this was grasping at straws, but if they were all you had to hang on to when a big, black chasm opened up beneath you, then you grasped with all your might.

  Colonel Conley’s chair squeaked as he swiveled back into operation position, punching up the various command posts on his console panel. An alert warble sounded as three red lights blinked on.

  “All stations,” the colonel said into the phone, “this is Crystal Palace—standby for a message from Brass Hat.”

  General Berringer picked up his phone and listened for the communications response from the air bases nearest the presumed all-out Soviet ICBM attack.

  The first voice came immediately. Colonel Conley had patched it into the loudspeaker system so that everyone could hear.

  “Elmendorf Air Force Base, Operations, Lieutenant Colonel Bowers,” the voice said.

  Another voice followed on its heels. “Three-nineteenth Bomb Wing, Operations, Colonel Chase.”

  The last voice had a quavering, adolescent quality. “Uh... this is Loring Air Force Base, uh, the senior controller isn’t here right now.”

  “That’s all right,” Berringer said, smiling despite himself. “Who are you?”