Hunter, sitting in the witness gallery, had been watching the latest development with a mixture of shock and anger. He knew the bombshell that Fitzie had talked about had been dropped. Now, he felt an uncomfortable empty feeling in the pit of his stomach as he watched the Chief Justice’s face turn from angry red to ashen white.
Suddenly the judge pounded his gavel loudly twice. Then he pulled the microphone closer to him and said:
“In light of irrefutable evidence just handed to me, I hereby declare these proceedings a mistrial…. I am also hereby ordering the security forces both inside and outside this building to commence a safe and orderly evacuation of all citizens from this area.
“From the information just handed to me, I am convinced that an atomic bomb will be dropped on this city at noontime tomorrow …”
Chapter 36
ALMOST TWO HOURS LATER, Hunter, Jones, Fitzgerald, Toomey, Wa, and several other members of the United American Army Command Staff were assembled in the Dome’s adjacent conference center.
Outside, a massive, not entirely orderly evacuation was taking place. By the judge’s orders, everyone was to leave Syracuse as quickly as possible with the multitude of civilians going first. Most people needed no further prompting. However, huge C-5A Galaxy transports were flying into the city, picking up those civilians who had no other means of escape.
By the judge’s own estimate, there were close to 150,000 people within the potential blast area. It would take all night and most of the next morning to clear them all out.
But the men meeting in the conference center could not be concerned with the evacuation. They had an even more serious problem to face.
None of them had been able to grab more than a few hours of sleep in the past few days, and their tired eyes and beard stubble showed their fatigue. Most of the men in the room poured hot coffee into their mugs, this time without the benefit of the usual liberal splashes of “medicinal” whiskey.
This was hardly time for drinking alcohol. Clear heads were needed all around.
Fitzgerald was the first to speak.
“What the traitor told us during his interrogation was the same information contained in that statement handed to the judge. It is apparent now, and without a shadow of a doubt, that the Soviet military clique now running things over there has enough hardware to launch ICBMs at this country.”
Although most in the conference room knew the gist of what the ex-VP’s lawyer had told the judge, the news still hit them like a lightning bolt.
“We are certain now that they gained this launch capability in two ways,” Fitz continued, wearily. “First, they were able to patch together some of their own hardware left over from the Big War, not an easy task.
“Second, we have learned that the hardened SAC faculties that housed this country’s own ICBM command, control, and communications system were looted during the Circle War, their critical components smuggled over to the Soviets.
“The most critical of this equipment were systems that control targeting and re-entry of the ICBMs. This system, which was developed secretly here in the US before the war, uses satellites put into orbit by the space shuttle. These satellites are incredibly advanced and in several ways. Foremost to us here right now, they can direct with incredible accuracy ICBMs launched from anywhere on the globe.
“The Soviets have incorporated this technology into their own patchwork system and come up with a launch and detonation procedure that has the ability to hit us anywhere, at anytime.”
“It’s Goddamn nuclear blackmail!” Toomey cried out.
“Exactly …” Fitz agreed, nodding his head glumly.
An absolutely stone-cold silence descended on the room.
Fitz cleared his throat and began again. “You may recall a series of secret space shuttle launches in the years right before the war,” he said. “Despite what was told—or leaked—to the media at the time, those launches really had to do with putting this particular system into space. And as I said, these satellites have incredible features. Besides the targeting system, they have the ability to clearly photograph any point and anything on our continent that’s bigger than a cigarette pack.”
“If that’s true,” Jones said. “That means they can watch our every move …”
“But wait a minute,” Toomey said, holding up his hand. “Don’t these satellites revolve around the earth? If they do, then there must be times when they can’t see us …”
Once more, Fitz shook his head. They are all thousands of miles straight up, in a series of geo-synchronic orbits. This means that they can match the speed of the earth’s revolution and therefore stay right on top of us, day and night …”
“Jesus Christ, Big Brother is watching us …” Ben said angrily.
“That’s correct,” Fitz replied somberly.
“But how did the Soviets know that this sophisticated system was even in place?” Jones asked. “I was working in Pentagon secret operations during those years and this is the first I’ve heard of it.”
Suddenly everyone in the room knew the answer.
“He told them,” Fitz confirmed, his face flushing with anger at the mere mention of the traitor. “Only a handful of people knew just how advanced these satellites were. The Vice-President was one of them.”
“And he tipped the Soviets,” Wa said, speaking the conclusion all of them had already reached.
“Tipped them about the system,” Fitz said. “And how they could integrate it into their own system.”
Another pall of silence came over the room.
“So he can make good with his threat to nuke this city,” Jones asked. “Or any other place?”
“Can and will,” Fitz said. “After spending so much time with him, during the interrogation, I’m convinced that he would stop at nothing. His threat today is a definite one. I’m sure they have a spy or two in the audience and in the area. If he isn’t set free in twenty-four hours, they’ll launch. I’m certain of it, and apparently so is the Chief Justice.”
“You don’t think they’ll actually let him go, do you?” Ben asked.
Fitz could only shrug. “It’s either that or this place gets nuked,” he said. “He’s even put a proviso into his threat. That is, if anything untoward happens to him, the Soviets will launch anyway.”
“So in other words,” Jones said, “even if we strung the bastard up right now, they’ll still come down on us.”
“That’s correct, sir,” Fitz replied.
At this point, Hunter stood up.
“Just where are they supposed to be launching these ICBMs from, Mike?” he asked.
It was the first time the Wingman had spoken at the meeting. Suddenly all eyes in the room turned to him.
“Just where the particular missile launchers are being kept, we have no idea,” Fitz told him. “I’m sure there are SS-20 mobile launchers, so they can be moved around at anytime.
“But as for this hybrid control center, they were quite open about it being located in the same complex as the big phased array radar in Soviet Central Asia. It’s called Krasnoyarsk, and it’s in the Soviet republic of Khazakstan.
“They can control the remainder of their ICBM missiles from that one point. All they really have to do is push the button. The satellites do the rest: begin the launch sequence, flight time, reentry curves, targeting adjustments, determine ground blast or air burst.”
“In other words, they have control of the ultimate ‘smart bombs,’” Hunter said. “Smart ICBMs, almost …”
“Yes,” Fitz answered. “The satellites not only can keep an eye on all of us, day or night, in all kinds of weather, they can also steer a nuke to land on a dime.”
Another damning silence fell.
“And because there are no ASAT weapons around anywhere,” Jones said in a near whisper, “there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.”
“Yes, there is,” Hunter said quickly, firmly. “We can go in and take out that radar station.”
Hunter’s eyes suddenly began to glow. “There’s one place those satellites can’t see,” he said.
Early the next morning, the UA Command Staff flew out of Syracuse, convinced that the city had been completely evacuated. The ex-VP, under heavy guard, had been moved back to Washington earlier.
At exactly 12:01 PM, a five-kiloton-yield Soviet-launched nuclear warhead detonated twenty thousand feet above the city.
Chapter 37
THREE WEEKS LATER, HUNTER was standing on the weather-beaten docks of an abandoned shipyard on the Virginia coast, remembering a dream he once had. A dream about submarines. And a port with many military ships, most long ago abandoned to the salt and rust. And talking to people he didn’t recognize.
“Welcome to Newport News, Major,” the man in the United American Navy uniform told him. “Such as it is …”
The scene at the port was right out of his dream. There was a line of former US Navy ships now rusted and scavenged for parts. Most of the shipyard and its facilities had fallen into disrepair. And he had never met the man who was now shaking his hand.
“I’m Admiral Cousins,” he said. “Commander of the United American Navy.”
Hunter knew the UAN was little more than a collection of armed merchant ships and some semi-reliable destroyers and corvettes. While in the post-Big War years the United Americans had, by necessity, built up their ground forces as well as their air strength, the maritime contingent had been left behind.
Once a bustling port and shipbuilding center, Newport News had been an early victim of the New Order’s disarmament program. Hunter’s eyes scanned the rusting hulks of Navy warships that had been sabotaged by the treacherous New Order goons, or deliberately scuttled by their crews to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Mid-Aks.
Now, more than forty once-proud ships of the line lay in ruins or on the muddy bottom of the crowded harbor, their skeleton-like superstructures protruding above the surface like tombstones. Hunter recognized the huge forward compartment of a Ticonderoga-class AEGIS cruiser, peppered with ugly wounds of festering rust and scale. Further on were two Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, both sunk deep in the silty muck. The closer of the two had rolled over on its side during a recent storm, exposing its gray belly to the harsh sun and rusting waves. Now a flock of hungry seagulls walked its barnacle-encrusted keel, just as sailors had once patrolled her narrow decks.
And somewhere below the gray waters that lapped at the dead ships and the leaning piers, Hunter knew there were submarines. Like dying sharks, the giant prowlers of the deep sea had plunged to the sea floor to meet their end. Some had been the victims of the Mid-Ak’s mindless destruction after the war—torpedoes had been detonated inside the forward and rear tubes, tearing the bows and sterns open like huge firecrackers in oversized tin cans. In mortal agony, the stricken ships had turned out their innards to the sea and been lost forever.
The waters must have foamed and churned with the carnage of dying ships, Hunter thought. Oil slicks must have covered the beaches for miles. But now the water was clean—the sea had stripped the wrecks of their polluting fluids and they became like natural reefs. The waves that washed up onto the beach around the docks were white with the natural crisp foam of seawater, almost completely uncontaminated by the telltale rainbow-like pattern of oil and gasoline that used to cover the harbor’s surface like a dirty blanket.
Except Hunter’s sharp eyes detected a single iridescent trail of wavy color floating on the gentle waves in the harbor. It led a meandering path from the storm-battered dock out into the harbor until it disappeared under the locked door of the huge covered berth along the ruins of the gigantic shipyard complex. The nondescript building blended in with the other hulks of the harbor, its rusting sides and rippling roof giving the appearance of a long-abandoned railroad car.
But Hunter knew the building was not abandoned. He watched a thin trail of gray smoke curl upward from the smokestack near the shore side of the enormous structure. The muffled sounds of workers inside—hammers, torches, cranes and lifts—were magnified by the steel walls and roof, echoing out over the harbor like the voices of the ghost ships that rested here.
Inside the covered berth, Hunter knew, was the first part of a bold scheme to strike back at the Soviets—the first direct retaliation against the Russian soil since World War Three.
Entering the massive building past the heavily armed Marine guards, Hunter’s ears were assaulted by the crashing din of hammers on steel, the staccato pounding of high-powered rivet guns, and the sizzle of acetylene torches cutting through hardened metal. Sparks flew everywhere in the dark cavern, from pounding sledges and arc welders, and from the brilliant flares of the metal-cutting torches.
It took Hunter’s eyes several seconds to adjust to the relative darkness inside, until he oriented himself and made his way across the cluttered floor.
He approached a small but powerfully built man in sweat-stained Navy denims, carefully welding a massive steel hatch cover in place. A full face shield covered the man’s head, its tiny slit of smoked glass reflecting the dazzling shower of sparks cascading from the welder’s tip.
Satisfied at last with the weld, the man cut off the torch and turned to face Hunter. He tilted the heavy mask back to wipe the sweat from his brow.
“Hey, Hawk, old buddy,” the man said furiously pumping Hunter’s outstretched hand. “How you doing, pal?”
The man was Navy Lieutenant Stan Yastrewski, better known as “Yaz.” Hunter had first met the Navy officer during the Lucifer Crusade, as the desperate struggle in the Mediterranean against the renegade fanatic “Viktor,” had come to be called.
During the Big War, Yaz and his crew had survived the wreck of their nuclear sub, the USS Albany, off the coast of Ireland. Settling first in England, then eventually moving to Algiers, Yaz and his men became a free-lance team of military technicians and were hired out to consult on high-tech weapons being used in the madness of the New Order world. Hunter, along with a team of British mercenaries, had hired Yaz and his boys to help them tow an abandoned aircraft carrier—the USS Saratoga—across the Med to engage the hordes of Lucifer’s armies at the Suez.
After that battle, an extraordinary series of events took place that brought Yaz back to the States, this time as a prisoner of the dreaded Circle Army. Hunter and the United American Army liberated Football City, where Yaz was being held, and ever since, the Navy man had worked closely with the United American Command.
“Good to see you, Yaz,” Hunter shouted above the noise inside the building. “How’s it going? We gonna be ready in time?”
“I hope so, Hawk,” the sweat-streaked Navy man answered. “It may look like a Chinese fire drill in here, but believe it or not, we’ve been working round the clock for twenty days now. But I think we’re going to get these old girls back together again.”
Hunter nodded, and both men turned toward the immense steel and concrete trough cut into the floor of the massive building. Nestled inside the cradle, surrounded by hundreds of workers, were two enormous, but somewhat battered US Navy Trident submarines.
“I’ve been involved in crazy plans before,” Hunter yelled to Yaz. “But this has got to be the craziest….”
Yaz’s team of ex-submariners had been hard at work ever since they received word from Jones that the two oddly configured subs had to be refurbished and modified—damn quickly.
The subs, the USS Theodore Roosevelt and the USS Ohio, had both been in dry dock when the New Order came down. When Newport News was overrun by the Mid-Aks, the two boats had had the guts of their missile launching systems stripped out by reason of some unknown, hare-brained Mid-Ak directive. All that remained of the boats when democratic forces retook the area were the two hollow shells. But fortunately, their propulsion systems had been left intact.
The fledglin
g United American Navy took command of the boats and had actually put them through sea trials, although with no weapons aboard, the maneuvers were purely for training, and, truth be known, somewhat recreational.
But as it turned out, the massive hollow subs were just what the United Americans needed to carry out their bold plan. The huge empty missile bay behind the conning tower on each ship was now being converted into an equally huge cargo hold. Even now, as Hunter and Yaz talked, Yaz’s shipfitters were fashioning hatch covers for the compartments, all the work being done hidden in the massive shelter, away from the ever-prying eyes of the Soviet-controlled geo-synchronic satellites.
Yaz led Hunter to his makeshift office in a quieter corner of the facility and produced two cups and a steaming pot of coffee.
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard about what happened up in Syracuse,” Yaz said, handing a cup of joe to Hunter. “Is everything really gone?”
Hunter nodded grimly. “Just about,” he said. “The warhead itself wasn’t very large. But it was the airburst detonation that really did all the damage.”
“Those bastards,” Yaz said through gritted teeth. Then he added: “But I have to give everyone involved in that trial some credit. At least we didn’t give in to their blackmail.”
Hunter took a gulp of his coffee. “I agree,” he said. “Mr. Benedict Arnold is locked up so tight Houdini couldn’t get him out. But, to tell you the truth, I’m not so sure that history will think losing an entire city in return was such a noble gesture.”
“Do they expect any more launchings?” Yaz asked nervously. “I mean, if they ever knew what we were up to here …”
Hunter slowly shook his head, and for the first time in a while, he actually allowed himself a grin. “No, we don’t think anything will come over,” he said, adding, “not any time soon, anyway …”
Yaz’s eyes brightened somewhat. “You seem pretty sure about that,” he said.
Hunter took another swig of coffee. “It’s just about the only damn thing I am sure of these days,” he replied.
Final Storm Page 27