Red Hammer 1994

by Ratcliffe, Robert

  The marshal nodded to his master. “I understand perfectly, President,” was the reply. “It will be done.” Producing the stolen weapons would be child’s play, Kiselev thought. Any surplus army gear would do. But the rebels? More difficult. In the end, the internal security forces would conjure up the proper number of stiff bodies to satisfy the president. Innocent or guilty, it didn’t really matter. As to the supply cuts dictated? The people in Ossetia were already starving—and freezing. Muslims and other non-Slavs were at the bottom of the food chain in Laptev’s Russia.

  “Well,” demanded Laptev, “what else? I have a meeting with the International Monetary Fund in twenty minutes.” Laptev’s lackey nodded like an obedient dog while his master rolled his bloodshot eyes in disgust at the lack of initiative shown by his military men. “Must I do everything?” he thought as he grimaced. He couldn’t imagine how he had taken orders from such men when serving in the army. They were all fools.

  On the financial front, Russia was delinquent and had ignored all protests to control her hemorrhaging money supply and mothball half-a-dozen Chernobyl-style nuclear power plants that were ticking time bombs. No bother. Laptev would play the injured party and blame it on greedy foreign businessmen who held a knife to his throat. In truth, foreign capital and international investors were running scared, expecting to lose everything. Laptev was confident the IMF dolts would continue to throw good money after bad. The mere hint of civil unrest sent shivers up their spines and opened their fat wallets. In the end, he would rob them blind. They wouldn’t see a dime.

  The defense minister cleared his throat. “It’s Ukraine again. Their army attacked an outpost three kilometers inside our border. Over one hundred dead and fifteen armored vehicles destroyed. They claim Russian troops provoked the action.”

  Laptev seethed, his chapped lips curled with disgust. Within days of taking residence at the Kremlin, Laptev had put a hammerlock on Russia’s former Soviet cousins and nearest neighbors, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Their belligerent rhetoric had melted like spring snow before his not-so-subtle threats. The ingrates had crumbled when he had brandished a few armored divisions in “winter maneuvers.” The big three continued to be economic slaves to Russia and military pygmies. But lately, they had sensed weakness in the Russian state and had tested the waters.

  The Russian president drummed the tabletop with his right hand. His brow knitted in deep thought. “What is the readiness of the Third Shock Army?”

  Kiselev sighed. He was ready for another beating. “All the divisions are below fifty percent strength. Only a third of the tanks are operable. Ammunition is nonexistent. We would have to cannibalize forces the entire length of Russia to fit them out properly, and that would take a year.”

  Surprisingly, Laptev took the summary in stride. It had been a rhetorical question. “So,” he began, pinning each dress uniform to its chair in turn. “My military commanders are unable to muster a handful of divisions to defend the Motherland. Two million men, over eighty divisions still under arms, and I can’t scatter a nest of troublemakers on our western border.” Laptev knew only too well that Russia’s conventional military forces were in shambles. But it warmed his heart to sink a knife into the bastards’ hearts.

  “I suppose I shall have to handle this myself.” His comment met only silence. Laptev had taken personal command of the Russian Spetsnaz Special Forces. Thirty thousand strong, they were his ace in the hole. Spetsnaz still trained to the hilt and had served him well, appreciative of the president’s largesse with the finest in housing, supplies, and generous foreign travel. Their toughness, dedication, and superb language skills made them invaluable. At least a quarter of the traveling Russian technologists were his Spetsnaz soldiers. The high-tech treasure they brought home was staggering. And, they provided a valuable counterbalance to the leak-ridden and hopelessly corrupt foreign intelligence service, SVR. Half of their old KGB agents were now on the payrolls of the West, and the SVRs overseas foreign national networks were in shambles.

  For this latest insult, Laptev would simply parachute in a few dozen Spetsnaz near Kiev, dispatch a handful of top-tier politicians and blow two or three key bridges. The troublemakers would get the message. He might even have his men speak German and wear GSG-9, the German antiterrorist unit, gear. That would be an interesting twist. Maybe even throw in a Pole or two. He liked that. Yes, a masterstroke. He was pleased with himself.

  Laptev’s anger melted into momentary apathy. “Marshal Kiselev, we should hope our good friends the Chinese don’t decide to pay us a visit, eh?” He smirked. “They’d be in Moscow in a week.” He broke into a deep belly laugh. The generals fumed.

  Laptev pressed his palms against the tabletop and began to rise, but eased himself back to his seat to everyone’s discomfort. “I want the SS-25 production line operating round the clock, immediately. I will stand no further delay.”

  Every dark day that passed authenticated Laptev’s resolution to rebuild Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The still-formidable nuclear forces were their only salvation. Even his addle-brained predecessor had come to the conclusion, albeit too late, that those nuclear weapons were the keystone of Russian power.

  The defense minister played devil’s advocate, a dangerous proposition. “That would be in direct violation of the START treaty language,” he intoned.

  Laptev’s pudgy face turned to stone. His eyes burned with black fire. Laptev was an inch from renouncing the treaty completely. He knew in his cold heart that the Russians had been coerced into signing, duped by false promises of dollars and technology that never materialized. The hopelessly flawed treaty would leave the Russians prostrate before the Americans by the year 2003, if not sooner. Time was slipping through their fingers.

  “I spit on a treaty signed by imbeciles and traitors to the Motherland.” He suddenly flashed on Gorbachev and Yeltsin. How he hated those men. They personally destroyed Russia and now made a fat living on the Western lecture circuit, charming ex-cold warriors and liberal politicians who revered them as gods.

  The defense minister cringed. “A technical point, President. I agree with your position completely.” Heads nodded approvingly as the defense minister slumped in his chair, wishing that he could disappear. Beads of sweat blossomed on his forehead, and his cheeks flushed as he furiously searched his mental cabinet of clichés and politically neutral truisms for an escape route. He came up empty and sighed, waiting for the expected lance from the left.

  Laptev let him twist in the wind. At times like this he understood Stalin, his methods and his moods, his use of fear to mold men’s wills. “I need no tutorial on the treaty language, thank you. I will be the final judge on what does or does not violate the treaty.” His defense minister was beginning to sound like the American secretary of state. He made a mental note.

  Laptev raised his bushy eyebrows in question. The defense minister signaled closure. Chair legs screeched across the floor as no one lingered in the president’s presence.

  Laptev rose and faced his aide. “Time to play the charming whore,” he groused. The bankers were waiting.

  CHAPTER 3

  Lieutenant General Robert Thomas, aide to the secretary of defense, was pissed. He clenched his jaw, and the deep scar on his right cheek reddened menacingly. The old injury to his left hip ached, and his rumbling stomach only compounded his discomfort. He wiped the sharp features of his tanned face and then arched his spine, which brought a flush of relief to his tight lower back. “Idiots,” he mumbled. “What the hell is going on?” The comic opera being performed before him smacked of classical NASA procrastination and incompetence.

  Thomas leaned his lanky six-foot frame against the stainless-steel rail, gripping it like he wished he could break it in two. He had doffed his uniform blouse hours ago, and his blue shirt was stained with sweat under the armpits and down his spine. Gazing out from the raised platform, the scene before him was pure bedlam. NASA technicians in white short-sleeved shirts and too-short
ties glanced over their shoulders, each wondering if they would be next to feel the heat.

  The central status board announced yet another hold. “Damn it!” Thomas snapped. He stormed off, shaking his head, muttering under his breath. He pulled up and studied the tabular data displayed on a large plasma screen prominently positioned on the front wall. His sour expression was proof that the numbers essentially said that everything had gone to shit.

  Thomas spied the launch director and worked up the energy for yet another run. A tight circle of senior NASA officials huddled in muffled discussion. The engineers turned managers crowded closer and braced themselves. Thomas really didn’t have the stomach to beat them up anymore, but Secretary Alexander had given him his marching orders—kick ass and get the shuttle off the ground by sundown.

  The countdown for the shuttle Discovery had been stopped on five separate occasions since first light. As the fading Florida sun coasted toward the horizon, the launch window was slamming shut. The odds now favored that the super-secret mission would be scrubbed. NASA was pushing for a reschedule to early morning, but Space Command was fighting them tooth and nail. Then there was the threatening warm front moving rapidly north from the eastern Caribbean, driven by powerful gale-force winds. Stringy clouds streaked with black were already drifting over Launch Complex 39, casting long shadows over the two imposing support towers and the massive shuttle resting quietly on pad 39A. The only signs of life were wisps of condensed gases vented from the liquid-hydrogen and liquid-oxygen fuel tanks. To further muck up the works, upper atmospheric winds had increased by over five knots in the last two hours, yet another abort criteria according to the NASA liturgy.

  “What’s the holdup?” Thomas barked as he stepped into their private conversation. “If there’s a problem, it had better be a showstopper, not some third-order backup system for flushing the toilet.”

  The mission director, a tall, walking skeleton, turned purple with rage. He was at the end of his rope.

  “General Thomas, we’re working on the flight computer software problem as fast as we can,” he pleaded, both flustered and mad. “Get off our backs,” he added, his voice rising in intensity. His comrades raised their eyebrows in unison at their leader’s unexpected boldness. They correctly predicted disaster and stepped aside, giving the general elbow room, more than happy to throw their hapless companion to the wolves. Thomas planted himself six inches from the mission director’s hawk like nose, staring hard and scowling.

  The director became unnerved, backpedaling with Thomas in pursuit. He held his hands up chest high in a gesture of surrender. His voice ratcheted up in pitch.

  “The software has been reloaded, and the validation algorithms are being run as we speak. We can’t go any faster,” he offered apologetically. “We have to follow procedures, or I can’t recommend a launch.”

  Thomas was unimpressed and moved in for the kill. “If Discovery doesn’t go in the next forty-five minutes, I’m going to have your ass. And stop that ‘we’ crap. The decision is yours and yours alone.” A furious Thomas stomped off. The thin NASA man started to almost dance. “What the hell are they putting up there, anyway? Why hasn’t anyone said anything? I’ve never seen a mission like this!” he said to his friends. The mission director sulked off, disgusted with anyone in a uniform.

  Thomas glanced at the clock and shook his head. They couldn’t make it, not now. Time was rapidly slipping through their hands. An adjacent wall-mounted video monitor showed Discovery stuck on the launch pad, with a small digital clock in the lower corner frozen at T minus twelve minutes.

  This particular shuttle mission had aroused unbelievable curiosity and attention both at Kennedy and in the press. Security had been the tightest in recent years. A week-old canned press release mentioned a “scientific mission,” but most observers were savvy enough to sense it was an important military payload. Speculation ranged from a new communications or reconnaissance bird to a prototype wide-area surveillance radar satellite developed by DARPA, the DOD research and development folks.

  At a computer console, one of the launch operators queried the shuttle-health monitoring system and then flashed a relieved smile. “The flight software checks out OK,” he reported proudly, straightening in his chair.

  The mission director was a changed man. His face returned to its normal pasty tone. He exuded a muffled sigh to signal his release from bondage. “Resume the countdown at T minus twelve minutes.”

  From that moment, events went without a hitch. The launch of Discovery was picture perfect. At T minus zero, the shuttle’s three main engines roared to life. Powered by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen stored in the huge orange cylindrical external tank attached to the belly of the shuttle, they were throttled to full power prior to liftoff. Despite producing over one million pounds of thrust, Discovery squatted, clamped to the pad, giving the flight engineers precious seconds to monitor the engines for proper performance. The shuttle’s hydraulic system gimbaled the huge engines in a rote pattern and then quickly returned them to their nominal position. It took less than three seconds.

  With all systems go, the giant, solid rocket motors strapped to the liquid-propellant storage tank ignited, and explosive hold-down bolts detonated. The monsters, producing over five million pounds of thrust by burning solid propellants, shook the ground and rattled the windows as they pushed the shuttle rapidly skyward in a blaze of orange and yellow fire and billowing black smoke. Ever since the Challenger accident so many years ago, the launch team still crossed their fingers and gritted their teeth until the solid rocket boosters were completely spent and safely separated from the shuttle.

  Rising through thickening clouds in the fading light, Discovery commenced the customary lazy roll on its back and then executed a graceful turn to the north. This signaled to the initiated that Discovery and her payload would be put in a highly inclined orbit relative to the equator. The most common trajectory from the Cape, one without the dogleg to the north, put a shuttle in an orbit perfect for launching military and commercial communication satellites into geosynchronous orbit over the earth’s equator at an altitude of 22,300 miles.

  The less frequent northerly maneuver signaled a payload destined for low earth orbit, like the electro-optical and radar reconnaissance satellites used by the air force and the CIA to scour the earth’s surface for intelligence data. The final inclination would depend on the magnitude of the turn, and in this case, most observers agreed it was near the maximum permitted, allowing the widest coverage of Russian and Chinese territory by the super-secret payload.

  One of the army of white-shirted operators leaned back in his chair like a proud father in the delivery room, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Everything looks good, solid rocket-motor burn terminated at T plus one hundred and fifty-four seconds, normal separation, orbiter velocity is right on the money, main engines continuing to burn—looks like we’re going to have a nominal orbital insertion.”

  “Well, General, satisfied?” asked the mission director, a look of disgust imprinted on his face.

  Thomas, his arms defiantly folded across his chest, ignored the comment. “We’re not there yet; the main engines still have to burn for another five minutes.” The mission director scowled.

  At approximately T plus eight minutes, the main engines shut down, propelling Discovery to a picture-perfect entrance into low earth orbit. The sausage-shaped external tank was blown free by explosive bolts and drifted toward earth and a fiery rendezvous within the atmosphere.

  “That’s it,” grunted Thomas, a slight smile breaking through his gruff shell for the first time. “Thank you, gentlemen.” He scooped up his things and headed for the exit. Thomas had a plane to catch.

  CHAPTER 4

  The sleek air force C-21A Learjet touched down at Peterson Air Force Base east of Colorado Springs shortly after ten at night. Its silver fuselage glistened under powerful halogen lamps that lit the runway. In the distance, a dark blue sedan with ai
r force markings idled patiently. Painted on a nearby hangar door was a ten-foot diameter emblem depicting the US Space Command logo. The pilot swung the executive jet from the taxiway, braking to a stop and shutting down the twin turbofan engines. Fifty feet away, a lone air force colonel in a wool overcoat and leather gloves stood rigidly, bathed in the glow from white flood lamps. While the ground crew hurriedly chalked the landing gear, the small cabin door swung open, and Thomas disembarked, raising his overcoat collar against the late-evening cold. The colonel came to life and saluted smartly as Thomas walked toward the waiting sedan.

  “Good evening, sir,” he said to Thomas. “Welcome to Peterson. General Morgan is waiting at Space Command headquarters.” The frigid April air helped shake Thomas out of his flight-induced lethargy. He politely returned the greeting.

  “I understand it went well,” the colonel said to Thomas as he slipped through the rear door. He looked askance at the Space Command staffer. The long flight from Florida had triggered a much needed reevaluation. Reservations had crept into Thomas’s thoughts.

  The sedan pulled away from the hanger and proceeded across the base to the three-story, cinder block and glass building that served as headquarters for the US Space Command and its air force component, the AF Space Command. The driver turned into the wide, circular drive and halted next to the curb. He quickly jumped out, opening Thomas’s door.

  The colonel slid from the front seat, standing and adjusting his combination cover. “Please follow me, sir,” he said to Thomas.