by Marc Cameron
* * *
—
There was no denying it; Randal Van Orden kept a messy workspace. Circuit boards, rolls of soldering wire, plastic boxes of delicate heat-shielding material leaned against an ancient oscilloscope. Stacks of dog-eared papers, some decorated with rings from countless cans of Diet Coke, occupied every place on the desk where there wasn’t an electronic component or scientific instrument. Van Orden’s thoughts did not come in a linear manner, unlike most engineers he knew. The answers to whatever problem he happened to be working on at the moment appeared like tiny thought bubbles in the cluttered workspace of his mind. But if he needed to work out the load limits of a particular rocket or the right mixture of powdered metal in solid fuel engine—the answers were always there in the bubbles. Just as the soldering gun was where he needed it to be on the table. There was, indeed, a method to his mess.
It did, however, take him a moment to find his cell phone, tucked in the side pocket of the heavy-duty Saddleback Leather briefcase that his wife said looked professorial.
Van Orden himself had never been in the military, but he had a military bearing nonetheless. The midshipmen in his classes were supposed to be professional and squared away. “Locked on” they called it. They were highly intelligent and driven people who deserved the best instruction possible. Dr. Van Orden believed he had a responsibility to be as locked on as it was possible for a man in his early sixties to be. His barber near his home in Crownsville kept his dark hair neatly tapered and groomed. Skinny ties, white shirts, and black frame glasses gave him the look of a man who’d stepped out of the sixties. In truth, he would have been more comfortable in a pullover golf shirt and khaki shorts, but his wife dressed him, using her philosophy that he couldn’t be young anymore, so he should go for the coolest old. For an aeronautical engineer, that was NASA mission control in 1969.
He scrolled through his recent calls until he found Midshipman Hardy’s number. He’d never had a student with such promise. The young man had such a grasp and recall of numbers that a casual observer might consider him a quirky savant. But that was not the case. The men and women who gained admittance to the United States Naval Academy had to be well rounded as well as smart.
He got no answer on the phone. Not surprising, Hardy could be in class, or in one of the places in The Yard where reception was iffy. He felt a pang of regret at having mentioned the midshipman at all, but if the President’s questions were important enough to call an academic like him to the White House, then Hardy’s knowledge might be invaluable. He checked his watch. He’d just have to go and find him the old-fashioned way.
Van Orden’s office was located downstairs in the aeronautical engineering section of Rickover Hall, at the northern corner of the campus along land reclaimed from the Severn River. He poked his head outside the door to find a pink-faced plebe wearing the white Dixie cup hat and Cracker Jack suit that was synonymous with enlisted Navy personnel. The freshman midshipman had obviously lost a bet with an upperclassman, and now stood “lifeguard duty” next to the water fountain outside Van Orden’s office.
“Do you know Midshipman Hardy?” Van Orden asked. He had an abrupt baritone voice that caused the freshman to stand up straighter.
“I do, Dr. Van Orden,” the young lifeguard said, coming to attention. “The last I saw him he was going to Dahlgren Hall to make a phone call.”
“Thank you,” Van Orden said, moving as he spoke. He didn’t want to keep the President’s car waiting.
He walked quickly, carrying his sport coat so as not to sweat through his shirt in the warm spring weather. Dahlgren Hall was located diagonally across The Yard, at the far south corner, almost at the front gate—about as far as away as possible and still be on Academy grounds. Van Orden passed Michelson Hall, and the plaque marking the spot where Albert Michelson had measured the speed of light in 1879. He cut across the grass, almost running as he passed the Mexican War Midshipmen’s Monument in the center of the courtyard, aiming for Dahlgren Hall. It made sense Hardy would relax there. He had a girlfriend back in Idaho and the upper deck of Dahlgren was one of the few places midshipmen could get a little privacy to make phone calls.
Unlike other military academies in the United States, Annapolis was an open campus, with visitors simply showing ID and clearing security like that of an airport. The grounds were crowded with sightseers who gave Van Orden sideways looks for not utilizing the sidewalks. He ignored them, entering Dahlgren Hall to the smell of french fries coming from the Drydock Restaurant, and bounded up the stairs. There were several midshipmen in the blue-carpeted lounge area. Unfortunately, none of them were Hardy.
Van Orden checked his watch again. Twelve minutes wasted.
He approached the nearest midshipman, a tall Nordic woman who looked as if she could be an Olympic runner but for her summer white service dress uniform. The fouled anchor and two diagonal strips on her shoulder boards said she was a midshipman second class—a year ahead of Hardy. She was reading, but closed her book and stood when she realized he wanted to speak to her.
“How can I help you, sir?” Her nametag identified her as Midshipman Larson.
“I’m looking for Alex Hardy. Sandy hair, about five-ten—”
“He was here about half an hour ago,” Larson said. “I believe he went down to the wind tunnels.”
Van Orden groaned. “Thank you,” he said, spinning to begin his jog back across campus to the basement of the building where he’d started, just down from his office.
He found Hardy six minutes later, standing beside one of the boxlike wind tunnels in the basement of Rickover Hall, holding a model of a hand with a piece of steel rod sticking through the palm, working with a group of four other midshipmen—who looked nearly identical in their short hair and summer whites. The project was for one of Van Orden’s physics classes—the effects of ejecting from a jet aircraft at various speeds and attitudes of flight. The sign on the wall behind them read: “Rocket Science: It Ain’t Brain Surgery.”
Van Orden plugged his ears, thankful for the scant moment to catch his breath. Hardy looked up when he saw movement and Van Orden waved him over.
Hardy removed his hearing protection. “What can I do for you, Doctor?”
Van Orden looked toward the hallway, mouth closed, shaking his head and indicating they should step out of earshot.
“You and I have been summoned to the White House,” he said. There was no time to beat around the bush.
“The White House?”
“Correct,” Van Orden said. “A car is picking us up in”—he looked at his watch—“less than fifteen minutes.”
“All right . . .” Hardy hesitated. “I mean, sir, I still have classes this afternoon.”
“Did you hear what I said?” Van Orden said, his deep voice booming down the hallway until he regained his composure. He began to walk and Hardy followed. “By White House, I mean the Commander in Chief. I believe that will count as an excused absence.”
Hardy trotted to keep up. “How do they even know who I am?”
“I told them,” Van Orden said. “Come. I’ll explain on the way.”
A man in a dark suit and sunglasses rounded the corner of Dahlgren Hall as Van Orden and Hardy passed the Submarine Monument on their way to the front gate. He gave a slight nod.
“Dr. Van Orden?”
“Yes.”
“Special Agent Marsh,” the man said. “I’m your ride.” He raised a wrist to his lips, then spoke into a mic on his sleeve. “Marsh to CROWN, I have them both.”
Hardy balked when they reached the statue of Billy the Goat. “That’s Lieutenant Commander Gill, my English lit professor,” he said, nodding to a naval officer walking toward them from Lejeune Hall. “He’s also my company officer.”
“Going somewhere, Mr. Hardy?” the officer asked.
“Yes, sir,” Hardy said.
“As
a matter of fact, we both are,” Van Orden said.
“Funny,” Gill said. “I didn’t see a missed-class chit for you in my inbox.”
“I’ve not completed one, sir.”
“I suggest you make time,” the officer said, professional but unyielding.
The Secret Service agent stepped in. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to excuse us, sir. Midshipman Hardy is expected at an important meeting.”
Gill grimaced, unconvinced. “I have no idea who you are. And who’s so important as to rate a disruption of Academy SOP?”
“The President, sir,” Special Agent Marsh said.
“The president of what?”
“The United States, sir,” Marsh said.
“The President? What’s this all about, Hardy?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, sir,” Marsh said, displaying the five-pointed star on his credentials. “Now, if you will please excuse us. The superintendent has the information you are cleared for.”
“I kind of feel sorry for him,” Hardy said when he slid into the backseat of a black Crown Victoria parked in the No Parking area on Randall Street in front of the gate. “He was just doing his job.”
“That makes two of us.” Marsh shot him a glance in the rearview mirror, smiling. “But you have to admit, this will go down as Yard legend.”
Hardy was pressed backward into the leather seat as the agent activated his lights and sirens and punched the accelerator to get them to the White House. For the first time since getting the news, Van Orden saw him act like the excited twenty-year-old that he was instead of a stoic midshipman. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “This is dope.”
61
President Ryan sat at the end of the conference table in the Situation Room and took a sip of water—his stomach was too knotted over Jack Junior to drink any more coffee. As he waited, he went over what he was going to say when the Russian president picked up the phone.
The plan of action had been a hasty one—as plans always were in response to situations that came out of left field. There were no drills for anything remotely like this.
Two F-22 Raptors, each loaded with two thousand-pound JDAM GBU-32 guided bombs, had taken off from Bagram twenty minutes earlier and were presently topping off with fuel somewhere over Herat. The asset known as FLINT was on standby in Mashhad, ready to upload the malware at a moment’s notice. Finally, the Russian known as GP/VICAR was about to make a phone call of his own.
Ryan’s telephone call had been arranged through the Washington–Moscow Direct Communications Link set up in 1963 to avoid possible disasters of delayed communication like those that nearly occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Known in popular culture as “the red phone” or “Hotline,” the link was never a phone at all. It had first been established over a Teletype machine. Newer technologies eventually led to a computer system over which secure e-mails could be exchanged between the Pentagon and the Kremlin to arrange for voice communication between the two world leaders. There were other methods, but this was the most immediate.
Ryan’s tone dripped with diplomacy when Yermilov answered. Ryan spoke passable Russian and Yermilov passable English, but as was always the case in these kinds of delicate conversations, the men spoke through interpreters who had the required security clearances. Ryan described the situation with the missiles and Sahar Tabrizi, leaving out the fact that the United States was fully aware that Russia was behind the sale to Iran.
“Nikita,” Ryan continued. “I’m sure you see how dangerous this is. At first we believed the targets to be American installations, but the destruction of a satellite that led to cascading fields of debris in low earth orbit would be catastrophic for both our countries. The International Space Station would very likely be obliterated before either of us could launch an evacuation mission. Honestly, it would be catastrophic for the world. My experts tell me all the resulting junk could make it nearly impossible to send anything into space in the foreseeable future.”
Yermilov blustered. “I can assure you, Jack, we believed the missiles were lost during a plane crash on their way for testing in Sary-Shagan in Kazakhstan. I had no idea they somehow made it to Iran.”
“I’m not suggesting you did,” Ryan said.
“I thought you were calling in reference to another matter.”
“Elizaveta Bobkova?”
“No . . .”
“She and her men have diplomatic cover,” Ryan said. “But I understand she might be asking to stay.”
“Is that so?” Yermilov said, almost a gasp.
“Did you think I was calling about Ukraine?” Ryan said dismissively, as if Yermilov’s troop movements were little more than a fly on his nose. “Honestly, my people advised me that Russia might try and invade Ukraine because the Kremlin believes I have my hands full here with domestic matters. I told them you knew me better than that. There was no possible way you would invade, at least any further than you already have. I told them your troop movements simply had to be a bluff. That you and I had discussed this and that you knew I would take drastic action at any further advance, no matter the rationale. And that we both agreed any such action would be tying that untieable knot of war that your predecessor Khrushchev spoke of so eloquently. In any case, we can talk about Ukraine at a later time. This matter with the missiles is larger than that. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes,” Yermilov said, stunned, on the ropes. “What shall we . . . Do you suggest we contact Tehran?”
“As you are aware, the United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran,” Ryan said. “But even if we did, I’m not certain how deeply Tehran is involved. This is likely the work of a dissident group, but it is too soon to say. Beyond that, I fear time is of the essence. I’d hoped you have some method of destroying the Gorgons remotely.”
“I must ask, Mr. President,” Yermilov said. “How did you come upon this information?”
Ryan chuckled despite the circumstances. “That’s classified, but I’m sure you have ways of checking the truth of the matter without tipping our hand with Tehran. Now I must ask you, Nikita, are you able to transmit a self-destruct code to your missiles?”
There was silence on the line while Yermilov muted the call. If Ryan’s plan was working, the Russian president was hearing of the plot to destroy a satellite from members of his own intelligence community right about now.
Yermilov came back on the line a full ninety seconds later. “I am afraid the remote destruction of the missiles is not an option, Mr. President.”
Ryan sighed. “Not an option or not possible?”
“As you put it,” Yermilov said, “that is classified.”
“Understood,” Ryan said. “Thank you for taking my call.”
“What will you do from this point?” Yermilov asked.
“That remains to be seen,” Ryan said. “We’ll speak again very soon.” He gave one last chuckle. “Hopefully not about Ukraine.”
“Yes,” Yermilov said. “Hopefully.”
Ryan ended the call and looked up at General Paul and Mary Pat. “I don’t like it, but MUDFLAP is a go.”
The chairman tapped a key on the phone on the table in front of him and spoke into the tiny boom mic on his headset. “MUDFLAP is a go.”
At the same time, DNI Foley made a call to her asset in Iran, using a more cryptic phrase. “Is this Peperouk Pizza? I’d like to make an order if you can deliver in thirty minutes.”
“Wrong number,” the voice said in English. “This is Navid Auto Repair.”
“Okay,” Foley said. “Sorry to bother you.”
She replaced the handset and turned to Ryan.
“Here we go,” she said, giving him a thumbs-up.
62
Jack Junior and the others followed in the Hilux while Yazdani drove his own car to Mashhad Airbase south of the city. They parked in Toroq
Forest Park a kilometer away until Jack received the go signal from Mary Pat.
Yazdani went in without so much as a backward glance, intent on saving his son. He’d assured them he was well respected in the missile defense facility. Years of war with Iraq had necessitated the bulk of any antiballistic missile system to guard against incursion from the west with most protecting Tehran. Few in power expected any attack to come from the east, so the area was lightly defended.
At Ryan’s urging, Dovzhenko had made a call to his immediate supervisor at the embassy in Tehran, briefing him of a plot between Major Sassani, Reza Kazem, and General Alov to destroy a satellite in low earth orbit. He had been unable to make contact earlier due to the obvious security issues related to an investigation of a prominent GRU general who surely had spies everywhere. Dovzhenko was, he explained, only looking out for the good name of the SVR—and his supervisor—by separating himself from normal channels. At this point, he told his boss, he would attempt to find out where the missiles were, but he suspected American assets were somehow on scene.
“You think your supervisor believed you?” Ysabel asked while they waited for Yazdani to come back out.
Dovzhenko shrugged. “I think so. If not, they will send someone to shoot me anytime now.”
“This is a foolish plan,” Ysabel said. “You are going to get him killed.”
Dovzhenko put a hand on her shoulder. “It was not his plan,” he said. “I am good with it. Really.”
“Well I’m not,” Ysabel said.
Yazdani’s compact sedan rounded the corner and pulled up alongside the Toyota, driver’s window to driver’s window.
He handed the flashlight/USB drive to Dovzhenko, who passed it over the seat to Jack.