by Jeff Edwards
The loss of life due to ill-conceived panic reactions would probably exceed the casualty counts from the bombs, wherever they happened to strike. That made for a compelling argument against warning the civilian populace of an impending attack.
But the citizenry had to trust its leaders in times of crisis. If the Russian warheads fell on civilian targets without warning, the country would come apart at the seams the instant the public realized that the government had known the truth and chosen to hide it. After that, no amount of good intent would be able to stop the slide into chaos.
The problem was complicated by the fact that they didn’t yet know where the warheads were going to fall. If they could narrow down the list of potential targets, they could confine the emergency warnings to only the areas that were likely to be hit. That would presumably reduce the scope of the panic, which should help limit the resulting injuries. Fewer people stampeding away from target zones should translate into fewer traffic accidents, fewer heart attacks, fewer suicides … fewer instances of all the myriad ways that frightened humans could find to hurt themselves.
But that was part of the terrible beauty of the MIRV design. The warheads would not be locked into their final trajectories until just minutes before they re-entered the atmosphere. By then, it would be too late to warn anyone.
Despite the predictable consequences, there was no real choice. The people had to be told, even if the act of warning them sent some of them to their deaths.
On the geographic display, the curving red line flashed again and grew longer.
A Marine captain walked to General Gilmore’s side, stopped, and spoke softly.
The general nodded, and turned to the president. “Sir, the hotline is up. We’ve got it patched through to your secure telephone, and President Turgenev is on the line.”
The president reached for the phone. “Thank you.”
In movies, the famed hotline between Washington and Moscow is usually depicted as a futuristic-looking red telephone, often decorated with flickering lights and strange mechanical reinforcements intended to convey the impression that the phone is somehow armored or bombproof. In at least one popular action film, the handset of the famous red phone was locked to the cradle by a formidable-looking steel clamp that could only be released by a key worn on a chain around the neck of the president.
But the Secure Terminal Equipment phone sitting on the briefing table looked like any other black multi-line telephone—the kind you might find on a desk in any office building. Only the narrow horizontal slot in the front of the base suggested that the STE phone might be something out of the ordinary.
The Marine captain leaned across the table and inserted a Fortezza-Hyper series encryption card into the slot. The phone beeped once softly, and the word ‘SECURE’ appeared in the rectangular LCD call display.
The young officer slid the phone across the table top until it rested directly in front of the president. “Ready, sir.”
President Chandler lifted the handset.
His Russian counterpart, President Anatoliy Petrovitch Turgenev, spoke almost immediately.
“Mr. President … Frank … Are you on the line?”
The Russian president’s voice sounded hollow and metallic, a side-effect of digital compression, and the encryption/decryption process that scrambled and unscrambled the signal. His English was accented, but very fluent.
“Yes, Anatoliy,” the president said. “I’m on the line.”
“It’s a pleasure to hear your voice,” the Russian leader said. “I only wish we were speaking under better circumstances.”
“So do I,” the president said. “So do I.”
“This attack is not the work of my country,” Turgenev said. “Zhukov is a maniac. He is operating without the support, or the consent of my Government. You must believe that, Frank.”
“I do believe it,” the president said. “I’m well aware of your efforts to put down Mr. Zhukov’s coup. But those efforts have failed, and the situation is now beyond your control. Frankly, Anatoliy, it may have gone beyond anyone’s control.”
There was a pause before the Russian president spoke again. “Frank … Mr. President, I know that this crisis requires your full concentration, and I don’t want to delay you or distract you. But I must ask for your assurance that the United States will not retaliate with nuclear weapons.”
President Chandler felt his grip on the telephone receiver tighten. “Pardon me?”
“The government of the Russian Federation would like your personal guarantee that the United States will not attack targets in Russian territory with nuclear weapons.”
It was President Chandler’s turn to pause.
“I’m, sorry,” he said slowly, “I do not believe I can make that guarantee.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. On the big display screen, the red arc grew longer as the Russian missile continued its trajectory toward California.
After several seconds, the Russian leader spoke again. “Mr. President, if we cannot reach some agreement, this situation can easily get out of hand.”
“My country is under nuclear attack,” the president said. “The situation has already gotten out of hand.”
“I am attempting to prevent an escalation,” Turgenev said softly.
“I understand that,” the president said. “And the United States has no intention of escalating this conflict, if that can be prevented. We’re preparing to intercept the warheads now. If we’re successful, and there are no further attacks, your government and mine can consider how to proceed. But if nuclear warheads fall on American soil, the United States will retaliate in kind.”
“I see,” the Russian president said. “May I at least ask that you confine your counterstrikes to targets in Kamchatka?”
“Of course,” President Chandler said. “Our retaliation will be directed against the rogue element who launched this attack, not against your country. Will that be satisfactory?”
“I don’t know, sir,” the Russian president said. “I will convey your message to my government. Let us hope for the best.”
“Yes,” said the president. “Let’s do that.”
He replaced the telephone receiver gently in its cradle, and looked up at Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “Give me a status update, General. Where are we with this?”
General Gilmore checked the latest printouts in his striped folder. “Mr. President, our ground-based Midcourse Defenses at Fort Greely and Vandenberg are preparing to launch EKVs,” he said. “We’re going to try to intercept the incoming missile over the Pacific.”
From earlier briefings, the president knew that an EKV was an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle: a ground-launched missile designed to intercept a ballistic warhead in flight, and destroy it before it could reenter the atmosphere.
“Understood,” he said. “What are our chances of successfully intercepting the warheads in space?”
General Gilmore adjusted his black-rimmed glasses. “Frankly, Mr. President, the odds are not great. Our Ballistic Missile Defense System is still only partially operational. Some of the significant technologies are either still under development, or not fully tested. The system has demonstrated fairly good results against single-warhead test missiles that closely simulate the type likely to be employed by Iran or North Korea. But multiple warheads … MIRVs are a different matter. They’re significantly more difficult to intercept.”
“Because it’s harder to hit three targets than it is to hit one?”
“Not three targets, sir,” the general said. “Seven.”
The national security advisor frowned. “Seven? I thought this missile only carried three warheads.”
“That’s correct,” said General Gilmore. “But the R-29 was designed to deliver up to seven warheads. When the START agreement was ratified, the Russians reduced the payload to three warheads, to comply with the terms of the treaty. They replaced the other four with decoys that mimic the size, shape, weight, and mov
ement of the real thing. They even copied the thermal signature and tumble pattern. We can tell the decoys from the real ones in a laboratory, but there’s no way to spot the difference while they’re falling out of the sky at mach twenty-five. Only three of the reentry vehicles from that missile are going to be real nukes, but we have no way of knowing which three.”
“So we have to go after all seven,” Brenthoven said.
“Unfortunately,” the general said. “We can either shoot them all down before they reach their targets, or wait until they hit the ends of their trajectories and see which ones don’t detonate.”
President Chandler shook his head. “And we waste just as much energy taking out the decoys as we do killing the real warheads?”
The general nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s pretty much the whole idea behind MIRV technology … to complicate the hell out of the problem of intercepting ballistic missiles.”
The president smiled weakly. “Sounds like the Russians have done a pretty good job of that.”
“That’s not the half of it, sir. The R-29R was engineered by the Soviet Union at the height of their Cold War paranoia. It may be a few years old, but it’s a tricky son-of-a-bitch.”
The general’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “The warhead section, or what the engineers call the bus, has a four-chamber liquid fuel rocket engine. Every time it launches a warhead or a decoy, it maneuvers before it launches the next one. Moving at multi-mach speed, even a relatively small amount of vertical or horizontal displacement can create a significant amount of lateral vector, sending each warhead or decoy on a different trajectory—toward a different target. And to just to make things really confusing, the R-29R spits out plenty of anti-radar chaff to confuse our sensors and interceptor missiles.”
“You make it sound impossible,” the president said.
“It’s not impossible, sir,” the general said. “But the odds are not in our favor. Since we can only bring a relatively small number of EKVs to bear, there’s a strong possibility that one of the warheads will slip past our interceptors. If we’re really unlucky, they might all get through.”
The president swallowed. “Understood. What’s our fallback plan if any of the warheads evade our EKVs?”
“Then it’s the Navy’s turn at bat, sir,” General Gilmore said. “The Aegis cruiser, USS Shiloh, is operating off the California coast. The ship has the Ballistic Missile Defense upgrades to its SM-3 missile systems. If the EKVs fail, the ship will attempt to intercept the warheads in the late stages of the midcourse phase, shortly before the warheads reenter the atmosphere.”
“And how do our chances look with that?” the president asked.
The general shook his head. “It’s a coin toss, sir. The Navy’s systems have had even less testing than the land-based systems. The CNO seems to think pretty well of them, but it’s difficult to know if that’s a dispassionate evaluation, or just pride of ownership.”
The president drummed his fingers on the mahogany tabletop. “And if the Navy’s missiles can’t get all the warheads, what then?”
“That depends on where the individual warheads are targeted, sir,” the general said. “When the reentry vehicles go into the terminal phase of their trajectories, one or more of them might pass within range of a Patriot III battery. If so, the Army will get a crack at shooting them down. The good news is that the Patriot III missile system is the most thoroughly developed and tested component of our Ballistic Missile Defense System. It’s had a good operational track record against short-to-medium range tactical missiles in the Middle East. The bad news is that we haven’t got nearly enough coverage. There aren’t enough Patriot batteries deployed in the western states to cover half the cities or military bases. If some of the incoming nukes are targeted on unprotected areas, they’re going to get a free ride to the target.”
The general’s voice didn’t change, and his tone carried no trace of derision. But he undoubtedly knew that his Commander in Chief had cut spending for additional Patriot batteries from the last two annual defense budgets.
At the time, the decision had seemed both right and obvious. It had looked like an easy opportunity to fulfill the public trust and reduce some of the strain on the wallet of the American taxpayer. After all, nobody was crazy enough to launch a nuclear missile at the United States.
President Chandler glanced up at the slender red line on the geographic display. It flashed and grew longer.
Against all conceivable reason, somebody had been that crazy after all.
* * *
R-29R:
The warhead bus reached apogee at an altitude of 1,200 kilometers. As the weapon rode through the high point of its trajectory, its onboard computer took optical sightings of three different stars and calculated the elevation angle of each, as referenced to an imaginary line from the center of the warhead bus to the center of the earth. The time of the sightings and the results of the calculations were compared to celestial navigation tables stored in the computer’s memory to determine the precise position and orientation of the warhead bus. That position was, in-turn, compared to the position calculated by the weapon’s inertial navigation system. The results were well within optimal parameters, and the onboard computer concluded that a corrective engine burn would not be required prior to warhead deployment.
The bus began its curving descent toward the earth, gaining additional speed as it nosed over and plunged back down into the steepening well of gravity.
* * *
30th Space Wing, Vandenberg Air Force Base (Santa Barbara County, California):
With a low-pitched groan of shielded hydraulics, the armored hatch cover slid to one side, revealing the octagonal opening to an underground missile silo set deep in the reinforced concrete. Fifty yards away, the hatch cover of another silo slid open at the same time, and fifty yards beyond that, a third silo cover duplicated the motion of the first two.
A gush of smoke spewed forth from each open silo, followed a fraction of a second later by the cacophonous roar of three Lockheed Martin booster rockets. In unison, the trio of interceptor missiles shot toward the clear blue California sky, each trailing a wake of flaming exhaust gases. Hydraulic motors groaned again, and the silo hatches began to slide back into position.
About 2,300 miles to the northwest, at the Army missile complex at Fort Greely, Alaska, four more interceptor missiles blasted into the sky. Before the missile silos were fully closed, all seven missiles were climbing toward space at 3.9 miles per second.
* * *
R-29R:
Six hundred kilometers above the Pacific Ocean, the computer in the missile’s warhead bus transmitted simultaneous trigger pulses to five electronic relays. Each relay was wired to an electromagnetic latching mechanism and a small, shaped explosive charge. The electromagnetic latches snapped open, releasing the conical shroud that housed the nuclear warheads. A millisecond later, the tiny explosive charges fired, splitting the shroud into five sections, and propelling them out and away, opening the interior of the bus to the vacuum of near-earth space.
The removal of the larger cone revealed seven smaller cones, the narrow ends of which were pointed into the line of flight, toward their ever-nearing targets. Each of the seven cones was a reentry vehicle, wrapped in a carbon fiber heat shield impregnated with phenolic resin. Four of the reentry vehicles were decoys. The other three were Soviet-built 200 kiloton nuclear weapons. To all external appearances, the decoys and the real warheads were identical.
At a precisely-timed instant, another relay tripped, and another tiny explosive charge fired. The first of the reentry vehicles was shoved away from the bus, its nose pointed downward in the direction of the trajectory that it would follow into the atmosphere and then to its target.
As soon as the deployed reentry vehicle was clear, the computer in the warhead bus fired two of its four liquid fueled rocket engines for six-tenths of a second. The short burn was enough to displace the bus slightly to the north, placing it in perf
ect alignment for the deployment of the second reentry vehicle.
Over the next ninety-eight seconds, the process was repeated and then repeated again, until all seven reentry vehicles had been deployed. When the last warhead was on its way, the bus performed a final burn of its rocket engines, aligning itself for its own terminal trajectory into the earth’s atmosphere. Four hundred kilometers below, the planet rushed up to meet it.
CHAPTER 25
EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM
WESTERN UNITED STATES
SATURDAY; 02 MARCH
3:23 PM PST
At 3:23 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on the 2nd of March, the Emergency Alert System transmitted warnings of inbound nuclear weapons to all areas of the United States within the target footprint of the Russian R-29R missile. The alert area encompassed most of California, the lower 75 percent of Nevada and Utah, the upper half of Arizona, the northwest corner of New Mexico, the western half of Colorado along a curving line, and a sliver of the southwest corner of Wyoming.
Every AM, FM, and satellite radio station within those states suddenly found its scheduled broadcast preempted by a raucous two-tone attention signal, followed by the baritone voice of a Federal spokesman, warning of the possible approach of multiple nuclear warheads. “Seek shelter immediately,” the strange voice advised. “Get off the roads as quickly and safely as you can. Do not attempt to evacuate. You are safest inside a building. Stay away from windows if possible, and avoid looking toward the sky until the all-clear signal is given. Parents are advised to account for all children immediately, and move them to the nearest available shelter.”
The voice continued to offer warnings and instructions.
The signal went out over television simultaneously, taking control of every cable network, every broadcast facility, and every satellite television provider in the target states. The two-tone attention signal was the same, and the voice of the Federal spokesman came out of the speakers of every operational television in the affected areas, regardless of what channel they happened to be tuned to.
The face of a human announcer might have been reassuring to the more panic-prone viewers, but every television screen showed the emblem of the Emergency Alert System: the letters E-A-S in bright red capitals against a radially-divided blue silhouette map of the United States.