William Prochnau - Trinity's Child

“The key, lieutenant,” the words danced.

He gave her the key, his ungloved hand touching hers with the burning bite of dry ice.

“Give me the combination.”

He mumbled a short, simple sequence of numbers.

Moreau then tugged at Halupalai, bent over the code box, and they entered the keys, turning them simultaneously. She nodded at him and they spun the twin combination locks. The top of the square gray box popped open and she reached in for two code folders. She handed one to Halupalai, pulling at him so his ear was near her mouth.

“Strap him in,” she shouted above the full pitch of the engines. “We’ll get him out of here soon.”

Then she threaded her way through the dark, narrow walkway back to her seat. It was as cold as a meat locker in here, she thought. Colder.

The President’s eyes lingered on the end of the message. He struggled with the urge to hand it to someone. Of the group surrounding him, he was not sure to whom he should hand it. Sixteen hours earlier he had sat in this same room with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, his national security adviser, the head of the CIA, all the king’s men discussing all the king’s horses—the missiles, the submarines, the top-secret plans to deploy laser weapons in space. The next meeting was scheduled in eight hours. He chuckled, without mirth. Bit of a wait, considering the circumstances.

He looked up and saw the young duty officer, Sedgwick, staring at him strangely.

Something would have to give…

The words surged through the President.

Shrewd buggers, aren’t they…

The duty officer held the phone.

No humanly acceptable response… Therefore it won’t happen… Don’t kid yourself…

The duty officer’s eyes pleaded.

Won’t lose any sleep…

The duty officer placed the phone in his hand.

That’s too bad…

The duty officer lifted his hand to his head.

That’s too bad…

The duty officer shook his arm gently.

“How long?” the President asked bleakly into the phone.

“Forty-five seconds,” the general answered.

“The warhead is aimed at Andrews.” The President’s words seemed to come from outside him. “Surgical ground burst. Symbolic.”

“Horse pucky,” the general said angrily.

“The missile is aimed at Andrews.”

“I doubt very much the missile was aimed at Andrews,” the general said, biting off each word. “I know it will not land there. Its trajectory already has taken it beyond Andrews.”

“The missile is aimed at Andrews.”

“This is no time for delusion, Mr. President.”

The president’s shuddering stopped. He had to believe. No humanly acceptable response. His mind cleared.

“Put SIOP on this problem,” he said to the general. “I want a responsive attack designed as closely as possible as a carbon copy of the Soviet attack. Take out all the Russian surface-to-air missile bases, or some equivalent, plus token ICBM installations and a submarine base…”

The President paused, ever so briefly, just long enough for Icarus to understand that his leader grasped the nature of the next trade, a knight for a knight, Icarus being his knight.

“Take out their primary command facility.” The President grew giddy at the simple brutality of the trade, flippantly adding, “Drop a little one, surgically, into the can in the Premier’s dacha in Sochi.”

The President shook his head sharply.

“Sorry. Forget that. Put the same kilotonnage coming at Andrews on Vnukovo Air Field outside Moscow. Leave the rest of their strategic system intact. Under no circumstances is the scenario to kill more than nine million Soviet citizens. Not one more. Do you understand?”

The President could feel the hostility seethe through the silence.

“Do you understand?” he repeated sternly.

“Mr. President,” the general said coldly, “you are being conned on a level unprecedented in human history. The disaster will be equally unprecedented, your role in it parallel to that of Nero’s foolishness.”

The President sighed. “General, I will hear no more of this. I want the response designed immediately. Instruct your computer. When the response is programmed, I will activate the codes through the civilian authorities and the Joint Chiefs, who will transmit them to you instantly, as the law requires.”

The President handed the phone to the duty officer with a look far more persuasive than any military command the young naval officer had ever received. The President, seconds away from the answer to part of his riddle, slumped into an armchair in which he had been briefed daily on tribesmen crossing far-off frontiers, on British ministers jeopardizing NATO secrets through liaisons with European heiresses, and countless other international crises, large and small. He closed his eyes. In the background he could hear the Premier’s words repeated mechanically into the phone. A teletype was clattering. He took absolutely no heed of either. He held a small blue-and-red card, encased in plastic like a fancy credit card. It said “Sealed Authenticator System” and contained various coded numbers and letters. It identified him as the man who could unloose the weapons. It rested loosely in his limp hand.

Two minutes after Harpoon emerged from the bowels of Omaha, twenty-two minutes left on the clocks Icarus watched, the blue alert truck squealed to a stop on a darkened runway outside SAC headquarters. The engine roar of the giant E-4 command plane, a specially refitted Boeing 747, deafened the admiral. He glanced quickly at the words “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA” stripped across its side. It was an exact replica of the plane that might still be waiting for the President at Andrews.

The admiral leaped out of the truck, scurried up the stairs into the plane, and snap-saluted a handful of Air Force officers waiting near the hatch. He said nothing, hurrying toward the front of the windowless plane, double-timing it up a spiral staircase to the quarters a President would use. He looked at a bank of multicolored phones and a small table inside a square of four blue swivel chairs. He sat down, placing his satchel to the side, and picked up a white phone with twenty-two button lights. He pushed one, connecting him to the pilot, a major who wore a black eyepatch. “Get this bird moving,” he said.

He paused for a second, trying to get the chill out of his bones. Then he picked up a yellow phone, with buttons connecting him to the outside. He punched one. “Diogenes,” a voice responded instantly, although the voice was a thousand miles distant in a bunker buried beneath the winter-brown horse country of Virginia. “Harpoon,” the admiral said.

“The list is tentative.”

“Come on, I know that.”

“Looks like Number Eight.”

“Jesus, that far down?”

“Afraid so.”

“Location?”

The admiral listened carefully and frowned. “Good for him,”

Harpoon said after a second. “Not so good for me.”

“Maybe you won’t need him.”

“Maybe.”

The admiral hung up the direct-line connection to the civilian Presidential Successor Locator, an underground unit that coordinated the location of potential successors with missile-impact areas. He knew the first Soviet submarine-launched missiles were just now landing. He also knew the successor locators had to make their calculations before all the missiles, especially the ICBM’s, landed. Afterward would be too late. Communications would go. The locator probably would go.

Number Eight. Good God, for a limited attack, we’re going to lose one helluva lot of bigwigs. He tried to remember which Cabinet officer was eighth in the constitutional line of succession. Then, without coming up with an answer, Harpoon felt the huge aircraft lift ponderously off the strip and away from Omaha.