Ben Bova - Able One

Jamil tapped a fingernail on the tabletop. “Maybe that’s why they’ve knocked out the other satellites as well. So we couldn’t see them heading for their shelters.”

Coggins looked down the table at him. “What did you call that doomsday scenario?” “Sarajevo,” said Jamil. “Sarajevo,” she whispered.

Aboard Air Force One, the President was frowning at his chief of staff. Norman Foster was accustomed to such scowls from his boss: the President did not take kindly to bad news.

“Turn back?” he asked. “Why?”

The two men were facing each other, sitting in plush chairs in the President’s private quarters aboard the massive airplane. Foster was tall and lean, his head shaved totally bald, the expression on his face as hard as the President’s.

“They think the gooks might hit San Francisco with a nuclear missile,” he said.

“Gooks?” The President frowned with distaste. “You mean the North Koreans, don’t you?”

“The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” Foster replied, his voice dripping irony. “Yes.”

“Why would they do that?”

Foster shrugged his lean shoulders. “Some analyst from the NIC came up with the idea.”

“And I’m supposed to turn tail and run home because some academic has a theory?”

“It’s a long shot, maybe, but—”

The President jabbed a forefinger at Foster’s ice blue eyes. “Norm, I’m not going to run away from a goddamned theory.”

“If they do hit ‘Frisco…” Foster left the thought dangling.

“And if they don’t I’ll look like a goddamned coward!” the President snapped. “I’m supposed to be the leader here. Hell, the real reason I’m going to San Francisco is to calm the people down over this satellite business.”

“They could deliver half a megaton smack on the Cow Palace,” Foster said, his voice as calm as if he were quoting stock market quotations.

“Two missiles. That’s all they’ve got, right? We’ve got a missile defense system, don’t we? God knows I’ve taken enough flak for cutting the funding on that system. Okay, now’s the time for them to show what they can do.”

“That’s crazy,” Foster said flatly. No one else in all of Washington, all of the government, would speak to the President that way. But Foster could. He’d been with The Man since the President had been a very junior congressman. He’d guided him through elections and conventions and nominations and finally into the White House.

The President stared at his old friend and adviser, tight-lipped.

“Now look,” Foster went on. “You can’t trust your life to that cockamamie missile defense system and you know it. Half its tests have been out-and-out failures.”

“They’ve had three successes in a row.”

“It’s like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet.”

“But they’ve had three successes in a row,” the President insisted. “They’re working out the kinks in the system.”

“And you’re going to put your life on the line based on that?”

For a moment the President did not reply. Then he said slowly, “We have military satellites watching their launch pad, don’t we?”

Foster nodded tentatively.

“If and when they launch you can pull me out of San Francisco, okay?”

“The missiles can reach ‘Frisco half an hour after they’re launched. You couldn’t even get to Air Force One in half an hour from the Cow Palace.”

“I’m not going to run away based on some analyst’s theory,” the President insisted. “I’m not going to look like a coward. Or a fool.”

“But—”

The President ticked off points on his fingers. “One, the idea that they’ll try to hit San Francisco is just a theory cooked up by some academic with a computer scenario, right? Two, from the briefings I’ve had, the North Korean missiles probably couldn’t reach San Francisco.” He grinned at his old friend. “Y’see, I do listen to those briefings. And I remember ‘em.”

Foster shook his head. “They do have the range, according to this analyst.”

“Three, we have a defense system that can shoot those missiles down while they’re still thousands of miles from San Francisco.”

“Maybe.”

“Four, I’m not turning tail. That’s final.”

“Final?”

“Final.”

Foster knew when to give up. “Okay. You’re the boss.”

“Damned right I am.”

With a sigh, Foster pushed himself up from the seat and, grinning, gave his President a sloppy military salute. The President grinned back at him and snapped off a crisp salute in return.

But as he left the President’s compartment, Foster found himself wishing that he didn’t have to be on this plane with his boss. He had the distinct feeling that they were flying to their deaths.

“I wish we had some satellite data,” muttered Sid Golden. “I feel like a blind man groping through this storm.”

Golden was not tall, but very broad in the shoulders, with heavy, well-muscled arms and legs. In his youth he had been a good enough baseball player to get a tryout with the Los Angeles Angels. He’d shown up at the camp filled with hopeful excitement, but badly sprained his left knee on the very first day. He went to college that autumn, eventually got his degree in meteorology. Now, his thinning hair barely covering his pate and his belly rounded from years of doughnuts and pizzas, he leaned back in his creaking desk chair and glowered unhappily at the blank electronic map on the wall above his desk.

Ralph Brancusi shook his head. “No satellite data. We’re just gonna hafta figure this one out the old-fashioned way.”

Golden stuck a finger in his mouth and then held it high, as if testing the wind. To his surprise he felt a slight draft coming from the vent up near the ceiling of his office.

Brancusi laughed. He was short, lean, wiry. Golden secretly envied him his thick waves of dark hair.

“Come on, Sid. We’ve gotta get an eleven o’clock forecast out on the wire.”

“Rain and cold,” Golden growled. “Snow in the higher elevations.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Who the hell knows? More of the same. The storm’s moving inland. It’ll probably develop into a full-scale blizzard once it clears the Rockies.”

“We oughtta get a warning out, huh?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Golden. “I just wish we had some satellite imagery. This is like being back in the mother-humping Stone Age.”

General Higgins didn’t like Jamil’s looks. Must be an Arab, he thought. Or at least Arab descent. Put a turban on him and he’d be a poster boy for those damned terrorists.

Aloud, though, he asked General Scheib, “If they launch those two remaining missiles, can your people shoot them down?”

Scheib glanced at Zuri Coggins before replying, “We’d have a good chance to do that.”

Higgins’ jaws clenched visibly. “And just what in hell does that mean, Brad, ‘a good chance’?”

Sitting up straighter in his chair, Scheib answered, “The system has been declared operational.” He paused, then added, “Sir.”

Coggins said, “The White House made that pronouncement during the Bush administration. George W.”

“Operational,” Higgins echoed. Scheib said, “We’ve shot down test missiles out over the Pacific from our Fort Greely site in Alaska. Our record isn’t one-hundred-percent perfect, of course, but it’s improving with every test we fly.”

“You’re hitting a target missile with a missile of our own, right?” asked the admiral sitting next to General Higgins’ aide.