Ben Bova - Able One

Sharmon was plotting their course by dead reckoning, as well as homing in on the radio signals from as many Air Force bases as he could find with the plane’s radio equipment. The satellites were down, but he could triangulate their position from the radio fixes. Would that be good enough to find that one tanker plane in all the broad emptiness of the northern Pacific?

If it’s not, we’re all dead.

“Coffee?”

Sharmon flinched at the sudden interruption in his increasingly morose thoughts. Captain O’Banion was standing over him with a steaming plastic mug in one hand.

“It’s just coffee,” said the redheaded communications officer. “I wouldn’t poison you, man.”

Sharmon tried to grin as he accepted the mug. “Thanks, Captain.”

“Brick,” O’Banion said amiably, pointing to his rusty red hair as he sat himself at the comm console.

“I’m Jon,” Sharmon replied. “Without an aitch.”

O’Banion chuckled. “I haven’t used my real first name in so long I forget what it is.”

He’s trying to make me relax, Sharmon figured, as he took a sip of the coffee. It was scalding hot. “Wow!”

“I made it extra strong,” said O’Banion. “We’re gonna need to stay bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

“Guess so. You hear anything more about. ..” Sharmon was going to say about the war, but he realized that there might not be a war going on. Not yet, leastways.

“All the civilian satellites are off the air. Our mil-sats are workin’, but they’re swamped with traffic.”

“You hear anything about North Korea?”

O’Banion shook his head. “Not a peep. Except our orders.”

Sharmon sipped again at the coffee. It was black and unsweetened. What the hell, he thought. Who needs cream and sugar when they’re going into a shooting war?

“Where’s that tanker?” Colonel Christopher said into her pin mike.

“Should be out there.” Lieutenant Sharmon’s voice sounded decidedly shaky in her headphone.

The colonel clicked off the intercom connection. Should be, she echoed. But where the hell is it?

She looked out through the windscreen. Nothing in sight but empty gray ocean. I could break radio silence and call them, Christopher thought, but I don’t want to look like some dumbass who can’t find her way to the toilet. Besides, it would tell Sharmon that I don’t have any confidence in him. Better to wait. Another few minutes, anyway. We ought to maintain silence as much as we can if we’re on a war footing. This might not be a war, not yet, but we’re sure ready to get into one.

The flight helmet felt heavy on her head; her neck muscles were tensing up. She’d have a headache soon, she knew. As if I don’t have enough of a headache already, she thought, flying into a war with a planeload of nerds downstairs.

Glancing at the fuel gauges on her control board, Christopher thought, If we don’t find that bird in another fifteen minutes, I’m going to have to call.

She looked across at Kaufman in the right-hand seat. He caught her eye and ostentatiously tapped a stubby finger on the fuel gauge panel.

“I know,” Christopher said. “I just hate to undermine the kid.”

Kaufman huffed. “His job is to navigate properly, not get us drowned.”

“It wouldn’t—” A glint of light sparkled against the endless gray of the ocean. “Hey, look!”

And there it was. A big, fat, beautiful KC-45, chock-full of fuel for them.

Colonel Christopher punched the intercom. “Lieutenant, you can stop sweating. We have the tanker in sight. Nice work.”

She could hear Sharmon’s relieved sigh even through her headphone.

“We’ve got to warn the President in the strongest terms that he should not land in San Francisco.”

Zuri Coggins was surprised to hear herself speak those words, especially since her voice carried none of the doubt that she felt.

General Higgins looked surprised, too. The situation room fell absolutely silent. Coggins could hear the soft murmur coming from the air-conditioning vents up in the ceiling.

After several heartbeats, General Scheib said, “I disagree. Those missiles can’t reach San Francisco. They don’t have the range or the accuracy.”

Coggins looked across the table at the general. “Are you willing to bet the President’s life on that?”

“Yes,” Scheib snapped, without an instant’s hesitation.

“I’m not,” said Coggins. Clasping her hands together on the tabletop, she tried to be more reasonable. “Look, General, the chances that they can hit San Francisco might be very small, but the consequences if they do will be extremely large. The prudent thing to do is to tell the President not to land there.”

Scheib started to reply but held himself in check. Clearly he didn’t like what she was recommending.

General Higgins said, “Ms. Coggins makes a good point.” Then he added, with a grin, “If nothing else, we’ll be covering our asses.”

A few chuckles rose from around the table.

“The President’s not going to like this,” Scheib said. “He’ll think we’re making him look like a coward.”

“It’s his decision to make,” Higgins said firmly. “We can’t force the man to turn around.”

“Turn tail, you mean,” Scheib muttered.

Higgins shot him a disapproving look.

“All right,” said Scheib. “If we’re going to advise the President to stay clear of San Francisco, we should also send a fighter escort to cover ABL-1 as it approaches Korean airspace.”

“Fighter escort?” asked one of the civilians.

“That 747 would be a sitting duck for enemy interceptors,” Scheib said. “We’ve got to protect it.”

General Higgins nodded. “Send the recommendation to the Air Force chief of staff. With my approval.”

“Yes, sir,” Scheib said, and he bent over his laptop.

The National Security Advisor raised his hands prayerfully in front of his pursed lips as he stared at the smart screen on his office wall. Zuri Coggins looked so damned solemn, so convinced she was right.

“And that’s the recommendation of the full emergency team?” he asked, his voice silky smooth. It was a tone that had terrified Navy officers for many years. Here in the White House, the civilians had been slow to understand its depths, but they figured it out—after a few bloody examples.

“We didn’t take a vote,” said Coggins. “But General Higgins agrees with me.”

“You’re not calling from your cell phone, are you?” the Security Advisor asked.

“No, this is a secure videophone center in the Pentagon.”

“Good.”

“Will you make the recommendation to the President?” she asked.

He hesitated. The President won’t like being told he should run away from San Francisco, he knew. Especially if it turns out that the city isn’t bombed. Maybe this is all some piece of North Korean gamesmanship to make the President look bad: he backs out of the San Francisco speech and the North Koreans don’t launch their missiles. Leaves egg on the President’s face.

The Security Advisor sighed heavily. Damned tricky business here. Damned tricky. On the other hand, if it’s bombed with The Man in it, then Parkinson becomes President and who knows what that moron will do?

“What does General Scheib have to say about this?”

Coggins’ lips pressed into a thin, hard line. At last she answered, “He doesn’t believe the North Korean missiles can reach San Francisco. He thinks Honolulu is their likely target.”

“I see,” said the Security Advisor.

Urgently, Coggins pleaded, “We’ve only got a half hour or so before he’s scheduled to land. You’ve got to warn him.”