Ben Bova - Able One

“How light?” General Higgins asked.

Jamil hesitated. “Well, according to our estimates, they could each carry a two-hundred-and-fifty-kiloton weapon over the distance to San Francisco.”

“That’s half a megaton between the two of them.”

“Twenty-five times more than Hiroshima.”

“More like thirty.”

“What makes you think that’s going to be their target?” Higgins demanded.

Jamil was unaccustomed to being in the spotlight. And unhappy with it. He had done his analysis in the taxi on his way to the Pentagon, using his iPhone’s calculator application, plus a lot of figures he’d pulled from his own memory. It was shaky, but it made sense to him.

“Whoever launched the first missile wanted to wipe out our satellites. They must understand that the North Korean army is rushing to their site as fast as they can. Yet they haven’t launched the other two missiles they’ve got on their pads. Why not?”

“Because they’re waiting for the President to arrive in San Francisco?” Coggins asked.

Jamil nodded. “That’s my conclusion.”

“Bullshit!” Scheib scoffed.

But Coggins asked, “Why would they do this? What do they hope to gain?”

“It’s the Sarajevo scenario,” Jamil replied. “We’ve run the analysis dozens of times back at Langley.”

“Sarajevo?”

“It’s how World War I started. Some Austrian archduke got assassinated in Sarajevo, in Serbia. The Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on Serbia. Russia had a treaty with Serbia, so they declared war on Austria-Hungary. Germany had an alliance with Austria-Hungary so they declared war on Russia. England and France had an alliance with Russia so . . .” Jamil spread his hands. “World War I.”

Higgins shook his head ponderously. “I don’t see how that connects with what we’ve got here.”

His brows knitting slightly, Jamil explained, “North Korea hurts us. We hit back at North Korea. The Chinese don’t like that, so they attack us. We counterattack China. Russia comes in, and once that happens NATO gets involved.”

“Full-scale nuclear war,” Higgins’ civilian aide breathed in an awed voice.

“Armageddon,” someone whispered, loudly enough for them all to hear it.

“The GPS is off-line?” Lieutenant Sharmon looked shocked.

The iron gray-haired tech sergeant standing behind the counter made a face that was halfway between apologetic and disgusted. He was more than twice the lieutenant’s age and had spent most of his time in the Air Force making young shavetails look good.

“The system went off-line a couple hours ago, sir. All the satellite links are down. Must be those damn northern lights.” Then he added, “Sir.”

From the other side of the flight control center, Colonel Christopher could see the alarm on Sharmon’s face. She walked across the worn tile flooring toward him.

“Something wrong, Lieutenant?”

Sharmon shook his head, his brows knit into a tight furrow. “The GPS is down, ma’am.”

Christopher almost smiled, but she held herself in check. “Then you’ll just have to navigate without it.”

“I guess I will, ma’am.” Sharmon clearly was not happy with that prospect.

Christopher stepped away from the counter and the listening tech sergeant, motioning Sharmon to follow her.

Lowering her voice, she asked, “Do I call you Eustis? And you don’t have to be so formal; you can drop the ‘ma’am’ business while we’re on duty together. Just call me Colonel. Unless there’s bigger brass around, of course.”

She remembered how some of the wiseasses at the Academy used to call her Chrissie, just to rile her. She had kept her temper under control, hidden, until graduation day. That’s when they found their shoes had been glued to the dorm ceiling, all of them. They had to attend the graduation ceremony in bedroom slippers and flip-flops and got reprimanded for being out of uniform. They never tumbled to the possibility that five-foot-four Karen Christopher could reach the ceilings of their rooms while they slept.

Lieutenant Sharmon made an effort to smile. “Thank you, ma… uh, thank you, Colonel. My middle name is Jon. Without an aitch. My friends call me Jon.”

“All right, Jon. That’s what I’ll call you. We’re not friends yet, but maybe we will be.”

He did smile, faintly. “Thank you, Colonel.”

“Now, don’t sweat this GPS business. It’s just a crutch anyway. You’re a trained navigator. You can get us to our correct position out over the ocean without it, can’t you?”

“Yes… uh, Colonel. But I’d feel a lot better with the GPS to back me up.”

Christopher said, “You’ll do fine, Jon. This is just a milk run anyway. We run a racetrack pattern while the nerds play with their laser. So don’t sweat it.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” Sharmon still looked unconvinced.

Christopher nodded at him once, then turned and headed for the meteorology desk. Poor kid looks scared to death, she said to herself. Then a voice in her head warned, He’s not a poor kid and he’s not your friend. He’s supposed to be a navigator and you’re supposed to be his superior officer. Keep it that way.

Her copilot, Major Obadiah Kaufman, was already at the weather desk, looking red-nosed and bleary-eyed. Either he’s had a late night, Christopher thought, or he’s got some bug—which he’ll pass on to the rest of us, for sure.

“No metsat data,” said Major Kaufman, in lieu of a greeting.

He was a round butterball of a man, not much taller than Christopher herself. She wondered how he passed his physicals, he looked so out of shape. And miserably unhappy. So would I be, she thought, if I got bounced out of the pilot’s job for some stranger.

“What do you mean, no metsat data, Obie?”

Kaufman’s bloodshot eyes flared at her use of his nickname, but he immediately clamped down on his resentment.

The harried-looking female captain in charge of the meteorology desk confirmed from the other side of the counter, “The weather satellites went down a couple of hours ago, Colonel. We don’t have anything for you except the local weather forecast, from the base’s met instruments.”

“All the metsats are down?” Christopher asked. It was hard to believe.

“The whole civilian satellite system is down, ma’am,” said the captain. She looked frightened, as if the system failure would be blamed on her.

“What about our own metsats? Are they down, too?”

“No, ma’am. The milsats are operational. But the comm system’s overloaded. Swamped. Data requests from everybody, all at once. They’re running half an hour late. More.”

Christopher studied the captain’s face for a moment. The younger woman looked as if she expected to get reamed out by the colonel.

“Give me the latest you’ve got, then,” Christopher said mildly, “and update me as soon as you get more data.”

“Yes’m.” The captain looked distinctly relieved. Major Kaufman took out a large red-and-white-checked handkerchief and snuffled into it. Looks like he swiped it from an Italian restaurant, Christopher thought.

Kaufman mumbled an excuse and headed for the men’s room. Colonel Christopher decided not to wait for him and left the control center together with Lieutenant Sharmon, he tall and gangly, she petite and graceful. Both in Air Force flight suits, plastic helmets cradled in their arms. As they headed out toward the flight line, Christopher thought, This could be an interesting flight. “Interesting” was a term she reserved, like other fliers, for situations that were either hairy or downright terrifying.

Out on the flight line it was gray and raw; the wet wind gusting in off the water sliced right through Harry’s goose-down coat. It made his back ache sullenly. He squinted up at the clouds, low and dark, thick with moisture. A low gray bank of fog blanketed the far side of the airfield; he couldn’t even see the end of the runway. Harry wondered if they’d have enough visibility to get the plane off the ground. Nothing seemed to be moving out on the flight line. No planes were taking off; everything was as quiet as a tomb except for the low moan of the wind.