William Lovejoy - Delta Green

From the window of his second-floor office overlooking the street, Shelepin could see, a half-mile away, the convergence of the Tonle Sap and Mekong Rivers.

His associates were comfortable also. He had assigned them to quarters in the compound, and he provided them with monthly stipends from the nest eggs of German Deutschemarks, French francs, British pound sterling, Spanish pesos, and American dollars he had secreted in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Singapore. Since it was he that had managed the secret funds, Shelepin did not think that the Soviet government, or whatever government that survived, would ever miss the hard currencies he had transferred over a span of years into his own accounts.

Depending upon the day’s exchange rates, his nest eggs amounted to about seven billion American dollars.

Shelepin was not the only one to provide for his future, of course. He had not been surprised after his arrival in Phnom Penh to find that Sergei Pavel, once a general and a KGB directorate secretary, and who now resided in the compound, also had access to over four-and-a-half billion dollars.

Between the two of them, Shelepin and Pavel were certain they could overcome the ennui that was rapidly consuming their ex-patriot countrymen.

It seemed a shame, however, that their new world must originate from Kampuchea rather than the rodina , the motherland.

General Marvin Brackman’s command was located, not only in space, but in Borneo, Chad, part of Peterson Air Force Base and in the new Space Command facilities east of Colorado Springs. He preferred, however, to maintain his own headquarters in conjunction with the North American Air Defense (NORAD) facilities located deep inside Cheyenne Mountain southwest of Colorado Springs. The Department of Defense operated NORAD as one of the “C-cubed” systems: command, control, and communications. NORAD, the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon, and the Alternate NMCC at Fort Richie, Maryland, handled normal crisis situations with ease, but would probably remain utilitarian only during the first stages of a nuclear war. After they were obliterated, command and control would shift to airborne command posts, Boeing E-4Bs known as National Emergency Airborne Command Posts (NEACPs, or “Kneecaps”).

Physically, the NORAD center took up nearly five acres of space hollowed out of solid granite. Resting on a bed of steel springs intended to reduce the shock effects of a nuclear attack, the underground facilities were a rat-defying maze of corridors and compartments. Above ground was a heavily fortified antenna compound which gathered communication signals from all over the world. The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), with its over-the-horizon radars, the Defense Early Warning System (DEWLine), a variety of spy and reconnaissance satellites in space, aircraft and listening posts around the world, and vessels at sea fed their intelligence to NORAD. There, the computers analyzed the data and stored it for instant display on one of the plotting screens. NORAD and her sister command centers could pinpoint the location and movement of most ballistic missiles, aircraft, and naval ships in the world.

It was nearly eleven o’clock at night, and one o’clock in the morning in Washington, when the phone call came. Brackman was nursing an uncounted cup of coffee in his spacious, but modestly furnished office. His longtime secretary, Milly Roget, had gone home long before, and a duty sergeant transferred the call.

“Admiral Cross on your line two, General.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

Brackman punched the button for the secure line.

“Brackman”

“Good morning, Marvin”

“Not quite morning here, Hannibal. I thought you’d given up and gone to bed”

Admiral Hannibal Cross had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for almost four years, a position he took very seriously and which he filled well. He was as adept at political strategy and tactics as he had been of the military counterparts while in command of carriers off Vietnam. TV loved his crisp military appearance, with a deep-water tan and weather wrinkles at his eyes, and he was frequently interviewed on the Sunday morning shows.

“Why is it, Marvin, that I lose sleep every time I get a call from you?”

“Can’t be love, can it?”

“I doubt it,” Cross said. “Your congressional delegation still there?”

“No. We gave them a nice dinner and put them back on their VIP plane.”

“They have any suspicions about this?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Good. Harvey and I spent some time with the SecDef and the National Security Advisor.”

General Harvey Mays, whom Brackman regarded as a highly capable commander, was the Air Force Chief of Staff. Mays had flown F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam, and he had shrapnel and burn scars on the left side of his face to prove it.

“And?”

“We want to contain the PR damage as much as possible, and for as long as possible.”

“That means,” Brackman said, “we’ve got about forty-eight hours.”

“If that. I expect the rumors will begin to leak before that, and then the Secretary will have to inform the appropriate congressional committees. He will inform them, in any event, within three days. We’re buying time here, Marvin, in order to come up with some hard data on what happened, and why.”

“No conjecture?”

“None at all. Before he goes to the Hill, I’ll want to put a fact sheet in his hand that tells the whole story.”

Brackman sighed. He didn’t object to laying out the truth, but he was afraid the truth was going to eradicate the inroads he had made with Senator Worth and Congresswoman Anderson. He could see his 1st Aerospace Squadron composed of “doddering old men” flying machines held together with baling wire and Band-Aids.

“I talked to McKenna a little while ago,” Brackman said, and related the details of the hijacking.

“Jesus. Four dead.”

“McKenna wants funerals with full military honors. Line of duty deaths, not accidents. Purple Hearts.”

“That will draw the media, Marvin.”

“We can wait four days.”

“All right. We’ll give them the best we can.”

“What about McKenna’s and my recommendations?”

“There was a lot of thought given to that,” Cross said. “The President was involved.”

I’ll bet he was .

“The first priority is to recover the MakoShark intact.”

“Good.” Saving me from the appearance of shooting myself in the foot with a three - quarter billion dollar bullet .

“If that is not possible, we will destroy it, rather than let someone else have it, or copy the technology.”

“The big question, Hannibal, is where do we cross the line from priority one to priority two?”

“You are not to put at risk your remaining craft or crews. As far as we know, this is not an event equivalent to the accepted danger levels of war.”

“That doesn’t give me, or McKenna, much leeway.”

“I know, Marvin, but that is the way it has to be.”

“I can free my weapons systems then?”

“The rules of engagement are that MakoShark crews only are allowed to fire if fired upon. The one exception to that, of course, is if they find Delta Green and must shoot it down. They may fire without warning in that case.”

“And Delta Red?” Brackman asked, aware of previous administrative reticence to endangering unduly the pilot of that MakoShark.

“I think Major Haggar proved her, and Colonel McKenna’s, point at Peenemünde. She’s a combat-capable pilot, and McKenna may assign her any normal squadron duty.”

Brackman assumed that Mays and Cross had had to argue for equal treatment, and he appreciated their support. McKenna would also.