of visiting Air Force brass. One of the colonels stared at the wind tunnel section and shook his head.
“That’s a lousy design for a rocket,” he said. “You’ll never get much thrust out of it.”
The scientists laughed tolerantly and explained that the wind tunnel wasn’t designed for thrust. It was intended to feed the iodine and oxygen into the chamber where the lasing action took place.
Now, flying toward the Sea of Japan at more than thirty thousand feet, heading into a possible war, Harry studied the laser assembly with the critical eye of a worried father. It’ll work, he told himself. We’ll make it work.
But in his mind’s eye he saw the rig in the desert explode into white-hot flames, saw Quintana being roasted alive, felt the agony of his ribs cracking as he slammed against the back wall of the control room.
It should’ve been me, not Pete. I should have been out there. I should have checked the oxy line myself, made sure it was clean.
He shook his head to clear the nightmare vision. Well, Harry said to himself, if she blows today it won’t matter where I’m standing. We’ll all be dead.
Lieutenant Sharmon unconsciously pressed one long finger against his headphone as the data for their first refueling rendezvous came through. The information was being fed into his navigation computer, but he listened to the beeps and boops of the electronics even while he watched the data rastering across the small screen of his nav console.
They were over the Bering Sea now, just past the miserable rock of Attu, the last island in the Aleutian chain. Nothing but open water for the next zillion miles, Sharmon knew. With the surprising tailwind pushing them along, they’d reach the Japanese islands in five hours, he figured. But first he had to find the Air Force tanker that was heading for a rendezvous with them.
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
“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
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
“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
