With a curt nod, Scheib answered, “We’ve activated all our ABM units in Fort Greely, in Alaska, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The Navy has alerted all four of its Aegis battle groups in the western Pacific. Two of them are steaming at full speed for the Sea of Japan; the other two are deploying between Japan and Hawaii.”
“There’s only two missiles to worry about,” one of the civilians on the other side of the table said, pointing to the satellite image of the North Korean launch site.
“Two that we know about,” Scheib replied.
“How many do the Chinese have?” an Army officer asked.
“And the Russians?”
“They both have missile-launching submarines, too.”
Zuri Coggins said, “The President has decided that our moves will be strictly defensive.” Poking at the air with one finger to emphasize her words, she added, “We will not do anything that could provoke a Chinese response. Or a Russian one.”
“But they’ve both gone on alert, haven’t they?” asked the admiral sitting across the table from her.
“Not yet,” Coggins replied, “although the State Department was tasked with informing them that our own nuclear retaliatory forces are being placed on full alert.”
“State Department,” the admiral muttered distastefully.
General Higgins looked toward one of the civilians sitting down the table from Coggins. “Are our snooper satellites still working?”
“They are,” said the civilian. “ELINT birds have picked up coded messages sent along landlines in China and Russia.” Glancing at Coggins, he continued. “They are in the process of putting their missile forces on full alert.”
Higgins nodded morosely, as if he had expected nothing less.
“Pakistan and India, too,” the civilian added.
“Sweet Jesus,” said the admiral. “That’s all we need, those two pulling the trigger.”
“What about the Iranians?” Higgins asked.
“They’ve only got a half dozen missiles.”
“Guess where they’ll fire them?” asked Higgins’ aide, who was Jewish.
“What if the Chinese or the Russians take advantage of this situation to attack us?” Higgins snapped.
Coggins replied firmly, “That will trigger a fullscale retaliation by our missile forces and both the Chinese and Russians know it. What’s more, they know that our systems are on full alert. We could respond with a devastating nuclear counterstrike at a moment’s notice.”
“Even if the President is dead?” Jamil asked. His voice was soft, tentative, as if he’d surprised himself by speaking up.
Everyone turned to him. Her dark eyes narrowing, Coggins demanded, “What do you mean by that?”
Suddenly the focus of everyone around the table, Jamil blinked his brown eyes nervously and pawed at his unruly hair. At last he said, “Well, the President is scheduled to give a speech in San Francisco tonight.”
General Scheib pointed to the wall screen with one hand as he pecked with a single finger at his laptop’s keyboard. A schematic drawing of a ballistic missile appeared on the screen, with a list of performance specifications alongside it.
“Those two missiles are Taepodong-2s,” Scheib said. “They don’t have the range to reach San Francisco. Or the reliability. The last time they fired one it splashed into the Pacific several hundred miles short of Hawaii.”
Jamil had to turn in his chair to see the drawing. “According to our information,” he said, “the Taepodong-2 has a range of ten thousand kilometers.”
“That’s Pyongyang propaganda. In the real world, the Taepodong-2 doesn’t have the range to reach San Francisco.”
“I admit that San Francisco is at the extreme fringe of the missile’s capability.” Jamil’s tone was conciliatory, yet he was clearly contradicting the general.
Scheib glared at the civilian analyst. “Even so, the missile doesn’t have the accuracy to hit San Francisco, not at that range.”
Jamil nodded slightly but countered, “Yet they launched a bird into geosynchronous orbit. General, I submit that their guidance system has demonstrated a sophisticated degree of accuracy.”
“You can submit whatever you want,” Scheib retorted with a humorless grin. “They can’t reach San Francisco.”
General Higgins pointed down the table at Jamil. “Are you saying those two missiles
“It’s within the realm of possibility,” Jamil replied.
Shaking his head vigorously, General Scheib insisted, “They’re Taepodong-2s! They don’t have the range. Or the accuracy.”
“Then how did they get a nuclear warhead all the way up to geosynch orbit?” Jamil asked. “If you do the math, you can see that they do indeed have the capability.”
“For Chrissakes, we can
“But if you do the math—”
“Screw the math,” Scheib snapped. “We’ve got satellite imagery.”
Zuri Coggins looked from Scheib to Jamil. “Do you seriously believe that those missiles could hit San Francisco?”
“It’s theoretically possible, if their payloads are light enough.”
“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.
