United Nations Ambassador Gregory Adams sat on a couch, seething as he thought of Karmarov's apparent duplicity at the Security Council session.
'Merry goddamn Christmas,' the President muttered.
For the first time in months, Curtis felt a huge weight lift off his shoulders. He's finally beginning to believe me, Curtis thought. It had taken the deaths of twelve men and women and the loss of a billion dollars worth of military hardware, plus the new evidence in hand.
'But how can we be sure that this is an orbiting mirror, General?' the President asked over his shoulder, not bothering to turn away from the window. He was holding an eleven-by-fourteen black-and-white enlargement of a large, rectangular object. The object was silvery and slightly curved, with a surface resembling a reflective quilted blanket. A thin web of girders surrounded it, along with several oblong tanks and other vessels.
'Mr. President, the evidence indicates that-' 'The President asked you a specific question, General,' Tom Preston interrupted. 'How can we be sure?'
'We can't be sure, Mr. President,' Curtis asked. 'That photo could be various things-solar collection panels, solar shielding but look at the facts: Our RC-135 recon plane records massive energy discharge from the Kavaznya facility.
Simultaneously, we record the destruction of a geosynchronous satellite directly over the complex in space. I believe the RC-135 was destroyed by another energy blast to keep it from reporting the data it was gathering.
'Less than two weeks later, the Lawrence intelligence vessel we sent over there to monitor the site records another massive energy blast from the Kavaznya site. Seconds later, the third stage of our Midgetman missile prematurely ignites and we are forced to destroy it.
Information from the Lawrence exactly matches the data on the blast that we received from the RC-135 before we lost contact-' Secretary of Defense Preston interrupted. 'So how does that prove there's an orbiting mirror, General Curtis?'
'Before the energy blast, the Lawrence reported unusual data signals being transmitted from the Kavaznya radar,' Curtis went on. 'Their information is still being analyzed, but the experts on the Lawrence have described data transmissions between the radar at Kavaznya and two Soviet satellites in Earth orbit.
'They believe the first satellite was furnishing position data to Kavaznya during the time that the Midgetman missile was in the boost phase. The Kavaznya radar was tracking a second satellite and was also furnishing steering signals to it. Such sophisticated steering signals could be used to align a mirror on the missile.
'After the destruction of the Javelin missile was reported, I ordered a simple backtrack. Assuming a lesser blast from Kavaznya-which we didn't know at first since the Lawrence's report hadn't reached us yet-and again assuming an orbiting mirror, we computed all the possible points where a mirror would have to be placed to hit the Javelin, and used our Spacetrack optical space tracking telescope at Pulmosan, South Korea to photograph those sections of the sky.
'You have the result, sir,' Curtis said, forcing down his anger. To be fair, he told himself, it wasn't that the President did not believe him — he didn't want to believe him. 'The mirror is one hundred and fifty feet long, seventy feet wide. It is attached to the underside of Salyut Nineteen, which has been in orbit for almost a year. The satellite has docking bays, large fuel tanks, and small crew quarters although we do not believe it's manned.
Brent motioned to the President, who passed the photograph to him.
He examined it quickly.
'I assume your experts analyzed this photo for you, General?' Brent asked.
'Yes. Why?'
'Because to the untrained layman's eyes, this could be a photograph of anything,' Brent asked. 'Any satellite. An aircraft.
'But it's not-' 'It could even be faked?' Brent was testing, which he considered his job.
'Do you want me to send a Shuttle full of U.N. members up with Brownies to take snapshots?'
Brent started to reply but was cut off by the President.
'General, I think I believe your analysis,' the President said unhappily. 'But who is going to believe such a thing exists?
And we risk much by accusing the Soviet Union of murder The President turned to Kenneth Mitchell. 'Kenneth, you said you had information on that site. Can you give it to me now?'
'Yes, sir. 'The Director of the CIA nodded to an aide, who stood nervously and faced the President.
'Analysis of data from the missing RC-135 aircraft as well as information obtained from the Lawrence has been completed. Much of it is still speculative, sir.'
'Go on,' the President said irritably.
'Most of our analysis centers around the nuclear power facility, sir.
They have built what appears to be a five hundred megawatt facility in the middle of nowhere, without any associated power transmission facilities such as transformers or transmission towers nearby.
Therefore, the power plant is at the exclusive disposal of the complex itself. The complex is located on the northeast corner of the Kamchatka peninsula, in what used to be a small fishing village. Its small supply airfield was rebuilt into a full-scale military airfield, originally for construction supply but now used as a headquarters for the site's defenses. About ten thousand people live in the area, civilian and military.'
The aide shifted nervously as all eyes focused on him. 'The intelligence vessel Lawrence has provided valuable data on the energy blasts reported from the complex, and we have concluded that a laser blast of approximately two or three hundred megawatts could have caused the electronic interference reported in the area and could indeed have sufficiently damaged both the Alpha Omega satellite and the Javelin missile. The power of the tracking radar could only have come from the nuclear power plant.'
'Weren't we watching the construction of the facility?' the 1
President asked. 'How could they build something of this magnitude and then spring it on us so suddenly? Why were we so surprised?'
'CIA and DIA have been watching the construction of Kavaznya for four years, sir,' Mitchell said, 'but… well, to tell the truth, sir, we really didn't think too much of their activities there. It has been impossible to get informants anywhere near the complex. We had noticed activity akin to weapons experiments or construction there, so we pegged it simply as a new weapons research facility. The powerful radar wasn't found until the RC-135 mission. We never imaginedwe had no idea that the Russians were building an antisatellite or antiballistic-missile laser there.'
Are we really that arrogant,' the President said to everyone in the room. 'If the Americans can't do it, nobody can. Is that it?'
Mitchell was quiet for a moment, then cleared his throat and nodded to his aide to continue. The President didn't let him.
'So we are decided,' the President asked, 'that there exists a powerful antiballistic-missile laser device at this Kavaznya complex?'
Mitchell glanced at Preston, then at Curtis. 'The data seems all but conclusive, Mr. President.'
'Goddamn,' the President murmured, then nodded at Mitchell's aide: 'Go on.'
'As I've said, the Soviets have constructed a huge power plant exclusively for use by the killer laser. They can easily pump over three hundred megawatts into their laser, and they can continue to do so shot after shot. We believe, once they've worked the kinks out-it won't be long now-that they can fire the laser at full power twice every second. Potentially, over a hundred satellites a minute.'
'Or I.C.B.M warheads,' the President said.
'That's only a projection, sir,' Mitchell interjected. 'Hitting a geosynchronous satellite is a relatively easy trick.
Besides, the Omega was only blinded-the Air Force had to push it into the atmosphere themselves because it was out of control and they were trying to retrieve it intact if possible.
That means the laser is not as powerful as we originally believed.
'And the Midgetman missile was only slightly damaged by the laser. We had to abort it,' Mitchell continued. 'As a matter of fact, we don't agree with General Curtis that the laser caused the missile to malfunction. There are a number of things that could have caused the premature third stage ignition-' 'The laser could easily have caused it to malfunction,' Curtis said.
'General, I agree it could,' Mitchell said, raising a hand.
