The Seventh Angel

virtual collapse, I’m beginning to fear its weakness even more. In other words, the danger of nuclear attack may not be as remote as we’d like to believe. Our margin of safety may be narrower than ever. To the eyes of this old Sailor, it appears to be eroding by the second.

How did we arrive at this precarious state of affairs? Is it possible to trace the chain of events that led us here?

If we hope to gain any true degree of insight, we must understand the weapons themselves. What are these engines of destruction that cast the shadows of annihilation over our very planet? Where did intercontinental ballistic missiles come from? How were they developed? And, perhaps more importantly, why?

Any study of ICBMs must begin with the history of rocketry. And that takes us back to ancient China.

CHAPTER 5

WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON, DC

MONDAY; 25 FEBRUARY

6:30 PM EST

At six foot four, President Francis ‘Frank’ Chandler was taller than both of the Secret Service agents who escorted him through the double doors into the White House Situation Room. In truth, there probably wasn’t much more than an inch of height difference between Frank and the shorter of the two agents. Both agents were large men in superb physical condition, but something about the president’s long-boned frame and shambling walk made him seem larger than he really was.

The impression was further exaggerated by some indefinable element of presence. The agents looked sharp and professional in the conservative business suits that were the de facto uniform of the plainclothes branch of the Secret Service. Their suits were probably off the rack, with only the amount of alteration needed to make them fit properly. Frank’s suit was a masterpiece of single needle tailoring in blue-gray Hunt & Winterbotham wool, and he still came off looking like a farm hand dressed in someone else’s clothes. Even the legendary Georges de Paris, tailor for every American president since Lyndon Johnson, could not make Frank Chandler look at home in a necktie.

Back during Frank’s now famous underdog bid for Governor of Iowa, Jenny had started calling it the Jethro factor. His wife had only used the term in private, but Frank’s campaign manager had come unglued at the first mention of Jenny’s secret joke.

The man had very nearly shouted into Jenny’s face. “The Beverly Hillbillies? I’m trying to get the media to treat the son of a corn farmer like an honest-to-god political heavyweight, and you’re coming out with the Beverly-frickin’-Hillbillies? If word of this gets around, it’s going to make the front page of every newspaper in the state.”

Jenny hadn’t been the least bit intimidated by the man’s outburst. “It’s a joke,” she’d said calmly. “Lighten up.”

The campaign manager’s nostrils had flared visibly. “I know it’s a joke. And that’s exactly what your husband’s campaign is going to become when the media gets a hold of it.” He’d crammed his hands into his pockets with a force approaching violence. “What are you going to say when some reporter shoves a microphone in your face and asks you why your private nickname for your husband is Jethro?”

Jenny had rewarded the campaign manager with a mischievous little smile. “When he played the role of Jethro Bodine, Max Baer Jr. was six feet-four inches of strapping young stud. And — from what I’ve heard — the man is hung like a plow horse. So I guess I’ll tell the reporters that it’s an utterly natural comparison to make.”

She’d turned up the wattage on her wicked little smile. “Let’s see them run that on the front page of the papers.”

Frank nearly grinned at the memory. He knew perfectly well that Jenny would have made good on her threat if the Jethro question had ever come up at a press conference. She would have pointed her blue eyes directly into the camera lenses, and happily informed the assembled reporters and a few million television viewers that her husband was hung like a plow horse.

It wasn’t true, of course. But after sixteen years of marriage and two children, Jenny still seemed to be under the happy delusion that it was true. Sometimes she still called him Jethro in private moments, unless she had a couple of vodka martinis in her, in which case she might substitute the words plow horse.

Frank covered his mouth and faked a cough to hide the dopey smile that threatened to seize control of his face. He used the half second of respite to compose himself. He wasn’t twenty-five years old any more, or even forty-five. It was time to act his age and get his mind back on the job. It was time to be the President of the United States.

He covered the last few steps to his chair at the head of the long mahogany table, and turned to face the four members of his national security short staff. Per the dictates of protocol, everyone had come to their feet as their president had entered the room. He sat down, and motioned for the others to take their seats.

At the left side of the table sat White House Chief of Staff Veronica Doyle, and National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven. To the right sat the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Horace Gilmore, and the newly-appointed Secretary of Homeland Security, Becka Solomon — brought in after a third heart attack had forced her predecessor to retire from public service.

Most of the chairs at the long table were vacant. The small gathering formed the core group of regular attendees of the President’s Daily Security Brief: the so-called ‘short’ staff.

For a full-fledged meeting of the National Security Council, the vice president would have also been present, along with the secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury. In that case, the Director of Central Intelligence would have probably conducted the briefing himself, in his role as statutory intelligence advisor to the NSC. But this was a routine daily briefing, and the point man was a solemn-faced young analyst from CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence.

The president flipped open the blue-jacketed briefing folder and looked up at the analyst. The man was in his mid-twenties, probably not long out of college. Were they really getting younger? More than likely not, but it certainly seemed that way.

The analyst nodded, “Good evening, Mr. President.” He pointed a small remote toward the oversized flat screen plasma television at the far end of the table. The screen flared to life, showing the Presidential Seal against a blue background. The analyst pressed a button and the famous emblem vanished, replaced by a passport-style photo of a stocky middle aged man with heavy Slavic cheekbones and graying whiskers.

The analyst nodded toward the screen. “At approximately three AM local time on Friday the twenty-second of February, this man — a Russian citizen named Oleg Yurievich Grigoriev — approached the front gate of the U.S. Embassy in the Republic of the Philippines and asked for asylum. The Marine guards called for the embassy’s emergency medical team, because it was obvious that Grigoriev had been shot several times.”

“That’s not standard procedure, Mr. President,” the national security advisor said. “Grigoriev is not a U.S. citizen or a member of the embassy staff. By the book, the guards should have contacted Manila emergency services and let the locals handle things. But the man was in shock, and losing blood fast. The guards figured he would bleed to death before the locals could get a medical team to the scene.”

Veronica Doyle jotted a note on the cover page of her briefing folder. “We should give State a heads-up on this,” she said. “We’re going to take some heat from the government of the Philippines for not following diplomatic procedure. They may want you to make a formal apology, Mr. President.”

“I don’t mind taking a punch in the nose over this,” The president said. “Human life outweighs political protocol. Period. End of sentence. If the Republic of the Philippines wants to make a ruckus over this, we’ll turn it back on them. I’ll do a press conference, and publicly ask President Layumas if she thinks our embassy guards should stand around and watch gunshot victims bleed to death in order to satisfy the niceties of diplomatic procedure.”

“I … uh … I don’t think there’s going to be a diplomatic issue, Mr. President,” the analyst said. “I don’t believe