muzzle of the Kalashnikov around towards Dekker. It didn’t do him any good. Three Hocklers fired at him almost simultaneously, bullets ripping through his chest and torso, and he slumped to the ground, dead.
Abbas ignored the sounds behind him, and concentrated on inputting the second firing authorization code for the Albany device. He had only three digits to go when Richter shot him in the back.
The normal silence of the NORAD control room was suddenly shattered by the sounds of warning bells and klaxons, and the giant vision screens flickered into life as lines of red text appeared. ‘Nuclear detonation, nuclear detonation! Location is Continental United States, south-central region. Central Texas. Detonation confirmed by seismic sensors. Stand by for estimate of ground zero position.’
General Wayne Harmon ran from his office to the control room, sat down at his desk and snatched up his headset. There was a confused babble of voices, which he swiftly silenced. ‘No way it was an ICBM. It had to have been sub-launched. Why didn’t we get a launch detection?’ he snapped.
‘No idea. We saw nothing on radar from the DEW or anywhere else, and neither did the DSP birds.’
Missile launches are detected by one of three Defence Support Programme surveillance satellites in geosynchronous orbit twenty-two thousand three hundred miles above the surface of the Earth. One is positioned over Central America, the second over the middle of the Pacific Ocean and the last above the Indian Ocean, and they maintain a constant watch of the Asian landmass and the oceans. Each DSP bird is fitted with a massive infra-red telescope which can identify the heat flare of the missile’s engines within one minute of launch. Only if there is heavy cloud above the launch site will the system not detect the missile until it clears the cloud tops. Launch and initial trajectory data are transmitted from the DSP satellite to the two Readout Stations located at Aurora, Colorado and Alice Springs, Australia, where the data is automatically compared with that from previous launches to determine whether or not the missile is on a ‘threat fan’ – that is to say, on a path ending in the United States or inside any allied nation.
‘Bullshit. Play back the tape – there must have been something and we missed it,’ Harmon said and reached for the JANET phone. ‘JANET’ is the Joint Chiefs of Staff Alerting Network, which links the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon and all other principal command headquarters.
‘Ground zero location confirmed as Abilene, Texas. Initial estimates from the seismographs suggest a weapon size of around thirty kilotons.’
‘Thirty kilotons? That’s bullshit too,’ Harmon snapped. ‘The Russians haven’t got any nuclear weapons that small – at least, none that they’d bother launching at us. This has just gotta be some kind of a screw-up.’
‘There’s been a what?’ the President asked into the telephone, his face going pale. ‘Where?’
‘Satellite surveillance reports ground zero as Abilene, Texas, Mr President,’ General Harmon replied, ‘but the situation is still confused.’
‘What do you mean “confused”?’ the President snapped. ‘Are you telling me you don’t know if a nuclear weapon has been detonated or not?’
‘No, Mr President. Detonation of a device definitely took place – the seismic data has already confirmed that – but the rest of the data doesn’t make sense. First, we had no launch detection of any sort, so the weapon didn’t arrive here on an ICBM or in a missile from a Russian boomer. We’ve checked the recorded data and all our systems, and there was definitely no launch. Second, the weapon is way too small. The seismic data puts it at around thirty kilotons, maybe even less, and all the Russian first-strike weapons are way up in the multi-megaton range. This thing was more like a tactical weapon.’
There was a pause as the President digested this information. ‘Thank you, General,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
‘Sir? What are your orders?’
‘I said I’ll be in touch. There are factors here that you will not be aware of, General, and I have to consider very carefully exactly what to do next.’
In the bedroom of
‘Are they there?’ Ross asked.
‘Yes. I can see four figures behind the outhouse, now all standing up.’
‘Excellent,’ Ross murmured, then spoke into his microphone. ‘Dekker, Ross. SITREP?’
‘It’s over. One dead, we assume he was the bodyguard, and the other’s wounded and out of action.’
‘Right,’ Ross said. ‘I’ll let London know.’
The bullet had taken Abbas just below the right shoulder and the force of its impact had tumbled him away from the laptop computer and against the wall. Richter gestured to Dekker to watch the Arab, and turned his attention to the laptop.
He was no computer expert, but it was obvious even to Richter what Abbas had been trying to do. He studied the screen for several seconds. At the top of the screen the heading ‘Weapon: Albany, New York’ was displayed. Below that appeared the message ‘Authorization Code Six Accepted. For final Verification, Enter Authorization Code Two’, and below that was an oblong horizontal box with space for twelve digits. Nine of the twelve spaces were already occupied by an asterisk symbol.
Richter touched the ‘Esc’ or ‘Escape’ key. As he had hoped, the screen display cleared and both the message and the oblong box vanished. The screen simply displayed the Albany weapon control page, but the system just sat there, waiting for his input.
‘Thank God for that,’ Richter muttered, and pulled out his mobile phone. He switched off silent ringing and punched in the direct line number for the computer suite. Baker answered almost immediately.
‘Baker.’
‘Richter. It’s over. I’m looking at this Arab bastard’s laptop, and we stopped him just before he detonated the weapon at Albany.’
Even over the mobile phone network, the sadness and horror in Baker’s voice were unmistakable. ‘Pity you didn’t get to him a few minutes sooner,’ he said. ‘It’s all a bit confused, but according to CNN a nuclear weapon has just exploded in Abilene, Texas.’
Richter said nothing, just sat back on his haunches, snapped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket. He looked across at Dekker, who was covering the Arab with his Hockler. Dekker had kicked Abbas’ Glock well out of reach, and had hauled the wounded Arab up against the wall of the outhouse where he sat hunched and groaning, but conscious.
‘We were too late,’ Richter said. ‘This bastard managed to detonate at least one weapon in the States. God knows how many people he’s killed, or what the Americans will do now.’
Richter stood up, walked across the outhouse to where the Glock lay on the floor, bent down and picked it up. Showing no emotion, he walked back to where Abbas sat, placed the muzzle of the pistol against the Arab’s left kneecap and pulled the trigger. The report of the shot echoed from the stone walls, and was followed immediately by a howl of pain from Abbas. ‘That,’ Richter said, ‘is for Abilene.’ He transferred the weapon to Abbas’ right knee and fired again.
‘Albany?’ Dekker asked, looking at the information displayed on the laptop’s screen.
‘Albany,’ Richter agreed. ‘I know he didn’t detonate it, but it certainly wasn’t for want of trying.’ As Richter squatted down in front of the groaning Arab, his mobile phone rang again. ‘Richter.’
‘It’s Baker. It’s only just dawned on me – you said that you had Dernowi’s laptop?’
‘Yes. It’s right here beside me, connected to a mobile phone. When we took out the landlines I suppose he had no option but to use the mobile.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Baker said impatiently, ‘but the point is that you have a link to the Krutaya mainframe using the laptop, and with Dernowi’s access level you can disable all the weapons.’
