bombing,' Hansen said. Which country with the capability to launch a nuclear attack would actually do it?'
No one had an answer.
'Mr. Ambassador,' Decker interjected, 'whoever launched the attack, the Israelis have apparently taken advantage of the confusion. There are reports of fighting between Russians and Israelis in every major city, and Israeli resistance fighters apparently have taken over all of the television and radio stations.'
Hansen ran his hand over his head and thought for a second. 'Is it possible,' he asked, 'that this whole thing could be the work of the Israelis?'
Tel Aviv (10:30 a.m. Israel, 3:30 a.m. New York)
Deep beneath the streets of Tel Aviv the mood was bright and hopeful. Phase one of the plan had been a complete success: the Russians had been totally unaware of the transfer of control from the Strategic Defense Control Facility to the Off-Site Facility; the evacuation of civilians had taken place with only a few slight delays; the Gideons had been launched (much to the surprise of Russian security teams guarding the missile silos); and all of the designated targets had been hit. It was now five hours since the launch.
In the streets of Israel, citizens were attacking the occupying Russians troops. In the mountains near Mizpe Ramon, an Israeli squadron had surprised the security force outside the Strategic Defense Control Facility, and was now preparing to wait out the surrender of those inside. It would be useless to try to force them out; the facility, with its three-foot thick steel walls and doors, was impervious to anything, with the possible exception of a direct hit by a multi-megaton nuclear warhead. When the Russians invaded four months earlier, those in control of the facility had surrendered it only after they were ordered to do so by the Israeli Defense Minister. Though the facility had been completely overridden by the Off-Site Facility and was therefore useless to the Russians, it would likely be a long wait before the occupants surrendered.
Any celebration would have to wait, however: phase two required the full attention of Colonel White and his team at the Off-Site Facility. While the Israelis would soon be able to secure the weaponry warehoused at the Russian camps, those in Colonel White's team had the immediate responsibility of directing Israel's strategic defense against a possible retaliatory nuclear strike from the Russians.
Scott Rosen estimated that Israel's strategic defense could eliminate ninety-seven percent or more of anything the Russians might send at them in a full scale attack. The throw-weight of the Russian nuclear arsenal had been substantially reduced since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but a full scale attack would still mean that several soft targets – that is, cities – could be hit. If the attack were of a lesser scale – a 'limited' response – the strategic defense could probably destroy all incoming warheads. The most likely scenario was that the Russians would choose a strong but limited response in order to reduce the possibility of a response from the West. What everyone hoped for, however, was that the Russians – realizing that Israel was once again in control of its own strategic defense – would see that a nuclear attack would ultimately prove futile, and therefore they would not launch at all. There was no way to be certain how the Russians would respond and each person in Colonel White's team understood that every warhead that got through meant the deaths of tens of thousands of their countrymen.
This was not a game of siting targets and pulling triggers; the strategic defense was fully automated. It had to be. Destroying the maximum number of approaching missiles required a nearly instantaneous response to launch. There was no room for 'man-in-the-loop.' Once the order was given to place the Battle Management/Command, Control and Communications (BM/C3) computers on 'threat' status, the role of humans was reduced to support and repair. Some argued that it was dangerous to turn the control of the system over to the system itself, but as Joshua Rosen and his colleagues had successfully countered, it was the best way to ensure survival.
The strategic defense was now initiated for immediate response to any sign of launch from Russia, her allies, or from the sea.
Chapter 16
The Hand of God
The Kremlin, Moscow
Eleven hundred miles and nearly due north of Tel Aviv, the Russian Security Council was meeting to discuss the events in Israel. It was now 4:00 a.m. in New York, and 11:00 a.m. in Moscow, which shares the same time zone as Israel.
At 86 years old, Defense Minister Vladimir Leon Josef Khromchenkov was the oldest of the thirteen men assembled in the Kremlin's war-room. Khromchenkov was born in 1917, sometime during the night of November 6-7, the same night that the Bolsheviks had seized power. His father had missed the birth, choosing instead to take part in the fighting in Petrograd. Throughout the revolution and the years that followed, Khromchenkov's father somehow managed to walk the fine line of being close to Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky and yet was never so close to any one of them that he was considered a threat by the other two. His ability to maneuver through politically treacherous waters had been passed on to his son. After serving for nearly forty years in the Soviet Army, Vladimir Khromchenkov first came to the Kremlin during the early days of Gorbachev as a candidate of the hard-liners who opposed Gorbachev's reforms and were afraid he might 'give away the store.'
Boris Yeltzin had made several attempts to weaken Khromchenkov's political power and even to remove him from the Security Council, but without success. Khromchenkov knew the inner workings of everything and used this to his advantage. Had he wanted it, he might well have become President, but Khromchenkov preferred manipulating to being manipulated. It was said of Khromchenkov that he believed that just as he had been born on the night the revolution began, it was his destiny not to die until the Soviet Union had been restored as a world power. And though he gave the credit to others, it was Khromchenkov who had engineered the invasion of Israel as a key step toward bringing about that destiny.
'Comrades,' Defense Minister Khromchenkov began in old Soviet style, which always irritated some of those around him but warmed the hearts of others, 'our intelligence reports have just confirmed that this morning's strike against our international peacekeeping forces in Israel was conceived and initiated by Israeli insurgents. We have very recently regained communications with General Serov, who is in charge of the Strategic Defense Control Facility at Mizpe Ramon. He reports that the Israelis apparently took control of the nuclear forces from a remote facility, from which they launched this morning's attack. At present, the insurgents are fighting our troops stationed in the cities, and a small force of Israelis has set up camp outside the control facility. General Serov has sealed the blast doors so his forces are in no danger from the insurgents outside. Presently, he reports, he is working to isolate the breach in operations in order to attempt to regain control. One other point,' Khromchenkov said, as if it were only an afterthought, though in reality it was the most significant thing he would say, 'in addition to having control of their launch facilities, the Israelis have also taken control of their strategic defense.'
'Damn!' said Foreign Minister Cherov, who recognized the importance of Khromchenkov's final point. If the Israeli resistance had control of the strategic defense then it greatly limited Russia's options for response.
'Our damage estimates indicate that the warheads used were Gideon-class five megaton neutron devices targeted for just outside the perimeter of each of our six temporary installations. We believe the loss of personnel in the camps was total.'
'What about the materiel?' asked the Minister of Finance, concerned more about the stockpiles of weaponry than about the thousands of lives lost.
'At this moment we have no assessment of damage to our weaponry, but it is likely that the equipment has survived the attack.'
'What do you suggest?' President Perelyakin asked Defense Minister Khromchenkov.
'We must assume,' Khromchenkov began, 'that the use of low megatonnage neutron bombs was intended to kill our soldiers while allowing the Israelis to seize our weapons for their defense against the Arabs. While we can hope that General Serov will regain control of the nuclear capabilities and strategic defense, we must plan a response in the event that those attempts are unsuccessful. Therefore, in addition to immediately replacing our
