“I said
“Yes, sir. Next was Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, adjacent to the city of Cheyenne, Wyoming. F. E. Warren is Twentieth Air Force headquarters, responsible for all of America’s land-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, and is also the home of the Ninetieth Space Wing, which controls one hundred and fifty Minuteman ICBMs. One cruise missile hit on the base itself — we don’t know exactly where yet. Most of the other missiles were targeted on the fifteen launch-control centers spread out over almost thirteen thousand square miles of Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska.
“The next target was Whiteman Air Force Base, located in a relatively rural area of western Missouri, about forty-five miles east of Kansas City. Whiteman is the home of the Five-oh-ninth Bomb Wing, with nineteen B-2A Spirit stealth bombers and fourteen KC-135R tankers, plus an OA-10 Thunderbolt II close-air-support fighter wing. Two Russian warheads hit the base itself. Again, approximately four to five thousand personnel were stationed at Whiteman.
“The last target was Offutt Air Force Base, eight miles south of Omaha, Nebraska. Offutt has the Fifty-fifth Wing, which controls all of the nation’s strategic electronic reconnaissance and electronic command-and-control aircraft, and of course it is the headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command, the Joint Intelligence Center, the Air Force Weather Agency, and the Pentagon’s National Airborne Operations Center — all important military agencies necessary in planning and executing strategic combat missions, such as what we would employ if we fought a nuclear conflict with Russia. The base was hit by at least four warheads.”
“Military contingent at Offutt?” the president asked woodenly.
Venti hesitated, swallowed, then responded, “Over eight thousand, sir.” “
“There was one clean miss, sir — unfortunately, it could be the greatest disaster of the attack,” Venti said. “Two warheads from one missile were apparently targeted for the weapon-storage facility at Fairchild Air Force Base near Spokane, Washington, which stores approximately five hundred nuclear gravity bombs, and warheads for cruise missiles, naval missiles, and torpedoes. The missile fell short and hit outside the city. No specific casualty reports yet, but damage is extensive.
“DSP reports a total of sixty-three explosions in the United States,” Venti summarized. “Thirty-one warheads targeted against Minuteman III launch-control centers, obviously intended to prevent the missiles from being launched; sixteen against ballistic-missile defense installations; ten warheads targeted against nuclear-capable bomber bases and weapon-storage facilities; and six against strategic command-and-control bases, mostly involving nuclear warfighting. The Air Warning Center tracked over fifty missiles inbound on the attack against the CONUS, so perhaps as many as ten Russian cruise missiles malfunctioned and failed to detonate; one missile malfunctioned but its warheads did detonate, with disastrous results.”
“Still no contact with anyone at STRATCOM?” the president asked.
“No, sir — it looks like Offutt took a direct hit with three warheads,” General Venti said. “The airfield took one, and two hit the underground command center. No word yet if anyone survived. One warhead exploded north of the city of Bellevue — damage and casualty estimates are not in yet. All of the warheads used in these attacks were very small, perhaps one or two kilotons — less than a tenth the size of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.”
“What are the chances anyone survived at STRATCOM?”
“The command center was designed to take the shock and overpressure from a one-megaton warhead,” Venti responded. “Many of the warheads used on this attack were designed to explode deep underground. It’s very possible anyone inside the underground facility could have survived, if the complex was sealed up and fully disconnected from all external power and air in time. Same with the Minuteman-missile launch facilities. They are built on shock absorbers that are designed to survive tremendous overpressure. But they can’t survive inside the fireball. If the earth and the facility shielding couldn’t stop the fireball from forming underground, they couldn’t make it.”
“Just one aircraft made it away from Offutt?”
“One E-4B Airborne Operations Center, which was on alert at the time. They have checked in and are fully functional, although they do not have a complete battle staff. Rear Admiral Jerrod Richland is the battle-staff director. Although it does not have a complete crew, it can do all the command-and-control functions of the STRATCOM command center. No other aircraft made it off in time.”
“So I can still talk to our subs and military headquarters?” the president asked. “I still have control of the nuclear warheads?”
“The E-4 is a global communications platform, able to communicate directly with any civilian or military person on planet Earth with a radio receiver or computer — it took over for the old Strategic Air Command EC-135 ‘Looking Glass’ aircraft, which were designed to ‘mirror’ operations in SAC’s underground command center,” Venti responded. “The E-6B is a communications aircraft, designed to communicate with military units and ballistic- missile submarines deep under the ocean, but the difference is that the B-model can format and send execution messages to nuclear forces and can also monitor and launch land-based ballistic missiles.”
“Can’t I do all that from Air Force One?” the president asked. “You can communicate easily with the E-4 and E-6 aircraft and issue orders to them and to any military command centers and government operations centers; you can also break in on civil television and radio frequencies to speak with the American people,” Venti explained, “but Air Force One was not designed as an airborne military command post, only as an airborne White House. You cannot actually launch a nuclear strike yourself.”
“So do I have control of our nuclear forces or not?” the president asked, struggling to keep his head clear through the enormous jumble of information he was absorbing. “Exactly what am I left with here?”
“You can issue orders to the ballistic nuclear submarine force at any time through coded messages to the E- 6A TACAMO aircraft that are airborne over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans,” chimed in Admiral Charles Andover, Chief of Naval Operations, who was back in the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. “The E-6A’s job is to talk with the boomers while submerged with extremely low-frequency transmitters, and that network is still in place and operational.”
“We issued a change in posture and DEFCON—”
“So the boomers know that tensions are high,” Andover said. “Under DEFCON One and a Posture Red, the boomers will proceed to their launch positions and wait. After several days, if they don’t receive a ‘withhold’ or ‘termination’ message, they’ll launch.” Andover saw the concern in President Thorn’s face and added quickly, “That is the procedure under these circumstances, sir. In case an attack completely wipes out the leadership, under DEFCON One the subs are authorized to launch if they don’t hear from us again. It ensures maximum stealth and maximum deterrent effect — the subs don’t have to expose themselves to enemy forces just to receive another execution message, and the Russians know they can’t completely destroy our most survivable nuclear forces just by killing the president.”
“What else do we have left?”
“We don’t know how many land-based ICBMs we have left yet,” General Venti responded. “With STRATCOM and Twentieth Air Force headquarters destroyed, the U.S. Space Command will need to hook into alternate communications lines to assess the status of the individual Minuteman launch-control centers and the weapons themselves. That should be done shortly.”
“If any survived, can we control those missiles?”
“The B-model Mercury aircraft should be able to take control of the ICBMs, sir,” Venti said. “Stand by one, sir.” He studied his status-of-forces report for a moment, then said, “The E-6Bs are based at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. Normally, they embark a battle staff at Offutt and then disperse to various locations around the United States. The relief aircraft was destroyed at Offutt, but the alert E-6B was dispersed to ground alert at Naval Air Station Dallas, and it launched as soon as the air-defense alert was sounded. They’ll fly to their monitoring- and-control orbit over Wyoming and try to make contact with the launch-control centers to find out how many of our
