“That is not the question. The important factor is the relationship between the number of launchers — and their relative vulnerability — and the number of warheads available to both sides. We can still strike first and eliminate the American land-based missile force with our land-based missiles. That is why they were so willing to remove half of theirs. But the majority of their warheads are at sea, and now, for the first time, such sea-based missiles are totally adequate for a disarming first strike.”
“Kuropatkin,” Narmonov said. “Are you hearing this?”
“Yes, I am. The Defense Minister is correct. The additional dimension, if I may say it, is that the reduction in the number of launchers has changed the overall ratio of launchers-to-warheads. For the first time in a generation, a truly disarming first-strike is possible, especially if the Americans are able to decapitate our government with their first strike.”
“And they could do that with the Stealth fighters they put in Germany,” Defense concluded the statement.
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me that Fowler blew up his own city as an excuse to attack us? What madness is this?” Now the Soviet president began to understand fear.
The Defense Minister spoke slowly and clearly. “Whoever detonated that weapon is beside the point. If Fowler begins to think that it was our doing, he has the ability to act against us. Comrade President, you must understand this: technically speaking, our country is on the edge of annihilation. Less than thirty minutes separate their land-based missiles from us. Twenty minutes for their sea-based ones, and as little as two hours from those goddamned invisible tactical bombers, which would be the most advantageous opening move. All that separates us from destruction is the mental state of President Fowler.”
“I understand.” The Soviet president was quiet for half a minute. He stared off at the status board on the far wall. When he spoke, his voice showed the anger that comes from fright. “What do you propose we should do — attack the Americans? I will not do such a thing.”
“Of course not, but we would be well-advised to place our strategic forces on full alert. The Americans will take note of this, and realize that a disarming attack is not possible, and we can settle this affair down long enough for reason to take hold.”
“Golovko?”
The First Deputy Chairman of the KGB shrank from the inquiry. “We know that they are at full alert status. It is possible that our doing the same will provoke them.”
“If we do not, we present ourselves as a much more inviting target.” The Defense Minister was inhumanly calm, perhaps the only man in the room who was fully in control of himself. “We know that the American president is under great stress, that he has lost many thousands of his citizens. He might lash out without thinking. He is much less likely to do so if he knows that we are in a position to respond in kind. We do not dare to show weakness at a time like this. Weakness always invites attack.”
Narmonov looked around the room for a dissenting opinion. There was none. “Make it so,” he told Defense.
“We still haven't heard anything from Denver,” Fowler said, rubbing his eyes.
“I wouldn't expect much,” General Borstein replied.
NORAD's command post is literally inside of a mountain. The entrance tunnel had a series of steel blast- doors. The structures inside were designed to survive anything that could be aimed at them. Shock-absorbing springs and bags of compressed air isolated the people and machines from the granite floors. Overhead were steel roofs to stop any rock fragments that might be blasted free by a near-miss. Borstein didn't expect to survive an attack. There was a whole regiment of Soviet SS-18 Mod 4s tasked to the destruction of this post and a few others. Instead of ten or more MIRVs, they carried a single twenty-five-megaton warhead whose only plausible military mission was to turn Cheyenne Mountain into Cheyenne Lake. That was a pleasant thought. Borstein was a fighter pilot by trade. He'd started off in the F-100, called the “Hun,” by its drivers, graduated from there to F-4 Phantoms, and commanded an F-15 squadron in Europe. He'd always been a tactical guy, stick and rudder, scarf and goggles: kick the tires, light the fires, first one up's the leader. Borstein frowned at the thought. Even he wasn't old enough to remember those days. His job was continental air defense, to keep people from blowing his country up. He'd failed. A nearby piece of America was blown up, along with his boss, and he didn't know why or how or who. Borstein was not a man accustomed to failure, but failure was what he saw on his map display.
“General!” a major called to him.
“What is it?”
“Picking up some radio and microwave chatter. First guess is that Ivan's alerting his missile regiments. Ditto in some naval bases. Flash traffic outbound from Moscow.”
“Christ!” Borstein lifted his phone again.
“Never done it?” Elliot asked.
“Strange but true,” Borstein said. “Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Russians never put their ICBMs on alert.”
“I don't believe it,” Fowler snorted. “Never?”
“The General's right,” Ryan said. “The reason is that their telephone system historically has been in pretty bad shape. I guess they've finally gotten it fixed enough—”
“What do you mean?”
“Mr. President, God is in the details. You send alert messages by voice — we do it that way, and so do the Soviets. The Russian phone system stinks, and you don't want to use a flukey system for orders of that importance. That's why they've been investing so much money in fixing it up, just as we have invested a lot in our command- and-control-systems. They use a lot of fiberoptic cable now, just like we do, plus a whole new set of microwave relays. That's how we're catching it,” Jack explained. “Scatter off the microwave repeaters.”
“Another couple of years, they'll be fully fiber-optic, and we wouldn't have known,” General Fremont added. “I don't like this.”
“Neither do I,” Ryan said, “but we're at DEFCON-TWO also, aren't we?”
“They don't know that. We didn't tell them that,” Liz Elliot said.
“Unless they're reading our mail. I've told you we have reports that they've penetrated our cipher systems.”
“NSA says you're crazy.”
“Maybe I am, but NSA's been wrong before, too.”
“What do you think Narmonov's mental state is?”
As scared as I am? Ryan wondered. “Sir, there's no telling that.”
“And we don't even know if it's really him,” Elliot put in.
“Liz, I reject your hypothesis,” Jack snapped over the conference line. “The only thing you have to support it comes from my agency, and we have our doubts about it.” Christ, I'm sorry I ever took that report in, he told himself.
“Cut that out, Ryan!” Fowler snarled back. “I need facts, not arguments now, okay?”
“Sir, as I keep pointing out, we do not as yet have sufficient information on which to base any decision.”
“Balls,” the Colonel next to General Fremont said.
“What do you mean?” CINC-SAC turned away from the speaker-phone.
“Dr. Elliot is right, sir. What she said earlier makes sense.”
“Mr. President,” they heard a voice say. “We have a Hot Line transmission coming in.”
PRESIDENT FOWLER:
WE HAVE JUST RECEIVED A REPORT THAT A US ARMY UNIT IN BERLIN HAS ATTACKED A SOVIET UNIT WITHOUT WARNING. CASUALTIES ARE REPORTED SEVERE. PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT IS HAPPENING.
“Oh, shit,” Ryan said, looking at the fax.
“I need opinions, people,” Fowler said over the conference line.
