interrogating the witnesses, trying to reduce everything, playing that game. Liz is fixed on the fact that she might have been blown up, can't set that aside. Well.” Ryan shrugged. “I guess I can understand that. I've been there, too. She's a political scientist, looking for a theoretical model. She's feeding that to the president. She has a real elegant model, but it's based on crap, isn't it, Ben?”
“You left out something, Jack,” Goodley pointed out.
Ryan shook his head. “No, Ben, I just haven't gotten there yet. Because I can't control my fucking temper, they won't listen to me now. I should have known, I had my warning — I even saw it coming — but I let my temper get the best of me again. And you know the funny part? If it wasn't for me, Fowler would still be in Columbus, Ohio, and Elliot would be teaching shiny young faces at Bennington.” Jack walked to the window again. It was dark outside, and the lighted room made it into a mirror.
“What are you talking about?”
“That, gentlemen, is a secret. Maybe that's what they'll put on the stone: ”Here lies John Patrick Ryan. He tried to do the right thing — and look what happened.“ I wonder if Cathy and the kids will make it… ”
“Come on, it's not that bad,” the Senior Duty Officer observed, but all the others in the room felt the chill.
Jack turned. “Isn't it? Don't you see where this is heading? They're not listening to anybody. They're not listening. They might listen to Dennis Bunker or Brent Talbot, but they're both air pollution, little bits of fallout somewhere over Colorado. I'm the closest thing in town to an advisor right now, and I got myself tossed out.”
41
THE FIELD OF CAMLAN
The Admiral Lunin was going too fast for safety. Captain Dubinin knew that, but chances like this did not come along often. This was, in fact, the first, and the captain wondered if it might also be the last. Why were the Americans on a full-blown nuclear alert — yes, of course, a possible nuclear explosion in their country was a grave matter, but could they be so mad as to assume that a Soviet had done such a thing?
“Get me a polar projection chart,” he said to a quartermaster. Dubinin knew what he would see, but it wasn't a time for remembrance, it was a time for hard facts. The meter-square sheet of hard paper was on the table a moment later. Dubinin took a pair of dividers and walked them from Maine 's estimated position to Moscow, and to the strategic rocket fields in the central part of his country.
“Yes.” It could hardly be more clear, could it?
“What is it, Captain?” the Starpom asked.
“USS Maine, according to our intelligence estimates, is in the northernmost patrol sector of the missile submarines based at Bangor. That makes good sense, doesn't it?”
“Yes, Captain, based on what little we know of their patrol patterns.”
“She carries the D-5 rocket, twenty-four of them, eight or so warheads per rocket… ” He paused. There had been a time when he'd been able to do such calculations in his head instantly.
“One hundred ninety-two, Captain,” the executive officer said for him.
“Correct, thank you. That includes nearly all of our SS-18s, less those being deactivated by treaty, and the CEP accuracy of the D-5 makes it likely that those one hundred ninety-two warheads will destroy roughly one hundred sixty of their targets, which, in turn, accounts for more than a fifth of our total warhead count, and our most accurate warheads at that. Remarkable, isn't it?” Dubinin asked quietly.
“You really think they're that good?”
“The Americans demonstrated their marksmanship ability over Iraq, didn't they? I for one have never doubted the quality of their weapons.”
“Captain, we know that the American D-5 submarine rockets are the most likely first-strike tool…”
“Continue the thought.”
The Starpom looked at the chart. “Of course. This is the closest one.”
“Indeed. USS Maine is the point of the lance aimed at our country.” Dubinin tapped the chart with his dividers. “If the Americans launch an attack, the first rockets will fly from this point, and nineteen minutes after that, they will hit. I wonder if our comrades in the Strategic Rocket Forces can respond that quickly…?”
“But, Captain, what can we do about this?” the executive officer asked dubiously.
Dubinin pulled the chart off the table and slid it back into its open drawer. “Nothing. Not a thing. We cannot attack preemptively without orders or grave provocation, can we? According to our best intelligence, he can launch his rockets at intervals of fifteen seconds, probably less, really. The manual becomes less important in war, doesn't it? Say four minutes from the first to the last. You have to do a ladder-north strike pattern to avoid warhead fratricide. That doesn't matter, if you examine the physics of the event. I looked at that while I was at Frunze, you know. Since our rockets are liquid-fueled, they cannot launch while the attack is under way. Even if their electronic components can withstand the electromagnetic effects, they are too fragile structurally to tolerate the physical forces. So, unless we can launch with confidence before the enemy warheads fall, our tactics are to ride it out and launch a few minutes later. For our part here, if he can launch in four minutes, that means we have to be within six thousand meters, hear the first launch transient, and fire our own torpedo immediately to have any hope of stopping him from firing his last rocket, don't we?”
“A difficult task.”
The Captain shook his head. “An impossible task. The only thing that makes sense is for us to eliminate him before he receives his launch order, but we cannot do that without orders, and we have no such orders.”
“So what do we do?”
“Not very much we can do.” Dubinin leaned over the chart table. “Let's assume that he's truly disabled, and that we have an accurate position fix. We still have to detect him. If his engine plant is down at minimums, hearing him will be nearly impossible, especially if he's up against the surface noise. If we go active, what's to stop him from launching a torpedo against us? If he does that, we can fire back — and hope to survive, ourselves. Our weapon might even hit him, but then again it might not. If he does not shoot as soon as he hears our active sonar… maybe we can close enough that we can intimidate him, force him down. We'll lose him again when he goes under the layer… but if we can force him down… and then stay atop the layer, blasting away with our active sonar… perhaps we can keep him from going to missile-firing depth.” Dubinin frowned mightily. “Not an especially brilliant plan, is it? If one of them suggested it”— he waved to the junior officers conning the ship—“I'd tear a strip off their young backs. But I don't see anything better. Do you?”
“Captain, that makes us exceedingly vulnerable to attack.” The idea was more accurately described as suicidal, the Starpom thought, though he was sure Dubinin knew that.
“Yes, it does, but if that is what is required to prevent this bastard from getting to firing depth, it is exactly what I propose to do. I see no alternative.”
PRESIDENT N ARMONOV:
PLEASE UNDERSTAND THE POSITION WE ARE IN. THE WEAPON WHICH DESTROYED DENVER WAS OF SUCH A SIZE AND TYPE AS TO MAKE IT VERY UNLIKELY THAT THIS CRIME WAS COMMITTED BY TERRORISTS, YET WE HAVE TAKEN NO ACTION WHATEVER TO RETALIATE AGAINST ANYONE. WERE YOUR COUNTRY ATTACKED, YOU TOO WOULD ALERT YOUR STRATEGIC FORCES. WE HAVE SIMILARLY ALERTED OURS, ALONG WITH OUR CONVENTIONAL FORCES. FOR TECHNICAL REASONS IT WAS NECESSARY TO INITIATE A GLOBAL ALERT INSTEAD OF A MORE SELECTIVE ONE. BUT AT NO TIME HAVE I ISSUED ANY INSTRUCTIONS TO COMMENCE OFFENSIVE OPERATIONS. OUR ACTIONS TO THIS POINT HAVE BEEN DEFENSIVE ONLY, AND HAVE SHOWN CONSIDERABLE RESTRAINT.
WE HAVE NO EVIDENCE TO SUGGEST THAT YOUR COUNTRY HAS INITIATED ACTION AGAINST OUR HOMELAND, BUT WE HAVE BEEN INFORMED THAT YOUR TROOPS IN BERLIN HAVE ATTACKED OURS, AND HAVE ALSO ATTACKED AIRCRAFT ATTEMPTING TO INSPECT THE AREA. WE ARE SIMILARLY INFORMED THAT SOVIET AIRCRAFT HAVE APPROACHED AN AMERICAN CARRIER GROUP IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
PRESIDENT NARMONOV, I URGE YOU TO RESTRAIN YOUR FORCES. I F WE CAN END THE
