But the SecDef ...
Fowler looked for the button labeled NORAD and pushed it.
“This is the President. I am in my Camp David communications room.”
“Mr. President, this is still Major General Borstein. CINC-NORAD is not here, sir. He was in Denver for the Super Bowl. Mr. President, it is my duty to advise you that our instruments put the detonation either at or very near the Skydome stadium in Denver. It would appear very likely that Secretaries Bunker and Talbot are both dead, along with CINC-NORAD.”
“Yes,” Fowler said. There was no emotion in his voice. He’d already reached that conclusion.
“The Vice-CINC is traveling at the moment. I will be the senior NORAD officer for the next few hours until someone more senior manages to get back.”
“Very well. Now: What the hell is going on?”
“Sir, we do not know. The detonation was not preceded by anything unusual. There was not—I repeat, sir, not—a ballistic inbound track prior to the explosion. We are trying to contact the air controllers at Stapleton International Airport to have them check their radar tapes for a possible airborne delivery vehicle. We didn’t see anything coming in on any of our scopes.”
“Would you have seen an inbound aircraft?”
“Not necessarily, sir,” General Borstein replied. “It’s a good system, but there are ways to beat it, especially if you use a single aircraft. In any case, Mr. President, there are some things we need to do at once. Can we talk about that for a moment?”
“Yes.”
“Sir, on my own command authority as acting-CINC-NORAD, I have placed my command on DEFCON-ONE alert. As you know, NORAD has that authority, and also nuclear-release authority for defensive purposes only.”
“You will not release any nuclear weapons without my authorization,” Fowler said forcefully.
“Sir, the only nukes we have in our inventory are in storage,” Borstein said. His voice was admirably mechanical, the other uniformed people thought. “I propose that we next initiate a conference call with CINC-SAC.”
“Do it,” Fowler ordered. It happened instantly.
“Mr. President, this is CINC-SAC,” General Peter Fremont, USAF, announced. His voice was all business.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Sir, we do not know that, but there are some things we should do immediately.”
“Go on.”
“Sir, I recommend that we immediately place all of our strategic forces on a higher alert level. I recommend DEFCON-TWO. If we are dealing with a nuclear attack, we should posture our forces to maximum readiness. That will enable us to respond to an attack with the greatest possible effect. It could also have the effect of deterring whoever got this thing under way, in the event that he might have—or we could give him—second thoughts.
“If I can add to that, sir, we should also increase our readiness across the board. If for no other reason, the availability of military units to provide assistance and to reduce possible civilian panic might be very useful. I recommend DEFCON-THREE for conventional forces.”
“Better to do that selectively, Robert,” Liz Elliot said.
“I heard that—who is it?” Borstein asked.
“This is the National Security Advisor,” Liz said, a touch too loudly. She was as pale as her white silk blouse. Fowler was still under control. Elliot was struggling to do the same.
“We have not met, Dr. Elliot. Unfortunately, our command-and-control systems do not allow us to do that selectively—at least not very fast. By sending out the alert now, however, we can activate all the units we need, then select the units we need to do things while they come on line. That will save us at least an hour. That is my recommendation.”
“I concur in that,” General Fremont added at once.
“Very well, do it,” Fowler said. It sounded reasonable enough.
The communications were handled through separate channels. CINC-SAC handled the strategic forces. The first Emergency Action Message used the same robotic voice that had already scrambled the alerted SAC wings. While the SAC bomber bases already knew that they were being alerted, the DEFCON-TWO notice made it official and far more ominous. Fiber-optic landlines carried a similar notice to the Navy’s Extremely Low Frequency radio system located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula region. This signal had to be sent out by mechanical Morse. The nature of this radio system was such that it could only send out its characters very slowly, rather like the speed of a novice typist, and it acted as a cueing system, telling submarines to come to the surface for a more detailed message to be delivered by satellite radios.
At King’s Bay, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Groton, Connecticut, and at three other locations in the Pacific, signals by landline and satellite link were received by the duty staffs of the missile submarine squadrons, most of them aboard submarine tenders. Of America’s thirty-six missile submarines in service at the moment, nineteen were at sea, on “deterrence patrol,” as it was called. Two were in yard-overhaul status, and were totally unavailable for duty. The rest were tied up alongside tenders, except for USS Ohio, which was in the boatshed at Bangor. All had reduced crews aboard, though not one had her CO aboard this Sunday evening. That didn’t really matter. The “boomers” all had two crews, and in every case one of the two commanding officers assigned to each boat was within thirty minutes of his command. All carried beepers, which went off almost simultaneously. The duty crews aboard each submarine began preparations for immediate sortie. The Command Duty Officer on each boomer was an officer who had passed the stringent test required before a submariner could be “qualified for command.” Their operational orders were clear: when this sort of alert came, they had to get to sea just as fast as possible. Most thought it a drill, but drills for strategic forces were a serious business. Already, tugboats were lighting up their diesels to help the slate-gray hulls away from the tenders. Deck crews were removing safety lines and stanchions, as men who’d been aboard the tenders scrambled down the ladders to their various ships. Aboard, division officers and assistants checked their rosters to see who was aboard and who was not. The fact of the matter was that these warships, like all warships, were overmanned. They could easily sail and operate with half a crew if they had to. DEFCON-TWO meant that they had to.
Captain Rosselli and the NMCC staff handled the conventional forces. Pre-set recordings went directly to the individual units. In the Army that meant division level. In the Air Force it was at the wing level, and in the Navy it was at the squadron level. The conventional forces were going to DEFCON-THREE. Captain Rosselli and Colonel Barnes handled voice lines to higher command levels. Even when talking to three-star officers with no less than twenty-five years of service each, it was necessary to tell every single one that: No, sir, this is not repeat not a drill.
American military units all over the world went instantly on alert. As was to be expected, those units which ordinarily maintained high alert levels responded the most quickly. One of these was the Berlin Brigade.
37
HUMAN EFFECTS
“Captain, we have an Emergency Action Message on the ELF.”
“What?” Ricks asked, turning away from the chart table.
“Emergency Action Message, Captain.” The communications officer handed over the brief code group.
“Great time for a drill.” Ricks shook his head and said, “Battle Stations. Alert-One.”
A petty officer immediately activated the 1-MC and made the announcement. “General Quarters, General Quarters, all hands man your battle stations.” Next came an electronic alarm sure to end the most captivating of dreams.
“Mr. Pitney,” Ricks said over the noise. “Antenna depth.”
“Aye, Captain. Diving officer, make your depth six-zero feet.”
“Make my depth six-zero feet, aye. Helm, ten degrees up on the fairwater planes.”
“Ten degrees up on the fairwater planes, aye.” The young crewman—helm duty is typically given
to very junior men—pulled back on the aircraftlike wheel. “Sir, my planes are up ten degrees.”
“Very well.”
Barely had that been done when people flooded into the control room. The Chief of the Boat—Maine’s senior enlisted man—took his battle station at the air-manifold panel. He was the submarine’s senior Diving Officer. Lieutenant Commander Claggett entered the conn to back the Captain up. Pitney, the boat’s navigator, was already at his post, which was conning officer. Various enlisted men took their seats at weapons consoles. Aft, officers and men assumed their positions as different as the Missile Control Center—MCC—which monitored the status of Maine’s twenty-four Trident missiles, and the auxiliary equipment room, which was mainly concerned with the ship’s backup diesel engine.
In the control room, the IC—internal communications—man of the watch called off the compartments as they reported in as manned and ready.
“What gives?” Claggett asked Ricks. The Captain merely handed over the brief EAM slip.
“Drill?”
“I suppose. Why not?” Ricks asked. “It’s a Sunday, right?”
“Still bumpy up on the roof?”
As though on cue, Maine started taking rolls. The depth gauge showed 290 feet, and the massive submarine suddenly rocked 10 degrees to starboard. Throughout the vessel, men rolled their eyes and grumbled. There was scarcely a man aboard who hadn’t lost it at least once. This was the perfect environment for motion sickness. With no outside references—submarines are conspicuously short of windows and portholes—the eyes saw something that clearly was not moving while the inner ears reported that movement was definitely taking place. The same thing that had affected nearly all of the Apollo astronauts began to affect these sailors. Unconsciously, men shook their heads sharply, as though to repel a bothersome insect. They uniformly hoped that whatever the hell they were up to—no one from Ricks on down knew as yet what was happening—they’d soon be able to get back where they belonged—four hundred feet, where the ship’s motion was imperceptible.
“Level at six-zero feet, sir.”
“Very well,” Pitney replied.
“Conn, sonar, contact lost on Sierra-16. Surface noise is screwing us all up.”
“What’s the last position?” Ricks asked.
“Last bearing was two-seven-zero, estimated range four-nine thousand yards,” Ensign Shaw replied.
“Okay. Run up the UHF antenna. Up ’scope,” he also ordered the quartermaster of the watch. Maine was taking 20-degree rolls now, and Ricks wanted to see why. The quartermaster rotated the red-and-white control wheel, and the oiled cylinder hissed up on hydraulic power.
“Wow,” the Captain said as he put his hands on the handles. He could feel the power of the sea slapping the exposed top of the instrument. He bent down to look.
“We have a UHF signal coming in now, sir,” the communications officer reported.
“That’s nice,” Ricks said. “I’d call that thirty-foot seas, people, mostly rollers, some are breaking over. Well, we can shoot through that if we have to,” he added almost as a joke. After all, this had to be a drill.
“How’s the sky?” Claggett asked.
“Overcast—no stars.” Ricks stood back and slapped the handles up. “Down ’scope.” He turned to Claggett. “X, we want to get back tracking our friend just as soon as we can.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
Ricks was about to lift the phone to MCC. He wanted to tell the missile-control crew that he wanted this drill over just as fast as they could arrange it. The communications officer was in the compartment before he could push the proper button.
“Captain, this isn’t a drill.”
“What do you mean?” Ricks noticed that the Lieutenant didn’t look very happy.
“DEFCON-TWO, sir.” He handed over the message.
“What?” Ricks scanned the message, which was brief and chillingly to the point. “What the hell’s going on?” He handed it off to Dutch Claggett.
“DEFCON-TWO? We’ve never been at DEFCON-TWO, not as long as I’ve been in ... I remember a DEFCON-THREE once, but I was a plebe then....”
Around the compartment, men traded glances. The American military has five alert levels, numbered five through one. DEFCON-FIVE was denoted normal peacetime operations. FOUR was slightly higher, calling for increased manning of certain posts, keeping more people—mainly meaning pilots and soldiers—close to their airplanes or tanks, as the case might be. DEFCON-THREE was far more serious. At that point units were fully manned for operational deployment. At DEFCON-TWO units began to deploy, and this level was saved for the imminent threat of war. DEFCON-ONE was a level to which American forces had never been called. At that point, war was to be considered something more than a threat. Weapons were loaded and aimed in anticipation of orders to shoot.
But the entire DEFCON system was more haphazard than one might imagine. Submarines generally kept a higher-than-normal state of alert as a part of routine operations. Missile submarines, always ready to launch their birds in a matter of minutes, were effectively at DEFCON-TWO all the time. The notice from the FLTSATCOM merely made it official, and a lot more ominous.
“What else?” Ricks asked communications.
“That’s it, sir.”
“Any news come in, any threat warning?”
“Sir, we got the usual news broadcast yesterday. I was planning to get the next one in about five hours—you know, so we’d have the Super Bowl score.” The Lieutenant paused. “Sir, there was nothing in the news, and nothing official about any crisis.”
“So what the hell is going on?” Ricks asked rhetorically. “Well, that doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“Captain,” Claggett said, “for starters, I think we need to break off from our friend at two-seven-zero.”
“Yeah. Bring her around northeast, X. He’s not due for another turn soon, and that’ll open the range pretty fast, then we’ll head north to open further.”
Claggett looked at the chart, mainly as a matter of habit to see that the water was deep. It was. They were, in fact, astride the great-circle route from Seattle to Japan. On command, USS Maine turned to port. A right turn would have been just as easy, but this way they would immediately start opening the range on the Akula which they’d been tracking for several days. In a minute this put the submarine broadside to the thirty-footers rolling just a few feet over their heads and made the submarine’s sail almost exactly that, a target for the natural forces at work. The boat took a 40-degree roll. All over the submarine, men braced and grabbed for loose gear.
“Take her down a little, Captain?” Claggett asked.
“In a few minutes. Let’s see if there’s any follow-up on the satellite channel.”
Three pieces of what had once been one of the most magnificent evergreen trees in Oregon had now been in the North Pacific for several weeks. The logs had still been green and heavy when they’d fallen off the MV George McReady. Since becoming just another entry in the flotsam on the sea, they’d soaked in more water, and the heavy steel chain that held them together changed what should have been a slightly positive buoyancy into neutral buoyancy. They could not quite get to the surface, at least not in these weather conditions. The pounding of the seas defeated every attempt at rising to the sunlight—of which there was none at the moment—and they hovered like blimps, turning slowly as the sea struggled mightily to break their chains.
A junior sonarman aboard Maine heard something, something at zero-four-one, almost dead ahead. It was an odd sound, he thought, metallic, like a tinkle but deeper. Not a ship, he thought, not a biologic. It was almost lost in the surface noise, and wouldn’t settle down on bearing....
“Shit!” He keyed his microphone. “Conn, sonar—sonar contact close aboard!”
“What?” Ricks dashed into sonar.
“Don’t know what, but it’s close, sir!”
“Where?”
“Can’t tell, like both sides of the bow—not a
ship, I don’t know what the hell it is, sir!” The petty officer checked off the pip on his screen while his ears strained to identify the sound. “Not a point source—it’s close, sir!”
“But—” Ricks stopped, turned, and shouted on reflex: “Emergency dive!” He knew it was too late for that.
The entire length of USS Maine reverberated like a bass drum as one of the logs struck the fiberglass dome over the bow sonar array.
There were three sections of what had once been a single tree. The first hit axially just on the edge of the sonar dome, doing very little damage because the submarine was only doing a few knots, and everything about her hull was built for strength. The noise was bad enough. The first log was shunted aside, but there were two more, and the center one tapped the hull once just outside the control room.
The helmsman responded at once to the Captain’s command, pushing his control yoke all the way to the stops. The stern of the submarine rose at once, into the path of the logs. Maine had a cruciform stern. There was a rudder both above and below the propeller shaft. To the left and right were the stern planes, which operated like the stabilizers of an aircraft. On the outer surface of each was another vertical structure that looked like an auxiliary rudder, but was in fact a fitting for sonar sensors. The chain between two of the logs fouled on that. Two logs were outboard, and one inboard. The inboard one was just long enough to reach the spinning propeller. The resulting noise was the worst anyone had ever heard. Maine’s seven-bladed screw was made of manganese-bronze alloy that had been shaped into its nearly perfect configuration over a period of seven months. It was immensely strong, but not this strong. Its scimitar-shaped blades struck the logs one after another, like a slow, inefficient saw. Each impact gouged or dented the outboard edges. The officer in the maneuvering room, aft, had already decided to stop the shaft before the order to do so arrived. Outside the hull, not a hundred feet from his post, he heard the screams of abused metal as the sonar fitting was wrenched off the starboard stern plane; along with it went the additional fitting that held the submarine’s towed-array sonar. At that point the logs, one of them now badly splintered, fell off into the submarine’s wake, and the worst of the noise stopped.