The Trigger

  Numbers I through 10 were delivered without ceremony into the custody of the 41st Tactical Battalion, 3rd Combat Engineering Division. The 41st had been newly reorganized for the job of trans-porting and deploying the Mark I Triggers; the job of protecting them would go to a new cross-service security division still being assembled. The first stop for all ten units was a reopened Cold War era airfield in North Dakota, where they underwent a live systems checkout and two days of hot testing.

  By New Year's Day, Number I was installed in the basement of the White House. Several times in the following week, it was quietly activated for a few seconds at a time, so its output could be carefully calibrated. When that process was complete, its protective halo enclosed the entire White House, the east face of the Executive Office Building, the west face of the Treasury Building, the Pennsylvania Avenue pedestrian mall, East Executive Drive and the tourist entrance, and half of the South Lawn.

  The hard decision was how to use it - as a primary defense, or a backup to the existing security systems and procedures. After long discussions with the Secretary of Treasury and the head of the Secret Service, Breland overruled both of them and approved a plan for round-the-clock operation.

  'I've always thought Americans should be able to look at these grounds and see a house, not a fortress,' he said. 'What kind of example does it set if I ask others to put down their guns, ask them to trust this technology, but refuse to trust it myself?'

  That meant Breland was now to be guarded 'in the bubble' by a special unit of Secret Service agents who'd been thrown into intense training with shock wands and compressed-air guns. At the same time, the sharpshooters yielded their snipers' nests to agents armed with 500-pound pull crossbows - an elite group that soon would take to unofficially calling itself the Company of St George, after the medieval crossbow society that once protected the English sovereign.

  Conventional weapons were not completely abandoned in the new security scheme, but they were pushed outside the Trigger's threshold perimeter. The White House air defense unit, armed with the new Raven shoulder-launched antiaircraft missile, was moved to the rooftops of the Department of Commerce and the General Services Administration. And to back up the 'Secret Service Elite', fast-response teams with traditional firearms were posted in the Executive Office Building and just inside the South Lawn fence.

  After weeks of drill and rehearsal, the new security system quietly supplanted the old during Breland's State of the Union address.

  Trigger Number 2's destiny was to occupy the back of a sleek black van with tinted windows, government plates, and its own built-in CDFC generator. Nicknamed The Caboose', the van was slated to follow close behind the presidential limousine in every motorcade, effectively becoming part of the limousine's armor.

  Even though there had been no aerial intercept tests yet, Numbers 3 and 4 were placed in the cargo holds of Air Force One and Air Force Two - President Breland's aerial yachts, and, in the event of war, his flying command posts. Since the twin 747-200s were unarmed aircraft, only modest changes in operating procedures were required - affecting only the Secret Service contingent and the selection of survival equipment normally stowed aboard.

  Number 5 was delivered to Camp David, Maryland, and installed beside the communications trailer adjacent to the main house. The boundary of the gun-free zone was marked by a ring of small blue pennants. The retreat's security forces retained their weapons, maintained their fences, and respected the Trigger boundary -one demonstration, with six 9mm rounds pressed into a grapefruit that was then rolled across the boundary, was enough to enforce the warnings.

  Number 6 went into the bowels of the US Capitol, though not without some joking about whether or not Congress actually represented a valuable national asset.

  Number 7 was installed inside the Supreme Court building, and heartily welcomed by the head of security there. The fight over the National Firearms Registration and Responsibility Act -known to supporters as 'little Brenda's law' and to opponents as the 'gun-grabbers' license' - was not over. It equaled or surpassed the fight over abortion in ferocity, and gave every sign of persisting as long. Eight years had passed since the Souter-led Court had ruled the NFRRA constitutional in Jefferson vs. United States of America, and the death threats and demonstrations had hardly abated. In fact, the annual 'Show Your Gun' march and rally on the anniversary of the decision had grown larger and more alarmingly boisterous every year.

  Trigger Number 8 had been allocated for the Pentagon, and the Joint Chiefs had developed four different plans for using the system at the famous structure. Ultimately, however, they decided not to implement any of them. The official reason was that it could not be done without destroying so many traditions and stepping on so many toes that the Trigger would quickly become the worst-kept secret in military history.

  But Breland suspected that, behind that undeniable truth, the chiefs were expressing a deep-seated fondness for the familiar. Though there were actually far fewer firearms inside the Pentagon's walls than most people would have expected, the chiefs and generals simply weren't ready, Breland thought, to see their subordinates standing guard with broomsticks - much less to surrender their own service sidearms.

  Given that precedent, there was less surprise when the FBI Director declined the offer of a Mark I to protect the Bureau's headquarters at 10th and Pennsylvania. But she requested four units for tactical evaluation, a request which was placed near the top of the Brass Hat committee's lengthy Candidate Allocations list.

  It was no surprise at all when the CIA Director also declined the offer of a Trigger for the Company's well-protected headquarters complex upriver in Langley, Maryland. But he, too, apparently saw the potential of the system, and requested ten units for the Directorate of Science and Technology. That request Breland viewed with a somewhat jaundiced eye, wondering what assurances he could secure that those units could be kept out of the hands of the Operations Directorate.

  The principal weapons of the National Security Agency were technology and cryptology, which the Trigger did not threaten. Nevertheless, with most NS A facilities - including the headquarters - located securely within the perimeter of the Army's Fort Meade, the director's answer was 'Thanks, but no thanks.'

  So Numbers 8, 9, and 10 were reassigned to the next three highest priorities drawn from the FBI's official Domestic Terrorism Threat Assessment and the Cold-War era National Disaster Recovery Plan - the Federal Reserve Board, the Social Security Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service's central records center.

  'Making the world safe for tax collectors was not exactly what I had in mind when we started this,' Breland said dryly as he signed the transfer authorizations. I got the latest numbers from FedStat this morning - thirty-five thousand deaths by gun last year - a hundred thousand more gunshot injuries. I want to do something to protect those people, not the Beltway elite - we were already safer than they are. Someone reassure me that we haven't lost our way so soon.'

  'The next fifty Mark Is - a month's production - are going directly to Utah to expand the test program,' said Richard Nolby. 'We won't have a chance to really address the civil sector until March.'

  Breland sighed. 'I know I was there when it was decided, but do they really need so many at once?'

  'Yes, Mr President,' said General Stepak. Truth is, they could use a hundred or more - up until now, they haven't been able to do any tests which might damage the only working example they have, tests that actually simulate combat conditions. And, in any case, the special security units are a few weeks from being ready. We're going to need them when we start going outside the kind of tightly controlled environments these first ten Triggers went into.'

  Propping his chin on his hand, Breland spun his chair a half-turn and stared out the window at the snow flurries dancing above the South Portico. 'I guess I'm just impatient, General,' he said. 'I can hardly stand to look at the news now - every shooting, every terrorist bombing, seems that much more senseless an
d tragic, knowing that there is something that could be done.'

  A hundred miles west of Provo, Utah, the vast expanses of the Great Salt Lake Desert belonged to the engines of war. Over the decades, hundreds of new and exotic weapons had come to the Utah Test and Training Range to prove themselves. Hidden by sheer isolation from curious eyes, the white salt flats had been bombed, burned, strafed, shelled, gassed, sprayed with noxious chemicals, and littered with the debris from shattered drones, smashed tanks, and doomed aircraft.

  In the remote southwest corner of the UTTR was a cluster of hangars, shops, garages, and barracks which those who lived and worked there called the Fortress of Solitude, and the Pentagon called the Desert Test Center. Here the newest and most secret weapons underwent their auditions. Weapons which passed muster typically became part of the inventory. Those which did not typically vanished back into the anonymity of 'file and forget' - the fate of classified projects that not even the enemy was interested in.

  Lieutenant Colonel Roger Adams, commander of the DTC, was hoping that the XM9M1 Trigger would be one of the latter. And if it could be done without violating the test protocols, he was determined to see the system fail - because its success would be a nightmare for every battlefield commander.

  Far better for everyone if his report could be summarized in four words: Not reliable. Not effective.

  So far, the clocks for the Continuous Operation Duration Test had reached the 200-hour threshold with all eight systems still up and running. But even that test was being made as challenging as possible, with two units mounted on shakers, two being fed dirty power, and two being dialed between 1% and 100% every thirty seconds. With luck, they'd all expire well before reaching their initial design target of a thousand hours.

  The most crucial test, though, was to begin that morning. At 07.00, three tracked vehicles had trundled out of Building 9 and headed north to the test area. The first was an HMMWV equipped as a camera platform. The last was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle which mounted a small forest of antennas instead of the standard 25mm cannon.

  Sandwiched between the Hummer and the Bradley was Ground Test Article 1 - a boxy sloped-fronted Ml 13 armored personnel carrier, remotely controlled by an operator in the Bradley. And inside GTA-1 was Trigger 00013. (Adams was not above enlisting the power of superstition in his cause.)

  The test area was sixty kilometers from the Fortress of Solitude, but the jolting cross-country run was actually the first hurdle. Waiting for GTA-1 on the other side was a murderous gauntlet it was not expected to survive - first a high-density minefield, then a series of five fire zones, each boasting higher-powered weaponry than the last.

  At 08.30, Lieutenant Colonel Adams and test coordinator Cap-tain Dionne Weeks boarded a UH-60M Black Hawk helicopter, from which they would observe the test. Before long they caught up with the test caravan, now waiting motionless on the desert outside a flag-marked boundary. Both officers donned headsets monitoring the command frequency, and moved to the Black Hawk's large side windows with binoculars in hand.

  Test Control, this is Test Command,' said Weeks. 'You may proceed. Over.'

  'Roger, Test Command. All stations, prepare to activate GTA-1, on my mark.'

  From their hovering helicopter, Adams and Weeks watched as the Hummer and the Bradley retreated a few hundred yards from the Ml 13. When the activation order came, they had an unmatched view as a great semi-circle of the minefield ahead of the Ml 13 suddenly-erupted, with at least fifty plumes of white crystals and dust thrown up from the former lake bed. The cleared area was easily three hundred meters from one side to the other. When the Ml 13 started forward, the circle became a great arc moving ahead of the vehicle like a bow wave.

  'That's incredible,' Weeks shouted to Adams, shaking her head. 'It looks to me as though the only way a mine could touch that APC is if the driver took it into the minefield before he turned on the Trigger. An armor column with one of these at the point wouldn't even have to slow down. I'd say the M58 is now obsolete,' she added, referring to the combat engineers' current mine-clearing system.

  'No surprises,' Adams shouted back crossly. 'This is just what we would have expected from the static tests.'

  'Yes, sir - but it's still something to see.'

  There was a brief pause when the Ml 13 cleared the minefield, allowing camera and other recorders to be reset and the Black Hawk to crab closer to the first fire zone. Then the order to proceed crackled over the headsets, and the elderly APC rumbled forward. As soon as it passed the first marker flag, a gunner 500 meters away opened up with a 40mm automatic grenade launcher - single shots at first, then short bursts, then a sustained ten-second fusillade of more than a hundred rounds.

  To the Army sergeant whose finger was on the trigger, it seemed as though every round was on target - except that after the flash

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  faded and the breeze blew away the smoke, the APC was still rolling. But the camera crew following in the Hummer and the observers aloft saw something quite different. From their perspective, the grenades exploded more than two hundred meters away from the vehicle, as though they were striking an invisible wall. GTA-1 suffered no greater punishment than a light hail of shrapnel.

  'Well, I'm impressed,' Weeks shouted. 'A Mark 19's supposed to be able to take out an armored personnel carrier.'

  Frowning darkly, Adams made no reply.

  In the next fire zone were more infantrymen, armed with two Silver Dragon wire-guided antitank missiles. Their marksmanship was impeccable, the explosions louder and more spectacular, but the net effect was the same. Secure inside its mysterious shield, GTA-1 ambled on.

  Waiting in the third fire zone was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle mounting the most powerful antitank weapon available to the infantry, the TOW 2 wire-guided missile. Its warhead was powerful enough to penetrate the frontal armor of a main battle tank, and should have gutted a lightly-armed vehicle like the Ml 13. But it, too, expended itself uselessly against the Trigger field, the force of the blast so muted by distance that all it did was momentarily rock the APC sideways.

  'If I wasn't seeing this for myself -' Adams muttered under his breath. Test Control, this is Test Command - what frequency is the Abrams using?'

  'Combat 1 for C&C, Combat 2 for monitor, sir.'

  As the APC moved into the fourth fire zone, Adams leaned forward and changed the frequency of the radio to Combat 2. New voices crackled in his ears as the M1A2 Abrams tank prepared to fire its deadly-accurate 120mm cannon from a point-blank 800 meters away.

  'Gunner, APC, HEAT,' ordered the tank commander.

  'APC, HEAT, aye.'

  'Target is green,' said Test Control.

  'Gunner, fire!'

  'Fire, aye.'

  A billowing gray-white cloud pierced by a gout of crimson fire erupted from the barrel of the tank as the enormous shell sped toward its target. The detonation of the high-explosive shell was wild and terrifying, the shock wave making the Black Hawk shudder. But although the blast bent an antenna and shoved the APC half a meter sideways on the crumbly salt pan, it did not cause any critical wounds.

  'Gunner, APC, sabot.'

  On hearing that, Weeks jerked her head around to stare at Adams. 'Who added that to the test routine?' she demanded.

  'I did,' said Adams.

  'APC, sabot, aye.'

  'But there's no explosive charge in a sabot round. It's strictly a KE weapon - you know what's going to happen.'

  'Gunner, fire!'

  'Yes, Captain,' Adams said.

  'Fire, aye!'

  Moments later, all that was left of the test article was an oily scorch mark a dozen meters across, a tall plume of black smoke and a quiet rain of metal fragments onto the desert.

  Against a background of cheering from the tank crew came the message, Test Command to all units, looks like we're done for the day. Secure all weapons, lock all data recorders, and return to base.'

  'Colonel Adams, I don't understand,' Weeks shouted, tearing off h
er headset. 'We had an Apache loaded with Hellfire missiles waiting in zone five.'

  'Let's not do this here, Captain,' Adams said, his eyes steely. Removing his own headset, Adams leaned forward, tapped the pilot on the shoulder, and signaled to him to head back.

  'Where, then?'

  'Wait for the operations debriefing.'

  When the helicopter landed, Adams silently bade her to follow him with a jerk of his head in the general direction of his office. Behind closed doors, he turned to her with arms folded over his chest. 'First, let's make sure we both understand that I'm not under any obligation to explain myself to you.'

  'Understood, sir.'

  'Fine. Then this is the operations debriefing. What's your gripe?'

  'Since I'm the one who signs the first line on the test report that goes back to HQ, I was hoping that maybe you could give me the benefit of your reasoning.'

  Adams looked out the window. 'What do you think the result would have been with the Hellfires?'

  'Well -' She pursed her lips. 'If the 120mm HEAT didn't do the job, chances are that the Hellfires wouldn't, either.'

  'In which case right now there'd be a hundred and twenty-some soldiers who'd witnessed a miracle, a tin can transformed into an indestructible tank with an invisible shield - a hundred and twenty minds starting to chew on the idea that there's something out there that can take their best shot and keep coming. I'm not accusing anyone of disloyalty, Captain Weeks, but I don't think they'd all be able to keep from talking about it. And I don't want that idea getting out there in the ranks. I can't imagine anything more destructive to morale.'