Arc Light (93 page)

Over the phone, which was pressed to his ear, he could hear Admiral Dixon reading out the target list. “Saratov, thirty-seven warheads. Omsk, thirty-one warheads. Yaroslavl, thirty warheads. Kaluga, withhold. We'll use ADMs, Atomic Demolition Munitions, on Kaluga after we withdraw our troops and evacuate it.”

“Mr. President,” Lambert said. He heard the CNO saying, “Vladimir, twenty-eight warheads.” “Mr. President!” Lambert shouted.

“What?” Costanzo replied angrily.

“Sir, there is only one hope. There is only one chance that this is not the awful end that we all feared. And that is if General Razov is telling the truth, and that the one final safeguard of all the checks and measures that have previously failed works this time and saves us from the ultimate tragedy. If you launch now, that one chance will be given up forever because General Razov will fire his reloaded missiles before our missiles strike their silos. And if Razov
is
telling the truth, and the system does work, then whom, Mr. President, whom will history view as the villain in all of this? If those Russian submarines' warheads do not detonate over our cities, sir, but our weapons incinerate tens of millions of Russians and their ICBMs' warheads hit our cities and do explode, what will the final mistake be, and who will have committed it?”

“Greg,
Goddammit,”
Costanzo shouted, “I don't know if they've got a gun to your head, or if you're just more inclined to trust these bastards than you have any reason to be, but if what you're asking
me to do is trust Razov, that argument doesn't fly anymore.”

“Sir, you have no choice.”

“That's where you're wrong, Greg. That's where you're wrong. I've got a whole book full of choices right here! A whole book of choices!”

“Mr. President!” Lambert yelled, but the line went dead.

Lambert looked at Razov, Lambert still holding the phone to his ear. As the seconds elapsed and Razov realized that the line had been cut, his face grew more and more set in a bitter mask. The weather lines around his eyes deepened, and his clenched teeth grew visible through slightly parted lips. “Where are the codes for the reloaded missile silos?” he snapped in Russian at the two officers manning the still open nuclear communicators.

“General Razov!” Lambert shouted. “He hasn't made a decision!” Razov walked over to the two devices and looked down at the small notebook pulled from the side pouch of one of the communicators. “You know General Thomas! He can talk the President out of launching! The same arguments that you used on the President apply to
you!”

“That he should trust us?” Razov asked with a sneer as he looked up from the book. “And you ask now that I trust a man who out of nothing more than a fit of anger is willing to kill tens of millions of people, of
my
people. Or do they not count, Mr. Lambert, because they are only Russians?”

Lambert looked at his friend Filipov, Razov's trusted aide and Lambert's last hope. Filipov's rifle was on his shoulder, its aim straight at Lambert's face.

“General Razov,” Lambert pleaded, trying desperately to organize the jumble of thoughts against a rising tide of panic. “We do not know that the President will order a launch.”

“And without the satellites that you destroyed we won't know that he did until our remaining missiles are destroyed in their silos, will we?” Razov spit out commands to the two officers in front of him, his voice filled with hatred.

Lambert's heart thumped in his chest, and his throat felt constricted. “No. No, sir, we won't.”

Razov slowly looked up at him.

“And if the President does fire, you will have disabled your submarine missiles' warheads and lost your last remaining land-based missiles if you hold your fire.” Lambert licked his lips and swallowed.

Razov clenched his jaw and looked down at the two officers. “Initiate the sequence!”

“General!” Lambert said as he took a step toward him. He
heard the metallic click of the safety from Filipov's rifle, but he remained focused on Razov. “What will you lose? What possible advantage will be lost? Your country will be in ruins. Would you have my country destroyed also? For what purpose? The only nation with the means of providing for your recovery would be in flames, the hearts of its population seared closed in bitter enmity toward your people for a
hundred
years!”

The orders hung on Razov's lips.

“He might not have fired!” Lambert shouted in Russian.

First one, then the other officer at the table, their fingers on the
TRANSMIT
keys of their code cases, looked up at Razov. Razov's gray eyes burned into Lambert's. Time stood still.

“Enter the code!” President Costanzo ordered.

“Are you absolutely sure, Mr. President?” Thomas asked, standing in front of his chair.

“Look, we were told by this Damocles, whoever he is, about their fail-deadly firing policy. You people were convinced it was a hoax, that the subs wouldn't fire without new orders from Moscow. But they damn sure fired, didn't they? Didn't they?” the President shouted, rising to his feet to pace while lost deep in thought, his hair increasingly unkempt as he ran his hands through it over and over again. “Either Razov fired those missiles at us when he input that code, or this Damocles was telling the truth all along about the fail-deadly policy. And if Damocles
was
telling the truth, he must have been telling the truth about Operation Samson too. They've been
preparing
for this! They've buried their industrial equipment, dispersed their army, done all the things Operation Samson called for! Razov fired at our cities
knowing
we'll fire back at his! He's playing out some un-
fucking
-believable endgame from which he somehow expects to gain an advantage!”

He grabbed the back of his chair as if to steady himself. Thomas looked into the man's haunted eyes. In the theater of Costanzo's mind he could imagine what was playing: the end of the world.

The President's gaze rose to the room's display, which had switched from the Moscow assault to a map of the earth looking down from the North Pole,
NORAD'S
computers plotted the second-by-second passage of the twelve hundred warheads that had escaped the caldron of thermonuclear detonations atop the Kara Sea and
were confirmed inbound across the ice cap. Narrowing circles on the map of the United States were their probable points of impact. From the general outline of the U.S. borders and the location of the hundreds and hundreds of circles all across it, one thing was eminently clear: the warheads were heading for the cities.

“Enter the Goddamn code,” Costanzo ordered, and Admiral Dixon picked up his telephone. In a few seconds, it was done.

On hearing the muted throb of a siren, Captain Bill McKenzie's pulse quickened. He opened his eyes and immediately swung his feet to the floor. The red light over the hatch to his compartment was flashing—
EAM
written diagonally across its face.

His mind began reviewing the procedures to come as he quickly slipped into his shoes, brushed his hair, and straightened the uniform in which he had slept. Had he awakened to a normal routine, he would have dropped the uniform into his laundry bag before showering, but this was not normal. This was why he slept in his uniform.

Before he opened the hatch, he cleared his throat and pulled the muscles of his back erect. Turning into the corridor, he strode quickly to his post.

“Captain's on the conn,” he said loudly as he reached the crowded bridge, lowering his voice to achieve the resonant quality to which his crew was accustomed. “Officer o' the Deck, report.” The words were long rehearsed, rapidly spoken.

“Comm's receiving
FLASH
traffic, Captain,” the OD said, his eyes glancing up to catch McKenzie's and then back down. No one else saw the look.

McKenzie felt all his senses grow keenly alert, catching the subtle differences in the man's behavior. He jerked the microphone off its cradle and said, “Comm, this is the captain.”

“Uh, Captain, this is Comm,” the tinny voice came back over the small speaker above the cradle. “Emergency Action Message is: NCA Control Order. Recommend Alert One.”

McKenzie could feel the eyes of his men turn toward him. With a conscious effort to avoid any visible reaction, he pulled the mike back up to his lips and said, “Convene the EAM Team.” Reaching up to turn the ship-wide intercom on, he said, “All hands, all hands,
now hear this,” his words sounding in the background. “Alert One, Alert One.”

Replacing the mike in its cradle, McKenzie avoided the openly staring faces of the men on the conn and said, “Officer of the Deck, proceed to launch depth and prepare to hover.”

“Aye, sir. Dive,” the OD said, turning to the control room at the side of the conn, “proceed to launch depth and prepare to hover.”

McKenzie headed to the Communications Room without acknowledging the men's stares.

“Cap'n's off the conn,” a sailor called from behind him.

McKenzie walked down the long corridor, oblivious to the sailors as they now poured from their compartments, their artificial eighteen-hour day interrupted in the middle of the “night,” and braced with heels against the bulkhead just long enough for McKenzie to pass before hurrying on to their stations. He was lost in his own world, doing his job in his head over and over. By the time he got to the Communications Room, he had all the reassurance he needed. He would be cool, professional. He would excel where he had always excelled. He would measure up in the eyes of his crew by the one criterion by which he measured them: he would do his job.

When he opened the hatch to the Communications Room, the three officers all flinched at the sudden noise and then stiffened to attention. Commander Pearcy, his second in command, said by way of greeting, “Ready for format verification, sir.”

McKenzie got a rush of satisfaction, a feeling of comfort that everything to come would be familiar and expected. Ordered. This was his crew. They were molded in his image. McKenzie turned to the two lieutenants standing on either side of a small table. “Mr. Williams, Mr. Barnett, verify the format.”

As the two lieutenants ripped open the sealed authentication packages, McKenzie looked at the copy of the EAM that Pearcy handed to him. The code of numbers and letters appeared normal in all respects. It was a control order—the hundredth, the thousandth time he had seen one in drills. This was the first time he had seen it, however, without clear, safe
THIS IS A DRILL
qualifiers printed in boldface across both the top and bottom. He checked the printout carefully and found both the beginning and end of transmission indicators. There was no qualifier on this EAM.

McKenzie pulled a mike from the bulkhead and said, “Control, this is the captain. This message requires Battle Stations—Missile. Man Battle Stations—Missile.” He flicked the intercom to monitor, and against the normal background noise heard the Officer of the Deck say, “Chief of the Watch, sound the general alarm.”

Almost immediately a low horn began repeating its digitally produced sound from all corners of the boat.

Pearcy stood up from the table with his copy of the EAM in hand and said, “Captain, the EAM Team has a properly formatted message. Request permission to authenticate.”

“Mr. Williams, do you concur?” McKenzie asked the lieutenant on his left.

“Yes, Captain, I concur.”

“Mr. Barnett, do you concur?”

“I concur, Captain.”

It was quick, and it was efficient—good.

“You have permission to authenticate,” McKenzie said to Pearcy.

“Authenticate—aye aye, sir,” he responded as he again hunched over the table. McKenzie breathed slowly—in through his nose, out through his mouth. Filling his lungs, he smoothed out the ragged edges of his nerves.

“Captain, the message authenticates,” Pearcy said.

“I agree, Captain, the message authenticates,” Williams said.

“Captain, I concur,” Barnett said in rapid succession.

“I concur,” McKenzie said formally. “It is an authentic message. Executive Officer, break out the CIPT.”

“Break out the CIPT, aye aye, sir,” Pearcy said as McKenzie opened the hatch and returned to the conn.

When he arrived, he said in a loud voice that drowned out all the others, “Attention on deck, this is the captain! I have the deck and the conn.” He stole a glance at the depth and speed indicators. All was ready. “Engines, all stop.”

“Engines, all stop” was repeated from the control room.

“Diving Officer,” McKenzie continued in his deep command voice, “prepare to hover.”

“Back one-third,” the Diving Officer said as he stared over the shoulders of the two drivers seated at wheels like the pilot's yoke of a large airplane. After a moment, the Diving Officer straightened and looked at McKenzie. “Diving Officer prepared to hover, sir.”

“Diving Officer, commence hovering.”

“Commence hovering,” the Diving Officer replied, “aye aye, sir,” and the massive steel vessel began what for it was the most difficult maneuver of all, remaining motionless just beneath the rolling surface of the ocean.

McKenzie grabbed the mike from the console next to him and said over the boat's intercom, “Set Condition 1-SQ. This is not a drill, this is not a drill. Set Condition 1-SQ.” He didn't identify himself. The crew knew his voice.

“Set Condition 1-SQ,” McKenzie heard in reply over the speaker from the Missile Room. They were now on the highest state of alert possible. The hammer was cocked on the 560-foot-long, 18,000-ton submarine.