Final Storm (7 page)

Fitz took a deep breath, then added: “But I will tell you this: We, here in America, are in worse danger
now
than we’ve been since the Big War.”

And on that frighteningly cryptic note, Fitz walked quickly from the cafeteria.

Damn,
Hunter thought.
Does it ever end?
They finally kick the Soviets and their agents out of the country, secure their southern border and water trade route, and snatched the ex-VP back to stand trial. Wasn’t that enough to please the gods?

Suddenly, a strange sensation went through him. For a moment, he felt a pang of regret that he hadn’t taken Elizabeth up on her amorous offer a week before.

I
F ANYTHING, THE DOME
was even more crowded than the day before.

Dr. Leylah took the stand once again, a huge document under her arm. At the same time, duplicate documents were being passed out in the witness gallery.

Of the 50,000 people on hand, no one was more surprised than Hunter when he began reading the first page …

Gray Interactive Testimony Project

Transcript 1-AF4, Sub-Document A

“Recollections of the Hostilities”

First Witness: Major Hawker Hunter

Additional Testimony: Major JT Toomey, Major Ben-hoi Wa, Captain Geoffrey Spaulding, Major D. Larochelle, Lieutenant B. Fitch, Captain J. O’Malley, Captain Elvis “Q,” Colonel B.

Davis, Colonel L. Gorshkov

Additional Information: The memoirs of General Seth Jones

The day the war began

“Captain Hawker Hunter, reporting for pilot training …”

The uniformed airman behind the desk executed a crisp salute and briefly scanned Hunter’s orders. “Everything seems to be in order, sir,” the enlisted man said. “We’ve been expecting you.”

The airman picked up a phone, punched in a series of numbers and quickly reached someone on the other end. “Sir, you asked me to notify you when Captain Hunter arrived,” he said. “Yes sir, he’s here already.”

Hunter was standing in a place called Building B, just barely containing his enthusiasm. Despite its lackluster name, the place looked like something out of a science fiction movie. Functional, yet otherwordly, with just a smattering of Christmas decorations. In actuality, the building housed what could only be described as the ultimate in pilot flight-training facilities.

So this is how it feels when your dream finally comes true, Hunter thought.

He had just arrived at the Cape Canaveral Launch Center, via a bumpy, crowded, day-before-Christmas commercial flight from Las Vegas. Although he was allowed a few hours, if not a night’s sleep, before reporting for duty, he was ready—
now.
Ready to begin training for America’s space program. Ready to learn how to fly the Space Shuttle …

Canaveral was everything he had imagined it to be. Launch towers. Control buildings. Miles of open area. Thousands of people. A high-tech city on the edge of the Florida coastal swamps, its atmosphere heavy with history.

An Air Force officer soon appeared and introduced himself as Colonel Neil Schweiker.

The introduction wasn’t necessary—Hunter knew Schweiker was one of the NASA’s best and highest-profile astronauts.

“Good to meet you, Captain,” Schweiker told him, firmly shaking his hand. “We’ve all heard a lot about you.”

Hunter was always a little uncomfortable at the extra attention he received when people realized who he was. But it was well known—courtesy of cover stories in both
Time
and
Newsweek—
that at 17, Hunter was the youngest graduate ever of MIT’s aerospace engineering program. And that he had completed work on his aeronautics doctorate degree three months afterward. And that he was the youngest pilot ever to join the USAF’s Thunderbirds Demonstration Team.
And
that he was the youngest pilot ever to be selected for Space Shuttle pilot training.

“You’re early,” Schweiker told him, checking his watch. “You can rest up awhile if you want.”

“No thanks, sir,” Hunter answered. “I’m anxious to get going. Also, I don’t want someone to have to give me the run-through tomorrow and spoil their Christmas.”

Schweiker nodded. “OK,” he said. “I can give you the quick look-see. Just enough to get you somewhat situated. The real work will start the day after tomorrow.”

After Hunter’s gear was stowed in the pilot trainees’ personal quarters, Schweiker scared up a jeep and gave him a quick tour of the immediate base.

The astronaut was a friendly, easygoing sort who insisted that the military formalities be dispensed with. As they rode along, they discussed the shuttle itself and the two-site training—from Florida to Houston—that Hunter would begin shortly. All the while, Schweiker pointed out the training classrooms, the rest facilities, the labs, the launch site, the mess hall and the officers’ club. Most impressive was the monstrosity called the VAB—for Vehicle Assembly Building. This was the place where they put the shuttles together. It was a building so tall that clouds actually formed just below its ceiling.

“Hell of a time to start training,” Schweiker said to him at one point. “With the holiday and all …”

Not that much of a problem, Hunter thought. He’d been spending his holidays on either college campuses and military bases for several years, ever since his parents were lost in a plane crash.

“Lot of guys are stuck here,” Schweiker continued. “That’s why the mess hall puts on a really good holiday feed. And there’s always a big blow-out at the Officers’ Club if you’re interested.”

“That’s good to know,” Hunter told him. He knew there was no better way to get a perspective on a new base than to make that initial prowl through its authorized saloon.

They returned to Building B, their 90-minute tour complete. After making a few phone calls, Schweiker offered to drive Hunter back to his living quarters.

“No, thanks,” the young pilot told him, remembering one spot in the tour that he wanted to revisit. “I’ll hoof it back …”

He thanked Schweiker, left Building B and walked over to a marble and bronze monument they had passed earlier. It was a memorial to the astronauts killed in the Challenger disaster.

Feeling an undeniable attraction in the place, Hunter sat down on the stone bench across from the memorial and stayed there until the Florida sun had nearly set.

It was a long shadow that Hunter cast as he walked back toward the personnel quarters, his body still awash in the near-sanctity he had felt while sitting before the Challenger memorial for the past few hours.

If not for them
, he had thought over and over,
would I even be here?

Suddenly his body started tingling with a new sensation—this one more immediate and acute. From an early age Hunter knew he had been blessed—or was it
cursed
—with a gift akin to ESP. As the sensation was ultimately indescribable, he thought of it only as
the feeling
—a finely tuned, highly reliable intuition that made him what many said was “the best pilot ever.”

But this
feeling
did not just affect him in flight. In fact, it permeated his entire existence—awake or asleep, walking around, as well as flying.

And now, at this moment, it was telling him that something was wrong somewhere in the cosmos—desperately wrong.

Instinctively, he headed for the center’s communication building …

Hunter expected that most of the CENCOM’s personnel would be gone—either home with families or joining the celebration at the Officers’ Club. But as he approached the white stone building, he saw that it was a hive of activity.

His inner message was confirmed. Something
was
up.

It was now the height of dusk and every light in the place was on. He walked into the main administration area and it seemed like every telephone was ringing or buzzing at once. Both Air Force and NASA personnel were scrambling around in a dance of controlled confusion—so much so, not a one stopped to question who he was or what he was doing there.

He took a set of stairs two steps at a time and found himself in the CENCOM’s main control room, a facility that held no less than two hundred telephones, plus banks of telex and fax machines. Like downstairs, it seemed as if every one of these communications machines was going full-blast, knots of military types and civilians gathered around them, their faces screwed up with concern. In the cacophony of shrill ringing, insistent buzzing, and tense conversation that cascaded throughout the large room, Hunter was able to distinguish only two words: “Germany” and “casualties.”

In the midst of the chaos, his attention was drawn to a small television set in the corner, all but ignored in the din. Surrounded by half-empty paper cups of eggnog left over from what had been a small office party, the slightly beat-up TV was blaring out an animated Christmas program, oblivious to the desperation in the room. Struck by the incongruity of the cartoon’s carefree music in the frenzied atmosphere, Hunter’s eyes were instantly glued to the TV screen.

An instant later, the cartoon stopped, the screen flickered and then was filled with the words: “Emergency Broadcasting System.”

Suddenly everything stopped. The room was flooded with the nightmarish EBS tone everyone present had heard many times before. But now, for the first time, the dour-voiced announcer said: “This is
not
a test …”

Instead, he instructed viewers to change to another channel. One brave soul among the many in the room did so, only to find the same EBS graphic being broadcast, with the words “This is not a test,” blinking rapidly.

Hunter would never know just how long he stood there, an uninvited interloper who, like the others, stared in disbelief as some unknown announcer appeared on the screen and solemnly, nervously read the bulletin for Doomsday.

In his memory, Hunter could only recall swatches and bits of the first report:

Millions of West Europeans dead … Soviet chemical weapons strike … thousands of Soviet SCUD missiles launched against civilian and military targets … missiles carrying nerve gas…. Soviet invasion of Western Europe … No nuclear weapons used yet … the President is asking Congress to
c
onvene immediately … war will soon be declared.

Through it all, Hunter did remember the absolute silence in the room. Then, when the screen finally went to black, the men in the CENCOM, their faces pale beyond belief, simply went back to their telephones and telexes and resumed their tasks.

Hunter’s next recollection concerned his close friends from the Thunderbirds. Several days before he reported to Florida, three of them had “turned over.” That was, like himself, they had been reassigned after finishing their two-year stint with the Aerial Demonstration Team. General Seth Jones, Captain JT Toomey and Captain Ben Wa had relocated to a NATO F-16 base near Rota, Spain, where Jones had taken over the job of CINCUSAFE (Commander-in-Chief, US Air Forces-Europe). Hunter would have been with them if Jones hadn’t first recommended, then bullied through, Hunter’s appointment to the space shuttle pilot training.

Had they, three of his closest friends, escaped the deadly gas attack?

Then, after the shock, came anger. It welled up inside of him like a boiling tidal wave. So the Soviet bastards had finally done it…. Millions of innocents—women and children—had undoubtedly perished along with, he assumed, many of NATO’s troops.

And on Christmas Eve yet, when the civilized world celebrated a time of peace. How sinister that the Red Army’s war machine let loose its first deadly volley on this day.

Suddenly, as if on cue, one of the men in CENCOM approached him.

“Are you Captain Hunter?” the man asked, probably recognizing Hunter from the previous years’ gush of publicity.

“Yes, I am,” Hunter confirmed.

“We have a telex here, sir, that mentions you by name,” the man told him. “Formal orders, but, in light of this …”

The man’s voice trailed off, but his meaning was crystal clear. The announcement of World War III tended to put a dent in the formalities for the time being.

The man led him to a telex machine that was clicking furiously. Tearing off a portion of a message recently received, the man pointed to one, brief paragraph that started with Hunter’s name, rank, and serial number.

There were surprisingly detailed orders—in this time of crisis, some computer somewhere had tracked him down: He was immediately reassigned to the 16th Tactical Fighter Wing, as the Thunderbirds were officially listed on the Air Force’s active combat unit roster. He was to report to Langley Air Force base in Virginia at once. From there he would join a “tactical escort and resupply force” and transit to Europe.

In other words, Hunter was going to war.

L
ANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE
was a whirlwind of controlled chaos.

It seemed to Hunter that every military transport in the Air Force inventory was out on the tarmac. All around him, the cold morning was shattered by the scream of jet engines being pushed up to speed, intakes greedily sucking in the clean, crisp morning air igniting within their crucibles, driving the big turbines that in turn thrust out flaming exhausts in long fiery arrows.

At the same time, hundreds of big propellers churned, biting into the air and sluicing it behind them in a thousand rivers of wind that flowed across the airfield, whipping the collars and sleeves and trouser legs of the army of ground crews.

Forklifts, tanker trucks, and flatbeds roared across the vast expanse of concrete on hundreds of intersecting lines, crisscrossing under wings and between fuselages to deliver their loads of fuel, supplies, weapons, and ammunition, then to scurry back for more.

The scene didn’t look a bit like Christmas morning.

Every one of the airplanes being loaded at Langley that day were crucial components in the massive “air bridge” that was being strung from America to Europe to deal with the emergency. Long gone were the days when ships alone could carry the tools of war to the fighting front. This new war—declared by the President that morning—demanded more immediate delivery; measured in hours and days instead of weeks and months.