Storm Killer (27 page)

“Mr. President? Are you there?” queried his Russian counterpart.

“Yes, Vladimir. I’m here,” answered the President.

“We are ready. The launch can occur anytime between one minute from now and fifteen minutes from now. After that, we must update the guidance computer’s data. Once launched, it will take about eighteen minutes to hit the target, give or take twenty seconds.”

The President glanced at the wall chronometer and noted the time. If Storm Killer could be destroyed within twenty-nine minutes and thirty-five seconds, the Lincoln would be spared. 

The President’s voice struggled to maintain its smooth tenor as he replied, “Launch it in exactly ten minutes. We will instruct our onboard crew to abandon the station immediately. My technical guys at NASA tell me that is enough to time to suit up, EVA to the waiting shuttle, and have the shuttle move out of range of the explosion.”  

“Very well, Mr. President.”

The President pointed to Rose, “Call Adam Sand on the station and tell him to move their rear ends to the shuttle. Now!”

Rose got up from her chair; speed dialed Adam Sand’s number, and walked back toward the senior advisors’ office as it rang.

“Adam Sand here,” Sand answered on the second ring.

“Adam, this is Rose Magruder, please confirm my voice and my phone number,” Rose ordered.

Adam knew her voice and glancing at the caller id, saw that it was Rose’s cell that had called him.

“Verified to my satisfaction, Rose,” Adam replied.

“The missile launches in just under four minutes. You have about twenty-seven minutes to EVA to the shuttle and get out of there before all hell breaks loose.”

Sand sat stunned. They’re really going to blow up a five hundred billion dollar project! 

Rose said, “Adam? Did you get that? Twenty-seven minutes. Get going!”

Adam responded through the mental fog he was in, “Got it, Rose. I’m so sorry.”

“So am I. Now go!” Rose ordered as she broke the connection.

Dr. Rosen had walked into the office during Rose’s conversation with Sand. He had searched through the volumes of briefing papers over the first desk and found a very large, heavy, hard-backed 3-ring binder. It was exactly what he was looking for. He laid it on the desk as Rose was finishing her conversation    

He looked around outside the office door, shut it, picked up the binder, and walked over to Rose as if to show her something in the binder.

Without saying a word, he raised the binder and swung it like a baseball bat. It caught her in the temple just above the left ear. She fell to her knees. He swung again from above with all of strength he could muster. He caught her at the base of the head where it connects to the neck. He thought he heard a crack of bone as the binder made impact. Rose fell face first to the floor; blood was dripping from her nose. 

He grabbed her body by the arms and pulled it into the knee space under the furthest desk in the office. He pulled one of the chairs to the front of the desk. A casual observer at the door would not notice her body.

He picked up her phone and hit the re-dial of the last number. Adam Sand immediately answered.

“Sand here.”

“Adam, this is Dr. Rosen. I am here in the White House situation room. Rose was a little ahead of herself telling you the missile had launched. The President has decided to give you folks every possible second to regain control up there. We’ll hold the launch for at least another twenty minutes. So good luck in getting control back!” 

Adam breathed a sigh of relief. Good, I got a little more time to fix this mess!

Adam said, “Thanks Dr. Rosen. But, why’d Rose tell me that just seconds ago?”

Rosen didn’t hesitate as he lied, “Ah, Adam, it’s awful. Rose was asked to resign at the end of this crisis. It hit her very hard. She hasn’t been herself since the President asked for her resignation. We think the stress and strain just got to her.”  

Adam was shocked. He knew Rose Magruder very well and she was as tough as anyone Adam had ever met. But with the relief of knowing his creation had been given a little more life, Adam dropped his thoughts of Rose and began to concentrate on getting Storm Killer under control in the time he had been given.

“I’m sorry for her, Dr. Rosen. When this is over, I’d like to help her in any way I can,” Adam said.

“As we all do, Adam. Now go fix this situation! Best of luck!” Dr. Rosen said and disconnected. 

Dr. Rosen threw the phone in Rose’s purse. He noted the envelope addressed to the President and pulled it out. He threw the purse in an empty file drawer, and closed the office door on his way out.

He stepped back into the situation room and sat down. The President asked, “Where’s Rose? Did she get in touch with the station?”

Dr. Rosen extracted the envelope with Rose’s letter of resignation and handed it to the President saying, “Rose gave Adam Sand the instructions for evacuation, and then she handed me this and asked me to give it to you. She left after that.”

The President opened the envelope and pulled out the letter. He saw that it was the resignation he had asked for and put it the side. He cleared his throat and stated, “I would have thought Rose would have had the guts to deliver that to me personally. Shows how much I know about human nature.”

There was silence for a few seconds and then the phone’s speaker rattled again as the Russian president declared, “It is done. The launch order is given.”

The President seemed to shrink down in his chair. He looked physically ill as his voice quivered, “Thank you, Vladimir. Thank you very much. We’ll now wait for our confirmation of destruction.”   

60

The admiral watched the Storm Killer cone approach slowly from the east. The cone was less than sixty kilometers away. The heat could already be felt even at this distance. The sea roiled and boiled. Steam shot up as gigantic geysers from the churning sea.

The end was near.

The crew had been sent to the refrigerated lockers deep in the bowels of the Lincoln. The admiral and the bridge crew would be going down in a few minutes. They needed to bring the ship to a full stop and batten down the ship’s bridge. The ship would float at the mercy of the ocean currents and Edna’s winds until the Navy could send recovery crews after the heat cone passed over.

The admiral thought, the recovery crew will find no one left alive when they arrive. We’ll all be charcoal and black smudges by that time. No one can live through what’s coming our way. What a marvelous weapons system that thing in the sky would make.

He had written letters to his wife, two daughters, and son. In each, he had told them what was happening, what would happen, and that he would always love them and to be brave and happy in life after he was dead. He had told his children how much he had hoped to be a grandfather, but that it did not appear to be in the cards for him. He wrote his wife about the one time he had cheated on her over twenty years ago and pled for her forgiveness.    

The bridge crew finished their tasks and moved slowly toward the lower decks. Each officer was savoring the last moments of his or her lives. 

The cone of death was now only fifty-five kilometers away.

61

Lt. James braked to a stop in front of Brad Bolino’s quarters. He got out of the cart without releasing Francine’s wrist. Walking around the front of the cart, he pulled the doctor out and all but dragged her through the front door.

“Kim! I’ve got the doc!” he yelled as they entered. Nothing. No response. 

He released the doctor and drew his weapon from the holster. He moved to the bedroom door. The interior was dark. He stopped and listened for any sound from within. He heard Hoch’s labored breathing and his occasional moan. Of Kim, there was no sound.

He slowly reached in and flicked the light switch. The lights came on flooding the room. Lying next to Hoch was Kim’s body. Lt. James was shocked and scared that she had been attacked and was dead or dying. He ran to her side and saw the bruise on her head. He could see she was breathing and what he thought were moans from Hoch were actually her moans.

“Francine, get your butt in here! You have two patients.”

Francine entered the room and hurried to Kim’s side. She checked Kim’s vitals and announced, “Kim should be okay. Get my bag from the cart. Hurry!”  

She turned her attention to Hoch.

It took the lieutenant less than fifteen seconds to retrieve the bag and deliver it to the doctor. She opened it, rummaged for some particular medical items and began working on Hoch. Before she had turned to Hoch, she threw Lt. James a capsule of ammonia. “Here, break this under Kim’s nose. This should revive her.”

He did and it did. Kim inhaled sharply and began coughing as the ammonia attacked her nasal passages. Her eyes fluttered open and she saw Lt. James holding her head in his arm and looking down into her face with a look mixed in concern and desire. She was wonderfully happy just to continue to snuggle in his arm.

He waved the capsule again under her nose drawing another round of coughing from Kim. That effectively ended the fantasy she was living in at that moment.

He helped her to her feet and moved her slowly to the edge of the bed. She sat down heavily and held her head in her hands. He looked down as the doctor continued working on Hoch. She had started an IV and was injecting something into the IV line. The doctor talked over her shoulder as she worked. “He lost a lot of blood, his right lung is useless, his left lung is not in much better shape, and his liver is punctured. The bullets went all the way through his body and imbedded in the floor. I need to start him on several units of blood plasma and a unit of his whole blood ASAP. It’s a good thing that all of you chose to store several units of your whole blood when you first arrived here.

I’m giving him a broad-spectrum antibiotic to fight infections. I’m also going to give him a sedative to knock him out.”

“No, don’t,” Kim and Lt. James, yelled at the same moment.

He explained to the doctor, “We need to try to get him to tell us what happened and who did this.”

“He’s almost in a coma for Christ sake!” Francine replied angrily. “You want me to keep him alive, or just alive long enough to answer your questions?” 

“Wake him up,” the lieutenant ordered in the way of reply to her question.

Francine grimaced, hesitated, and reached into her bag for another injection. She pushed the hypodermic’s contents into the IV. “He’ll be groggy and maybe incoherent. He’ll only be awake for a few minutes, so make your time count!”

They all stared at Hoch’s inert form. Slowly, he began to slowly move his arms in a pawing motion. His eyelids fluttered and opened to small slits. He lay motionless for a few seconds and then opened his eyes wider. His eyes darted rapidly left to right. He finally seemed to focus on the doctor’s face. He appeared to recognize her.

Lt. James leaned down and Hoch’s eyes focused on his face. The lieutenant asked, “Hoch, do you hear me?”

Hoch nodded his head.

“Can you try to answer a couple of questions?”

Hoch nodded and his voice croaked, “I’ll try.” He licked his lips. Francine wiped his dry lips with a wet cloth to moisten them and Hoch attempted a small smile in gratitude.

“Hoch, who did this to you?”

Hoch croaked out a sound. He tried again to say something but only a noise came out.

He suddenly seemed to tense up and his body went rigid. His eyes seemed to have a wild, frightened look as he moved his gaze from Kim to Lt. James and back. He opened his mouth and a low moan of exhaling air was the only sound he made. His eyes glazed over into a dull film. As Kim watched those eyes, she saw the life leave his body. And then, he was gone. 

62

The mobile launcher was parked in a quiet dairy farm’s south pasture ten kilometers outside the city of Chelyabinsk. A small herd of Brown Swiss cattle grazed nearby.

The TOPOL-M SS-27 missile’s main solid fuel engine ignited with a roar. The engine built thrust as the holding clamps restrained the roaring beast. At four seconds after engine ignition, an electrical current was removed from the solenoids keeping the holding clamps closed, and they released with a metallic snap. The missile literally leaped from the enclosed silo of the mobile launcher with a spreading white cloud of expended fuel.

The cattle scattered, running away from the roaring beast sitting in their field. It would be many days before their owner would get a decent milking from them.