Not since his plebe year at West Point had Smith been so gripped with such an all-pervasive apprehension and loathing of the unknown. For Smith, the Army had been a sanctuary, a place where honor and traditions meant something. To him. the nation he had been charged to defend bore no resemblance to the well-ordered machine that he had come to command. The world outside the perimeter fence was populated by ruthless corporate CEO's, cutthroat lawyers, clueless twenty-something professionals, immoral politicians. and godless sodomites.
As disquieting as such thoughts were, there was no escaping the inevitable. It was time to make a decision as to what he would do with the rest of his life. This was no easy task. During his tenure as Chief of Staff of the Army, there had been no world-shaking events, such as a minor ground war, in which he had played a pivotal role. That meant he was not a good candidate for the rubber-chicken lecture circuit or a lucrative book deal. Teaching at a university was out. The idea of wasting his time trying to educate undergraduates who were convinced they knew more than their professors was almost as repugnant to Smith as the thought of associating with ultraliberal colleagues. Even the option of throwing his lot in with one of the defense contractors who provided a safe haven for many a retired officer was less than attractive. To Smith, that would be like selling his soul and his reputation at a public auction.
That pretty much narrowed his options to an offer from a think tank that specialized in military affairs. He was, after all, more than qualified for it. But even this left Smith cold. He found it difficult picturing himself stuffed away in an office, day in and day out, working with other retired generals discussing world events that they were unable to influence. Looking up at the bookshelves across from him, the weary old soldier stared at the cluster of books on George S. Patton. In the end, Smith thought to himself, Patton bad gotten it right. Although his death had been the result of an accident, when the alternatives were considered, the Fates had been most kind to Old Blood and Guts.
Slowly, almost subconsciously, Smith ran his hand across the cover of the closed book in his lap. He had often thought about taking up writing. He loved history. Throughout his life it had been a constant, a friend to whom he could turn. Whether he would be able to make a living out of recounting events that had been discussed and debated countless times before didn't matter. After having been in the Army for so long, he was used to doing things because he believed in what he was doing, and not simply for material gain.
Smith was in the midst of these deliberations when he heard the phone ring. Slowly, he turned his head and gazed at the extension on the table next to him. Years ago, he would have bounded out of his seat without a second thought, snatching up the receiver and dutifully answering the call to arms. As of late, however, with the end of his long career so clearly in sight, his response to these late night intrusions was something less than automatic. Soon, he told himself as he listened to the second ring fade, he'd be out of the loop, just another old soldier who had been ridden hard and long before being put out to pasture and forgotten, like so many before him.
When the phone didn't ring again, Smith knew that his wife had taken the call. Perhaps, he found himself hoping, it was one of their kids calling their mom to fill her in on the latest accomplishments of their own children, or seeking counsel on an issue that threatened to overwhelm them. Even as he tried to guess who was calling at this hour, he found himself envying his wife. Her role in the world would hardly change. While he would be demoted from the most senior officer in the United States Army to a retired old geezer overnight, she would remain a wife to him, a mother to a son and two daughters, and a grandmother of six. No matter where they went, no matter what he did with the rest of his life, she would find a church to attend, would volunteer with the local Red Cross, and knit together a gaggle of friends with whom she could share a cup of coffee and gossip, just as she had done a dozen or more times as they had traveled the world, moving from one assignment to the next.
From beyond the dim light of the study, a voice called out, "Chuck, it's for you. The duty officer at the war room."
Before moving, the tired old general looked at the clock on the wall. Out of habit, his mind automatically computed Greenwich mean time as well as the current time in Moscow, Riyadh, Seoul, and the Taiwan Straits. After laying the history of Hannibal aside, he reached over, picked up the phone and growled into the receiver. "Smith here. Who's rattling his cage tonight?"
On the other end of the line, the duty officer took the general's gruff response in stride. "Sir, it's not a who. Rather, it's a what. It seems that NORAD's deep-space radar has picked up a hither-to unknown object that is on a collision course with Earth."
"A meteor?" Smith asked as he rallied himself out of his funk and began to slip back into his role as Chief of Staff of the Army.
"The Air Force is calling it an asteroid, but I don't think they know for sure yet. As of five minutes ago, they had yet to contact the Near-Earth Object team over at NASA to confirm this. Until they do, the Air Force is labeling it an unknown object."
"Has the Chairman called a meeting?" Smith fired back. "No sir. not yet. Hut the duty officer in the joint Operations war room expects that he will be doing so shortly." "What makes you say that?" Smith asked curtly. "Well. sir. if the initial calculations from the tracking team at NORAD are confirmed by NASA, whatever it is that's out there will reach us in lour days."
The duty officer didn't need to say another word. In an instant. General Smith realized that within the hour, every man and woman who was considered a key player in the federal government would be manning their respective command-and-control centers, wailing for hard information and preparing plans for a contingency that no one. as best as he knew, had ever thought seriously about.
"Okay." Smith replied to the duty officer. "Notify the joint Ops Center that I will be in directly. Activate our own Crisis Action Team and pass the word on. As you get to all major commands. Advise forces Command, as well as Seventh Army, to put their CAT's on a short string."
Smith hung up the phone without wailing for a response. As he rose from his chair, leaving his book on ancient history behind, a strange thought popped into his head. "Perhaps," he found himself thinking. "I won't have to settle for rewriting someone else's history."
Panicked calls by junior officers who were ignorant of even the barest facts were not new to Demetre Orlov. Nor was wailing in the outer office of the Minister of Defense. In fact, he had become such a fixture there that he even had a favorite chair that was automatically vacated by whomever occupied it at the moment Orlov entered the room. It was less a point of respect than one of I ear, for everyone associated with the Ministry of Defense knew who Orlov was.
Though no one talked about it, all knew what his very special skills were used for and that his presence meant that they would soon be employed.
On this day, the colonel who commanded Russia's elite special response team didn't have to wait long. In fact, he was still in the process of settling into the overstuffed leather seat that he preferred, when the Minister's doors flew open. Like a locomotive under a full head of steam emerging from a tunnel, Yuri Anatov plowed through the crowded waiting room, head down as usual, and made straight for Orlov.
Surprised, Orlov barely had enough time to come to his feet before the Minister reached him, grabbed his arm, and escorted him out of the anteroom and into the bustling corridor. This neither surprised Orlov nor anyone else who had been waiting for their moment with the Minister. Like everyone connected to the government. Anatov had no doubt that his office was bugged by at least one agency, perhaps more.