That was enough for Jefferson. He took a deep breath and hit the launch button on his manual control console, ejecting the Thor missile that was to be manually guided. "Thor six away," he announced.
A split-second later, Armstrong Station's intercept computers decided that the two lead ballistic missiles were in proper range, and the first two fully automatic Thor missiles were ejected from the launcher garage by blasts of supercompressed nitrogen gas. "Thors one and two away."
Saint-Michael nodded at Jefferson. "You're right on so far, Jake. Show those guys down there what a spacer can do. "
Taking his cues from the SBR-directed interceptors, Jefferson punched the command keys that ignited his missile's liquid-fueled engines and unfurled the one-hundred-foot steel snare. His computer monitor showed the sensor image of the trailing sixth sea-launched ballistic missile, and a circle cursor represented the sensor image of the Thor missile as it sped away from Armstrong Station.
Gently, carefully, Jefferson pressed the enable switch on the side of the tracking console with his right middle finger and rested his right thumb on the trackball. As long as he depressed the enable button, any movement of the trackball would trigger tiny vernier thrusters on his Thor missile's body, which would slide the interceptor missile in any direction to align it with its target. Jefferson's job was to keep the SLBM roughly in the center of the circle cursor all the way to impact. "Direct hit on Trident number one," a tech reported. "Thor two is ten seconds to impact. Thor three is launched… "
"Three out of six hits," Saint-Michael said. "Good, but not good enough… "
"Good proximity hit on Trident two," came another report. "Four out of six destroyed… "
"Excellent," the general was saying, "excellent—"
"Clean miss on Trident three!" the tech suddenly shouted. "No snare, no proximity detonation."
Saint-Michael felt a nervous tingling in his fingers that caused him to concentrate even harder. "Auto launch commit on Thor number seven," he snapped. But the technician had anticipated his command and the missile was already speeding out of its chute.
Jefferson was having problems of his own as Saint-Michael leaned over his shoulder. "It's like tryin' to thread a needle with two baseball gloves on," Jefferson muttered. He risked glancing up from his tracking monitor at the missile-status indicators. "I've used up three-quarters of the vernier thruster fuel. This is turning into a tail chase… "
"Easy, Chief," the general said. "You got it wired. Relax." He was also talking to himself. "Tridents three and six approaching MIRV separation…
Saint-Michael sat back and looked nervously at the back of Jefferson's sweaty right hand. The two remaining SLBMs were almost ready to MIRV — each of the missile's ten individual reentry warheads was soon going to separate from the earner bus. If they did, it would be almost impossible to knock down the small warheads.
Jefferson's thumb barely touched the trackball's surface as he attempted to nudge the interceptor towards the ballistic missile bus. The sensor image of the SLBM was becoming more and more erratic. Jefferson's thumb quivered slightly as he fought for control. "You got it, Jake. Easy, easy. "It's gonna miss," Jefferson said through clenched teeth. "Launch another interceptor, Skipper. Fast. It's gonna—"
Jefferson's console instruments froze. The chief master sergeant didn't notice the frozen readouts… he was totally absorbed in trying to merge the two sensor images even though he no longer had control. "You got it," Saint-Michael said as he read the frozen numbers. "Twenty-five-foot snare on the webbing and a snare detonation. Good shooting, Chief." Jefferson nodded thanks and pulled his hand away from the sweat-moistened trackball. "MIRV separation on Trident three," a tech reported. "Thor seven is…" He paused, studying the computer analysis of the sensor inputs. "It looks as if Thor seven snared all but one of the MIRVs just after MIRV separation," he said. "I'm tracking one single warhead. Track appears a little wobbly, but I think it'll reenter the atmosphere intact."
"Will it impact in the White Sands range?" the general asked.
After an excruciatingly long pause during which Saint-Michael was about to send another Thor in a long tail-chase after the rogue warhead, the tech responded. "Affirmative, Skipper. Well within the range, but at least five miles outside the target cluster on the range. Clean miss."
"Okay… Well, we didn't kill it but we nicked it enough to send it off course. And we got fifty-nine of sixty warheads. "Ninety-eight point three-three percent effective," Colonel Wayne Marks, deputy commander for engineering, added, slapping the technicians' shoulders in congratulations. "Pretty good county fair shooting, I'd say. "
Saint-Michael retrieved his coffee cup. "Unless you're under that one remaining warhead," he said.
"Very well," Rear Admiral Bennett Walton said. He returned the phone labeled "CIC," combat information center, to its cradle and looked over at the president. "Sir, Cheyenne Mountain reports one Mark 21C dummy reentry vehicle impacting at the White Sands Missile Test Range.
The president felt his face flush with excitement. He turned and smiled at the secretary of defense. "One warhead? Just one?"
"That's it, sir," Walton said. "And that one warhead was diverted off course and missed its intended impact point by eight nautical miles. If the warhead had been active, the fireball would not have extended to the target. Communications says Armstrong's after-action report is being received in CIC.
The president shook hands all around, then sat back in the carrier commander's seat and sipped coffee. "Damn, I think we've got something here…"
CHAPTER 2
Through swirling gusts of snow that fell outside the triplepaned windows, the Soviet Union's Minister of Defense Sergei Leonidovich Czilikov had difficulty seeing even as far as the frozen Moscow River and the new Varsauskoje Highway that spanned its southern and northern banks. He watched policemen trying to direct traffic around a minor collision in the middle of Bakovka Avenue east of the new Kremlin Administrative Center. Another long, severe winter was coming.
Czilikov turned away from the icy scene outside, but things were equally as depressing and cold inside. Seated around a long oblong oak table in the cavernous office were the members of the Kollegiya, the Soviet main military council. The Kollegiya included three deputy ministers of defense, a KGB general, the commanders of the five branches of the Soviet military, and five generals representing various support and reserve elements of the military. Fifteen men, six in business suits with medals and ribbons, the rest in military uniforms, and not one of them, least of all Czilikov, under the age of sixty. All but one, the relatively young KGB chief, Lichizev, were Heroes of the Soviet Union.
They were surrounded by aides and secretaries in hard metal folding chairs arranged along the century-old tapestries covering the walls of the room. Two elite Kremlin guards, each armed with AKSU submachine guns, flanked each heavy oak door leading into the chamber.