“Trust me, Chief Inspector. Technology has come a long way since 1961. We'll find her.”
“You do come with some impressive credentials. If you say the ore is the reason you're snooping around, I believe you. That's why I'm going to extend an offer that will make your life a lot easier.” He opened his briefcase again, taking out a bulging folder. “A complete photocopy of the archive search file on Arctic Air. I made it years ago.”
“And the price?” Skyler asked with apprehension.
“A simple request. In return for the file, I want to be there when you find 101. I want to know first-hand that it was Bristol. Then I can sleep a little easier at night. What do you say?”
Skyler scanned the faces in the crowded bar and looked at the fat little man with the thick fingers and bald head. “I hope you've got a good warm coat, Mr. Smyth.” He reached for the file. “It's pretty chilly in the North Atlantic, even in the dead of summer.”
SHOOTING STAR
The black ocean moved in apprehensive swells somehow knowing the huge object was there. A tense breeze swept away the clouds exposing a clear, starry night. Even the fiercest predators turned away, diving deep into the protective depths as the leviathan maneuvered into position. On its back, the titanium door that shielded its deadly cargo opened like a slow-motion jack-in-the-box revealing the cone-shaped nose of the SS-N-17 “Snipe” ballistic missile.
Inside the Mako Shark, the fire-control officer pressed a series of buttons on an elaborate, semicircular electronics console. His actions initiated the launch sequence as he spoke the target coordinates into his headset microphone.
A crewman in the missile bay listened to the numbers. He then reached his arm through a small opening until his fingers touched a numeric keypad inside ballistic missile number three. He punched in the coordinates and watched the numbers appear on a red digital readout above his hand. Reading them back for confirmation, he then closed and sealed the access doors on the outside of the missile and finally closed the small, thick door on the missile tube. Yanking his headphone connector from its socket, he raced along the catwalk that ran beside the other SLBM tubes and jumped through the hatch into the launch support compartment. Two of his fellow crewmen slammed the emergency blast door shut and spun the wheel, sealing it tight.
The fire-control officer then pressed another series of buttons and reached inside his shirt to remove a key that hung on a chain around his neck. He inserted it into a lock on the console. A second man, standing just out of arms-length, took a key from around his neck and inserted it into a lock on the console.
“On my mark,” The fire-control officer nodded to the second man. “Three — two — one.”
With a click, the two men rotated their keys from the “unarmed” position 45 degrees straight up to the “armed” position. The section of the control panel designating missile warhead status shifted from blue to blood red.
“Missile armed, Colonel,” the fire-control officer said. His hand gripped what looked like a video game joystick — his finger on the trigger. With temples pounding and sweat beading on his forehead, he stared at the digital displays.
A few seconds later, a voice came through his headset. “Fire-control, this is Colonel Blackstone. Fire your missile.”
His hand tightened on the joystick, and he squeezed the trigger.
RUSTY ROCKETS
“But the point is, Senator,” General Westfield said, “cutting back on the weapons we need to defend this country is insane.”
Westfield and Tennessee Senator Harlin Davis were alone in the glass-enclosed VIP observation booth. They overlooked the command center of Space Defense Operations deep inside Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.
“General, the cold war is long gone, nothing more than a chapter in the history books. There's no need to maintain this elaborate level of surveillance. Do you really think anybody is going to shoot a ballistic missile at us?”
Davis was the budget-cutting chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He smiled his famous toothy smile. “The Russians? The Koreans? The Chinese? They're all bankrupt. They can't even afford to pay the salaries of the men that would launch their rusty old rockets.” Davis made a sweeping gesture. “No, General, this is an obsolete—” He stopped when he realized the general was no longer listening.
Westfield had turned to watch the sudden increase in activity below. Dozens of Air Force weapons detection and tracking specialists manned rows of computer banks stretching across what resembled an indoor amphitheater. Normally, they monitored redundant scanning and sensing programs along with traffic and telemetry analysis, and satellite communications. They also kept track of activity and anomalies in the lower and upper atmosphere. But as Westfield watched, a number of operators stood and pointed at the large video display dominating the front wall. It showed different regions of the world with emphasis on Southeast Asia, Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and parts of China and the former Soviet Union. A few technicians moved over to stand behind a young staff sergeant who was programming confirmation sequences into her computer terminal.
“Senator, will you excuse me for a moment?” Westfield turned to leave.
“What's going on, General? Another one of your wasteful, expensive war games?”
Rather than stay in the observation booth, Davis followed Westfield along a hallway and down a flight of stairs. At the bottom, a military policeman opened a door for the general but held his hand up to halt Davis.
“Son,” Davis said as he rose up to his full height, “are you detaining a United States Senator from conducting his duty to his constituents?”
Westfield called over his shoulder, “It's all right, Sergeant.” He waited for Davis to catch up and they moved over to the group of technicians gathered around the staff sergeant. As Westfield and Davis approached, a path cleared for them.
The duty officer, Lt. Col. Patricia Beck, stood behind the technician. She turned to Westfield. “We have a launch detect, General. Our Pacific listening stations have confirmed a thermal bloom.”
“Can you plot it?” Westfield asked.
“Give me ten more seconds, sir.” Beck turned to face the huge, panoramic projection screen. “Here it comes now.”
All eyes watched as a small black triangle appeared off the coast of Mexico and started a slow, creeping path out over the Pacific. A series of numbers appeared under the object as telemetry data updated.
“Is it one of ours?” Westfield asked.
“No. It has the signature and footprint of an SS-N-17, sir.” Beck never took her eyes off the triangle. “We have booster stage separation.”
“This is most impressive,” Davis said with a smile. “You boys like to make things realistic. I have to admit that for a moment I thought somebody had really launched a missile.”
“What's the target,” Westfield said as he ignored the senator.
“Too soon, sir.” Beck read the numbers appearing on the screen, then calmly said, “Altitude twenty-three miles and climbing.”
Westfield picked up a phone, pressing the direct line to the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon. He looked up at the DEFCON (Defense Configurations) status on the screen. Level four, a condition he had taken for granted for years, changed automatically to three, a state of military alert activated by the launch of any ICBM. He knew that if it went to level two, it meant an impending attack. And level one would mean a state of nuclear war existed.
He looked at Davis. With an edge to his voice that caused everyone around him to turn and stare, he said, “So much for your rusty rockets theory, Senator.”