First Strike

TWENTY-THREE

Senior Chief Armstrong was unbuckling his flight harness before the helicopter even settled down on the concrete pad just to the west of the main facility. It was a small helo of the type normally used on the fishing boat. Not the best choice, not in this weather, but it had been immediately available and willing to help.

Armstrong ducked, although the rotors were still turning well over his head. It was an instinctive move, one that few could resist. He ran across the concrete apron and to the waiting delegation. Bill Carter grabbed him by the arm. “Does this mean what I think it means?”

Armstrong nodded. “If this works, I don’t think you’ll have any problem getting full operational funding for the prototype.” He shouted to be heard over the noise of the helicopter. It was already lifting off and heading away, headed back to Brunswick.

“Will it work?” Carter’s gaze searched his face, his eyes anxious. His face was drawn, intense, evidence that the realization of just how high the stakes were had finally hit him. This was more than an operational test or a first cut on next year’s budget — this was the real thing.

“It better,” Armstrong said. “God willing, we won’t have to use it — but if we need it, it better work.”

The two jogged the few hundred feet separating the landing area from the main operations building, and Armstrong shucked his heavy outer gear as he waited for the guard to admit them into the security area. Beside him, Carter was babbling on about something, about the test, the latest specs, but Armstrong wasn’t listening. It was as ready as Omicron could make it, and now Lady Luck came into play.

And that was the real bitch of it, he thought, as the door opened and admitted them. No matter how much you trained, how well you engineered something, there was always an element of luck in everything. Even in warfare. Clauswitz had called it the fog of war, but Armstrong knew better. It was luck, either good or bad.

He knew every person inside the facility, with the exception of one radar console operator, and introductions were quickly made. Armstrong took the supervisor’s seat, donned his headset, and leaned back to wait. Someone put a cup of coffee in his hand and his fingers closed around it reflexively, his gaze fixed on the screen.

In front of him, three large screen displays conveyed a variety of information. In the middle were real time detections from their own radar, the status bar across the bottom indicating the status of the laser targeting system. To the right, the system status and weapon status of each component was displayed, the numbers of the latest self-test results constantly shifting as a system continually self-tested. To the far left, the screen displayed the data link of the U.S. Navy. Right now, they were receiving via satellite the feed from the Jefferson’s data system.

Armstrong felt the sense of dislocation. The screen on the left showed just what he had been looking at not sixteen hours ago, with the exception of the ships moving around within their assigned boxes. And here he was, thousands of miles away, wearing jeans instead of his uniform, looking at the same picture.

The screen on the far right indicated that there had been no problems thus far, and that the information was streaming in a timely fashion. Now, it was a matter of waiting.

It happened without warning or fanfare. One moment a screen was basically as he had last seen it, and the next moment a cluster of symbols popped up around the island of Bermuda. Simultaneously, the speaker tuned to the battle group, high frequency tactical channel relayed voice communications from the scene.

The E-2 Hawkeye’s report came close on the heels of the first radar imagery. “Missile launch, we have missile launch. Number: ten. Classification: unknown. Initial trajectory indicates ballistic flight profile.” Seconds later, the Air Force AWACs chimed in with its own assessment, adding, “Confirm classification as medium-range ballistic missiles. Cheyenne reports probable targets are D.C. and Norfolk.”

Armstrong’s blood ran cold. Washington and Norfolk — he had spent too much time in both places not to be able to imagine just how a missile detonation would affect each one of them.

Perhaps three seconds elapsed from the initial launch detection until the time the first shot was fired. In rapid succession, the Aegis cruiser rippled off wave after wave of her antiair missiles, the ship clearly operating in full auto. Even the fast frigate attached to the battle group added her missiles to the flurry, although she could not fire at the same rate or with the same accuracy and range as the others.

One by one, the missile symbols disappeared from the screen. The Aegis kept count, the TAO transmitting the current number of kills over tactical, his voice growing stronger as he numbered off each one.

But he stopped at eight, there was silence on the net, and then another missile went down.

“Nine?” the TAO said. “All stations, that is not a confirmed scale — it wasn’t our missile. Perhaps an equipment malfunction or failure on the missile itself. But, for whatever reason, it has departed controlled flight and is now heading for the ocean.”

“I don’t care what the cause, I’ll take it,” Coyote said over the circuit. “Interrogative your intentions with the last one?”

“Jefferson, Lake Champlain. Sir, we’ve sent four more birds after it, but we’re in a tail chase. It doesn’t look good.”

A long silence. Finally, Coyote spoke. “Recommendations?”

Still the silence continued. Coyote scowled. “All stations, all units, listen up. I’m authorized to disclose the following information to you.” Armstrong’s blood pumped faster. Here it came, the first indication to the rest of the fleet, other than Lab Rat, exactly what was about to happen. Or, he amended, what he hoped was about to happen.

“On the coast of the continental United States,” Coyote said, clearly reading from a prepared statement, “there is a new facility that possesses some capabilities — and don’t ask, as I can’t tell you any more than that — that may be able to intercept the remaining missile. Time of flight to the United States is four minutes. We should know around then whether or not it worked. And, may I add a personal note to someone I know is listening: Senior Chief Armstrong, kick some ass. That is all.”

A grim smile crossed Armstrong’s face as Coyote’s voice stopped. Kick some ass, indeed. “Well, Admiral,” he said out loud, ignoring the startled looks from the civilians around him, “I’ll do my best. You can damned well count on that — I’ll do my best.”

The four minutes ticked by impossibly slow. Armstrong drummed his fingers on the cold console, then noticed that that made everyone else nervous. He leaned back, and tried to project an air of calm, competent confidence. “Could I get some more coffee?” he asked Carter. “One sugar this time, please.” He passed the plastic cup to Carter.

The tension in the control room abated slightly. Then Armstrong spoke. “Okay, folks. We trained for this, we know what to do. We’re tuned up, tweaked out, and, like the admiral said, ready to kick some ass. So, let’s do it!”

“Oooo-rah!” one of the technicians shouted, betraying his Marine Corps background. The others chimed in with various expressions of enthusiasm.

Finally, the radar sweep picked up the contact exactly where he expected it on the center screen. At first it was no more than a few pixels in size, and then the picture wavered and steadied into a hard contact. A speed leader stretched out before it, indicating a speed in excess of Mach 4.

“Commencing acquisition,” the man at the acquisition console said. His voice cracked initially, then immediately steadied down into his normal calm tenor. “All sensors nominal, scanning — scanning — Central, I have a lock. Repeat, I have a lock.”

“Very well,” Armstrong said. “Recommendation for range gate?”

“At expected angle of descent, fifty to seventy miles off the coast,” the target coordinator said. “That will give us time for a follow-up shot if necessary.”

“Roger, concur.” At that range, most of the debris would rain down on empty ocean. “Notify the Coast Guard to clear the area and stand by.” The former was futile gesture — there would not be time to clear that part of the ocean, but at least they would be ready for any search and rescue missions.

“Ninety seconds,” the target coordinator said. The room was silent.

The seconds ticked by. Someone coughed, another sneezed. It was a peculiar stillness, as though everyone was afraid even so much as to move for fear of disturbing the laser tracking the missile.

The monitor set high in one corner of the room gave them a good view, although there was really not much to see. The blue laser bit into darkness, sharp, so sharp that it almost hurt the eyes to look at. It moved in small jerks across the dark green screen, the stars almost indistinguishable behind it. The missile itself was invisible. Even though the picture was stunningly prosaic, everyone stared at it.

“Forty-five seconds.” The target coordinator’s voice was calm, as though he announced this every day of his life. And, indeed, Armstrong reflected, that was the advantage of constant training. You did it so often, pretending it was real, that, when the time finally came, the whole process was so familiar that it seems like just another drill.

Except it wasn’t. Thousands, maybe millions of lives depended on the system now.

“Twenty seconds.” His voice was slightly higher than it had been earlier.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly like a drill. Your body knew even better than your mind what was happening, knew with a deep and compelling realization what the consequences of failure would be.

Which warhead had slipped by the Aegis? Nuclear, chemical, or biological? There was no hard data on exactly what warheads the island missiles carried, which warhead was associated with a given location. All they knew was that all three were possibilities, maybe a combination thereof.

“Ten seconds.”

“Commencing ignition warm up sequence.”

And which would be the worst? The nuclear, most certainly. Thousands, maybe millions would die in the initial blast. Then those casualties that came later from radiation along the outskirts of ground zero, and poisoning of the land with radioactive dust. Depending on the warhead, it could be centuries before the radioactivity decayed. He tried to imagine Washington as a polluted nuclear wasteland and couldn’t even begin to see it.

The biological warhead would be deadly, too, although many of the agents were notoriously unstable. Dispensing biological and chemical weapons from an airborne missile required generating a very precise density of aerosol mist to carry the spores or germs or bacteria or whatever the hell it was. If the drops were too large, they wouldn’t flow through the air on the currents. Too small, and it couldn’t serve as a transport mechanism.

Then again, a biological agent could be difficult to precisely classify and treat. It could spread quickly with casual contact, certain types could anyway, and it could be the most difficult of all to contain.

“Five seconds. All systems go. Stage two ignition sequence. Four, three—”

Chemical was his personal choice. Hard to treat, often fatal, but it suffered from the same problems of aerosol distribution. It couldn’t be transmitted person-to-person, not without direct contact. So the kill zone was limited to the original dispersal pattern. Deadly, far more deadly than the biological probably, but in a more limited barrier.

“Two, ignition,” the weapons coordinator said, his voice notably tense. There was a collective sigh of relief as of spot of fire appeared in the lower left-hand corner of the TV monitor. “We have booster ignition — we have a launch, we have a launch. Stand by for retargeting. Retargeting in five seconds. Four, three, two, ignition. Two missiles launched, no apparent casualties. On course, on track.

Now, there was a little bit more to look at on the monitor, but nothing to indicate how deadly the situation was. Two brief arcs of white fire from the missile rockets dazzled the eyes, a stunning contrast to the laser that still pinned the missile into the sky. The missiles gained speed slowly at first, then shot out of sight, the rockets fading to mere pixels, then winking out in a matter of seconds.

And they waited. At this range, interception would take fourteen seconds.

The control room group began counting down together at ten. “Nine, eight, seven, six—”

Armstrong shut his eyes, just for instance, and tried to read his gut. Was it a good shot, or had something gone wrong? Normally, he had a second sense about these matters, and could tell immediately if things were going according to plan. Almost always, at least.

But, this time, the familiar sense of certainty was missing. Was it because it was a new system? He stared at the screen, trying to will the missiles to interception, convinced for no real reason that his direct and personal attention to what was happening on-screen would make a difference.

“Five, four, three—” He prayed. It wasn’t something he was used to doing, but, in these moments, there were no atheists, not in this modern equivalent of a foxhole. If God could—would—make a difference, then Armstrong wasn’t going to be caught wanting.

Nothing happened on the screen. Two more seconds, then three, before he concluded that the first missile had missed. The weapons coordinator was evidently of the same mind, because he waited a full five seconds before saying, “Negative intercept, first round. Stand by for second.”

Five seconds separated the two at launch, but that might decrease slightly during flight time.

In the next instant, Armstrong’s heart sung with joy. It was a small blip of light on-screen, searing, the pattern of the pixels lingering on the retina for seconds afterward. Small, but intensely brilliant.

“Interception!” The targeting coordinator’s voice was jubilant. “Oh, dear God, we got it.”

Armstrong slumped back in his chair as relief washed through him. They got it — it had taken two shots, something they would spend months and months poring over and analyzing, but they got it. Whatever the warhead, it was now reduced to its components high in the atmosphere where they would be disbursed by the jet stream. They would watch, of course, but most biological and chemical weapons have notoriously short life spans. The nuclear, well, that might take a while longer, but there would be more than enough nations monitoring it.

“Senior Chief Armstrong, I don’t know if you’re listening. But, if you are, my congratulations.” Coyote was almost howling, he was so jubilant. “Damned fine job, gentlemen — damned fine.” Someone produced champagne. Armstrong took a glass and bemusedly wondered what corporate planner had thought to stock it and when. Surely it had not happened in the last sixteen hours? No, and the fact chilled him, that someone had foreseen the possibility of this happening and had made provisions for it. Did they also stock sackcloth and ashes, in the case of failure? Or grief counselors, perhaps? Someone who would insist that they share their feelings, bond, and do all that other happy horseshit?

Bill Carter pounded him on the back, spilling some of the champagne, but nobody cared. “You did it! You did it!”

“We did it,” Armstrong corrected, and walked over to clink his glass with the weapons coordinator. “We did it.”

One final thought struck him. He had prayed that their system would work, that they would shoot the missile down. But had there been someone on the other end praying that it would work?