Shadow Command

CHAPTER FIVE

“It’s ten times more boring than playing video games,” Wayne Macomber complained, “because I can’t even play the thing.”

“Pretty deep wash ahead, Whack,” U.S. Army National Guard Captain Charlie Turlock said. “It angles away from the objective, so we’ll eventually have to get out. We should—”

“I see it, I see it,” Macomber grumbled. “Wohl, clear those railroad tracks again.”

“Roger,” Marine Corps Sergeant Major Chris Wohl responded in his usual gravelly whisper. A moment later: “Rails are clear, Major. Satellite reports the next train is twenty-seven miles to the east, heading in our direction at twenty-five miles an hour.”

“Copy,” Macomber responded, “but I keep on seein’ a return at my three o’clock, five miles, right in front of you somewhere. It’s there for a second and then it disappears. What the hell is it?”

“Negative contact, sir,” Wohl radioed.

“This is nuts,” Macomber muttered, knowing that both Turlock and Wohl could still hear him but not caring one bit. This was not how he envisioned doing mission planning…although he had to admit it was pretty darned cool.

As incredible as the spaceplane was, even the passenger module was a pretty nifty device. It served to not only carry passengers and cargo inside the Black Stallion but also as a docking adapter between the spaceplane and a space station. In an emergency the module could even be used as a spacecraft crew lifeboat: it had maneuvering thrusters to facilitate retrieval by repair spacecraft while in orbit and to keep it upright during re-entry; little winglets for stability in case it was jettisoned in the atmosphere; enough oxygen to allow six passengers to survive for as long as a week; enough shielding to survive re-entry if the module was jettisoned during re-entry; and parachutes and flotation/impact attenuation bags that would cushion the module and its passengers upon land or water impact. Unfortunately all this protection was only available to the passengers — there was no way for the Black Stallion’s flight crew to get inside the module after takeoff except by spacewalking while in orbit and using the transfer tunnel.

Macomber and Wohl were wearing a full Tin Man armor system, a lightweight suit made of BERP, or ballistic electronically reactive process material which was totally flexible like cloth but protected the wearer by instantly hardening to a strength a hundred times greater than steel when struck. The suit was completely sealed, affording excellent protection even in harsh or dangerous environments, and was supplemented with an extensive electronic sensor and communications suite that fed data to the wearer through helmet visor displays. The Tin Man system was further enhanced by a micro-hydraulic exoskeleton that gave the wearer superhuman strength, agility, and speed by amplifying his muscular movements.

Charlie Turlock—“Charlie” was her real name, not a call-sign, a young woman given a boy’s name by her father — was not wearing a Tin Man suit, just a flight suit over a thin layer of thermal underwear; her ride was in the cargo compartment behind their seats. She wore a standard HAWC flight helmet, which displayed sensor and computer data on an electronic visor similar to the sophisticated Tin Man displays. Trim, athletic, and of just slightly more than average height, Turlock seemed out of place with a unit full of big, muscular, commandos — but she brought something along from her years at the Army Research Laboratory’s Infantry Transformational Battle-lab that more than made up for her smaller physical size.

All three were watching a computer animation of their planned infiltration of the Soltanabad highway airfield in Persia. The animation used real-time satellite sensor images to paint an ultra-realistic view of the terrain and cultural features in the target area, complete with projections of such things as personnel and vehicle movement based on past information, lighting levels, weather predictions, and even soil conditions. The three Battle Force commandos were spread out approximately fifty yards apart, close enough to support one another quickly if necessary but far enough apart to not give one another away if detected or engaged by a single enemy patrol.

“I can see the fence now, range one point six miles,” Charlie reported. “Moving over the wash now. The ‘Goose’ reports thirty minutes of flight time left.” The “Goose” was the GUOS, or Grenade-launched Unmanned Observation System, a small powered flying drone about the size of a bowling pin, launched from a backpack launcher, that sent back visual and infrared images to the commandos by a secure datalink.

“That means we’re behind,” Macomber groused. “Let’s pick it up a little.”

“We’re right on schedule, sir,” Wohl whispered.

“I said we’re behind, Sergeant Major,” Macomber hissed. “The drone will be running out of fuel and we’ll still be inside the damned compound.”

“I’ve got another Goose ready,” Charlie said. “I can launch it—”

“When? When we get close enough for the Iranians to hear it?” Macomber growled. “How noisy are those things anyway?”

“If you’d show up for my demos, Major, you’d know,” Charlie said.

“Don’t give me any lip, Captain,” Macomber spat. “When I ask you a question, give me an answer.”

“Outside a couple hundred yards of engine ignition, they won’t hear a thing,” Charlie said, not disguising her exasperation at all, “unless they have audio sensors.”

“If we had proper intel before starting this mission, we’d know if the Iranians had audio sensors,” Macomber groused some more. “We need to plan delaying the drone launch until we’re within two miles of the base, not three. You got that, Turlock?”

“Roger,” Charlie acknowledged.

“Next I need—” Macomber stopped when he noticed a flicker of a target indicator appearing again in the very periphery of his electronic visor’s field of view. “Dammit, there it is again. Wohl, did you see it?”

“I saw it that time, but it’s gone,” Wohl responded. “I’m scanning that area…negative contact. Probably just a momentary sensor sparkle.”

“Wohl, in my book, there’s no such thing as ‘sensor sparkle,’” Macomber said. “There’s something out ahead of you causing that return. Get on it.”

“Roger,” Wohl responded. “Moving off-track.” He used a small thumbwheel mouse to change direction in the animation, waiting every few meters until the computer added available detail and plotted more warnings or cautions regarding whatever lay ahead. The process was slow because of all the wireless computer activity, but it was the only available means they had of rehearsing their operation and getting ready to fly it at the same time.

“We’re supposed to be commandos — there’s no such thing as a ‘track’ for us,” Macomber said. “We have an objective and a million different ways of getting there. It should be a damned piece of cake with all these pretty pictures floating in front of us — why is this making my head hurt?” Neither Turlock nor Wohl replied — they had grown quite accustomed to Macomber’s complaining. “Anything yet, Wohl?”

“Stand by.”

“Looks like tire tracks just past the wash,” Charlie reported. “Not very deep — Humvee-sized vehicle.”

“That’s new,” Macomber said. He checked the source data tags. “Fresh intel — downloaded in just the past fifteen minutes by a low-altitude SAR. A perimeter patrol, I’d guess.”

“No sign of vehicles.”

“That’s the reason we’re doing this, isn’t it, kids? Maybe the general was right after all.” It sounded to both Wohl and Turlock as if Macomber hated to admit that the general could be right. “Let’s proceed and see what—”

“Crew, this is the MC,” the mission commander, Marine Corps Major Jim Terranova, cut in over the intercom, “we’ve commenced our countdown to takeoff, T-minus fifty-six minutes and counting. Run your pre-takeoff checklists and prepare to report in.”

“Roger, S-One copies,” Macomber responded…except, as he noted himself with not a small bit of shock, that his words came out through an instantly dry, raspy throat and vocal cords, with barely enough breath for the words to escape his lips.

If there was one thing these guys at the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center and the Air Battle Force were really good at, Macomber had learned early on, it would definitely be computer simulations. These guys ran simulations on everything — for every hour of real flight time, these guys probably did twenty hours on a computer simulator beforehand. The machines ranged from simple desktop computers with photo-realistic displays to full-scale aircraft mockups that did everything from drip hydraulic fluid to smoke and catch on fire if you did something wrong. Everyone did them: air crews, maintenance, security, battle staff, command post, even administration and support staffs conducted drills and simulations regularly.

A good percentage of all the personnel at both Elliott and Battle Mountain Air Bases, probably one-tenth of the five thousand or so at both locations, were involved solely in computer programming, with other private and military computer centers tied in all around the world contributing the latest codes, routines, subroutines, and devices; and at least a third of all the code these top secret super-geeks wrote 24/7 had to be involved solely with simulations. This was his first real trip into space, but the simulations were so realistic and so numerous that he truly felt as if he had done this dozens of times before…

…until just now, when the mission commander announced they were less than an hour from takeoff. He had been so busy preparing for the approach and infiltration into Soltanabad — just three hours to get ready, when he demanded no less than three days to prepare in the Combat Weather Squadron! — that he had completely forgotten that they were going to be blasted into space to get there!

But now that frightening reality hit home with full force. He was not going to just pile his gear into a C-17 Globemaster II or C-130 Hercules for a multiday trip to some isolated airstrip in the middle of nowhere — he was going to be shot almost a hundred miles into space, then flutter down through the atmosphere through hostile airspace to a landing in a desert in northeastern Iran, where quite possibly an entire brigade of Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps fighters, the elite of the former theocratic regime’s terror army, could be waiting for them.

In the time it would normally take for him to just arrive at his first transition base en route to his destination, this mission would be completed! That simple fact was absolutely astounding, almost unbelievable. The time compression was almost too much to comprehend. And yet, here he was, sitting in the actual spacecraft — not a simulator — and the clock was ticking. By the time the sun rose again, this mission would be over, and he’d be debriefing it. He would have entered low-Earth orbit, traveled halfway across the globe, landed in Iran, scoped it out, blasted off again, re-entered low-Earth orbit, and hopefully landed at a friendly base…

…or he’d be dead. There were a million unforeseen and un-simulatable things that could kill them, along with the hundred or so simulatable things they practiced dealing with day after day, and even when they knew something bad was going to happen, sometimes they couldn’t deal with it. It would either work out okay, or they’d be dead…or a hundred other things could happen. Whatever would happen, it was all going to happen now.

Macomber certainly felt the danger and the uncertainty…but as it so often did, the frenetic pace of every activity dealing with McLanahan and everyone at the High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center and the Air Battle Force quickly pushed every other feeling of dread out of his conscious mind. It seemed a dozen voices — some human, but most computerized — were speaking to him at the same time, and all needed acknowledgment or an action, or the speaking quickly changed to “demanding.” If he didn’t respond quickly enough, the computer usually ratted on him, and a rather irate human voice — usually the mission commander but sometimes Brigadier General David Luger, the deputy commander himself, if it was critical enough — repeated the demand.

He was accustomed to performing and succeeding under intense pressure — that was the common denominator for any Special Operations commando — but this was something entirely different: because at the end of all the sometimes chaotic preparation, they were going to shoot his ass into space! It seemed Terranova made the announcement just moments earlier when Macomber felt the Black Stallion move as four Laser Pulse Detonation Rocket System engines, or “leopards,” in full turbofan propulsion mode, easily propelled the aircraft to Dreamland’s four-mile-long dry lake bed runway.

Whack was not afraid of flying, but takeoffs were definitely his most fearsome phase of flight — all that power behind them, the engines running up to full power sucking up tons of fuel per minute, the noise deafening, the vibration its most intense, but the aircraft still moving relatively slowly. He had done many Black Stallion takeoffs in the simulator, and he knew that the performance numbers even with the spacecraft still in the atmosphere were impressive, but for this part he was definitely on pins and needles.

The initial takeoff from the dry lake bed runway at Elliott Air Force Base was indeed spectacular — a massive shove as the LPDRS engines in turbofan mode moved into full military thrust, then a rapid, high-angle climb-out at well over ten thousand feet per minute after a short takeoff roll. The first few seconds of the run-up and takeoff roll seemed normal…but that was it. At full military power in turbofan mode, the four LPDRS engines developed one hundred thousand pounds of thrust each, optimized by solid-state laser igniters that superheated the jet fuel before ignition.

But high-performance takeoffs were nothing new to Whack or to most commandos and others who flew in and out of hostile airstrips. He had been in several huge C-17 Globemaster II and C-130 Hercules transport planes where they had to do max-performance takeoffs to get out of range of hostile shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles in the vicinity of the airstrip, and those planes were many times larger and far less high-tech than the Black Stallion. There was nothing more frightening than the feel of a screaming five-hundred-thousand-pound C-17 Globemaster III cargo plane standing on its tail clawing for every foot of lifesaving altitude.

The Tin Man outfit actually helped his body take some of the G-forces and even gave him a little extra shot of pure oxygen when it sensed his heart and breathing rates jumping up a bit. Because the thrust was so powerful and the air so dense at lower altitudes, the laser igniters had to be “pulsed,” or rapidly turned off and on again, to avoid blowing up the engines. This created the distinctive “string of pearls” contrails across the Nevada skies that conspiracy theorists and “Lakespotters”—guys who sneaked into the classified test ranges in hopes of photographing a top secret aircraft for the first time — associated with the Air Force’s Aurora hypersonic spy plane.

They had a short high subsonic cruise out over the Pacific coast to the refueling area, and then a rendezvous with an Air Battle Force KC-77 tanker. The secret of the Black Stallion spaceplane program was the inflight refueling, where they took on a full load of jet fuel and oxidizer right before blasting into orbit — instead of launching from zero altitude in the thickest part of the atmosphere, they would begin the cruise into space from twenty-five thousand feet and three hundred knots, in far less dense air.

Refueling always seemed to take forever in every aircraft Whack had ever flown in, especially the big intercontinental-range jet transports, but the Black Stallion took even longer because they actually required three consecutive refuelings: the first to top off the jet fuel tanks, since they didn’t take off with a full load and needed a refueling right away; the second to top off the large borohydrogen tetroxide oxidizer — BOHM, nicknamed “boom”—tanks; and a third to top off the jet fuel tanks once more right before the boost into space. Filling the JP-7 jet fuel tanks went fairly quickly each time, but filling the large BOHM tanks took well over an hour because the boron and enhanced hydrogen peroxide mixture was thick and soupy. It was easy to feel the XR-A9 get heavier and noticeably more sluggish as the tanks were being filled, and every now and then the pilot needed to stroke the afterburners on the big LPDRS engines to keep up with the tanker.

Macomber spent the time checking intel updates downloaded to his on-board computers on their target area and studying the maps and information, but he was starting to get frustrated because precious little new data seemed to be coming in, and boredom was setting in. That was dangerous. Although they didn’t have to prebreathe oxygen before this flight, as they would if they were going to wear a space suit, they couldn’t take their helmets off during refueling operations; and unlike Wohl, who could take a combat catnap anywhere and anytime, like right now, Macomber couldn’t sleep before a mission. So he reached into his personal kit bag attached to the bulkhead and…

…to Turlock’s stunned amazement, pulled out a ball of red yarn and two knitting needles, which already had a section of knitted material strung on them! He found it amazingly easy to manipulate the needles with the Tin Man armored gloves, and before long he was picking up speed and almost at his normal work pace.

“Crew, this is S-Two,” Turlock said on intercom, “you guys are not going to believe this.”

“What is it?” the spacecraft commander, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Lisette “Frenchy” Moulain asked, the concern thick in her voice. There was normally very little conversation during aerial refueling — anything said on the open ship-wide intercom was usually an emergency. “Do we need a disconnect…?”

“No, no, SC, not an emergency,” Charlie said. She leaned forward in her seat to get a better look. Macomber was seated ahead of her and on the opposite side of the passenger module, and she strained in her straps to see all the way into his lap. “But it is definitely a shocker. The major appears to be…knitting.”

“Say again?” Jim Terranova asked. The Black Stallion spaceplane burbled momentarily as if the spacecraft commander was momentarily so stunned that she almost flew out of the refueling envelope. “Did you say ‘knitting’? Knitting…as in, a ball of yarn, knitting needles…knitting?”

“Affirmative,” Charlie said. Chris Wohl, who was seated beside Macomber, woke up and looked over at Macomber for a few seconds, the surprise evident even through his helmet and Tin Man body armor, before he dropped back off to catnap again. “He’s got the needles, the red ball of yarn, the ‘knit one purl two’ thing going, the whole show. Martha friggin’ Stewart right over here.”

“Are you shitting me?” Terranova exclaimed. “Our resident bad-ass snake-eating commando is knitting?”

“He looks sooo cute, too,” Charlie said. Her voice changed to that of a young child’s: “I can’t tell if he’s making a cute widdle doily, or maybe it’s a warm and cozy sweater for his widdle French poodle, or maybe it’s a—”

In a blur of motion that Turlock never really saw, Macomber withdrew another knitting needle from his kit bag, twisted to his left, and threw it at Turlock. The needle whistled just to the right of her helmet and buried itself three inches deep into her seat’s headrest.

“Why, you motherfucker…!” Turlock exclaimed, pulling the needle out. Macomber waved at her with his armored fingers, grinning beneath his bug-eyed helmet, then turned and went back to his knitting.

“What in hell is going on back there?” Moulain asked angrily.

“Just thought since the captain was talking baby talk that maybe she wanted to try knitting too,” Whack said. “You want the other one, Turlock?”

“Take off that helmet and I’ll give it back to you — right between your eyes!”

“You jerks knock it off — maintain radio discipline,” Moulain ordered. “The most critical part of aerial refueling and you bozos are farting around like little snot-nosed kids. Macomber, are you really knitting?”

“What if I am? It relaxes me.”

“You didn’t get clearance from me to bring knitting stuff on board. Put that shit away.”

“Come back here and make me, Frenchy.” There was silence. Macomber glanced over at Wohl — the only one on the spacecraft who probably could make him, if he wanted to — but he looked like he was still asleep. Whack was sure he wasn’t, but he made no move to intervene.

“You and I are going to have a little talk when we get home, Macomber,” Moulain said ominously, “and I’ll explain to you in terms I hope you can understand the authority and responsibilities of the spacecraft commander — even if it takes a swift kick in your ass to make it clear.”

“Looking forward to it, Frenchy.”

“Good. Now knock off the horseplay, put away any nonauthorized equipment in the passenger module, and cut the chatter on the intercom, or this flight is terminated. Everyone got it?” There was no response. Macomber shook his head but put away his knitting stuff as directed, smiling at the feeling of Turlock’s angry glare on the back of his helmet. The rest of the refueling was carried out with only normal call-outs and responses.

After refueling was completed, they subsonically cruised northward along the coast for about an hour, flying loose formation with the KC-77—it was now easy for the tanker to keep up with the Black Stallion since the spaceplane was so heavy. They hooked up with the tanker once again to top off the JP-7 tanks, which didn’t take long, and then the tanker headed back to base. “Orbital insertion checklist programmed hold, crew,” Terranova reported. “Report in when your checklist is complete.”

“S-One, wilco,” Macomber growled. Yet another checklist. He called up the electronic checklist on his helmet’s electronic data visor and used the eye-pointing cursor and voice commands to check off each item, which mostly dealt with securing loose items, checklisting the oxygen panel, cabin pressurization, yada yada yada. It was all busywork that a computer could check easily, so why have humans do it themselves? Probably some touchy-feely human engineering thing to make the passengers feel they were something else other than exactly what they were: passengers. Whack waited until Turlock and Wohl completed their checklists, checked his off as complete, then spoke, “MC, S-One, checklist complete.”

“Roger. Checklist complete up here. Stand by for orbital insertion burn, crew.”

It all sounded very routine and quite boring, just like the endless simulator sessions they made him take, so Macomber began thinking about the target area in Soltanabad once again. Updated satellite images confirmed the presence of heavy-vehicle tire tracks again but did not reveal what they were — whoever was down there was very good at keeping the vehicles hidden from satellite view. The Goose drones were not much better than the space-based radar network in detecting very small targets, but maybe they needed to stay away from the highway airstrip and send in the Goose drones first to get a real-time look before…

…and suddenly the LPDRS engines kicked in, not in turbojet mode but now in hybrid rocket mode, and Macomber was suddenly and violently thrust back into the here and now. No simulator could prepare you for the shove — it felt like hitting a football tackle training sled except it was completely unexpected, the sled was hitting you instead of the other way around, and the force was not only sustained but increasing every second. Soon it felt like the entire offensive line had piled on top of him, being joined shortly by the defensive line as well. Whack knew he could call up data readouts about their altitude, speed, and G-force levels, but it was all he could do just to concentrate on his breath control to fight off the G-force effects and keep from blacking out.

The G-forces seemed to last an hour, although he knew the boost into orbit only took seven or eight minutes. When the pressure finally eased, he felt exhausted, as if he had just finished running the stadium stairs at the Academy before football season, or jogging across the Iraqi desert with a hundred-pound pack.

Obviously his labored breathing was loud enough to be heard on the intercom, because a few moments later Charlie Turlock asked, “Still feel like farting around with your knitting needles, Macomber?”

“Bite me.”

“Get your barf bag ready, Major,” Charlie continued gaily, “because I’m not cleaning up after you if you spew in the module. I’ll bet the macho commando didn’t take his anti-motion-sickness medication.”

“Cut the chatter and run your ‘After Orbital Insertion Burn’ checklists,” Moulain said.

Macomber’s breathing quickly returned to normal — more from embarrassment than by will. Damn, he thought, that hit him too suddenly, and a lot harder than he’d expected. Getting back into a routine would surely take his mind off his queasiness, and the Air Battle Force was nothing if not driven by checklists and routine. He used his eye-pointing system to call up the proper checklist by looking at a tiny icon in the upper left corner of his electronic visor and speaking…

…but instead of issuing a command, all he could manage was a throatful of bile. Scanning the electronic visor with his eyes suddenly gave him the worst case of vertigo he had ever experienced — he felt as if he was being swung upside down by the ankles on a rope, suspended a hundred feet aboveground. He couldn’t stop the spinning sensation; he lost all sense of up and down. His stomach churned as the spinning intensified, a thousand times worse than the worst case of the spins and leans he had ever had on the worst all-night party in his life…

“Better clear the major off-helmet, Frenchy,” Charlie said, “’cause it sounds like he’s ready to blow lunch.”

“Screw you, Turlock,” Macomber meant to say, but all that came out was a gurgle.

“You’re cleared off-helmet, S-One, module pressurization in the green,” Moulain said. “I hope you kept a barf bag handy — vomit in free fall is the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen in your life, and you might be too sick to do your job.”

“Thanks a bunch,” Macomber said through gritted teeth, trying to hold back the inevitable until he got the damned Tin Man helmet off. Somehow he managed to unfasten his helmet — he had no idea where it floated off to. Unfortunately the first bag he could reach was not a motion sickness bag — it was the personal bag containing his knitting stuff. To his shock and dismay, he quickly found that vomit in free fall didn’t behave as he expected: instead of filling the bottom of his bag in a disgusting but controllable clump, it curled back into a smelly, chunky cloud right back up into his face, eyes, and nose.

“Don’t let it out, Whack!” he heard Turlock yell from behind him. “We’ll spend the next hour Dustbustering globs of barf out of the module.” That bit of imagery didn’t help to settle his stomach one bit, nor did the awful smell and feel of warm vomit wafting across his face inside the bag.

“Relax, big guy,” he heard a voice say. It was Turlock. She had unstrapped and was holding his shoulders, steadying his convulsions and helping seal the bag around his head. He tried to shrug her hands off, but she resisted. “I said relax, Whack. It happens to everyone, drugs or no drugs.”

“Get away from me, bitch!”

“Shut up and listen to me, asshole,” Charlie insisted. “Ignore the smell. The smell is the trigger. Remove it from your consciousness. Do it, or you’ll be a vegetable for the next three hours minimum. I know you bad-ass commando types know how to control your senses, your breathing, and even your involuntary muscles so you can endure days of discomfort in the field. Hal Briggs fought on for several minutes after being shot up by the Iranians…”

“Screw Briggs, and screw you, too!”

“Pay attention, Macomber. I know you can do this. Now is the time to turn whatever you got on. Concentrate on the smell, isolate it, and eliminate it from your consciousness.”

“You don’t know shit…”

“Just do it, Wayne. You know what I’m telling you. Just shut up and do it, or you’ll be as wasted as if you’ve been on a three-day bender.”

Macomber was still blindingly angry at Turlock for being right there with him at this most vulnerable moment, taking advantage of him, but what she said made sense — she obviously knew something about the agony he was experiencing. The smell, huh? He never thought about smell that much — he was trained to be hypersensitive to sight, sound, and the indefinable sixth sense that always warned of nearby danger. Smell was usually a confusing factor, something to be disregarded. Shut it down, Whack. Shut it off.

Somehow, it worked. He knew that breathing through his mouth cut off the sense of smell, and when he did that a lot of the nausea went away. His stomach was still doing painful knots and waves of roiling convulsions, as bad as if he had been stabbed in the gut, but now the trigger of those awful spasms was gone, and he was back in control. Sickness was not allowable. He had a team counting on him, a mission to perform — his damned weak stomach was not going to be the thing that let his team and his mission down. A few pounds of muscle and nerve endings were not going to control him. The mind is the master, he reminded himself, and he was the master of the mind.

A few moments later, with his stomach empty and the aroma erased from his consciousness, his stomach quickly started to return to normal. “You okay?” Charlie asked, offering him a towelette.

“Yeah.” He accepted the wipe and began to clean up, but stopped and nodded. “Thanks, Turlock.”

“Sorry about the shit I gave you about the knitting.”

“I get it all the time.”

“And you usually bust somebody’s head for ragging on you, except it was me and you weren’t going to bust my head?”

“I would have if I could’ve reached you,” Whack said. Charlie thought he meant it until he smiled and chuckled. “Knitting relaxes me, and it gives me a chance to see who gets in my shit and who leaves me be.”

“Sounds like a screwed-up way to live, boss, if you don’t mind me sayin’,” Charlie said. He shrugged. “If you’re okay, drink some water and stay on pure oxygen for a while. Use the vacuum to clean up any pieces of vomit you see before we re-enter, or we’ll never find them and they’ll become projectiles. If they stick on our gear the bad guys will smell it yards away.”

“You’re right, Tur — Charlie,” Whack said. As she headed back to her seat, he added, “You’re all right, Turlock.”

“Yes, I am, boss,” she replied. She found his helmet lodged somewhere in the cargo section in the back of the passenger module and handed it back to him. “Just don’t you forget it.” She then detached the cleanup vacuum from its recharging station and floated it over to him as well. “Now you really look like Martha Stewart, boss.”

“Don’t push it, Captain,” he growled, but he smiled and took the vacuum.

“Yes, sir.” She smiled, nodded, and returned to her seat.

They didn’t always meet like this to make love. Both Russian president Leonid Zevitin and minister of foreign affairs Alexandra Hedrov loved classic black-and-white movies from all over the world, Italian food, and rich red wine, so after a long day of work, especially with a long upcoming trip ready to begin, they often stayed after the rest of the staff had been dismissed and shared some time together. They had become lovers not long after they first met at an international banking conference in Switzerland almost ten years earlier, and even as their responsibilities and public visibility increased they still managed to find the time and opportunity to get together.

If either of them was concerned about the whispered rumors of their affair, they showed no sign of it. Only the tabloids and celebrity blogs spoke of it, and those were all but dismissed by most Russians — certainly no one in the Kremlin would ever wag their tongues about such things and about such powerful people in anything louder than a quiet thought. Hedrov was married and was the mother of two grown children, and they long ago learned that their lives, as well as the life of their wife and mother, belonged to the state now, not to themselves.

The president’s dacha was the closest to security and privacy than anything else they could ever expect in the Russian Federation. Unlike the president’s official residence in the Senate Building at the Kremlin, which was rather unassuming and utilitarian, Zevitin’s dacha outside Moscow was modern and stylish, fit for any international business executive. Like the man itself, the place revolved around work and business, but it was hard to discern that at first glance.

After flying in to Boltino to the president’s private airport nearby, visitors were driven to the residence by limousine and escorted through a sweeping grand foyer to the great room and dining room, dominated by three large fireplaces and adorned with sumptuous leather and oak furniture, works of art from all over the world, framed photos of world leaders, and mementos from his many celebrity friends, topped off with a spectacular panoramic view of Pirogovskoje Reservoir outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. Special guests would be invited up the double marble curved staircases to the bedroom suites on the second floor, or down to the large Roman-style baths, indoor pool, thirty-seat high-definition movie theater, and game room on the ground floor. But all that was still only a fraction of the square footage of the place.

A guest being dazzled by the grand view outside the great room would miss the dark, narrow cupola on the right side of the foyer, almost resembling a doorless closet, which had small and unimpressive paintings hanging on the curved walls illuminated by rather dim LED spotlights. But if one stepped into the cupola, he would be instantly but surreptitiously electronically searched by X-ray to locate weapons or listening devices. His facial features would be scanned and the data run through an electronic identification system that was able to detect and filter out disguises or impostors. Once positively identified, the hidden door inside the cupola would be opened from within, and you would be admitted to the main part of the dacha.

Zevitin’s office was as large as the great- and dining rooms combined, large enough for a group of generals or ministers to confer with each other on one side and not be heard by a similarly sized meeting of the president’s advisers on the other — unheard except for the audio and video recording devices planted everywhere on the grounds, as well as out on the streets, neighborhoods, and roads of the surrounding countryside. Eight persons could expansively dine on Zevitin’s walnut and ivory-inlaid desk with elbow room to spare. Video feeds and television reports from hundreds of different sources were fed to a dozen high-definition monitors located in the office, but none were visible unless the president wanted to view them.

The president’s bedroom upstairs was the one made up for show: the bedroom adjoining the office suite was the one Zevitin used most of the time; it was also the one Alexandra preferred, the one that she thought best reflected the man himself — still grand, but warmer and perhaps plusher than the rest of the mansion. She liked to think he made it so just for her, but that would be foolish arrogance on her part, and she often reminded herself not to indulge in any of that around this man.

They had slipped beneath the silk sheets and down comforter of his bed after dinner and movies and just held each other, sipping tiny glasses of brandy and talking in low intimate voices about everything but the three things both mostly cared about: government, politics, and finances. Phone calls, official or otherwise, were expressly forbidden; Alexandra couldn’t remember ever being interrupted by an aide or a phone call, as if Zevitin could somehow make the rest of the world instantly comatose while they were together. They touched each other occasionally, exploring each other’s silent desires, and mutually deciding without a word that tonight was for companionship and rest, not passion. They had known each other a long time, and she never considered that she might not be fulfilling his needs or desires, or he was disregarding hers. They embraced, kissed, and said good night, and there was no hint of tension or displeasure. All was as it should be…

…so it was doubly surprising for Alexandra to be awakened by something she had never heard before in that room: a beeping telephone. The alien sound made her sit bolt upright after the second or third beep; she soon noticed that Leonid was already on his feet, the bedside light on, the receiver to his lips.

“Go ahead,” he said, then listened, glancing over to her. His eyes were not angry, quizzical, confused, or fearful, as she was certain hers were. He obviously knew exactly who was calling and what he was going to say; like a playwright watching a rehearsal of his latest work, he was patiently waiting for something he already knew would be said.

“What is it?” she mouthed.

To her surprise, Zevitin reached down to the phone, touched a button, and hung up the receiver, activating the speakerphone. “Repeat that last, General,” he said, catching and arresting her gaze with his.

General Andrei Darzov’s voice, crackling and occasionally fading with interference as if talking across a vast distance, could still clearly be heard: “Yes, sir. KIK Command and Measurement Command sites have detected an American spaceplane launch over the Pacific Ocean. It crossed over central Canada and was inserted safely into low-Earth orbit while over the Arctic ice pack of Canada. If it stays on its current trajectory, its target area is definitely eastern Iran.”

“When?”

“They could be starting their re-entry burn in ten minutes, sir,” Darzov replied. “It possibly has enough fuel to fly to the same target area after re-entering the atmosphere after a complete orbit, but it is doubtful without a midair refueling over Iraq or Turkey.”

“Do you think they discovered it?” Hedrov didn’t know what “it” was, but she assumed, because Zevitin had allowed her to listen in on the conversation, that she would find out soon enough.

“I think we should assume they have, sir,” Darzov said, “although if they positively identified the system, I am sure McLanahan would not hesitate to attack it. They may have just detected activity there and are inserting more intelligence-gathering assets to verify.”

“Well, I’m surprised they took this long,” Zevitin remarked. “They have spacecraft flying over Iran almost every hour.”

“And those are just the ones we can positively detect and track,” Darzov said. “They could have many more that we can’t identify, especially unmanned aircraft.”

“When will it be within striking range for us, General?”

Hedrov’s mouth opened, but at a warning glare from Zevitin, she said nothing. What in hell were they thinking of…?

“By the time the spaceplane crosses the base’s horizon, sir, they’ll be less than five minutes from landing.”

“Damn, the speed of that thing is mind-boggling,” Zevitin muttered. “It’s almost impossible to move fast enough against it.” He thought quickly; then: “But if the spaceplane stays in orbit instead of re-entering, it will be in perfect position. We have one good shot only.”

“Exactly, sir,” Darzov said.

“I assume your men are preparing for an assault, General?” Zevitin asked seriously. “Because if the spaceplane successfully lands and deploys its Tin Man ground forces — which we must assume they will have on board—”

“Yes, sir, we must.”

“—we will have no time to pack up and get out of Dodge.”

“If I understand you correctly, sir — yes, we would undoubtedly lose the system to them,” Darzov acknowledged, not knowing what or where “Dodge” was but not bothering to reveal his own ignorance. “The game will be over.”

“I see,” Zevitin said. “But if it does not re-enter and stays in orbit, how long will you have to engage it?”

“We should acquire it with optronic observation sensors and laser rangefinders as soon as it crosses the horizon, at a range of about eighteen hundred kilometers or about four minutes away,” Darzov replied. “However, we need radar for precise tracking, and that is limited to a maximum range of five hundred kilometers. So we will have a maximum of two minutes at its current orbital altitude.”

“Two minutes! Is that enough time?”

“Barely,” Darzov said. “We will have radar tracking, but we still need to hit the target with an air data laser that will help compute focusing corrections to the main laser’s optics. That should take no longer than sixty seconds, assuming the radar stays locked on and the proper computations are made. That will give us a maximum of sixty seconds’ exposure time.”

“Will it be enough to disable it?”

“It should, at least partially, based on our previous engagements,” Darzov replied. “However, the optimum time to attack is when the target is directly overhead. As the target moves toward the horizon the atmosphere grows thicker and more complex, and the laser’s optics cannot compensate quickly enough. So—”

“The window is very, very small,” Zevitin said. “I understand, General. Well, we must do everything we can to be sure the spaceplane stays in that second orbit.”

There was a noticeable pause; then: “If I can help in any way, sir, please do not hesitate to call on me,” Darzov said, obviously completely unsure as to what he could do.

“I’ll keep you posted, General,” Zevitin said. “But for now, you are cleared to engage. Repeat, you are cleared to engage. Written authorization will be sent to your headquarters via secure e-mail. Advise if anything changes. Good luck.”

“Luck favors the bold, sir. We cannot lose if we take the fight to the enemy. Out.”

As soon as Zevitin hung up the phone, Hedrov asked, “What was that all about, Leonid? What is going on? Was it about Fanar?”

“We are about to create a crisis in space, Alexandra,” Zevitin responded. He turned to her, then ran the fingers of both hands through his hair as if wiping his thoughts completely clear so he could start afresh. “The Americans think they have unfettered access to space — we are going to throw some roadblocks up in their faces and see what they do. If I know Joseph Gardner, as I think I do, I think he will stomp on the brakes of McLanahan’s vaunted space force, and stomp on them hard. He would destroy one of his own just to keep someone else from having a victory he couldn’t claim for himself.”

Alexandra rose from the bed, kneeling before him. “Are you so sure of this man, Leonid?”

“I’m positive I’ve got this guy pegged.”

“And what of his generals?” she asked softly. “What of McLanahan?”

Zevitin nodded, silently admitting his own uncertainty about that very factor. “The American attack dog is on his leash, and he is apparently hurt…for now,” he said. “I don’t know how long I can count on that leash holding. We’ve got to prompt Gardner to put McLanahan out of commission…or be prepared to do it ourselves.” He picked up the phone. “Get me American president Gardner on the ‘hot line’ immediately.”

“It is a dangerous game you are playing, no?” Hedrov asked.

“Sure, Alexandra,” Zevitin said, running the fingers of his left hand through her hair as he waited. He felt her hands slip from his chest to below his waist, soon tugging at his underwear and then ministering to him with her hands and mouth, and although he heard the beeps and clicks of the satellite communications system quickly putting the “hot line” call through to Washington, he didn’t stop her. “But the stakes are that high. Russia can’t allow the Americans to claim the high ground. We need to stop them, and this is our best chance right now.”

Alexandra’s efforts soon increased both in gentleness and urgency, and Zevitin hoped that Gardner was preoccupied enough to allow him a few more minutes with her. Knowing the American President as he did, he knew he very well might be similarly distracted.

Relaxing in his newly reupholstered seat at his desk in the executive office suite aboard Air Force One, on his way to his “southern White House” oceanside compound outside St. Petersburg, Florida, President Gardner was studying the very ample bosom and shapely fanny of the female Air Force staff sergeant who had just brought a pot of coffee and some wheat crackers into the office. He knew she knew he was checking her out, because every now and then she would cast a glance over to him and a tiny smile would appear. He had a newspaper on his lap but was angled over just enough to surreptitiously watch her. Yep, he thought, she was taking her sweet time setting out his stuff. Damn, what an ass…

Just as he was going to make his move and invite her to bring those tits and ass over to his big desk, the phone beeped. He was tempted to push the DO NOT DISTURB button, cursing himself that he hadn’t done so after he finished his last meeting with the staff and settled in, but something told him that he should take this call. He reluctantly picked up the receiver. “Yes?”

“President Zevitin of the Russian Federation calling for you on the ‘hot line,’ sir,” the communications officer responded. “He says it’s urgent.”

He held the MUTE button on the receiver, groaned aloud, then gave the stewardess a wink. “Come back in ten minutes with fresh stuff, okay, Staff Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied enthusiastically. She stood to attention, thrusting her chest out to him, before glancing at him mischievously, slowly turning on a heel, and departing.

He knew he had her pegged, he thought happily as he released the button. “Give me a minute, Signals,” he said, reaching for a cigarette.

“Yes, sir.”

Shit, Gardner cursed to himself, what in hell does Zevitin want now? He pressed the buzzer button to summon his chief of staff Walter Kordus. He was going to have to review the policy he’d established of immediately taking calls from Zevitin, he thought — he was starting to speak with him almost on a daily basis. Ninety seconds and a half a cigarette later: “Put him through, Signals,” he ordered, stubbing out the cigarette.

“Yes, Mr. President.” A moment later: “President Zevitin is on the line, secure, sir.”

“Thank you, Signals. Leonid, this is Joe Gardner. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Joe,” Zevitin replied in a not-so-pleasant tone. “But I’m concerned, man, real concerned. I thought we had a deal.”

Gardner reminded himself to stay on guard while talking to this guy — he sounded so much like an American that he could be talking to someone from the California congressional delegation or some Indiana labor union leader. “What are you talking about, Leonid?” The chief of staff entered the President’s office, picked up the dead extension so he could listen in, and turned on his computer to start taking notes and issuing orders if necessary.

“I thought we agreed that we would be notified whenever you’d fly manned spaceplane missions, especially into Iran,” Zevitin said. “This is really worrisome, Joe. I’m working hard to try to defuse the situation in the Middle East and keep the hard-liners in my government in check, but your activities with the Black Stallions only serve to—”

“Hold on, Leonid, hold on,” Gardner interrupted. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What Black Stallion missions?”

“C’mon, Joe — do you think we can’t see it? Do you think it’s invisible? We picked it up as soon as it crossed the horizon over the Greenland Sea.”

“One of the spaceplanes is flying over Greenland?”

“It’s over southwestern China now, Joe, according to our space surveillance and tracking units,” Zevitin said. “C’mon, Joe, I know you can’t talk about ongoing classified military missions, but it’s not hard to guess what they’re going to do, even if it is the Black Stallion spaceplane we’re talking about. Orbital mechanics are as predictable as sunrise and sunset.”

“Leonid, I—”

“I know you can’t confirm or deny anything — you don’t have to, because we know what’s going to happen,” Zevitin went on. “It is obvious that in the next orbit, in about ninety minutes, it will be directly over Iran. We expect it to begin deorbit maneuvers in about forty-five minutes, which will put it directly over the Caspian Sea when its atmospheric engines and flight controls will become active. You’re obviously flying a mission into Iran, Joe. I thought we had an agreement: hands off Iran while we pursue a diplomatic solution to the military coup and the murder of the elected Iranian officials.”

“Hold on, Leonid. Stand by a sec.” Gardner hit the MUTE button. “Get Conrad in here,” he ordered, but Kordus had already hit the button to page the National Security Adviser. Gardner released the MUTE button. “Leonid, you’re right, I can’t talk about any ongoing operations. You just have to—”

“Joe, I’m not calling to discuss anything. I’m pointing out to you that we can clearly see one of your spaceplanes in orbit right now, and we had no idea you were going to launch one. After all we’ve discussed over the past several weeks, I can’t believe you’d do this to me. When they find out about this, my Cabinet and the Duma will think I’ve been duped, and they’ll demand I take action, or else I’ll lose all the support for our cooperative efforts and rapprochement I’ve taken months to cultivate. You cut the rug out from under me, Joe.”

“Leonid, I’m in the middle of an important meeting, and I need to finish up what I’m doing first,” the President lied, impatiently rising to his feet and resisting the urge to yell outside his door for Carlyle and Kordus to tell him what in hell was going on. “I assure you, we don’t have any actions under way against Russia anywhere, in any fashion—”

“‘Against Russia?’ That sounds like an alarming equivocation, Joe. What does that mean? Are you launching an operation against someone else?”

“Let me clear my desk and finish this briefing, Leonid, and I’ll fill you in. I’ll—”

“I thought we agreed, Joe: essential flights only until we had a treaty governing military travel in space,” Zevitin pressed. “As far as we can tell, the spaceplane isn’t going to dock with the space station, so this is not a logistical mission. I know things are bad in Iran and Iraq, but bad enough to stir up widespread fear by launching a Black Stallion? I think not. This is a complete disaster, Joe. I’m going to get butchered by the Duma and the generals—”

“Don’t panic, Leonid. There’s a rational and completely benign explanation. I’ll call you back as soon as I can and—”

“Joe, you had better be straight with me, or else I won’t be able to rein in the opposition leaders and some of the more powerful generals — they’ll all be clamoring for an explanation and a strong response in kind,” Zevitin said. “If I can’t give them a plausible answer, they’ll start searching for one themselves. You know I’m holding on by a shoestring out here. I need your cooperation or everything we’ve worked for will unravel.”

“I’ll call you right back, Leonid,” Gardner said. “But I assure you, on my honor, that nothing is going on. Absolutely nothing.”

“So our ambassadors and observers on the ground in Tehran shouldn’t be worried about another hypersonic missile slamming through the ceiling any moment now?”

“Don’t even joke about that, Leonid. It’s not going to happen. I’ll call you back.” He impatiently hung up the phone, then wiped the beads of sweat off his upper lip. “Walter!” he shouted. “Where the hell are you? And where’s Conrad?”

The two advisers trotted into the executive suite moments later. “Sorry, Mr. President, but I was downloading the latest spacecraft status report from Strategic Command,” National Security Adviser Conrad Carlyle said. “It should be on your computer.” He accessed the computer on the President’s desk, opened a secure file location, and quickly scanned the contents. “Okay, it’s right here…yes, General Cannon, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, authorized a spaceplane launch about four hours ago, and the mission was approved by Secretary Turner.”

“Why wasn’t I notified of this?”

“The mission is described as ‘routine,’ sir,” Carlyle said. “Crew of two, three passengers, six orbits of the Earth and return to Elliott Air Force Base, total mission duration ten hours.”

“What is this, a fucking joy ride? Who are the passengers? I ordered essential missions only! What in hell is going on? I thought I grounded all of the spaceplanes.”

Carlyle and Kordus exchanged puzzled expressions. “I…I’m not aware of an order grounding the spaceplanes, sir,” Carlyle responded feebly. “You did recall the SkySTREAK bombers from their patrols, but not the space—”

“I had a deal with Zevitin, Conrad: No more spaceplane launches without first notifying him,” Gardner said. “He’s hopping mad about the launch, and so am I!”

Carlyle’s brows knitted, and his mouth opened and closed with confusion. “I’m sorry, Joe, but I’m not aware of any agreement we made with Zevitin to inform him of anything dealing with the spaceplanes,” he said finally. “I know he’s been clamoring for that — he rants and raves to every media outlet in the world that the spaceplanes are a danger to world peace and security because they can be mistaken for an intercontinental ballistic missile, and he’s demanding that we notify him before we launch one — but there’s been no formal agreement about—”

“Didn’t I order Cannon to be sure that those spaceplanes and any space weapons didn’t enter sovereign airspace, even if it meant keeping them on the ground?” the President thundered. “They were to stay out of any country’s airspace at all times. Didn’t I give that order?”

“Well…yes, sir, I believe you did,” Kordus replied. “But the spaceplanes can easily fly above a country’s airspace. They can—”

“How can they do that?” the President asked. “We have airspace that’s restricted from the surface to infinity. Sovereign airspace is all the airspace above a nation.”

“Sir, as we’ve discussed before, under the Outer Space Treaty no nation can restrict access or travel through outer space,” Carlyle reminded the President. “Legally space begins one hundred kilometers from Earth’s surface. The spaceplane can climb into space quickly enough while over friendly countries, open ocean, or the ice packs, and once up there can fly around without violating anyone’s sovereign airspace. They do it—”

“I don’t give a shit what it says in an obsolete forty-year-old treaty!” the President thundered. “For many months we have been involved in discussions with Zevitin and the United Nations to come up with a way to alleviate the anxiety felt by many around the world to spaceplane and space station operations without restricting our own access to space or revealing classified information. Until we had something worked out, I made it clear that I didn’t want the spaceplanes flitting around unnecessarily making folks nervous and interfering with the negotiations. Essential missions only, and that meant resupply and national emergencies — I had to personally approve all other missions. Am I mistaken, or have I not approved any other spaceplane flights recently?”

“Sir, General Cannon must have felt it important enough to launch this flight without—”

“Without my approval? He thinks he can just blast off into space without anyone’s permission? Where’s the emergency? Is the spaceplane going to dock with the space station? Who are the three passengers? Do you even know?”

“I’ll put in a call to General Cannon, sir,” Carlyle said, picking up the phone. “I’ll get all the details right away.”

“This is a damned nightmare! This is out of control!” the President thundered. “I want to know who’s responsible for this, and I want his ass out! Do you hear me? Unless war has been declared or aliens are attacking, I want whoever’s responsible for this shit-canned! I want to speak with Cannon myself!”

Carlyle put his hand over the phone’s mouthpiece as he waited and said, “Sir, I suggest I speak with General Cannon. Keep an arm’s-length distance from this. If it’s just a training flight or something, you don’t want to be perceived as jumping off the deep end, especially after just speaking with the president of Russia.”

“This is serious, Conrad, and I want it clear to my generals that I want those spaceplanes under tight control,” the President said.

“Are you sure that’s how you want to handle it, Joe?” Kordus asked in a quiet voice. “Reaching down past Secretary Turner to dress down a four-star general is bad form. If you want to beat someone up, pick on Turner — he was the final authority for that spaceplane launch.”

“Oh, I’ll give Turner a piece of my mind too, you can bet on that,” the President said angrily, “but Cannon and that other guy, the three-star—”

“Lieutenant General Backman, commander of CENTAF.”

“Whatever. Cannon and Backman have been fighting me too hard and too long over this space defense force idea of McLanahan’s, and it’s about time to bring them back into line — or, better, get rid of them. They’re the last holdouts of Martindale’s Pentagon brain trust, and they want the space stuff because it builds up their empires.”

“If you want them gone, we’ll get rid of them — they all serve at the pleasure of the commander-in-chief,” Kordus said. “But they’re still very powerful and popular generals, especially with congressmen who are for the space program. They may push their own plans and programs while in uniform, but as disgraced and disgruntled retired generals, they’ll attack you openly and personally. Don’t give them a reason.”

“I know how the game is played, Walter — hell, I made most of the rules,” the President said hotly. “I’m not afraid of the generals, and I shouldn’t be worried about tiptoeing around them — I’m the damned commander-in-chief. Get Turner on the line right away.” He reached over and snatched the phone out of the National Security Adviser’s hand. “Signals, what the hell is going on? Where’s Cannon?”

“Stand by, sir, he should be connecting any second now.” A few moments later: “Cannon here, secure.”

“General Cannon, this is the President. Why the hell did you authorize that spaceplane to launch without my authority?”

“Uh…good afternoon, sir,” Cannon began, perplexed. “As I explained to the Secretary of Defense, sir, it’s a pre-positioning flight only while we await final approval for a mission inside Iran. With the spacecraft in orbit, if we got approval it would be easy to insert the team, do their job, then get them out again. If it was not approved, it would be equally easy to return them to base.”

“I specifically ordered no spaceplanes to cross foreign borders without my approval.”

“Sir, as you know, once the spaceplane is above the sixty-mile threshold, it’s—”

“Don’t give me that Outer Space Treaty crap!” the President thundered. “Do I have to spell it out for you? I don’t want the spaceplanes in orbit unless it’s to support the space station or it’s an emergency, and if it’s an emergency it had better be a damned serious one! The rest of the world thinks we’re getting ready to launch attacks from space…which apparently is exactly what you are planning, behind my back!”

“I’m not hiding anything from anyone, sir,” Cannon argued. “Without orders to the contrary, I launched the spaceplanes on my own authority with strict orders that no one crosses into any sovereign airspace. That is my standing general order from SECDEF. Those instructions have been complied with to the letter.”

“Well, I’m rescinding your authority, General,” the President said. “From now on, all movements of any spacecraft will need my direct permission before execution. Do I make myself clear, General? You had better not put so much as a rat in space without my permission!”

“I understand, sir,” Cannon said, “but I don’t recommend that course of action.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“Sir, keeping that level of control on any military asset is dangerous and wasteful, but it’s even more critical with the space launch systems,” Cannon said. “Military units need one commander to be effective, and that should be a theater commander with instantaneous and constant access to information from the field. The spaceplanes and all of our space launch systems are designed for maximum speed and flexibility, and in an emergency they’ll lose both if final authority remains in Washington. I strongly recommend against taking operational command of those systems. If you’re not happy with my decisions, sir, then may I remind you that you can dismiss me and appoint another theater commander to have control of the spaceplanes and other launch systems.”

“I’m well aware of my authority, General,” Gardner said. “My decision stands.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now who the hell is aboard that spaceplane, and why wasn’t I informed of this mission?”

“Sir, along with the two flight crewmembers, there are three members of General McLanahan’s Air Battle Force ground operations unit aboard the spaceplane,” Cannon responded tonelessly.

“McLanahan? I should have known,” the President spat. “That guy is the definition of a loose cannon! What was he up to? Why did he want that spaceplane launched?”

“They were being pre-positioned in orbit pending approval for a reconnaissance and interdiction mission inside Iran.”

“‘Pre-positioned’? You mean, you sent a spaceplane and three commandos over Iran without my permission? On your sole authority?”

“I have the authority to pre-position and forward-deploy forces anywhere in the world to support my standing orders and fulfill my command’s responsibilities, sir,” Cannon said testily. “The spaceplanes were specifically directed not to enter any foreign airspace without permission, and they have fully complied with that order. If they do not receive authorization to proceed with their plan, they are directed to return to base.”

“What kind of nonsense is this, General? This is the spaceplane we’re talking about — loaded with McLanahan’s armed robots, I assume, correct?”

“It’s not nonsense, sir — it’s how this command and all major theater commands normally operate,” Cannon said, trying mightily to keep his anger and frustration in check. Gardner was the former Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of Defense, for God’s sake — he knew this better than anyone…! “As you know, sir, I give orders to pre-position and forward-deploy thousands of men and women all over the world every day, both in support of routine day-to-day operations as well as in preparation for contingency missions. They all operate within standing orders, procedural doctrine, and legal limits. They don’t deviate one iota until given a direct execution order by myself, and that order isn’t given until I receive a go-ahead from the national command authority — you, or the Secretary of Defense. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about one spaceplane and five personnel, or an aircraft carrier battle group with twenty ships, seventy aircraft, and ten thousand personnel.”

“You seem to believe that the spaceplanes are simple little windup toy planes that no one notices or cares about, General,” the President said. “You may think it’s routine to send a spaceplane over Iran or an aircraft carrier battle group off someone’s coastline, but I assure you, the entire world is in mortal fear of them. Wars have been started by far less. It’s obvious your attitude toward the weapons systems under your command has to change, General, and I mean now.” Cannon had no response. “What members of McLanahan’s Battle Force are aboard?”

“Two Tin Men and one CID unit, sir.”

“Jesus…that’s not a recon team, that’s a damned strike team! They can take on an entire infantry company! What were you thinking, General? Did you think McLanahan was going to fly that kind of force all that way and not use them? What in hell were McLanahan’s robots going to do in Iran?”

“Sensors picked up unusual and suspicious activity at a remote highway airbase in eastern Iran that had previously been used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards,” Cannon said. “General McLanahan believes the base is secretly being reopened either by the Iranians or by the Russians. His satellite imagery can’t give him precise enough pictures to tell for sure, so he requested an insertion of a three-person Battle Force squad to take a look and, if necessary, destroy the base.”

“Destroy the base?” the President thundered, angrily slapping the handset into an open hand. “My God, he authorized McLanahan to send an armed spaceplane over Iran to destroy a military base, and I didn’t know about it? Is he insane?” He raised the receiver: “And when were you going to let the rest of us know about McLanahan’s little plan, General — after World War Four was under way?”

“McLanahan’s plan has been passed along to us here at Strategic Command, and my operations staff is reviewing it and will be presenting a recommendation to the Secretary of Defense,” Cannon replied. “We should be making a decision any moment—”

“I’ll make a decision for you right now, General: I want that spaceplane to land as soon as possible back at their home base,” the President said. “Do you understand me? I don’t want those commandos deployed, or that spaceplane to land, anywhere but back in Nevada or wherever the hell it’s from, unless it’s a life-or-death emergency. And I don’t want one thing to be launched, ejected, or otherwise leave that spacecraft that might be considered an attack on anyone…noth-ing. Am I making myself perfectly clear, General Cannon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if that spaceplane crosses one political boundary anywhere on the planet under that damned sixty-mile altitude limit, you will lose your stars, General Cannon…all of them!” the President went on hotly. “You overstepped your authority, General, and I hope to hell I don’t have to spend the rest of my first term in office explaining, correcting, and apologizing for this monumental blunder. Now get on it.”

The President slammed the phone down, then took his seat, fuming. After a few moments of muttering to himself, he barked, “I want Cannon fired.”

“Sir, technically he does have the authority to move his assets anywhere he wants to on routine missions,” National Security Adviser Carlyle said. “He doesn’t need permission from the national defense authority — you or the Secretary of Defense — for day-to-day operations.”

“But we usually tell the Russians before we move any weapon systems that might be confused as an attack, correct?”

“Yes, sir — that’s always a wise precaution,” Carlyle said. “But if the theater commander needed to position his assets in preparation for an actual mission, we aren’t obligated to tell the Russians anything. We don’t even have to lie to them and tell them it’s a training mission or something.”

“Part of the problem with these spaceplanes, Conrad, is that they move too quickly,” Chief of Staff Kordus said. “Even if this was a routine mission, they’re around the world in the blink of an eye. We’ve got to put stricter controls on those guys.”

“If Cannon had something going, something important, he should have told me or Turner before launching that spaceplane,” the President said. “Walter’s right: those spaceplanes are too fast and too threatening to just launch them anytime, even on a perfectly peaceful, benign, routine mission — which this certainly was not. But I thought I made it clear to everyone that I didn’t want the spaceplanes up unless it was an emergency or a war. Am I mistaken about that?”

“No, sir, but apparently General Cannon thought this was a pretty serious indication, because he moved very quickly. He—”

“It doesn’t matter,” the President insisted. “The Russians spotted him, and I’m sure they’re radioing the Iranians, Turkmenis, and half the spies in the Middle East to be on the lookout for the Battle Force. The gig is blown. The Russians are hopping mad, and so will the United Nations, our allies, the media, and the American people be as soon as they find out about this—”

“Which will probably be any minute now,” Kordus added, “because we know Zevitin runs and leaks his information to the European press, who can’t wait to excoriate us on the most trivial matter. On something this big, they’ll have a field day. They’ll roast us alive for the next month.”

“Just when things were starting to settle down,” the President said wearily, lighting another cigarette, “Cannon, Backman, and especially McLanahan have managed to stir it all up again.”

“The spaceplane will be on the ground before the press can run with this, Joe,” the chief of staff said, “and we’ll just refuse to confirm or deny any of the Russians’ allegations. The thing will die out soon enough.”

“It’d better,” Gardner said. “But just to be sure, Conrad, I want the spaceplanes grounded until further notice. I want all of them to stay put. No training, no so-called routine missions, nothing.” He looked around the suite and, raising his voice just enough to show his irritation and let anyone outside the suite hear, asked, “Is that clear enough for everyone? No more unauthorized missions! They stay grounded, and that’s that!” There was a chorus of muted “Yes, Mr. President” responses.

“Find out exactly when that spaceplane will be on the ground so I can notify Zevitin before someone impeaches or assassinates his ass,” the President added. “And find out from the flight docs when McLanahan can get off that space station and be brought back to Earth so I can fire his ass too.” He took a deep drag of his cigarette, stubbed it out, then reached for his empty coffee mug. “And on your way out, have that stewardess bring me something hot.”