The War Cloud

14

Inside the underground command center of the Strategic Command, the gold JSCAN telephone started beeping in SC Commander Duane Carver’s office. Carver, a lean, low-key man, picked up and heard the news from Block.

“Yes, sir,” he replied and stepped out onto his balcony overlooking a floor half the size of a football field where SAC officers manned their consoles deep beneath Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha. Display screens told them which bombers were in the air, which were sitting on runways and how long their engines had been running. “I’m on it.”

Carver hung up and picked up the red telephone to the Primary Alerting System. As soon as he did, an alarm warbled and a rotating red beacon flashed.

On the surface, sirens blared as blue trucks rushed pilots to their awaiting bombers and tankers already lined up for a quick escape.

“Alert crews to your stations,” blared the senior controller’s voice over the base speakers. “This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill.”

On the runways, B-2, B-52 and FB-11 bombers and their supporting KC-135 tankers began to blast off in Minimum Interval Take Offs (MITOs), one after another with less than twelve seconds between them, collectively armed with enough nuclear warheads to destroy the world’s 25 largest cities.