The War Cloud

53

Sachs stared at the ten missiles as they arched into the twilight. Disbelief dissolved into despair as she recognized the world as she knew was ending. A black hole seemed to open up under her feet and suck the soul out of her, leaving her void of hopes of a tomorrow.

“God, no,” she breathed.

Koz, standing next to her, sounded flat and distant. “Minutemen out of the Nekoma missile field. It was supposed to be inactive.”

Sachs simply could not believe what she was seeing. “They’re going to China, aren’t they?”

“Can’t tell you until they explode,” Koz said, looking grief-stricken. “But at fifteen thousand miles per hour, they can reach their targets in less than 30 minutes.”

She said, “We have to destroy them.”

The look on Koz’s face didn’t inspire hope. “Only way to abort is from the launch control center. We could try our sea-based AEGIS ABM systems with the Seventh Fleet, but they can’t take out all 10 Minutemen. Our best bet would have been the Tier 1 Defender complex in Alaska.”

Sachs grew icy calm. “What about this abandoned Safeguard complex nearby that you talked about? What did that use to be for?”

“It was the original Defender system,” Koz said. “Safeguard was designed to deMinutemen silos around here from a Soviet or Chinese counterforce attack during the 1960s.”

“By ‘counterforce’ you mean nukes like the ones the Chinese are about to launch in answer to the Minutemen that Marshall just fired?”

“That’s right,” Koz said. “The Safeguard missiles would hit the incoming Soviet or Chinese nukes, giving us the all clear to launch a second wave of missiles.”

“Punishing them even harder.”

“A nice option for us to have now, huh?” Koz said. “But it was operational for only about four months before they shut it down. Been abandoned for decades.”

Sachs said, “You mean like those Minuteman silos we just saw shoot off?”

Koz stared at her like she was either crazy or brilliant or crazy brilliant. “You think he rebuilt the Defender system on top of Safeguard?”

Sachs nodded. “Marshall isn’t a lunatic. He wouldn’t let those missiles off unless he had some degree of confidence he could shoot down those DF-5s the Chinese launch back at us.”

Koz’s face fell. “It’s at least 40 minutes to Nekoma. We’ll never make it in time on these roads.”

“Stop telling me what we can’t do!” Sachs lost it there, punching him squarely in the chest with her fist. “You dumb bastards!” she screamed, pummeling him again and again. “You’ve got to blow up the world with your pissing contests.”

Koz took the blows stoically, waiting for her to stop.

Sachs calmed down, the missile roar faded, and there was only a ghostly cold wind until she heard the unmistakable snap of gum and turned to see Ethel standing behind them.

Ethel said, “I know how you can get there in 20 minutes.”

Sachs stared at her, daring her. “Tell me.”

“Same way me and Rusty got here to the diner.”