Jack Ryan 7 - The Sum of All Fears (106 page)

A DEFCON-THREE alert out of nowhere, and then minutes later, this. Over forty tanks and a hundred men lost, shot down without warning. Well, he'd see about that.

The Berlin Brigade had been in place since long before his birth, and scattered throughout its encampment were defensive positions. The colonel dispatched his remaining tanks, and ordered his Bradley fighting vehicles to volley-fire their TOW-2, missiles.

The Russian tanks had overrun the tank lager and stopped. They had no further orders. Battalion commanders were not yet in control of their formations, left behind by the mad dash of the T-8os across the line, and the regimental commander was nowhere to be found. Without orders, the tank companies stopped, sitting still, looking for targets. The regimental executive officer was also missing, and when the senior battalion commander realized this, his tank dashed off to the headquarters vehicle, since he was the next-senior officer in the regiment. It was amazing, he thought. First the readiness drill, next the flash alert from
Moscow
, and then the Americans had started shooting. He hadn't a clue what was going on. Even the barracks and administrative buildings were still lit up, he realized. Someone would have to get those lights off. His T-8o was back-lit as though on a target range.

“Command tank,
two o'clock
, skylined, moving left to right,” a sergeant told a corporal.

“Identified,” the gunner replied over the intercom.

“Fire.”

“On the way.” The corporal squeezed his trigger. The seal-cap blew off the missile tube, and the TOW-2 blasted out, trailing behind a thin control wire. The target was about twenty-five hundred meters away. The gunner kept his cross-hairs on target, guiding the antitank missile to its target. It took eight seconds, and the gunner had the satisfaction of seeing detonation right in the center of the turret.

“Target,” the Bradley commander said, indicating a direct hit. “Cease fire. Now let's find another one of these fuckers . . .
ten o'clock
, tank, coming around the PX!”

The turret came left. “Identified!”

“Okay, what does CIA make of this?” Fowler asked.

“Sir, again, all we have is scattered and unconnected information,” Ryan replied.

“
Roosevelt
has a Soviet carrier battle group a few hundred miles behind them, and they carry MiG-29s,” Admiral Painter said.

“They're even closer to
Libya
, and our friend the colonel has a hundred of the same aircraft.”

“Flying over water at
midnight
?” Painter asked. “When's the last time you heard of the Libyans doing that—and twenty-some miles from one of our battle groups!”

“What about
Berlin
?” Liz Elliot asked.

“We don't know!” Ryan stopped and took a deep breath. “Remember that we just don't know much.”

“Ryan, what if S
PINNAKER
was right?” Elliot asked.

“What do you mean?”

“What if there is a military coup going on right now over there, and they set a bomb off over here to keep us from interfering, to decapitate us?”

“That's totally crazy,” Jack answered. “Risk a war? Why do it? What would we do if there were a coup? Attack at once?”

“Their military might expect us to,” Elliot pointed out.

“Disagree. I think S
PINNAKER
might have been lying to us from the beginning on this issue.”

“Are you making this up?” Fowler asked. It was coming home to the President now that he might actually have been the real target of the bomb, that
Elizabeth
's theoretical model for the Russian plan was the only thing that made sense.

“No, sir!” Ryan snapped back indignantly. “I'm the hawk here, remember? The Russian military is too smart to pull something like this. It's too big a gamble.”

“Then explain the attacks on our forces!” Elliot said.

“We don't know for sure that there have been attacks on our forces.”

“So, now you think our people are lying?” Fowler asked.

“Mr. President, you are not thinking this through. Okay, let's assume that there is an on-going coup in the
Soviet Union
—I don't accept that hypothesis, but let's assume it, okay? The purpose, you say, for exploding the bomb over here is to keep us from interfering. Fine. Then why attack our military forces if they want us to sit on our hands?”

“To show that they're serious,” Elliot fired back.

“That's crazy! It's tantamount to telling us they did explode the bomb here. Do you think they would expect us not to respond to a nuclear attack?” Ryan demanded, then answered his own question: “It does not make sense!”

“Then give me something that does,” Fowler said.

“Mr. President, we are in the very earliest stages of a crisis. The information we have coming in now is scattered and confused. Until we know more, trying to put a spin on it is dangerous.”

Fowler's face bore down on the speaker phone. “Your job is to tell me what's going on, not to give me lessons in crisis-management. When you have something I can use, get back to me!”

*     *     *

“What in the hell are they thinking?” Ryan asked.

“Is there something I don't know here?” Goodley asked. The young academic looked as alarmed as Ryan felt.

“Why should you be any different from the rest of us?” Jack snapped back, and regretted it. “Welcome to crisis-management. Nobody knows crap, and you're expected to make good decisions anyway. Except it's not possible, it just isn't.”

“The thing with the carrier scares me,” the S&.T man observed.

“Wrong. If we only splashed four aircraft, it's only a handful of people,” Ryan pointed out. “Land combat is something else. If we really have a battle going on in Berlin, that's the scary one, almost as bad as an attack on some of our strategic assets. Let's see if we can get hold of SACEUR.”

The nine surviving M1A1 tanks were racing north along a
Berlin
avenue, along with a platoon of Bradley fighting vehicles. Street lights were on, heads sticking out windows and it was instantly apparent to the few onlookers that whatever was happening wasn't a drill. All the tanks had the speed governors removed from their engines, and they could all have been arrested in
America
for violating the national interstate highway limit. One mile north of their camp, they turned east. Leading the formation was a senior NCO who knew
Berlin
well—this was his third tour in the once-divided city—well enough that he had a perfect spot in mind, if the Russians hadn't got there first. There was a construction site. A memorial to the Wall and its victims was going up after a long competition. It overlooked the Russian and American compounds which were soon to be vacated, and bulldozers had pushed up a high berm of dirt for the sculpture that would sit, atop it. But it wasn't there yet, just a thick dirt ramp. The Soviet tanks were milling about on their objective, probably waiting for their infantry to show up or something. They were taking TOW hits from the Bradleya, and returning fire into the woods.

“Christ, they're going to kill those Bradley guys,” the unit commander—a captain whose tank was the last survivor of his company—said. “Okay, find your spots.” That took another minute. Then the tanks were hull-down, just their guns and the tops of turrets showing. “Straight down the line! Commence firing, fire at will.”

All nine tanks fired at once. The range was just over two thousand meters, and now the element of surprise was with someone else. Five Russian tanks died with the first volley, and six more in the second, as the Abrams tanks went into rapid fire.

In the trees with the Bradleys, the brigade XO watched the north end of the Russian line crumple. That was the only word for it, he thought. The tank crews were all combat vets, and now they had the edge. The northernmost Russian battalion tried to reorient itself, but one of his Bradleys had evidently scored on its commander, and there was confusion there. Why the Russians hadn't pressed home the attack was one question that floated about the rear of his brain, but that was something to save for the after-action report. Right now he saw that they had screwed up, and that was a good thing for him and his men.

“Sir, I've got Seventh Army.” A sergeant handed him a microphone.

“What's happening over there?”

“General, this is Lieutenant Colonel Ed Long, we just got our ass attacked by the regiment across town from us. No warning at all, they just came into our kazerne like Jeb Stuart. We've got 'em stopped, but I've lost most of my tanks. We need some help here.”

“Losses?”

“Sir, I've lost over forty tanks, eight Bradleys, and at least two hundred men.”

“Opposition?”

“One regiment of tanks. Nothing else yet, but they have lots of friends, sir. I could sure use some myself.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

General Kuropatkin checked his status board. Every radar system that was not down for repair was now operating. Satellite information told him that two SAC bases were empty. That meant their aircraft were now airborne and flying towards the
Soviet Union
along with KC-135 tankers. Their missile fields would also be at full alert. His Eagle satellites would give launch-warning, announcing that his country had thirty minutes left to live. Thirty minutes, the General thought. Thirty minutes and the reason of the American president were all that stood between life and death for his country.

“Air activity picking up over
Germany
,” a colonel said. “We show some American fighters coming out from Ramstein and Bitberg, heading east. Total of eight aircraft.”

“What do we have on the American Stealth fighters?”

“There is a squadron—eighteen of them—at Ramstein. Supposedly, the Americans are demonstrating them for possible sale to their NATO allies.”

“They could be all in the air right now,” Kuropatkin noted, “carrying nuclear weapons, for that matter.”

“Correct, they can easily carry two B-61-type weapons each. With high-altitude cruise, they could be over
Moscow
before we knew it. . . .”

“And with their bombsights . . . they could lay their weapons exactly on any target they wish . . . two and a half hours from the time they lift off . . . my God.” In the weapon's earth-penetration mode, it could be placed close enough to eliminate the president's shelter. Kuropatkin lifted his phone. “I need to talk to the President.”

“Yes, General, what is it?” Narmonov asked.

“We have indications of American air activity over
Germany
.”

“There's more than that. A Guards regiment in
Berlin
reports being under attack by American troops.”

“That's mad.”

And the report came in not five minutes after my friend Fowler promised not to do anything provocative.
“Speak quickly, I have enough business here already.”

“President Narmonov. Two weeks ago, a squadron of American F-117A Stealth fighters arrived at their Ramstein air base, ostensibly for demonstration to their NATO allies. The Americans said they want to sell them. Each of those aircraft can carry two half-megaton weapons.”

“Yes?”

“I cannot detect them. They are virtually invisible to everything we have.”

“What are you telling me?”

“From the time they leave their bases, then refuel, they can be over
Moscow
in less than three hours. We would have no more warning than
Iraq
had.”

“Are they truly that effective?”

“One reason we left so many people in
Iraq
was to observe closely what the Americans are capable of. Our people never saw that American plane on a radar scope, neither ours nor the French scopes Saddam had. Yes, they are that good.”

“But why should they wish to do such a thing?” Narmonov demanded.

“Why would they attack our regiment in
Berlin
?” the Defense Minister asked in reply.

“I thought this place was proof against anything in their arsenal.”

“Not against a nuclear gravity bomb delivered with high accuracy. We are only one hundred meters down here,” Defense said. In the old battle between warhead and armor, warhead always wins . . .

“Back to
Berlin
,” Narmonov said. “Do we know what's happening there?”

“No, what we have has come from junior officers only.”

“Get someone in there to find out. Tell our people to fall back if they can do so safely—and take defensive action only. Do you object to that?”

“No, that is prudent.”

The
National
Photographic
Intelligence
Center
, NPIC, is located at the Washington Navy Yard, in one of several windowless buildings housing highly sensitive government activities. At the moment, they had a total of three KH-11 photographic and two KH-12 “Lacrosse” radar-imaging satellites in orbit. At
00:26:46
Zulu Time, one of the -11s came within optical range of
Denver
. All of its cameras zoomed in on the city, especially its southern suburbs. The images were downlinked in real-time to
Fort Belvoir
,
Virginia
, and sent from there to NPIC by fiber-optic cable. At NPIC, they were recorded in two-inch videotape. Analysis started immediately.

This aircraft was a DC-10. Qati and Ghosn again availed themselves of first-class seating, pleased and amazed at their good luck. The word had gotten out only minutes before the flight was called. As soon as the report had gone out on the Reuters wire, it had been inevitable. AP and UPI had instantly picked it up, and all television stations subscribed to the wire services. Surprised that the networks had not yet put out their own special bulletins, the local affiliates ran with it anyway. The one thing about it that had surprised Qati was the silence. As the word spread like a wave through the terminal building, what lay behind it was not shouting and panic, but an eerie silence that allowed one to hear the flight calls and other background noises normally submerged by the cacophony of voices in such public areas. So the Americans faced tragedy and death, the Commander thought. The lack of passion surprised him.

It was soon behind him in any case. The DC-10 accelerated down the runway and lifted off. A few minutes later, it was over international waters, heading towards a neutral country and safety. One more connection, both men thought in a silence of their own. One more connection, and they would disappear completely. Who would have expected such luck?