Nemesis (44 page)

The Admiral was a six o’clock riser. At six fifteen, as on most mornings excepting Thanksgiving, birthdays and the like, hot water was spraying on his head and down over his scrawny, suntanned neck. He turned and shut his eyes, letting the stream hit his face and run down over his chest and his trim stomach. He groped for the shower switch, turned it off and was just turning to the shower door when his wife opened it.

“Robert. Were you expecting a car this morning?”

The Admiral showed surprise. “No I was not. What’s going on?” Hastily, he dried himself off. Only once, in his ten years at Washington, had he been summoned from his home, and that had been at the outbreak of the Second Korean War.

He dressed quickly, ran a comb through his grey, wiry hair, grabbed a briefcase, sipped in passing at the coffee which his wife held for him, and made for the door. A young ensign was waiting, and a black limousine was parked on the street outside.

The car took off smoothly, the ensign taking the Admiral quickly on to Columbia Pike and past Arlington Cemetery before turning right on to the Jefferson Davis Highway. The ensign, Admiral Mitchell soon realized, knew nothing beyond his orders to transport him to the briefing chamber on the third floor of the Pentagon as quickly as possible.

The Emergency Conference Room was as large as several tennis courts. Mitchell looked down on it through the
glass partition with alarm. The room was a hive of activity, the focus of the “battle staff” being four duty officers at the head of the enormous T-shaped table, peering at consoles, talking into telephones, taking messages, giving orders.

Hooper, on a telephone, beckoned the Admiral over with a wave of the arm. “Mitchell, over here.” For some reason lost in the mists of time, nobody but his wife ever addressed Mitchell as anything other than Mitchell.

“What gives, Sam?”

Hooper put down the telephone. “Take a look at this. Your office just relayed it through.” Hooper thrust a sheaf of papers into the Admiral’s hand.

Mitchell felt himself flushing as he skimmed through the reports. “What are these guys playing at?”

“The Bear’s on the move, what else?”

“But why? What precipitated this?”

The Chairman of the JCS gave the Admiral a strange look. “Mitchell, you’re about to be told a story which you simply will not believe.”

Something like fear flickered across Mitchell’s face. “I saw a Sikorsky on the helipad. That can’t mean what I think.”

Hooper nodded grimly. “We’re gathering up the JEEP-1 civilians. They’ll be dispersed to Site R and Mount Weather. And we’re stocking the civil defence bunkers in Denton with bureaucrats.”

“What?”

“Like I said, there are things going on that you just won’t believe. Let’s get to the Gold Room—Bellarmine’s waiting.”

The Gold Room should have been filled with senior officers and their aides. The Admiral was astonished to find it empty except for the Secretary of Defense, who waved him impatiently into a chair.

“What is this?” the Admiral asked.

“Mitchell, we’re heading for the Sit Room in a few minutes. But first, pin back your ears and listen to this.”

“They say Nemesis will miss with fifty per cent probability,” Heilbron informed the President.

Grant scowled. “Meaning it will hit with fifty per cent probability. An even chance that we’re history. Anything more on that probe?”

“They’ve abandoned the attempt. They needed more time.”

“We’re helpless, then.”

The Situation Room was low-ceilinged, small and cramped, with dark wood panelling on three of the walls, and a large curtain covering the fourth. The Secretary of Defense, the CIA Director, the National Security Adviser and the Chairman of the JCS were sitting around a large teak table which dominated the room. Admiral Mitchell, not a member of the NSC, was nevertheless seated at it, on Hooper’s right.

“Mister President,” the CIA Director added, “As the asteroid approaches they’ll be able to sharpen up the orbit. Meaning we’ll move towards certainty one way or another over the next forty-nine hours.”

President Grant opened a drawer in the table and took out a telephone. He spoke briefly into it and the curtains behind him parted. A large screen covered much of the wall. The land masses of the United States and Russia faced each other across the North Pole. “Admiral Mitchell, what gives with these naval movements?”

Mitchell stood up and walked over to the screen. “Mister President, the Russians are mobilizing. They’re moving their entire Baltic Fleet.” His hand waved over the screen. “They appear to be evacuating the Kola peninsula. And their ships are pouring out here, through the Kattegat. Northern Command tell me the Swedes are lining the roads to get a view. Normally they have only a third of their Northern Fleet at sea, but they seem to be dispersing almost their whole surface
fleet into the Atlantic. And down here, sir, they’re moving an abnormal tonnage through the Bosphorus.”

Grant said, “Tell me about their submarines.”

“I’ll remind you, sir, that Navy Operations Intelligence Center have been logging a sharp increase in submarine movement over the past few days. SIGINT have been picking up the communications activity that goes on when their subs slip out of berth. Over here at Petropavlosk, we believe they have maybe sixty subs out, three of them Akula class. Now we can make it hot for them in the Pacific as necessary, but over here, in the Polyarny Sea and around the Motovskiy Gulf, they can give their undersea craft reasonable air coverage. As you know, sir, we have SOSUS cables round Murmansk and the Kola Inlet. They’ve been picking up exceptional traffic for some days at these locations too.”

“Exceptional traffic—what does that translate into?” Grant wanted to know.

“We think they may have put eighty submarines in that area, half of them strategic. Not to put too fine a point on it, Mister President, they’re dispersing their whole submarine fleet.”

“Thank you, Admiral Mitchell. Now that you’re in on Nemesis, perhaps you’d like to sit in on this session.”

Mitchell sat down. “Sir, are we going nuclear?”

Bellarmine had been bottling up the same question. Now he could contain himself no longer. “Mister President, these submarine movements are as clear a signal as you can get. Do you finally agree to a counterstrike?”

Cresak cut in. “What we’re seeing is a defensive reaction to our State Orange.”

Hooper tapped the table. “This is it, gentlemen. They know we’re wise to the Nemesis game. They’re aiming to get theirs in first.”

Bellarmine cut in. “Mister President, we have to conduct the war from a secure location.”

Grant looked stunned. “War? What are you talking about,
Bellarmine? The asteroid could miss and Cresak could be right. This is not necessarily a prelude to a nuclear strike.”

Hooper’s eyes had a glazed look. “Can you possibly be serious?”

The telephone in front of the President buzzed. He picked it up and listened. “Yes, bring it in.”

A door opened and a military aide stepped in smartly. He handed the President a sheet of paper and left. Grant felt light-headed as he read it. He passed it to Bellarmine, and the paper was circulated round the teak table, ending up with Hooper.

FLASH
FROM: CINCEUR VAIHINGEN GE
TO: JCS WASHINGTON DC / /J9 NMCC
TOP SECRET PEAK
(T1/S1) SIGINT REPORTS BARRACKS EVACUATION BY RUSSIAN FORCES IN KIEV, GOMEL, VITEBSK, MINSK AND WEST MOSCOW. TANK MOVEMENTS NEAR SLOVAK BORDER AT TATRANSKA LOMNICA IN HIGH TATRAS. LARGE-SCALE CALL-UP OF RESERVISTS. TANK MOVEMENTS REPORTED EAST OF PRIPET MARSHES AND (UNCONFIRMED) THROUGH CARPATHIANS. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE UPGRADE OF DEFCON AND DECISION ON EUCOM REINFORCEMENT OF SLOVAK AND GERMAN FORCES. DETAILED REPORTS WILL FOLLOW
.

Hooper said, “It figures. We know they’ve been evacuating barracks and bringing up troop-carrying helicopters all the way from the Ukraine to Chechnya. In my opinion the dispositions are shaping up to a mass movement through central Slovakia, converging on the Pilzen area.”

“Pure speculation,” said Cresak.

The buzzer went again. This time Bellarmine went to the door and took the papers from the aide. The Secretary
of Defense turned, grey-faced. “Mister President, that’s the least of it.”

“Go on,” said Grant.

“They’re bringing Backfires into Kola from their eastern airfields. Maybe a hundred of them.”

“Um-huh.”

“Mister President,” said Hooper, “they don’t aim to hang about. Just as soon as Nemesis zaps us they’ll roll over Europe. We no longer have tactical stuff in Europe and the Brits and French wouldn’t dare use their strategics without us to back them up.”

Bellarmine said, “The temptation must be irresistible. When the asteroid hits us, Europe will be plunged into chaos. The Russians will roll their tanks in faster than decision-making machinery in Europe can assess policy. With us dead and Europe overrun they’ve got the world.”

Cresak said, “Our scenarios assume a two-thousand-second nuclear war. If they’re planning to hit us with nukes what’s the point of starting a mobilization that would take a month to complete? Anyway the dispositions aren’t right for a European incursion. We’ve always looked to a thrust across the plains to the north. Why all the tank movements on the Slovak border?”

“So they’ve had us fooled,” said Hooper.

“The pattern in Europe doesn’t fit an imminent invasion,” Cresak insisted. “Where are the Spetsnaz attacks? Where are the airborne forces? They should be setting up to take Bremen airfield and move towards the Weser and the Rhine. Backfire bombers in Kola make no sense for a European attack.”

“The first and oldest rule of warfare,” said Hooper. “Deception. You’re talking the orthodoxy they put into our heads. The Kola bombers are aimed at us over the polar route. They’re going to finish us off in all the confusion. And with us gone who needs commandos? They don’t need to alert anybody with D-1 incursions. It’s safer to roll over Europe without any softening up.”

“But the Slovak border movements . . .”

“A lead-up to a flank attack through Bavaria or even a thrust through Frankfurt. Hell, if we’re out of the way they can take Europe any which way they please. Leave soldiering to the soldiers, Cresak.”

“They’re sabre-rattling. What we’re seeing is a defensive reaction to our State Orange,” Cresak insisted. “Nobody’s going to invade anybody.”

What wakened Anton Vanysek was the shaking of his bed.

At first, it sounded as if an unusually heavy lorry was passing below his seventh storey flat. But the rumbling went on and on. He threw back his blankets and opened his window. Bitterly cold air wafted into the room. The street below was empty, but then he saw, between the high-rise flats, dark shapes rumbling on the road about a kilometre away. It was impossible to say what they were in the early morning gloom. He was tempted to go back to his warm bed, but the whole building was vibrating. He quickly dressed, ignoring the sleepy questions from his wife, wrapped up warmly, and ran down the stone stairs.

Trnava was typical of many middle-sized towns in Slovakia. A picturesque old town was surrounded by high-rise flats, white identikit monstrosities built in the days of the communists, whose concrete cladding had long cracked and crumbled. The whole district was connected by a network of cracked and crumbling roads. Interspersing these great rabbit warrens were factories and chemical works whose outputs left strange smells in the air and brought out mysterious rashes in children, nervous complaints in the middle-aged and lung problems in the old.

Anton Vanysek had, for over twenty years, been irregularly paid small sums of money to report on local political activity, gossip, anything at all which might interest his controllers who, he assumed, passed it on to the CIA. Almost
always, apart from the heady days of the bloodless revolution, his information was banal, but then, the sums of money were pitifully small.

This morning, however, as he nervously approached the main road which cut through the centre of the town, he was astonished to see that the dark green shapes were tanks. His astonishment turned to fear as he approached closer in the dull light and made out the red stars on their sides.

This information would either earn him a great deal of money or a firing squad.

For the third time in fifty years, Russian tanks were rolling into Slovakia.

In the pale morning light, the hotel looked not so much seedy as tottering. There were a dozen motley guests in the dining room, looking like last night’s collection of stranded travellers; the room smelled of cheap waffles and bacon frying in old fat; but there was something else in the air. Webb joined a little group clustering around newspapers on a table, and looked over shoulders.

The
Examiner
said

KILLER ROCK THREATENS AMERICA

and followed it up with a lurid and largely fictitious piece about astronomers huddled at secret meetings. Unbelievable words were being put into the mouths of sober colleagues. Only that well-known British expert Phippson, Webb thought, might actually have spoken the words attributed to him. More soberly, the
New York Times
ran