Shattered Bone (50 page)

Fedotov felt his heart beating faster. He took a series of short and shallow breaths. His hands, tightly clasped across his lap, began to tremble ever so slightly as he clenched his fingers together.

Cowardly American harlots! Killers! American pigs! How could they have resorted to this?

Staring up at General Nahaylo, he demanded, “Tell me, what is the range of this American missile?”

Nahaylo took a quick look at his notes. “We believe that the missile must be one of their ALCMs, sir. Max range, about 1,100 miles. Max speed, about 500 knots. Which would put the missile over Moscow in another ... forty-five minutes. Assuming that Moscow is even the target.”

WASHINGTON, D.C.

“Oh, sweet Mary!” President Allen cried. His face was a white sheet of pale flesh. His eyes were wide and dry with sudden fear. His hands trembled and shook at his side.

“Are you certain? How do you know?”

“Yes, sir. We are certain. The RC-135 orbiting over northern Turkey picked up the radio communications just seconds ago. A Russian SU-27 witnessed the missile launch. They just simply got lucky. And now, even as we speak, they are recalling their eastern fighters to join in the search for the Bandit.”

“Sonofa....” Allen's voice trailed off. He fell back in his seat and raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if seeking divine intervention.

“And ... have they ... confirmed the source of the missile?” Allen's voice was hesitant and hollow. He did not want to know the answer to this question.

Blake stared down at his feet and cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. They have. They have confirmed it is from a U.S. B-1 bomber. Don't ask me how. We haven't got a clue. But they know it was an American aircraft.”

Allen closed his eyes and muttered to himself as his face took on an even lighter shade of pale.

“Have they passed along the information?” he finally asked.

“Yes, sir. By now, the entire Russian military and civilian battle-staff have been notified.”

“And what about the bomber?”

“They are after it. That's all that we know.”

Allen passed his hands over his eyes and cursed to himself. Blake stood before him like a whipped puppy. “Sir,” he muttered. “There is the matter of the missile. We have to destroy it, sir. There is nothing more wc can do. We must destroy it before it gets to its target. Every missile has a self-destruct mechanism. We can use the EYE to command the missile to self-destruct. And if we destroy it now, perhaps we can keep the match from the fuse.

“But if we don't stop the missile ... if it reaches its target ... well ... who knows what could happen?

“The situation has become very dangerous. Uncertain and unpredictable. Things could quickly spin out of control.”

REAPER'S SHADOW

Richard Ammon had assumed that Morozov had turned so quiet because he was angry, which wasn't true. He was busy. Very busy. He worked as fast as he could, punching the new target coordinates and launch instructions into his computer.

So they never got within range of their targets. So what did he care? That didn't mean that the mission was over. All was not lost. He could still attain what they were after. It would just be in a different way. A more violent means. But the effect would be just the same.

With a final stroke of a key into his offensive computer, Morozov commanded five of his nuclear short-range attack missiles to their new coordinates and put them into their final countdown.

The target names appeared on his screen. Kursk. Voronezh. Orel. Kaluga. Novemoskovsk. All major cities. Industrial centers. Masses of Russian population.

In minutes, they would be reduced to a heap of molten cinder block and burning debris. The citizens would die by the thousands, vaporized into a black mist. Burned beyond recognition. Destruction to a nightmarish degree.

Morozov sat back.

He would have the last laugh. He would sizzle half of southern Russia, if that's what Ammon wanted. But the mission ... his mission ... his baby ... it would not be a failure. Not while he was alive.

Morozov reached up and launched the first of the missiles.

The aircraft shuddered with a buzzing vibration. Ammon looked up with a start. His bomb bay doors were beginning to swing open. He glanced down at the weapons configuration panel. Five missiles were armed and ready to fire! The doors slammed open with a
thump!

“No! No!” Ammon shouted as he watched.

But it was already too late. With a slap and a thump, the missiles were gone. He squinted his eyes from the flash of their engines. The five missiles' ramjet engines ignited with a lightning-bright flash, casting deep shadows across the dark sky. The missiles shuddered and wobbled in midair, then dipped toward the earth and sped away.

DARK 709

Peleznogorsk dropped his hands from his face as the light faded and then disappeared.

“I've got Babies! I've got Babies! Four ... five ... count'em ... five confirmed missile launches!” Major Pe1eznogorsk screamed into his mask. His fear was real and intense.

“Oh, geez,” his wingman called out. “Did you see that, Lead. They looked like nuclear ALCMs. I could tell by the fat harpoon tips. I say again, the missiles might be armed with nuclear warheads.”

“Papa! Do you read!” Peleznogorsk cried out. “We've got five suspected nuclear cruise missiles inbound.”

The controller sat at his console in a horrified stupor.

“Oh, Mother, it's over,” he cried to himself.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

The whoosh and rush of the helicopter blades filled the air. They beat at the tree limbs and lay the neatly trimmed grass flat against the soil as the three Presidential helicopters made their short approach to the White House lawn. The President and his party were already waiting. The helicopters had barely touched down before a small door just behind the cockpit swung open and a short step was extended out onto the grass.

Within just a few minutes, the three helicopters were airborne again. They flew in a loose trail formation, one behind the other, as they made their way across the Washington, D.C., terrain. Flying low, they turned westward toward the Virginia side of the city. As they crossed over the top of the Pentagon, an American Airline 727 was just climbing out from National Airport, which was only three quarters of a mile to the south.

President Allen watched the airliner as it climbed overhead. He watched as the aircraft pulled in her landing gear and accelerated northbound.

For just a moment, he could envision the aircraft's crowded cabin. He could picture the business men and tourists as they stared out of their small oval windows, watching the city slip by them, the monuments and buildings growing smaller as the aircraft climbed into the sky.

The President had to wonder. Was this the last time those passengers would look down upon this city? Were some of them leaving loved ones they would never see again?

“Lord, please don't let them be the lucky ones,” he prayed as the 727 disappeared from his sight.

As the President looked down on the city, the word “cindered” kept rolling over in his mind. That was the word that the Federal Emergency Management Agency used to describe those who were left without warning and unprotected in the event of a nuclear detonation. “Cindered” was a term for the casualties. It was the government word for “the dead.”

The helos whisked along, cutting through the cold air. The President watched the tree-lined Potomac slip underneath him, then leaned back and closed his eyes. The Presidential helicopters turned to the north. Following the Potomac River, they made their way toward the Virginia countryside.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

“But, sir,” Nahaylo was pleading.

“Don't ‘but, sir' me!” Fedotov cried. “I'm not blind. I'm not stupid. Look at the screen, General Nahaylo. Look at the screen and tell me what you see!”

The general did not look away, but instead locked his eyes with Fedotov's. “I know what's up there, sir. I understand the critical nature of the situation.”

“Oh, is that right?” Fedotov replied, waving his arms wildly toward the five dots on the screen. “Well, let me tell you something, General. Those are American cruise missiles. Now maybe they're nuclear. Maybe they're not. But do you really expect me to just sit here and wait, hoping they just go away!

“I have to assume the worst here, Nahaylo. I just can't wait until half of Moscow goes up in a ball of flames. We will be dead by then, General. You. Me. Everyone in this room. Then how do you propose we respond? Which is exactly what the Americans are hoping we do. Can't you see that. They expect us to wait around in a terrified stupor, hoping for the best, not choosing to escalate things, until it is too late, and we are vaporized into a cloud of black mist.

“So, no, I will not wait. I want our Satans in the air! Get me the launch box! Get me the codes! Now!”

General Nahaylo tried once again.

“Sir, I must remind you. The first missile, the stealth missile, has already been destroyed. Whether it flew off course and crashed, or simply malfunctioned, or just what, we do not know. It is possible the Americans destroyed it. But it doesn't matter now. It is gone. And though the other five missiles are proceeding to their targets, we still have a chance. It is possible that we might shoot them down. They arc not as stealthy. They are not as fast. And, sir, most important, they might only be conventional weapons. We don't know that they have nuclear warheads. We must give it a little time. We must wait and see.”

“No! No!” Fedotov shouted back. “I will not sit here and wait to be destroyed. I will not roll over like a dog on his back and expose my jugular vein. They...,” Fedotov pointed toward the red dots on the screen. “They are the ones who asked for this battle. They are the ones who started this fight. Without warning ... without cause ... without reason.

“So, don't sit there, my friend and tell me to be patient, when in reality, I am just waiting to die!”

Nahaylo stepped toward the president with pleading eyes. “Sir.” The president knew what he meant. But he no longer cared.

President Fedotov turned from Nahaylo and nodded his head to the three-star general who stood at his side.

Within thirty seconds, he was handed a large, black, leather briefcase. It was eighteen inches long, with rounded corners, and a single brass lock.

The President picked up the briefcase. He was watched very closely by his military aides as he unlocked it and opened it up. He was surrounded by nine heavily armed and specially trained military guards. A look of puzzlement came over Fedotov's face as he opened the briefcase and stared at the unfamiliar keyboard. Anticipating he would need help, a command-and-control specialist emerged from the crowd of military advisors and came forward to talk the President through the launch codes and procedures.

It didn't take much time. Once the briefcase was open, it was only a matter of seconds before a single SS-18 ICBM missile was launched and sent climbing upward to its cruise altitude of 150 miles above the earth. Within five minutes, the missile was over the Greenland Sea on its way up over the pole.

Inside the missile, a digital computer was hard at work. Dual laser-gyros determined the missile's actual position and fed the information into the navigation computer. The navigation system then made tiny adjustments to keep the missile flying along its intended flight path.

As the missile leveled off in sub-orbit, the computer began to feed the target coordinates to the ten individual nuclear warheads. Two of the warheads were commanded to fall over the White House. Two were directed to Capitol Hill. Two were given the coordinates of the leafy, tree-filled courtyard that sat in the center of the Pentagon.

The Russians were strong believers in redundancy. They always sent at least two warheads to every priority target. Their philosophy was, if one missile was good, then two had to be better.

With six warheads targeted for D.C., there were still four warheads yet to be given an objective. The targeting computer continued to search its memory bank. After several seconds, it found what it was looking for. The coordinates of the secret Underground Presidential Command Center in central Virginia were then fed to the remaining four warheads.

When the four warheads descended back through the atmosphere, they would maneuver away from each other until they were two hundred meters apart. They would then spread into a box pattern. Their detonation sequence was set to “impact delay,” which meant the warheads would not detonate until they had penetrated the soft earth that lay over the Presidential Command Center. By the time their mushroom clouds of glowing fire were sent climbing over the gentle Virginia countryside, the President of the United States would already be dead, recorded in history as one of the “cindered.”

___________________ 

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REAPER'S SHADOW

A
MMON KNEW IMMEDIATELY WHAT HE HAD TO DO WHEN HE SAW THE
missiles launch.

Jamming his engines into full afterburner, he pulled back hard on the stick. The Bone began to accelerate skyward, climbing through the air in a vertical angle. Ammon felt disoriented and dizzy as he stared up into the darkness. His head tumbled and his eyes lost their focus as nothing but sky filled his windscreen. He checked his altimeter. Eight-thousand feet. He rolled the aircraft inverted and pulled while hanging upside down in his harness, then rolled the aircraft once again. He was level at 10,000 feet. High enough. The signal to the missiles should get to them from this altitude.

Reaching forward, to the left of his seat, he flipped up a yellow safety cover, exposing the toggle switch that was hidden underneath. He pushed the switch down. A light tone began to sound in his headset as a message appeared on his CRT.

“SELF-DESTRUCT MECHANISM ACTIVATED. SELECT DESIRED MISSILE TO DESTROY”