The Hand of Christ (66 page)

“
S-O-S,” Michael said quietly.

“
That’s the code?”

“
Yes, Mr. President, the code is S-O-S, but not the letters. The code is a number that equates to S-O-S.”

“
Vertices of Palindrome?” the President asked.

“
Yes, Mr. President, sort of,” replied Michael.

The laptop’s screen flashed. A map of the world appeared. Curved lines striated the map and outlined the orbital path of the satellite that controlled the missiles. Overhead, over the Atlantic, a US made satellite readied itself to receive its next commands and turned toward the missiles.

“
But how did you know?” General Diedrick asked.

Michael typed instructions into the computer, and, at the same time, replied to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “Sir, Yousef said that my ‘memory is lucid,’ and that ‘there is only one way to signal distress.’ You heard him yourself, sir.”

The satellite’s receptor dish unfolded like the petals of a flower. It took less than ten seconds for the dish to be fully opened. The satellite received Michael’s commands and then sent them to the missiles.

“
But I don’t understand,” the President said. “The distress signal is letters, how did you know what numbers to use?”

Michael was focused on the missiles and entered in new flight coordinates. As he did, he answered the President, “Sir, the code comes from Kryptos. It is a piece of artwork at Langley.”

Kryptos? “Yes, I am aware of it. I have seen it many times,” said the President.
“Then you know that Kryptos has four panels, three of them have had their codes broken, but the fourth panel has an unbreakable code.”

“
Dr. Sterling, are you telling me you just broke that code, the one that no analyst has been able to break for over a decade?”

“
No, sir, the codes on Kryptos were already broken. Like I said, Kryptos has four panels; three of those panels have codes that were broken with different ciphers by a couple of analysts. One of the deciphered panels contained a code that gives the coordinates to a location that is near the sculpture. I thought that those coordinates were the original code to the guidance system.”

“
But they weren’t, were they Dr. Sterling? The code was on the fourth panel?”

“
No, Mr. President, I wasn’t wrong, and no, the code for the guidance system isn’t on the last panel. One half of the original code to the guidance system was the coordinates that I mentioned. Director Willis had them in his control, that’s why he was here, but he wouldn’t give them to Yousef.”

“
And that’s why you were dragged into this?”

“
Yes, Mr. President. Yousef knew that I would be able to figure out the code.”

“
Then why wasn’t it working, Dr. Sterling?”

“
When the Primitus put the original codes for the guidance system into the computer, he changed the second one.”

“
To S-O-S?” said the President.

“
Yes, sir; he changed the code to the numerical equivalent of S-O-S. Everyone thinks that the fourth panel on Kryptos is a code and that no one has yet to break it. But the fourth panel was just a decoy, it’s not a cipher for the real code, the real code is somewhere else at Langley. The maker of Kryptos made another sculpture near the outcroppings, which are at the front of CIA’s entrance. In the sculpture, he used Morse code. That’s what Yousef was referring to when he said that my ‘memory is lucid.’ This phrase is written in Morse code on the other sculpture!”

“
And the distress signal? Is that there, too?”

“
Yes, Mr. President, it is. The code is 111 – 000 – 111; the numbers represent the dots and dashes for S-O-S.”

“
Vertices of Palindromes?”

“
Yes, Mr. President.”

The laptop in front of Michael flashed the flight paths of the twelve nuclear missiles. They had crossed over the northwestern corner of Europe and were headed across the Atlantic on a direct path to the United States. They were getting close to the country’s eastern border. Michael entered the last set of commands and the missiles lost altitude.

Michael yelled out, “I have changed the missiles’ course of direction! I am sending them to the bottom of the Atlantic!”

At the CORe center, CPL York shouted, “He’s doing it! Look! The missiles are headed toward the ocean!”

In the Oval Office, the President stood from the chair behind the Resolute and walked to where the General stood.

The General spoke, “Dr. Sterling, confirm that you have control of those missiles.”

“
Shit!” Michael shouted.

“
What is it, Dr. Sterling?”

Michael replied, “Sir, I have control of all them except for one! It won’t accept the command! There must be a malfunction with its guidance system!”

One by one, eleven missiles fell harmlessly into the ocean, but the twelfth nuclear tipped missile continued on its path toward the US.

“
Sir,” CPL York interrupted, “all but one of the missiles has hit the Atlantic. The remaining missile continues on its path, and is bearing is east. Its altitude is one-zero-zero thousand feet and starting to descend!”

The General shouted, “CPT Scott, Initiate SIOP ADA Protocols! Scramble the fighters from the 49
^th
Fighter Wing at Holloman Air Force Base. Use the Patriot Brigade at Fort Hood! Intercept that missile and shoot it out of the fucking sky!”

CPT Scott had already picked up a secure phone line and shouted back. “Yes, sir, I am on the com now!”

The General’s orders shot out like a machine. He had just ordered CPT Scott to initiate the pre-designed protocols to defend the United States from the attack by a nuclear missile.

It was an impossible task; both the Captain and the General knew it. It was highly improbable that the missile could be destroyed in the sky.

At Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, the twelve men of the 7
^th
Fighter Squadron: four Captains, six Majors, one Lt. Colonel, and the Squadron’s Commander, Colonel Wallace T. Jones, ran to their fourth generation stealth fighters. Moments ago, the officers of the
Screamin’ Demons
had been engaged in a game of poker when the alarm rang.

Each fighter pilot was met at his F-22 Raptor by an Airman. The Airman would help each pilot with his gear. One by one, each pilot scrambled sixteen feet up a ladder and into the “all-glass” – but really made of two 3/8 inch sheets of fusion bonded polycarbonate – cockpit. It was the first of its kind and with the push of a button the canopy came down, slid forward, and was locked into place by pins.

Colonel Wallace T. Jones snapped shut the MBU-22/P face mask and said into the helmet mounted radio system, “Ready, Demons?”

Almost in unison, each pilot of the squadron replied, “Demons, ready!”

“
Battery-switch to on!” commanded the Colonel.

One by one, each pilot replied, “Battery-switch on.”

“
Auxiliary-power to start!”

All of the pilots complied.

“
Both throttles in idle!”

The three-step start sequence occurred in seconds. The two engines of each Raptor roared to life. The first engine to fire was the one on the right side of the stealth fighter, and then followed by the one on the left side. Next, the avionics and the sub-systems activated. Quickly, each pilot performed the necessary pre-flight checks.

Once safely inside, strapped in, and the engines on, the pilots received their orders. The Raptors were lined up in two columns of six, the last two Raptors in the squadron’s columns belonged to the two youngest pilots. The two young Captains quickly read their orders and then looked at one another through their cockpit canopies. Although they could not see each other through their darkened visors, both men thought the same two things:

And,

Under the belly and beneath the wings of the twelve F-22’s fighters, two-dozen Airmen had already, and frantically, run through the required protocols. Cables were unplugged, blocks of wood from behind and in front of the fighters’ tires removed, and the signal for take-off was given.

The entire fire-up procedure required only thirty seconds. Two at a time, the jets screamed down the runway under the power of the two Pratt & Whitney F119 Turbofans. The glow of their afterburners lit up the sky. The jets climbed forcibly into the sky and broke through the clouds and quickly reached fifty thousand feet. The twelve F-22 Raptors settled in at Mach 2.25 and were on a direct path toward the remaining nuclear missile.

Elsewhere, at Fort Hood, Texas, four line batteries that belonged to the 69
^th
ADA Brigade (Air Defense Artillery) for the Patriot Missile sat strategically placed throughout the military reservation. The men that operated the anti-ballistic missile platforms were ready when they received their orders. Every surface to air anti-ballistic missile battery in the United States was on alert and had been readied to respond should the orders come.

They now had their orders.

When the order arrived, the well-trained soldiers reacted fast. Already elevated to their maximum height of one hundred feet and eleven inches, three 4kW OE-349 Antennae Mast Groups were already sending
shots
throughout the secure Patriot Data Information Link from one battery to the other.

A Control Officer (TCO) in the AN/MSQ-104 Engagement Control Station (ECS) already had the nuclear missile on radar and reviewed its speed, altitude, and trajectory. Speaking to the TCO’s of each ECS, the control officer announced, “I’ve got it on radar!” He then turned to the TCA at his right and commanded, “Sergeant, switch mode from standby to operate!”

“
Yes, sir!”

The TCA punched a few buttons. The Patriot Missile system switched modes and automatically calculated which battery would have the highest probability to shoot the incoming nuclear missile out of the sky.

“
Call in to the fighters, tell them ADA is ready!” barked the TCO.

“
Yes, sir!” shouted the TCA once more.

Colonel Jones was at the head of the V-shaped formation of the twelve F-22 Raptors. Above the clouds, the sky streaked by his canopy as the radio crackled in his ear with an incoming message.

“
Bird-six, Bird-six, Defense-one over.”

“
Defense-one, this is Bird-six, go ahead.”

“
Bird-six, we are ready to strike. System is live. I repeat, system is live, and is twelve seconds from first round of fire, over.”

“
Roger that Defense-one. Will confirm strike.”

The communication between the Control Officer and the Colonel piped in to NORAD. Everyone could hear the conversation, including Michael.

Back in the Oval Office, General Diedrick and the President heard Michael shout out, “Sir, we should recall our missiles! This isn’t Iran’s doing, they are innocent, too!”

The President didn’t need to argue; he had heard everything that had happened in Rome. He agreed with Michael; Iran was not to blame.

The President spat out his order without hesitation, “Recall all missiles! Terminate SIOP Protocols on my authority! General,” the President turned to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, “Launch a cluster of Tomahawks into Bushehr, use the Florida. I will not kill innocent people, but I will make damn sure that I put an end to Operation Merlin!”

The General enthusiastically complied and picked up the secured satellite phone and issued the orders. Within moments, the US launched nuclear missiles changed course, and headed southeast over Saudi Arabia. Once they were a safe distance from land, the missiles plunged into the depths of the Indian Ocean.

Almost simultaneously, and moving silently somewhere around fifty meters below the surface of the Persian Gulf, the USS Florida (SSGN-728) – an Ohio Class submarine – received a secure transmission over a Satellite High Frequency (SHF) connection. The USS Florida had been recently chopped to the Combined Task Force (CTF) 74 of the Seventh Fleet (“dual-hatted” with CTF 54 of the Fifth Fleet).

The Gold crew of the boat was near the end of its one hundred day rotation and all of its sailors had been both tired and on edge. The order to launch a cluster of tomahawks had been received and the coordinates given:

Location: 28º 59’ N 50º 49’ E.

Target: Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant – Bushehr, Iran.

Encapsulated in the boat’s Capsule Launching System (CLS), a cluster – seven to be exact – of BGM 109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM) sat in their pressurized and environmentally protected canisters. There were one hundred and fifty-four Tomahawks in total, but the President’s order only called for a cluster.

The firing sequence was entered and the missiles were launched by gas pressure. Milliseconds apart each of the seven Tomahawks exited and broke the surface of the Persian Gulf. One by one, the solid-fuel boosters ignited and pushed the missiles to their pre-designated flight path. Once they reached the correct altitude, the 2.67-meter wide wings of the missiles unfolded, and the Williams International 402-Turbofan engine took over their propulsion.