It would have been much more complicated, and more difficult to achieve without authorization, if the launch team really wanted to target a place on land in a foreign country. Those complexities were the various factors — deceleration, air pressure, altitude — related to the supposed spoofing ability of what Commodore Fuller had labeled the “magical, mystical, mystery missile shield.” But they weren’t the launch crew’s concern now, in real life.
Nyurba listened with a mixture of awe and dread while Major Ildarov and his people ran through the various checklists. Lights on panels changed colors as they performed each step. They made status reports to each other, or issued orders.
By now, big antirogue bombs hidden in dehumidifier cabinets in the silos, adjoining the missiles’ second-stage boosters, had been found and defused. Electronic booby traps, designed to erase essential files and scramble passwords, were bypassed. Circuit elements that had to be inserted manually, after being removed from safes with secret combinations, were inserted where they were supposed to go. Mechanical devices that needed to be put in place, or dismantled, were taken care of. Alarms blared again and again that were meant to warn the rest of the crew that things were being done to undertake launch procedures, and each time the commandos turned them off as irrelevant.
The silo inspection team was still at work in silo three. A specialist monitoring the bunker’s radios and decryption gear, tuned to district command channels, reported that a two-battalion airborne assault, with air-dropped field artillery and light tanks, was on the way. Two battalions were over a thousand men.
“It’s now or never, guys!” Nyurba said. They had to trigger liftoff immediately. After that any ambulatory squadron remnants would need to try to escape and evade through the horrific conditions above. Once the next counterattack formations reached the scene, escape would be totally hopeless.
Major Ildarov recalled the silo team. They came into the bunker from the interlock to the tunnel to silo three. They were drenched in sweat and smeared with grease and oil, their faces were pinched, and their stances showed utter exhaustion. They couldn’t guarantee what would happen with the missiles.
Jeffrey still sat at his console. For the umpteenth time, seeking hidden meanings and any reassurance he could find, he examined a paraphrased transcript of a brief but pointed conversation the presidents of the U.S. and Russia had had, via the Hot Line, after three missile silos at Srednekolymsk blew up — and the complex became obscured from further detailed spaceborne recon by heat and smoke. The exchange had been encoded and relayed to Jeffrey by satellite, for his use as a heads-up and for situational orientation.
The trend of events was not reassuring. The American President was already compelled to improvise, off-script, with guesswork and hedging forced as to what scenario was really unfolding. The possibility that one isolated group of silos would explode, while Kurzin’s men might still be working to achieve successful launches of another group, had never been considered in mission planning — an oversight, glaringly obvious only in retrospect. Jeffrey cursed the lack of more specific information from on scene, but the commando team were incommunicado and entirely on their own.
The text in his hands conveyed no inflections or tones of voice between the two heads of state. But both presidents played games, jabbing and blocking according to different agendas, their diplomatic choreography very much at cross-purposes. In a potential nuclear crisis, doublespeak becomes perverse….
WASHINGTON: Why have three of your SS-27 silos exploded?
MOSCOW: An unfortunate maintenance accident while blast interlocks were overridden. One missile set off the other two. It is not a concern, for us or for you.
That’s lie number one, Jeffrey told himself.
WASHINGTON: How can I be sure this is not a subterfuge, a distraction, a prelude to a strategic first strike?
MOSCOW: You insult me. Your intelligence assets would give signs if we were preparing for such a mutually suicidal act.
WASHINGTON: Depending on your tactics and goals, you might not consider it suicidal. Do not attempt to manipulate me by your own view of American antinuke phobias.
MOSCOW: Our submarines are not surging! Our bomber fleets aren’t mobilizing! It was only a maintenance accident.
WASHINGTON: Then am I to assume there will be no further accidents in the near future?
MOSCOW: Do not ask of me impossible promises. You had a Titan II explode during maintenance in Arkansas in 1980. It blew the lid off the silo and hurled the warhead through the air. Can you assure me that such a thing will not occur again in America?
WASHINGTON: Yes, we have had accidents. But never an attempted rogue attack like from your submarine in 1968.
MOSCOW: Do not harass me further with such ancient history!
WASHINGTON: Then you can assure me that no such unauthorized launch was attempted today? And no more attempts are in progress?
MOSCOW: [Long hesitation] Of course not! It was a maintenance accident!
Gotcha twice now. That “long hesitation” suggests Kurzin’s team hasn’t been wiped out yet… but the Russian president chooses to count on the fact that they will be.
WASHINGTON: We will monitor the situation carefully. I have nine SSBNs at sea. They alone give me a thousand warheads for a retaliatory strike. Each W-88 yields half a megaton.
MOSCOW: I will not be extorted by any such wholly unjustified insinuations or threats!… However, as a safety concession, we will hold our strategic thermonuclear assets below their maximum force readiness. We will not raise readiness if you do not go to your DEFCON One. Let us agree now to both avoid a launch-on-warning strategy.
Jeffrey knew that launch-on-warning meant “pushing the button” as soon as you received indication that the other guy’s ICBMs were taking off. The Russian president is nervous…. As well he should be. And he just telegraphed, to me and my commander in chief, that Kurzin does still have a chance.
WASHINGTON: I agree to not follow a policy of launch-on-warning. The events in Srednekolymsk show us both how dangerous such tactics can be. Misinterpretation of vague or unconfirmed data can lead to disaster.
MOSCOW: I concur wholeheartedly.
WASHINGTON: I will keep my strategic thermonuclear forces at DEFCON Two, but giving me an equivalent assurance about your own strategic command-and-control is not enough. You must stay immediately available for further verbal consultation. And do not evacuate your leadership. Do not evacuate your civilians from cities. I would consider either as proof of impending aggression. In return, as a gesture of good faith, I will not leave the White House for the next forty-eight hours. I am sure you have assets that can verify my whereabouts.
MOSCOW: I give my word on these matters. I will remain in my suite in the Kremlin for two days.
WASHINGTON: Why did you not inform us in advance of your maintenance work in Srednekolymsk? By treaty you are required to, precisely to avoid confrontations like this.