Since it was obviously an inviting piece of real estate for Russian target selectors, Cheyenne Mountain was the most attack-hardened facility in the U.S. inventory. To ride out an attack, the mountain possessed sufficient food, water, and power to last for thirty days — and in a nuclear war, thirty days is a long time. 1\vo massive 25-ton steel doors sealed off the mountain from the outside world, and the entire complex of buildings "floated" on a bed of thirteen hundred heavy steel springs designed to cushion the impact of a nuclear explosion. But although it was hardened, a direct hit by a multimegaton warhead could knock out the fortress and render it useless.
However, in contemporary times, NORAD's role had become redefined by the expansion of warfare into space. It now kept track of some fifteen thousand pieces of man-made hardware orbiting the globe, and alerted the proper authority whenever a satellite changed course or attempted some strange maneuver. Yet its basic mission of hostile missile surveillance had remained unchanged for decades.
Cheyenne Mountain was one of three military space installations outside Colorado Springs — the other two being Peterson Air Force Base and Falcon Air Force Station. The latter two were aboveground, causing Whittenberg to envy those who worked there.
"Coffee please, Barb," Whittenberg told his secretary while striding into his windowless office. Windowless because fifteen hundred feet of solid granite stood between him and the wilderness exterior of the mountain fortress.
Whittenberg leaned back in his chair, rubbed his eyes, and contemplated what he had just seen on the SPADOC monitor. The thought of a viable Russian shuttle program profoundly disturbed him. SPACECOM intelligence estimates showed the United States had long held a substantial lead in shuttle delivery systems and a technical superiority in Star Wars deployment. The combination of the two made for a comfortable edge. But now one of those gaps was narrowing, and he didn't like it. Not one bit. A year had elapsed since the last Soviet shuttle launch, leading Whittenberg and others to speculate that something was amiss with their spacecraft. But now the Russians had renewed their activity, putting them well on their way to a viable shuttle program. It was following a scenario similar to their fighter plane development, where for years Soviet aircraft had been inferior to their Western counterparts. But slowly, with determination, the Soviets came close to catching up with the West, developing the Su-27 Flanker and MiG-29 Fulcrum fighters in the late 1980s. The latest models of those two aircraft were good. Too damned good, as far as Whittenberg was concerned. The American technical edge had eroded with fighters, and he was afraid it could happen with the shuttle, too.
He picked up a green phone that was a direct line to the Chief of the General Staff, United States Armed Forces — his immediate superior. "Admiral," he said into the receiver. "This is Whittenberg at SPACECOM. Here's the situation."
Five hundred and twelve miles above the earth a tiny vent opened on the side of the KH-12 satellite, allowing a small jet of hydrazine fuel to escape. With this last, gentle nudge its optical cameras would be in correct position to survey the entire Baikonur Cosmodrome complex in southern Kazakhstan.
The KH-12 possessed two lenses of a fixed focal length and one with a zoom capability which projected the target's image onto a focal plane of electro-optic sensors rather than film. The satellite's on-board computer converted the image to digital information, then transmitted the signal via a relay satellite to the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), located in a warehouse-style building at the corner of M and 1st streets in Washington, D.C.
On command from the ground, the satellite's lens covers slid back, allowing the cameras a full view of their target. There was no cloud cover, and conditions were superb. As the Keyhole traveled from north-northeast to south-southwest in a near-polar orbit, its cameras began clicking and didn't stop for twelve minutes.
A half hour after the date arrived at NPIC, the pictures were electronically analyzed and "massaged" by a Cray-Y/MP supercomputer. This computer enhancement of the Suslov" s image was so sophisticated that it allowed the photo-interpretation analyst to view the shuttle in a three-dimensional form on a color television monitor.
After studying the 3-D image, the analyst turned off the monitor and picked up one of the laser-printed color photographs from the pile on his desk. With old-fashioned stereoscopic magnifying glasses he scrutinized the shuttle carefully.
Neither the old technology, nor the new, allowed him to discern that the Suslov's skin was made of plastic.
Col. Peter Lamborghini stood at the lectern in the giant conference room and reviewed his notes. By nature, the SPACECOM intelligence chief liked to be precise and accurate, and he knew General Whittenberg demanded no less. His predecessor had been fired by Whittenberg less than a month before for failing to measure up.
Lamborghini was a former fighter pilot who had been in the intelligence field less than a year, but had grown in the role. So much so that General Whittenberg — known to his staff as the CinC (an acronym for Commander in Chief) — had tapped the colonel to fill the intelligence slot usually occupied by a brigadier general.
Running down his notes one last time, Lamborghini unconsciously felt his tie to make sure it was straight. He was a second-generation American; his father's family had come from Italy and his mother's from Norway. The mixture of Mediterranean and Nordic genes had produced an offspring of compact, medium build with raven-black hair, angular features, and blue, blue eyes.
Those blue eyes now looked up and down die conference table and saw an assortment of generals and colonels who were extensions of Whittenberg's mind and authority. The responsibility for American security above the earth's atmosphere ultimately rested on Whittenberg's four-star shoulders — Star Wars, the military shuttle, NORAD, and space reconnaissance had all been consolidated under" Space Command, and it was the CinC's charter to make it work. Whittenberg had told Lamborghini more than once that SPACECOM was too big for one man to grapple with by himself, so he relied heavily on the staff to be his eyes, ears, and brains, and to always come up with the answers — the right answers.
Yet in exercising his power, Whittenberg — who was very big, very black, and very, very smart — was sometimes surprisingly gentle. Given his six-foot-five frame and the twinkle of his four stars, the former B-52 pilot rarely had to be gruff to get his point across. But when required, as Lamborghini knew, the CinC could turn into an absolute hard-ass in the blink of an eye. It seemed Whittenberg was either the gentle giant or General Ogre, with no middle ground between the two. The SPACECOM staff labored assiduously to keep him in his "gentle" mode.
Lamborghini had just finished his note review when the aide entered and announced, "Gentlemen, the commanding general." Everyone around the huge conference table rose as Whittenberg strode into the room, and as always, the tension seemed to increase with his presence. He was closely followed by his chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Michael Dowd, also known as the "Bull."
"Please be seated," said Whittenberg, while lowering himself into the big leather chair. As always, the CinC looked restless. His close-cropped, Afro-style haircut was liberally flecked with gray, as was the pencil-thin mustache under his pug nose. His blue uniform had nary a wrinkle in it, and the six rows of ribbons above his left breast pocket seemed to say, "Don't even think about messing with me." He nodded to his chief of staff and crisply ordered, "Okay, Bull, I have to leave for Washington in a couple of hours to give the Vice President a personal briefing, and I want to be up to speed." The Vice President was the administration's point man for the Strategic Defense Initiative. "Let's wrap this up as soon as we can."