"Nellis Tower," radioed the AWACS, "this is Sentry Alpha. Looks all clear from here."
"Roger, Sentry Alpha. Thanks." The twenty-one-year-old tower controller brushed his brown hair back from his forehead, then keyed his mike again. "Ghostflight Three, you are cleared for takeoff on runway zero-two right. Wind is south-southeast at seven knots."
"Roger, tower," came the reply, and a C-141 Starlifter cargo transport rumbled down the runway.
The tower controller watched it lift off in the moonlight, then muttered into his microphone. "Ghostflight Four, you are cleared for takeoff."
"Roger, tower," and a KC-10 tanker aircraft quickly followed the Starlifter. It would act as a flying filling station for the entire 13,000-mile journey, because touchdowns were forbidden until the staging area was reached.
Finally, the controller punched his mike switch for the last time and said, "Ghostflight Leader and Ghostflight Two, you are cleared for takeoff at your discretion."
"Roger, tower, and thanks," came the firm reply.
Two objects, looking like unearthly batwings in the landing lights, roared down the tarmac and took off into the night sky. The controller squinted and tried to follow them with his eyes, but with their jet-black skin, he quickly lost them in the darkness.
The radar operator aboard the E3-A Sentry never saw them.
Chief Designer Grigory Vostov strapped on a pair of protective goggles and watched closely as the technician powered up the Black & Decker circular handsaw. The final product was about to be unveiled.
A loud grating sound was heard as the saw sliced through the plaster skin covering the hardened aluminum casting. After the cutting was finished, the technician carefully pulled the plaster away to reveal half of the mating collar that would be used to attach the Progress engine to the tail of the Intrepid. He then repeated the process with the second half of the collar.
Vostov went over the castings with hand calipers, and upon finishing he smiled to himself. The final product was superb. The two collar halves would be welded together around the Progress engine after they were transported to Baikonur.
Vostov had used the classic lost-wax process to cast his collar for the Progress engine. It was a process ordinarily used for smaller castings, but it provided a precise finished product. And precision was what Vostov needed.
The Chief Designer had chosen the Leningrad facility because of its up-to-date equipment and superb staff. He slapped the chief technician on the back. "You have done well, my friend. I will see to it that your efforts are rewarded."
"Working with you is reward enough, Comrade Chief Designer."
Vostov nodded in agreement.
"Are we finished here?" came a question from behind.
Vostov turned. It was the same KGB colonel who had originally roused him from his slumber in his apartment. He'd been there all along, but Vostov had forgotten him.
With great flourish the Chief Designer announced, "We are ready."
The dimethylhydrazine, nitrous oxide, and nitric acid fuel spewed into the combustion chambers of the dual SS-N-9 engines and ignited, creating a thrust of280,000 kilograms. Smoke belched out the vectored exhaust pit, and the booster strained against its restraining gantry for three and a half seconds.
In the launch bunker the technician shouted, "All green!"
"Release!" howled Major Somolya in reply. The technician hit the red button on his console, and the starfish gantry fell away, unleasing the missile into the morning darkness. As it rose, the tail of flame quickly turned a circle of snow on the pad into water, and then steam.
The airmen in the assembly hangar scampered to the door to watch the surrounding white countryside grow light as day from the exhaust plume's illumination. It was a breathtaking scene-one they felt privileged to witness. But all too soon the rocket veered northward and disappeared into the black morning sky, leaving the frigid cosmodrome covered in darkness.
The young, baby-faced lieutenant was at his console when the red light started blinking. He quickly grabbed the phone to the duty officer in the SPADOC Crow's Nest. "Launch detection!" he shouted. "It just broke through the clouds, sir!"
Sir Isaac held the phone away from his ear. "It's all right, Lieutenant. Just settle down and give me a zoom of the location on the center screen."
"Yes, sir!" Another shout. There weren't many secrets inside
Cheyenne Mountain, and everyone's nerves in SPADOC had become frayed. Whether it be by the water fountain, in the cafeteria, or in the washroom, the one topic of discussion in the entire complex was the Intrepid. Everyone knew something was afoot.
"Looks like it's coming out of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, sir!" hollered the lieutenant.
With the CinC en route back from Washington and the chief of staff finally getting some sleep, John Fairchild — Sir Isaac— was minding the store inside the mountain. Everything that could be done was being done at the Cape, at Edwards, and at Van-denberg. Until the Constellation was ready to go, Sir Isaac felt the best place to watch over things was in the SPADOC Crow's Nest, where he could monitor the Intrepid minute by minute and examine the satellite pix of the Russian launch facilities the moment they arrived. If this launch detection was indeed coming out of Plesetsk, the Russkies had certainly wheeled out the rocket and fired it off in a hurry. A KH-12 pass only six hours before had showed nothing on any of Plesetsk's launch pads.
A large map of northwestern Russia was projected on the giant center screen.
"I should have a bearing from the BMEWS radar in just a second, sir."
"Very good, Lieutenant," said Sir Isaac patiently.
The young officer tapped his keyboard, and a luminescent line popped up on the screen aiming north-northeast out of Plesetsk.
"Bearing zero-zero-seven, sir."
Sir Isaac tapped his hawklike nose with his pipestem. "Punch up the Intrepid's current ground track, will you, Lieutenant?"
A few seconds later a second luminescent line appeared, parallel to the first and about two hundred miles to the west. The Russian launch was directly in line with the Intrepid's orbit, but it was traveling in the opposite direction and a little bit to the east. Sir Isaac found this to be quite puzzling. Why would the Russians send up something that was the direct reciprocal of the Intrepid's flight path? It didn't make any sense. But whatever it was, anything that close to the American shutde was too much of a coincidence for Sir Isaac. The brigadier picked up a phone that was a direct line into to the National Military Command
Center in the Pentagon. They would pass the word to Admiral Bergstrom in about ninety seconds.
Mission Commander Oleg Malyshev.let the reports trickle into his headset, then picked up the phone and buzzed the glassed-in observation booth. "The main booster has separated and all systems are functioning properly, Comrade General. We will have second-stage shutdown in approximately three minutes."
"Very well, Commander," replied Popov as he hung up the phone and turned to his two companions. "The antisatellite missile is proceeding according to plan. When it reaches the top of its elliptical orbit we will fire the engines again to propel it into a circular flite path."