' 'Roger,'' replied Heitmann. He and Townsend had practiced emergency engine shutdowns in the simulator until they had become second nature to them. But now they were preparing to conduct their initial OMS burn manually, and this required some concentration.
Townsend watched the readout from the NavComputer while Heitmann operated the hand controller. "Pitch up three degrees," ordered the copilot. "Yaw left six degrees… I'llfire the OMS on my marie… Three… two… one… maris!" Townsend hit the red switch and the engines fired silendy.
Because they had not completed the shallow dive maneuver, the Constellation was actually a litde ahead of where it was supposed to be.
"Problem?" bellowed the General Secretary. "What do you mean by 'problem'?"
Pirdilenko's aloofness had been replaced by distilled fear. There had always been a small chance that this could happen. Quite small. Incredibly small. But there it was. He should have warned them of this contingency, but… "Well, ah, General Secretary," stammered Pirdilenko, "it appears the launch of the American rescue shutde was, ah, ill-timed for our antisatel-lite weapon."
"What do you mean by 'ill-timed'? Speak simple Russian, you fool!"
Beads of sweat appeared on Pirdilenko's brow as he took a deep breath. "When a shutde is initially launched," he explained, "it goes into an elliptical orbit, which is shaped much like an egg. When the spacecraft reaches the apex of this ellipse, it fires the maneuvering rockets to push it into a circular orbit.
I intended to fire the antisatellite device as the rescue shuttle was climbing to the apex of the ellipse — that is, when the Intrepid would still be a safe distance away from the Constellation. You will recall our discussions at Plesetsk." Pirdilenko cleared his throat. "However, I, ah, failed to mention that if the rescue shuttle lifted off from the Florida cosmodrome during a certain three-minute 'blind spot' of the antisatellite weapon's orbit, then our device would be unable to hit the rescue shuttle, during this ascent phase. The weapon would not be within range until after the rendezvous with the Intrepid spacecraft was completed… Much to my surprise, the Americans happened to launch during this, ah, 'blind spot' period."
The General Secretary — a former hammer thrower — seized the spidery scientist by the throat and shook him with such violence that his spectacles were knocked to the floor. "Blind spot? I will show you a blind spot, Comrade! Get back on that machine and shoot down that goddam rescue vessel! Do you understand me? Shoot it down! Or I will strap you to one of your own goddam rockets! How would you like that?" With a final shake, the General Secretary slammed Pirdilenko back into his chair.
With studied casualness, the KGB Chairman reached down and retrieved the eyeglasses from the floor, then handed them to Pirdilenko. "You may need these, Comrade."
Whittenberg, Michael Dowd, and John Fairchild were all in the SPADOC Crow's Nest, monitoring the flight of the Constellation. Dowd was on the phone to McCormack at CSOC. He hung up and turned to Whittenberg.' 'Chet says they're going to manually fire the orbit insertion burn, then they'll compute a corrected flight plan for a rendezvous. It may take another orbit or two, but the rendezvous is not in jeopardy. Could've been a lot worse."
Sir Isaac nodded. "Maybe our luck is beginning to change."
"Let's hope," added Whittenberg, and he picked up the green phone to inform Admiral Bergstrom.
"Ignition!" ordered Heitmann. Townsend mashed the red firing button, and for sixty-eight seconds the orbital maneuvering system engines fired, propelling the Constellation out of its elliptical path and inserting it into a circular orbit — a little bit ahead of the Intrepid.
Townsend gazed out the window. The Intrepid was out there— somewhere — and like the Constellation, it was above the southern Indian Ocean, hurtling north at 17,000 miles per hour.
On the northern shore of the giant Lake Balkhash in southern Kazakhstan stood a structure not unlike an Egyptian pyramid. This was the long-range phased-array radar (LPAR) complex at Kounradiskiy. The pyramidlike structure was, in reality, a giant transmitter and receiver that blanketed the sky with its electronic waves. With its powerful signal, the LPAR pyramid easily detected the two American shuttles approaching from the south. Their radar signatures were identical, and they were approximately two hundred kilometers apart.
The electronic detection was routed to the Aerospace Defense Warning Centre in Magnitogorsk, where the tracking data were processed and stored in computer banks. These data files were routinely accessed by the computers in the Kaliningrad Flite Control Centre.
Pirdilenko was tapping furiously at his keyboard now. His concentration was so intense that he ignored the drops of perspiration falling from his forehead and onto the backs of his hands. There was a chance now. A very real chance, and he was not about to bungle it. The Americans had muffed their flight plan somehow, and the radar data showed some separation between the Constellation and the Intrepid. Only a scant two hundred kilometers, but that was enough for Pirdilenko to take a shot now. He feared for his life if he didn't.
The antisatellite device was currently over the eastern United States, while the two shutdes had just crossed the southern border of Russia. All three spacecraft were approaching the polar ice cap on a northerly heading, at a mutual closing velocity of 34,000 miles per hour. Pirdilenko's margin for error was absolute zero.
"When are you going to take action, Comrade?" huffed Vorontsky, who was leaning over the scientist.
"Quiet!" barked Pirdilenko. So severe was his rebuke that even the General Secretary retreated a few steps. The tension in the room was taut as a violin string.
Pirdilenko allowed himself a quick glance at the Mercator map projection. The two American shuttles were on identical ground tracks — both heading north. The Constellation was about two hundred kilometers ahead of, and a little below, the Intrepid. That tallied with the data on his computer screen.
In the time it took him to recheck his computations, the two American orbiters had already passed over the Soviet Union and crossed the northern coast of Siberia. The ASAT missile was over Greenland, also hurtling north toward the Arctic ice cap. All three spacecraft were now being tracked by the phased-array radar complex at Pechora.
Everything was ready, and although his spectacles were smeared with perspiration drops, Pirdilenko could see the computer screen well enough. The digital time readout was moving rapidly in reverse. Thirty seconds now… twenty… ten… five, four, three, two, one.
Pirdilenko's heart thumped as his trembling finger came down on the buttonmarked activate.
The ASAT warhead was little more than a spaceborne blunderbuss, consisting of a large ceramic cone filled with stainless-steel pellets. The cone was secured to a base made of plastique explosive, but the golf-ball-sized pellets contained within the vessel were not explosive themselves — they didn't have to be.