‘Launch director, this is Looking Glass; transmission complete, over.’
Four ballistic gas actuators fired and the 110-tonne reinforced-concrete silo cover slid forward on its rails, revealing the gleaming missile below.
‘Roger, Looking Glass; we have ignition, out.’ The first of the three solid-stage motors erupted in a roar of flame and smoke, and the thirty-tonne missile rose majestically from its underground silo and up into the early-morning sky.
Four thousand kilometres further north, Curtis O’Connor’s old colleague, Tyler Jackson, was monitoring the control screens in the Gakona command centre, watching events unfold with a growing sense of foreboding.
‘One point five miles in altitude, one nautical mile down range, travelling at 900 miles per hour… all systems green.’ Captain Chavez’s voice sounded excited as he watched the live footage. The huge Thiokol TU-122 first-stage motor generated 200 000 pounds of thrust as it powered the missile towards the ionosphere above, leaving a long fiery exhaust trail.
‘Mach one… we’re now supersonic… first-stage engine operating normally… first stage jettisoned… second-stage engine ignition… fifty nautical miles altitude… all systems green.’
Heavy flakes of snow were falling outside the Gakona control centre, and the big diesels that powered the thirty transmitter shelters were at full capacity. Each shelter contained twelve transmitters, each in turn generating 10 000 watts of radio-frequency power. Every one of the 360 transmitters had been switched to the high-frequency dipole antennae, all of which were at the maximum end of the ten megahertz range. Tyler Jackson watched as Gakona’s mission controller vectored a staggering three billion watts of electromagnetic energy into the ionosphere and into the path of the massive missile, now travelling at over 16 000 kilometres per hour. Sixty nautical miles above Gakona, the sensitive ionospheric layer heated to 40 000 degrees Celsius, creating a boiling plasma plume of electrons. The powerful transmitter lifted thirty square kilometres of the earth’s protective shield into the path of the missile.
‘All stations, this is launch director. We’ve lost communications with the missile at this time… missile not responding… missile is now sixty degrees off course… computed bearing one two zero degrees.’
Tyler Jackson stifled a gasp. The one-tonne nose cone was headed for North Korea.
50
T he cell phone rang out inside the taxi on the wharf at Puerto Quetzal. Rodriguez pursed her lips, exasperated at Wiley’s insistence on organising the asset in Puerto Quetzal from Washington. She had been dialling the secure cell phone since 4 a.m. without success, and there was no word on either O’Connor or Weizman. Langley was an hour ahead of Guatemala City and Rodriguez knew it wouldn’t be long before Wiley would be on the secure line demanding answers. She dialled the number again. This time a sleepy voice answered.
‘? Si?’
‘? Que esta pasando? What’s happening? Is there anything to report?’
‘? Como?’
Rodriguez took a deep breath. ‘Tutankhamen. Nefertiti?’
‘Ah. Si… They not come,’ the taxi driver replied in halting English.
Five minutes later, Rodriguez put down the phone, convinced that Fawlty Towers’ Manuel and Langley’s asset had a lot in common.
At CIA’s headquarters, Howard Wiley scanned the latest intelligence report from Cardinal Felici at the Vatican: OPERATION MAYA DDO EYES ONLY Contact in San Pedro confirms Hernandez made a hasty departure from the presbytery where he lived. Point of interest is a quantity of scuba gear left behind. Will advise. Felici
Scuba gear. Wiley pondered whether Lake Atitlan might be the repository for something of great interest. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
‘Come.’
‘I thought you ought to know, sir. The media are carrying a story on this morning’s Minuteman test… CNC are about to cross live,’ Larry Davis announced.
‘What the fuck? That’s a top-secret firing!’ Wiley reached for the remote.
‘I’ve spoken briefly with Gakona. It seems there’s been a malfunction. Input into the computer may have been out by a decimal point, which they think has caused the missile to impact the wrong side of the ionospheric shield, sending it south-west instead of north-east – here it is now.’
A ‘breaking news’ pull-through was scrolling across the bottom of CNC’s coverage of the Australian Open golf tournament: MYSTERY OBJECT
PLUNGES INTO SEA OF JAPAN, 300 METRES FROM CRUISE SHIP. RUSSIA ACCUSES
‘This is Lee-Ann Ramirez; we interrupt this coverage of the Australian Open with breaking news. We cross to our Pentagon reporter, Sheldon Murkowski. Sheldon, I know it’s early in the morning in Washington, but is there any response yet from either the Pentagon or the White House to the accusations by the Kremlin that the US has fired a missile towards Korea?’
‘Lee-Ann, the Pentagon has not yet released a statement, but the mystery cone-shaped object, reportedly the size of a small car, was seen by dozens of tourists on board a Japanese cruise liner as it plunged into the ocean off the island of Hokkaido just before 6.30 p.m. local time.’
‘These are very serious allegations, Sheldon. Do we know what the Kremlin is basing them on?’
‘The Russian Defence Minister, Vladimir Andropov, was quite determined in his remarks. A Russian satellite-tracking station near Vladivostok followed the missile from the west coast of the United States at around 5.15 a.m., Californian time. Minister Andropov claims it was initially tracked across Alaska, but then it inexplicably altered course two minutes into the launch. We expect that either the Pentagon or the White House will hold a media conference shortly, Lee-Ann.’
‘That was Sheldon Murkowski, reporting from the Pentagon. And in other breaking news, a violent storm has blacked out communications over most of Japan and in parts of Korea and southern China. Authorities claim the storm arrived without warning and is the most violent in recorded history.’ The broadcast cut to live footage of Tokyo. The evening sky over the Japanese capital was a strange orange-purple. There were very few clouds, yet the city was being struck repeatedly with huge lightning strikes.
In scenes reminiscent of the September 11 strike on the World Trade Centre in New York, a jagged, forked silver-indigo flash exploded onto the Midtown tower, Tokyo’s tallest building, demolishing the Ritz-Carlton hotel and the rest of the top twenty storeys, which tumbled into the crowded CBD below. Almost immediately after, another immensely powerful flash struck the 750-year-old Great Buddha of Kamakura, splitting the eighty-four-tonne statue down the middle. Nearby, Yuigahama Beach was being peppered with strikes at temperatures approaching 30 000 degrees Celsius, which instantly melted the silica, fusing the sand into fulgurites – hollow glass tubes that penetrated metres into the beach. More powerful bolts struck the ancient heart of the city of Tokyo and more still had thundered into the area around Shinjuku, reducing to a pile of rubble the world’s busiest train station, used by four million commuters every day.
‘Already there is speculation that the events off Hokkaido and the violent storms above Tokyo may somehow be connected. We’ll bring you updates on this unfolding drama as they come to hand. This is Lee-Ann Ramirez, returning you to Australia.’
Wiley got up and walked over to the large map of the world mounted on the far wall of his office. ‘The impact area’s around the Mariana Trench?’
‘A little to the north,’ Davis confirmed.
‘Fuck ’em. Just deny it. They won’t find anything out there, and the media will lose interest.’