“The next hour will give us their reaction. Prepare to issue Red Alert to all strategic weapons systems just in case we get word they’re revving up.” He continued to watch the screen while the Midas satellite conversed with its master:
NUCLEAR EXPLOSION IN FOURTEEN KILOTON RANGE AREA TEN MILES NORTH OF TASHKENT. HEAT AT CENTER IN EXCESS OF FIVE MILLION DEGREES. BLAST EFFECTS IN RANGE TEN MILES TO FIFTEEN ON ALL SIDES…
Marshal Moskanko had retreated to his office, where he drank from a mug of vodka. What had gone wrong? He had just learned that the plane Stark warned him about on the hot line had turned back two hundred miles from the target. Yet his laser was gone. Could Bakunin have done that? Did the American bomb have a secret timing device on it? Could there be some other explanation? Moskanko’s eyes had been fixed unseeingly on a piece of paper lying on his desk. The defense minister picked it up now and found himself reading a copy of his last hot-line message to Stark.
Inside the mountain, William Stark was in the bedroom with Pamela. She held his hand tightly while he told her what had just happened. Stark was waiting for Randall or Riordan to summon him momentarily with word from the spy satellites whose electronic eyes and ears were fastened on nuclear missile and bomber installations inside the Soviet Union. While he waited for news, Pamela listened to him describe the awesome cloud over Tashkent.
Marshal Moskanko had been reading the hot-line copy again and again, brooding angrily over the phrases “act of war” and “instant retaliation.”
As an orderly entered to tell the defense minister that his deputies wanted to see him immediately. Moskanko lunged to his feet and ran out to the central command post. He glanced at the wall screen and saw the laser works still shrouded in smoke and dust. Small fires continued to lick at the edges of the blanket of destruction. Moskanko grabbed a phone and spoke to SMAG, the Soviet Strategic Missile Armaments Group in Chelyabinsk. The marshal was crisp.
“Priority Alert. Attack will be based on Operation Neptune, using multiple warheads against silos and Polaris systems only on first strike. City strike will follow later based on Operation Cygnus A. Execute order on receipt of computer voice code Suvorov.”
The voice on the other end repeated Moskanko’s words, and the defense minister slammed down the receiver and went along the corridor to a conference room. As he entered, he found Marshals Fedoseyev and Omskuschin waiting somberly. Moskanko walked to the head of the table, tossed the hot-line copy on the table and said: “Comrades, we are in a state of war.”
William Mellon Stark heard the knock and Randall’s voice saying urgently: “Mr. President, we need you out here immediately.” Stark pressed Pamela’s hand once more and left her sitting trembling on the edge of the bed.
One look at Randall’s eyes confirmed Stark’s fears. He went to the wall screen, where Riordan and Roarke were staring at a closeup split image of Soviet missile silos. The President asked: “Is this it?”
The shaken director of the CIA turned. “It was all quiet until just two minutes ago. Then we intercepted attack orders to all Soviet subs in the Atlantic and Pacific. At the same time the Samos began picking up these silos getting ready. The ones on the wall are at Novosibirsk. Notice that the big doors have been opened. Our radio monitors report that countdown is at T minus thirty seconds and holding. They’re just waiting for a final Go.”
“Are all the missiles like these?”
“They’re all going operational from Novaya Zemlya to Khabarovsk. What’s the true count, Steve?”
Roarke snapped: “Six hundred five and rising toward a thousand.”
President Stark shook his head in despair. “They leave me no choice, the fools. Put everything up to Red Alert.”
Roarke was talking on the phone immediately to NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain.
Stark rattled off further instructions. “As soon as the radar picks them up at the horizon line and verifies their trajectories, give me the word, and we’ll let go.”
Randall said: “God, what about the people in this country?”
“They’re already dead.” Stark answered tonelessly. “And so is everyone in Russia.” He tore off his suit jacket and fell into a chair. “But what else can I do?” Nobody spoke for a moment, and Stark broke the quiet: “Tell the television and radio networks to get ready for a switch to CONELRAD. That will help some of the survivors anyway.”
While the President sat watching the screen for the emergence of the Soviet multiple warhead missiles, the Bagman came up beside him and unlocked the black satchel containing the coded orders to initiate nuclear war. He held it open for William Stark’s next move.
Marshal Moskanko was in the midst of an unforeseen argument with his deputies.
“The laser is gone,” the stocky peasant Omskuschin said in his ponderous manner. “When I came in here there were no further signs of aggressive activity on the enemy’s part.”
“How can you be so shortsighted?” Moskanko railed. “We are in an impossible situation. Stark can move anywhere in the world now and expect us to do nothing about it unless we show him otherwise.”
The door opened, and a Soviet air force major came up to Moskanko: “The Americans have just gone to their Red Alert. All port-bound Polaris systems are getting under way for the open sea.”
The defense minister interrupted the man: “So, comrades, we must attack. I have ordered SMAG to fire when I give the computer password.”
There was a stunned silence in the room. Finally, Marshal Fedoseyev, commander of Soviet land forces, cleared his throat. “I want no part of a nuclear exchange,” he intoned. “It would be suicide.” With a look of impatience, Fedoseyev, whose normally taciturn manner was a Soviet army legend, now stood up.
“Viktor Semyonovich,” he said forcefully, “you have misjudged once too often. First, you should never have sent the message threatening instant retaliation. If the laser went, as it did, you would be left with your mouth open and your opinions nil. Now, without consulting anyone, you have ordered the missiles to priority alert. It is no surprise that the Americans have suddenly done the same thing. But your most serious misjudgment concerns the President of the United States. You thought he would avoid the ultimate decision to go into a hydrogen bomb war. You were absolutely wrong, comrade. Absolutely.”
Moskanko’s face was beet red.
“We cannot afford more such misjudgments,” Marshal Fedoseyev continued. “And when you talk of still proving we are strong, we say you are ignoring facts. Viktor Semyonovich, we will not allow it to happen again. We cannot let you go out of here and give the code word to attack.”
Fedoseyev pressed a button on the table, and the door opened to admit two plainclothes KGB officers from the Center. They took up positions on either side of the door. As Moskanko watched in disbelief, former Premier Valerian Smirnov walked into the room and stared silently down at him.
After a lengthy silence, Marshal Omskuschin addressed the defense minister: “Your biggest mistake, Viktor Semyonovich, was losing. Losers must pay. We must survive you and be the wiser for it. But you cannot continue. You are too reckless, too dangerous for the Soviet people. We have brought Smirnov to defuse the situation and try to salvage something with the Americans. They can take a very hard line with us now, and we think Smirnov may be able to return relations to a reasonable status without losing too much. And that we want, much more than we want you to continue.”