“Dammit, admiral, I don’t know how to answer that,” the general said.
“The hell you don’t. We’ve been studying it for years.”
“And all we came up with is imponderables.”
“Bullshit. Just plain bullshit. Just because we don’t know precisely what happens to the Fl level of the ionosphere as opposed to the F2 level doesn’t mean a damn now. Just because we didn’t tell the public diddly-squat about it doesn’t mean we don’t know a lot about it. Tell him what General Jones told Congress.”
“Christ, anybody could figure that out. I don’t know why people were surprised.”
“Start there.”
“General Jones, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs late in the Carter administration and early in the Reagan years, testified in 1980 that if both countries emptied the whole shooting gallery…”
The general stopped.
“Come on,” Harpoon pushed. “Get on with it.”
“He testified that the deaths in the northern hemisphere would be in the hundreds of millions.”
The successor sat rigidly watching. His face had paled. He felt as if he had been spun up and down like a yo-yo since boarding this plane. This is not what he had planned during his trek through Louisiana. Off to his side the director of Fish and Wildlife, who had not uttered a word since takeoff, sweated like a lathered quarter horse. The remaining Secret Service agent stood with his legs crossed, as if he were faced with a problem of imminent bodily evacuation.
“Thank you,” Harpoon said. “Now, go on.”
“Go on where, admiral?” the general asked wearily. “We simply don’t know.”
“We know enough, general. We’re in the middle of it. We’ve got the man sitting here. He may not be able to stop it if he wants to. But he has a right to know. A need.”
“Sir, you haven’t even told him how the SIOP plan works yet.”
“I will, general. I’d like to get to it before it’s too late.”
“I’m sorry, admiral. It’s just that the range of unknowns is so great.”
“I know, general. I’m sorry, too. Give him the most optimistic reading.”
“Optimistic.” The general’s voice trailed off. Then he came to stiff attention. He began speaking in clipped tones. “End of the northern hemisphere as we know it. United States would go first, Europe almost simultaneously, Soviet Union shortly thereafter. Whether the hemisphere would remain habitable is conjecture. Radiation, natural epidemics, starvation, postwar hostilities would reduce the number of survivors by a factor of five, ten, twenty within months or a few years. Optimistic… Small bands of roaming survivors. Tribes with no political connection to one another. After a few decades, life might become similar to life in the Middle Ages. Fiefdoms. Tribal rivalries. Survivors would have severe problems with solar as well as man-induced radiation. The atmosphere’s ozone layer which protects life from natural solar radiation, will be seriously damaged, perhaps destroyed. At least temporarily. It might rebuild itself in twenty, thirty years. Much would depend on activity in the southern hemisphere.”
The general stopped. “Pessimistic,” the admiral demanded.
“Pessimistic,” the general repeated. “Nobody knows. The explosions and the radiation won’t kill everybody. A new ice age is possible from the atmospheric dust shielding the sun. Just the opposite is also possible. If the ozone layer is depleted too greatly, man won’t be able to handle it even in the southern hemisphere. Then, in theory, the species will die out. Like the dinosaurs. In that sense, it could be On the Beach. But from solar radiation. It took two billion years to build the ozone layer and allow life on this planet. We can totally destroy it in the next few hours….”
The general stopped and stared vacantly for a moment. Then he sat down slowly. The only sound was the slight whir of the E-4’s engines, barely perceptible through the insulation of the briefing room.
After a moment, the successor rose suddenly from his seat, his face not quite ashen but distinctly pallid. “I need a moment by myself,” he said.
Harpoon stared at the man with both impatience and bleak understanding. “We have very little time, sir,” he protested halfheartedly.
“I need a moment by myself,” the man repeated unequivocally.
Without further ado, the successor moved quickly out of the compartment. Not even the Secret Service agent followed. Harpoon shifted from foot to foot, briefly bewildered and uneasy. Little time? They had no time. He looked at his watch—1042 Zulu. But as he looked up to see the successor’s back disappear out the doorway, the admiral felt a new wave of pity for this overmatched man. He also held a glimmer of hope that the briefing had penetrated. If so, a moment’s delay might be worth it.
Outside the briefing room, the successor moved hurriedly down unfamiliar hallways till he found the staircase. He climbed it and reentered the presidential quarters. Inside his own compartment, he knelt quickly. He needed a briefing from a higher source than Harpoon. He prayed deeply and with a low burble that echoed eerily in the lonely room. The prayer lasted only a moment, and then, with a solemn amen, he rose confidently, the pallor gone from his face.
NINE
• 1100 Zulu
Kazakhs brought the B-52 back toward the North American coastline at one thousand feet, temporarily trading deception for speed. He was in a sprint now, with the unseen Foxbats looping high and around toward him, the old bomber screaming low and vulnerable over the last jagged crags of the ice-locked Beaufort Sea. The B-52 gulped gas ferociously, Elsie’s precious gift taking them in the wrong direction, the only direction. The pilot’s own fuel, adrenaline, pulsed rapidly through his body, deftly tucking questions and fear in some side pocket of his mind. He subconsciously reached for his groin, arranging his vitals for the crunch, and barely caught the urge to remind his copilot to do the same. Instead, he went to the all-channels intercom.
“Hokay, you guardians of democracy,” Kazakhs said, “secure the family jewels. We’re goin’ in for the ball-buster.”
The bravado sounded tinny over the tortured scream of the engines, eight jets pushed to their limit. The speed gauge read Mach point-nine-five, just over six hundred miles an hour, just under the speed of sound. The altimeter held briefly, then began to drop again precipitously. At the pilot’s right, Moreau helped Kazakhs control the creaking, bumping bomber, forgetting the navigational charts balanced on one knee. In front of them their red screens danced crazily, the night cameras in the Buffs nose picking up the last ice tangles of the sea and converting them into a maze of computer images. Just ahead lay the western mouth of the Mackenzie, where a winter that began in September had petrified the competing forces of the river and the sea, forcing them up into a rockhard barrier that loomed on the screen.
“Hard left!” Kazaklis barked. The ancient plane moaned as it banked, then leveled out again. “Landfall?”