Command, which was a joint U.S. and Canadian organization that commanded
all long-range radars and air-defense fighter bases for the defense of
North America. As such, Talbot was incredibly busy even during the quiet
times-with an air-defense emergency in the works, he was stretched to
the limit. Even through the hiss and pop of the secure phone line,
Elliott could hear the stress in Talbot's voice. "I know you're busy,
Mike, but this is important. I need to talk to you about Jon Masters.
"I got young Doctor Hot-Shot Big-Sky Damn-the-Torpedoes Masters sitting
right here, Brad, " Talbot said with audible contempt. Talbot's
commander of the Air Force Space Command's Second Space Wing (which was
in charge of all Defense Department satellites from launch to recovery)
had gotten on the phone to Sky Masters' DC-JO the minute the satellite
went out. Since the NIRTSat had been launched seventy-one seconds
outside of the launch window after disobeying an Air Force request to
cancel, Talbot's subordinate, the commander of the Second Space Wing,
had ordered up a specifically modified C-130 cargo plane to recover the
satellite. Better that, the commander thought, than having a
nine-hundred-pound piece of scrap metal in a bad orbit. Masters had no
choice but to go along with the Air Force. Either that or face
handcuffs at Falcon Air Force Base, where he was now sitting. "He was
just about to let my senior staff in his plant office inspect his
records, weren't you, Doctor Masters?" "That's got to wait, " Elliott
said. "He just lost a satellite and I've got to get him out to GENESIS
right away. It's all connected.. There was a slight pause; then,
"Oh..." Few things in this world could knock guys like Talbot back on
their heels, but GENESIS, Brad Elliott's classified call sign from
Dreamland, was one. Just mentioning the word meant that most of the
Pentagon was involved. Which was, Talbot thought, typical of Elliott,
who was known to be kicking ass with an array of high-tech toys
developed out in his secret labs in Nevada. Rumors had been circulating
for months about Elliott's B-2 bombers and other strange planes flying
around the desert. God only knows what he needed Masters for. But the
fact that Elliott knew all about a classified satellite launch that had
gone wrong only twenty minutes before, told Talbot that Elliott was
plugged in right at the top. "Well, you got him, Brad. Now where do you
want him?"
"I need him back in his lab in Arkansas soonest. When are you going to
be done chewing on him?" "I'm done. I don't have the time or energy for
shit like this anymore, " Talbot said in a low voice. "His jet is
already fueled. He'll be airborne in thirty minutes and in Arkansas in
three hours. Does this have something to do with . . . events this
afternoon?"
"It could have everything to do with it."
"I was afraid of that. The little prick leads a charmed life. You need
his satellite intact as well?"
"Have you deorbited it yet?"
"Just about ready to do it-window opens in about an hour."
"Better leave it, then. The brass hasn't made up their minds what they
want." Talbot knew the "brass" usually included only men who had
collected more than fifty million popular votes. "Whatever you say,
Brad. I'll be glad to jettison that little cocksucker anyway. He's a
pain in the ass."
"You have that effect on people, my friend." "Yeah, right. The bastard
never stops smiling, too. You notice that? Always with the damned grin
on his puss. I don't trust somebody who grins all the time-it usually
means they found someone else to put the blame on." "If he busted one of
your rules, Mike, he's gotta pay. When GENESIS is done with him, I'll
send him back to you. How's that?"
"Naw. Keep him outta my sight. Just get the bastards who fried my
NAVSTAR satellites and we'll call it even."
"Deal, buddy. GENESIS out." THE WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM The
for a world economic conference when they told him. Lloyd Emerson
Taylor, forty-third President of the United States and a descendant of
the twelfth President, had made a mental note of what he was doing at
that moment. It would, after all, be important for the memoirs he was
going to write after he left office. And this, Lloyd Emerson Taylor
guessed, was going to be one hell of an important chapter in his book.
After his military aide had handed him the Eyes Only message, Taylor had
immediately excused himself from the planning meeting and retreated to
the Oval Office. From there, over a secure hot line, he began to get a
handle on the situation: he learned that Defense, JCS, and the CIA
suspected the Chinese of setting off the nuke, but no one had been able
to completely verify that. Worse, the President couldn't get word on
how President Mikaso was or what was going on in Manila because all
phone lines were jammed and all satellite and HF networks had been
disrupted. He also learned that even though the U.S. had been
monitoring the situation between the Chinese and the Philippines since
their naval skirmish of a few months ago, nobody wanted China or the
Philippines to know that the United States had pictures of the
explosion. Apparently the pictures were not taken by a regular
satellite but by a new, highly classified one called PACER SKY, an
experimental system that would allow real-time targeting data for
strategic bombers. Whatever the hell PACER SKY was, Taylor knew it had
just snapped what might be one of the most famous photographs in thirty
years, thanks to a simple stroke of luck. Finally, a more formal,
albeit hastily arranged, assessment meeting was scheduled a half-hour
later in the Situation Room. As Taylor, his military aide, his official
White House photographer, his Secret Service bodyguard, and a
civilian-clothed Navy captain who carried his "football, " the portable
scrambled UHF transceiver that Taylor would use in an emergency to order
his strategic nuclear forces to war, made their way down the elevator to
the Situation Room in the basement of the White House, the enormity and
gravity of the situation finally began to sink in. Like his famous
great~greatgreat~greatgrandfather, the President was a bull-nosed,
laissez-faire bureaucrat who'd done well as president because of his
quiet, hardworking, rocksteady style. And like his ancestor, Taylor was
an ex-Army general and judge advocate who had retired to enter politics
at age fifty-one, soon after pinning on his first star. Taylor had,
above everything else, a keen sense of history-and his place in it. He
knew, even as he entered the Situation Room and everyone stood up, that
he was the first American president to have to deal with a nuclear
weapon crisis since John F. Kennedy. And he was determined to handle
it better than Kennedy did. He had not been in the Situation Room five
minutes when he had his men on the griddle-even as phones rang
constantly in the background. His eyes wandered around the table t
o each
and every adviser: Tom Preston, his Secretary of Defense and an
experienced politician; General Wilbur Curtis, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Kenneth Wayne, Director of the CIA; and Frank Kellogg,
his National Security Advisor. His eyes settled on General Wilbur
Curtis, chief military officer of the United States and Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was the President's principal military
adviser but a holdover from the last administration. Unfortunately, he
was so well respected on the Hill and at the Pentagon that Taylor knew
he couldn't get rid of him even if he wanted to. "General Curtis, even
though you got us in this DEFCON Three posture-and I wish I had been in
on that decision from the start and not after your commanders went ahead
and did it themselves-the 'bolt from the blue' theory of strategic
warfare has been dead for almost a decade." Curtis could see this was
going to be a long, difficult meeting. "Sir, we were following the
OPLAN-the operations planestablished and authorized by you in case of an
emergency of this magnitude. DEFCON Three is a very secure posture
right now. We're-"
"If there was no apparent attack in progress, then you had time to
notify me and let me make the decision, " the President interrupted.
"That's what I expect. We will need to change the OPLAN after this to
rectify it."
"Yes, sir, " Curtis acknowledged. "What else have you got for me,
General?" Curtis cleared his throat. "Our strategic forces are in full
readiness, so if this is some sort of prelude to an all-out attack
against the United States, we're ready, sir." Curtis glanced at the
Navy captain seated near the door, keeping the "football." The President
disliked having the football around-he had once told the press that he
likened it to the Grim Reaper, with scythe in hand, following him
everywhere he went-but in this he had no choice. "Well, " Taylor
grumbled, "I guess the question of whether this is a prelude or not will
be answered once we have more information, won't it, General? This
PACER SKY thing saw who launched the missile, didn't it?" "Not exactly,
sir, " Curtis replied. "The NIRTSatpart of the PACER SKY program-saw
the nuclear explosion, but we're trying to keep a lid on that. As you
know, we've been monitoring the situation between the Chinese and the
Philippines since that original skirmish. But because of our past
association with the Philippines, we didn't want it to appear as if we
were monitoring anyone-or feeding anyone intelligence information.
Still, we do know, thanks to PACER SKY, exactly which ships were in the
area. SAC analysts have concluded that only the Chinese could have
launched the weapon."
"Well, then, that brings us to the bigger picture, doesn't it?" the
President said. "I've been briefed on the shit going down in the
Philippines for some time. And you people tell me the Communists are
running rampant in the outlying provinces and that if Mikaso kicks the
damned bucket we could lose all ties to the Philippines-our stopover and
resupply privileges, our radar sites, our listening posts, our practice
bombing ranges. I was also briefed on the skirmish a few months ago
between the Chinese and the Philippines, but it was characterized as
nothing more than a little tiff. When a fucking nuclear bomb goes off,
gentlemen, it's not just a little tiff. Now what the hell is going on
here? Is it the start of a major war, an illegal test by some country,
or an accident?" Director of Central Intelligence Kenneth Wayne said,
"An accident, sir, seems the only plausible explanation. The Chinese
Navy could certainly overtake the Philippine Navy without having to
resort to nuclear weapons. Also, we've detected only one explosion,
which tells us there was no nuclear ex change. Of course, " the CIA
director said, lighting a pipe, "it also could have been a military
response by the Chinese, but a response by . . . say, a lone wolf,
and not necessarily the Chinese government itself."
"Lone wolf?" the President asked, raising his eyebrows. "You mean some
nutjob in command of a ship?" The CIA director shrugged his shoulders.
"Entirely possible. Not a nutjob, per se, but simply a commander who
panicked. But I'd put my money on it being a simple accident."
"JCS doesn't agree with the DCI's estimation, sir, " Curtis said. The
look the President, as well as Wayne, gave him could have chilled a
polar bear. "We don't discount the DCI's theory, but we have evidence
of another possibility that I feel it would be more prudent to act
upon." The President had a very slight-but very noticeable-exasperated
frown-he didn't like being told that he was wrong. He rolled his hand
as if to say, 'Get on with it." Curtis said, "My staff feels that this
attack may be a prelude to an all-out attack and invasion of the
Philippines by China... Everyone in the room sat up. Voices started
coming at Curtis and at President Taylor all at once. "Ridiculous
"Totally off the mark "They'd never try it Curtis pressed on. "All I
have is speculation, sir, but we're forgetting China has long historical
claims to many of the Philippine Islands and the fact that ethnic
Chinese make up a great majority of the Philippine population. Couple
that with someone like Daniel Teguina, who has strong Communist ties,
and you've got the makings of a real land-grab." Voices of dissent were
heard from the CIA director, the Secretary of Defense, the National
Security Advisor. The President cleared his throat-loudly. All heads
turned to him. "Look, we can speculate all we want, but without any
information, speculation's not going to do us a damned bit of good." He
turned to the DCI. "No word from Manila yet? Or Mikaso?"
"All lines are still jammed, sir. Satellite and HF networks are still
down." This got a grunt from the President. "And what China? Have we
heard what they think about all this?" DCI Kenneth Wayne said, "We've
got calls in to sir, including Premier Cheung." The President turned to
Tom Preston, his Secretary of Defense. Preston had been silent so far.
"Thomas, what do you think?" "Well, this is an extremely vulnerable
region, sir. And we've lost a lot of influence there since... leaving.
So I think we've got to do at least an on-site military inspection. A
task force sent from Hawaii or Japan would be sufficient and, " in
partial acknowledgment to Curtis, he added, "would deter any possible
aggression, if that were going to happen."
"Uh-huh." The President nodded. "We do have ships patrolling the area
all the time, right? So we send a few in, check it out, keep them on
station for a while, and get the CIA in as well: Meanwhile I can sell
everyone-for the time being-on this being an accident."
"Excuse me, sir, but there are several standard OPLAN responses that
should be implemented, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have a few plans
we'd like to offer as suggested responses, " Curtis interjected. "You
don't think just a few ships-say, sending one carrier group-are enough?"
the President aske
d. "Why am 1 not surprised?"
"Sir, the nuclear blast itself is cause enough for concern. But a
single twentyzkilometer nuclear device detonated in the middle of one
carrier battle group would destroy everyone and everything within five
miles, including an aircraft carrier. "This is why the standard OPLAN
calls for the deployment of at least three carrier battle groups to the
region, along with a Marine Expeditionary Force, the Twenty-fifth
Infantry Division of the Army Western Command, and the Air Force First
Air Battle Wing. They would deploy afloat or from Okinawa or Andersen
Air Force Base on Guam, as appropriate. It is especially important
these days since we have no... military forces in the Philippines. Even
if we don't use three, at least two carrier battle groups would be more
appropriate. "The only two carrier battle groups available are two
fossil fueled carriers, Independence and Ranger. Ranger still does not
have Hornet fighter-bombers because of her accelerated decommissioning
schedule, but Independence is fully combatready. Two nuclear carriers,
Nimitz and Abraham Lincoln, are both in the Indian Ocean at the present
time, but that's several days' steaming time to get back to the South
China Sea. We recommend that the Marines' landing-support carrier
Belleau Wood and her support ships be deployed with the task force; they
can carry about two thousand Marines and about thirty helicopters. They
can split between the two carrier groups as necessary." Curtis saw the
President's eyes when he mentioned the Marines, and he added quickly,
"It's routine to send a Marine Expeditionary Unit with such a task
force, and if we're dealing with the Philippines it might be necessary.
The President still had that pained look in his eyes, but Curtis
continued nonetheless: "Because the two carrier groups have fewer
air-to-ground attack planes, it was suggested to augment the task force
by forming the First Air Battle Wing at Andersen Air Force Base on Guam
to-"
"The First-what? What the hell is that?" the President asked with