Warren Murphy Destroyer 075 Rain of Terror

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with me."
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General Leiber hesitated. A Secret Service agent yanked him aboard. The cage
sank. It ran very fast.
"Can you manage your people from my phones?"
"Yes, sir. Most of my best work is done over the phone."
"Good. Let's hope that someone survives to take your calls."
"Yes, sir," said General Leiber, hiding the paper-wrapped model behind his
back. No way was he going to let the President see it now. Down under bedrock,
there would be no place to hide. Who knew, the President might even declare
martial law and stand him before a firing squad. There was no telling what a
civilian would do in a crisis situation. They were all crazy.
Chapter 11
This time, NORAD's BMEWS radar station at Fylingsdale, England, picked up the
object shortly after launch.
The Air Force general designated CINCNORAD considered this a vindication of
the Spacetrack system, which was a series of satellite and ground stations so
sophisticated that they could detect a soccer ball over the British Isles.
"Excellent," he said as he moved between the consoles at the main command post
deep within the hollows of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. The lights were dim.
The greenish backglow of the radar screen created a sickly atmosphere. Except
for the scurrying uniformed personnel and the giant wall displays, the command
post might have been a small brokerage office.
"Sir, we've computed a trajectory that will deposit the hostile in the
vicinity of Washington." There was a note in the status officer's voice that
begged a question.
"We might not be able to save Washington, but we're sure going to know where
it came from," CINCNORAD assured him.
"I'm not certain of that, sir,." ..What?"
"We picked it up at apogee."
"What do the computers say?"
"It's an unknown, sir. The computers can't identify."
"Damn," said the general fervently. He yearned for the old days before all
this computer horseshit. Back in the days of the 440-L radar system, status
officers were worth something. They were trained to read the radar signatures
bouncing off the ionosphere. A top man could tell from the squiggle whether he
was dealing with an SS-18 or an SS-N-8. Nowadays, if the software couldn't
recognize it, they all sat there and chewed their cuds.
"Why didn't the system pick it up at liftoff?"
"I think because it went up too fast to get a reading."
"Too fast! What the hell could be faster than a missile at launch?"
"This thing is, sir," returned the status officer.
The general stared at the huge overhead situation display. The hostile was
shown as a code-tagged green triangle dropping onto a wire-frame simulation of
the earth's surface. The projected impact point-indicated by a green letter
I-was Washington, D. C. In all the simulated drills the general had ever taken
part in, nothing had moved as fast as this object.
"If we have an impact fix," the general said confidently, "we gotta have a
launch point."
"No, sir. Just a broad area of probability."
"What? Where? What area?"
"Africa, sir."
"Damn. Where in Africa?"
"That's it. Africa. "
"Why the hell can't the blasted computer pinpoint better than that?"
"Because, sir, the object appears to be tumbling. Its course is erratic. See,
the impact site keeps shifting." The general looked. On the overhead screen,
the I-for-Impact symbol kept jumping. One moment, it was D.C. Then it was over
in Virginia. Then it was in Maryland. "Dammit, we've got to do better than
this. If we lose Washington, we must repeat, must-retaliate. We can't nuke the
whole of Africa."
"I'm sorry, sir. The system has never encountered anything like this."
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And then all eyes turned to the overhead screen. The green coded triangle
descended upon the Washington area and merged with the impact symbol.
The two symbols flared and died like a faraway candle burning out. A hush fell
over the room:
"Maybe the satellite photos will tell us something," the general muttered
weakly.
The first photos were beamed down from an orbiting KH-11 reconnaissance
satellite. A uniformed clerk handed the initial batch to the general without
comment. He started to walk away hurriedly.
The general flipped through the first several photos. They were [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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