The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [375]
Ryan stubbed out his cigarette, still annoyed at the Technical Difficulty - Please Stand By' sign that was keeping him from watching the game. Goodley came in with a couple cans of Coke. Dinner was already ordered. "What gives?" Goodley asked.
"Picture went out." Ryan took his Coke and popped it open.
At SAC Headquarters, a lieutenant-colonel at the far left side of the third row of battle-staff seats consulted the TV-controller card. The room had eight TV displays, arranged in two horizontal rows of four. One could call up more than fifty individual displays, and the woman was an intelligence officer whose first instinct was to check the new channels. A quick manipulation of her controller showed that both CNN and its subsidiary CNN Headline News were off the air. She knew that they used different satellite circuits, and that piqued her curiosity, perhaps the most important aspect of intelligence work. The system also allowed access to other cable channels, and she started going through them. HBO was off the air. Showtime was off the air. ESPN was off the air. She checked her directory and concluded that at least four satellites were not functioning. At that point, the colonel got up and walked over to CINC-SAC.
"Sir, there's something very odd here," she said.
"What's that?" CINC-SAC said without turning.
"At least four commercial satellites appear to be down. That includes a Telstar, an Intelsat, and a Hughes bird. They're all down, sir."
That notification caused CINC-SAC to turn. "What else can you tell me?"
"Sir, NORAD reports that the explosion was in the Denver metropolitan area, very close to the Skydome where they were playing the Superbowl. SecState and SecDef were both at the game, sir."
"Christ, you're right," CINC-SAC realized instantly.
At Andrews Air Force Base, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post - NEACP, pronounced 'Kneecap' - was positioned on the ramp with two of its four engines turning, waiting for someone to arrive so that the crew could take off.
Captain Jim Rosselli had barely been on duty for an hour when this nightmare arrived. He sat in the NMCC Crisis Management Room, wishing a flag officer was here. That was not to be. While there had once been a General or Admiral in the National Military Command Center at all times, the thaw between East and West and the downsizing of the Pentagon now meant that a senior officer was always on call, but the day-to-day administrative work was handled by captains and colonels. It could have been worse, Rosselli thought. At least he knew what it was to have lots of nuclear weapons at his disposal.
"What the fuck is going on?" Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Barnes asked the wall. He knew that Rosselli didn't know.
"Rocky, can we save that for another time?" Rosselli asked calmly. His voice was dead-level. One might never have known from looking at or listening to the captain that he was excited, but the former submarine commander's hands were so moist that by rubbing them on his trousers he'd already created a damp spot that their navy-blue color made invisible.
"You got it, Jim."
"Call General Wilkes, let's get him in here."
"Right." Barnes punched a button on the secure phone, calling Brigadier General Paul Wilkes, a former bomber pilot who lived in official housing on Boiling Air Force Base, just across the Potomac from National Airport.
"Yeah," Wilkes said gruffly.
"Barnes here, sir. We need you in the NMCC immediately." That was all the colonel had to say. "Immediately' is a word that has special meaning for an aviator.
"On the way." Wilkes hung up and muttered further: "Thank God for four-wheel-drive." He struggled into an olive-drab winter parka and headed out the door without bothering with boots. His personal car was a Toyota Land Cruiser that he liked for driving the back country. It started at once, and he backed out, struggling across roads not yet plowed.
The Presidential Crisis Room at Camp David was an anachronistic leftover from the bad old days,