The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [414]
"And they could do that with the Stealth fighters they put in Germany," Defense concluded the statement.
"Wait a minute. Are you telling me that Fowler blew up his own city as an excuse to attack us? What madness is this?" Now the Soviet president began to understand fear.
The Defense Minister spoke slowly and clearly. "Whoever detonated that weapon is beside the point. If Fowler begins to think that it was our doing, he has the ability to act against us. Comrade President, you must understand this: technically speaking, our country is on the edge of annihilation. Less than thirty minutes separate their land-based missiles from us. Twenty minutes for their sea-based ones, and as little as two hours from those goddamned invisible tactical bombers, which would be the most advantageous opening move. All that separates us from destruction is the mental state of President Fowler."
"I understand." The Soviet president was quiet for half a minute. He stared off at the status board on the far wall. When he spoke, his voice showed the anger that comes from fright. "What do you propose we should do - attack the Americans? I will not do such a thing."
"Of course not, but we would be well-advised to place our strategic forces on full alert. The Americans will take note of this, and realize that a disarming attack is not possible, and we can settle this affair down long enough for reason to take hold."
"Golovko?"
The First Deputy Chairman of the KGB shrank from the inquiry. "We know that they are at full alert status. It is possible that our doing the same will provoke them."
"If we do not, we present ourselves as a much more inviting target." The Defense Minister was inhumanly calm, perhaps the only man in the room who was fully in control of himself. "We know that the American president is under great stress, that he has lost many thousands of his citizens. He might lash out without thinking. He is much less likely to do so if he knows that we are in a position to respond in kind. We do not dare to show weakness at a time like this. Weakness always invites attack."
Narmonov looked around the room for a dissenting opinion. There was none. "Make it so," he told Defense.
"We still haven't heard anything from Denver," Fowler said, rubbing his eyes.
"I wouldn't expect much," General Borstein replied.
NORAD's command post is literally inside of a mountain. The entrance tunnel had a series of steel blast-doors. The structures inside were designed to survive anything that could be aimed at them. Shock-absorbing springs and bags of compressed air isolated the people and machines from the granite floors. Overhead were steel roofs to stop any rock fragments that might be blasted free by a near-miss. Borstein didn't expect to survive an attack. There was a whole regiment of Soviet SS-18 Mod 4s tasked to the destruction of this post and a few others. Instead of ten or more MIRVs, they carried a single twenty-five-megaton warhead whose only plausible military mission was to turn Cheyenne Mountain into Cheyenne Lake. That was a pleasant thought. Borstein was a fighter pilot by trade. He'd started off in the F-100, called the 'Hun,' by its drivers, graduated from there-to F-4 Phantoms, and commanded an F-15 squadron in Europe. He'd always been a tactical guy, stick and rudder, scarf and goggles: kick the tires, light the fires, first one up's the leader. Borstein frowned at the thought. Even he wasn't old enough to remember those days. His job was continental air defense, to keep people from blowing his country up. He'd failed. A nearby piece of America was blown up, along with his boss, and he didn't know why or how or who. Borstein was not a man accustomed to failure, but failure was