Red Hammer 1994

“There’s nothing I can say, Captain. We don’t know the details ourselves. A decision on your status is pending in London. You’ll have to sit tight, just like your aviators.” Banks surveyed the stunned group with studied concentration, cataloguing their reaction.

Rawlings stared unblinkingly at the retreating major, feeling completely helpless, emotion choking back any words.

“Good day.” He stepped away.

CHAPTER 30

General John McClain, the brash Commander-in-Chief, Strategic Command was at the end of his rope. Lying passively on his aluminum-frame cot, his penetrating gray eyes stared blankly at the olive-green canvas hanging loosely above. His thoughts were directed toward the fate of his brave bomber crews sent plunging into Russian airspace twenty-four hours earlier. Only a handful had reported in from locations scattered around the globe, some intact, some piles of useless junk. He gritted his smoke-yellowed teeth in frustration at his damned helplessness. His staff was scratching feverishly for any assets left in the depleted inventory that could reach the former Soviet Union. Even mothballed B-52Gs were being targeted for secret refurbishment at undisclosed sites in the Southwest. But they wouldn’t be ready for weeks, if then. He personally thought it a patently stupid idea, but it had the blessing of the reconstituted Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Meaningful search and rescue (SAR) missions for missing B-52H and B-1B crews were unthinkable. Widespread fallout, impossible distances, and thousands of Russian air-defense troops roaming the countryside made the effort a pipe dream. It burned his insides raw to realize he had no choice but to write those heroic young men off. He still hadn’t been able to piece together a worthwhile bomb-damage assessment of the strike results. It was still too early for the rolls of film from the high-speed cameras mounted in the bellies of the surviving bombers or the super-secret reconnaissance aircraft close on their heels. Even the normal flood of satellite data had slowed to a trickle. The ASAT threat had forced him to move his prized KH-11 and Lacrosse birds to high-altitude havens, degrading their sensitivity. The few pieces he did have were tantalizing. The fragments painted a picture of success. But without consistent, high-confidence intelligence, he was groping in the dark. His carefully stashed reserve forces had to be committed soon, or they’d most certainly be lost. It was only a question of time until the Russians found them.

To make matters worse, the new president was sticking his nose into McClain’s turf. He didn’t dispute the man’s constitutional legitimacy, only the questionable presumption that he possessed the requisite knowledge to juggle strategic war-fighting issues in the middle of an all-out war. McClain had willingly dedicated his entire adult life to just this purpose—to successfully prosecute a nuclear war—yet precious time was running through his fingers. The STRATCOM infrastructure was melting away under an unrelenting onslaught. Another two days, and it would be virtually impossible to launch any coordinated counterattacks. Repeated Russian ad-hoc strikes were taking a mounting toll, methodically shooting holes in McClain’s dwindling land-based forces. He sensed his men momentarily had the upper hand, despite a reserve force that favored the Russians. The ferocity of the US counterstroke had caught them unprepared, and US interceptors had shot the pants off of the lumbering Bear and supersonic Blackjack bombers. Only a handful had reached their intended targets in the United States.

The key for McClain was to act immediately to press this advantage while their enemy scrambled to regroup, in order to preserve the momentum gained by the sacrifice of countless lives. The ideal weapons for that particular mission were the navy’s Trident submarines safely burrowed in the seas, out of reach of the hapless Russian Navy. The Trident’s hundreds of hard-target-killing warheads could easily finish the job, but they were now denied to him by NCA fiat. A few of the devastating missiles had been fired early on, but the majority of the submarine skippers had been ordered to avoid detection at all costs. The president considered the Tridents his trump card, but McClain smelled Bob Thomas on that one.