Red Hammer 1994

“We’re going to be on the bottom for a while, XO, pass the word to relax GQ. In a couple hours, we’ll switch to port and starboard, so the crew can get some rest and chow. I want an all-officer’s meeting in the wardroom in twenty minutes. That includes the chief engineer. I’ll be in my stateroom.” Jackson turned slowly to head aft. He felt drained and overwhelmed. He needed privacy to regroup and plot Michigan’s next move.

Halfway to his stateroom, another shock wave hammered Michigan’s hull. “Bastards,” he cursed, grabbing anything to steady himself. “Fucking bastards.” He knew that each explosion pounding the boat intensified the rage and thirst for revenge boiling up in the crew. He swore he would get free and launch his load of missiles if it was the last thing he would ever do.

CHAPTER 19

The bone-weary watch commander, hammered by bad news, strained to decipher a damage assessment over a voice circuit flooded with white noise. Fifteen short minutes had aged the man. He grimaced as the news confirmed what the constellation of sensitive nuclear-detonation sensors floating in space had already reported. The United States was being systematically pummeled by scores of Russian submarine-launched nuclear bombs. The knockout blow, the fast approaching Russian ICBM reentry vehicles, which streaked through space, were only minutes away.

Thomas, Alexander, and the chairman were transfixed on the animated strategic plot, numbed by the scores of miniature red triangles poised to strike. The entire ten-by-fifteen-foot screen was flooded with nothing but hostile symbols. Speed leaders pointed directly at their intended targets. Well into their trajectories, any idiot could predict the aim points. It was like helplessly watching someone slowly strangle the life out of you. Thomas couldn’t banish the thought that the Russians had recklessly thrown the nuclear dice and rolled a seven.

“The first Peacekeeper should be fired momentarily,” said someone off to the side.

“It’s about time,” said the chairman excitedly, energized to life. The time remaining to impact for the first Russian ICBM was a tad over three minutes. The Americans’ survivable launch window was about to slam shut. “God, get them off,” the army general mumbled. It now boiled down to them or us, with no middle ground.

In scattered launch control centers, buried hundreds of feet beneath the prairie, the doomsday message had been duly received. Disciplined young men and women, most in their early to mid-twenties, methodically worked through checklists stamped into their brains, fighting emotions. Undeterred, they pressed on, despite the subconscious notion that they might have only a handful of minutes to live.

The two-person air force crews turned their brightly colored keys in unison. No power on earth could stop them now. One by one, squadron by squadron, US ICBMs blasted from their silos, rocket motors blazing against a late-afternoon bright blue sky. The well-rehearsed process took less than two minutes; the missiles staggered in time to avoid mutual interference at the business end of their journeys. All escaped the approaching Russian bombs—the stragglers were already dropping first stages when the lead Russian RV detonated in faraway North Dakota. That 600 kiloton nuclear explosion was followed by nearly one thousand others, tearing at the black earth, gouging hideous craters, and spawning blackish-gray clouds of radioactive dust and debris, which billowed toward the heavens, turning a beautiful summer day into a living hell.

“They all got out,” sighed the chairman. He collapsed in a nearby straight-backed chair. It had been close. Nuclear detonations blossomed on the screen by the hundreds, peppering the northern perimeter of the country, then spreading south, a plague on the land. But out of the electronic chaos, scores of small blue symbols arched skyward through the mass of red and began their journey northward to answer the Russian onslaught. It was Ivan’s turn now. In thirty minutes, Mother Russia would feel the full fury of Strategic Command.

Behind the scenes, the watch commander orchestrated his troops, moving from console to console. A message over his headset interrupted his rounds. “Mr. Secretary, the president has arrived,” he announced.

Alexander nodded. “Upstairs,” he ordered the others.