President Mayne’s idea of going to Camp David was, as his press aide Paul Trainor knew, militarily unwise. The shelter there wasn’t as good as that below the White House, and it was farther from Andrews, where, in the event of a “nuclear exchange,” the president would need to go to board NEACP—”Kneecap,”—the national emergency airborne command plane. But politically, the president going to Camp David was a smart ploy. All three evening news networks— despite the lead stories of deepening gloom about the possible escalation of the war in Europe because of “the Korean situation”—showed the president smiling, confident, even relaxed, waving, as he stepped aboard the presidential chopper on the south lawn, heading off to spend the weekend at Camp David. Another bevy of television reporters was on hand to watch him being piped aboard Camp David, it being a naval establishment — the cameras still showing Mayne smiling. Above all, from the moment he left the White House, alighted from the chopper, and entered the bulletproof limousine which soon eased to a stop in front of the Aspen Lodge, he conveyed the impression that the president and commander in chief of the United States had matters firmly in hand.
If things were bad, Mayne had never seen any point in making them seem worse — especially to the public. Accordingly he had insisted that the air force colonel who shadowed him as custodian of the “football”—the black vinyl briefcase containing the nuclear war codes, should it come to that — must not be in service uniform but rather in civvies and should not get out of the limousine until the press were well out of the way.
They had been in the lodge for only two minutes when the phone rang, CNO Admiral Horton informing the president that following the chemical weapons/A-shell “exchange” in Korea, two long-range E-6As — early-warning radar dome aircraft — had already been dispatched, one from the naval air station at Patuxent, Maryland, the other out of Reykjavik, Iceland. The planes were trying to make contact with two Hunter/Killer Sea Wolfs. Neither sub had “clocked in” to SACLANT either at Northwood, England, or Norfolk in the United States, and were presumed either sunk or in deep hiding, lying in wait for Soviet subs in the deeps between the spurs in the undersea mountains running off from the global spine of the Atlantic Ridge.
The plane out of Patuxent, Maryland was concentrating on the HUK Vermont’s last reported position; the E-6A out of Iceland was trailing its five-mile-long VLF wire antenna, attempting to contact the Roosevelt, which, following the sabotaging of the Wisconsin sub “signal farm,” could not be reached and, it was thought, might be hiding somewhere near or in the Spitzbergen Trench.
Approaching the cyclone-fenced compound of Romeo 5A, one of the underground launch control silos in Wyoming, Melissa Lange had two shifts to go before she would take a week’s holiday, and she was keen to complete the next twenty-four-hour-shift as efficiently as possible.
Looking smart in her striking blue uniform with red cravat, she scanned the slip of paper containing the day’s entry code, placed it in the “burn” slot, where it became instant gray ash, then she entered the carpeted elevator, descending sixty feet.
After punching in the code, she waited for the eight-ton blast door to open. Inside, she saw that her crew partner, Shirley Cochrane, was already readying herself for the shift, pushing her long brunette hair up into a tight, rather severe bun so that it wouldn’t get in the way of any of the silo’s console switches. Melissa stepped out of the way of the two crew members who were coming off shift. Everything was cordial as usual. Cantankerous types weren’t suited for “Ground Zero,” “Bullseye,” or “The First Good-bye,” as the silos were unofficially referred to. You had to be able to get on with people. Of course, there was always the danger of someone becoming distressed because of personal pressures, such as that Melissa was undergoing, rethinking Rick Stacy’s marriage proposal after he’d found her and Killerton having it off in the bungalow. Stacy had “forgiven” her, which made Melissa madder than if he’d gone berserk. It was supposed to be nobler on his part, she guessed, showing how “controlled,” how “civilized,” he was — the kind of cool that had got his promotion to SAC headquarters down in Omaha. But his lack of anger angered her and made her feel even guiltier for the sudden, uncontrollable passion she’d given way to as “Killerton” had wordlessly stridden over from where he’d been fixing the leak, switched off the TV, and quite literally lifted her off her feet, holding her hard up against the bungalow wall, she trying to fight him off until the moment she felt him penetrating her and she yielded — telling herself it was rape, that she had no option. Yet only seconds later, she gasped with sheer pleasure, urging him on. For several moments at a time, he’d pause, fondling her breasts, suckling them with a tenderness so at odds with the brutal fullness of his entry.
Despite the guilt that at times would sweep over her in drowning waves, Melissa was confident she could keep the lid on any personal pressures during the twenty-four-hour shift. If you didn’t, you’d be on report — and if you ever did “freak out,” your partner’s side arm would take care of it.
As Romeo 5A’s other shift handed over the two keys, Melissa tried to put Rick out of her mind. The green strategic alert light was already on, and her concentration would have to be total when she and her partner went through all the checks and double safety procedures. For every minute of the twenty-four-hour shift, there was the ever-present probability that one of the sixteen million possible war-order codes might well require them to launch Romeo’s cluster of ten ICBMs. Each of the ten missiles carried a three-warhead load of multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles or MIRVs. And each of the thirty warheads carried 335 kilotons. This meant that each of the thirty missiles from the Romeo silo cluster alone carried over twenty-two times the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
During a newsbreak on ABC, a reporter revealed that the military officer usually carrying the “football” had been in civilian clothes — fueling speculation that the change from military uniform to civvies signaled not a lessening of the world war tension but rather an attempt by the president to downplay an escalating crisis.
In response, press secretary Trainor stated there was “no special significance in this,” that “as you know, the president doesn’t stand on ceremony.”
No one believed him.
Over seven hundred miles southwest of Romeo complex, Rick Stacy, in Omaha, Nebraska, was en route to his monitor station, walking through the unimposing front office of SAC HQ.
Pausing to brush the snow off his fur-lined blue parka before passing the bust of General Curtis LeMay, Stacy waited as two bereted guards checked his ID, and only then escorted him down through the “no lone zone,” deep underground to the bank of TV monitors and consoles below SAC’s command balcony. Here Gen. Walter G. Carlisle sat in a dark, stained leather chair by the yellow phone with which he could order a massive SAC B-1 bomber attack, each aircraft carrying twenty-four ALCMs, each of the air launch cruise missiles dropping from the B-1s’ hard points armed with a two-hundred-kiloton warhead. SAC’s readiness, however, had been put in some doubt because of the base’s vulnerability to electromagnetic pulse in the event of a nuclear air burst above them. For this reason alone, the old prestige of SAC being the foremost defense arm of the United States had long since passed to the submarine fleet. It wasn’t only SAC HQ that would suffer an air burst “wipe-out” of all the electronics, including much of the vaunted sheathed circuits for hundreds of miles around. Soviet air bursts could also sever the vital connection to NORAD control deep in Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain.
Stacy and all other operators on duty in SAC had heard of the nerve gas/atomic shell exchanges in Korea and were especially alert. Their readiness was not evidenced in any kind of frenetic activity but, ironically, in a lower-keyed, gentler, and well-mannered approach. It was as if these “electronic warriors,” as General Carlisle had called them, were very conscious of being alive at a historic moment in the nation’s history as they studiously watched and monitored the six big screens in the soft blue light.
Stacy liked the whole ambience of the place, particularly the smell of Command Center. Apart from its generally calming atmosphere, it always had the pleasant odor of the old movie theaters he remembered as a kid — a polished leather upholstery smell. Normally staffed by eleven men situated beneath the balcony, SAC now had fifteen working the consoles. As Stacy took his position, message lights began streaming in on the blue screen beneath the big clocks marked “Omaha,” “Zulu,” “Washington,” and “Moscow.” The message informed them that communications were temporarily down in the Aleutians. General Carlisle did not issue any orders but waited calmly for the explanation. Was it atmospheric in nature or some kind of enemy jamming? Within five seconds the reason given was “ionospheric anomalies.” Carlisle asked one of the operators for the computed position of “Looking Glass,” the SAC battle command plane. It was reported to be at twenty-three thousand feet above Utah. Carlisle ordered it higher, twenty-six thousand feet, to hopefully get it out of the atmospheric interference.
Stacy was thinking about Melissa. He hoped they could work it out. He took a strange comfort knowing that if they couldn’t resolve their problems and she refused to marry him, he would in any case stay on in SAC’s HQ, the prime target of the Soviets in any nuclear war, more important even than Washington or New York, because it was a nerve center of America’s retaliatory capability. If he died, she’d be sorry. He knew it was childish, but nevertheless it made him feel heroic. More lights signaled a new incoming message.
In Romeo 5A, Melissa and Shirley, checking procedures, were interrupted by incoming letter-for-letter code in groups of five. Both of them buckled up in their high-backed, red-upholstered chairs and slid forward on the glide rails.
“Hands on keys,” ordered Melissa. “Key them on my mark.” “Three — two — one — mark!” Both she and Shirley Cochrane watched the long white second hand sweep around to 2105 hours.
“Light on,” confirmed Shirley. “Light off.”
Another ten seconds passed.
“Hands on keys,” instructed Melissa.
“Hands on keys,” came Cochrane’s confirmation.
“Initiate on my mark,” said Melissa. “Five, four, three, two, one. Now. I’ll watch the clock.”
“I’ve got the light,” said Shirley. “Light on. Light off.”
“Release key,” ordered Melissa.
“Key released.”
Now they waited, their one-crew key-turn having initiated only one vote in the launch process. They needed another which would take the litany further. Melissa prayed it was another drill, waiting for the ILC — inhibit launch command— to be activated instead of the word/numeral/word sequence that would give them a “valid” message, taking them closer to “The First Good-bye.”