The Seventh Angel - Страница 33

The removal of the larger cone revealed seven smaller cones, the narrow ends of which were pointed into the line of flight, toward their ever-nearing targets. Each of the seven cones was a reentry vehicle, wrapped in a carbon fiber heat shield impregnated with phenolic resin. Four of the reentry vehicles were decoys. The other three were Soviet-built 200 kiloton nuclear weapons. To all external appearances, the decoys and the real warheads were identical.

At a precisely-timed instant, another relay tripped, and another tiny explosive charge fired. The first of the reentry vehicles was shoved away from the bus, its nose pointed downward in the direction of the trajectory that it would follow into the atmosphere and then to its target.

As soon as the deployed reentry vehicle was clear, the computer in the warhead bus fired two of its four liquid fueled rocket engines for six-tenths of a second. The short burn was enough to displace the bus slightly to the north, placing it in perfect alignment for the deployment of the second reentry vehicle.

Over the next ninety-eight seconds, the process was repeated and then repeated again, until all seven reentry vehicles had been deployed. When the last warhead was on its way, the bus performed a final burn of its rocket engines, aligning itself for its own terminal trajectory into the earth’s atmosphere. Four hundred kilometers below, the planet rushed up to meet it.

CHAPTER 25

EMERGENCY ALERT SYSTEM

WESTERN UNITED STATES

SATURDAY; 02 MARCH

3:23 PM PST

At 3:23 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on the 2nd of March, the Emergency Alert System transmitted warnings of inbound nuclear weapons to all areas of the United States within the target footprint of the Russian R-29R missile. The alert area encompassed most of California, the lower 75 percent of Nevada and Utah, the upper half of Arizona, the northwest corner of New Mexico, the western half of Colorado along a curving line, and a sliver of the southwest corner of Wyoming.

Every AM, FM, and satellite radio station within those states suddenly found its scheduled broadcast preempted by a raucous two-tone attention signal, followed by the baritone voice of a Federal spokesman, warning of the possible approach of multiple nuclear warheads. “Seek shelter immediately,” the strange voice advised. “Get off the roads as quickly and safely as you can. Do not attempt to evacuate. You are safest inside a building. Stay away from windows if possible, and avoid looking toward the sky until the all-clear signal is given. Parents are advised to account for all children immediately, and move them to the nearest available shelter.”

The voice continued to offer warnings and instructions.

The signal went out over television simultaneously, taking control of every cable network, every broadcast facility, and every satellite television provider in the target states. The two-tone attention signal was the same, and the voice of the Federal spokesman came out of the speakers of every operational television in the affected areas, regardless of what channel they happened to be tuned to.

The face of a human announcer might have been reassuring to the more panic-prone viewers, but every television screen showed the emblem of the Emergency Alert System: the letters E-A-S in bright red capitals against a radially-divided blue silhouette map of the United States.

The words of the spokesman scrolled across the bottom of the screen as subtitles, the text alternating between English and Spanish.

Although not required to by law, streaming internet radio stations picked up the alert signal and ran it as a live feed. Several major cellular telephone providers — also operating on a volunteer basis — sent text messages to every phone number in their client rosters, advising customers to get off the streets, take shelter, and locate a television or radio for further instructions.

Many of the inhabitants of the affected areas followed the advice provided by the Emergency Alert System. They rounded up their children and sought shelter in their homes, as far away from windows as they could manage. But a lot of people — too many — decided that the only real safety lay in getting as far away from cities and military bases as possible. They ran to their cars and raced for the nearest roads out of town.

* * *

EKV:

Three hundred kilometers above the earth, Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle #6 shifted into terminal guidance phase. Somewhere far below, the Lockheed Martin rocket that had boosted the kill vehicle into sub-orbital space was now tumbling back into the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

The EKV could not see its target. In point of fact, it had no awareness of the target’s existence. It knew nothing of lethal aim-point guidance, convergent trajectories, or even that it was hurtling toward its own destruction at more than 25,000 kilometers per hour. The EKV’s sole attention was focused on the beam of digital telemetry streaming up from the antennas at Vandenberg Air Force Base. It monitored the beam continuously, and reacted instantly to the maneuvering commands imbedded in the digital signal — firing pitch, roll, and yaw thrusters on command — making minute corrections to its own motion vectors to match the predicted position of a Russian warhead that it could never see.

The EKV carried no explosive. It was a hit-to-kill weapon, designed to destroy its target with the kinetic energy created by its tremendous speed, in much the same way that speed and inertia could transform the simple lead pellet of a rifle bullet into a lethally destructive projectile.

The timing was flawless. The microsecond clock in the kill vehicle’s digital brain clicked down to zero at the precise instant that the EKV reached its designated coordinates in space. The kill vehicle and the target warhead slammed into each other at a combined closure rate of more than 50,000 kilometers per hour. The resultant explosion was like the flare of a tiny sun, as the tremendous force of the impact was converted instantly to several hundred megajoules of raw heat.

EKV #6 and its unseen target were no more.

* * *

U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska:

Seen from the tracking screens of the Command and Control, Battle Management, and Communications Control Center of the United States Strategic Command, the destruction of EKV #6 and its target was considerably less dramatic. There were no brilliant flares or explosions, just a soft computer bleep, followed by three brief messages in the alert window:

...

> TELEMETRY LOST, EKV #6

> TRACK NOT CONTINUED, BALLISTIC TARGET “FOXTROT”

> SUCCESSFUL INTERCEPT PROBABILITY = 97.4 %

Air Force Major Lionel Humphrey read the lines of text and let out a shaky breath. It was working … It actually seemed to be working …

“Yeah!” one of the console operators exclaimed. “Oh yeah! I think it’s gonna …”

“Shut up!” Lionel snapped. His voice was overloud in the quiet of the control room. “Don’t jinx it,” he said in a softer tone. “Just shut the hell up … and let it happen.”

* * *

Interstate 8 (San Diego, California):

The unofficial and un-recommended evacuation of San Diego began within minutes of the first emergency alert bulletin. The word tore through the city like wildfire. San Diego was a prime military target: the aircraft carriers at North Island … the amphibious warfare base on Coronado … the warships at 32 Street Naval Station … the submarine base at Point Loma. Any enemy who wanted to cripple the U.S. would nuke San Diego with the very first barrage of missiles.

It seemed like good logic. And in the pressure cooker of a city succumbing to terror, the idea morphed from educated guess to solid fact in the space of mere minutes. Suddenly, the word was everywhere … San Diego was a confirmed target. The only way to survive was to get out of the city NOW! People jumped in their cars and ran for the freeways like lemmings.

The first casualties were from a pileup on Interstate 8, near the Grossmont Boulevard exit — the inevitable product of too many vehicles moving too quickly through too small an area.

Near the middle of the pack and rolling at eighty miles an hour, the driver of a white Ford pickup misjudged his following distance and slammed into the rear of a green Toyota minivan. With a crunch of buckling steel and collapsing plastic, the minivan careened to the left, smashing into the right front fender of a silver BMW Z8 convertible and slewing the sports car sideways into the side of a fourth vehicle.

Startled by the unexpected impact, and by the split-second shock of his driver-side airbag ballooning instantly into his face, the BMW driver snatched his foot away from the accelerator pedal, and stomped on the brakes. It was an utterly natural reaction. Given the same set of circumstances, a lot of drivers would have done precisely what he did. But it was exactly the wrong thing to do.

With that simple act of reflex, a multi-car fender-bender was transformed into a chain-reaction, propagating backward through the speeding lines of traffic as cars, trucks, motorcycles, and buses crashed blindly into the wall of suddenly stationary vehicles to their immediate front. And amidst the rending of metal and the shattering of glass, drivers and passengers were crushed and broken right along with their vehicles.

The Russian warheads had not even penetrated the atmosphere, and already American citizens were beginning to die.

* * *

Alaska Regional Hospital, Anchorage, Alaska:

Charlie Sweigart tapped gently on the door to Gabriella’s room, and then opened it enough to stick his head in. “Hello?”