CHAPTER 14: The Present

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CAMP ROWE

Turcotte returned Captain Manning's salute. The Space Command team had loaded all their gear in one of the cargo bays near the front of the mothership. The dozen men were stowing equipment and performing last-minute checks to make sure they had everything they would need. There were numerous pallets of equipment scattered throughout the bay.

"Are you ready?" Turcotte asked Manning.

"Yes, sir. We had everything packaged on pallets. We flew it here on a C-17 and just rolled it all in here."

Turcotte noted several containers marked with an atomic symbol. "Nuclear warheads?"

Manning nodded. "Yes, sir. Ten tac nukes loaded into Tomahawk cruise missiles."

"What if the target is shielded?" Yakov asked.

Manning shrugged. "Maybe they'll have to turn off the shield when they turn the array on. If so, we might be able to drop one of these in during that window of opportunity."

"That's not good enough," Turcotte said. "I don't think it's going to take them very long to get a message out. If we destroy it after a message is sent, we're wasting our time."

"That's the best I've got, sir."

"That's why we're waiting on this Professor Leahy." Turcotte checked his watch. "He ought to be here any minute."

Manning indicated a large medical device with a table extended in front of it. "We need to MRI you in order to prepare your SARA link."

Turcotte wasn't thrilled with the idea of using the SARA links, but Manning had insisted that they had found it to be perfectly safe and it would allow them to use the suits to their maximum capability. He reluctantly climbed onto the table as Yakov and Manning stood on either side.

"Try to remain perfectly still," Manning said. "This will only take a few minutes." He hit a button and the table slid into the machine.

Turcotte fought the feeling of claustrophobia. He closed his eyes and forced his breathing back to a normal cadence as the machine made strange noises. He was sure it was more than just a few minutes before the table vibrated and slid him out of the machine. He swung his legs down to the ground. Manning was standing next to a small laptop, looking at the display with one of his men and Yakov.

"Do I still have a brain?" Turcotte asked as he walked over. He sensed something wrong in the way both men were leaning over the screen, staring at it.

"You've got a brain," Manning said. He touched the screen, indicating a small round black spot. "You also have something implanted in it."

 

 

WAR ROOM, PENTAGON

Three hundred fifty feet below the lowest level of the Pentagon proper was the Joint Chiefs of Staff's National Military Command Center, commonly called the war room by those who worked there. It had been placed inside a large cavern carved out of solid bedrock. It was ten times larger and over three times deeper than the LCC Aspasia's Shadow had been inside of in Louisiana, but it was designed along the same principles. The complex could only be entered via one secure elevator and the entire thing was mounted on massive springs on the cavern floor. There were enough food and supplies in the war room for the emergency crew to operate for a year. Besides the lines that went up through the Pentagon's own communications system, a narrow tunnel holding cables had been laboriously dug at the same depth to the alternate National Command Post at Blue Mountain in West Virginia.

When it was built in the early sixties, the war room had been designed to survive a nuclear first strike. The advances in both targeting and warhead technology over the subsequent three decades had made that design obsolete. There was no doubt in the minds of anyone who worked in the war room that the room was high on the list of Russian and Chinese nuclear targeting and that it would be gone very shortly after any nuclear exchange. Because of that, it had been turned into the operations center for the Pentagon.

Since the start of the Third World War, the war room had been fully staffed and it was still operating at nearly peak level. The main room of the war room was semicircular. On the front, flat wall, there was a large imagery display board, over thirty feet wide by twenty high. Any projection or scene that could be piped into the war room could be displayed on this board, from a video of a new weapons system, to a map of the world showing the current status of US forces, to a real-time downlink from an orbiting spy satellite.

The floor of the room sloped from the rear down to the front so that each row of computer and communication consoles could be overseen from the row behind. At the very back of the room, along the curved wall, a three-foot-high railing separated the command and control section where the Joint Chiefs and other high-ranking officers had their desks. Supply, kitchen, and sleeping areas were off the right rear of the room, in a separate cavern. The war room had had its first taste of action during the Gulf War, when it had operated full-time, coordinating the multinational forces in the Gulf.

The elevator in the left rear opened and the president's national security adviser, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff strode into room.

"What the hell is going on?" the national security adviser demanded as they walked to the center desk and stood behind it.

"Give me a status report," the chairman of the JCS ordered, ignoring the adviser for the moment.

The senior duty officer, a full colonel, turned. "We've got a red, level-four serious incident, sir. Final Option Missile has been launched without authorization."

"Go through MILSTAR and get ahold of the Final Option Missile LCC to determine status and gain positive control," the chairman ordered.

The duty officer shook his head. "We've tried, sir. Someone's overridden an external link. Barksdale Wing Command can't get ahold of it on land line either. They're sending a reaction force out to the site. Final Option Missile's MILSTAR link is locked into its LCC computer and we have no contact with it."

"Who's in the Final Option Missile LCC?" the chairman demanded. "The crew?"

"We don't know, sir." The colonel cleared his throat. "Maybe no one. Space Command is not only tracking Final Option Missile in orbit, but also picked up an alien spacecraft at the LCC and now on its way into orbit."

"'An alien spacecraft'?" the chairman repeated. "What kind and from where?"

"We've got a report from Area 51 that Aspasia's Shadow has control of one of the Talons that was on the second

mothership. Space Command lost track of it somewhere over Texas. The signature of the craft lifting from the LCC vicinity fits the profile for a Talon. I've got a message to the Area 51 people to find out if it might be one of theirs, but it's hard getting through to them since they've relocated to North Carolina."

"Good Lord," the chairman muttered as the implications of Final Option being in the wrong hands sank in.

"Will someone please tell me exactly what the Final Option Missile is?" the national security adviser demanded. "Obviously something I haven't been briefed on yet."

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs turned to the civilian. "Final Option Missile is a special payload loaded into a Minuteman ICBM. Final Option is the code name for what we used to call the Emergency Rocket Communication System."

The national security adviser held up his hands. "General, since I don't have a clue what you're talking about, why don't you tell me what the hell is going on in plain English?"

The chairman took a second to collect his thoughts. "Final Option Missile can communicate through MILSTAR with every nuclear launch platform this country has. Subs, missile launch facilities; it can even scramble strategic bombers and get them in the air."

"What?"

"Final Option Missile is an automated command and control system that can alert, specify targeting matrices, and actually send an emergency action message — EAM — to launch any nuclear system our military has."

"You're joking."

"No, sir, I wish I was."

"Why did someone design something like that?" the national security adviser demanded. "Only the president can order a launch — not a machine."

"That's why we call it the Final Option." The general's face was stone. "FOM was designed to be used if every other normal mode of communication was knocked out and the president can't issue the orders or if the National Command Authority is wiped out. It's the last-gasp means by which the National Command Authority can transmit an order so that launch codes and target matrices can get to America's nuclear forces if all other communication means are destroyed. FOM is basically a last-ditch device and a deterrent."

"Deterrent to what?"

"To keep someone from thinking - they can wipe out our leadership in one strike and we couldn't strike back. There's even an automated system in Final Option designed around sensors that if a negative code isn't transmitted from this war room, Space Command, the White House, Air Force One, or another classified location every day, it begins a countdown to launch. Thus if someone does wipe all those locations out — which basically means there is no leadership left in this country, Final Option will launch and transmit a target matrix and launch authorization for whatever nuclear platforms have survived."

"That's insane."

"No, sir, that's the reality of deterrence."

The security adviser rubbed his forehead. "OK, so this thing has been launched and it appears by Aspasia's Shadow. But we can still communicate with all our launch platforms also, can't we? Our National Command Authority hasn't been wiped out. We can still transmit this negative code, correct?"

"That's true, sir, but —"

"Then get on the radio and tell all launch platforms to ignore any orders from Final Option Missile. And transmit this negative code."

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs began to show some emotion as he ran a nervous hand across his chin. "It doesn't work that way. The point of all our training is for the crew never to ignore an emergency action launch order from a valid source. Final Option Missile is a valid source. In fact, it is the ultimate and final valid source. Did you ever see the movie Fail Safe?"

"Yes."

The general continued. "Just like in the movie, any launch officer, pilot, or sub commander will believe Final Option Missile before they believe us. They would ignore even a direct order from their commander in chief, as Final Option actually has a higher authorization code. And a launch code supersedes a negative code."

"Bull," the adviser snapped. "If we get the president on the horn, he'll stop this in its tracks."

"No, sir, he won't be able to."

"Why don't you just jam the damn thing then?"

The general spoke slowly. "The system in the payload consists of two parts: a sophisticated computer and a powerful transmitter. The computer holds all — and I mean all — the nuclear launch codes, targeting matrices and authorizations, while the transmitter on launch becomes part of MILSTAR, a high-tech, frequency-jumping, secure global satellite network by which those codes and matrices are sent. It cannot be aborted or jammed by anyone else. That's the way we designed the thing in order for it to be secure from enemy jamming.

"The computer that runs everything, the Final Option Command Matrix Targeting and Execution computer, was developed to be totally self-sufficient for each nuclear weapon. Whoever has the proper code word for it has complete control and can't be superseded by anyone else even if they have their own launch computer. In fact, once a target matrix and authorization is transmitted by Final Option there is only one way it can be stopped — by Final Option itself transmitting the stop codes to each individual launch platform. No other source can stop an FOM launch.

"We have to assume that Aspasia's Shadow has control of the Final Option Missile and the onboard computer. Therefore, in essence, he has his finger on the button of this country's entire nuclear arsenal."

"Why is he doing this?" the national security adviser asked.

To that, there was no response.

"Can we shoot it down?" the national security adviser pressed.

"We can try," the chairman said, "but I doubt if we'll get it in time."

"What do you mean?"

"As I just said, once it transmits a target matrix the only thing that can stop the launches is the same transmit source — i.e. the only way to stop a Final Option launch is Final Option. If it transmits before we shoot it down, then we're destroying our only means of stopping any launches it's ordered."

"Just great," the national security adviser muttered. "What genius thought this up?"

"Our only hope is to seize computer control back," the chairman said.

"And how do we do that?"

"Ordinarily it would mean regaining control of the LCC for Final Option, but since this Talon has taken off, I have to assume they've made computer control mobile."

A voice near the front of the war room called out. "Sir, we've got a signal coming in. It's Aspasia's Shadow."

 

 

CAMP ROWE

"What does it do?" Turcotte demanded. He felt sick to his stomach, staring at the small object on the screen. Now he knew what the cause of his recent headache had been, but more importantly: What had the thing been doing before that? Manning had put him back in the MRI to take more images, focusing on the small round object they'd discovered. It was about a quarter inch in diameter and located in the rear of his brain, just above the stem.

"I don't know," Manning said. "I've never seen anything like it." The image displayed was magnified ten times normal size. He traced a line coming out of the object going toward the top, forward part of the brain. "This is a very thin, almost microscopic wire, much like our SARA link uses. It's running into this part of your brain."

"And what does that part of my brain do?" Turcotte asked.

"It's in your cerebrum." Manning typed a command into the computer and an overlay of the brain came up. "It's going right into the border between the area that has your memories and the part where psychologists think emotion resides."

"So this thing could be messing with my memories and what I'm feeling?" Turcotte asked.

"I don't know," Manning said. "It doesn't appear to be doing anything right now. Maybe it's just a recorder."

Turcotte tried to remember when the orb could have been implanted, then he felt a sharp stab of fear — he couldn't necessarily trust his memories. Whoever had done this to him had most likely covered up the event. The fear grew worse. Was he who he thought he was? He tried to think through the fog of confusion and anxiety. "We haven't seen this before" — he turned to Yakov — "have you?"

The Russian shook his head. "Nothing like this." He stroked his chin. "It is not the way Aspasia's Shadow operated — he used either Guides imprinted by a guardian or the nanovirus. The Ones Who Wait are clones. So —"

"So this is something new," Turcotte summarized. "What about Majestic? They were working on that EDOM stuff at Dulce. Could they have done this to me when I reported for security duty there? I don't remember anything like that, but if this messes with memories, then maybe they wiped out my memory of it?"

"But you destroyed Majestic," Yakov noted. "I don't think —"

He was interrupted by the appearance of Major Quinn in the entrance to the cargo bay. From the look on the major's face, Turcotte knew more bad news was forthcoming.

"Aspasia's Shadow has shown up."

"Where?" Turcotte demanded. He realized he was rubbing the back of his head, and forced his hand back to his side.

"He infiltrated a launch control center at Barksdale Air Force Base."

"What did he launch?" Turcotte asked.

"Final Option Missile."

"That just doesn't sound good," Turcotte said.

Quinn quickly briefed him and Yakov on what the Final Option Missile was. By the time he was done, Turcotte knew exactly what was going to happen next, but he let the major finish.

"He's contacted the Pentagon," Quinn said. "He's threatening to launch every nuke the US has, at a variety of targets blanketing the world. Given we have enough warheads to destroy the world a dozen times over, there's not going to be much left if he follows through."

"Unless we give him the mothership, correct?" Turcotte asked.

"Correct."

"Where is he now?"

"Space Command has tracked the Talon into orbit." "How about taking out the satellite?" Turcotte asked. Quinn quickly explained.

"So in other words we have to seize control back?" Turcotte summarized.

"Unless we can get to Final Option before he sends out a targeting matrix," Quinn said.

"Has our Tesla expert arrived yet?" Turcotte asked.

"Chopper's inbound, five minutes out."

"We can't wait. We're lifting now." Turcotte grabbed Quinn as the man turned to go. "Did Majestic use implants?"

"'Implants'?"

Turcotte tapped the back of his head. "Did they put something in my head?"

Quinn shook his head. "No, sir. I never heard of Majestic doing that to anybody. They used the EDOM device to mess with memories, but no implants."

"Great."

 

 

ORBIT

Aspasia's Shadow looked over Thayer's shoulder at the laptop screen. A map of the world was displayed. He pointed as he spoke.

"New York, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, Osaka-Kyoto, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, London, Moscow, Calcutta, Bombay, Seoul - scratch that last one" — he said with a laugh —"already taken care of. Let's see. Chicago, Lima, Paris, St. Petersburg, New Delhi, Tehran, Shanghai, Bangkok, Cairo."

As Aspasia's Shadow listed each city, Thayer moved the small pointer on the screen to the spot and clicked. A small red triangle appeared over each.

Aspasia's Shadow smiled. "Let's throw in Sydney, Athens, Baghdad, and Atlanta just for fun and an even twenty-five."

Thayer marked each of the additional cities. "All programmed into the target matrix for five nuclear warheads each."

"Send it."