The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

millions more to launch into orbit. When more than five amplifiers recorded
spikes, the software automatically began shutting circuits down, lest possibly
serious damage to the entire satellite result. When twenty or more were
affected, the software took the further step of deactivating all onboard
circuits, and next firing off an emergency signal to its command ground station
to say that something very serious had just happened. The safety software on the
satellites were all customized variations of a single, very conservative program
designed to safeguard billions of dollars' worth of nearly irreplaceable assets.
In a brief flicker of time, a sizable fraction of the world's satellite
communications dropped out of existence. Cable television and telecommunications
systems all ceased, even before the technicians who managed their operations
knew that something had gone disastrously wrong.
***
Pete Dawkins was resting for a moment. He thought of it as protecting the
armored truck. The Wells Fargo guard was off delivering another few hundred
pounds of quarters, and the police officer was sitting, his back against the
shelves full of coin bags, listening to his radio. The Chargers were coming up
to the line for a third-and-five at the Vikings' forty-seven. At that moment,
the darkening sky outside turned incandescent yellow, then red -not the
friendly, gentle red of a sunset, but a searing violet that was far brighter
than that color could possibly have been. His mind barely had time to register
that fact when it was assaulted by a million other things at once. The earth
rose beneath him. The armored car was tossed up and sideways like a toy kicked
by a child. The open rear door was slammed shut as if struck by a cannon. The
body of the truck sheltered him from the shockwave – as did the body of the
stadium , though Dawkins had not the time to realize it. Even so, he was nearly
blinded by the flash that did reach him, and deafened by the overpressure wave
that swept across him like the crushing hand of a giant. Had Dawkins been less
disoriented, he might have thought earthquake, but even that idea did not occur
to him. Survival did. The noise had not stopped, nor had the shaking, when he
realized that he was trapped inside a vehicle whose fuel tank contained perhaps
as much as fifty gallons of gasoline. He blinked his eyes clear and started
crawling out the shattered windshield towards the brightest spot he could see.
He did not notice that the backs of his hands looked worse than any sunburn he'd
ever had. He did not realize that he could not hear a thing. All he cared about
was getting to the light.
***
Outside Moscow, in a bunker under sixty meters of concrete, is the national
headquarters of Voyska PVO, the Soviet air-defense service. A new facility, it
was designed much like its Western counterparts in the form of a theater, since
this configuration allowed the maximum number of people to see the data
displayed on the large wall that was required for the map displays which were
needed for their duties. It was 03:00:13 local time, according to the digital
clock over the display, 00:00:13 Zulu (Greenwich Mean) Time, 19:00:13 in
Washington, D.C.
On duty was Lieutenant General Ivan Grigoriyevich Kuropatkin, a former – he
would have said 'current' – fighter pilot, now fifty-one years of age. The