The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'At least four commercial satellites appear to be down. That includes a Telstar,
an Intelsat, and a Hughes bird. They're all down, sir.'
That notification caused CINC-SAC to turn. 'What else can you tell me?'
'Sir, NORAD reports that the explosion was in the Denver metropolitan area, very
close to the Skydome where they were playing the Superbowl. SecState and SecDef
were both at the game, sir.'
'Christ, you're right,' CINC-SAC realized instantly.
***
At Andrews Air Force Base, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post – NEACP,
pronounced 'Kneecap' – was positioned on the ramp with two of its four engines
turning, waiting for someone to arrive so that the crew could take off.
***
Captain Jim Rosselli had barely been on duty for an hour when this nightmare
arrived. He sat in the NMCC Crisis Management Room, wishing a flag officer was
here. That was not to be. While there had once been a General or Admiral in the
National Military Command Center at all times, the thaw between East and West
and the downsizing of the Pentagon now meant that a senior officer was always on
call, but the day-to-day administrative work was handled by captains and
colonels. It could have been worse, Rosselli thought. At least he knew what it
was to have lots of nuclear weapons at his disposal.
'What the fuck is going on?' Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Barnes asked the wall.
He knew that Rosselli didn't know.
'Rocky, can we save that for another time?' Rosselli asked calmly. His voice was
dead-level. One might never have known from looking at or listening to the
captain that he was excited, but the former submarine commander's hands were so
moist that by rubbing them on his trousers he'd already created a damp spot that
their navy-blue color made invisible.
'You got it, Jim.'
'Call General Wilkes, let's get him in here.'
'Right.' Barnes punched a button on the secure phone, calling Brigadier General
Paul Wilkes, a former bomber pilot who lived in official housing on Bolling Air
Force Base, just across the Potomac from National Airport.
'Yeah,' Wilkes said gruffly.
'Barnes here, sir. We need you in the NMCC immediately.' That was all the
colonel had to say. 'Immediately' is a word that has special meaning for an
aviator.
'On the way.' Wilkes hung up and muttered further: 'Thank God for
four-wheel-drive.' He struggled into an olive-drab winter parka and headed out
the door without bothering with boots. His personal car was a Toyota Land
Cruiser that he liked for driving the back country. It started at once, and he
backed out, struggling across roads not yet plowed.
***
The Presidential Crisis Room at Camp David was an anachronistic leftover from
the bad old days, or so Bob Fowler had thought on first seeing it over a year
before. Constructed during the Eisenhower Administration, it had been designed
to resist nuclear attack in an age when the accuracy of a missile was measured
in miles rather than yards. Blasted into the living granite rock of the Catoctin