The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

thirty minutes separate their land-based missiles from us. Twenty minutes for
their sea-based ones, and as little as two hours from those goddamned invisible
tactical bombers, which would be the most advantageous opening move. All that
separates us from destruction is the mental state of President Fowler.'
'I understand.' The Soviet president was quiet for half a minute. He stared off
at the status board on the far wall. When he spoke, his voice showed the anger
that comes from fright. 'What do you propose we should do, attack the Americans?
I will not do such a thing.'
'Of course not, but we would be well-advised to place our strategic forces on
full alert. The Americans will take note of this, and realize that a disarming
attack is not possible, and we can settle this affair down long enough for
reason to take hold.'
'Golovko?'
The First Deputy Chairman of the KGB shrank from the inquiry. 'We know that they
are at full alert status. It is possible that our doing the same will provoke
them.'
'If we do not, we present ourselves as a much more inviting target.' The Defense
Minister was inhumanly calm, perhaps the only man in the room who was fully in
control of himself. 'We know that the American president is under great stress,
that he has lost many thousands of his citizens. He might lash out without
thinking. He is much less likely to do so if he knows that we are in a position
to respond in kind. We do not dare to show weakness at a time like this.
Weakness always invites attack.'
Narmonov looked around the room for a dissenting opinion. There was none. 'Make
it so,' he told Defense.
***
'We still haven't heard anything from Denver,' Fowler said, rubbing his eyes.
'I wouldn't expect much,' General Borstein replied.
NORAD's command post is literally inside of a mountain. The entrance tunnel had
a series of steel blast-doors. The structures inside were designed to survive
anything that could be aimed at them. Shock-absorbing springs and bags of
compressed air isolated the people and machines from the granite floors.
Overhead were steel roofs to stop any rock fragments that might be blasted free
by a near miss. Borstein didn't expect to survive an attack. There was a whole
regiment of Soviet SS-18 Mod 4s tasked to the destruction of this post and a few
others. Instead of ten or more MIRVS, they carried a single twenty-five-megaton
warhead whose only plausible military mission was to turn Cheyenne Mountain into
Cheyenne Lake. That was a pleasant thought. Borstein was a fighter pilot by
trade. He'd started off in the F-100, called the 'Hun,' by its drivers,
graduated from there to F-4 Phantoms, and commanded an F-15 squadron in Europe.
He'd always been a tactical guy, stick and rudder, scarf and goggles: kick the
tires, light the fires, first one up's the leader. Borstein frowned at the
thought. Even he wasn't old enough to remember those days. His job was
continental air defense, to keep people from blowing his country up. He'd
failed. A nearby piece of America was blown up, along with his boss, and he
didn't know why or how or who. Borstein was not a man accustomed to failure, but
failure was what he saw on his map display.