The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

'Those are the trucks they use to transport the missiles. They also have all the
tools you use to work on them. There's one truck per bird – actually more than
one. It's a big semi-truck, like a hook 'n' ladder truck, actually, with storage
bins built in for all the tools and stuff – Jim, they look like they pulled the
shroud – yeah! There are the warheads, it's lit up, and they're doing something
to the RVs . . . I wonder what?'
Fowler nearly exploded. It was like listening to a football game on the radio,
and – 'What does all this mean!'
'Sir, we can't tell . . . coming up to Uzhur now. Not much activity, Uzhur has
the new mark of the -18, the Mod 5 . . . no trucks, I can see sentries again. Mr
President, I would estimate that we have more than the usual number of sentries
around. Gladkaya next . . . that'll take a couple of minutes . . .
'Why are the trucks there?' Fowler asked.
'Sir, all I can say is that they appear to be working on the birds.'
'God damn it! Doing what!' Fowler screamed into the speaker phone.
The reply was very different from the cool voice of a few minutes earlier. 'Sir,
there's no way we can tell that.'
'Then tell me what you do know!'
'Mr President, as I already said, these missiles are old ones, they're
maintenance-intensive, and they were scheduled for destruction, but they're
overdue for that. We observed increased site security at all three SS-18
regiments, but at Alyesk every bird we saw had a truck and a maintenance crew
there, and the silos were all open. That's all we can tell from these pictures,
sir.'
'Mr President,' General Borstein said, 'Major Costello has told you everything
he can.'
'General, you told me that we'd get something useful from this. What did we
get?'
'Sir, it may be significant that there's all that work going on at Alyesk.'
'But you don't know what the work is!'
'No, sir, we don't,' Borstein admitted rather sheepishly.
'Could they be readying those missiles for launch?'
'Yes, sir, that is a possibility.'
'My God.'
'Robert,' the National Security Advisor said, 'I am getting very frightened.'
'Elizabeth, we don't have time for this.' Fowler collected himself. 'We must
maintain control of ourselves, and control the situation. We must. We must
convince Narmonov – '
'Robert, don't you see! It's not him! That's the only thing that makes sense. We
don't know who we're dealing with!'
'What can we do about it?'
'I don't know!'
'Well, whoever it is, they don't want a nuclear war. Nobody would. It's too
crazy,' the President assured her, sounding almost like a parent.
'Are you sure of that? Robert, are you really sure? They tried to kill us!'
'Even if that's true, we have to set it aside.'
'But we can't. If they were willing to try once, they will be willing to try