Delta Green - страница 16
Physically, the NORAD center took up nearly five acres of space hollowed out of solid granite. Resting on a bed of steel springs intended to reduce the shock effects of a nuclear attack, the underground facilities were a rat-defying maze of corridors and compartments. Above ground was a heavily fortified antenna compound which gathered communication signals from all over the world. The Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), with its over-the-horizon radars, the Defense Early Warning System (DEWLine), a variety of spy and reconnaissance satellites in space, aircraft and listening posts around the world, and vessels at sea fed their intelligence to NORAD. There, the computers analyzed the data and stored it for instant display on one of the plotting screens. NORAD and her sister command centers could pinpoint the location and movement of most ballistic missiles, aircraft, and naval ships in the world.
It was nearly eleven o’clock at night, and one o’clock in the morning in Washington, when the phone call came. Brackman was nursing an uncounted cup of coffee in his spacious, but modestly furnished office. His longtime secretary, Milly Roget, had gone home long before, and a duty sergeant transferred the call.
“Admiral Cross on your line two, General.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Brackman punched the button for the secure line.
“Brackman”
“Good morning, Marvin”
“Not quite morning here, Hannibal. I thought you’d given up and gone to bed”
Admiral Hannibal Cross had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for almost four years, a position he took very seriously and which he filled well. He was as adept at political strategy and tactics as he had been of the military counterparts while in command of carriers off Vietnam. TV loved his crisp military appearance, with a deep-water tan and weather wrinkles at his eyes, and he was frequently interviewed on the Sunday morning shows.
“Why is it, Marvin, that I lose sleep every time I get a call from you?”
“Can’t be love, can it?”
“I doubt it,” Cross said. “Your congressional delegation still there?”
“No. We gave them a nice dinner and put them back on their VIP plane.”
“They have any suspicions about this?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Good. Harvey and I spent some time with the SecDef and the National Security Advisor.”
General Harvey Mays, whom Brackman regarded as a highly capable commander, was the Air Force Chief of Staff. Mays had flown F-4 Phantoms in Vietnam, and he had shrapnel and burn scars on the left side of his face to prove it.
“And?”
“We want to contain the PR damage as much as possible, and for as long as possible.”
“That means,” Brackman said, “we’ve got about forty-eight hours.”
“If that. I expect the rumors will begin to leak before that, and then the Secretary will have to inform the appropriate congressional committees. He will inform them, in any event, within three days. We’re buying time here, Marvin, in order to come up with some hard data on what happened, and why.”
“No conjecture?”
“None at all. Before he goes to the Hill, I’ll want to put a fact sheet in his hand that tells the whole story.”
Brackman sighed. He didn’t object to laying out the truth, but he was afraid the truth was going to eradicate the inroads he had made with Senator Worth and Congresswoman Anderson. He could see his 1st Aerospace Squadron composed of “doddering old men” flying machines held together with baling wire and Band-Aids.
“I talked to McKenna a little while ago,” Brackman said, and related the details of the hijacking.
“Jesus. Four dead.”
“McKenna wants funerals with full military honors. Line of duty deaths, not accidents. Purple Hearts.”
“That will draw the media, Marvin.”
“We can wait four days.”
“All right. We’ll give them the best we can.”
“What about McKenna’s and my recommendations?”
“There was a lot of thought given to that,” Cross said. “The President was involved.”
I’ll bet he was.
“The first priority is to recover the MakoShark intact.”
“Good.” Saving me from the appearance of shooting myself in the foot with a three