It was two o’clock in the afternoon with bright sunshine and cloudless skies over Omaha. A gentle wind flowed out of the northwest, and the temperature was seventy, nearly perfect weather. It would have been a marvelous day for a picnic.
Major General Raymond Hamilton, USAF, knew this because the weather over each of his Strategic Air Command bases was displayed on the command status board above his desk in the hole. Otherwise, Omaha’s weather wouldn’t interest him for another six hours. It would be night before he went off duty and home to his wife and two boys and the red brick house originally built for the U.S. Cavalry before the turn of the century. Now the cavalry wasn’t needed to stand guard over Omaha. Instead, the old fort was Offutt Air Force Base, home of SAC, and SAC stood guard over the world.
General Hamilton’s desk was three stories underground. It rested on a glassed-in balcony overlooking the main SAC command post, and two floors further down, directly below and in front of Hamilton’s balcony, were the Air Force personnel who could put him in communication with any SAC base. They could also launch enough nuclear firepower to destroy half the world.
Among the telephones on Hamilton’s desk were two in color. The gold phone would instantly reach Executive One—the president. Next to it was the red phone that could launch the force.
Ray Hamilton wasn’t thinking about the red phone at two in the afternoon. The president’s summit conferences had been successful, and although Ray, like all SAC generals, believed the Russians were planning something and had to be watched at all times, he didn’t believe the “Big One” was coming just yet. If SAC stayed alert, it might never come. Ray was relaxed in his easy chair, leafing through a murder mystery. He grimaced as he realized he’d read it before and faced the afternoon with nothing to do.
General Hamilton was bored. If he worried about anything, it was about his son’s bicycle. That was the third ten-speed stolen from his family in less than two years, and it irritated him to think that SAC could guard the free world, but SAC’s Air Police couldn’t catch a bicycle thief. The boy had to ride a mile to high school and would heed a new bike, and that would cost money Ray Hamilton didn’t have at the moment.
A phone rang. A black one. Hamilton picked it up. “SAC Duty Commander.”
“SAC, this is Air Defense. We have a bandit re-entry coming in over the South Pole. I say again we have a bandit on re-entry course over the South Pole. Probable place of impact, vicinity of San Diego, California. Estimated time, plus 26 minutes.”
Hamilton tensed. “NORAD, this is SAC. Are you sure you have a bandit?”
“Affirmative, SAC. We have no previous plot. Bandit has no previous orbital flight. Launch point unknown. This is a big one. Estimated excess of 35,000 pounds.”
“My God!” Ray Hamilton looked across at the enormous screens on the opposite, wall. His staff had already projected a map of the Western Hemisphere and the predicted path of the intruder. The red dotted line led from the bandit’s position over Chile up to a large circle just north of San Diego. Hamilton scowled. The Soviets had tested a 100 megaton bomb, and a vehicle that size could carry one. That thing would take out most of Southern California, including Oceanside. Hamilton’s status board showed Executive One in residence at the Western White House.
Suddenly he felt very calm. His voice was unemotional as he spoke into the black phone. “NORAD, this is SAC. Thank you. Send any additional update information. SAC out.” He laid the black phone down and hesitated a second. Then he lifted the red one.
A siren blared through the hole. Red lights flashed. That phone was no joke. Hamilton’s throat was dry as he spoke in the unemotional voice of command. “All units, this is SAC. EWO, EWO. Emergency War Orders. This is no drill. Yellow alert. All units, Yellow alert. March Air Base, generate your aircraft wings. I say again, March Air Force Base only, generate the force. SAC out.” He nodded, and the duty officers below him began feeding the authentication codes that would confirm his orders.
Across the country men responded. Pilots tumbled from their ready-room bunks and raced across runways to their ships. Within minutes the B-52’s and B-58’s were cocked and ready, engines idling, as their pilots waited for the orders that would launch them toward the north. Each carried maps to half a dozen targets around the world. They would learn which to head for once they were airborne.
In forty holes across the northern United States, USAF officers took keys from around their necks and inserted them into gray consoles. They did not, as yet, turn the keys. Above them, sergeants locked steel doors three feet thick into place; the missile commanders were sealed in and would be until the alert was over. Around the missile farms the Minuteman missiles came alert, gyros hummed, computers took in last-second data.
At March Air Force Base, Riverside, California, a wing of B-52’s rolled down the runway and took off, the last airborne less than fifteen minutes from the time Ray Hamilton gave his orders. Each ship carried four twenty megaton bombs in its belly, and two more in stand-off missiles hung under the wings. The ships left faint vapor trails in the California sky as they flew northward toward their rendezvous with the tankers. Navigators handed up course data to the pilots, then looked back at their charts. On each chart was a dark black line. When the planes reached that line, they would turn back—unless they had received orders from the president to go on in. The pilots flew grimly, silent, waiting, some praying, hoping for cancellation orders…
* * *
General Ray Hamilton lifted the black phone again. “NORAD, do we have any additional bandits?”
“Negative, SAC. It’s a single object on a ballistic re-entry, automatic sequencing. Not under command so far as we can tell. Pretty big to be a bomb. Too open. I think it’s experimental.”
“So do I.” Hamilton waited. He could call the president, but there’d be no point. If that was a bomb set to detonate at optimum altitude over Oceanside it would take out the president, March AFB, San Diego Navy Yards, Miramar, Long Beach, and a lot of Los Angeles. There would be no way to get the president out in time. And if it blew, there’d be no question about a hostile move against the United States.
It probably wasn’t. It was too big and too open. Probably the force would be recalled, and SAC would have had another drill. They had them every week anyway.
“All right, NORAD,” Hamilton ordered. “Give me what you get as it comes in. Have you got an intercept launched yet?”
“Affirmative, SAC.”
“Patch me in.”
“Roger, SAC.”
There was a lot of static and several squeals; then Hamilton could hear the pilot of the interceptor flying above the probable area of the bandit’s impact. Ray glanced at his status board. The March AFB wing of 52’s was on its way and put of the danger area. At other bases the ships waited still. His SAC force was poised like a cocked crossbow, and the red phone could launch the greatest concentration of firepower in the history of the world.
Not without permission from Executive One, of course. Ray waited; in a few minutes, he’d know. There would be no point in launching, or Executive One wouldn’t care. SAC would own its own planes and missiles again, and SAC would take a terrible vengeance for the president.
“NORAD, this is Red Baron Leader. I have visual on the bandit,” came the interceptor pilot’s voice, cold and unemotional.
“Roger, Red Baron Leader. Describe.”
“Bandit is lifting body spacecraft with NASA markings. Spacecraft is descending with air speed approximately mach 2.6 slowing rapidly. Spacecraft appears oriented properly for splashdown with low g-stress.”
“Red Baron Leader, say again ID of spacecraft.”
“Spacecraft appears to be United States NASA lifting-buddy ship. I can see the NASA insignia. I say again, spacecraft has US NASA markings. It’s going to splash. It looks to be under control.”
“Red Baron Leader, follow that spacecraft down to splash and stand by to direct Navy recovery team to your location. MIRAMAR, this is NORAD. We have an unscheduled NASA spacecraft splashing in your air defense area. Can you get a recovery team out there pronto, interrogative?”
“Roger NORAD, this is Miramar. Helicopter recovery team will be on the way in five minutes. We will notify Fleet to send out a recovery ship.”
“SAC, this is NORAD. Get all that?”
“Roger, NORAD.” Hamilton shook his head slowly, then watched his status boards. The timers clicked off to zero; bandit was down. He heard the chatter of Red Baron Leader. The spacecraft had made a perfect landing and was afloat. Hamilton waited another minute, then lifted the red phone.
Again the sirens wailed. “All units, this is SAC. Cancel EWO. I say again, cancel Emergency War Orders. Return to alert status. March wing, return to base. SAC out.” He laid the red phone down and breathed deeply.
An unscheduled spacecraft screaming in for splashdown off San Diego from re-entry over the South Pole. Somebody in NASA was going to get his hide roasted for this. Hamilton hoped he’d be around to see it. In fact, he’d like to do the roasting. The incident had scared him, he would admit now that it was over.
In all his years in the Air Force, he’d been through plenty of alerts, but this was the first real one he’d commanded. Ray Hamilton said a short prayer that it would be the last. There wouldn’t be many survivors of a nuclear war.