October's Ghost Read online

  Bud let the cynicism slide. “Just make sure they don’t have any reason not to trust us. The only thing making this possible is trust.” And a whole lot of work.

  The twin-engine jet, identical to those in use by many of America’s larger corporations, stopped fifty feet short of where Bud and the two Air Force officers stood, its door folding downward less than a minute later. Its two special passengers emerged behind the Air Force captain who had accompanied them on the entire four-leg journey from Moscow.

  “Ugly-ass uniforms,” Walker commented, aware that his opinion of the puke-colored Russian dress greens was shared by many in the service. Ivan never could make anything pretty, weapons or battle dress. Function—what there was of that—came before aesthetics in their world. America had learned to make things bad and beautiful. CINCNORAD defied anyone to watch a Strike Eagle unload a stick of thousand-pounders on a target and dispute the claim.

  “What’s that about beauty being skin-deep?” Granger wondered jokingly as the two Russians left their escort at the jet and began to approach. “My guess is that you can strip old Vasiliy there down to his unmentionables, and you’d then see the purpose of those dashing dress greens.”

  Bud suppressed a laugh. The guests whose visit he had arranged were too close to risk an errant chuckle escaping. “I’ll have the President bust you down to a junior bird, General, if you make me lose it. Straight faces.”

  General Walker pasted on a sweet smile as Marshal Vasiliy Kurchatov and his aide neared. “Two weeks, DiContino?”

  “Guaranteed,” Bud affirmed from the side of his mouth. “The Japanese will have the new computers up and running at Voyska PVO in ten days, tops. That’s the promise.”

  “My last protest,” CINCNORAD began. “I do not like giving access to our strategic systems just because the Russians couldn’t build a BMEWS worth crap. That and pulling our boomers in just pushes it, DiContino.”

  “Trust, General Walker. We can’t very well have our missile boats running around during this. The Russians have to be able to see our strategic platforms. We can’t leave the ICBMs and bombers out for all to see and expect them to overlook the subs. Quid pro quo, General. Theirs are in as a gesture during this, and ours have to be, too. You’ll be glad we were able to work this out once the new warning system is up and running over there,” Bud said with certainty. “That last false alarm their computers gave them left them forty seconds from a launch order.” The NSA swiveled his head a bit toward the general. “That kind of fuckup could ruin everybody’s day... Marshal Kurchatov!”

  “Ah, my friend!” The huge Russian, as round as the most reverent artist’s depiction of Saint Nick, pulled the NSA into a hug that ended with kisses to both cheeks. The same gesture was given by both Russians to each of their three hosts. “My English is improved, yes?”

  “Very good, Marshal Kurchatov.” Bud gestured to his two companions. “You have met General Henry Granger before, at the Force Reduction Conference in Geneva.”

  “Yes. Yes.” Kurchatov dipped his head respectfully toward the chairman.

  “And this is General Paul Walker, commander in chief—”

  “I am very familiar, Mr. DiContino,” Kurchatov interrupted tactfully. “The general and I share a passion.”

  “Oh?” Walker probed passively.

  “A fine deer hunter you are, I am told. Your exploits have been chronicled in many sporting journals.” The marshal smiled admiringly. “Those have become more available in my country in recent years. A Boone and Crockett record, I believe.”

  Walker’s eyes widened with some astonishment at the Russian’s knowledge of his third love, after the Air Force and his family. “You are a hunter, Marshal?”

  Kurchatov stepped closer. “Sometime soon, when the work of the coming days is finished, I will make arrangements to show you the finest hunting on this earth. The Siberian reindeer is a formidable quarry.”

  You are good, Walker admitted. “I look forward to it.”

  Kurchatov stepped back by his aide. “This is Colonel Mikhail Belyayev. He is an expert on the things that are to be done. I am here just as baggage!” the marshal proclaimed with a laugh that degenerated into a hacking cough. “The air is so clear, so cold. Much different from the thick air of Moscow.”

  “Then we should go inside,” Walker suggested. “You can rest here before we go to NORAD.”

  Departing words were exchanged, and then Walker led the Russians into Falcon’s old main building. Atop it was the tower that had seen many a busy day during the Cold War, but now it sat almost idle. Days often went by without as much as a T-2 from the 94th Flight Training Squadron out of Colorado Springs dropping in. More important arrivals were even less frequent. Much had changed at Falcon. Much had changed in the world. One needed to look no farther than the trio of men walking through the soundproof steel door to find validation of that truism.

  “The Russian Defense Minister and their top missile guy hanging out in Cheyenne for two weeks.” Granger shook his head. “You pulled off something I never thought I’d see.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” Bud said, getting a “Yeah, right” look from the general. “Well...

  Granger heard the door into the building close with a metallic slap. “Old Vasiliy knows how to sweet-talk, doesn’t he?”

  “If he can mellow General Walker, I’m all for it. In any event, this should be done when the Japanese say so.”

  Granger’s head shook again, once more in astonishment. “I’m still surprised this hasn’t leaked out on their end. They’re gabby little buggers, you know. Love to brag about their coups, especially of this magnitude.”

  “They also respect the almighty buck, and this contract is worth a couple billion dollars to them,” Bud explained. That it was a couple billion American dollars made it all the more lucrative to the contractors, Sony and Panasonic among them. The complete replacement of the signal-processing end of the Soviet-era Ballistic Missile Early Warning System—the huge radar antennae facing north and west from the frozen wastes of the country would be retained—was a monumental undertaking that would bring the Russian system on par with its American counterpart. During the changeover, though, the nation would be half-blind, able to detect launches from its array of early-warning satellites but unable to confirm any threats by radar. That was where Bud had come in, suggesting that high-ranking Russian military personnel could be given access to one of the command centers from which the United States would wage nuclear war to ensure that the weapons slated for such use were sitting benignly in their silos, on their tarmacs, and tied alongside their piers. The latter, pulling the entire U.S. fleet of ballistic-missile subs in from their unknown patrol areas, had been the hardest to achieve. After protests from people like General Walker, the other CINCs, and, initially, Granger himself had been overcome, the first steps in the highly secret operation to upgrade the Russian BMEWS had begun. Japanese contractors—any from the United States had to be ruled out, for obvious reasons—under Russian and American supervision, designed the components and software in record time, and were at this minute awaiting the final word to begin dismantling the old to make room for the new, in figurative ways as well as literal.

  “Us, the Russians, the Japanese, and the Chinese,” Granger said, listing the non-European parties who were knowledgeable of the operation. “What did Beijing have to say about all this?”

  “Good luck,” Bud answered. “The thought of a nuclear exchange”—“exchange” sounded much more palatable than “war”—“starting by accident thrills them as much as it does anybody. Besides, the system pointing south will be unaffected; it was upgraded in ‘89. This is good for everybody, General.” Bud, old “Colonel DiContino” from his Air Force days, couldn’t bring himself to call a former superior by his first name. “The world will be a safer place when our neighbor can see if we throw rocks over his fence as well as we can see him.”

  Granger saw that the Gulfstream, which would take him and the NSA b
ack to Washington, was being refueled from a tank truck—Falcon’s underground pumping system was now out of service and unlikely to be repaired. The Base Closure and Realignment Committee was sure to recommend its demise by the end of the following year. So much that was familiar was disappearing. The general knew it was necessary, but that could not remove the pangs of loss from his gut as he watched the finest fighting force the world had ever known shrink toward a smaller, equally capable—he hoped—force that would continue to protect the nation in perpetuity. The warriors had made the world safe for peace, and they were now fading away.

  “Our work here is done,” Granger observed. He started to walk toward the jet

  “Back to Disneyland,” Bud said, exhibiting a touch of cynicism himself. “And to the same old same old.”

  “Isn’t that the truth,” Granger agreed.

  It wasn’t.

  * * *

  He was a businessman before all else.

  “Soothe my nerves, Gonzalo. Give me the total again,” José-Ramon Alvarez directed. His eyes, aged but still filled with the fire born in his youth, added a silent admonition for his aide to be certain of the figure.

  “Sixty-five million dollars,” Gonzalo Parra repeated, sure of his accounting.

  Alvarez smiled. “Information is very valuable.”

  “The correct term is intelligence,” Parra corrected. He was the only man to hold enough favor with the executive secretary of the Cuban Freedom Society to chance such a seemingly mild rebuff.

  “I think still as a businessman,” Alvarez told his trusted aide, a man equal in age to his sixty-one years.

  “You must begin to think as the leader of a nation.” The suggestion was delivered with an expression that those who had wielded absolute power would recognize clearly, though this was in anticipation of such power. “Think what we will be able to do once we have the resources of an entire country at our disposal. That sixty-five million will be multiplied by ten times ten. With such money, with such power...”

  “Yes.” Power came in many forms, José-Ramon Alvarez knew. In the form of money it could purchase and persuade. In others it could deter and defend. Soon the combination would be in his possession. With it he would see that his people, enslaved by a failed ideology for decades, would prosper, as would he. Strength would be theirs. They, under his guidance, would be seen no longer as the weak. The weak... “I wish I could speak to Avaro once more before we go.”

  “It is not wise. Not at this time. He will contact us when the problem is taken care of.” Parra heard the sound of approaching feet outside the door to the CFS inner sanctum, which was innocuously located in a converted mini-mall in Miami’s Little Havana. “He has run the network for months now. This is not much different.”

  Alvarez knew that lack of trust or comfort was not his motive for desiring a final call, but his aide was very right. Great, momentous things lay ahead. Sentiment would have to wait.

  The door opened after a quick knock. One of Alvarez’s security men stepped in. In the hall stood two men in suits, both Anglos. Their jackets were unbuttoned for quick access to what was undoubtedly on their hips.

  “Mr. President,” the CFS security man began, looking directly at Alvarez. “It is time.”

  José-Ramon Alvarez smiled at the somewhat early use of the title that would soon be officially his. It would take very little getting used to.

  * * *

  It was the beginning of a catastrophic failure.

  The USS Pennsylvania, an Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine, was arguably the most complex platform in the arsenal of the United States for the employment of strategic nuclear weapons. On board she carried a mix of sophisticated sensors, machinery, and weapons, all of which worked in harmony to make the eighteen-thousand ton sub a silent and potent deterrent to aggression against the country she served. Costing more than a billion dollars, the Pennsylvania was a reliable boat but one that required regular maintenance to ensure her effectiveness. Everything that could be done to keep her in tip-top shape was.

  But there had been a mistake.

  “Cap’n, that harmonic is gettin’ worse,” the chief of the boat reported.

  The Pennsylvania’s captain finished his notation and snapped his personal logbook closed. A gift from the crew of his old boat, the last Lafayette-class boomer to be in service, the waterproof box, slightly larger than a clipboard and an inch thick, had the name of his present command stenciled boldly across its front. He sneered at the reminder. The Pennsylvania, despite being the most advanced inhabitant of the aquatic world, had been nothing but a pain in the ass this cruise.

  “Still the shaft gears?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Pennsylvania, like all submarines in the U.S. inventory, was powered by a nuclear reactor, a General Electric S8G natural-circulation model in this case. But unlike other submarines, the propeller shaft of the Ohio class had no direct mechanical contact with the steam turbines. These were turned by steam produced when water in the “cold” loop passed through heat exchangers, which transferred thermal energy from the superhot reactor by way of the circulation of coolant through the “hot” loop. This two-loop system isolated the “hot” radioactive coolant. The turbines, instead of transferring their circular motion directly to the shaft by way of lifter rods or gears, turned an electric generator, which powered a quiet electric drive system that drove the propeller shaft. The process, known as turboelectric drive, was highly efficient and exceedingly quiet, a must for survival in the life of a boomer, whose mission was to go to sea and cease to exist.

  But it was that search for silence that had begun a series of events the result of which would soon manifest itself.

  During the Pennsylvania’s last refit, completed two months earlier, the gear assembly that transferred power from the electric motor to the shaft had been replaced with newly designed ones that had proved less prone to harmonic transmission—the propagation of even the slight machinery sounds from the electric motor through the shaft and into the water. The new gears used a unique sound-dampening system of assembly to cut the sub’s acoustic signature a further 10 percent. The twin cylinders of high-stress alloy into which grooved channels had been machined were basically reengineered into twelve “slices” of gears that fit together over a main connecting core made of a layered combination of titanium, ceramic laminates, and more titanium. Each slice was fit over the core in sequence, and in between each was a gasket made from a carbon-fiber laminate, which was the true trick of the new assembly. Quite literally, they cut the transfer and reflection of sound from gear to gear, and thus helped remove a source of harmonics that had plagued all subs for decades.

  Key to the successful use of the new system was its proper installation and maintenance, and the crew of the Pennsylvania had done well following every safety and operations check the assembly required. But there was one thing they could not check, as it was an installation item, designed to be configured during refit and left alone until the sub’s next stay in port.

  Holding the twin gear assemblies—one lay on each side of the similarly geared propeller shaft—tightly together as one unit was a single twelve-inch nut at the aft end of each cylinder. This nut was set and torqued during refit according to a very tight tolerance, as even the barest variance could negate the positive effects of the system and actually add to the problem of harmonic transmission. But the nut on the starboard assembly had not been torqued properly—it was recessed inside the aftmost gear by almost six inches. The technician responsible for its installation had added four-and-a-half foot-pounds too much torque when mechanically tightening the fifty-six pound nut. That alone was enough to cause an excess of harmonics because it compressed the composite gaskets too tightly and degraded their sound-dampening qualities. But in combination with another phenomenon, one the crew of the Pennsylvania had no control over, the error was about to prove deadly.

  Traveling on a course of three-four-five, skirting the Bahamian Is
land chain to port on her way to the relatively feature-free Blake Plateau, the Pennsylvania, running at six hundred feet, was in the midst of the Gulf Stream, which flowed northwest along her route to King’s Bay, Georgia. Sixty miles off the island of Eleuthera, in a water depth that exceeded fifteen thousand feet, the warm current was moving at more than five knots, a direct result of the exceedingly hot winter months the Southern Hemisphere was experiencing. This warm water rushed northward, and was, at the moment, giving the Pennsylvania a much appreciated “tailwind” that turned her self-produced twelve knots into a nature-aided seventeen. It was also doing something else.

  The huge bronze propeller at the rear of the sub was absorbing tremendous punishment—which it had been designed to accept—from the unstable water it was churning. The five-knot current was acting upon the water propelled aft and away from the sub, creating a doughnut-shaped area of lower than normal water pressure nearer the ends of the propeller’s seven blades. As they turned, they were alternately “sucked out,” away from the sub into the pressure void, then pushed back as they found “clean” water. This fluctuation was not an entirely abnormal phenomenon, but it was very powerful. The motion was transmitted inside the submarine through the shaft to the gear assembly, which rested upon a sound absorbing sheet of high-density voided polymers. The assembly actually moved the few millimeters with the shaft. Back and forth. Back and forth. The motion was barely perceptible to the human eye and raised no alarm with the sensitive instruments that monitored all facets of the sub’s propulsion system.

  But it did register on the nut that had been torqued beyond spec. The repetitive motion, driven by tons of force, was transmitted to the nut that had lost much of its ability to absorb such fluctuations. As the geared cylinders spun with the energy of more than thirty thousand shaft horsepower, additional stresses were placed upon the nut that held the twelve slices together. At full speed the effect would have been similar to that of a jackhammer with the shaft snapping in and out in fractions of an inch while the gears absorbed the punishment. This took longer. After an hour in the current the nut developed a tiny hairline fracture on its inner face. Ten minutes later the fissure had spread through the nut. A minute after that it separated in two with a loud snap that caused heads farther forward in the engine room to turn. The pieces came free of the core that ran the length of the gear assembly and spit aft, impacting the bare metal bulkhead. Less than a second after that the aftmost gear slice, following its natural rotation and now free to move, slid off the core, spinning with a force unimaginable.