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Sweat was running from Sergei's forehead as he searched for an answer. Time was running out. He felt hot and exhausted in spite of the open windows. The open window allowed the cool midnight air to flow through the room. What else could he do? What more could anyone do?
"I have news from Alaska," Ralph came back. "Their analysis indicates that your missile is going to New Mexico as you said. They also said there is no sign of a separation of the warheads from the missile, which should have taken place. Maybe you are right. Maybe the thing is pre-targeted for the desert."
"I wish to God it would be," Sergei replied, "but NO! The fast burning boosters that we use now, allow us to extend the bussing phase till midpoint. You didn't know that, eh? That, too, was all part of our great safety measure that you forced us to turn off."
"Damn!" Ralph came back. "Isn't there anything logged in your system that shows whether the mode was changed after or before the launch?"
"There should be, but I can't get to it," Sergei apologized. "Maybe I am missing a password. I am tired. I don't feel well."
"I can't help that," said Ralph.
"You'd better make preparations assuming that the Pacific Northwest will be destroyed unless some miracle happens on your side," suggested Sergei.
"I see a note on my screen that we've sent you the self-destruct code," added Peter. "They are also setting up a line through which we can transmit the command sequence ourselves, if you can provide a transmitter."
"But this works only until separation time," Sergei cautioned.
"That's not enough time!" Ralph replied. "You're almost at midpoint now."
"Damn! There's nothing more we can do from our side," shouted Sergei, almost crying again.
"There's nothing we can do from this side either," commented Ralph, swearing profusely in his own way. "We couldn't even get an intercept missile up. We haven't got a damn thing to sent up! And even we had, they only have a five percent success rate."
"God, it hurts just sitting here, waiting for the thing to blow," said Peter.
"Our technicians are wracking their brains too, to come up with something," said Ralph. "But they can't do miracles. The missile is over our territory now and we can't do a damn thing, either. Not a damn fucking thing! It's maddening, I tell you! My own daughter lives in Seattle," Ralph cried, "you knew that, didn't you?"
"Yes, Ralph, I'm terribly sorry...."
There were tears on Peter's face as he tried to gain access to the system's log file to find out when the targeting mode was changed, as if this could somehow forestall the disaster. Perhaps it was modified after the launch, he hoped.
"Sergei! Somebody wants to know what the numbers on the target list mean," Ralph came back.
"The first two digits indicate the warhead size, in metric megatons," Sergei explained. "The next four digits indicate ignition altitude in meters. The other group of numbers define the geographical location of the target and a coded description."
While he talked, Sergei reached for the hard copy of the status file that Peter had printed earlier. "For the Trident base this translates to a 25 megaton warhead," he explained, "set for ground level! The Hanford Works at Pasco are shown three times, that corresponds to three warheads, each being a ten megaton device."
"Can you imagine what this means?" Ralph replied. "We have five nuclear subs docked at the Trident base. A 25-megaton blast will excavate every one of them out of the ocean and evaporate them, missiles and all! Some of the 1200 warheads they carry may be triggered, to say nothing about their nuclear fuel, and those thousands of replacement missiles that are stockpiled at the base together with spare fuel rods. God help us when this shit comes back down as fallout. The entire Northwest will become uninhabitable for hundreds of years."
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Stories about
War
from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche
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