02 Thunder of Heaven: A Joshua Jordan Novel (6 page)

Eighty-eight dead. No survivors. That thought threatened to swallow Joshua whole.

Somehow he managed to keep his MIT-educated engineer’s brain trained on the task before him. Failure analysis. Why had the RTS system failed on Flight 199?

Then there was the fighter-pilot side of his brain too, never compromising, needing complete command and control, not satisfied with anything less than a fully successful mission.

But the mission had failed. Terribly. So terribly that as Joshua studied the information on the computer screen he had to tell himself not to think about the extended families of those eighty-eight people, the grieving husbands, wives, children, grandchildren. How many? What if each passenger left only two surviving family members behind? That would be nearly one hundred and eighty shattered lives. Heartbroken and weeping. What if each had left three behind … and then again, what difference did a game of numbers make in the face of something so awful? As a military man, Joshua was used to the concept of casualties. He had seen them killed on missions and when things went bad while testing experimental aircraft in the desert.

This was different. These were civilians. When they bought their tickets they hadn’t signed up for the hazards of war. He caught himself. He had to steel himself to the task at hand.

It was now a little before four in the morning, and Joshua had been in his study since receiving Ted’s phone call. His team had sent him
a dump of electronic data, and Joshua was scanning it for anomalies. Nothing jumped off the screen. He ran integrated consistency tests, his own software invention to cross-check each RTS unit, but he came up with nothing. He started to dig down into the granular details of each system of the Commercial Flight Return-to-Sender Laser Defense Unit that he and his group had adapted from the original RTS design plan in order to arm civilian aircraft.

At this point Ted and Carolyn who was the chief of weapon physics hooked up with Joshua on a conference call. They double-checked everything on the final production protocol, item by item. The digital circuits, in case there had been an electrical failure. The digital logic design. Even the schematics for the diode array inside the laser. Then the onboard computer settings. The data-capturing directorate inside the laser, which commanded the laser beam to copy the signal inside the guidance system of the incoming missile. And the mirror-reverse command, which would instantaneously load the opposite trajectory into that enemy guidance system. All of the functions that were designed to operate while the approaching missile was traveling more than a thousand miles an hour. Those systems were all checked, and they should have worked — all of them.

After several hours on the telephone, Carolyn spoke up. Besides Joshua, she was the one most responsible for the overall operating principals behind the RTS. She was known for her bluntness. “We’re chasing our tails.”

Joshua dismissed that. “No, we’re missing something here. We have to stay on this until we find it.”

Carolyn wouldn’t budge. “Josh, just hear me out. We’re working with half the picture until we find out what the black box says and what the voice recorder picked up in the moments before the plane exploded. Till then we’re just working blind.”

Ted the diplomat, intervened. “I think she’s saying it’s not logical to start on the premise that the RTS failed, that it was a production defect or design flaw. Maybe it’s something else — ”

Joshua cut in. “Like what? Like maybe a flock of birds hit the engines?”

Carolyn said, “Come on, Josh.”

“No, you come on. Both of you. We can’t look for the easy way out. Eighty-eight people dead — that’s the body count. We need to find out why. You’re saying we should assume pilot error in firing the RTS? Is that what you’re saying? I don’t think so …”

“We’re not saying that,” Ted countered. “Just that I was with you, remember? At the White Sands missile-test range when we ran through the commercial jet RTS tests. Ten out of ten. Perfect scores all the way around. Then the tests by the Defense Advanced Research Agency and the Missile and Space Intelligence Center. No glitches. The RTS took everything the Pentagon could throw at it.”

Carolyn broke in again. “You know what’s going to happen, right? The other defense companies with their lasers, the traditional ones that act simply as blunt-force weapons, blasting things out of the air, that sort of thing, are going to tell the Pentagon to dump us and start working with their lasers. They’ll say the RTS comes with too much risk. And the politics behind this … you have to admit, Josh, we’ve been working in a political cyclone ever since the North Korean thing. Sure, RTS worked during that crisis last year, saved New York from the incoming North Korean nukes. But Congress and the press — they treated us like Nazis, for crying out loud.”

“We’re off track,” Joshua said.

But Ted needed to counter something else. “Listen, Carolyn, your point about the blunt-force kind of lasers … we all know why they don’t work well: too heavy, too bulky. They have to intercept at too close a range. And if they miss the target, they blow up some innocent plane. The solid-state ones are still lacking, and the chemically energized lasers are like elephants. But the RTS is like a cheetah, except it’s got the IQ of Einstein. Let’s keep reminding ourselves what your RTS laser defense, Joshua, has achieved. It doesn’t blast missiles out of the sky, which is still too hard to do accurately. Instead it captures data from a guidance system and recalibrates it with the speed of light. That’s revolutionary. Anyway, let’s keep an open mind … maybe, like Carolyn says, our assumptions are all wrong. Maybe it wasn’t installed properly.”

“Our staff supervised the installations on the commercial jets.”

“Then maybe another factor?”

“Look, people,” Joshua said with fatigue in his voice, “we have to face the possibility that we screwed up. And now there’s a death toll.”

“I’m not ready to take the rap for that,” Carolyn bulleted back, “not until we know every fact — and we’re far from that right now. And one more thing …”

Joshua asked, “What?”

“Like Ted says, our RTS is the best thing we’ve got to protect Americans from offensive missiles. The best. Period. Start doubting that, and more Americans are going to die.”

There was a knock on the door of Joshua’s study. Joshua put Ted and Carolyn on hold. Abigail was there in the doorway in her pajamas.

“Just wanted to see how you’re doing.”

“Not good. You should be asleep.”

“Are you kidding? Ted told me a few things when he called, so I have a pretty good idea about what’s going on and what’s in your head right now.”

Joshua snapped back, sharper than he should have, “So it’s Abby the mind reader?”

“On this I am. You’re shouldering the responsibility for the deaths of all those people on the Chicago flight. It was a horrible thing, but you can’t put this on yourself.”

“And why not?”

“Because it’s too early in the investigation to start taking blame.”

“Why is everyone trying to get me to shirk this thing?”

“No one’s doing that.”

“Sure you are. And Ted and Carolyn too. I’m the only one willing to admit failure.”

“Or maybe …,” Abigail started to say.

“What?”

Abigail’s eyes flashed. “Maybe it’s your maddening perfectionism, Josh, your obsession. Whether it’s missile defense or your children or — ”

“This isn’t about me.”

“I think it is. You’re too quick to beat yourself up. You’re a glutton for punishment over this RTS thing …”

Joshua shook his head.

Abigail bowed hers. “Sorry. That was a rotten thing to say.”

After a few moments of silence, Joshua said, “I’ve got to get back to my conference call. I’m flying out early tomorrow, back to the office. The jet’s ready.”

“Cal’s going to be disappointed. He’s arriving tomorrow afternoon.”

“He’ll understand.”

“He said he had something to tell you.”

“Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait.” Then Joshua softened. “Look, tell him we’ll definitely talk, okay?”

Then Joshua thought of something. “Did Ethan March stay overnight?”

“Yes. I put him in the guest wing. That all right?”

“Fine.”

“Speaking of New York, I didn’t tell you …”

“What?”

“Got a letter from Pastor Campbell. It was a thank-you for the gift I sent from both of us, the one for the Eternity Church inner-city project. He said he was looking forward to another round of golf with you, you know, when you’re back in the city.”

Joshua didn’t answer. Golf seemed absurdly irrelevant at the moment.

“Okay, I’ll leave you alone.” As she was about to leave, she added, “I’m just thankful we have our daughter, considering what could have happened.”

Joshua nodded. He was embarrassed that his RTS analysis had distracted him from the fact that Deborah was safe and sound … thanks to Ethan.

But when Joshua looked back to where Abigail had been standing, she was gone, and the door was closed.

It was a fine day for planning death and mass destruction.

Particularly for the silver-haired Ivan Radinovad, Russia’s debonair chief of special operations. For several years he had headed up a secret project, something called
— “Invisible Bear.” Now it was on the verge of final, devastating implementation.

Radinovad leaned back in his chair and looked around the room. He was pleased with his new strategic headquarters. He had taken over the old stone-walled museum situated on the ancient Silk Road. The museum was part of the mausoleum of Manas, who was a folk hero and an ancient mythical figure in Central Asia. Considering the discussion he was about to have, there was a certain poetic symbolism in his selection of this place. According to legend, Manas sported a variety of magical weapons, and when he died, his widow put a false inscription on his grave to trick his enemies so they wouldn’t desecrate his resting place.

So there it was. Advanced weaponry and deception. Nothing could epitomize Russia’s plan better than that.

And Kyrgyzstan was a good choice to house Russia’s secret meetings for dominance, which involved its partnership with Iran and North Korea. It was remote and would avoid the global scrutiny of Moscow or its other major cities. Over the years Russia had gathered back its union of former Soviet republics.

Russia’s concerns about a watching world were justified. It had provided missile technology to North Korea. And back in 2010, Russia had successfully defied the world and provided enriched uranium to Iran for its nuclear program and had even helped build its reactors.

But Iran wasn’t the focus of the meeting that day with Radinovad.

Today it was North Korea’s turn.

The Russian looked across the table at the emotionless face of Po Kungang, North Korea’s head of offensive nuclear ambitions. Po turned to his left and right. Both of his North Korean assistants gave him a quick head bow of agreement.

Po was a man of considerable power in his country. He had worked personally under Jang Song-taek, the man selected to insure the transition of succession from Kim Jong-il to Kim’s son, Kim Jong-un, shortly before the elder Kim’s death. But Jang had been more than just a pencil-pushing bureaucrat. He ran the National Defense Commission. He was cold, unstoppable, and brutal. And for Po Kungang, he had been Jang’s most promising disciple.

“So, then, it is done,” Po announced. “And you will implement this through … intermediaries.”

The Russian nodded. “Yes. We have good connections. Well-trained cell groups. And the scientific muscle to put this together.”

“Good. North Korea will have its revenge. But like your Russia, we need the cloak of anonymity. The international community will have suspicions about who’s behind this attack. But they must never have proof. Now these cell groups … they must not be sidetracked by their own personal zeal …”

“That won’t be a problem. They share a common purpose with us. They’ve always dreamed of a nuclear strike, and now it is going to happen. A great opportunity. They won’t disappoint.”

“And the ships?” Po asked.

“We have the final route picked out. It is still easy to transfer ownership and thus switch shipping names and flags at each port without raising suspicions. We will move your ship with the nuclear material and the detonator to the first port. Meanwhile, the weapon hardware, which has been quality-controlled by our scientists, will be on another
ship. They will eventually meet up in Durban, and the components will continue on to the shores of the target. Then inland, the two bombs will be assembled and driven to their destinations.”

Po nodded vigorously. “And that …,” Po said, his granite face breaking into a rare expression of joy, “is when the great flower will bloom.”

The North Korean cupped his hands and slowly, delicately, expanded his fingers, like a street mime, in the graceful arching shape of a blooming flower. But that wasn’t it. Po was simulating the image of a nuclear mushroom cloud rising in the sky.

Now they were all smiling.