projection of the Earth. As he seated himself beside General Armiston, the man from G-2 noticed a blinking red light traveling across the map.
As the Defense Secretary broke in on this contemplation, North realized that little time was about to be wasted. “That red marker, Gentlemen,” explained the Under Secretary of Defense, “represents the current course of a Soviet satellite. As you see, at this very instant it is entering the airspace above our Western coast line. In a moment it will pass over Los Angeles. Its present orbit to the northeast will take it within the next five minutes over St. Louis. It will pass close enough to Chicago to annihilate that city, and, inside of another five minutes, it will overfly New York City. One hour and twenty-eight minutes later it may repeat that orbit—or vary unpredictably.”
“I believe this puts you in the picture for the moment?” murmured the General.
Hugh North nodded, cold anger swamping his mind. He had been outraged enough when General Armiston had exposed the bare bones of this news threat earlier but now, watching that flickering red light carrying the precise location of the satellite, brought a terrible reality to this crisis.
“As you know,” the Defense Secretary continued in a strained voice, “this satellite very illegally carries a nuclear warhead; we did not know until a few hours ago that this is a hydrogen device. Soon you will be told how it got there.
“Meanwhile, to save time, let me inform you that we already have considered various ways of eliminating this threat. The most effective method, despite the risk of atmospheric contamination, is to launch an atomic missile along the same orbit but in the reverse direction, and thus remove this threat by destroying the device through a head-on contact. We have the mathematical and engineering capability to do this but we do not have a suitably armed satellite vehicle prepared and could not have one readied inside of thirty hours.”
The Secretary cleared his throat, permitted himself an aside: “We do not have a nuclear-armed satellite for instant use because we take our word seriously once it is given, which can’t be said for our Russian friends as has been proved time and again.”
The same old story, Hugh North told himself. Treaties, agreements, commitments. We keep them, the Russians break them. We play it straight, hoping against hope we can discover a foolproof means of assured co-existence only to find that we’ve been double-crossed. He anticipated that the whole problem was about to be discussed and already suspected that there must be something extraordinary about the nature of the Russian involvement which he must attempt to solve. No one yet had used those bitter words which would spell out a clear-cut ultimate confrontation with the Soviet Union.
“You will recall, Colonel North,” the Secretary was saying, “that despite all their protests to the contrary the Russians played a stalling game during negotiations for a treaty to outlaw nuclear weapons in outer space. We know now why they were stalling; they were developing a rocket that could launch a satellite carrying a hydrogen warhead.
“They have now, lamely enough, explained that they went ahead with this development because they felt they couldn’t trust us, but of course the present evidence proves who can be trusted and who can’t.
“In any event, the Russians launched this satellite secretly, from a base in the Urals just twelve days ago today. We have been tracking it—as we do all their satellites—and have estimated it as just another in their secret series until two days ago our tracking stations picked up the fact this vehicle suddenly had entered an erratic orbit. Apparently it had been programmed originally to pass almost exclusively over seas or deserts. We might never have known what was in that satellite’s payload if its orbital swing hadn’t brought the device over the United States.”
The Secretary glanced over North’s head to the wall map and all eyes followed his, watched the moving red blip place the satellite near St. Louis. Hugh’s gray-blue eyes remained riveted to the map. His lips tightened as the Secretary resumed.
“The President got on the Hot Line and warned the Russians bluntly that we didn’t appreciate their satellites’ overflying us. It was then that the Soviet Premier confessed. He admitted the situation and said it was even worse than we had realized: a hydrogen warhead is in the satellite.
“The President admitted later that not only was he shocked by this admission but also was astonished that the Russians should so freely admit it. Bluntly he replied that there would be time enough later to talk about why the Russians had elected to violate the treaty, but in the meantime he wanted it clearly understood that if this threat to the United States was not immediately removed he would arm every nuclear warhead in America, Europe and Asia aimed at Moscow and other major Russian cities and then gave them one hour to discover whether he was sincere in this threat.”
North lit a thin cigar and fixed his gaze on the Secretary. Wouldn’t do to miss even the least detail of what he was going to say because it wouldn’t be repeated.
“This brings us to the crux of the problem,” the Secretary’s taut voice continued. “The Russians claim that the shift in orbit was unintentional; that they’ve developed bugs in their guidance control system which altered the planned course and is preventing them from getting the vehicle to comply with ground-directed signals.”
As North glanced around the room he could see that several high officials were wearing skeptical expressions. He must have walked in on a rather brisk exchange of Military Intelligence opinions.
“The President realized within seconds that this was something he couldn’t afford to debate over the Hot Line—we’d have to obtain opinions for him. But he knew he couldn’t take any chances either. So he made a deal: either they locate the bugs and control them within seventy-two hours from last midnight, or they turn over their plans for the satellite flight to our own space scientists. We’ll be invited to figure out corrections to keep that threat away from our soil.”
General Armiston sighed, pushed his coffee cup away, while North wondered which side of the argument he was to be on.
“The Russians grumbled,” the Secretary continued, “but finally agreed. Meanwhile, of course, we’re going ahead with our own missile arming and they know it. We’re not to be caught short.” He paused. “I don’t have to tell you that if either trigger is pulled, ‘long or short’ may not mean much any more.”
The Secretary rubbed silvery stubble along his chin. “I’ll ask General Armiston to bring you up to date on Intelligence findings now. Any questions, Colonel?”
“By your leave, sir”—warily Hugh North settled back—“I’d like to listen.”
General Armiston shook his head. “Nevertheless, please speak, Colonel.”
“Very well, sir. From what you’ve told me, if the Russians aren’t able to correct their own system have they offered to turn over their data to us?”
“Yes. And if we can’t utilize this data?” demanded the Chief of G-2.
“We will launch an atomic missile of our own on a collision course which will detonate this Russian satellite far enough out in space to harm no one—or so we hope.”
“May I ask by what means this Russian information is to be transmitted?” queried the Under Secretary.
General Armiston shot glances at his opposite numbers in the Armed Services.
“You anticipate, sir,” he said, “but you’ve hit on the principal danger of a plan which, at best, has plenty of weaknesses in it. All transmissions are supposed to
