Lucifer's Hammer

June: Two

General, you don’t have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!

The policy of the United States remains unchanged. Upon confirmation of actual nuclear attack on this nation, our strategic forces will inflict unacceptable damage on the enemy.

Sergeant Mason Jefferson Lawton was SAC and proud of it. He was proud of the sharply creased coveralls, and the blue scarf at his throat, and the white gloves. He was proud of the .38 on his hip.

It was late afternoon in Omaha. The day had been hot. Mason glanced at his watch again, and just as he did, the KC-135 swept out of the sky and down the runway. It taxied over to the unloading area where Mason waited. The first man out was a colonel permanently stationed at Offutt. Mason recognized him. The next man fit the photograph Security had furnished. They came over to the jeep.

“ID, please?” Mason asked.

The colonel took his out without a word. Senator Jellison frowned. “I just came in on the General’s plane, with your own colonel—”

“Yes, sir,” Mason said. “But I need to see your ID.”

Jellison nodded, amused. He took a leather folder from an inside pocket, then gri

If it did, Mason showed no other signs. He waited while another officer brought Jellison’s bag and put it in the jeep. They drove down the runway past the specially equipped Looking Glass ship. There were three of those ships, and one was in the air at all times. They carried a Strategic Air Command general officer and staff.

Back at the end of World War II, SAC Headquarters was put in Omaha, at the center of the U.S. The command center itself was built four stories below ground, and reinforced with concrete and steel. The Hole was supposed to withstand anything — but that was before ICBMs and H-bombs. Now there were no illusions. If the Big One came off, the Hole was doomed. That wouldn’t keep SAC from controlling its forces, because Looking Glass couldn’t be brought down. No one except its pilots ever knew where it was.

Mason ushered the Senator into the big brick building and up the stairs to General Bambridge’s office. The office had an old-fashioned air about it. The wooden furniture, most with leather upholstery, was ancient. So was the huge desk. The walls were lined with shelves, each holding USAF models: WWII fighters, a huge B-36 with its improbable pusher props and jet pods, a B-52, missiles of every description. These were the only modern features except the telephones.

There were three on the desk: black, red and gold. A portable unit containing a red and a gold phone stood on a table near the desk. Those phones went with General Bambridge: in his car, to his home, in his bedroom, in the latrines; he was never more than four rings from the gold phone and never would be during his tour of duty as Commander in Chief, Strategic Air Command. The gold phone reached the President. The red one went downhill, from Bambridge to SAC, and it could launch more firepower than all the armies in history had ever employed.

General Thomas Bambridge waved Senator Jellison to a seat, and joined him in the conversation group near the big window overlooking the runway. Bambridge didn’t sit behind his desk to talk to people unless there was something wrong. It was said that a major once fainted dead away after five minutes standing in front of Bambridge’s desk.

“What the hell brings you out here like this?” Bambridge asked. “What couldn’t we settle on the phones?”

“How secure are your phones?” Jellison asked.

Bambridge shrugged. “As good as we can make them.”

“Maybe yours are all right,” Jellison said. “You’ve got your own people to check them. I’m damned sure mine aren’t safe. Officially, it’s what I told you, I need some help understanding budget requests.”

“Sure. You want a drink?”

“Whiskey, if you’ve got it here.”

“Sure.” Bambridge took a bottle and glasses from the cabinet behind his desk. “Cigar? Here, you’ll like ’em.”

“Havana?” Jellison said.

Bambridge shrugged. “The boys get ’em in Canada. Never have got used to U.S. cigars. Cubans may be bastards, but they sure can roll cigars.” He brought the whiskey to the coffee table and poured. “Okay, just what is this all about?”

“The Hammer,” Arthur Jellison said.

General Bambridge’s face went blank. “What about it?”

“It’s coming pretty close.”

Bambridge nodded. “We’ve got some fair mathematicians and computers ourselves, you know.”

“So what are you doing about it?”

“Nothing. By order of the President.” He pointed to the .gold phone. “Nothing is going to happen, and we mustn’t alarm the Russians.” Bambridge grimaced. “Mustn’t alarm the bastards. They’re killing our friends in Africa, but we shouldn’t upset them because it might mess up our friendship.”

“It’s a hard world,” Jellison said.

“Sure it is. Now what is it you want?”

“Tom, that thing’s coming close. Really close. I don’t think the President understands what that means.”

Bambridge took the cigar out of his mouth and inspected the chewed end. “The President doesn’t take much interest in us,” he said. “That’s good, because he leaves SAC pretty much to run itself. But good or bad, he’s President, which makes him my Commander in Chief, and I’ve got fu

“Your oath’s to the Constitution,” Jellison said. “And weren’t you a Pointer? Duty, Honor, Country. In that order.”

“So?”

“Tom, that comet’s coming really close. Really. They tell me it’ll knock out all your early-warning radars—”

“They tell me that, too,” Bambridge said. “Art, I don’t want to be a smart-ass, but aren’t you trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs?” He went to the desk and brought back a red-covered report. “We’ll see what looks like an attack that isn’t really there, and we won’t be able to see a real one — if there is one. Sure, the day they think they can win clean, they’ll hit us, but Air Intelligence tells me things are pretty quiet over there right now.” Bambridge thumbed through the document again, and his voice fell. “Of course, if we can’t see them coming, they couldn’t see us—”

“Get that look off your face!”

“Well, I can’t be court-martialed just for thinking.”

“This is serious, Tom. I don’t think the Russians will start anything — so long as it’s only a near miss. But…”

Bambridge cocked his head to one side. “Jesus! My people didn’t tell me it would hit us!”

“Nor did mine,” Jellison said. “But the odds are now hundreds to one against. Used to be billions. Then thousands. Now it’s only hundreds. That’s a little scary.”

“It is that. So what am I supposed to do? The President ordered me not to go on alert—”

“He can’t give you that order. Your charter says you have authority to take any measure needed to protect your forces. Anything short of launching.”

“Christ.” Bambridge looked out the window. The Looking Glass KC-135 was taking off, which meant that the airborne ship would be coming in after its replacement was safely airborne and lost. “You’re asking me to defy a Presidential direct order.”

“I’m telling you that if you do, you’ve got friends in Congress. You might lose your job, but that’ll be the worst.” Jellison’s voice was very low and urgent. “Tom, do you think I like this? I doubt that goddam comet will hit Earth, but if it does and we’re not ready… God knows what will happen.”