Phoenix Sub Zero

“This weapon, the Scorpion. You put it in the Hiroshima cruise missile … but the Hiroshima only has a range of 3,500 kilometers. That’s not far.”

“We can target Europe from UIF territories but—”

“But that isn’t good enough. We need to target their seat of power.”

“Washington … I have a plan to deliver the warhead there, but it will take some time,” Ahmed gestured at the electronic map showing the advancing armies of the Coalition, “and we must hurry.”

“What is the plan?”

Ahmed glanced at the electronic chart, wondering if this was the time to tell General Sihoud the rest of the bad news, perhaps the worst news of all. He saw Sihoud’s penetrating eyes and decided that Sihoud needed the facts, whether or not he elected to believe them.

“Before I go into the Scorpion deployment plan, I need to tell you about something else, something of an immediate nature—”

“Another assassination plot. Colonel?”

“In a way, sir. I have been seeing intelligence that Coalition forces may plan a decapitation operation. They may try to take you out and we need to respond to that quickly.”

“There will be no decapitation. Rakish. These are the same people who fought Hitler, Ho Chi Minh, Hussein. Not one of them was ever assassinated. Colonel.”

“Exactly, sir. That’s why we worry that you will be the first.”

“Your paranoia begins to reflect on you. Rakish. A warrior does not worry about assassination plots. But go ahead.

What’s the proof?”

“A large airliner took off from Volgograd several hours ago on the way to Alma-Ata and disappeared over the Aral Sea. It never landed, yet it is not on our radars. It makes me very suspicious. This plane could be bringing paratroopers.”

“An airplane,” Sihoud said skeptically, beginning to lose interest. “An airplane lost on a radar screen. This is not something even worth a discussion. Colonel.”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure you’re right, still … At about the same time the mystery jet took off, our geosynch satellite detected three sudden heat blooms in the Arabian Sea off Karachi and two more in the Mediterranean east of Cyprus.”

“Heat blooms …?”

“Infrared scanned heat sources, sudden and very hot.”

“Perhaps gun tests or flare launches. Disposal of defective ordnance, maybe.”

“Or maybe the Coalition is targeting us with cruise missiles.

The heat blooms could have been their rocket motor first stages.”

“That’s it?”

“We can’t track cruise missiles from the ground, sir. We don’t know if they are coming. And the aircraft approach is perplexing. As I said, it could hold paratroopers.”

“Enough of this,” Sihoud said. “Two weeks ago you were certain a commando force had landed outside Ashkhabad and was coming for me. We never heard from them. I will not fight this war from the rear, Colonel.

We must return to the field.”

Ahmed nodded, feeling equal parts frustration that Sihoud was not hearing him and hope that Sihoud was right.

SEVEN MILES SOUTH OF KIZYL-ARVAT, TURKMENISTAN

Augusta’s first-fired Javelin cruise missile hugged the ground, barely twenty feet above the brushland of the Turkmenian plains, flying at 650 miles per hour. As it did every six minutes, the onboard Javcalcor computer commanded a fall self-check and the missile’s systems reported in. Fuel was getting low at forty percent; fuel flow rate was within limits. Compressor inlet, combustor discharge, and turbine discharge temperatures were all nominal. The warhead system reported satisfactory interlocks with the detonator train disconnected and open-circuited. The guidance system reported that the rudder and elevator control surfaces were functional. The navigation system was taking continuous fixes on the terrain-following contour-radar set, and the shape of the land below, matched the computer memory; the flatness of the Turkmenian Plain had caused some concern, but a backup star fix showed the terrain navigation to be within limits. The missile was about a half mile ahead of where the clock indicated it should be, and since arrival at the target at a precise moment in time was vital, the computer decided to slow the missile down by twenty feet per second. The amidships fuel flow control valve shut slightly, cutting down on the combustor fuel feed. The combustion chamber’s discharge temperature dropped and the turbine whined down slightly. Nozzle thrust fell a fraction and the missile slowed.

The computer scanned the memory map of the Turkmenian terrain and the approach to the Main Bunker Complex outside of Ashkhabad. The weapon would approach from the north at reduced altitude. At a range of one mile it would execute a pop-up maneuver, climbing almost vertically up to 2,000 feet, then arc over and dive into the bunker from directly overhead.

The computer reminded itself to wait 200 milliseconds after impact before detonating the warhead’s compact high explosive, to ensure the weapon had traveled all the way to the fourth sublevel before exploding — the target was almost 140 feet below the ground floor level of the mosque.