The Last Ship_A Novel by William Brinkley

Author:William Brinkley [Brinkley, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2013-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

8

A Signal from Bosworth

Years since it had become obvious what the initial objective of both sides would be: that at least the two had in common, mirror images of strategy. This was simply to take out, in the first minutes of any conflict, the command, control, communications, and intelligence network (C3I) of the other. Otherwise known as “decapitation,” another of that lexicon which came so obscenely to dominate and corrupt the effective language of the latter years of the century. (In the mindless vulgarity of the time, colorful phrases were evoked to picture the flawless beauty of these acts: “cut off the head of the Soviet chicken,” as an instance, the authors of such metaphors smirking self-congratulatorily at their picturesqueness, as though speaking of some devilishly clever prank.) Decapitation: It was a relatively easy undertaking, though said by some to be easier for them than for us, due to their greater geography and dispersion. For them, the objective was to be achieved by launching simultaneously on Washington, D.C.; SAC Headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska; the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD) in Cheyenne Mountain near Colorado Springs; three or four other backup places; and perhaps a dozen critical communications relay points including essential satellites, their locations all well known, their elimination a routine matter; to accomplish all of this requiring no more than thirty minutes at the extreme outside (if done entirely from their own territory), with a strong possibility that that figure could, with proper placement of launching platforms (submarines off American cities), be cut to fourteen minutes or even nine.

The idea was twofold and a genius of the manifest: (1) to remove the political-military leadership, the National Command Authority; and (2) aided by the Electromagnetic Pulse generated by a high-altitude burst, to leave remaining no means of communication through which to send retaliation orders even had there been anyone left to do so. Someone had speculated that the ideal time of all, the perfect time for the other side, would be when the President of the United States was delivering his annual State of the Union message, since on that occasion the entire American succession would be gathered in not just one city, Washington, D.C., but in a single room, the House of Representatives on Capitol Hill: fifteen constitutional successors to himself, from the Vice President clear through the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Secretary of Transportation; present also would be the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who while not in the official succession would presumably be prepared if alive, the succession all dead, to take upon themselves, in the absence of any lawful provisions or authority, nonetheless to strike back in such a circumstance; parenthetically present also all members of both houses of the Congress. This wealth of potential usurpers to power gone, who then would anoint himself to give battle back? If he did how could he discover the various rituals—necessary ciphers, Go-Codes and the like—to accomplish a response? And if he

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