Skyfall

23

GET 07/52

President Bandin was in the toilet, in his own private toilet when someone pounded on the door. He burst out seconds later, holding the towel, his hands still wet, fire in his eye. Bannerman was standing there, white faced, almost trembling. This in itself was enough to stop Bandin, who never in his life had expected to see that leathery skin drained of blood, the man suddenly as old as his years, older. The words came quickly.

“My God,” was all that Bandin could say, in a hoarse whisper, not even knowing that he spoke, slumped against the open bathroom door with the forgotten towel clutched in his hand.

“My God, oh my God. . “

It took seconds, then minutes, then almost an hour to find out what happened in any detail. Colonel O'Brian, the silent witness at Ground Command Control, in Kapustin Yar, knew that something had gone completely wrong at the precise moment the controllers did. He had the same readouts before him, the same information. His fists tensed, tighter and tighter, as he saw the first erratic firing, then the continuous firing — then the change in orbit. The new orbit could not be measured quickly or easily and he was aware of the growing panic, the hysteria in the voices calling to each other and he was to verify this in many secret interrogations in the coming months. But right now all he could do was watch.

As the figures flowed in the computer worked out an orbit. An unbelievable one. Slowly the voices died away and all sound ceased as the orbit was plotted on the screen. Changing, turning, downward, accelerating. With their mind's eye they could see the danger growing unbelievably before them, watch enacted out minutes after the tragedy the last flight of the core booster of Prometheus One. Watch until the utterly incomprehensible moment when the orbit, the path of the booster in space, ended.

The computer, which had been printing out the rows of figures, came to the end of its information and fell silent. The chattering of the printer stopped at the same moment. The silence was absolute.

“Send this!” O'Brian ordered, and was surprised at the roughness in his voice. Silverstein looked up at him, taken unaware, for he did not know one word of Russian and even less of space technology, and had not the slightest idea of what had gone wrong. “Top priority, and I mean top. For the President. Core booster malfunction. Appears to have impacted the Earth. Site unknown.” He scrabbled in the papers before him and made some quick calculations. “First estimate would be area fifty-two degrees north latitude, zero degrees longitude.”

“Where is that, Colonel? Where is it?” The sergeant was beginning to have some realization of what was happening.

“Zero longitude? Greenwich, England…”

They looked at each other in mutually shared horror. They both knew England well. Knew how crowded with people that island was. Silverstein slowly tapped out the information that O'Brian gave him, but knew this was only the outline of the tragedy. When there was nothing more to report he typed a query for return information soonest on point of impact.

The orbit analysis from Kapustin Yar was sent directly to the White House, followed by Houston's own orbit from their tracking stations. Then Houston ran their own figures and the Russian ones through the computer once more and came up with an estimated point of impact, theoretically correct to within a quarter of a mile. Instead of bringing the raw data to the President the Information Officer in the White House made a xerox of the southern half of England and drew a red circle with a felt tip pen on the site. He then put the map and the final figures in a leather attaché case and ran for the elevator. Because he was well known, plus the fact that rumors of what had happened were already circulating, the guards at the conference room door opened it as he approached. Almost the entire cabinet was there, hastily summoned, and every eye was on him when he entered. The President held out his hand and the officer gave him the papers. Bandin looked at them in silence until the door had closed, then raised his head slowly. There was a faint tremor in his hands.

“It looks from here, I can't really tell, as though the rocket came down in the countryside. There's a lot of countryside in England.” His voice was hollow, his words unconvincing even to himself. General Bannerman reached for the map and he passed it over in silence. Forgetting that he had never worn them at a public meeting before, Bannerman took the gold-rimmed pince-nez reading glasses from his breast pocket and put them on.

“Countryside, yes,” he said. “But the motorway cuts right through here. It's heavily traveled, I know. And there is one name here, not easy to read in the xerox. Looks like Gottenham New Town.”

“Cottenham New Town,” Dr. Schlochter said in his best scholastic voice. Unlike the others the Secretary of State seemed outwardly unmoved by the developing events. “One of the more successful British attempts to move light industry out of the cities and into areas in need of development. You will remember that I was there at the dedication ceremonies with the Minister of Labor.”

No one remembered or cared. The President turned to Charley Dragoni who sat at the secretarial table, a telephone pressed to his ear. “Well?” he called out.

“I have your office holding on calls to Whitehall and the Embassy in London, Mr. President. They know nothing more than we do, but will report as soon as they do. I'm holding myself here on the scrambler line which has been patched through to Ten Downing Street. The Prime Minister is in conference, taking reports, but he knows you're waiting for his call. I… excuse me. Yes?” He listened to the phone for a moment while they all waited in silence. “Yes, thank you, I'll pass on the information.” He looked up. “The Prime Minister will be with you in a few moments, sir, as soon as he has finished a call to the Kremlin.”

“Has anyone found out what sort of impact this thing would have?” Dr. Schlochter asked. “Perhaps we are making mountains out of molehills. There are airplane accidents every day and they are forgotten the next.”

Bannerman had the figures scrawled on a piece of paper and his words filled the silence.

“The estimate sent through from GCCT at KY is that approximately twenty percent of the fuel was unused at the last engine shutdown. That, with the total weight of the vehicle, gives us a total impact mass weight of over a million pounds. Speed is important here. Going at sixty miles an hour that would make a big hole in the ground and nothing more. Houston reckons that, even allowing for reduced speed from atmosphere friction, that must have hit a velocity of over, twenty thousand feet per second. Or if you want it on a speedometer, that is just about eighteen thousand miles an hour. About half the explosive power of a tactical atomic bomb.”

“The Prime Minister, Mr. President,” Dragoni said. Ban-din picked up the phone by his elbow.

“Yes, I'm holding. Yes. Mr. Prime Minister, President Bandin here. I am shocked, as I am sure you are, at this terrible accident. All of us here are hoping, praying, that there has been no loss of life, minimal loss of life. Yes, I'm sorry. There has been what?… Yes, I understand. Good God, this is terrible. I have no words, no, none… Whatever aid, anything we can do… Of course I do understand. Though of course we are not responsible for this terrible tragedy we do feel responsible in that it is a joint project, although this rocket was Soviet, and we wished to do everything in our power in this hour of need. Yes, thank you, goodbye.”

Bandin put the receiver gently down and looked around at the silent men.

“That does it,” he finally said. “The goddamned rocket did hit that town, that (Tottenham place you were talking about. Took it out just like it had been aimed at. No exact figures yet of course but the PM says the first estimates are at least twenty-one thousand dead….”

“Those are just the people who were in the place,” Bandin continued. “There are roads hit, the motorway, accident reports still coming in. Fires too. He's called a national alert, mobilized troops, ambulances, fire departments, everything he can get.”

“We could offer the assistance of our armed forces stationed there to aid in the relief work,” Schlochter said.

“No,” Dillwater said with great firmness. “I would advise issuing orders for all American personnel to be restricted to their bases. The British have enough manpower to handle this themselves. Soviet rocket or no we're in this up to our necks. I don't think our people are going to be very popular over there for awhile.”

“I second that,” Bannerman said. “If you agree, Mr. President, I will issue an order to that effect right now.”

“Yes, you're probably right considering the circumstances.” Bannerman picked up his phone. “But what else can we do? There must be something.” Bandin looked around at the men in his cabinet but no answers were forthcoming. “What effect is this going to have upon the Prometheus Project?” he asked.

“It should not affect it in any way,” Dillwater answered. “We have backup boosters to replace the one destroyed. The project can go ahead. But there can be no question about not having a second disaster like this.”

“I should hope not. Maybe we can ride out this one, but two strikes and we're out. And I don't have to tell you how much is riding on this project. National prestige, one in the eye for the Arabs — and the next election. If Prometheus goes down the drain, and the public doesn't see any return for the money spent so far, you are going to see one of them from that party sitting in this chair next year. And what is happening with Prometheus? Have we forgotten all about them in this brouhaha?”

“No, Mr. President,” Dillwater said. “The engine is now being prepared for ignition and will soon be firing. You will be informed as soon as this happens. Final orbit will not be reached for at least forty-eight hours after that. Then the generator assembly will begin.”

“It better. Set up a call to Polyarni. I want to find out what the Kremlin thinks about this. This is one time when we have got to stick together.”