The announcement, curiously, had the opposite effect.
Like lemmings in the grip of the irresistible magnetism of the sea, American men-and not a few women, too-were being drawn to Texas. Many were veterans of earlier wars. They switched off the television in quiet rage, and decided forthwith they had had enough. According to the television news, on the morrow the Russian Seventeenth High Seas Fleet, bunting aloft, would steam up the Houston Ship Channel and anchor in the densely populated downtown area. There the Texans, having been given a lesson in manners, would honor their visitors with a twenty-one gun salute, following which the Russians would parade en masse down Navigation Boulevard. Led by Admiral of the Fleet Grell, they would be met by the mayor of Houston and the governor of Texas and be given the Peace of the City and the Key to Houston. So, at least, did the Russians propose, and let it be known that eager compliance was expected.
The mass of quiet Texans, hitherto uninvolved, exploded in rage. If the Soviet Union believed Texans behaved like Russians, who, once given a taste of the knout, are as docile as sheep unto the tenth generation, they were much mistaken. By the thousands, grim-faced men and women, carrying anything that would fire, converged on the city during the night and found places in rooms and offices overlooking Navigation Boulevard.
By daybreak, whole buildings were crammed to the eaves with hunters determined to bag the limit during the open season on Russian bear.
8 JULY 1998: EVENING
It was central to Russian strategy to trumpet the horrors of the attack on the Houston Ship Channel to the widest possible American audience, in the conviction that fear of a similar fate would cow the rest of the population into terrified submission. Thus the helicopters of the half-dozen local television stations, circling like carrion over the scenes of devastation, had not been molested in any way. Flying at altitudes above 1,000 feet, where they could get the big picture, the commercial copters interfered not at all with the combat operations of the low-flying Russian aircraft.
On a large screen in the bar of SD-1, Gwillam Forte’s Texas-project division chiefs-Dr. Ed Curry, Dr. Herbert Chilton Fallows, Professor Hamilton Reed, and Emilio Salvatore-watched the slaughter grimly. They had imagined that the Russians would make a short, sharp response to the sinking of the Borodin, perhaps the shelling of Galveston by the Seventeenth Fleet, but had been unprepared for the unparalleled ferocity of the Russian attack.
“They’re crazy,” Ed Curry whispered when the last of the black helicopters wheeled against the sun and headed back to the Omsk.
Ham Reed nodded. “They read no history books but their own. If they did, they’d remember Pearl Harbor and how it took that humiliation to get America off its, ass and on its feet. Can they really believe we’ll roll over and play dead after this?”
Herb Fallows laughed mirthlessly. “Why shouldn’t they? What can we do about it? Our fleet’s in Hamburg today, under a thousand Russian guns. All we’ve got here is the old Texas. What do you think they’ll do now?” Fallows asked Reed, the mathematician who had spent a career at the Pentagon trying to second-guess the Russians.
“Today’s made a hash of all my assumptions,” Reed confessed. “From here on, it’s all surmise. But my guess is that they’ll now proceed precisely as planned, to demonstrate that nothing stands in the way of the Soviet steamroller. If we’d sunk half their fleet, they’d still come. It’s essential to their strategy of giving the appearance of invincibility. Once that façade is cracked, the whole myth of Soviet superiority crumbles.”
“You think they’ll really come into Houston?” Salvatore asked.
“With bells on. They said they would. I believe them.”
“In the face of that?” He pointed to the television screen, which now showed the superhighways leading into Houston, still choked with incoming traffic as if nothing had happened, although descriptions of the fighting and the Russian victory had filled every radio channel.
“Sure. The Russians think they can’t lose against a disorderly mob of civilians, however numerous. And why shouldn’t they think so, after today?”
The four men finished their drinks thoughtfully.
The bartender, a dignified, gray-haired man, had kept discreetly to one side but listened to every word of the scientists’ desultory conversation. He now approached and filled the glasses.
“Pardon me for intruding into your discussions, gentlemen, but am I correct in assuming that we would like to inflict the maximum possible damage on the Russian fleet?”
“You can say that again, Charles,” Salvatore affirmed flatly.
“But if Professor Reed is correct in his assumption that the Seventeenth Fleet will steam into the inner-city basin as planned, surely there is an obvious way to do them grievous bodily harm.”
“It isn’t obvious to us,” said Fallows, stung. “Being a bartender, you obviously know all about the Texas preparations-not to mention dendrochronology, genetic engineering, astrophysics, and plate tectonics-but we are-”
“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of the Texas at all,” Charles said equably, for like all professional barmen he was impervious to taunts.
“No?”
“I had in mind, rather, those under-channel tunnels. They have been crammed with ammunition and other explosives for the past two days and nights, and the trucks are still streaming in. It occurred to me that if, as the Karl Marx was passing along the channel above, the tunnels were detonated, why-”
The four men looked at one another, stunned. They smiled. A cry of delight went up, and a joyous clink of glasses.
“Of course-the tunnels! Talk about tunnel vision,” Salvatore said, “just when we most needed it, it failed us. Pour yourself a drink, Charles-on second thought, take the bottle …”
Adjourned to a conference room, the four scientists fell to their calculations. Charles’s idea, while basically sound, was susceptible to a single, exciting modification, and it took the four men until early evening to determine whether it was within the realm of technological feasibility.
“Well,” Curry asked Reed, who was at the computer terminal keyboard making final calculations, “will it fly?”
“There’s your answer,” Reed said after a moment, pointing to the VDU.
“Damn!” Curry slapped Reed on the back. “I never imagined it would really work. But if you and Chill haven’t goofed somewhere, maybe-just maybe. . . .”
Reed sighed. “All this is paperwork, you know. We haven’t had time to plan a single experiment. We’ve had to work from raw figures, like the approximate amount of explosives in the tunnels.”
“Not quite approximate. We’ve got the exact figures from the loading sheets.”
“Sure we have,” Salvatore rejoined. “But we don’t know how old each lot is-and explosives become notoriously unstable and enfeebled with age, you know-or whether some inspector at the factory was bribed to pass a substandard load of mortar shells, or-hell, the variables are endless.”
“We’ve made allowances at both ends of the curve.”
“Still, we’re taking a big chance.”
“But not, mind you, with anybody’s life. Even if it doesn’t work, not a single American life is jeopardized. If it does work, a lot of Russians will be pushing up daisies.”
“Okay. But what about old Forte? What if he doesn’t approve of what we’re doing? His idea was to have the Ruskies sink the Texas, not vice versa.”
“Tough. Times have changed. If he doesn’t like it, we go ahead without him. But knowing him, I think he’ll like it.”
Dr. Fallows made a gesture of impatience. “We’re wasting time. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. You, Emilio, recalibrate the Elbows so they’ll fire concentrated rather than dispersed beams. Tomorrow, they’ve got to kill. See if you can beef up the magnetic defenses, too; though you may not have enough time for them all, at least strengthen those around the flag ridge relay center.”
“It means going aboard and activating the auxiliary control system to test power and alignment.”
“Then go aboard and activate it. Tonight, nobody is going to pay any attention to the Texas. Tomorrow, when the Russians come, we’ll switch control to SD-1.”
“Then there’s the matter of filling the interstices between the ammunition boxes in the tunnels. I’ve got an idea about that.”
He outlined it. Like most good ideas, it was simple in concept, but it did require a certain administrative talent to carry it out. Dr. Curry volunteered to supply it.
“The gasoline is no problem,” he observed. “Dozens of tank farms within spitting distance, many of them intact. As for the aluminum soaps, I know offhand of three sources, all within ten miles.”
“It’s only nine hours to daybreak.”
“If you stop jawing and get to work,” Curry said, “it’ll be enough.”
6 JULY 1998: MIDNIGHT
Dr. Izard T. Opal sat alone at the bar of a dark, dingy cocktail lounge on the fringes of Houston International Airport, north of the city, nursing the second of two stingers, which were his self-imposed ration for a twenty-four-hour period. He was feeling mellow, full to the brim with self-satisfaction.