“I just received a call from the radar tower, sir. Either all our equipment has gone crazy or we’re having some strange visitors.”
General Shipley pushed himself out of bed. “Tell them I’ll be there in five minutes.”
The darkened radar room was filled with enlisted men and officers gathered around the lighted radar screens in the center of the room. They turned and sprang to attention as the general entered.
“At ease.” He walked over to the officer in charge, Captain Muller. “What’s going on here, Lewis?”
Captain Muller scratched his head. “It beats me. Do you know any plane that can travel twenty-two thousand miles per hour, stop on a dime, and go into reverse?”
General Shipley was staring at him. “What are you talking about?”
“According to our radar screens, that’s what’s been going on for the last half hour. At first we thought it might be some kind of electronic device that’s being tested, but we checked with the Russians, the British, and the French, and they’re picking up the same thing on their radar screens.”
“So, it couldn’t be something in the equipment,” General Shipley said heavily.
“No, sir. Not unless you want to assume that all the radar in the world has suddenly gone crazy.”
“How many of these have appeared on the screen?”
“Over a dozen. They move so fast that it’s hard to even keep track of them. We pick them up, and they disappear again. We’ve eliminated atmospheric conditions, meteors, fireballs, weather balloons, and any kind of flying machine known to man. I was going to scramble some planes, but these objects—whatever they are—are flying so damned high that we’d never be able to get near them.”
General Shipley walked over to one of the radar screens. “Is anything coming in on your screens now?”
“No, sir. They’re gone.” He hesitated a moment. “But General, I have a terrible feeling they’ll be coming back.”
Chapter Thirty
Ottawa, 0500 Hours
When Janus finished reading General Shipley’s report aloud, the Italian stood up and said excitedly, “They are getting ready to invade us!”
“They have already invaded us.” The Frenchman.
“We are too late. It is a catastrophe.” The Russian. “There is no way—”
Janus interrupted. “Gentlemen, it is a catastrophe we can prevent.”
“How? You know their demands.” The Englishman.
“Their demands are out of the question.” The Brazilian. “It’s no business of theirs what we do with our trees. The so-called greenhouse effect is scientific garbage, totally unproven.”
“And what about us?” The German. “If they forced us to clean up the air over our cities, we would have to shut down our factories. We would have no industries left.”
“And we would have to stop manufacturing cars,” the Japanese said. “And then where would the civilized world be?”
“We are all in the same position.” The Russian. “If we have to stop all pollution, as they insist, it would destroy the world’s economies. We must buy more time until Star Wars is ready to take them on.”
Janus said crisply, “We are agreed on that. Our immediate problem is to keep our people calm and to avoid the spread of panic.”
“How is Commander Bellamy progressing?” The Canadian.
“He’s making excellent progress. He should be finished in the next day or two.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Kiev, the Soviet Union
Like most of her countrywomen, Olga Romanchanko had become disenchanted with perestroika. In the beginning, all the promised changes that were going to happen in the Soviet Union sounded so exciting. The winds of freedom were blowing through the streets, and the air was filled with hope. There were promises of fresh meat and vegetables in the shops, pretty dresses and real leather shoes, and a hundred other wonderful things. But now, six years after it had all begun, bitter disillusion had set in. Goods were scarcer than ever. It was impossible to survive without the black market. There was a shortage of virtually everything, and prices had soared. The main streets were still filled with rytvina—huge potholes. There were protest marches in the streets, and crime was on the increase. Restrictions were more severe than ever. Perestroika and glasnost had begun to seem as empty as the promises of the politicians who promoted them.