Protocol 15

Chapter 2

2

A SLEEPING ISLAND

NATO Listening Post, Kosrae Island, Micronesia. The Solomon Sea, 1,379 nautical miles north-northeast of Papua New Guinea. June 19, 11:33 p.m. local time (8:33 a.m. EST).

“You hear the chatter last night about the spy plane, that Air Force RC-135?”

“The Cobra Ball? Yeah. I think they were just flying around monitoring a Russki thing though.”

“Which Russian thing?”

“Same old thing. Naval maneuvers. A pretty boring night, as usual.”

“The Cobra Ball flying that same figure-eight pattern they normally do?”

“From what we could tell by watching on radar, yeah. But, they were way the hell out there, on the edge of our radar cup. We were only able to . . .” His attention diverted to a computer monitor in front of him. “Wait, did you see that? What the hell?”

A radar alarm blared on speakers mounted overhead and the two men scrambled to place headphones over their ears.

“Holy s**t, that’s a missile launch!” one said.

The other keyed his headset then spoke into the mic. “NATO COMSAT, NATO COMSAT, this is Listening Post Kosrae one niner two. We’ve just detected a missile launch. Currently tracking an inbound hostile from North Korean airspace. Can you confirm?”

A crackle from his headset replied. “LP Kosrae one niner two, this is COMSAT. Roger that, Kosrae. We see the launch, but we’ve got no track. You are our eyes.”

“Understood, COMSAT. We see the inbound from central North Korean airspace, pushing through six thousand feet. Banking, banking now, turning due east. The heat signature of the missile registers as a Taepodong or Taepodong-2 class ICBM. This is the real thing. Repeat, this is not a drill. Given attitude, altitude, and direction, this could be a North Korean attack on Japan, sir. The hostile is headed right for them.”

“Roger that, Kosrae. All stations have just been issued the alert command.”

“The bird is increasing in altitude. The computer is recalculating the flight path. Hold on . . . I don’t think its target is Japan, sir. At that altitude, the hostile will fly right over.”

“What else is directly along that trajectory?” the other man said. “I don’t care how far away it is. We’ve got to know what they’re shooting at.”

The operator traced his finger across the map on the computer monitor. “Let’s see, there’s the Midway Islands, but there’s nothing there. After that . . . oh shit.” The two operators looked at each other. “Hawaii.”

The computer recalculated and spit out new coordinates for the projected trajectory of the hostile missile, and its most likely destination:

Latitude: 22-01'10'' N — Longitude: 160-06'02'' W

Lehua, Kauai, HI

“Oh my God, you’re right. The computer confirms. It’s Hawaii. Find out what’s on the island of Lehua. Not that it’ll matter if that ICBM showers the entire island chain with multiple independent warheads. The entire Hawaiian population will be incinerated.” He keyed his headset again. “COMSAT, this is LP Kosrae. We’ve got confirmation.” He read off the coordinates. “It’s Hawaii, sir. Lehua, Kauai, Hawaii.”

There was no reply from the other side. Only static.

“Sir?”

“Ah, roger that, Kosrae. Estimated time till impact?”

“Based on the calculated distance of 4,485 miles from the original source to target, and the fact that the hostile is now suborbital, traveling at an estimated 13,200 miles per hour, the computer estimates time till impact at three and one half minutes. That would make it exactly 3:32 a.m. Hawaii local time.”