The Orion Protocol

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Chapter One

January 27/Oval Office/the White House

"Two months ago, if anybody had said we were gonna catch this in the first hundred days, I'd have thought they were high."

The fifty-eight-year-old former senator from Colorado and newlyelected President of the United States stared out the much-photographedbay window of the Oval Office and into the cut-back winter RoseGarden.

"What was it Truman said?"

On the desktop, the blade end of his letter opener, engraved with thepresidential seal, tapped out a rhythmic figure from the William TellOverture known to Americans who came of age in front of three black-and-white channels of network TV as the theme from The Lone Ranger.

"Truman, sir?"

From a clubby wing chair, R. Cabot "Bob" Winston, the President'snational security adviser, recognized the galloping little perididdle andmade a private note to include it in his memoirs: one of those littlehuman details people liked to read about from a historic moment.

"When they told him about Fat Boy." The President clanked the bladeinto a decorated soup can/pencil holder his youngest daughter oncemade him for Father's Day. "Damn it, I know this."

"Ah, January of forty-five. In this room." Winston sat up minutelystraighter, unconsciously signaling the sense of occasion he felt whenpast presidents were invoked within these walls.

The new President rocked in his leather chair.

"With Harriman and his whole sleek Ivy League crowd telling poorHarry-the-Haberdasher he had to nuke the Japanese."

"Or not," Winston said, in a small bow to the Office.

"Oh, I think Einstein's group was the only 'or not.'" The President'sdry tone glinted off the darker edge of a sense of humor familiar to hiscampaign staff. "Jesus, what the hell did he say?"

Winston searched his own mental archives.

A buttoned-down Skull & Bones veteran of executive-branch politics,he had experienced an extraordinary tenure, having served at highlevels in the NSA and on the National Security Council in both Bushadministrations. His carryover appointment was both an olive branchacross the aisle and a gesture of confidence toward Intelligence: a communitybeleaguered by scandal, Cold War excesses, and spectacular failures,now resurrected and seeking redemption through its missionagainst global terrorism.

Winston, their point man, produced an answer.

"Yes. Wasn't it, 'How much time do I have?'"

"No, 'How much time do I get?' " the President said, in Harry Truman'sflat twang, savoring the Midwest inflection. "How much time doI get?"

Winston nodded, composed and ramrod straight.

Younger White House staffers had observed that he seemed to wearalertness like a mask, as if some hard-bitten mentor from the halls ofspookdom had once cautioned him that blinking one's eyes was a signof weakness. And, though word was passed down that the Presidentregarded R. Cabot Winston as a symbol of national unity, many stillreferred to him in-house as "Robo-Bob." It was cruel, but fair.

"Well, I guess that's my question, too, Bob."

"We're a few days out from final testing, sir."

"Days." The President's surprise was eloquent enough.

Winston offered a thin-lipped smile. "With a caveat which I willexplain."

As if triggering a pair of explosive bolts, the national security adviserloudly snapped open the bombproof briefcase handcuffed to his leftwrist. He then produced a file stamped project orion/potus/eyes only and laid it flat on the Oval Office desk. POTUS used readingglasses to inspect it as Winston explained.

"This is the executive order authorizing continuing funding ofspace shield research and testing. The record enclosed represents decadesof development and half a trillion dollars invested, give or take,each phase of publicly funded R & D supplemented with discretionarymonies by presidential EO. The line for your initials has been flagged."

Noting all the previous presidents' initials displayed in succession,the new Commander in Chief handled the documents like rare historicalartifacts prepared for display at the Smithsonian. But he'd have bethis campaign debt that this record would never see the light of day.

"I guess Star Wars didn't just fade away when the Wall came down,"he said, leafing through the pages.

"Fortunately not, sir."

Classified above top secret, the file in the President's hands chartedthe progress of Project Orion from its Cold War roots as part of Reagan'sStrategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. Star Wars, to its post-911 incarnationas a space-based laser weapons system adroitly repositioned as ashield against rogue terrorist ICBMs.

"Ups the ante from a few missiles on the ground in Alaska,doesn't it?"

"The photon laser leapfrogs all other missile defense technology, sir."

The President nodded, his apprehensions intact: space-basedweapons more than violated America's post-ABM strategic defenseagreements with Russia. And September 11 no longer provided a freepass for whatever the U.S. wanted in the name of national security.

"So, what's the damned caveat, Bob?"

Winston presented the facts unadorned, like a nice neat hanging.

"There's a hard window for deployment, sir. We have twenty-onedays."

"That's ridiculous. We're still looking for the johns around here."

"I understand, sir. But geomechanically, if we don't deploy Orionwithin three weeks, NASA says we'll have to wait a full year before wecan try it again, which would be extremely problematic in terms ofrealpolitik."

For all the speeches at the UN pledging antiterror solidarity, unilateraldeployment of uncodified American superweapons would be like throwinga flash grenade into the 3-D chess game of international relations.

The wariness in the President's demeanor edged toward anger.

"Why wasn't the transition team brought up to speed on this twomonths ago?"

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Excerpted from The Orion Protocol by Gary Tigerman
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.