Read Able One for Free Online

our systems are on full alert. We could respond with a devastating nuclear counterstrike at a moment’s notice.”
    “Even if the President is dead?” Jamil asked. His voice was soft, tentative, as if he’d surprised himself by speaking up.
    Everyone turned to him. Her dark eyes narrowing, Coggins demanded, “What do you mean by that?”
    Suddenly the focus of everyone around the table, Jamil blinked his brown eyes nervously and pawed at his unruly hair. At last he said, “Well, the President is scheduled to give a speech in San Francisco tonight.”
    General Scheib pointed to the wall screen with one hand as he pecked with a single finger at his laptop’s keyboard. A schematic drawing of a ballistic missile appeared on the screen, with a list of performance specifications alongside it.
    “Those two missiles are Taepodong-2s,” Scheib said. “They don’t have the range to reach San Francisco. Or the reliability. The last time they fired one it splashed into the Pacific several hundred miles short of Hawaii.”
    Jamil had to turn in his chair to see the drawing. “According to our information,” he said, “the Taepodong-2 has a range of ten thousand kilometers.”
    “That’s Pyongyang propaganda. In the real world, the Taepodong-2 doesn’t have the range to reach San Francisco.”
    “I admit that San Francisco is at the extreme fringe of the missile’s capability.” Jamil’s tone was conciliatory, yet he was clearly contradicting the general.
    Scheib glared at the civilian analyst. “Even so, the missile doesn’t have the accuracy to hit San Francisco, not at that range.”
    Jamil nodded slightly but countered, “Yet they launched a bird into geosynchronous orbit. General, I submit that their guidance system has demonstrated a sophisticated degree of accuracy.”
    “You can submit whatever you want,” Scheib retorted with a humorless grin. “They can’t reach San Francisco.”
    General Higgins pointed down the table at Jamil. “Are you saying those two missiles could hit San Francisco?”
    “It’s within the realm of possibility,” Jamil replied.
    Shaking his head vigorously, General Scheib insisted, “They’re Taepodong-2s! They don’t have the range. Or the accuracy.”
    “Then how did they get a nuclear warhead all the way up to geosynch orbit?” Jamil asked. “If you do the math, you can see that they do indeed have the capability.”
    “For Chrissakes, we can see the missiles on their pads,” Scheib retorted. “We can count the solid rocket units they’ve strapped onto their first stages. They don’t have the range to reach San Francisco.”
    “But if you do the math--”
    “Screw the math,” Scheib snapped. “We’ve got satellite imagery.”
    Zuri Coggins looked from Scheib to Jamil. “Do you seriously believe that those missiles could hit San Francisco?”
    “It’s theoretically possible, if their payloads are light enough.”
    “How light?” General Higgins asked.
    Jamil hesitated. “Well, according to our estimates, they could each carry a two-hundred-and-fifty-kiloton weapon over the distance to San Francisco.”
    “That’s half a megaton between the two of them.”
    “Twenty-five times more than Hiroshima.”
    “More like thirty.”
    “What makes you think that’s going to be their target?” Higgins demanded.
    Jamil was unaccustomed to being in the spotlight. And unhappy with it. He had done his analysis in the taxi on his way to the Pentagon, using his iPhone’s calculator application, plus a lot of figures he’d pulled from his own memory. It was shaky, but it made sense to him.
    “Whoever launched the first missile wanted to wipe out our satellites. They must understand that the North Korean army is rushing to their site as fast as they can. Yet they haven’t launched the other two missiles they’ve got on their pads. Why not?”
    “Because they’re waiting for the President to arrive in San Francisco?” Coggins asked.
    Jamil nodded. “That’s