Category: save draft

A few years ago, I spent most of a day with six men huddled over a bank of computers and green-glowing radar screens deep within Cheyenne Mountain, 500 meters below a rough-hewn granite peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado. At one point, a buzzer sounded, a bell rang, and a wall light flashed red. An unidentified blip had popped onto a screen in the missile warning centre, a 10m by 10m low-ceilinged room at North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad). The duty officer snatched a beige phone from its cradle and was instantly linked to Norad command post, another nearby room...