A very tough-looking Russian soldier slid down the rope like a circus acrobat, facefirst, a wicked-looking rifle at the ready. He landed on his feet and bounced like a tiger. His eyes darted everywhere.

"You okay?" he asked Anna.

"We are okay," Anna said, wiping at her face with her ap.r.o.n. "The terrorists? You have killed them?"

"Some of them," the soldier admitted. "We need to get you out of here as quickly as possible. Do any of you need a doctor?"

"No," Anna said, and bit her lips to keep from laughing aloud. Was it wrong to feel this joyful when Dmitri lay dead so close by? But she could not help it. She had survived, and so had her children. "Tell us what to do."

Moscow, Russian Republic.

"They have the women and children," Colonel Kalashnikov shouted. This turned the gloom of the Command Center into sudden excitement. Losing twenty men and three a.s.sault helicopters was a terrible blow. The silo covers had blown without warning. Now that twenty trained soldiers were dead, it was easy to see how stupid they had been not to plan for such an event. Now that the covers had blown, that is.

Cherepovitch was still a mottled shade of purple. Major Paxton was white with anxiety. He'd received more information from his superiors in Washington, and none of it was good. Muallah hated America, it seemed. The Russian Republic was not a likely target if Muallah got a missile off after all.

"We will succeed, Major," Kalashnikov said softly. "We have half our force left, after all. We will kill them."

"I hope so, sir," Paxton said woodenly.

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

Joe slapped the commander's console and the siren stopped in midwhoop. He bent over the console, fingers waving in the air uncertainly, then punched the access keys to NORAD.

"Get in here!" he roared in the direction of the doorway. Then he keyed the microphone to NORAD.

"This is Joe Tanner?' he said. "War Game Center? What-"

"Oh my G.o.d," a voice burst from the console. "General, we've got someone! We've got someone!"

"This is Major General Kelton," another voice said calmly. Joe barely noticed Eileen and Lucy and Stillwell joining him at the console. "We are unable to release the Missile Defense system from NORAD. We have a possible launch event. Is this clear?"

"That is clear," Joe said with lips as pale as Lucy's. "Uh, sir."

"The system has to be enabled from the War Game Center. We predict-" There was a brief pause. "Perhaps twenty minutes to launch. Can you get the system enabled and released?"

"Yes, I can," Joe said slowly. He looked around the Center uncertainly, looking bewildered, then focused on Lucy and Stillwell and Eileen. He nodded. "I have enough people to run the consoles."

"Who is this?" the General's voice asked. But Joe was already gone, leaping from floor tile to floor tile on his way to the Truth Team room.

"I've got to start it from here!" he shouted. "Follow me!"

Eileen immediately followed. Stillwell glanced at the console, and Lucy waved him on.

"Go," she said.

She pressed the same key Joe Tanner had used. "This is Lucy Giometti, CIA," she said crisply. "Joe Tanner is going to start up the system, but he needs our help. We'll contact you when we're ready. Over and out."

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

"CIA? What do you mean, CIA?" General Kelton was shouting, but the connection was dead. "How long until the helicopter gets to Schriever?" he snapped.

"ETA twenty-eight minutes," Major Parker said in a dead voice. "It's going to be way too late."

"I know Joe Tanner," a captain piped up. She was at another communications console. All faces turned to her. "He's a Truth Team guy. I talked to him last time we were out there for a demo. He knows how to start up the system. He does it all the time."

"Sweet Holy Mary," murmured Major Parker.

"What is Joe Tanner doing at the Center at ten o'clock at night?" the General asked. "And what is a CIA agent doing there? Get me Admiral Kane," he said to the Captain.

General Kelton scrubbed his hands over his balding head. He was furious because he was helpless. He stalked up and down the room, watching the screens, waiting for the telltale plume that he could do absolutely nothing about.

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

Eileen watched as Joe Tanner's fingers flew over the keyboard. Joe bit his lips into a bloodless line as his eyes flickered back and forth across the screen.

"Thank G.o.d I was already set up for play," he said. "All I have to do is-"

"All you have to do is what?" asked Stillwell after a long moment. Eileen glared at him and made a shushing sound. Joe ran his hands through his hair and looked at the screen. He kept on typing. Eileen and Stillwell and Lucy stood like statues behind him, looking at a screen full of windows that were full of words that meant nothing to them.

Joe stopped typing. He put his hands on his forehead and squeezed his fingers around his temples. He sat and stared at the screen for long endless seconds. Then he nodded.

"Eileen, go to the commander's console," he said crisply. "That's the one I was just standing at. Uh-you, pregnant lady, go sit at her left. That's Missile Launch Control. Major, go to the s.p.a.ce Command console."

"Where's that?" Stillwell asked humbly.

"Third door on the right," Joe snapped. "Go!"

As they hurried out of the room, Joe shouted after them. "Push the b.u.t.ton on the bottom left of your communications box, that's the green b.u.t.ton. That gives us hot-mike communication."

Eileen sat down at the commander's console. It showed the swirling cloud of nuclear detonation over Washington, D.C., the same one she'd seen days before. Joe had been replaying the game, she realized. Lucy was staring at her screen with horrified eyes.

"An old simulation," Eileen hissed. She punched the green b.u.t.ton on her communications console. Suddenly the screen in front of her went dark. The whole room darkened as the large screens went dark as well. Then, one by one, the screens lit up with a perfect blue and white globe. The earth.

"This is a simulated earth," Joe Tanner said. His voice seemed to come from everywhere. "But everything on it is real. We can't do real clouds and we don't need to, not really."

"Why not?" Eileen whispered. Her voice came out of every speaker in the Center, and she winced.

"We can see through clouds," Lucy said matter-of-factly. Her voice echoed from every corner of the room. "Welcome to the world of Top Secret, Detective."

"Okay, I want to engage the whole Brilliant Pebble system," Joe said. "I don't know where the launch is and I don't care-"

"Uzbekistan," Lucy said.

"Okay, we'll focus our best satellite sensors there, after we get the system enabled," Joe said. Eileen looked over at Lucy, and Lucy offered a tiny shrug.

"CIA?" Eileen mouthed silently, and Lucy made a mouth. Eileen grinned like a child.

"We have to engage in sequence," Joe said. "Eileen, you're Command. I've hooked us to the hardware-in-the-loop. When we're fully integrated and on-line, your console will show the Enable key. When it does, you press it with your mouse key. Understood?"

"Understood," Eileen squeaked, then coughed in embarra.s.sment.

"Next, pregnant lady. You're secondary command. Your key will light after Eileen presses her key. That's the second key. You have to press it within ten seconds of Eileen or we'll have to start over. Okay?"

"Okay," Lucy said.

"Major, you're s.p.a.ce Command. You have Brilliant Pebbles. You have a bunch of choices on your screen. Ignore them all. Punch the All Enable key, it will light up after the pregnant lady-Dammit, what's your name?"

"Lucy," Lucy said.

"After Lucy presses her key. Don't screw up. Okay?"

"All right," Stillwell said. Eileen could see him through the open door of his room. He was sitting at a console just like the one where Terry Guzman was found, his computer on a spindly table with a single stalk for a leg. He looked out at her and Lucy, and gave a little wave. Eileen looked over at Lucy and saw that she was smiling.

"We can do this," she said confidently. Her voice came out of all the speakers.

"Of course we can," Joe said absently. "Waiting to go online." Suddenly one of the big screens of the globe disappeared and was replaced with an odd-looking chart of satellites and lines. The lines connected the satellites together. All but three of them were green.

"Come on, come on, come on," Joe said tonelessly. "Come on, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Hook up."

Turtkul, Uzbekistan.

Muallah was twenty feet from the lip of the silo when the world suddenly filled with sound. Ali was ahead of him and a.s.sad behind him. He could see a crescent of sky beyond the nose cone of the missile in their silo.

"Allah akhbar!" he screamed, but he could not hear himself. He looked up, into the blue day, to see the Trumpet flaming upward into the sky. Muallah screamed in triumph as the roaring filled the world with sound.

37.

Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.

"We have a launch event," Major Parker said tonelessly. General Kelton stopped his pacing and sat down in the commander's seat.

"Well, people," he said calmly. "Here we go. Get me Air Force One."

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

"We've got a launch," Lucy said. She was staring at the big screen, her eyes huge and bruised looking in her pale face. Eileen looked away from the communications console, where one line remained red, and gulped. There was a big black dot in the map of Uzbekistan.

"Ignition plume," Stillwell said in a gulping voice.

"Be ready," Joe warned, his voice tight and angry. "G.o.ddammit, you all just be ready."

Eileen held her finger over the mouse key, her mouse pointer hovering over the Enable key, which was dark and useless. Her finger trembled over the mouse. She looked away from the screen.

"Where is it headed?" Lucy whispered.

"Don't look," Joe snapped. "We're almost there, almost there, almost there ..."

Eileen focused her whole body on the dark Enable b.u.t.ton. "Light, light, light," she whispered.

The b.u.t.ton flashed green as Joe shouted "Now!" from the Truth Team room. Eileen stabbed her mouse key, and her b.u.t.ton started flashing. She looked over at Lucy. Lucy was clicking on another green b.u.t.ton. They got up together and ran toward Major Stillwell's room, leaping awkwardly over the empty floor tiles. Joe appeared from the Truth Team room and beat them both to Major Stillwell.

"Here, here?" Stillwell panted. His console was a confusing ma.s.s of flashing b.u.t.tons and weird-looking symbols. His unwashed hair flopped on the back of his neck. Beads of sweat stood out on his face.

"Right there," Joe said, and his voice was rea.s.suringly calm. "Punch it."

Stillwell punched the b.u.t.ton, and the console flashed yellow, then green around the edges.