"Done!" Joe shouted. Eileen and Lucy crowded in the doorway. "We did it!"

"How long 'til they shoot it down?" Lucy asked.

"Minutes," Joe said confidently. "We got it released in time, I'm sure of it. Now let's go see where it's headed."

"Should I stay here?" Stillwell asked.

"No, we can all go to the commander's console," Joe said. "We need to tell NORAD we got the Pebbles enabled."

Like children playing follow-the-leader, Eileen and Stillwell and Lucy leaped back to the commander's console, following Joe. On the way, Eileen spared a thought for Lowell Guzman, unconscious and bleeding less than ten feet away, and Major Blaine, facedown in the hallway. Then she put them out of her mind.

Joe punched the NORAD sequence again. "Pebbles are released," he said. "Uh, General. Sir."

They heard faint shouts and cheers from Cheyenne Mountain.

"What about a follow-on?" Joe asked. "Is there going to be more?"

"No follow-on," General Kelton said. "The Russian troops secured the base just as the missile took off. The terrorists are all dead."

"Good," Lucy said fiercely.

"Where's the impact location? The President needs to know."

"We all need to know," Eileen said dryly.

"General impact location is the northern United States," Joe said, looking at the globe of the Earth on the console. Eileen saw a large gray splotch over the northern part of America. It looked horrible, like a monstrous amoeba.

"Northern United States? Not Washington, D.C.?" Lucy asked in surprise.

Joe typed on the commander's console. The screen in front suddenly shifted to a view over the United States. The blotch was shrinking rapidly. It now covered the Great Lakes regions and was decreasing by the second. Eileen realized the computers must be predicting the impact from the missile's trajectory.

"It's the gut shot," Joe said numbly. The microphone to NORAD was still live.

"The gut shot?" General Kelton said.

"The gut shot," Joe repeated. "The body blow. The kidney punch. You know. Chicago, Illinois. We play that one all the time. You take out the industrial heartland. You take Chicago, you poison Detroit, Gary, Indiana, all the industrial centers. Then the fallout drifts over Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York. America loses her industrial capacity all in one strike. Not too good for crops in the Midwest, either."

"Oh my G.o.d," Eileen said faintly.

"Much more effective than the decapitation strike," Lucy murmured.

"Decapitation?" Eileen whispered.

"Of course," Joe said. "Decapitation is Washington, D.C., Eileen. Take out the federal government and supposedly you destroy our country. Cut off the head, you kill the body. But anyone who does their homework knows we don't really depend on Washington, D.C."

"Bomb Washington, D.C, and you just p.i.s.s the h.e.l.l out of America," Stillwell said, nodding. "And you don't have much of a chance of getting the President. They can get him out of Washington fast. You can't decapitate us, not really."

"Well, it would hurt pretty bad," Lucy murmured, and Eileen remembered the other woman was from Washington.

"We'll let the President know. G.o.d grant those Pebbles will work," the General said over the loudspeaker, startling them all. "G.o.d grant we were in time."

Turtkul, Uzbekistan.

"You think this was the guy?" the soldier asked, rolling the body over with his toe. The arms flopped limply and the eyes gazed at the brilliant sky. The eyes blinked; the man was still alive, but he wouldn't be for long. The blood was pouring out of three bullet wounds in his chest.

"He doesn't look like a leader," the other soldier said doubtfully. "He's too young."

"Maybe this guy," one of them said to the other, going to the other body lying limply in the dirt.

Behind them, Muallah gazed at the sky. It was a brilliant and beautiful blue. The faint contrail of the missile crossed one side of his vision. He would have liked to move his eyes to see if he could see the missile still climbing into the heavens, but his eyes no longer obeyed him.

He would go to Allah, and that would be good. He would bring with him all the souls of the American infidels to be his slaves. Allah had decided that Muallah was not to be the leader of the new Arab empire, and that was the will of Allah. Muallah had fulfilled his jitan, his holy mission, and that, too, was the will of Allah.

Allah akhbar, he tried to whisper, but the sky was growing dark around him, swirling in black flakes like the fires that would consume the Western world. Allah akhbar.

Air Force One.

"Hold on," the Secret Service agent said. The plane didn't just bank; for a moment Richard thought he was going to pa.s.s out as he was pressed deeply into his seat.

"Secondary sanctuary is Florida," the Secret Service agent said through compressed lips. Air Force One was doing a complete reversal in midair, turning on her tail and fleeing back in the direction from which she had come.

"Maine wasn't such a good idea after all, I guess," Steve said, his eyes sparkling with excitement. He loved roller-coaster rides. Not that he'd had a chance to ride on any in the past three years. The Secret Service would simply not hear of it.

"Oh my G.o.d, Chicago," the President said. Richard tried to pat Dad's arm, but his own arm wouldn't leave the seat. Dad was a terrible ashy color. n.o.body else looked very good either, and it wasn't because of the g-forces.

"We have the Brilliant Pebbles, sir," the Secretary of Defense said with a grotesque attempt at confidence.

"I hope they work," the President said, and blinked rapidly. He bowed his head, and for a moment Richard couldn't figure out what he was doing. Then he realized his father was praying.

Moscow, Russian Republic.

Kalashnikov could not bear to look at the American. But he could not live with himself if he did not. The Command Center was sick with tension. The radio communications link was open, but was silent except for a slight hiss of static. The roar of the missile launch had been clearly audible over the link. The projected impact had come in a scant two minutes later. The United States. After that, everyone had fallen into a helpless silence.

"General Cherepovitch," Major Paxton said abruptly. His words were slurred and drawn out, as though he were speaking an entirely different language than English. Oddly enough, Kalashnikov had recently seen Gone With The Wind in the theater and recognized the accent immediately. Kalashnikov looked at Paxton and saw that the Major's face was pale and his lips were bitten to a bloodless line. His precise and unaccented English was gone, but his eyes were still sane.

"Major Paxton," Cherepovitch responded formally.

"We must prevent war between our countries," Major Paxton said. For a moment Kalashnikov didn't understand what he meant; in Paxton's accent, thick with stress, "war" had come out as "wah."

Cherepovitch bowed his head. Kalashnikov realized his palms were damp and stinging. His fingernails had bitten through the skin. Was this to be the end? Not just the end of Salekhard, democracy, clean water and food and opportunity, but the end of everything?

Like the films his wife so loved to see, Kalashnikov could see the course of disaster. A Russian missile destroying an American city. A million dead, thousands more screaming in blind, burned agony. Thick radioactive ash falling over American soil, killing animals and plants, sickening children. All of it on television, all of it traceable to a Russian missile silo, a Russian bomb. Would the terrorist who launched the missile matter in the end? Or would the American people, mad for revenge, demand a response? Kalashnikov squeezed his fingers in his palms and felt the warm stinging of blood. He looked at Major Paxton and saw the man looking back at him with haunted, sickened eyes. They both knew there would have to be a response, and the result would lead to war.

"We will help you however we can," Cherepovitch said simply.

"I would have done the same as you," Paxton said heavily, reluctantly. "I would not choose to save my country over the bodies of your women and children. You did your best."

"We did our best," Cherepovitch said. "I'm sorry that it was not enough."

Gaming Center, Schriever Air Force Base.

"Come on," Joe said. They looked at the main console, watching the missile track grow and grow. He typed rapidly on the commander's console, a frown pinching his forehead. Eileen looked on helplessly. Lucy and Stillwell stood with their hands at their sides.

"Everything is enabled. They have to get an intercept solution. They have to!" Joe said.

"It's almost to the Pole," said a voice from NORAD.

For an eternity they stood, staring at the growing black track. Eileen thought of the babies being born in Chicago hospitals, the cops patrolling neighborhoods and chasing drug dealers and prost.i.tutes and doing their best to keep the streets just a little bit safe, just a little bit sane, and this insanity was flaming toward them and it wasn't stopping. There were late-night restaurants and millions of people sleeping sweetly in their homes and they were going to die, all of them, if that curve didn't stop growing. There had to be something else they could do.

"Is there something else we can do?" Stillwell asked, his face in agony. Joe put his hands to the sides of his face and shook his head back and forth, eyes stricken. Lucy choked back a sob.

"Come on, baby, come on!" Eileen suddenly shouted. She couldn't stand it anymore. "Come on, baby, find that b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Come on!"

Lucy glanced at Eileen and then shook her fists at the screen, grinning wildly.

"Comeon! Comeon! Comeon!" she shouted.

"Find the ball, baby," Joe shouted, jumping up and down and laughing. "Find the f.u.c.king ball, baby, you can do it!"

There was nothing from the speaker at NORAD; perhaps they thought this weird set of Gamers had gone completely off the deep end.

Stillwell joined in, his face flushing red.

"Go for it, man," he shouted in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "Go for it!"

Eileen started laughing. They were all shouting at the computer screens, screaming at them, and it wasn't doing a d.a.m.n thing, but it felt good, it felt as if they were doing something.

She was looking at the center screen when there was a flash of brilliant light. The light was nearly blinding. The whole room lit up fiercely, and then the light was gone.

"Did you see that?" she gasped. They all stared at the screen, silent and still in an instant.

"Yes," Joe said.

"Yes," Stillwell said.

"Yes!" Lucy shouted.

The gray splotch over Chicago, the projected impact point, disappeared without any fanfare. One moment it was there, the next it was gone.

"The missile has been shot down," Joe said quietly, voice trembling. He looked at his console and typed rapidly for a few moments.

"This is NORAD," General Kelton said from the speaker. His voice sounded shaky and young, like a boy's voice. "Can you confirm what we're showing?"

"I can confirm it, sir," Joe said. "No threats are in the air."

"The skies are clear?" Lucy asked, her face unbelieving. "Clear?"

"All clear," Joe said.

The speaker from NORAD erupted with shouts and cheers, but Eileen paid no attention. She was kissing Joe, and Lucy, and even Alan Stillwell, who was rank and sweaty and dirty- but she didn't care, they had done it. The earth floated on the big screen, pure and blue.

38.

Memorial Hospital, Colorado Springs.

When Lucy parked her rental car the sky was beginning to lighten, although it wasn't yet five o'clock. The bulk of Pikes Peak blocked out the stars to the west, clearly visible in the light of the false dawn. Lucy lingered for a moment, breathing the clear morning air, then headed for the entrance doors to Memorial Hospital.

"Yes?" The nurse behind the emergency-room admitting desk looked tired.

"I'm looking for Detective Reed," Lucy said politely. "She should have come in here a little bit ago."

An orderly coming down the hall heard the conversation and stopped at the desk.

"Sure, Eileen," he said. "She's with a suspect. They've got police guards. Guzman," he said to the nurse. The nurse nodded back.

"They're up on the third floor, where we have the prisoners' rooms."

"Thanks," Lucy said politely.