There was nothing magical about a mushroom cloud, Battalion Chief Mike Callaghan of the Denver City Fire Department knew. He'd seen one before, as a rookie firefighter. It had been a fire in the Burlington yards just outside the city, in 1968. A propane tank-car had let go, right next to another trainload of bombs en route to the Navy's munitions terminal at Oakland, California. The chief back then had had the good sense to pull his men back when the tank ruptured, and from a quarter mile away they'd watched a hundred tons of bombs go off in a h.e.l.lish firecracker series. There had been a mushroom then also. A large ma.s.s of hot air rose, roiling as it went into an annular shape. It created an updraft, drawing air upward into its donut-shaped center, making the stem of the mushroom....

But this one was much larger.

He was behind the wheel of his red-painted command car, following the first alarm, three Seagrave pumper units, an aerial ladder truck, and two ambulances. It was a pitiful first response. Callaghan lifted his radio and ordered a general alarm. Next he ordered his men to approach from upwind.

Christ, what had happened here?

It couldn't be that ... most of the city was still intact.

Chief Callaghan didn't know much, but he knew there was a fire to fight and people to rescue. As his car turned off the last sidestreet onto the boulevard leading to the stadium, he saw the main smoke ma.s.s. The parking lot, of course. It had to be. The mushroom cloud was blowing rapidly southwest toward the mountains. The parking lot was a ma.s.s of fire and flame from burning gasoline and oil and auto parts. A powerful gust of wind cleared the smoke briefly, just enough that he could see that there had been a stadium here ... a few sections were still ... not intact, but you could tell what they were-had been only a few minutes before. Callaghan shut that out. He had a fire to fight. He had people to rescue. The first pump unit pulled up at a hydrant. They had good water here. The stadium was fully sprinklered, and that system fed off two 36-inch, high-pressure mains that gridded around the complex.

He parked his car next to the first big Seagrave and left it to climb on top of the fire engine. Some heavy structural material-the stadium roof, he supposed-was in the parking lot to his right. More had landed a quarter mile away in the mercifully empty parking lot of a shopping center. Callaghan used his portable radio to order the next wave of rescue units to check both the shopping center and the residential area that lay beyond it. The smaller fires would have to wait. There were people in the stadium who needed help, but his firefighters would have to fight through two hundred yards of burning cars to get to them....

Just then he looked up to see a blue Air Force rescue helicopter. The UH-1N landed thirty yards away. Callaghan ran over toward it. The officer inside the back, he saw, was an Army major.

"Callaghan," he said. "Battalion chief."

"Griggs," the Major replied. "You need a look-around?"

"Right."

"'Kay." The Major spoke into his headset and the helicopter lifted off. Callaghan grabbed a seat belt but didn't strap in.

It didn't take long. What appeared to be a wall of smoke from street level became discrete pillars of black and gray smoke from overhead. Perhaps half of the cars had ignited. He could use one of the driving lanes to get closer in, but some of the way was blocked by wrecked and burning cars. The chopper made a single circuit, bouncing through the roiled, hot air. Looking down, Callaghan could see a ma.s.s of melted asphalt, some of it still glowing red. The only spot not giving off smoke was the south end of the stadium itself, which seemed to glisten, though he didn't know why. What they could see appeared to be a crater whose dimensions were hard to judge, since they could only catch bits and pieces of it at a time. It took a long look to determine that parts of the stadium structure remained standing, perhaps four or five sections, Callaghan thought. There had to be people in there.

"Okay, I've seen enough," Callaghan told Griggs. The officer handed him a headset so that they could speak coherently.

"What is this?"

"Just what it looks like, far as I can tell," Griggs replied. "What do you need?"

"Heavy-lift and rigging equipment. There are probably people in what's left of the stadium. We gotta get in to them. But what about the-what about radiation?"

The Major shrugged. "I don't know. When I leave here, I'm picking up a team from Rocky Flats. I work at the a.r.s.enal, and I know a little about this, but the specialists are at Rocky Flats. There's a NEST team there. I need to get them down here ASAP. Okay, I'll call the guard people at the a.r.s.enal, we can get the heavy equipment down here fast. Keep your people to windward. Keep your people at this end. Do not attempt to approach from any other direction, okay?"

"Right."

"Set up a decontamination station right there where your engines are. When people come out, hose them down-strip them and hose them down. Understand?" the Major asked as the chopper touched down. "Then get them to the nearest hospital. Upwind-remember that everything has to go northeast into the wind, so you know you're safe."

"What about fallout?"

"I'm no expert, but I'll give you the best I got. Looks like it was a small one. Not much fallout. The suction from the fireball and the surface wind should have driven most of the radioactive s.h.i.t away from here. Not all, but most. It should be okay for an hour or so-exposure, I mean. By that time I'll have the NEST guys here and they can tell you for sure. Best I can do for now, Chief. Good luck."

Callaghan jumped out and ran clear. The chopper lifted right off, heading northwest for Rocky Flats.

"Well?" Kuropatkin asked.

"General, we measure yield by the initial and residual heat emissions. There is something odd about this, but my best figure is between one hundred fifty and two hundred kilotons." The Major showed his commander the calculations.

"What's odd about it?"

"The energy from the initial flash was low. That might mean some clouds were in the way. The residual heat is quite high. This was a major detonation, comparable to a very large tactical warhead or a small strategic one."

"Here's the target book," a lieutenant said. It was just that, a clothbound quarto-sized volume whose thick pages were actually foldout maps. It was intended for use in strike-damage evaluation. The map of the Denver area had a plastic overlay that showed the targeting of Soviet strategic missiles. A total of eight birds were detailed on the city, five SS-18s and three SS-19s, totaling no fewer than sixty-four warheads and twenty megatons of yield. Someone, Kuropatkin reflected, thought Denver a worthy target.

"We're a.s.suming a ground-burst?" Kuropatkin asked. "Correct," the Major replied. He used a compa.s.s to draw a circle centered on the stadium complex. "A two-hundred-kiloton device would have a lethal blast radius this wide...."

The map was color-coded. Hard-to-kill structures were colored brown. Dwellings were yellow. Green denoted commercial and other buildings deemed easy targets to destroy. The stadium, he saw, was green, as was nearly everything immediately around it. Well inside the lethal radius were hundreds of houses and low-rise apartment buildings.

"How many in the stadium?"

"I called KGB for an estimate," the Lieutenant said. "It's an enclosed structure-with a roof. The Americans like their comforts. Total capacity is over sixty thousand."

"My G.o.d," General Kuropatkin breathed. "Sixty thousand there ... at least another hundred thousand inside this radius. The Americans must be insane by now." And if they think we did it.... And if they think we did it....

"Well?" Borstein asked.

"I ran the numbers three times. Best guess, one-fifty-KT, sir," the Captain said.

Borstein rubbed his face. "Christ. Casualty count?"

"Two hundred-K, based on computer modeling and a quick look at the maps we have on file," she answered. "Sir, if somebody's thinking terrorist device, they're wrong. It's too big for that."

Borstein activated the conference line to the President and CINC-SAC.

"We have some early numbers here."

"Okay, I'm waiting," the President said. He stared at the speaker as though it were a person.

"Initial yield estimates look like one hundred fifty kilotons."

"That big?" General Fremont's voice asked.

"We checked the numbers three times."

"Casualties?" CINC-SAC asked next.

"On the order of two hundred thousand initial dead. Add fifty more to that from delayed effects."

President Fowler recoiled backwards as though slapped across the face. For the past five minutes he had denied as much as he could. This most important of denials had just vanished. Two hundred thousand people dead. His citizens, the people he'd sworn to preserve, protect, and defend.

"What else?" his voice asked.

"I didn't catch that," Borstein said.

Fowler took a deep breath and spoke again. "What else do you have?"

"Sir, our impression here is that the yield is awfully high for a terrorist device."

"I'd have to concur in that," CINC-SAC said. "An IND-an improvised nuclear device, that is, what we'd expect from unsophisticated terrorists-should not be much more than twenty-KT. This sounds like a multistage weapon."

"Multistage?" Elliot said toward the speaker.

"A thermonuclear device," General Borstein replied. "An H-Bomb."

"Ryan here, who's this?"

"Major Fox, sir, at NORAD. We have an initial feel for yield and casualties." The Major read off the bomb numbers.

"Too big for a terrorist weapon," said an officer from the Directorate of Science and Technology.

"That's what we think, sir."

"Casualties?" Ryan asked.

"Probable prompt-kill number is two hundred thousand or so. That includes the people at the stadium."

I have to wake up, Ryan told himself, his eyes screwed tightly shut. Ryan told himself, his eyes screwed tightly shut. This has to be a f.u.c.king nightmare, and I'm going to wake up from it. This has to be a f.u.c.king nightmare, and I'm going to wake up from it. But he opened his eyes, and nothing had changed at all. But he opened his eyes, and nothing had changed at all.

Robby Jackson was sitting in the cabin of the carrier's skipper, Captain Ernie Richards. They had been half-listening to the game, but mainly discussing tactics for an upcoming war game. The Theodore Roosevelt Theodore Roosevelt battle group would approach Israel from the west, simulating an attacking enemy. The enemy in this case was the Russians. It seemed highly unlikely, of course, but you had to set some rules for the game. The Russians, in this case, were going to be clever. The battle group would be broken up to resemble a loose a.s.sembly of merchant ships instead of a tactical formation. The first attack wave would be fighters and attack-bombers squawking "international" on their IFF boxes, and would try to approach Ben-Gurion International Airport in the guise of peaceful airliners, the better to get inside Israeli airs.p.a.ce unannounced. Jackson's operations people had already purloined airliner schedules and were examining the time factors, the better to make their first attack seem as plausible as possible. The odds against them were long. It was not expected that TR could do much more than annoy the IAF and the new USAF contingent. But Jackson liked long odds. battle group would approach Israel from the west, simulating an attacking enemy. The enemy in this case was the Russians. It seemed highly unlikely, of course, but you had to set some rules for the game. The Russians, in this case, were going to be clever. The battle group would be broken up to resemble a loose a.s.sembly of merchant ships instead of a tactical formation. The first attack wave would be fighters and attack-bombers squawking "international" on their IFF boxes, and would try to approach Ben-Gurion International Airport in the guise of peaceful airliners, the better to get inside Israeli airs.p.a.ce unannounced. Jackson's operations people had already purloined airliner schedules and were examining the time factors, the better to make their first attack seem as plausible as possible. The odds against them were long. It was not expected that TR could do much more than annoy the IAF and the new USAF contingent. But Jackson liked long odds.

"Turn up the radio, Rob. I forgot what the score is."

Jackson leaned across the table and turned the dial, but got music. The carrier had her own on-board TV system, and was also radio-tuned to the U.S. Armed Forces network. "Maybe the antenna broke," the Air Wing Commander observed.

Richards laughed. "At a time like this? I could have a mutiny aboard."

"That would look good on the old fit-rep, wouldn't it?" Someone knocked at the door. "Come!" Richards said. It was a yeoman.

"Flash-traffic, sir." The petty officer handed the clipboard over.

"Anything important?" Robby asked.

Richards just handed the message over. Then he lifted the growler phone and punched up the bridge. "General quarters."

"What the h.e.l.l?" Jackson murmured. "DEFCON-THREE-WHY, for Christ's sake?"

Ernie Richards, a former attack pilot, had a reputation as something of a character. He'd reinst.i.tuted the traditional Navy practice of bugle calls to announce drills. In this case, the 1-MC speaker system blared forth the opening bars of John Williams' frantic call to arms in Star Wars, Star Wars, followed by the usual electronic gouging. followed by the usual electronic gouging.

"Let's go, Rob." Both men started running down to the Combat Information Center.

"What can you tell me?" Andrey Il'ych Narmonov asked.

"The bomb had a force of nearly two hundred kilotons. That means a large device, a hydrogen bomb," General Kuropatkin said. "The death count will be well over one hundred thousand dead. We also have indications of a strong electromagnetic pulse that struck one of our early-warning satellites."

"What could account for that?" The questioner here was one of Narmonov's military advisers.

"We do not know."

"Do we have any nuclear weapons unaccounted for?" Kuropatkin heard his President ask.

"Absolutely not," a third voice replied.

"Anything else?"

"With your permission, I would like to order Voyska Voyska PVO to a higher alert level. We already have a training exercise under way in Eastern Siberia." PVO to a higher alert level. We already have a training exercise under way in Eastern Siberia."

"Is that provocative?" Narmonov asked.

"No, it is totally defensive. Our interceptors cannot harm anyone more than a few hundred kilometers from our own borders. For the moment I will keep all my aircraft within Soviet airs.p.a.ce."

"Very well, you may proceed."

In his underground control center, Kuropatkin merely pointed to another officer, who lifted a phone. The Soviet air-defense system had already been prepped, of course; inside a minute radio messages were being broadcast, and long-range search radars came on all over the country's periphery. Both the messages and the radar signals were immediately detected by National Security Agency a.s.sets, both on the ground and in orbit.

"Anything else I should do?" Narmonov asked his advisers.

A Foreign Ministry official spoke for all of them. "I think doing nothing is probably best. When Fowler wishes to speak with us, he will do so. He has trouble enough without our interfering."

The American Airlines MD-80 landed at Miami International Airport and taxied over to the terminal. Qati and Ghosn rose from their first-cla.s.s seats and left the aircraft. Their bags would be transferred automatically to the connecting flight, not that either one particularly cared about that, of course. Both men were nervous, but less so than one might have expected. Death was something both had accepted as an overt possibility for this mission. If they survived, so much the better. Ghosn didn't panic until he realized that there was no unusual activity at all. There should have been some, he thought. He found a bar and looked for the usual elevated television set. It was tuned to a local station. There was no game coverage. He debated asking a question, but decided not to. It was a good decision. He had only to wait a minute before he overheard another voice asking what the score was.

"It was fourteen-seven Vikings," another voice answered. "Then the G.o.dd.a.m.ned signal was lost."

"When?"

"About ten minutes ago. Funny they don't have it back yet."

"Earthquake, like the Series game in San Francisco?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, man," the bartender replied.