"Walt's losing it, Pat," Murray observed.

"You blame him?" O'Day asked.

Dan shook his head. "No."

"If this gets worse ..." Pat observed.

"How far out is your family?"

"Not far enough."

"Five miles," Murray said quietly.

"What?"

"Walt said that his office is just five miles away, he can see it from there. His windows aren't broken, even."

"Bulls.h.i.t," O'Day replied. "He must really be out of it. Five miles, that's less than nine thousand yards."

"What do you mean?"

"NORAD said the bomb was a hundred-kiloton range. That'll break windows over a h.e.l.l of a long distance. Only takes half a pound or so of overpressure to do a window."

"How do you know?"

"Used to be in the Navy-intelligence, remember? I had to evaluate the damage distances for Russian tactical nukes once. A hundred-kiloton bomb at nine thousand yards won't sink you, but it'll wreck everything topside, scorch paint, start small fires. Bad news, man."

"Curtains, like?"

"Ought to," O'Day thought aloud. "Yeah, regular curtains would light up, especially if they're dark ones."

"Walt's not so far out of it that he'd miss a fire in his office. ..." Murray lifted his phone to Langley.

"Yeah, what is it, Dan?" Jack said into the speaker.

"What number do you have on the size of the explosion?"

"According to NORAD, one-fifty, maybe two hundred kilotons, size of a big tactical weapon or a small strategic one," Ryan said. "Why?" On the other side of the table, the S&T officer looked up from the photos.

"I just talked to my ASAC Denver. He can see the stadium area from his office-five miles, Jack. He's only got one cracked window."

"Bull," S&T noted.

"What do you mean?" Ryan asked.

"Five miles, that's eight thousand meters," Ted Ayres pointed out. "The thermal pulse alone should fry the place, and the shock wave would sure as h.e.l.l blow a plate-gla.s.s window out."

Murray heard that. "Yeah, that's what a guy here just said. Hey, my guy might be a little out of it-shock, I mean-but he'd notice a fire next to his desk, don't you think?"

"Do we have anything from people on the scene yet?" Jack asked Ayres.

"No, the NEST team is on the way, but the imagery tells us a lot, Jack."

"Dan, how quick can you get somebody to the scene?" Ryan asked.

"I'll find out."

"Hoskins."

"Dan Murray, Walt. Get some people down there fast as you can. You stay put to coordinate."

"Okay."

Hoskins gave the proper orders, wondering just how badly he might be endangering his people. Then, with nothing else to do, he looked over the file on his desk. Marvin Russell, he thought, yet another criminal who died of dumb. Drug dealers. Didn't they ever learn?

Roger Durling was grateful when the Kneecap aircraft disengaged from the tanker. The converted 747 had the usual p.u.s.s.ycat ride, but not when in close proximity to a KC-10 tanker. It was something only his son enjoyed. Aboard in the conference room were an Air Force brigadier, a Navy captain, a Marine major, and four other field- and staff-grade officers. All the data the President got came to Kneecap automatically, including the Hot Line transcripts.

"You know, what they're saying is okay, but it sure as h.e.l.l would be nice to know what everyone's thinking."

"What if this really is a Russian attack?" the General asked.

"Why would they do it?"

"You've heard the chatter between the President and CIA, sir."

"Yeah, but that Ryan guy's right," Durling said. "None of this makes any sense."

"So who ever said the world had to make sense? What about the contact in the Med and Berlin?"

"Forward-deployed forces. We go on alert, and they go on alert, and they're close to each other, and someone goofs. You know, like Gavrilo Prinzip shooting the Archduke. An accident happens and then things just slide down the chute."

"That's why we have the Hot Line, Mr. Vice President."

"True," Durling conceded. "And so far it seems to be working."

They made the first fifty yards easily, but then it got harder, and soon it went from hard to impossible. Callaghan had a total of fifty firefighters trying to fight their way on, with a hundred more in support. On reflection, he had a continuous water spray over every man and woman. If nothing else, he reasoned, it would wash whatever fallout or dust or whatever the h.e.l.l was out here off his people and into the sewer drains-that which didn't freeze first, that is. The men in front were coated with ice that made a translucent layer on their turn-out coats.

The biggest problem was the cars. They'd been tossed about like toys, lying on their sides or tops, leaking gasoline that collected into burning puddles that were being supplied faster than they burned off. Callaghan ordered a truck in. One at a time, his men ran cables to the frames of the wrecked cars, and the truck dragged them clear, but this was horribly time-consuming. It would take forever to get into the stadium. And there were people in there. He was sure of it. There had to be. Callaghan just stood there, out of the water spray, guilty that he was warmer than his people. He turned when he heard the roar of a large diesel engine.

"h.e.l.lo." It was a man wearing the uniform of a U.S. Army colonel. The name tag on his parka read Lyle. "I hear you need heavy equipment."

"What you got?"

"I have three engineer tanks, M728s, just rolling in now. Got something else, too."

"What's that?"

"A hundred MOPP suits, you know, chemical warfare gear. It ain't perfect, but it's better than what your people got on. Warmer, too. Why don't you pull your people off and get them outfitted. Truck's over there." The Colonel pointed.

Callaghan hesitated for a moment, but decided that he couldn't turn this offer down. He called his people off and pulled them back to don the military gear. Colonel Lyle tossed him an outfit.

"The water fog's a good idea, ought to keep dust and stuff down. So, what do you want us to do?"

"You can't tell from here, but there is still some structure in there. I think there might be survivors. I have to find out. Can you help us get through these cars?"

"Sure." The Colonel lifted his own radio and ordered the first vehicle in. The M728, Callaghan saw, was essentially a tank with a dozer blade on the front, and a big A-frame and winch on the back of the turret. There was even an odd-looking short-barreled gun.

"This isn't going to be very neat. Can you live with that?"

"Screw neat-get in there!"

"Okay." Lyle picked up the interphone at the left rear of the vehicle. "Make a hole," he ordered.

The driver revved up the diesel just as the first firemen returned. He made a sincere effort to avoid the fire hoses-even so he split eight two-and-a-half-inch lines. The blade dropped and the tank crashed into the ma.s.s of burning cars at twenty miles per hour. It made a hole, all right, about thirty feet deep. Then the tank backed off and started widening it.

"Jesus," Callaghan observed. "What do you know about radiation stuff?"

"Not much. I checked with the NEST guys before I drove down. They ought to be here any time. Until then ..." Lyle shrugged. "You really think there's live ones in there?"

"Part of the structure is still there. I saw it from the chopper."

"No s.h.i.t?"

"Yeah, I saw it."

"But that's crazy. The NORAD guys say it was a big one."

"What?" Callaghan shouted over the noise of the tank.

"The bomb, it was supposed to be a big one. There shouldn't even be a parking lot here."

"You mean this was a little little one?" Callaghan looked at the man as though he were crazy. one?" Callaghan looked at the man as though he were crazy.

"h.e.l.l, yes!" Lyle stopped for a moment. "If there's people in there ..." He ran to the back of the tank and grabbed the phone. A moment later the M728 stopped.

"What's the matter?"

"If there are survivors, h.e.l.l, we might squash one this way. I just told him to take it easier. G.o.dd.a.m.n, you're right. And I thought you were crazy."

"What do you mean?" Callaghan shouted again, waving his firefighters to put their spray on the tank also.

"There may be survivors in there. This bomb was a h.e.l.l of a lot smaller than they told me on the phone."

"Maine, this is Sea Devil One-Three," the P-3C Orion called. "We're about forty minutes out from your position. What seems to be the problem?" this is Sea Devil One-Three," the P-3C Orion called. "We're about forty minutes out from your position. What seems to be the problem?"

"We have screw and shaft damage, and we have an Akula in the neighborhood, last fix five-zero thousand yards southwest," Ricks answered.

"Roger that. We'll see if we can drive him off for you. We'll report when we get on station. Out."

"Captain, we can do three knots, let's do that, north, open as much as we can," Claggett said.

Ricks shook his head. "No, we'll stay quiet."

"Sir, our friend out there must have copied the collision transient. He will be coming this way. We've lost our best sonar. Smart move is to evade as best we can."

"No, the smart move is to stay covert."

"Then at least launch a MOSS."

"That makes sense, sir," the weapons officer thought.

"Okay, program it to sound like we are now, and give it a southerly course."

"Right." Maine's Maine's number-three torpedo tube was loaded with a MOSS, a Mobile Submarine Simulator. Essentially a modified torpedo itself, the MOSS contained a sonar transducer connected to a noise generator, instead of a warhead. It would radiate the sound of an Ohio-cla.s.s submarine, and was designed to simulate a damaged one. Since shaft damage was one of the few reasons that an Ohio might make noise, that option was already programmed in. The weapons officer selected the proper noise track, and launched the weapon a few minutes later. The MOSS sped off to the south, and two thousand yards away, it began radiating. number-three torpedo tube was loaded with a MOSS, a Mobile Submarine Simulator. Essentially a modified torpedo itself, the MOSS contained a sonar transducer connected to a noise generator, instead of a warhead. It would radiate the sound of an Ohio-cla.s.s submarine, and was designed to simulate a damaged one. Since shaft damage was one of the few reasons that an Ohio might make noise, that option was already programmed in. The weapons officer selected the proper noise track, and launched the weapon a few minutes later. The MOSS sped off to the south, and two thousand yards away, it began radiating.

The skies had cleared over Charleston, South Carolina. What had fallen as snow in Virginia and Maryland had been mainly sleet here. The afternoon sun had removed most of that, returning the antebellum city to its normally pristine state. As the Admiral commanding Submarine Group Six watched from the tender, two of his ballistic-missile submarines started down the Cooper River for the sea and safety. He wasn't the only one to watch. One hundred ninety miles over his head, a Soviet reconnaissance satellite made its pa.s.s, continuing up the coast to Norfolk, where the sky was also clearing. The satellite downlinked its pictures to the Russian intelligence center on Cuba's western tip. From there it was immediately relayed by communications satellite. Most of the Russian satellites used high-polar orbits, and had not been affected by the EMP. The imagery was in Moscow in a matter of seconds.

"Yes?" the Defense Minister asked.

"We have imagery of three American naval bases. Missile submarines at Charleston and King's Bay are putting to sea."

"Thank you." The Defense Minister replaced the phone. Another threat. He relayed it at once to President Narmonov.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that the military action taken by the Americans is not merely defensive. Some of the submarines in question carry the Trident D-5 missile, which has first-strike capability. You'll recall how interested the Americans were in forcing us to eliminate our SS-18s?"

"Yes, and they are removing a large number of their Minute-men," Narmonov said. "So?"