"Sure."

"Might put you out of a job."

"That's okay."

"Good. Now, if the Board will bear with me, I'd like to get Harry up and running on this. In fact, we can all benefit from some perspective before we make any decisions." He looked at Harry and asked, "You've heard of Mutually Assured Destruction?"

"I ... yeah ..."

"During the Cold War, if the Soviets launched nuclear missiles against us, we would, without debate, launch our arsenal of nuclear weapons against them. Thousands of nuclear warheads would rain down on both countries, assuring mutual destruction. Remember that?"

Harry nodded.

Madox continued, "Paradoxically, the world was actually safer then. No hesitation on our part, and no political debates. This strategy had a beautiful simplicity to it. The radar images of thousands of nuclear missiles headed our way meant we were dead. The only moral question-if any-was, Do we kill tens of millions of them before we all die? You and I know the answer to that, but there were fuzzy-headed people in Washington who thought that revenge was not a justification for us destroying a big part of the planet-that no purpose would be served by obliterating the innocent men, women, and children whose government had just assured our obliteration. Well, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction-MAD-removed any such questions by making our response automatic. We didn't have to rely on a president who lost his nerve or had a moral crisis, or who was out playing golf or getting laid somewhere."

There were a few polite chuckles.

Mr. Madox continued, "The primary reason that MAD worked was that it was unambiguous and symmetrical. Each side knew that a nuclear first strike by one would set off a counterstrike by the other of equal or overwhelming force, which would destroy the very civilization of both nations." He added, "That would leave places like Africa, China, and South America to inherit what was left of the Earth. Pretty depressing, don't you think?"

Harry remembered how the world was before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nuclear war was pretty scary, but he never really believed it was going to happen.

Madox seemed to be reading his mind and said, "But this never happened, and never would. Even the most insane Soviet dictator could not contemplate this scenario. Despite the rantings of left-wing pacifists and pinhead intellectuals, Mutually Assured Destruction actually assured that the world was safe from nuclear Armageddon. Right?"

Harry thought, What the hell is this guy getting at?

Bain Madox sat down, lit a cigarette, and asked Harry, "Have you ever heard of something called Wild Fire?"

"No."

Madox looked at him closely, then explained, "A secret government protocol. Have you ever heard these words used in passing, or in any context?"

"No."

"I wouldn't think so. This secret protocol is known only at the highest levels of government. And by us. And now by you-if you pay attention."

Paul Dunn, the presidential adviser, interjected, "Bain, do we need to talk about this in front of Mr. Muller?"

Bain Madox stared at Dunn and replied, "As I said, this is a good exercise for all of us. Very shortly, we're going to make a decision that will change the world as we know it, and the history of the world for the next thousand years. The least we can do is explain ourselves to Mr. Muller, who represents the nation we say we are going to save. Not to mention explaining ourselves to ourselves at this critical juncture."

Landsdale, the CIA man, said to everyone, "You have to let Bain run it his way. You should know that by now."

Edward Wolffer added, "More important, this is a transformative moment in the history of the world, and I wouldn't want Bain, or anyone, to ever think we didn't give it the time that's equal to its importance."

Madox turned to his old friend. "Thank you, Ed. No one may ever know what happened here today, but we know, and God knows. And if someday the world does know, then we need to justify ourselves to God and to man."

Landsdale commented dryly, "Let's not tell God."

Madox ignored him and drew on his cigarette. "The first Islamic terrorist attacks began in the 1970s, as you recall."

Bain Madox began with the Munich Olympics Massacre, and then rattled off a list of thirty years of airplane hijackings, bombings, kidnappings, executions, and mass murder by Islamic jihadists.

The men in the room remained silent, but a few nodded in remembrance of one or another terrorist attack.

Harry Muller, too, recalled almost every attack that Madox mentioned, and what surprised him was how many there were over the last thirty years. He was surprised, too, that he had forgotten so many of them-even the big ones, like the car bomb attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241 Americans, or the bomb on board Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie that killed hundreds of people.

Harry felt himself getting angrier as each attack was chronicled, and he thought that if a terrorist-or any Muslim-were brought into the room, the guy would be ripped apart by everyone there. Madox knew how to inflame the crowd.

In fact, Madox looked around the table and said, "Every one of us here had a friend, or knew someone, who was killed in the World Trade Center or the Pentagon." He addressed General Hawkins. "Your nephew, Captain Tim Hawkins, died in the Pentagon." Next he spoke to Scott Landsdale. "You had two CIA colleagues who died in the World Trade Center. Correct?"

Landsdale nodded.

Madox turned to Harry. "And you? Did you lose anyone that day?"

Harry replied, "My boss ... Captain Stein and some other guys I knew died in the North Tower ..."

"My condolences," said Madox, who then concluded his recitation of the atrocities, brutalities, and violence against America and the West. "This was all something new under the sun, and neither the world nor the United States knew how to react. Many people thought it would just go away. Obviously, it did not. It just got worse. In fact, the Western world wasn't equipped to counter these terrorist attacks, and we seemed to lack the will to respond to these people who were murdering us. Even when the United States was attacked on its own soil-the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center-we did nothing." He looked at Harry. "Correct?"

"Yeah ... but that changed things-"

"I hadn't noticed."

Harry said, "Well, 9/11 changed everything. We're more on top of-"

"You know, Harry, you and your ATTF friends, and the whole FBI, CIA, Defense Intelligence, British MI5 and MI6, Interpol, and the rest of the useless European intelligence services could spend the rest of their fucking lives chasing Islamic terrorists, and it wouldn't make much difference."

"I don't know-"

"I know. Last year, it was the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Next year, it will be the White House and the Capitol Building." Madox paused, blew smoke rings, then said, "And one year, it will be an entire American city. A nuclear bomb. Do you doubt that?"

Harry didn't reply.

"Harry?"

"No. I don't doubt that."

"Good. Neither does anyone at this table. That's why we're here." He asked Harry, "How would you prevent that from happening?"

"Well ... actually, I sometimes work on the NEST team-the Nuclear Emergency Support Team. You know about that?"

Bain Madox smiled. "Harry, you're sitting here with the deputy secretary of defense, a top national security adviser to the president of the United States, a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the CIA liaison to the White House. If there's anything we don't know, I'd be very surprised."

"Then why do you keep asking me questions?"

Madox seemed a little annoyed. "Let me tell you about NEST-known as the volunteer fire department of the nuclear age. Very quaint, and about as effective. A thousand or so volunteers from the fields of science, government, and law enforcement who sometimes disguise themselves as tourists and businesspeople. They walk or drive around American cities and other sensitive targets, such as dams, nuclear reactors, and so forth, carrying their gamma-ray and neutron detectors hidden inside briefcases, golf bags, beer coolers, and whatever. Correct?"

"Yeah."

"Did you ever find an atomic bomb?"