The Sum of All Fears

41 THE FIELD OF CAMLAN

The Admiral Lunin was going too fast for safety. Captain Dubinin knew that, but chances like this did not come along often. This was, in fact, the first, and the captain wondered if it might also be the last. Why were the Americans on a full-blown nuclear alert — yes, of course, a possible nuclear explosion in their country was a grave matter, but could they be so mad as to assume that a Soviet had done such a thing?

“Get me a polar projection chart,” he said to a quartermaster. Dubinin knew what he would see, but it wasn't a time for remembrance, it was a time for hard facts. The meter-square sheet of hard paper was on the table a moment later. Dubinin took a pair of dividers and walked them from Maine 's estimated position to Moscow, and to the strategic rocket fields in the central part of his country.

“Yes.” It could hardly be more clear, could it?

“What is it, Captain?” the Starpom asked.

“USS Maine, according to our intelligence estimates, is in the northernmost patrol sector of the missile submarines based at Bangor. That makes good sense, doesn't it?”

“Yes, Captain, based on what little we know of their patrol patterns.”

“She carries the D-5 rocket, twenty-four of them, eight or so warheads per rocket… ” He paused. There had been a time when he'd been able to do such calculations in his head instantly.

“One hundred ninety-two, Captain,” the executive officer said for him.

“Correct, thank you. That includes nearly all of our SS-18s, less those being deactivated by treaty, and the CEP accuracy of the D-5 makes it likely that those one hundred ninety-two warheads will destroy roughly one hundred sixty of their targets, which, in turn, accounts for more than a fifth of our total warhead count, and our most accurate warheads at that. Remarkable, isn't it?” Dubinin asked quietly.

“You really think they're that good?”

“The Americans demonstrated their marksmanship ability over Iraq, didn't they? I for one have never doubted the quality of their weapons.”

“Captain, we know that the American D-5 submarine rockets are the most likely first-strike tool…”

“Continue the thought.”

The Starpom looked at the chart. “Of course. This is the closest one.”

“Indeed. USS Maine is the point of the lance aimed at our country.” Dubinin tapped the chart with his dividers. “If the Americans launch an attack, the first rockets will fly from this point, and nineteen minutes after that, they will hit. I wonder if our comrades in the Strategic Rocket Forces can respond that quickly…?”

“But, Captain, what can we do about this?” the executive officer asked dubiously.

Dubinin pulled the chart off the table and slid it back into its open drawer. “Nothing. Not a thing. We cannot attack preemptively without orders or grave provocation, can we? According to our best intelligence, he can launch his rockets at intervals of fifteen seconds, probably less, really. The manual becomes less important in war, doesn't it? Say four minutes from the first to the last. You have to do a ladder-north strike pattern to avoid warhead fratricide. That doesn't matter, if you examine the physics of the event. I looked at that while I was at Frunze, you know. Since our rockets are liquid-fueled, they cannot launch while the attack is under way. Even if their electronic components can withstand the electromagnetic effects, they are too fragile structurally to tolerate the physical forces. So, unless we can launch with confidence before the enemy warheads fall, our tactics are to ride it out and launch a few minutes later. For our part here, if he can launch in four minutes, that means we have to be within six thousand meters, hear the first launch transient, and fire our own torpedo immediately to have any hope of stopping him from firing his last rocket, don't we?”

“A difficult task.”

The Captain shook his head. “An impossible task. The only thing that makes sense is for us to eliminate him before he receives his launch order, but we cannot do that without orders, and we have no such orders.”

“So what do we do?”

“Not very much we can do.” Dubinin leaned over the chart table. “Let's assume that he's truly disabled, and that we have an accurate position fix. We still have to detect him. If his engine plant is down at minimums, hearing him will be nearly impossible, especially if he's up against the surface noise. If we go active, what's to stop him from launching a torpedo against us? If he does that, we can fire back — and hope to survive, ourselves. Our weapon might even hit him, but then again it might not. If he does not shoot as soon as he hears our active sonar… maybe we can close enough that we can intimidate him, force him down. We'll lose him again when he goes under the layer… but if we can force him down… and then stay atop the layer, blasting away with our active sonar… perhaps we can keep him from going to missile-firing depth.” Dubinin frowned mightily. “Not an especially brilliant plan, is it? If one of them suggested it”— he waved to the junior officers conning the ship—“I'd tear a strip off their young backs. But I don't see anything better. Do you?”

“Captain, that makes us exceedingly vulnerable to attack.” The idea was more accurately described as suicidal, the Starpom thought, though he was sure Dubinin knew that.

“Yes, it does, but if that is what is required to prevent this bastard from getting to firing depth, it is exactly what I propose to do. I see no alternative.”

“'Restrain your forces'? God damn it,” the Defense Minister swore. “We haven't done anything! He's accusing us of provoking him! His tanks have invaded east Berlin, his fighter-bombers have attacked our forces there, and he just confirmed the fact that his carrier aircraft have attacked ours! And this arrogant madman now says that we must not provoke him! What does he expect us to do — run away everywhere we see an American?”

“That might be the most prudent thing we can do,” Golovko observed.

“Run like a thief from a policeman?” Defense asked sarcastically. “You ask that we should do that?”

“I suggest it as a possibility to be considered.” The First Deputy Chairman of KGB stood his ground bravely, Narmonov thought.

“The important part of this message is the second sentence,” the Foreign Minister pointed out. His analysis was all the more chilling for its matter-of-fact tone. They say that they do not believe this was a terrorist attack. Who is left as a likely attacker, then? He goes on to say that America has not retaliated against anyone yet. The subsequent statement that they have no evidence to suggest that we perpetrated this infamy is, I think, rather hollow when juxtaposed with the first paragraph."

“And running away will only make it more clear to him that we are the ones who started this,” Defense added.

“'More clear'?” Golovko asked.

“I must agree with that,” Narmonov said, looking up from his chair. “I must assume now that Fowler is not rational. This communiqué is not well-reasoned. He is accusing us, quite explicitly.”

“What is the nature of the explosion?” Golovko asked the Defense Minister.

“A weapon of that size is indeed too large for terrorists. Our studies indicate that a first- or even second-generation fission device might be achievable, but the maximum yield for such a device is certainly less than a hundred — probably less than forty kilotons. Our instruments tell us that this device was well over a hundred. That means a third-generation fission weapon, or more likely, a multi-stage fusion device. To do that is not the work of amateurs.”

“So, then, who could have done it?” Narmonov asked.

Golovko looked over to his president. “I have no idea. We did uncover a possible DDR bomb project. They were producing plutonium, as you all know, but we have good reason to believe that the project never truly got underway. We've looked at ongoing projects in South America. They are not to this point, either. Israel has such capabilities, but what reason would they have to do this? Attack their own guardian? If China were to do something like this, they would more likely attack us. We have the land and resources they need, and America has much more value to them as a trading partner than as an enemy. No, for this to be a project of a nation-state means that only one of a handful has the ability to do it, and the problems of operational security are virtually insurmountable. Andrey Il'ych, if you directed KGB to do this, we probably could not. The type of individual necessary for such a mission — by that I mean the skill, intelligence, dedication — are not qualities which you find in a psychotic; murder on this scale, likely to bring about such a crisis as this, would require a diseased personality. KGB has no such people, for the obvious reason.”

“So, you are telling me that you have no information, and that you can find no sensible hypothesis to explain the events of this morning?”

“That is the case, Comrade President. I wish I could report something else, but I cannot.”

“What sort of advice is Fowler getting?”

“I don't know,” Golovko admitted. “Secretaries Talbot and Bunker are both dead. Both were watching the football match — Defense Secretary Bunker was the owner of one of the teams, in fact. The Director of CIA is either still in Japan or on his way back from there.”

“The Deputy Director is Ryan, correct?”

“That is true.”

“I know him. He is not a fool.”

“No, he is not, but he is also being dismissed. Fowler dislikes him, and we have learned that Ryan has been asked to resign. Therefore, I cannot say who is advising President Fowler, except for Elizabeth Elliot, the National Security Advisor, with whom our ambassador is not impressed.”

“You tell me, then, that this weak, vain man is probably not getting good advice from anyone?”

“Yes.”

“That explains much.” Narmonov leaned back and closed his eyes. “So, I am the only one who can give him good advice, but he probably thinks I am the one who killed his city. Splendid.” It was perhaps the most penetrating analysis of the night, but wrong.

“Oh, God,” Elliot rasped. “How many lies do we have here?” Her finger traced down the computer screen.

"One, we know that they have missing warheads. That is a lie.

"Two, why is he stressing the fact that it's really him, that you two met in Rome? Why bother doing that unless he thinks that we suspect it's not Narmonov at all? The real guy wouldn't do that, he wouldn't have to, would he? Probably a lie.

"Three, we know that they've attacked us in Berlin. That's a lie.

"Four, he brings up the KGB for the first time. I wonder why. What if they actually have a cover plan… after intimidating us — beautiful, after intimidating us, they offer us their cover plan, and we have to buy it.

“Five, now he's warning us not to provoke him. They're in a 'defensive posture,' eh? Some posture.” Liz paused. “Robert, this is spin-control pure and simple. He's trying to take us out.”

“That's the way I read it, too. Comments, anyone?”

“The non-provocation statement is troubling,” CINC-SAC replied. General Fremont was watching his status boards. He now had ninety-six bombers in the air, and over a hundred tankers. His missile fields were on line. The Defense Support Program satellites had their Cassegrain-focus telescopic cameras zoomed in on the Soviet missile fields instead of on wide-field scanning mode. “Mr. President, there is something we need to discuss right about now.”

“What is that, General?”

Fremont spoke in his best calm-professional voice. "Sir, the builddown of the respective strategic-missile forces on both sides has affected the calculus of a nuclear strike. Before, when we had over a thousand ICBMs, neither we nor the Soviets ever expected that a disarming first-strike was a real strategic possibility. It just demanded too much. Things are different now. Improvements in missile technology plus the reduction in the number of fixed high-value targets now means that such a strike is a theoretical possibility. Add to that Soviet delays in deactivating their older SS-18s to comply with the strategic-arms treaty, and we have what may well be a strategic posture on their part in which such a strike may be an attractive option. Remember that we've been reducing our missile stocks faster than they. Now, I know that Narmonov gave you a personal assurance that he'd be fully in compliance with the treaty in four more weeks, but those missile regiments are still active as far as we can tell.

“Now,” Fremont went on, “if that intelligence you have that Narmonov was being threatened by his military is correct — well, sir, the situation is pretty clear, isn't it?”

“Make it clearer, General,” Fowler said, so quietly that CINC-SAC barely heard him.

“Sir, what if Dr. Elliot is right, what if they really expected you to be at the game? Along with Secretary Bunker, I mean. The way our command-and-control works, that would have severely crippled us. I'm not saying they would have attacked, but certainly they would have been in a position, while denying responsibility for the Denver explosion, to — well, to announce their change in government in such a way as to prevent us, by simple intimidation, from acting against them. That's bad enough. But they've missed their target, so to speak, haven't they? Okay, now what are they thinking? They may be thinking that you suspect that they've done this thing, and that you're angry enough to retaliate in one way or another. If they're thinking that, sir, they might also be thinking that their best way of protecting themselves is to disarm us quickly. Mr. President, I'm not saying that they are thinking that way, but that they might be.” And a cold evening grew colder still.

“And how do we stop them from launching, General?” Fowler asked.

“Sir, the only thing that will keep them from launching is the certainty that the strike will not work. That's particularly true if we're dealing with their military. They're good. They're smart. They're rational. They think before they act, like all good soldiers. If they know we're ready to shoot at the first hint of an attack, then that attack becomes militarily futile, and it will not be initiated.”

“That's good advice, Robert,” Elliot said.

“What's NORAD think?” Fowler asked. The President didn't think to consider that he was asking a two-star general to evaluate the opinion of a four-star.

“Mr. President, if we are to get some rationality back into this situation, that would appear to be the way to do it.”

“Very well. General Fremont, what do you propose?”

“Sir, at this point, we can advance our strategic-forces readiness to DEFCON-ONE. The codeword for that is SNAPCOUNT. At that point we are at maximum readiness.”

“Won't that provoke them?”

“Mr. President, no, it should not. Two reasons. First, we are already at a high state of alert, they know it, and while they are clearly concerned, they have not objected in any way. That's the one sign of rationality we've seen to this point. Second, they won't know until we tell them that we've upped things a notch. We don't have to tell them until they do something provocative.”

Fowler sipped at his newest cup of coffee. He'd have to visit the bathroom soon, he realized.

“General, I'm going to hold off on that. Let me think that one over for a few minutes.”

“Very well, sir.” Fremont 's voice did not reveal any overt disappointment, but a thousand miles from Camp David, CINC-SAC turned to look at his Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations).

“What is it?” Parsons asked. There was nothing more for him to do at the moment. Having made his urgent phone call, and having decided to let his fellow NEST team members handle the lab work, he'd decided to assist the doctors. He'd brought instruments to evaluate the radiation exposure to the firefighters and handful of survivors, something in which the average physician has little expertise. The situation was not especially cheerful. Of the seven people who had survived the explosion at the stadium, five already showed signs of extreme radiation sickness. Parsons evaluated their exposures at anywhere from four hundred to over a thousand Rems. Six hundred was the maximum exposure normally compatible with survival, though, with heroic treatment, higher exposures had been survived. If one called living another year or two with three or four varieties of cancer breaking out in one's body “survival.” The last one, fortunately, seemed to have the least. He was still cold, though his hands and face were badly burned, but he hadn't vomited yet. He was also quite deaf.

It was a young man, Parsons saw. The clothing in the bag next to his bed included a handgun and a badge — a cop. He also held something in his hand, and when the boy looked up, he saw the FBI agent standing next to the NEST leader.

Officer Pete Dawkins was deep in shock, nearly insensate. His shaking came both from being cold and wet, and from the aftermath of more terror than any man had ever faced and survived. His mind had divided itself into three or four separate areas, all of which were operating along different paths and at different speeds, and none of them were particularly sane or coherent. What held part of one such area together was training. While Parsons ran some sort of instrument over the clothing he'd worn only a short time before, Dawkins' damaged eyes saw standing next to him another man in a blue plastic wind-breaker. On the sleeves and over the chest were printed “FBI.” The young officer sprang upwards, disconnecting himself from the IV line. That caused both a doctor and a nurse to push him back down, but Dawkins fought them with the strength of madness, holding out his hand to the agent.

Special Agent Bill Clinton was also badly shaken. Only the vagaries of scheduling had saved his life. He, too, had had a ticket for the game, but he'd had to give it to another member of his squad. From that misfortune, which had enraged the young agent only four days earlier, his life had been spared. What he'd seen at the stadium had stunned him. His exposure to radiation — only forty Rems, according to Parsons — terrified him, but Clinton, too, was a cop, and he took the paper from Dawkins' hand.

It was, he saw, a list of cars. One was circled and had a question-mark scribbled next to the license plate.

“What's this mean?” Clinton asked, leaning past a nurse who was trying to restart Dawkins' IV line.

“Van,” the man gasped, not hearing, but knowing the question. “Got in… asked Sarge to check it out, but — south side, by the TV trucks. ABC van, little one, two guys, I let them in. Not on my list.”

“South side, does that mean anything?” Clinton asked Parsons.

“That's where it was.” Parsons leaned down. “What did they look like, the two men?” He gestured at the paper, then pointed at himself and Clinton.

“White, both thirties, ordinary… said they came from Omaha… with a tape machine. Thought it was funny they came from Omaha… told Sergeant Yankevich… went to check it out right before.”

“Look,” a doctor said, “this man is in very bad shape, and I have to—”

“Back off,” Clinton said.

“Did you look in the truck?”

Dawkins only stared. Parsons grabbed a piece of paper and drew a truck on it, stabbing at the picture with his pencil.

Dawkins nodded, on the edge of consciousness. “Big box, three feet 'Sony' printed on it — they said it was a tape deck. Truck from Omaha.. but—” he pointed at the list.

Clinton looked. “ Colorado tags!”

“I let it in,” Dawkins said just before he collapsed.

“Three-foot box…” Parsons said quietly.

“Come on.” Clinton ran out of the emergency room. The nearest phone was at the admitting desk. All four were being used. Clinton took one right out of the hand of an admitting clerk, hung up and cleared the line.

“What are you doing!”

“Shut up!” the agent commanded. “I need Hoskins… Walt, this is Clinton at the hospital. I need you to run a tag number. Colorado E-R-P-five-two-zero. Suspicious van at the stadium. Two men were driving it, white, thirties, ordinary-looking. The witness is a cop, but now he's passed out.”

“Okay. Who's with you?”

“Parsons, the NEST guy.”

“Get down here — no, stay put, but keep this line open.” Hoskins put that line on hold, then dialed another from memory. It was for the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles. This is the FBI, I need a quick tag check. Your computer up?"

“Yes, sir,” a female voice assured him.

“Edward Robert Paul Five Two Zero.” Hoskins looked down at his desk. Why did that sound familiar?

“Very well.” Hoskins heard the tapping. “Here we go, that's a brand-new van registered to Mr. Robert Friend of Roggen. You need the license number for Mr. Friend?”

“Christ,” Hoskins said.

“Excuse me, sir?” He read off the number. “That's correct.”

“Can you check two other license numbers?”

“Surely.” He read them off. “First one's an incorrect number… so's the second — wait a minute, these numbers are just like—”

“I know. Thank you.” Hoskins set the phone down. “Okay, Walt, think fast… ” First he needed more information from Clinton.

“ Murray.”

“Dan, this is Walt Hoskins. Something just came in you need to know.”

“Shoot.”

“Our friend Marvin Russell parked a van at the stadium. The NEST guy says that the place where he parked it is pretty close to where the bomb went off. There was at least one — no, wait a minute — okay. There was one other guy in there with him, and the other one must have been driving the rental car. Okay. Inside the van was a large box. The van was painted up like an ABC vehicle, but Russell was found dead a couple miles away. So, he must have dropped off the van and left. Dan, this looks like how the bomb might have gotten there.”

“What else do you have, Walt?”

“I have passport photos and other ID for two other people.”

“Fax 'em.”

“On the way.” Hoskins left for the communications room. On the way he grabbed another agent. “Get the Denver homicide guys who're working the Russell case — wherever they are, get 'em on the phone real fast.”

“Thinking terrorism again?” Pat O'Day asked. “I thought the bomb was too big for that.”

“Russell was a suspected terrorist, and we think he might — shit!” Murray exclaimed.

“What's that, Dan?”

“Tell Records I want the photos from Athens that're in the Russell file.” The deputy assistant director waited for the call to be made. “We had an inquiry from the Greeks, one of their officers got murdered and they sent us some photos. I thought at the time it might be Marvin, but… there was somebody else in there, a car, I think. We had him in profile, I think…”

“Fax coming in from Denver,” a woman announced.

“Bring it over,” Murray commanded.

“Here's page one.” The rest arrived rapidly.

“Airline ticket… connecting ticket. Pat—”

O'Day took it. “I'll run it down.”

“Shit, look at this!”

“Familiar face?”

“It looks like… Ismael Qati, maybe? I don't know the other one.”

“Mustache and hair are wrong, Dan,” O'Day thought, from his phone. “A little thin, too. Better call Records to see what they have current on the mutt. You don't want to jump too fast, man.”

“Right.” Murray lifted his phone.

“Good news, Mr. President,” Borstein said from inside Cheyenne Mountain. “We have a KH-11 pass coming up through the Central Soviet Union. It's almost dawn there now, clear weather for a change, and we'll get a look at some missile fields. The bird's already programmed. NPIC is real-timing it into here and Offutt also.”

“But not here,” Fowler groused. Camp David had never been set up for that, a remarkable oversight, Fowler thought. It did go into Kneecap, which was where he should have gone when he'd had the chance. “Well, tell me what you see.”

“Will do, sir, this ought to be very useful for us,” Borstein promised.

“Coming up now, sir,” a new voice said. “Sir, this is Major Costello, NORAD intel. We couldn't have timed this much better. The bird is going to sweep very close to four regiments, south to north, at Zhangiz Tobe, Alyesk, Uzhur, and Gladkaya, all but the last are SS-18 bases. Gladkaya is SS-11s, old birds. Sir, Aleysk is one of the places they're supposed to be deactivating, but haven't yet… ”

The morning sky was clear at Alyesk. First light was beginning to brighten the northeastern horizon, but none of the soldiers of the Strategic Rocket Forces bothered to look. They were weeks behind schedule and their current orders were to correct that deficiency. That such orders were nearly impossible was beside the point. At each of the forty launch silos was a heavy articulated truck. The SS-18s — the Russians actually called them RS-20s, for Rocket, Strategic, Number 20—were old ones, more than eleven years, in fact, which was why the Soviets had agreed to eliminate them. Powered liquid-fueled motors, the fuels and oxidizers in were dangerous, corrosive chemicals — unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide — and the fact that they were called “storable” liquids was a relative statement. They were more stable than cryogenic fuels, insofar as they did not require refrigeration, but they were toxic to the point of nearly instant lethality to human contact, and they were necessarily highly reactive. One safeguard was the encapsulation of the missiles in steel capsules which were loaded like immense rifle cartridges into the silos, a Soviet design innovation that protected the delicate silo instrumentation from the chemicals. That the Soviets bothered with such systems at all was not — as American intelligence officers carped — to take advantage of their higher energy impulse, but rather a result of the fact that the Soviets had lagged in developing a reliable and powerful solid fuel for its missiles, a situation only recently remedied with the new SS-25. Though undeniably large and powerful, the SS-18—given the ominous NATO codename of S ATAN— was an ill-tempered, pitiless bitch to maintain, and the crews were delighted to be rid of them. More than one Strategic Rocket Forces soldier had been killed in maintenance and training accidents, just as Americans had lost men with its counterpart U.S. missile, the Titan-II. All of the Alyesk birds were tagged for elimination, and that was the reason for the presence of the men and the transporter trucks. But first, the warheads had to be removed. The Americans could watch the missiles in the destruction process, but the warheads were still the most secret of artifacts. Under the watchful eyes of a colonel, the nose shroud was removed from Rocket Number 31 by a small crane, exposing the MIRVs. Each of the conically shaped multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicles was about forty centimeters in width at the bottom, tapering to a needle point 150 centimeters above its base. Each also represented about half a megaton of three-stage thermonuclear device. The soldiers treated the MIRVs with all the respect they so clearly deserved.

“Okay, getting some pictures now,” Fowler heard Major Costello say. “Not much activity… sir, we're isolating on just a few of the silos, the ones that we can see the best — there's woods all over there, Mr. President, but because of the angle of the satellite we know which ones we can see clearly… okay, there's one, Tobe Silo Zero-Five… nothing unusual… the command bunker is right there… I can see guards patrolling around… more than usual… I see five — seven people — we can get them real good in infra-red, it's cold there, sir. Nothing else. Nothing else unusual, sir… good. Okay, coming up on Alyesk now — Jeez!”

“What is it?”

“Sir, we're looking at four silos on four different cameras…”

Those are service trucks,“ General Fremont said, from the SAC command center. ”Service trucks at all four. Silo doors are open, Mr. President."

“What does that mean?”

Costello took the question: “Mr. President, these are all -18 Mod 2s, fairly old ones. They were supposed to be deactivated by now, but they haven't been. We now have five silos in sight, sir, and all five have service trucks there. I can see two with people standing around, doing something to the missiles.”

“What's a service truck?” Liz Elliot asked.

“Those are the trucks they use to transport the missiles. They also have all the tools you use to work on them. There's one truck per bird — actually more than one. It's a big semi-truck, like a hook 'n' ladder truck, actually, with storage bins built in for all the tools and stuff — Jim, they look like they pulled the shroud — yeah! There are the warheads, it's lit up, and they're doing something to the RVs… I wonder what?”

Fowler nearly exploded. It was like listening to a football game on the radio, and—“What does all this mean!”

“Sir, we can't tell… coming up to Uzhur now. Not much activity, Uzhur has the new mark of the -18, the Mod 5… no trucks, I can see sentries again. Mr. President, I would estimate that we have more than the usual number of sentries around. Gladkaya next… that'll take a couple of minutes… ”

“Why are the trucks there?” Fowler asked.

“Sir, all I can say is that they appear to be working on the birds.”

“God damn it! Doing what!” Fowler screamed into the speaker phone.

The reply was very different from the cool voice of a few minutes earlier. “Sir, there's no way we can tell that.”

“Then tell me what you do know!”

“Mr. President, as I already said, these missiles are old ones, they're maintenance-intensive, and they were scheduled for destruction, but they're overdue for that. We observed increased site security at all three SS-18 regiments, but at Alyesk every bird we saw had a truck and a maintenance crew there, and the silos were all open. That's all we can tell from these pictures, sir.”

“Mr. President,” General Borstein said, “Major Costello has told you everything he can.”

“General, you told me that we'd get something useful from this. What did we get?”

“Sir, it may be significant that there's all that work going on at Alyesk.”

“But you don't know what the work is!”

“No, sir, we don't,” Borstein admitted rather sheepishly.

“Could they be readying those missiles for launch?”

“Yes, sir, that is a possibility.”

“My God.”

“Robert,” the National Security Advisor said, “I am getting very frightened.”

“ Elizabeth, we don't have time for this.” Fowler collected himself. “We must maintain control of ourselves, and control the situation. We must. We must convince Narmonov—”

“Robert, don't you see! It's not him! That's the only thing that makes sense. We don't know who we're dealing with!”

“What can we do about it?”

“I don't know!”

“Well, whoever it is, they don't want a nuclear war. Nobody would. It's too crazy,” the President assured her, sounding almost like a parent.

“Are you sure of that? Robert, are you really sure? They tried to kill us!”

“Even if that's true, we have to set it aside.”

“But we can't. If they were willing to try once, they will be willing to try again! Don't you see?”

Just a few feet behind him, Helen D'Agustino realized that she'd read Liz Elliot correctly the previous summer. She was as much a coward as a bully. And now whom did the President have to advise him? Fowler rose from his chair and headed for the bathroom. Pete Connor trailed along as far as the door, because even Presidents are not allowed to make that trip alone. “Daga” looked down on Dr. Elliot. Her face was — what? the Secret Service agent asked herself. It was beyond fear. Agent D'Agustino was every bit as frightened herself, but she didn't — that was unfair, wasn't it? Nobody was asking her for advice, nobody was asking her to make sense of this mess. Clearly, none of it made sense at all. It simply didn't. At least no one was asking her about it, but that wasn't her job. It was Liz Elliot's job.

“I got a contact here,” one of the sonar operators said aboard Sea Devil One-Three. “Buoy three, bearing two-one-five… blade count now… single screw — nuclear submarine contact! Not American, screw's not American.”

“Got him on four,” another sonarman said. “This dude's hauling ass, blade count shows over twenty, maybe twenty-five knots, bearing my buoy is three-zero-zero.”

“Okay,” the Tacco said, “I have a posit. Can you give me drift?”

“Bearing now two-one-zero!” the first one responded. “This guy is moving!”

Two minutes later, it was clear, the contact was heading straight for USS Maine.

“Is this possible?” Jim Rosselli asked. The radio message had gone from Kodiak straight to the NMCC. The commander of the patrol squadron didn't know what to do and was screaming for instructions. The report came in the form of a R ED R OCKET, copied off also to C IN CP AC, who would also be requesting direction from above.

“What do you mean?” Barnes asked.

“He's heading straight for where Maine is. How the hell could he know where she is?”

“How'd we find out?”

“SLOT buoy, radio — oh, no, that asshole hasn't maneuvered clear?”

“Kick this to the President?” Colonel Barnes asked.

“I guess.” Rosselli lifted the phone.

“This is the President.”

“Sir, this is Captain Jim Rosselli at the National Military Command Center. We have a disabled submarine in the Gulf of Alaska, USS Maine, an Ohio-class missile boat. Sir, she has prop damage and cannot maneuver. There is a Soviet attack submarine heading straight towards her, about ten miles out. We have a P-3C Orion ASW aircraft that is now tracking the Russian. Sir, he requests instructions.”

“I thought they can't track our missile submarines.”

“Sir, nobody can, but in this case they must have DF — I mean used direction-finders to locate the sub when she radioed for help. Maine is a missile submarine, part of SIOP, and is under DEFCON-TWO Rules of Engagement. Therefore, so is the Orion that's riding shotgun for her. Sir, they want to know what to do.”

“How important is Maine?” Fowler asked.

General Fremont took that. “Sir, that sub is part of the SIOP, a big part, over two hundred warheads, very accurate ones. If the Russians can take her out, they've hurt us badly.”

“How badly?”

“Sir, it makes one hell of a hole in our war plan. Maine carries the D-5 missile, and they are tasked counter-force. They're supposed to attack missile fields and selected command-and-control assets. If something happens to her, it would take literally hours to patch up that hole in the plan.”

“Captain Rosselli, you're Navy, right?”

“Yes, Mr. President — sir, I have to tell you that I was CO of Maine 's Gold Crew until a few months ago.”

“How soon before we have to make a decision?”

“Sir, the Akula is inbound at twenty-five knots, currently about twenty thousand yards from our boat. Technically speaking, they're within torpedo range right now.”

“What are my options?”

“You can order an attack or not order an attack,” Rosselli replied.

“General Fremont?”

“Mr. President — no, Captain Rosselli?”

“Yes, General?”

“How sure are you that the Russians are boring straight in on our boat?”

“The signal is quite positive on that, sir.”

“Mr. President, I think we have to protect our assets. The Russians won't be real pleased with an attack on one of their boats, but it's an attack boat, not a strategic asset. If they challenge us on this, we can explain it. What I want to know is why they ordered the boat in this way. They must know that it would alarm us.”

“Captain Rosselli, you have my authorization for the aircraft to engage and destroy the submarine.”

“Aye aye, sir.” Rosselli lifted the other phone. “GRAY BEAR, this is MARBLEHEAD ”—the current codename for the NMCC—“National Command Authority approves I repeat approves your request. Acknowledge.”

“ MARBLEHEAD, this is GRAY BEAR, we copy request to engage is approved.”

“That's affirmative.”

“Roger. Out.”

The Orion turned in. Even the pilots were feeling the effects of the weather now. Technically, it was still light, but the low ceiling and heavy seas made it seem that they were flying down an immense and bumpy corridor. That was the bad news. The good news was that their contact was acting dumb, running very fast, below the layer, and almost impossible to miss. The Tacco in back coached him in along the Akula's course. Sticking out the tail of the converted Lockheed Electra airliner was a sensitive device called a magnetic anomaly detector. It reported on variations in the earth's magnetic field, such as those caused by the metallic mass of a submarine.

“Madman madman madman, smoke away!” the system operator called. He pushed a button to release a smoke float. In front, the pilot immediately turned left to set up another run. This he did, then a third, turning left each time.

“Okay, how's this look back there?” the pilot asked.

“Solid contact, nuclear-powered sub, positive Russian. I say let's do it this time.”

“Fair enough,” the pilot observed.

“Jesus!” the co-pilot muttered.

“Open the doors.”

“Coming open now. Safeties off, release is armed, weapon is hot.”

“Okay, I have it set,” the Tacco said. “Clear to drop.”

It was too easy. The pilot lined up on the smoke floats, which were almost perfectly in a row. He passed over the first, then the second, then the third…

“Dropping now-now-now! Torp away!” The pilot added power and climbed a few hundred feet.

The Mark 50 ASW torpedo dropped clear, retarded by a small parachute that automatically released when the fish hit the water. The new and very sophisticated weapon was powered by an almost noiseless propulsor instead of a propeller, and had been programmed to stay covert until it reached the target depth of five hundred feet.

It was just about time to slow down, Dubinin thought, another few thousand meters. His gamble, he felt, had been a good one. It seemed a wholly reasonable supposition that the American missile submarine would stay near the surface. If he'd guessed right, then by racing in just below the layer — he was running on one hundred ten meters — then surface noise would keep the Americans from hearing him, and he could conduct the remainder of the search more covertly. He was about to congratulate himself for a good tactical decision.

“Torpedo sonar on the starboard bow!” Lieutenant Rykov screamed from sonar.

“Rudder left! Ahead flank! Where is the torpedo?”

Rykov: “Depression angle fifteen! Below us!”

“Emergency surface! Full rise on the planes! New course three-zero-zero!” Dubinin dashed into sonar.

“What the hell?”

Rykov was pale. “I can't hear screws… just that damned sonar… looking away — no, it's in acquisition now!”

Dubinin turned: “Countermeasures — three — now!”

“Cans away!”

Admiral Lunin 's countermeasures operators rapidly fired off three fifteen — centimeter cans of gas-generating material. These filled the water with bubbles, making a target for the torpedo, but one that didn't move. The Mark 50 had already sensed the submarine's presence and was turning in.

“Coming through one hundred meters,” the Starpom called. “Speed twenty-eight knots.”

“Level off at fifteen, but don't be afraid of broaching.”

“Understood! Twenty-nine knots.”

“Lost it, the curve in the towed array just ruined our reception.” Rykov's hands went up in frustration.

“Then we must be patient,” Dubinin said. It wasn't much of a joke, but the sonar crew loved him for it.

“The Orion just engaged the inbound, sir, just picked up an ultrasonic sonar, very faint, bearing two-four-zero. It's one of ours, it's a Mark 50, sir.”

“That ought to take care of him,” Ricks observed. “Thank God.”

“Passing through fifty meters, leveling out, ten degrees on the planes. Speed thirty-one.”

“Countermeasures didn't work…” Rykov said. The towed array was straightening out, and the torpedo was still back there.

“No propeller noises?”

“None… I should be able to hear them even at this speed.”

“Must be one of their new ones…”

“The Mark 50? It's supposed to be a very clever little fish.”

“We will see about that. Yevgeniy, remember the surface action?” Dubinin smiled.

The Starpom did a superb job of maintaining control, but the thirty-foot seas guaranteed that the submarine would broach — break the surface — as the waves and troughs swept overhead. The torpedo was a scant three hundred meters behind when the Akula leveled out. The American Mark 50 anti-submarine torpedo was not a smart weapon, but a “brilliant” one. It had identified and ignored the countermeasures Dubinin had ordered only minutes before, and, using a powerful ultrasonic sonar, was now looking for the sub in order to conclude its mission. But here physical laws intervened in favor of the Russians. It is widely believed that sonar reflects off the metal hull of a ship, but this is not true. Rather, sonar reflects off the air inside a submarine, or more precisely off the border of water and air through which the sound energy cannot pass. The Mark 50 was programmed to identify these air-water boundaries as ships. As the torpedo rocketed after its prey, it began to see immense ship-shapes stretching as far as its sonar could reach. Those were waves. Though the weapon had been programmed to ignore a flat surface and thus avoid a problem called “surface capture,” its designers had not addressed the problem of a heavy, rolling sea. The Mark 50 selected the nearest such shape, raced towards it—

— and sprang into clear air like a leaping salmon. It crashed into the back of the next wave, reacquired the same immense target shape—

— and leaped again. This time the torpedo hit at a slight angle. Dynamic forces caused it to turn and race north inside the body of a wave, sensing huge ships both left and right. It turned left, springing into the air yet again, but this time it hit the next wave hard enough to detonate its contact fuse.

“That was close!” Rykov said.

“No, not close, perhaps a thousand meters, but probably more.” The Captain leaned into the control room. “Slow to five knots, down to thirty meters.”

“We hit it?”

“I don't know, sir,” the operator said. “He went shallow in a hurry, and the fish went charging up after him, circled around some—” the sonarman traced his finger on the display. “Then it exploded here, close to where the Akula disappeared into the surface noise. Can't say — no break-up noises, sir, I have to call it a miss.”

“Bearing and distance to the target?” Dubinin asked.

“Roughly nine thousand meters, bearing zero-five-zero,” the Starpom replied. “What is the plan now, Captain?”

“We will locate and destroy the target,” said Captain First Rank Valentin Borissovich Dubinin.

“But—”

“We have been attacked. Those bastards tried to kill us!”

“That was an aerial weapon,” the executive officer pointed out.

“I heard no airplane. We have been attacked. We will defend ourselves.”

“Well?”

Inspector Pat O'Day was making furious notes. American Airlines, like all the major carriers, had its ticket information on computer. With a ticket number and flight numbers, he could track anyone down. “Okay,” he told the woman on the other end. “Wait a minute.” O'Day turned. “Dan, there were only six first-class tickets on that flight from Denver to Dallas-Fort Worth, the flight was nearly empty — but it hasn't taken off yet because of ice and snow in Dallas. We have the names for two other first-class passengers who changed to a Miami flight. Now, the Dallas connection was for Mexico City. The two who changed through Miami were also booked on a DC-10 out of Miami into Mexico City. That plane's off, one hour out of Mexico.”

“Turn it around?”

“They say they can't because of fuel.”

“One hour — Christ!” Murray swore.

O'Day ran a large hand over his face. As scared as everyone else in America — more so, since everyone in the command center had informed reason to be frightened — Inspector Patrick Sean O'Day was trying mightily to set everything aside and concentrate on whatever he had at hand. It was too slim and too circumstantial to be considered hard evidence as yet. He'd seen too many coincidences in his twenty years with the Bureau. He'd also seen major cases break on thinner stuff than this. You ran with what you had, and they had this.

“Dan, I—”

A messenger came in from the Records Division. She handed over two files to Murray. The deputy assistant director opened the Russell file first, rummaging for the Athens photo. Next he took out the most recent photo of Ismael Qati. He set both next to the passport photos just faxed in from Denver.

“What do you think, Pat?”

“The passport one of this guy still looks thin for Mr. Qati… cheekbones and eyes are right, mustache isn't. He's losing hair, too, if this is him…”

“Go with the eyes?”

“The eyes are right, Dan, the nose — yeah, it's him. Who's this other mutt?”

“No names, just these frames from Athens. Fair skin, dark hair, well-groomed. Haircut's right, hairline is right.” He checked the descriptive data on the license and passport. “Height, little guy, build — it fits, Pat.”

“I agree, I agree about eighty percent worth, man. Who's the Legal Attache in Mexico City?”

“Bernie Montgomery — shit! he's in town to meet with Bill.”

“Try Langley?”

“Yeah.” Murray lifted his CIA line. “Where's Ryan?”

“Right here, Dan. What gives?”

“We have something. First, a guy named Marvin Russell, Sioux Indian, member of the Warrior Society, he dropped out of sight last year, somewhere in Europe, we thought. He turned up with his throat cut in Denver today. There were two people with him, they flew out. One, we have a picture but no name. The other may be Ismael Qati.”

That bastard! “Where are they?”

“We think they're aboard an American Airlines flight from Miami to Mexico City, first-class tickets, about an hour out from the terminal.”

“And you think there's a connection?”

“A vehicle registered to Marvin Russell, a/k/a Robert Friend of Roggen, Colorado, was on the stadium grounds. We have fake IDs from two people, probably Qati and the unknown subject, recovered from the murder scene. There's plenty enough to arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Yeah, Jack thought. Had the situation not been so horrible, Ryan would have laughed at that. “Murder, eh? You going to try and make the arrest?”

“Unless you have a better idea.”

Ryan was quiet for a moment. “Maybe I do. Hold on for a minute.” He lifted another phone and dialed the United States Embassy in Mexico City. “This is Ryan calling for the Station Chief. Tony? Jack Ryan here. Is Clark still there? Good, put him on.”

“Jesus, Jack, what the hell is—” Ryan cut him off.

“Shut up, John. I have something for you to do. We have two people coming in to the airport there on an American flight from Miami, due in about an hour. We'll fax you the photos in a few minutes. We think they might be involved in this.”

“So, it's a terrorist gig?”

“Best thing we have, John. We want those two, and we want them fast.”

“Might be a problem from the local cops, Jack,” Clark warned. “I can't exactly have a shoot-out down here.”

“Is the ambassador in?”

“I think so.”

“Transfer me over and stand by.”

“Right.”

“Ambassador's office,” a female voice said.

“This is CIA Headquarters, and I need the Ambassador right now!”

“Surely.” The secretary was a cool one, Ryan thought.

“Yeah, what is it?”

“Mr. Ambassador, this is Jack Ryan, Deputy Director of CIA—”

“This is an open phone line.”

“I know that! Shut up and listen. There are two people coming into Mexico City airport in an American Airlines flight from Miami. We need to pick them up and get them back here just as fast as we can.”

“Our people?”

“No, we think they're terrorists.”

“That means arresting them, clearing it through the local legal system and—”

“We don't have time for that!”

“Ryan, we can't strong-arm these people, they won't stand for it.”

“Mr. Ambassador, I want you to call the President of Mexico right now, and I want you to tell him that we need his cooperation — it's life-and-death, okay? If he doesn't agree immediately, I want you to tell him this, and I need you to write it down. Tell him that we know about his retirement plan. Okay? Use those exact words, We know about his retirement plan.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you say exactly that, do you understand?”

“Look, I don't like playing games and—”

“Mr. Ambassador, if you do not do exactly what I'm telling you, I will have one of my people render you unconscious and then have the DCM make the call.”

“You can't threaten me like that!”

“I just did, pal, and if you think I'm kidding, you just fucking try me!”

“Temper, Jack,” Ben Goodley cautioned.

Ryan looked away from the phone. “Sir, excuse me. It's very tense here, okay, we've had a nuclear device go off in Denver, and this may be the best lead we have. Look, there isn't time for niceties. Please. Play along with me. Please.”

“Very well.”

Ryan let out a breath. “Okay. Tell him also that one of our people, a Mr. Clark, will be at the airport security office in a few minutes. Mr. Ambassador, I cannot emphasize enough how important this is. Please do it now.”

“I'll do it. You'd better calm down up there,” the career foreign-service officer advised.

“We're trying very hard, sir. Please have your secretary transfer me back to the Station Chief. Thank you.” Ryan looked over to Goodley. “Just hit me over the fucking head if you feel the need, Ben.”

“ Clark.”

“We're faxing some photos down, along with their names and seat assignments. Okay, you are to check in with the airport security boss before you grab 'em. You still have the airplane down there?”

“Right.”

“When you have 'em, get 'em aboard, and get 'em the hell up here.”

“Okay, Jack. We're on it.”

Ryan killed the line and picked up on Murray. “Fax the data you have to our Station Chief Mexico. I have two field officers on the scene, good ones, Clark and Chavez.”

“ Clark?” Murray asked, as he handed the fax information to Pat O'Day. “The same one who—”

“That's the man.”

“I wish him luck.”

The tactical problem was complex. Dubinin had an anti-submarine aircraft overhead and could not afford to make a single mistake. Somewhere ahead was an American missile submarine that he fully intended to destroy. He had ordered it to protect himself, the captain reasoned. He had been fired upon with a live weapon. That changed matters greatly. He really should radio fleet command for instructions, or at least to announce his intentions, but with an aircraft overhead that was suicide, and he'd brushed close enough to death for one day. The attack on Admiral Lunin could only mean that the Americans were planning an attack on his country. They'd violated their favorite international hobbyhorse — the seas were free for the passage of all. They'd attacked him in international waters before he was close enough to commit a hostile act. Someone, therefore, thought there was a state of war. Fine, Dubinin thought. So be it.

The submarine's towed-array sonar was drooping well below the level of the boat, and the sonar crewmen were now concentrating as they never had.

“Contact,” Lieutenant Rykov called. “Sonar contact, bearing one-one-three, single screw… noisy, sounds like a damaged submarine…”

“You're certain it's not a surface contact?”

“Positive… surface traffic is well south of this track because of the storms. The sound is definitely characteristic of a submarine power plant… noisy, as though from some damage… southerly drift… bearing one-one-five now.”

Valentin Borissovich turned to shout into the control room: “Estimated distance to target's reported position?”

“Seven thousand meters!”

“Long, long shot… southerly drift… speed?”

“Difficult to tell… less than six knots, certainly… there's a blade-rate there, but it's faint, and I can't read it.”

“We may not get more than one shot,” Dubinin whispered to himself. He went back to control. “Weapons! Set up a torpedo on a course of one-one-five, initial search depth seventy meters, activation point… four thousand meters.”

“Very well.” The lieutenant made the proper adjustment to his board. “Set for tube one… weapon is hot, ready! Outer door is closed, Captain.”

Dubinin turned to look at the executive officer. Ordinarily a very sober man — he scarcely drank even at ceremonial dinners — the Starpom nodded approval. The Captain didn't need it, but was grateful for it even so.

“Open outer door.”

“Outer door is open.” The weapons officer flipped the plastic cover off the firing switch.

“Fire.”

The lieutenant stabbed the button home. “Weapon is free.”

“ Conn, sonar! Transient, transient, bearing one-seven-five — torpedo in the water bearing one-nine-five!”

“All ahead full!” Ricks shouted to the helm.

“Captain!” Claggett screamed. “Belay that order!”

“What?” The youngster at the helm was all of nineteen, and had never heard a captain's order countermanded. “What do I do, sir?”

“Captain, if you goose the engines like that, we lose the shaft in about fifteen seconds!”

“Shit, you're right.” Ricks was pink beneath the red battle lights in the control room. “Tell the engine room, best safe speed, helm, right ten degrees rudder, come north, new course zero-zero-zero.”

“Right ten degrees rudder, aye.” The boy's voice quavered as he turned the wheel. Fear is as contagious as plague. “Sir, my rudder is right ten degrees, coming to new course zero-zero-zero.”

Ricks swallowed and nodded. “Very well.”

“ Conn, sonar, bearing to torpedo is now bearing one-nine-zero, torpedo going left to right, torpedo is not pinging at this time.”

“Thank you,” Claggett replied.

“Without our tail, we're going to lose track of it real quick.”

“That's true, sir. Captain, how about we let the Orion know what's going on?”

“Good idea, run up the antenna.”

“Sea Devil One-Three, this is Maine.”

“ Maine, this is One-Three, we are still evaluating that torpedo we dropped and—”

“One-Three, we have a torpedo in the water one-eight-zero. You missed the guy. Start another search pattern south of us. I think this bird is engaging our MOSS.”

“Roger, on the way.” The Tacco informed Kodiak that there was a for-real battle going on now.

“Mr. President,” Ryan said, “we may have some useful information here, sir.” Jack was sitting down in front of the speaker phone, his hands flat on the table and wet enough to leave marks on the Formica top, Goodley saw. For all that, he envied Ryan's ability to control himself.

“What might that be?” Fowler asked harshly.

Ryan's head dropped at the tone of the reply. “Sir, the FBI has just informed us that they have information on two, possibly three, confirmed terrorist suspects in Denver today. Two of them are believed to be on an airliner inbound to Mexico. I have people in the area, and we're going to try and pick them up, sir.”

“Wait a minute,” Fowler said. “We know that this wasn't a terrorist act.”

“Ryan, this is General Fremont. How was this information developed?”

“I don't know all the details, but they have information on an automobile — a truck, I think, a van, that was at the site. They've checked the tag number and the owner — the owner turned up dead, and we ran the other two down by their airline tickets and—”

“Hold it!” CINC-SAC cut Ryan off. “How the hell can anyone know that — a survivor from the bomb site? For Christ's sake, man, this was a hundred kiloton weapon—”

“Uh, General, the best number we have now — it came from the FBI — is fifty-KT, and—”

“The FBI?” Borstein said from NORAD. “What the hell do they know about this? Anyway, a fifty-kiloton weapon wouldn't leave any survivors for over a mile around. Mr. President, that cannot be good information.”

“Mr. President, this is the NMCC,” Ryan heard on the same line. “We just received a message from Kodiak. That Soviet submarine is attacking USS Maine. There is a torpedo in the water, Maine is attempting to evade.”

Jack heard something, he wasn't sure what, over the speakerphone.

“Sir,” Fremont said at once, “this is a very ominous development.”

“I understand that, General,” the President said just loudly enough to hear. “General — SNAPCOUNT.”

“What the hell's that?” Goodley asked quietly.

“Mr. President, that is a mistake. We have a solid piece of information here. You wanted information from us, and now we have it!” Ryan barked rapidly, almost losing it again. His hands went from flat to fists. Jack struggled with himself again, and regained control. “Sir, this is a real indicator.”

“Ryan, it looks to me like you've been lying and misleading me all day,” Fowler said, in a voice that hardly sounded human at all. The line went dead for the last time.

The final alert signal was sent out simultaneously over dozens of circuits. The duplication of channels, their known function, the brevity of the message, and the identical encipherment pattern told the Soviets much, even before the receipted signal was input into their computers. When the single word came out, it was reprinted in the Kremlin command center only seconds later. Golovko took the dispatch off the machine.

“SNAPCOUNT,” he said simply.

“What is that?” President Narmonov asked.

“A code word.” Golovko's mouth went white for a moment. “It's a term from American football, I think. It means the set of numbers used before the — the quarterback takes the ball to begin a play.”

“I don't understand,” Narmonov said.

“Once the Americans had the code word C OCKEDPISTOL to denote complete strategic readiness. The meaning is unambiguous to anyone, yes?” The KGB's Deputy Chairman went on, as though in a dream: “This word, to an American, would mean much the same thing. I can only conclude that—”

“Yes.”