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  The black-suited agent looked as if he wanted to argue the point, but he recognized the steel behind the President’s smile. “You’re the boss, sir.”

  “That’s right, Ron,” said the President. As he got out of the limo he asked his chief of staff, “What about that laser plane?”

  Sliding across the leather seat, Foster replied, “Approaching the North Korean coast. Should be in position to shoot at the missiles as soon as they’re launched.”

  “If it can get close enough to them,” the President muttered.

  “Yep,” said Foster. “There is that.”

  The President nodded. Foster slid out of the limo and straightened up slowly. Arthritis, the President knew.

  The chief of staff made a small, involuntary groan as he stood up. Then, “The Aegis ships are alerted and ready. So are the ABM bases in Alaska and Vandenberg.”

  With another nod, the President muttered, “Now we’ll see if we’ve spent the taxpayers’ money wisely.”

  “You bet your life,” said Foster, without a trace of a smile.

  ABL-1: Beam Management Compartment

  “They’re going to launch any minute,” Harry prodded.

  Monk Delany shot a sour glance over his burly shoulder. “I’m ready. I’m ready. Let ‘em launch.”

  Bending over the seated Delany, Harry saw that the ranging laser’s screen was clear. Nothing in view.

  “Did I hear one of those blue-suiters say we’ve got fighters coming after us?” Delany had his headphone solidly clamped to one ear. Obviously he’d been tuned in to the intercom chatter.

  “That’s what they said,” Harry replied tightly.

  “Are we turnin’ back?”

  “No.”

  “But they could shoot us down!”

  Harry said, “Or force us to land in North Korea.”

  “Christ Almighty,” Delany muttered.

  “You’re going to be a hero, Monk. We all are.”

  “Dead or alive.”

  Harry tapped Delany’s shoulder. “One way or another, Monk. One way or another.”

  “They got parachutes on this bird?”

  Harry forced a laugh. “I’ll go look,” he said. He left Delany fiddling with the ranging laser’s controls and ducked through to Taki’s battle management station.

  She looked up at him. “We’re being chased by a couple of fighters?”

  Harry nodded as he slid into the chair next to hers. “That’s the news from upstairs.”

  “This is going to get bad, isn’t it?”

  “Looks that way. But we don’t have any way out of it.”

  “The pilot could turn us around and head back to Japan,” Taki said without taking her eyes off the screens of her console.

  “She’s not going to do that. They’ll be launching those missiles any minute.”

  “And after that they’ll shoot us down.”

  “Taki, there’s nothing we can do about that. We’re in this to the brutal end.”

  The look on her face was really inscrutable, Harry thought. What’s she thinking? She doesn’t look scared, or sore, or… anything.

  As Harry slapped a headphone set over his baby-fine hair, Taki said, “You’re pretty cool, Harry. Pretty damned cool.”

  “Me?” He felt totally surprised. “I’m scared halfway to death!”

  “Halfway,” she said, with a slight curve of her lip. It might have been the beginning of a smile, Harry thought. Or a sneer of disdain.

  With a shake of his head to clear his thoughts, Harry turned back to the console in front of him. “We’ve got business to do.”

  “Right, chief.”

  Harry puzzled over the intercom board for a moment, then pressed the key that he hoped connected to Rosenberg, back aft.

  “Yo,” said Angel Reyes’s voice.

  “Where’s Wally?”

  “In the toilet. I think he’s throwin’ up.”

  “Great.”

  “Naw, I’m only kiddin’. He’s takin’ a leak.”

  Harry realized that Angie and Wally hadn’t heard about the North Korean interceptors. Good. They’ve got enough to worry about just keeping their minds on business.

  He asked into his lip mike, “You guys ready back there? Everything up and running?”

  Reyes’ voice took on a more formal tone. “All systems are go, el jefe.”

  “Any problems? Any anomalies?”

  “Pressures in the green. Pumps functional. Feed lines purged and clean. We’re ready to rumble, boss.”

  “Good,” said Harry. “Looks like the rumble’s about to start.”

  The Pentagon: Secretary of Defense’s Office

  “With all due respect, sir, I should be downstairs with the situation team,” General Scheib said. The Secretary of Defense nodded once. With a glance at the Secretary of State, sitting to one side of his wide, gleaming desk, he replied, “We need your honest assessment of the situation.”

  “And yours,” State said, pointing a manicured finger at Michael Jamil, her face a mask of ice.

  Scheib was on his feet in front of the desk, his uniform immaculate, his chiseled face clearly showing his displeasure. Jamil stood beside him, Zuri Coggins slightly behind the two men.

  “Honest assessment?” the general echoed. “The Koreans are about to launch their two remaining missiles. Our antimissiles systems are on alert. The airborne laser plane is approaching the North Korean coast.”

  “Are those missiles aimed at San Francisco?”

  “No,” said Scheib.

  “Yes,” said Jamil.

  With an angry glance at Jamil, General Scheib insisted, “They don’t have the range or accuracy to reach San Francisco.”

  “They do if they’ve been upgraded by the Chinese,” Jamil retorted.

  “You’re not still accusing the Chinese of this?” the Secretary of State said.

  “It’s the only scenario that makes sense,” Jamil explained. “The DPRK wouldn’t dare start this unless they knew the Chinese were backing them up.”

  “But I’ve had assurances…” State’s voice dwindled away as she realized that she had nothing but the unsupported word of an informal back-channel contact.

  Jamil took half a step toward her and said earnestly, “Madam Secretary, we know that the North Koreans launched the bomb that knocked out our satellites. That took more thrust and accuracy than their Taepodong-2 missile has. It had to be upgraded. And where’d they get a nuclear warhead? Their own nuclear program isn’t that advanced.”

  Defense was frowning. State looked distracted, as if she was trying to absorb this information and match it with what she’d thought she’d known earlier.

  Jamil went on, “Pyongyang wants—needs!— reunification with South Korea. China wants Taiwan. They both want us out of Asia.”

  Defense put up a beefy hand. “Wait a minute. How does bombing San Francisco and killing the President get them any of those things?”

  “Are we willing to have a nuclear war with China?” Jamil demanded. “Are we willing to see half our cities destroyed, maybe more? A hundred million casualties? Over Taiwan and the reunification of North and South Korea?”

  “If they kill the President—”

  “Even then, sir. The Chinese are betting that we’ll back down. And if we don’t, if we launch our missiles at China, they’re betting they can absorb our attack and come out the winner.”

  The Secretary of State heard Quang’s warning in her mind, You must realize that there are factions within our council. We have our own hard-liners, you must understand.

  “But we wouldn’t attack China,” State said, as if trying to convince herself. “We’d attack North Korea.”

  “And China would retaliate. They’d have to. They couldn’t sit back while we destroyed an ally that’s right on their border.”

  “Chongjin,” Defense murmured.

  State turned toward him with a questioning look.

  “The Korean War. China came in when our troo
ps approached the Yalu River, the border between Korea and China.” Defense looked suddenly old and frightened, his liver-spotted face gray.

  Coggins stepped up beside Jamil. “For what it’s worth, I think this scenario makes sense.”

  “And the President’s been apprised of all this?” State asked.

  Coggins replied, “I’ve spoken to my boss, the National Security Advisor, personally. He’s contacted the President’s chief of staff out in San Francisco.”

  Impatiently, General Scheib said, “Whatever scenario you want to believe, we’ve got the airborne laser approaching the North Korean coast and the gooks about to launch their missiles. I ought to be down in the situation room.”

  “Yes, you should,” Defense said. With a wave of one hand he commanded, “Get down to your post. I only hope to God Almighty your people can shoot those damned missiles out of the sky.”

  The Pentagon: Elevator

  Zuri Coggins realized that General Scheib was terribly tense. Despite the cool appearance he was trying to project, she could see that the general was boiling inside. As the elevator stopped at every floor and people got on and off, Scheib nervously jabbed repeatedly at the button for the basement level even before the elevator doors could close. “Come on, come on,” he kept muttering. Jamil, standing beside her in the back of the elevator cab, half-whispered, “Thanks for backing me up in there.”

  He looked weary, spent, close to exhaustion.

  “I think you’ve got it right,” she told the analyst, also speaking in a near whisper.

  “I thought she called me up there to fry my butt,” Jamil confessed.

  Coggins said, “Speak truth to power.”

  “And get your head chopped off.”

  She nearly laughed. “This isn’t Iran, Mr. Jamil. We don’t hack people’s heads off.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You assume I’m a Muslim, don’t you?” Before she could answer, Jamil stated, “My family’s been Christian since the Middle Ages. That’s one of the reasons my father left Lebanon.”

  “I see,” said Coggins. She debated telling him, then decided it would do no harm. “I am a Muslim, you know. My grandfather was a Baptist, but he converted to the Nation of Islam when a prizefighter named Cassius Clay converted and took the name Muhammad Ali.”

  She thought that if the situation weren’t so desperately deadly the stunned look on Jamil’s face would have been hilarious.

  The Secretary of Defense leaned back in his plush swivel chair and eyed the Secretary of State closely. She seemed lost in thought, sitting in the big leather armchair, her eyes turned toward the windows but obviously seeing something other than the view out there.

  He lied to me, State was thinking. Quang told me China had no intention of attacking the United States, but if what this analyst says is true, then China’s actually behind the North Korean attack. Quang lied. After all these years, he lied to me. How long have the Chinese been preparing for this moment?

  “Well?” Defense rumbled, tired of the silence. “What do you think you’ve accomplished?”

  State stirred herself out of her private thoughts. She blinked once at the man behind the big ornate desk.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Who? That kid?”

  “He’s a first-rate analyst with the National Intelligence Council. I had my people check him out after we spoke together on the phone earlier today.”

  “If he’s right, we’re in deep shit,” said Defense. “Whatever we do, we’re in for it.”

  Strangely, State smiled. Defense had seen that smile before. It usually preceded a beheading.

  “I read somewhere,” State said slowly, “that the Chinese symbol for crisis is a combination of two other symbols: one for danger, the other for opportunity.”

  “Opportunity?”

  “The President has handled this crisis badly, going off to San Francisco to show what a macho strongman he is.”

  Wondering where she was heading, Defense chose his words carefully. “If that kid is right and San Francisco is nuked…”

  “Parkinson becomes President.”

  Defense huffed. “He’s a horse’s ass.”

  “Yes, isn’t he?”

  “I had him bundled off to the National Redoubt this morning, when this missile business came up.”

  “So he’s safe.”

  Defense nodded and muttered, “Too bad.”

  “Not at all,” State countered. “You wouldn’t want the Speaker of the House to be President, would you?”

  “God, no!”

  “Parkinson can be handled. He can be led.”

  “By you?”

  “By us,” State replied, her smile widening. “We can form a sort of committee.”

  “A triumvirate. Like in ancient Rome, after Julius Caesar’s assassination.” And he remembered from history that the triumvirate quickly broke apart as Octavian bested the other two and made himself Rome’s first emperor, Augustus Caesar.

  State nodded absently, her mind already obviously looking ahead. “If the President dies in a nuclear attack on San Francisco—”

  “Parkinson wouldn’t have the guts to order a counterstrike on North Korea.”

  “I think you’re wrong, Lonnie.”

  My name’s Lionel and she knows it, Defense growled inwardly. But he kept his pique off his face and asked innocently, “Wrong?”

  “I think we can get Parkinson to give the attack order while he’s right there in the National Redoubt, snug and safe from attack. I think I could convince him.”

  Defense shook his head. “So we clobber North Korea. And the Chinese clobber us.”

  “No, Lonnie, you don’t understand,” State said. “We hit China right away with a preemptive strike. Cripple their missile forces so they can’t hurt us too much. Then we wipe out North Korea.”

  Defense stared at her. She was still smiling, as if she were talking about rearranging the flowers on a banquet table.

  “The fallout will drift over Japan,” he muttered.

  The Secretary of State’s smile did not diminish by a single millimeter. “Regrettable,” she said. “But one of the ancillary benefits will be to remove both China and Japan as economic competitors.”

  Defense realized what her smile reminded him of: a rattlesnake, poised to strike.

  The Pentagon: Situation Room

  “Have they launched?” General Scheib shouted as he burst into the situation room. General Higgins, sitting at the head of the table, his chair turned so he faced the wall screen, shook his head. “Not yet, Brad.” Gesturing to the image on the screen, he went on. “That’s the latest imagery. Looks like they’re in countdown mode.”

  Scheib saw that the missiles were standing on their pads, slight wisps of steam issuing from the rime-coated section where the liquid oxygen tanks were.

  Sliding into his own chair, he asked, “How old’s that picture?”

  “Ten minutes,” Higgins replied. “We’ve got a low-altitude bird coming over their horizon in another three minutes. Should give us better resolution.”

  Scheib tapped at his laptop’s keyboard. According to the tracking satellite in geosynchronous orbit, ABL-1 had just made a turn north to parallel the Korean coastline. He squinted at the radar imagery. A pair of tiny dots was also over the Sea of Japan, behind the 747, heading toward it.

  Grabbing up the laptop’s headset, General Scheib said into its lip mike, “I need a real-time voice link with ABL-1.”

  A hesitation, then a woman’s voice in his earphone replied, “Sir, we need authorization from—”

  Without waiting for her to finish, Scheib called down the table, “Possum, I need authorization for a real-time voice link with ABL-1.”

  Anger flashed in General Higgins’ face; he obviously did not like being called Possum.

  Without waiting for Higgins to open his mouth, Zuri Coggins leaned over Scheib’s shoulder and said crisply, “Authorization code NAS one-one-three, alpha-alpha-omicron.”
/>   Scheib heard in his earphone, “Checking . . . authorization verified. Establishing voice link.”

  Coggins heard Scheib muttering, “Come on, come on.”

  Still in his chair at the head of the table, General Higgins suddenly realized why Brad Scheib was in such a sweat to have a voice link with ABL-1. He leaned over toward his aide, sitting at his left, and whispered, “Who’s piloting that plane?”

  “ABL-1, sir?”

  With a disgusted look, General Higgins replied, “No, the Spirit of St. Louis.”

  Looking flustered, the aide tapped at his keyboard, then answered, “Lieutenant Colonel Karen Christopher, sir. I have her complete dossier—”

  Higgins waved him to silence, thinking, Christopher. The one who clammed up at the Advocate General’s hearing. The one who was accused of sleeping with a married general.

  One glance at the anxious, intense expression on Scheib’s handsome face and Higgins knew whom Christopher had shacked up with.

  “Fighters coming up fast,” O’Banion reported, his voice a notch higher than usual.

  Colonel Christopher had ordered her comm officer to activate ABL-1‘s search radar. No sense trying to stay quiet now, she reasoned. They know we’re here. Might as well get a good line on them.

  “What’s the word from Andrews on the missiles?” she asked into her pin mike.

  “Launch is imminent, as of . . . seven minutes ago.”

  Kaufman muttered from his copilot’s seat, “Hope the bastards blow up on the pad.”

  Christopher nodded. That would solve a lot of problems, she thought.

  “Incoming message, Colonel, direct from the Pentagon.”

  They got a direct satellite link working, Christopher said to herself. That’s good. They can hear us get shot down in real time.

  “Put it through,” she commanded.

  “Colonel Christopher, this is Major General Scheib.”

  Brad! In the middle of all this he’s calling me!

  “Christopher here,” she said, trying to hide the tremor she felt inside.

  A heartbeat’s delay. Then Scheib’s voice said, “Two DPRK interceptors are vectoring toward you.”