'Paul, I have a suggestion,' Herbert said.
'I think we should ask the Pakistanis for help in extracting the teams.
After all, it's their butts we're hauling out of the fire.'
'We can't do that,' Plummer told him.
'Why not?' Herbert asked.
'If the situation is as tense as Paul's described, an incursion by the Pakistani air force would only make it worse. It would give the Indian military more incentive to attack.'
'At least then it would be a conventional fight,' Herbert said.
'Not necessarily,' Plummer said, 'especially if there are Pakistani silos somewhere in the mountains. Also, we'd be giving Pakistan foreknowledge of a possible nuclear strike.
That might encourage Islamabad to hit first.' 'A jihad,' Hood said.
'The clerics might call it that,' Plummer said.
'For the generals it would simply be a responsible tactical maneuver.
The situation is hair-trigger enough without throwing more partisan armies into the fray.'
'What about the United States sending additional forces into the mountains?' Hood suggested.
'That's not going to happen,' Herbert said gravely.
'Even if the Joint Chiefs and the president okayed a strike force out of Turkey or the Middle East, it would take hours for them to get there.'
'There's one thing I'm missing here,' Plummer said.
'Why do we need a military response? Can't we let India know what their Special Frontier Force unit did? I'm sure that very few government officials knew about the plot to frame the terrorists.'
'I'm sure it was a very tight conspiracy,' Hood agreed.
'The problem is we have no idea who was in it.'
'Someone is obviously tapped into the Op-Center-New Delhi pipeline,' Herbert said.
'How else could they have known about Striker's mission? Anyway, before the bombing the moderate Indians might have done something. But Kev Custer has been monitoring the TV and radio broadcasts over there.
There's a fast-growing grassroots movement in support of the militants.'
'Meaning that moderates may be afraid to speak out,' Hood said.
'Exactly,' Herbert said.
'What about the United Nations secretary-general?' Plummer said.
'You know her, Paul. Forget the bad blood between you. She's Indian.
She'll have a very good reason to get out the facts about the attack.' 'Mala Chatterjee?' Herbert said.
'She's so soft on terrorism her speeches turn even bleeding hearts into a lynch mob.
She napped her lips while hostages were being assassinated in the Security Council.'
'Chatterjee has far too many enemies of her own,' Hood agreed.
'At this point her involvement would only make things worse.'
'I'll say it again, Paul. Maybe the Russians would be willing to help rein India in,' Herbert said.
'They want to be seen as serious peacemakers.' 'Possibly,' Hood said.
'But even if we went to them, wouldn't time be a problem?'
'Time and recent history,' Plummer said.
'Pakistan has very close ties with Afghanistan. There are still a lot of Russian leaders who would like to see both countries pounded flat.' 'But a continued stalemate between India and Pakistan means a continued weapons buildup,' Herbert said.
'Money talks. New Delhi would still have to buy weapons and materiel from Moscow.'
'True, but then there's the point that Paul raised,' Plummer said.
'The same debate that we're having would keep the Kremlin busy for days if not longer. We don't have that kind of time.'
'Well, Ron, I'm kind of running dry. and getting a little frustrated,' Herbert snapped.
'And I'm just doing the devil's advocate thing. Bob,' Plummer replied defensively.
'We can run some of these proposals up the flagpole in Moscow and at the Pentagon, but I don't see any of them getting the kind of support we need.'
'Unfortunately, that's the problem with crisis management instead of crisis prevention,' Hood said sadly.
'Once you're in it there are not a lot of options.' 'I count exactly one,' Herbert said.
The intelligence chief was right, of course. With all the resources the United States had at its disposal, there
