nearly all that silly, and that simplistic. Most of them couldn’t find Kamchatka on a map, and probably fewer than one out of twenty could spell the name of the country that had suddenly inflamed their passions. But they all knew exactly where the president had gone wrong in managing this crisis, and they all knew exactly how to fix it.
The answer is simple—
Except that the answers were all different, and
The president snorted, and the exhalation turned to steam in the cold morning air.
“Uh, Mr. President?” The voice belonged to National Security Advisor Gregory Brenthoven.
The president turned to see the man standing at the open door leading to the yellow room.
He beckoned with his fingers. “Come on out, Greg. I’m just having a look at the newest members of the Frank Chandler Fan Club.”
Brenthoven stepped out onto the balcony and closed the door. He looked out at the roiling crowd on the Ellipse. “What do you think they want, sir?”
“That’s easy,” the president said. “They want world peace, unrestricted warfare, a global economy, utter severance of all foreign trading agreements, open borders, and strict isolationism.”
Brenthoven grinned. “So it’s business as usual, sir?”
The president raised his hands and let them drop. “Pretty much.”
He sighed. “What have you got, Greg?”
Brenthoven walked over to the railing. “The Russian courier, Oleg Grigoriev, is dead, sir. Medical complications from the gunshot wounds.”
The president nodded gravely, and looked back out toward the growing mob of his detractors. “That puts me in a bit of an emotional conflict,” he said. “On the one hand, a man has lost his life. As a human being, my first thought should focus on the tragedy of that loss. But I’m also the Commander-in-Chief of a nation under siege. And I have to confess that I’m more concerned about losing a possible source of critical intelligence. Because some of the secrets that Mr. Grigoriev took to the grave could drastically affect the future of this country, and the world.”
“I understand, sir,” the national security advisor said. “But he didn’t take quite everything to the grave.”
The president turned and met Brenthoven’s eyes.
“Mr. Grigoriev confirmed the CNO’s theory that the submarine is shooting from prepared positions, where explosives have been planted in the ice cover. There were five positions. Governor Zhukov apparently called them …” Brenthoven paused, reading the unfamiliar words from his notebook. “…
He sounded the words out clumsily. “That appears to be the Russian term for a protected position, or a hidden place to shoot from.”
“I see,” the president said. “And did Mr. Grigoriev happen to provide us with the coordinates of any of these protected positions?”
“He gave us approximate locations, Mr. President,” Brenthoven said. “One of them corresponded pretty closely with the first position that the submarine launched from. If the other four are in the same ballpark, accuracy-wise, we’ve got the remaining launch positions narrowed down fairly well.”
The president frowned. “Why didn’t he just feed us the latitudes and longitudes? That’s what he did the first time, right?”
“He was too weak, sir,” Brenthoven said. “The DIA agent in the hospital room reported that Mr. Grigoriev literally used his dying breath to pass this information to us.”
“It’s pretty tough to complain about
The national security advisor nodded. “COMPACFLEET is sending the message out now, sir. And the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is putting together a tactical proposal for your consideration.”
“What’s he got in mind?”
“I haven’t seen the details yet, sir,” Brenthoven said. “But the general plan is to send Explosive Ordnance Disposal teams onto the ice pack to locate and disarm Zhukov’s explosives. If the submarine can’t blow holes in the ice, it can’t launch missiles.”
“That could give us the opening we need to finish this,” the president said. “If that sub can’t launch, Zhukov’s nuclear threat goes down the drain.”
The national security advisor nodded. “That’s the idea, Mr. President.”
“The upside is obvious,” the president said. “What’s the downside?”
“Our positional information is only approximate, sir. The EOD teams are probably going to have trouble finding the explosives. And they’ll be exposed out on the ice. The longer they have to work out there, the greater the chance that they’ll be discovered by Zhukov’s people.”
The president frowned at this thought. “If Zhukov catches us trying to pull his fangs, he’s going to want to punish us.”
“Do you think he’ll launch another attack, sir?”
The president sighed. “I don’t know, Greg. He’s certainly crazy enough.”
“Maybe our EOD people can get the job done without getting caught.”
“Maybe,” the president said. “We’re due for a bit of luck.”
“Yes, sir,” the national security advisor said.
Neither man made the obvious comment. So far, every lucky break they’d gotten had arrived too late to do any good.
CHAPTER 45
Ann watched the screen of her laptop computer, waiting for the small green icon that would appear when Mouse reported his position.
The robot was operating autonomously, following his mission program without human supervision or input. Because communications signals might reveal his presence to the enemy submarine’s acoustic sensors, he was not sending any updates back to the
Ann glanced at the digital time readout in the lower right hand corner of her computer screen. Mouse’s search program wasn’t scheduled to end for another ten minutes yet, so she really didn’t expect to see anything yet.
There was no need to hover over the computer, but she couldn’t tear herself away. Every time she walked away from it for thirty seconds, she found herself drawn back to the little screen by an irresistible force. She felt like an overprotective mother, hanging around the bus stop a half hour before the school bus was due to bring her child
