a terrorist attack on the volcano. He did not particularly wish to join the U.S. in alarming the entire world unnecessarily and being responsible for any death that might happen as a result of closing down the world’s global navigation system. He could see no merit in providing further fuel to world anti-American opinion, if the threat turned out to be spurious.
Arnold Morgan was furious at the word “spurious.” “How could the damned threat be ‘spurious’?” he raged. “Who the fuck does this jumped-up fucking despot from some fourth-rate town hall in Normandy think he is? Answer that, someone?”
“I guess he does,” said President Bedford, who happened to be the only other person in the room at present. “Does this mean I have to speak to him?”
“It used to,” said Arnold. “Not anymore…
“For President Bedford?” she inquired, standing in the doorway, and still not absolutely certain why her husband felt the need to yell through closed wooden doors rather than pick up the phone.
“Tell him that,” growled Arnold. “Then put the little son of a bitch through to me.”
Kathy shook her head and instructed the White House switchboard to make the call to the Palace Elysee in the northwest corner of central Paris, and to stress the urgency of the matter.
Three minutes later, the French President was on the line…slightly confused…“
“Mr. President,” said Arnold Morgan. “I am sitting here in the White House right next to the President of the United States of America…and for three days now, we have been asking your co-cooperation in stopping what might be the worst terrorist threat this world has ever faced. Am I to understand you are not yet ready to give us your help? That, by the way, is a
“Well, I have not yet decided as to the merit of the case.”
“Is that a
“Well, I think we could work something out, possibly in a few days…”
“Mr. President, this is a highly charged military action. We do not have time for your vacillation. Either you shut down the satellite when we tell you to shut it down, or that satellite will not even exist this time tomorrow morning…”
The line between Washington and Paris froze. “Admiral Morgan, are you threatening me?” asked the President.
“No. I am absolutely promising you. I want that satellite down for forty-eight hours at midnight on Wednesday, your time. And that’s what I’m going to have. Either you do it the easy way and have it blacked out. Or you can have it the hard way, and we’ll get rid of it for you.
“And, as promised, we’ll put an immediate and total ban on French imports into the United States of America. We’ll close your embassy, and expel your diplomats from Washington. You have ten seconds to answer.”
Morgan felt that the President of France, like so many of his predecessors, was long on posture, short on real principle. The Frenchman thought of the huge expense of renewing the satellite. His mind flashed on the near-total wreckage of the French wine and cheese industries, the colossal damage to Peugeot, Citroen…the lockout of France from the many international councils…the appalling international publicity…the personal hatred of millions of people aimed at him, the man who had refused to help, when the U.S.A., under dire threat — his fellow Permanent Council Members of the United Nations — had asked for what seemed like a comparatively very minor favor. He knew true immortality when he faced it.
“Very well, Admiral Morgan. This time your belligerence has won the day. The European GPS will be blacked out at midnight on Wednesday, October 7, for forty-eight hours. I have not liked your methods. But, as always, my country will do the right thing. Please send your emissaries to my Government with the appropriate documents early on Monday morning.”
“That’s very good of you, Mr. President. Two things more — don’t let there be any delays or foul-ups, and don’t forget…but for us, you’d be speaking fucking German…”
Arnold crashed down the receiver. “I’m not altogether certain that last remark was absolutely vital,” said President Bedford, smiling.
“Who gives a damn?” said his C in C High Tide. “The goddamned French satellite is going off, and that’s all that matters. We got a GPS total blackout, and that’s going to force that
President Bedford said, “You want me to put the agreement with France into operation? I’ll just call the State Department…”
“Perfect, sir. Will you also call General Scannell and inform him of the French agreement? He’ll get the practical side under control…You know, coordinating the satellites, so it all goes blank at the same time.”
The President nodded and left the room. And Arnold returned to his huge computerized charts of the Atlantic. “East,” he muttered. “It’s gotta be East. Anywhere west of those islands is in the direct path of the tsunami as it rolls out. No ship could survive. The
“What’s that?” said Kathy, who was trying to beat her way through the piles of paper on the other office table.
“Come over here,” said the Admiral. “And I’ll show you what I mean…See this? These are the Canary Islands…
“And the big question is, will the
“I’m not really sure.”
“Well, north is best. We got two nuclear boats up there with the carrier…He can’t go there without getting caught. My guess is, he’ll stay south, come in towards the western Sahara, and then turn in for his launch. He cannot be more than 250 miles out when he launches, satellites or not…because if he can’t get in behind those islands, fast, the tsunami will dump him right on the goddamned beach in Long Island, upside down with his prop in the air.”
Kathy laughed at her incorrigible husband, as she always did.
Back out in the dark waters of the Cape Verde Plain, Adm. Ben Badr held his personal letter from the Ayatollah. It read:
Benjamin, you are a priceless soul in the cause of Allah. And soon you will carry his sword into battle. This letter is to remind you of the responsibility you bear in our crusade against the Great Satan.
Perhaps I should remind you that our Islamic faith came originally from the deserts of Arabia. And it always had overtones of war. For the Prophet was also a Conqueror and a Statesman. There was no precedent for the word of the Prophet. It came directly from God, and within one hundred years, it destroyed the Persian Empire, and conquered great swaths of the Empire of Byzantium
At that time, Arab armies swept through North Africa, obliterating Christianity in Egypt and in Tunisia, the home of their St. Augustine. Those armies ransacked the Iberian Peninsula and drove into France. Ah, yes, my son, from the very beginnings, we have been a warlike people.
Remember too that Islamic science and scholarship were ahead of Europe for centuries. We gave them the idea of universities, which the Crusaders took home with them. We conquered Turkey, captured Constantinople, which became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.
Only in the last three hundred years did the Unbelievers emerge from defeat and total irrelevance to dominate the Middle East. They redrafted our borders, invented new states, divided up our land, stole our wealth, our oil, and divided it up between European Imperialists, forcing upon us Western ways and what they think is culture.
After we had triumphed for so long, the conquest of the entire world by our True Faith seemed inevitable. But it went wrong for us. And now Allah has granted us a way to make a huge stride to correct those three hundred years of Western arrogance and plundering.
You must remember always, this is our endless Jihad, a war both spiritual and violent, and one that would have been blessed by the Prophet. This Jihad should be central to the life of every Muslim. We do not wish to steal what is not ours, but we dream of a wide Islamic Empire, one which is not dominated by the United States of
