“Zu Befehl, Heir Oberst,” Bock replied after he moved off. It was funny, actually. There were a few humorous aspects to all this, Bock thought. A few. But you had to have the right sense of humor for it.
The regimental headquarters was in an old building once used by Hitler's Wehrmacht that the Russians had used more than they had maintained. It did have the usual garden outside, and in the summer one could see the flowers arranged to duplicate the unit's patch. This one was a Guards Tank Regiment, though one with a history to which its soldiers paid little attention, judging by the sentry at the gate. Bock pulled right up to the door. Keitel and the rest dismounted from their vehicles and walked into the front door like gods in a bad mood.
“Who's the duty officer of this whorehouse?” Keitel bellowed. A corporal just pointed. Corporals do not dispute the orders of staff-grade officers. The duty officer, they found, was a major, perhaps thirty years of age.
“What is this?” the young officer asked.
“I am Colonel Ivanenko of the Inspectorate. This is an unannounced operational-readiness inspection. Hit your alarm!” The major walked two steps and punched a button that set off sirens all over the camp area.
“Next, call your regimental commander, and get his drunken ass over here! What is your readiness state, Major?” Keitel demanded, without giving the man a chance to take a breath. The junior officer stopped in mid-reach for the phone, not knowing which order he was supposed to follow first. “Well!”
“Our readiness is in accordance with unit norms, Colonel Ivanenko.”
“You have a chance to prove that.” Keitel turned to one of the others. “Take this child's name!”
Less than two thousand meters away, they could see lights going on at the American base in what had so recently been West Berlin.
“They're having a drill also,” Keitel/Ivanenko observed. “Splendid. We'd better be faster than they are,” he added.
“What is this?” The regimental commander, also a colonel, arrived without his buttons done.
“This looks like a sorry spectacle!” Keitel boomed. “This is an unannounced readiness inspection. You have a regiment to lead, Colonel. I suggest you get to it without asking any further questions.”
“But—”
“But what?” Keitel demanded. “Don't you know what a readiness inspection is?”
There was one thing about dealing with Russians, Keitel thought. They were arrogant, overbearing, and they hated Germans, however much they protested otherwise. On the other hand, when browbeaten, they were predictable. Even though his rank insignia was no higher than this man's, he had a louder voice, and that was all he needed.
“I'll show you what my boys can do.”
“We'll be outside to watch,” Keitel assured him.
“Dr. Ryan, you'd better get down here.” The line clicked off.
“Okay,” Jack said. He grabbed his cigarettes and walked down to room 7-F-27, the CIA's Operations Center. Located on the north side of the building, it was the counterpart to operations rooms in many other government agencies. In the center of the twenty-by-thirty-foot room, once you got past the cipher lock on the door, was a large circular table with a lazy-Susan bookcase in the center, and six seats around it. The seats had overhead plaques to designate their functions: Senior Duty Officer, Press, Africa — Latin America, Europe — USSR, Near-East — Terrorism, and South Asia — East Asia — Pacific. The wall clocks showed the time in Moscow, Beijing, Beirut, Tripoli, and, of course, Greenwich Mean. There was an adjacent conference room that looked down on the CIA's internal courtyard.
“What gives?” Jack asked, arriving with Goodley in his wake.
“According to NORAD, a nuclear device just went off in Denver.”
“I hope that's a fucking joke!” Jack replied. That, too, was a reflex. Before the man had a chance to respond, Ryan's stomach turned over. Nobody made jokes like that one.
“I wish it were,” the Senior Duty Officer replied.
“What do we know?”
“Not much.”
“Anything? Threat board?” Jack asked. Again it was reflexive. If there had been anything, he would have heard it by now. “Okay — where's Marcus?”
“Coming home in the C-141, somewhere between Japan and the Aleutians. You're it, sir,” the SDO pointed out, quietly thanking a beneficent God that it wasn't himself. “President's at Camp David. SecDef and SecState —”
“Dead?” Ryan asked.
“It would appear so, sir.”
Ryan closed his eyes. “Holy Jesus. The Vice President?”
“At his official residence. We've only been going about three minutes. The NMCC watch officer is a Captain James Rosselli. General Wilkes is on the way in. DIA's on line. They — I mean the President just ordered DEFCON- TWO on our strategic forces.”
“Anything from the Russians?”
“Nothing unusual at all. There's a regional air-defense exercise underway in Eastern Siberia. That's all.”
“Okay, alert all the stations. Put the word out that I want to hear anything they might have — anything. They are to hit every source they can just as fast as they can.” Jack paused one more time. “How sure are we that this really happened?”
“Sir, two DSPS satellites copied the flash. We have a KH-11 that's going to be overhead in about twenty minutes, and I've directed NPIC to put every camera they have on Denver. NORAD says it's a definite nuclear detonation, but there's no word on yield or damage. The explosion seems to be in the immediate area of the stadium — like Black Sunday, sir, but real. This is definitely not a drill, not if we're jacking the strategic forces to DEFCON-TWO, sir.”
“Inbound ballistic track? Aircraft delivery?”
“Negative on the first, there was no launch warning, and no ballistic radar track.”
“What about a FOBS?” Goodley asked. A weapon could be delivered by satellite. That was the purpose of a Fractional-Orbital Bombardment System.
“They would have caught that,” the SDO replied. “I already asked. On the aircraft side, they don't know yet. They're trying to check air-traffic-control tapes.”
“So we don't know jack shit.”
“Correct.”
“President check in with us yet?” Ryan asked.
“No, but we have an open line there. He has the National Security Advisor there also.”
“Most likely scenario?”
“I'd say terrorism.”
Ryan nodded. “So would I. I'm taking over the conference room. Okay, I want DO, DI, DS&T in here immediately. If you need choppers to fetch them in, order 'em.” Ryan walked into the room, leaving the door open.
“Christ,” Goodley said. “You sure you want me here?”
“Yes, and when you have an idea, you say it out loud. I forgot about FOBS.” Jack lifted the phone and punched the FBI button.
“ Command Center.”
“This is CIA, Deputy Director Ryan speaking. Who is this?”
“Inspector Pat O'Day. I have Deputy-Assistant Director Murray here also. You're on speaker, sir.”
“Talk to me, Dan.” Jack put his phone on speaker, also. A watch officer handed him a cup of coffee.
“We don't know anything. No heads-up at all, Jack. Thinking terrorists?”
“At the moment, it seems the most plausible alternative.”
“How sure are you of that?”
“Sure?” Ryan shook his head at the phone, Goodley saw. “What's 'sure' mean, Dan?”
“I hear you. We're still trying to figure out what happened here, too. I can't even get CNN on the TV to work.”
