radars went down. That, he knew, was a hopeful sign.
And so, Robby told himself, so ends my second war, if that's what it was… He brought his Tomcat around, with Sanchez on his wing. Four more F-14s would orbit here, just to keep an eye on things for the next few hours.
Jackson trapped just in time to see a rescue helicopter landing forward. By the time he dismounted the aircraft, three people were in the ship's hospital. He headed down to see who they were and what had been going on. A few minutes later, he knew that he wouldn't be painting any more victory flags on his aircraft. Not for something like this.
Berlin settled down much more quickly than anyone imagined. The relief column of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment had only gone thirty kilometers when the halt order arrived, and it pulled off the autobahn to wait. Inside Berlin itself, the American brigade got the word first, and pulled back into the western portion of the kazerne. Russians probed forward with dismounted infantry to see what was happening, but without orders to renew the attack, they remained tensely in place. Soon the area was flooded with police cars, much to the bemusement of the soldiers. Twenty minutes after the Americans began moving, communications were reestablished with Moscow, and the Russians pulled farther back into their defensive positions. A number of unexplained bodies were found, including the regimental commander and his executive officer, plus three tank crews, all of whom had been killed with small-arms fire. But the most important discovery was made by a Berlin policeman, who was the first to examine the truck and staff car ripped apart by 25 mm cannon slugs from a Bradley. The “Russians” were all dead, but none had identity disks. The policeman immediately called for assistance, which was dispatched at once. Two of the faces looked familiar to the cop, though he couldn't remember why.
“Jack.”
“Hi, Arnie, grab a seat.”
“What happened, Jack?”
Ryan shook his head. His mental state was one of giddiness. His reason told him that sixty thousand people had died, but despite that, the relief at having stopped something a hundred times worse had left him in a slightly drunken condition. “Not really sure yet, Arnie. You know the important part.”
“The President sounds like hell.”
A grunt. “You ought to have heard him a couple hours ago. He lost it, Arnie.”
“That bad?”
Jack nodded. “That bad.” A pause. “Maybe anybody would have, maybe you just can't expect a guy to deal with this, but — but that's his job, man.”
“You know, he once told me that he was most grateful for Reagan and the others because of the changes, the fact that something like this wasn't really possible anymore.”
“Listen, man, as long as those goddamned things exist, it's possible.”
“You advocating disarmament?” van Damm asked.
Ryan looked up again. The giddiness was gone now. “I got the stars out of my eyes a long time ago. What I'm saying is, if it's possible, you damned well think about it. He didn't. He didn't even look at the wargames we ran. He was just so sure it would never happen. Well, it did, didn't it?”
“How did Liz do?”
“Don't ask. The Boss needed good advice, and he didn't get any from her.”
“And you?”
“He didn't listen to me, and that's partly my fault, I guess.”
“Hey, it's over.”
Jack nodded again. “Yeah.”
“Ryan, call for you.”
Jack took the phone. “Ryan here. Yeah, okay. Go slower.” He listened for several minutes, making notes. “Thanks, John.”
“What was that?”
“A confession. Is the helicopter ready?”
“At the pad. On the other side,” one of the Secret Service men said.
The helicopter was a VH-6o. Ryan climbed aboard and strapped in, along with van Damm and three agents. The chopper lifted off at once. The sky was clearing. The wind was still lively, but there were stars to be seen in the west.
“Where's the Vice President?” van Damm asked.
“Kneecap,” an agent replied. “He stays up six more hours till we're sure this is over.”
Jack didn't even hear. He had his ear-protectors in, and took the chance to lean back and stare into space. The helicopter even had a bar, he saw. What a nice way to travel.
“They wanted to start a nuclear war?” Chavez asked.
“That's what they said.” Clark washed his hands. It wasn't that bad. He'd only broken four of Qati's fingers. It was the way you worked the broken bones that really mattered. Ghosn — they now knew his name — had taken a little more, but both stories were almost identical.
“I heard it, too, man, but—”
“Yeah. Ambitious fuckers, weren't they?” Clark put some ice cubes into a bag and walked back to rest it on Qati's hand. He had his information now, and he was not a sadist. The sensible thing, he thought, was to toss their asses out of the airplane here and now, but that wasn't his job either. Both terrorists were manacled to their seats. Clark took a chair in the back so that he could keep an eye on both. Their luggage was there also. He decided to rummage through it now that he had the time.
“Hello, Ryan,” the President said from his chair. “Hi, Arnie.”
“Bad day, Bob,” van Damm offered.
“Very.” The man had aged. It seemed a cliche, but it was true. His skin was sallow, the eyes sitting at the bottom of dark-rimmed wells. Though he was normally a carefully groomed man, Fowler's hair was askew. “Ryan, you have them?”
“Yes, sir, two of our field officers grabbed them in Mexico City. Their names are Ismael Qati and Ibrahim Ghosn. You know who Qati is. We've been after that guy for a long time. He had a piece of the Beirut bombing, two aircraft incidents, lots of other things, mainly to do with Israel. Ghosn is one of his people, evidently an engineer by profession. They were somehow able to fabricate the weapon.”
“Whose sponsorship?” the President asked.
“We — our man, that is — had to sweat that out of them. Sir, that's a technical violation—”
Fowler's eyes flared into life. “I forgive them! Get on with it.”
“Sir, they say the, uh, operation was bankrolled and supported by the Ayatolla Mahmoud Haji Daryaei.”
“ Iran.” Not a question, a statement. Fowler's eyes became more animated.
'Correct. As you know, Iran isn't exactly pleased with how our actions in the Gulf worked out, and — sir, according to our people, this is what they said:
“It was a two-part plan. Part one was the bomb in Denver. Part two was an incident in Berlin. They had another guy working with them, Gunther Bock, former Red Army Faction guy, his wife was arrested by the Germans last year and she later hanged herself. The objective, Mr. President, was to drive us and the Russians into a nuclear exchange — or at the least to so screw up our relations that the situation in the Gulf would revert to chaos. That would serve Iranian interests — or so Daryaei supposedly thinks.”
“How did they get the weapon?”
“They say it's Israeli — was Israeli,” Ryan corrected himself. “Evidently it got lost in 1973. We have to check that with the Israelis, but it makes sense. The plutonium came from Savannah River, and it's probably part of the big MUF they had some years back. We've long suspected that the first generation of Israeli nukes was fabricated from material obtained over here.”
Fowler stood. “You're telling me that this fucking mullah did this — and killing a hundred thousand Americans wasn't enough! He wanted to start a nuclear war, too!”
