The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

easoned. 'How sure are you of this? I
'Double-flash signature,' Kuropatkin replied, astounded at his own coolness.
'I'm watching the fireball expansion now. This is a nuclear event. I will call
in more data as soon as I have it – what?' he asked a junior officer.
'General, Eagle-II just took one hell of an energy spike, four of the SHF links
just shut down momentarily, and another is gone completely,' a major said,
leaning over the General's desk.
'What happened, what was it?'
'I don't know.'
'Find out.'
***
The picture went blank just as San Diego were coming up for their third-and-five
at the forty-seven. Fowler finished off his fourth beer of the afternoon and set
the glass down in annoyance. Damned TV people. Someone probably tripped over a
plug, and he'd miss a play or two in what looked like one hell of a game. He
ought to have gone to this one, despite the advice of the Secret Service. He
glanced over to see what Elizabeth was watching, but her screen had suddenly
gone blank as well. Had one of the Marines driven over the cable with a
snow-plow? Good help certainly was hard to come by, the President grumped. But
no, that wasn't right. The ABC affiliate – Baltimore's Channel 13, WJZ – put up
its 'Network Difficulty – Please Stand By' graphic, whereas Elizabeth's channel
was just random noise now. How very odd. Like any male TV viewer, Fowler picked
up the TV controller and changed channels. CNN was off the air, too, but the
local Baltimore and Washington stations were not. He'd just started wondering
what that meant when a phone started ringing. It had an unusually atonal,
strident sound, and was one of the four kept on the lower shelf of the coffee
table that sat right in front of his couch. He reached down for it before he
realized which one it was, and that delayed understanding caused his skin to go
cold. It was the red phone, the one from North American Aerospace Defense
Command at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.
'This is the President,' Fowler said in a gruff, suddenly frightened voice.
'Mr President, this is Major General Joe Borstein. I am the senior NORAD watch
officer. Sir, we have just registered a nuclear detonation in the Central United
States.'
'What?' the President said after two or three seconds' pause.
'Sir, there's been a nuclear explosion. We're checking the exact location now,
but it appears to have been in the Denver area.'
'Are you sure?' the President asked, fighting to keep calm.
'We're re-checking our instruments now, sir, but, yes, we're pretty sure. Sir,
we don't know what happened or how it got there, but there was a nuclear
explosion. I urge you to get to a place of safety at once while we try and
figure out what's going on.'
Fowler looked up. Neither TV picture had changed and now alarm klaxons were
erupting all over the Presidential compound.
***
Offutt Air Force Base, just outside Omaha, Nebraska, was once known as Fort
Crook. The former cavalry post had a splendid if somewhat anachronistic