The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

clearing the way. The soldier nodded. If the pass worked, everything had to be
okay, right?
'Right up to the first set of doors.'
'Park it?'
'Leave it! You come in with me.'
Security inside the River Entrance was also beefed up. Jack tried to pass
through the metal detector, but was stopped by pocket change that he then threw
on the floor in a rage. 'NMCC?'
'Come with me, sir.'
The entrance to the National Military Command Center was barred by a wall of
bullet-resistant glass, behind which was a black female sergeant armed with a
revolver.
'CIA, I have to get in.' Ryan held his badge against the black pad, and again it
worked.
'Who are you, sir?' a Navy petty officer asked.
'DDCI. You take me to whoever's running this.'
'Follow me, sir. The man you want to see is Captain Rosselli.'
'Captain? No flag officer?'
'General Wilkes got lost, sir, we don't know where the hell he is.' The enlisted
man turned through a door.
Ryan saw a Navy captain and an Air Force lieutenant-colonel, a status board, and
a gang of multiple-line phones. 'You Rosselli?'
'That's right, and you?'
'Jack Ryan, DDCI.'
'You picked a bad place to come to, pal,' Colonel Barnes observed.
'Anything changed?'
'Well, we just had what looked like a missile launch in Russia
'Jesus!'
'No bird came up, maybe an explosion in the hole. You have anything we need to
know?'
'I need a line into the FBI command center, and I need to talk to both of you.'
'That's crazy,' Rosselli said, two minutes later.
'Maybe so.' Ryan lifted the line. 'Dan, Jack here.'
'Where the hell are you, Jack? I just called Langley.'
'Pentagon. What do you have on the bomb?'
'Stand by, I have a patch through to Dr Larry Parsons. He's the NEST boss. He's
on now.'
'Okay, this is Ryan, Deputy Director of CIA. Talk to me.'
'The bomb was made of American plutonium. That's definite. They've rechecked the
sample four times. Savannah River Plant, February 1968, K Reactor.'
'You're sure?' Jack asked, wishing very hard that the answer would be
affirmative.
'Positive, crazy as it sounds, it was our stuff.'
'What else?'
'Murray tells me you have had problems with the yield estimate. Okay, I've been
there, okay? This was a small device, less than fifteen – that's one-five –
kiloton yield. There are survivors from the scene – not many, but I've seen them