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The Sum of All Fears.pdf - Delta Force

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screen.<br />

'Could I have a glass <strong>of</strong> water? My throat's a little dry.'<br />

***<br />

'Mr President?' Fremont said.<br />

'Yes, General.'<br />

'Sir, however this happened, I think it's a good idea.'<br />

Part <strong>of</strong> Bob Fowler wanted to hurl his c<strong>of</strong>fee cup into the wall, but he stopped<br />

himself. It didn't matter, did it? It did, but not that way.<br />

'What do you recommend?'<br />

'Sir, just to make sure, we wait until we see evidence <strong>of</strong> a stand-down. When we<br />

do, we can back <strong>of</strong>f ourselves. For starters – right now – we can rescind<br />

SNAPCOUNT without any real degradation <strong>of</strong> our readiness.'<br />

'General Borstein?'<br />

'Sir, I concur in that,' said the voice from NORAD.<br />

'General Fremont: Approved.'<br />

***<br />

'Thank you, Mr President. We'll get right on it.' General Peter Fremont, United<br />

States Air <strong>Force</strong>, Commander-in-Chief Strategic Air Command turned to his Deputy<br />

Chief <strong>of</strong> Staff (Operations). 'Keep the alert going, posture the birds, but keep<br />

them on the ground. Let's get those missiles uncocked.'<br />

***<br />

'Contact . . . bearing three-five-two . . . range seven thousand six hundred<br />

meters.' <strong>The</strong>y'd been waiting several minutes for that.<br />

'Set it up. No wires, activation point four thousand meters out.' Dubinin looked<br />

up. He didn't know why the aircraft overhead hadn't already executed another<br />

attack.<br />

'Set!' the weapons <strong>of</strong>ficer called a moment later.<br />

'Fire!' Dubinin ordered.<br />

'Captain, message coming in on the ELF,' the communications <strong>of</strong>ficer said over<br />

the squawk box.<br />

'That's the message that announces the end <strong>of</strong> the world,' the captain sighed.<br />

'Well, we fired our shots, didn't we?' It would have been nice to think that<br />

their action would save lives, but he knew better. It would enable the Soviet<br />

forces to kill more Americans, which wasn't quite the same thing. Everything<br />

about nuclear weapons was evil, wasn't it?<br />

'Go deep?'<br />

Dubinin shook his head. 'No, they seem to have more trouble with the surface<br />

turbulence than I expected . We may actually be safer here. Come right to<br />

zero-nine-zero. Suspend pinging. Increase speed to ten knots.'<br />

Another squawk: 'We have the message – five-letter group: "Cease all<br />

hostilities!"<br />

'Antenna depth, quickly!'<br />

***<br />

<strong>The</strong> Mexican police proved to be extremely cooperative, and the literate Spanish<br />

<strong>of</strong> Clark and Chavez hadn't hurt very much. Four plainclothes detectives from the<br />

Federal Police waited with the CIA <strong>of</strong>ficers in the lounge while four more<br />

uniformed <strong>of</strong>ficers with light automatic weapons took unobtrusive positions

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