The president laughed. “No, Mr. Speaker, that’s not possible,” she said. “Remember, this is not our attack. We are merely in a support role.”

The way she said that prompted uneasiness in Penn’s gut. Yes, he couldn’t stand her, and yes, he didn’t believe a word she’d ever said about any topic in the history of topics, but that last bit about not being our attack seemed gratuitous. She sounded like a witness answering a question that hadn’t been asked.

“Madam President,” Penn said, “allow me to go on the record stating that this entire affair is a bad idea. Iran did not provoke us.”

“They have provoked us every day since November of 1979. And now, when they provoke the nation of Israel, they provoke the United States of America, we will stand by our ally—”

“Ma’am, please,” Penn pressed. “You yourself said that the clock is ticking down very quickly on this. Iran has not attacked. They have not drawn first blood. The world will not view our actions in a positive light if we go ahead with this.”

“Thank you for your input, Mr. Speaker,” Blanton said.

“I believe that this needs to be brought to a vote,” Penn pressed. “We’re talking nuclear war here, ma’am.”

“It is not our war, Mr. Speaker. It is Israel’s war. We cannot influence their government on matters such as this. They have made their decision, and ours—mine, as commander in chief, empowered by the Constitution with exclusive authority over foreign policy—is to stand by our allies.”

Penn heard the words and dismissed them as the sellout that he knew them to be. Helen Blanton was playing in a league that was way beyond her capacity, and she knew it. She’d been sold on the fiction that the Russians were so afraid of American might that they would never dream of retaliation in the face of a nuclear assault that didn’t directly involve them. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the Russian president was the whack job of whack jobs.

Maybe she was right. God Almighty, he hoped that she was right, but suppose she wasn’t? Suppose the Pakis and the Indians and the North Koreans all interpreted this as the beginning of World War III? What then?

And wasn’t that the underlying presumption? If it were not, then CRIMSON PHOENIX would not have been activated.

Nuclear weapons, for God’s sake! You can call it a limited strike, or a tactical strike, but at the end of the day, this was about unleashing the most destructive forces ever conceived by humans. There was no take-back. There was no walking away from this.

And there was no stopping the president.