“My best guess—and it is only a guess—is that he has loaded up those boats with cruise missiles. He will lob a few into Russia somewhere and negotiate with the survivors.”

Brown’s already pale face turned ashen. The others around the table stopped breathing.

“Survivors? What are you saying, Tom? You don’t think he would take this nuclear, do you?”

Donnegan looked the president in the eye. He did not hesitate when he answered the question. “It is very possible, Mr. President. The Russians have two types of operational submarine-launched cruise missiles. The SS-N-21 Granat has been around for a couple of decades. It has a two-hundred-kiloton nuclear warhead. We know from our intel that they have a lot of those birds still available if they wanted to use them. Up until now, they didn’t have the boats to deliver them close enough to anywhere to shoot them. These new Akulas would have the ability to do that.”

“You said they have two types,” Kinnowitz said.

“Yes. The other choice is the SS-N-27 Alpha. It’s still in development. They are nonnuclear, but they are a whole lot more accurate than the Granat. As I say, they’re new, but we do think that they have a few test birds. Some of those may be aboard those submarines. They would use them if they wanted to hit precise targets in an effort to make a statement.”

Kinnowitz sat down hard and slapped the table in front of him. “The bastard could make quite a statement with a mushroom cloud over St. Petersburg. Or by putting one of the Alphas right into the ear of Smitrov’s second in command.”

“Or both,” Tom Donnegan added.

“Which missiles do you believe the Russian subs are carrying?” President Brown asked.

“We don’t know and there is no way for us to tell. Not until they detonate, that is. The airframes of both missiles are identical, so even if we got a picture of one of them in the air, we couldn’t tell if it was a nuke or not.”

Adolphus Brown looked stricken, as if he was having trouble breathing. The room fell deathly quiet. Dr. Kinnowitz broke the strained silence.

“So we must wait until we hear from Toledo. Or until Durov produces corpses.” The NSA pointedly ignored Tom Donnegan’s hard look as the admiral eased back down into his chair. Kinnowitz opened another folder in front of him and was clearly changing subjects. “Now, there are other matters. Matters about which we do have considerably more information, thank God. They appear to be related directly. Mr. President, Alstair McLain from the Securities and Exchange Commission will go over the details.”

McLain rose and cleared his throat. Every eye was on the man. Others in the room had the same curiosity about his presence at the meeting as Donnegan had. McLain dropped his bomb with a true flair for the dramatic.