"Comm-link failure," the wall speaker said. "Radio contact with Air Force One has been interrupted."

"Tell me more!" Jack demanded.

"That's all we have, sir."

"Where's the Vice President now?" Ryan asked.

"He's aboard Kneecap Alternate, six hundred miles south of Bermuda. Kneecap Prime is four hundred miles ahead of Air Force One, preparing to land in Alaska for the transfer."

"Close enough to Russia that an intercept is possible but not likely have to be a one-way mission," Bunker thought aloud. "Unless they strayed over a Soviet warship with SAMs Vice President is temporarily in charge."

"Sir, I-"

"That's my call to make, Jack. The President is either out of the loop or has had his comm links compromised. SecDef says that the Vice President is in charge until the comm links are reestablished and validated by codeword authentication. Forces are now at DEFCON-ONE on my authority."

One thing about Dennis Bunker, Ryan thought, the man never stopped being a fighter jock. He makes decisions and sticks to them. He was usually right, too, as he was here.

Ryan's file was a thick one. Almost five inches, Goodley saw in the privacy of his seventh-floor cubbyhole. Half an inch of that was background and security-clearance forms. The academic record was fairly impressive, especially his doctoral work in history at Georgetown University. Georgetown wasn't Harvard, of course, but it was a fairly respectable institution, Goodley told himself. His first Agency job had been as part of Admiral James Greer's Junior Varsity program, and his first report, "Agents and Agencies," had dealt with terrorism. Odd coincidence, Goodley thought, given what had happened later.

The documents on Ryan's encounter in London occupied thirty double-space pages, mainly police-report summaries and a few news photos. Goodley started making notes. Cowboy, he wrote first of all. Running into things like that. The academic shook his head. Twenty minutes later, he read over the executive summary of Ryan's second CIA report, the one which confidently predicted that the terrorists would probably never operate in America - delivered days before the attack on his family.

Guessed wrong there, didn't you, Ryan? Goodley chuckled to himself. As bright as they said he was, he made mistakes like everyone else

He'd made a few while working in England, too. He hadn't predicted Chernenko's succession of Andropov, though he had predicted Narmonov was the coming man well in advance of nearly everyone, except Kantrowitz up at Princeton, who'd been the first to see star quality in Andrey Il'ych. Goodley reminded himself that he'd been an undergraduate then, bedding that girl at Wellesley, Debra Frost wonder what ever happened to her ?

"Son of a bitch " Ben whispered a few minutes later. "Son of a bitch."

Red October, a Soviet ballistic missile submarine defected. Ryan was one of the first to suspect it Ryan, an analyst at London Station had run the operation at sea! Killed a Russian sailor. That was the cowboy part again. Couldn't just arrest the guy, had to shoot him down like something in a movie