The first they found was BBC. The newsflash was recorded and raced into CIC. The voice spoke with the quiet assurance that the British Broadcasting Corporation was known for: "Reuters reports a nuclear detonation in the Central United States. The Denver, ColoraAdo' - the Brits have trouble pronouncing some American state names - 'television station, KOLD, broadcast via satellite a picture of a mushroom cloud over Denver, along with a voice report of a massive explosion. Station KOLD is now off the air, and attempts to reach Denver by telephone have not yet been successful. There has as yet been no official comment whatever on this incident."

"Holy Christ," someone said for all of them. Captain Richards looked around the room at his staff.

"Well, now we know why we're at DEFCON-TWO. Let's get some more fighters up. F-18s forward of us, -14s aft. I want four A-6s loaded with B-61s and briefed on SIOP targets. One squadron of -18s loaded with anti-ship missiles, and start planning an Alpha Strike on the Kuznetzov battlegroup."

"Captain," a talker called. "Falcon reports four inbound tactical aircraft."

Richards had only to turn around to see the main tactical display, a radar scope fully three feet across. The four new contacts showed up as inverted V-shapes with course vectors. Closest point of approach was less than twenty miles, easily within range of air-to-surface missiles.

"Have Spade ID those bandits right now!"

" close and identify," was the order from the Hawkeye control aircraft.

"Roger," Jackson acknowledged.

"Bud, go loose."

"Roger." Commander Sanchez eased his stick to the left to open the distance between his fighter and Jackson's. Called the 'Loose Deuce' the formation enabled the aircraft to be mutually supporting and also impossible to attack simultaneously. As he split off, both aircraft tipped down and dove at full dry power. In a few seconds, they were through Mach-One.

"Boresighted," Shredder told his driver. "I'm activating the TV system."

The Tomcat was built with a simple identification device. It was a television camera with a ten-power telescopic lens that worked equally well in daylight and darkness. Lieutenant Walters was able to slave the TV into the radar system, and in a few seconds he had four dots that grew rapidly as the Tomcats overtook them. "Twin rudder configuration."

"Falcon, this is Spade. Inform Stick we have visual but no ID, and we are closing."

Major Pyotr Arabov was no tenser than usual. An instructor pilot, he was teaching three Libyans the intricacies of night over-water navigation. They'd turned over the Italian island of Pantelleria thirty minutes earlier, and were now inbound for Tripoli and home. Formation flying at night was difficult for the three Libyans, though each had over three hundred hours in type, and over-water flying was the most dangerous of all. Fortunately, they had picked a good night for it. The star-filled sky gave them a good horizon reference. Better to learn the easy way first, Arabov thought, and at this altitude. A true tactical profile, at one hundred meters and higher speed on a cloudy night could be exceedingly dangerous. He was not any more impressed with the airmanship of these Libyans than the U.S. Navy had been on several occasions, but they did seem willing to learn, and that was something. Besides, their oil-rich country, having learned its own lessons from the Iraqis, had decided that if it were to have an air force at all, it had better have a properly trained one. That meant the Soviet Union could sell a lot more of its MiG-29s, despite the fact that sales in the Israel area were now severely curtailed. It also meant that Major Arabov was being paid partly in hard currency. The instructor pilot looked left and right to see that the formation was - well, not exactly tight, but close enough. The aircraft were behaving sluggishly with two fuel tanks under each wing. Each fuel tank had stabilizing fins, and looked rather like bombs, actually.