"Roosevelt on line two, sir," the intercom called. Painter punched the button and put the phone on.

"This is CINCLANT."

"Richards here, sir."

"What's going on?"

"Sir, we're fifteen minutes into a DEFCON-TWO alert here. We had a flight of MiG-29s inbound, and I ordered them splashed."

"Why?"

"They appeared to be armed, sir, and we copied a radio transmission about the explosion."

Painter went instantly cold. "What explosion?"

"Sir, BBC reports a nuclear detonation in Denver. The local TV station that originated the report, they say, is now off the air. With that kind of information, I took the shot. I'm senior officer present. It's my battlegroup here. Sir, unless you have some more questions, I have things to do here."

Painter knew he had to get out of the man's way. "Use your head, Ernie. Use your goddamned head."

"Aye aye, sir. Out." The line went dead.

"Nuclear explosion?" Fleet Intelligence asked.

Painter had a hot line to the National Military Command Center. He activated it. "This is CINCLANT."

"Captain Rosselli, sir."

"Have we had a nuclear explosion?"

"That's affirmative, sir. In the Denver area, NORAD estimates yield in the low hundreds and high casualties. That's all we know. We haven't got the word out to everyone yet."

"Well, here's something else for you to know: Theodore Roosevelt just intercepted and splashed four MiG-29s inbound. Keep me posted. Unless otherwise directed, I'm putting everything to sea."

Bob Fowler was into his third cup of coffee already. He was cursing himself for having drunk those four, strong German beers like he was Archie Bunker or something, and one of his fears was that the people here would notice the alcohol on his breath. Intellect told him that his thought processes might be somewhat affected by the alcohol intake, but he'd had the drinks over a period of hours, and natural processes plus the coffee either already had or soon would purge it from his system entirely.

For the first time, he was grateful for the death of his wife Marion. He'd been there at the bedside, had watched his beloved wife die. He knew what grief and tragedy were, and however dreadful the deaths of all those people in Denver might be, he told himself, he had to step back from it, had to set it aside, had to concentrate on preventing the death of anyone else.

So far, Fowler told himself, things had gone well. He had moved quickly to cut off the spread of the news. A nationwide panic was something that he didn't need. His military services were at a higher level of alert that would either prevent or deter an additional attack for some indefinite period of time.

"Okay," he said on the conference line to NORAD and SAC. "Let's summarize what has happened to this point."

NORAD answered: "Sir, we've had a single nuclear detonation in the hundred-kiloton range. There has as yet been no report from the scene. Our forces are moving to a high state of alert. Satellite communications are down -"