And the report came in not five minutes after my friend Fowler promised not to do anything provocative. "Speak quickly, I have enough business here already."

"President Narmonov. Two weeks ago, a squadron of American F-117A Stealth fighters arrived at their Ramstein air base, ostensibly for demonstration to their NATO allies. The Americans said they want to sell them. Each of those aircraft can carry two half-megaton weapons."

"Yes?"

"I cannot detect them. They are virtually invisible to everything we have."

"What are you telling me?"

"From the time they leave their bases, then refuel, they can be over Moscow in less than three hours. We would have no more warning than Iraq had."

"Are they truly that effective?"

"One reason we left so many people in Iraq was to observe closely what the Americans are capable of. Our people never saw that American plane on a radar scope, neither ours nor the French scopes Saddam had. Yes, they are that good."

"But why should they wish to do such a thing?" Narmonov demanded.

"Why would they attack our regiment in Berlin?" the Defense Minister asked in reply.

"I thought this place was proof against anything in their arsenal."

"Not against a nuclear gravity bomb delivered with high accuracy. We are only one hundred meters down here," Defense said. In the old battle between warhead and armor, warhead always wins

"Back to Berlin," Narmonov said. "Do we know what's happening there?"

"No, what we have has come from junior officers only."

"Get someone in there to find out. Tell our people to fall back if they can do so safely - and take defensive action only. Do you object to that?"

"No, that is prudent."

The National Photographic Intelligence Center, NPIC, is located at the Washington Navy Yard, in one of several windowless buildings housing highly sensitive government activities. At the moment, they had a total of three KH-11 photographic and two KH-11'Lacrosse' radar-imaging satellites in orbit. At 00:26:46 Zulu Time, one of the KH-11s came within optical range of Denver. All of its cameras zoomed in on the city, especially its southern suburbs. The images were down-linked in real time to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and sent from there to NPIC by fiber-optic cable. At NPIC, they were recorded in two-inch videotape. Analysis started immediately.

This aircraft was a DC-10. Qati and Ghosn again availed themselves of first-class seating, pleased and amazed at their good luck. The word had gotten out only minutes before the flight was called. As soon as the report had gone out on the Reuters wire, it had been inevitable. AP and UPI had instantly picked it up, and all television stations subscribed to the wire services. Surprised that the networks had not yet put out their own special bulletins, the local affiliates ran with it anyway. The one thing about it that had surprised Qati was the silence. As the word spread like a wave through the terminal building, what lay behind it was not shouting and panic, but an eerie silence that allowed one to hear the flight calls and other background noises normally submerged by the cacophony of voices in such public areas. So the Americans faced tragedy and death, the Commander thought. The lack of passion surprised him.