"The long-distance lines are down."

"What do you mean? The phone company shouldn't be hurt from this."

"We did it. Orders from Washington," the agent explained.

"What fucking idiot ordered that?"

"The President."

"Outstanding. I gotta get a call out."

"Wait." The agent took the phone and called his own office.

"Hoskins."

"This is Larry Parsons, NEST team leader, can you relay something to Washington?"

"Sure."

"The bomb was a ground-burst, less than fifteen kilo-tons. We have samples of the residue, and it's on the way to Rocky Flats for spectroscopy. You know how to get that out?"

"Yes, I can do that."

"Okay." Parsons hung up.

"You have pieces from the bomb?" the FBI agent asked incredulously.

"Sounds crazy, doesn't it? That's what fallout is, bomb residue that gets attached to dirt particles."

"So what?"

"So, we can figure out a lot from that. Come on," he told the agent. Both men ran back across the street towards the hospital. An FBI agent, Parsons decided, was a useful fellow to have around.

"Jack, got something from Denver, came in through Walt Hoskins. The bomb was a ground burst, fifty or so kilo-tons. The NEST guys have residue, and they're going to test it."

Ryan took his notes. "Casualty count?"

"Didn't say."

"Fifty kilotons," the S&T man observed. "Low for what the satellites said, but possible. Still, too goddamned big for an IND."

The F-16C wasn't exactly ideal for this mission, but it was fast. Four had left Ramstein only twenty minutes earlier. Put aloft by the initial DEFCON-THREE alert, they'd come east to what they still referred to as the inter-German border. They'd not even arrived there when new orders had sent them towards the southern end of Berlin to get a look at what was happening at the Berlin Brigade's kazerne. Four F-15s from Bitburg joined for top-cover. All eight USAF fighters were loaded for air-to-air missions only, with two extra fuel tanks each in the place of bombs for the F-16s, and conformal fuel cells for the Eagles. From ten thousand feet, they could see the flashes and explosions on the ground. The flight of four broke into two elements of two each, and went down for a closer look, while the Eagles orbited overhead. The problem, it was later decided, was two-fold. First, the pilots were simply too surprised at the turn of events to consider all the possibilities,- adding to this was the fact that American aircraft losses over Iraq had been so minor as to make the pilots forget that this was a different place.

The Russian tank regiment had both SA-8 and SA-11 missiles, plus the normal complement of Shilka 23mm flak vehicles. The anti-air company commander had waited for this moment, not illuminating his radars, playing it smart, as the Iraqis had singularly failed to do. He waited until the American aircraft were under a thousand meters before giving his order.

Barely had their threat receivers come on when a swarm of missiles rose from the eastern edge of the Russian encampment. The Eagles, high up, had a much better chance at evasion. The F-16 Fighting Falcons, descending right into the SAM trap, had almost none. Two were blotted out in a matter of seconds. The second pair dodged the first wave of SAMs, but one was caught in the frag pattern of second-wave SA-11 it almost but not quite evaded. That pilot ejected successfully, but died when he landed too hard on the roof of an apartment building. The fourth F-16 escaped by skimming the rooftops and screaming west on full burner. Two of the Eagles joined him. A total of five American aircraft crashed into the city. Only one of the pilots lived. The escaping aircraft radioed the news to Commander U.S. Air Forces Europe at Ramstein. Already, he had twelve F-16s arming up with heavy ordnance. The next wave would be different.