"Sir, the only thing that will keep them from launching is the certainty that the strike will not work. That's particularly true if we're dealing with their military. They're good. They're smart. They're rational. They think before they act, like all good soldiers. If they know we're ready to shoot at the first hint of an attack, then that attack becomes militarily futile, and it will not be initiated."

"That's good advice, Robert," Elliot said.

"What's NORAD think?" Fowler asked. The President didn't think to consider that he was asking a two-star general to evaluate the opinion of a four-star.

"Mr President, if we are to get some rationality back into this situation, that would appear to be the way to do it."

"Very well. General Fremont, what do you propose?"

"Sir, at this point, we can advance our strategic-forces readiness to DEFCON-ONE. The codeword for that is SNAPCOUNT. At that point we are at maximum readiness."

"Won't that provoke them?"

"Mr President, no, it should not. Two reasons. First, we are already at a high state of alert, they know it, and while they are clearly concerned, they have not objected in any way. That's the one sign of rationality we've seen to this point. Second, they won't know until we tell them that we've upped things a notch. We don't have to tell them until they do something provocative."

Fowler sipped at his newest cup of coffee. He'd have to visit the bathroom soon, he realized.

"General, I'm going to hold off on that. Let me think that one over for a few minutes."

"Very well, sir." Fremont's voice did not reveal any overt disappointment, but a thousand miles from Camp David, CINC-SAC turned to look at his Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations).

"What is it?" Parsons asked. There was nothing more for him to do at the moment. Having made his urgent phone call, and having decided to let his fellow NEST team members handle the lab work, he'd decided to assist the doctors. He'd brought instruments to evaluate the radiation exposure to the firefighters and handful of survivors, something in which the average physician has little expertise. The situation was not especially cheerful. Of the seven people who had survived the explosion at the stadium, five already showed signs of extreme radiation sickness. Parsons evaluated their exposures at anywhere from four hundred to over a thousand Rems. Six hundred was the maximum exposure normally compatible with survival, though, with heroic treatment, higher exposures had been survived. If one called living another year or two with three or four varieties of cancer breaking out in one's body 'survival.' The last one, fortunately, seemed to have the least. He was still cold, though his hands and face were badly burned, but he hadn't vomited yet. He was also quite deaf.

It was a young man, Parsons saw. The clothing in the bag next to his bed included a handgun and a badge - a cop. He also held something in his hand, and when the boy looked up, he saw the FBI agent standing next to the NEST leader.