Borstein's voice was the sound of sandpaper. "I only see one where's the bird?"

"No bird no bird no bird," a female captain announced. "The boom is too big, more like an explosion. No bird, no bird. This is not a launch, I repeat this is not a launch."

Borstein saw that his hands were shaking. They hadn't done that the time he'd been shot down, nor the time he'd crashed at Edwards, nor the times he'd driven airplanes through weather too foul for hailstones. He looked around at his people and saw in their faces the same thing he'd just felt in the pit of his stomach. Somehow it had been like watching a dreadfully scary movie to this point, but it was not a movie now. He lifted the phone to SAC and switched off the input to the Gold Phone line to Camp David.

"Pete, did you copy that?"

"I sure did, Joe."

"We, uh, we better settle this thing down, Pete. The President's losing it."

CINC-SAC paused for a beat before responding. "I almost lost it, but I just got it back."

"Yeah, I hear you, Pete."

"What the hell was that?"

Borstein flipped the switch back on. "Mr President, that was an explosion, we think, in the Alyesk missile fields. We, uh, sure had a scare there for a moment, but there is no bird in the air - say again, Mr President, there are no birds flying now. That was a definite false alarm."

"What does it mean?"

"Sir, I do not know that. Perhaps - they were servicing the missiles, sir, and maybe they had an accident. It's happened before - we had the same problem with the Titan-II."

"General Borstein is correct," CINC-SAC confirmed soberly. "That's why we got rid of the Titan-II Mr President?"

"Yes, General?"

"Sir, I recommend we try to cool things down some more, sir."

"And just how do we do that?" Fowler wanted to know. "What if that was related to their alert activity?"

The ride down the George Washington Parkway was uneventful. Though covered with snow, Goodley had maintained a steady forty miles per hour in four-wheel-drive, and not lost control once, getting around abandoned cars like a race-car driver at Daytona. He pulled into the River/Mall entrance to the Pentagon. The civilian guard there was backed up by a soldier now, whose M-16 rifle was undoubtedly loaded.

"CIA!" Goodley said.

"Wait." Ryan handed over his badge. "In the slot. I think it'll work here."

Goodley did as he was told. Ryan's high-level badge had the right electronic code for this security device. The gate went up, and the road barrier went down, clearing the way. The soldier nodded. If the pass worked, everything had to be okay, right?

"Right up to the first set of doors."

"Park it?"

"Leave it! You come in with me."

Security inside the River Entrance was also beefed up. Jack tried to pass through the metal detector, but was stopped by pocket change that he then threw on the floor in a rage. "NMCC?"