He'd told the President the same thing he said to the General. He needed time to put some things together before he could promise anything. There was no way they were going to be able to get a plan in place to sleep more than a few thousand people with their time frame. Even then, that could only be done if there was a facility large enough, ready for them to start working on immediately.

While the President hadn't been overly pleased with the news, he hadn't revealed any surprise either.

Following their conference call, Draper dismissed him for the day, instructing him to come up with what he could. He was to report back at 0800 the following morning.

Matt had left the Pentagon and taken a long walk through Arlington National Cemetery, one of his favorite places to visit when in Washington. He'd known a good number of men who were now buried there. It was a quiet place, where he could think and wouldn't be disturbed. The weather had cleared, and the temperature was in the low eighties, so he found the walk was quite relaxing, despite what he'd just learned.

The whole comet story still didn't seem real. It sounded more like a scenario for some type of a training exercise. While Matt knew it was real, for now, he'd approach it as he would any problem, either real or fictitious.

After two hours of walking and thinking, he found himself back at his hotel, although he couldn't recall making a specific decision to return.

That night, Matt went to dinner at a steakhouse across from the hotel. He enjoyed a medium well porterhouse and baked potato with a salad. Following that he went for another walk and came up with a few prospective ideas. After a while, Matt went back to his room and thought over these kernels of ideas some more, making some notes and working over possibilities. Most of these he immediately dismissed.

Finally, he picked up the phone and called James Cowan. After six rings the phone was picked up by James' wife, Kathy, and from the sound of her voice, Matt could tell she'd been asleep. Fitch glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost three in the morning, which meant for the Cowans it must be about midnight. Fitch was shocked; he would never have imagined that it was this late.

“Kathy, this is Matt Fitch. Sorry to wake you, but is James there?” Cowan said.

There were some muffled words, and after about twenty seconds, James spoke into the phone.

“James, sorry to wake you,” Fitch began apologetically.

“Is something wrong? Are you still in Washington?” Cowan asked. He too sounded half-asleep.