“Certainly an extremely sophisticated cyber attack. We’d lose communications, Internet, and most of our power grid. If it were me, I’d also have charges set up at strategic points in our grid to make sure it would take months to get power back to the entire country. Further, if Takahashi has a nuclear weapons program, we can assume he’s created suitcase nukes and has brought a number of them into the US.”

“What the hell makes you think that?” Castilla said. “He never said anything about suitcase nukes.”

“Because it’s what I’d do, sir. We developed them years ago but abandoned the technology because we have an incredibly effective intercontinental delivery system. Miniaturized nukes dovetail perfectly with Takahashi’s philosophy of small, cheap, and independent.”

“Do we have any way to find them? Where would they be?”

“There is no practical way to find them,” Morrison responded. “And as far as where they’d be, certainly Washington. In order to make it convenient for lobbyists and bureaucrats, we’ve chosen to concentrate our entire government in a very small geographic location. Of course, he’d cover other major cities and major military facilities. Then, too, there’s the possibility of a biological attack, though I would bet against it for strategic reasons. Not fast acting enough.”

“Jesus” was all Castilla could manage to get out. He was starting to feel numb. “So you’re telling me that we just have to sit back and watch?”

“We’ve known each other for a long time, Mr. President. You know how hard this is for me to say, but yes. We can’t win this fight. And even if we could, we can’t be certain it would do anything to help the Chinese. The nanotech may already have been deployed. The best thing we can do is start drawing up plans for humanitarian efforts in the aftermath. Beyond that, our hands are tied.”

54

54

Northeastern Japan

The door slid open and Jon Smith watched it carefully. The procedure was the same as it had been every time before: a single guard standing with his back against the far wall of the corridor, one hand buried suggestively in his jacket. It was always the same man—stocky, rock hard, with a weathered face and dead eyes. Smith owed his life many times over to his gift for sizing up the competition, and this guy was one nasty piece of work. Almost certainly Special Forces, probably significant combat experience, and clearly serious about his job.

Smith expected—or more accurately hoped—that this was the beginning of another visit from the very conflicted Dr. Ito, but instead Masao Takahashi strode in. The door closed behind him and Smith bowed respectfully. Pretty much everything that could be used as a weapon had been removed from the room, and fashioning one out of the materials at hand was impossible with two cameras watching him.