“Shut up, Ingersol! Think, man! That device was remote detonated. We can’t just sweep in and carpet bomb the jungle. Anybody crazy enough to set off one bomb because we didn’t deliver someone’s head on a platter is crazy enough to detonate a second at the first sniff of an attack!”

“The second bomb is already triggered.”

“So he says. Could be a bluff. If it is, we’re pretty much done.”

“We should suppress any signals coming from the region.”

“We’re on it.”

That set Ingersol back. So the man was thinking beyond his own problems finally. “Can’t they drop a smart weapon on the compound? Something that hits them before they know it’s on its way?”

“And accomplish exactly what? If he has already triggered the second device, killing him now would only remove any chance of terminating this twenty-four-hour countdown of his. If he hasn’t triggered it, we can’t afford to set him off.”

“So what, then?”

Friberg glanced at the message again. “We evacuate southern Florida. We look for the bomb in every nook and cranny surrounding Miami. We curse the day we allowed Casius to live. We locate Abdullah Amir using whatever resources exist and we hope we can isolate any signal he’s using for the detonation.”

A thought dropped into Ingersol’s mind. The thought that a highly skilled operative dropped into that jungle might be their best bet.

“Then we should send Casius after him.”

Friberg blinked. “Casius?”

“He’s the best operative we have, he knows the lay of the land, and he’s already there.”

“He’s also AWOL. We have no way of contacting him.” Friberg stood. “Forget Casius. We’ve got some briefings to run. We’ll give the president an update from the car.”

He headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Ingersol asked, still short on breath.

“We, Ingersol. We are going to Miami.”

THE SIMPLE fact that very few United States residents had ever seen the effects of a nuclear blast rendered the news that a detonation had just occurred off the coast of Florida at first impossible to believe. The terrorist activities in New York had been horrifying; this was simply incomprehensible. When the pictures finally flashed on the tube, the nation came to a literal standstill.

The first live images came from a jetliner flying high enough to avoid the electromagnetic pulse. They showed a coastline dotted by a thousand small trails of smoke that news commentator Gary Reese of CBS said were scattered fires. By the time the first helicopter flew over the region against specific orders to clear the air space, 90 percent of the country hovered around television sets, gawking at images of fires and gutted buildings.