“What?”

“I’m afraid we have photos—positive proof,” Goff said. “It appears they had expended weapons too. It’s still circumstantial evidence, but it’s pretty convincing to me. We have Masters’s refueling plane in Greece right now, questioning the crew, after we think they had rendezvoused again with a Megafortress bomber last night. The bomber got away both times—it’s too stealthy to track except up very close, and it doesn’t let us get close enough.”

“Are those guys crazy?” Busick exclaimed. “Are they trying to start a war?”

“Martindale is not doing anything illegal, at least not in the United States,” General Venti interjected.

“But we can refuse to shield him against foreign indictments,” Kercheval shot back. “Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and a half-dozen other nations have all pressed criminal charges against Martindale for his activities—”

“Alleged activities.”

“Call it what you want, General—you and I both know he’s involved,” Kercheval said. “We can threaten to not block extradition.”

“We are not going to turn over a former president of the United States to any foreign country,” Busick said. “That’s crazy. Martindale will never believe our threat. But we can sure as hell bust McLanahan and his men.”

“Let’s stick with the problem at hand, shall we?” Kercheval asked. “We need some kind of consensus about what in the hell to do about Libya.”

All eyes turned toward Thomas Thom. He considered it for a few more moments; then: “Have the Reagan and Stennis groups proceed with their planned exercises,” he said. “No changes whatsoever in their plans—in fact, I want Pentagon briefers to start including a few details of the exercise to the press, just so everyone knows we’re not adjusting the exercise to threaten Libya.”

“Sir, are you sure don’t want to put any additional military pressure on Libya?” Goff asked incredulously. He was accustomed to the various surprises served up by this very new and certainly different commander-in-chief, but he still couldn’t control his reaction when he made such unexpected decisions. “Mr. President, I’d like to prepare a briefing regarding Egypt’s importance to—”

“Save it for now, Robert,” Thom said. “Gentlemen, I need to hear just one thing before I make the decision to commit American troops against Libya: that the people of Egypt want the help of the United States. From what you’ve said, that hasn’t happened.”

“That’s not true, Mr. President,” Kercheval said. “We’ve had calls from the prime minister, from major opposition groups, from leaders in the Pan-African Leadership Council ...”

“That’s not good enough,” the President said. “You say that Khan, the chief justice of their supreme court, might have been involved in the Salaam assassination—and then you tell me that he was the front-runner in the national election? This tells me that the people of Egypt condone and even embrace these actions.”

“Maybe they were too scared of Khan to resist him, sir.”