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By Root 1241 0

and went to the staff car. Both men were dead, each torso ripped to shreds by the cannon shells, though both faces were intact except for the splashed blood. The truck was an even greater mess. One of the men there might have survived for a few minutes, but by the time the doctor got there, it was far too late. He found it odd that they all wore Russian officers' uniforms. Not knowing what else to do, he called the police. Only later did he realize how disproportionate his understanding of the events outside his home had been.

"They weren't kidding about the infrared signature. This must have been some bomb," the S&T guy observed. "Damage is a little funny, though hmph."

"What do you mean, Ted?" Ryan asked.

"I mean the ground damage ought to be worse than this must be shadows and reflections." He looked up. "Sorry. Shock waves don't go through things - like a hill, I mean. There must have been reflections and shadows here, that's all. These houses here ought not to be there anymore."

"I still don't know what you mean," Ryan said.

"There are always anomalies in cases like this. I'll get back to you when I have this figured out, okay?" Ted Ayres asked.

Walter Hoskins sat in his office because he didn't know what else to do, and as most senior man present, he had to answer the phones. All he needed to do was turn to see what the stadium was. The pall of smoke was only five miles away through his windows, one of which was cracked. Part of him wondered if he should send a team down there, but he had no such orders. He turned his chair to look that way again, amazed that the window was almost intact. After all, it was supposed to have been a nuclear bomb, and it was only five miles. The remains of the cloud were now over the front range of the Rockies, still intact enough that you could tell what it had been, and behind it like a wake was another black plume of fires from the bomb area. The destruction must be not enough. Not enough? What a crazy thought. With nothing else to do, Hoskins lifted the phone and dialed up Washington. "Give me Murray."

"Yeah, Walt."

"How busy are you?"

"Not very, as a matter of fact. How is it at your end?"

"We have the TV stations and phones shut down. I hope the President will be there when I have to explain that one to the judge."

"Walt, this isn't the time -"

"Not why I called."

"Well, then you want to tell me?"

"I can see it from here, Dan," Hoskins said, in a voice that was almost dreamy.

"How bad is it?"

"All I see is the smoke, really. The mushroom cloud is over the mountains now, all orange, like. Sunset, it's high enough to catch the sunset, I guess. I can see lots of little fires. They're lighting up the smoke from the stadium area. Dan?"

"Yeah, Walt?" Dan responded. The man seemed to be in shock, Murray thought.

"Something odd."

"What's that?"

"My windows aren't broken. I'm only five miles from there, and only one of my windows is cracked, even. Odd, isn't it?" Hoskins paused. "I have some stuff here that you said you wanted, pictures and stuff." Hoskins leafed through the documents that had been set in his IN basket. "Marvin Russell sure picked a busy day to die. Anyway, I have the passport stuff you wanted. Important?"

"It can wait."

"Okay." Hoskins hung up.

"Walt's losing it, Pat," Murray observed.

"You blame him?" O'Day asked.

Dan shook his head. "No."

"If this gets worse " Pat observed.

"How far out is your family?"

"Not far enough."

"Five miles," Murray said quietly.

"What?"

"Walt said that his office is just five miles away, he can see it from there. His windows aren't broken, even."

"Bullshit," O'Day replied. "He must really be out of it. Five miles, that's less than nine thousand yards."

"What do you mean?"

"NORAD said the bomb was a hundred-kiloton range. That'll break windows over a hell of a long distance. Only takes half a pound or so of overpressure to do a window."

"How do you know?"

"Used to be in the Navy - intelligence, remember? I had to evaluate the damage distances