The sum of all fears - Tom Clancy [461]
Ryan stepped back. He dropped his ID card on the desk and walked from the room.
"Jesus!" Chuck Timmons observed. They'd heard the entire exchange over the hot mike. Everyone in SAC headquarters had.
"Yeah," Fremont said. Thank Him. But first deactivate that missile!" The Commander-in-Chief Strategic Air Command had to think for a moment. He couldn't remember if Congress was in session or not, but that was beside the point. He ordered his communications officer to place a call to the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Senate and House armed-services committees. When all four were on line, they'd stage a conference call with the Vice President, who was still aboard Kneecap.
"Jack?" Ryan turned.
"Yeah, Arnie?"
"Why?"
"That's why they have a two-man rule. There are a hundred thousand people in that city - probably more. I can't recall how big it is." Jack looked into the cold clear sky. "Not on my conscience. If we needed Daryaei dead, there are other ways." Ryan blew smoke into the wind. "And that fucker'll be just as dead."
"I think you were right. I want you to know that."
Jack turned. Thank you, sir." A long pause. "Where's Liz, by the way?"
"Back in the cabin, under sedation. She didn't cut the mustard, did she?"
"Arnie, today nobody did. Mainly we were lucky. You can tell the President that I'm resigning effective - oh, Friday, I guess. Good a day as any. Someone else'll have to decide on the replacement."
The President's Chief of Staff was quiet for a moment, then brought things back to the main issue. "You know what you've just started here, don't you?"
"Constitutional crisis, Arnie?" Jack flipped the butt into the snow. "Not my first, Arnie, not my first. I need to ride that chopper back to Andrews."
"I'll take care of it."
They'd just crossed into U.S. territory when a thought struck John Clark. Qati's bags had those medications. One was Prednizone, and another was Comazine. Prednizone was a steroid often used to mitigate the adverse effects of - he got up from his seat and looked at Qati. Though still blindfolded, the man was different from the most recent photos he'd seen of the man, thinner, his hair was - the man had cancer, Clark thought. What did that mean? He got on the radio and called that information ahead.
The Gulf stream was a few minutes later getting in. Ryan was awakened on the couch in the VIP lounge on the south side of the Andrews complex. Murray was next to him, still awake. Three FBI vehicles were there. Clark, Chavez, Qati and Ghosn were loaded into them, and the convoy of four-wheel-drives headed into D.C.
"What are we going to do with them?" Murray asked.
"I have an idea, but we need to do something first."
"What, exactly?"
"You have an interrogation room at the Hoover Building?"
"No, Buzzard's Point, the Washington Field Office," Murray said. "Did your guy Mirandize them?"
"Yeah, I told him he had to do that, right before he started cutting their balls off." Ryan turned as he heard a loud noise. Kneecap was landing on the same Runway Zero-One it had left ten or so hours before. They must have shut down the strategic systems quicker than expected, Jack thought.
The Admiral Lunin surfaced amid the flares and smoke floats dropped by the P-3. It was much too far for a rescue aircraft to come out, at least in this weather. The seas hadn't moderated, and the light was bad, but Dubinin's was the only ship in the area, and he did