Show of Force by Charles D. Taylor Page B

ready now.”
    “Thanks, Jessie. Would you find out who's there with him? If Secretary Jasperson isn't there, they should arrange for a patch right away. Tell them Ambassador Simpson wants to speak with him.”
    “Yes, sir.” Then, a few moments later, “Mr. Jasperson is at the White House, sir. They're trying to raise him on a special line now.”
    “Good. How much time do we have on this call before the satellites are out of range?”
    “No problem, Admiral. You have approximately . . .” some scratching on a pad, “... exactly sixty-seven minutes from now.” The time was 1:17 A.M. in Moscow.
    “No need to use the phone,” Collier said. “Patch it over the speaker, so we can all hear.”
    There was quiet in the communications room, then, “I have Admiral Carter, sir.” He pushed a button on the panel in front of him.
    “Good morning, Bob.” Sam Carter's voice came over the speaker as if he were in the room. There was no interference.
    “Good morning to you, Sam. And how's life in the Pentagon today?”
    “It's probably not as hairy as in Moscow, Bob. But I don't think you've ever seen such action in this place. The CNO briefed everyone a few hours ago, and he told me he hasn't seen faces like that since he was an ensign at Pearl. We've had our share of crises that most people never knew about, but this is the greatest shock in a long time. How are people taking it at the embassy?”
    “I briefed the ambassador earlier this evening as we'd agreed. Shortly after that, he made an announcement to the people here, and the entire staff is now on an emergency basis. And when I came in from a walk not so long ago, I noticed that none of us are going to be leaving for a while.”
    “I figured they'd want to do that even before now.”
    “But we don't have a hell of a lot of time, Sam. First, Ambassador Simpson is here and I want someone's permission, CNO or SECNAV or whoever, to tell him everything about Islas Piedras' military installations and also about the satellite neutralizer. I believe you could say we're just about in a state of war here, and he should know everything.”
    There were some words spoken beyond the microphone at the Pentagon, followed by Carter: “I've got one of my aides on the phone now, and it will only take a minute. In the meantime, what's the status of your communications? We haven't been able to raise anyone for six hours. All we've been told by the Russian Ambassador here is that some confusion would result for a while because of a minor fire.”
    “That minor fire, as they call it in international politics, was a picture-perfect undercover job that negated all communications and crypto equipment—incendiary devices so small that we never knew they were brought in. Our experts here say it will be another four to six days before they can even have a proper jury rig on some of the units, but that's only if we have parts available here. And since they plan to cut us off from everything for a period, this is the only contact we'll have with you.”
    “Sounds like intelligence screwed up badly, Bob.”
    “Our biggest problem is that we don't know how many mistakes they've made. The ambassador, per an agreement with me earlier this evening, is telling our people only as much as we want them to know since we obviously have a major security problem. Major Hattan, who took over the detachment when Hamlet disappeared, is going over our background investigations now to see if we can find some pattern in last year's Wrings, or anything that will at least give us something to go on. By morning we should literally be under siege, and then we'll have no bargaining power.”
    “Just a moment, Bob. Secretary Jasperson is ready to be patched in from the White House. If the ambassador is right there, I'd like to have them talk first. The President, to be polite, is very shaken now.”
    Collier looked at Simpson. Both of them knew the strain Jasperson was under now with the President.