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  Perhaps the President had a point, Smith mused. Perhaps CURE's mission had become too big to manage effectively. Or maybe it was just that the world had become too complicated.

  Chapter 10

  As General Leiber was on his way to the White House, his car phone buzzed. He picked it up.

  "Yeah," he said sourly.

  "Major Cheek here, General."

  "What is it?"

  "We have a positive ID on the hostile object."

  The general sat up straight. His hand tightened on the wheel. "Give it to me," he barked.

  "Bad news."

  "I can take it."

  "It's one of ours, for sure."

  "Ours?"

  "Absolutely. It's an Alco Big Boy, vintage 1941. They used to haul cargo on the defunct Wyoming Division of the Union Pacific line. It's a real monster, sir. One of the most powerful steam engines ever devised. Listen to this: length 132 feet, weight 537 tons, tractive effort of 135,375 pounds. This means it could pull that weight, sir. It had sixteen driving wheels and-"

  "Never mind that crap. Can you trace it to anyone?"

  "Not without knowing its running number, General. And we've found no identifying marks."

  "Are you absolutely, positively certain of your information?"

  "Yes. I've researched it thoroughly. The reference books are wonderful, sir. I wish I had had them before. They would have saved a lot of time. For instance, the bell turns out to have been very important. American locomotives always had them because they rode through wild country where buffalo and horses ran free. In Europe, trains don't have bells.They don't have cowcatchers either. Instead, they have these two bumper rods sticking out in front. It's really quite fascinating, General."

  "I'm sure the President will agree when I tell him," General Leiber said bitterly. "I'm on my way to the White House right now. He expects a full briefing."

  "Good luck, General."

  "You're a big help," the general muttered, hanging up. "The bastard. I think he enjoys watching the crap rain down on me."

  Frowning, the general abruptly swung his car around. He pulled up in front of a hobby store.

  Inside, he went to the section devoted to model trains. "Can I help you, sir?" a clerk asked him.

  "You can help not only me but also your country."

  "Glad to." The clerk stiffened.

  "Fine. Hang loose, civilian. I need a model of an Alco Big Boy locomotive. Right now. Can you oblige your country?"

  "Yes, over here." The clerk searched a shelf of colorful boxes. He straightened. "Ah, here."

  "Outstanding," the general said, ripping off the cellophane and opening the box. Inside, there were a hundred tiny plastic pieces attached to plastic trees.

  "It's in pieces." The general's voice was disappointed.

  "You have to assemble it."

  "No time. Don't you have one that's in one piece?"

  "Not that model. We do have HO scale versions of more recent trains. if you'd rather have one of those."

  "It's gotta be this one," the general insisted.

  "They assemble quite easily. An hour or less."

  "How fast could you put one of these together?"

  "Oh, perhaps twenty minutes-if I don't get a sudden rush of customers."

  The general slapped the box in the clerk's hands. "Do it. For your country."

  "But "

  "No buts. The President of the United States is waiting for me. For this. Do it. The government will not only be eternally in your debt, but I think I can get you a consultant's fee."

  "Well, business is slow-"

  "Then face front and hop to it!" General Leiber barked. Twenty minutes later, when General Leiber was on his third cigar, the clerk handed him a perfect replica of an Alco Big Boy steam engine. It was redolent of plastic cement.

  "Remarkable machine, isn't it?" the clerk said admiringly. "So streamlined, so powerful."

  "You'd think different if one was pointed at you," the general said, pulling out a requisition form. He scribbled on it, then said, "Sign here."

  The clerk signed.

  "Your check will be in the mail."

  Back in his car, the general put the sheet away for safekeeping. The clerk would receive $250 for emergency situational model prototype assembling. General Leiber put another zero at the end. If he survived, he would skim a cool $2,250 from the deal. If not, it wouldn't matter.

  The general drove his car up to the White House gate. The guard waved him through. He drove up to the side entrance, where a Marine guard in a snappy blue dress uniform saluted him as he opened the door.

  The President greeted General Leiber with a firm handshake. His sober face looked like a thundercloud. "General, step into my office."

  "Yes, sir," said General Leiber, following him in and taking a seat in an empty chair. He clutched the model train, wrapped in a paper bag, in one beefy fist. The fist perspired.

  "General, I want everything you have on the KKV threat," the President said evenly.

  "I won't mince words," General Leiber shot back. "We're facing a threat beside which conventional nuclear weapons pale into insignificance."

  "It's that bad?"

  "Worse. Only a handful of nations belong to the so-called nuclear club. Of them, only three-the U.S., USSR, and China-possess intercontinental delivery systems. The KKV threat is as dire as it is because virtually every nation on earth possesses a stockpile. They are cheap. They are effective. And once they are perfected, I don't doubt that every lousy border skirmish will turn into an excuse to deploy them."

  The anger in the President's face seeped away like ground water. His composed features slackened. His eyes grew tired.

  "It sounds like the end of civilization as we know it," he said wearily.

  "That would not be an exaggeration," General Leiber said firmly. He clutched the package tighter. He felt a piece break off under the pressure of a thumb. But that didn't matter. The President was buying it. Leiber decided to lay it on a little thicker. Maybe he wouldn't have to unwrap the locomotive. No sense in taking any chances.

  "Who fired it?"

  "My people are still working on that question."

  "Then we cannot retaliate or threaten, can we?"

  "Not with accuracy. But the retaliation option is not entirely closed."

  "No? Please explain."

  "Sir, at this moment, our enemy is waiting for a response. I say we give them one."

  "Such as?"

  "We nuke someone at random."

  "Great grief! Are you serious?"

  "Consider the psychological effect. If we nuke another country, the aggressor can't help but notice. It will bring him up short. He might hesitate to strike again."

  "It sounds very dubious, General."

  "Well, Mr. President, once you're acclimated in office, you'll find that tactics such as this are really quite sound. Call it a preemptive warning."

  "And whom do you suggest we nuke?" the President asked slowly.

  "Obviously, none of the other superpowers. They would only complicate the situation. I would suggest Vietnam, but it would only piss off the Chinese, and there's no telling what they would do. Eastern Europe is out for the same reason. The Russians can be touchy about stuff like that. I was thinking of someone safe, like Australia or Canada."

  "But they're our friends."

  "Mr. President, on the level we're operating on, we don't have friends. Only temporary allies. Besides, we want to take care to hit someone who can't hit back."

  "No. I can't countenance bombing an ally."

  "How about Japan? We've already nuked them once and they didn't do squat about it. In fact, they're in better economic shape than we are right now. It might be we'd be doing them a favor. Public sentiment would probably be on our side."

  "The Japanese are still our friends."

  "That's the beauty of it, Mr. President. Imagine the impact that nuking an ally would have on this aggressor nation. If we nuke a friendly coun
try, they'll be soiling their shorts wondering what we might do to them. They'll think twice, I guarantee it."

  "No," the President said firmly. "Even if I could agree with you, I won't do it. Not on my first day in office. It would set a bad precedent."

  "It's your decision, sir."

  "You'll continue your search for the aggressor nation. In the meantime, I want a complete briefing on the KKV threat. What exactly are they and what do they do?"

  "Well," said General Martin S. Leiber, steeling himself, "I kinda figured you were going to ask me that, so, I took the liberty of having a prototype model constructed."

  "Good," said the President. "Let me see it."

  General Leiber stood up and set the paper-wrapped model on the President's gleaming desk. He took a deep breath. He started to tear off the wrapping. He hoped the President had a sense of humor.

  General Leiber never found out, because before the KKV model was exposed, Secret Service agents burst into the room.

  "What is it?" the President asked fearfully.

  "I'm sorry, Mr. President. NORAD has picked up another bird heading this way. Come with us."

  "General, follow me," the President said, hurrying from the room.

  Clutching the model, General Leiber trotted after the President, his eyes wide in fear. Other agents converged on the special elevator, the First Lady running whitefaced between them.

  "General," the President said from the open elevator, "I want you down there with me."

  General Leiber hesitated. A Secret Service agent yanked him aboard. The cage sank. It ran very fast.

  "Can you manage your people from my phones?"

  "Yes, sir. Most of my best work is done over the phone."

  "Good. Let's hope that someone survives to take your calls."

  "Yes, sir," said General Leiber, hiding the paper-wrapped model behind his back. No way was he going to let the President see it now. Down under bedrock, there would be no place to hide. Who knew, the President might even declare martial law and stand him before a firing squad. There was no telling what a civilian would do in a crisis situation. They were all crazy.

  Chapter 11

  This time, NORAD's BMEWS radar station at Fylingsdale, England, picked up the object shortly after launch.

  The Air Force general designated CINCNORAD considered this a vindication of the Spacetrack system, which was a series of satellite and ground stations so sophisticated that they could detect a soccer ball over the British Isles.

  "Excellent," he said as he moved between the consoles at the main command post deep within the hollows of Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. The lights were dim. The greenish backglow of the radar screen created a sickly atmosphere. Except for the scurrying uniformed personnel and the giant wall displays, the command post might have been a small brokerage office.

  "Sir, we've computed a trajectory that will deposit the hostile in the vicinity of Washington." There was a note in the status officer's voice that begged a question.

  "We might not be able to save Washington, but we're sure going to know where it came from," CINCNORAD assured him.

  "I'm not certain of that, sir,." ..What?"

  "We picked it up at apogee."

  "What do the computers say?"

  "It's an unknown, sir. The computers can't identify."

  "Damn," said the general fervently. He yearned for the old days before all this computer horseshit. Back in the days of the 440-L radar system, status officers were worth something. They were trained to read the radar signatures bouncing off the ionosphere. A top man could tell from the squiggle whether he was dealing with an SS-18 or an SS-N-8. Nowadays, if the software couldn't recognize it, they all sat there and chewed their cuds.

  "Why didn't the system pick it up at liftoff?"

  "I think because it went up too fast to get a reading."

  "Too fast! What the hell could be faster than a missile at launch?"

  "This thing is, sir," returned the status officer.

  The general stared at the huge overhead situation display. The hostile was shown as a code-tagged green triangle dropping onto a wire-frame simulation of the earth's surface. The projected impact point-indicated by a green letter I-was Washington, D. C. In all the simulated drills the general had ever taken part in, nothing had moved as fast as this object.

  "If we have an impact fix," the general said confidently, "we gotta have a launch point."

  "No, sir. Just a broad area of probability."

  "What? Where? What area?"

  "Africa, sir."

  "Damn. Where in Africa?"

  "That's it. Africa. "

  "Why the hell can't the blasted computer pinpoint better than that?"

  "Because, sir, the object appears to be tumbling. Its course is erratic. See, the impact site keeps shifting." The general looked. On the overhead screen, the I-for-Impact symbol kept jumping. One moment, it was D.C. Then it was over in Virginia. Then it was in Maryland. "Dammit, we've got to do better than this. If we lose Washington, we must repeat, must-retaliate. We can't nuke the whole of Africa."

  "I'm sorry, sir. The system has never encountered anything like this."

  And then all eyes turned to the overhead screen. The green coded triangle descended upon the Washington area and merged with the impact symbol.

  The two symbols flared and died like a faraway candle burning out. A hush fell over the room:

  "Maybe the satellite photos will tell us something," the general muttered weakly.

  The first photos were beamed down from an orbiting KH-11 reconnaissance satellite. A uniformed clerk handed the initial batch to the general without comment. He started to walk away hurriedly.

  The general flipped through the first several photos. They were high-resolution images, of unusual clarity, and showed the European and African landmasses. The bottom photos had been taken over water. The Atlantic. The general noticed a dark lump like a beetle on one of them. It floated over wrinkled water. He turned to the next photo. The object was there, only bigger. It was not distinguishable. But the third and final photo showed the object clearly.

  "Clerk!" the general yelled. Every status officer in the complex jumped at his station.

  The clerk came back. His expression was sheepish. "What the hell is this?" The general screamed, waving the bottom photo in the clerk's reddening face.

  "It's one of the recon photos you asked for, sir," the clerk said, deciding that this was a perfect time to take everything literally.

  "I know that. I meant this object."

  "Sir, it appears to be a train."

  "It's a locomotive!"

  The clerk pretended to look more closely.

  "Yes, sir. I believe the general is correct, sir. It does appear to be a locomotive."

  "What's it doing there? Is this a joke?"

  "No, sir. Those are the raw transmission photos."

  "You looked at them before handing them to me?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "And you didn't mention this."

  "What would I have said, sir?"

  CINCNORAD looked at the clerk. He fumed. His face reddened. The clerk stood perfectly straight. He held his breath.

  "You could have warned me! Damn! Now what am I supposed to tell the White House-assuming it's still standing?"

  "I don't know, sir," the clerk protested.

  "Son, let me give you a piece of advice. Never-I repeat, never-hand a superior officer a hot potato like this."

  "What should I have done, sir?"

  "I don't know what you should have done, but if I were you, I would have lost this photo. The other two are fine. You can't tell what the hell the hostile is. But this one distinctly shows a locomotive."

  "You wanted the hostile identified, sir."

  "I wanted a reasonable explanation. Something I could kick upstairs with confidence. How am I going to explain this?"

  "Recon photos don't lie, sir."

  Just then, someone came up to the general. "The White H
ouse on the hot line, sir."

  The general looked at the clerk like a drunk seeing an old enemy coming out of a bad bottle.

  "I'll deal with you later," CINCNORAD said, accepting the red receiver and thinking wistfully that if the damn hostile had only been a nuke, he wouldn't now be in this ridiculous position.

  The object did not impact on Washington, D.C.

  It came down in Bethesda, Maryland, just outside the District of Columbia. It impacted on a golf course, which was itself not unusual. It would have been more unusual had it struck in the Bethesda area and not hit a golf course. Most of official Washington played golf in Bethesda.

  The object totally obliterated a sandtrap at the eleventh hole and pulverized several nearby trees. Scorched grass continued to smoke even after an Air Force team led by Major Cheek reached the scene less than an hour later.

  After surveying the site and ascertaining no presence of radiation or other lethal agents, Major Cheek called the White House, where a nervous switchboard operator put him through to General Martin S. Leiber.

  Before taking the call, General Leiber looked over his shoulder. The President was busy at another phone, trying to learn if Washington had sustained any significant damage. General Leiber turned his attention back to his call. "Give it to me straight."

  "It looks like another one, General."

  "Can you tell for sure?" General Leiber demanded. He shifted in his seat. He kept the paper-bag-wrapped steam-engine model between his thick thighs, holding it with one hand like a little boy who has to pee but is afraid to ask the teacher if he can be excused.

  "I can't, but all the signs are the same. What do we do?"

  "Haul it off. Make sure. I want a report as soon as possible. You still have the Metallurgical Consultants on hand?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Use 'em. I gotta go."

  Sweating, the general put in another call. He was going crazy. He needed answers. Real answers. Serious, scientific answers. Anything. As soon as the President had a handle on the situation upstairs, he was going to remember the package. And General Leiber would have to have a lot more than a plastic steam engine when the President asked.

  A man finally picked up the line. "Hello?"

  "Bob, this is Marty."