“They’ve been with me for a long time, and they’re all former military. They follow orders.”

“Will they be told when to leave their rooms?”

Madox replied, “Unfortunately, they’ll still be in the rooms when the suitcases detonate. Obviously, they don’t know what’s in the suitcases, but they know the contents are valuable and can’t be left unattended.”

Harry Muller listened to all this. He’d lost track of the body count a while ago, but he knew his chances of getting out of there alive just dropped a few more points below zero.

He stretched his ankle shackles, then pushed his foot down on the chain. He realized he wasn’t going to break the shackles, but his hands were free, and assuming none of these men were armed, maybe he could break out. Harry glanced furtively at the door, then the curtained windows.

Madox noticed and said to him, “Are we boring you? Do you have someplace to go?”

Harry replied, “Fuck you.”

Paul Dunn said, “Bain, we don’t need him here any longer, if we ever did.”

Madox replied, “I’m afraid this is the best place for Mr. Muller for now. We don’t want him speaking to the guards and upsetting them with crazy talk about nuclear bombs.” He looked at Muller, then said to the others, “I have a sedative on the way here. Mr. Muller needs to be asleep until Tuesday.”

No one responded, except Harry, who said to the other four men, “This bastard is going to kill me. You understand that?”

No one spoke, or looked at Harry, except Scott Landsdale, who patted Harry on the shoulder. “No one is going to hurt you.”

Harry pushed Landsdale’s arm away and snapped, “You’re all fucking murderers.”

Madox interjected, “Harry, you’re getting yourself worked up for no reason. Maybe you need that sedative now. Or do you want to shut up and hear the rest of this?”

Harry didn’t answer, and Madox said to his Board, “As I was saying, the pilots and co-pilots will remain at their posts, and sometime on Tuesday, when Paul tells me the president and first lady are dining in the White House, I’ll activate the ELF transmitter here and send the coded radio signal that will detonate all four nuclear devices.” He continued, “By the time the president has finished his salad, he’ll have gotten the terrible news, and the clock will begin ticking toward Wild Fire as the president and the first lady are flown by helicopter to a secure destination.” He asked, “Are any of you designated to be evacuated with him?”

Paul Dunn replied, “I am, but only if I happen to be close by.”

“Well,” Madox observed, “you can’t be much closer than at the same dinner table.”

General Hawkins cleared his throat and said to Madox, “I know we once discussed the placement of the nuclear devices, but now that the time is here, I’d like to know specifically what you have in mind. You mentioned two cities, but we have four nuclear devices.”

Bain Madox said, “As I indicated, these are low-yield weapons, and perhaps not as reliable as we’d like. So, in consultation with Mikhail, the plan is to place two suitcases in each of two cities. This is so that if one doesn’t detonate, we still have the other to rely on. If both detonate at maximum yield, we have a nicer explosion.”

He looked around the table and continued, “So for instance, if we pick, say, San Francisco as one city, then the pilot checks into one hotel with one suitcase, and the co-pilot checks into another nearby hotel with the other suitcase. Now we have two ground zeros, which will be within the total destruction radius of each other so that if only one device goes off, it will obliterate the hotel of the other. This is important so that afterward an unexploded suitcase-and a stunned pilot-are not found in a hotel room that can be traced back to… well, me. In other words, one explosion will destroy the evidence of a possible dud bomb-and the pilot-in another location. If neither device detonates, then I will call my pilots with further instructions.”

General Hawkins asked, “How reliable, exactly, are those devices?”

Madox replied, “Mikhail has assured me that each device is over ninety percent reliable as to detonation. Regarding their maximum design yield, we won’t know until they detonate.” He explained, “As I said, they’re old-about 1977 vintage-and because they’re mini-nukes, they’re actually more sophisticated and complex than, say, a one-megaton atomic warhead. But they have been maintained by Mikhail, who tells me the design is good, and the detonating device and plutonium core are in excellent condition.”

General Hawkins commented, “Weapons, especially nuclear weapons, are the one area in which the Soviets excelled.” He smiled and added, “During the Cold War, we used to joke that we didn’t have to worry about Soviet suitcase nuclear bombs because the Soviets didn’t have the technology to build a suitcase.”

A few men chuckled, and Madox glanced at the suitcase. “It does look a little ratty.” He laughed, then stared at each man. “And now, perhaps the most difficult decision we need to make-one that we’ve never really discussed in any detail-but the time has come. What two American cities need to be sacrificed so that America and the world will be free of Islamic terror? Gentlemen?”

Bain Madox hit a button on his console, and the map on the screen changed from the world of Islam to a map of the United States. He said, “Forget that you are Americans. Put yourselves into the mind of an Islamic terrorist. You are able to destroy two American cities. Which two will most please Allah?”

Madox lit a cigarette and watched the smoke rise in front of the illuminated map of the United States.

He said, “Well, then, I’ll begin. If I were an Islamic terrorist, my first and second choices would be New York and Washington. Again. But I’m not really an Islamic terrorist, so Washington is not on our list. And New York will not be on our list either because of the stock exchanges, and its vital importance to the world economy, plus the fact that I believe we all-including Mr. Muller-have friends and family in the New York area.”

Landsdale said, “And don’t forget your Park Avenue apartment, Bain.”

“Scott, I have many assets in many cities. That’s not a consideration. The only thing we will consider are loved ones in the cities which we target. If necessary, we may need to get some people out of a targeted city on some pretext. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

Landsdale inquired, “Where does your ex-wife live?”

Madox replied in an annoyed tone, “Palm Beach. Not a likely Islamic target for nuclear destruction.”

Landsdale smiled and pointed out, “If I was paying your alimony, I could make a strong case for it.”

Madox said, “All right, I think we need to remove all East Coast cities from the potential target list. A nuclear detonation in any city along the Boston-Baltimore corridor would have serious consequences for the national economy, which is something we need to avoid. On the other hand, as I said, we need to give the illusion that this is an Islamic attack.”

Harry Muller listened as the five men spoke about what two American cities were to be nuked. As they got into it, they started to sound like businessmen thinking of closing a plant in one city or another. This was so unreal that Harry himself began to forget what they were actually talking about.

Bain Madox said, “I think we have to seriously consider Detroit. The city is dead anyway, it has a large Muslim population, and it’s right next to Canada, which has become a pacifist and socialist pain in our ass. This might be a good signal to send to our Canadian allies.”

Edward Wolffer responded, “Detroit may be high on our list, but for the reasons you just pointed out, Bain, it would not be high on the list of any Islamic terrorist group.”