There were only eleven members of the council’s Standing Committee, China’s equivalent of the former Soviet Politburo, a body with a function similar to but having much greater domestic control than America’s National Security Council or the president’s cabinet. Council members included senior party leaders, bureau chiefs, the nation’s two vice premiers, and the president and premier himself. The group gathered in Beidaihe to clarify the government’s official platform. Coming out of this meeting each year, the CPC invariably adopted a broader version of the council’s views. Attendance for council members was mandatory.

Some, however, were scheduled to arrive later than others.

It was a Thursday and, by Deng’s watch, twenty minutes after five in the evening-six minutes late. An aide of Deng’s had verified by phone that eight of the eleven council members had arrived in their rooms, including the premier and Deng’s fellow vice premier. While the other late arrivals happened to be two of Deng’s most staunch political allies, this arrival pattern nonetheless fit the standard schedule. All members were required to be in their sleeping quarters by midnight; sessions began the following morning at seven.

Deng was beginning to wonder whether he had misjudged the timing. The American W-76 warheads were powerful, and he’d been assured by his chief scientist that the warheads, even after a decade underwater, were likely to reach a yield approaching their original capacity. This led Deng to his current predicament: allow his motorcade to draw much closer to Beidaihe, and the succession order he had in mind wouldn’t quite work out-and yet there had been no choice, since if he didn’t cut it close, he would arouse suspicion. Still, the thought clung to Deng that even where he now rode in the convoy-seventy miles from Beihaide-there remained a significant chance that he wouldn’t survive. And what if the weapon failed to work at all? A dud, lying worthless beneath-

An odd pressure shift lifted him slightly from his seat. He felt instantaneously claustrophobic and noticed that he couldn’t hear. He flexed his jaw to pop his ears; they cleared, but he sensed that something else was wrong, and it took him a few seconds to realize it was the limousine’s electronics. The reading lights in his compartment, the dashboard up front, the radio that had been playing-all had gone out as though from a blown fuse. The computer monitor providing him constant military readiness updates, the television screen he kept tuned to an international satellite telecast of CNN-all had gone dark.

The electromagnetic pulse! Deng’s heart accelerated-the EMP had killed the instrumentation in the vehicle, wiping clean any active electronic activity. The W-76 had gone off.

As the vehicle slowed, Deng saw it first against the treetops a mile ahead of them on the highway, then felt it strike suddenly against the front of the limousine-a wind blast, powerful enough to rock the convoy, lifting the limo’s wheels three inches from the surface of the highway yet too weak to overturn the vehicles. This, Deng knew, represented approximately, if not precisely, the forecasted effect of a one-hundred-kiloton nuclear detonation seventy miles from ground zero-the closest point, his chief scientist had told him, at which one could be positioned without sustaining fatal or near-fatal effects from the blast.

As panic struck among the soldiers, his loyal driver, and the security detail in the convoy, Deng savored a moment of pride-of utter satisfaction. He had judged correctly, and, based on the series of events he’d just witnessed, the first step of his master plan had advanced without a hitch.

Tomorrow, he thought, is upon us. Today.

When the phone chortled its usual two rings and the machine picked up, Laramie came awake with the sense that something was out of place. Asleep in the same position in which she’d passed out, she wasn’t sure what it was that bothered her while Eddie Rothgeb’s voice blasted from the answering machine and banged around her aching head.

“Laramie, where the hell are you? Pick up! Are you seeing this?”

She knocked the phone off the hook, fumbled for it, picked it up, said, “Enough,” and heard a click. Then nothing.

“Eddie?”

There was no answer. No noise at all-just dead air.

Maybe she had disconnected the call with her butterfingers maneuver, but Laramie doubted it. She hung up, clicked back on, and got no dial tone. She tried this a few times with the same result before her headache began to reassault her. Groaning, she leaned her forehead against a palm, and in so doing, caught an angle on the open pizza box. Sprawled on the floor, it contained only the lone remaining slice. She noticed that she had even consumed the crusts of the missing pieces.

Last night, there hadn’t been a single message on the answering machine. Not even any she had previously saved. She usually had four or five waiting for her at the end of each day and knew for a fact she’d had at least fifteen saved on the chip, so she was confident they hadn’t been letting any calls through.

Meaning this morning, they would have kept the intercept going. The call from Rothgeb, cut short though it had been, didn’t make sense.

She crossed to the front window and peered outside; it was still dark. She checked her watch, which they’d let her wear for the length of the interrogation, probably just to annoy her further. It was 5:15 A.M.

Two of the sedans appeared to have abandoned the assignment. There remained only one black sedan and the van. She thought of Eddie’s words.

Are you seeing this?

Laramie found the remote. The BREAKING NEWS headline registered before the full screen image came up on the tube:

NUKE BLAST AT CHINA SUMMIT

She kicked up the volume. It appeared she’d clicked on to the Fox News Channel. Brit Hume had the desk.

“…acted immediately. In an emergency vote of the surviving leaders, former vice premier and military general Deng Jiang has been appointed premier.

“The high-intensity detonation had initially been confirmed by a U.S. intelligence source, and has now been officially characterized by China’s ambassador to the U.S., as a nuclear explosion. Our American intelligence source is also referring to the size of the detonation as, quote, ‘significant.’ The Chinese Ambassador in Washington states that China’s own intelligence wing has ruled out accidental detonation, and suspects terrorism as the cause. Tens of thousands are suspected dead, including eight of the State Council members, the ruling body of the People’s Republic of China. Among the confirmed dead at this hour is China’s president and premier. We’ll go again to a statement made by the PRC moments after news of this tragedy was confirmed.”

Laramie now had a pretty good idea why her personal surveillance detachment had been depleted by fifty percent: half-assed treason investigation notwithstanding, she figured she’d be safe in placing herself a little lower on the global-crisis pecking order than the world’s first act of nuclear terror.

Crap.

She knew China with the same familiarity she had with the tiny birth-mark on the side of her neck. The territory, the tendencies of every key leader, the way they reacted in a time of crisis. All of it. She could have predicted to the second-in her sleep-the process and result of the immediate-succession vote installing General Deng Jiang as premier. She would have been able to predict who it was who called the vote, who voted, who voted for whom, what actions would be taken, what the State Council and the CPC’s public statements would be, and who would issue the statements in the wake of the bombing.