“Poison Flight, this is Madcap Magician. Return to base. Repeat, return to base.”

“One copies,” he said, recognizing the voice of ISA commander Major Hal Briggs.

Briggs ordinarily wasn’t up this early, let alone working the radio. And Mack knew the major was supposed to be in Saudi Arabia today, overseeing another operation only tangentially related to the crisis in Somalia.

Smith’s heart started double-pumping. “Okay, guys,” he told the others. “Let’s get back to base pronto.”

The White House

21 October, 0700 local

IN HIS SEVEN MONTHS AS SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE National Security Council, Jed Barclay had seen—seen, not met, not talked to—the President of the United States of America exactly twice before. And now today—now, this instant—he was giving him a personal briefing in the upstairs residence of the White House on the most important and dangerous international development since the Gulf War.

Hell, this was twenty times more dangerous, as he was endeavoring to point out between his nervous coughs and tremors.

The President’s Chief of Staff frowned as the word “hell” escaped from Jed’s mouth. Neither the President nor Ms. O’Day reacted. Jed pushed on.

“The Iranian mullahs have decided that the time is right for their Greater Islamic League. That is, of course, Islam as they interpret it, not as most of the rest of the world or even Iranians interpret it. But you’re all aware of that. The takeover of the Somalian government was the first step. Locating the Silkworm antiship missiles there was the second. They have a credible threat to shipping, and their ultimatum must be taken seriously. In a few months, they’ll have the aircraft carrier they’re building with the Chinese. Either the West—us basically—adds a one-hundred-percent tax to the price of oil and divides it among members of their alliance, or they will attack shipping. They’ve menaced two ships already.”

Jed paused, sensing that he was starting to hyperventilate. He had prepared a short sidebar to his presentation outlining the origins of some of the weapons systems known or suspected to have been shipped to Somalia and southern Iran, including a dozen improved SA-2Bs that seemed to have come from Yugoslavia. But it was superfluous and his audience was anxious; he took a long breath and moved on.

“We have several options. The first, of course, is negotiation—”

President Lloyd Taylor shifted in his seat. “Cut to the chase, son. The election will be over before your report is. What are the odds of the covert action working?”

Jed literally gulped as his mind shifted gears. He had prepared long arguments for and against each option, including the Madcap Magician operation the President had just referred to. That plan—removing the surface-to-ship and surface-to-air missiles in Somalia with a “sanitized” covert-action team—was, in fact, his recommendation. But he’d come expecting to have to argue for it, and only now realized that the President might actually already have discussed and considered it in great detail with Ms. O’ Day.

He coughed, then jumped to what he had planned as the conclusion to his presentation.

“By knocking out the missiles we can demonstrate a firm hand. Resolve, I mean,” said Jed. “At the same time, the diplomatic solution can proceed. The covert, I mean, Madcap Magician, is preferable because it can move quickly and provides at least a veneer of deniability. In any event, full military intervention would take days if not weeks to pull together, by which time the price of oil will have risen catastrophically. Madcap Magician has positioned and trained units under the Ironweed contingency; they need only a few hours’ notice. As far as negatives go, we’re working without real-time satellite coverage and the intel—”

“Odds of success,” prompted Ms. O’Day in a stage whisper.

“The simulations,” he said, “have shown a seventy percent chance of success.”

“Seventy percent?” said the President’s Chief of Staff. “I think it’s worth the risk,” said O’Day.

“What does our Harvard whiz kid think?” asked the President. He said Harvard the way someone who had graduated from Yale would.

“Well, sir.” Jed fumbled with his tie. He’d spent nearly as much time choosing the tie as memorizing the speech. “I, uh—I concur with Ms. O’Day. However, we have to—”

“However, you feel that the possibility of failure is higher than the models indicate,” said the President. “But that we should proceed anyway.”

“Well, see, it depends on what you’re measuring. There’s a built-in prejudice in any such model. I mean, I tried to keep it out of this one, but you have at least a three percent coefficient.” Jed gulped—Ms. O’Day had warned him, above all else, not to use the word “coefficient.”

“But the real issue here goes beyond the computer model.”

“I agree. Computer modeling of political situations is absurd,” said Taylor’s Chief of Staff.

“Well, that’s a bit far,” snapped Jed, momentarily forgetting where he was. “I mean, the thing is, we do need tools to quantify certain factors. See, my point is, Mr. President, we have to meet this aggressively. To a certain extent, we have to be willing to risk partial military failure. And we also have to anticipate adverse reaction from the other Arab states. Saudi Arabia will feel particularly vulnerable, as will Egypt. They’ll definitely bar their bases to us. We’ll end up having to rely on Israel for the military buildup, and that will have even more consequences. But if we do nothing—if we fold—the results will be disastrous. We should be prepared for a measured but aggressive response. When Libya joins the coalition—and I say when, not if—we should attack with everything we’ve got. There are a dozen contingency plans drawn up for that. At that point, the Greater Islamic League folds. I’m certain of that.”

“Where’d you get this punk kid?” Taylor growled to O’Day. “Excuse us,” he said harshly, dismissing Jed.

Confused and impotent, Jed slipped out of the room. He felt like he had been punched in the stomach.

Worse. Maybe hit in the head with a baseball bat.

He walked down the hallway in a daze. Ms. O’Day somehow materialized behind him. With a stern look, she motioned for him to follow her downstairs. He did so, despite the searing pain of his insides. Never in his life had he screwed up so badly.

And the thing was, he wasn’t even sure precisely how he had screwed up.

Too many coughs and stutters. Not enough respect. Mentioning the computer simulations, even though they were one of the reasons he was here. And above all, using that damn word “coefficient.”

Neither Jed nor his boss spoke until they were back in the NSC basement, walking toward her office.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Sorry? For what?”

“I didn’t mean to, uh, make the President angry.”

O’Day laughed. “Jed, you may be a genius at foreign policy and computer science, but you have a lot to learn about Washington.”

“Washington?”

“There’s an election in three weeks, remember?”

“Well, yeah.”

Ms. O’Day shook her head.

“Was I supposed to check this with polls or something?” Jed asked. He had a vague notion that military action would hurt the President’s chances at getting reelected. On the other hand, rising gas prices would effectively kill them.

Wouldn’t they?

“Jed, Ironweed is proceeding,” said O’Day. “Madcap Magician has already gotten the okay to move. We’re ratcheting up for the reaction. Two carrier groups are moving into the Mediterranean for training missions. Everything you suggested is proceeding. Hopefully, it won’t be needed,” she added. The National Security Advisor pursed her lips. “But if it is, we’ll deal with it the only way possible—aggressively, but with a measured response. In the meantime, Cascade is being detailed to the Middle East to keep an eye on things.”