The alarm buzzer sounded. Apara, on the far side of the detector now, sprang to her feet.
“Hold it, sir,” said one of the uniformed guards. “The metal detector went off.”
He looked annoyed. “I gave you everything. Don’t tell me the damned machine picked up the hinges on my briefcase.”
The woman shrugged. “Would you mind stepping through again, sir, please?”
With a huff, the man ducked back through the doorway, still clutching his briefcase, and then stepped through once more. No alarm.
“Satisfied?” he sneered.
“Yes, sir. Thank you,” the guard said tonelessly.
“Happens now and then,” said her partner as she handed the man back his watch, belt and change. “Beeps for no reason.”
“Machines aren’t perfect,” the man muttered.
“I guess,” said the guard.
“Too much iron in your blood, Marty,” joked one of the other men.
Apara followed them down the corridor, feeling immensely relieved. As far as her information went, there were no further security checkpoints. Unless she bumped into someone, or her suit somehow failed, she was safe.
Until she tried to get out of the White House. But that wouldn’t happen until she had fulfilled her mission. If they caught her then, she would simply bite on the cyanide capsule, knowing that she had struck her blow for the Cause.
She followed the civilians into a spacious conference room dominated by a long, polished mahogany table. Most of the high-backed leather chairs were already occupied, mainly by men in military uniforms. There were more stars around the table than in a desert sky, Apara thought. One bomb in here and the U.S. military establishment would be decapitated, along with most of the cabinet heads.
She pressed her back against the bare wall next to the door as the latest arrivals went around the table, shaking hands.
They chatted idly for several minutes, a dozen different conversations buzzing around the long table. Then the president entered from the far door and they all snapped to their feet.
“Sit down, gentlemen,” said the president. “And ladies,” she added, smiling at the three female cabinet members who sat together at one side of the table.
The president looked older in person than she did on television, Apara thought. She was not wearing so much makeup, of course. Still, the president looked vigorous and determined, her famous green eyes sweeping the table as she took her chair at its head. For an instant those eyes looked directly at Apara, and her heart stopped. But the moment passed. The president could not see Apara any more than the others could.
The president’s famous smile was absent as she sat down. Looking directly at the chairman of the joint chiefs, she asked the general, “Well, are we ready?”
“In twenty-four hours,” he replied crisply. “Troop deployment is complete, the naval task force is on station and our full complement of planes is on site, ready to go.”
“Then why do we need twenty-four hours?” the president demanded.
The general’s silver eyebrows rose a centimeter. “Logistics, ma’am. Getting ammunition and fuel to the front-line units, setting our communications codes. Strictly routine, but very important if we want the attack to come off without a hitch.”
The president was not pleased. “Every hour we delay means more pressure from the U.N.”
“And from the Europeans,” said one of the civilians. Apara recognized him as the secretary of defense.
“The French are complaining again?”
“They’ve never stopped complaining, madam president. Now they’ve got the Russians joining the chores. They’ve asked for an emergency meeting of NATO.”
“Not the general assembly?”
The secretary of defense almost smiled. “No, ma’am. Even the French realize that the U.N. can’t stop us.”
A murmur of suppressed laughter rippled along the table. Apara felt anger. These people used the United Nations when it suited them, and ignored the U.N. otherwise.
The secretary of state, sitting at her right hand, was a thickset older man with a heavy thatch of gray hair that flopped stubbornly over his forehead. He held up a blunt-fingered hand and the table fell silent.
“I must repeat, madam president,” he said in a grave, dolorous voice, “that we have not yet exhausted all our diplomatic and economic options. Military force should be our last choice, after all other possibilities have been foreclosed, not our first choice.”