“Inshallah,” Hakim said softly. “As God wills.”
Shapur looked at him with hawk’s eyes, then turned back to the viewing slit in the bunker wall without another word. Hakim himself was surprised at his response to the general’s observation. Moslem by birth and upbringing, he nonetheless had always resisted the insidious Islamic lure of allowing Allah to take the blame for everything, good or ill. Surely, a man bore some responsibility for the deeds of his own hands.
“Twenty seconds,” a technician behind him in the bunker said.
“Sir,” the aide said. “Your goggles.”
“Of course.” He lowered the binoculars, then slid the dark-lensed goggles he wore under his high-peaked army cap down over his eyes. Around him in the bunker, aides, officers, and politicians likewise settled their goggles into place, shielding their eyes.
“Five,” a young Pakistani technician intoned from his console farther back in the bunker. “Four . . . three . . . two . . , one . . . detonate!”
Daylight returned to the empty desert, first as a pinprick of unutterably brilliant blue-white radiance, then as an expanding ring of white flame burning through the protective layers of the goggles. The desert lit up with stroboscopic clarity, with each pebble, each chunk of gravel and depression in the lifeless ground throwing ink-black shadows across the sand.
Hakim was surprised at the complete absence of sound, even though he’d known what to expect. Every man within the bunker seemed to be holding his breath. The silence stretched on and on and on as that first blindingly intense light faded, replaced by the angry yellow-orange glare from the rising
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fireball. The shock wave became visible, a blurring against the growing pillar of light. Ground wave and sound reached the bunker at the same moment, almost a full minute after the first searing flash. Suddenly, Hakim was leaning into a windstorm, sand and grit burning the unprotected skin of his face. The thunder of the detonation was muted by the roar of the wind.
Pandemonium broke loose within the claustrophobic confines of the bunker. At his elbow, Shapur was dancing and clapping his hands, a look of triumph on his face, but Hakim could hear nothing but the shout of God Himself, rolling on and on and on …
And this, Hakim thought, this was only a five-kiloton tactical device, with an explosive force of a quarter of the weapon exploded by the Americans over Hiroshima!
The blinding light faded, and Hakim removed his goggles. In the desert, a roiling cloud of sand and debris boiled skyward, spreading near the top into the familiar, flattened mushroom shape, its upper reaches high enough now that it caught the rays of the sun from beyond the horizon and reflected diem, blood-red and ominous.
Surely it was a sign from God, a holy sign … but was it blessing or curse for his country, his people? Hakim could not be sure.
He watched the cloud continue to craw! toward heaven in blood-lit splendor.
1044 hours EST (2114 hours India time), 23 March
National Security Council Conference Room, Washington, D.C.
The room was wood-paneled and richly furnished, dominated by a large conference table and an array of executive-style leather chairs. One wall could open at the touch of a button to reveal display screens or maps. That wall was closed now, however, flanked by the flag of the United States and the Presidential Seal. The room, one of many, was located some dozens of feet beneath the Executive Building within the network of underground corridors that connected with the White House basement.
The men waiting around the table stood as Phillip Buchalter entered the room. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said in a
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brisk voice. “Thank you for coining on such short notice. We seem to have a situation here.”
As National Security Advisor, Buchalter was responsible for die day-to-day operation of the National Security Council.
In 1989, President Bush had organized the NSC into three subgroups. Senior of these was the Principals Committee. It was currently chaired by Buchalter, and its members included Ronald Hemminger, the Secretary^ of Defense; James A. Schellenberg, the Secretary of State; General Amos C. Cald-well, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Victor Marlowe, Director of Central Intelligence and head of the NSA and the rest of the U.S. intelligence network; and George Hall, White House Chief of Staff.