mum possible speed.” In less than a minute, Mutsu shuddered with in-
creased engine power and started riding harder through the gentle Pacific
swells for her rendezvous with the American battle force. Timing was im-
portant.
On the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, a young trader’s clerk made a
posting error on Merck stock at exactly 11:43:02 Eastern Standard Time. It
actually went onto the system and appeared on the board at 23 ‘/6, well off
the current value. Thirty seconds later he typed it in again, inputting the
same amount. This time he got yelled at. He explained that the damned key-
board was sticky, and unplugged it, switching it for a new one. It happened
often enough. People spilled coffee and other things in this untidy place. The
correction was inputted at once, and the world returned to normal. In the
same minute something similar happened with General Motors stock, and
someone made the same excuse. It was safe. The people at her particular
kiosk didn’t interact all that much with the people who did Merck. Neither
had any idea what they were doing, just that they were being paid $50,000 to
make an error that would have no effect on the system at all. Had they not
done it-they did not know-another pair of individuals had been paid the
same amount of money to do the same thing ten minutes later.
In the Stratus mainframe computers at the Depository Trust Company-
more properly in the software that resided in them-the entries were noted,
and the Easter Egg started to hatch.
The cameras and lights were all set up in St. Vladimir Hall of the Great
Kremlin Palace, the traditional room for finalizing treaties and a place that
Jack had visited at another time and under very different circumstances. In
two separate rooms, the President of the United States and the President of
the Russian Republic were having their makeup put on, something that was
probably more irksome to the Russian, Ryan was sure. Looking good for the
cameras was not a traditional requirement for local political figures. Most of
the guests were already seated, but the senior members of both official par-
ties could be more relaxed. Final preparations were just about complete. The
crystal glasses were on their trays, and the corks on the champagne bottles
were unwrapped, awaiting only the word to be popped off.
“That reminds me. You never did send me any of that Georgian cham-
pagne,” Jack told Sergey.
‘ ‘Well, today it can be done, and I can get you a good price.
“You know, before, I would have had to turn it in because of ethics
laws.”
“Yes, I know that every American official is a potential crook,” Golovko
noted, checking around to see that everything was done properly.
“You should be a lawyer.” Jack saw the lead Secret Service agent come
through the door, and headed to his seat. “Some place, isn’t it, honey?” he
asked his wife.
“The czars knew how to live,” she whispered back as the TV lights all
came on. In America, all the networks interrupted their regular program-
ming. The timing was a little awkward, with the eleven-hour differential be-
tween Moscow and the American West Coast. Then there was Russia, which
had at least ten time zones of its own, a result of both sheer size and, in the
case of Siberia, proximity to the Arctic Circle. But this was something ev-
eryone would want to see.
The two presidents came out, to the applause of the three hundred people
present. Roger Durling and Eduard Grushavoy met at the mahogany table
and shook hands warmly as only two former enemies could I hilling, the
Conner soldier and paratrooper with Vietnam experience; (irusluivoy. also a
former soldier, a combat engineer who had been among tin- liiM to enter
Afghanistan. Trained to hate one another in their youth, now they would put
a final end to it all. On this day, they would set aside all the domestic prob-
lems that both lived with on every day of the week. For today, the world
would change by their hands.
Grushavoy, the host, gestured Durling to his chair, then moved to the mi-
crophone.
“Mister President,” he said through an interpreter whom he didn’t really
need, “it is my pleasure to welcome you to Moscow for the first time …”
Ryan didn’t listen to the speech. It was predictable in every phrase. His
eyes fixed on a black plastic box that sat on the table exactly between the
chairs of the two chiefs of state. It had two red buttons and a cable that led
down to the floor. A pair of TV monitors sat against the near wall, and in the
rear of the room, large projection TVs were available for everyone to watch.
They showed similar sites.
“Hell of a way to run a railroad,” an Army major noted, twenty miles from
Minot, North Dakota. He’d just screwed in the last wire. “Okay, circuits are
live. Wires are hot.” Only one safety switch prevented the explosives from
going, and he had his hand on it. He’d already done a personal check of
everything, and there was a full company of military police patrolling the
area because Friends of the Earth was threatening to protest the event by
putting people where the explosives were, and as desirable as it might be just
to blow the bastards up, the officer would have to disable the firing circuit if
that happened. Why the hell, he wondered, would anybody protest this? He’d
already wasted an hour trying to explain that to his Soviet counterpart.
“So like the steppes here,” the man said, shivering in the wind. They both
watched a small TV for their cue.
“It’s a shame we don’t have the politicians around here to give us some
hot air.” He took his hand off the safety switch. Why couldn’t they just get
on with it?
The Russian officer knew his American English well enough to laugh at
the remark, feeling inside his oversized parka for a surprise he had in waiting
for the American.
“Mr. President, the hospitality we have experienced in this great city is
proof positive that there should be, can be, and will be a friendship between
our two peoples-just as strong as our old feelings were, but far more pro-
ductive. Today, we put an end to war,” Durling concluded to warm ap-
plause, returning to shake Grushavoy’s hand again. Both men sat down.
Oddly, now they had to take their orders from an American TV director who
held a headset to his face and talked very quickly.
“Now,” men said in two languages, “if the audience will turn to the
TVs…”
“When I was a lieutenant in the pioneers,” the Russian President whis-
pered, “I loved blowing things up.”
Durling grinned, leaning his head in close. Some things were not for mi-
crophones. “You know the job I always wanted as a boy-do you have it
over here?”
“What is that, Roger?”
‘ ‘The guy who runs the crane with the big iron ball for knocking buildings
down. It has to be the best job in the whole world.”
“Especially if you can put your parliamentary opposition in the building
first!” It was a point of view that both shared.
“Time,” Durling saw from the director.
Both men put their thumbs on their buttons.
“On three, Ed?” Durling asked.
“Yes, Roger!”
“One,” Durling said.
“Two,” Grushavoy continued.
“Three!” both said, pressing them down.
The two buttons closed a simple electrical circuit that led to a satellite
transmitter outside. It took roughly a third of a second for the signal to go up
to the satellite and come back down, then another third for the result to re-
trace the same path, and for a long moment a lot of people thought that
something had gone wrong. But it hadn’t.
“Whoa!” the Major observed when a hundred pounds of Composition-Four
went off. The noise was impressive, even from half a mile, and there fol-
lowed the tower of flame from the ignition of the solid-fuel rocket motor.
That part of the ceremony had been tricky. They’d had to make sure that the
thing would burn from the top only. Otherwise the missile might have tried
to fly out of the silo, and that would just not have done at all. In fact the
whole exercise was unnecessarily complicated and dangerous. The cold
wind drove the toxic exhaust smoke to the east, and by the time it got to
anything important, it would just be a bad smell, which was pretty much
what you could say about the political conditions that had occasioned the
existence of the burning rocket motor, wasn’t it? There was a certain awe to
it, though. The world’s largest firework, burning backwards for about three
minutes before there was nothing left but smoke. A sergeant activated the
silo fire-suppression system, which actually worked, rather to the Major’s