Solstice

'You deaf or something?'

'Sir, this is a crisis we have to deal with, one way or another.

I don't even want to think about failure, about some kind of retribution.'

'That's agreed. But if this does fall apart someone is going to have to draw a line in the sand. We're going to need new beginnings. And, in case you hadn't noticed, I am driving on this one. Not the military. Not the intelligence community. I chose to take control here because, in my judgement, that was the right thing to do. If that judgement proves wrong, I go. No one needs to push me.'

'Sir,' she said firmly, 'do you think it was the wrong judgement? Do you have doubts?'

'No. Not for a minute since this began. But that doesn't mean I'm right.'

'These are extraordinary circumstances, Mr President. They merit extraordinary solutions.'

'Yeah,' he replied, and shrugged. 'You're right. Forget what I said. Sometimes I just need to talk out loud, and right now I don't have a family here to inflict that on. Back to business. And the range war.'

'Over what?'

'Who goes in there and takes control. The Agency is shipping down an HRT. They leave just before you in some fancy damn 767 they keep for the purpose. Meantime the Army is calling up a Delta Force crew from Fort Bragg. And I know those guys very well. They'd eat you and me for breakfast and chew on the bones.'

'You don't need both of them. They'd just get in each other's way.'

'Exactly. And I would have told them so if I'd found out earlier. So what do you think?'

She threw the last few clothes and a washbag into her travelling case and zipped it closed. 'Who, exactly, is HRT, sir?'

'HRT is the Hostage Rescue Team,' Clarke replied. 'They took a lot of stick after the mess at Waco. And that was their call. Fogerty says they're more than just hostage rescue. You think that's on the ball?'

'I guess so. As my colleagues are forever pointing out, though, Operations is not my field.'

Clarke nodded. 'You got a good enough grasp. We need these people, Helen. But if we get a line on this dome, my guess is you and Irwin — and Lieberman too, if he's still alive — stand more damn chance of turning it around than any number of hard-assed soldiers. You can talk.'

'I guess it depends on what you see as the threat.'

'Meaning?'

'Are these people going to be armed and dangerous? And I think the answer is: Not in a conventional terrorist sense. Look at the profile of the guy in Vegas. Look at Charley. They're smart enough to plant bombs, screw up systems, but they're not soldiers.'

'I agree.' Clarke nodded. 'If we thought we'd have to fight every inch of the way in there, then Delta would be the only option. But we won't. We need to enter the place with as little damage as possible, then contain and control it.'

'Pretty much like a hostage situation.'

Clarke nodded. 'My feelings exactly.'

'The military won't like hearing it,' she said, glancing again at her watch.

'The military can do as they're damn well told.'

'Either way, the problem is time. They know we don't have a working dome or the chance of owning one now. In theory, they might be best placed to set the satellite up to do maximum damage, destroy the dome they have, and get the hell out of there. They could disappear in Nevada, Utah, Arizona… we'd never find them.'

'Is that likely?' Clarke grimaced.

'Maybe not. I talked to Lieberman about this. Charley's no fool. She can read the signs as well as we can and she knows this cycle is so erratic she can't be sure how to hit the peak. My guess is she'll hold it to the last possible moment.'

'The longer she holds on, the more likely we are to pick up a big bunch of people like that,' Clarke said.

'Maybe. But Charley's dying anyway, so I guess she thinks she's special. The volume work they needed — setting up the systems, stealing their way into Sundog — that's done. A couple of people could run that thing through the peak. Whatever the truth, the clock's fixed. We will probably wind up going in during darkness, sir.'

'Well, that has made up my mind,' Clarke said. 'HRT it is. You put soldiers in the dark and pretty soon everybody starts winding up dead. That's what we teach them to do.'

'Sir?'

Helen Wagner, to Clarke's amazement, was actually tapping her watch. He couldn't help smiling. 'It's okay. This isn't TWA. They don't go without you, I promise.'

'All the same…'

'One more question, Helen. We're assuming we do find their base. How much confidence do you have in this imaging idea?'

She took a deep breath and replied, 'I'm confident we can track down potential objects. And that, given time, we could track down the dome. It's all a question of time. We don't know how many ordinary, similar objects will show up. We have to eliminate them first. Larry Wolfit knows this field better than anyone. It's not our only avenue either. We have people on the ground too. That part of the world is big and empty but it's still hard to start a commune and build something like that without someone noticing.'

'I hope you're right.'

'I hope so too,' she said, thinking how Clarke had grown in stature over the last day and a half. She recalled the way Levine and Fogerty had talked when they left the White House at that first meeting. There were plenty of people who expected Clarke to fail, and they had underestimated this man, enormously. In a way, she guessed, he was doing a better job than Rollinson could. As a former military man, he knew when the bull was being ladled out, and when to cut to the quick. And though the strain was there, he rarely let it show.

'You go catch that plane.'

'Sir,' she said, and took the hint, reached over, switched off the phone. If you thought about things too hard, Belinda Churton sometimes said, you muddied the waters, made it all murkier than it really was. The thought that came into her head when she looked at Tim Clarke's tired, conscientious face was a grim one: I can't do this. I don't have the experience, the will, or the courage.

And she knew what Belinda would have said right then too: If that was the case, honey, why the hell do you think I chose you?

'Right,' she said, and picked up the bag, walked out into the hall, headed for the door. Martha was dusting some furniture. She stopped, smiled, and said, 'You going for long?'

'I don't know. Business.'

'Oh, wow, business, forget I ever asked, don't want those men in long black cars around my house, no, sir…'

The words drifted out onto the dust in the living room, unanswered. In this soulless, antiseptic room, Helen felt too aware of her solitary existence. It seemed as if the only footprints on the pale, perfect carpet were her own and Martha's.

'I'm sorry, honey. It's serious, isn't it?'

'I have to go.'

'This is about this sun thing, isn't it? Some situation. You know, if I hadn't been able to walk here and get back home in daylight I couldn't have come today. It scares me. Scares everyone, not that they'd let on. I got Frank sitting at home, putting up his feet, saying this is just some free vacation time, courtesy of the government. But it's not that now, is it? You know that. I know that. Even that dumb-ass knows that. People are frightened by all this. It's like the ground suddenly starts moving under your feet after all these years of staying solid. You go sort that nonsense out, huh?'

'I'll do my best,' she said softly, walked over and kissed Martha on the cheek. 'Take care of the house while I'm gone. And Frederick too.'

'Damn cat don't need taking care of. Thinks he owns most of Washington, that creature does.'

'I'm going, Martha.'

'Am I stopping you?'

Helen Wagner opened the door. Immediately the phone started ringing in the hall. 'Damn.'