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32
Drake closed his eyes,though the Situation Room screens had blanked.
Escalation.
The world wasn’t going out in one massive nuclear roman candle as so many had feared in his youth. Instead, global security was being chipped away one little piece at a time. Governmental suppression of its citizens, countered by trade tariff, countered in turn by dangerous military fly-bys, followed by this or that dictator climbing to power, then proceeding to…
Christ, where was it all going to end?
This slow erosion was the old story of the frog in the pot of heating water turned into global reality. Would they find a way to jump out before it was too late? Were they already past that point?
“Thoughts?”
Drake looked up at the President’s question, but Roy was turned to face the third occupant of the Situation Room. National Security Advisor Sarah Feldman had taken a seat out of the camera’s eye view per the President’s request.
She was a neat and striking brunette almost as slim as his wife. She was also a brilliant strategist with an encyclopedic knowledge of military capabilities both domestic and foreign.
“How reliable do you consider Miranda Chase’s assessments?”
“Platinum,” Drake answered. “I don’t think she can physically say something that she doesn’tknowis true. Not feel, butknow.”
“I was afraid of that.” Sarah rose from the seat she’d occupied along the side wall. She stepped up to the chair at the President’s right hand, then hesitated.
“It should be yours soon enough, Sarah. Sit.” Drake knew the President had planned to announce her as his nominee for Vice President during his Memorial Day address in forty-eight hours. She was a good choice to replace Clark. And it would also put her in direct line for the Presidency at the next election. He could think of many worse choices.
“Who has that kind of weaponry?”
“Not us,” Drake knew they were developing it in the labs, but space-based? Not that he’d heard of. “The problem, Mr. President, is power. My understanding is that it requires a robust nuclear reactor to generate that level of power, a surveillance-quality telescope to direct it, and the rocketry to push that big a payload into space. And that’s only the beginning. I remember Miranda’s assistant Jeremy talking about the immense amount of math to punch a focused beam through that much atmosphere is enormous. All combined, that means: India, Russia, China, the EU, and us. I don’t think Japan, Iran, or North Korea, for all of their braggadocio, are there yet.”
“I will assume, for the moment, that we have not declared war on ourselves today.”
“I would second that with the unlikelihood of the EU doing something similar.” Sarah was not to be outdone for a disaffected tone of light sarcasm.
“That leaves: India, Russia, China? Who isn’t mad at us today?”
“I’d tentatively set India aside,” Sarah spoke less confidently. “They’re very focused on their first human spaceflight program and are not looking to be distracted from that. They have the launch capability, but I’m not sure that they have the capacity to pursue, uh, extracurricular projects like large, space-based lasers.”
Drake’s head was hurting again. He knew what that meant.
First, he needed to call Clarissa and ask for the CIA’s help. She always made an annoyingly big deal about it when he needed something from her.
Second? The second call was going to be much, much worse.
