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“We have to acknowledge the possibility that we won’t see a construct in time,” Murray said. “If that happens, it will open up and deliver that initial beachhead force. We don’t know what kind of weaponry or technology we’ll be dealing with at that point. We have to have this level of response in order to take out both the construct and the enemy force.”

“This is insane,” Vanessa said.

“It was approved by President Hutchins,” Murray said.

“Hutchins isn’t the president anymore,” Vanessa said. “John Gutierrez is.”

Murray nodded. “And the orders of a former president stand until the current president gives new orders.”

Vanessa turned to face Gutierrez. “So give a new order, Mister President,” she said. “Call this whole thing off.”

Gutierrez sat back in his chair. “These conventional bombs Ogden ordered, what kind of hardware are we talking about?”

General Luis Monroe, the air force’s top man, spoke for the first time. “The GBU-31, version three, is a two-thousand-pound bomb. It’s a bunker-buster, biggest thing we’ve got short of a nuke. The blast will kill everything within a hundred and ten feet of the point of impact and will cause casualties at over a hundred yards. Total blast radius is about four thousand feet.”

“A radius of four thousand feet?” Vanessa said. “But . . . that’s a diameter of a mile and a half.”

Monroe nodded. “They’ve worked very well in Iraq and Iran. If it was daylight, the smoke cloud would be visible from twenty miles. All the surrounding towns will feel the impact, probably think it’s a minor tremor.”

“How the h.e.l.l are we going to keep that secret?” Vanessa asked.

“I have a prepared cover story,” Murray said. “This is a very rural area, remote, so it’s feasible a terrorist cell set up a bomb-building facility. We learned about it, determined it was possible they were building a dirty bomb, so we sent in the F-15Es to take it out. A dirty bomb is a radiation threat, so we can lock down a large area while we investigate. Everyone wins—intelligence got the info, executive branch reacted definitively, military took out the terrorists.”

All eyes watched Murray. The Joint Chiefs weren’t surprised; they’d seen him do things like this before. Donald Martin didn’t look surprised, either. Working his way up to secretary of defense, he’d undoubtedly seen such lies. Gutierrez, Vanessa and Tom Maskill, however, looked astonished.

“Domestic or international terrorists?” Gutierrez asked.

Murray shrugged. “Whichever you prefer, Mister President. I have an extensive background developed for a white supremacist group, if you want to go that route. Or we can go Al-Qaeda. Your call.”

Gutierrez rubbed his hands together slowly as he thought.

“Let’s do the white supremacists,” he said. “I can’t have foreigners building a bomb on U. S. soil.”

“Yes, Mister President,” Murray said. “I can make that work.”

“John,” Vanessa said, astonished. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re going to let those jets drop bombs and lie to the American people about it?”