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thought totally impossible. A second later the air danced in front of their eyes, the sand jumped as if it was water boiling in a pot on the stove, and the temperature went ballistic so that it was almost impossible to breathe.
    Hanson shoved Amatozio facedown into the sand beside Hauglar and Harvey, and the four of them huddled together like helpless animals caught in a raging storm.

5
    0300 EDT
THE WHITE HOUSE
    President of the United States Gerald Hanson awoke from a sound sleep, light coming from the open door to the sitting room. His valet, William Attwood, stood there in his plaid robe and slippers.
    â€œI’m sorry to wake you, Mr. President,” he said softly so as not to awaken the president’s wife.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œMr. Stein is here on urgent business, sir.”
    â€œVery well.” The president got out of bed; his wife turned over in her sleep. Attwood helped him with his robe and went to get coffee as Hanson walked out to see what problem his chief of staff had brought him. He glanced at the clock. It was a couple of minutes after three.
    Hanson was the biggest man to occupy the Oval Office since Clinton. But he wasn’t more than average size compared to Brad Stein, who had been a first-string linebacker at Notre Dame all four years. Stein was dressed casually in jeans, a short-sleeve Izod, and boat shoes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week.
    â€œWe have a problem, Mr. President.”
    â€œTell me.”
    â€œIt’s Pakistan, sir. About an hour ago they conducted an above-the-ground test of a nuclear weapon at their Kharan Range.”
    The president was instantly angry. He could feel his face flushing, his blood pressure rising. “Goddammit. We warned them about the consequences of such a test. What the hell do they think is going to happen now? I got General Musharraf’s personal word that there would be no further testing.”
    â€œMr. President, it’s worse than that.”
    â€œWhat could be worse than Pakistan testing another atomic bomb? This time above ground. India will have to do something. I wonder if we can stop them.”
    â€œIt wasn’t an atomic bomb,” Stein said.
    The president eyed him suspiciously. “What was it then, Brad?”
    â€œAccording to the CIA, AFTAC classified it as a thermonuclear device. A hydrogen bomb. In the three-megaton range.” AFTAC, the Air Force Technical Applications Center at Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, monitored the entire world for indications of nuclear weapons blasts.
    President Hanson’s knees felt weak for a moment, and his heart fluttered, bile rising in the back of his throat. “God in heaven,” he said softly. For a second he didn’t know what else to say. But then he focused on his chief of staff. “Who did you get that from?”
    â€œDr. Tyson called me with the heads-up late last night. But she asked that you not be disturbed until they had something solid.” Dr. Carolyn Tyson was director of the CIA.
    Now that the second Gulf War was over, China was rattling her sabers again, as were Iran and the PLO. Russia was falling ever more deeply into chaos each day. Sooner or later there would be a revolution and the U.S. would have to stand by to help pick up the pieces and sort out the mess. There were still too many nuclear weapons lying around for us not to interfere. Plus the threat of terrorism was very imminent.
    With nuclear parity the India-Pakistan question had been in some sort of a very tense stasis. Although the situation out there was critical, it had not been an impossible one to deal with politically since Afghanistan and Iraq.
    Until now.
    The blinding of our satellites, especially the Jupiter , had been done for only one reason. To keep us in the dark until Pakistan conducted their test.
    Not only had crucial and expensive American hardware been damaged, a civilian oceanographic research vessel had been lost with all