His eyes came back reluctantly to the waxen face of a child. He remembered the sleeping faces of his own children, now grown. So often after arriving home late from Party work, he had stolen a look into their bedroom at night to see their peaceful faces, always lingering to be sure that they were breathing normally, listening for the sniffles of a cold or the murmurs of a dream. How often had he told himself that he and the Party worked for their future? No more colds, little one, he said with his eyes to the nearest child. No more dreams. See what the Party has done for your future. His own eyes filled with tears-and he hated himself for it. His Comrades would think it part of the performance. He wanted to look around, to see what his Comrades of the Politburo thought of their handiwork. He wondered what the KGB team that had done the deed thought of their mission now. If they were still alive, he reflected. So easy to put them on an airplane and crash it into the ground so that not even executioners would know of them. All records of the bomb plot were already destroyed, he was sure, and of the thirty men who knew of it, more than half were right there, standing in line with him. Sergetov almost wished he had entered the building five minutes sooner. Better to be dead than to be a beneficiary of such infamy-but he knew better. In that case he would have played an even larger role in this brutal farce.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

"Comrades. We see before us the innocent children of our nation," the Chairman began, speaking with slow, quiet diction that made Toland's translation job easier. CINCLANT's intelligence chief was at his side. "Killed by the infernal engine of State terrorism. Killed by a nation that has twice defiled our Motherland with unholy dreams of conquest and murder. We see before us the dedicated, humble servants of our Party who asked nothing more than to serve the State. We see martyrs to the security of the Soviet Union. We see martyrs to the aggression of fascists.

"Comrades, to the families of these innocent children, and to the families of these three fine men, I say that a reckoning will come. I say that their deaths will not be forgotten. I say that there will be justice for this vicious crime..."

"Jesus." Toland stopped translating and looked over at his senior.

"Yeah. There's going to be a war. We have a linguistic team across the street doing a full translation, Bob. Let's go see the boss."

"You're sure?" CINCLANT asked.

"It's possible they will settle for something less, sir," Toland replied. "But I don't think so. Everything about this exercise has been run in such a way as to inflame the Russian population to a degree I've never seen before."

"Let's put this all the way on the table. You're saying that they deliberately murdered these people to foment a crisis." CINCLANT looked down at his desk. "It's hard to believe, even for them."

"Admiral, either we believe that or we believe that the West German government has decided to precipitate a war against the Soviet Union on their own hook. In the second case the Germans would have to be totally out of their fucking minds, sir," Toland blurted, forgetting that only admirals swear in front of admirals.

"But why?"

We don't know the why. That's a problem with intelligence, sir. It's a lot easier to tell the what than the why."

CINCLANT stood and walked to the comer of his office. There was going to be a war, and he didn't know why. He wanted the why. The why might be important.

"We're starting to call up reserves. Toland, you have done one hell of a good job over the past two months. I'm going to request that you get bumped up a grade to full commander. You're outside the normal zone, but I think I just might be able to handle it. There's an open intel billet with Com Second Fleet staff. He's put in a request for you if things go sour, and it looks like they are. You would be number three on his threat team, and you'd be out on a carrier. I want you out there."

"It sure would be nice to have a day or two with the family, sir."

The Admiral nodded. "We owe you that much. NIMITZ is in transit anyway. You can meet her off the Spanish coast. Report back here Wednesday morning with your bags packed." CINCLANT came over to shake his hand. "Well done, Commander."