Piranha: Firing Point

You’ve got two hours to recall the crews and load up with food. Forget the fresh stuff, canned goods only.

Start the reactors now. Divorce them from shore power and get them to sea. Yeah, we’ll tell them when they clear restricted waters. Yes, you can guess all day if you want, but the skippers will hear it direct from Admiral Pacino. Got that? See you.” “Atlantic Force?” Pacino asked.

“We can mobilize them, but that would leave the Atlantic uncovered, and it will take three weeks for them to get to China. Look, Admiral, this is a blitz. The Reds will be on the East China Sea in a week, maybe less.

Then it’ll be over. Warner’s gonna have to strike goddamned fast.”

“China’s a damned big place, Paully. No way they can do this in a week. Even if they were up against minimal resistance, it would take a month to get to the coastline and consolidate. White resistance could blow the Reds back to Beijing. Plus, they weren’t able to kill Wong Chen. The general, fortunately, was hanging out with his mistress outside town. And Warner’s got the Rapid Deployment Force loaded up into the Navforcepacfleet ships.”

“True. The RDF and the Navforcepacfleet is casting off now.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Read the message yourself, sir. The ships are putting to sea, assembling off Shikoku, Japan. The escort in begins in about six hours. They’re on their way.”

“Sounds like Warner learned her lesson,” Pacino said, remembering her vacillation before the Japanese blockade.

“So what do you want with the Atlantic Force?” White asked.

“Defcon one, load up, set sail. Norfolk squadron goes under the polar icecap. Kings Bay squadron through the canal. First ship to the East China Sea wins dinner on me. And we’ll see who’s right about how long this thing takes.”

“Admiral, Captain White?” aide Kathy” Cressman called from the front. Pacino’s assistant from his Norfolk days, she was now working for his number two man, Admiral Kane. “Warner’s on SNN, making a statement.

I’ll patch it to your screen.”

jackson hole, wyoming teton village presidential compound The peaks of the Tetons, the “American Alps” that appeared on all the postcards and prints and oil paintings, were ten miles to the north.

Teton Village was located near the border of Teton National Park, a ski town not unlike Vail or Aspen, with a double mountain marked by bare swaths cut through the fir trees for ski slopes. The supports of the chair-lift cables and tram climbed up the mountain like rungs of a ladder. Skiers crowded the slopes, hundreds of colorful dots on the white field in the bright November sunshine.

At the base of the slopes was what once had been a sleepy, quaint town, but three years before, it had been overrun by photographers, newsmen, transmission vans, black limousines, helicopters. Secret Service agents, and tourists who had never strapped on skis and never planned to.

Jaisal Warner’s presidential complex, on the south side of the village, was more of a large, rambling log lodge.

On the upper story, under a gently sloping, peaked roof a wall of windows looked down on the village to the north; another wall of glass on the other side peered up the mountain. Between the two glass walls were several sitting areas and a dining area, marked by stone fireplaces.

On the lower two levels were guest rooms and spas, an enclosed swimming pool, a pub with several pool tables. The Secret Service took up the rooms of the lower level, the press corps and visiting cabinet members the second floor, leaving the president to her master bedroom suite on a level above the peaked roofline, a son of cabin-above-the-cabin that had a view of most of the valley.

She stepped out of the front entrance of the lodge and walked down the steps hewn from twenty-foot-long logs.

She wore ski pants, a sweater, and her fur warmup boots, her hands ungloved. In her hair she had put her Raybans. Her hair, though golden, had become streaked with gray over the last two years, but the gray was a silvery tone that blended well with the blond. Her skin remained unwrinkled despite her skiing tan, her startlingly blue eyes shining out over her high cheekbones, royal nose, and strong chin. She was tall, her figure slim as a thirty-year old’s, though the birthday cake from number thirty had crumbled to dust almost two decades ago. She held the distinction of being the first female American president, having won a surprise landslide that brought her to power from the governorship of California.