Dragon (Dirk Pitt 10)

"Hello."

"Roger?"

"Yes, speaking."

"God, you sound terrible. I didn't recognize your voice."

"The flu has really knocked me out."

"Sorry to bug you, but we just received a strike."

"California?"

"No, the epicenter is somewhere around the Wyoming-Montana border."

There was a brief silence. "Odd, that area is hardly classed as an active quake zone."

"This one is artificial."

"Explosion?"

"A big one. From what I can tell on the intensity scale, this one reads like it's nuclear."

"God," Stevenson muttered weakly, "are you sure?"

"Who can be sure about these things," said Morse.

"The Pentagon never held tests in that part of the country."

"They haven't alerted us to any underground testing either."

"Not like them to conduct testing without alerting us."

"What do you think? Should we check it out with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission?"

Stevenson may have been laid low with the flu, but his mind was perfectly healthy. "Leapfrog the system and go to the top. Call Hank Sauer, our mutual friend at the National Security Agency, and find out what in hell is going on."

"And if Sauer won't tell?" asked Morse.

"Who cares? The main thing is we've dumped the mystery in his lap, and now we can go on watching for the next big one due in California."

Sauer didn't tell what he didn't know. But he recognized a national emergency when he heard one. He asked Morse for additional data and immediately passed on the information to the Director of Central Intelligence.

The President was aboard Air Force One flying to a political fund-raising dinner in San Francisco when he received the call from Jordan.

"What's the situation?"

"We have reports of a nuclear explosion in Wyoming," answered Jordan.

"Damn!" the President cursed under his breath. "Ours or theirs?"

"Certainly not ours. It has to be one of the bomb cars."

"Any word of casualties?"

"Negligible. The blast took place in a lightly populated part of the state, mostly ranch land."

The President was fearful of posing the next question. "Are there indications of additional explosions?"