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  'Dammit,' he said, 'I wish we could shut down the markets. And the Net too. We can keep a handle on the newspeople here. Make them act responsibly. But it's useless if someone can just turn on a PC, go to that damn Web site, and read it all for themselves. Plus all the other rubbish out there.'

  Dave Barnside, hidden away in a corner at the back of the cabin, said, 'We've looked at it, Mr President, and it's just not possible. There's no practical way of pulling the wire on that thing. It's designed to be impregnable.'

  'So are the markets,' Fogerty added softly. 'Who knows? Maybe she'll take them both down for us.'

  'I don't think so, not the Net anyway, that's where these people live,' Clarke said, watching the lights on the ground move slowly beneath them. At night, the land was so anonymous. The Children could be anywhere. Even far beneath the helicopter, listening to the distant swirling of its rotor blades, running the show through some control installation hidden in the woods, all down some humble little piece of copper and maybe a dial-up connection with AT&T. 'From now on we run this from the Pentagon bunker. I want the White House cut down to essential staff. Move my family out, Graeme, take them somewhere secure. Until this thing is through, we stay in the Pentagon. I want no unnecessary air travel, no one out of the bunker unless they need to go.'

  'Sir.'

  'Don?' Millington, a brigadier general from the Army seconded to the National Security Council, nodded. 'Make damn sure they don't touch that last dome. Make that your top priority.'

  'Absolutely, Mr President,' Millington replied, the braid on his uniform glittering in the darkness. 'We got clearance from the Spanish to join the air cover and they've agreed to a temporary exclusion zone now. No one gets in or out of there without our knowledge.'

  Clarke looked at Barnside. 'Can they do what they did in Kyoto?'

  The Agency man shook his head. 'We believe that's impossible, Mr President. We have the Spanish site wrapped up. In Kyoto they put some kind of infrared locator on the dome to get there. That sort of weapon's no use in mountains of the kind we're talking about here, even if they could get close enough, and they can't. Also, there's definitely no locator on the Spanish dome. We've fine-combed every last inch of it, and the surroundings.'

  'Where the hell,' the President asked angrily, 'did they get that VX shit from anyway?'

  Jenkins sighed. 'If you know chemistry, can get a line inside a fair-sized chemicals company, and have enough money to set up a small lab, it's not that difficult, sir. We've had people making Sarin in one room and LSD in the other. You can pick up the recipes like that off the Net.'

  'Jesus…'

  'I advise,' said Millington, 'that we put our air bases on alert for when we do track down these people. If we get a location at home, we can take them out very rapidly, shut this whole thing down.'

  'Yeah?'

  The cabin went quiet. They were descending. And there was something new inside Clarke's voice that gave them all pause for thought, something close to bitterness.

  'You guys,' the President went on, 'you kill me sometimes. That really is all you want. A neat little name and address. And then off you go, sending in your people and your airplanes, bombs a-bombing, guns blazing — I got the details of that stuff in San Francisco, by the way, Barnside. Real clever. Are you thinking out of your dicks or something? You know something? I'm the dumb-assed moron you people used to send on these jobs. And I never asked why. Not once. I was as plain stupid as those suckers you got out in the field right now.'

  Clarke could feel the heat in his face and he didn't mind who saw it. If they thought this outburst was unworthy of the President, he didn't care. This wasn't a time for niceties.

  'It's a question of maximum response, Mr President,' Barnside replied. 'How else do you deal with these people?'

  'Bullshit. You guys haven't got your head around what's going on here yet. None of you. Forget 'dealing with these people' for a moment and get back to the matter at hand. And that, unless I'm mistaken, is getting us all through the next few days as much in one piece as possible.'

  'Sir,' Millington said, 'if we cauterize the source —'

  'Aw, Jesus. Cauterize? Don't give me that crap. I know what you guys want. A carte blanche so you can walk out of here and do what the hell you like. Well, you aren't getting it. Understand? Sure, maybe the world is that simple. All you do is find these people, bomb the hell out of them, take out their dome, and we all go back to the way we were. But let me ask you this: What happens if we do that, then find out they have got some way of taking out the Spanish dome? What happens if we do that and discover they've locked that goddamn thing in the sky in some way that all your computer geniuses combined can't pry it open? What if they just turn out to be a lot smarter than we thought? Consider that. They know we can blow them to pieces if we track them down. Do you think they care? Of course not. If they did, they wouldn't be in this position in the first place.'

  The cabin was silent. Dan Fogerty looked out the window and saw the illuminated shape of the White House far off in the distance.

  'They've already thought this through,' Clarke said softly. 'Taking them out won't make any difference to what's going to happen. May be just what they want, for all we know.'

  'So, Mr President,' Fogerty asked, smiling as he broke the silence, 'what do you want us to do?'

  "Think a little. Find these people. Take them alive. Hand the keys to their installation back to Sundog, just in case they need them. And save your testosterone for your girlfriends. That too much to ask?'

  Fogerty could see the dry grass of the White House lawn swirling under the downdraught of the helicopter blades, the line of cars waiting to greet them, rush them back to their various scattered offices throughout the area.

  'Sir,' he said, and listened to the low murmur of confused approbation that followed.

  CHAPTER 26

  Probability

  Las Vegas, 0738 UTC

  Geri Southern stood behind the counter of the blackjack table in the Bird of Paradise Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. She watched the distant Mirage volcano spit fire for what seemed the ninety-ninth time that night and wondered whether the short-cut croupier's uniform and the nasty fishnet tights just might leave permanent crease marks on her body. The tall, thin tourist on the other side of the table gave her a half-hearted grin. She stared back, with as artificial a smile as she could muster, and said, 'You want to play? Or you just here to look?'

  This graveyard shift was not one she liked. All the drunks. All the losers, eking out their last remaining dollars. And then there was this emergency thing that got big-time on the news. It was all so complicated. The President dead and some black guy there in his place. Phone systems, television networks closing down. Like it was the end of the world. No one could decide whether this would be good for Vegas or bad. The airport was closing in a couple of hours, but most people seemed happy to book in a few more nights in the hotel, party some more, see how it all panned out. This was Vegas. Why worry?

  'Thinking about it,' the man said, big mouth opening wide to show his teeth. He looked about thirty-five but something told her this was deceptive. Probably a good ten years younger, she thought, but he wasted it with a geek crewcut, a cheap khaki shirt, a thin, ugly face, and bad dentistry.

  'You hot in here?' she asked.

  He was sweating heavily. 'Yeah. Lousy air-conditioning.'

  'Normally it's pretty good. It's just we got a real spell of desert weather right now, I guess.'

  He was sucking on a free gin and tonic and there was a decent bulge in his money belt. Must have been playing somewhere, she thought. This wasn't a night to lose anybody. She smiled again, a little more genuine this time. 'If you play we can talk some.'

  'Yeah. I know.'

  He looked disturbed, nervous. 'I could teach you things,' he said.

  'Really?' Had that been a yawn? She wasn't sure. She didn't care.

  'Useful things in your kind of work. For example, what do you thin
k the odds are of you dealing out the fifty-two cards in that deck as a perfect hand to four different people here — ace to king in all the suits?'

  'This is blackjack, sir. You get two cards only. We try to keep things simple.'

  'I know that,' he said, a mite testily. 'But just guess.'

  'Oh.' She tossed her blonde hair back so he looked at it a little harder. 'I don't know… maybe, say, two times ten to the power of twenty-seven to one. Something like that.'

  He grinned, twitched a little, puzzled. 'Pretty good. They teach you that stuff?'

  She stared at the next table. A red-faced couple in matching satin shirts were starting to play heavily, sucking on long drinks, swaying on the plush seating. It must be something in her face, she thought. It just attracted the failures. 'Vegas is kind of an educational sort of place. You'd be amazed what you pick up. So you want to play?'

  'Five cards from a fresh shuffled deck. What are the odds on getting sweet nothing there, you think? As a percentage this time.'

  'I'm not getting paid for this, sir.'

  He put a twenty on the table. 'Make like you won it off me. It doesn't matter.'

  She thought about it. Took her hand off the little security button under the table. Then pulled the twenty over to her pile. 'A little over fifty per cent, so one in two hands is a bummer.'

  'Hey! You got a feel for these things.' There was another bill in his hand. She smiled. Maybe this would be a good evening. 'Okay. That was easy. Now it gets tougher. A single pair.'

  'From what? Five cards? Somewhere over forty per cent.'

  'Good.' He nodded. 'Forty-two-point-two-six or so, if you want to be strict, but that's close enough.' The bill sailed over the table. 'Now for something harder.'

  'Sure,' she said, wearying of this a mite. 'But if it's tough, does the money stay the same? It doesn't seem quite fair.'

  A couple of people had stopped by the table now, sensing something odd was happening. As long as she logged this as winnings no one would mind. They had this on the camera anyway. Linda, the hatchet-faced security woman with the physique of a squat wrestler, had joined the crowd. Linda nodded tentatively, as if to say: A little further, see what happens.

  The man took out a bunch of bills. She couldn't see how many. 'A straight. Five cards in a run, suit doesn't matter. Again, fresh pack. Same rules.'

  'About a third.'

  'Excuse me? I didn't quite make that out.'

  'About a third of one per cent, three times in a thousand,' she said, more loudly this time.

  'Good.' He threw the bunch of money across the table. 'You all hear that? We've gone from almost every other deal to three times in a thousand in a couple of quick steps, and you people are still not getting it.'

  Linda the security woman stared directly at her, and Geri Southern knew what this meant: So he's some anti-gambling weirdo here to make a point. What the hell? He's throwing money at us.

  'Okay,' he said, and opened up the money belt, poured a pile of bills on the table, let them lie there for a moment so the crowd could take it in. Geri Southern tried not to gasp. Just a glance told her the denominations. There was probably a good twenty thousand dollars looking at her right then.

  'Now we go for the big one. And when I ask, I want you to think about this. Not just the answer, but what it means. A royal flush. How about that? Just a plain royal flush.'

  'A hundredth of a percentage point,' she said.

  'Aw Jesus!' he yelled, and she wasn't sure if he might not burst into tears. 'Is that the best you can do? You didn't even try to think.'

  'I got it wrong?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Do I get another try?'

  'Nope,' he said, scooping up the money. 'What kind of a dumb fucking question is that?' His voice went high and squeaky.' "Do I get another try?" Jesus, you people are unbelievable. How many tries do you think we get on this planet? You think we should've given Hitler another try?'

  Linda the security woman was on the radio now. Pretty soon the weirdo would be back out on the Strip. And, Geri thought bitterly, what was left of his money would be with him. He scooped up the bills and walked quickly around to her side. 'Let me tell you…' He peered at her name tag. 'Ge-RI!'

  'Sir…'

  'Let me tell you the odds on a royal flush. One five thousandth of a percent! One turn-up every half a million deals. And you know what's really rich? You people know, in your guts, that's the truth. It's all so distant you don't even care. But sometimes these things do come up, oh yes. There's one coming up right now and you morons do nothing except sit back and play the goddamn slots.'

  Geri looked beyond the crowd. A couple of security men were on the way. Not rushing. The guy didn't look dangerous, and it was good policy not to scare off the ordinary Joes. Besides, in a way it was amusing.

  Then the man scooped up some of the money, thrust it down the front of her costume, looked at the big-denomination bills sticking out of her pretty cleavage, and said, 'You listen to me, Geri! You take that money and you get yourself in a car and you go drive out of here as fast and as far as you can. Because the biggest royal flush you're ever going to see in your life's on its way here and it's going to scorch and burn you all. All! You hear me?'

  They were laughing, she saw. All of them. Even the security guys ambling over, thinking this was one good tale for the bar after work. The man stared at them, not believing it. 'You all run from here. You just go. All that stuff you saw on TV, that isn't even the half of it. I can't tell you more than once. I can't.'

  He stared at the pile of dollars on the table, then threw it into the crowd.

  'Holy shit,' Geri Southern said, as the area around her erupted. In a matter of seconds it was bedlam, people kicking and screaming, yelling obscenities, fighting for the bills. A fist flew out from somewhere, caught a big blowsy tourist on the jaw. Linda the security woman had someone in a neck hold. People were rolling, scrabbling on the carpet for the money.

  The man just looked at her, then shoved some more bills into her hand. 'You think I'm crazy. But I'm not. Believe me. You got to go. There's a hard rain gonna fall around here, fall everywhere. Someone just rolled the dice up there in the sky, Geri, and what they got at the end of it is real bad news.'

  'Mister…' she started to say, then fell silent. He didn't look crazy at all. He was crying, the tears rolling down in two continuous streams that stood like melting icicles on his pale, pockmarked cheeks. He put a finger to her lips. 'Just go,' he said, half-sobbing.

  Two black-sleeved arms came from nowhere, jerked him backward, locked him in a hold. She could hear the sound of handcuffs getting slapped on. From somewhere there was the noise of the internal alarm. Cops, she guessed. Quite what you could charge the guy with was beyond her.

  Linda the security woman came over, breathing hard. Geri Southern stared at her. She had a bad nosebleed and what looked like a formative black eye. 'Fucking weirdos. We're going to have to tag all this money, check it with the cops, honey. God knows where the jerk might have got it from.'

  'He said to treat it like it was won at the table,' she said, half-hoping.

  'I heard that. I know. Once the cops say it's okay, then it's clean. You get your cut.'

  Geri felt her throat go a little dry, pulled the bills out from between her breasts, and said, 'He gave this to me. This wasn't won.'

  Linda the security woman stared hard at her, the line of blood running down from her nose, over her beefy lips, into her open mouth. 'I'm going to pretend I didn't really hear that. You know where the money that goes across this table belongs. You don't really want to try and argue that one with the management, now, do you?'

  Her head was swimming. He wasn't crazy. Not normal crazy, anyway.

  'Take a break, Geri. Straighten up.'

  'Yeah,' she said, and walked off to the staff quarters. It had the makings of a long night.

  An hour later the man sat in the interview room in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's Southeast Ar
ea Command and stared at his hands. Mike Carney, the duty lieutenant, glowered at Sergeant Phyllis Simpson and said, 'You pulled me out of a budget meeting for this?'

  Simpson swallowed hard and answered, 'Sir, we had those standing orders come through that said to look out for people making noises about this kind of thing.'

  'Bad moon rising,' the man said. 'The world's coming to an end. You got a cigarette?'

  'Sure. What's your name?' Carney asked, throwing a Marlboro across the table. 'Where did you get all this money?'

  'My business.'

  'Fine. You're free to go. Please don't cause any more disturbances in casinos. Some of these guys get upset by that kind of behaviour and deal with it directly themselves. Which can be a touch less caring than the service you get from us.'

  The man puffed hard on the cigarette, not a normal smoker, Carney thought, he looked so uncomfortable with it. 'What?'

  'You can go. Okay? We've no reason to hold you, and you've no reason to occupy our time.'

  'Bullshit!'

  Simpson tidied the money back into a big plastic evidence bag and pushed it over the table to him. 'This money is clean as far as we can tell. My advice would be to get it into a hotel safe-deposit box as soon as possible. Vegas is a nice, safe city in the main, but it's not a great idea to tempt people.'

  He shook his head. 'Stupid, stupid bastards. Don't you understand me? Something's on the way here. Something awful.'

  'Like what?' Carney asked.

  'Take a look at the sky. Ask your people in Washington.'

  'Right. It's this sun thing, huh? We had some more of you people earlier in the week. They said it was God and the end of the world. That right? Do we get Elvis too?'

  'Not God,' the man said quietly. 'Not your kind of God anyway.'