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After twenty rings, Smith replaced the receiver, his face gray. The President
was not going to answer. Smith was forced to conclude that he could not
answer. The President was either not in the White House or no longer among the
living.
Smith ordered the CURE computer to scan all official Washington phone lines
for high activity. But even the phones were quiet. Small wonder. There was no
one down there to man them.
With one exception. A single phone in the Pentagon showed constant use. Smith
called up an identification code and instantly the computer relayed the
information that the line emanated from the office of General Martin S.
Leiber. Smith punched up the file on Leiber. It was brief. The man was a
two-star general with an undistinguished field record and a flair for
procurement. Some of his methods were unorthodox and there was some question
about cost overruns in projects under his control. Smith's fingers went to
work. In a flurry of keystrokes he instituted a tap on General Leiber's line.
Instantly the computer converted the audio feed into an on-screen display.
Someone was complaining to the general. Something about barbecue grills. They
weren't hot enough to do the job.
Barbecue grills? Smith wondered. It must be an open code. He asked the
computer to identify the source of the incoming call.
The computer told him Andrews Air Force Base. Smith remembered that he had
indications of strange activity at Andrews.
General Leiber's response to the complaining call was to ask what the hell did
the caller need.
The caller needed brick ovens. And bellows. Lots of bellows.
General Leiber promised the caller immediate delivery on several
high-temperature organic kiln-constructs and dynamic exhaust oxygenators, and
then hung up.
Smith wondered what had happened to the requested ovens and bellows.
"Code," he mutterd. "This must be a code."
He saved the phone intercept in memory and ordered the computer's decrypting
software to attack the text. After five minutes of listening to the program
hum, an error message flashed on the screen.
"EXPLAIN ERROR," Smith keyed.
"OPTIONS FOLLOW," the computer told him. "OPTION I: CODE UNDECIPHERABLE.
"OPTION 2: INSUFFICIENT TEXT TO EXECUTE PROGRAM.
"OPTION 3: TEXT IS NOT IN CODE."
"It must be," Smith muttered. "Washington has been virtually abandoned. No one
in his right mind would be procuring ovens at such a time."
Smith switched back to the tap on General Leiber's phone. It had saved the
last ten minutes of intercepts. As it played back, Smith's jaw fell. The idiot
was ordering ovens. And bellows. They were being requisitioned for immediate
shipment to Andrews.
"This makes no sense," Smith said in frustration. But because he believed that
his computers could crack any problem, he attacked the puzzle again. Somewhere
in the miles and miles of data transferring between the nation's computer
networks, there was an explanation for all this. All Smith had to do was find
it.
He wondered again what had happened to the President.
The President was very much alive. He was doing his best to be presidential.
It was very difficult. Especially when one was stuck under nearly a mile of
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rock in one's pajamas.
"I'm the leader of the free world," the President said in anguish. "I should
be up there leading."
"I'm sorry, Mr. President," the senior Secret Service agent said. "We have to
wait for the all-clear."
"What if it doesn't come?"
"Then we'd all better try to get along. Because we are stuck here until the
fallout radiation drops to survivable levels."
"That could take weeks."
"Months, actually."
"But no one has said anything about radiation. There hasn't even been an
explosion."
"Yet," the Secret Service agent pointed out.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist," the President said in a stern
voice.
"I'm sorry, Mr. President. I have my orders."
"From whom? I'm the Commander in Chief!"
"I know that, sir," the Secret Service man said politely, "but I do not take
my orders from you, but rather from my superior. "
"Since when?" the President barked.
"It's our prime directive. Your security is more important than any other
factor, including your demands and wishes. In short, the Secret Service will
do everything in its power to safeguard your life, whether you want it or not.
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