“Unavoidable,” Pacino finished for him. “But I’m going to see if I can buy some time with President Warner.
We should get to setting up the videolink now.”
Kane hoisted a phone to his ear. Within seconds the deck inclined upward as the ship came shallow, preparing for periscope depth. Minutes later the ship rocked gently in the swells near the surface, the radio antennae raised so that they could transmit to the Comstar satellite.
Kane spoke into a phone again, probably to radio, Pacino thought, to set up the videolink. The central screen went blank, then deep blue with a countdown of time on it, the numerals slowly rolling down from two minutes. Pacino laid out his chart pad and Writepad on the surface of the table, waiting for the videolink, preparing his argument to Warner.
When the numbers rolled down to zero the seal of the president of the United States flashed briefly on the screen, followed by the appearance of three people at a table, blue curtains behind them. Pacino recognized the situation room of the White House basement and realized that things must be even worse than he thought.
The situation room in the basement was almost never used by Warner. In the center of the screen was Warner herself. She looked rested and calm, her eyes wide and blue, hair neatly coiffed, makeup light. She wore a cream-colored suit, a simple string of pearls, her hands on the surface of the table. On her right was Adm. Tony Wadsworth in his service dress blues, gold stripes up to his elbows, rows of ribbons under a gleaming surface-warfare pin, a deep frown etched in his face, his eyes black and angry. To Warner’s left was Richard Donchez in a blue pinstriped suit looking as if he’d lost another ten pounds since Pacino had last seen him. Donchez looked emaciated, weak, like he didn’t have much time left. Pacino vowed he’d see him first thing when this was all over.
“Can you hear us, gentlemen?” Warner asked. There was a slight disconnection between the image and the voice, as if the videolink were some old foreign film that had been dubbed. Just one of the problems with the massive amount of data that had to be transmitted for a videolink. It would probably be another five years or even a decade before videolink technology was good enough to replace voice-only telephones.
“Good morning. Madam President,” Pacino said crisply. “You’re coming through fine. Can you hear me?”
There was a delay as his transmission made its way to the other end — another damning trait of videolink hardware that would need to be upgraded. The onesecond delay made it impossible to speak in real time— if someone tried to interrupt, it wouldn’t be heard until another sentence down the road.
“I hear you fine. Admiral Pacino. You know Admiral Wadsworth and Mr. Donchez. Who do you have with you?”
She probably didn’t give a damn who was with him, he thought as he hurried through an introduction of Kane and White.
“Well, let’s just get to it, shall we? Are your forces in the exclusion zone yet. Admiral?”
Pacino described his status and his intentions, watched Warner’s face, her brow crinkling in annoyance as he tried to persuade her to give him three more days. Wadsworth’s face was a thundercloud. Donchez’s expression was unreadable. He spent half the time scribbling on a Writepad in front of him.
“Admiral, I don’t have three days, I don’t have three hours. I need some Japanese submarines sunk in the next two days. If you’re not done with that in forty-eight hours I’m going to withdraw the blockade and meet with Kurita. You have forty-eight hours to put those submarines on the bottom. I want a report at seven a.m. my time on the twenty-sixth and I want good news.”
Donchez’s face seemed to carry a warning. Pacino could hear his Writepad’s electronic alarm beep once, announcing the receipt of an urgent electronic mail.
“Madam President, could I mute this for just a few seconds?” Pacino asked.
“Certainly, Admiral. We’ll wait.”
Pacino nodded at Kane, who pressed a function key on his seat arm, and the screen displayed the words outgoing AUDIO/VIDEO MUTED.
“We’re in deep shit,” White began. Pacino held his palm up to Paully without looking at him, his concentration on his Writepad. He flashed his fingers through the software buttons until he got to the E-mail function, the flash transmission blinking on the menu. He selected it, the E-mail sent from Donchez just a few seconds old.
