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they’re called when they’re that big. They probably have others. If India were to attack now she would get her nose bloodied. Very badly. The casualties could easily run into the hundreds of thousands. Perhaps the millions. They could even touch off a regional war that China would almost certainly have to get involved with.” She looked directly at the president. “So would we.”
    â€œWhat are our options?” a subdued Hanson asked. “Especially considering the possibility that Islamabad may not be in complete control.”
    â€œFirst we need to get our Jupiter satellite systems back up and running. Without decent electronic and photographic intelligence we’d be making policy decisions in the blind.”
    â€œIs the same group in Pakistan reponsible for the attack on our satellites?”
    â€œUltimately, though they don’t have the laser technology to take out our birds. So one of our primary missions is to find out whose submarine fired the laser and stop them from doing it again.”
    Hanson’s jaw visibly tightened. He was an action president. It ran in the family. “God help the bastards when we find out who they are,” he said. “Continue.”
    â€œOnce we make contact with Scott and his people on the ground, we’ll know more, but we’ll have to get them out of there. If they’re spotted, the Pakistani ISI will stop at nothing to destroy them.”
    Hanson nodded. “They’ll use my brother as a hostage if they realize who he is.” Killing foreign hostile submarines and saving American lives, his younger brother’s included, was right up his alley.
    â€œThen, based on what we’ve come up with, you’ll have to make the final decision, Mr. President,” Carolyn Tyson said. “That will be either convincing Pakistan to take control of its weapons—while at the same time keeping India at bay—or ordering a preemptive strike yourself.”
    â€œWhat would our objective be?”
    â€œDeny them a significant portion of their command structure.”
    â€œWar,” the president said after a long silence.
    She nodded. “Yes, sir. It might come down to that. Including sending ground troops.”

In Harm’s Way

1
    0830 LOCAL
OFF BARBERS POINT
    The SSN21 Seawolf nuclear-powered attack submarine surged away from the west coast of the island of Oahu as if she were impatient to rid herself of the Hawaiian island. An eighteen-foot bow wave curled over her low-slung deck.
    She was covered in black anechoic tiles that made her look like an ominous, dark sea monster, which she was. With a full load of fifty Gould Mark-48 ADCAP torpedoes, and Tomahawk antiship and land-attack missiles, she had the capability under the right circumstances and with the National Nuclear Command release authorization to start and finish a world war all by herself.
    A whole host of people hated the United States and everything she stood for, but there weren’t many who doubted her raw power.
    Standing on the cramped bridge atop the sail, Cmdr. Frank Dillon Jr., scanned the waters directly ahead of his boat through a pair of standard issue Steiners. The usual contingent of pleasure boats and inshore fishing vessels had come out to catch their departure.
    It was a favorite sport amongst a certain contingent of semi-natives, a lot of them ex-navymen. Longer than a football field and capable of diving to depths of more than eighteen hundred feet, the Seawolf was a spectacular thing to see in the wild. Better than whales.
    Dillon figured that this was going to be his last cruise as a submarine commanding officer before he was bumped upstairs to boss an entire squadron. At thirty-eight he was a little young for the responsibility that would come with his promotion to 06, but he had the experience.
    He’d graduated number seven in the Annapolis class of ’84, but he’d come out on top in every other navy school