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Page 333
plume would still be deadly when it passed across the heartland of European Russia.
Arkady Karmann knew that Morgan had rarely taken his eyes off him, eyes that burned through bone and flesh, asking why had he helped in this criminal act. Karmann shivered. How could he explain? I don't know myself, to tell the truth, he thought.
The plan had seemed so plausible when it was explained to him. If the missile exploded its warhead high in space, as it was designed to do and as its creators had intended, no one would have been killed, only greatly inconvenienced. Public anger in America would probably demand "proportionate retaliation," which might or might not ever take place. Certainly any American attack would have been greatly delayed by the electronic blackout the Device would have caused. But if the warhead exploded under the water and killed a million North Americans, the anger would become rage and the demand would be for a full-scale nuclear strike against Russia.
Our world is collapsing around us, and we are hungry for self-immolation. Stalin lives, Arkady thought. Stalin and all those like him always live.
But it was far too easy to blame it all on dead Stalin. After all, he was near to half a century in his grave. For myself, I am German as well as Russian. Doubly damned, he thought with a burst of laughter.
Morgan stared at him.
"It's all right," Karmann said. "I haven't gone mad."
The hitherto silent sergeant jerked the wheel of the van sharply and let out a stream of curses at the incautious driver who had cut in front of him. Sleet smeared the windscreen and loaded the streets with frozen muck. The weather was growing worse.
How is the weather at Eskimo Point? Morgan wondered. Anxiety was building. Karmann's bitter laughter had shaken him. I am ninety hours from being vaporized into an unimportant part of a cloud blowing across the world on the jet

 
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