< previous page page_297 next page >

Page 297
begin to orbit outside Russian airspace. Should conditions so warrant, and the President decide to go to defcon one, the missile silos begin their countdowns. Am I making myself clear, Mrs. Neville?"
Anna was aghast. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. The rush of fear finally cleared her mind of all its cobwebs. "Dr. Kellner," she said quietly, "what you say terrifies me. That was the intention, I suspect. Why? I cannot believe that anything I can say or do would affect such decisions." Her voice trembled, but she did not avoid meeting Kellner's eyes.
President Caidin broke in. "Mrs. Neville, you and your friends came to this country specifically to accuse the United States Navy of sailing illegally in Canadian waters and of shooting down your plane when discovered, an act that killed your husband and your pilot." She could hear the rising impatience in his voice. "That is so, is it not?"
"Yes, Mr. President," Anna said, facing Caidin squarely. "I have since heard a different version of the episode, and I concede I could have been wrong. But the alternative explanation that I have been given, that the submarine was Russian, is very hard for me to believe."
"It is nonetheless true," Prime Minister Halloran said, his voice firm, "and what's more, we can prove it. Just one hour and twenty minutes ago, a Canadian Maritime Command icebreaker located a lethal device that we believe to be the source of the plutonium contamination in the area, on the bottom of Hudson Bay, in almost the exact place where your aircraft was lost."
"You found a nuclear weapon?" Anna asked in horror.
"It is a nuclear device. At this point, that's all we know. We have no actual sighting, because the water in the area is turbid and badly contaminated with plutonium," Ian Halloran said, his face at last showing the depth of his feelings. "You know of the illnesses and deaths among the local Inuit people. More will die. No matter how you view it, either politically

 
< previous page page_297 next page >