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Page 242
Chapter Thirty
Washington, D.C./December 1
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Only our nuclear weapons confer power. In order to realize our world mission we must take risks.
GENERAL PIOTR KONDRATIEV IN A LECTURE TO OFFICER CANDIDATES AT THE HIGHER INTERNAL SECURITY COLLEGE AT KRASNOGORSK (PRIOR TO HIS DISMISSAL BY PRESIDENT CHERNY)
Charlotte Conroy was escorted past two sets of federal marshals (who looked as tired as she felt) and through the metal detectors into the White House Situation Room, which bustled with an unusual level of early morning activity. She recognized two junior members of Kellner's National Security Council staff, a bespectacled woman wearing a National Security Agency White House pass and a uniformed officer each from the army, the navy, and the air force, all at work around a map table and at computer terminals. Did all this stem, Charlotte wondered, from her early-morning call from New York? She had been unwilling to discuss Nathan Abramov's arrest over the telephone, and even more unwilling to speak of the

 
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