"Oh!" Smith's voice was suddenly attentive. "I'm sorry, Mr. President. The ES Quantum was downloading new intelligence feeds and I was momentarily distracted. They're really amazing. I believe I'm getting direct transmissions from orbiting Soviet satellites."
"They get those at the NSA all the time."
"With instantaneous translation and code decrypting?"
"No. Anything hot?"
"All routine. But it's only a matter of time before we pick up something crucial. I must tell you, sir, this system is wonderful."
"You sound hoarse, Smith. Are you all right?"
"I've been up for three days. Even with the computer helping log and sort and analyze, these intercepts are just too remarkable. I guess I'll get used to it. But I can see that once the current crisis had passed, our operation will have a far greater situational interdiction capability."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Smith. The crisis has passed."
"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. President," Smith said, his voice trailing off.
"Dammit. There he goes again. Smith!"
"Er, yes. Sorry. You were saying?"
"I think it was my speech. I scared them off-whoever they were."
"I'm sorry that I've so far been unable to isolate the aggressor, Mr. President. But so much data is coming in, that even with the system's help, we're just awash in sorting and analysis tasks."
"If there is no immediate threat, then we can deal with this later. My other sources have come up with nothing either. I think it's about time we sent your people home. When you come up with a target, they'll be free to seek it out."
"Glad to hear it," said Remo.
The President turned. Remo poked his head out from behind the American flag and gave the President a friendly wave. The President waved back uncertainly. He had checked the flags the first thing. He'd been dead certain they were uninhabited.
"Did you get my last shipment, Smith?" the President asked.
"Thank you, I did."
"I'll leave it to you to show your people how to handle the new technology," said the President, hanging up. "Okay, you can go now," the President said to the office flags. When the flags did not reply, the President got up and looked behind them. They were empty. He lifted the skirts of the flags and checked the folds. Empty. No one under the desk either.
He looked out the window and caught the briefest of glimpses of the two CURE operatives slipping through the Rose Garden in plain view of the Marine guards.
No one intercepted them leaving the White House grounds. It was as if they were invisible. Except that the President could see them. Then he blinked. Not anymore. They had vanished.
General Martin S. Leiber had gotten nowhere.
Over at Andrews Air Force Base, Major Cheek had come up with some paint samples after several days. The paint samples were green.
"Is that light green and dark green?" Leiber had asked. "Just green. It's very puzzling, General. Railroad liveries are two-tone. We scraped every inch of this monster and all we got was the flat green. In fact, that's the strange thing. We even got paint off the wheels. They never paint the wheels. I went back to the first eng ... er ... KKV, and what do you know? Under all the gunk, it was green too. "
"What does that mean?"
"It means, sir, that we can forget about identifying this beast by its livery."
"That's what I thought it meant," the general said dispiritedly.
"But if the Metallurgical Consultants stay on schedule, we might have a model ID soon."
"Call me when you do," the general said, slamming down the phone. Days were passing. Down in the Tank the Joint Chiefs were getting restless. They wanted to retaliate. If General Leiber didn't give them a target soon, they were going to come up and stick their noses in.
If that happened, it would be all over. General Leiber looked out his window at snow-covered Washington and caught himself wishing another one of those damned things would fall out of the sky. Anything to hold this crisis together a little longer.
The ID came after another day.
"It's Prussian!" Major Cheek said gleefully.
"Prussian? We have confirmation it lifted off from Africa."
"That may be, but it's a Prussian Class G12. Built in 1917. It's a three-cylinder superheated engine with 2-10-0 wheel arrangement. That means it has two little wheels up front, ten big driving wheels, and no wheels under the cab. Working-order weight of 95.7 tons. With a full head of steam, it could haul 1,010 tons. It was quite a powerful engine in its day. Whoever picked it knew what he was doing."
"I wish I could say the same of you," General Leiber said bitterly. "I don't care about the specs. I want to know where it came from!"
"Prussia."
"Prussia is not in Africa. It doesn't even exist anymore."
"I realize that, sir."
"Can we trace the damned thing?"
"Not without a running number, sir. Over fifteen hundred of this model were produced."
"You're a huge help, soldier," said General Leiber.
The President continued to call daily. General Leiber kept him at bay with double-talk. Once, during a lull, the President asked him to produce certain custom-built equipment and ship it to the same New Jersey address where the ES Quantum Three Thousand had gone.
"Communications? A secure phone system? What good will these do?" General Leiber had asked.
"You're not the only one on this, General, but you're the only one I trust to handle these matters. You seem to be able to requisition materiel no one else can."
"Thank you, sir," General Leiber said proudly.
Now, a week after the second strike, the joint Chiefs were really restless. At that point, the President called again.
"It's over," he said crisply.
"I beg to differ."
"My warning speech obviously worked."