A plot it was, just a goddamn plot with nothing but pure blind rage and greed behind it…and the hell of it is, we're never going to know who did it precisely…'cause in the backwash whole governments will fall, people stab each other in the back…no way to tell who paid the fishing boat captains offshore to let the cruise missiles aboard…bet those captains were surprised when the damn things launched from the deck…bet they were told it was some kind of stunt…and then the boats all evaporated into steam when the fighters got them…no hope of getting a story out of that…all so comic when you think how easy it was…and the same for the Russians, I'm sure…dumbfounded confusion…and nowhere to turn…nobody to hit back at…so they hit us…been primed for it so long that's the only way they could think…and even then there was hope…because the defenses worked…people got to the shelters…the satellite rockets knocked out hordes of Soviet warheads…we surely lessened the damage, with the defenses and shelters, too…but we hadn't allowed for the essential final fact that all the science and strategy pointed to…