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LACE.” The gray haired diplomat was grim. “And it’s not ours . . .” He savored the dramatic pause. “Its code name is TORA and the laser weapon—I would call it a cannon—belongs to the Soviets. We’ve watched it for 10 years. We damn near have the wiring diagrams from our boys in trenchcoats. They’ve built it at Saryshagan, in Mother Russia: A flash-initiated, iodine-pulsed killer laser. It’s the size of a football field: Twelve Pavlovski, magnetocumulative generators around one monster of a pulsed betatron.”
    â€œWe estimate this facility can destroy our satellites up to 248 miles high, do damage to our satellites up to 744 miles, and at least disrupt our birds up to 25,000 miles.”
    â€œGod,” sighed the Admiral.
    â€œIndeed. Its lethal range is only twenty-five thousand miles , give or take.”
    â€œAccuracy?”
    â€œGeneral Gordon: TORA has fried at least six Cosmos satellite drones. LACE could be obliterated by it—as everything else we put into orbit. You should have sent the Russians an invite to this coffee break, Admiral.”
    â€œI know, Joe. What else has Brother Ivan by way of operational, space laser weapons?”
    â€œNear as we can tell, they have a free-electron, anti-satellite laser weapon at Troitsk and one at Chrernomorskoye. We don’t know their lethal range or aiming ability—yet, Admiral.” Admiral Hauch looked at the clocks along the walls for a long moment.
    â€œThen we cannot take LACE down ourselves. Is that the concensus here?”
    â€œNot this year or next, Admiral,” frowned the General from Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.
    â€œQuestion,” said the young woman from the desert. “Can LACE do it again?”
    â€œEven as we sit here,” answered General Breyfogle.
    â€œWell.” The Admiral rose slowly with a great weight oppressing his sagging shoulders. “I’ll let you all out of this glass cage. We’re in time for breakfast by now anyway. All we can do is hope the Russian’s KGB-Ninth Department believes that their bird shorted herself out . . . I don’t have to remind a one of you that not a word of this meeting is to be breathed to anyone. I shall brief the President in four hours . . . I’ll get back with you.”
    â€œEach time is like the first. It is all so beautiful, Dimitri. Truly magnificent.”
    The black Mercedes wound its way southward from Vienna toward Wiener Neustadt thirty miles away. The two-lane highway made a circuitous course through Austria’s lush mountains, low and rounded hills covered with new snow. Beneath a brilliantly blue noon sky, the road was burned dry by the dazzling sunshine.
    â€œYes, old friend. But you should see my Cheboksary, where the Vetluga flows into the Volga. In the spring. . . how do you say it: Your breath, it would go away.”
    â€œThat’s how I’d say it exactly.” The American grinned with his face close to the exquisite countryside outside the heavily tinted windows of the backseat. “Maybe this spring, finally.” The westerner in his gray three-piece suit turned his face toward the portly, middle-aged Russian at his side. “And the beautiful Lydia?”
    â€œVery well, indeed,” the Russian warmly smiled. He patted his round belly. “With number three due in June.”
    â€œI hope it’s a fine, healthy Comrade,” the American nodded to his friend. “Plump and happy, Dimitri—and with Lydia’s blue eyes.”
    â€œMe, too,” the Russian chuckled with genuine pleasure. “So what is the deal?”
    â€œThe deal?” the American asked with a smile.
    â€œWhere else can I practice speaking ‘American?’ ” The Russian laughed loudly. “The British make me speak English. But with you,” the beaming Russian slapped his American guest’s knee. ‘‘With you, I talk ’Merican. What