"What?" Hansen jerked his head around, puzzlement in his deep eyes. "What do you mean? Good Christ, not Souda Bay! Surely they didn't—"
"The detonation. Our AWACS flying out of southern Turkey monitored it at around fifteen thousand feet. As best they can tell. They still—"
"What!"
'They say it looked to be about seventy miles out over the eastern Med, in the direction of Cypress. Which is exactly where they were tracking—"
"You mean . . ." His voice trailed off.
'That's right," Briggs said finally. "They think it was the helicopter. The one they were flying out. An old Sikorsky S-61 series, we believe. It—"
"What are you saying?" Hansen found himself refusing to believe it. 'That those idiots nuked themselves?" What the hell was the Pentagon talking about? . . . My God. Isaac was—
"Doesn't exactly figure, does it?" Briggs nodded lamely. 'The electromagnetic pulse knocked out all our non-hardened surveillance electronics in the region, but Souda's intel section was hard-wired into our backup SAT-NET and they claim they triangulated it. Everything's sketchy, but that seems to be what happened."
"I can't believe it," Hansen said, running his hands over his face. They were trembling. “The whole situation must have gotten away from him. That's . . . the only way. It must have been a macabre accident. Christ!"
"A damned ghastly one," Briggs agreed. "But I think you're right."