This ought really to tear Grosvenor up, Bonomi anticipated.

  “The hostage is to be the President of the United States.”

  16

  That tore it all right.

  Michaelson almost dropped his pipe and Darby stood up under the impact, and General Peter P. Crane—holder of two Distinguished Flying Crosses, eleven other U.S. medals and nine decorations bestowed by NATO powers—whispered an oath that wasn’t entirely audible but one word was definitely “bastards.” McKenzie hadn’t mentioned the question of the hostage, and now the Chief of Air Staff knew why. The CINCSAC hadn’t dared to speak of it, even over the scrambler.

  “Preposterous,” judged the Secretary of State unhesitatingly.

  “Ridiculous,” he added a moment later.

  He’s going to say “outrageous” next, calculated the President.

  “Outrageous,” Grosvenor fumed.

  Arthur Renfrew Grosvenor was a very able diplomat, Stevens thought, but he was wholly predictable.

  “Momsers,” the Attorney General judged.

  The Chief Executive of the United States nodded. He’d heard Frost use the Yiddish expression before. It meant “bastards”—in spades.

  “The man’s insane,” Grosvenor insisted.

  At that moment, McKenzie’s voice sounded again on the tape.

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” answered the former USAF major, “and your opinions of me or the deal don’t matter. There’s only one man who can make the deal, and you’d better call him. No tricks. Call him now.”

  “And General McKenzie did just that,” Stevens announced. “He called me, and I’ve called you.”

  The President picked up the telephone.

  “Thank you,” he said to the man in the bunker near Omaha. “We’ll get back to you shortly, General, and of course you’ll phone immediately if there are any new developments.”

  Then he hung up the red instrument, turned to the men in his office.

  “As I see it, there are three problems—one legal, one political and one military,” Stevens reasoned. “That’s in an ascending order of importance, I’d say. And an ascending order of difficulty, I suspect. Bill, if it should turn out that we have to do business with this man Dell and his gang, what’s our legal position? Can we do it? Can we pay off these criminals and help them escape?”

  “Mr. President, the Government of the United States cannot do business with murderers,” Grosvenor protested.

  Stevens sighed.

  “Arthur, you know that this Government and a lot of other Governments—the British and the Russians and a hundred more—have been doing business with all sorts of unsavory dictators and homicidal tyrants for a very long time,” he said patiently. “We’re not particularly proud of it and we hope that someday—soon—it won’t be necessary, but let’s not get pious now. And let’s not interrupt the Attorney General, our senior legal expert. Bill?”

  Frost shrugged.

  “You know the answer, Mr. President,” he noted frankly, “but I’ll say it anyway because I gather you want me to—for the record, I suppose. All right—for the record—since the Constitution provides that the President is responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, and since the firing of those missiles would undoubtedly affect our foreign affairs, my legal opinion is that you can deal with these momsers.”

  “And the money?”

  “Mr. President, there are certain funds annually appropriated by the Congress for the Chief Executive to expend at his discretion—funds that certainly exceed five million dollars,” Frost replied. “In an emergency of this sort, I’d say that you’d be entirely within your authority to expend those funds. I’d imagine that the CIA pays out more than that each year to even more unsavory types—including a few assassins—so you can too.”

  Michaelson considered answering the snide remark, decided that he’d settle the score some other time.

  “Let’s not play games,” the Attorney General added bluntly. “If we can’t stop these criminals any other way, we’ll pay and I’ll produce a fifty-page legal memorandum justifying the whole thing. I’ll get out the old one that they used for the Bay of Pigs operation and copy the same footnotes.”

  Now both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense were scowling angrily.

  “This is no time for such levity. It isn’t funny,” protested Arthur Renfrew Grosvenor.

  “I know. I’m not laughing,” Frost acknowledged. “I’m too scared to laugh,” he confessed, “and too embarrassed to cry.”

  No crap, Bonomi thought. There was no pretense, no crap about Frost.

  “I’ll keep that carefully reasoned legal opinion in mind—just in case it should ever come to that,” Stevens announced. “I hope it won’t. Now, what about the political implications?”

  “Impossible,” warned Grosvenor. “Absolutely impossible. It might be more accurate to say catastrophic. We can’t let anybody—not even our closest allies—know about this. It isn’t like the Cuban missile crisis at all. This is, after all, entirely our fault. All the blame lies on our own armed forces.”

  “Garbage,” Bonomi challenged. “Part of the responsibility belongs to the Air Force—okay—but the Air Force didn’t create the goddam mess that made missiles and thermonuclear warheads necessary. Grow up, Mr. Secretary.”

  Right.

  Bonomi was right, the Chief of Air Staff told himself, and it was time that somebody straightened out these sanctimonious civilians who blamed everything on the military.

  Yes, the ex-fighter pilot had said exactly what Pete Crane would have said—if he hadn’t controlled his temper.

  “We can parcel out the blame later,” interrupted Stevens, “and I’m sure that there’ll be enough for everybody. To continue with what you’re saying, Arthur, we can’t let this out because it would hurt us badly. And what if it reaches the ears of the Soviets or Chinese?”

  “They wouldn’t believe it,” Michaelson replied quickly. “I can say—categorically—that they’d assume that it was some trick, and they’d immediately escalate their defense readiness to prepare to counterattack. No, Mr. President, I think that every man in this room realizes that there isn’t a chance in the world that we could tell Moscow or Peking that some of our ICBMs might be coming their way soon—but we don’t mean them any harm. We’ll be in the middle of World War III about eleven or twelve minutes after those missiles leave Viper Three, since they’re certainly aimed at Red targets.”

  Stevens nodded, glanced at Crane.

  “Would you have any ideas as to what the specific targets of the Viper Three rockets are?” the President asked.

  The general reached into his pocket, took out a folded sheet of paper.

  “I checked as soon as McKenzie called me. Target One, Soviet naval base at Kronstadt right near Leningrad. Target Two, the Voroshilov plant that makes their SS-11 missiles—which happens to be in Sverdlovsk, which has a population of eight hundred and eighty thousand. Target Three, the big dam at Magnitigorsk. Target Four, Soviet Air Force headquarters in Siberia—outside Vladivostok. Target Five, the Ukraine city of Kharkhov—population approximately one million one hundred thousand. Target Six—oh, Six, Seven and Eight are mainland China. Six is—”

  “Don’t bother. That’s enough,” Stevens broke in grimly. “I think that the picture is quite clear.”

  “They’re all legitimate targets, Mr. President,” Crane pointed out, “and all designated by the Strategic Targets Board.”

  “Tell that to the people in Kharkov and Sverdlovsk,” the Attorney General suggested sardonically. “They’ll feel a lot better knowing that they’re dying legitimately in a properly authorized holocaust.”

  “The Air Force didn’t pick these targets, dammit,” Crane argued. “It was an interdepartmental group, including CIA—if anybody’s interested.”

  Michaelson put down his pipe.

  “Pete, nobody’s blaming the Air Force for the targets,” the imperfect but intelligent head of the Central Intelligence Agency said in tones of sober reason, “or for the lousy state of the world either. Yes, Mr. President, I agree that the implications of this target list are quite clear.”

  There was an unpleasant moment of silence.

  “World War Three,” said the President.

  “World War Three,” Michaelson concurred.

  More silence, even more unpleasant.

  “You,” Grosvenor said as he pointed his finger at Darby, “you’ve got to get those criminals out of there. There must be a way. You have troops, planes, napalm, atomic warheads.”

  “I don’t know,” the Secretary of Defense replied cautiously. “I understand that those Minuteman bases are supposed to be impregnable, or close to it. There’s that big steel door into the Launch Control Center and all kinds of alarms and security gear to prevent a surprise attack.”

  “Gas? How about gas?” peace-loving Arthur Renfrew Grosvenor was surprised to hear himself ask.

  “These holes are gasproof. They’ve got air-purifying equipment that kicks on automatically if the sensors sniff any gas,” Crane answered.

  “Cut off their power,” urged the New Englander.

  “Each hole has its own emergency generator.”

  “That kicks on automatically?” Frost tested.

  The Chief of Air Staff nodded.

  “The missiles? Can they be reached in their…their silos?” Grosvenor questioned hopefully.

  “Each covered by a seventy-ton steel-and-concrete lid that can only be raised from inside by a compressed-air gadget. That lid is a solid slab, engineered to be as close to blastproof as possible.”

  “What about an air strike?” suggested Darby. “Could TAC fighter bombers hit the ten silos at the same time—with atomic bombs?”

  Crane looked at him, then to Stevens.

  “Maybe. Theoretically, yes,” he answered, “but I can’t be that sure. The commander of TAC—he’d say he was sure that his boys could do the job—but that’s mighty goddamed perfect bombing. Super pinpoint bombing—only one shot at the targets and ten different targets.”

  “One shot?” Grosvenor wondered.

  “If we don’t knock all ten birds out on the first try, you can bet your ass that those hoodlums down there will launch whatever they’ve got left. What the hell have they got to lose? They’re all dead men anyway. No, I couldn’t recommend an air strike,” the senior USAF commander concluded.

  “We’ve got to do something,” insisted the Secretary of Defense.

  “Maybe—but an air strike, even one with the best pilots TAC can muster, is one helluva gamble,” Crane reiterated. “You flew fighter-bombers, Mr. President,” he recalled, “and you know what the odds are against ten direct hits out of ten low-level attacks on small targets.”

  For a moment, Stevens and Bonomi remembered those wild days in Korea some two decades earlier.

  “General Crane’s right. The possibilities of human error—pilot error—even down to three hundred to four hundred miles an hour, are just too dangerous. No, I can’t buy the air strike.”

  The President had decided, but the conversation was not finished.

  “We have enormous military power,” Darby argued, “and it certainly should be enough to cope with five jailbirds hiding in a hole in Montana.”

  “I don’t know,” Stevens reflected. “It wasn’t designed for that situation. It ought to be able to cope with just about anything on earth, but it wasn’t such a howling success in Vietnam. It wasn’t designed for that situation either.”

  “To draw a crude analogy,” Frost concurred, “these five hoodlums have attempted to mug the United States—and you can’t stop a mugger with a bombing plane.”

  Stevens turned to his former wingman, stared the question.

  “Mr. President,” Bonomi answered in deliberately controlled tones, “there are a number of possible military solutions that we may have to explore very soon. We’ll probably want the Army Chief of Staff over here if that’s necessary, but there’s something else we might try first.”

  “Go on, Vince.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Dell? What have you got to lose? You’re a clever arm-twister, a sharp bargainer and a damn fine politician. You’ve made a lot of deals with a lot of difficult people in the last twenty years or so,” the one-star general reminded, “and maybe you can make some kind of a deal with this crowd. I’d bet you’ve had worse types to lunch—here.”

  Stevens could think of half a dozen immediately, most of the chiefs of state in “friendly” countries.

  “Nothing personal, Mr. President,” Bonomi added.

  Good afternoon, you son of a bitch.

  “I understand that, General,” David Stevens replied.

  Of all the others in the room, only Michaelson could sense that there was some private message—some unspoken dialogue—in this exchange. It was, of course, another subtle statement of that personal intimacy and loyalty that defied lines of command and official channels of communication.

  “What do you think of the idea, Evan?” Stevens tested.

  Michaelson hesitated, calculated and nodded.

  “It might be useful,” he admitted cautiously.

  “Bill?”

  “Why not, Mr. President? I understand you’ve had lunch and dinner with worse types,” Frost answered.

  He’s probably talking about King Achmed, speculated Grosvenor. The Secretary of State had no illusions about Frost’s views on the Arab-Israeli situation, for even though the Attorney General didn’t meddle in international affairs he didn’t often bother to hide his feelings either. There was really no room for feelings in the shaping of the foreign policies of a great power, for enlightened but firm self-interest had to prevail over emotion as it always had—and the national interests of the United States precluded any indulgent sentimentality. Most political leaders in Washington and London, in Paris and Moscow, in Peking and Tokyo understood this sort of thinking, the Secretary of State knew, and it was disappointing to find men as impractical as Frost in high places.

  The President’s next question interrupted this train of thought.

  “Bob?”

  The Secretary of Defense had no objection, since efforts to negotiate, real or false, successful or otherwise, might buy time for the Army and Air Force to prepare their counterattack. Crane supported this position with a silent nod, and then Arthur Renfrew Grosvenor solemnly announced that he always preferred peaceful private negotiations to force. It was a matter of historical record that such “conversations” could be “quite fruitful,” concluded the Secretary of State knowingly.

  “I don’t know how far my negotiating talents will go with these convicts,” warned Stevens, “but I’m more than willing to try.”

  “You can use the SAC hot line and go through the Offutt bunker communications set-up,” Crane suggested. “It’s the most direct and most secure way.”

  The President picked up the phone that was linked to McKenzie’s subterranean command post.

  As he did so, Marshal Korbynin began to speak into another telephone at the field headquarters of the Soviet Forces Group—Germany—thirty-four miles from East Berlin. The 76th and the 99th were to move out immediately, and the MIG-23 squadrons were to be prepared to take off just before dawn. By the time the sun rose, the first waves of fighters were to be in the air corridors. The radio and radar jamming was to start precisely five minutes before the supersonic interceptors left their runways, and Marshal Vladimir Korbynin would personally make certain that any officer who failed to keep to the timetable would be punished.

  Chief Marshal of Armored Troops Soyuzov had made it very clear that coordination and timing were important in this operation, for Yamshchik had been conceived and planned by the Central Committee—the Central Committee of the Party—as a swift and perfect surprise. Whether the operation would succeed was not entirely certain, Marshal Korbynin realized, but one could be quite sure as to what would happen to a senior field commander—even a Red Army marshal—who irritated or failed the Central Committee. One could also be certain that if Yamshchik did not succeed, the blame would be pushed onto the field commander. Aleksei Soyuzov was a decent fellow, but he hadn’t risen to such a high post on the Red Army stavka without learning how to shift the blame for failures to someone else.

  Good old Aleksei Soyuzov wasn’t going to take the blame himself.

  That was entirely natural—in this army and others.

  In Soyuzov’s position, Marshal Korbynin wouldn’t take it either. If all went well during the next three or four days, Korbynin might eventually rise to that position—that comfortable headquarters spot in Moskva. It was the consciousness of what might happen if all didn’t go well that caused the commander of the Soviet Forces Group in Germany to speak so unpleasantly into the field telephone.

  17

  “The keys,” Dell said suddenly.

  “We forgot to get the damned keys,” he explained.

  “What?” mumbled Schonbacher.

  Sweaty-faced and looking extremely uncomfortable, the porky sex criminal seemed to be perspiring even more than before despite the fact that the capsule’s air-conditioning system was delivering an even sixty-eight-degree temperature. That part of the System was still functioning perfectly, but Harvey Schonbacher was perspiring nevertheless. If he weren’t so lazy, vain or stupid, Dell thought, the idiot would remove the stolen coveralls that were plainly too small.

  Or it might be fear.

  That was all they’d need, one of their five men at the clammy edge of panic.

  “You all right, Harve?” the former missile officer asked with calculated nonchalance.

  “Sure. What about the keys?”

  “The firing keys?” Powell interjected.

  “That’s right,” confirmed Dell.

  “What about those goddam firing keys?” challenged the sex killer testily.

  Deacon Hoxey frowned, offended by the improper use of the Lord’s name.