by Peter Bryant
"Well?" Quinten asked.
"General, I just don’t know. I can’t seem to figure things out. You’ve told SAC what you’ve done. Let’s start from that. Would they know you’ve used plan R?"
"They’d know. Reception of the signals would tell them."
"All right, then they know they can’t stop the eight forty-third. That means an attack will be made on Russia. Obviously, there’ll be a counter-blow. So they have to get the other wings off the ground to make sure they aren’t destroyed."
"Why would they want to do that?" Quinten asked. His tone was deceptively mild.
"Well, obviously they wouldn’t want them destroyed if they could help it."
"Why?" Quinten pursued the question inexorably. "Think it through, Paul. You know the answer all right."
And suddenly Howard did know. Suddenly he saw the logical end of Quinten’s action. Why bother to preserve the SAC wings if they weren’t going to be used? He said slowly, "General, it seems to me they’re planning to follow the eight forty-third in. Morally, we’re already in the wrong, so therefore . . ."
Quinten broke in quickly. "I’d argue that. But let it go for the moment."
"Morally we’re already in the wrong," Howard repeated stubbornly. "But are there degrees of morality in terms of the power locked up in those planes? Does it make any great deal of difference whether you kill thirty millions or sixty millions? Well, it seems to me it makes this difference. If they follow the eight forty-third in, they’ll kill an extra thirty millions. I’m just guessing at the figures, of course. But that extra thirty millions will be in Russia. If they don’t, then it’s possible the Russians will kill thirty millions, here in America. Because of your action, they’re faced with a choice of killing an extra number of Russians or letting the Russians kill an equal number of Americans. They’re realists, they’re bound to choose the first alternative. And that’s why the SAC wings are going off." Suddenly he pushed back his chair. His face was very white. "Why in hell did you do it?" he shouted. "Why? For God’s sake, why?"
"Sit down, Paul." Quinten’s voice cracked sharply across the room. He brought the pistol up until it pointed at Howard. "Sit down, and cool off. I’m going to tell you why, later. I’m going to tell you what convinced me it was not only the expedient but also the moral thing to do. When you’ve heard me out, you’ll be convinced too."
"No," Howard said firmly. "You may be able to convince me it was expedient. Never moral."
Quinten looked at him curiously. Howard’s face was still a livid white, his fingers trembling as he crushed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. He was shocked, Quinten thought, by the sudden realisation. Yet he should not have been. No-one who had ever toted the actual bombs round the sky should have been shocked when he realised the bombs were going to be used. But undoubtedly Howard was shocked. Just as the crews of the bombers were shocked, probably, when they received the attack orders. It was another example of the way the mind will push the unpleasant things into the background. Like the envelope you fail to open because you know it contains a bill you can’t really afford to pay. Like the politicians who manage to convince themselves during face-to-face meetings that the other man is friendly, when they know that yesterday he attacked them bitterly, and will probably do so again tomorrow.
Howard’s cheeks were slowly returning to their normal, healthy colour. Quinten wondered what it was like to feel young, and strong, and free from pain. It had been so long, he had almost forgotten. He said, "Paul, you can think what you like of me, and so can the rest of the world. I know that what I’ve done is right. Do you remember what Clemenceau once said about war?"
"No, I don’t." Howard’s voice was almost normal again.
"He said war was too important a matter to be left to generals. At the moment he said it, he was probably right. But now it’s swung the other way. When a war can be won and lost an hour after it starts, then war is too important to be left to politicians. The Russians know it. And they also know we don’t work things that way. That’s why, in a couple of hours from now, they’ll have lost. There’ll be no more threats from them. In a few hours the whole shape of the world will be changed. Remember what they did to Hungary back in ‘56? They won’t be able to do that again, not ever."
"That’s expediency. Morally, what you’ve done is still wrong."
"Well," Quinten said, "Maybe." He suddenly felt very thirsty. He picked up the gun from the desk, walked over to the water cooler by the window, and drank two full cups of water. Then he went back to his desk.
"Paul," he said. "You’re going to be a part of the new world. I’m not. I know quite well what history will have to say about my action. In two hundred years they’ll have forgotten all about the menace of Communism. If you don’t believe me, just think how soon we’ve forgotten what we once felt about Germany. And Japan. I’ll just be remembered as a butcher, a man who wantonly slaughtered millions of innocent people. Tell me—do you really think I’m that kind of man? Do you really think I can take an action which will snuff out millions of lives with as little compunction as I’d squash a fly?"
"Well, no I don’t. At least," Howard paused and looked deliberately at Quinten, "I didn’t up to now. Now I’m not sure."
"You can be," Quinten said quietly. "A few hours from now I’ll be dead. I happen to believe in a life after this one, so I believe I will have to answer for what I’ve done. I think I can."
Howard looked at him with fresh interest. "I don’t quite follow. If the rest of SAC are going in after the eight forty-third, we’re bound to win. It’s possible we won’t be hit at all in this country. Why should you be dead?"
Quinten tapped a cigarette on the desk carefully, placed it between his lips, and struck a match. Then he blew the match out without lighting the cigarette. "Because if I let myself live it would be as a lunatic. The human mind could never withstand a traumatic experience as violent as the killing of all those millions of people. I’m going to tell you a little of why I did this. But first, let me ask you another question. When you heard that wing going off in the distance the sound was something monstrous, something inhuman and dreadful to you. Right?"
"Right."
"No, Paul. There was nothing monstrous about it. You know what that sound meant? I’ll tell you. It meant peace on earth."
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* * *
Chapter 9
The Pentagon
* * *
10.45 G.M.T.
Moscow: 1.45 p.m.
Washington: 5.45 a.m.
"There are only two alternatives," General Steele said. He paused and looked round the long table. The President, at the head of the table, was inclining slightly forward to listen. The Secretaries of State and Defence were at his right and left hand respectively, and between them and the service chiefs the intervening seats were occupied by the heads of Atomic Energy Commission, Central Intelligence Agency, Civil Defence, and F.B.I.. It was almost, but not quite, a full meeting of the National Security Council. Only two or three members were missing, and they were out of Washington.
"The first of these," Steele went on, "seems at this moment to be impossible of fulfilment. It is that the eight forty-third wing be recalled. I am not going to suggest there is not the slightest chance of doing this. We may, by some lucky break, hit on the right letter combinations. But the odds against that, in the time remaining to us, are in the order of a hundred to one. For the moment anyway.
"I use the expression ‘for the moment’, because General Keppler has suggested a way in which we might be able to establish personal contact with the commander at Sonora—a contact which so far he has refused to prolong beyond his bald statement that the wing were attacking on his personal orders. I will revert to this suggestion after examining the second of the alternatives."
"One moment," the President broke in. "I think I’d like to hear about it before you pass on to the second alternative."
"Very well, sir. It so happens
the Seventy Fourth Infantry Division are on tactical dispersal training in the immediate vicinity of Sonora. General Keppler has suggested they be ordered to penetrate Sonora Base, to establish contact with the commander and with any other officer who was present when the crews were briefed. Only those officers would know the code group which the commander gave the crews at the briefing."
"Would it be necessary to use force to achieve this, er, penetration?"
Steele glanced at Franklin, who was standing in the group surrounding the table, and motioned him forward. "General Franklin, the commander of SAC, is here, Mr. President. With your permission, he’s the best man to answer that question."
The President nodded. "Well, Franklin? Would force be necessary?"
"Most certainly," Franklin said bluntly. "I’ve been thinking what I’d have done in Quinten’s place. I’d know that the attack orders would be monitored, so my first concern would have been to seal off the base. I feel sure Quinten has brought the base to warning red conditions, which means all non-combatants are now below ground, and the defence teams will be in their battle positions. No doubt he has instructed them to fire on anyone or anything that tries to penetrate the base unless he personally orders them not to. Any force which tried to penetrate would surely come under fire. There would be heavy casualties on both sides."
General Keppler said pleasantly, "Not so many as you may think. With respect to your defence teams, General, they’re not infantry. They’re airmen and technicians with a smattering of training in the operation of defensive weapons. The seventy-fourth is one of our Ranger divisions. They’ll brush the defence aside without too much trouble."
The President saw Franklin’s face slowly darken. In the few weeks he had been President he had already experienced one major inter-service row and three or four minor squabbles. Now the foundations of yet another dispute were being laid for the future. If there was going to be a future, he thought grimly. Before Franklin could reply he intervened. "How long before they can move in, General Keppler?"
An aide stepped forward and whispered to Keppler. The burly general smiled. "They’ve got there pretty fast, Mr. President. The second battalion is in position five hundred yards off two sides of the fencing now." He looked at Franklin, grinned, and carefully laid an inch of ash from his cigar in one of the massive glass ashtrays which were ranked down the middle of the table.
The President did not miss the by-play between Keppler and Franklin. He noted it, but it did not engage any large part of his conscious attention. He was considering the situation. Somewhere on that base there must be an officer who knew the code group. Perhaps the commander himself would pull back when he heard what the President had to tell him. Inevitably, there would be casualties. Possibly heavy casualties, though Keppler should know the capabilities of his troops. But the situation was such that casualties must be accepted. The few would have to suffer for the sake of the many. He made his decision.
"Send them in," he said quietly. "I want the minimum in casualties, but they are not to let the necessity of inflicting casualties deter them from taking the commander alive at the earliest possible time. Instruct the battalion commander he is to institute an immediate search for any officers who were present at the briefing."
Keppler turned in his chair. The aide stepped forward, listened, then turned and hurried from the room.
"Now, General Steele," the President said. "Please continue."
The Air Force Chief of Staff began to speak again. "The Joint Chiefs have come to the conclusion that the only course open to us is to follow up Quinten’s action. That is the second of the alternatives. It is a fact, Mr. President, that the eight forty-third will probably be able to hit each of the priority one targets. We think, furthermore, they will take out these targets before the Russians are able to get any effective retaliatory force off the ground. Provided the eight forty-third is followed by a sufficiently strong attack, delivered by at least eight wings, the Russians will not be able to retaliate on the American continent at all. We cannot guarantee the integrity of targets in Western Europe, but we think there is a good chance the Russians will be so concerned in fighting off our attack and trying to scrap together resources for a counter they will probably not be able to mount an effective attack on those targets.
"We considered also the possibility of a retaliatory strike by submarines firing guided missiles from off our coasts. The Chief of Naval Operations is satisfied we can defeat this threat. Our main concern in the past has been the huge sea areas we have to cover to guard against attacks on the SAC bases in the South and South-west. But once our main attacks have been delivered, we can afford to abandon those bases. Our sea defences can then be concentrated on comparatively short and narrow belts of water opposite the East and West coasts. We feel we can then ensure missiles from submarines will not hit our coastal and near-coastal cities.
"Our conclusions can be summarised thus. Accepting we cannot recall the bombers of the eight forty-third wing, there is an absolute military necessity to follow up their attack as hard and as fast as we can. Any other course of action will inevitably mean that we lose cities, and take casualties. Not just a few, but millions of them. In anticipation of your decision, ten SAC wings are already heading for their X points. They can put in their attack between two and seven hours after the eight forty-third. Mr. President, the Joint Chiefs unanimously recommend that a full scale attack on Soviet Russia be launched immediately."
"Concur," Admiral Maclellan said precisely.
"Concur," Keppler growled.
The President stood up abruptly. He paced down the long room to where the semi-circle of chairs faced the big wall maps. He watched as the plotters neatly drew intersecting lines across the tracks of the target-bound bombers. Each little intersection represented another five minute advance towards the target, based on the flight plan estimates. He sighed.
It was so simple. An elementary exercise in military theory. The Joint Chiefs were professionals, and their solution was undoubtedly the right one. He continued to gaze at the central map.
Slowly the officers and civilians who had been sitting at the big table drifted down to group themselves behind him. In a time of national emergency, the President stands at the very apex of the councils of power. Through him must flow the proposals and counter-proposals on all matters affecting the national security. From him must come the ultimate policy decisions. That is the constitution.
He stood silent for a full two minutes in front of the central map. He tried to think himself into the position of his opposite number in the Kremlin. All his life, even when at a comparatively late age he had found himself sucked into the hurly burly of politics, he had read and admired the great Russian novelists. Now he bent the knowledge he had acquired from them of the Russian character into an attempt to solve the one great dilemma with which he was faced. He did not believe the character of a people can change overnight, whatever change of government there might have been. He thought of the Russian peasant; stubborn, obstinate, accustomed to suffering and perhaps even welcoming it. Latent in all the Slavs, he thought, is the urge for self destruction, the mute acceptance of nemesis once nemesis is seen to be at hand.
He turned abruptly to the waiting group. "Gentlemen," he said, "we’re not going to do it." His tone was crisp and authoritative. "General Steele."
"Mr. President?"
"Recall the SAC wings. Keep them airborne if you feel it necessary for their safety, but they are not to proceed to their X points without direct authority from me."
Steele turned away abruptly. He moved over to Franklin. "You heard, Keith," he said. "Bring them on back." He dropped his voice a little. "But not too far. Arrange for tankers to meet them not more than four hours from their targets. Prepare them to stay airborne just as long as is necessary. If they get hungry, all right they get hungry. But I want them kept airborne, and I want them kept topped with fuel. I still think they’re going to be needed."
"I know th
ey will," Franklin said. It was a definite statement of fact. Like Quinten, Franklin had no great opinion of politicians, especially when they interfered with the weapon he had helped to forge. But Franklin was not a sick man. More important, he had not the same freedom of action Quinten had. He went away to give out the orders. Steele turned back to the group around the President.
The President spoke directly to him. "General Steele, you think my decision is madness." It was phrased as a statement, but everyone in the group took it as a question.
Steele looked at the President. Never in his life had he evaded the truth when asked for his opinion. He did not propose to begin now. He said, "Sir, so far as I can see, it is madness. You have overlooked that if we succeed in recalling the eight forty-third, we can easily recall the other wings. If we do not succeed those wings are going to be necessary. I will go further than that. Not only will they be necessary, they will stand between life and death for millions of people in this country."