The General's President

by John Dalmas

  Today he had taken the irreversible step. Today they would either overthrow him or they would get on their bellies. And tomorrow he would begin making a nation of those treacherous and willful minorities, and of the disobedient, bull-headed Russian people who could so easily say yes, then turn around and do the opposite.

  He was the only one who had any sense of history, of destiny. The first since Comrade Stalin. The rest of them, one after the other, had been nothing but apparatchiks.

  His aide opened the door for him, held it, and Pavlenko stepped through into the council room. The others were there ahead of him. A haze of cigarette smoke was already forming. He nodded curtly and took his place at the head of the burnished Circassian walnut table.

  His hawk eyes swept the congregated Politburo. Three were there besides the members: Bogoslovsky from the Transport Ministry, a whiner; Morozov of the Armed Forces Inspectorate, who'd grown surly of late; and Feldstein of the newly reconstituted OGPU. Being a Jew by birth, Feldstein was vulnerable to certain prejudices, thus his loyalty was more reliable.

  They sat there with each his own trivial business to press. In a minute he would tell them what he had ordered, and they would forget all about what they'd wanted to say. His eyes moved to the clock on the wall opposite him: 0906 hours. It would be happening just about now! Leering, he rapped his gavel on its ceramic plate and called the meeting to order.

  ***

  When the president went to bed, he'd plunged deeply into sleep. It was less than an hour and a half later, at 0116 hours, that the phone drew him unwillingly awake. He fumbled the receiver from the cradle.

  "This is the president."

  "Mr. President, this is Jumper. A heavy quake has hit the San Andreas Fault, actually two of them almost simultaneously, at 7.7 and 7.3 on the Richter Scale. The first reports are that San Bernardino's in bad shape, and San Francisco's taken a lot of damage. L.A.'s taken some too."

  Jesus Christ! Haugen found himself thinking, let it be natural. But it couldn't be, not two at once.

  "A lighter one hit Seattle at almost the same time," Jumper continued. "It was still fairly strong—it read 5.3. The epicenter was where the Juan de Fuca plate rides beneath the North American. All three were artificially triggered."

  "Right. Jumper, is Bulavin with you?"

  "He's in the debrief room; we were almost finished when I got the call."

  "Call Gupta right away and get him on a security conference call with you and me and Bulavin. I'm going down to my office right now."

  He disconnected and got off his bed. Lois was staring at him from her own. "Pavlenko's given us an earthquake, Babe," he said. "Three of them in fact. Be glad the White House isn't in San Bernardino."

  Frank and Will were the Secret Service men on duty in the Stair Hall. They followed the bathrobed, slippered president down the stairs. "Big quake in California," he told them. The rest of the way he was silently blessing the nation's luck: Seattle's and Tacoma's especially. The geologists had worried for years that enormous stress had built up along the Juan de Fuca subduction zone—it was either that or subduction had been unusually smooth. The fear had been that when it let go, the quake might be close to the theoretical maximum of nine-plus on the Richter Scale! With an actual reading of 5.3, apparently it had been smooth.

  There was an exasperating but actually short wait to get Gupta tied in on the call. The NSA office at the Nevada Test Center had phoned him as soon as they'd read the quakes, and he'd already been on his way to his office at Fort Meade when Cromwell had phoned. When the general called the White House again, the president could see Bulavin sitting beside him.

  "Colonel Schubert," Haugen said, "it's 0938 hours in Moscow now, right?"

  "Yes, Mr. President."

  "Then the Politburo's likely to be in meeting now?"

  "Yes sir. Almost certainly, and for at least half an hour to come."

  "Jim," the president said, "do you have a detailed diagram of the Kremlin?"

  Gupta's eyebrows raised. "I'm sure we do, sir; in the computer."

  "It's there," said Cromwell.

  "How detailed is it? Would it show the building where the Politburo meets?"

  "It shows every building there," Cromwell answered, "with floor plans."

  "How accurate is it? And how fine is the coordinate system?"

  "Sir, it's part of our computer-generated planetary coordinate system, so it's as fine as you want it to be. As for accuracy, it's probably within inches; a couple of feet at most."

  "Jim, how accurately can you place a Tesla energy release? Or let's make that an energy extraction, to minimize damage."

  Gupta's mouth formed an oh—he realized what the president had in mind. "Either one can be centered within a ten meter radius anywhere on Earth," he replied. "Without ranging."

  "And what's the smallest radius of effect you can give me?"

  "It depends on the effect you want. The temperature within the heat extraction sphere will be virtually at absolute zero at the moment of extraction—say minus 458° Fahrenheit. So there's going to be a damned sharp temperature gradient around it that will suck heat out of the surroundings. But if the extraction sphere is entirely enclosed within a certain room or rooms, it won't have a lot of effect outside those walls.

  "The sphere needs to be large enough to account for the error of location and to include the entire room, or almost the entire room. So the sphere is sure to intrude into other spaces—a hall probably, and one or more adjacent rooms. Within the sphere, it'll be as if the walls aren't there, as far as the temperature effect is concerned. But a twenty-meter extraction sphere won't have much effect outside of four or five rooms, assuming they're large."

  The president's intent eyes moved to Schubert/Bulavin, sitting beside the general. "Colonel Schubert," he said, "can you locate, on the general's diagram, the actual conference room where the Politburo meets?"

  Bulavin's eyes seemed to gleam at him through the CRT. "Definitely, Mr. President."

  "How long, Dr. Gupta, does it take your people to set coordinates on a scalar resonance transmitter and do a heat extraction?"

  "The people are on alert there now. They can do the job within five minutes of a call."

  The President of the United States stared silently at nothing for maybe three or four suspended seconds. "All right," he said. "I want you three to get your information together and instant-freeze the Politburo. You need to work fast, while they're still in conference. I'll notify Nevada and authorize it. Is there anything else I need to do on this?"

  Gupta shook his head. "No sir. I'll order a target zone of twenty-five meters, to make sure we cover any possible error."

  "Let me know when it's done," Haugen said. "I'll be here in my office."

  "Yes sir."

  Haugen cut the connection, then his fingers called the Nevada NSA code to the screen and he rapped it on his keyboard. The man at the other end looked sober as hell. The authorization procedure took less then thirty seconds, and when it was done, the president slumped back in his chair to wait for Gupta's call. It didn't occur to him to make himself coffee.

  Hopefully the order he'd just given had nipped World War Three in the bud. But if the Politburo had already adjourned, he may have ensured it instead.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The president had gotten back to bed at about 0230, after calling Milstead to arrange a flight for him to the west coast. After the earthquakes, he needed to be seen in San Bernardino and San Francisco, and Seattle. He'd asked Lois to come with him, but she'd been tired lately, and when the phone had wakened her, she'd been sweating, and had pain in her stomach. She'd go to the White House clinic instead, and have Colonel Singleton check her over.

  Haugen wasn't feeling so energetic either. After finally getting back to bed, he hadn't gotten to sleep again until nearly 0330, then had gotten up two hours later, taken a very brief cold shower, and been shuttled by chopper to Andrews Air Force Base. He'd shaved on the plane after takeoff, th
en eaten breakfast and followed it with two cups of strong coffee.

  He wondered if Milstead had gone back to bed at all, and if he'd make an opportunity for a nap that day. Knowing Milstead, he'd probably work on through. He'd turned out to be an excellent chief of staff, and his temporary continuance had become, by mutual and unspoken agreement, an arrangement for Haugen's full tenure in the White House.

  Sunrise caught up with Air Force One over Cincinnati. The president took a brief break from the economic update he'd started to read, and removing his reading glasses, looked south out the window beside him. The Ohio River had frozen over after the snow storm, its bare ice looking black from the air. No doubt it was spotted with ice-fishing shelters not visible from 20 thousand feet. To the south, beyond Covington, the farmlands of northern Kentucky stretched white under more than twenty inches of snow.

  Apparently it was a lot worse in Russia. Here the highways had been cleared within two days, most lesser roads within four.

  It was midafternoon in Russia. At noon Moscow time, no news had come out of the Kremlin, but apparently his hit on the Politburo had worked. His daily intelligence summary had been delivered to Air Force One before he had, and it had commented that for some reason, the normal daily releases from the Soviet Central Committee weren't appearing. Even from the ministries, the normal flow of bureaucratic communications was down to a trickle. Clearly something very major had happened, but just what, the CIA had not yet learned.

  This time, Haugen thought, he knew what the CIA did not. For the first time it occurred to him that this might influence Gurenko's decision.

  Bulavin had been in Berlin, working with one of LaMotte's people there. They'd actually gotten a message to Gurenko eight days earlier, at a terrible risk to someone, some unknown Russian hero or heroes. What Gurenko's reaction had been, they'd had no clue. Bulavin had waited for some possible response, but there'd been none, and he'd come home. Probably the only reply they could expect would be action or inaction.

  After the strike at the Politburo, the president had ordered the Tesla transmitters shut down. The high pressure cells they'd created should decay rather quickly, Gupta had told him, but when an actual thaw would come to Russia and the Ukraine was another matter.

  Again the president picked up the report and began to read. He'd read it and two others when someone knocked at his compartment door, and he swiveled his chair to face it. "Come in," he called. It opened and John Zale looked in.

  "Sir," Zale said, "we just got a message from Washington. Moscow's announced that the Politburo has appointed a General Gurenko as premier and Party chairman. Secretary Valenzuela would like to talk to you about it."

  The Politburo! For a moment, the president had felt a pang of anxiety. But of course, Gurenko would have appointed a new Politburo, to legalize his position. He must have made plans and preparations enough that with Pavlenko and the old Politburo snuffed out, he'd been in a position to move quickly. While everyone else in the Kremlin was still in shock and confusion.

  He might even think that the old Politburo had been snuffed out to enable him to take over!

  And Valenzuela hadn't been told about the hit. But even on security equipment, now was not the time to enlighten him. Haugen nodded to Zale. "Thanks," he said, picked up the privacy receiver, and touched the flashing key. "Good morning, Val," he said. "John told me Gurenko has taken over."

  "That's right, Mr. President. It is uncanny how quickly he moved. I'd have expected a month or more of machinations. In feet, I didn't expect him to try at all. We need to make some kind of public statement, as well as a formal one to the Soviet ambassador."

  "Right. You prepare them, and let me see them before they're released."

  A thought struck the president then, and his stomach tightened. Was it possible that Gurenko didn't know about scalar resonance, or didn't know that his own government had struck first with it? For a moment he felt an urge to have the pilot return to Washington.

  Instead he said, "And Val, call the Soviet ambassador right away. Tell him I'm on the West Coast, visiting the earthquake areas. That we know Pavlenko caused the quakes, and that with Gurenko in charge, we do not intend to retaliate further. That there is no need for war. He probably won't know what you're talking about, but tell him that anyway."

  Valenzuela wouldn't know either, the president realized. "I want you to record this," he added. "Can you?"

  Valenzuela's face was exceedingly sober as he nodded and reached. "Recording now, Mr. President."

  "Good." The president repeated his message. "That part about not intending to retaliate further is extremely important. Some things happened last night around one-thirty, on fifteen minutes notice, that you haven't heard about. I'll brief you when I get back. Or you can talk with Cromwell; he was part of it.

  "But call the ambassador first, right away, muy pronto, and let me know as soon as you've finished. Is there anything you need to ask before you do that?"

  "No sir."

  "Good. I'll be waiting for your call."

  Haugen disconnected. What did Gurenko know and not know? Surely he knew that the previous ruling body had been quick frozen. Instant frozen; the heat had been removed instantaneously from not only their environment, but everything in it including their bodies. There'd been no gradient heat loss, no shivering, no moments of shocked realization, just ... instant death.

  Gurenko was bound to be concerned that his new government might be hostage to the same kind of attack.

  Haugen became aware that his body was tense—shivering with tension. He took deep breaths, focused on relaxing, and felt the tension drain away. He'd visit the disaster areas today, fly back to the White House this evening, sleeping on the way, and call Gurenko as soon as he got there.

  He buzzed the orderly the Air Force had provided; he'd have the man make up his bed. Then, after Valenzuela called back, he'd take a long nap. Just now sleep seemed the most profitable way to spend a few hours.

  FORTY-SIX

  It was after one o'clock the next morning that the president got back to the White House. During the day, he'd made repeated use of the communications equipment on Air Force One, and Valenzuela and Milstead were waiting for him at the White House helipad with Valenzuela's top interpreter. And with Grosberg and Lynch; it was time for the leaders of Congress to know what was going on.

  At the president's radioed instructions, Milstead had alerted the Hot Line office, which had alerted its Moscow counterpart. Haugen excused the interpreter, then gave the other four a fifteen-minute mini-briefing on scalar resonance, the weatherwar, the source of the earthquakes, and what had happened in the Kremlin. They were four very sober men when he'd finished.

  "So you fought a war and assassinated an entire cabinet without recourse to Congress," Lynch said.

  Grosberg glanced sharply at the Speaker of the House, but there'd been no antagonism, nothing accusatory, in Lynch's words. They'd been thoughtful; even awed.

  "Right," replied Haugen. "And it's something the American people need to be informed about. I started work on a press release flying back to D.C., but it may be a couple of days before I'm satisfied with it. Meanwhile Congress needs to know, or that part of Congress you decide on. I'll send over the complete text of the press release shortly before I give it to the media. You'll have time to comment before it's released."

  Together then they went down to the bomb shelter, to the Washington-Moscow Direct Communications Link. The President of the United States took a chair in front of the video pickup, then signalled the duty officer. An image flashed into being.

  The man who looked out at him reminded the president of Bulavin, and seemed little if any older than the defector. The face was broader, but like Bulavin's, lined and hard-looking, tempered in the harsh and relentless school of Soviet military intelligence.

  "Good morning, Premier Gurenko," Haugen said in Russian. His tone was carefully serious and not quite impersonal. "My congratulations on your success."
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br />   Gurenko nodded curt acknowledgement. "And my congratulations on yours." His American English was almost unaccented. "I have taken a few minutes this morning to watch television coverage of the earthquake areas in your west coast states. And of your visit there. It is regrettable, but perhaps inevitable, that things had to go so far."

  And that, thought Haugen, was quite a statement for a Soviet premier. "It is indeed." The president was still speaking Russian; now he paused. "Here I am speaking your language while you speak mine. I'm quite willing to continue like this, but you're more accomplished in English than I am in Russian. It might be best if we both continued in English. With your agreement, of course."

  Gurenko nodded. "Your Russian pronunciations are quite good. But you are an engineer; your Russian vocabulary may not extend to matters of government."

  So they both spoke English, their courtesy constant but matter-of-fact. They conferred for more than an hour, and before they had finished, they'd agreed to meet in Zurich in ten days. Ten days would give Gurenko time to establish fuller control of his nation, and it would give the Swiss government, and the Russian and American embassies in Switzerland, time to set up the demanding machinery, including security, that a summit meeting required.

  In a reversal of the usual procedure, there would be no preliminary conference of diplomats to set things up. In Zurich, they themselves would work out a broad agreement, and a general agenda for subsequent conferences at the foreign ministry level, which would work out the details.

  They did not talk about relaxing their military stance. After what each government had done to the other in the last twenty-four hours, it wasn't surprising. But there'd been no sense at all of truculence or suspicion.

  Valenzuela would have preferred a longer lead time than ten days. There were various other governments to consider, and he'd have liked to confer with them in advance about their various interests. But he sat quietly. Now was the time to move, he knew, while things were fluid. And Arne Haugen had displayed genius at making things go right.