by Paul Kenyon
The President turned abruptly to leave the booth. He paused at the door and said, "I'll be on the Hot Line, trying to sweet-talk the Soviet Premier. Christ! All we need at this point is a nuclear war! When I come back, you'd better have an answer!"
They sweated it out for the next two hours. Word had begun to leak to the War Room below. They could see it in the ripple of excitement that was sparked by a sudden increase in the foot traffic between the command posts and Action Group tables. At one point the Secretary picked up a buzzing phone and said peevishly: "No, I don't have anything to tell you yet. Try to hold things down, will you?"
The NSA Director was trying to patch through a link to Key through the President's console and the IBM 7090 computer at Fort Meade. The acknowledgment signal came through as the President re-entered the booth.
"The Russians say they'll keep their fingers off the button — for now," he said, mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "But they say the answers damn well better come out right."
"Mr. President," NSA said, "here's Key."
The image on the screen rippled. Hotchkiss's face was replaced by the strong, rugged features of a television Western star.
"What the hell is this?" the Secretary of Defense said.
Looking embarrassed, the NSA Director said, "It's Key's way of protecting his identity. And maintaining security. He's riding piggy-back on a network television program. He's modulating the carrier wave — just sneaking in a wave with an altered shape a few hundred times per second, in a randomized pattern. No one else could possibly pick it up. But the big computer at Fort Meade is programmed to take all the pieces and make sense out of them."
The U.S. Marshal on the screen moved his lips. "Coin just reported in," he said. "The virus is destroyed. And there's nothing, repeat, nothing, to tie the U.S. to an invasion of Soviet territory."
He gave the rest of his report in a few terse sentences. Marshal Dillon's face disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by the duty officer, who evidently didn't realize he'd been out of communication.
"…and preliminary analysis indicates that the hydrogen bomb that exploded was of Chinese origin. There is reason to believe that the Russians have verified this independently…"
The NSA Director looked smug. He leaned back in his chair, his hands folded, twirling his thumbs. "We're home free, gentlemen," he said. "Coin's done it. It wasn't possible, but Coin's done it. Destroyed the moon virus. Managed somehow to take out the Soviet Union's prime biological warfare facility, with whatever else they were cooking up there. Kept the United States out of it. And driven another wedge between Russia and China."
Everybody was smiling, slapping backs, shaking hands. The Senator took a flask out of his pocket and offered a drink to Dr. Kolbe. Two of the President's aides were scrambling for telephones.
The President looked through the glass wall at the milling throng below. Some of the color had returned to his face. He looked almost relaxed.
"Those people deserve some rest," he said. "I'm going to get some sleep myself."
He walked over to the door and paused. He turned to look at the Secretary of Defense.
"Cancel Doomsday," he said.
* * *
The Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini floated on her back in the yacht's swimming pool, wearing just a pair of sunglasses and the bottom half of a bikini. The hot Mediterranean sun caressed her lithe, tawny body, baking out the memory of Arctic cold. It was glorious.
A head popped out of the water next to her and shook itself dry. It was Helena Pontarelli, the opera star, a bright chatterbox who was known to make a point of never having an affair with any man who was worth less than fifty million dollars.
"Penny!" Helena squealed. "How marvelous! Andreas and I never dared hope you'd accept the invitation to this cruise! You just dropped out of sight! Where in the world have you been?"
"Getting rid of a virus," the Baroness said.
"Oh you poor thing!" Helena gushed. "Are you feeling better now?"
"Much better," the Baroness said.
There was a lot of activity around the pool. White-jacketed waiters were serving drinks to guests in bathing suits, sitting at the poolside tables. A few people, early as it was, were dancing to the music of the five-piece combo that had come aboard at Monte Carlo. A famous American movie actress, naked as a jelly bean, was riding on the back of France's pet novelist, down on his hands and knees playing horse while she slapped at him with a big straw sun hat. A sweet young thing in a bikini had a busy hand under a beach towel that was draped across the lap of a famous film director who was reclining in a deck chair; the two were holding an animated conversation. A Texas oil millionaire was having a political argument with a notoriously gay television personality. And Penelope's host, looking sturdy and pugnacious in shorts and a faded tee shirt, was dressing down the yacht's first officer for some tarnished brass he'd discovered around one of the portholes in a stateroom.
The Baroness trailed a hand lazily in the water. "Helena darling," she said, "is there anybody interesting on board?"
"Of course! Isn't there always? There's Rex, and Lennie, and Truman, and of course the Prince, and Clint, only he's mad at me…"
"I mean interesting."
"Oh. Well there's this marvelous South American. Only thirty-two, with a face like an angel, but he owns cattle ranches and oil wells and coffee plantations and a string of race horses that are the envy of the Keeneland set… Perhaps you've met him. Hector Castillo."
"Does he have any brains?"
"I don't know, but he has a beautiful body. Oh, there he is! Hector!"
She waved at someone poised at the end of the diving board. Penelope looked up. He was a stunning sight, a rich golden bronze against the deep blue sky, with smoothly muscled shoulders and arms and a deep chest and fiat hard belly and a white smile gleaming out of a classic face. He waved at Helena, recovered his balance, and dove with graceful economy into the pool. He reached them in a few powerful strokes. He spoke to Helena, but his eyes rested with frank admiration on Penelope's bare breasts.
"Hello, little one, and what is our dear host stocking his pool with these days?"
"Hector, this is my dearest friend, the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini. Watch out for her, she's an American."
Hector lifted his eyes to Penelope's face. His expression was serious. "I saw what you did at the Monaco Grand Prix," he said. "It was very brave of you. Sorry you lost the race."
"There'll be other races."
"True." He smiled. "Race you to the end of the pool!"
She rolled off the air mattress and shot like a minnow toward the pool's edge, without giving him a chance.
"Not fair!" he shouted, and plunged after her.
Helena yelled, "I should have warned you, the Baroness likes to win!" But his head was under water, and he didn't hear her.
He caught up with her and caught her around the waist, drawing her close to him. "I lost," he said. "How about another chance?"
She slipped a hand between his legs. Everything was satisfactory down there.
"I've got Stateroom D," she said.
He threw back his head and laughed. "Don't you know that's the one with the one-way mirror? Our host likes a little peep show once in a while. Why don't you come to my stateroom. I'm in G. No mirror, but there's a marvelous Vermeer on the wall."
She took his hand. "Then what are we waiting for?" she said, and pulled him through the crowd toward Stateroom G. The Vermeer was exquisite.
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