Alternities

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  Wallace quickly thought better of the idea. He hardly looked old enough to be the father of a fifth grader, much less an eighth grader. “Mrs. Bennett, you probably don’t remember me, I was in your class in 1967—” No, that was chancy too. She would be that one teacher who remembered everybody.

  He was feeling something he had been warned about by instructors on both sides of the gate—the heady sense of somehow having power over this stranger by what he knew about her. It was as though he were gloating over the one-sided intimacy. Nah, nah, I have a secret… The impulse was personal, not professional. And recognizing that helped him to suppress it.

  Wallace watched her cross the pavement to her pale blue squareback sedan and deposit her books onto the passenger seat. There was no outward evidence of her pregnancy yet, no telltale roundness that jarred with the rest of her build. Unburdened, she paused for a moment to scan the cloud-studded sky, or perhaps just to enjoy being through for the day.

  Impressions cascaded down on him. Hard-working. Hard, too, he guessed. Even though he could see her sitting on the edge of her desk, telling a funny story. Velvet and steel. Unequivocal lines. Her kids liked her, but probably best when they no longer had to answer to her.

  Before long, Haggerty roused herself, circled the squareback to the driver’s side, and climbed in. A moment later the car was gliding toward where Wallace was parked. He sat calmly watching. As she drove past, she became aware of his eyes on her and raised a hand from the steering wheel to wave to him uncertainly.

  He smiled back and reached for his pencil. “Good-bye, Barbara Haggerty,” he said aloud, and bowed his head as he started to write.

  And when he was done, he drove south, out of the city and into the farmland of Johnson County. He could not bring himself to surrender the car without savoring the pure flying joy of it, power in his hands and the freedom of an open road. It was a senseless, exhilarating selfindulgence, and he reveled in it for more than an hour before duty could call him home.

  Camp David, Maryland, The Home Alternity

  Peter Robinson hooked his folded hands behind his neck, strained the muscles of his arms and neck against each other, and yawned, an eye-squeezing, jaw-stretching yawn which he made no effort whatsoever to conceal from the others in the room.

  It had already been a long meeting, and he had yet to hear from those whose thoughts most interested him. The Secretary of State had insisted on prefacing his proposals with a long-winded explication of his view of current geopolitics and then on spelling out those proposals in painful detail.

  Robinson listened patiently to the Secretary natter on for several more sentences about a trilateral pact for the defense of Singapore, then wedged an interruption into a minute pause. “E.C., is this a good place to stop?”

  Surprised, the Secretary looked down at his notes. “I have very little more to cover.”

  Robinson hooked his folded hands over his knee. “Then why don’t you go ahead and take a moment to sum up for us, and then we’ll all take a break.”

  The man’s anxious eyes showed that he knew he was being cut off. “The key thing to remember is that Malaya is the key to the entire Indonesian archipelago,” he said, stiffening in his chair. “By concluding a pact with Singapore, we can make a firm statement without intruding on an issue already joined.”

  “Seems to me like drawing a line in the sand while the bully is already busy beating up your best friend,” the CIA director remarked, sotto voce.

  The Secretary of State’s eyes blazed. “And by funneling arms and assistance through the Australians, we can have an impact on the fighting already underway,” he said sharply. “I have every reason to think that Singapore would respond positively to an approach, and the Australians have already expressed interest in acquiring our jungle combat capability—counterinsurgency aircraft and narrow-track armor particularly. I do think this deserves the strongest possible consideration.”

  You’re just not in tune with what I want, E.C., Robinson thought. Just look at you, starched collar and tie on a flannel-shirt day. He nodded absently. “Thank you, E.C. Everyone, let’s stretch ’em.”

  “Getting a bit chilly in here,” William Rodman said as he rose. “Maybe we could get somebody to come build a fire while we’re out draining the dragon?”

  “Not with this kind of material scattered around in here,” Dennis Madison said sharply. “Unless you’ve got a blind houseboy with A1 clearance.”

  “The Secret Service—” the Secretary of State began.

  “Hell, an old farm blood like me doesn’t need hired help to build a fire,” Robinson said with a boyish grin. “Contrary to what the Democrats say, I’m not mentally handicapped.”

  Rodman smiled broadly, and the others laughed. “I’ll give a hand,” Gregory O’Neill offered.

  Eyeing the empty wood box, Robinson said, “Make it two hands, and you can lug a couple three-inch logs in from the porch.”

  “Done.”

  Ten minutes later, the fire was crackling briskly, the coffee and doughnuts had been refreshed, and the five had settled back into their chairs.

  “Gregory, I’d like to hear from you now,” Robinson said. “What do you have to offer up for consideration?”

  O’Neill looked into Robinson’s eyes with a steady gaze. “I have no new initiatives to propose.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, Robinson said, “I was hoping for some new thinking about our territorial waters, at the very least.”

  “There’s been no change in our capability. So I can’t in conscience propose a change in our posture.”

  There was suddenly tension in the room, and Robinson was content to let it build. With almost exaggerated slowness, he leaned forward and retrieved a white-frosted French cruller from the tray. “Well, I can’t understand that,” he said between bites. “Did you read the Friday papers?”

  “If you’re referring to the Norwegian incident—”

  “I am. The Norwegian Navy depth-charged a suspected submarine contact in Trondheim Fjord. The fucking Norwegian Navy, Gregory. They’ve got nothing bigger than a DE in their whole kid’s-toy fleet and they’re not afraid to stuff one down the sail of a Red sub.”

  “If that’s what it was,” O’Neill said. “There was no sighting, before or after. It was a sonar contact. No screw noises. No oil slick. Not even the head of the Trondheim Fjord monster bobbing to the surface.”

  Grins and nervous chuckles blossomed, infuriating Robinson.

  “I could arrange for one of our ships to hammer a gas bubble or a shipwreck, too,” O’Neill went on. “It’d make spectacular copy for the FNS, I agree. But the Soviet naval command will just laugh.”

  Robinson had heard enough. “I’m not talking about a goddamn public relations stunt,” he snapped. “I’m talking about the fact that the Norwegians have got the gumption to draw a line and make it stick. They don’t stand for any nonsense inside their twelve-mile limit. Is it just that their captains have bigger balls than ours do? Or is there some other problem—like rules of engagement that’ve handcuffed our people so long that they aren’t worth a damn?”

  “Norway is small enough that the Soviet Union can afford to ignore them,” O’Neill said in the same even tone. “A flea on a St. Bernard. They wouldn’t be as tolerant of us.”

  “Is that so? Let me tell you how I see it. I think they do it because we let them get away with it. Rockefeller created this problem all by himself the first time he settled for a polite note of protest instead of a nitronyl calling card. How the hell are we ever going to get back to a blue-water strategy, Gregory? Tell me that.”

  “That Norwegian business caught my eye, too.” Madison said, joining the fray. “I’d sure like to see us take a more aggressive approach to coastal defense. Give our skippers the authority to fire on contact. Hell, let them go hunting. And then pin a medal on the first one to come back with his launchers empty. That’d turn things around.”

  “May I point out that their subs are faster th
an our destroyer escorts?” O’Neill said. “They can just run away from us. They do it all the time.”

  “They can’t run from a patrol plane, can they?” the CIA director shot back.

  “Or from the Javelins,” Robinson said quietly.

  O’Neill was not dissuaded. “If we go out there head-hunting, we’re going to buy a pack of trouble,” he warned.

  “Which is why I would suggest that this new policy—if adopted—be announced in advance to the United Nations Maritime Commission,” Clifton said. “Worded properly, of course, so that it doesn’t sound as though we’re accusing anyone of anything. Hazard to shipping and that sort of thing. Kondratyev will have an opportunity to avoid an incident, and we’ll be on firmer ground if there are any.”

  O’Neill looked to Robinson, his expression a mixture of disgust and frustration. “Sir, the cold fact is, it doesn’t make a whit of difference strategically whether their subs are sitting two miles offshore or twenty.”

  “Perhaps not. But it matters, all the same,” Robinson said. “Besides, if you’re right, don’t you think the Reds will loudly deny everything and quietly pull back into international waters?”

  “We can’t count on that.”

  “I think we can,” Robinson said firmly. “And I think there is plenty of support for that view in this room.”

  Scanning the faces of the others, O’Neill found unwelcome confirmation of that. “I think they’re just as likely to say, ‘Well, come on then, boy, let’s tussle.’ They still have the edge, and they probably think they have a bigger edge than they really do. And it’s perceptions, not reality, that drive behavior.”

  “Noted. If it happens that way, you have my permission to say ‘I told you so.’ ”

  “We’re talking about the possibility of seeing one of our ships sunk in our own waters.”

  “I don’t think so,” Robinson said composedly. “Because Moscow has more to lose by getting in a shooting war with us than they have to gain.”

  “Moscow won’t make the decision. That decision will be made by a single sub captain who’s just had his boat rattled in a definitely unfriendly way.”

  “Their commanders have rules of engagement, too. I’m betting they say withdraw if challenged. And it feels like a very secure bet. End of discussion, Gregory. The decision is made.”

  O’Neill nodded glumly. “Tell me what you want, then.”

  “State will draft the policy statement. You sit down with your tactical people and come up with some new rules of engagement for the Coast Guard,” Robinson said, licking the icing residue from his fingers. “Get the Joint Chiefs to sign off on them, and then bring them to me.”

  O’Neill frowned, but acquiesced. “It’ll take at least a week.”

  “That’s fine,” Robinson said, satisfied. O’Neill was stubborn, but loyal. He knew how to close ranks when the issue was decided. “I’m thinking we’ll hold it until after the next incident. I’m sure the Bear will oblige us before too long.”

  He glanced outside at the already dark sky, then at his watch. CIA would have a long list, and he had hardly seen Janice all day. “That’s enough for today, gentlemen. We’ll come back to this tomorrow at ten.”

  Indianapolis, Alternity Blue

  “Rayne Andrew Wallace.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What kind of name is that?”

  “Mangled Old German, sir.”

  “Mangled?”

  “There should be an r on the end—Rayner. It was my great-grandfather’s name. Means ‘mighty soldier,’ or something like that. According to my grandmother. Immigration dropped the r and he never realized he could do anything about it.”

  Matt Kelly smiled and shifted the gum he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. “I’ll guess you took some heat about your name as a kid.”

  “Everybody used to think I was saying Ray,” Wallace said with a little shake of the head. “It wasn’t until I was sixteen or so that I started to insist they got it right. By then I could take care of myself.”

  Pursing his lips, Kelly flipped open the cover of the binder in front of him on the desk. “Well, Rayne Wallace, this is one fine job you did on Haggerty.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve seen better, and I’ve seen faster. But I don’t remember anything this complete on a forty-eight-hour turnaround from someone as green as you are. How’d you do it?”

  “I guess by not trying to decide what’s important while I was in the field.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, how’d you do it? You’ve got her dress size, the due date for her child, college grade-point average. Individually useless, but impressive in the aggregate.”

  Wallace felt a sudden tremor of uncertainty. Maybe he’d gone too far, crossed the line from dedication to zeal. A break-in, a bribe, three impersonations—maybe Kelly wouldn’t be so happy with him after all. “It’s out there, all of it,” he said evasively. “You just have to be creative about getting it.”

  Kelly grunted. “Whatever. If you don’t want a chance to brag on yourself, I’ll let it pass. Just don’t forget what worked for you,” he said. “Because as of now, I’m releasing you to operations.”

  Suddenly grinning broadly, Wallace straightened up in his chair.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’ll be in Donn Frederick’s group. Suite 16, the Shelby Street offices.”

  “Yes, sir,” Wallace said, starting to rise.

  “Wallace—just don’t get too creative, do you hear? Your reputation hath preceded you.”

  Wallace’s face fell. “Yes, sir.” Can’t get away from it, he thought resignedly. It’s part of my profile now—

  Camp David, Maryland, The Home Alternity

  To Gregory O’Neill’s mind, there was a chilling emperor’s-new-clothes unreality to the charts the CIA director had brought with him, as though anything committed to print and discussed soberly had to be taken seriously, no matter how absurd.

  Madison’s words were a cape swirling around the emperor, a noble but vain attempt to mask the nakedness, a skillful effort to disengage the critical faculties of his audience. Astonishment had silenced O’Neill during the first several minutes of the presentation. He stared at the man as though he were staring at a crawling thing, unable to credit what he was hearing:

  “The most desirable flight would be an Aeroflot nonstop from a city outside the Soviet bloc. At present, there are three that deserve special consideration: They originate from Madrid, London, and Reykjavik.

  “As noted here, using either London or Madrid would require us to take action on the ground, specifically loading the package and replacing the crew. Obviously, that would have to be handled very cleanly and probably would necessitate involving the host country to some degree. Balancing the added risk is the opportunity to use actual Soviet hardware for the penetration.

  “The Reykjavik flight is the longest of the three, much of it over water. There are radar dead spots and often long stretches of radio silence. It should be possible to bring down the target airliner over the Norwegian Sea and substitute our own mocked-up Q-plane. The Tu-85s in service on the Reykjavik run and our Boeing-Douglas VC-24 are virtual twins—as they should be, since we cribbed freely from their design. The advantage here is that we can handle it without outside help, since there is no ground interface.

  “The choice between the various options would turn on a more careful examination of a detailed action plan, but timing at the other end might become a consideration, too. The optimal trigger windows are the opening session of the twenty-fifth Party Congress, expected sometime next summer, or one of the semi-annual gatherings of the Supreme Soviet. Either one should assure a maximum concentration of the country’s top leadership, both civil and Party—”

  O’Neill glanced toward Robinson and was horrified to see the President’s eyes betraying interest. The sight spurred him to break his benumbed silence. “Mr. President,
this is the craziest idea I’ve ever heard outside of a union bar,” O’Neill said sharply. “I’m astonished that Dennis would think something this extreme would get a sympathetic hearing. And frankly, I’m surprised at you for letting him go on as long as you have.”

  “This is not something that was hatched overnight,” Madison growled, annoyed at the interruption. “Some of my very best people have been working on this for more than a year. I wouldn’t bring you something that I wasn’t convinced was do-able.”

  “I take no comfort whatsoever in that,” O’Neill fired back. Bouncing up from his chair, he strode across the room to the chart stand and flung the top chart back, then shuffled roughly through the remaining pages as he continued.

  “Where are the charts showing American casualties in the war you’ve started?” he demanded. “Where are the tables of burnward beds for half a million survivors? Did your ‘best people’ give so much as one minute of that year to thinking about what happens after you pull off your coup? Do you think that killing the Minister of Strategic Rocket Forces removes all launch authority from Soviet command and control?”

  Madison scowled. “I’m not surprised by this. You swagger and preen with the best sweat-belt generalissimo, but when it comes to actually using it, you can’t get it up. You made that plain enough yesterday, when you tried to talk the President into keeping the handcuffs on the Coast Guard. We didn’t buy you all that fucking hardware just so you could show it off in parades.”

  “An ad hominem attack is no substitute for an answer, Dennis,” O’Neill said stolidly. “But then you can’t answer, because the lie you’d have to tell to keep from admitting I’m right would choke you.”

  He turned to Robinson. “This is absolutely reckless, Mr. President. Absolutely and unequivocably reckless. There is no such thing as a one-punch fight. Scorching Moscow isn’t going to ‘sap their national will.’ The Soviet people believe in revenge, Mr. President. And they’ll have it.”