The Hercules Text

by Jack McDevitt

  It was a question they’d anticipated, and the secretary of state had suggested that Hurley fall back on his personal relationship with the foreign minister. “He knows you would not threaten them with the bomb,” the secretary had said. But the argument sounded empty now, devoid of either persuasion or good sense. Hurley peered deep into Taimanov’s icy eyes.

  What would he do when ORION was in place? What would his responsibility be to the nation that, for half a century, had wrestled with Soviet ambition and ruthlessness? It would be the Americans’ opportunity, perhaps never to come again, to end it! To establish a true Pax Americana and to get on, unhindered, with the business of disarming the world’s lunatics.

  The President saw himself increasingly as the man who would be remembered for having brought peace to this brutal period, for having set the tone for an entry into the sunlit meadows of the twenty-first century. The Hurley Age.

  Prosperity would follow, an era of good feeling, at first enforced by the total military domination of the world by a benevolent United States. But eventually there would develop a global order unlike anything men had seen before. It could be had; it was within reach. And the terrible irony of it was that the Soviet Union, the nation that was prepared to risk everything to stop him, would be a prime beneficiary. “You know me, Alex,” he said after a long hesitation. “You know I would never launch an attack.”

  “You’d have no need,” the foreign minister said reasonably. “We would stand before you quite naked, would we not? All of this difficulty might have been avoided had you been able to see your way clear to grant us access to the Hercules Text. Now the complications are endless, and the dangers terrible.” He looked up at the Teddy Roosevelt portrait. “You have expressed your admiration for the first President Roosevelt many times. If he were in your place and given the capability to act with impunity, what could we expect?”

  “I’m not Teddy Roosevelt,” Hurley said.

  “Then shall I tell you what we would do?” Taimanov was not an old cossack like the two generations of Soviet leaders who had preceded him. His family had been prominent in St. Petersburg during the time of the Romanovs. They’d survived the Revolution more or less intact, maintained their influence and traditions, and continued to send their sons abroad to school. Taimanov had been at Oxford when the Wehrmacht had begun its autumn stroll through the European countryside.

  “What would you do?” asked Hurley.

  “Contrary to popular opinion in the West, we would not wish to see a world in which there was no United States. But we would like to see an American nation that is less suspicious and perhaps less smug. To use favorite adjectives of your press, Mr. President, your country is paranoid and arrogant—an evil combination. There is, after all, no real conflict of interest between us and you. There has never been a war between the Soviet Union and the United States for that very reason. Our interests do not collide.

  “Only in this postwar world, where our fear of each other has taken on a life of its own, is there danger. We would like to remove that danger and retain the United States as a friendly associate. If we had no longer to fear an attack by you, you would see how quickly our attitude would change. But that happy condition, apparently, can be accomplished only by force or by the threat of force. In a word, we would ensure your friendship. As you would doubtless endeavor to ensure ours.

  “Mr. President, fortunately there is a solution, but it will require courage.”

  “And what do you suggest?”

  “If your concern is truly for peace and not domination, you will share with us the secrets of the Hercules Text.”

  “I see.”

  “I understand that this is not an easy request for you to consider favorably. Before you answer, however, you must understand that my government views its current position as untenable. No one believes that the United States would not use its advantage to destroy the political power of the Soviet Union. I, for one, am sure that you would not go so far as to employ nuclear weapons even if we defied you. Unfortunately, that is not a widely held view. Incidentally, to be candid with you, I’m not even persuaded that ORION will work. But we would not wish to be forced to put it to the test, and so we must assume that it will do what your people think it will do.

  “My government will not allow you to utilize your advantage.”

  The room felt cold.

  “As you are aware, Mr. President, the Soviet Union is now in an advanced state of military readiness. I am instructed to inform you, first, that any shuttle flight, from this moment, will be considered an act of war. Should such a flight occur, we will react immediately and with all the forces at our disposal.

  “Second, we freely admit we cannot maintain our present condition for an extended period. You must understand, Mr. President, that we believe we are in a state of mortal danger. We will allow you six days from midnight tonight, your time, to find a way to share ORION with us. If you refuse, we will consider ourselves driven to take whatever defensive measures seem appropriate.”

  “Alex, you’re asking the impossible. I can’t give ORION away.”

  “Why not? As you say, it is a defensive weapon. If your interest is truly global safety and not military expansion, then I must ask you why not?” For the first time during all their dealings, Taimanov seemed to have lost his sense of cool diplomacy. He was angry. “This is your chance, John. Don’t let it slip away or we will all slide into the abyss!”

  Hurley did not consciously note that the Russian had used his first name. “It’s not whether I want to or not, Alex. This is a question of capability. I can’t do it! If I gave ORION to you, they’d impeach me!”

  The foreign minister did not smile. “President Reagan said years ago that he would do it.”

  “Reagan didn’t have the device in his hands. Talk is cheap.”

  “Yes.” Taimanov got up. “It is.” He offered his hand, but the President only stared silently at him.

  Hurley allowed the foreign minister to get to the door, and then he, too, rose. “Alex?” he said.

  Taimanov paused.

  “It means disaster.”

  “Yes, Mr. President. I believe it does.”

  MONITOR

  Since its creation in the fog and blood of the 1917 Revolution, the U.S.S.R. has relied on force, and the threat of force, to achieve state objectives. With the consolidation of the Soviet state under Joseph Stalin during the 1930s, and the unexpectedly dominant position it was able to assume after the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 in a Europe devastated by the struggle, these objectives became unrelentingly expansionist and continue to point to national ambitions that accept no limit.

  In the modern world, Soviet military forces are armed, trained, and equipped for conventional and nuclear warfare around the globe. The threat to the security of the West has never been greater, and in the light of recent developments in missile and submarine technology, NATO can expect no lessening in the Soviet drive to achieve hegemony during the coming decades.

  The willingness of the Soviet government to employ threat or direct military action, where feasible, is documented by fifty years of efforts to destabilize uncooperative governments, assassinations, unconventional warfare, intimidation, and outright invasion. Throughout the bleak history of the second half of the twentieth century, which, in a sense, may be said to have begun with the Soviet Union’s treacherous nonaggression pact with Hitler, and its subsequent invasion of Poland when that nation was trying to defend itself against the Nazis, the record shows instance after instance of oppressive and often murderous national behavior.

  After its brutalizations in Poland, the U.S.S.R. attacked Finland and, during the course of World War II, seized most of the nations of eastern Europe. In 1950, it instigated, and supplied, the invasion of South Korea. The East German regime maintained its existence against a popular uprising only with Soviet help. Nikita Khrushchev threatened to use force against Poland in October 1956. Weeks later, Soviet tanks overran Budapes
t when the Hungarians attempted to gain their freedom. Soviet armor was also needed to hold the Czechs in line in 1968. In 1979, the U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan. During the early 1980s, when Polish labor unions showed signs of gaining popular support, the Kremlin’s influence, wielded indirectly this time, was again used to maintain the Communist regime.

  In recent years, Soviet resources have fueled revolutions in Bolivia, Peru, the Philippines, and several African nations.

  —Abstract from Soviet Military Power, 1995

  Issued by the U.S. Department of Defense

  18

  “IT’S A BLUFF,” said Gold.

  Santanna knocked his pipe against an ashtray. “I agree,” he said, “up to a point. Roskosky has had his hand forced by the military. There’s no doubt in my mind that he will back off if we stand up to him. But we don’t know the extent of the army’s influence just now, although it’s clearly considerable.”

  “What would give the Soviets the idea they could attack us and survive?” asked Melbourn.

  “Twenty-five years of military neglect in this country,” said Sachs. “Except during the terms of Reagan and the present Executive, the Pentagon has been a whipping boy for a long line of politicians. It’s a tradition in this country.”

  “Mr. President,” asked Klinefelder, “have you tried to speak with him?”

  “Roskosky? Yes. They say he’s not well.”

  “We don’t think he’s in charge any longer,” said Arnold Olewine, the national security director. “There’s been a reshuffling of deputies in the Supreme Soviet over the last month. Roskosky’s people have been getting the less influential jobs, and in some cases they’ve been left out altogether. Things have changed at the top, but we’re not sure exactly how or to what degree.”

  “What’s the worst case scenario?” asked the President.

  “There are a couple of extremely discomforting possibilities,” said Santanna. The Soviet hierarchy was his specialty. “The army may simply have taken direct control. They’ve been trying to do that now for almost twenty years, and they have two people ideally placed in the event that Roskosky falters.

  “Or Andrey Daimurov may have engineered a coup. Daimurov is First Party secretary, and a man with a messianic complex. He’s a psychotic who believes that the only way to save Soviet civilization from being overrun is to take out the United States. He’s been described by CIA psychoanalysts as a kind of mystical Communist, in that he believes in historical necessity and has concluded that he’s the foreordained agent of history who will carry Soviet society to supremacy. Ipso facto, there is no real danger to the Soviet Union from his actions. He believes that a war can be successfully waged against us, so long as he wages it.”

  “Is there any evidence,” asked the secretary of defense, “that Daimurov is, in fact, in charge?”

  “No direct evidence, though his friends seem to be prospering, and he’s been seen publicly with most of the power brokers. I will say this: we feel that, if a void were to occur at the top today, Daimurov would be the most likely successor.”

  “Kathleen.” The President looked down the table at the director of NASA. “The timetable calls for the final two shuttle launches in the ORION series to take place within the next three weeks. Can they be moved up?”

  Kathleen Westover considered the problems. She did not yet have lines in her face, but it was possible, in moments of stress, to see where they would form, around her eyes and mouth, and curving across her pale, broad forehead. “It’s possible. But we’d have to sacrifice some of our safety procedures. We could give you, um, a few days.”

  “Armand.” The President addressed Sachs. “From the moment the shuttles go up, what’s the shortest possible time before we can hope to have ORION operational?”

  Sachs shook his head. “We’d have to get together with NASA people to answer that, Mr. President.”

  “How long do you think? What’s the best we can hope for?”

  “If everything went perfectly?” Sachs glanced at Kathleen Westover. “And we dispensed with all the tests…maybe forty-eight hours.”

  Westover nodded her agreement.

  “It’s too long,” said Pat Maloney. “Isn’t there any other way? Could we manage a launch, say, from Australia? Would it be possible?”

  “No,” said Westover. “We’d have to build facilities. Even with unlimited time, we couldn’t keep it secret.”

  “Why did the Soviets set the deadline at six days?” asked Gold. “They want a lot from us. Why give us only six days?”

  “Their assault forces,” said Sachs, “are now operating at a readiness condition one level below red alert. That’s a terrible strain on them, and they can’t maintain it very long. Matter of fact, if we were inclined to give them the war they seem to be looking for, the way to do it would be to hold them at that status for the entire six days, give in to their demands at the last minute, and hit them immediately after they downgrade.”

  The conference was unlike any Hurley had attended before in a public career stretching across thirty-five years. Each statement seemed to be made in a vacuum; each was followed by a long silence, broken usually not by a comment but by the movement of a chair or the flare of a cigarette lighter.

  “What happens,” asked Westover, “if we give in to their demands?”

  “We can’t do that,” said Sachs. “Once they knew we were open to that sort of blackmail, there’d be no end to it. This isn’t the first time they’ve threatened war. Suppose Truman had caved in over Berlin? Or Kennedy during the Cuban blockade?”

  “There’s another even more compelling reason,” said Hurley. “We still don’t know the extent of what’s in the transmission. If they were only demanding the power source for ORION, it might be an option. But they want the entire package. That’s out of the question.”

  Gold pushed his fingers through his thick white hair. He was a big man with grainy features like a photograph that hadn’t quite printed right. “I agree that we have no choice but to assume that they’re bluffing and to determine the manner best suited to turning the situation to our advantage.” His hands trembled.

  General Sachs shook his head, dumbfounded at the stupidity of the men who sat in the President’s council. “That course, Mr. Gold, is suicide! The only possible stance we can take is to assume the worst and get ready to blow the bastards out of the water the minute they try it.”

  So they considered their alternatives, and at a little after 2:00 A.M., they filed out of the conference room. Sachs remained behind, who was bundling briefing papers into his leather case, Hurley invited the general upstairs for a drink. But the President had little to say. He walked to the window, trying to imagine what it would be like, the missiles curving in over the Canadian wilderness, long silvery lances riding the lightning.

  “John.” Sachs’s voice was cool, remote, distant from decision. Only Hurley’s name would survive, if anything did, and it would be synonymous with catastrophe. “John, there is very little time.”

  The ulcerous thing in Hurley’s stomach clawed at him.

  Ten days before, he’d strolled through the sunlit gardens of his family home on the Virginia coast, while Anna, his granddaughter, ran laughing among the pines. They’d been good hours, laced with salt air and bourbon and a sense of impending history. He’d felt like Alexander then.

  “John,” came Sachs’s voice, more insistent, “they are not bluffing. Unless the intelligence people are wrong, and Roskosky is still in charge, we have to assume they are not bluffing.”

  “And you would have us attack first.”

  “There is no other rational strategy. If we give them the first strike, we’ll retain enough to annihilate them, but we cannot hope to survive.”

  “I know,” said Hurley. “We can take their subs out in the first wave.”

  “And that means we’ll make it, John. We’ll take a lot of casualties, but we’ll make it!”

  “Yes.” The President was too weary t
o argue the point.

  Anna had round black eyes and short stubby legs. She was his son’s first child and, like all nine-year-olds, a fountain of petulance and laughter. They had taken an afternoon together to fish, he and the girl, to the delight of the TV people.

  Where could he hide the child?

  There was a thought that came to him often: if the talk fails, and the deterrent fails, and the missiles come, swift as daggers at midnight, what would be the point of retaliation? Hardly a day went by that the question didn’t surface at odd moments, that he didn’t poke at it, turn it over, and try to thrust it away. He wanted now to tell it to Sachs, but he said nothing. The burden could not be shared.

  The white telephone, which was his direct line to SAC headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, was little more than a silhouette in the half-light. It had no dial, an appropriate reflection of the condition that would exist after he’d used it.

  A cold moon floated over the Washington Monument.

  The general liked scotch. He finished his drink and remained silent in the background. Hurley knew he wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to talk sense to his Commander-in-Chief. But Sachs assessed the situation correctly. He too did not speak.

  Only one man on the planet shared the President’s emotions this night, and he was across the Atlantic, probably also staring bleakly from a window. The thought suddenly struck Hurley that Roskosky might not even be alive.

  Someone was knocking at the front door. Harry picked up his watch—it was a quarter after five—and pulled on his robe.

  A black government car was idling in his driveway, and a tall man in a three-piece suit waited impatiently. “Secret Service,” he said, flashing a plastic card at Harry. “They would like to see you at the White House, sir.”

  “When?”

  “Breakfast, Mr. Carmichael. They expect you at six-thirty.”

  “What’s it about?” he asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Okay,” said Harry. “I’ll be there.”