“You’ll just have to make the time, Captain.”
Ludlum opened the snap-ring top of a beer can. It spewed with a hiss. Ludlum was in his uniform, Air Force blues with railroad-track insignia. A huge gorilla torso on strangely spindly feminine legs. A pugilist, and other things as welclass="underline" communications officer for the missile wing, Amergrad cell leader, expert in electronics.
Belsky said, “It shouldn’t be that bad. In theory the force numbers well over two hundred Illegals but in practice we’ve only got to work with about eighty-five—the people directly connected with the operation.”
He was talking to fill silence; they had to wait, the group wasn’t complete. Restive, Nick Conrad got up and stood by the edge of the window, watching for the latecomers. His fingers toyed with the venetian-blind cord, tying and untying knots in it. A little less than forty-eight hours to go.
They heard the car coming. Ludlum stood up and went outside. The screen door closed behind him with a hiss and a slap. Belsky pulled the light string and they waited in darkness. He could feel their heat around him—Conrad, Hathaway, Adele Conrad, Fred Winslow. With Ludlum outside and the two new arrivals it made an ungainly group, seven of them not including Belsky, but he couldn’t pare it down any tighter.
Ludlum held the door for Nicole Lawrence and came in behind Ramsey Douglass. “Okay,” and Belsky switched on the light.
Nicole said, “Where’s the john, Leo?”
Ludlum said, “Christ. We haven’t got time for you to powder your nose.”
“If you don’t want to get your shoes wet you’d better point the way for me.”
“Over there.” Ludlum pointed to a door; Nicole went through it and closed it without even nodding at the rest of them.
Douglass pulled out a chair and sat down at the poker table and said dryly, “What are the stakes and who’s dealing?” He reached into his pocket with thumb and forefinger and brought out a heart-shaped tablet which he popped into his mouth.
Belsky said, “Take care with those amphetamines.”
“I’ve had no sleep in two days. I can handle them. I’m not a pill freak.”
Belsky said to Fred Winslow, “Taking things in order. You’re now in command of the missile wing?”
“Temporarily. Until they send in a replacement for Colonel Sims.” Winslow looked full of bile; he wasn’t meeting anyone’s eyes.
Ramsey Douglass asked, “What happened to Colonel Sims?”
Winslow said very angrily, “His plane crashed on the way to Yuma. I understand they found indications that several sticks of explosive had been taped to the control cables of the plane. Altimeter-fused. I don’t like that, Dangerfield. You told me to get him out of the way temporarily and I did: we put some nonlethal poison in his wife’s coffee down in Yuma and he was on his way down there to hold her hand in the hospital. It wasn’t necessary to have him killed.”
“There was no way to be sure he wouldn’t return at the wrong moment,” Belsky said. “Don’t fight me, Vozshin, we haven’t time.” He turned to Hathaway. “What about Spode and that Senator?”
“Spode’s been seen here and there. The Senator hasn’t. He dropped out of sight after he left Professor Moskowitz at the university gate this morning. It looks like he’s gone to ground.”
Ramsey Douglass said, “I talked to Forrester’s girl friend and she hadn’t seen him. When I called her back later she’d gone.”
“Gone home?”
“Just gone. Maybe she’s with him. In any case she’s got instructions to keep him out of our hair. I talked to her brother but he doesn’t know much of anything, or didn’t a few hours ago. I can check back if you want.”
“Never mind,” Belsky said.
Hathaway said, “If Spode persuaded the Senator to go to ground it’s got to mean Spode made you, Dangerfield.”
“I know. Our cover is wearing thin but it can’t be helped.”
“You want us to take Spode out?”
“For the moment we’ve more important concerns. It’s just as well if the Senator has been scared off: he’ll be sure to stay away from the Air Base for a few days and that’s all we really require of him. As for Spode he can’t possibly know enough to interfere. At the worst he’s reported my presence to Washington and there are agents looking for me, but as long as I remain out of sight we’re in no danger. They have no way of knowing about the rest of you or the operation we’re executing. And if we ignore Spode they may begin to get the idea I’ve fled the area. No—leave them alone.”
The toilet flushed and Nicole emerged from the lavatory. “You ought to clean up that loo sometime, Leo.” She took the empty chair beside Ramsey Douglass, and Belsky saw Douglass move slightly away from her. It was one of the things that made Belsky uneasy, the relationship between Nicole and Douglass—uneasy because he had not been able to determine the nature of it. On the surface they gave the impression of a pair of mutually destructive organisms drawn together by some curious masochistic force—but there had to be some explanation for it. They were all needed, these people—he needed their faculties and it disturbed him whenever hints of neurotic weakness revealed themselves. Douglass appeared calm enough but there were signs that not far under the surface was a potential for violent hysteria; if the man was likely to come apart in a crisis it was no good.
“Eighteen-thirty hours. For those of you who don’t go by the military clock that’s half-past six P.M.” Belsky looked at his watch. “It’s now almost eight so we have forty-six and a half hours.”
They reacted mainly with alarm; several of them blasphemed quietly and Fred Winslow’s face took on the expression of a man about to burst into tears.
Ramsey Douglass said, “Then we’ll need to know the targets. Right now. The cards have to be punched so we can reprogram the guidance consoles.”
“I’m quite certain none of our targets has been overlooked by American planners. It won’t be necessary to feed any new information into your computers: the targets are all in China.”
He let them babble a moment before he cut them off. “It’s no good asking me why. I don’t make policy and it doesn’t concern you. Now shut up and let me finish. You have eighteen missiles here, each containing three warheads—fifty-four nuclear devices. There will be forty-seven separate targets; the additional seven warheads will be used for secondary strikes on hard silos which need to be hit more than once. An hour ago I prepared this list—two copies.” He took the handwritten sheets from his pocket and unfolded them on the felt table cover; passed one of them to Winslow and said, “Well?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to check to be positive. But you’re probably right—I’m sure we’ve got all these programmed already. They’re logical targets in case of war. The nuclear installations, the big cities, some military bases. I see you’ve got more of a concentration on army bases along the Russian border than we’d probably figure on ordinarily, but I expect all these have been programmed.”
“Memorize that list. You can’t afford to be caught with it in your possession. The first thing you’ll do when you return to the base is check the computer files to be sure there’s a card for each of these targets.”
“Yes,” Winslow mumbled, staring at the sheet of Chinese words. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
Belsky pushed the second copy across the table to Nick Conrad. “The same for you. It’ll be your job to provide the proper coded commands for these targets. The codes are scheduled to be changed tomorrow evening, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ve got the better part of twenty-four hours. Substitute our codes for the real ones and distribute the bogus code envelopes to all stations. Then, prepare the proper code sequences for Captain Ludlum to use when he simulates the issuance of attack orders from NORAD and the President. You understand this perfectly? Are there any questions?”
Conrad brooded over the list. “The time factor’s tight but I don’t see why we can’t do it. But you’ve got to be damned sure there’s no way for a legitimate signal to leak in or out.”