Forrester walked forward slowly. His breathing was tight and shallow, his sphincter contracted, his palms damp. “My name is Alan Forrester, Belsky.”
“I know who you are.” The eyes did not flicker at the sound of his real name: the man had learned defense and survival in a hard school.
“Call them off,” Forrester said. “You can do it—with that walkie-talkie. Call them off and get them out of this country and nothing will be said about it.”
“Nothing? Surely.”
Forrester could hear the beat of his own heart. The twilight seemed to grow brighter, every tiny sound louder. Cars rushed past on the highway, spewing dust. Spode’s gun was concealed by the hang of his coat but it was visible enough to Belsky.
Forrester said, “Your cover is blown. We know who you are. If you fire the missiles now we’ll know the Russians fired them, how it was done. We’ll be forced to retaliate directly and totally.”
He saw Belsky hesitate for the fraction of a moment but then Belsky said, “It’s beyond my power to stop what has been set in motion by my superiors, Senator. I cannot change policy; it’s not my function. You may shoot me but that will not prevent anything from happening. The missiles will be ignited within five or six minutes; there’s nothing you can do to stop them now. A phone call would get no results in time.”
“What are the targets?”
“I can tell you that, I suppose, since you seem to know the rest. The target is China.”
The design was complete in Forrester’s mind now, and as he studied Belsky’s bland middle-aged face with its gemstone eyes he realized his gamble had failed. He had lost.
In Silo Six Lieutenant Smith stood up and stretched; he had been five hours in the chair. Haas spoke to him, and the voice came over the electronic box: “We’re going to the post movie. Want to double tonight?”
“We were thinking about going bowling.”
“Uh. Okay.”
“But it’s never much sweat to talk Madge into a movie.”
It was 1827 hours.
The red telephone buzzed.
At its base the little light began to wink.
Smith stared. A long time seemed to go by. His face flooded; pressure almost burst his throat. His hands lifted involuntarily toward his face. He whispered, “Oh dear God. Oh sweet dear God.”
He reached for the receiver.
There was a piping buzz from somewhere inside Belsky’s Oldsmobile and Belsky’s face hardened with sudden urgency.
“I beg of you don’t shoot me now!” And he was wheeling, diving inside the car, opening a case on the seat—not an attaché case after all, Forrester realized; a radio. Spode was staring, transfixed, and Forrester saw Belsky remove something from the case and plug jacks into sockets and push several buttons. Belsky had a notepad and when the speaker began to utter dots and dashes Belsky jotted feverishly. Forrester heard the sucked intake of Top’s breath and involuntarily looked at his watch.
They were like that in frozen tableau for an indeterminate time and then Belsky wrenched up the walkie-talkie and pressed a button and yelled into it: “Winslow, can you hear me? From Father Christmas abort. Winslow! From Father Christmas abort! Abort!”
Belsky had the earpiece at his head and it made a brief squawking sound.
“Yes. From Father Christmas. Abort—abort—abort.”
He put it down and backed out of the car. “It may have been too late,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. His eyes swept past Forrester and settled on the desert brush to the northeast, this side of the mountains, where the missiles would erupt if the countermand hadn’t stilled them in time.
Epilogue
Smith had inserted his key; his eyes, and those of Haas, were on the countdown clock. The code envelope lay on the floor behind him and the codes lay in the tray, a perfect match for the signal he was receiving over the red telephone against his ear. The computer’s voice was metallic, without expression.
The computer said, “Execute.”
The last of the word was cut off by a new connection clicking in.
“Countermand. This is Colonel Winslow. Countermand has been received and acknowledged.”
Smith whipped his hand from the key as if it were white-hot. Winslow’s voice was going on in his ear: “We have received a Presidential order to stand down.… Prepare to make secure.…” Smith wasn’t listening. He covered his face with his hands and wept.
Ensign Sakhalov broke the lock when he heard the pistol report and wheeled into the First Secretary’s office with his machine pistol off safety.
He found the Second Secretary sitting in a chair drawing a plump hand across his face. First Secretary Rykov lay by the desk with his head in a puddle of his own blood. The pistol was in the Second Secretary’s hand. Ensign Sakhalov stared at the scene and then said, “Why do you pretend you shot him, Comrade Secretary? There is blood on the pistol but none on your hand. You took the pistol from him after he killed himself.”
The Second Secretary said, “Tell no one.”
“But you will be charged with murder.”
“Yes,” the Second Secretary said. “He was betrayed by his subordinate, you see. Murdered by his most trusted aide.”
“You wish that?” Sakhalov’s jaw dropped open.
Andrei Bizenkev’s eyes were wide, white circles showing around them. “I wish that, yes. You will oblige me, Sakhalov?”
“As always, Comrade Secretary, I will oblige you.”
Forrester discovered he had been holding his breath: it escaped his lungs in a gust and he looked at his watch again. His eyes burned, his knees felt rickety.
Belsky was getting out of his car and putting his hands on top of his head. No expression on his bland salesman’s face. “I don’t suppose you will permit me to signal an acknowledgment to my superiors.”
Spode said, “Nuts. Let them sweat.”
Forrester covered his eyes with his palms to shut out the light. Sobs of breath racked through him. When he dropped his hands he said to Belsky in an unsteady voice, “Get in your car. Drive to your airplane. Get your people on board and get them out of this country.”
There was a momentary break in Belsky’s expression. “You’re releasing me?”
“I want all of you out of this country.”
Spode said, “We’ll be watching you board the plane. We’ll be keeping count.”
Forrester and Spode had no way of knowing how many of them there were; but Belsky didn’t have to know that.
Belsky said, “Then you don’t plan to disclose what’s happened?”
“We probably can’t stop it from getting out,” Forrester said. “There’ll be people in the missile complex who know a signal came.”
“All dead,” Belsky said.
Spode’s teeth clicked.
Belsky spoke woodenly. “By now they’re dead. My people had instructions to seal off the exits, get themselves out and gas the rest.”
Spode’s revolver lifted into sight. “You—”
“If it matters,” Belsky said, “they didn’t know the gas they were releasing was lethal. I told them it would render the Air Force people unconscious long enough for us to escape. Of course it was better to leave no one alive to reveal what happened here; you see that.”
Spode parked in the long shadow of a heavy mesquite clump and they watched the Oldsmobile thread the narrow service gate in the back fence; someone had broken the padlock chain and left the gate open for Belsky and now Belsky rolled across the head of this little-used runway toward the plane. The tower and terminal were two miles away; out at this end there was nothing but sun-buckled pavement and weeds. The Starlifter squatted near the fence and Forrester saw a stream of passengers descending from two Air Force buses drawn up beside the wing. They were going up the ramp in a fast disorderly flow. A figure detached itself and walked out to meet Belsky’s car—Douglass leaned on the car window to talk, then shook his head and walked back to the boarding stairs and followed the last passengers into the plane. Belsky opened the trunk lid of the Oldsmobile and lifted out two cylinders that looked like aqualung tanks. He carried them up into the plane with him.