They would be evaluating the threat, and they would turn to the United States for information, and they would learn that the American MakoSharks had been turned away from Soyuz Fifty, sent home with their tails between their legs.
With Shelepin’s concurrence, Druzhinin had opened New World Base to the world’s scrutiny. There was no longer anything, or anyone, to fear.
The Kampucheans had, naturally, recognized Shelepin as soon as they saw the video replayed on television, and they had put two and two and the hospital together. Twenty minutes before, a flight of two Kampuchean Chinese-made F-6s had flown over the base, probably taking pictures.
The Kampuchean air force consisted of six or seven operable F-6s, which were versions of the MiG-19, a few AC-47 gunships, and some UH-1H helicopters. They were the remnants of the former Khmer forces, and they had been dormant for many years before their resurrection. The New World Air Force could eradicate them in half an hour.
Druzhinin did not think it would be necessary, but he was happy that Phnom Penh now knew what it could be up against if the government did not submit to the threat from the skies.
Hot though it was, the sun felt good on his face. He no longer had to slink through life. Anatoly Shelepin and Sergei Pavel and their vision had made it possible for Druzhinin to hold his head high.
He turned and went back inside the control room. A lieutenant smiled at him.
“Comrade General, Captain reports that he will be landing in two hours.”
“Very good, Lieutenant. He has instructions?”
“The jet engines will have to be refueled, and he would like to have the propulsion stage of the second rocket loaded while he and Major Nikitin sleep.”
“You make certain that Colonel Maslov gets what he wants, Lieutenant.”
He would have to discuss with Shelepin the possibility of striking a medal for Hero of the New World Order. Maslov certainly deserved it.
Shelepin and Pavel had been sitting for most of the day in Shelepin’s office watching the television news programs picked up from all over the world by the satellite antenna.
CNN appeared to have the most comprehensive coverage, but Shelepin was put off by the tone of the anchorpersons and the reporters. There was an undercurrent of skepticism in their reports, as if they thought that Shelepin and his colleagues, and their New World Order, were insane.
Bob: Well, Sally, when do you think we’ll hear from this bunch again?
Sally: It’s difficult to tell, Bob, from what our sources tell us. Here in Britain, we understand that Foreign Office officials are still trying to verify that Soyuz Fifty has fallen into, for want of a better word, terrorist hands.
Bob: That’s as good a word as any, Sally. For those of you just joining us, we will shortly rerun the video tape delivered to many news services this morning. On it, a man named Anatoly Shelepin, who we understand was a defector from the old Soviet Union, has proclaimed his leadership of a communist sect to be called the New World Order.
“Idiots!” Shelepin exclaimed.
“These people think,” Pavel said, “that because the Soviet Union folded her hands and died, so must the premier social order.”
“These people do not think, Sergei. They react. They react to what they think is the popular fad of the moment. They cannot understand that communism has not died. It has been forced into retrenchment, perhaps, but our followers are everywhere in the world, and they only seek leadership. We will give them that. The world will soon know.”
“That is true, Anatoly. They may scoff now, but we are a power.”
“Wait until the U.S., French, and British leaders emerge from their secret meetings and tell the world that we must be accommodated.” Shelepin laughed. “I expect an invitation to address the United Nations.”
“What they won’t understand, Anatoly, is that we will not lay claim to a geography, as the Palestinians do. We only wish to exist, and that cannot be denied.”
“We take our lessons from Jesus Christ and Mohammed and Buddha,” Shelepin smiled. “Each came to own a large portion of men’s minds without owning chattels.”
Pavel raised his vodka glass high in toast. “To a better world.”
“Even if we are required to destroy part of it,” Shelepin agreed.
“Do we want this asshole to have parity in the world?” Brackman asked.
Admiral Hannibal Cross stood by his office window looking down on the street. The weather was making a valiant attempt at changing from a snowstorm to a blizzard. The wind had been increasing throughout the night, and to Brackman, the snow beyond the window appeared to be moving as much horizontally as vertically.
“There must be fifty TV vans down there.” Cross said. “These guys will brave desert heat or tropical monsoons or arctic temperatures in order to be the first to manipulate the story.”
“The hijacking of Delta Green has become a media footnote, anyway,” Harvey Mays said. “And in response to your question, Marv, no. Comrade Anatoly Shelepin is not my idea of a friendly force.”
“Nor mine,” Cross said, turning back to the room. “However, the politicos may have to decide otherwise.”
He moved back to his desk and sat down heavily.
The Chairman wasn’t sleeping too well either, Brackman decided.
“Do we have anything recent out of Phnom Penh?” Brackman asked.
“Nothing,” the Chairman said. “The State Department has sent strongly worded messages demanding that Shelepin and his associates be expelled, but the government’s either stonewalling or they’re well-bribed, or they’re scared of him.”
“Or all three,” Mays said.
“That end is up to the diplomats,” Cross said. “The UN is meeting, too, but I expect a lot of word-slinging there for awhile.”
“They’ll chat about it, while we seem to have a more pressing need,” Brackman said.
“We’re getting down to the wire, Marv” Cross said. “In three hours, the National Security Council wants a plan of action. What are we going to give them?”
“It has to be two-pronged,” Brackman said. “Something we can give to the press, to settle them down, and something we can give to McKenna and his people.”
“The President has the Strategic Planning Group working on a theory,” Mays said.
“We aren’t going to be bound to whatever they come up with, are we?” Brackman asked.
“Not if we’ve got something better.”
“Hell, we don’t even have a clear executive directive,” Brackman said. “There’s too many people hemming and hawing around. They don’t know whether to believe us about Shelepin’s takeover of Soyuz Fifty or to continue praying for a more peaceful world.”
“There’s also a lot of people leaving town,” Mays said. “The radio stations are reporting clogged highways all over hell.”
After the Shelepin video had hit the television outlets, the commentators had been speculating on which large cities might be targeted by an unstable madman. The mass population excursions from New York, Washington, and Chicago had begun immediately thereafter. Reports coming in from the embassies indicated similar reactions in London, Paris, and Bonn.
“I hope Alvin Worth is stranded in the middle of the Arlington Memorial Bridge,” Brackman said. “He can test the first five-hundred KT shock wave for us.”
Worth had held a press conference, blaming the current world instability on the Air Force’s inability to protect its supersecret spacecraft. Because of the fervor over Shelepin’s announcement, Worth hadn’t gotten a lot of coverage. Still, it indicated to Brackman the man’s state of mind and how he might be influencing others on the armed services committees. Worth and those like him wanted a scapegoat because they couldn’t dream of a solution.