Washington rang up again about an hour later. It was the Secretary of War. This time Manning listened more than he talked. Toward the end, he said, "All want is thirty minutes alone with the President. I nothing comes of it, no harm has been done. If I convince him, then you will know all about it... . No, Sir."
I did not mean that you would avoid responsibility. intended to be helpful... . Fine! Thank you, Mr. Secretary."
The White House rang up later in the day and set time.
We drove down to the District the next day through a nasty cold rain that threatened to turn to sleet. TF usual congestion in Washington was made worse b the weather; it very nearly caused us to be late in arriving. I could hear Manning swearing under his breath all the way down Rhode Island Avenue. But we were dropped at the west wing entrance to the White House with two minutes to spare. Manning was ushered into the Oval Office almost at once and I was left cooling my heels and trying to get comfortable in civilian clothes. After so many months of uniform they itched in the wrong places.
The thirty minutes went by.
The President's reception secretary went in, and came out very promptly indeed. He stepped on out into the outer reception room and I heard something that began with, "I'm sorry, Senator, but - " He came back in, made a penciled notation, and passed it out to an usher.
Two more hours went by.
Manning appeared at the door at last and the secretary looked relieved. But he did not come out, saying instead, "Come in, John. The President wants to take a look at you."
I fell over my feet getting up.
Manning said, "Mr. President, this is Captain DeFries." The President nodded, and I bowed, unable to say anything. He was standing on the hearth rug, his fine head turned toward us, and looking just like his pictures - but it seemed strange for the President of the United States not to be a tall man.
I had never seen him before, though, of course, I knew something of his record the two years he had been in the Senate and while he was Mayor before that.
The President said, "Sit down, DeFries. Care to smoke?" Then to Manning. "You think he can do it?"
"I think he'll have to. It's Hobson's choice."
"And you are sure of him?"
"He was my campaign manager."
"I see."
The President said nothing more for a while and God knows I didn't! - though I was bursting to know what they were talking about. He commenced again with,
"Colonel Manning, I intend to follow the procedure you have suggested, with the changes we discussed. But I will be down tomorrow to see for myself that the dust will do what you say it will. Can you prepare demonstration?"
"Yes, Mr. President."
"Very well, we will use Captain DeFries unless think of a better procedure." I thought for a moment that they planned to use me for a guinea pig! But h turned to me and continued, "Captain, I expect to sent you to England as my representative."
I gulped. "Yes, Mr. President." And that is ever word I had to say in calling on the President of the United States.
After that, Manning had to tell me a lot of things h had on his mind. I am going to try to relate them carefully as possible, even at the risk of being dull an obvious and of repeating things that are common knowledge.
We had a weapon that could not be stopped. An type of K - O dust scattered over an area rendered the area uninhabitable for a length of time that depends on the half - life of the radioactivity.
Period. Full stop.
Once an area was dusted there was nothing that could be done about it until the radioactivity ha fallen off to the point where it was no longer harmful The dust could not be cleaned out; it was every when. There was no possible way to counteract its burn or combine it chemically; the radioactive isotope was still there, still radioactive, still deadly. Once used o a stretch of land, for a predetermined length of time that piece of earth would not tolerate life.
It was extremely simple to use. No complicate bomb - lights were needed, no care need be taken to h "military objectives." Take it aloft in any sort of aircraft, attain a position more or less over the area you wish to sterilize, and drop the stuff. Those on the ground in the contaminated area are dead men, dead in an hour, a day, a week, a month, depending on the degree of the infection - but dead.
Manning told me that he had once seriously considered, in the middle of the night, recommending that every single person, including himself, who knew the Karst - Obre technique be put to death, in the interests of all civilization. But he had realized the next day that it had been sheer funk; the technique was certain in time to be rediscovered by someone else.
Furthermore, it would not do to wait, to refrain from using the grisly power, until someone else perfected it and used it. The only possible chance to keep the world from being turned into one huge morgue was for us to use the power first and drastically - get the upper hand and keep it.
We were not at war, legally, yet we had been in the war up to our necks with our weight on the side of democracy since 1940. Manning had proposed to the President that we turn a supply of the dust over to Great Britain, under conditions we specified, and enable them thereby to force a peace. But the terms of the peace would be dictated by the United States - for we were not turning over the secret.
After that, the Pax Americana.
The United States was having power thrust on it, willy - nilly. We had to accept it and enforce a worldwide peace, ruthlessly and drastically, or it would be seized by some other nation. There could not be coequals in the possession of this weapon. The factor of time predominated.
I was selected to handle the details in England because Manning insisted, and the President agreed with him, that every person technically acquainted with the Karst - Obre process should remain on the laboratory reservation in what amounted to protective custody - imprisonment. That included Manning himself.
I could go because I did not have the secret - I could not even have acquired it without years of schooling and what I did not know I could not tell, even under well, drugs. We were determined to keep the secret a long as we could to consolidate the Pax; we did not distrust our English cousins, but they were Britisher with a first loyalty to the British Empire. No need to tempt them.
I was picked because I understood the background if not the science, and because Manning trusted me. don't know why the President trusted me, too, hi. then my job was not complicated.
We took off from the new field outside Baltimore o a cold, raw afternoon which matched my own feeling I had an all - gone feeling in my stomach, a runny nose and, buttoned inside my clothes, papers appointing me a special agent of the President of the Unite States. They were odd papers, papers without precedent; they did not simply give me the usual diplomatic immunity; they made my person very nearly as sacred as that of the President himself.