"You’re forgetting that plan R was drawn up to take account of special circumstances," Quinten said gently. "To enable a base commander to act when central command had gone. It would never have been pushed out by SAC."
Howard stubbed out his cigarette in the ash receptacle built into the arm of the chair. "So now what happens?"
"Go and stand by the window, Paul. Listen very carefully."
Howard walked across to the window. He heard nothing. Then he pressed his ear against the thick glass, and felt it vibrating. Very faintly he heard a distant rumble, like thunder over the horizon of a summer’s day.
"You hear anything?"
Howard turned to face him. "A low rumble," he said. "The kind of noise you hear when a wing goes off, if you’re a long way away. That what you mean?"
Quinten nodded. "Exactly. Does it answer your question?"
Howard shook his head slowly. "I don’t get it," he said. "I just don’t understand what’s happening."
"Sit down again." Quinten held the pistol loosely while Howard walked across the room, then replaced it on the desk as Howard sank into a chair. "Take your time to think about it, Paul. Tell me why you think a SAC wing is going off somewhere. You’re graduated from the National War College, you know all the theory. Now work out the real thing."
Howard lit another cigarette. In the quiet lecture rooms of the War College it was easy. There was the problem, apply the tools of your training and natural brainpower to it, bingo — there was the solution. But that was when you were dealing with power in terms of paper symbols. The low rumble he had heard in the distance — was it from Sanderson? or Austin? or Uvalde? — was the real thing. It was power in terms of eight jet engines pushing out twelve thousand pounds of thrust each. It was power in terms of bombs with an explosive potential equivalent to fifteen million tons of T.N.T. Real power. Naked, frightening, unimaginable power.
"Well?" Quinten asked.
"General, I just don’t know. I can’t seem to figure things out. You’ve told SAC what you’ve done. Let’s start from that. Would they know you’ve used plan R?"
"They’d know. Reception of the signals would tell them."
"All right, then they know they can’t stop the eight forty-third. That means an attack will be made on Russia. Obviously, there’ll be a counter-blow. So they have to get the other wings off the ground to make sure they aren’t destroyed."
"Why would they want to do that?" Quinten asked. His tone was deceptively mild.
"Well, obviously they wouldn’t want them destroyed if they could help it."
"Why?" Quinten pursued the question inexorably. "Think it through, Paul. You know the answer all right."
And suddenly Howard did know. Suddenly he saw the logical end of Quinten’s action. Why bother to preserve the SAC wings if they weren’t going to be used? He said slowly, "General, it seems to me they’re planning to follow the eight forty-third in. Morally, we’re already in the wrong, so therefore. ."
Quinten broke in quickly. "I’d argue that. But let it go for the moment."
"Morally we’re already in the wrong," Howard repeated stubbornly. "But are there degrees of morality in terms of the power locked up in those planes? Does it make any great deal of difference whether you kill thirty millions or sixty millions? Well, it seems to me it makes this difference. If they follow the eight forty-third in, they’ll kill an extra thirty millions. I’m just guessing at the figures, of course. But that extra thirty millions will be in Russia. If they don’t, then it’s possible the Russians will kill thirty millions, here in America. Because of your action, they’re faced with a choice of killing an extra number of Russians or letting the Russians kill an equal number of Americans. They’re realists, they’re bound to choose the first alternative. And that’s why the SAC wings are going off." Suddenly he pushed back his chair. His face was very white. "Why in hell did you do it?" he shouted. "Why? For God’s sake, why?"
"Sit down, Paul." Quinten’s voice cracked sharply across the room. He brought the pistol up until it pointed at Howard. "Sit down, and cool off. I’m going to tell you why, later. I’m going to tell you what convinced me it was not only the expedient but also the moral thing to do. When you’ve heard me out, you’ll be convinced too."
"No," Howard said firmly. "You may be able to convince me it was expedient. Never moral."
Quinten looked at him curiously. Howard’s face was still a livid white, his fingers trembling as he crushed out his cigarette and immediately lit another. He was shocked, Quinten thought, by the sudden realisation. Yet he should not have been. No-one who had ever toted the actual bombs round the sky should have been shocked when he realised the bombs were going to be used. But undoubtedly Howard was shocked. Just as the crews of the bombers were shocked, probably, when they received the attack orders. It was another example of the way the mind will push the unpleasant things into the background. Like the envelope you fail to open because you know it contains a bill you can’t really afford to pay. Like the politicians who manage to convince themselves during face-to-face meetings that the other man is friendly, when they know that yesterday he attacked them bitterly, and will probably do so again tomorrow.
Howard’s cheeks were slowly returning to their normal, healthy colour. Quinten wondered what it was like to feel young, and strong, and free from pain. It had been so long, he had almost forgotten. He said, "Paul, you can think what you like of me, and so can the rest of the world. I know that what I’ve done is right. Do you remember what Clemenceau once said about war?"
"No, I don’t." Howard’s voice was almost normal again.
"He said war was too important a matter to be left to generals. At the moment he said it, he was probably right. But now it’s swung the other way. When a war can be won and lost an hour after it starts, then war is too important to be left to politicians. The Russians know it. And they also know we don’t work things that way. That’s why, in a couple of hours from now, they’ll have lost. There’ll be no more threats from them. In a few hours the whole shape of the world will be changed. Remember what they did to Hungary back in ‘56? They won’t be able to do that again, not ever."
"That’s expediency. Morally, what you’ve done is still wrong."
"Well," Quinten said, "Maybe." He suddenly felt very thirsty. He picked up the gun from the desk, walked over to the water cooler by the window, and drank two full cups of water. Then he went back to his desk.
"Paul," he said. "You’re going to be a part of the new world. I’m not. I know quite well what history will have to say about my action. In two hundred years they’ll have forgotten all about the menace of Communism. If you don’t believe me, just think how soon we’ve forgotten what we once felt about Germany. And Japan. I’ll just be remembered as a butcher, a man who wantonly slaughtered millions of innocent people. Tell me — do you really think I’m that kind of man? Do you really think I can take an action which will snuff out millions of lives with as little compunction as I’d squash a fly?"
"Well, no I don’t. At least," Howard paused and looked deliberately at Quinten, "I didn’t up to now. Now I’m not sure."
"You can be," Quinten said quietly. "A few hours from now I’ll be dead. I happen to believe in a life after this one, so I believe I will have to answer for what I’ve done. I think I can."
Howard looked at him with fresh interest. "I don’t quite follow. If the rest of SAC are going in after the eight forty-third, we’re bound to win. It’s possible we won’t be hit at all in this country. Why should you be dead?"
Quinten tapped a cigarette on the desk carefully, placed it between his lips, and struck a match. Then he blew the match out without lighting the cigarette. "Because if I let myself live it would be as a lunatic. The human mind could never withstand a traumatic experience as violent as the killing of all those millions of people. I’m going to tell you a little of why I did this. But first, let me ask you another question. When you heard that wing going off in the distance the sound was something monstrous, something inhuman and dreadful to you. Right?"