Zalinsky sent for Hewlitt at fourteen minutes after three. This time it was not by telephone. The messenger who had brought him the speech to translate appeared without warning at the door of the office, his broad face as wooden as ever. For a sharp instant Hewlitt wondered if the sudden arrival of the soldier meant that the time had come for him to be taken out on the South Lawn for the ending of his life. Then he received his instructions. He picked up pad and pencils and went to face the man who had summoned him.
One change in the office Hewlitt noticed at once — the framed portrait of a Slavic-looking foreign officer hung on the wall. As he noted it he made a quick decision not to enquire about it.
He sat down without being invited this time and waited to see what was in the wind. He could feel that he was less tight now, that his nerves were not as taut.
Zalinsky looked up from his work, studied Hewlitt for a moment, and then spoke. “You have for some time not been doing work to earn your pay.”
Hewlitt refused to be put on the defensive. “I have been available,” he answered.
“But you have done nothing.”
“The President and the Department of State kept me quite busy.” He kept his voice quiet and factual.
“So you blame me.”
Hewlitt decided not to press his luck any further. “When you have had a chance to become more familiar here, Mr. Zalinsky, you will probably have a greater need and use for the White House staff.”
Zalinsky pondered for a moment and then decided to break it off. “I have now an announcement for you,” he said. “The days you have been enjoying of nothing doing are over. You will move at once to the office just outside this one. There you will keep watch to the people who come and go. For this I select you because you can talk to my own people.”
“You mean that I will be your appointment secretary.”
Zalinsky showed him a palm. “Such names we do not employ in my country and I will not hire them here. If you wish a name, you will be watchdog. I will state to you who it is I wish to see. If others arrive, you will advise me and reverse those who I do not wish to allow. You understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Zalinsky.”
“It is good. Later I may wish you to do other things as I become aware of your abilities. I now say one thing more: do not try to make manipulations against what it is that I wish.”
Hewlitt ventured a probe. “If you believe that I will do that, why are you giving me this job?”
Zalinsky hardened for a moment, then Hewlitt thought he saw him relax. “It is not necessary that we discuss this. Only I warn you — do not get away from the line. That will get you nowhere, and it will get you there with rapidity.”
Hewlitt’s mind was racing. The stakes were being raised, he saw that clearly, and he responded to it. “I’ll start moving my office immediately, Mr. Zalinsky,” he said. “Understand what I say when I tell you that I am no mind reader and you will have to tell me what your program is each day.”
“It is not necessary to instruct me in the elementary,” Zalinsky responded. “Mind readers they perhaps possess in Tibet; you are not of this breed. You will be told.”
“Yes, Mr. Zalinsky.”
“You will go.”
As he cleaned out his desk and prepared to assume his new duties, Hewlitt was still unable to sort out all of his emotions. One, however, stood out — a subdued sort of elation. He felt as though he had been sitting on the bench as a substitute and now was being sent into the big game. He would henceforth be seeing Zalinsky constantly and the invisible battle would be joined for certain. Could he take the measure of the man? He did not know, but he knew that he was going to try.
Admiral Barney Haymarket was in civilian clothes, but that fact did not diminish the aura of his rank in the least. While not a word had been said on the subject by anyone, it was tacitly understood that the “retired” which had been attached after his name some time previously had been withdrawn. How valid this premise was remained a fact known to a very few people. As was the standard practice with all retired top officers, he had been briefed on a daily basis ever since he had stepped down as Chief of Naval Operations. He had gone through the motions of accepting a job as chairman of the board of a leading civilian company, one which did not directly supply the military establishment, and then apparently had settled down to the usual routine of occasional public appearances and the accepting of appropriate awards from such suitable organizations as the National Conference of Christians and Jews.
Late in the previous administration, while he still had been wearing the four stars on his shoulder boards, he had been summoned for a very* private conference with the President. It had been unusual in that only the two of them had been together. When the coffee cups had been set down and the door firmly closed, the President had spoken his mind.
“Barney, I don’t need to tell you that I don’t like the look of things at all. I don’t think that any man who has ever sat here was really happy, but you know what the score is.”
“I do, Mr. President, and believe me, I don’t like it either.”
“All right, then, let me give you this: in my judgment we are on a course which could conceivably lead to the first military defeat in our history.”
“I agree, sir, that is my conclusion also.”
“Then we don’t need to waste time in rhetoric.” The shadow of his heavy responsibilities had crossed the President’s face. “Suppose now, Barney, that Fitzhugh and the others like him make their point, have it their way, and we more or less tear down our military structure. After that we take a pasting. Where do we go from there?”
The admiral had leaned forward to deposit cigar ashes in a tray before he had given his answer. “We would have two alternatives then: either we swallow it and do what we’re told for the indefinite future, or else we go underground and fight back one way or another.”
“Do you think that could work?”
“Mr. President, as I see it we would have to try. If we take it on the chin, then there’s nobody left and the commies will have what Napoleon, Hitler, and all the rest were denied — total world domination. And you know, sir, how they play the game. Personally I’d rather fight back and lose my life in the attempt than to knuckle down to their way of doing things. You know the reports we’ve been getting for years about the horrors the Chicoms have been dishing out. I’ve seen pictures, Mr. President, that damn near made me vomit, and I don’t have a weak stomach.”
The President had considered that in the light of his decision. “Barney, I’m going to give you a job. It’s a tough one, but you are the man for it. Your term as CNO will be over in five months; I want you to retire and go through all the motions of returning to civilian life. But what I really want you to do is to get together with a team of your own choosing, military, civilian, or both, and put together a plan for just such a resistance operation in the event of our defeat. I’ll see that it’s financed and also that you get whomever and whatever you want. But it has got to be totally secure; I’d suggest a special clearance level for anyone who even knows of the plan’s existence.”
“Mr. President, don’t we have something like this already?”
“Yes, but not to my satisfaction. I’m going to keep the other plan going, if for no other reason than to cover up what you’ll be doing. Not even the joint chiefs are going to know about this unless you approve it first. And I’m going to give you a deadline: I have a pretty good idea who my successor is going to be and I don’t at this moment have too much confidence in him.”