Whatever the subject of the meeting, as in any gathering of influential people, there was ground to be gamed or lost. Isaacs tried to put the welfare of the Agency first and to avoid political infighting, but he had a talent for turning a situation to his advantage and protecting his flank when on the defensive. As he walked, he mentally sorted through the personalities who would be involved and the various hotspots which could be at issue. At 8:59 he stepped through the door of the top floor meeting room.
'You're late, Isaacs, take a seat!'
Brother! thought Isaacs, welcome back. He moved to an empty chair. The icy greeting had come from Kevin McMasters, the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. McMasters, Isaacs's immediate boss, had been with the Agency over thirty years. He bridled at Isaacs's rapid rise in the organization and even more so at suggestions that Isaacs was a candidate for his position as DCI.
Isaacs sat and glared at his hands clenched before him on the table, peripherally aware of the other principals. Next to McMasters at the head of the table was Howard Drefke, the Director of Central Intelligence. A recent political appointee, Drefke leaned heavily on McMasters in questions of internal affairs and spent most of his time on relations with the President and the National Security Agency. Across from McMasters, to Isaacs's left, was Vincent Martinelli. Martinelli was Deputy Director for Collection Tasking, responsible for making intelligence gathering assignments throughout the intelligence community. To Isaacs' right was Art Boswank, whose hearty air belied his clandestine role as Deputy Director for Operations.
A minute passed in silence which reverberated with McMasters's reproach to Isaacs. Then Earle Deloach, Deputy Director for Research and Development, hustled in and took the last chair, across from Isaacs, next to McMasters, who nodded to him in greeting. Isaacs felt Martinelli nudge him and looked over to see him pull a quintessentially Italian face and roll his eyes skyward. Isaacs cracked a small smile of camaraderie. They both knew McMasters would overlook Deloach's transgressions even as he invented imaginary ones for Isaacs.
'Gentlemen,' began Drefke, 'I must report to the President. Let's summarize our situation please.'
Martinelli and Isaacs exchanged another glance, Martinelli giving an abbreviated nod. Drefke was liberal with his references to the President, and Martinelli did a devastating takeoff in which they all came out 'mah buddy, the President.' This time Drefke was referring to his Commander-in-Chief.
'Isaacs has been absent for some time,' interjected McMasters dryly, 'perhaps you should fill him in.'
You son-of-a-bitch, thought Isaacs, make it sound as if I was out 'chasing floozies on company time'.
Drefke looked blankly at McMasters for a brief moment, his tram of thought interrupted, and then turned to Isaacs. 'Of course. The Russians went on Yellow Alert yesterday afternoon,' he said curtly. 'They activated troops, moved fifteen Backfire bombers to forward holding positions, and uncapped, uh,' he checked the sheet in his hand, 'seven missiles.'
'Lordy,' exclaimed Boswank, 'they've hauled us through these dog and pony shows before. I've got the same question I had yesterday. How do we know they're not just feeling their oats?'
'We've just received word they've gone public with it, and they don't like an exposed position without good reason,' replied Drefke. 'They've walked out of the new disarmament talks in Geneva.'
'Well, what the hell?' blurted Boswank. 'They just convened a week ago.'
'Exactly,' said the Director, 'it was in their interest, as well as ours, to give a semblance of cooperation to the talks.'
'Why involve the talks?' Isaacs asked quietly. 'Why choose that particular vehicle for protest?'
'That's just the point,' said the Director, addressing himself to Isaacs again. 'They now claim we have used some unorthodox new weapon on them. They made veiled references to it in Geneva , and then the whole team just walked out and caught the first Aeroflot back to Moscow. Not the faintest charade of continuing the talks. Caught our men totally by surprise, and the press in Europe was on them like a pack of dogs. That was late morning in Geneva , about four hours ago. The Washington newshounds will be in full howl by now, too.'
'A new weapon?' asked Isaacs.
'Of course, there's no such thing, so we don't know what's caused them to be so upset. That makes the situation damned unstable. I just talked to the President. He had Ambassador Ogarkov in for a quiet evening chat last night. They talked for an hour, but aside from vague threats of retaliation, the President didn't get very much. Not even a tip about the walkout. We all know the Ambassador can be very cooperative in certain situations. In this case he's under orders to play a very tight hand. No question but that the Russians are running scared. The only substantive disclosure was that they think one of their carriers was attacked in the Mediterranean. They're hinting that some form of space-based weapon was directed at the carrier, igniting jet fuel tanks and causing quite a bit of damage.'
'There's some basis for that,' said Martinelli, leafing through a folder. 'After our meeting last night, I put out a general call for possible clues as to what triggered their alert. We've got photos of their carrier, the Novorossiisk. One of the four Kiev class Protivo Lodochny Kreyser antisubmarine cruisers. Definitely a fire on board, day before yesterday. Pretty bad, but no reason to think it was anything but someone smoking in the wrong place. Until you mentioned it, I hadn't given it any particular attention.'
'Why would they think they were attacked?' asked the Director.
'No clue.'
'And what's this about space?' inquired Isaacs. 'What did we have up? Presumably we had no aircraft in the immediate area, and they must know that.'
'As usual, all our aircraft were maintaining a perimeter,' answered Martinelli. 'An SR-71 went over for these shots after the fire broke out. We have all sorts of space hardware up, of course, but nothing they don't know about. I can get that double-checked, but we seem to be clean. In particular, unless Defence has pulled a fast one on everyone, there's not a beam weapon in the inventory — lasers, particles, what have you — that's anywhere near ready to orbit. Hell, we all read 'Aviation Week', it's still years away.'
'That's very strange then,' Isaacs mused, 'from space, in particular, not just from above. I guess that's why they're alarmed, given that they believe it. If we did have an operating beam weapon in space, the Russians would have good reason to be frightened. They know how potent those things can be: they invented them.'
'Well, we can't have the Soviets running around with a panicked finger on the trigger,' declared the Director. 'We've got to get a handle on this and calm them down. What else, Martinelli?'
'The aircraft have been refuelling in mid-air, they're still up. The best guess is that the missiles are targeted to the eastern seaboard. Boston down to Washington.'
Drefke looked grim. 'What about you, Boswank?' The Director looked down the table at him. 'Your people turn up anything?'
A veil settled over Boswank's face, as it did whenever he had to directly discuss his men in the field. 'Sir, it takes time to reach our people in deep cover. We should know in a few days what the real view is in Moscow. Our man in the admiralty can be requested to get us the damage report on the carrier. That may give a clue as to why they think they were attacked, and how.'
Drefke was distinctly unhappy at the lack of concrete news. 'A few days,' he grunted looking around the table, 'we could be dust in a few days. I've got to go to the President. What do I tell him we're doing? Waiting for some Russian turncoat to give us the time of day?'