Shaw met his stare. He said quietly, “I’ll back my judgment, sir. And I’d say that our defences should be made ready now, whatever the risk involved.” Then he added, “Can’t we get the Prime Minister to try to alert the Moscow Government, sir, and get all this confirmed?”
“The thought did flash through my mind,’’ Latymer said bleakly, “and it flashed right out again. If Rudintsev doesn’t know whom to trust, how the hell would we? And even if we happened to contact the right people by some stroke of luck, I doubt if they’d believe us. They’d say we were stirring something up and side-tracking the Conference before it started. So that won’t wash. And now I’ve got just one more question: do you believe Rudintsev enough to go into Russia yourself and find out what all this is about?”
Shaw hesitated only for a second, then he said, “Well, sir, someone’s got to go, and at least I speak Russian!”
Latymer went on staring at him for nearly a minute, his face expressionless. Then suddenly he heaved himself to his feet. Crossing the room he picked up the hush line and after a moment he said, “Chief of Special Services… get Captain Carberry’s home number.” There was a longish pause. “Carberry? Rub the sleep out and get round to the office. Yes, at once. There’s a hell of a lot of work you can start on right away. Before you leave, ring through to the Private Secretary to the Minister of Defence. Warn him I’m going to ask the PM personally for a meeting of the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff as early as possible tomorrow morning… What? Oh, to hell with precedent! And I’m bringing Shaw whether they like it or not. I’ll leave it to him to convince the powers-that-be of something that’s going to make the Prime Minister’s hair curl.”
Three
It was lunchtime before the Cabinet meeting broke up next day and immediately they were free Latymer and Shaw drove almost in silence along Whitehall to the Admiralty. Back in his office Latymer rang through to his secretary and demanded sandwiches and coffee to be sent in for two and then he faced Shaw across the polished shagreen top of his wide desk.
He said abruptly, “Well now, Shaw, I’ll just put you in the picture as to what went on after they’d done with you — and by the way, congratulations on the way you put it across. You certainly convinced them.” Lighting a cigarette, he passed the box to Shaw. He went on, “The Prime Minister summed the situation up admirably. Of course, it was a stroke of luck that he’d met Rudintsev a couple of times in Moscow.”
“I gathered they didn’t hit it off very well, sir?”
“True, and they only met officially — but the PM does agree fully with your estimate of the man, that’s the point, and he thinks he’s only too likely to be perfectly genuine in what he says. Anyway, he’s going to proceed on that assumption and make preparations to meet any situation that may arise from now on, pending what we can dig out in the meantime. We’re aided by the fact that some members of the Cabinet are personally very suspicious of Russia anyway and haven’t taken quite the optimistic view of the Conference that the Press and the public generally have. I don’t need to stress that the PM’s a very worried man, in fact the whole Cabinet’s got the wind up now — and so have I, I don’t mind telling you. Some of them wanted to cancel the Conference and the fleet’s visit, but the PM won’t have that and he’s sticking tight. I agree with him. He’s already been on the line to Washington and they agree also. His view and mine is that any cancellation would not only tell the other side that we’re on to something, but it would also play right into the hands of the Eastern bloc by showing us up, however wrongly, as not wanting to get round a table and talk peace.”
“Quite, sir. As usual, Moscow has us where they want us — even a rebellious junta. In any case, they’d soon find another opportunity to do what they want.”
“Precisely.” Latymer sat forward. “Now, here’s a summary of the action we’re taking. All the armed forces are going to get an immediate but limited alert — that includes NATO, by the way. It’ll just be a question of bringing all missile launching-sites and all airfields, both fighters and long-range conventional bombers as well as the V Force Vulcans, to immediate readiness and getting the big I.C.B.M.’s armed with their nuclear warheads. And of course there’s the Early Warning Stations, for what a four-minute warning’s worth — just time to get your trousers up, I’ve always thought! Some troops and ships will be moved into defensive positions and there’ll be some aerial activity, but so far as the public’s concerned it’ll just be a case of routine exercises. There’s no question of mobilization — wouldn’t help much anyway in a nuclear attack. It’s not vast numbers of men we want these days, after all.”
Shaw asked, “How long will the public accept the ‘exercise’ eyewash, sir?”
Latymer shrugged massively. “We live on hope so far as that’s concerned — with any luck, they’ll take it for long enough, and I think we can keep ’em happy. It’s the ruddy Press that always stirs things up, and this time the PM’s giving the Press boys his personal attention!” He grinned. “He’s tough when he needs to be. A Government directive will go out and the Official Secrets Act quoted at the editors. Everything will be heavily censored and any editor who passes anything out of place will end up in Brixton Prison. You won’t see a damn thing that really matters in the newspapers,” he added grimly, “you can take that from me.
“That,” Shaw said, “is something! But what about any Russian agents? It won’t be long before they spot what’s going on, surely?”
“There lies the biggest danger, I admit, but we can’t have the defences other than in a state of instant readiness from now on — as you said yourself last night. Suppose, for instance, they get to hear back in Moscow that Rudintsev’s talked — they might go into action right away. Security measures will be rigorously tightened up right throughout the NATO countries and all ports and airfields will have an extra watch clapped on ’em as of now. MI5 and Scotland Yard have already been alerted on those lines, and it’ll be the finest net you ever saw. There will also be extra monitoring to pick up any unauthorized radio transmissions. If necessary we’ll put out a yam that all the precautions are intended solely for the security of the Foreign Ministers. That’ll go down nicely. In any case, remember this is the nineteen-sixties, Shaw. At least in the early stages, war today doesn’t involve wholesale troop movements and most of the preliminaries to the pressing of buttons on missile sites can be done very unobtrusively. The visible flap won’t last long. And now… ah, come in, Clarice. Welcome indeed!”