John McCone had tried to dissuade JFK from launching the first strike against the Soviets the previous year. He’d been the one ‘insider’ who’d believed that after the massive retaliatory strikes against Cuba the Soviets would want to go on talking. He’d also assured his President that if the United States of America struck the first blow then war was in some sense ‘winnable’. However, not even McCone had believed victory would be so total, and yet so pyrrhic.
General Earle Gilmore ‘Bus’ Wheeler, the forty-five year old newly appointed DC born Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the sort of soldier who radiated exactly the sort of calm, considered certitude and reliability that some of his most charismatic contemporaries — Curtis LeMay, for example — did not. Wheeler had stepped into his current post only five weeks ago after the sudden death of General Maxwell Taylor and several of his most senior staffers in an air crash coming back from a tour of inspection of US Forces in South Korea, Japan and Hawaii.
If Rusk, McNamara, McCone and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were on their way over to the White House in the middle of the night; not even a man under the influence of drugs needed to be told he had a problem.
The President swung his legs over the side of the cot, ignoring the spasms of pain that lanced from the base of his spine to his head, toes and fingers. There was the usual concern behind the apparently impassive eyes of Jack Kennedy’s forty-five year old, thickset African-American valet, George Edward Thomas. The big man loomed protectively over his charge, respectfully impervious to the presence of the Attorney General of the United States of America and the other VIPs who’d followed the President’s brother into the second floor bedroom.
“If perhaps the President might have a little privacy while he dresses, sirs,” the black man suggested in a gravelly voice to the room at large. Bobby Kennedy lingered but everybody else, backed out into the corridor.
The Attorney General, realising he was alone, whistled lowly.
“How do you do that, George?” He asked.
The other man remained poker-faced.
“Politely, sir.”
The President would have laughed but it would have hurt too much, so he settled for a grimace.
“What’s going on?” He demanded of his brother.
“That’s the thing, Jack,” Bobby Kennedy confessed, exasperation lighting his eyes and creasing his unnaturally youthful good looks. “I talked to Dean before I came over. He woke me up. He says Bob McNamara’s as angry as a bear with its foot in a trap. He was muttering about LeMay ‘going rogue’ again and…” He threw his arms in the air. “There’s something screwy going on and CIA keep telling me it is nothing to do with them!”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s head suddenly cleared. The pain didn’t matter, nor the sickness in his gut or the stabbing needles of guilt that would never go away. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, by a conscious effort of will, of pure mind over unkind matter, put aside the transient pains of his life and became again the thirty-fifth President of the United States of America.
He looked at George Thomas.
“A lounge suit and a Navy tie, I think.”
“Yes, Mister President.”
Chapter 2
Vice-Admiral Sir Julian Wemyss Christopher listened intently to the measured, grimly matter of fact report of Air Commodore Daniel French, Acting Air-Officer Commanding, RAF Malta. The air was still heavy with dust — mostly pulverised limestone — thrown up by yesterday evening’s attack. The stench of burning wafted into the partially wrecked office each time the wind fluked from west to the south. Nobody had got around to sweeping up the glass or mopping the blood off the floor. Ironically, gazing through the now splintered windows the new Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations was greeted with a view of a perfect azure afternoon sky. Albeit a vista somewhat spoiled by the smoke which drifted lazily across the idyllic blue waters beyond Dragut Point from the fires still burning in Valletta and in Vittoriosa, Senglea and Cospicua across the other side of the Grand Harbour.
It seemed the damage and the loss of life would have been immeasurably worse but for an outrageous happenstance. But then such was war. In war terrible things happened, things went wrong, no plan survived first contact with the enemy and whatever you did, people died. Not that today found him in any mood to be remotely sanguine about anything in particular, it was simply that in his position he couldn’t afford to be angry; while every human instinct cried out for revenge and retribution he knew with utter, unequivocal conviction that this was the one time in his life that he could not afford to allow his emotions to sway his actions. Now was a time for cool heads to rule raging hearts; to content oneself that one day there would be a reckoning and that revenge, when all was said and done, was a dish best taken cold.
“Your chaps seem to have performed in the highest traditions of the service,” he observed with an affable, manly cordiality that left neither officer in any doubt as to who was in sole command of the situation. “I look forward to meeting all those involved in due course to convey to them my sincere admiration and congratulations, and my thanks, Air Commodore French.”
“The chaps will appreciate that, sir,” the airman retorted cheerfully. “Might I be so bold as to inquire as to your plans for establishing your staff? Forgive my impertinence but the normal ‘venues’ are somewhat knocked about at the moment and the facilities at RAF Luqa, Hamrun and Ta’Qali are virtually undamaged, sir.”
Christopher smiled to himself. He’d never met the other man face to face but his new Flag Lieutenant, an impossibly young-looking protégé of his old friend the First Sea Lord, named Alan Hannay, had provided — completely unprompted, apparently off the cuff — a brief character portrait in the two minute interregnum while the secure telephone connection to the command bunker at RAF Luqa had been established.
‘He flew a Lancaster tour in the last year of the 1945 war, sir. He was attached to the Valiant V-Bomber Program thereafter and subsequently, he commanded one of the first Vulcan Squadrons. His wife and youngest daughter were, sadly, killed last year but his son, also an RAF pilot — currently based at Waddington — survived. The Air Commodore has been on Malta six months, is well thought of by his own people and maintains excellent relations with both military and civilian authorities with whom he has regular contacts…’
“Thank you for the offer,” Julian Christopher rejoined, “but I shall probably set up shop at the emergency command centre in Mdina. I gather that it is a tad dusty but we can live with that for the time being. How soon can you have copies of your Command after action report and all preliminary documentary and photographic supporting materials flown to England?”
“Assuming there is no follow up strike on my airfields I’ll have everything on the evening shuttle, sir. I’m having the gun camera footage copied in toto as we speak.”
“Good man. I shall let you get on with your work in peace, French.”
Christopher put down the black Bakelite handset and glanced at his hovering Flag Lieutenant. While he’d been talking on the phone the young man who’d remained unreasonably spic and span, unruffled during the tour of the carnage — ‘damage’ didn’t really describe much of what he’d discovered in Valletta, on Manoel Island and along the shore of Sliema Creek — had acquired a clipboard. The boy was brandishing a freshly sharpened pencil as if he’d been reading his Admiral’s mind.