“Mistakes have been made,” Jack Kennedy said. “We have all been guilty of oversights. I choose to look forward in this,” he quirked a grimace, “our darkest hour.”
Curtis LeMay looked his President in the eye.
“What’s Bus Wheeler got to say about all this?” He asked bluntly.
“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was killed by a sniper two hours ago, General.”
The word at Andrews Air Force Base was that Earl Wheeler was being flown to Bethesda Naval Hospital; wounded but alive. That news had been old before LeMay’s Sea King had taken off on the perilous flight to the White House.
“You are the ranking officer, General LeMay,” Jack Kennedy went on, like the airman he too had learned to put away his emotions at times like this. Around them the Situation Room was already noticeably less crowded and quieter.
Robert McNamara returned with Bobby Kennedy at his shoulder. The Attorney General had aged fifteen years since Curtis LeMay had last seen him a month ago. The younger Kennedy brother didn’t have the natural gift of exuding grace under pressure; he hadn’t been tested in the fire of battle the way his elder sibling had been in the Pacific in 1943. Perhaps, in time he might develop the same assurance under pressure but LeMay doubted it.
“What we have is a military situation,” Jack Kennedy stated as the other men circled him. “Washington is under siege.” He made and held cool eye contact with the acting professional Head of all United States Forces. “General LeMay, you are authorised to use all forces at your disposal to put down the current insurrection and to restore order in this city and its environs.” He steeled himself, added: “Show no mercy.”
Chapter 30
Edward Richard George Heath, Prime Minister of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration, remained unconvinced of the wisdom of employing one of the three surviving British Overseas Airways Corporation’s Boeing 707s for this expedition. However, it was symptomatic of the madness of the World in which they lived that whatever his private reservations he was compelled to concede, that Tom Harding-Grayson’s suggestion was not without merit. If half the much reduced Cabinet was to be shot down then it might as well be shot down in an American aircraft. The situation seemed so dire, so beyond comprehension and reason, that every little gesture mattered. Besides, several months ago the RAF had fitted ‘Speedbird 712’ — the aircraft’s call-sign — with every available modern communications device; theoretically, the jet airliner should be able to remain in contact with, if not home, then radio stations and relays which might in an emergency, be capable of making contact with the Government compound at Cheltenham.
Iain Macleod, the newly appointed Minister of Information, the Foreign Secretary and the former American Ambassador, Loudon Baines Westheimer II were arguing fiercely three rows back from where the Prime Minister was trying to rest. He’d been humming Bach to himself, imagining himself conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Albert Hall. Music was the thing he missed most. He was of the 1939-45 wartime generation who’d grown inured to the death of friends, acquaintances and developed a knack of sublimating much of his grief. He thought occasionally of all the people who’d died in the October War — died or just ceased to exist, disappeared — but didn’t dwell upon the fallen for therein lay a terrible melancholy he could not, and would not allow to rule his waking thoughts.
Tom Harding-Grayson was patiently explaining the purpose of the mission to Loudon Baines Westheimer II, a most uncouth and almost totally ignorant man, who clearly thought the enterprise was some kind of game in which the object was to score points off his naive British hosts.
Every few minutes a new report was received.
It seemed that large tracts of Washington DC had been carpet bombed by the United States Air Force, and tanks and infantry were systematically hunting down the last of the ‘terrorists’. Twelve hours ago the ‘terrorists; had still been ‘insurgents’, now they were beyond the pale, vermin to be eradicated with overwhelming firepower. Nobody knew how many people had been killed other than that among the dead were the British Ambassador and several of his senior aides, the United States Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and Clarence Douglas Dillon, the Secretary of the Treasury. Several Deputy and Assistant Secretaries had lost their lives or were missing in the mayhem, and as many as twenty Senate and Congressional members were confirmed dead. The death toll was likely to run into thousands. It was unclear whether a handful of ‘terrorists’ were still holding out in the ruins of the Pentagon; a pitched battle was continuing around Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, less than thirty miles from the centre of the American capital. Meanwhile, ‘terrorists who had fled the city were dug in at Washington National Airport’, situated in Arlington County, close to downtown Washington DC.
The United States Government was in stasis, paralysed by the nightmare. This was either the worst or the best time to launch a last gasp mission to the beleaguered Kennedy Administration; and Edward Heath did not pretend to know which. The peace mission had been initiated and organised at breakneck speed via the one remaining secure back-channel — in retrospect mistakenly neglected in recent weeks, between the UKIEA’s Government Communications Headquarters at Oakley, less than five miles from the post-October War Government compound and the Central Intelligence Agency at Langley, Virginia — that remained open to the former allies. It was Dick White, the Head of the Secret Intelligence Service and nominally, the master of GCHG who had made direct personal contact with John McCone, the Director of the CIA. The Central Intelligence Agency’s Headquarters situated across the Potomac from Washington remained an apparent island of tranquillity in the eye of the seething storm which currently swirled around the capital.
The message had been simple.
Premier Heath is flying to Washington to discuss the World situation with President Kennedy.
The acknowledgement had come back: Situation dangerous. If Premier Heath comes at this time it is at his own risk.
The communication was by teleprinter.
GCHQ had filed a flight plan for approval.
Affirmative.
In approximately four hours time Speedbird 712 would land at Andrews Air Force Base; assuming it wasn’t shot down by one or other of the warring parties.
“Ambassador Westheimer,” Tom Harding-Grayson groaned, “your presence on this flight is an unambiguous token of the UKIEA’s good intentions. You were never ‘held hostage’ at Brize Norton; the fact of the matter was that your State Department refused to discuss arrangements for your safe transport home. You and your staff were nobody’s ‘hostages’, you were abandoned by your own people. Furthermore, I feel duty bound to remind you that you have no official status in this delegation…”
“Where does that leave Brenckmann?” The American retorted contemptuously.
The Prime Minister stood up in the aisle, stretched.
The men nearby fell silent.
“Ambassador Westheimer,” he said, moving back along the plane so as to avoid having to raise his voice. Seeing the Prime Minister moving a stewardess — attired in an immaculate BOAC uniform — approached solicitously. The big man motioned her to resume her seat, smiling gravely. He stood over the hulking Texan who’d conspicuously failed to represent the interests of his country in England in recent months. “Please believe me when I say that I find Captain Brenckmann’s presence on this mission and his likely role, as perplexing and as uncomfortable as you do. However, at this eleventh hour I am prepared to go to any lengths to avert war between our two nations. If that is your wish, also, I and my colleagues will be happy to continue to engage with you in this great discourse. If not, pray keep your opinions to yourself.”