The Ninth Panzer of the German Democratic Republic Army had leaped across the border into the West and smashed brilliantly and savagely in a fatal dawn raid at the Allied air force base at Frankfurt am Main while elements of the Seventeenth Wing of the Polish air force had bombed the American bases at Lakenheath and Mildenhall in East Anglia.
Yet, despite the surprise of the opening move, Garishenko had been most surprised by the Eastern decision to bypass French forces in Berlin and to be certain to notify the French “commander” (on Garishenko’s team) that French territory would be respected. It was sophisticated of them, Garishenko had thought: They were finally using the Bronsky index, which took political dealings into consideration in these games.
“Don’t they expect the French to support NATO?”
The question had been asked of no one in the war rooms in the bunker, and no one had answered Garishenko.
“Where is Tolinov?”
Tolinov was the French “commander.”
He had been summoned from the bunker six hours before by the Game Master. He had not returned. The game was being delayed by his absence.
Garishenko fretted in his office as he waited for Tolinov to return.
He poured a glass of vodka from the bottle in his desk drawer and tasted it. The vodka was warm, but over the years he had come to drink the strong, unflavored liquor for its effect on him and not for the pleasure of the taste. The vodka isolated him but made him comfortable in his isolation.
Katharin had long ago soothed him. “Of course you are the enemy in their eyes, but you cannot be destroyed by this,” she had said. “The army does not face the West, it faces you.”
Katharin understood at least. She understood the pain of what he did, even if the others acted as though he were betraying the cause of the country.
“Theories in a game do not spill blood,” he had said once to Katharin. “I can prevent war because I can contain the ambition of the foolish in Naya.”
“But not in Afghanistan, not in the Kabul game,” she had said bitterly.
“No. But they have learned; they must trust me, trust Naya, trust Bronsky’s index.”
The words had sounded hollow to him even as he said them. Why must he be trusted? Paranoia was rampant in the upper echelons of the party and in the army; why would paranoia see the truth of what he was trying to do?
The headaches had come back to him two weeks before the games began again. Each night he had sat alone, in his chair by the window of the apartment, and drunk himself into a stupor while the pain traveled over the top of his skull and along the line of his rigid jaw, while the pain plucked at his eyes and made his pale skin wan and drawn. Katharin had known about the pain in him and had been powerless to prevent it. She only sat with him as he drank himself to sleep, listening to him when he spoke, covering him if he fell asleep in the chair by the open window.
“Have I forgotten anything?” He would ask the question again and again as he drove his staff to uncover statistic after statistic, to devise new elements for the program of the games, to make certain that the games would be so accurate that even the dinosaurs on the senior staff would accept the results this time. The invasion of West Europe. No, Garishenko had thought; there must be no equivocation this time, no miscalculation on the part of men like Warnov.
The door of his private office opened now and Tolinov appeared. His young face was sullen, his blue eyes cold. Like the others — especially the young ones — he had resented assignment to Garishenko’s side in the war game called “Paris.”
“Where have you been? The game is delayed waiting for you.”
“I was summoned by the Game Master.”
“What did he want?”
Tolinov gazed directly at him. His eyes did not hide a certain contempt for the short, round-faced general who had mastered the computer games. “I cannot say.”
“But I am the commander.”
“I cannot say. It was forbidden.”
“We have awaited your response,” Garishenko said with sarcasm, holding his temper.
“I have made the response.”
“Well, where is it?”
Silently Tolinov handed him a slip of paper on which a few characters were written. Garishenko stared at it.
“This is the French response?”
“Yes. There is no response. France will not act.”
“You’re wrong, Major Tolinov. France is the key to the games; of course France will respond.”
“It will not respond,” Tolinov said.
“Damn you, let me see your orders.”
“I cannot, Comrade General. The orders are…my orders are not to respond.”
Garishenko’s eyes opened wide as he stared at the cold face and the blue eyes. The headache, which had flared and subsided over the days and nights of the game in the windowless room, now intensified. He felt the pain moving over his forehead, behind his eyes.
“Who gave you orders?”
“I cannot say.”
“This is madness, this is no game at all. Of course France will respond. I will make France respond.”
“It will not compute, General.”
Garishenko roared then, a cry of pain and not of words. He rose up in his chair and staggered across the dull carpet to the computer console and sat down. His fingers danced over the keys quickly, putting in the access code for “France.” He drew up a question, asking for present battle status of the French forces.
“STATUS: NORMAL ALL SECTORS.”
Normal. Garishenko stared at the words and then typed in a single battle order, involving movement of the third battalion of the Sixth French Garrison at Berlin into East Germany Sector 973.
The computer flashed for a moment, digesting the order. There was a long wait. The screen faced them with a gray, blank face. And then words tumbled onto the screen.
“IT DOES NOT COMPUTE.”
“This is wrong, this is wrong,” Garishenko said, striking the access key again. “This is completely mad.”
“General Garishenko,” Tolinov said. “It’s no use.”
“Damn you, damn you, this can’t be, we programmed the damned thing.”
“General…”
Garishenko turned in his chair. “This has to compute, don’t you understand? How can France not respond to the invasion of Western Europe?”
Tolinov said nothing.
Garishenko reached for the red telephone; it was the line to the Game Master. The phone clicked and whirred, and a voice came on the line.
“Naya is defective, it will not compute the French response.”
The Game Master said nothing.
“Do you understand? It will not compute the French response.”
“Perhaps that is the French response,” the Game Master said at last in a dry, whispery voice.
“I programmed Naya, that is not the French answer to armed invasion.”
“French territory has not been threatened.”
“Dammit, this is wrong, this is completely wrong.”
“You must play the game as Naya instructs.”
“But there is a French response.”
The Game Master spoke slowly then. “No, Comrade there is not.”
PART TWO
Reunion
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.…
11
It was just two when William Manning rang the buzzer at the door of Quizon’s apartment.
When the old man opened the door slowly, he seemed startled for a moment to see Manning.
“You said two o’clock,” Manning said, annoyed. He had not wanted to come here at all. Each visit with Quizon only dragged him back into the world of shadows he had come from. They reinforced reality: His liaison with Jeanne Clermont was only part of a little job for the Section.