“Halupalai?”
In the lonely seat in the back of Polar Bear One’s upper compartment, the big gunner turned slowly, his eyes straining in the redness for a look at Kazaklis. Halupalai smiled and the pilot smiled back. “We’re almost there, aren’t we, commander?” he asked.
“Almost there, pal,” Kazaklis replied. The two stared at each other, Kazaklis probing for anything in his friend’s face that would flash a warning that the risk was too great. He saw nothing. “We’ve been worried about you, old buddy,” Kazaklis said.
“I know, commander. I listened to part of it. Sorry.”
Kazaklis shrugged at the admission of the eavesdropping. “Should we be worried, pal?”
“No, commander.” His voice was calm and certain.
“It’s going to be awfully beat up, Halupalai. Like nothing we ever saw before.”
“Honolulu wasn’t my home. Not even on my island. Please don’t worry, commander.”
The pilot continued staring into the Hawaiian’s tired but open face. “Kauai,” Kazaklis acknowledged, and Halupalai’s face brightened like a birthday child’s.
“We take one quick look-see?” Halupalai asked expectantly, his voice reverting to the simple, chanting tones of the islands. “It’s the charmer, boss.”
Kazaklis tightened. “No,” he said flatly.
“Won’t be beat up like Honolulu,” Halupalai pleaded. “No way will it.”
Kazakalis felt an alarm run quickly through him. “No,” he repeated, with a bite this time. But Halupalai did not protest further.
“Okay, commander,” he said. “You’re the boss-man.” The smile faded slightly and the sad brown eyes held on Kazakhs. “You didn’t need to take my alert bag, commander,” Halupalai said reproachfully. “I wouldn’t hurt either of you.”
“We know that, pal. We aren’t worried about us,” Kazakhs looked at him closely. “We’re worried about you.”
Halupalai smiled again. “Thanks,” he said, and he meant it. No one had said that to him for a long while. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m okay.” His smile grew wider and he gave Kazakhs a friendly fist jab in the ribs. “Now get your ass back up front, Kazakhs,” he said, “and do what you have to do.”
Kazakhs reluctantly turned back toward the cockpit. The worry still nagged at him faintly, but Halupalai seemed nothing like the two crazies he had dealt with earlier. And, about that, the pilot’s perception was accurate. Halupalai was neither violent nor spooked. He just wanted to go home.
The Looking Glass flew almost aimlessly now, no bombers and no missiles left to command. Alice and Sam talked to each other vacantly, each having fought his own private war and each arriving independently at the same outcome. But they had developed a deep sense of mutual embarrassment, as if the other’s eyes were a mirror reflecting a man who had violated the most elemental rule of the code by which he had lived his life.
After abandoning all his West Point training by openly defying his Commander-in-Chief and taking it onto himself to turn the bombers, Alice made a few halfhearted attempts to call the E-4 and reason with the successor. Each time, the reply returned tersely: “You’re in deep shit, Alice.” Then the phone clicked off. He had searched his soul desperately for a feasible way to prevent the submarine launchings but could find none. His only hope was Harpoon, but their last conversation had been hours ago and nearly incomprehensible. Almost four excruciatingly long hours after his decision, Alice was quietly despondent, as was Sam, who had gone along with the mutiny.
Aboard the now impotent SAC command plane, only two other members of the crew of twenty spoke to Alice unless he spoke first. Smitty, the pilot, understood the decision in some deeply forlorn way. He occasionally tried to make small talk.
And the communications officer reported to him regularly, but she averted her eyes as she spoke.
Communications were improving methodically but slowly. They had intercepted some clear messages moving within Europe, including some between NATO facilities. Alice was not surprised. Europe had received minimal physical destruction and that made the electromagnetic damage from the high-altitude EMP explosions somewhat easier to repair. The Soviets had used EMP in detonations high over the NATO nations, just as the United States had used it over the Warsaw Pact countries.
What did confuse the general was the nature of the occasional direct communication they now were able to establish with a few NATO bases. The conversations were as abrupt as those with Condor. And the operators at the other end, even though they all understood English, spoke to him only in their native languages—German or Norsk… or Flemish. Where were the American commanders, for Christ’s sake? Alice also knew Condor had to be making the same connections. If he were so single-mindedly determined to hit the Soviets, why wait for the submarines? Why not order the NATO forces into it, even if that meant the suicide of Europe? The successor’s decision meant all was lost anyway. And he could always follow with the submarines.
The lieutenant also reported that garbled messages now were arriving from a handful of sites around the country. She had identified the site of the original messages as a regional civil-defense bunker in Maryland. Those messages, still garbled, were arriving more regularly now. Alice waved her away. He simply wasn’t in the mood to worry about a lonely civil-defense station wet-nursing a few governors. If they got through, fine. If not, fine.
The Zulu clock stood at precisely 1700 hours, four hours before the submarines would unleash most of America’s remaining nuclear arsenal, when Alice finally realized that winning his own private war simply wasn’t enough. The realization arrived abruptly as he stared at the perfectly synchronized hand of his watch edging relentlessly past the marker. He knew it would move just as relentlessly past the next hour markers, till it passed 2100, and then it would stop. All watches would stop.
The general harbored no illusions. If Condor were somehow taken away, there would be no one to talk to the submarines and the result would be the same. If he tried to fake contradictory orders from the Looking Glass, at best TACAMO would be confused and go with the original SIOP plan. It was a hopeless dilemma. Nevertheless, as he watched the second hand move steadily onward, Alice concluded that at least he could remove control from one totally determined man and place it in the lap of fate. Fate seemed equally determined. But he decided, quickly and simply, that he liked the second option better. Even so, Alice reached one more time for the phone.
“Ummmmm?” the voice responded impatiently.
“Alice here, Condor.”
“You’re in deep shit, Alice.”
“Don’t hang up.” The general’s voice was a command. “You will not allow me to dissuade you?”
“No.”
“You will not allow Harpoon to dissuade you?”
“Harpoon’s dead.”
The general’s hand tightened, white-knuckled, over the phone. But he did not pause. “It is beyond debate?”
“You and I will settle up on the ground, Alice.”
“I think not, Condor.” This time Alice disconnected and turned immediately to Sam, who had watched the drama closely.