Rudenski waved an impatient hand. “You are a romantic and dramatic fool, Dimitri. There is no danger to you. There is no danger with the Americans, except the threat of danger. Their escalation to DefCon Two is meant to be a scare tactic and only that.”
“Then let me say that their tactic is successful. I am frightened.”
“Yes, I know. That is your trouble. You do not act with decisiveness. You used to, comrade. But those days are over. The Americans have picked your once-ferocious teeth.”
“Yes,” Gorny said, “so here we are… we and the Americans. Standing together deep in darkness, waiting for a whimpered apology from the other that will not come.”
“Enough!” Rudenski stomped his foot. “Comrade, the Americans will not go the full mile. Why will you not understand that? You have continually failed to understand just as Khrushchev failed during the Cuban crisis. The Americans will go to the edge, they will threaten and shout, but in the end they will back away. You have not studied them as I have. If you had you would realize that they are waiting desperately for our next move. They need a move from us to make them pull back. Then you will see… you’ll see who blinks first.”
Gorny smiled. “It is interesting, General, how you can reduce the fate of the two most powerful countries in the world to a simple children’s foolish dare.”
“They will not initiate a preemptive strike, that is all you must remember. We can safely increase the pressure.”
“Safely? I think you forget what the word means.”
“I suggest that we send ten squadrons of our new 28B Backfire Bombers toward the US Pacific coast. It would be a gesture they could hardly misinterpret.”
Gorny agreed with a sad smile. “Hardly.”
“You will contact President McKenna on the direct line in, say, six hours from now. The bombers will take off half an hour before the call. In that way the aircraft will not have been spotted on their radar.”
Rudenski began pacing again. “You will inform the president that the bombers are, in fact, airborne.
You will tell him that we do not need the bombers to launch a first strike, but that they are only there as an illustration of our determination. You will speak of peace. You are a consummate advocate of peace, comrade. You have even convinced me. You have only to express your resolve that grain or oil is not worth a holocaust. I promise you, McKenna will accept our terms.”
“You promise?”
Rudenski nodded confidently. “Of course. Even McKenna is not a fool.”
Gorny almost laughed out loud. “No, you’re right. Finally we agree totally, General Rudenski.
McKenna is not a fool.”
JONES’S STRIP
A light but bitter gust pulled at the wind sock as Caffey loaded the last box of ammunition onto the helicopter. He shoved it back under a canvas seat and made a quick inventory before shutting the hatch — a dozen M-16s, two machine guns, ammunition tins for three thousand rounds and half a box of grenades, frag and phosphorus. For the first time since taking over this command, he thought, he had probably more weapons and ammunition than he’d ever use. He slammed the hatch closed, then jogged back to the cabin. They were as ready as they were ever going to be.
Parsons was helping Kate pack the radio as Caffey entered the cabin. The warm air was laced with the smell of curious antiseptics — they were down to a can of first-aid spray for the badly wounded, sun tan lotion, a tube of Chap-Stik and a jar of Vaseline for the burned and rubbing alcohol as a disinfectant.
Most of the wounded who were conscious lay on their cots with blank, senseless expressions, staring nowhere. Those who could walk acted as medics to their buddies. Three men had died in the last four hours. AH sense of nightmare had evaporated; the grim tolerance of death and dying was the reality now. The bodies of the unattended dead lay uncovered where they’d died. A shortage of blankets for those yet alive was the higher concern. There was no dignity in death.
Caffey moved to the cluster of men around the chalk board where he’d drawn up their final battle plan.
Someone had printed at the top CAFFEY’S LAST STAND, and under it, THE MAGNIFICENT NINE.
“Lieutenant Hendricks?”
“Sir?”
Caffey cast a glance over his shoulder. “Start up that crate of yours.”
“Right-o, Colonel.”
Caffey looked at Lieutenant Parsons. “The wind is falling off. They’ll be moving fast now. The weather’s breaking.”
“Well, Colonel, we’re ready,” Parsons said. “Corporal Simms here will look after the wounded.” He gripped the man’s shoulder beside him. The corporal’s left hand was badly burned and wrapped in strips from a pillowcase. “He’s been checked out on the spare radio.”
Caffey nodded. “Call Fairbanks every half hour or so, Corporal. They’ll get an evacuation team in here as quick as they can.”
“Yes, sir,” Simms said. He glanced at the wounded men behind Caffey. “I know I can’t, sir, but”—he swallowed and looked straight into Caffey’s eyes—”I wish I could go with you. I’d like to be there when you hit the sonofabitches.” He held out his good hand. “Good luck, sir.”
Caffey shook it, then turned to Kate. “You still have a choice, Major.”
“Major?” Kate looked at him with a puzzled stare. “I think we can drop the formalities now, Jake.”
“You can stay here, Kate,” Caffey said. “I’m giving you the choice. You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do,” she said. She held her head up and smiled. “Besides, I’m not exactly the Florence Nightingale type — am I.”
“No, not exactly.” He looked at the other faces a moment. The Huey’s engine whined to life. “All right,” he said firmly. “Let’s go.”
THE WHITE HOUSE
The television screen went white with the flash of the explosion. The familiar mushroom formed as contrast and color returned to the screen. Mountains outlined in the background gave the explosion scale. It was at once terrifying and beautiful.
The president touched the VTR’s remote pause button and the billowing cloud froze instantly. A pair of the Oval Office’s window drapes had been drawn to keep glare off the console’s screen. Farber turned toward the president with a questioning look.
“How many megatons, Jules?”
“This is a twenty-ton test.”
“And the Hiroshima-Nagasaki bombs were what… eight?”
“Five.”
“And the Russians tested a fifty-megaton bomb twenty years ago?” McKenna sighed. He tapped the pause button again to allow the tape to continue.
“A thermonuclear device such as this,” said the television narrator, “exploding on a clear day at ground level, would create a fireball one and a half miles in diameter. Temperatures at the core would reach twenty to thirty million degrees Fahrenheit — two hundred times the temperature on the surface of the sun. If it were targeted on a city the size of Boston, with the Hancock Building as ground zero, every structure in the downtown district — streets, cars, buses, even the underground water mains — would be vaporized in the first tenth of a second, leaving a crater several hundred feet deep…”
“I hope to Christ Gorny has seen a film like this,” McKenna said.
“…ten miles radius, the blast wave with 180-mile winds would tumble or severely damage buildings more than three stories tall. The established body of scientific thought believes that this planet could absorb an all-out thermonuclear war…” Wayne Kimball stuck his head into the room. “Mr. President?”