“Yes, I’d like that.”
“Good day, Mr. President.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Chairman.”
McKenna replaced the special phone in its cradle. For several moments he said nothing. Then, without looking at anyone, he said, “I don’t believe him, I think Gorny was promising rainbows. I think he was speaking for himself, not for the ‘Central Committee.’ Rudenski is running it, I’m convinced of that, I felt as if I could hear him breathing down Gorny’s neck.” He glanced up at Farber. “Jules, I think they’re going to come in.”
“And if you’re wrong, Mr. President?”
McKenna stared at his hands. He remembered his special nightmare — the hospital, the doctor’s face, the guilt after the fantasy. You should have been there. You should have been there.
“Excuse me, Mr. President?”
McKenna looked up quickly. “No, ah, no. I…”
“The law says you must notify the Special Congressional Committee.” It was Secretary of Defense Alan Tennant, looking as if he might break down.
“We can’t wait that long,” General Olafson said. “Congress is in recess. God knows how long it’d take to find all of them. This is a national crisis, Mr. President. You have absolute authority as commander in chief. No one questions that.” The president glanced at Farber. The Oval Office was absolutely still. For once his national security advisor had no reply. “God forgive me,” McKenna whispered. He looked at Olafson… and nodded.
“How could you tell him that!” Rudenski said.
Gorny was the only one sitting at the conference table now. In his old chair. Rudenski was pacing, as usual. The rest of the committee stood about in pairs. Nervousness, Gorny thought. They know what’s coming and it terrifies them.
“You hadn’t the authority to speak for them! You cannot interfere!” Rudenski clasped his hands behind his back and conferred with Suloff a moment.
“It does not matter,” Gorny said, trying to catch the inflection Rudenski had used. “I don’t think McKenna believed me anyway.”
“I know you, comrade, and I didn’t believe you,” Rudenski said.
“He didn’t believe that you would turn the bombers back because I don’t believe you will. He believes you will go over the edge because I believe you will. It is difficult to lie, comrade General, when you know you cannot win whatever happens.” Rudenski stared at Gorny without expression. “I wouldn’t have, you know,” he said after a moment. “I really wouldn’t have.”
“The Americans will be slower, comrade General,” Suloff said quickly. “The President must have Special Congressional Committee approval. That means we have at least a twenty-five-minute advantage.”
“Twenty-five minutes,” Gorny said mockingly. “All that time.”
“Enough!” Rudenski bellowed. “You are not a part of this anymore, comrade. You will be silent!”
“I was never a part of this,” he replied.
Suloff looked at Rudenski expectantly. “Comrade General?”
Rudenski looked at the others. “You all knew this day would come. How do you say?” No one spoke.
The room was silent. Rudenski turned back to Suloff. “The first-strike initiative is ours,” he said without a trace of emotion. “Do it quickly.” The echo of the colonel’s footsteps did not leave the large room even as he retreated down the long corridor and to the next and the next after that.
WHITE HILL
1553 HRS
The air was acrid with the scent of death. The ground was black and muddy where an hour ago it had been white and crisp. The trees sine lied of smoke and petroleum, but in the bright afternoon sun there was not a cloud for miles.
Caffey sat on his haunches, almost mesmerized, waiting for the end to come. It was here already but just hadn’t caught him yet, he thought. What Russians were left had gone into the trees. Sooner or later they’d be out. Not that it mattered how many of them there were. Two hundred or two thousand, he hadn’t anything to fight them with… and he didn’t feel like it anyway.
“Colonel? Colonel Caffey, you’d better take a look at this.” Parsons nudged him with his foot. He’d been lying in the same spot where Kate had been. “Colonel?”
“How many are there, Lieutenant?”
“No, it’s not that, Colonel. Look. They’re walking out under a white flag.” Caffey stared up at Parsons. “No, really, Colonel. Look!” They’d stopped about forty feet from the pump house. Four officers. Caffey walked out to meet them.
Parsons followed with his empty M-16 slung over his shoulder.
“I am Col. Alexander Mikhail Vorashin,” Vorashin said in heavily accented English. “Commander of the 51st Arctic Combat Brigade of the Ninth Soviet Army.” Caffey nodded. “Colonel Jake Caffey, US Army. What’s on your mind, Colonel?”
“I wish the fighting to stop, Colonel. It is a pointless exercise now, I think. I have lost three hundred and seventeen men today. I do not wish to lose any more. We have lost our radio”—Vorashin motioned to the smoldering ruins of his tracked vehicles—”and I cannot communicate with my command headquarters for further instructions.”
“You want to surrender, Colonel?”
Vorashin’s mouth hinted at a smile. “No, Colonel. I would like to go home.” Caffey considered it. He sighed. “So would I, Colonel.” He extended a hand to the Russian and nodded.
“So would I.”
A brief glint of light reflected from an object high in the stratosphere. It was moving beyond sound, heading north, trailing an almost imperceptibly faint line in the sky. Then, fleetingly, another reflected glimmer, traveling in the opposite direction. But neither man noticed.