Boris stood up. The Americans had left holes in some of the runways. The Tu-4s wouldn’t be taking off from here till people fixed them. Around the farmhouse that housed base personnel, everybody was running every which way. Well, everybody who could run. The Mustangs hadn’t left the farmhouse unscathed.
“You know something?” Zorin said. “We were lucky to be where we were when the Americans came. If we’d been over there, we might not’ve made it to the trenches.”
“It’s all luck,” Tsederbaum said. “Good luck, bad luck-what else is there?”
“The dialectic,” Boris Gribkov said. “There’s always the dialectic.”
“Well, yes, Comrade Pilot.” Tsederbaum smiled so charmingly, for a moment Boris thought he was watching a movie actor. “You’re right. Absolutely. There’s always the dialectic.”
Is he agreeing with me? Or is he mocking me, calling me an uncultured fool of a peasant? Gribkov wondered. He wasn’t sure. Leonid Tsederbaum left no room for anything so bourgeois as certainty. Then the pilot thought, Don’t you have more important things to worry about? Deciding he did, he figured the navigator could wait.
–
The Canal Zone was American territory. Harry Truman couldn’t imagine giving it back to Panama. The greasers down here could no more run or protect the Panama Canal than they could fly.
As the President stepped out of the Independence and into Panama’s steamy tropical heat, he scowled. It wasn’t as if the United States had done such a heads-up job of protecting the Canal. One bang, in fact, and there was no Panama Canal to protect any more.
“Welcome, Mr. President,” Arnulfo Arias said. The President of Panama was a stout man of about fifty. He spoke English almost as well as Truman did; he’d studied medicine at Harvard.
“Thank you very much, Mr. President.” Truman held out his hand. Arias took it. Holding the clasp, they turned toward the photographers and plastered political smiles on their faces. Flashbulbs popped. When the shutterbugs were happy, the two leaders let go of each other. As they did, Truman spoke in a low voice: “I’m sorry as hell about this.”
“Yes. So are we.” Arias shrugged. “Well, we can talk more about that after you’ve seen the disaster for yourself.”
It was as much a disaster for Panama as it was for the USA. If anything, it was a worse disaster for Panama than for the United States. Panama had no reason to exist except for the Panama Canal. Without the Canal, there would have been no Panama. Up till the turn of the century, it had been a province of Colombia-not always a perfectly contented province, but also not one with secession on its mind.
Then the Colombian government refused the excavation terms the American government offered. With amazing speed, the free nation of Panama sprang from Teddy Roosevelt’s forehead the way Minerva sprang from Jupiter’s. The United States recognized it almost before it declared its own independence. Colombia’s choice was accepting the inevitable or going to war with the USA.
Thus the Panama Canal was born. And now, not quite half a century later, the Panama Canal had died. If any young Colombian lieutenants then were old Colombian generals now, they had to be snickering behind their hands.
A Cadillac convertible drove out onto the runway. “I will take you to the Presidential Palace,” Arias said. “After the luncheon there, we will go the the Canal Zone so you can examine the damage for yourself.”
Truman didn’t want to go to the Presidential Palace. He didn’t want to have lunch with a bunch of Panamanian big shots. That was all a waste of time. He wanted to get up there and see what the damned Russians had done. But, like it or not, he had to be diplomatic. “Sounds fine, Mr. President,” he lied. “I’m at your service.”
Secret Service men who’d flown down with Truman and Panamanian soldiers climbed into other cars. They made a small motorcade that wound through the streets of Panama City. A few people stood on the sidewalks waving American and Panamanian flags. If Arias’ henchmen hadn’t got them out there, Truman would have been amazed. That was one of the oldest ward-heeler’s tricks in the world.
And one of the oldest assassin’s tricks in the world was to attack from a high place. The guards wouldn’t stop a rifleman or someone with a grenade if he popped out of a third-story window in one of the old Spanish-style buildings. Truman knew it but didn’t let it worry him.
The Presidential Palace lay northeast of Independence Square, and took up a whole block. They’d declared independence in the cathedral in the square. The USA was in the background when they did it, but not very far in the background.
Big white egrets swaggered across the marble-floored palace lobby. Smiling, President Arias said, “The nickname for the building is Palacio de las Garzas-the Palace of the Herons.”
Smiling back, President Truman replied, “None of those at the White House. We have lobbyists instead, lobbyists and other vultures.”
Like Arias himself, the dignitaries he’d invited to eat with Truman were educated men fluent in English. Some of them showed a better understanding of both sides’ strategy in the war than most of the Congressmen Truman had conferred with. The lunch was excellent: lobster chunks simmered in spiced coconut milk and served with rice and beans. Rum flowed freely.
Not too much later than he’d planned, Truman got back into the Cadillac with Arias for the trip to the blasted lock. The Canal’s geography was confusing; till you studied a map, you weren’t likely to realize that the Caribbean opening lay west of the one on the Pacific.
A good highway ran from Panama City to Colón. It had gone on to Gatún, but Gatún was no more. Neither was Lake Gatún, some of which had boiled to steam and more of which poured out into the Caribbean after the bomb hidden in the Panathenaikos went off. Every drop that poured through the crater became radioactive as it went. Eventually, the Caribbean would dilute the poison till it didn’t matter any more, but how eventually eventually was, Truman didn’t know. Every alleged expert he talked to gave him a different answer.
Making sure the Japs didn’t wreck the Panama Canal had been one of America’s worries during World War II. Making sure the Russians didn’t was a high priority this time around. High priority or not, the Russians had done it.
“My fault,” he told Arnulfo Arias. “We were supposed to defend against this kind of savagery. We were supposed to, but we dropped the ball. I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“I have heard that you are a man who says what is in his heart,” the President of Panama replied. “Now I find for myself that it is so.”
“And you find that it doesn’t do you one whole hell of a lot of good, hey?” Truman said. “I promise you this, Mr. President: after we’ve won the war, we will put the Panama Canal back together again. It’s too important to leave it like-this.”
“To the whole world, and to Panama,” Arias said.
“Yes, and to Panama,” Truman agreed. Without the Canal, Panama might as well go back to being part of Colombia. The only drawback to that was, Colombia probably wouldn’t want it.
President Arias had other things on his mind. “How long will the war go on before the United States wins it, Mr. President? How much of the world will be left in one piece by the time it ends?”
Those were both good questions. They were much better questions than Truman wished they were, in fact. “I’m not the only one who has something to say about that, you know, your Excellency,” he said. “Stalin does, too. If the Russians pull out of western Germany and Italy and if the Red Chinese pull out of South Korea, we have nothing left to fight about.”
“Yes, sir.” Arias studied him with wide, sad eyes. “And what do you think the chances of that are?”