“But that never—”
“Of course it never flew,” Bud interjected, cutting off the DCI. He was determined now to not let the President be wooed by Merriweather’s comforting analysis. “Castro has had all kinds of nutty schemes. Biotech. Perfect cattle breeding. You name it, he’s tried it. He’s unpredictable. We never know what he’s going to do next. He doesn’t do the logical things.” Bud turned his attention directly to the President. “We have never known what he is capable of. Therefore it behooves us to be prepared even for that which we are not sure he is capable of doing.”
A neat operation! That was a crock, the President thought. Down the toilet. “All right, Bud. Confirm this. If it turns out to be credible, then I want options. Fast options, because it scares the hell out of me to even think that this may be true. In the meantime, we keep things in motion down in Cuba. I’m not going to put the brakes on this without confirmation. Is that clear?” He looked to each man, ending with the DCI. “You get down to your meeting. I expect your deputies can handle this archive thing?”
“Of course.” Damn. “No problem.”
“Mr. President, there are two things that need to be done to prepare for the eventuality that we will confirm the information,” Bud said, his plan thought out on the drive over. It took him just a minute to explain it.
“I see,” the President said. He was somewhat surprised by the second of Bud’s proposals. Bringing the man back one more time was almost too much, considering. As President, he felt some responsibility for what had befallen the man a year before, and still he’d never met him. If he was being brought back again, that fact would have to change. “That sounds acceptable. But, Bud, I want to see him before anything happens.”
“All right, sir.”
“Anything else?”
There wasn’t. The President left with his advisers standing. Merriweather departed immediately after him without a word to his equals in the Oval Office.
“Thanks, Drew. You could have nailed it shut for Anthony.”
“Hey, you and I may not see eye-to-eye on everything, but he needs some serious help.”
Bud gave the secretary of defense a much deserved slap on the shoulder. “Hope you didn’t mind my stepping into your territory there.”
Meyerson laughed. “Stepping in? Hell, Anthony damn near appropriated my CT force for his own damn escort service. Your use of them would be a whole lot more up their alley.”
“If it becomes necessary.” Bud’s thoughts drifted back to something the DCI had said a minute before. “Did it seem strange to either of you that Anthony practically started quoting Missile Maintenance One-oh-one?”
Coventry had caught that also. “I didn’t know his knowledge ran so deep.” The words were not spoken flatteringly.
“Yeah.” Bud didn’t know what it meant, but something wasn’t kosher about it. That could wait, though. “Can we run through this for a moment?”
The three men sat again. Two floors up, the chief executive would hopefully be getting to bed. He was the decision maker and therefore had to be rested and clear headed. His advisers were the ones who could do without sleep.
“Okay, if this turns out to be true, what are our options?” Bud was acting in familiar territory now.
“The idea you outlined for the Boss is right on,” Meyerson said. “Let’s say we confirm this and that we find the thing — anticipating it still works.” The secretary had been careful not to give the DCI an ironclad response to his “missile-won’t-work” theory. “We can’t launch a preemptive air strike.”
“Why not?” Coventry asked, leaning back on the couch and straightening Ids tie. It was a habit, the others knew. Looks mattered little at the moment.
“Decoys,” Bud answered for the secretary of defense. “The same kind of problem you run into once a modern ICBM goes terminal. Things called ‘penaids’. They’re basically decoys that you’d be forced to take out or discriminate from the real warheads if SDI ever got off the ground. The same thing applies to ground-based missiles. We might see something, but we wouldn’t know if it was the something we wanted.”
“Makes sense,” Coventry admitted. “Ground troops, eh?”
“You heard it,” Bud confirmed. “Up close and personal. It’s the only way to know for sure.”
Coventry suddenly thought of the worst-case scenario. “What if we don’t find it? He could fire it.”
Meyerson’s eyebrows went up at the thought. “Not much we can do there.”
“What about Patriot?” Coventry asked, thinking back to the anti-ballistic-missile capability the Patriot missile system had demonstrated during the Gulf War.
“No way. First, we don’t know where he’d fire it. Second, we don’t have enough batteries in CONUS to cover all the possible targets.” CONUS was military jargon for Continental United States. “Third, the Patriot has an upper-altitude envelope of eighty thousand feet, and these wouldn’t be Scuds popping up. We’re talking about a warhead in terminal phase. Too fast and too small. Fourth, how would we explain SAMs parked on the Mall, or on Ellis Island? You get the picture. It would be like advertising that he should shoot it before it’s too late.”
“Our only hope is to keep this quiet,” Bud said. “Airtight.”
“No argument from me,” Meyerson said, his thoughts shifting to preventative actions. “You know, time may become a concern in this.”
“Meaning?” Bud probed.
“Castro may be motivated to use the missile if things get more desperate.”
“It’s already pretty bad,” the NSA observed accurately.
“But more pressure could set him off. I mean, why hasn’t he used it yet?” Meyerson shrugged.
It was a good question. “Jim?”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you can set it aside. You haven’t met the rebel leader. I have. When Anthony and I arranged the conference two months ago in Antigua, all he could talk about was the way he was going to destroy Castro. He despises the man. This coup is as much motivated by hate for Castro as it is by desire for a new system of government.”
“But even just a slowdown of their advance?” Meyerson suggested. “Just to buy us some more time?”
The secretary of state’s head shook knowingly. “Listen, when Castro executed General Ontiveros after the hijacking, he alienated a lot of his military. Ontiveros was respected, and he was loved. And the only reason he was made to suffer was because Castro perceived him as protecting…”
The realization hit Bud and Coventry first.
“Vishkov,” Bud said.
“Christ!” Meyerson’s head fell into his hands.
“He needed someone with the knowledge to maintain a missile,” Bud pondered aloud. “Guess he got him. Son of a bitch!”
“Defection, eh?” Coventry mused, knowing they had all been fooled. They and the Russians, it appeared. “Sounds more like an arranged marriage.”
It was the simplicity of design that made some secrets so unbelievable, and made them equally possible. “Castro arranges for Vishkov to come visit the island, probably with an offer of money or whatever if he decides to stay. He might have even allowed him to peddle his nuke designs unhindered. When he meets the general’s sister, Ontiveros probably encouraged their get-together. He must have seen it as a way to turn the tables on Castro, to get Vishkov in his camp.” Bud laughed, but there was little humor in it.
Coventry saw it all unfolding also. “We knew that Ontiveros was a dissenter in the military. I wonder if he knew about the missile? That would make even more sense. If he has Vishkov on his side, he could literally dictate the physicist’s use to Castro. Then when the hijacking happened, Castro saw it as a perfect opportunity to get rid of Ontiveros. Vishkov was just an excuse.” Coventry remembered his part in the affair and his suggestion to the Cuban leader that he could deal with Vishkov in his own way. I might as well have signed Ontiveros’s death warrant.