"I can assure you that a good deal of what's happened wasn't the Navy's fault, sir. I felt that you should have been involved long before, certainly when intelligence first learned of what the Russians knew about Islas Piedras. But the President, or his staff, have given us specific orders, which we've had to follow for the time being." He went on to elaborate on the details he had just finished with to his own men. Then he explained the call he was now waiting for.
The ambassador looked pensive for a moment, knitting his brows. "Bob, they've really placed me in a tough position. I've been getting indications in the daily meetings I've had at the Kremlin the past week that there was something I should know. By now, they must feel I'm either part of the whole scheme, or that perhaps I'm the dumbest ambassador they've had to deal with. You and I are going to have to work more closely together from now on, but first I'd like to talk with your people when they call. There are only so many doors you can open without me. If the Secretary of State is there, I'd like a word with him."
He was interrupted by one of the operators, "Sir, I understand Admiral Carter is about ready now."
"Thanks, Jessie. Would you find out who's there with him? If Secretary Jasperson isn't there, they should arrange for a patch right away. Tell them Ambassador Simpson wants to speak with him."
"Yes, sir." Then, a few moments later, "Mr. Jasperson is at the White House, sir. They're trying to raise him on a special line now."
"Good. How much time do we have on this call before the satellites are out of range?"
"No problem, Admiral. You have approximately…" some scratching on a pad, "… exactly sixty-seven minutes from now." The time was 1:17 A.M. in Moscow.
"No need to use the phone," Collier said. "Patch it over the speaker, so we can all hear."
There was quiet in the communications room, then, "I have Admiral Carter, sir." He pushed a button on the panel in front of him.
"Good morning, Bob." Sam Carter's voice came over the speaker as if he were in the room. There was no interference.
"Good morning to you, Sam. And how's life in the Pentagon today?"
"It's probably not as hairy as in Moscow, Bob. But I don't think you've ever seen such action in this place. The CNO briefed everyone a few hours ago, and he told me he hasn't seen faces like that since he was an ensign at Pearl. We've had our share of crises that most people never knew about, but this is the greatest shock in a long time. How are people taking it at the embassy?"
"I briefed the ambassador earlier this evening as we'd agreed. Shortly after that, he made an announcement to the people here, and the entire staff is now on an emergency basis. And when I came in from a walk not so long ago, I noticed that none of us are going to be leaving for a while."
"I figured they'd want to do that even before now."
"But we don't have a hell of a lot of time, Sam. First, Ambassador Simpson is here and I want someone's permission, CNO or SECNAV or whoever, to tell him everything about Islas Piedras' military installations and also about the satellite neutralizer. I believe you could say we're just about in a state of war here, and he should know everything."
There were some words spoken beyond the microphone at the Pentagon, followed by Carter: "I've got one of my aides on the phone now, and it will only take a minute. In the meantime, what's the status of your communications? We haven't been able to raise anyone for six hours. All we've been told by the Russian Ambassador here is that some confusion would result for a while because of a minor fire."
"That minor fire, as they call it in international politics, was a picture-perfect undercover job that negated all communications and crypto equipment — incendiary devices so small that we never knew they were brought in. Our experts here say it will be another four to six days before they can even have a proper jury rig on some of the units, but that's only if we have parts available here. And since they plan to cut us off from everything for a period, this is the only contact we'll have with you."
"Sounds like intelligence screwed up badly, Bob."
"Our biggest problem is that we don't know how many mistakes they've made. The ambassador, per an agreement with me earlier this evening, is telling our people only as much as we want them to know since we obviously have a major security problem. Major Hattan, who took over the detachment when Hamlet disappeared, is going over our background investigations now to see if we can find some pattern in last year's Wrings, or anything that will at least give us something to go on. By morning we should literally be under siege, and then we'll have no bargaining power."
"Just a moment, Bob. Secretary Jasperson is ready to be patched in from the White House. If the ambassador is right there, I'd like to have them talk first. The President, to be polite, is very shaken now."
Collier looked at Simpson. Both of them knew the strain Jasperson was under now with the President. International confrontation was not part of the constitution of this small-town boy who had achieved the American dream by selling domestic issues to people. Jasperson was the President's mouthpiece and at this juncture was probably making all of the decisions for his President.
"I'm right here, Admiral Carter," replied the ambassador. "I am aware of everything with the exception of some military information that I, for some reason, have not been made privy to." Collier noted that the ambassador's furrowed brows were probably no more furrowed than Sam Carter's at that statement. "Please patch me in to Secretary Jasperson,"
A quiet voice came back over the loudspeaker, "This is Jasperson. Am I speaking to Ambassador Simpson?"
"This is Simpson, Mr. Secretary. This is the.only method I have available to communicate with you securely, and I'll make it as short as possible. You have already learned from the Russian embassy that a small fire disrupted our communications network for a while. Actually, it was an undercover job, an excellent one. Some very sophisticated incendiary devices were strategically placed to create destructive fires on the eighth floor. Quite obviously, our security missed something, and I suggest you have your people begin to comb all your files on us to see if they can turn up anything unusual. If they can infiltrate this embassy, they must be in every one we have. Secondly, I can assure you we will not have any other method of communications other than transfer of routine information for at least four days, and I doubt it will even be possible then. Finally, we are virtually prisoners within the confines of this building, and I doubt we will have any opportunity to assist you over the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours, when you're going to need it most. Admiral Collier has requested military permission to bring me up to date on some apparently highly classified weapons that are involved with this mess. While I don't want to belabor the point now, I think I should have been told previously what was developing, since I may have to negotiate directly with the Soviet leaders."
There was an embarrassing silence before Jasperson came back. "I assure you there was nothing personal involved in any decision to withhold information." A pause, then, "Admiral Collier, you may take my word for it that you can tell Ambassador Simpson everything he needs to know." Another pause. Then, using his old friend's first name, Jasperson said "Jack, I know you're In a tight situation and, if there is any fault, it has been right here. You know about Islas Piedras and that's the crux of the situation. If we could have completed it before all this started, then everyone with a need to know would have been briefed. As it stands now, we made a judgment error. The Russians got the upper hand on us, and it might have been worse if we hadn't stopped that damn satellite. As it was, we were using an untested weapon and we didn't even know if that would work.