Popov appeared relieved. But his conscience could not blot out the lives that had been lost. "It appears you have achieved what you wanted to achieve — General Secretary. I must now take my leave and inform the families of cosmonauts Lubinin and Yemitov of their deaths."
Kostiashak took Popov's arm and guided him toward the door. "General, throughout this adventure I have admired your concern for your men. We will talk more later, but before we part,
I must leave you with two thoughts. First, do not take all that has occured during the last few days at face value — things are not always what they seem. And second, never, ever, embrace the notion that I have done what I have done in the pursuit of selfish ambition. You will find that I — like you — am a patriot… Good night, General." And Kostiashak closed the door on a befuddled Popov.
Finally alone, the new General Secretary walked to the large bay window and sat down on the bench-style windowsill. He took out the last Pall Mall from his gold cigarette case and fired it up with the Dunhill lighter, then gazed out on Cathedral Square and saw that the snow had stopped falling. The incandescent lights had been extinguished for the night, and the clouds had parted to reveal an inky sky full of shimmering stars.
Kostiashak leaned back to contemplate the scene and allow the tension to ebb from his body. His mind wandered back over the tumultuous events of the last five days, and as he began to relax, his thoughts reached farther back in time — once again returning to his studies at Princeton. As a student, Kostiashak had not only studied the American President Franklin Roosevelt, but had also scrutinized the life and writings of a Florentine nobleman and diplomat named Niccolo Machiavelli.
Kostiashak had always felt history had treated Machiavelli unfairly, because — for some unfathomable reason — the sixteenth-century diplomat's name had become synonymous with deceit and treachery. But in fact, Machiavelli was an extremely capable public servant with high ideals whose actions were governed by a bare-knuckled pragmatism. In reviewing the previous week's events, the new General Secretary recalled one particular passage from Machiavelli's masterpiece, The Prince, which he had read while studying at the Firestone Library and had put to use this very day: "A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves."
T/Sgt. Jack Donley, United States Army Signal Corps, was leaning back in his chair, sipping a cup of coffee and thumbing through his copy of Sports Illustrated. The sandy-haired former semipro second baseman was just getting settled into his shift, looking forward to reading an article on his hometown Chicago Cubs, when the teletype suddenly clattered to life. The surprise brrraaap!… brrraaap!… brrraaap! of the high-speed printer almost caused him to spill his coffee. He looked at the clock and was even more surprised. What the hell was the matter? There were still thirty-seven minutes until the hourly circuit test. But the printer continued with its litany of brrraaap!… brrraaap!… brrraaap!
Donley got up and went over to the printer, which was spitting out a stream of Cyrillic letters. Then it dawned on him. Jesus! This wasn't a test. This message was for real! He rang for the interpreter.
Donley was a shift operator for the Washington-Moscow "Hotline" teletype. Established in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, the Hotline (officially known as the Direct Communications Link) was established to allow rapid, direct communications between the American President and the top Soviet leadership. Initially, the device utilized a landline cable system, but was later upgraded to a satellite link that hooked into the Russian Molniya and American Intelsat communication birds. Although Hollywood reinforced the false perception that the Hotline was a telephone, it was, in fact, a teletype system which was tested on an hourly basis. The Russians would transmit in Russian, and the Americans in English.
The Hodine was first used extensively in June 1967 during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War, when President Lyndon Johnson and Premier Aleksei Kosygin fired messages back and forth. It allowed the two leaders to probe for each other's trigger points during the fast-moving crisis without the nettlesome delay of diplomatic communications or the danger of garbled messages.
The interpreter walked into the communications center. He was a bookish, bespectacled Navy lieutenant who was a doctoral candidate in Georgetown University's modern language department. "What have you got?" he asked casually.
"Beats the shit outta me, sir," replied Donley. "Why don't you get to work on the translation? I'll notify the general staff duty officer and the commo center chief."
"You got it," said the interpreter, and he quickly set to work on the translation.
After the officers were notified, the interpreter finished the English translation, which Donley rapidly typed into a computer terminal. He then hit a transmit button to send the English version of the Russian epistle across the Potomac to a printer in the White House Situation Room. It read:
MOLNIYA II CIRCUIT4/2353 GMT MESSAGE 1/1
TO: PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA FROM: CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION MR. PRESIDENT:
DURING THE LAST HOUR IT HAS COME TO THE ATTENTION OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE THAT GENERAL SECRETARY VORONTSKY, ACTING CRIMINALLY, AND WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION FROM THIS COMMITTEE, ENGAGED IN AN ACT OF AIR PIRACY AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
SPECIFICALLY, WE HAVE LEARNED THAT GENERAL SECRETARY VORONTSKY ARRANGED FOR THE HIJACKING OF AN AMERICAN SPACE SHUTTLE AND THE DESTRUCTION OF ANOTHER.
WHILE THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE HAS EXPRESSED ITS VOCIFEROUS OBJECTIONS TO YOUR SO-CALLED STRATEGIC DEFENSE PLATFORM, WHICH IS IN VIOLATION OF EXISTING ANTIBALLIS-TIC MISSILE TREATIES, THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE IN NO WAY CONDONES THE PIRATE ACTIONS OF GENERAL SECRETARY VORONTSKY. THIS MESSAGE IS TO EXPRESS OUR REPUDIATION OF THIS ILLEGAL, UNAUTHORIZED ACT. IN VIEW OF THIS UNPRECEDENTED SITUATION,
AND OUR DESIRE TO REDUCE THE CURRENT TENSION, WE HAVE TAKEN THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS:
ALL SOVIET MILITARY AIRCRAFT ARE GROUNDED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THIS HAS BEEN DONE TO DEMONSTRATE OUR PEACEFUL INTENTIONS.
THE BODY AND EFFECTS OF THE AMERICAN KILLED DURING THE ATTACK WILL BE RETURNED WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED.
AMERICAN SURVIVORS OF THE ATTACK WILL RECEIVE APPROPRIATE MEDICAL CARE, AND WILL ALSO BE RETURNED WITH DISPATCH.
AN AMERICAN INSPECTION TEAM WILL BE ALLOWED TO SALVAGE THE REMAINS OF YOUR EQUIPMENT WHICH WAS DESTROYED BY THE SOVIET AIR DEFENSE FORCES DURING YOUR BOMBING STRIKE ON THE BAIKONUR COSMODROME.
THE SOVIET UNION AGREES TO PAY REPARATIONS TO THE UNITED STATES FOR THE LOSS OF YOUR SPACECRAFT, AND TO THE FAMILY OF THE DECEASED AIRMAN.
GENERAL SECRETARY VORONTSKY WAS KILLED IN A PLANE CRASH BEFORE HE COULD BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. THE SOVIET FOREIGN MINISTER AND DEFENSE MINISTER HAVE BEEN RELIEVED OF THEIR DUTIES FOR THEIR DUPLICITY AS CO-CONSPIRATORS IN THIS CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE.
THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN SIMULTANEOUSLY TRANSMITTED TO AMBASSADOR YAKOLEV, WHO HAD NO KNOWLEDGE OF THIS ILLEGAL PLOT.
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE HAS SELECTED VI-TALI KOSTIASHAK, CHAIRMAN OF THE COMMITTEE FOR STATE SECURITY, AS THE NEW GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY. WE CALL FOR A SUMMIT MEETING BETWEEN YOU AND HIM IN ORDER TO FURTHER REDUCE TENSIONS BETWEEN OUR TWO COUNTRIES.
TO REPEAT, THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE WAS TOTALLY UNAWARE OF THIS CRIMINAL ACT BY GENERAL SECRETARY VORONTSKY. WE HAVE ACTED SWIFTLY AND OPENLY TO CORRECT THIS TRAGEDY. WE OFFER OUR APOLOGIES TO THE UNITED