“All right,” the captain said. “I can’t pronounce that and I’m sure my men can’t either. We’ll call you Clem. Why did you come on board?”
“Because it was not my wish to die. While I watch I see nothing, but you do everything. For this I am shooted immediate fast. This is undesirable, so when I understand, I jump.”
“I see. Suppose we had been stopped by your people before we got away?”
“Then I say I jump to prevent you.”
The captain looked at the commander. “He’s candid, anyway.”
“I can’t honestly blame him too much,” the shipyard man said. “In his position I think that I would have done the same thing. He didn’t have much choice.”
“Nor do we. All right, Clem, I will grant you political asylum on board this ship for the time being. We can’t give you anything to eat, you understand that. Every man in this crew was forewarned that there would be no way to get any supplies on board and that we would all have to go without rations for at least three days.” “That fool everyone,” the ex-overseer volunteered. “Nothing to eat, cannot go.”
“Well, we did manage to smuggle some packets of soup mix on board under some of the decontamination suits, but that’s all we’ve got. No coffee, just drinking water that we make.”
“Thank you for my life. I am glad I am live to feel that pain of hunger. I am patient.”
“That’s fine, Clem. Understand that if you make the slightest attempt to interfere with the operation of this ship, you will be treated at once as an enemy spy.” He looked up at the shipyard commander. “Suppose you take over responsibility for the POW’s,” he said. “I’m badly understaffed as it is, and I don’t have any men to spare.”
“I’d be glad to.”
“Good. We’ll cover for you while you’re in the sack. Ask Mr. Wagner to come in, will you?”
Even in a poopie suit Walter Wagner could not conceal his remarkable physical development. The captain invited him in and gestured toward a chair. “One of the privileges of being in command,” he said, “is that I was on the bridge and saw you come off that crane. How high were you when you dove?”
“About a hundred and four feet,” Wagner answered. “It looks spectacular, but it isn’t difficult when you’re used to it.”
“It would scare me witless.”
“The only thing that disturbs me is that I had to blow my cover. Now everyone in the business knows that this country has an agent who is a high diver. Up until now I could go almost anywhere as a circus or carnival performer and no one ever questioned it.”
“I don’t know what the future holds,” the captain said, “but if this cruise is successful, you might be able to retire and do whatever you’d like.”
Wagner shook his head slowly. “I’d like to believe that, but just about the time that things quiet down all around something pops up somewhere. It always has.”
The captain npdded unhappily. “I wish you weren’t right, but I know that you are. Essentially we’re in the same business. Anyhow, we’re all naturally very proud that we have a First Team member on board. I’d like to pass the word on that if you don’t mind.”
“All right, but keep it low-key. Major Pappas wanted this assignment very badly, but there was no way to get him off the crane except to come down the ladders, and that would have been out of the question. I could get off and into the water in something like five seconds, so that settled it in my favor.”
“Have you had some soup?”
“Not yet; I stuffed myself before I came on board, so I’m in good shape.”
“Good enough. You have the run of the ship and, while I’m in command, if you have any directives they’ll be followed.”
Wagner got to his feet. “I’ll leave all that to the admiral; you’ll be hearing from him.”
The captain stood up as well. “We already have. We didn’t transmit, but our orders stand unchanged.”
“Thank you, captain.”
“You’re more than welcome, sir.”
Colonel Gregor Rostovitch was in a mood of intense concentration. Spread out on the top of his desk was a series of charts and maps to which he was giving his undivided attention. The Magsaysay had gotten away and due to the fact that he had been inadequately staffed and poorly served, no one so far had been made to suffer for it. Accepting the fact that the submarine was loose in the Pacific, the colonel was now intent on tracking her down. One thing was greatly in his favor: by all report she had no provisions on board and she would have to put in somewhere very promptly for supplies. Canada was the likeliest choice, but there was an important treaty with Canada which the northern dominion, probably for the sake of its own hide, was adhering to scrupulously. Any services rendered to the Magsaysay would be interpreted as an act of war, and Canada would be brought under the gun just as the United States had been. Air patrols were out searching for any supply vessels, but on the surface of the Pacific that was an almost hopeless task. However! The colonel did not know the exact range of the fugitive submarine’s missiles, but he was acutely aware that if she could make her way into the Atlantic, that would put almost the whole of his country within her easy reach. Sixteen rounds of ballistic missiles, each one equipped with multiple, directable nuclear warheads, represented fearful firepower that could wipe whole nations off the map, and from underneath the ocean; she did not even need to surface in order to fire.
Bitter as the pill was, he accepted the fact that the men on board were actually an integrated submarine crew that had been assembled right under the noses of his thickheaded people. The whole thing had been carried off superbly well, which told him that it had been a professional operation all the way. That confirmed the fact that somewhere within the United States there was an organization which had just handed him the greatest defeat of his career. The underground was not an illusion, and it was not made up of weakling college students. Very well! The counter was first to find and sink the submarine. That done, he would requisition more men, have them sent over, and set up a system of terror that would destroy the underground and force the total, absolute and final surrender of the United States, not so much to his country as to himself.
There were only three rational ways that the Ramon Magsaysay could get into the Atlantic: through the Panama Canal, which was obviously impossible, around Cape Horn, or under the Arctic ice cap. The southern route would be safer and she had almost unlimited fuel — enough to take her completely around the world four times at the equator. Against it were the time required and the need to restock her larders. South America was liberally supplied with his own agents who could make any stop down there ill-advised.
Her obvious choice was to transit the ice cap; once she was safely up in the Beaufort Sea there would be no stopping her, but to get there she would have to pass through the Bering Strait. There was no alternative, and in the narrow confines of those strategic waters she would be at a great disadvantage. To stop her some very important people would have to issue orders, but that was no problem. Gregor Rostovitch usually got what he wanted.
The colonel’s immediate furious rage began to ebb away. Replacing it was the total intensity of the skilled tactician beginning the careful planning of the placement of his forces.
18
Senator Solomon Fitzhugh was unable to shake off the deep depression that had taken hold of him; it seemed to him that every way he turned, everything he attempted to do, reminded him of his son. For the first time he was alone in the world, there was no other human being who truly cared about him. His national image as a statesman was tarnished to the point where his sincere and deeply held convictions inspired only hatred. And the fact that his only child had been savagely murdered was unknown to the public or that he had died, even if mistakenly, for his country. He was denied even that.