“The man of whom I speak respects force and nothing else. I could tell you a great deal about him. He is a sadist, a torturer, and a man of insane ambition and vanity. He is already in a position of great power and is using it ruthlessly to increase it still more. He is here now.”
“In this city?”
“Yes. Furthermore, the Actor is having some increasing troubles that even his very fancy footwork may not be able to overcome. If he is overthrown, and there is a steady history to support that, this man will become the new premier.”
The senator looked searchingly at his guest. “The submarine?” “It is barely possible, Senator Fitzhugh, that with this potent a weapon at our disposal we may be able to fight fire with fire. Magsaysay carries more than one hundred and fifty nuclear warheads, and she can deliver them to practically any target in the world. That the enemy can understand. Because they understand it, they have no desire whatever to be on the receiving end.”
“It’s possible, then, that we might be able to bargain.”
“Not bargain, senator, dictate. They have more firepower than we do, but if they can’t find and destroy that submarine, their goose will be cooked and they know it. She can fire at will and they have no knowledge of who is controlling her. If they do find out, it makes no difference; her captain is one of the finest the Navy has and he already has his orders.”
The senator gave up. “It’s nuclear war, then.”
Mrs. Smith took her time to drink her tea. “No, senator, not necessarily. You yourself might help to prevent that.”
“Are you a member of the underground, Mrs. Smith?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Your name, then, isn’t Mrs. Smith.”
“No, senator, it is not.”
“You seem very well informed. Tell me, are genuinely responsible people in charge of all this? Please reassure me if you can.” “Senator, we call them the First Team, and for good reason. They are the best that this country has, better by far than either of us.”
“Would I know any of them?”
“I’m sorry, senator, apart from the quality and ability its members represent, I can give you no information whatsoever concerning the First Team. Now I have a question for you: if you found yourself in a position where you could support and help your country in this struggle, as a representative of our legally constituted government, would you be willing?”
“Why do you ask me?”
“To obtain an answer.” She returned to her teacup, her poise unruffled.
Solomon Fitzhugh let his head sag as he understood what was being asked of him. The old stubbornness returned and then, once more, the image of his son.
He looked up. “I will try,” he said.
“Thank you, senator.”
As she rose to her feet Fitzhugh got up also. He looked at her and appraised her once more. “Since I am now committed,” he added, “is it proper for me to ask you who you are?”
She studied him for a moment or two. “It would be much better if you did not,” she answered, “but since I have asked something of you, I will give you something in return. You understand that I am trusting you with my life.”
He thought of the submarine and the fearful authority that it represented. “I will protect it with my own,” he promised.
“Very well, Senator Fitzhugh, I accept that. I am Sally Bloom’s mother.”
19
In the budding first light of the very early morning the U.S.S. Dolly was moving forward slowly in a gentle sea. She was in far northern waters, a long way from her home port, her holds partially filled with the catch of the past many days. Her luck had been only fair, which made it very clear why she had sought out fresh grounds if anyone was curious.
The water was an iron gray, devoid of color and seemingly without an end to its vastness. The Dolly rolled slightly under a leaden overcast sky, a cumbersome and unsophisticated vessel built for prosaic work and unendowed with glory. On this morning, despite her plodding nature, there was a fresh trimness aboard her; her entire crew was up and briskly about. On the bridge her navigator was keeping his chart minutely up to date. He had made his last celestial observations some hours before, then the overcast had forced him to continue on with dead reckoning and LORAN. Despite the almost limitless expanse of water that surrounded him in every direction, he was holding the ship to very close tolerances with the maximum accuracy that his available resources would permit. On the fantail the Officer of the Deck held his binoculars before his eyes; standing to his left a signalman was ready, his two flags in his hands.
Overhead, on top of the mast, the radar antenna revolved relentlessly, sweeping both the surface of the ocean and the sky above it with unbroken diligence. On the bridge the captain and his executive officer were both on hand. The captain too was maintaining a lookout while Lieutenant Jimmy Morton, all business at this critical time, kept a close watch over the ship’s chronometer and the navigator’s chart directly below it. Lieutenant Hanson stood by, waiting as was everyone else with everything for which he was responsible in readiness. The Dolly rolled steadily, making only five knots at reduced speed.
“Minus ten minutes,” Lieutenant Morton reported.
The captain heard, but gave no acknowledgment as he continued to study the sea around him. Every few moments he glanced at the radarscope; once he was uncertain and looked inquiringly at the operator.
“No contact, sir,” the man responded without taking his attention off the face of the tube for more than a second or two.
The ship’s cook arrived on the bridge with fresh coffee and a plate of rolls. Morton accepted a cup automatically and sipped from it as he watched the navigator plot a minute change in the ship’s position. The near scalding brew that he drank black awakened his throat lining, then he could feel it enter his stomach. He set the cup in its rack, looked once more at the chronometer and waited a few seconds more. “Minus five minutes, sir.”
“Pass the word,” the captain directed.
Lieutenant Hanson heard him and responded. “Minus five minutes,” he called down to the deck. The signalman standing close to the stern shrugged his shoulders to loosen the muscles in his arms. His feet were carefully planted to absorb the rolling of the ship, his attention kept fixed on the surface of the water.
The Dolly plodded on, quartering the gentle wind that was moving the water. Everything else aboard her seemed still, only the steady turning of the radar antenna gave a definite sign of life. The officer of the deck removed his binoculars for a moment to wipe his eyes with his sleeve; then resumed his watch.
“Three minutes, sir.” Morton reported to the captain.
“Position?”
“Within five hundred yards, sir,” the navigator answered. He did not qualify it; the captain knew that his celestial work had been forestalled by the overcast.
“Carry on.”
“Ay, sir.”
The sweep second hand of the chronometer began another measured circuit of the dial.
“Contact!” the officer of the deck shouted without removing the glasses from his eyes.
The signalman leaned forward and strained his vision; it took him several seconds until, far back in the path of the wake, he was able to make out what could have been the tip of a periscope.