At 2:45 A.M., the meeting broke up. Stark told the participants to be back at 8 A.M. to consider a final approach. The officials left by the same door through which they had come in, and the black limousines carried them off into the blackness. On the other side of the White House, two reporters from wire services dozed in a corner of the deserted press room. They were oblivious to the coming catastrophe.
In the Situation Room, Arly Cooper had been relieved. The new man typed out a message to the Kremlin:
TO THE PREMIER OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS:
FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE CLIFFORD ERSKINE WILL ARRIVE GENEVA WITHIN THREE HOURS. SPECIFY MEETING PLACE AND TIME FOR DISCUSSION OF PERTINENT QUESTIONS.
STARK
ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT
Eleven minutes later, the teletype came to life:
FROM THE PREMIER OF THE PRESIDIUM, UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS:
TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
MEETING PLACE RUSSIAN EMBASSY. REPRESENTATIVES WILL RECEIVE ERSKINE AT 1300 HOURS SWISS TIME.
KRYLOV
ACKNOWLEDGE
Stark read this over the shoulder of the operator. He thought, Those bastards are already trying to call the tune. Imagine them ordering us to see them at their embassy. Aloud, he said to Manson, “What the hell can we do except go to them and find out what they really want But it’s a bitch eating crow, isn’t it?”
Martin Manson shook his head in disgust.
Stark went up to bed. Though he was exhausted by the night’s events, he could not sleep. Dressed in a silk bathrobe, he drank a cup of coffee slowly and tried to look ahead to the morning. Not yet completely discouraged, he refused to think of the finality implicit in the enemy ultimatum. At a quarter to four, William Stark slipped into his side of the double bed. Beside him, Pamela Stark did not stir. Stark felt her warmth and closed his eyes in momentary respite.
It was seven hours since the White House had received the Soviet ultimatum, sixty-five hours until the possible annihilation of all mankind. The plane carrying Clifford Erskine circled over the beautiful lake bordering Geneva, the original home of the League of Nations. For many years the city had been host to a succession of conferences dealing with peaceful solutions to potential calamities in the world. It had become a symbol of good intentions among nations, an oasis where sanity ruled men’s minds.
The military transport leveled off and touched down on the runway. A car flying the American flag on its right fender moved to the foot of the gangway at the rear door. Erskine emerged and walked down swiftly. At the bottom, he shook hands with a man and then entered the limousine, which drove away at high speed.
Noontime pedestrians in downtown Geneva, long used to diplomats, did not even pause to stare at the official vehicle. Inside, Erskine sat in air-conditioned comfort as he talked animatedly with Philip Bordine, ambassador to France, who had arrived just an hour before from Paris. Bordine had once been ambassador to Moscow, and Stark had requested his presence to help in any negotiations with the Russians.
At 12:50, Geneva time, the limousine entered the Soviet Embassy grounds. The embassy, a stately seventeenth-century mansion, renovated by the Russians in 1952, was the heart of Soviet diplomatic and clandestine activities in Europe. Today it served as the contact point for the greatest powers on earth.
The car stopped at the front door, and a courteous aide shook Erskine’s hand as he got out. He led the Americans into the lobby, where four men lounged about, eyeing the strangers closely. Their carriage and looks revealed them instantly as secret police bodyguards. Erskine noticed something else almost immediately. A strong aroma of cabbage permeated the room. He murmumed to Bordine, “Don’t they ever go out to eat here?”
Bordine smiled and answered, “It’s the same everywhere. They bring their kitchens with them from home. A touch of Mother Russia, I guess.”
The aide led them up carpeted stairs and down a hallway to a conference room, where two men sat stiffly at a table. Erskine and Bordine were ushered to two chairs at the far end. Fully thirty feet away the two Russians watched them settle comfortably. One of them was a broad-shouldered, bemedaled general, who simply glowered at them. To his right was a balding civilian, dressed in a dark blue suit. He smiled benignly across the vast expanse of the room.
“Good afternoon, sir,” he said to Erskine, “and hello, old friend Bordine.”
He nodded grandly to the American ambassador, who returned the greeting.
“Mikhail, how good to see you again. How long has it been, five years?”
Mikhail shrugged. “No matter, but you’re looking well and maybe even younger.”
Bordine smiled his thanks until the Russian general spoke sharply to Mikhail, who suddenly became very serious and turned his attention to Clifford Erskine.
“Mr. Erskine, we assume you come empowered by your President to discuss terms of surrender?”
Clifford Erskine was astounded. His hands began to tremble, and he felt his mouth going dry.
“Mr. Erskine, I repeat my question. Are you here to discuss surrender seriously?” Mikhail was smiling through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
Erskine sputtered, “Mr., ah…”
Mikhail offered, “Darubin.”
“I am sure you realize, Mr. Darubin, my instructions from Washington involve no thought of surrender. I am a devoted American, here at the request of President Stark and his advisors merely to learn your country’s intentions regarding the diabolical plan we were informed of over the hot line last night. That is the extent of my mission.”
Darubin nodded while an interpreter translated Erskine’s remarks to the general. The general nodded grimly and spoke quickly to Darubin. Holding his cigarette daintily between two fingers, Darubin stood up and went to the floor-length window. Gazing out at the grounds, he asked, “Mr. Erskine, your CIA must have told you by now what has happened to the Israeli atomic arsenal?” He turned abruptly and shouted, “Have they not?”
Erskine did not reply. Bordine answered, “But, surely, Mikhail, your government cannot be serious about conquering the United States. For the past few years, the cold war has nearly melted away. Smirnov was anxious to reach a modus vivendi with us. Both countries have honestly grappled with the disarmament problem and avoided confrontations in the Middle East and Asia. Now this insanity…”
“Bordine, my old friend, it is not insanity. Smirnov went too far in accommodating the West. He was a fool to trust you. But he is gone now, and we can correct all his errors like that.” He snapped his fingers.
The two Americans watched him as he went back to the table and pressed a button underneath. A motion-picture screen dropped from the ceiling in back of him, and the drapes at the windows closed automatically.
In the darkness, Darubin’s cigarette waved about as he said, “Watch carefully.”
A projector went on in the wall behind Erskine and Bordine. In the white floodlight, they saw the general pulling his chair around to face the screen. Darubin remained standing.
An announcer spoke over the movie in Russian. Bordine understood him as he described the opening scene. It showed a vast forest flowing under the wing of a plane. The announcer said it was situated north of Irkutsk in Siberia. The next closeup was of a village made up of wooden houses. Nobody walked in the streets. It reminded Erskine of a western town in American films. The announcer did not name the village. The lens merely panned up and down the deserted streets. Then a high-altitude camera, possibly from a satellite, took over the visual presentation, and the announcer, his voice rising with excitement, intoned the magical countdown, eight, seven, six… three, two, one. At one, the forest and village were still visible. At zero, they exploded in a sheet of light which brightened even the darkened room in Geneva. Erskine and Bordine leaned forward, their surprise reflected in their gasps of amazement. For possibly six square miles the forest burned fiercely. The village had disappeared in the inferno. The camera zoomed down and seemed to hover over the flames which filled the screen. It held that scene for two minutes. Then the announcer came back to the watchers and said, “A week later…” and the camera brought Erskine and Bordine into the village streets again. But the village was gone; a black smudge marked its grave. Then the long-range camera came back on and revealed the magnitude of the disaster. The forest had been scythed as though a giant meteor had hit and rolled along for miles. Bordine tried to estimate the extent of the ugly scar which had cut a swath through the woods. He could only think, It’s the size of New York City. The picture faded away, and Darubin’s cigarette glowed brightly in the void.