Samuel Riordan knew something more about this news dispatch. An agent working in the Cuban Foreign Office had passed word along that the delegation was no ordinary group. The generals included a rocket expert, a long-range bomber man, and the deputy chief of Soviet land forces in Central Europe. The civilians in the gathering were an especially interesting collection of scientists: one, Zabin, had helped father the Soviet H-bomb; Zakharov was a pioneer in the development of the Fractional Orbital Bomb system, now in operation for several years; Bessanova was a theoretical physicist, out of circulation for the past eighteen months, and last reported somewhere in the Urals on a secret project.
Riordan kept coming back to this news from Havana and wondered why such an outstanding collection of brains and prestige was gathered together for Fidel Castro’s benefit. It just did not make sense, unless something was going on again in that island off the Florida coast.
The director’s musings were interrupted by the intercom:
“Charlie Tarrant would like to see you immediately.”
“Send him right in, Margaret.”
Charlie Tarrant, a slim, Brooks-Brothers-clothed deputy director, came into the room trailed by Karl Richter, who knew Riordan from their many years together in intelligence work. Riordan was pleased to see him and welcomed him warmly. The three men sat in a corner of the room and coffee was brought in.
Riordan asked Charlie what the problem was. Tarrant said, “We seem to have another item for today’s briefing. Karl has just told me we may have lost Rudenko. Karl, you may as well tell the story from the beginning.”
Richter did so, and Riordan sucked on his pipe while the man from the State Department spoke about Brandon and the envelope. Then Riordan offered, “I’m really terribly sorry, Karl, because I know how close you were to Grigor.” Richter nodded, and Riordan continued, “And this Brandon fellow, just an innocent victim. Isn’t that awful! What about his family?”
Richter said he wanted to keep the government out of it and therefore, the New York police had agreed to say that he had died of a heart attack in his sleep. His sister was on the way to claim the body.
Riordan went on: “I wish there was something we could do for his family, but it would only make the whole thing a bigger mess right now. They might even be bitter enough to go to the papers with it, and we don’t need that kind of publicity. Maybe someday we can explain it to them and help them financially. Perhaps we can find some way to get an insurance policy payment to them. Something like that might work.”
The other men agreed wholeheartedly. Richter said, “The manner in which Rudenko involved Brandon in his problems suggests to me that he must have believed that the end was near for him. Otherwise, he would have used the usual means of communication with the boys at the embassy, the drops in Gorki Park, the meetings with agents from the British Embassy. For him to collar Brandon at a hotel and then give him an envelope instead of microdotting the material can only mean he was a goner and knew it. And whatever was in that letter must have been worth dying for, I suspect.”
Riordan’s right hand tightened around the stem of his pipe as he knocked the ashes from it. For the first time, Richter noticed the large wart that disfigured the director’s ring finger. It fascinated him.
Tarrant broke in, “What the hell could he have gotten that was so worth dying for?”
Samuel Riordan sucked on a fresh pipe while he pondered the question. “I don’t know, Charlie, but maybe he had the answer to what’s bothering me.” Riordan glanced at his watch and started to rise. “I expect the situation will be bothering a few other people before the day is out.”
A full-scale briefing was held that afternoon in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. As four o’clock neared, men entered Ring E of the massive building and showed their ID cards to guards at the desk in front of a barred door. The participants had come at the express request of the President of the United States, who had been alerted to the situation by Sam Riordan from CIA. Riordan had called the President shortly after noon and briefed him on the disquieting intelligence reports flooding in from around the world. The President had told Riordan to convene the special session and invite every intelligence-gathering unit in the government to send representatives. From the meeting, something should emerge, some pattern or clue to the intentions of the other side. The President expected Riordan, who arrived with Charlie Tarrant and Karl Richter, to make a personal report to him at 8 P.M.
At 4:10, General Stephen Austin Roarke, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, called the meeting to order. Fourteen men sat with Roarke around a huge oaken table, which he had moved into the conference room from his home in Texas. It had been his family’s dining board for over one hundred years, since the time of the Alamo. Roarke was proud of his family, his state, and his own rank as the leading American military personage next to the President of the United States.
“Gentlemen, we’re all here to add whatever we can to a clearer picture of the enemy’s capabilities and motives on this beautiful September day. While I have no doubt we have a true picture of him, the President feels we should pool our information and distill it for his personal evaluation. Therefore, let’s begin with a general rundown of the world as seen from Langley. Mr. Riordan, would you take over.”
Sam Riordan took the floor and told of his fears. He admitted that his agency had not been able to diagnose any unfriendly act in the making. He described the various bits of intelligence that bothered him, including the probable loss of a top Soviet informant. He added two items that had come in overnight. A man named Cherkovinin, from the Soviet Embassy in Paris, had been found shot dead and floating in the Seine. Karl Richter, sitting next to Charlie Tarrant, leaned over and whispered, “He’s a friend of Rudenko. Worked for him once at Tass. He’s a courier.”
Richter’s face was pained. “They must be making Grigor talk.”
Riordan was still speaking. “The other piece of trivia is this. Russian troop units on the West German border just came off summer maneuvers three weeks ago. And yet they are now beginning new movements toward the frontier, nothing threatening to us but highly unusual, based on their past performances.”
Charlie Tarrant passed Riordan a note about Rudenko’s friend floating in the Seine and Riordan pursed his lips. But he sat down without making any reference to it in front of his colleagues.
The representative from the National Security Council followed with his own report. Eavesdropping radar and telephonic equipment had noticed a startling increase in Soviet radio conversations between army units, but it only indicated what Riordan had already said. The Soviets were maneuvering again at a time when they should be dormant. By contrast, the Soviet Navy was quiet, especially the group moving toward the open Atlantic and possibly the United States east coast. The missile sites ranging across the spine of Russia were in their usual state of readiness; monitors detected no overt sign of aggressive intent. The man speaking wore spectacles and read from notes like a teacher charging a class with responsibility for knowing the reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. He was boring his listeners with his recital. Then he brought up the heat-sensing devices in the sky, which had alerted their masters to the pulsing emissions from the ground.
General Roarke broke in. “Have they been testing aboveground?”
“No, all evidence denies that. It could be something else, like a laser weapon. We’ve been working on the same thing, haven’t we?”