SIGNIFY RECEPTION OF THIS MESSAGE.
Sergeant Arly Cooper was unable to move. His eyes were fixed on the words before him. He could feel his heart jumping in his shirt. The teletype asked again: REPEAT: SIGNIFY RECEPTION OF THIS MESSAGE.
Cooper roused himself and automatically acknowledged. Then he leaped from his chair and ran twenty-five feet to the desk of Colonel Howard J. Landry, night duty officer. “Sir, come quick.” Cooper was stunned by what he had witnessed. Landry followed him to the piece of white paper and read the fateful words… “WE DEMAND THE UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER OF YOUR COUNTRY…” Landry punched the button on the phone and called President Stark, “Sir, the hot line has just brought us a message from the Soviet Union. Could you come down here immediately?” Landry was trying to control his voice, but Stark could hear the wavering. He rushed out to the elevator with Riordan and descended two levels to the basement. At the door to the big room, he stopped and stared at Arly Cooper, mopping his face with a handkerchief. Landry was talking on the phone with someone. Stark said, “Let me see it.” Cooper went to the machine, ripped off the transmission, and handed it to Stark, who read it silently and passed it to Riordan. Sam Riordan’s world fell around him as he scanned the ultimatum. Because his intelligence network had failed, his country was about to pay the penalty. He looked at Stark, whose face was ashen. Stark went to a chair and sat down for a moment, then got up and strode restlessly up and down the green carpeting. He suddenly whirled on Riordan and asked, “Have they got the drop on us or not, Sam?” His tone was demanding. Riordan’s thoughts raced each other around in his mind.
“Honest to God, I don’t know. They must be talking about the laser beam. That would explain the Midas sightings the past month and tonight.”
The President stood still, trying to absorb the words. “Goddamnit! How could we let this happen? How could we?”
Riordan wished he could die.
Stark paced again, slamming his fist into his palm. He went over to Landry, who was standing quietly next to the teletype. “Colonel, advance alert level to orange.”
“I’ve already done so, sir.”
Stark seemed surprised but nodded. “Good. Call Roarke and the other chiefs and have them come to the White House immediately. Oh, and have them enter by the west door so the press won’t get wind of this yet.”
Landry hurried to the phone.
Stark and Riordan went back upstairs. Behind them they left Arly Cooper sitting tensely in front of the teletype that now linked him with a mortal enemy.
Stark had regained control over his momentary self-pity. He began issuing rapid-fire orders to Riordan: assemble the cabinet, the science advisory board, anyone who could counsel him on the matter of survival of the nation. He asked for an immediate report on the status of Soviet armed forces. Were they moving or waiting for Stark to give a final answer? While the President was speaking to Riordan, Pamela Stark came into the room in her dressing gown. “Bill, what’s keeping you up so late? Hello, Sam, are you the cause of my husband missing his sleep?”
Riordan smiled painfully while her husband put his arm around her shoulder and led her to the door. “Pam, go to bed and don’t worry. I’ll fill you in on all of this in the morning.”
The gray-haired woman knew she had intruded on forbidden territory and did not press the issue.
She smiled up at the stern face and said, “Don’t forget our second honeymoon next week.”
He did not answer and turned back into the sitting room. Bewildered and vaguely hurt by his coolness, she wandered down the hall to her bedroom.
Secretary of State Martin F. Manson was gulping down a glass of milk in his kitchen when word came to report to the White House. When he ran upstairs to get his shoes and briefcase, he left a note for his sleeping wife on the night table by her bed.
In London, Secretary of Defense Clifford Erskine was sleeping at the American Embassy on Grosvenor Square when a Signal Corps man entered his room and told him the President was calling. Drugged with fatigue, Erskine barely registered recognition until Stark brought him to full awareness with word about the hot line. Erskine said he would catch a plane immediately, but Stark said not to move from London. He told Erskine he might have to send him to Geneva to talk with the Russians the next day. The stunned Erskine hung up and sat on the edge of his bed as dawn broke over the British capital.
Robert Randall, Stark’s advisor on matters of national security and foreign policy, was also in bed. His arm cradled the blond head of his secretary, Mary Devereaux, who murmured sleepily as the phone rang. Randall slipped noiselessly away from her and picked up the receiver. Stark said simply, “Come quickly, west entrance.” Randall began to dress in the dark.
All over Washington and in the suburbs, men walked out to waiting limousines, which drove through emptied streets toward an anxious rendezvous. In the Pentagon, all five floors were suddenly ablaze with light. Passing motorists questioned the squandering of taxpayers’ money on so much electricity.
In the radio room of the building, orders were flashing to stations around the planet. In Montana, missile crews ran to silos to reinforce skeleton forces manning the Minuteman III weapons. West of Guam and north of Scotland, Polaris submarine commanders tore open sealed orders, designating primary and secondary targets within the borders of the Soviet Union. The klaxon horns dinned out Condition Orange; if it moved to Red, the Poseidon warheads would leave their sixteen tubes instantly.
In the forests of southern Germany, near the Czechoslovak border and East Germany, tank crews raced to their vehicles as the sun broke through the darkness of early morning. They gunned their motors and waited for further word from Washington.
Wednesday, September 11
In the blackness of post-midnight, limousines glided quietly through the White House gate and up to the west entrance. Men emerged and blended swiftly into the shadows at the doorway. They were taken to the Cabinet Room, where President Stark greeted them with a brief handshake and told them to make themselves comfortable around the polished mahogany table. When the last person arrived at 1:10, the door was closed and William Stark went to his chair at one side. He sat down heavily and asked that all present listen closely while he read them a communication.
Outside the room, the low murmur of his voice reached the ears of a man waiting impassively. In his right hand he carried a black satchel. In the satchel were the codes to be used by the President of the United States to unleash a nuclear war. The bagman shifted his feet uncomfortably as he kept up his ceaseless vigil.
The President had finished reading the ultimatum. He put the paper down, and smoothed his hair absently as he watched for reactions.
Robert Randall was the first to recover from the shock. “Mr. President, the question is, are they bluffing?”
Stark answered, “I thought of that, and we’ll have a report shortly from Israel. Sam Riordan has sent a man down from Tel Aviv by chopper to investigate. But it seems to me that the stakes are so big here that they would be risking far too much to be joking. No, I think they mean it, and it’s up to us to figure an alternative.”
General Stephen Austin Roarke spoke for the Joint Chiefs. “Mr. President, assuming they have managed to beat us to the draw, we still have our nuclear capability. They can’t thumb their noses at that, can they? If they blast us with that laser, we can blast right back at them with H-bombs and they’ll lose everything they’ve got in one day. Why don’t we just bluff them back?”