“All very true, sir,” Captain Bogomolets said, “but the fact remains that if the Army is that shaky the last thing they would do is to follow orders from us, even from you, sir, to begin a nuclear attack against North America. They would go running to the Politburo to get endorsement of the order.”
“So we’ll get the order from the Politburo,” Zurahv growled. “I’ll take care of that. Captain Bogomolets, I want you to shift armed naval units to within close distance of each missile site. Find some excuse to do that, maneuvers or whatever. As soon as I have made my case to the Politburo that we must strike now I want to be sure that the orders will be followed. Your units will see to that.” He stood up.
“Dismissed,” he snapped. He remained standing until the last of his staff had left his office and sat down. He put the messages from the submarine commanders into a neat pile and then put them in a folder. His aide came in and stood at attention in front of his desk.
“By telephone, just now, sir,” the aide said. “An order from Comrade Plotovsky that you see him at once in his office. I am to call his office and assure him that you will do so, sir.”
“Tell him I’m on my way over,” Admiral Zurahv said. “I might as well take care of him, get him out of the way before I ask for an emergency meeting of the Politburo.”
“If I may suggest it, sir,” the aide said, “Comrade Plotovsky is not one to be taken lightly. He is very close to Comrade Brezhnev. He has a great name.”
Admiral Zurahv grinned, his tobacco-stained teeth showing, “But not close enough to the great man to convince him to vote when we asked for the weapons test, my young friend. I, too, have a great name. My father had a great name. The old man, Plotovsky, has grown very old, too old to make decisions in these times. It requires vigor and patriotism to make decisions today. By the way, did you send the memorial wreath to that grave as I ordered?”
“That was done, sir,” the aide intoned. “Without any name on the wreath, as you ordered.”
“As I told you,” the Admiral said. “I knew the young man’s father at one time. We were not friends. But that is no reason why the dead should not have a wreath on the grave. Call Comrade Plotovsky’s office and tell him I will be there within the next half hour.”
Moise Goldman walked into Admiral Brannon’s office and stuck out his hand. Brannon shook it warmly and waved Goldman to a chair in front of his desk. The former New York Times Managing Editor sat down in the chair and crossed his legs and combed his fingers through his black beard.
“What’s new, Admiral?” he asked. Brannon succinctly itemized the actions he had taken against the Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Goldman pulled a pipe out of his coat pocket and filled and lit it.
“Any indication of how the Soviets are reacting, sir?”
“They are advising their submarines that there is no change in the world political situation,” Brannon answered, “and that the Americans are undoubtedly crazy and that a protest would be filed, which means nothing.”
“It could mean that they’re stalling for time because the hardliners in the Politburo haven’t got their act together,” Goldman said. He relit his pipe. “I sure as hell don’t want our side to start dropping nuclear warheads on the Soviet Union. I’ve got grandparents in a little town just outside of Leningrad.”
“I don’t think anyone is going to drop anything,” Brannon said.
“I wish I were that sure,” Goldman replied. “I did two years as the Moscow Bureau Chief for the Times. The Russians don’t think like we do.”
“I didn’t know you had been in Moscow,” Brannon said. Goldman nodded, puffing hard at his pipe to keep it lit.
“Tough duty, to use your phraseology, Admiral. I speak the language and I can read and write it and that made it a little easier for me but it wasn’t a good two years. You earn your money.”
“Then let me ask you,” Brannon said cautiously, “do you think Brezhnev will call the President?”
“No,” Goldman said shortly. “He’d lose a lot of face. He’s a Ukrainian and they’re proud people. He’s a proud man.” He drew on his pipe. “On the other hand he’s a hell of a politician; you don’t come as far as he’s come, hold the jobs he’s held without being one of the world’s better wheelers and dealers. If he can’t see any profit in being stiff-necked he might make that call. As I said, the Russians don’t think like we do. You can’t figure them out, not even one Russian can figure out another Russian. But every day that goes by means something.”
“What?” Brannon asked.
Goldman grinned around his pipe stem. “What do you think it means?”
“I have to think that each day they don’t do something means that we’re getting closer and closer to standoff and that Brezhnev will make the call.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Goldman said. He took a pocketknife out of his pocket and opened the blade and cleaned out his pipe in an ashtray on Brannon’s desk.
“State Department intelligence says they have word that there’s a showdown coming in the Politburo. They don’t know what’s responsible for the showdown and they’re making a lot of silly-assed guesses about grain production and the shortage of meat in the countryside. I think the showdown is between the hard and softliners in the Politburo.” He uncrossed his legs and sat up a little straighter in his chair.
“Give me your military estimate of what would happen if a nuclear war starts, Admiral.”
Brannon rubbed his face with one hand. “It’s pretty well known, Moise. If they launch first we’d knock down some of their missiles but enough would get through to wipe out about ninety percent of our land-based missiles. And most of our cities.
“How about our air strike capability?”
“Overrated, in my opinion. They could get most of the planes before they got to their target area.” He reached for the coffee carafe and poured two cups of coffee.
“If they launch first they’d put a big percentage of their civilian population in their air raid shelters. Russia has a first rate civil defense system. All of their important people would be deep underground where we couldn’t touch them with nuclear missiles. But there is one factor they can’t get around.”
“Such as?”
“If they launch first we wouldn’t respond with submarine missiles immediately, Moise. The submarine skippers would get the word that they’d launched. They’d then move into launch position, those that weren’t already there, and wait for three weeks. The psychologists have told us that two weeks is about the absolute limit you can keep people in deep shelters before psychological disturbances begin to take place. We’d wait out that period and then wait another week and then we’d launch from the submarines.” His normally cheerful face was somber.
“Our estimates show that we’d eliminate the Soviet Union as a nation.”
“Cheerful thought,” Goldman said. “Now I’ve got a cheerful thought for you, Admiral. I think we’d better go in and talk to the President, tell him everything.”
“That wasn’t what we had decided on,” Brannon said.
“I know that,” Goldman said. “But there’s another factor in the equation. Your friend Captain Steel has gone to Representative Wendell. The word I get is that Captain Steel wants your ass in a basket and he’s using Wendell to satisfy that want.
“Now old Wendell is a pretty cute operator but he can’t do what Steel wants unless he lets a few facts out that aren’t supposed to be let out. And that means that those things will get back to the President. And if that happens then your ass isn’t going to be in a basket, it’s going to be hanging from a yardarm, if they still have yardarms in the Navy. So I think it’s time that the two of us go to the Old Man and tell him what’s gone on.”