“Everyone knows that our figures on accuracy are based on optimum conditions. It’s just that no one ever had the brains to ask about accuracy under unfavorable conditions,” Steel responded. “Nobody tried to pull the hat down over your eyes or over any president’s eyes, it’s just that we can’t test under the conditions of war so we do the best we can. And that’s the truth, Mr. President.” He leaned back and hooked one elbow over the back of his chair.
“The truth is hard to find in this world, Mr. President.” Representative Wendell spoke up suddenly. “The information given to you was given in good faith, sir, in good faith. It’s a matter of politics.” The old Congressman’s wrinkled face was placid.
“You know perfectly well, Mr. President, that if the military people went before the Appropriations Committee and said well, we know the Roosians are building missiles and we’ve got to match them there but we can’t tell you how accurate the missiles we build will be they wouldn’t get a damned dime! What they’d get is such a whoopin’ and hollerin’ from the press that they’d all be out on their asses.
“There’s another truth, sir, and that’s that the Roosians know we ain’t as accurate with our missiles as we say we are — and what’s more they know that we know that they ain’t accurate either. In fact, they’re worse shots with missiles under the best of conditions than we ever were or will be!
“What’s important, Mr. President, is that the Roosians made a move, figuring that we’d never have the guts to do anything about it. This Admiral across the table from me, he hit back. That’s what’s important! They sucker-punched us and Admiral Brannon hit ‘em back, slammed them one right in their damned balls! And the Roosians ain’t done one thing since that time. That’s what’s important.”
Captain Herman Steel half turned in his chair and stared at the Congressman, his face horrified.
“Captain Steel,” the President’s voice was low, soft. Steel turned away from staring at Representative Wendell with an effort and looked at the President.
“I want you to do something for me. I want your best estimate of our nuclear missile accuracy under the conditions we’re likely to face if we have to use those missiles. I understand that it’s never been done but I think that you’re the best man I could ask to do that. I want to see your figures as soon as you can pull them together. Now if you’ll excuse us, I have to do some talking to Admiral Brannon.” Captain Steel nodded and rose. He looked down at the old Congressman, who smiled up at him, turned, and left the room. The President turned to Admiral Brannon as the door closed behind Captain Steel.
“Okay, Admiral, what else have you done that I don’t know about?”
Brannon rubbed his chin. “Well, sir, I put two of our attack submarines on every Soviet missile submarine at sea. I gave them orders to bird dog the Soviet submarines and harass them in any way they could.
“That’s brought some results. Every one of the Soviet ballistic missile subs, there are ten of them at sea, sir, every one of them has been screaming to their bases, asking to know why we’re bird dogging them, asking if the world political situation has changed, which is another way of asking if a war has started. Moscow has been telling them to cool it, that no war has started.” He looked across the table at Representative Wendell.
“I think the Russians have read the message. They know that they’ll lose every missile submarine they have at sea the minute they open their missile hatches to fire.”
The President nodded and turned to Wendell. “Walter, give me your opinion of what the public reaction would have been if the Admiral had come to me and told me what had happened and what he wanted to do and I had bypassed the Congress and told him to go ahead and then made it public?”
Wendell moved his lower jaw back and forth, seating his dentures firmly. “The Congress would have been sore-assed, Mr. President. But not so much they wouldn’t sit there and take it because every damned voter in this country would be hollerin’ that we should have been doing this ever since the Roosians made their move to take over half of Europe after the war. No doubt about it, sir.”
“You’ve put me in a bad bind, Admiral,” the President said. “Admiral Benson told me that his aide, Wilson, let the KGB know that the whole mess could be cleared up if Brezhnev would call me and apologize. He hasn’t called.”
“I know, sir.” Brannon said.
“Mr. President,” Wendell said. “We ain’t in the same political party but I think you know that you can depend on me to help you out when things get a little dark brown around the edges. Why don’t we just sort of wait around a bit more and see what the Roosians do? Give ‘em until tomorrow morning and if they don’t do nothin’ by then you could mebbe get on the hot line yourself and tell ol’ Brezhnev that you know what’s happened and you sure as hell don’t want no nuclear war and he’d better not want one either. Sound reasonable to you, sir?’
“Maybe,” the President said. He looked at Mike Brannon. “What’s your reasoning on what the Soviets will do next?”
“I don’t honestly know,” Brannon said. “The last word I had from Bob Wilson was that the Politburo is in a crisis situation — a fight between the hardliners and the faction that wants to maintain the status quo, detente, sir. The Israeli intelligence people are on top of the situation in Moscow. They’ve apparently got agents deep inside the Kremlin. Israeli intelligence has been feeding information to the KGB about our intentions to retaliate with all we have in the hope this would give the softliners some ammunition to use, sir.”
“That’s what Mr. Wilson told me before you arrived,” the President said. He leaned back from the table. “If the hardliners win there’d a hell of a risk of a nuclear war. If the concept you mentioned earlier happens, if they call me and tell me they’ve fired at our missile bases, I will not surrender! I’ll fight!”
“I think they know that, sir,” Brannon said softly.
“Mmm,” the President said through closed lips. “But if the softliners win then we’ve got to clear up this mess. Make an announcement that we’ve lost a submarine and we don’t know how we lost it. And we’ve got to do something about the crews of those two submarines that sank the Russian submarine.”
“That can be handled, sir,” Brannon said quietly. “That’s my job.”
“I know you can swear the officers to secrecy and make it stick,” the President replied, “but I know from my own experience in the Marine Corps during World War II that you can’t keep things of importance from the troops. They probably know they sank a Russian submarine.”
“I would guess they do, sir,” Brannon answered. “We can order them to never say a word about it but some of them will talk. Sometime or other some of them will talk.”
“I don’t think that will do any harm.” Moise Goldman spoke for the first time since he had sat down at the table. “It will make a little flurry in the press but there’s no way anyone can prove anything and it’ll die down after a few days. I think that overseas the story will be believed and that won’t hurt our foreign policy, sir; we’ve got too many of our allies saying that we’re too soft on the Soviet Union, because of Vietnam. A story like this gets out and it won’t hurt us.”
“You might be right,” the President said. He turned his head toward Representative Wendell. “You have anything else, any other thoughts, Walter?”
“Only that if you’re thinkin’ about making a call to Brezhnev that you got to remember there’s a seven hour time difference. That Wilson fellow said that he had word that the Politburo is goin’ to meet at four tomorrow afternoon. That’s nine in the mornin’, our time, Mr. President.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” President Milligan said.