“Maybe, Mr. President,” Goldman said. “Maybe Admiral Zurahv wouldn’t have to take over the Soviet government. Brezhnev is a politician, with all due respect, sir. If Zurahv told him that an order had been given to fire the submarine missiles and that it couldn’t be recalled because the subs had gone to deep submergence, and that Brezhnev had no other course but to call and tell you that within the hour our land- based missile sites would be hit, and if you didn’t surrender all our cities would be hit. .” He stopped as the President spread both his hands on the polished table.
“I don’t like the way this meeting is going, damn it,” the President grunted. “I know what you’re going to say, Moise. If Brezhnev looked at that sort of thing he could see himself as ruling the entire world if we caved in.” He began to pound softly on the table with his right hand.
“What I want now, God damn it, is what do we do? Brannon, you’re the damned Admiral, what in the hell do we do?”
Mike Brannon looked at his Commander in Chief, his deep blue eyes calm.
“We fight back, sir. We’ve got four, four and a half hours until the Soviet submarines will begin to come close to the surface to raise their antennas to pick up their go or no go orders. That’s time enough if we move fast.”
“Time enough to do what?”
“We know the location of every Soviet missile submarine, sir. Each one is being covered by two of our attack submarines. We can drop sonar buoys from planes in the areas where their submarines are cruising and where our submarines are watching them. The message buoys will begin broadcasting sonar messages over and over.”
“Saying what, Admiral?”
“I’d suggest that the message say that if the Soviet submarines return to submerged cruising depths our submarines attack immediately and destroy them, sir. The message could also say that if the Soviet submarines surface and remain surfaced — they can’t fire their missiles while they are on the surface — that they won’t be harmed. The Soviet subs will read the messages and if they don’t our submarines could be instructed to relay the messages to them.
“Then you could get on the hot line to Brezhnev and tell him you know what’s going on and the first Soviet missile submarine that submerges will be destroyed and that will be a signal for an all-out ICBM attack on the Soviet Union from our land-based and our submarine missiles.” He sat back, his hands in his lap.
“How long would it take to do that, to get the messages made, get the sonar buoys made, have them dropped?”
“Two hours, I’d guess. No more.” Mike Brannon looked across the table at Captain Steel. “What’s the exact range of the SSN — Six missiles the Yankee One class of Soviet submarines carry, Herman?”
“Two thousand nine hundred and fifty kilometers, Admiral. That’s about sixteen hundred nautical miles. Their submarines would have to be fairly close inshore to be able to reach the northern areas of the Midwest, where we have a lot of hardened missile sites, sir.”
Mike Brannon turned his head toward the President. “No problem, sir. We could have the message buoys prepared within an hour. Another half hour to load the planes. We could drop at least an hour and a half to two hours before the Soviet subs have to come up to receive their go or no go message.”
“Do it!” the President said. He waved his hand toward the telephone on the sideboard. Moise Goldman uncapped his pen and handed it to Brannon with a pad of paper. Brannon wrote rapidly for a moment and then rose and went to the telephone. He waited while the White House operator connected him with the War Room deep within the Pentagon and then he began to talk, enunciating each word carefully. He finished and asked that the message be read back.
“End of message,” the voice on the other end of the telephone line said. “As you know, Admiral Brannon, this sort of alert requires the personal endorsement of the President of the United States, sir.”
“He’s here in the Oval Office with me,” Brannon said. “I’ll put him on.”
“Negative, sir,” the officer in the War Room said. “We’ll call the Oval Office and ask to speak first with Football and then with the President.”
“I don’t know where Football is,” Brannon said.
“I’d suggest you find him sir. If this situation is a Red Alert, Football should be within close reach of the President and I must advise you that our conversation is being taped, sir. I’ll call the Oval Office in two minutes, sir.”
Brannon hung up the telephone and turned to face the table. Goldman was getting out of his chair and walking toward the door.
“Football should be in the hall,” he said to Brannon. “I’ll get him.” He opened the door and spoke to the Marine Sergeant outside, who beckoned and a tall naval Commander came into the room carrying the black attaché case that was called “The Football.”
The telephone rang and Moise Goldman picked it up at once. He identified himself and motioned to the Navy Commander, who placed his attaché case on the sideboard and used a key to open it. He took the telephone from Goldman.
“Commander Stanley Baker here. I.D. number is Football six four three eight six one. Code one four three. I.D. number for this day as of midnight is Baker six one. Yes the President is here. I’ll put him on.”
President Milligan rose from his chair and took the telephone from Commander Baker, who held out a small black book opened at the proper page.
“This is the President,” he said in a slow, strong voice. “I am reading the code from the book Football is holding. President’s code for Red Alert and ultimate defense is Able Zebra nine four two.” He waited a moment.
“Execute the orders given you by Vice Admiral Brannon at once,” he said. “Report to me in the Oval Office as soon as the buoys are dropped.” He squinted at the black book that Commander Baker was holding. “Send Red Alert and standby warnings to all missile submarines on station. Thank you.”
He placed the telephone on its cradle and padded back to the table, his slippers making soft noises against the rug. “That’s it,” the President said. “Now we wait.”
CHAPTER 23
The conference room in the Kremlin was buzzing softly with a hum of low conversation. On one side of the room Leonid Plotovsky stood, surrounded by four of the Politburo members who backed his stand of moderation toward the West. On the other side of the room the five hardliners huddled, talking softly, planning their strategy. The talking stopped as a door opened and Leonid Brezhnev walked in and took his seat at the head of the table. The two groups moved to the table and sat down, facing each other across the table. A male secretary, his face devoid of expression, slipped into the room and sat down at a small desk within earshot of the conference table and arranged his pens and a thick pad of paper in front of him.
In an anteroom Igor Shevenko sat in a hard chair, looking at his wrist watch from time to time.
“Almost time to start,” he said to Anton Simonov, who sat beside him. Simonov nodded.
“How do you think it will go, Igor?” he asked. Shevenko rolled his eyes up in the direction of the ventilation duct in the wall and Simonov nodded in understanding.
“It will go as it should go,” Shevenko said in a clear voice. “What is best for the nation will be done. That is all any citizen could ask.”
In an adjoining anteroom Admiral Aleksandr Zurahv sat with an Army general. He opened his mouth to say something and caught the general’s warning shake of his head and closed his mouth.
Leonid Plotovsky coughed and cleared his throat and raised a large handkerchief to his mouth.
“We are here, Comrade First Secretary,” he said, his eyes on Brezhnev, “to review the situation we now face. We all know the circumstances.