“I’m just trying to help!”
“You could help by getting off my back. I have enough trouble with Congress and the press without you jumping in with both feet. If you really were a friend…”
Weston got up from his seat. “I don’t want to keep you from your movie, Mr. President.”
McKenna let out a heavy sigh. “Sure.” He walked the senator to the door.
“I despise the people who steered me here,” Weston said softly. He looked McKenna straight in the eyes. “But if I find that you weren’t straightforward with me tonight, Tom, I’ll hit you like you’ve never been hit before. You won’t have a prayer for the nomination without my support.”
“You really do want this job, don’t you, Milt?”
“What I want is a strong republic with a strong president.”
The president shook his head. He half-smiled. “I don’t think you’d really like the White House, Senator.
The presidency is really a job for a witty scoundrel, or a dummy with a brilliant wife. Not you. It’s no job for the good or nervous.”
“Good night, Mr. President.”
“Good evening, Senator.”
McKenna watched him leave until he was out of sight down the corridor. Then he closed the door and, after a moment’s hesitation, headed back to the Oval Office. Farber was waiting.
It wasn’t only Jules Farber, McKenna learned as he entered the Oval Office. Kenneth Quade, undersecretary of state, jumped to his feet when he saw the president. He was nervous, McKenna noticed immediately, which wasn’t like Ken Quade.
“Mr. President.”
“Evening, Ken,” McKenna said. He glanced curiously at Farber. “What’s up?”
“The undersecretary delivered a message,” Farber said. He was holding Quade’s brief.
“The secretary thought it would seem suspicious,” Quade said. “I mean, if he came over here at this time of night. Your instructions were to maintain the normal routine. No cancellations of appointments.
He’s at a Christmas party for the Speaker—”
“I don’t need details, Ken,” McKenna said. “What’s the message?”
“It’s from Dimitri Gorny,” Quade said quickly. “He… he wants a meeting, Mr. President. An urgent meeting, the message said.”
The president raised his eyebrows. “A meeting?”
“A secret and urgent meeting,” Farber said. He held up the brief for McKenna. “He would be very pleased to meet with you out of the public eye. He suggests Iceland. Reykjavik.”
McKenna took the proffered brief.
“Within the next twenty-four hours,” Farber added. He glanced at Quade, who swallowed. “He sounds serious.”
The president read the message and handed it back to his national security advisor. He sat in the middle of i the sofa and shook his head. “No, Jules, he sounds I frightened.”
DUGGAN’S FALL
1145 HRS
62 MILES WEST OF WHITE HILL
Caffey strained to hear against the wind, squinting at the white fog in the distance as if the exercise would somehow help locate the column. He’d been here, on this hill, in this prone position, for nearly seven hours— waiting.
It wasn’t a perfect choke point, but it was good. The frozen river was to the north and the hill was to the south. The column would pass between them, slowing where the heavy vehicles would have to negotiate a series of washboard-type moguls. That’s when they’d hit them, Caffey planned, when they were deep into the choke point. The four fifty-five-gallon drums of fuel had been buried at strategic spots and their tops marked by small, twiggy pine trees to give the marksman an aiming reference. The men were dug in and the choppers camouflaged with nonglossy white paint and parked behind the hill for quick access. Everything was ready. All they needed now was the column to show up.
It’s funny what a man allows himself to imagine, Caffey thought. Especially when his life and the lives of his men depend upon his making the right decision. Especially when he’s sitting in the middle of a snowstorm silently waiting for a superior enemy to show itself. Caffey knew it was a good plan. He knew the enemy would have to come this way, but, still, doubts lingered at the edge of his judgment.
What if they’d taken a different route? What if they’d split the column into halves or thirds and were at this moment flanking his position? What if didn’t come for seven more hours? What if—
Caffey cleared the snow from his goggles. He changed his position in the snow slightly. They’d come this way, he told himself, and they wouldn’t split their force. That wouldn’t have been smart. Caffey was counting on that. He was counting on whoever was in charge of that strike force to be smart.
He heard the sound across the distant fog before Lieutenant Parsons nudged him. It grew into the distinct noise of small gasoline engines.
Snowmobiles.
It was the scout patrol, the point unit ahead of the main body. Then he saw them, the tiny machines skipping over the hard snow and out of the fog. Five snowmobiles each pulling four white-clad figures on skis, semiautomatic weapons strapped across their backs. They drove into the heart of the choke point. And stopped.
Now’s the time not to get nervous or trigger-happy, Caffey thought. He prayed the men followed his orders. No shooting, no matter what happens, until the flare. A misstep now and the whole ambush was lost. We don’t want the scout patrol. We want the main body. Hold your fire until you see the flare.
He picked out the scout patrol leader through the binoculars. He was pointing north toward the river, then south toward the hill, then east. The men unlaced their skis and set out in pairs, weapons down and locked. Caffey wondered how many times they’d done this already today. And yesterday. There had been other prime spots along the route that might have been good choke points. A good point commander would have checked each one, which Caffey also counted on. There were better places for an ambush along the terrain the column had already covered since their initial contact. And at every place the scout patrol would check them out. The column would stop and wait until given the all-clear signal, then move again. It was the smart thing to do if you wanted to protect your men, but it was also time-consuming, dreary, tiring work. After thirty hours of it, men get sloppy; they get tired of searching and finding nothing, hour after hour. Which is why Caffey chose this place. It wasn’t the perfect site for an ambush — the wooded hill wasn’t strategically defensible — which the scout commander would recognize, but it was good enough because Caffey didn’t plan to stage a battle here wherein he had to hold his position. He wasn’t going to hold anything, just hit them hard and get the hell out.
The three pairs of scouts assigned to the hill didn’t even come all the way to the crest. The wind swept snow in swirling gusts in their faces and it was plain they could barely see each other much less find Caffey’s men in their spider holes.
It took the point patrol twenty minutes to join up again and another five minutes to get into their skis.
They started up the snowmobiles and moved out, heading east, but left one team behind. That was the sign Caffey was waiting for. It meant the column would go through the choke point. The Soviet scouts were left to guide the vehicles through the least bumpy section of the pass.
Caffey waited fifteen minutes before he heard the first sounds of the main column. He aimed his binoculars at the sound and held his breath.
“There,” Parsons whispered, nudging him. He pointed at a shadow emerging from the whiteness.
“There they are!”
It was the command vehicle. Caffey recognized the pennant. He inched away from the crest. On his walkie-talkie he called to his marksman in a low, anxious voice. “Cable? Come in, Cable.”