“That’s his answer?” said the President. “If we won’t take the Jupiters out of Turkey and Italy, we have to give up the gravity bomb?”
“Yes, sir. Fomin said a prototype is being constructed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory under the top-secret designation TX-61, and that you would know the details. He said you asked for alternatives to the Jupiters. The gravity bomb is a suggestion. He said you might have other ideas, but you have to give Khrushchev a sign of good faith that he can show his hard-liners.”
“Or else what?”
Margo was once more seated primly on the plush sofa. She fidgeted under Kennedy’s scrutiny. “He didn’t say, Mr. President. I got the impression that Khrushchev’s position is precarious.”
“Precarious.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he wants a show of our good faith.”
“Yes, sir,” said Margo again, looking down at her fancy shoes. The clingy blue dress, too, was more alluring than anything that she would have bought for herself; or that Nana would have allowed her to wear. Bundy had presented it to her, along with three others, at their briefing. Margo’s roommates had teased her about making herself pretty for the mystery man they were certain had moved mountains to bring her to Washington. It was no less humiliating for being part of the fiction.
“Did you happen to remind him that they started this whole thing?” Kennedy’s face was thundery. “Who the hell is Khrushchev to ask us to prove our good faith?”
Margo swallowed. “Mr. President, my job is just to carry messages.”
“Right. You have no position. You don’t care who wins.”
Stung. “Of course I do. Why would you say that?”
Kennedy had been pacing, but now he paused. “Mmmm. Nice to see there’s a little fire under all that ice.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve been waiting to see who’s really in there, is all.”
“I—Mr. President—”
“Have a drink, Miss Jensen. You look like you need one.”
“I’m fine, sir.”
He went over to the champagne bucket anyway and filled two flutes halfway to the top. He handed her one. “Remember, honey, it’s part of the job. The Secret Service has to smell it on your breath.”
She took the glass, sipped, made a face, swallowed. Then she sipped some more.
Kennedy sat beside her. “Feel better?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Good. I assume you remember the rest.” He laughed at her blankly nervous stare. “My collar, honey. The lipstick.”
“Mr. President—”
“Come on. You know the drill.”
“Yes, sir.”
They completed that ritual, too.
“Now you just need to muss your hair a little. And your dress.” The crooked smile. “That is, unless you want me to do it.”
Margo slipped into the adjoining bathroom, shut the door, tried to make herself look a little less presentable. She smeared her lipstick, eased down a shoulder strap, tugged and squeezed the hem to give it a wrinkled look. In the mirror she looked like exactly what her roommates thought she was.
The President knocked. “Are you okay in there?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll be right out.”
“Good. I have to get back.”
When she emerged, she saw to her horror that the door to the hallway was open. Kennedy was whispering to a Secret Service agent. The President’s tie was still undone. The bedclothes were half on the floor, the sheets wrinkled and disordered. The agent nodded, glanced at Margo without expression, nodded again, then left, pulling the door shut.
The President had switched to bourbon. “I was telling him to call my people to say I’m on the way.” He looked her up and down. “Not that I have to go this instant. We should talk a little.”
Margo swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
“We’re only meeting tomorrow if you see Fomin.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“You have to make him understand that his side started this whole thing. They’re not really in a position to make demands. What I want to hear is a concrete offer.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can stop all the ‘Yes, sir, no, sir.’ If we’re going to be spending time together, we have to get used to each other.” Kennedy stepped close. He took her hand in both of his. For a mad moment she thought he was going to kiss her. “Now, listen. You’re worried about screwing up. I understand that, believe me. When I was in the Pacific, that’s exactly what I worried about, every day. But you’re doing just fine, Miss Jensen. Okay?”
Margo swallowed. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
He released her hand and walked to the window. His fingers massaged his lower back. Pain and exhaustion played across the handsome face.
“Let me ask you something, Miss Jensen. Do you know what happens in the event of a nuclear attack on Washington?”
“No, sir.”
“I’ll tell you. The 2857th Test Squadron helicopters down from Olmstead Air Force Base. If the White House is intact, they load me and my family on board and take off. If the building’s wrecked, we’re supposed to be in the bunker, which might or might not survive the attack. Say it does. We can’t get out, because the building’s collapsed on top of us. Know what the brave men of 2857th do then? They bring in cranes and drills, and break through and pull us out. All this after a nuclear attack. How likely does that sound to you?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s possible.”
“That they’ll stay in the blast zone, getting showered with fallout, on the off chance my family and I are alive?” Kennedy took a long pull of bourbon. “I’d say it’s damned unlikely, Miss Jensen. I think we probably wind up entombed down there. There’s power, water, food, everything. But sooner or later, it runs out. Then we starve to death or die of asphyxiation. How’s that for a bitter ending? No,” he continued, as if she’d been arguing the contrary. “No, I don’t think that’s how I want to go out. So—what do you say you and I solve this thing?”
“Yes, sir. I agree, sir.”
He swung around, the moment of weakness gone. His energy was improbable, but admirable. “Tomorrow night, Ambassador Stevenson is addressing the United Nations. We’ve told the world about the missiles, Miss Jensen. Tomorrow Stevenson will show them our evidence.” He was buttoning his collar. “People are scared already. They’re going to be a whole lot scareder.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re at the crisis point, Miss Jensen.” He lifted a hand, thumb and forefinger millimeters apart. “We’re this close to war.”
She swallowed. “I—yes, sir.”
He went to the mirror, tied his tie. He slung his jacket over his shoulder, and then, with his hand on the doorknob, turned to glance at her again. But not appraisingly this time. He was the commander in chief again. “Wait at least ten minutes before you leave. Fifteen is better.”
“I remember, Mr. President.”
“And, Miss Jensen …”
“Yes, sir?”
“Have another drink. You look like you need it.”
He went out.
Sitting outside the apartment building in Southwest, Captain Viktor Vaganian pondered what he had learned. So the young woman who was meeting Fomin was also meeting the President. Well, well. Perhaps he had misjudged his colleague. Kennedy was said to be decadent. Suppose matters were as they appeared. This GREENHILL could be the President’s mistress. In that case, she likely was Fomin’s agent, and Viktor dared not endanger a highly sensitive operation by pursuing an investigation that might expose the relationship.
On the other hand, suppose this was all a clever camouflage, as Jack Ziegler continued to insist. That a back channel existed was not in doubt. The question was whether a man of Fomin’s experience would hand such responsibility to a black girl of nineteen years. It could all be a decoy.
Vaganian saw only one way to find out. He hurried back to the embassy, where he sent an enciphered message to his superiors—or, as the Comrade General Secretary would presumably call them, his fellow conspirators.
“He wants us to give him a sign of good faith. Us!” The President was furious—striding, gesticulating. “He’s the one who started this whole thing, and now he thinks it’s up to us to make the first move. It’s blackmail. I won’t do it.”
They were alone in the Oval Office, reviewing tonight’s meeting with GREENHILL.
“I’m not so sure, Mr. President,” said Bundy from his familiar place on the sofa. “We might be able to come up with something to give him.”
“The country will never stand for it.”
“The country doesn’t need to know.”
The President glared, then dropped into his rocker, looking spent and sixty. His hair was a mess. His collar was askew. He hadn’t wiped off GREENHILL’s lipstick. Bundy considered this quite untoward, and wondered whether Kennedy even knew how bad he looked.
“Tell me,” the President said, and a sharp gesture ordered his national security adviser to make it fast.
“Sir, Khrushchev is paranoid. In the Soviet leadership, that’s what keeps you alive. We know from Fomin’s conversation with GREENHILL in Ithaca that Khrushchev is under enormous pressure from his hard-liners. He wants to reach an agreement, but he needs to buy off his Boyars, as it were. He also needs to believe that we’re not preparing to launch an attack of our own. Not on Cuba. On Moscow. After seeing our false alarms, he has to be getting jittery. I’m sure his hard-liners are telling him that those were readiness drills.”
“I’m not going to let him push me around,” said Kennedy, wearily.
“No, sir. No question of that. Nevertheless, with your permission, I’d like to take at least until tomorrow morning to figure out whether there’s anything we can safely offer without losing face. Maybe something we can give in secret.” He didn’t wait for an answer. He was remembering the curious interview with Niemeyer. “Tomorrow evening, Mr. President, you’ll be seeing GREENHILL only if she sees Fomin. Just in case, let’s try to come up with a message that at least gives Khrushchev some reassurance. She’ll deliver it to Fomin at their next meeting, and then we’ll see.”
“Fine, fine,” said the President, the dark mood still upon him. The aftereffects, perhaps, of the adrenaline rush of the flight from the White House under fear of nuclear attack. That was Bundy’s first thought. But Kennedy’s next words gave him pause. “What do you think of her? Margo Jensen? Do you really believe we can trust her?”
“Sir, with respect, inside these walls, we should use her code name.”
“Fine. GREENHILL, then. Do you really believe we can trust GREENHILL?”
“Fomin trusts her. He chose her.”
“That’s not really an answer, Mac.” Kennedy, seated behind the desk, didn’t make eye contact. Bundy was standing alongside. “I don’t know about this girl. She seems kind of nervous to me.” His fingers combed absently through his thick but now unruly hair. “She’s awfully young. And she’s—I don’t know—awkward. Stiff.”
A small light went on. The national security adviser was remembering a certain young woman he had been obliged to add to his staff for a time last year. “Mr. President, ah, did something happen tonight that I should know about?”
The President finally looked up, and there was the mischievous, crooked smile, although it seemed to Bundy a little forced. “Whatever do you mean, Mac? What are you accusing me of?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Sure you did. But GREENHILL isn’t that kind of girl. She told me.” He laughed. “Besides, I’d never mix business with—well, with whatever you’re accusing me of. I’m not a total degenerate, no matter what Khrushchev thinks. Anyway, I’m a happily married man,” he added with a wink. Then his mood grew sober again. “Mac, look. I’m serious. This seems like a lot for some nineteen-year-old to go through. Now that we know the back channel works, maybe we should get somebody else to run between wickets.”
“Mr. President, with respect. I see all the same risks you do. Yes, she’s young. Yes, she’s a college student. But so far she’s been worthy of our trust, and, before us, Dr. Harrington’s. I think she’s up to it.” He addressed himself to the glittering pen he was rolling between his fingers. “Besides, sir, we can’t send somebody else. Fomin chose her. Fomin trusts her. He put her through a great deal to be sure she was worthy of that trust. If we send someone else, he’ll get suspicious. He might blow up the back-channel negotiations and go home to die with his family.”
“We’re stuck with her? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“And if it turns out that I’m right and Fomin’s wrong? If GREENHILL’s not up to the job? What happens then?”
“Then, sir, we find out whether the White House bomb shelter is deep enough.”