“Raise your hands! Walk to the wall and spread your legs! Move! … Now! Lean into the brick, palms straight out!”
As if in a trance, his eyes still on Matthias, who was crouching like a child on one knee by a rosebush, Havelock did as the guard ordered. He was in shock, his impressions a blur, his thoughts suspended. His přítel, his mentor … his father … was mad. The shell of the man who had astonished the world with his brilliance, with his perceptions, was cowering by the flowers, his head trembling, the frightened eyes behind the glasses filled with a terror no one knew but himself.
Havelock had heard the guard’s footsteps on the slate and known the blow was coming. Somehow it had not mattered. Nothing mattered.
A spreading web of pain shuddered through his head, and the darkness came.
He was on a parlor rug, circles of bright white light spinning in front of his eyes, his temples throbbing, his drenched, sand-filled trousers pressing against his skin. He could hear men rushing up the steps outside, barking orders in panic. As they came through the door he felt his jacket, his waist; his gun had been taken, but he had not been searched. Presumably, that process and the interrogation would be left to the guard’s superiors.
Two men approached: one in uniform, a major; the other, a civilian. He knew the latter; he was from State, an agent from Cons Op he had worked with in London or Beirut, or Paris or … he could not recall.
“That’s him,” said the civilian. “Bradford told me it might be-he didn’t know how-but it is. He gave me the details; you’re not involved.”
“Just get him out of here,” replied the soldier. “What you do is your business.”
“Hello, Havelock.” The man from State looked down with contempt. “You’ve been busy. It must have been fun killing that old guy in New York. What were you doing? Setting him up for contingency funds, with a little more of the same down here? Get on your feet, you bastard!”
Body and head racked, Michael slowly rolled onto his knees and pushed himself up. “What happened to him? What happened?”
“I don’t answer questions.”
“Somebody has to … for Christ’s sake, somebody has to!”
“And give you a free ticket? No way, you son of a bitch.” The civilian addressed the guard, who was standing across the room. “Did you search him?”
“No, sir. I just removed his weapon and punched the alarm. There’s a flashlight on his belt and some kind of pouch.”
“Let me help you, Charley,” said Havelock, spreading the field jacket and reaching for the oilcloth packet. “It is Charley, isn’t it? Charley Loring … was it Beirut?”
“It was, and keep your goddamned hands still!”
“What you want’s in there. Go on, take it. It won’t detonate.”
The man from State nodded at the major; the soldier stepped forward and grabbed Michael’s hands as Charles Loring ripped the packet off the webbed belt.
“Open it,” continued Havelock. “It’s from me to you. All of you.”
The Cons Op agent unzipped the packet and took out the folded yellow pages. The major released his grip as the civilian walked to a floor lamp and began reading. He stopped, looked over at Michael, then spoke to the soldier. “Wait outside, Major. And you,” he added, glancing at the guard. “In the other room, please.”
“Are you sure?” asked the officer.
“Very,” said Charley. “He’s not going anywhere, and I’ll shout if I need you.” The two men left, the soldier out the front door, the guard into the next room. “You’re the lowest piece of garbage I’ve ever known,” said the man from State.
“It’s a carbon, Charley.”
“I can see that.”
“Call Cons Op emergency. Every fifteen minutes since eleven o’clock they’ve gotten a message. It’s in the form of a question: ‘Billiards or pool?’ The response is, ‘We prefer pool.’ Tell them to give it.”
“Then what?”
“Patch yourself into the next call, give the response, and listen.”
“So some other piece of garbage can read this to me.”
“Oh, no, just twelve seconds’ worth. No way to trace. And don’t bother to think about giving me a needle. I’ve been in therapy before, so I took precautions. I have no idea where the calls are coming from, take my word.”
“I wouldn’t take your word for a goddamn thing, garbage!”
“You’d better right now, because if you don’t, copies of those pages will be sent to appropriate addresses all over Europe. From Moscow to Athens, from London to Prague—from Paris to Berlin. Get on the phone.”
Twenty-one minutes later the man from State stared at the wall as he gave the response to Jenna Karas. Eleven seconds after that he hung up and looked over at Havelock. “You’re everything they said you were. You’re filth.”
“And ‘beyond salvage’?”
“That’s s right.”
“Then so are you, because you’re programmed, Charley. You’re useless. You forgot how to ask questions.”
“What?”
“You just accepted the verdict on me. You knew me—knew my record—but it didn’t make any difference. The word came down and the good little sheep said, ‘Why not?’ ”
“I could kill you.”
“And live with the consequences? Don’t do that. Call the White House.”
He could hear the deafening roar of the giant helicopter’s rotating blades and knew that the President of the United States had arrived at Poole’s Island. It was midmorning, and the Georgia sun was burning the pavements outside the open window. He was in a room, out there was no question that it was a cell even though there were no bars in the single window. He was two stories off the ground; there were four soldiers beneath, and the eerie façades and photographs of familiar buildings could be seen beyond. A world of lies, of artifice, of transplanted, warped reality.
Havelock walked back to the bed—more cot than bed—and sat down. He thought of Jenna, what she must be going through—again; what resources she had to summon to survive the unbearable tension. And of Matthias—good God, what had happened? Michael relived the horrible scene in the garden, trying to find a thread of sense.
You must not come near me. You don’t understand. You can never understand!
Understand what?
He had no idea how long he sat there thinking; he only knew that his thoughts were interrupted by the crack of the glass panel in the center of the door. A face appeared; it was under the gold braid of a visored cap. The door opened, and a broad-shouldered, middle-aged colonel walked in, gripping a pair of handcuffs.
“Turn around,” he ordered. “Extend your arms.”
Havelock did as he was told, and the cuffs were clamped around his wrists. “What about my feet?” asked Michael curtly. “Aren’t they considered weapons?”
“I’ll have a much more effective one in my hand,” said the officer, “and I’ll be watching you every second. You pull one thing I could even misinterpret, I’m inside, and you’re dead.”
“A one-on-one conference. I’m flattered.”
The colonel spun Havelock around. “I don’t know who you are, or what you’re doing, or what you’ve done, but you remember this, cowboy. That man is my responsibility, and there’s no way I wouldn’t blow you out of this room and ask questions later.”
“Who’s the cowboy?”
As if to punctuate his threat, the officer shoved Michael back into the wall. “Stay there,” he commanded, and left the room.
Thirty seconds later the door was opened again, and President Charles Berquist walked in. In his hand were the thirteen carbons of Havelock’s indictment. The President stopped, and looked at Michael. He raised the yellow pages.
“This is an extraordinary document, Mr. Havelock.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I believe you. I find a great part of it beneath contempt, of course, but then, I tell myself that a man with your record would not cavalierly cause the exposure and death of so many. That, basically, this is a threat—an irresistible threat—to make yourself heard.”
“Then you’d be telling yourself another lie,” said Michael, motionless against the wall. “I was placed ‘beyond salvage.’ Why should I concern myself with anyone?”
“Because you’re an intelligent man who knows there have to be explanations.”
“Lies, you mean?”
“Some are lies and they will remain lies for the good of this country.”
Havelock paused, studying the hard Scandinavian face of the President, the steady eyes that were somehow a hunter’s eyes. “Matthias?”
“Yes.”
“How long do you think you can bury him here?”
“For as long as we possibly can.”
“He needs help.”
“So do we. He had to be stopped.”
“What have you done to him?”
“I was only part of it, Havelock. So were you. We all were. We made him an emperor when there were no personal empires to be allocated by divine right, much less ours. We made him a god when we didn’t own the heavens. There’s only so much the mind can absorb and act upon when elevated to such heights in these very complicated times. He was forced to exist in the perpetual illusion of being unique, above all other men. We asked too much. He went mad. His mind—that extraordinary instrument—snapped, and when it could no longer control itself, it sought control elsewhere. To compensate, perhaps, to convince himself that he was what we said he was, although a part of him told him he wasn’t. Not any longer.”
“What do you mean ‘sought control elsewhere’? How could he do that?”
“By committing this nation to a series of obligations that were, to say the least, unacceptable. Try to understand, he had feet of quicksilver, not of clay, like you and me. Yes, even me, the President of the United States, some say the most powerful man in the world. It’s not true. I’m bound by the body politic, subject to the goddamn polls, guided by the so-called principles of a political ideology, with my head on a congressional chopping block. Checks and balances, Mr. Havelock. But not him. We made him a superstar; he was bound to nothing, accountable to no one. His word was law, all other judgments were subordinate to his brilliance. And then there was his charm, I might add.”
“Generalities,” said Michael. “Abstractions.”
“Lies?” asked Berquist.
“I don’t know. What are the specifics?”
“I’m going to show you. And if after what you’ve seen, you still feel compelled to carry out your threat, let it be on your head, not mine.”
“I don’t have a head. I’m ‘beyond salvage.’ ”
“I told you, I’ve read these pages. All of them. The order’s been rescinded. You have the word of the President of the United States.”
“Why should I accept it?”
“If I were you, I probably wouldn’t. I’m simply telling you. There are many lies and there will continue to be lies, but that’s not one of them.… I’ll have the handcuffs removed.”
The scene in the large, dark, windowless room was an unearthly depiction of a science-fiction nightmare. There were a dozen television screens mounted in a row on the wall, monitors that recorded and taped the activities seen by the various cameras. Below the screens was an enormous console manned by four technicians; several white-jacketed doctors entered, watching a scene or scanning tapes, writing notes, leaving quickly or conferring with colleagues. And the object of the whole sophisticated operation was to record and analyze every movement made and every word spoken by Anthony Matthias.
His face and body were projected on seven screens at once, and under each monitor was a green digital readout showing the exact hour and minute of the filming; the screen on the far left was marked Current. The day was an illusion for Matthias, starting with morning coffee in the garden identical with his own in Georgetown.
“Before he wakes, he’s given two injections,” said the President, sitting next to Havelock at a second, smaller console at the rear wall. “One’s a muscle relaxant that reduces physical and mental tensions; the other, a stimulant that accelerates the heart, pumping blood, without interfering with the first narcotic. Don’t ask me the medical terms, I don’t know them; I just know it works. He’s free to associate with a degree of simulated confidence—in a way, a replica of his former self.”
“Then his day begins? His … simulated day?”
“Exactly. Read the monitors from right to left. His day starts with breakfast in the garden. He’s brought intelligence reports and newspapers corresponding to the dates of whatever issue is being probed. Then in the next screen you see him walking out of his ‘home’ and down his steps with an aide who’s talking to him, refining the options of the problem, building up the case, whatever it is. Everything, by the way, is taken from his logs; that remains constant throughout ‘the day.’ ” Berquist paused, and gestured at the third monitor from the right. “There you see him in his limousine, the aide still talking, bringing his focus back. He’s driven around for a while, then gradually brought in sight of places that are familiar to him, the Jefferson Memorial, the monument, certain streets, past the South Portico—the sequence is irrelevant.”
“But they’re not whole,” insisted Michael. “They’re fragments!”
“He doesn’t see that; he sees only the impressions. But even if he did see that they are fragments, as you call them, or miniatures of the existing places, the doctors tell me his mind would reject that and accept the reality of the impressions. Just as he refused to accept his own deterioration, and kept pressing for wider and wider responsibilities, until he simply reached out and took them.… Watch the fourth screen. He’s getting out at the State Department, going inside, and telling his aide something; it will be studied. In the fifth, you can see him walking into his office—the same in every respect as his own on the eighth floor—and immediately scanning the cables and reading the day’s appointments, again identical with those that were there at the time. The sixth shows him taking a series of phone calls, the same calls he had taken before. Often his responses are meaningless, a part of him rejecting a voice, or a lack of authentic repartee, but other times what we learn is mind-blowing.… He’s been here nearly six weeks, and there are times when we think we’ve only scratched the surface. We’re only beginning to learn the extent of his massive excesses.”
“You mean the things he’s done?” asked Havelock, recoiling from the frightening turn of events.
Berquist looked at Michael in the glow of the console and the flickering light emanating from the screens across the room. “Yes, Mr. Havelock, the—‘things’—he’s done. If ever a man in the history of representative government exceeded the authority of his office, Anthony Matthias is that man. There were no limits to what he promised—what he guaranteed— in the name of the United States government. Take today. A policy was set and in the process of being implemented, but it did not suit the Secretary of State at this particular moment of irrationality, so he altered it … Watch the seventh screen, the one marked Current. Listen. He’s at his desk, and in his mind he’s back about five months, when a bipartisan decision had been made to close an embassy in a new African country slaughtering its citizens with mass hangings and death squads, revolting the civilized world. The aide is explaining.”
Mr. Secretary, the President and the Joint Chiefs, as well as the Senate, have gone on record as opposing any further contact at this time …
Then we won’t tell them, will we? Antediluvian reactions cannot be a keystone of a coherent foreign policy. I shall make contact myself and present a cohesive and judicious plan. Arms and well-sweetened butter are international lubricants, and we shall provide them.
Michael was stunned. “He said that? He did that?”
“He’s reliving it now” replied Berquist. “In a few minutes he’ll place a call to the mission in Geneva, and another unbelievable commitment will be made.… This, however, is only a minor example, one they’re working on this morning. Actually, as outrageous as it is, it’s insignificant compared with so many others. So many—so dangerous—so incredible.”
“Dangerous?”
“One voice overriding all others, entering unthinkable negotiations, processing agreements contrary to everything this nation supposedly stands for—agreements that would make an outraged Congress impeach me for even considering. But even that fact—and it is a fact—is insignificant. We can’t let the world know what he’s done. We’d be humiliated, a giant on its knees, begging forgiveness, and if it was not forthcoming there would be guns and bombs. You see, he’s put it all in writing.”
“Could he do that?”
“Not constitutionally, no. But he was the superstar. The uncrowned king of the republic had spoken, a god had given his word. Who questions kings or gods? The mere existence of such documents is the most fertile grounds on earth for international extortion. If we can’t quietly invalidate those negotiations—diplomatically void them by anticipated congressional rejection—they will be exposed. If they are, every treaty, every agreement we’ve concluded during the past decade—all the sensitive alliances we’re currently negotiating everywhere in the world—will be called into question. This country’s foreign policy will collapse; we’d never be trusted again. And when a nation such as ours has no foreign policy, Mr. Havelock, it has war.”
Michael leaned over the console, staring at the Current screen, and brought his hand to his forehead; he felt the beads of perspiration. “He’s gone this far?”
“Beyond. Remember, he’s been Secretary of State for nearly six years, and before he took office his influence was significant, perhaps too much so, in the two previous administrations. He was nothing short of an ambassador-plenipotentiary for both, roaming the globe, cementing his power bases.”
“But they were for good, not this!”
“They were, and no one knew it better than I did. I’m the one who convinced him that he should chuck the consulting business and take over. I said the world needed his imprimatur, the time was right. You see, I appealed to his ego; all great men have outrageous egos. De Gaulle was right: the man of destiny knows it before anybody else. What he doesn’t know is the limit of his capabilities. God knows Matthias didn’t.”
“You said it a few minutes ago, Mr. President. We made him a god. We asked too much of him.” Havelock shook his head slowly, overwhelmed.
“Just hold it there,” answered Berquist, his voice cold, his eyes penetrating in the incandescent reflections of light. “I said it by way of an oversimplified explanation. No one makes a man a god unless that man wants to be one. And, Christ-on-a-raft, Matthias has been looking for that divine appointment all his life! He’s been tasting the holy water for years—in his mind, bathing in it.… You know what someone called him the other day? A hustling Socrates on the Potomac, and that’s exactly what he was. A hustler, Mr. Havelock. A grade-A, high-IQ, brilliant opportunist. A man with extraordinarily persuasive words, capable of first-rate global diplomacy—the best we could field—as long as he was the eye of the worldwide hurricane. He could be magnificent and, as I also said, no one knew it better than I did and I used him. But for all of that, he was a hustler. He never stopped pushing the omniscient Anthony Matthias.”
“And knowing this,” said Michael, refusing to permit Berquist’s stare to cower him, “you still used him. You pushed him as much as he pushed himself. You appealed to a ‘man of destiny,’ wasn’t that it?”
The President lowered his eyes to the dials on the console. “Yes,” he said softly. “Until he blew apart. Because I was watching a performance, not the man, and I was blinded. I didn’t see what was really happening.”
“Jesus!” exclaimed Havelock, his whisper a cry. “If’s all so hard to believe!”
“On that assumption,” interrupted Berquist, regaining his composure, “I’ve had several tapes prepared for you. They’re reenactments of actual conversations that took place during his final months in office. The psychiatrists tell me they’re valid, and the papers we’ve unearthed bear them out. Put on the earphones and “I’ll press the appropriate buttons.… The images will appear on the last monitor on the right.”
What took place on that screen during the next twelve minutes was a portrait of a man Havelock did not know. The tapes showed Matthias at emotional extremes as he was psychologically stimulated by the combined effects of the chemicals and the visual trappings, and prodded by aides using his own words. He was screaming one moment, weeping the next, cajoling a diplomat over the phone with charm and flat-tery—and brilliant humility—then condemning the man as a fool and a moron once the conversation was finished. Above all were the lies, where once there bad been essential truth. The telephone was his instrument; his resonant voice with its European cadence, the organ.
“This first,” said Berquist, angrily stabbing a button, “is his response to me when I had just told him I wanted a reassessment of foreign aid in San Miguel.”
Your policy is firm, Mr. President, a clear call for decency and human rights. I applaud you, sir. Goodbye.… Idiot! Imbecile! One does not have to endorse a brother, one must merely accept geopolitical realities! Get me General Sandoza on the line. Set up a very private appointment with his ambassador. The colonels will understand we back them!
“This little number followed a joint House and Senate resolution, which I thoroughly endorsed, to withhold diplomatic recognition …”
You understand, Mr. Prime Minister, that our existing accords in your part of the world prohibit what you suggest, but you should know that I am in agreement with you. I’m meeting with the President … no, no, I assure you he will have an open mind … and I have already convinced the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. A treaty between our two countries is desirable progress, and should it be in contradistinction to prior agreements … well, enlightened self-interest was the essence of Bismarck’s reign.
“I can’t believe this,” said Havelock, mesmerized.
“Neither did I, but it’s true.” The President pushed a third button. “We’re now in the Persian Gulf …”
You are, of course, speaking unofficially, not as your country’s Minister of Finance but as a friend, and what you are seeking are additional guarantees of eight hundred and fifty million for your current fiscal year, and one billion two hundred million for the next.… Contrary to what you may believe, my good friend, they are entirely plausible figures. I say this confidentially, but our territorial strategies are not what they appear. I shall prepare, again on a confidential basis, a memorandum of intent.
“Now we’re in the Balkans, a Soviet satellite, loyal to Moscow, and at our throats.… Insanity!”
Mr. Premier, the restrictions on arms sales to your nation, if they cannot be lifted outright, will be overlooked. I find specific and considerable advantages in our cooperating with you. “Equipment” can and will be funneled through certain North African regimes considered to be in our adversary’s camp but with whom I’ve met—shall we say ex-et non-offi-cio-recently and frequently. Confidentially, a new geopolitical axis is being formed …
“Being formed!” exploded Berquist. “Suicide! Here’s a coup in the Yemens. Instability on course, wholesale blood-shed guaranteed!”
The emerging of a great new independent nation, Sirach Bal Shazar, though slow to gain the recognition you deserve, will have the quiet support of this administration. We recognize the necessity of dealing firmly and realistically with internal subversion. You may be assured that the funds you ask for will be allocated. Three hundred million once transferred will indicate to the legislative branch of our govern-ment the faith we place in you.
“Finally,” said the President, touching a last button, his whisper strained, his lined face looking exhausted, “the new madman of Africa.”
To speak frankly and in the utmost confidence, Major General Halafi, we approve of your proposed incursion north into the Straits. Our so-called allies there have been weak and ineffectual, but, naturally, our disassociation must, because of the current treaties, be gradual. The educating process is always difficult, the reeducating of the entrenched unfortunately a maddening chess game, fortunately played by those of us who understand. You shall have your weapons. Salaam, my warrior friend.
What Michael had watched and listened to was paralyzing. Alliances not in the interests of the United States had been tacitly formed or half formed, and treaties proposed or negotiated that were in violation of existing treaties; guarantees of billions had been made that Congress would never tolerate and the American taxpayer would never accept; mili-tary obligations had been assumed that were immoral in concept, crossing the bounds of national honor, and irrationally provocative. It was a portrait of a brilliant mind that had fragmented itself in a profusion of global commitments, each a lethal missile.
Michael slowly recovered from his state of shock. Suddenly the gap came into focus; it had to be filled, explained. Havelock took off the earphones and turned to the President. “Costa Brava,” he whispered harshly. “Why? Why ‘beyond salvage’?”
“I was part of the first, but I did not call for the second. As near as we can determine, it was not officially sanctioned.”
“Ambiguity?”
“Yes. We don’t know who he is. However, I should tell you, I personally confirmed the salvage order later.”
“Why?”
“Because I accepted one aspect of the oath you signed when you entered the service of your government.”
“Which was?”
“To lay down your life for your country, should your country need it desperately enough to ask for it. Any of us would, you know that as well as I do. Nor do I have to remind you that untold thousands have done so even when the needs were questionable.”
“Meaning the need for my life—my death—was not questionable?”
“When I gave the order, no, it was not.”
Michael held his breath. “And the Czechoslovakian woman? Jenna Karas?”
“Her death was never sought.”
“It was!”
“Not by us.”
“Ambiguity?”
“Apparently.”
“And you don’t know … Oh, my God. But my execution was sanctioned. By you.”
The President nodded, his Nordic face less hard than before, his eyes still level, still steady, but no longer a hunter’s eyes.
“May the condemned man ask why?”
“Come with me,” said Berquist, rising from the console in the dim, flickering light. “It’s time for the last phase of your education, Mr. Havelock. I hope to God you’re ready for it.”
They left the monitor room and entered what appeared to be a short, white corridor, guarded by a huge master sergeant whose face and display of ribbons conveyed many tours and many battles. He cracked to attention the instant he saw the President; his commander in chief nodded and proceeded toward a wide black door at the end of the enclosure. However, it was not a door, Michael realized as he drew nearer behind Berquist. It was a vault, its wheel in the center, a small hand-sensor plate to the right of the frame. The President pressed his right palm against it; a tiny row of colored lights raced back and forth above the plate, settling on green and white. He then reached over with his left hand and gripped the wheel; the lights were tripped again, a combination of three greens this time.
“I’m sure you know more about these devices than I do,” said Berquist, “so I’ll only add that it can be released solely by myself … and one other person in the event of my death.”
The significance was obvious and required no comment. The President swung the heavy vault back, reached up and pressed an unseen plate on the inner frame; somewhere crossbeam trips were deactivated. Once again he nodded at the soldier, gesturing for Havelock to enter. They stepped inside as the master sergeant approached the steel panel and closed it, then spun the wheel into its locked position.
It was a room, but not an ordinary room, for there were no windows, no prints on the walk, no extraneous furniture, no amenities, only the quiet whir of ventilating machines. There was an oblong conference table in the center with five chairs around it, note pads, pencils, and ashtrays in place, a paper shredder in the far left corner; it was a table in a room preset for immediate consultation and instant destruction of whatever came from a given meeting. Whereas the room they had just left had twelve television monitors across the wall, this had a single large reflector screen, an odd-shaped projector bracketed into the opposite wall next to a panel of circular switches.
Without speaking, Charles Berquist went directly to the panel, dimmed the overhead lights and snapped on the projector. The screen across the dark room was instantly filled with a double image, a straight black line dividing the two photographs. Each was a single page of two separate documents, both obviously related, the forms nearly identical. Havelock stared at them in growing terror.
“This is the essence of what we call Parsifal,” said the President quietly. “Do you recall Wagner’s last opera?”
“Not well,” replied Havelock, barely able to speak.
“No matter. Just bear in mind that whenever Parsifal took up the spear used at Christ’s crucifixion and held it against wounds, he had the power to heal. Conversely, whoever holds these has the power to rip them open. All over the world.”
“I … don’t … believe this,” whispered Havelock.
“I wish to God I didn’t have to,” said Berquist, raising his hand and pointing to the projected document on the left. “This first agreement calls for a nuclear strike against the People’s Republic of China, executed by the combined forces of the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Objective: the destruction of all military installations, government centers, hydroelectric plants, communications systems and seven major cities ranging from the Manchurian border to the China Sea.” The President paused and gestured at the document on the right. “This second agreement calk for a nearly identical strike against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics carried out by the combined forces of the United States and the People’s Republic of China. The differences are minor, vital only to a few million people who will be burned to death in the nuclear fires. There are an additional five cities, inclusive of Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. Total destruction: twelve cities obliterated from the face of the earth.… This nation has entered into two separate agreements, one with the Soviet Union, the other with the People’s Republic of China. In each instance, we have committed the full range of our nuclear weapons to a combined strike with a partner to destroy the mutual enemy. Two diametrically opposed commitments, and the United States is the whore serving two studs gone berserk. Mass annihilation. The world has its nuclear war, Mr. Havelock, engineered with brilliant precision by Anthony Matthias, superstar.”