The intersecting runways were lined with amber airstrip lamps, and the beams of searchlights crisscrossed and penetrated the dense cloud cover as routine patrols and check-out flights soared off into the night sky and swooped down from the darkness onto the floodlit open field. Andrews was a vast, guarded military city unto itself. The activity was intense both on the field and off. As headquarters of the U.S. Air Force Systems Command, it had responsibilities as far-ranging as they were endless. For thousands there was no such thing as day or night—merely duty hours and assignments. Banks of computers in a dozen buildings coexisted with the constant flow of expertise from the human interpreters, all forming Judgments that affected NORAD, CONAD, the DEW line stations and SAG. The base occupied some forty-four hundred acres east of the Potomac and west of Chesapeake Bay, but its interests circled the globe, its purpose being the defense of the North American continent.
The marine helicopter was given clearance to enter a low-altitude pattern and set down on a pad north of the main field. Searchlights caught them a quarter of a mile away from ground zero as radar, radio and a pilot’s sharp eyes eased them into the threshold from which they could make the vertical descent. Among the instructions radioed from the control tower was a message for Sterile Five. A jeep would be standing by to take Havelock to a runway on the south perimeter. It would wait there until his business was concluded and return him to the helicopter.
Havelock climbed out of the hatch and jumped to the ground. The damp chill of the air was accentuated by the rushing wash of the decelerating rotors, and as he walked rapidly away from it he pulled the lapels of his topcoat around his throat, wishing he had worn a hat—but then he remembered that the only hat he owned at the moment was a ragged knit cap that he’d left somewhere down on Poole’s Island.
“Sir! Sir!” The shout came from Michael’s left, beyond the tall assembly of the helicopter. It was the driver of the jeep, the vehicle itself barely visible in the shadows between the blinding, arcing lights of the pad.
Havelock ran over as the sergeant behind the wheel started to get out as a gesture of courtesy. “Forget it,” said Michael, approaching the side panel, his hand on the windshield frame. “I didn’t see you,” he added, stepping over and lowering himself into the seat.
“Those were my instructions,” explained the air force non-com. “Stay out of sight as much as possible.”
“Why?”
“You’ll have to ask the man who gives the orders, sir. I’d say he’s careful, and since nobody’s got a name, I don’t ask questions.”
The jeep shot forward, expertly maneuvered by the driver onto a narrow asphalt road fifty yards east of the helicopter pad. He turned left and accelerated; the road virtually circled the massive field, passing lighted buildings and enormous parking lots—flickering black structures and dark, spacious blurs-interspersed with the glare of onrushing headlights; everything at Andrews was seemingly always at triple time. The wind whipped through the open vehicle, the slapping damp air penetrating through Michael’s coat and making him tense his muscles against the cold.
“I don’t care if he cads himself Little Bo Beep,” said Havelock, as much for conversation as for anything else. “So long as there’s heat wherever we’re going.”
The sergeant glanced briefly at Michael. “Sorry, again,” he replied, “but the man doesn’t have it that way. My instructions are to take you to a runway on the south perimeter. I’m afraid that’s it. A runway.”
Havelock folded his arms and kept his eyes on the road ahead, wondering why the undersecretary of State was being so cautious within a military compound. Then his thoughts dwelt briefly on the man himself and he found part of the answer—the blind part, but nevertheless intrinsic: there bad to be a reason. From what he had read about Arthur Pierce in the State Department dossier, coupled with what he had known from a distance, the undersecretary was a bright, persuasive spokesman for American interests at the United Nations, as well as around the international conference tables, with an avowed profound mistrust of the Soviets. This mistrust, however, was couched in a swift, aggressive wit, and woven into deceptively pleasant frontal assaults that drove the Russians up their Byzantine walls, for they had no matching counterattacks, except for bluster and defiance, and thus were frequently outmaneuvered in the open forums. Perhaps Pierce’s outstanding credential was that he had been handpicked by Matthias himself when Anton was at the height of his intellectual powers. But the characteristic that stood out in Havelock’s mind while racing down the dark airfield road was the highly regarded self-discipline attributed to Arthur Pierce by just about everybody who had contributed to his service dossier. He was never known to say anything unless he had something to say. By extension, thought Michael, he would not do something unless there was a reason for doing it.
And he had chosen to meet on a runway.
The driver swung left into an intersecting road that ran the distance of a huge maintenance hangar, then turned right onto the border of a deserted airstrip. In the distance, silhouetted in the glare of the headlights, was the figure of a man standing alone. Behind him, perhaps five hundred feet beyond and off the strip, was a small propjet with interior and exterior lights on and a fuel truck alongside it.
“There’s the man,” said the sergeant, slowing down. “I’ll drop you off and wait back by the junk shop.”
“The what?”
“The maintenance hangar. Just shout when you want me.”
The jeep came to a stop thirty feet from Arthur Pierce. Havelock got out and saw the undersecretary of State starting toward him—a tall, slender man in a dark overcoat and hat, his stride long and energetic. Protocol was obviously unimportant to Pierce; there were too many with his title in the State Department who, regardless of the crisis, would expect a mere foreign service officer to approach them. Michael began walking, noticing that Pierce was removing the glove from his right hand.
“Mr. Havelock?” said the diplomat, hand extended, as the jeep sped away.
“Mr. Undersecretary?”
“But of course it’s you,” continued Pierce, his grip firm and genuine. “I’ve seen your photograph. Frankly, I’ve read everything I could get my hands on about you. Now, I suppose I should get this over with.”
“What?”
“Well, I guess I’m a little awestruck, which is a pretty silly thing for a grown man to say. But your accomplishments in a world I don’t claim to understand are very impressive.” The undersecretary paused, looking embarrassed. “I imagine the exotic nature of your work evokes this kind of reaction quite a lot.”
“I wish it would; you make me feel terrific. Especially considering the mistakes I’ve made—especially during the last few months.”
“The mistakes weren’t yours.”
“I should also tell you,” Michael went on, overlooking the comment, “I’ve read a great deal about you, too. There aren’t many people in your league at State. Anthony Matthias knew what he was doing—when he knew what he was doing—when he pulled you out of the pack and put you where you are.”
“That’s one thing we have in common, isn’t it? Anthony Matthias. You far more than me in depth, and I’d never pretend otherwise. But the privilege, the goddamn privilege— there’s no other way I can put it—of having known him the way I knew him makes the years, the tensions, the sweat worthwhile. It was a time of my life when everything jelled for me; he made it come together.”
“I think we both feel the same way.”
“When I read the material on you, you have no idea how I envied you. I was close to him, but I could never be what you were to him. What an extraordinary experience those years must have been.”
“It was—they were. But nothing’s there for either of us any longer.”
“I know. It’s unbelievable.”
“Believe. I saw him.”
“I wonder if they’ll let me see him. I’m on my way to Poole’s Island, you know.”
“Do yourself a favor. Don’t. It sounds trite, but remember him—especially him—the way he was, not the way he is.”
“Which brings us to now.” Pierce shook his head while staring at Havelock in the chiaroscuro of the runway. “It’s not good. I don’t think I really described to the President how close we are to the edge.”
“He understood. He told me what they said to you when you warned them. ‘Look to yourselves,’ wasn’t that it?”
“Yes. When they get that simple, that direct, I shake. They’ll strike out at shadows; one violent shove and we’re over. I’m a fair debater and not bad at negotiations, but you know the Soviets better than I do. How do you read it?”
“The same as you. Understatement isn’t their way, bombast is. When they don’t bother to threaten, they’re threatening. Moves will take the place of words.”
“That’s what frightens me. The only thing I cling to is that I really don’t believe they’ve brought in the men who push the buttons. Not yet. They know they have to be absolutely accurate. If they have concrete proof, not just hints, that Matthias entered into nuclear aggression pacts against the U.S.S.R. and if they even smell China, they won’t hesitate to push the decision up where it won’t be theirs any longer. That’s when we can all start digging into the ground.”
“Nudear aggression …?” Havelock paused, alarmed more than he would have thought possible. “You think they’ve assumed that much?”
“They’re close to it. It’s what’s working them up into a frenzy. Pacts negotiated by a maniac—with other maniacs.”
“And now the frenzy’s gone. They keep quiet and show you the door. You warn them and they tell you we should look to ourselves. I’m frightened too, Mr. Undersecretary.”
“You know what I’m thinking, then?”
“Parsifal.”
“Yes.”
“Berquist said you thought the Soviets had learned something during the past eighteen hours. Is this it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Pierce. “I’m not even sure I’m working the right side of the street, but something’s happened. It’s why I wanted to see you. You’re the only one who knows what’s going on hour by hour. If I could pick something out, piece it together with something they said or reacted to, I might find a connection. What I’m looking for is a person or an event, anything that I can use to interdict them, to bring up before they do, and deflect them. Anything to keep them from alarming the warlords in the Presidium.”
“They’re not fools, they know those men. They’d know what they were delivering.”
“I don’t think that would stop them.” Pierce hesitated, as if debating with himself whether or not to cite an example, then decided to speak. “You know General Halyard?”
“I’ve never met him. Or Ambassador Brooks. I was supposed to meet them both this afternoon. What about him?”
“I consider him one of the most thoughtful, skeptical military men in this country.”
“Agreed. Not only from his reputation; I was given his dossier. And?”
“I asked him this afternoon what he thought the reaction would be—his included—if our clandestine services unearthed a Sino-Soviet pact against us, one that projected attack dates within forty-five days, and contained the kind of information found in those documents on Poole’s Island. His reply was one word: ‘Launch.’ If he can say that, what about lesser, far more insecure men?”
Arthur Pierce did not dramatize the question but asked it calmly, and the chill Michael felt was now only partially due to the damp, cold air. Forces were closing in; time was running out. “The President said to help you,” he began. “I don’t know if I can, but I’ll try. You say you’re looking for something to deflect them; I may have it. There’s a longstanding KGB operation that goes back to the days of the NKVD—to the thirties. It’s called Operatsiya Paminyatchik-”
“Sorry,” interrupted the man from State. “My Russian’s not very good without an interpreter.”
“It doesn’t matter; an interpreter wouldn’t know it. It’s a code name. It stands for a strategy that calls for young children, even infants, selected by doctors and brought over here. They’re placed with specific families—deep-cover Marxists—and grow up as Americans, in every superficial way normal, the more successful the better. But all through the years they’re being trained—programmed, if you like—for their adult assignments, which are dependent on their given skills and development. It comes down to infiltration—again, the higher the better.”
“Good Lord,” said Pierce quietly. “I’d think there’d be enormous risks in such a strategy. Such people have to be instilled with extraordinary belief.”
“Oh, they believe, it’s the essential part of their programming. They’re also monitored; the slightest deviation, and they’re either eliminated or brought back to Mother Russia, where they’re reeducated while training others at the American compounds in the Urals and in Novgorod. The main point is that we’ve never really been able to crack the operation; the few we’ve taken are the least competent and so low on the ladder they haven’t been able to shed any light. But we may have cracked it now. We’ve got ourselves an honest-to-God paminyatchik who’s sanctioned for killing, as part of an execution unit. His kind has access—must have access—to clearance centers and source controls. There’s too much risk in killing, too many possibilities for overreaction, to say nothing of being caught. Orders have to be rechecked, authorization confirmed.”
“You’ve got such a man? My God, where?”
“He’s being flown now to Bethesda—he’s wounded—and, later tonight, will be transferred to a clinic in Virginia.”
“Don’t lose him! Is there a doctor with him? A good one?”
“I think so. He’s a clinic specialist named Taylor; he’ll stay with him.”
“Then by morning you think you’ll be able to give me something I can use with the Soviets? This could be the deflection I need. I counter their attacks with an attack of my own. I accuse-”
“I can give it to you now,” interrupted Havelock, “but you can’t use it until I tell you. Tomorrow night at the earliest. Can you stall that long?”
“I think so. What is it?”
“We put him under chemicals an hour ago. I don’t know how the right people are reached, but I know the cover identity of their clearing center. Also the code name for the paminyatchik source control for this area—which I have to assume includes the Washington operation, the most vital in the U.S.”
Arthur Pierce shook his head in astonishment and admiration. “You floor me,” he said, with respect in his quiet voice. “I told you I was a little awestruck. Well, I take it back, I’m a lot awestruck. What can I use?”
“Whatever you have to. After tomorrow I’ll trade off the whole Operatsiya Paminyatchik for another few days.”
“The President told me a few minutes ago—he called after reaching you. You think you’re that close to Parsifal?”
“We’ll be closer still when we get Taylor’s patient down to the clinic. With a few words he can put us within arm’s reach of the man we call Ambiguity. And unless everything that we’ve projected—that Bradford projected—is wrong—and I don’t think it is, it can’t be—once we have Ambiguity we’ll know who Parsifal is. I’ll know.”
“Christ, how?”
“Matthias as much as told me I know him. Are you familiar with a company, a chain of stores, called the Voyagers Emporium?”
“Most of my luggage is, I regret to say. At least, my bank account regrets it.”
“Somewhere inside, in a department or a section, that’s the KGB clearing center. Ambiguity has to stay in touch; it’s where he gets his orders, transmits information. We’ll break it quietly—very quietly—tear it apart and find him. We don’t need much; we know where he’s located.”
“Right where you see him every day,” said Pierce, nodding. “What about the code name for the source control?”
“Hammer-zero-two. It doesn’t mean anything to us, and it can be changed by the network overnight, but the fact that we broke it, broke the paminyatchik circle so decisively, has got to make someone sweat inside the Kremlin.” Michael paused, then added, “When I give you the go-ahead, use what you need, all of it or any part. It’s basically a diversion, what you call deflection, but I think it’s a strong one. Create a diplomatic rhubarb, cause a storm of cables between Moscow and New York. Just buy us time.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure we don’t have a choice. We need time.”
“You could lose the source control.”
“Then we’ll lose him. We can live with a source control—we’ve all got them in more than sixty countries. We can’t live with Parsifal. Any of us.”
“I’ll wait for your call.” The undersecretary of State glanced at his watch, squinting in the dim light to read the radium dial. “I still have a few minutes before we leave. The vault specialist had to be flown in from Los Alamos; he’s meeting with one of the men from his company who brought him the internal diagrams.… There’re so many things I want to ask, so much I need to know.”
“I’m here as long as you are; when you leave, I leave. I heard it from the President.”
“I like him. I haven’t always liked presidents.”
“Because you know he doesn’t give a damn whether you do or not—not while he’s in the Oval Office. That’s the way I read him. I like him too, and I have every reason in the book not to.”
“Costa Brava? They told me everything.”
“It’s history. Let’s get current What else can I tell you that may help?”
“The obvious,” said Fierce, bis voice descending to a hollow sound. “If Parsifal has reached the Soviets, what can I say—if I’m given the chance to say it? If he’s hinted at the China factor, or at the vulnerabilities in their own counter—strike capabilities, how can I explain it? Where did he get it all? Exposing Matthias is only part of the answer. Frankly, it’s not enough, and I think you know that.”
“I know it.” Havelock tried to collect bis thoughts, to be as dear and concise as possible. “What’s in those so—called agreements is a mix of a thousand moves in a triple—sided chess game, the anchor player being us. Our penetration of the Russian and Chinese systems is far deeper than we’ve ever hinted at, and there are strategy committees set up to study and evaluate every conceivable option in the event some goddamn fool—on any side—gives the order to launch.”
“Such committees, I’m sure, exist in Moscow and Peking.”
“But neither Moscow nor Peking could produce an Anthony Matthias, the man with geopolitical panaceas, respected, even worshiped—no one on either side of the world like him.”
Pierce nodded. “The Soviets treat him as a valued go-between, not as an adversary. The Chinese throw banquets for him and call him a visionary.”
“And when he began to fall apart, he still had the imagination to conceive of the ultimate nuclear chess game.”
“But how?”
“He found a zealot. A naval officer on one of the Pentagon committees who’s up to his eyeballs in overkill theories. He gave Matthias everything. He made copies of all the strategies and counterstrategies the three committees exchanged with one another. They contained authentic data—they had to contain it; those war games are very real on paper. Everything can be checked by computers—the extent of megaton damage inflicted, damage sustained, the limits of punishment before the ground is useless. It was all there, and Matthias put it together. Matthias and the man who’s got us by the throat. Parsifal.”
“I’d say that naval officer is scheduled to begin a long period of confinement.”
“I’m not sure what that would accomplish. At any rate, I’m not finished with him; he’s still got more to give—may have given it by now.”
“Just a minute,” said the undersecretary of State, his face suddenly alive. “Could he be Parsifal?”
“No, not possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because in his own misguided way he believed in what he was doing. He has a permanent love affair with his uniform and his country; he’d neither allow the possibility of compromise nor give the Russians an ounce of ammunition. Decker’s not an original, but he’s genuine. I doubt the Lubyanka could break him.”
“Decker … You’ve got him put away, don’t you?”
“He’s not going anywhere. He’s at home with an escort unit outside.”
Pierce shook his head while reaching into his pocket. “It’s all so insane!” he said as he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and matches. “Care for one?” he asked, preferring the pack.
“No, thanks. I’ve had my quota of five hundred for the day.”
The man from State stuck a match, holding the flame under the cigarette. Without the protection of a second hand, it was extinguished by the wind. He struck another, left palm up, and inhaled, the smoke from his mouth mingling with the vapor of his breath. “At the meeting this afternoon, Ambassador Brooks brought up something I didn’t understand. Ha said an intelligence officer from the KGB had made contact with you and speculated on the identity of the faction in Moscow who’d worked with Matthias at Costa Brava.”
“He meant with Parsifal; Matthias was being led by then. And Rostov—his name’s Rostov—didn’t speculate. He knew. They’re a collection of fanatics in a branch called the VKR, the Voennaya. They make even our Deckers look like flower children. He’s trying to break it open and I wish him luck. It’s crazy, but a dedicated enemy may be one of our hopes.”
“What do you mean, ‘break it open’?”
“Get names, find out who did what and let the saner people deal with them. Rostov’s good; he may do it, and if he does, he’ll somehow get word to me.”
“He will?”
“He’s already offered me a white contact. It happened at Kennedy Airport what I flew in from Paris.”
There was the sound of a gunning engine in the distance. Pierce threw down his cigarette and crushed it under his foot as he spoke. “What more do you think this Decker can give you?”
“He may have spoken to Parsifal but doesn’t know it. Or someone calling for Parsifal. In either case, he was reached at home, which means that somewhere in a couple of hundred thousand long-distance records is a specific call made to a specific number at a specific time.”
“Why not a couple of million records?”
“Not if we’ve got a general location.”
“Do you?”
“I’ll know more by tomorrow. When you get back—”
“Mr. Undersecretary! Mr. Undersecretary!” The shouting was accompanied by the roar of the jeep’s motor and the screeching of its tires as it came to a stop only a few feet from them. “Undersecretary Pierce?” said the driver.
“Who gave you my name?” asked Pierce icily.
“There’s an urgent telephone call for you, sir. They said it was your office at the United Nations and they have to speak to you.”
“The Soviets,” said Pierce under his breath to Havelock; his alarm was apparent “Please, wait for me.”
The undersecretary of State swung himself rapidly into the air force jeep and nodded to the driver; his eyes were on the lights of the maintenance hangar. Michael pulled his coat around him, his attention drawn to the small propjet aircraft several hundred feet away in the opposite direction. The left engine had been started, and the pilot was revving it; the right coughed into operation seconds later. Then Havelock saw another jeep; it had taken the place of the fuel truck next to the plane. The vault specialist had arrived; the departure for Poole’s Island was imminent.
Arthur Pierce returned six minutes later, climbed out of the open vehicle and dismissed the driver. “It was the Soviets,” he said, approaching Michael. “They wanted an unrecorded, unlogged meeting tomorrow morning; that means an emergency. I reached the senior aide of the delegation and told him I had called my own emergency conference tomorrow on the strength of their reactions late this afternoon. I also suggested I might have information for them that would necessitate a storm of cables—I used your phrase—between New York, their embassy in Washington and Moscow. I hinted that perhaps the pounding shoe was in another hand.” The undersecretary stopped, hearing the preliminary warm—up of the jets from the plane in the distance; the jeep was leaving the area. “That’s my signal; the vault specialist’s here. You know, it’s going to take at least three hours to break into that room. Walk over with me, will you?”
“Sure. What was the Soviets’ reaction?”
“Very negative, of course. They know me; they sense a deflection, a diversion—to use your word. We agreed to meet tomorrow evening.” Pierce paused and turned to Havelock. “For God’s sake, give me the green light, then. I’ll need every argument, every weapon I can have. Among them a medical report diagnosing exhaustion for Matthias … God knows, not the psychiatric file I’m bringing back to you.”
“I forgot. The President was to have gotten it to me yesterday—today.”
“I’m bringing it up.” Pierce started walking again as Michael kept pace. “I can see how it happens.”
“What happens?”
“The days melding into one another. Yesterday, today … tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow. One long, unending, sleepless night.”
“Yes,” said Havelock, feeling no need to amplify.
“How many weeks have you been living it?”
“Jesus.” The roar of the combined engines grew louder as they drew nearer the plane. “I suppose this is actually the safest place to talk,” said Pierce, raising his voice to be heard. “No device could filter that noise.”
“Is that why you wanted to meet on the runway?” asked Michael.
“You probably think I’m paranoid, but yes, it is. I wouldn’t care if we were in the control room of a NORAD base, I’d want the walls swept before having a conversation like the one we just had. You probably do think I’m paranoid. After all, this is Andrews—”
“I don’t think you’re paranoid at all,” interrupted Havelock. “I think I should have thought of it.”
The door of the small aircraft was open, the metal steps in place. The pilot signaled from his lighted window; Pierce waved back, nodding affirmatively. Michael walked with the undersecretary to within ten feet of the door where the wash of the propellers was strong and growing stronger.
“You said something about having a general location in mind regarding that call to Decker,” shouted Pierce. “Where is it?”
“Somewhere in the Shenandoah,” yelled Havelock. “It’s only speculation, but Decker delivered the materials there.”
“I see.”
The engines roared a sudden crescendo, and the wind from the propeller blades reached gale force, whipping the hat from Arthur Pierce’s head. Michael crouched, scrambling after it through the powerful wash. He stopped it with his foot and carried it back to the undersecretary of State.
“Thanks very much!” shouted Pierce.
Havelock stared at the face in front of him, at the streak of white that sprang up from the forehead and shot through the mass of wavy dark hair.