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"Sit down, gentlemen."
The Vice President's kindly eyes drifted over the group of men,
embracing them all with a fatherly smile. "At ease, if you
prefer," he added as an afterthought.
John Linker didn't like the
atmosphere that Pentagonal comportment fostered. He thought it
artificial, not conducive to creative thinking. He didn't like
the pomp, the regimentation, the saluting. He liked even less
the collection of metal the soldiers liked to append to their
chests, as if to prove how brave they were.
"The brave ones are dead,"
he once told a marine colonel who looked down at officers who
did not display their medals.
The brave ones were dead,
and those who were brave and lived did not find it necessary
to publicly display their decorations. Their heroic deeds were
things of the past. "So you were brave once?" he asked
another one-star, freshly baked general who got most of his boy-scout
badges by sending others to do a man's job. "Just how may
times have you risked your life, young man?" he asked,
staring the officer in the eyes. The one-star freshman had not
risen through the ranks. He'd risen through connections. He knew
the right people.
"At ease, gentlemen,"
Linker repeated, seating himself at the head of the table. "We
have work to do."
Actually, Vice President Linker
wasn't at the head of the table. He sat at its very end. Joshua
Rosengart, his Chief of Staff, already occupied the head. A good
man, if a trifle too ambitious. Rosengart had the ability to
talk around any subject in such a way that no one was really
sure what he was talking about. He was Linker's official spokesman.
The man he relied on to keep himself in the shadows.
When Linker entered, the last
to arrive, all the men had stood to attention. All except Joshua.
John and Joshua had been friends for a long time.
The Vice President's eyes
ran over the faces. The men's bodies were now presumably relaxed,
but their faces remained at attention. All eyes were turned towards
him. He was the architect. He called the shots of the Plan. Not
President Twigg. Only he, John Linker.
Linker
smiled. He liked to
smile. Just a little, a grimace almost, but it put his men at
ease. At ease, but off balance.
Boys liked to play soldiers,
and he needed their dedication, loyalty and expertise. He would
have preferred to carry out the whole operation with the CIA,
which was closer to his heart, but the plainclothes could no
longer be trusted. "That would never have happened while
he was in charge," he thought. It never had. One took one's
orders from the President and carried them out. Now . . . now
there was a smell of divided loyalty.
There had been whispers of
division of power, of loyalty to the people, and such like. People?
What people? Linker had never met anyone who knew precisely what
he or she wanted. Not as far as the big picture was concerned.
They followed the party line, or their religious leaders, or
some outdated socialistic aspirations. As he had once. Then he'd
read Ayn Rand. He'd never looked back. That was some forty years
ago. He shrugged his shoulders, even as Atlas had.
It won't be long now, he mused,
that same little smile drifting across his face.
"Brad?"
This time his voice, still
gentle, carried a ring of authority. Authority which, those present
knew, it would not be wise to question. There were stories circulating
around Washington about mysterious disappearances. No one would
presume to suggest that the VP had anything to do with them,
but the stories persisted. Of course, those whispers had nothing
to do with their Cause. With the Plan. After all, Linker was
the Vice President, and as far as the world outside these four
walls was concerned, they were here for their usual game of bridge.
It was Rosengart who had suggested
calling their trysts a bridge club. One table, six men in all.
Four playing, two waiting their turn. The Vice President liked
the idea. He also liked the similarity to the game of bridge.
It wasn't a question of which cards you were dealt but rather
how well you played. A brilliant player can win at bridge even
with repeatedly poor hands.
Linker made sure men reported
directly to him. "The President is too busy with world problems,"
he'd told them. "I wouldn't bother him with details."
According to Linker, all that issued from the Pentagon were details.
He also made sure that all present had already read the reports
presented at the meetings. This was the place for discussion,
not for doing one's homework.
"Your deal," Linker
said, pointing at a tall man on his right.
Brad Schwartz sat up even
straighter. It was quite evident that the two-star general felt
uncomfortable in the civvies. There were stars and stripes written
all over his face. Now and then, Schwartz shed his uniform on
purpose. He imagined that without his chest brimming with medals,
he was here virtually incognito.
"Yes, Sir." He was
hard pressed not to salute his boss repeatedly. "I put together
a report as per your instruction, Sir. It lists the locations
and numbers of all the silos and suspected arsenals of North
Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, Syria, Egypt...." He read
out another eight or ten countries before his voice hesitated.
"...and?" Linker
prompted, his voice as cold as the ice cubes on the sideboard.
"And France, Sir,"
Schwartz finished.
"Israel?" The question
came out as a whisper.
"We haven't been able
to locate those, Sir," the general said, looking at a spot
on the wall directly in front of him. "Not as yet, Sir,"
he added, his voice losing some of its confidence.
Linker didn't need to be a
trained psychologist to detect a twinge of discomfort in the
young general. He had only been promoted to two stars a month
ago, mainly to give him greater access to classified information.
One star was still controlled by the 'need to know'. Two stars
decided themselves what they needed to know. A very fundamental
difference.
"Brad," Linker's
eyes resumed their fatherly gaze. "We must be prepared for
all contingencies." And then, as the Vice President's eyes
met the young general's, the blue in Linker's eyes turned to
tempered steel. "If you feel uncomfortable...."
"No, Sir!" The man
rose to attention. "No, Sir!" he repeated, his hand
halfway up to a perfunctory salute. "You will have all the
coordinates for all locations by tomorrow morning," he said,
still saluting. Even if I have to work all night, he thought.
"Sit down, Brad. I know
we can trust you. Sit down."
There was that grandfatherly
kindness again. Linker knew he could count on the young man.
He had plenty on the young man's dealings in oil during the last
crisis. Brad's father had made a fortune selling oil through
third-party deals to places that must remain secret. At least,
for now.
Brad Schwartz had previously
placed a stack of satellite photos in front of each man at the
table. He went on to describe the cartographic characteristics.
"We know these locations," he added, "to within
inches!" He couldn't help letting pride creep into his tone.
"Why, we could, right now...."
"That's enough for now,
Brad," Linker cut him short, nodding knowingly. "We
mustn't run ahead of ourselves."
Brad Schwartz looked nonplused.
He had been looking forward to sharing his coup de grâce
with his colleagues. Or was it friends? He glanced around the
table. Does one really have friends in this business, he wondered.
(cont. in the
book)
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