“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.”
27
“These are.… insane!” whispered Havelock, his eyes riveted on the screen. “And we’re a partner to each? Each commits us to a nuclear strike—a first strike?”
“A second also, and a third, if necessary, from submarines ringing the coasts first of China, then of Russia. Two insane agreements, Mr. Havelock, and we are, indeed, a party to each. There it is in writing.”
“My God …” Michael scanned the lines of both documents, as if studying the deformed appendages of an obscene, horrible thing. “If these are ever exposed, there’s nothing left.”
“Now you understand,” said Berquist, his gaze, too, fixed on the agreements that filled both sides of the screen, his face drawn, his eyes hollow. “That’s the unendurable threat we’re living with. Unless we follow to the letter the instructions delivered to my office, we face global catastrophe in the truest sense. The threat is simple: the nuclear pact with Russia will be shown to the leaders of the People’s Republic of China, and our agreement with the PRC will be given to Moscow. Both will know they’ve been betrayed—by the richest whore in history. That’s what they’ll believe, and the world will go up in a thousand nuclear explosions. The last words heard will be: ‘This is not an exercise, this is it!’ And that is the truth, Mr. Havelock.”
Michael felt the trembling in his hands, the throbbing at his temples. Something Berquist had just said triggered a sudden uneasiness, but he could not concentrate to identify its source. He could only stare at the two documents projected on the screen. “There’s nothing here about dates,” he said, almost pointlessly.
“It’s on a separate page—these are memoranda of intent. Conferences are to be held during the months of April and May, at which the precise dates of the strikes will be determined. April is scheduled for the Soviets, May is for China. Next month and the month after. The strikes are to occur within forty-five days of each conference.”
“It’s … beyond belief.” Overwhelmed, Havelock suddenly felt the paralysis again. He stared at Berquist. “You connected me with this? These?”
“You were connected. God knows not through your own doing, but dangerously connected. We know how; we don’t know why. But the ‘how’ was enough to place you ‘beyond salvage.’ ”
“For Christ’s sake, h
ow?”
“To begin with, Matthias built the case against your friend Jenna Karas.”
“Matthias?”
“It was he who wanted you out. But we couldn’t be sure. Were you out, or were you simply changing jobs? From the government of the United States to the holy empire of Matthias the Great.”
“Which is why I was watched. London, Amsterdam, Paris … God knows where else.”
“Everywhere you went. But you gave us nothing.”
“And that was grounds for ‘beyond salvage’?”
“I told you, I had nothing to do with the original order.”
“All right, it was this Ambiguity. But later it was you. You reconfirmed it.”
“Later, much later; when we learned what he had learned. Both orders were given, one in sanction, one not, for the same reason. You were penetrating the manipulation—the structure—behind these documents, the link between men in Washington and their unknown counterparts in the KGB. We’re in a race. One miscalculation on your part, one exposure of the flaw in that structure and we have every reason to believe that these agreements, these invitations to Armageddon, would be shown to the leaders in Moscow and Peking.”
“Wait a minute!” cried Havelock, bewildered, angry. “That’s what you said before! Goddamn it, these were negotiated with Moscow and Peking!”
The President of the United States did not reply. Instead, he walked to the nearest chair at the table and sat down, the back of his large head and his thinning blond hair reflected in the shaft of light. And then he spoke. “No, they were not, Mr. Havelock,” he said, looking at the screen. “These are the detailed fantasies of a brilliant but mad mind, the words of a superb negotiator.”
“Good God, then deny them! They aren’t real!”
Berquist shook his head. “Read the language!” he said sharply. “It’s literally beyond deniability. There are detailed references to the most secret weapons in our arsenals. Locations, activating codes, specifications, logistics—information that men would be labeled traitors for revealing, their lives ended in prison, none sentenced to less than thirty years for their acts. In Moscow or Peking, those even remotely associated with the armaments data in these documents would be shot without a hearing on the mere possibility they had divulged, knowingly or unknowingly, even a part of it.” The President paused, turning his head slightly to the left, his eyes still on the screen. “What you must understand is that should the leaders in either Moscow or Peking be shown the adversary document, they would be convinced beyond doubt of its authenticity. Every strategic position, each missile capability, every area of destructive responsibility, has been hammered out down to the last detail, nothing left to debate—even to the hours of vehicular robot-controlled occupation of territories.”
“Hammered out?” asked Michael, the phrase a glaring intrusion.
Berquist turned around, his eyes once again the hunter’s, but wary, afraid. “Yes, Mr. Havelock, hammered out. Now you’ve readied the core of Parsifal. These agreements were negotiated by two extraordinary—and extraordinarily informed—minds. Two men hammering out every detail, each step, each point, as though his stature in history depended on the task. A nuclear chess game, the universe to the winner—what’s left of it.”
“How do you know that?”
“Language again. It’s the product of two minds. It doesn’t take a psychiatrist, or a pathologist, to spot the different inputs. More to the point, Matthias couldn’t have created these by himself, he didn’t have the in-depth information that readily available. But with another—a Russian, as knowledgeable about Chinese capabilities as we are—together they could do it. Did it. Two men.”
His gaze fixed on the President, Havelock spoke in a monotone. “Parsifal is that other man, isn’t he?” he asked quietly. “The one who could rip open wounds—all over the world.”
“Yes. He has the original set of these agreements, the only other set that exists, he claims. We have to believe him. He’s got a nuclear gun to our heads—my head.”
“Then he’s been in touch with you,” said Michael, his eyes shifting to the screen. “You got these from him, not Anton.”
“Yes. His demands at first were financial, growing with each contact, until they were beyond being outrageous; they were astronomical. Millions upon millions—and millions after that. We assumed his motive had to be political. He had the resources to buy lesser governments, to finance revolutions throughout the Third World, to promote terrorism. We kept dozens of unstable countries under the closest intelligence scrutiny, penetrating their more entrenched elements with our best people, telling them only to look for the slightest substantive change. We thought we might trace him, trap him. And then we learned that Parsifal had not gone near the money; it was merely the means that told him we would do as he ordered. He’s not interested in money; he never was. He wants control, power. He wants to dictate to the strongest nation on earth.”
“He has dictated. That’s where you made your first mistake.”
“We were buying time. We’re still buying it.”
“At the risk of annihilation?”
“In the all-consuming hope of preventing it. You still don’t understand, Mr. Havelock. We can and probably will parade Anthony Matthias before the world as a madman, destroying the credibility of ten years’ worth of treaties and negotiations, but it will not answer the fundamental question. How in the name of God did the information in these agreements get there? Was it given to a man certifiably insane? If it was, whom else has he divulged it to? And do we willingly deliver to potential enemies the innermost secrets of our offensive and defensive capabilities? Or let them know how deeply we’ve penetrated their own weapons systems?… We have no monopoly on nuclear maniacs. There are men in Moscow and Peking who, at the first perusal of these, would reach for the buttons and launch. Do you know why?”
“I’m not sure.… I’m not sure of anything.”
“Welcome to a very elite club. Let me tell you why. Because it’s taken all of us forty years and uncountable billions to get where we are today. Atomic knives at each other’s throats. There’s no time and not enough money left to begin again. In short, Mr. Havelock, in the desperate attempt to avert a global nuclear holocaust, we might start one.”
Michael swallowed, conscious of doing so, the blood draining from his face. “Simplistic assumptions are out,” he said.
“They’re not even fashionable,” replied Berquist.
“Who is Parsifal?”
“We don’t know. Any more than we know who Ambiguity is.”
“You don’t know?”
“Except that they’re connected. We can assume that.”
“Wait a minute!”
“You keep saying that.”
“You’ve got Matthias! You’re running him through a computerized charade here. Tear into his head! You’ve got a hundred therapies! Use them. Find out!”
“You think we haven’t tried? There’s nothing in the annals of therapy that hasn’t been used—isn’t being used. He’s erased reality from his mind; he’s convinced himself he negotiated with the militarists in Peking and Moscow. He can’t allow it to be otherwise; his fantasies have to be real to him. They protect him.”
“But Parsifal’s alive, he’s not a fantasy! He has a face, eyes, features! Anton’s got to be able to give you something!”
“Nothing. Instead, he describes—accurately, to be sure—known extremists in the Soviet Presidium and China’s Central Committee. Those are the people he sees when these agreements are mentioned—with or without chemicals. That mind of his, that incredible instrument, is as creative in protecting him now as it was when instructing the world of lesser mortals before.”
“Abstractions!” cried Havelock.
“You’ve said that, too.”
“This Parsifal’s real! He exists! He’s got you under a gun!”
“My words, I believe.”
Michael ran to the table and pounded it with his clenc
hed fist. “I can’t believe this!”
“Believe,” said the President, “but don’t do that again. There’s some kind of sonic thing that registers solid decibels, not conversations. If I don’t speak immediately, the vault is opened and you could lose your life.”
“Oh, my God!”
“I don’t need your vote. There’s no third term any long-er-if there is an ‘any longer’—and I wouldn’t seek it, anyway.”
“Are you trying to be funny, Mr. President?”
“Possibly. In times like these, and if circumstances permit you to grow older, you may find a certain comfort in the rare attempt. But I’m not sure … I’m not sure of anything any longer. Millions to build this place, secrecy unparalleled, the finest psychiatrists in the country. Am I being sold a bill of goods? I don’t know. I just know I have nowhere else to go.”
Havelock sank into the chair at the end of the table, feeling vaguely uncomfortable at sitting down in Berquist’s presence without having been instructed to do so. “Oh,” he said meaninglessly, his voice trailing off, looking abjectly at Berquist.
“Forget it,” said the President. “I ordered up your own personal firing squad, remember?”
“I still don’t understand why. You say I penetrated something, a flaw in some structure or other. That if I kept going, these”—Michael looked up at the screen, wincing—“would be given to Moscow or Peking.”
“Not would, might. We couldn’t take the slightest chance that Parsifal might panic. If he did, he’d undoubtedly head for Moscow. I think you know why.”
“He has a Soviet connection. The evidence against Jenna, everything that happened in Barcelona; none of it could have taken place without Russian intelligence.”
“The KGB denies it; that is, a man denies it on an official basis. According to the Cons Op records and a Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Baylor, that man met with you in Athens.”
“Rostov?”
“Yes. He didn’t know what be was denying, of course, but he as much as told us that if there was a connection, it wasn’t sanctioned. We think he’s a worried man; he has no idea how justified he is.”