Seven Days in May

Thursday Morning

Jordan Lyman put down the telephone. He had hardly heard what Casey said. He stared again at the piece of yellow paper torn from the news ticker in press secretary Frank Simon's office.

upi-13

(plane)

madrid---48 persons, including a top white house aide, were killed early today when a trans-ocean jet airliner crashed in the rugged guadarrama mountains northwest of madrid.

paul girard, 45, appointments secretary to president lyman, was one of 21 americans believed to have died in the crash. the plane, bound for new york, crashed and exploded shortly after its pilot radioed that he was having "mechanical trouble" and was returning to madrid for repairs.

authorities said there were no survivors. officials of the airline, the nation's second largest overseas air carrier, could offer no immediate explanation for the accident.

5/16---GR712AED

Lyman looked up at Simon, standing in front of his desk. The young man's thin face was drawn tight.

"Jesus, Mr. President, this is awful, isn't it?" Simon said. "I'm so sorry. I didn't even know Paul was out of town until the wires started calling me at four o'clock this morning."

Lyman grasped the arms of his chair and half rose out of it. His voice shook with anger.

"I've just lost my closest friend in this place and you're worrying about what those goddam reporters think of you, Simon. Do you really think that matters to anyone now?"

He sank back again, closed his eyes, and with a visible effort got himself in hand.

"Paul is gone, Frank. That's all that counts."

Simon stood rigid in front of the President's desk, stunned as much by Lyman's interpretation of his remark as by the sudden surge of fury in his voice.

"Please, Mr. President," he said, almost whispering. "Paul was my friend too."

Lyman looked at him, then slowly shook his head as if to clear it. "Of course, Frank. I'm sorry. It's just ..." He stopped. "Look, we'll have to get out a statement. Would you see if you could draft something for me? You know what I'd want to say."

"About his being away, Mr. President ..."

"Say he was abroad on vacation, but was returning at my request to handle some details of the missile strike. Don't say much."

No, don't say much, Lyman thought. Don't say that I sent him over there to get killed doing a dirty job for me, trying to save my skin. Don't say he did it just as well as he did everything else for me. Don't say I don't know what I'll do without him. Say he was on vacation.

When Simon returned a few minutes later with the proposed White House statement, he found the President hunched over his desk, chin in his hands, staring at the water color that hung on a side wall. It was a picture of his boyhood home in Norwalk, Ohio. Lyman glanced at the draft.

"It's all right, Frank," he said without looking up at the press secretary.

On the way out of the oval office, Simon stopped at Esther Townsend's desk and motioned over his shoulder with his thumb.

"Gee, Esther, he's really shook up over Paul, isn't he?"

"If you only knew," she said.

"Listen," Simon asked, "is something else the matter? I've had a funny feeling for the last couple of days that things are running downhill around here. No appointments, nothing scheduled."

"He's worrying about the treaty, Frank." She shrugged. "It's a low spot. One of those times."

At his desk, Lyman felt physically faint. He could see Girard's big ugly head before him, could see that half-warm, half-cynical smile, could hear him talking rough common sense on this ghastly business about General Scott. He could hear the voice as it came filtered over the telephone last night. Now Paul was gone and, worse, the evidence gone with him. Pardon me, Paul, wherever you are, Lyman thought, for mentioning the evidence in the same breath. But it has made things almost impossible.

He tried to think through the developments since Tuesday. Girard's call last night confirmed the worst. Corwin's report showed that Harold MacPherson was in the middle of whatever Scott was planning. There would be ECOMCON troops, perhaps, at Mount Thunder on Saturday. Casey's story of the income tax return? Mildly interesting, perhaps, but worthless as evidence.

The President felt the breath of panic. He needed hard-rock fact to smash this thing, but where was it? And where was Ray Clark? Not a single word from Ray since he last saw him Tuesday night. Thinking of his predicament-and of Clark-he began to feel the old crawl in his stomach, the same one that had paralyzed him on the line in Korea. Far back in a mist-draped morning, he could see the stubborn set of Clark's jaw and feel the sting as Clark's open hand hit him. His efforts to blank out the scene failed. All at once he realized that his shirt was wet with sweat. Why hadn't Clark called?

Jordan Lyman was calmer, but by no means composed, when Christopher Todd walked into the office half an hour later. Todd's fresh appearance provided some reassurance of reality for Lyman.

They had joked last night, when Lyman called him after Girard's report from Gibraltar. Now, like the President, Todd was somber.

"We're in rough water, Mr. President," he said.

"Terrible," Lyman replied. "Or maybe you still have some doubts left, Chris?"

"Not after Girard's call," said the Secretary. "When a man you trust completely substantiates an allegation, there's not much room left for doubts. The devil of it is we don't know what Barnswell told him."

"No, we don't. I think maybe we better send Corwin over to see him again. Or what about you?"

Todd shook his head. "I've had too much experience with reluctant witnesses, Mr. President. That won't work. Barnswell knows about Girard. If he's as smooth as they say, he'd consider another emissary from you as a sign of panic and slip right back onto Scott's mooring."

The President looked moodily at his Secretary of the Treasury. Todd permitted himself a thin smile.

"But this income tax return of Miss Segnier's is quite interesting, Jordan." Todd leaned forward. "I had the pertinent section read to me a few minutes ago, and it will all be down here this afternoon from the New York office. Really, now-a woman trying to deduct three thousand dollars for entertaining General Scott. You could smash him with that."

Lyman smiled tolerantly at the lawyer as he would at a younger brother. The very effort seemed to lighten his mood a little.

"Chris," he said quietly, "that's blackmail. You don't really think I'd use a thing like that, a man's relations with a woman, to defend my oath of office, do you?"

"By God, Mr. President, if I were sure this was a case of sedition, I'd use anything I could get my hands on."

The light on the President's telephone winked. It was Art Corwin with a report on Scott: The General had just arrived at the Pentagon, but had first gone from Fort Myer to the Dobney, picked up Senator Prentice and driven him to 14th and Constitution before letting him out. Prentice seemed upset, Corwin said, as he stood on the curb trying to flag down a taxi to take him on to Capitol Hill.

Esther Townsend had come in unnoticed. She closed the door behind her as silently as she had opened it.

"Mr. President, excuse me," she said. "I'm holding another call. It's Secretary Burton. He says he must talk to you."

Lyman raised his hand in a signal of protest.

"Esther, I can't talk to Tom right now. Make some excuse for me, will you?"

Todd grunted. "This is hardly the moment to burden your employer with the multifarious problems of health, education and welfare, Miss Townsend."

"Tom doesn't come running down here without a good reason, Chris," Lyman said, "but somebody else will have to handle him today. What's his problem?"

"He says time is running out on those Social Security amendments," Esther said. "You've only got two more days left to decide whether to sign the bill. He says he's got to talk to you about it. He says it's vital."

"Important, yes. Vital, no-not this week. I know how he feels about the bill already, and I'm not going to do anything until I get the report from Budget. He better talk to them."

Esther nodded and started to leave. Then, pausing at the door, she turned back. "Mr. President, Secretary Burton is only one of about two dozen calls I've got stacked up for you. I haven't bothered you with the others."

"I know, Esther, and thank you," Lyman said. "Now, be a good girl and think up something nice to tell Tom."

Todd got to his feet, tugging at his lapels to settle the collar of his jacket properly.

"It's time to hoist the storm warnings, Mr. President," he said. "I'm going back to the office and work out a plan. I've got a feeling you may have to move tonight."

"How?"

"That's what I'm going to figure out."

Lyman glowered at the stack of papers on the right-hand side of his desk-the clerical chores of the Presidency, untouched since Monday. There were commissions and several minor executive orders for his signature, policy papers from State to be read, and several recommendations from the Attorney General for judicial appointments. A pending judgeship in Chicago rested on top of the heap. The Attorney General recommended Benjamin Krakow, a member of the city's leading Democratic law firm. He had backed Lyman before the convention. The Bar Association had him on its list of three men it suggested for the vacancy.

The President wrote "O.K., Jordan Lyman" on the bottom of the sheet and put it over on the left side of his desk. He was reaching for the second paper when Esther came in again.

"It's Saul Lieberman," she said. "He said it's imperative he see you this morning. I didn't encourage him."

Lyman hesitated only a moment. "If Saul says it's imperative, it is. Tell him to come over right away. And, Esther, tell him to come in the front door, and tell Frank Simon to post the appointment in the pressroom. At least they won't think I'm dead."

Saul Lieberman was Director of Central Intelligence. If Lyman had required IQ tests for his appointees, Lieberman would have led the field with twenty points to spare. He had been an enlisted man in the Army Counterintelligence Corps during World War II, then went home to Detroit to found a retail credit agency that spread into half the states and made him rich. Two private missions behind the iron curtain and service on several presidential committees which weighed the shortcomings of the Central Intelligence Agency gained him a small reputation in the elite world of espionage, but Lyman surprised the world at large when he named him to head CIA.

Lieberman was almost aggressively uncouth. He wore his lack of civility as a badge of honor and enjoyed torturing Washington hostesses with the Ham-tramck slang of his boyhood. In eighteen months he had become a conversation piece in the capital; never had the Ivy-clad CIA known such a sidewalk product.

"How's the private eye of the cold war?" Lyman asked as Lieberman bustled in ten minutes later.

"Lousy, Mr. President. I was shocked to hear about Paul. Believe me, I wouldn't have bothered you today if this wasn't important."

"That's all right, Saul. I understand."

"After what else I learned this morning," Lieberman said, "I should be spending the day at the health club. Look at this."

He pulled a paper from his coat pocket and slid it across the President's desk. It was a plain outline map of Russia, the kind children use in geography classes for penciling in rivers and cities.

In one area of Siberia someone had marked a cross in red crayon.

"That's Yakutsk," Lieberman said, "and it's bad news. We have it so straight I don't argue with it. Feemerov is starting to assemble the Z-4 at Yakutsk."

Lyman stared at his intelligence chief without expression. The Z-4 was the Russian equivalent of the Olympus, America's neutron-warhead missile. The treaty did not call for scrapping of the missiles themselves, but it did require dismantling of the warheads, with inspection of existing plants to guarantee that no more would be made.

If Feemerov had built a new Z-4 plant in secret, where the treaty inspectors could not see it, the implications were staggering. It meant the Kremlin had decided to cheat on the treaty, taking a calculated risk of being discovered and denounced. It could mean the end of Lyman's meticulous plans and deepest hopes. Indeed-the thought struck him like a blow in the stomach-it might eventually mean the end of civilization.

And more immediately, it meant that General Scott's often-expressed doubts had been proved correct. In the way the mind skitters ahead under tension, playing like summer lightning on infinite possibilities, he could see the headlines:

LYMAN PATSY FOR REDS,

REPUBLICAN CHARGES

And if Scott were correct, what right had he, a President proved gullible, to oppose him now?

Lyman sagged in his swivel chair. His face, to Lieberman, seemed blank and colorless. The intelligence director spoke quickly, as though he were a fresh wind with power to lift a drooping flag.

"We got little bits and pieces of this beginning Monday, Mr. President. But they didn't add up. We knew a special alloy used in the Z-4 was being shipped to Yakutsk. Tuesday, three scientists who are the brains of Z-4 were flown out there from Moscow in a special plane. Then last night the watch officer at the NIC called me. He says, 'Saul, they're building the Z-4 at Yakutsk.' "

The NIC was the intelligence community's National Indications Center in a subbasement of the Pentagon. There specialists from all intelligence services, aided by banks of electronic computers, stood a 24-hour watch on everything that moved in the Communist world. Their mission: to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of Red movements-troops, machines, raw materials, political leaders, scientists, weapons-so as to anticipate any major venture that could threaten the United States.

Lyman said nothing. Lieberman went on with his story.

"I got over there about midnight, real skeptical. In this business I got to be shown. By three this morning I knew the boys were right. They got word on no less than twenty-five or twenty-six items, all exclusive with the Z-4 and all pouring into Yakutsk like rats toward a hanging side of beef."

Lieberman leaned across the desk and began marking the little map. From Moscow he drew a line with his pencil: the three scientists. From Novosibirsk, another line: a new black box for the missile's complex guidance system. From Volgograd, several delicate electronic components made only in one factory there, and used only in the Z-4. The lines multiplied and crisscrossed.

"Has anything like this turned up in China?" asked Lyman.

"Nope," Lieberman said. "Maybe Feemerov's cheating on his Peiping buddies, too."

"If this is true," Lyman said, "the treaty is dead. And maybe the world too."

"It never figured, Mr. President," said Lieberman, "if you'll pardon me for saying it. I mean the Commies never figured to go through with it."

"No, Saul, I guess it never figured." As he said it, Lyman could see the sunrise in Vienna, Feemerov's outstretched hand, the blink of photo flashbulbs. He could feel the dry itch on his skin from lack of sleep. Above all, he could feel again his own relief and elation.

Now he merely sighed.

"I suppose the Joint Chiefs have been notified?" he asked.

"Yes. The NIC duty officer is supposed to be briefing General Scott right now. We knocked off another evaluation conference. It looked too sure to all of us."

Lyman played with the edges of the map as he thought. Lieberman obviously expected action. But there's more than one predicament for the country now, Saul, and which comes first? And where is there help? Girard's advice is gone-forever. Ray Clark is -is where? There's only Chris. No, there's only Jordan Lyman. The President is alone again. Oh, dry up, Jordie. Get back to earth.

Lyman buzzed and Esther came in at once.

"Esther," the President said, "please get word to all members that there will be a special meeting of the National Security Council Tuesday morning. Make it nine o'clock. Say it's important and no deputies should be sent as substitutes."

Esther scribbled swiftly and withdrew.

"Tuesday?" asked Lieberman. "That's five days away, Mr. President."

Lyman nodded. "I want it that way. We've got to be absolutely sure that we're solid on this build-up before we blow the whistle. I can't jeopardize the treaty on flash information, even though you and I believe it. And I want everybody there, including Vince Gianelli, and he won't be back from Italy until then."

Lieberman's mobile features showed his frustration.

"Look, Saul," the President said. "There's more than six weeks to go until July 1. Whatever we do, it's got to be just right."

When the CIA director left, Lyman found himself trying to sweat this new horror down to size. For the first time that day there were no barriers in his mind to inhibit thought. Russian duplicity, at least, was familiar stuff. Unlike the Scott affair, it was not only plausible but could be countered by techniques that were already on the books.

Lyman knew at once that if the CIA evidence held up under further checking, no pale move would suffice. Feemerov's secret audacity demanded a bold public response.

A direct accusation before the United Nations by Lyman? A proposal that Lyman and Feemerov exchange visits to missile-assembly sites, each man to visit a city of his own choosing? Perhaps a televised speech to the world, using the new satellite communications relays, declaring that America had evidence of developments in Yakutsk and demanding that the Kremlin admit the international inspectors at once? Or, bolder yet, why not fly to Moscow and personally challenge Feemerov to accompany him to any United States missile site-stopping first at Yakutsk?

Lyman frothed with ideas. He scribbled notes rapidly on his memo pad. Maybe, he thought, this is actually a blessing. This may be the turning point, after two decades of trying to live with what his national security aides called "the insupportable." Perhaps not even the brutal and opaque Kremlin could withstand the revulsion of world opinion if Feemerov were caught cheating now. Put the facts to him privately, give him a chance to back down and clean out Yakutsk? There were dozens of fruitful alternatives.

But what about Scott? Suppose he seizes on this intelligence and spills it to the country before I can get to him? Suppose we can't stop him before Saturday? How can he be stopped?

"Esther," he asked on the intercom, "any word yet from Ray?"

"I'm sorry, Governor. Still not a thing."

Lyman crumpled his notes and Lieberman's little map of Russia, then smoothed them out again and slowly tore them into little pieces. As he dropped the shreds into the wastebasket, a thought struck him. The irony of it forced him to smile.

Do you suppose, he wondered, if General Scott is sitting in this chair next Tuesday, he will wish he had the National Security Council to help him decide what to do about Yakutsk?