The First Team

25

As Feodor Zalinsky lay in his hospital bed he could not decide whether he had more pain from the healing incision in his abdomen or from the thoughts pounding in his brain. At least physically he knew that he was on the mend, and perhaps some of the annoying problems that had plagued his body in the past would now be over. That much was good. Mentally things were getting progressively worse. He had been keeping very close watch over his television set, but the steady flow of dispatches from the White

House that he had been receiving had dwindled rapidly during the past twenty-four hours. In plain language that meant one thing: Gregor Rostovitch was taking over.

The constant parade of medical attendants in and out of his room he accepted as necessary; since he was in their hands he cooperated with their demands and endured their ministrations without complaint. In return for this they had given him what was obviously expert care from the beginning and had even gone so far as to prepare certain foods which he sensed were not part of the usual hospital routine. The guard that had been stationed in his room he had ordered removed as unnecessary and at times inconvenient, such as when he wished to use the bedpan. The man sat outside, across the hall in a chair that had been provided for him, and thereby allowed Zalinsky some partial feeling, at least, of privacy and quiet. He rested as best he could and thought, more often than he wanted to, of his home and family that were so distant in both time and kilometers.

When three more medical people came unannounced into his room he looked up to determine what new benevolent discomfort they were about to inflict on him. Then one of them pulled down a surgical mask and said to him in his own language. “Good afternoon, Mr. Zalinsky, how are you feeling?”

Zalinsky lifted himself on his elbows, looked into the face of the man who had spoken to him, and said, “You have just assassinated yourself.”

Hewlitt shook his head. “I hope not, because a lot more depends on my talking to you than just my own personal welfare. I asked, how are you feeling?”

Zalinsky fell back onto the pillows propped behind him. “I am progressing, or so I am informed. Perhaps in a week I shall be better. I now ask you a question: is it true that you had an interview with Colonel Rostovitch in my office from which you walked away a free man?”

Hewlitt nodded. “In part, yes. I did talk to Colonel Rostovitch; he accused me of being a spy.”

“He was right, of course. How, then, did you get away?”

“He accused me also of sleeping with Amy Thornbush. I remembered that you had mentioned that name to me and I guessed what it might mean. So I gave it back to him and walked out while he was checking up on it.”

“Your life expectancy is now shorter than the needles that they plunge into me here. Why have you come to see me?”

“Because of what Colonel Rostovitch has done and what he proposes to do.”

Zalinsky rolled his head on the pillows to loosen the muscles of his neck. “The hostages, I know. But you should know what kind of a man he is, the high diver should have told you.”

“He did, I spoke with him yesterday.”

“That is impossible unless you used radio; he is on board the submarine.”

Not to the slightest degree did Hewlitt reveal the electric feeling that those words conveyed to him. He kept his face, his posture, and his voice unchanged. Percival stood on the other side of the bed, but there was no way he could pass the information, and Percival did not understand the language they were using.

“Mr. Zalinsky,” Hewlitt said. “I have known you now for some time. You are a very tough person, I have never underrated you there, but you are also a practical man with common sense. You can run steel mills.”

“If you are asking me to countermand Colonel Rostovitch, you have undertaken a hopeless task. I am the administrator; I run the country, yes, but its internal security is entirely up to the colonel, and he reports directly to the premier.”

“So do you, isn’t that so?”

“Yes, but the colonel…”

“Mr. Zalinsky, I have come to tell you something. Colonel Rostovitch received a message, only a few minutes ago, from Thomas Jefferson. Do you know what it is?”

“What is Thomas Jefferson? Of course I know!”

“I mean, do you know what the message said?”

“It has not yet been transmitted to me.”

Hewlitt was not certain, but he thought that he detected a hint of bitterness in that. The message probably would be relayed on to Zalinsky — but it might be delayed.

“I have been told what it is,” Hewlitt said. Then he quoted the context exactiy, translating it for the benefit of the administrator. “You are very important to this Thomas Jefferson, is it not so?”

Hewlitt shook his head. “No, Mr. Zalinsky, I am not. I have nothing whatever to do with decision or policy. I was sent to see you only because we know one another.”

“What is it that you want from me?”

“Mr. Zalinsky, like every decent human being, I do not like to see people die in war.”

Hewlitt was only beginning, but Zalinsky interrupted him. “Then it is easy, surrender as you were directed; give up your few and save the great many.”

“You don’t fully understand, Mr. Zalinsky. We do not want people like Colonel Rostovitch keeping watch over everything that we do, and doing the things that he has done in the past. Mr. Zalinsky, I do not want one thousand of our people to die, but much more I do not want to see three million of your people die. And more than that if the Ramon Magsaysay unleashes her full power. You will have no country left.”

“And neither will you.”

Hewlitt nodded. “But at the moment, we have much less to lose than you do, because our country has been largely taken from us. Think, Mr. Zalinsky, and count up the nations that you can call your enemies whonvould rush in to finish the job if we lay you flat on your back.”

“I am precisely in that position now,” Zalinsky said. “It is visible to you.”

“Very well, suppose that you had personal enemies in this building who knew of your condition, where you were, and that you were not only unguarded, but that there was no one to avenge you if they struck. How long would you last?”

Once more Zalinsky propped himself up on his elbows. “All right, I am a sick man. I cannot defend myself. In my office sits Gregor Rostovitch. Do you believe that he will remove himself simply to please me if I call him and suggest it? You met him, you should know.” He reached for a glass of water; Hewlitt handed it to him.

“I don’t want you to call the colonel, I want you to call the Actor,” Hewlitt said. “He is balancing on a tightwire right now. Let him release the hostages in the name of humanity and the whole world will approve.”

“And Gregor Rostovitch will sit in his chair within a month.”

The phone beside Zalinsky’s bed rang once softly. Reaching over with some effort the administrator picked it up. “It will be the message,” he said.

Hewlitt contained himself and kept his face impassive, but with an effort. He had been making his play, and it was the one time that he did not want to be interrupted for any reason.

Zalinsky listened to the instrument and then his face visibly changed color. “There is no possibility of a mistake?” he asked in his own language. Once more he listened; then he spoke a few brief words and hung up. After that he pulled bedclothes up under his chin and surveyed Hewlitt with renewed interest. “Your timing,” he said finally, “I admit that it is superb. You will know very shortly anyway so I tell you now, Colonel Rostovitch is dead. Is it now that you are going to kill me?”

Hewlitt repeated back the news, in English, as though to convince himself that he had heard correctly. “Colonel Rostovitch is dead, you absolutely affirm this?”

“I have just been so told.”

Hewlitt kept his face as composed as it had been. He had gambled before and he had won; he was prepared to gamble again. “Mr. Zalinsky, I will tell you the absolute truth: we will not permit the hostages to be killed and we have very strong ways to prevent that. But the most merciful thing is for you to give the order that they are to be released. There is no one in this country to challenge your authority and I know you — you would not do this thing that Rostovitch had planned because you are too good a manager — the price to your own people would be unthinkable. You are the man who shut down the steel mill while you put the machines where they had to be; this is the same thing. You are tough, but you are not, and never will be, insane like Rostovitch.”

“You knew that Rostovitch was to be killed then?”

Hewlitt saw a sudden ray of light. “I came here to see you. Before you knew what was to happen, you told me that I had assassinated myself.”

Zalinsky looked at him, then eased himself back onto his pillows. “If I am to die,” he said, “return to me what I did for your Major Landers and let it be very quick and painless. I am not a man of great physical courage; at least I do not wish to be exterminated.”

Hewlitt continued the role he had unwittingly assumed. “Mr. Zalinsky, I have specifically given the order that you are not to die, that your recovery is to continue with the best care that we can give you, and that you are to be treated with consideration, if you will do this one thing that will redeem you before the whole country that I represent. It is the only possible decision. Otherwise, our submarine will fire. And you know that it is not sunk; you told me so yourself a few minutes ago.”

Zalinsky raised his arms and rubbed his face. Then he picked up the telephone and called for Major Barlov once more. When he had him on the line he asked for a further report on the death of Gregor Rostovitch. When that had been done, he said, “Very well. List the names of the hostages and then let them go for the time being. I will make a decision within twenty-four hours.”

“You are a very great man,” Barlov said over the line.

“Are you one of them too?”

Apparently Barlov did not presume to take that seriously. “Excellency, I venture to say to you that I feared greatly for our country; the power of the submarine, it is terrible. Of this I know. And my wife and family, you know where they live.”

“And mine also,” Zalinsky said. “But it is the jackals I consider now — if we get into this, they will gather to devour our flesh and there are a great many of them.”

“As I said, excellency, you are a great man. You see things to which others are blind.”

“Give the necessary orders in my name.”

“Yes, excellency. What shall I do with the man who caused Colonel Rostovitch to depart from us?”

“You have him in custody?”

“Yes, excellency.”

“Be careful that he does not escape. If he were to escape, I could not avenge my dear friend Gregor as I wish to do.”

“Your wishes will be carried out, excellency. I shall keep you informed. Speed your recovery.”

“I am feeling very much better already; I will be back into my office soon.” He hung up, then turned to Hewlitt. “What is now to happen?” he asked in English.

“I heard the conversation,” Hewlitt said, “and I say the same. Speed your recovery.”

He turned and left while he was still in command of himself.

The conference room at Thomas Jefferson was usually extremely well ordered, a reflection of the man whose desire to keep things shipshape had characterized his many years in the Navy. For almost twenty-four hours that standard had been abandoned as the room became a strategy center, plans headquarters, restaurant, message command post, and very nearly a dormitory. The members of the First Team occupied it almost continuously, and there was a steady flow in and out of the second level of command and all of the support personnel who worked directly with the managers of the operation. Occasionally used coffee cups were cleared away and accumulations of discarded notepaper were removed, but the atmosphere in the room became continuously heavier nonetheless and there was no fault in the air conditioning.

The admiral sat, and he paced up and down. He consulted charts, conferred with his colleagues on a hundred different points, and read incoming messages with almost savage eagerness the moment that they were received. Like the good commander that he was, he gave careful thought to the idea of surrendering himself and his colleagues. He explored the idea fully and rejected it: it would betray the President, the country, and the whole complex organization that had been so painstakingly constructed to meet the exact emergency with which it was now confronted. To throw all of that away would be to sentence the entire country to serfdom for the indefinite future, and that was not the purpose of the command that he headed. He had the Magsaysay; at least he was determined to carry on with the assumption that he did, and with that single but almost unbelievably potent force available he was in the game to win. In warfare there were no second prizes.

He left the room and returned in a blackened mood. He called over one of the service personnel who was emptying ashtrays and pointed. “It’s all out of toilet paper in there,” he declared.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the man answered. “I hope that there was something else available.”

“What did you expect me to use — a moonbeam?” Haymarket barked.

The man didn’t blink. “If you accomplished that, sir, I would like to shake your hand.”

The admiral relented and smiled; there was not a man or a woman in the underground complex who had not been hand-picked. “Fix it, will you?” he finished mildly and went back to his work.

He was passed a message, read it, and at once called for attention. “They’re putting Hewlitt in,” he reported. “Mark is going in too; I don’t agree with that, but I can see arguments both ways.” Colonel Prichard, who headed up all of the internal operational projects, looked concerned. “We can’t afford to blow him,” he warned.

“Totally agreed,” the admiral answered, “but Mark knows what he’s doing; if he went in, he had a reason.”

Walter Wagner was thoughtful for a moment. “If they try to capture both of them, we could be in trouble,” he pointed out.

General Gifford shook his head. “They won’t take Mark. He is equipped to prevent that.”

“And they won’t be able to stop him?”

“No.”

That was that and Wagner subsided. The admiral wanted to ask Ted Pappas once more what he thought of Hewlitt and his chances of success, but he held himself in check because he had already put that question three times and had gotten a precise, careful, and exactly similar answer each time.

Another message came in; Admiral Haymarket read it and swallowed hard. “Who is Asher?” he asked.

“A Washington ex-Marine cab driver; his name is Frank Jordan,” Colonel Prichard answered.

“How good is he?”

“A pretty good man, I’d say. Not the lightning brain type, but far from stupid. I’ve never met him, but the reports on him are very good. Loyalty unquestioned. Why?”

The admiral read the message one more time. “He’s been captured,” he announced. “He was taken directly to the White House.” “That means Rostovitch,” Wagner said. “Write him off and pray for his soul.”

“Can we help him?” Prichard asked. “We still have people in there. Several of them are top shots.”

“How much does he know?” the admiral asked quickly.

“Not too much. He controlled Hewlitt for a while and helped to set up the safe house. Both of those are blown. He knows Mark, but only as Percival.”

The admiral made a hard decision. “We can’t help him,” he said. “It would cost at least a man to do it and we’d be right back where we started. God bless him.”

General Gifford looked up. “I’d like the room cleared,” he said. Immediately, and with complete understanding, all those present who were not actually members of the First Team abandoned their usual posts; when the door had been closed behind the last man through, the general waited a few seconds and then spoke briefly. “You told me privately that Barlov, the director of White House security, was with us. To what degree is that true?”

The admiral looked around the table. “This is not to be breathed to anyone under any conditions,” he said, then he waited to let that sink in. The men he was facing were of very high intelligence and unquestioned dedication, but even with that he hesitated. Then he told them. “He is a British agent, one of the most valuable that they have.”

“Then we have to assume that he can’t blow his cover, no matter what the opportunity to save our man,” General Gifford said.

The admiral nodded. “There was a classic sea engagement once during which the British Navy sank a German heavy cruiser. When the admiral in command heard, he was badly shaken. The executive officer on board the German ship had been a British agent much more valuable than the ship and its crew.”

Stanley Cumberland said, “I remember reading about that.”

The admiral touched a signal which indicated that the room was once more open to those who had legitimate business inside. Then, for the next half hour, he was as restless as any of his immediate associates had ever seen him. He paced the floor, unwittingly frustrated because it was not a deck, and kept his brain at constant flank speed. If there was an angle anywhere, anything whatever that he could do, he would find it. Two or three times he stopped to say something, then at the last moment thought better of it and went back to his pacing.

“Sir.”

The man who handed him the message looked him in the eye first, which indicated that it was something very important. Hay-market took it, said the shortest silent prayer of his life, and then read what it contained.

He looked up and about the room, then read again. The words on the paper could not be mistaken, and he knew better than to ask if the transmission had been accurate. There was no mistake in the signal.

All this took him no more than a few seconds; when he looked up a second time he saw that the room was still and that all movement had stopped. They were waiting.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “I’ll give this to you just as I have it here. It’s from a source inside the White House which is five by five in every way.” That meant, as his hearers knew, that the information was considered totally accurate and the source unimpeachable. “Asher interviewed by Rostovitch. Conflict followed, Rostovitch repeat Rostovitch killed. Asher badly beaten, but alive in custody.”

There was a stunned silence. Then Ed Higbee said, “My God!”

The admiral stood still, his hands at his sides, the signal still held unfeelingly in his fingers.

“Is it true?” Major Pappas asked, making sure.

Slowly the admiral nodded. “It must be; there is a veracity code that’s watertight. We’ll check, but I believe it right now.”

Stanley Cumberland spoke in measured words. “Assuming that the message is accurate, then it is up to Hewlitt. If he knows this, or finds out in time, and if he is good enough to take advantage of it, then, sir, I’d say that things look better.”

Again the room was quiet, then the precise voice of Major Pappas was heard once more. “Sir, I recommend that you advise Magsaysay at once. Then I would advise passing the word to all field units as rapidly as possible. Some of them might decide to do as Philadelphia suggested, and without consulting us for permission first.”

“So ordered,” the admiral said. Very calmly he returned to his chair at the head of the table and sat down. “I agree with Stan,” he said. “Things do look a little better now.”

The Reverend Mr. Jones sat quietly, his arm around his son. He had been talking to his wife for some time, speaking of the mercy of God and of the certainty of the salvation of Christ. When he had reenforced his faith and pressed her hands in loving understanding, he had turned to enjoy, in the fleeting time that remained, the company of his son. He had already ministered, as much as he was able, to the others insofar as his own human endurance had permitted. Many of the hostages were bitter, many wanted to be left strictly alone, some had the attitude “They can’t do this to us!” and were waiting for some responsible part of the American military to come and rescue them by force. The Reverend Mr. Jones knew better than to disillusion those people; it was their rationalization and made it perhaps much easier for them to spend the final fearful hours.

He looked at Greg and saw with great pride that his boy was trying to smile back at him. In this period of intense soul-searching he knew that Greg was an average American boy, but that still made him a pretty fine future citizen. There was no doubt whatever in his mind that he would be with his wife and son in Heaven, but what they would have to go through first was an image that he tried to thrust out of his mind.

Greg was not equal to it and he knew that he had to help his son. “Greg, I want to talk to you,” he said. “You know that this sort of thing has happened before many times in the world’s history.”

Greg nodded that he understood, and swallowed very hard.

“Sometimes,” his father continued, “when things look blackest it is time to count blessings. You may not think that there are very many right now, and I’m forced to agree with you, but there are some things to think about nonetheless. Some very important things. I don’t like to bring this up, but at one time, and not too long ago as history goes, people who were held like us faced fearful things that we have escaped completely. Remember this, Greg, there are no lions. There are no torture chambers and all of the unspeakable horrors that they contained. There are no Roman circuses to see men and women die in a hundred different terrible ways. There is no crucifixion that Christ endured — and so many others after Him for His sake.”

“I know, dad,” Greg said.

Jones could not help it; he tightened his arm about his son and fought desperately to keep back his own tears. “Son, I love you with all my heart and soul; I’d give my life for you in a moment if I could. I want you to know that just having you for my son, in these years, has been one of the greatest joys of my life. And our Savior loves all of us this same way too, so we have nothing whatever to fear when we pass into His hands.”

Greg’s face began to tighten as he fought to keep himself under control. Then he failed and the tears came openly. “Dad, I don’t want to die!”

Jones flung both of his arms around his boy and lifted his eyes to ask for the compassion of Heaven. Then he could control himself no longer. He was racked by a great heart-wrenching sob that he was totally unable to control and then he felt his wife’s hands on him and knew that she was trying her best to comfort him. “Remember what you just told me,” she pleaded. “Remember!”

Reverend Jones lowered his head in shame because he could not remember. He was gripped by sudden desperate and uncontrollable fear — not for himself, but for his son. For all the promise of him, for all of his youth and good health, for all of the healthy and normal interests that he had, for all the years that he had labored in school for the not too outstanding, but better-than-average marks that he had brought home. For the hope that when he had matured a little more he would one day take a wife who would bring him a lifetime of happiness. For the prospect of grandchildren sometime in the future and the pride of having given a fine young citizen to society. And for the years of companionship that should have remained to them. And for the wonderful, irreplaceable, God-given girl who had consented to become his wife and share the restricted hopes of a minister of the Gospel and the limited outlook for anything more than a very modest scale of living all their lives. All of it piled up on him until he felt like crying aloud, as One had done before him, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

He fought; with all of the spirit and conviction that he possessed he fought to find himself once more, to thrust from him the fearful, brutal, insane injustice of it all, and to remember that there would only be a few minutes of acute distress and then the gates of Heaven would open before him. He remembered the Jews who had died under Hitler, and the thousands who had gone to the stake for the sake of their faith, or in spite of it. His dear ones did not have to face death by fire and the frightful agony of having their flesh burned from their bones. There would be a firing squad, only a few moments facing the guns, and then the face of God…

A man came to the door of the huge room. The Reverend Mr. Jones did not see him at first, but he sensed the sudden change around him and looked up to see what had caused it. When he saw the man in uniform he shot out his own hand and gripped his wife’s fingers until the pain almost made her dizzy, but she said nothing and gave no sign.

The man had a paper in his hand and that meant that the time had come.

“Dear God in heaven, grant me the grace and the strength…” he began, speaking aloud without realizing it.

The man raised his voice and half-shouted, half-spoke in English. “You can all go home.”

Doris Jones did not comprehend the miracle, her mind was too numb from the torture it had undergone. Greg did not believe the words, and looked at his father for the strength to resist this last, utterly cruel jest.

The man in uniform began to motion that people should go out the door. “A mercy,” Mr. Jones thought, “a mercy to make it easier for them to get into the trucks or whatever they have waiting.” But when, halfway in the exodus, he at last led the way through the door so that his little family could have the last split second of comfort, there were no trucks waiting, no long gray buses, nothing but a rapidly gathering crowd of the curious who were staring at them.

A sudden blinding light caught Mr. Jones in the face and made him stop. Then he heard the voice of a man who thrust a microphone before his face and asked him, “Who are you, sir — what is your name, please?”

In the stunned condition of his mind he hardly knew how to answer; he stammered out “Jones” and then recovered himself enough to add, “I’m… the pastor of…” and he could not remember the name of his own church.

The man with the microphone picked him up very fast. “You have been comforting the others, haven’t you, reverend?” he said and made it a statement that somehow had to be replied to.

“Yes, the best that I could.”

“Your prayers have been answered, sir, you know that now, don’t you?”

The Reverend Mr. Jones didn’t know, for he was far from sure as yet, but he nodded his head and looked again at the swelling crowd that was pressing in for a closer look.

“Sir, this is not for just one network, the whole nation is watching and listening. Please, tell us what it was like.”

“I’d… rather not do that.” The emotions he had felt were still locked into his mind and he did not yet believe that deliverance had come.

“Sir,” the man said, “you have all been set free, because of a nuclear submarine. A fearful weapon of war, yet so far it hasn’t fired a shot. Have you anything to say to that, sir?”

Those were the first words that the tortured minister really heard, but he did hear them and at last understood. He raised his head and answered. “Yes,” he said, “I do.” With shaking fingers he placed his hands together. “Let us pray.”

Across the whole breadth of the nation he was heard by uncounted millions of people. And some of them bowed their heads, in their own homes or wherever they were, and waited for his words.