Stantington picked up the telephone.
"Hello," he said.
A woman's voice answered "Hello."
"Is Doctor Smith there?"
"Not to just anybody what calls," the woman said. "Who is this?"
"My name is Admiral Wingate Stantington. I am the ..."
"What do you want?"
"What I don't want is to waste time talking to a secretary. Please put Doctor Smith on the line."
"He's not here."
"Where is he?" Stantington asked. "This is important."
"I made him go out and play golf. That's important, too."
"Hardly," said Stantington. "I want him to re-
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turn my call immediately and then come to see me," the CIA director said.
"He gonna be busy. You come and see him," Ruby said.
"Really. Miss, I am the director of the Central Intelligence Agency."
"That's all right. He'll see you anyway. That's figuring you can get here without getting lost. When I was with the CIA, I didn't notice anybody who could get anywheres without getting lost."
"You? Worked for the CIA?"
"Yes," said Ruby Gonzalez. "And I was the best you had. When should I tell the doctor that you be coming?"
"I'm not coming. He's coming here."
"You're coming," said Ruby as she hung up. She waited for a moment, then picked up the telephone and dialed Westport, Connecticut, whistling softly under her breath.
It would be a simple matter, Stantington knew. He could just send a few agents over to Folcroft or to the golf course or wherever this Doctor Smith was hanging out and pick him up and bring him to Washington. And if he didn't want to come willingly, well, that could be arranged too.
Except...
Except that it was extra-legal, outside the law, and not quite in keeping with the new CIA that Stantington was dedicated to creating.
He decided that he needed guidance on the subject and it had better come directly from the top.
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If he was going to be breaking any laws, the orders to do it should come from the President. Stantington was new to Washington, but he had spent a lifetime in the Navy and had learned all the secrets of grabbing glory, when glory was being distributed, and making sure someone else's ass was in the sling when it was ass-in-the-sling time. Now some deep-remembered instinct was telling him that the one way to make sure the President didn't saw off a limb with you on it was to make sure that the President was out on the same limb. Even if he had been your old school chum and your old service buddy.
It never occurred to Admiral Wingate Stantington that there might have been a time in Washington when things were done differently and better. When people charged with the safety and security of the nation did what they knew had to be done and didn't spend all their time looking over their shoulders, watching for someone who was getting ready to hand them up.
As he drove into Washington the words of the former CIA director rang in his ears: "One day they'll change the rules in the middle of the game and your ass'll be grass, just like mine. I'll save you a spot in the prison chow line."
That's what he had said. It had sounded like a threat and already it seemed to be turning into a prophecy. Only on the job a few days, and Stantington was already facing decisions that he knew could make or break him. He felt something a little more like sympathy for his predecessor.
The President was waiting for him in the Oval Office and Stantington felt a tinge of relief when
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he saw the familiar slope-shouldered figure wearing an open-collared shirt and a light blue cardigan sweater. The role reversal was strange. He had been ahead of the President when they both went to the Naval Academy and later he had been the younger man's commanding officer on assignment to sea duty. The younger man had always looked up to Stantington as a leader and as a commander.
But now, here he was, the President, the Commander-in-Chief, and Stantington felt relief at being able to dump his problem in the Presidential lap. It was the almost-mystical power the office had. Stantington had no children but he thought this must be the way children feel when they turn a problem over to their parents. That sense of there, now it'll be taken care of.
"How you doin', Cap?" the President asked in his soft voice. "Sit down."
"All right," Stantington said. He lounged easily in the chair in front of the big mahogany desk.
"So who's killing all these Russians?" the President asked.
"You heard about it?"
"State told me. That's why I figured you were on your way here." The President paused for a moment and Stantington nodded.
"Well, Mister President, I don't quite know how to tell you this," said Stantington.
"Try me." The President lounged back in his chair, holding a yellow wooden pencil between the fingertips of both hands.
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"You asked who's killing all these Russians. I think maybe we are."
The President came half up out of his chair. The pencil dropped from his fingertips, unnoticed, to the floor.
"We what?"
Stantington raised his hands as if warding off an invisible enemy. Then he quickly sketched out for the President what had happened to the two ambassadors and Vassily Karbenko's visit to his office that morning.
"Why in the name of anything that's holy did you end Project Omega?" the President asked.
"Just following orders, Mister President," said Stantington.
"I don't remember giving any orders like that."