He listened again and then shook his head. "It is very serious trouble. Very serious."
He paused.
"If you wish, sir," he said. "Project Omega was started in the late 1950's when Mister Eisenhower was President. It was after our U-2 spy plane had been shot down. Russia was getting edgy and there was a serious possibility that it might launch a first-strike nuclear attack against the United States. You must remember, sir, that this was a time when Russia had no world enemy but us."
As he spoke, Smith looked at Stantington with displeasure.
"The President and Khrushchev met privately on a yacht off the Florida coast. Yes, sir, I was at
77
the meeting. That was necessary because President Eisenhower had assigned me to implement Project Omega.
"At that time, the Russians had been developing some new types of voice analyzers to determine when a person was lying and President Eisenhower had asked Mister Khrushchev to bring one aboard. He asked the Russians to turn it on and then he told the premier that America understood the possibility of a first-strike attack by Russia on our country.
"The President reminisced. He said that when he was a victorious general, he still feared for his life. He lived in dread of a random bullet just passing his way that might kill him. No matter how powerful a man became, he said, dying was never easy. 'Some day,' he told Mister Khrushchev, 'you might decide to launch an attack on America. You might even defeat us. That is possible,' he said. 'But what is not possible is that you will live to enjoy it.' Mister Eisenhower said that he was not talking about some doomsday device to destroy the world. 'We do not want to kill the human race,' he said. 'But Russia's top leaders will die. You may win a first-strike war,' he told Khrushchev, 'but it will mean personal suicide to you or your successor and your top people.' Mister Eisenhower hoped that this kind of threat might help to avoid atomic war just a little longer, and that time might bring peace."
Smith listened and nodded again. "Yes, sir. Khrushchev accused Eisenhower of bluffing but the lie analyzer showed that the President was telling the truth."
78
Stantington listened in disbelief as Smith continued talking.
"The sole purpose of Project Omega in the CIA was to launch the killers in the event of our losing an atomic war. No, sir, the program wasn't meant to be perpetual. It was designed to last exactly twenty years. By my calendar, sir, it would have ended next month and no one would ever have known. But Admiral Stantington's budget cuts have now done what atomic war didn't do. It has turned loose killers on the Russian leadership."
Stantington felt his stomach drop into his groin. Suddenly, the air-conditioned air in the office smelled bitter to his nostrils.
"There are four targets, sir. The ambassadors to Paris and Rome. They have already been disposed of, as you know. The Russian ambassador in London and the Russian premier himself remain."
Smith shook his head.
"No one knows, sir. The assassins were recruited by another CIA man, long since dead. Yes. His name was Conrad MacCleary. He died almost ten years ago. He was the recruiter and the only one who knew who the assassins were."
Smith listened for long minutes as the CIA chief fidgeted on the cheap, Scotchgard-treated sofa.
"No," Smith finally said. "It is a matter of the utmost gravity. I would recommend that we immediately notify the USSR of the danger to the two remaining men." He paused. "Yes, sir. We can handle that. I don't think anyone else has the
79
capability." He looked at Stantington. "Most especially the CIA."
The admiral flushed.
Smith said, "Yes, sir." He extended the telephone toward Stantington. "It's for you," he said.
Stantington rose and walked across the office. He could feel his pedometer clicking against his hip as he strode. He took the telephone.
"Hello."
The familiar Southern voice bit into his ears like an electric drill.
"You know who this is," the voice said.
"Yes, Mister President," Stantington said.
"You will do nothing about Project Omega, do you understand? Nothing. I will handle what has to be done diplomatically. What has to be done in the field will be done by others. The CIA will remain out of this. Totally and one hundred percent out of it. You have it, Cap ?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now I suggest you get back to Washington. Oh, another thing. You will forget, totally forget, the existence of Doctor Smith, Folcroft Sanitarium, and Rye, New York. Got it?"
"Yes, sir," Stantington said. The telephone clicked off in his ear.
Stantington handed the phone to Smith who put it back in the desk drawer, which closed with a heavy-locking click.
Smith pressed the buzzer on his desk. Stantington did not hear anyone enter but Smith spoke.
"You will escort the admiral back to the helicopter so he may return to Washington."
80
Stantington heard Remo's voice. "He doesn't have to go in the Hefty bag?"
Smith shook his head.
"Good. I don't like schlepping things around all the time. Not even for you, Smitty."
Chiun's voice said, "Some people are suited only for the most meager forms of work."
"Knock it off, Little Father," Remo said.
"Get him out of here," came Ruby Gonzalez's voice. "These CIA people gives me a headache."
81
CHAPTER SEVEN
But Admiral Wingate Stantington had already told someone of Doctor Harold Smith's existence.
Vassily Karbenko sat on a bench on a footbridge over the Potomac River. The spires and domes and statuary of official Washington were behind him. His long legs were sprawled out in front of him and his ten-gallon hat was pulled down over his face. His thumbs were hooked into the tunnel belt loops of his blue cord trousers and he looked as if he would be altogether at home if he were sitting on a straight-backed wooden chair, leaning against the wall on a wooden porch in front of the Tombstone sheriff's office a hundred years earlier.
From his early youth, Vassily Karbenko had been tagged for big things. He was the son of a physician and a genetic scientist and in his teens after World War II, he had been sent to study languages in England and France. While in England, he had seen his first American movies and had become an instant fan of the old American West. It seemed to be the life all men should have-being a cowboy, working the range, sleeping next to a campfire at night.
83
"If you like America so much, defect," his roommate told him one night.