"That is frightening, Smith."
"This is not a springtime of peace, sir."
"I wonder what my cabinet will think. What the Joint Chiefs will think."
"You don't have much of a choice, sir. You have to give orders."
"You know, Smith, the buck hasn't stopped here. The whole world has."
"Good luck, sir," said Smith.
"And good luck to you."
"Good luck to all of us, sir," said Smith.
The man chosen to bring the secret to Moscow was in his early sixties, a close friend of the President's, a billionaire, a fervent anticommunist, and the owner, of among other things, a technological corporation in the forefront of science.
When he saw what he was supposed to deliver, he almost accused the President of being a traitor. Laid out quite neatly, even to partial Russian translation, was the diagram of America's major missile defense system.
"I won't do it," said McDonald Pease, who possessed a crew cut, a Texas twang, and a doctorate in nuclear physics.
Then he heard about the new missile sites, and he softened a bit. Then he heard about a device that may have been the cause of the Russians' alarm, and he softened totally,
"Of course I'm going. We could all fry like biscuits in a desert. What sort of hound dog lunatic would play around with our little ozone shield? Sweet rib-snappin' muskrat. There won't even be a roach left on this planet. Give the Ruskies everything. Let's get this world back to being just generally dangerous. Holy cowdung. What is going on?"
"Your plane's waiting, Hal," said the President. That was McDonald Pease's nickname. With a first name like his, a nickname became mandatory.
With this one move the President was not only revealing a major American secret, but committing perhaps the shrewdest bargainer in the West. Pease would need it all, the President knew. What he did not know was that McDonald "Hal" Pease did not stand a chance, and was going to make matters even worse by being honest.
Chapter 12
McDonald Pease arrived in Moscow aboard a specially chartered jet given clearance to land in a vacant airstrip by the Soviet government.
He wore a Stetson hat and a four-thousand-dollar London suit. The chill wind of the autumn snows almost ripped the skin off his face. He didn't care. He hated these people. The only thing they ever did was steal technology and put poison into the minds of people better left to their own devices.
But more than that. He felt they were the most consistent liars the world had ever seen-and that was going some, considering his business partners and worldwide diplomacy, which he knew was a polite term for fraud.
The reason the Ruskies and other Marxists excelled at the blatant lie, Pease calculated, was the way they treated the word. In the tradition of the monotheistic religions, the word was supposed to carry the truth. Not that Christians, Jews, and Muslims always told the truth. But they were supposed to.
In Marxist-Leninist ideology, words were just tools to exhort. Agitprop. It had been that way since the beginning of Marxist-Leninist ideology and it was that way now. So even though the world was at the brink of destruction, it still turned the stomach of McDonald "Hal" Pease to be bringing plans for an American defense to the Russians themselves in an effort toward mutual trust.
Trust? Who knew what they meant by trust? The word probably had a special meaning, like their meaning for "peace." Namely, that lull in fighting between wars that would ultimately lead to their conquest of the world.
A Russian offered his own coat so that Mr. Pease would not freeze.
"No," said Pease. He let the wind tear at his skin.
Besides, they had brought cars right to the airplane. He counted all his people entering the cars and counted them again when they left. He'd started with twelve, and twelve got out of the cars inside the Kremlin walls.
The Premier had that typical Russian face: something that looked squashed. He had thick stubby hands. He expressed cautious optimism that America was willing to share her secrets.
They were in a large room. Behind the Premier were twelve Russian officers in wicker chairs. There were two translators and a large mirror on one of the walls. The fluorescent lights wouldn't have passed muster, thought Pease, in a Mexican junk heap.
"I am here," said Hal Pease, his twangy voice almost cracking in pain, "because we face a common danger. I understand that you do not trust us, and I am here to convince you that we are on the same side in trying to save the world."
The Russian Premier nodded. These Russians had necks like barrels, thought Pease. They'd make good football players.
"We know that you are building great amounts of new nuclear weapons, weapons that we believe are lacking the usual safety devices. For the first time in the history of atomic warfare, a nation has not taken proper precautions. "
Pease heard his words translated as he spoke. He saw the bull neck turn. The Russian Premier answered, and the translator began:
"We did not introduce atomic weapons into the world. We, like the rest of the nations, are victims of the atomic weapons which you introduced to this planet. Now you tell us we do not have the proper safety precautions. That is a lie. We are a peace-loving people, and have always been so. We would not endanger ourselves or the world with devices so heinous as you say."
"Get off it," said Pease. "We know you have 'em. You know you have 'em. Now, dammit, we're here to give you something to show you our good faith. You don't have to keep up that silly lie, fella."
The Premier and the translator exchanged a few words. Hal Pease didn't need the translation. He had been told to go to hell.
"All right. Here it is. We're going to give you our command defense structure. What we want is your understanding that we are not behind this irresponsible attempt to pierce the ozone shield. All we ask is that you pause in your march toward world destruction."
The translator began explaining the Russian love of peace, and Hal Pease told him he wasn't interested. It made him want to vomit when the Russian officers began poring over the layout of the American defenses. He saw several nods. They knew they were getting the real thing. One of the officers disappeared for about five minutes and then returned. He only nodded to the Premier. Then the Premier disappeared. The Premier was gone for a shorter time.
The translator was not even needed. Pease could tell by the way the Russian Premier folded his arms that he had been rejected.
The translator started on a denial of the new, more unreliable weapons, and Pease cut him off.
"Hey, buddy. Are you out of your mind? We just laid out our belly to you bastards. What do you want? You want a war? What are you going to win? Will you answer me that? Will you go to your boss and tell him he is crazy? You're starting something no one will win, and meanwhile, if we don't blow ourselves up, we're all sure as hell going to fry like a mess of chili beans."
He got the same blunt lie about Russia's peaceful intentions.
"Look, there is a thing going on with the ozone layer that scares us as much as it scares you. We wanted to prove it to you by showing you our defense plans. Now here they are and you're still stonewalling. We need your help in getting to the base of the fluorocarbon danger. Dammit, we know it hit your territory. We know you have to know about it. We want to work with you toward saving the whole damned world. What are you going to win if the world is a damned parched cinder?"
The Premier thought a moment, left, and then returned. "If you want the truth," said the Premier through the translator, "we know for a fact that you Americans are the biggest liars on the face of the earth."
Hal Pease almost went right at his thick Russian throat, right there in the Kremlin. Trembling, he contained himself. He needn't have bothered. If he had punched out the eyes of the Russian Premier, he couldn't have done more damage than he already had.
Alexei Zemyatin watched behind the one-way mirror. He watched and heard the American claim that he knew there was someone else pulling the strings and that that person should realize that the end of the world was the end of the world for both Russia and America.
By the man's passion, Zemyatin was almost willing to trust. Except Alexei Zemyatin knew what the man was doing, and long ago he'd learned not to trust his emotions. Too many people depended on his decision for him to trust something so unreliable as instinct. Sometimes it could be correct, of course. But it never supplanted a fact.
And too many men had already been lost trying to find out facts for Zemyatin to indulge in that absolute essence of egotism: a hunch.
So he felt that the man was telling the truth. But that wasn't nearly as important as what he had known for the last half-hour.
Even as Mr. McDonald Pease's plane had taken off for Russia, the Americans were testing their weapon. And there was no question that it was the American government, not some renegade, some little business somewhere that didn't report to the government. Zemyatin could accept that businesses would run wild. He knew how healthy and uncontrollable the black market was in Russia, where there wasn't supposed to be a black market. No market at all except the state providing beautifully for everyone's needs.
But the price had already been paid for the truth. The report, compiled from many sources-some of them now in American prisons because their safety had-ceased to be a factor-had ironically arrived the very moment Mr. Pease began his speech. Alexei had listened with only half an ear. What he read in the report froze his bones. It was like all the German troops massing just before their invasion of Russia: The trains, the armor, the munitions, the food. None of it could be missed. The Americans were far shrewder, shrewder even than he had previously thought.