Did he dare continue? He had no choice.
“You have moved through your life too quickly,” he said to the President. “You had too much to begin with and you attained your goals before you had time to ripen, to mature. Nikita Khrushchev has lived long enough to have lost the cravings that afflict younger men. He is not promiscuous, physically or mentally. He is crude and not complicated. There, he has an advantage over you.”
The young President said nothing.
Good, the actor thought, I have hit the mark.
“You think I am too immature to handle this crisis?”
“You are too impatient. Wealth, charm, cleverness, power: none of that can save you now. You have not lived long enough to comprehend that. But you are beginning to understand, I suspect. Your darkest thoughts are becoming more intense. Well, don’t fight them. It is in the darkness that you will find the wisdom and courage you will need to prevail.”
The President sat silently, staring at his own reflection in the tinted window of the limousine.
“I can’t see where Cuba is worth destroying the world. Not to him or to me. He’s testing me. That’s it, pure and simple. And I’m afraid of making a mistake.”
The President leaned toward the priest. “What can you tell me about Khrushchev?”
“Only what I heard from men in the camps. And what I have learned about Russians in general.”
“Please, Father. Tell me as much as you can. I have to figure out how to deal with him.”
“Khrushchev is not Stalin. He is not a subtle, sophisticated man. Stubborn and relentless like a peasant, so they say. He is not a fool nor is he crazy. But he is not a deep thinker. He is cunning and he can be brutal. He will take advantage of any sign of weakness he observes in an adversary. But he lacks Stalin’s single-minded ruthlessness and iron will. Only death could stop Stalin, the men in the camps say, but men can depose Khrushchev. He does not command universal support. Far from it. Judging from what the men in the camps told me, the Kremlin is full of powerful rivals waiting for him to stumble and fall.”
“So it would be difficult for him to back down from a direct confrontation with the United States,” said the President. “If not impossible.”
“True. He can’t afford to risk being humiliated. He would not survive politically. But the same must be true for you, is it not?”
“Yes, of course.”
The man who played Father Samozvanyetz nodded. “Look at it this way,” he said. “A bear wanders into your camp. Your first impulse is to pick up your rifle to protect yourself. But bears are strong and relentless. You had better make sure your first shot hits a vital organ. You won’t get the chance to shoot a second time. There are few things more dangerous than a wounded bear.
“You could try to scare him off. Perhaps you could yell and scream and wave your arms. He might think you are bigger and more powerful than he is and leave, pretending that he has other more important matters to attend to. But he would probably just attack and try to kill you.
“You have a weapon? The problem is that the bear cannot understand that a rifle can end his life. If you could explain that to him, he would probably leave you alone.”
“I’m dealing with a man, Father. Not a bear.”
“That’s true, Mister President. But suppose that this bear is a trained bear. The man who trained the bear comes to your camp in search of his lost animal. He sees the bear. He sees you. He sees the rifle in your hand. He knows that your gun can kill his bear. What does he do? He calls off his bear. He owns the bear and knows the bear. He is able to command the bear to leave you in peace.”
“There are such men in the Soviet Union?”
“More than you might imagine. Men with power, influence and common sense. Even so, they would not like to see their country humiliated.”
“Yes, I understand that.”
“These men will be watching you and Khrushchev very closely. But they will need time to understand and to act. Time and patience are your best weapons. Keep the power you possess in reserve, as a last resort. For what it’s worth, I think you are choosing the right course of action.”
The President stared at him. “Are you reading my mind, Father?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“I must be going,” said the President, edging toward the door. “They’ll start to wonder . . .”
“Have I helped you?”
“I’m less agitated.” He removed his hand from the door. “I don’t understand what’s going on with you, Father.”
“Nor do I. I am just a man, like you.”
“Do you feel anything?”
“Such as?”
“Light-headedness. A current of electricity. Something like that?”
“No, nothing like that. Just a feeling of confidence. A certainty that some things that come into my mind are true.”
“Do you feel these thoughts arriving? Like a sudden idea, a sudden insight?”
“No, they are just there. More like memory than discovery.” He made a gesture of helplessness. “That is the best I can explain it. Perhaps I spent too much time alone. After a few months in Lubianka, I knew what my interrogators were going to ask me before they said anything. I suppose that’s how I survived. I did not panic because I was seldom surprised. I don’t understand it. It’s just something that happens. And not all that often.”
“How far into the future do you see?”
“I don’t see into the future at all. It’s as if my knowledge extends forward in time a little. A few seconds. Perhaps a minute or so. No farther.”
“So you can’t tell me what Khrushchev is going to do.”
“No, Mister President. I am afraid not.”
“I wouldn’t trust that sort of information even if I could get it.”
“What Khrushchev will do will depend on what you will do,” said the man who played Father Samozvanyetz. “I am not a clairvoyant, but I am certain of that. But be careful. Just as a bear can be driven mad, so can a man or a nation, if only for a moment. Remain calm. Act rationally. And never forget that God is with you.”
“You know that, too, Father?”
“No, Mister President, I believe that.” He bowed his head. “But I know that your sins are forgiven.”
“I haven’t told you what they are.”
“There is no need to do so.”
The man who played Father Samozvanyetz stretched out his hand, made the Sign of the Cross and murmured the Latin words of Absolution.
“Go in peace,” he said in English.
“And my penance?” asked the President of the United States.
“Save the world.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Through his binoculars, Herb Coogan watched President Kennedy, shielded by his Secret Service detail, exit the limousine and walk to Air Force One where reporters and cameramen waited. The President spent a few minutes with them before climbing the stairs to the door of his plane, turning and rewarding the cameramen with his smile and a wave good-bye. While that was going on, the limousine he had visited slipped away and parked near the twin-engine jet.
The limo stayed there until Air Force One took off, carrying the President and the White House press corps to Illinois. The local newsmen packed up and left for their next assignments. Only then did Herb see his son’s Master of Novices emerge from the limousine and board the government jet.
Herb slipped his binoculars back into their case. Obviously, the White House had something going on with Father Samozvanyetz and, just as obviously, Herb was not being kept in the loop.
But so what? His son Charley was keeping his eye on the ball and doing a good job at Milford.
C H A P T E R • 20
The Secret Service returned the man who played Father Samozvanyetz to Milford in time for supper and now he stood in the sacristy of the Novice Chapel waiting for his young men to arrive for Points. He tried to concentrate on the performance at hand, but he kept brooding about the fate of the wo
rld which now rested in the hands of two flawed human beings. For a moment, he considered asking his novices to remember President Kennedy in their prayers tonight. And Nikita Khrushchev as well. He rejected that idea instantly.
While walking into the chapel to address the assembled novices, he also decided to jettison the opening remarks he had prepared for this instruction on the morning’s meditation. To review the complex Roman Catholic dogma on Redemption would be distasteful for him and boring for the novices. They had grown up being drilled on the reasons theologians put forth to explain why God had to allow His own Son to suffer and die in agony and disgrace, like a common criminal. No, he would just skip past all that pedantic, convoluted prattle.
He saw young Coogan sitting with the others, notebook open, pencil in hand, waiting to hear what this Master of Novices was going to say. With the son of an FBI agent in his audience, he had better put the horrors of thermonuclear war out of his mind and concentrate on his presentation.
The chapel was still. He stood silently beside the desk for almost a minute before he spoke.
“It never ceases to amaze me how we humans can use our intellect to deceive ourselves. The story of Adam and Eve tells us how the Serpent presented something evil as good, masking the ugliness of the transgression with the supposed rewards of disobedience. And how quickly those first humans found a way to participate in their own seduction.
“We have all inherited their remarkable ability to accept a lie to justify bad behavior. We can distort reality so that we can do anything we want to do. No matter that our conscience tells us some action is evil, we can make it seem good. It is bad enough when we do this as individuals, but it is devastating when we pool our talents for self-deception and self-justification to exercise our collective capacity for absolute evil. We see this most vividly when we contemplate Christ’s crucifixion.”
Take a pause, he told himself, and start slowly moving, thinking aloud.
“I shudder to recall how so many professed believers, from the very beginnings of Christianity, have deliberately distorted the true meaning of God’s act of infinite love, mercy and self-sacrifice to justify centuries of hatred, persecution and atrocities. They have taken a redemptive act of God and twisted it to suit their own purposes, to justify their own malevolent attitudes and hideous violence toward their chosen scapegoats—God’s Chosen People. The Jews killed Christ, they proclaimed, and it is the Jews who must pay forever!
“And those proclamations were used for centuries to incite and justify the bullying of schoolboys, the disdain shown honorable adults, the segregation of God-fearing families in European ghettos, the forced conversions in medieval Spain, the violent pogroms in Russia, the extermination camps of Nazi Germany, all justified by the lies and slanders we Christians allowed ourselves to embrace.
“And, I am afraid, we still do. Dear God! How the angels must weep!”
Pause, look down. and breathe deep. Young Coogan has stopped writing. Easy now.
“Tomorrow morning, ask yourself this question: ‘Did the Jews kill Jesus?’ It is true enough that individual Jews and Romans participated in Christ’s trial, passion and death. But, think about this: somebody had to participate; otherwise it would not have happened. Did not Christ Himself say: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?’
“The Jews in Jerusalem at the time were merely living their lives as we live ours today, unaware that they were playing out their roles in God’s drama. How could they have realized the import of that routine Roman public execution? They did not know or believe what I believe I know today: that the Man they were putting to death was the Son of God. Had they believed that, they would not have accused him of blasphemy. Most certainly, they would not have handed him over to the Romans.
“If I have the need to blame some individual for the suffering and death of Christ, I need look no farther than myself!”
Now! Stress each “my” and build to your crescendo! Slap your chest!
“It was my sins, for some reason beyond my understanding, that made it necessary for Jesus to stagger up to Calvary carrying His cross. It was my sins that condemned Him, my sins that scourged Him, my sins that nailed him to his cross. The Jews and the Romans were my unwitting agents, acting in my behalf.
“I can waste my lifetime abhorring the participation of others long since dead. If I must condemn someone, I must condemn myself to sorrow and confusion and shame and contrition for my sins. For me, there is only one answer to the question: who killed Christ? The answer is: I did.”
He sees that young Coogan and most of the others have stopped taking notes. A good sign. He has held the novices’ attention. He waits a moment before speaking again.
“Tomorrow,” he says quietly, “we conclude this First Week of the Spiritual Exercises. Saint Ignatius urges us to end our final meditations by imagining Christ our Lord present and placed on the Cross to die for our sins.”
He walks down the altar steps and out through the sacristy door, leaving Charley Coogan to lead the novices in the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer.
∗ ∗ ∗
Father Novak, who had spent the evening in conference with the president of Loyola University, returned to the Provincial’s residence at eleven o’clock. He saw that the lights were still on in his office. Brother Krause was working late.
“Herb Coogan called while you were out. He wanted to know if you knew where Father Samozvanyetz went today. I told him that you did.”
“Did you tell him that Bobby Kennedy had called to set up the meeting?”
“Well, I did mention it, because I assumed he knew about it. But he didn’t. His son called him to tell him that Father Samozvanyetz was being picked up by government agents this morning, but his son didn’t know why. Coogan said he had to figure that out by himself.”
“Nobody in Washington told him?”
“Apparently not.”
“You’d think they’d keep Coogan informed,” said the Provincial. “I suppose that’s the way Washington works sometimes. But it’s odd, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Brother Krause. “Just one more odd thing.”
∗ ∗ ∗
The man who played Father Samozvanyetz and Major Oksana Volkova, two figures in cassocks speaking quietly in Russian, sat side by side in the darkness on the bench in the novitiate’s woods, staring up at the statue of Saint Stanislaus Kotska.
“He is prepared to fight,” he told her. “No doubt about it.”
“He said that?” she asked. “He used those words?”
“Not at first. First, I let him tell me why he wanted my information. I was astounded that he went as far as he did, but he seemed to trust me completely.”
“He told you about the missiles?”
He could see that she was smiling triumphantly. Well, he thought, why not?
“Yes, he did tell me. He swore me to secrecy and then he told me that the American spy-planes had photographed the missile bases in Cuba. The Americans have absolute proof that the missiles are there, but Kennedy does not want Khrushchev to know that he knows. Not yet, not until he is completely prepared to act. That’s why he has been making his political appearances, to pretend that everything is normal while he is trying to decide what to do. But the American military is on full alert, waiting for orders, and there is an intense, secret debate in the highest levels of government.”
“Where does Kennedy stand?”
“He knows that Khrushchev is testing him and he is angry. To his mind, putting missiles in Cuba is a direct threat to his country. An intolerable provocation. He is personally angry with Gromyko. ‘That lying bastard,’ he called him. But he is in control of his anger. He will not act rashly, but he will not back down.”
“You are certain? You are sure of your man?”
“I am certain,” he said. “I have seen men like him before. In the war. He is rational. He calculates. He listens and weighs the facts he gathers. He considers his options, as he puts it,
and then he acts. No matter what Khrushchev thinks of him, he is no weakling. He is capable of decisive action. Forget the Bay of Pigs. That was a mistake and he learned from it. He is not looking for a war. He can tolerate Castro in Cuba, so he said. He can even tolerate our soldiers and technicians in Cuba, as long as they maintain their cover as defense advisers and do not flaunt their presence. But offensive missile bases? That, he cannot accept. Also, I gathered, he is afraid that Khrushchev may be insane.”
“He is not alone,” said Oksana. “But he believes this, truly?”
“He is worried about it. He fears that Khrushchev’s action is irrational, that he has made a miscalculation, a serious misjudgment of American power and will. He is fearful that Khrushchev may be deluded enough to persist in this miscalculation.”
“What will Kennedy do if Khrushchev does persist?”
“He will react with force. No doubt about it.”
“When? At what point?”
“I don’t know. He did not say, of course. But soon, I think. I don’t think he knows himself, not yet.”
“What do you think he will do?”
The man who played Samozvanyetz hesitated, but only for a moment.
“I think he will try to buy enough time for Khrushchev to come to his senses. But, if he doesn’t, the President will respond vigorously. Of that, I am certain.”
“With full force?”
“Not at first. But he is prepared to escalate, as the Americans say. But escalate rapidly. He has more than enough firepower to devastate the Soviet Union as well as Cuba, so he says. And I believe him.”
“Why?”
“Because he spoke of this power not as a braggart, but as one who carries a heavy burden.”
“He actually discussed the possibility of thermonuclear war?”
“Yes, quite openly. It is one of the ‘options’ his military advisers have asked him to consider.”
“Madness,” she sighed.
“Yes, certainly, madness. But the President is in control of his subordinates and in control of himself, at least for the moment. That does not mean that he will remain in control forever. When the public becomes aware of the missiles in Cuba, he knows the political pressure on him to attack will be tremendous. What more can I tell you?”
Red Army Spies and the Blackrobes Trilogy Page 35
