by Tom DeMarco
“Okay, Sonia.”
“Now, this is your chance to meet the president. What are you going to say to him, Clay?”
“Going to tell him how to run the Disarmament Talks in Vienna next week.”
“Not that president, silly. This is the president of the University.”
“Going to tell him to get rid of the parking lot behind Sage Hall and give us back the tennis courts that used to be there.”
“That’s the spirit.”
The party had broken up naturally into small islands of conversation spotted about the ground floor of Fiske House. Albert Tomkis and General Buxtehude were huddled by the mantelpiece in the music room. Tomkis was offering his own opinion of the Simula project: “I’ve seen what they’re doing, General, and it does seem promising to me.” He said this without great enthusiasm.
“I’m sure it’s promising, Albert. And fascinating. Simula-7 is certainly that. It’s a wonderful bit of pure research. I wouldn’t object to funding all the work of Layton and his group as long as everyone knew it was just research. If they only understood that it had not one bit of relevance to the real world. Then I would be willing to spend any amount on it. Millions and millions. But the danger is that someone is going to take what they’re doing seriously. If I could be sure that everyone would ignore it, I’d rest easy.”
“Yes. Well, I can’t entirely share your thinking on that, General. There is just the possibility that they’re on to something that we ought not to ignore.”
“I hope not. I sincerely hope not. If we had to take seriously the results of every two-bit study we funded we’d never have time for anything else. Oh, here’s Chandler.”
Senator Hopkins came into the music room and shut the door behind him. He approached Tomkis and the General, rubbing his hands together. This was the part of the evening that promised to be fun, some wheeling and dealing with people who really mattered. “Well, gentlemen. Time to solve the world’s problems. Reminds me of my years on the Hill.”
“Albert and I were just talking about the Simula-7 Project.”
“Well! That’s a conversation I wouldn’t want to miss out on. And I know just the place where we can have it without any fear of being overheard.” He led them over to a carved panel near the fireplace, and by manipulating a tiny bas-relief rosette, caused an entire section of the wall to swing slowly inward. He led his two guests down the secret stairway.
While the triumvirate of power made its way to the secret basement room to plot national policy, only few feet above them in the pantry, Elise and the cook Henri were indulging in a bit of the Senator’s port. They had begun hours ago and one bottle of the tawny was now entirely gone.
On the other side of the pantry wall, Mrs. Hopkins was putting her empty glass down square in the middle of a plate of canapés. Professor St. Vincent was about to retire to the downstairs john to administer himself a small quantity of a controlled substance. And the three young physicists, Drs. Duryea, Barodin, and Martine, were experiencing a fit of giggles in a corner of the library. Their senior member, Edward Barodin (PhD and Rhodes Scholar), had been the victim of a prank he’d quite forgotten since primary school days: He had been made to laugh just at the moment of taking a large mouthful of his drink, and expelled white wine through his nose. The provocation in this case had been Sonia, a gifted mimic, drooping her eyelids down heavily and saying “REE-yu-lee” in a perfect Candace Hopkins voice.
Immediately behind the wall at Sonia’s back, Dr. Homer Layton was taking part in a conversation with Mrs. Buxtehude. They were seated in two overstuffed easy chairs, pulled together in the parlor bay window. The conversation was necessarily one-sided as Dr. Layton had nodded off to sleep while Mrs. Buxtehude chattered on. He was just deaf enough so that following her soft voice in the noisy room was beyond him. And Mrs. Buxtehude was nearsighted enough to miss the fact that he was asleep. Williams (always there when you need him) neatly retrieved Dr. Layton’s full glass just as it was about to topple into his lap. Neither the Enrico Fermi laureate nor the general’s wife took any notice. Each would look back on this half hour as the most enjoyable part of the evening.
Mrs. St. Vincent was listening with concentration to Claymore’s views on the new dorms to be constructed along Beebe Lake. She wasn’t too interested in the subject, but she believed she was listening to Claymore’s more famous brother, so she paid rapt attention. “Yes, I do see your point,” she told him.
Clay looked puzzled. “My point?”
“Yes, I can see your point clearly.”
He put his hand tentatively up onto his forehead.
Sensing confusion Mrs. St. Vincent tried to clarify, “Um…I mean, the point you just made.”
“Oh, it’s a made one then?”
“A what?”
“A made point.”
“Yes. It’s the point you just made.”
“Aha. That’s good. But I don’t see it.”
“You don’t see your own point?”
“Nope.”
Claymore’s old friend Walter Porter stepped in. “I think Mr. Layton is saying that the new dorms will disrupt animal habitat, and we’re guilty of what he calls ‘species bias’ when we do such things, because we’re thinking of human needs only, and nothing at all of the animal needs. That was what you were saying, wasn’t it Claymore?”
“It was?”
“Definitely.”
“Well that is all over my head,” said Mrs. St. Vincent.
Clay glanced up uneasily into the space above her head.
The Senator was trying hard to keep the dismay from his voice. “I daresay the concept is sound, Gordon. These people are not the kind to ‘snooker’ themselves, as you say. They are too high-powered for that. It was your own staff that came up with the idea and asked Dr. Layton to build the war-game simulation so we would have a tool to guide us during the strategic weapons disarmament process. And it does do that. It does give us a way to know how the balance of power changes for a given arms reduction by each of the various parties.”
“To which I have no objection.” The General allowed. “If that were all it did, it would be fine. If it would just give me a nice simple printout of how we would fare against the remaining Chinese and Russian weapons, head to head. None of these indirect, off the wall actions the program keeps imagining up, things our adversaries are too gutless, thank god, ever to consider.”
“Of course Simula-7 has to simulate confrontation with the remaining weapons in order to test the balance. And that does necessitate playing through all the possible uses any party might make of its resources, even including those ‘off the wall’ options, as you call them, the use of proxies, and so on. It’s a frightening possibility, you have to admit, that strategic weapons have been slipped to the Gloria Verde rebels and other Cuban proxy groups to act against us in ways established powers would never dare. The program just simulates all the different possibilities and prints out the ones we need to worry most about.”
“Oh, I know the theory, Chandler. I know the theory. I have no doubt that one day, Layton and his young people will be able to give us some sort of probabilistic assessment of how a given situation might play out. And we would be foolish not to take account of that assessment, when the day comes. But it’s not here yet. Eh, Albert?”
“Mmhh?” Tomkis had been staring at a human skull mounted on a mahogany base just behind the General’s head. The skull was one of a dozen artifacts placed by fraternity brothers years ago in lighted nooks about the room.
The General continued, “Layton and his program are out of touch with present reality. Present reality is that, for all the strategic weapons floating around, no one’s got the guts to use them. Our enemies are in a state of paralysis, utterly incapable of the kind of initiatives that Simula-7 is suggesting.”
“Well…” Tomkis hesitated, then turned glumly back toward the skull.
Senator Hopkins prodded, “Uh…I think we’d best listen to what Albert has to
say on this subject. You were about to say some something, weren’t you Albert?”
Tomkis sighed. “Well, it’s that very state of paralysis you speak of, General, that makes proxy action attractive to them. The Cubans, for example, can’t confront us directly. But if they can manipulate us some other way, why not? A distressing proportion of the strategic weapons built by the old Soviet regime are presently unaccounted for, far too many warheads to ignore. They may have been passed to the Gloria Verde and others of the groups covertly controlled by our adversaries. It’s rather a clever tactic really. A few missiles put into the hands of Cuban proxies, and everybody has perfect deniability. That’s what Simula-7 speculates has happened. We know the proxy groups are acting awfully cocky. Each time we assert our interests there is a price to pay. Simula-7 thinks they have strategic weapons and might use them.
“The program has an impressive track record so far in predicting that proxies would be set up and how they would act. It even gave details, dates and places. And it was always right.”
The General was ready to concede a small point. “Right. There are some minor things that it can do very well. That’s what makes this project worth funding. And by funding, Chandler, I don’t just mean the candy-ass amounts we’ve already committed to. I mean more. Substantially more.”
“Well, Gordon, I think that is the kind of far-sighted position that all of us have come to expect from you and I assure you that you won’t be…”
“More money. And with that money, Layton’s people can study to their hearts’ content. Research. Pure thought. That kind of stuff.”
The Senator looked at him blankly.
Albert Tomkis enlightened him, “What the General’s suggesting is more input and less output.”
“Exactly,” the General agreed. “Our man Burlingame, who’s the liaison on the project, has had some very disturbing things to say, Chandler. He says that the project personnel are allowing some of their own political thinking to influence the simulation. So the simulation is inclined to forecast things that they feel the Cubans and the terrorists might do, things that we all know they don’t have the balls to consider. Pernicious politicking is what I call it.”
“Well, we certainly can’t have that.”
“I don’t want any more of these Simula scenarios scaring the shit out of the President. The man has got the shakes anyway. I’ve got to keep two full-time people in the White House just to keep his courage up. He turns light green every time he even thinks of Simula. Imagine, the world’s only super-power, in a rare position to bypass negotiation altogether and simply dictate its will, and we may not be able to press our advantage just because some fucking computer program has got our President psyched.”
The Senator didn’t know whether to be disheartened or not. It was a relief to know that the funding was secure, that it would even increase. But if Simula-7 became invisible, Chandler Hopkins would become even more invisible. There was no fun in that. His cherished vision of Ithaca as the seat of national strategic thinking was in jeopardy. He glanced up toward the ornate wall clock. Oops. “Oh damn. It’s after eight. Mrs. Hopkins is going to be furious.” His role as Adviser to the Pentagon had caused him to lose track of the necessities of his role as host. He stood up and hurried Tomkis and the General back along the secret passage to the music room.
Passing into the library, they nearly collided with Claymore Layton. The Senator glanced distractedly at the short roundish man with gray crew cut, while moving left to get past him.
Clay countered to block his route. “Where are our tennis courts?”
“Tennis courts?!? What tennis courts?”
“The ones that aren’t there anymore.”
“My good man. I believe you have the advantage on me.”
“My add?”
“I mean, I am Senator Hopkins. And you are…?”
“I am?”
“You are Mr.…?”
“Yes?” Claymore was as fascinated to find out as the Senator was.
“You are Mr.…Layton, I believe. Dr. Layton’s brother.”
“Right. Where are the tennis courts?”
Good Christ. Senator Hopkins looked around hopefully for someone to rescue him. No one. “Uh, which tennis courts?”
“The ones behind Sage Hall.”
“There aren’t any tennis courts behind Sage Hall. There’s a parking lot behind Sage Hall.”
“Right. Where the tennis courts should be.”
“Oh. I see. So that’s your point.”
“Huh?”
The Senator caught sight of Williams hurrying by with a tray. He waved a hand to intercept him. “Oh, Rochester. Could you tell the cook that we’ll be heading directly in to dinner?”
Williams affected a deep guttural Rochester voice: “Yes Boss. Comin’ right up.” He headed back toward the kitchen with the Senator staring uncomprehendingly after him. What on earth was that all about?
Just a few paces away, Mrs. Hopkins was backing away in confusion from Elise, who was clearly very upset. Elise had been instructed to speak to the Hopkins only in French, but was this French? this torrent of emotional, and noticeably slurred language she was spitting out now? Mrs. Hopkins spun away hoping for relief. She struggled to focus on something too close for her farsighted eyes, the back of Claymore’s head. What came swimming into view was a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a face made up entirely of hair. With a weary gasp, she crumpled to the floor.
Eleven years, almost to the day, after Senator Hopkins’ April dinner party, his daughter Stacey began to write what would be the definitive history of the events that followed. Though she had no first-hand recollection of the party (she’d been sent to sleep over at a friend’s home), she did make out an index card about it, perhaps for an eventual footnote. The card listed the members of the group who were first assembled on that day: Senator and Mrs. Hopkins, the Laytons, the three young physicists, General Buxtehude and Albert Tomkis and the Senator’s butler, Jared Williams.
What all these people had in common was that history had plans for them. They were destined to take part in events that would lead to a sea change in the affairs of man. One of them, Loren Martine, would become a great hero. And one of the others would betray their cause and live on in infamy as a symbol of broken trust.
I’ll tell you how it happened.
2
CUBA LIBRE
Arlington, Virginia: In a sub-basement conference room checked out to Colonel Kenneth Gustafson of the Joint Chiefs, thirteen people were seated around an oval table. The only light came from a low floor lamp in the corner. The occupants of the room were all male, all middle-aged or older, all white, all fairly prosperous looking. Most were somewhat overweight. The tone of the meeting was, for the moment at least, spiritual:
“How long, O Lord, how long?” Secretary Murdoch was cranking up his voice to the level of Medium Oratorical. He would soon be on his feet, they all knew, and in full swing. Lesser orators could use their eyes and hands and voices to make a statement; Murdoch, when he really got going, could also sweat dramatically. He was beginning to glisten now, greasily. “How long has it been, my Brothers, that we’ve been gathering together in these very rooms to pray, and plan for a brighter Tomorrow?”
There was a murmur of response, no one quite sure whether to reply with a number of years or the usual “Amen.” Marine Captain Courtenay simply echoed Murdoch’s “How long?”
“How long indeed, gentlemen? It has been long years. But they have been good ones too, years in which we have transformed the face of this wicked city. When we began, we were nobodies, powerless and out of favor. But we had Faith!”
“Faith!” Courtenay again.
“We were imbued with His Fire, the Gift of Tongues…” He lumbered to his feet.
“Yes, that’s good, Bill. We had the gift.” Nolan Gallant interrupted. The secretary gaped, jowls still quivering. But Gallant was not about to let him go on. There were things to get done and no time
right now for endless Holy Roller preaching. Besides, it was Gallant who was the ordained minister, not Murdoch. “We had the gift of tongues and all that. And now we count among our numbers a special assistant to the President, a service Secretary, and a significant presence in the Joint Chiefs…plus others of you gentlemen who have risen to positions of authority and trust. We all know that.”
Gallant paused to look at each of the twelve, the twelve disciples as he thought of them. It was one of those pauses that invited no one else to speak. He stared them down. Bill Murdoch was still on his feet, reluctant to give up the floor. Gallant addressed him directly, “It’s time, I think, Mr. Secretary, to leave off the praying for a bit and get on with the planning for a brighter tomorrow.”
“Just my thought, Nolan. My thought exactly. I was just going to go on into the Lord’s intentions in this Time of Trouble, and the ways in which His plan for each one of us…”
“Yes. I’m sure you were.” The Reverend Gallant displayed one of his famous Inspiration Hour television smiles. He had a repertoire of such smiles from Delighted to Deeply Disappointed. This one was cordial but a tad strained. Murdoch took his seat. Gallant paused again. Off camera, as on, the Reverend Gallant had the air of a kindly and wise high school principal. His sandy hair and apple-cheeks made him look like a character right out of Norman Rockwell. He had a natural, fatherly authority, so that those around him tended to take on automatically the role of children awaiting instruction and correction. When he stopped to think his important thoughts, they just waited. At the moment, he was thinking of an old Jimmy Durante line, “Everybody’s always trying to get into the act.” Was it possible that being a preacher was so much more amusing than being Secretary of the Navy? How else to explain that Secretary Murdoch and even some of the others were inclined to try their hands at evangelical oratory whenever he let them? They were a bunch of frustrated revivalists. What a bore. He had to keep reminding himself that everyone in this room was useful and necessary to the grand plan. Otherwise he could have gladly dispensed with these now daily meetings. A glance at Rupert Paule of the White House staff. “Rupert?”
