He smiled. “Dance first. Then you can tell me the whole story.”
“For a minute,” she said, as she had said to so many pushy men before—even if this pushy man was the President of the United States.
“Try to relax,” he said, as he gently put his arms around her.
Margo swallowed. It was the fiction; that was all. His arms tightened, and she allowed it. For a minute, she told herself. Just one more minute, and then they would stop and talk, and everything would be fine again. Another minute, maybe two. The President was just being careful. He had no other purpose—
“Mr. President, I really think we—”
“Ssssh. Relax, Miss Jensen. Margo. Margo. A lovely name.”
“Sir, please. Listen. Fomin said—”
“We can get to Fomin in a minute. Relax. It’s a dance.” He patted the back of her neck. “Come on. Head down on the shoulder. You know how this works.”
She felt a lethargy taking her. A delicious, dizzying warmth. A sense of relief that events were spinning out of her control. She felt his strong arms, his chest, the urgent pressure of his body. His scent. The sound of his humming. She nestled closer. He stroked her shoulder, and she heard the sigh before she realized that it was hers. He kissed her hair and she shivered. His hands moved—
“No,” she gasped, pushing free of him. “Stop. Don’t.”
The crooked smile. “It’s all part of the fiction.”
“I—Mr. President—”
“Come on. Let’s at least finish the dance.”
He stood not two feet from her, collar undone, handsome face flushed, hand held out toward her. How easy it would be to lose herself. A part of her wanted to.
With an effort, Margo took another step away. Kennedy was talking again, voice low and syrupy and persuasive, but she hardly noticed the words. And when she spoke again, she brought him up short.
“Mr. President, I think the Soviets are getting ready to shoot down one of our planes.”
III
For as long as it takes to switch gears, the President stared. “Did Fomin tell you that?”
“Not exactly.” She drew a breath: the A student, back on stage. “He said that you mustn’t stop the Grozny. He implied that the command and control that Khrushchev exercises over his forces aren’t as strong as you might imagine. He said that you must accept that it is necessary for him to give something to what he called his war faction. And that you must control your war faction. I think he was saying that if they shoot down a plane you mustn’t retaliate.”
“Is that so? Maybe you should tell him that we have a plan in place. If they shoot down a U-2, we’ll blow up the SAM site that fired the missile. No question, no negotiation. He leaves our planes alone.”
“Mr. President, I think what he was trying to say was that if you retaliate—even just against the SAMs—Khrushchev will be under enormous pressure to—”
“To strike back. We know, Miss Jensen. We’ve reasoned all this out. Our people figure that we’ll face some difficulties elsewhere, maybe Turkey, most likely Berlin. A proportionate response.”
“I think that’s what he was getting at.” She could not believe her own calm. Perhaps it was shock. “He said retaliation would force upon the General Secretary ‘an unthinkable choice.’ ”
“He said that? ‘Unthinkable’?”
“Yes, sir.”
Kennedy shook his head. “Taylor and LeMay and that crowd are going to just love this.” He put down his glass, too hard, and the champagne slopped onto the polished wood. He didn’t notice. “I have to go.”
FORTY-TWO
A Credible Commitment
I
“Let’s assume she’s right,” said Bobby Kennedy. It was Friday afternoon. Last night they had agreed to sleep on Margo’s theory. The Grozny was still steaming toward the blockade line, but slowly. There was time to think. This morning’s ExComm was devoted to discussing disturbing new U-2 images that showed work proceeding on the missiles at an accelerated pace. There was talk of strengthening the blockade, but also of going in fast, perhaps as soon as Monday, to take out the launch sites. Neither the President, his brother, nor Bundy—the only three in the room aware of the back channel—had said a word about the possibility that one of the U-2s might be shot down. Now, in the Oval Office, the President wanted to talk it out.
“Let’s assume that the Soviets plan to shoot down one of our U-2s,” Bobby continued. “Fomin can’t seriously expect us to just sit here and do nothing.”
“Well, let’s slow down a minute,” Bundy began, but the attorney general rolled right over him.
“The ExComm has already discussed this, Mr. President. We have a protocol in place. If they shoot down a U-2, we attack their antiaircraft sites. We have to be able to keep eyes on the missiles, and they have to know that we’ll protect our ability to do so.” He was striding, gesturing, eyes bright with anger. “Taylor, LeMay, even McNamara—they’d hit the roof if we didn’t take action. Frankly, I wouldn’t put it past LeMay to order retaliation on his own initiative.”
“He has the delegated authority to do that,” said Bundy. “Unless, of course, the President should withdraw that authority.”
Kennedy was standing at the window, to all appearances studying the Rose Garden while his advisers fought this one out. “And why would I do that, Mac?” he asked, not turning.
“To avoid starting a war.”
Again Bobby cut in. “If the Reds shoot down one of our planes, they’re the ones who are committing an act of war.”
Bundy shook his head. “With respect, that’s not so. They’ve shot down our surveillance aircraft in other parts of the world. We’ve shot down theirs. Nobody’s thought that we have to fight. Our planes are over the sovereign territory of another country. Our pilots resign their commissions before they fly, precisely so that our overflights aren’t military incursions.” Back to the President: “Sir, I’m not saying we should do what Khrushchev seems to be suggesting. I do think that we should give it serious consideration.”
“You’re talking about sending an American pilot to his death and doing nothing,” said the attorney general.
Bundy ignored this sally. “The test is very simple, Mr. President. If the Soviets shoot down one of our planes this weekend, then I would say that GREENHILL’s interpretation is correct. The attack will be Khrushchev’s sop to his hard-liners.”
“And do you think he understands that I have hard-liners of my own to deal with? Hard-liners who are going to demand an attack on the SAM batteries?”
“I suspect, Mr. President, that Khrushchev is counting on you to be more firmly in control than he is.”
This was too much for Bobby. “If he’s not in control, why are we even negotiating with him? If he has to shoot down a plane to please the old guard, how do we know they can’t force him to fire off a missile or two?”
The President looked at his watch. “It’s time, gentlemen.”
As they headed for the Cabinet Room, Bundy pondered Bobby’s final question. He was right, of course. They couldn’t make a deal through the back channel unless they had proof that they were dealing with Khrushchev himself.
The problem was how to get it.
II
“I am afraid you are correct,” said Viktor Vaganian. “I received this morning a lengthy cable from my superiors in Moscow. Although Fomin remains, as a formal matter, a colonel in the First Chief Directorate, he has been secretly reassigned to the personal staff of the Comrade General Secretary. He has been given a personal cipher and cable access directly to the Comrade General Secretary’s chief aide. He is not running GREENHILL as his agent. They are negotiating.”
“Exactly what I told you two days ago,” said Ziegler.
“That is true. But I prefer to wait for hard intelligence before acting. We are not cowboys, after all.”
They were once more in Warrenton, Virginia, an hour from the city. This time, they were in a booth in the sort of rustic café that serves bad
breakfasts to early-morning hunters. Nobody from official Washington ever came this far out. Here the Old South still ruled: precisely the reason Ziegler chose it.
“Well, fine,” the American was saying. “Your intelligence is confirmed. So, now that we’re sure they’re negotiating, what are we going to do to make sure they don’t reach a deal? Because the chain is pretty flimsy. Only a few people involved. And two of them would seem pretty vulnerable.”
Viktor’s tone was mournful. “Fomin I cannot touch. He has powerful patrons.”
“You use that excuse a lot. Protectors back home.”
“It is not an excuse. It is a fact. I told you. In the Soviet Union, power is divided. This is appropriate—”
“I know, I know. So the Party doesn’t get out of hand. Great.” He signaled for the check. “Okay. Fine. We’ll try on this end, with GREENHILL.” A hard look. “Nonviolently.”
“Of course. But if your method does not succeed, it is possible that we shall have to try our own.”
“She’s an American.”
“She is the only one Fomin trusts. Remove her, and the entire back channel will collapse.”
III
Margo’s Friday was almost normal for an intern with her job. She filed and stacked and sorted and delivered. She collected books and reports and folders and mail. She kept watching the clock, although she had no earthly idea whether the Grozny had turned, or what time the Soviet Union might be planning to shoot down an American aircraft. She wondered whether the story would even make the news, or whether the Administration would hush it up for a day or two. And although turning out to be wrong would shake the reputation for intelligence she had worked so hard to cultivate this past week, she hoped against hope that she was mistaken.
And knew she wasn’t.
She lunched at the Museum of Natural History with another intern, and noticed a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses a few tables away, watchfully ignoring her. She had the sense that she had seen him somewhere before; perhaps even in Ithaca. But when she left he did not so much as look up from his paper, and she wondered afresh whether she was imagining.
A little past three, in the midst of her filing and ferrying, the usual afternoon summons brought her from her cubby out to the reception desk. She listened carefully to her instructions, spoke a few code words so they’d know she understood, and rang off. Only later, as she happily hummed her way toward five o’clock, did Margo realize that she had been so looking forward to the call that she’d scarcely noticed Sylvie’s usual disdainful curiosity.
Her good mood continued to hold her, even after she arrived back at the apartment to find a taxi waiting and the doorman loading Hope’s bags.
“She’s going home,” said Patsy, upstairs. “Her parents called. They want her out of the city.”
“What about you?”
The Californian shrugged. “I’m staying until the end.”
“The end?”
“I want to see what it’s like.”
“There’s not going to be a war,” said Margo, severely. In the shower, she went back to her singing. No plane had been shot down. Khrushchev had been bluffing; or he’d changed his mind. That was why she was so happy, Margo told herself. No other reason but that. Because the war was going to be averted.
Patsy, watching her dress, had a different theory.
“So there is a guy.”
Margo, standing at the bathroom mirror, looked at her roommate’s reflection. “What?”
The Californian slouched against the jamb. “Hope and I have been trying to figure you out. You go out every night, you’re all dressed up, you come back later with your clothes all mussed. That spells guy, right? But you never seem to look forward to it. You’re always down in the mouth. Hope even said maybe you were faking the whole thing for some reason. But look at you. Singing, all happy. It’s a guy.”
Margo had done more blushing in the past week than in the past year. “It’s not a guy. I can’t explain, but—it’s not.”
“I know that look, Margo. It’s a guy all right. I can hear it in your voice and see it in your eyes.”
“It’s not,” she said, too fiercely. Patsy wandered away, chuckling. Margo knew her denial would never be believed. The entire operation rested on the fiction beneath the fiction beneath the fiction: if Patsy didn’t think her roommate was lying, then the cover story wasn’t working.
But as she headed downstairs to catch the bus, she wasn’t smiling any more.
IV
“Is your President going to stop our ship?”
“He won’t let it cross the blockade line.”
Fomin was shoveling food into his mouth. “Did you explain to him that the Comrade General Secretary must please his war faction?”
“I told him.” She glanced around the restaurant, then leaned across the table. “What happened with the ship? You told me it would be at the quarantine line this morning. Did the Navy stop it?”
He barely glanced up. “The Comrade General Secretary has decided to give your President more time to gain control of his war faction. The ship is still proceeding, but more slowly. It may reach your country’s illegal blockade tonight. I do not know the details.”
“You misled me. You implied that your side was going to shoot down a plane.”
“I cannot tell you what our side will do, Miss Jensen, any more than you can tell me what your side will do. I can only tell you that we have a war faction, just as you do.” He signaled the waiter for more water. “I sense that your President is uneasy.”
“Everybody’s uneasy.”
“I am referring to his role as the commander in chief. Your Constitution is a curious document. The voters select a leader, and the leader holds the highest rank in the military, whether or not he has served, and whether or not he has the confidence to perform the role. Or the confidence of his soldiers and sailors.”
“President Kennedy was in the war.”
“He allowed his patrol boat to be run over by an enemy destroyer. This was careless of him. In the Red Navy, a man who did this would face court-martial.”
Margo knew better than to argue. Fomin might be right or he might be wrong, but it wasn’t her place to debate the point. He had a goal in mind.
Fomin took another largish sip from his water glass. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. His tone was brisk. “You may inform your President that the Comrade General Secretary will not insist on immediate removal of the Jupiter missiles. He will agree to dismantle our missiles in return for a public promise by your President never to invade Cuba.” He paused as if awaiting contradiction, but Margo was waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Provided, however, that he understands the need for the Comrade General Secretary to reassure his war faction.”
“Are you saying that if we let the Grozny through the quarantine line the General Secretary will take the missiles out of Cuba? Is that what will satisfy the—the war faction?” She could not believe that things could be so simple. “The crisis will be over? Or is there something else you want?”
But she had forgotten how the proud Russian hated to be questioned. “The response of the Comrade General Secretary is as I have stated it. I am not able to amplify the words in any way.”
Again she sensed a hidden meaning. She had from here to the townhouse to work it out.
FORTY-THREE
Another Celebration
I
Tomorrow night would be given over to Ziegler’s plan, but Viktor Vaganian doubted that the plan would succeed. Therefore, he had come up with an idea of his own, in keeping with both his talents and his inclinations.
Ziegler said he could not allow the killing of another American.
But not all direct action involved death.
Once more Viktor sat outside the apartment house. He did not have long to wait. GREENHILL’s roommate, the tall blonde one, came out the front door. A young man in a cherry-red sports car was waiting. He kissed her on the mouth, then she kissed him on the mouth,
then he kissed her again. Viktor frowned at the showiness of their affection. At last they disentangled, and the car shot down the driveway and out into traffic on Fourth Street.
At a safe distance, Viktor followed.
II
“This calls for a celebration,” said the President.
Margo stood near the window, hugging her hunched shoulders as she modeled her fourth new gown of the week. “I’m not sure, Mr. President. I don’t think it’s necessarily over.”
“Khrushchev said he doesn’t need the Jupiters, right? All he needs is my public promise not to invade. Even the biggest fire-breathers around the table will agree to take that deal.”
She felt hot and frightened and uncertain, and wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was the setting—a continuation, evidently, of whatever last night might have been. Once more, all the guards were outside the townhouse. Once more, Sinatra was playing on the paneled Victrola. Once more, Kennedy was in his socks with tie and collar undone.
Her lack of enthusiasm seemed to bother him. He came over and stood beside her. Together they looked down at the side street. Night mist made soft halos of the street lamps.
“You’re right, of course,” he said finally. “We don’t know if it’s really over. There’s a lot to work out, and the Russians can be tricky.”
“Yes, sir.”
“A public promise,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I can do that.”
Margo hesitated. She thought she had figured out the rest, but her last guess had gone terribly wrong. “Mr. President, there’s more. Fomin said that the General Secretary still has to placate his war faction, and I think he might mean—”
The President waved her silent. “Please. I’ve got a roomful of advisers to tell me what Khrushchev might mean. Let’s stick to what Fomin actually said.”
She tried again. “Yes, sir, but Fomin also said that the General Secretary would not require the ‘immediate’ removal of the Jupiters. I wonder whether he was trying to say that he would expect you to move them later.”
Kennedy was plainly exasperated. “We can’t run this thing according to your hunches.”
“Yes, sir, I—”
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