Eugene Burdick - Fail-Safe

“Answer the question, Colonel,” General Bogan said. He spoke in a firm imperative voice. “The Soviets are listening to what I am saying.”

Around the War Room the tension became a pressure on the eardrums.

“That is a direct order,” General Bogan said.

Colonel Cascio’s mouth opened. The lips came back from the teeth. He swung his unseeing eyes toward General Bogan.

“A direct order,” General Bogan repeated softly.

Colonel Casdo made a sound. It was low, primitive, agonized. It was a growl of despair. His body relaxed. He shook his head.

“Marshal Nevsky, the Colonel who is our expert on this subject has suffered some sort of seizure,” General Bogan said. The translator spoke and over the “touch” phone there was a muttering of voices that grew in volume as Bogan listened. “We have prepared for such situations. Each of the men in the War Room has a standby who possesses the precise information which the active-duty man possesses.” General Bogan paused. He looked around the room. Lieutenant Colonel Handel was there, Cascio’s understudy. But Handel’s eyes were glued on Cascio. They were dose friends.

General Bogan struggled to keep control, to think dearly. He must quiet what he guessed was a rising suspicion in the distant Soviet headquarters. There could be no chancing a repetition of Cascio’s behavior. His finger started down a list of names. He skipped over Handel and stopped at the master sergeant who backed up both colonels.

“Sergeant Collins, report to the Commanding General’s desk at once,” he said.

A door at the side of the War Room opened and a sergeant, rotund and middle-aged, came trotting toward the general’s desk. He came to a stiff halt.

“Sergeant Collins, does the Bloodhound have both an infrared- and radar-seeking capacity?” General Bogan said.

“Yes, sir, it has both capacities,” Collins said, a cherubic smile on his face.

“Can the radar-seeking mechanism be overloaded by increasing the strength of the signal?” the Russian translator said quickly. The voices in the background of the Soviet headquarters had died away.

General Bogan felt his body sag. Apparently they bad decided to believe him.

“Yes, sir, it can be overloaded by increasing the transmission power output and by sliding through radar frequencies as quickly as possible,” Sergeant Collins sakL He was still smiling his anxious cherubic smile, quite unaware of the other men in the room staring at him, quite oblivious that he was unwittingly playing the role of Judas. “What happens is that the firing mechanism reads the higher amperage as proximity to the target and detonates the warhead.”

“Thank you, General Bogan,” the translator said quietly. “We have already communicated the information. We have rearranged our communications net so that tactical defensive maneuvers are controlled from this room.”

General Bogan realized with a quick simple insight that with the new communication network his War Room was actually directing the defensive operations of the Soviets.

The new information was reflected almost instantly on the Big Board. Two Soviet blips began to move toward one of the Vindicators. When they were five miles distant the Vindicator dropped. two tiny blips and the Bloodhounds hung almost motionless as their rockets began to ignite. They had barely separated from the bigger blip of the Vindicator when they were detonated by the information which Sergeant Collins had transmitted. Instantly the green fungus-like splotch on the Big Board enveloped the Vindicator. Then the ugly blip exploded into enormousness. The two Soviet fighters were caught in the spreading blast and disappeared.

The light on the “touch” phone went off. Sergeant Collins turned and walked slowly from the room, seeming to deflate as he went.

General Bogan looked at Colonel Casdo. The recovery was unbelievable. The man seemed relaxed, the hard glitter gone from his eyes. He appeared perfectly normal and spoke apologetically about what had just taken place.

“I am sorry, General,” he said. “I just could not do it. I don’t quite remember what happened. The back of my eyes seemed to turn white and I couldn’t see anything or say anything. I think I am all right now.”

“Colonel, it could happen to anyone,” General Bogan said. He knew this to be untrue, as did Cascio.

Actually General Bogan was watching his colonel carefully. He considered the possibility of replacing him with Sergeant Collins. In theory Collins knew as much as Cascio about technical details. But Colonel Cascio, by a combination of training, intuition, and skill, was a much more valuable person. General Bogan knew he would have to keep him on the desk. He was turning away when Cascio grabbed his arm.

“General, I think it is a Soviet entrapment,” Cascio said tensely. His voice was tight but under control. “We’ve known for weeks that they have been fooling around with our Fail-Safe mechanism. I think they wanted this to happen. I think we should tell the President that we think it is an entrapment, that the Soviets are using the time to ready their ICBMs and to fly their bombers to advantageous position for a second strike.”

“But we do not have any evidence that they are moving their bombers,” General Bogan said sharply.

“But, General, they might be flying bombers in the grass,” Cascio said with urgency. “For all we know they might have hundreds of planes, already over the Arctic and heading for us. Also they may have fired ICBMs and put them in the trajectories of the known

and identified satellites. Remember, sir, we computed that problem and decided that satellites could be used to mask ICBMs.’?

“Maybe, but I am not going to report anything that I do not know for sure,” General Bogan said.

“I think we should recommend a full-strength strike immediately by all air-borne units to be followed by other strikes as soon as ICBMs and standby units can be activated,” Colonel Cascio said.

“That decision rests with the Pentagon and the President,” General Bogan said slowly.

“Look, General,, those people at the Pentagon don’t know the situation the way we know it,” Colonel Cascio said. “They have secondhand information, they are not trained to evaluate an enemy who knows every trick in the book. They are in the political game. So is the President. We, those of us in this room, we are in the war business. We know it better than anyone else. If we move now and decisively we can still save the situation. Even though we’ve backed down from Condition Red we have enough bombers in the air to launch a crippling first strike. As you can see on the Big Board, the Soviets don’t have anywhere near the defensive capacity we thought they might have.”

General Bogan’s head ached. He felt as if the neurons of his brain had begun to burn, like filaments that were overburdened with electricity. He stared at the Big Board and the blips and signs seemed like enormous and threatening mysteries. By a single action, one command, he could simplify everything. He sat down.

Colonel Cascio went on talking, but General Bogan did not hear the precise words, only the sound of persuasion.

General Bogan felt an odd and sudden companionship with Colonel Cascio. He was bitter toward an undefined authority, toward the “they” in Washington who had overburdened him. He turned in the chair. He felt smaller, more secure, more elemental. His fingers knotted into fists, his mouth opened slightly and gasped for air. He felt a terrible self-pity, an infantile sense of being asked to do too much. His body curled in the chair, he felt saliva gather in the corners of his mouth. He had the sensation that he could remember nothing of what he had just heard. His memory stopped and was only a second long. With a sense of relief he felt a sensuous sliding away into irresponsibility, into numbness, into something primordial. He felt a gurgle begin in his chest, a kind of primitive and very comforting voice. He felt warm, enclosed, removed. The sound reached his lips.