Джон Болл - The First Team

“I’m not sure, Admiral Haymarket, that we have very much prestige to barter with right now.”

“That’s right, senator, but we can manufacture a little, and that’s what I’m trying to do. You know the Actor; in fact I understand that you were the audience for one of his most brilliant performances.”

“You could put it that way,” Fitzhugh admitted.

“All right; now here is how it stands, senator. By the way, what do your friends call you?”

Fitzhugh was edgy about that. “Solomon, sometimes.”

“I see. Anyhow, through private channels which were set up for the purpose, and with the approval of the President, I’ve been in touch with the premier. Not in my own identity, but as the commander of Thomas Jefferson. Some horse trading has been done. His government is not stable at the moment and usually at such times over there heads roll. To protect himself, he has had to make some moves. He has agreed through a series of apparently unimportant steps to start pulling his people out and in turn I have promised to call the Magsaysay home.”

Solomon Fitzhugh considered that and then shook his head. “I don’t know, admiral,” he said, “once the Magsaysay is no longer a threat to them, then won’t we be completely at their mercy once more?”

To Fitzhugh’s surprise, the admiral seemed to be delighted. “Senator, I agree with you totally, and I’m particularly pleased to hear you express that opinion. If you’ll pardon my saying so, I believe that you’re beginning to see the advantages of keeping our powder dry. Here’s the rest of it: I agreed to pull in the Magsaysay with appropriate fanfare, but with a very secret proviso. Before she leaves her present station, another of our FBM’s must be allowed to replace her. We had three in Holy Loch when this all started, and one of them has already quietly slipped away. The British know; they had to since Holy Loch is in Scotland and the ships were technically impounded there. We are letting them have the propaganda victory, but our basic strategic position is essentially unchanged.”

“He simply let you do that?”

“Yes, to save his own neck and his government. You see, it can remain a secret permanently because the new ship on station isn’t going to fire — we both knew that. He’s far too smart to bring that down on his head, and there wouldn’t be any winners in a nuclear showdown.”

Fitzhugh fingered his coffee cup while he thought. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked. “When I asked you about the President, you told me very pointedly that I had no need to know.”

The admiral leaned back, coffee in hand. “I was just coming to that. In the plainest language, with Rostovitch dead and his own economy almost on the brink, the premier’s got to get out of a serious overcommitment here before the walls tumble down behind him. Nelson won at Trafalgar, but he got himself killed in the process. The Actor prefers to be around for a while to enjoy his position, his girl friends, and the other amenities of life.”

“So?”

“Very simple,” Haymarket said. “He has suggested that since the occupation has achieved its purpose, he is now ready to talk with his old friend, the esteemed peacemaker, Senator Solomon Fitzhugh.”

The admiral expected a reaction to that and he got it. “Dammit, it wasn’t too long ago that I was very rudely told that the premier wished to hear nothing more from me. I was given to understand that if I did not comply, my toys would be taken away from me. In those words!”

“I know — but that was before we had a nuclear submarine aimed right up his backside. Magsaysay and her overwhelming destructive potential made it a new ball game.”

“Does the President know?”

“Yes, and he has approved. Understand clearly that the deal has already been made; your part will be to show up overseas, accept the protocol, talk about your long-standing devotion to the cause of nonmilitarism, and help the Actor to put on his show. In due time the two of you will issue a joint communique. When that’s all over, he will start pulling back his forces and you, naturally, will emerge a national hero.”

Solomon Fitzhugh shook his head. “I’ll go if it will help the cause of peace. But the hero part will come when you and your associates come out of hiding. Everyone knows about the First Team now.”

The admiral finished his coffee very casually. “No, senator. I’m going to come back to life and really retire this time, but otherwise all of the personnel of this operation are going to remain unheralded and unsung. We always hope for a better world, but we don’t have any guarantees — not yet. So we are going quietly to break up except for a few maintenance personnel and go on about our separate businesses, but our organization will still be there if it’s ever needed again. The same goes for all of our backup people, and you have no idea how many there are.”

The senator was not fully satisfied. “Consider history…” he began.

The admiral firmly shook his head. “You take the bows, senator; you’ve earned them. Publicity isn’t our business, in fact in our kind of operation it could be fatal to us. You go and make the Actor look good, then you can come home and run for President.”

“I don’t want to be President,” Fitzhugh said.

Two hours out of port the U.S.S. Ramon Magsaysay rendezvoused on the surface with a supply vessel which passed over several packages of soft goods. The men of the submarine received them gladly and with their aid prepared themselves more suitably for an appearance at a United States naval facility. For a short while the captain disappeared from the bridge; when he returned he was in proper uniform and, what was more, he had been well fitted and his decorations were correctly displayed. Underneath him his ship rolled slightly in the water, a welcome change from the monotonous steadiness while submerged. As he walked back and forth on the small area available, he drew in deep lungfuls of air and glanced up every few seconds at the sky. When the lookout announced landfall he pulled down the edges of his coat and began to check that his ship was fully prepared to enter port in a smart and proper manner. He passed some orders and verified a number of things to the point where Chief Summers remarked that he had never seen the old man in such a testy mood.

It did not last for long. The New England coastline grew nearer and then the familiar outlines of the New London-Groton area. The Magsaysay cut cleanly through the water, her speed exactly right to ride the tide in. The navigator passed up a message that she should make her berth within two minutes of her ETA.

“Improve that,” the captain replied.

At the proper time smartly uniformed members of her crew came on deck and formed an impressive line of seagoing fighting men. The captain looked them over from the bridge with an eagle’s eye, but he could find no fault. He nodded to the Officer of the Deck and once more adjusted the edges of his coat.

Those who were waiting on the pier, from the three-star admiral on down, watched with a mixture of pride and well-founded emotion as the narrow black submarine came slowly in under her own power, her crewmen lining her rail in the finest tradition of the Navy. From her first sighting the television cameras had been on her, now as she drew closer they trained on her deck and then panned up to her bridge where only heads and shoulders were visible.

It took longer than many present had expected for her to berth, for she came in well away from the pierside to avoid fouling her screw and was properly snubbed in with the minute slowness that the very careful operation demanded. Then at last the short brow was put into position that led from the dock over to her deck and Magsaysay was officially in port.