Джон Болл - The First Team

Mrs. Rappaport took a single searching look at the Reverend Mr. Jones’ wife and decided that you get what you pay for. “So what are you wanting?”

“We’re here to help if we can.” He motioned toward the tray of sandwiches his wife was carrying. “If you’re hungry, please help yourself. Greg has some coffee. It isn’t as hot as it was, but it’s still warm if you’d like some.”

“How much does it cost?”

“It’s free — please take what you want.”

Her deeply rooted suspicion of strangers purporting to offer something for nothing seized hold of Mrs. Rappaport and warned her; if she took anything she would have to pay for it one way or another — they might even force her to listen while they read to her from the New Testament. Nobody gave anything away for free. If he had been a rabbi she would have believed in him, but a minister — no.

She shook her head that she wanted none of it and turned her attention back to her children. These people could do as they liked. She, her Danny, and their children had been virtually cast out. Hatred of the injustice swelled within her and she slammed her mind shut as an act of pure self-defense.

For all of his visible lack of sophistication, the Reverend Mr. Jones understood and led his small family to the next group of refugees. This time it was a man and a woman with a single small girl who looked up at him with deep sad eyes. He repeated his little speech of introduction while his wife held out the tray of sandwiches.

“Is your church doing this, reverend,” the man asked, “or is it the airline?”

“It’s our church.*We’re not too far away and we wanted to help if we could.”

The man stood up and shook hands with the minister. “I’m Jack Bornstein, reverend. My wife Hazel, and Molly.”

The Jones family acknowledged the Bornsteins while Greg took his cue and poured out two cups of lukewarm coffee.

“You know, this is damn decent of you,” Bornstein said. “Our position is rather awkward at the moment because of our religious faith, and a helping hand like this is certainly appreciated.”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Jones responded. “It isn’t a matter of religion, it’s simply human decency. You’ve been hit by a misfortune that’s not your fault, so this is little enough.”

Bornstein chose a sandwich. “We’re going to England if we can until this thing blows over,” he said. “We thought of Israel, but if we went there Molly would have to learn Hebrew and they might indoctrinate her more than we would like. In England she can at least speak her own language.”

Jones nodded. “That’s a wise decision, I think. I’ve never been there, but we were Welsh originally, so I feel we have some roots there.”

Bornstein looked around the large lobby and seemed to be forming some conclusion in his mind. “Let me ask you something,” he said. “From your viewpoint, how long do you think that this thing is going to last?”

“That’s terribly hard to say,” the minister replied. “I don’t have any special sources of information. It might be as much as a year — I really don’t know. These people are so hard to understand. The next thing, they may shut down all of the houses of worship. If they do, then I don’t know how I’ll support my family. My work doesn’t pay very much, but it’s enough for us, and the ministry is what I want. I guess I could become a teacher.”

Bornstein laughed. “You came pretty close; I’m in education myself — or I was. But get on with your good work. If we meet again, and I hope that we do, well. He did not finish the sentence; he could not find the words he wanted. Once more the men shook hands before the Reverend Mr. Jones and his little family continued on their slow rounds of the lounge.

Some forty minutes later there was a brief but disturbing scene. At the far end of the lounge a man jumped to his feet, exclaimed something in a loud voice, and then viciously slammed one of the last of the free sandwiches into the Reverend Mr. Jones’ face. The boy Greg doubled his fists and jumped forward to do battle, but his father restrained him. The minister inhaled a very deep breath and then regained control of himself as he let it out slowly. “Come on, son,” he said. “Forgive him. It was our fault; we should have known better than to bring any ham.”

His complexion red, but his head high, he quietly walked out, followed by his enraged, frustrated son, and his patient wife who was openly in tears.

At the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard the nuclear-powered Poseidon- firing submarine, the U.S.S. Ramon Magsaysay, lay in her berth, a warship of enormous sophistication and firepower, in the hands of the enemy.

She was brand new, commissioned, but not yet the veteran of even a single tour of duty at sea. The Magsaysay was richly loaded with classified materiel and had a nuclear power plant which the enemy would find highly informative when the original work of occupation had been completed and attention could be turned to the milking of the vast American industrial capacity. Meanwhile she was under heavy guard and totally devoid of any of the provisions which would be essential for her to go to sea. Guarded as she was, and stripped of all of her essential supplies, she was as helpless as though she had been embalmed in some gigantic cube of transparent plastic.

With a certain sadistic satisfaction it pleased the enemy to allow three or four junior officers without submarine experience to maintain the pretext that she was still in United States hands. The sharp frustration of fighting men in being forced to pretend on powerless watches, on the deck of an impotent ship which had cost the United States multiple millions to construct, afforded amusement to the commander assigned by the enemy to control and oversee the former United States defense facility. Americans, he knew, were basically inept, granting that they had a flair for technology and had had the extraordinary good fortune to be able to put men on the moon before anyone else. A precious lot of good it would do them now.

The Magsaysay was the first of a new, ultra-advanced series which had proven too much even for the people who had designed and built her; the shakedown sea tests had turned up a multitude of problems which it would have taken six months to put in order if the Americans had been left alone to do the job by themselves. They would fix her all right, but they would put her in shape to join the already mighty fleet that had helped to bring about their swift downfall.

As soon as the Magsaysay was finally ready she would be sailed away to her new destiny, but not before she had been renamed. And the new name she would be given would not please the Americans, not one little bit.

At shortly after eight-thirty on a Monday morning, while low-lying fog still obscured much of the local area, a workman who clearly disliked his assignment applied for a pass at the main gate. His qualifications as a technician were limited, but he possessed sufficient ability to do the electrical repair and modification work for which he had been recruited from one of the suppliers of the Magsaysciy’s equipment. He was precisely the type and kind of man the new chief of security for the naval facility wanted — resentful, but frightened enough to obey orders without question to save his own skin; capable of doing the work expected of him, but not advanced enough to do any dangerous improvising. He was kept waiting an hour and a half while he was checked out and his background verified. After that he was made to strip to the skin and both his person and clothing were thoroughly searched.

When the routine had been completed he was assigned a number, given a biting two-minute lecture on the penalty for the slightest infraction of the rules and shown the muzzle of a gun, in order that he would be fully impressed with what he was being told. He grew red and cringed at the same time, which was the psychologically desirable reaction; the security chief who had watched the process through a one-way mirror signaled that he was to be admitted. By phone the chief of the guards on board the Magsaysay was told to expect him.