Irving Wallace - The Man

Abrahams gnawed his lower lip thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact, I have.”

“Shoot.”

He looked at Dilman squarely. “We’ve had an offer, Doug. Political horse trade, but an offer.”

“For what?”

“Senate votes in an hour and a half from now.”

“From whom?”

“Boss of the Party. Allan Noyes buttonholed me when I was leaving. Took me aside. Said there are nine on-the-fence Party senators who are more concerned about what your conviction will do to the Party tomorrow than about what you are up to today. They feel that if you are kept in office, in the long run there’d be less harm done to the Party. They’re considering that there’s only a year or so of the unexpired term to go, and they’d lose fewer votes in the next election this way than if you are publicly disgraced and kicked out.”

“Lose fewer votes? What votes?”

“Well, the Party has been taking samplings around the country. You’ve regained the sympathy of most of the Negro population, and of other minorities. The bloc of white liberals behind you has grown. Some independents here and there are shifting toward you. Noyes said it isn’t a big switch to your side right now, but an impeachment conviction might gain you more sympathy than ever, and lose Eaton a lot of votes when he came up for election.”

“Eaton’s election. Is that what the Party is worrying about?”

“Frankly, yes. And that’s the proposition. These nine senators put their heads together with Noyes, and here’s what they came up with. Instead of splitting over you this afternoon, or going against you, they’ve promised to vote for you under certain conditions.”

“All right, let’s have it, Nat. What’s the price?”

“If they swing an acquittal for you, then they want a public announcement from you tomorrow that you will neither seek reelection as the Party’s candidate nor allow yourself to be drafted as a candidate by a third party, and that you will come out in full support of Arthur Eaton or any other Party choice for the Presidential nomination next summer. That’s it. Agree to this, and you’ve got nine powerful votes for acquittal you might not otherwise have.”

Dilman squinted at Abrahams and put down his sandwich. “And I need those nine votes?”

“Wouldn’t hurt, you can use them,” said Abrahams casually.

“And they want my answer before two o’clock?”

“Before a quarter to two.”

“Nat, my answer is no. You tell them no.”

Abrahams did not seem at all surprised. He began to eat. “I don’t have to tell them no,” he said, between mouthfuls. “I’ve already told them.”

“You already told them no?” Dilman fell back, laughing and shaking his head. “You were that sure? What are you, my conscience?”

“Why, I’m your counselor, Mr. President.”

“My assistant gravedigger, you mean.” Suddenly Dilman sobered. “How badly did we need that deal, Nat, no soft-soaping? At the press conference today, Reb Blaser said the House managers took a straw poll, and while they need only sixty-seven votes to convict me, the poll says they have eighty. Any truth to that?”

“Exaggerated. Allan Noyes took his own poll. He’s hardheaded Party. No sleight-of-hand.”

“Well?”

“He comes up with seventy-four to convict. Seven more than they need.”

“What do you come up with, Nat?”

“How do I know? I look and listen. I hope.”

“Come on, Nat.”

“Okay. If it is sixty-seven for conviction, they win. If it is sixty-six for conviction, short of two-thirds by one, you win. Right now, wetting my finger and putting it into the wind, I’d say they have-there’s no way of knowing-but Tuttle and Hart believe they may have seventy votes.”

“In other words, they have what they need plus four?”

“Don’t think about it, Doug. It’s all guesswork. Let them vote and let’s see.”

“Oh, I’ll let them vote.”

“There are other things to think about… Hey, Edna Foster tells me Mindy is here. Is that true?”

Dilman found a way to smile. “Absolutely true. She’s hurt, she’s not well, I’m going to see that she gets help. But she’s back, yes. And beautiful beyond belief. She’s upstairs napping this minute.” He shook his head. “I only wish I had come to my senses sooner and forced Mindy to come here, permitted Wanda to, while I was still a tenant of the White House.”

“You’re still a tenant.”

“Yes. Only it’s beginning to feel like Leavenworth.”

The desk telephone rang. Dilman wiped his mouth with the paper napkin, then rose and hurried to the desk.

“Direct Pentagon hookup-I wonder what now-”

He could picture Secretary of Defense Steinbrenner ensconced behind the door with the placard reading “3-E-880,” busy at his nine-foot glass-topped desk. Except for the deceptively placid view from Steinbrenner’s four spacious windows, lulling one with the sight of the Pentagon lagoon below and the Jefferson Monument beyond, it was an office of intense action. Steinbrenner was on the direct White House line now, but he also had the gray telephone to all command posts open, and his military assistants busy at the easel on which they sketched and simplified tactical problems for him, as well as the strange wall clock depicting time zones in defense areas (“For Cincpac-Subtract 6”) constantly in view. So much might come through that office today.

Dilman picked up the telephone. “Yes, this is the President.”

“Mr. President, Steinbrenner here. I have just heard from General Rice in Baraza City. His aerial reconnaissance has delivered-no more than an hour old-film showing highly intensified Communist movement on the Barazan frontier, in fact, throughout the enemy perimeter. All equipment is being mobilized. There is no question but that they have decided to move. General Rice believes it a strategic necessity that our advance rocketry units, now positioned, hit first. He thinks an enormous advantage can be gained. I don’t feel empowered to make such a decision. He is standing by in Baraza City for the go-ahead. I’m ready to give it, but not on my own responsibility. I’m passing the buck, Mr. President. Do you want to give us the green light?”

Dilman’s palm was warm on the hand telephone. He thought of Harry Truman: the buck stops here, here in this Oval Office, not in the more ornate office of the Secretary of Defense.

It was a difficult decision to make. If he gave the word, the Dragon Flies would strike, perhaps topple the enemy in a lightning stroke, perhaps gain an advantage, perhaps save countless lives. Yet he would have committed the United States to an action of offense, not defense. He would have betrayed America’s entire historic philosophy of peace for a possible military advantage.

He hesitated, momentarily troubled by the man in the Pentagon with the command line and easel and zone clock and maps, and then he heeded his instinct.

“I don’t want to be the aggressor, no matter what is going on,” Dilman said. “You order the General to continue to keep a close watch on their movements, but only shoot when shot at.”

He heard Steinbrenner’s snort. “If that’s it, then I’ll pass it on. But if it is defense we’re thinking of, we’ve got to anticipate the worst, we’ve got to anticipate the conflict’s broadening, and the possibility of an attack by Russia. I feel it is important to consider putting our defense forces on second-strike standby alert.” There was a pause, and then Steinbrenner said, “Mr. President, what about going on DEFCON ONE?”

Again Dilman hesitated. The official order to set in operation DEFCON ONE would poise the entire United States, its military and civilian forces, on an all-out war alert. Dilman tried to visualize this alert: The screens of the DEW and BMEWS radar network would be under double surveillance, and fingers would creep closer to buttons that could order the North American Defense Command to activate 720 different Warning Points. The triple blockhouses stationed throughout the world would begin electronically elevating the fixed Minuteman ICBMs from their concrete casings. The secret trains carrying their mobile Minuteman missiles and squadrons would speed to preassigned positions. The Polaris submarines, each with twenty nuclear weapons, would rise from the ocean bottoms. Beneath the yellow clay of Nebraska, from the concrete command center of SAC, special world would send the B-70 jets and their hydrogen-bomb loads hurtling aloft in greater number. And just as his own Marine helicopter would be readied nearby to spirit him away to the subterranean second White House burrowed deep in a Virginia hillside, Dilman knew that fallout shelters across the nation would be manned for the ultimate signal of war imminent. There would be consternation, fear, even panic. Yet there would be preparedness.