Warren Murphy - Last Call

Stantington said, "Suppose you begin by telling me what this is all about."

Smith looked at him coolly, then shook his head. "You seem to have forgotten, Admiral. You wanted to talk to me."

"And you had me brought here in a plastic bag," Stantington said. "That merits me an explanation."

"Chalk it up to employee overexuberance," Smith said, "and it merits you absolutely nothing. Please state your business,"

"I've been kidnaped, you know," Stantington persisted. "That isn't exactly a laughing matter."

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"No," Smith agreed slowly. "But you would be if you ever mentioned it. Being taken out of your office in a Hefty bag. Your business, please?"

Stantington stared hard at Smith who sat, ceramic-still. Finally, the CIA director sighed.

"I ran across your name in our files," he said.

"That's right. I was once with the company," Smith said.

"This was in connection with something called Project Omega."

Smith moved forward onto the edge of his seat.

"What about Project Omega ?" he asked.

"That's what I want to know. What in the hell is it?"

"It really doesn't concern you," Smith said.

"It costs me almost five million a year out of my budget and it doesn't concern me? Agents sitting around three hundred sixty-five days a year playing cards and it doesn't concern me? One telephone call a day to a little old lady in Atlanta, Georgia, and it doesn't concern me?"

"Have you been tampering with Project Omega?" Smith asked. His eyes were narrowed and his voice was frozen.

"I've done more than tamper," Stantington said hotly. "I put those slackers out of business."

"You did what?"

"I cancelled the project. Fired the agents. Closed it down."

"You imbecile," Smith said. "You arrogant, cement-headed imbecile."

"Just a minute, Doctor," Stantington began.

"We may not have a minute, thanks to your

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bumbling," Smith said. "Did the President authorize closing- down Project Omega?"

"Not exactly."

"Weren't you aware that there is a notation in the CIA's permanent records that Project Omega can be closed down only on the specific written authoriziation of the President of the United States?"

Stantington thought about the CIA file room, the shambles of papers and records strewn about the floor.

"But that's right," Smith said in disgust. "You couldn't find anything in your files, could you? Not after you decided to make the CIA into some kind of exercise in participatory democracy and your record system was destroyed."

"How did you know about that?" Stantington asked.

"That's immaterial," Smith said, "and not germane to this conversation which involves your other most recent lunacy in dealing with Project Omega."

"Since it's been closed down," Stantington said, "two Russian diplomats have been killed. The Russians are blaming it on us. They say that both assassins were on our payroll."

"That's right," said Smith. "They were." He spun around in his chair and looked out the oneway windows toward the Sound. "And that's not the worst of it. The Russian premier is on the hit list, too."

"Oh, my god," Stantington said. He slumped back in the couch. "How can we stop it?"

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Smith turned back. His face still showed no emotion.

"We can't," he said. "Once Project Omega has been set in motion, it can't be stopped."

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CHAPTER SIX

A faint buzz seemed to come from under Smith's desk. As Stantington watched, the thin man reached under his desk to press a button. A desk drawer opened and Smith reached into it and lifted out a telephone receiver.

"Yes, sir," he said.

He listened for a moment, then said, "Yes, sir. He's here right now."

He listened again and then shook his head. "It is very serious trouble. Very serious."

He paused.

"If you wish, sir," he said. "Project Omega was started in the late 1950's when Mister Eisenhower was President. It was after our U-2 spy plane had been shot down. Russia was getting edgy and there was a serious possibility that it might launch a first-strike nuclear attack against the United States. You must remember, sir, that this was a time when Russia had no world enemy but us."

As he spoke, Smith looked at Stantington with displeasure.

"The President and Khrushchev met privately on a yacht off the Florida coast. Yes, sir, I was at

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the meeting. That was necessary because President Eisenhower had assigned me to implement Project Omega.

"At that time, the Russians had been developing some new types of voice analyzers to determine when a person was lying and President Eisenhower had asked Mister Khrushchev to bring one aboard. He asked the Russians to turn it on and then he told the premier that America understood the possibility of a first-strike attack by Russia on our country.

"The President reminisced. He said that when he was a victorious general, he still feared for his life. He lived in dread of a random bullet just passing his way that might kill him. No matter how powerful a man became, he said, dying was never easy. 'Some day,' he told Mister Khrushchev, 'you might decide to launch an attack on America. You might even defeat us. That is possible,' he said. 'But what is not possible is that you will live to enjoy it.' Mister Eisenhower said that he was not talking about some doomsday device to destroy the world. 'We do not want to kill the human race,' he said. 'But Russia's top leaders will die. You may win a first-strike war,' he told Khrushchev, 'but it will mean personal suicide to you or your successor and your top people.' Mister Eisenhower hoped that this kind of threat might help to avoid atomic war just a little longer, and that time might bring peace."

Smith listened and nodded again. "Yes, sir. Khrushchev accused Eisenhower of bluffing but the lie analyzer showed that the President was telling the truth."

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Stantington listened in disbelief as Smith continued talking.

"The sole purpose of Project Omega in the CIA was to launch the killers in the event of our losing an atomic war. No, sir, the program wasn't meant to be perpetual. It was designed to last exactly twenty years. By my calendar, sir, it would have ended next month and no one would ever have known. But Admiral Stantington's budget cuts have now done what atomic war didn't do. It has turned loose killers on the Russian leadership."

Stantington felt his stomach drop into his groin. Suddenly, the air-conditioned air in the office smelled bitter to his nostrils.

"There are four targets, sir. The ambassadors to Paris and Rome. They have already been disposed of, as you know. The Russian ambassador in London and the Russian premier himself remain."

Smith shook his head.

"No one knows, sir. The assassins were recruited by another CIA man, long since dead. Yes. His name was Conrad MacCleary. He died almost ten years ago. He was the recruiter and the only one who knew who the assassins were."

Smith listened for long minutes as the CIA chief fidgeted on the cheap, Scotchgard-treated sofa.

"No," Smith finally said. "It is a matter of the utmost gravity. I would recommend that we immediately notify the USSR of the danger to the two remaining men." He paused. "Yes, sir. We can handle that. I don't think anyone else has the

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capability." He looked at Stantington. "Most especially the CIA."

The admiral flushed.

Smith said, "Yes, sir." He extended the telephone toward Stantington. "It's for you," he said.

Stantington rose and walked across the office. He could feel his pedometer clicking against his hip as he strode. He took the telephone.

"Hello."

The familiar Southern voice bit into his ears like an electric drill.

"You know who this is," the voice said.

"Yes, Mister President," Stantington said.