Back Channel (23 page)

On Wednesday morning at ten, the ExComm reassembled in the Cabinet Room. Mostly, the members went over the same ground as yesterday: the President could attack the missile sites, or declare a blockade, or rely on diplomacy. The fact that the options never changed confirmed Bundy’s secret belief that the ExComm was a waste of time, that a very few senior people should be meeting, without staff, to thrash this out. Half the comments around the table seemed aimed at getting the speaker a mention in the minutes. McGeorge Bundy, the President’s special assistant for national security affairs, tried to hide his frustration. He sat with his head down, taking scrupulous notes with his gold pen.

Bundy knew committees well—from academia, from industry, from government—and he loathed them. A committee is like crab-grass, he told himself: it sits forever, swaying with every breeze, and is impossible to eliminate once it takes root. He had urged the President to avoid too large a group of advisers on how to deal with the missiles in Cuba. Great men made swift, reasoned decisions after consulting a few trusted advisers, not after batting ideas around for hours with a dozen or more egomaniacs.

President Kennedy, however, had an almost childlike belief in the importance of hearing everybody out. Must come from growing up in a large family, Bundy decided.

Last night’s meeting had been dominated by the generals and their reasons for preferring an invasion. This morning, Secretary of State Rusk did most of the talking. Bundy had some difficulty figuring out
the secretary’s position, and the expressions of others around the table suggested that he was not the only one confused. A blockade would violate international law and show that we wouldn’t be intimidated, and an attack would be illegal and might be the only way to …

Bundy tuned him out, and spent the time outlining the memorandum of the meeting he would later place in his classified files. The inability to work out a plan worried him. The United States was the mightiest power on the planet, but was dithering and dickering over how to handle the installation of nuclear missiles a few miles off its shore. The President of the United States sat serenely, if a bit embarrassed, a bystander at a stranger’s family quarrel.

Bundy continued to write. Involuntarily, the thought came to him: the President he served might not be up to the job.

When the group broke for lunch, Bundy tugged Bobby Kennedy aside.

“What’s he doing? The missiles can’t be talked out of existence.”

The attorney general’s tone was mild. “The lions need their chance to roar, Mac. These are powerful men. The President can’t act without their support.”

“And when the time comes, can your brother tame the lions?”

They could talk this way to each other. They knew each other well. Bundy was one of the handful of government officials who received regular invitations to the private seminars the attorney general held at Hickory Hill, his estate in McLean, where the great writers and thinkers of the generation were regularly on display. Bobby was smart and curious and charismatic. There were days, even, when Bundy thought Bobby would have made a better President than his big brother Jack—not least because Bobby was as true as steel to his marriage vows, whereas Jack … wasn’t.

“You worry too much, Mac,” said the attorney general. “The President will do fine.”

But it was family loyalty speaking, and they both knew it.

When the ExComm resumed that afternoon, the argument turned bitter. The Pentagon, in the persons of Defense Secretary McNamara
and General Maxwell Taylor, newly appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs, presented a united front: the United States had to invade Cuba, right now, immediately, before any of the nuclear sites became active.

The President was astonished, and said so: just two days back, McNamara had been all for caution.

“What if they use their nukes?” the President asked.

“The Soviets won’t do that. They might retaliate in Berlin, say, but it won’t come to war.” The defense secretary considered, then modified his answer. “It’s possible some nuclear weapons might be used without permission, and we’ll obviously take some losses, but it won’t come to a full-scale exchange.”

A murmur of alarm around the table. Even Bundy was surprised at how cavalier McNamara sounded. But they both knew what most in the room did not, that the report had come from
YOGA
, their top source inside the Kremlin.

General Taylor took up the cudgel. “The secretary is right, Mr. President. You can’t do this with air power alone. If you want to end this threat, you have to end it. Really end it.”

Somebody asked how many Soviets would die in a surprise air strike.

As always, McNamara had figures at hand. “At least several hundred. Possibly more. Khrushchev will have to strike back. We have to decide what the level of losses we’re willing to incur to get those missiles out of Cuba.”

“They won’t hit us,” said another voice. “They wouldn’t dare.”

Bundy was about to ask what on earth would lead anyone to believe that Khrushchev would stand aside while the United States military killed hundreds of his soldiers, but at that moment his assistant stepped in to hand him a note. Even as the conversation continued, the others looked on curiously, no doubt wondering what bit of urgent news they were about to learn.

The national security adviser read the note twice. He hesitated. The ExComm seemed to be coalescing around immediate military action, a path, he was certain, that would lead to nuclear war. The President, although still skittish about the invasion, was listening closely to the arguments. Already trains full of troops were converging on Florida, just in case. Over three thousand Marines had been airlifted to Guantanamo.
Multiple squadrons of fighter-bombers and interceptors had been relocated to Homestead, McCoy, and Tyndall Air Force Bases. The attack could be launched within hours of a decision. But Bundy knew these men. They loved the sound of their own voices. No decision would be reached any time soon.

He hopped to his feet, and even interrupted John McCone, director of central intelligence, an act that always gave him a secret frisson of delight. “Excuse me, Director. Mr. President, if you will excuse me for a moment, I have an important call.”

Maxwell Taylor fixed him with the famous glare that left three-stars quivering. “Whatever it is, Mr. Bundy, it can’t be more urgent than what we are doing here.”

Bundy was unruffled. “Actually, General, it can.”

The national security adviser slipped from the room, his mystery intact.

Bundy took the call in his office. He loathed Lorenz Niemeyer, whom he saw as a bloodless calculator of lives and a narcissistic self-aggrandizer into the bargain, but he could not deny the man’s strategic brilliance. Niemeyer wasn’t like many others who longed to revolve in the orbits of power. He didn’t fawn. He didn’t drop by the White House for coffee in order to stay on the Administration’s radar, the way so many amateur strategists did. He knew that he was needed. And the fact that the man had driven two hours to Griffiss Air Force Base in order to make the call on a secure line told Bundy that it must be important.

“I had a visit from
GREENHILL
last night,” Niemeyer began, without preamble. The relationship between the two men was built on a decade of mutual loathing, and neither any longer bothered with pleasantries.

“And?” Bundy prompted.

Niemeyer spoke. Bundy listened. And listened some more.

“No,” he finally said.

Niemeyer argued.

“Out of the question.”

Niemeyer wouldn’t stop.

“Enough, Professor. I’m telling you, officially, we are not interested. Not in the slightest. Calm her down any way you can, keep an eye on
her if you think you must, but leave this matter entirely alone. Do you understand me?”

Niemeyer’s answer was unprintable.

As usual, the two competed to see who could hang up on the other fastest.

Bundy took a moment to compose his thoughts. He knew he had to get back to the ExComm before the hawks bullied the President into an irretrievable decision. But he also knew that he couldn’t just bluff them into silence. He needed an alternative, a plausible case to put before Kennedy, an idea sufficiently compelling that it just might slow down the juggernaut.

He drummed his fingers, considering Niemeyer’s crazy idea. And he found himself wondering whether it was the idea that was crazy, or just Niemeyer.

Bundy buzzed his secretary, asked her to step in.

“Janet, I need Dr. Harrington in my office in one hour.”

“Who?”

A beat. “Harrington. Doris Harrington. She’s an analyst at State.”

“An analyst?” Janet echoed, her cocked eyebrow and questioning tone intended to remind him that the national security adviser did not waste time dawdling with mid-level bureaucrats.

“The truth is, I’m not precisely sure what her title is. But I want her waiting when I get back from the ExComm.”

“Yes, Mr. Bundy.”

“Also, if Professor Niemeyer calls back, I’m not available.”

“Yes, sir.”

“After that, I want every file we have on
SANTA GREEN
.”

Again the eyebrow went up. “I believe those have been archived, Mr. Bundy. The operation was a failure.”

“I’m not so sure.” He was talking to himself as much as to her. “I think maybe that’s what we were meant to believe.”

Wednesday was agony. She had to wait for Niemeyer, and waiting was one of her pet hates. In the interrogation room in Varna, for all that she was terrified, she at least had been able to take action; here in Ithaca, in relative safety, she was unable to advance her cause through her own actions, and the inertia was making her crazy. Not even her studies diverted her. Niemeyer’s class was canceled, which she found odd. She botched a translation in French, and when she looked at her notes from Professor Hadley’s course on political anthropology, they were gibberish. After Systems Theory, Littlejohn accosted her again.

“Hey, look. I didn’t mean—”

She interrupted him. “About Bulgaria. You haven’t told anyone, right?”

He bowed and put a hand over his heart in a pantomime of gallantry. “You have my word. Like I said, I can keep a secret.” Then he straightened. “But I want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself. You’ve made arrangements and everything?”

She didn’t know what he was talking about; she didn’t care. She had her own agenda. “Did your source tell you anything else?”

Littlejohn’s expression grew somber. “They think you were betrayed. That’s why you got arrested.”

As she hurried away, she gave a quick thanks that the secret was still safe, because a student who’d been arrested behind the Iron Curtain
could hardly serve as a back channel: the entire point was to remain anonymous. But mostly she worried about whether Phil Littlejohn could possibly be right.

They think you were betrayed.

Betrayed why? For what? She didn’t know anything, and had been unable to find out anything. Maybe Littlejohn was what he pretended to be, a spoiled rich boy with a silly crush. Maybe he was working for somebody. Maybe he had been sent to upset her. Sent by Fomin. Sent by Harrington. Sent by Niemeyer.

Or maybe he didn’t know anything. Maybe he had just heard a couple of rumors and made a couple of good guesses.

And maybe tonight she would grow wings and fly to the moon.

In the late afternoon, she tracked Tom down and offered a wooden apology for missing their study date last night. They went for their usual pizza, and it was like attending a funeral.

And all day, no word from Niemeyer.

If Wednesday was agony, Thursday was worse. Margo rose early, not least because she had hardly slept, but also because, when she did manage moments or hours of escape from the world, she spent them fighting off the clutching hands of the swarms of those who had relied upon her and were now trying to pull her off the roof of Nana’s house, down into the Hudson, where they kept the most dangerous prisoners in Bulgaria. Lying in bed with her eyes open was no better than lying there with her eyes closed. Today she would hear from Niemeyer.

Dressing, Margo picked a pointless fight with Jerri, who had as usual used her shampoo without asking. She marched off to breakfast, where she picked an equally pointless fight with Annalise, and afterward could not recall what they had argued about.

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” Annalise asked, blue eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

But Margo had no way to explain her swirling emotions. Harrington had warned her about this part, too.
Nobody likes a spy,
she had said.
Least of all her friends.

She went to the library, found a carrel in the corner, dawdled. It was Thursday morning, and Thursday morning was the deadline. Thursday morning she was supposed to hear something from Niemeyer, via Vale or Mrs. Khorozian. The morning was ticking past, and he had said that in the current crisis time was counted in hours, not days. At nine-thirty, Margo gave up waiting and hurried over to the government department.

Niemeyer’s suite was locked.

She cupped her eyes and pressed her face against the frosted glass. She could see, dimly, the light from the window opposite. She was quite certain that the office was empty. That Niemeyer was absent meant nothing: a seminar, a woman, an urgent summons to Washington for consultation. But Margo could not remember a weekday when Mrs. Khorozian hadn’t been guarding the door with all the fierceness at her command. And if by some chance she was ill, the graduate assistants were always fluttering about.

Always until today.

Never mind. The great Lorenz Niemeyer surely had matters in hand. She would return to her dormitory and find a note from Mrs. Khorozian. Or perhaps Vale, the chauffeur, would be outside in the shiny green Landau, ready to whisk her off to wherever the negotiations were being held. But there was no Landau, and no note, either, unless she counted the envelope from Tom Jellinek, who seemed to think that they should talk, and wanted to know if she would meet him for coffee at four this afternoon, after his physics lab.