Sex and the High Command (22 page)

“Give her credit,” Helga temporized. “I don’t think there’s any malice in her, and I’m sure that if Operation Gone Gander succeeds. Operation Caponette will be carried out objectively.”

By heavens, he thought, so the FEM’s had their own Plans and Operations section. Forcing his tone to remain casual, he asked, “What is this Operation Caponette?”

“It’s taken from the old word ‘capon,’ ” Helga explained. “You know. What they do to roosters to make them plump—snip. Snip.” She demonstrated by cutting the air with her tailoring shears. “But the New Grammar puts a feminine ending on all masculine nouns.”

“The New Grammar,” Sue added thoughtfully, “has only the feminine and neuter genders.”

Grammar was the last thing Hansen was interested in.

“Is she serious?” he asked.

“She is,” Helga said, “but it’s really not so dreadful. Caponizing applies only to prepubertal lads with their mother’s consent, to felons, and to social undesirables. Under certain circumstances, wives may have their husbands submitted.”

“She’s not taking my masculinity under any circumstances.”

“Of course not, dear,” Helga said, snip-snapping her shears roguishly in his direction. “You’re promised to me because Florida went to McCormick.”

He was on the point of telling her that there were some subjects he did not care to joke about when the phone rang.

“That’s probably for me,” he said. “Keep an eye on California.”

He took the phone in the bedroom, closing the door. Over the phone, a man’s voice asked, “Is this Captain Hansen?”

“It is.”

“Captain Hansen, this is Major Thorne, Pentagon Security Detail. Would you, sir, complete this sentence? Two, four, six, eight…”

“Primrose says, ‘Evacuate.’ ”

“Correct, sir. Flash red! This is not a drill, Captain.”

His uniform, topcoat, and hat were in the closet. His Navy jeep was parked on the street.

Quickly, he donned his uniform, thinking, at last they had come to Operation Ultimate Thule, and now was not the time for explanations and good-byes. If he went out to kiss Helga farewell, that drunken simp Benson would realize a major operation was afoot.

He would have to make it up to Helga and Joan Paula when they got to Madagascar, but for the moment, Helga would have to realize there were some things a man was more attached to than his family.

He left via the window, carrying only his unread Mahan.

By the time he reached the officials’ gate and Airforce One, the jeep’s radio was reporting that California and Washington had gone under. Only Oregon and Poll-Pro were still holding steady, Poll-Pro at 81.

Outside the skin of Air Force One, the Arctic night swept past at 1,000 miles per hour. (Hansen had glanced through the port at the configuration of the stars, and figured their course at north-northwest. They were not headed for Madagascar.) As Hansen discarded a surplus king to draw to an inside straight. Air Chief Lafayette (pronounced
Lay-fayit
) Talliaferro (pronounced
Tolliver
) slithered the cards around the table with a sidewise riffle and tossed Hansen a four of hearts. Hansen folded, and Army Chief Telmore Ware picked up the pot with three queens.

General Ware was the only non-Southerner in the game, but he played poker like a Southerner, raising on his come card, and Hansen liked the man. Because the others kept shouldering him aside, Hansen tried to include Ware in the conversation, asking, “General, what became of that brilliant analyst you had on your staff. General Hobart?”

“Hogarth,” Ware corrected him as a look of sadness touched his eyes. “A keen mind. He was murdered while on liaison duty in Omaha, only a week ago.”

“Murdered?”

“Yes, a strange case. Two girls came from New York to set up a house and were doing a good business, but an early snow fell one afternoon, and MP’s, passing the house, noticed footprints went in but none came out…”

“It’s time, gentlemen.” Admiral Primrose stood in the doorway leading aft to the President’s conference room.

Silently, the players folded their cards and filed out of the press section of the plane, the khaki of Army, the light blue of Air, the dark blue and gold of Navy, and the nondescript hues of the civilians. Only Marine green was missing. Porky Flugel had gone forward to fly the plane.

A weary President smiled as they entered and the admiral went over to the cockpit communication phone. “General Flugel, please put us back on automatic pilot, turn the plane over to its commander, and report to the conference room.”

“Gentlemen,” the President said, after Flugel had arrived, “I’m here as a symbol, only, of the hopes of free men everywhere. Yet, if I, myself, were truly free, I would call for a beaker of hemlock rather than invoke what I hereby invoke. Operation Ultimate Thule.” He paused to gather his thoughts.

“Gentlemen, unborn generations of our sons ride with us on this plane, for women have decided to eliminate the pain and conflict we have brought to them, by eliminating us. Since I have forsaken the constitutional approach and adopted a military solution, I am turning this meeting over to Admiral Primrose with only one directive from me: Transportation must be provided for those of you who would reject our solution.”

Quickly he arose from the table and seated himself on the divan lining the after bulkhead, and Primrose moved to the head of the table.

Hansen caught the symbolism of the shift. The planning was over, the course was set, and the military men were taking over for action.

“Gentlemen,” Admiral Primrose began, “if the plan I reveal weakens your resolve, then focus your mind on that old man, too weak to subdue the six or seven females his appetite demanded daily, whose betrayal has brought us to this expediency. Remember Honeysuckle Dubois! (He pronounced it
Da-boy
.)

“On my left, by yonder bulkhead, sits a statesman,” the admiral continued. “Behind us lies a country wrecked by a politician. Remember Honeysuckle Dubois!

“First, I wish to apologize for a slight discrepancy. Madagascar was a cover story designed by General Ware and me to release decoys in the wrong direction. Madagascar has been infiltrated. Our destination is Thule Air Force Base, whence we transfer inland to a headquarters bunker beneath the Greenland ice cap. Code name of the U.S. Government in Exile is Shiloh. For the past three months our planners have been stockpiling materiel and personnel on the Greenland Dew Line. Median age of the personnel is nineteen. Air General Lindenberry, commanding, is thirty-four. Inland from the bunker is a silo housing a cluster of Cherokee missiles…”

“Nuke the broads!” Lafe Talliaferro ejaculated.

“General, I have the floor. The Cherokee Cluster was established as a doomsday facility in the event that our country was overrun and occupied by a hostile power. This has happened.

“As a fail-safe measure, the Cluster has never been equipped with inertial guidance devices, but the IGD’s inputs have been plotted by Captain Hansen who has completed all but eight of the continental states…”

By heavens, Hansen thought.

“… and the IGD’s have been forwarded to Shiloh by General Ware. Incidentally, General, where are they?”

“In your private stores in the bunker. Admiral, in two cases marked candied pineapple rings. Each can is stamped on the bottom with the name of the state it is assigned to.”

The admiral continued: “Once we have completed the remaining states, the Cherokees will be ready for arming. They have neutrino warheads, so our physical facilities will be relatively undamaged.

“Dr. Houston Drexel has been left behind to deliver an ultimatum, signed by the President, to the head of the FEM. It directs the FEM to deliver aboard the hospital ship
Gluckstag
, now moored at Charleston, South Carolina, one thousand seven hundred uncontaminated and nubile females, between ages seventeen and nineteen, to the dock at Thule by midnight, December twenty. If by that time the shipment has not been received, the Cherokee Cluster will be launched.

“After the launch, troops will board transport planes and be flown to specified re-seeding areas as conventional inseminators.

“If the conditions of the ultimatum are met, the Cherokee Cluster will not be launched. Conventional breeding will be accelerated in the ice bunkers. In eighteen years, I shall return with an army trained to use the bayonet on recalcitrant females. That, gentlemen, is Operation Ultimate Thule in broad outline. Particular details will be found in the folder. You will neither send nor receive personal mail, and Shiloh will maintain radio silence at all times. Official communications will take place only between the Acting Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Beauchamp, and Thule Air Force Base. I am now open to questions from the floor.”

“What if they nuke us first?” Talliaferro asked.

“Dr. Drexel is delaying the delivery of the ultimatum to permit us to arm the Cherokee Cluster with IGD’s for all states. For ten days, they’ll not know where to nuke. Then, if they should attempt to melt the Greenland ice cap, Washington would be up to the Capitol’s dome in water before they could get down to us.”

“Admiral,” Flugel said, “if you’re hitting the Ozark area, you can count me out.”

“We’re hitting the Ozarks,” the admiral said.

“Then, excuse me from this conference,” Flugel said, “because I’ve got me a mine shaft in the Ozarks and a girl to share my shaft.”

Labor, Interior, and the Attorney General decided to return. “But where’ll we land?” Farnsworth asked.

“I’ll take you as far as Arkansas,” Flugel said, “and demonstrate parachuting techniques. I’ll guarantee that you’ll get to the ground.”

“We’ll provide the plane,” the admiral said, “and the President’s pilot. He has already decided to return, but Air Force One will stay with the President.

“The decision will be Carey’s, not ours. If she does choose cremation, which I doubt, it will be a humane death. What cleaner, more antiseptic manner of demise is there than vaporization? No estates to settle, no litigation, no loved ones left to mourn, and no funeral expenses.”

After the meeting, Hansen returned to the press section, his mind troubled. Death was his profession, but the slaughter of millions of his countrymen made his job distasteful. No matter how humane vaporization might be, its advantages were offset by the fact that his wife and daughter would be a part of the vapor. Benjamin Franklin Hansen would die with the women he loved, and he would so inform Admiral Primrose when they reached Thule.

There was no time for another poker session. Already the ship’s compression system was creaking and groaning with their descent, and the players all sat apart, somber. General Ware motioned to Hansen to come and sit beside him.

“Ben, are you staying or going back?”

“General, it’s a hard decision to make. As a military man, I appreciate our situation, but I have a wonderful wife and daughter at point zero.”

“Your wife had not withdrawn, I take it?”

“No, sir.”

“Mine hadn’t either,” the general said. “She was more loving than ever. Ben, I can’t talk freely, and I’m not telling you how to decide, but my advice to you is to stay with Primrose.”

“Do you approve of his plan?”

“I helped formulate it,” the general said. “It’s called the Primrose-Ware hard line. My big bluffs always work.”

Ware lapsed into silence as the plane’s lights flashed the signal for safety belts. As Hansen strapped himself into his seat, he had the definite feeling that Ware had been trying to tell him something without compromising security. He decided to take Ware’s advice and stay with Primrose.

After Flugel’s gentle touchdown at Thule, they were greeted at the airport by a cold blast of air and the youngest general in the Air Force, General Lindenberry. As they shook hands all around, Lindenberry said to the admiral, “My men wish to thank you, sir, for…”

“We’ll discuss personnel later, General. Is Transport Service’s plane number thirty-six ready for immediate departure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. General Flugel will be returning to Uncle Sugar with the Secretaries of Labor and Interior and the President’s personal pilot. What’s the plane taking off now?”

“Naval Air Transport Service’s number twelve. Admiral.”

“Very well. After TS thirty-six takes off, close the airport to all traffic. General Flugel, I’m ordering you to follow Flight Plan A to confuse the FEM’s as to our location. Approach Kennedy from the southwest, giving the call letters for Air Force Two. The Vice President’s returning from the Azores, so the tower will not be suspicious. Use the standard approach to Kennedy, but once you’re over the field, gun the plane through the sound barrier and head wherever you wish. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Flugel answered.

The admiral and general shook hands, and the general’s party boarded a small jeep to be taken to their plane. It was seven in the morning, but it was pitch dark in Greenland.

The President’s group watched from the waiting room window as the blue flame from Flugel’s jet moved down the runway, rose into the darkness, and faded in the east. Primrose, standing apart with Hansen, said, “I knew Porky couldn’t wait six weeks.”

Hansen tried to cheer him up. “Well, sir, he’ll be eating cornbread and black-eyed peas for lunch.”

“No, Captain,” the admiral said. “He won’t last till breakfast. Not a word of this to the President, but Flugel will never reach Kennedy.”

Almost to himself, he continued, “The FEM’s must be shown that we’re in earnest. There’s a lead line connected to Porky’s altimeter, and the line’s connected to a transformer. The transformer’s connected to an electromagnetic plunger, and the plunger will connect to a ball of plutonium. The plutonium’s beneath the deck of the cockpit one foot forward of Flugel’s crotch.”

Hansen stiffened at the implication in Primrose’s words. General Ware had steered him right.

“Flugel will follow my flight plan,” Primrose continued, “because he loves to burst eardrums. He’ll be forty degrees, fifteen minutes, north latitude, seventy-three degrees west longitude when he drops to ten thousand feet. The bomb is self-armed at ten thousand feet, going up, and it is activated at ten thousand feet, coming down. General Flugel is going to solve lower Manhattan’s traffic problems for some time to come.”