Sex and the High Command (18 page)

“One moment, Mr. Powers, the premieress would like a word with you.”

“Dear me, Mr. Powers.” The voice was lilting and friendly, without an accent. “Did they forget and lock you in the War Room?”

“That’s classified information. Who are you?”

“Ailya Ailyanovna, premieress of all the Russias. You knew me as Ailya Halapoff when you detailed John Pope to woo me.”

“Oh, yes. I recall. Pope always spoke highly of you.”

Hansen caught the significance of her remarks. The premieress was speaking to an old friend, off the record and informally. A security break of major proportions had been dropped into the President’s lap.

“He spoke highly of you, Mr. Powers.” Her voice grew suddenly gentle. “How is John?”

“John’s dead.”

“John Pope is dead? For heaven’s sake! How?”

“He was killed trying to make love to a gorilla.”

“My goodness! Where on earth did he find a gorilla?”

“It was a human gorilla. A goon.”

“A male?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That John Pope! He’d try anything. But you, Mr. Powers. You are calling me, asking me to deliver a message to your President, yet you often called me a Commie rat.”

“Well, you’re a friend of John Pope’s, and you understand. Miss Halapoff, that…”

“Premieress Ailyanovna, if you please, Mr. Powers.”

“Premieress Ailyanovna, you understand, there was nothing personal in my calling you a Commie rat.”

“Of course, I understand, Mr. Powers.” Her voice was low and gentle, almost motherly. “But, just a moment, Mr. Powers, I want you to hear something.”

There was a silence, and then a sound, far away and muffled, reminding Hansen of Brother Johannis’ alarm clock, and the voice returned, pleasant, cultivated.

“There! I’ve just executed the second squad of Company B, Second Platoon, of the Kremlin Guard. I had nothing
personal
against a single man in that squad, or in the whole company which has gone before.”

“Are you telling me, Premieress, that you’ve overthrown the Reds?”

“Definitely.”

“Russia is not
Red
anymore?”

“Except in spots, Mr. Powers. The Kremlin courtyard, for instance. Males are being liquidated to conserve grain better fed to pigs. For that reason, I must let you starve, Mr. Powers.”

“Now, hold on, Premieress. If Mother Carey wins this election, you and she are going to be at sword’s point, and I’ve dug up a lot of dirt on Mother Carey.”

“Mr. Powers, I am a friend of Mother Carey.”

“What about her opposition? They’re going to run McCormick and Senator Dubois against her. McCormick hasn’t been around long enough, but I’ve got plenty on Dubois. Premieress Ailyanovna, I’ve got two dossiers on Dubois. He’s pushing Medicare for unwed mothers because he’s got seventeen illegitimate children, and, get this, Premieress, he’s not a Negro. Now, I’m not blowing smoke, Premieress. He’s not a Negro, and I’ve got documented evidence on him in the secret files.”

The President leaned over and picked up the red phone.

“Mr. Powers, Admiral Primrose and Captain Hansen will be down to release you. Thank you, Premieress.”

When the director, still pale from his ordeal, stood before the President, the President poured him a bourbon and water.

“Mr. Powers, through an incredible juxtaposition of events, you were thrown into a classical position of vulnerability to the Communist brainwashing technique. The woman recognized it immediately. You were alone, without friends, stripped of your dignity and self-respect, impotent, and completely dependent upon her. It was an ordeal few men are called upon to experience in the whole of history. Here, this drink will help you recover your composure.”

Mr. Powers had to hold the glass with both hands to keep it from sloshing, but he managed to get the drink down in a series of gulps.

“President Habersham, I was scared down there in that hole. I’ve got this touch of claustrophobia, and I’m afraid of rats because when I was little we lived in a tenement in Boston and my father used to punish me by locking me in a closet where the rats came and I was frightened of rats because my baby sister had been killed by them and her face half-eaten off in her crib, and my mother just gave up and died when that happened and I was eight and I couldn’t understand it when they put her in that hole because we’re Catholics and don’t believe in cremation, and so I could never marry because I couldn’t bear loving anyone I knew would die and be buried in a hole because I loved my mother and I love the bureau because it won’t die, but I didn’t have the bureau anymore when I was fired and I was down there in that dark hole and I have this touch of claustrophobia—but I told you about that—and those rat thoughts kept coming out of the dark and I was dying in a hole where the rats were and I wouldn’t have told that woman anything but her voice seemed so sweet and gentle and it was the only thing I had to hang onto and I didn’t want her to hang up and leave me down there alone in that hole and I would have drained the Potomac for her if she didn’t hang up because I have this little touch of claustro…”

“Now, now, Mr. Powers,” the President said, “I’m not going to let anyone put you back in that hole, and I’m not going to let any rats bother you because you are an outstanding American patriot, and it’s not dishonorable to be frightened. You are in a room filled with terrified men, and we are turning to you for help. I’m asking you, Mr. Powers, not to resign as our director because the country needs you.”

Strangely, the President was speaking in a low monotone which seemed to help Mr. Powers get a grip on himself. But Powers spoke, suddenly. “She has taken my conspiracy, Mr. President. That woman has taken my Red conspiracy.”

“There is no end to conspiracies, Mr. Powers,” the President soothed him. “Dr. Carey has given you a nice sex conspiracy. And we are depending on you, Mr. Powers, to unearth this lethal technique they used to make Mr. Pope so rigid in death. You and I had our little policy disagreement over Operation Queen Swap, but that has been settled in your favor. So I’m asking you to stay on as director because I need your administrative genius and your abilities as a detective. Now, you’ll stay on for me, won’t you, Mr. Powers? Because I’m your friend and your friend needs you.”

“Mr. President,” Mr. Powers said, “I’ll do anything you ask, and I’ll serve as director as long as I live.”

Mr. Powers was so touched by the President’s kindness that he was weeping.

“Your emotional condition, Mr. Powers, is understandable, but try to control your tears. This tape of your conversation with the premieress could cause great harm to the image of the bureau, so I think it should be safeguarded in your secret files. Don’t you agree, Mr. Powers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course, your indiscretion has compromised our Vice Presidential candidate, and we Democrats are pledged to support Senator Dubois. However, there are four Republican senators who form a majority of the nominating committee. Will you give Mr. Powers a list of their names, Mr. Culpepper? If we knew more about these gentlemen, their hobbies and interests, perhaps we might persuade them that it is against the national interest to vote for Senator Dubois. If your information becomes public, our ticket would lose the Negro vote.”

Culpepper handed Mr. Powers the list, and the President shoved the telephone across his desk to the director. “Mr. Powers, would you do this for me: Would you call your dossier clerk. Senate Division, and have him send me these four dossiers over immediately, by special messenger?”

“Mr. President, I love you. I’d do anything for you.”

It was the most amazing example of compassion in high places Hansen had ever witnessed. After the dossiers were delivered and Mr. Powers left with the tape, the President continued in his praise. “Mr. Powers is an administrative genius who communicates his zeal. Every man in his organization has a hatred of rats.”

“Didn’t he know that the hot line was officially monitored?” State asked.

“He had been told, but he did not believe,” the President said, “so the hot line is, also, unofficially monitored. In his very understandable panic, Mr. Powers forgot that, too.”

Oglethorpe Pickens must have had a premonition, for he said, “He who lives by the tap will die by the tap.” Then he lifted his glass. “To the soul of Mr. Powers. May God in Her mercy grant him conspiracies of angels.”

If a man had a taste for madness, Naval Plans and Operations was interesting work, and Hansen was cultivating the taste by osmosis. During his four-day leave, he moved his family to a rented house in Georgetown and resumed his new tour of duty with such gusto that he began to bring some of his projects home with him.

Helga had been rather pleased by the manner in which the Russian women had given comeuppance to a High Command which had attempted to seduce them, but Hansen was pleased for a different reason—Russia was eliminated as a nuclear threat. Against such a background his own planning seemed pointless, but orders were orders.

Primrose assigned him targets by geographical areas which amounted, in many instances, to one bomb per state. Arizona was easy to nuke. Oregon presented problems with its conifers, deciduous trees, mountains, and eastern grasslands.

Helga, who had a talent for plans and operations, lent a hand with his homework. She could whip out a slide rule and figure a math problem faster than a computer, and she devised a rule of thumb for the optimum blast altitude of a nuclear device of any given megatonnage, which got a lot of comment around the office. Name her a state and she could adjust for the flash point of green deciduous wood and snap right back with the optimum altitude. Once the flash point of hardwood in May was reached, conifers and grass went along for the ride.

He called it the Helgalian Method, and around the Pentagon they thought he had named it in honor of his wife. Hansen let the assumption stand. In some circles it would not have been considered proper for a civilian to work on a top-secret project. Technically, Helga was a civilian.

Hansen vaporized Texas, moved on to Oklahoma and Kansas, then jumped to Georgia and Alabama. Finally, with forced nonchalance, Primrose tossed him Virginia, and Hansen coolly accepted the task. Working until midnight with one Polaris missile, he and Helga spotted the drop so accurately that the only spot in the Virginia-northern North Carolina complex where anything bigger than a scarab could survive was a strip of Cape Hatteras.

In many ways, those weeks in early August rising to a natural climax in the joint convention of the Republican and Democratic parties, plus the coming eighteenth birthday of Joan Paula, furnished Hansen with one of the most interesting tours of duty in his naval career.

Cora Lee finally accepted McCormick’s suit, and she had been transferred to Camp David to put her closer to Washington and her enthralled suitor. Camp David, now rechristened Honeymoon Cottage, also offered better security facilities since a Marine battalion trained for guard duty was billeted on the property.

He and Helga had located an old-fashioned ranch-type house formerly owned by a landscape artist who would have qualified for the High Command: He had wisteria arbors, morning glory vines, and an intricate box-hedge maze on the large back lot. In addition, there was a studio in the rear of the garage, with the maid’s quarters above, and there was one-half of a basketball court in the paved area before the garage, with the basket above the garage doors. Helga was sold on the house, principally because of the studio. She was taking adult education classes in tailoring and taxidermy, and the studio was ideal for cutting clothes and stuffing squirrels.

Hansen raised an eyebrow at the taxidermy, but Helga explained, “Cutting and sewing in tailoring reinforces my skills in cutting and sewing in taxidermy. As you know, Ben, I’m a conservationist, but I have no time for lobbying or committee meetings. The next best thing to conservation is preservation.”

It was a fun house, a beautiful place for a cocktail party unless a guest chanced to wander unescorted into the maze. Since the climax of August occurred on the twenty-ninth with the nominating convention in Baltimore, and since Joan Paula’s birthday fell on the same date, Hansen was dragooned into giving a cocktail party to welcome the newly appointed cabinet officers. Secretary of Labor McWhorter Douglas and Secretary of Interior Brockton Hall, who had joined the sessions in the admiral’s office.

Dr. Houston Drexel dropped by the Pentagon more and more often. He had once been Dr. Carey’s superior in the World Health Organization, and he had blocked her appointment as his successor. “It was too rough for a woman,” he told Hansen. “It was a job in which you really had to put out, and she wouldn’t.”

Helga was pushing her underground activities with vigor and had organized a Georgetown chapter of the Loyal League. Her new vice president was Caron Drake, wife of a lieutenant commander on sea duty, and Caron was frequently around the house on club business with Helga. Sue Benson, who had been made president of the Virginia Beach chapter, an honor she deserved, was also a frequent house guest.

Only one disappointment touched the life of the captain.

Recalling Dalton Lamar’s exodus from car and country on the day the Russians lost, he was impressed by the man’s use of planning and operations principles in his Operation Abominable Snowman, although the operation, itself, had been premature. As a pastime, Hansen planned himself an operation based on the direst of contingencies. He wrangled his psychological profile from ONI, updating it from his midshipman days with a quick test from Dr. Drexel, and set up his tactical situation:

Situation: Helga is converted to the FEM. Joan Paula is dismissed from college because of self-impregnation. Primrose and the Joint Chiefs defect to Premieress Ailyanovna. President Habersham is a secret agent for Mother Carey who wins the election. The FBI is infiltrated by Lesbians.

He fed the situation and the profile into the Mark 37 with a request for solutions compatible with his profile. When his chief yeoman returned the answer in a sealed envelope, he read with more than mild curiosity: