The Deadly Orbit Mission. Van Wyck Mason

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      “That’s right,” he agreed. “People are funnier than anybody.”

      He tipped the driver generously and climbed out into the Virginia sunshine. For whatever reason he had been kept in the dark so far, he sensed that this waiting period soon would be over. Somewhere in this mammoth, five-sided structure packed with the top brains of the Armed Services, his assignment must be ready.

      Hugh North relaxed for the first time in two weeks. He felt ready, too.

      2

      The man from G-2 made his way quickly up the first ramp, onto one escalator, then another and finally picked his way along the gray-walled fourth floor to General Anniston’s elaborate suite of offices. Hurrying past a teacher herding along a group of students making an early start on the seventeen miles of the Pentagon’s corridors he entered the outer office precisely on time.

      The General’s secretary looked up briskly, glanced at her watch, and stated rather than asked, “Colonel North?” She had known him for ten years but she lived by the book. She pressed a buzzer as she spoke and nodded toward the General’s door.

      Hugh entered and stood smartly to attention at the same time noticing to his surprise that a stranger, a lanky civilian in a badly fitting summer suit, was present.

      “At ease, Colonel,” the General murmured. He glanced at his watch—which seemed to be a Pentagon habit this morning. “We have exactly a half hour, so suppose we dispense with the formalities. Colonel North, this is Charles Gregory, attached to the Voice of America who has something to do with what we’re presently going to talk about.”

      So it still was mystery day at the Pentagon? North shook hands with a tall, thin man in his early thirties. Hugh felt Gregory’s long but strong fingers and smiled into a craggy square lace that was handsome in spite of itself.

      “Colonel, Mr. Gregory is here only through accident, but he may prove useful to you. He is the technical director of our Voice of America operation in Tangier and has been in Washington on home leave. He’s got to catch a plane back early this morning which I don’t want him to miss. So we’ll have to talk fast.”

      Tangier! Hugh hadn’t been in that squalid but exotic North African city for nearly a dozen years; the occasion, however, remained fresh in his memory. In one of his most demanding assignments, he had beaten the Russian MVD out of the formula for a fog gas which could freeze its victims to death within seconds. The Russians had wormed the secret out of a captive scientist, but when the Colonel left Tangier, the lethal formula had not been added to the Reds’ arsenal of deadly weapons.

      Now General Armiston was moving toward the door. “I’ll fill you in on some of this on our way.” He added, “Gregory doesn’t know the whole story.”

      As if on cue, Charles Gregory fell back and followed, allowing General Armiston and North to converse privately. Hugh liked the commonsense way he had understood and accepted the General’s point. Without embarrassment he had realized that what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him or, more important, someone else. If it’s really going to be Tangier the Colonel was telling himself, I’m glad Mr. Gregory will be around.

      As General Armiston led the way toward the innermost Pentagon ring, he puffed at a briar pipe and spoke in abbreviated sentences.

      “Can’t give this to you in a straight line right now. You’ll have to put it together later.”

      North nodded. That was the way he usually received assignments—on the double and at emergency pace.

      The General checked his watch again. “For a starter, remember the Cuban missile crisis? Well, it looks as it we’re in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the Russkies once more, plus another risk.”

      Hugh whistled softly and the General grinned. “Thought that would wake you up.” The smile vanished. “If the Cuban missiles had spelled trouble, this situation smells of disaster. The fact is, that while those were short-range missiles pointing at the Southeastern United States, and without atomic heads, the real thing a hydrogen missile is even now orbiting this country at regular intervals.”

      “‘Orbiting!” North’s cheekbones became more prominent.

      General Armiston bit the stem of his pipe and the skin crinkled around his hard, brown eyes. “Every hour and twenty-eight minutes, Colonel. Every hour and twenty-eight minutes, the United States of America stands in danger of having a major city blasted off the face of the Earth. The orbit—” He broke off as they passed through the main entrance of the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and approached a door carrying the card: National Military Command Center.

      The General paused to allow Gregory to catch up. “Now you know the seriousness of the problem, if not the details,” he said. “Next step is to brief you on problems concerning the Hot Line. That’s involved too, or it will be, unless something happens damned fast from the Russian side of this menace.”

      Mentally North checked off items of vital importance. A Russian satellite with an atomic or possibly a hydrogen warhead was in orbit and passing regularly over the United States. The United States is in contact with the Russian government about this on the Hot Line, but why?; and at what stage was this threat? Obviously we must be on the brink again. He thought of the cab driver’s preoccupation with foibles of his fellow men, the waitress’s daydreaming, the tall, thin lady looking for the Washington Monument. The words of the Vietnam surgeon: “Don’t you know there’s a war on?” Why didn’t a complacent public realize that there was a war going on all the time, every day?

      Well, North bitterly reminded himself, for years his job had been to help make sure that such people retained the sublime right to go on chasing petty personal problems day by day.

      As Chuck Gregory caught up, a sergeant guarding the door snapped to attention, saluted General Armiston, and passed the group into the Command Center.

      A dozen men were working in shirt sleeves, at desks and around four teletype machines; two had keyboards containing Cyrillic characters of the Russian alphabet. North sensed from the quick movements of the men that some sense of emergency had already penetrated this top-secret Hot Line post even if the technicians probably didn’t yet comprehend the problem’s appalling potentialities.

      “These men are highly trained, both as technicians and as translators,” the General explained. “As you see, they’re not going to have time to explain details; that’s why we’re using Mr. Gregory’s few remaining minutes in Washington. He was part of the team which set up this system in 1963. Very well, Mr. Gregory.”

      Gregory glanced at his watch. “In a couple of minutes they’re going to go through a routine check of the Hot Line’s facilities, Colonel,” he said. “Every day they transmit from this end to the Kremlin, and the Kremlin sends test material back. We go in English, they come back in Russian. We have Russian translators”—he pointed to two men—“they have English translators on the Moscow end.”

      North nodded, imprinting the information on his mind and shifting his eves to take in the technician’s movements.

      Gregory stepped toward a desk in a far corner full of clatter. “The test message is never varied,” said he. “Look.”

      Hugh was handed a thin sheet of teletype paper carrying the legend:

      L-O L-O THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPED OVER THE LAZY DOG L-O L-O TESTING L-O L-O

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