Ultimatum meyer bill, p.1
Ultimatum - Meyer, Bill, page 1
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By
Bill Meyer
A SIGNET BOOK
Published by The New American Library
DECEMBER 22, 7:30 A.M.
Message received by President Canfield from Premier Clarik:
“At any time in the next four days you may fire at us one hundred ICBM’s with activated warheads. If you fail to launch your missiles, or if they fail to get through to their targets, we will launch not one hundred, but just two missiles with atomic warheads, and destroy your city of Washington, D.C. The only way to keep peace in the world is by the rule of one nation. Let us decide which that nation shall be.’’
DECEMBER 22, 7:30 A.M.
The President of the United States learns that Russia is in possession of a weapon that makes her invulnerable to nuclear attack.
DECEMBER 22 . . .
The President of the United States must decide on instant surrender ... or a desperate gamble . . .
SOMEWHERE ON THE ARCTIC SEAS AN AMERICAN SHIP, UNKNOWN TO RUSSIA, CARRIES A SECRET CARGO, A CARGO THAT MUST BE DISEMBARKED AND TRANSPORTED MILES INTO ENEMY TERRITORY BY MEN WHO KNOW JUST ONE FACT . . . THAT THE FATE OF THE WORLD DEPENDS UPON THEIR TERRIBLE MISSION.
Other SIGNET Books You’ll Enjoy Reading
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn 'Rand The great bestseller that tells the story of what happens to the world when the men of the mind— the men of ability—go on strike. (#Y2823—$1.25)
The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon A Korean War hero is brainwashed and made the agent of a group of political assassins. (#T1826—750)
Level 7 by Mordecai Roshwald
A horrifying prophetic document of the future—-the diary of a man living 4000 feet underground in a society bent on atomic self-destruction. (#D2659—500)
The Best Man by Gore Vidal Two presidential candidates vie for their party’s nomination in this political drama, highly successful on Broadway and as a movie starring Henry Fonda and Cliff Robertson. (#P2423—60$)
Copyright © 1966 by Bill Meyer
All rights reserved
First Printing, April, 1966
SIGNET TRADEMARK BUG. U.S. PAT. 077. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES
REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA
HECHO EN CHICAGO, U.S.A.
Signet Books are published by The New American Library, Inc,
1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To my two sons, Christopher and James Meyer
PROLOGUE—SAN DIEGO
She had found an old book at the local library. The title was The Captain Hates the Sea.
On a sheet of blank paper, in large block letters, she printed “SO DOES THE CAPTAIN’S WIFE.” She slipped the sheet under the front cover of the book and left the memento on the bare kitchen table, where it could not be overlooked—not even by the Captain.
Trent Roberts—Captain Roberts on his own conning tower, but Commander in the Navy hierarchy—smiled sourly and left the book and sheet where he had found them. He was waiting for her in the stuffy little living room—he knew she would return as soon as she saw him drive up. He expected her to be on watch at the neighbor’s kitchen window. Beth was very scrupulous about returning a cup of sugar or half a bar of margarine. Beth made much of the impossibility of keeping an adequate food supply on hand because of the undersized refrigerator or the token shelves or because of her limited budget or because of any other reason she might find useful in her campaign to get Trent Roberts out of the Navy.
When Roberts heard the front door slam, he felt like putting on his Navy cap and giving it the angle attributed to Beatty at the Battle of Jutland. Without his cap, and with his neutral hair and easily forgettable face, he didn’t feel like much of anything. All he could do was to open the attack, and not even with a broadside.
“Look—let’s not go through it all again, dear,” he said, underlining the word “dear.” “How much more rehashing do we have to go through? I could be briefed on an around-the-world mission under water in less than the two days you’ve wasted for me. We have so little time—let’s keep it pleasant.”
“Don’t you think it’s important enough to talk about?” she retorted. “Don’t you care at all that your son is in the lowest quintile of his class? Or isn’t that important to you?” “Certainly it is important, but . . .”
“Or that Debbie is still asking for her friend Lucy Mannor? You remember Lucy—she was Debbie’s best friend at our last station. Or was it the station before that? I can’t be sure anymore. We seem to change every Monday and Thursday, or so it seems, anyway.”
“Lucy was Lieutenant Mannor’s little girl. You remember —Groton, where we were stationed last Christmas.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. We stayed there for almost eleven months. It was our longest stay anywhere since we got married. How could I ever forget a long stay like that?”
“Don’t make it worse than it is,” said Roberts. “I get the point. But it won’t always be like this. Try to remember that you married me while I was in the Navy. You knew the Navy and I tried to give you some idea of the Navy way of life. You married me with your eyes open.”
“Certainly I knew you were planning to make the Navy your life. I just never realized that it was a double wedding.” “Now what does that mean?”
“When I married you I didn’t know I was also marrying 1 the Navy. Big deal. Ten thousand a year for running that three-hundred-million-dollar floating and diving advertisement for General Dynamics, General Electric, Western Electric, Bell Telephone, you name it—and you can have it!” “Oh God,” groaned Roberts, “here we go again with the money. Look, Beth, you married me, and we haven’t been together too much of the time. Are you sorry already?”
“No, I’m not sorry about marrying you. But why can’t we live like human beings and be together? Not for our own sake—for the sake of the children.”
“I know,” snapped Roberts. “For the same reason parents send their children to camp. All for the sake of the children, of course.”
“Maybe you’re glad to get away from the kids,” said Beth. “That’s not fair. Every moment I’m not on duty I’m with you and the kids. What more can you ask?”
“What more can I ask? So you’re a big executive now at ten thousand a year. You could be an executive at three time that and you could be with us full time. Or maybe you prefer being a part-time father and husband.”
Roberts picked up the book and the enclosed note and slammed them on the kitchen table. “Damn it, we’ve been all through that. I like the Navy. It’s the life I chose and it’s the life I want to lead. You knew that before we got married. I didn’t go through four years of hell at Annapolis because I wanted to become a desk jockey for your old man. I didn’t know he was alive then, and it wouldn’t have made any difference to me if I had known. What did you do—marry me to reform me? Don’t try to fit me into the corporate image.”
Employing an ancient and highly developed technique that enables women to overlook anything their men have said as though they had never said it, Beth turned and stared out at the California sunshine, giving her husband a chance to view the only worthwhile scenery in the ordinary little room. “All right,” she said, whirling around and depriving him of his momentary view, “forget the children and their having to shift schools as soon as they get acclimated and make friends. Forget the fact that your son is growing up practically without a father to guide him. Forget that your little girl, who makes friends slowly, can’t keep those she does make. Forget all about them. Let’s just talk about me. I can’t buy a really nice dress even if I want to. Half the time . . .”
“Why can’t you buy a nice dress?” Roberts cut in. “I give you enough money.”
“Oh, sure, you give me enough money. And even if you didn’t I can get all I need from my old man, as you call him, but that doesn’t help. If I dare to buy a dress that costs over fifty dollars you scream that it makes me stand out like a second thumb. You say I should dress like all the other commanders’ wives and not under any circumstances take the chance of making some captain’s wife look shoddy.” “That’s just being thoughtful, isn’t it, dear? You wouldn’t like to embarrass anyone on purpose, would you?”
“You’re goddamned right I would. I can’t think of anything I’d like better at this point. My God, do I have to remind you of this ghastly routine I have to go through? Every time we arrive at a new post we have to call on the highest ranking officers and their snooty wives. Then we have to sit home every Sunday afternoon with our hands folded until they return the call. It takes six weeks every time we move before I can take a breath of fresh air. If I had wanted that kind of life, I would have joined the WAVES.”
“In every job there are some things to be done that we just don’t like to do. I don’t blame you for bitching about protocol, but it just has to be done. I don’t make the rules. Anyway, it’s over soon.”
“Sure, it’s over soon. But the way you’ve been shifted around, it starts all over again just as soon. If that were all, I wouldn’t kick, but just what do you think I do when you’re away for months at a time?”
Roberts’ face betrayed a fleeting apprehension. There were things he didn’t like to think about.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” he snapped, “but I imagine you get together with the other wives and manage to keep occupied.”
“Oh, I keep occupied all right. I have to go to the commissary to buy food for your children. Of course I have to learn all over again on each transfer where each article in the commissary is located. That takes time—I have a lot of time to kill. I have to buy the children’s clothes and keep them in repair. I have to cook and clean for them even though I can pay for a full-time maid anytime I want to— my old man again. Of course, I wouldn’t dare embarrass any old captain’s wife. Maybe she wouldn’t or couldn’t have a full-time maid. And when I’ve done all the chores that a maid should do, I start to do your jobs—like helping your son with his homework, fixing broken appliances around the house, changing the fuses that damn refrigerator shorts out, making sure we don’t die from a gas leak from that stinking stove, and a few other little things. The perfect helpmate. Oh, I keep busy during the day, all right. But what about the nights? Do you ever think about the nights? I used to like to go dancing once in awhile.”
“That’s not fair. When I’m home we go dancing as often as you like and you know it. What’s more, when I’m away I know the other couples include you in their outings. You wrote me so last time.”
“So I did. What I didn’t tell you was how much I enjoyed being dragged along like a fifth wheel. And as for dancing, it was just swell. First there was Dillington—you know, the guy with two left feet who loves to dance. Marge Dillington was glad to have me along just to give her own feet a rest. That was great fun. Then there was that Lieutenant Greenberg and his wife, Sally—you know the ones. They’re the couple who took three lessons in Cha Cha Cha from Arthur Murray. Every time they played a Cha Cha I got chills. Keep him away from me. You feel like a call girl every time you’re on the floor with him. If he isn’t spinning you around by th hair, he’s dancing off somewhere by himself—making a jackass of himself and making you look like one, too. That’s what you call dancing?”
“All right, stay away from Greenberg. What about Fred and Edith? They had you out a few times.”
“I like Fred. I like Fred a lot, but Fred has wandering hands and Edith never takes her eyes off us for a second. Is that the way I’m supposed to amuse myself while you’re away? If that’s your idea, I’ll buy it. Maybe I’ll give Fred a real thrill next time instead of a walking feel. Sure—that’s it. I’ll make a date with him when Edith isn’t staring at us from such close range. He’ll jump out of his socks at the chance.”
“Beth, stop it. You know you don’t mean it and I know you don’t mean it and I’m damned if I can see how it makes you feel any better to make me feel so lousy.”
Like that other good tactician, Becky Sharpe, Beth knew when to shift gears. “All right, Trent, I’ll stop—if you promise, and really mean it, to give serious thought to doing something about our life together. We haven’t got much of a life together and that is what you have to give serious thought to. Now, we either have a life together or we don’t have any. It just can’t go on as it has been. I don’t say join the old man in his business, but if you can’t find some way to spend more time with your family, then I’ll feel free to seek my own entertainment elsewhere in my own way.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“If we had a television set that worked I could quote an ancient cliché and say that I’ve never been more serious in my life. It’s up to you to solve the problem—our problem— and if you can’t, then don’t expect me to go along for the ride being a sweet, uncomplaining Navy wife, loyal to her husband and bored to death with everything while he is away. I was never a Navy brat and this is all new to me and I don’t like it. I don’t like the role I’m asked to play. I wasn’t brought up in your Navy tradition, and I don’t feel anything for it. I’m just a girl with a Cadillac background living on a Chevy level. I was just dumb enough to marry for love and I now have children who so far are growing up without a father. I warn you—something’s got to give. Think of it on your next trip. Think of it hard. When you get back we’ll take stock and see where we go from here.”
“Just a little longer—just be patient a little longer. I have my own ship now. They call me Captain. I’m respected. With any kind of luck I might soon be stationed at a good home port for a long time—maybe two years. Everything will b different then. But right now I take orders. Just give me a little time.”
“All right, a little time. I’ll sweat out this next trip of yours because it’s a short one. But if you try to kid me again, don’t expect me to be the same loyal wife I’ve always been— up to now.”
Roberts didn’t know whether to be relieved or agitated, but he maintained his deadpan Navy face. “Don’t worry, Beth— this trip’s a breeze and I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.” He moved forward and put his arms around her. He squeezed. From old habit, Beth let her head rest on his shoulder. She also knew, through having been exposed to big business most of her life, just when a sales pitch should end.
They sat on the sofa and waited for their son and daughter. Debby went to a play school run by Navy wives; Bobby had finally attained the sixth grade. Their children had been spaced further apart than they would have liked, but Roberts had been away a lot and Beth had had two miscarriages. They sat on the sofa and tried to act in much the same way they had acted when they were first married. Because they wouldn’t be alone for long, they sat far apart on the sofa and Roberts had his right hand over Beth’s left hand. That was his way of showing his protectiveness.
When the children burst into the room, Roberts sensed the beginning of the campaign from another angle. Debbie had apparently been well briefed. She marched up to him and said, “How long are you going to be away this time, Daddy?”
Roberts looked at Beth. “Not too long,” he said.
“How long?” insisted Debbie.
“I should be home before you miss me,” said Roberts, trying to shut off the questions by picking her up in his arms.
“That’s not what she asked, dear,” said Beth. “Why don’t you tell her? As a matter of fact, why don’t you tell all of us?”
“I should be back holding you all in my arms in a little more than three weeks.”
Beth watched the kids go out to play and then turned to Roberts. “Will it really be only three weeks?”
“I can’t say for sure—I haven’t opened the orders yet. But I know it’s only a routine cruise and we should be back in that time unless something really horrible happens, and I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”
This was departure night, the night before the early-morning slipping away of the Ajax. Beth always had th feeling she associated with the miserable women watching their English Tommies as their troopships pulled out in the rain. Always in the rain.
Beth was unusually quiet, so Roberts had a chance to reflect; he didn’t quite know how to reassure Beth of his love and his intention to do something to ease her unhappy lot as a Navy wife. He was not a man to whom words came easily: he wouldn’t have gone far in politics. He could think fast on his feet, but generally in situations requiring action rather than words. And in the back of his mind there was that uneasy feeling about what Beth would be doing with her evenings during the next three weeks—a feeling based on his own knowledge, common to all officers situated as he was, of the mice who played around when the cat was away.
Beth looked at Roberts and saw that he was already acquiring that far-off look which indicated his mind was busy with the problems ahead of him. She knew better than to add to his burdens; at least she knew something of the burden of command. She realized that at sea Roberts had a family also; each member of the crew was one of his children. Roberts wasn’t old, but he was still the Old Man—a term not applied to every commander of every ship, but used only by men who called the superior officer Captain to his face and Skipper or the Old Man behind his back. And they called him the Old Man or the Skipper only when they liked him.
