Page 142 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

They would take about a minute to reach an altitude of thirteen miles.

Something might go wrong, Tanya thought. The missiles could malfunction, veer off course, and land harmlessly in the sea.

On the radar screen, two small dots approached a larger one.

Tanya prayed they would miss.

They went fast, then all three dots merged.

Paz let out a yell of triumph.

Then a scatter of smaller dots sprayed across the screen.

Speaking into the phone, the major said: "Target No. 33 is destroyed."

Tanya looked out of the window, as if she might see the U-2 crashing to earth.

The major raised his voice. "It's a kill. Well done, everyone."

Tanya said: "And what will President Kennedy do to us now?"

*

George was full of hope on Saturday afternoon. Khrushchev's messages were inconsistent and confusing, but the Soviet leader seemed to be seeking a way out of the crisis. And President Kennedy certainly did not want war. Given goodwill on both sides, it seemed inconceivable that they would fail.

On his way to the Cabinet Room, George stopped by the press office and found Maria at her desk. She was wearing a smart gray dress, but she had on a bright pink headband, as if to announce to the world that she was well and happy. George decided not to ask how she was: clearly she did not want to be treated as an invalid. "

Are you busy?" he said.

"We're waiting for the president's reply to Khrushchev," she said. "The Soviet offer was made publicly, so we're assuming the American response will be released to the press."

"That's the meeting I'm going to with Bobby," George said. "To draft the response."

"Swapping missiles in Cuba for missiles in Turkey seems like a reasonable proposal," she said. "Especially as it may save all our lives."

"Praise be."

"Your mom says that."

He laughed and moved on. In the Cabinet Room, advisers and their aides were gathering for the four o'clock meeting of ExComm. Among a knot of military aides by the door, Larry Mawhinney was saying: "We have to stop them giving Turkey to the Communists!"

George groaned. The military saw everything as a fight to the death. In truth, nobody was going to give Turkey away. The proposal was to scrap some missiles that were obsolete anyway. Was the Pentagon really going to oppose a peace deal? He could hardly believe it.

President Kennedy came in and took his usual place, in the middle of the long table with the windows behind him. They all had copies of a draft response put together earlier. It said that the USA could not discuss missiles in Turkey until the Cuba crisis had been resolved. The president did not like the wording of this reply to Khrushchev. "We're rejecting his message," he complained. "He" was always Khrushchev: Kennedy saw this as a personal conflict. "This is not going to be successful. He's going to announce that we've rejected his proposal. Our position ought to be that we're glad to discuss this matter--once we get a positive indication that they have ceased their work in Cuba."

Someone said: "That really injects Turkey as a quid pro quo."

National Security Adviser Mac Bundy chimed in: "That's my worry." Bundy, whose hair was receding although he was only forty-three, came from a Republican family and tended to be hard-line. "If we sound, to NATO and other allies, as if we want to make this trade, then we're in real trouble."

George was disheartened: Bundy was lining up with the Pentagon, against a deal.

Bundy went on: "If we appear to be trading the defense of Turkey for a threat to Cuba, we'll just have to face a radical decline in the effectiveness of the alliance."

That was the problem, George realized. The Jupiter missiles might have been obsolete, but they symbolized American determination to resist the spread of Communism.

The president was not convinced by Bundy. "The situation is moving there, Mac."

Bundy persisted. "The justification for this message is that we expect it to be turned down."

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