Total War

Chapter Ten

"I think it a perfectly charming idea, Mr. Ambassador," Mrs. Justin Colbert-Smythe effused. "Everyone had planned so long and hard for the charity dance-and with the Russians coming now...Well, heaven knows what the founding homes here will be forced to cope with."

"I'm so glad you approve, Madame," Ambassador Bruckner smiled. "Now, if you ladies"-and he smiled at the tight circle of aging matrons around him-"will allow me, I must confer with some of my associates in the library." He made a slight bow and started to walk away.

"About the world war that's coming-Daddy?"

Bruckner turned, seeing his nineteen-year-old daughter, Cheryl, at the edge of the group of older women, the young French intelligence attaché she had been seeing for the past six months now at her elbow, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"You're being an alarmist darling," Bruckner said, walking toward his daughter. She was the hostess for the evening. "Isn't she?" he said, turning toward her companion. "Isn't she being an alarmist, Charles?"

"As you say, Monsieur Ambassador-isn't she?" Bruckner glared at the younger man a moment, then leaned toward his daughter and touched his lips to her cheek. He did not like Charles Montand-the young man was not what Bruckner considered a good intelligence man. Talked too much, and then there was always the chance that Montand was seeing his daughter in order to spy on the American Embassy. Montand had started seeing her in earnest just after the embassy in Pakistan had become a listening post for the Soviet occupation on the neighboring Afghanistan border. A great deal of heavy U.S. intelligence was flowing in and out of the embassy. Cheryl, despite her age, and because her father was a widower, Bruckner thought bitterly, was in the same position of many ambassador's wives-she knew too much.

"I have to go, darling," Bruckner said, his tone brightening. "You see that this last dance here goes well, hmm? Remember, our plane leaves at six A.M." Then, turning to Momand, "I suppose we won't be seeing you again, Charles-at least not in the immediate future," he added, trying to mute the cheerfulness in his remark.

"Ahh, but you will, Monsieur Ambassador. I am being posted to our embassy in Washington. A promotion."

"Ohh," Bruckner said, forcing a smile.

"Oui. I knew that this would be pleasing to you. With your lovely daughter's permission, I can go right on seeing her." Montand lit a cigarette from a small silver case and Bruckner smiled again-he hated men who carried cigarette cases.

"Well," Bruckner said, edging away from his daughter and the French intelligence man, "on such good news, how can the two of you bear standing here talking with an old man like me? You should be out celebrating."

"Celebrating, Daddy?" his daughter whispered, looking down into the champagne glass she held in both hands.

Bruckner looked at the pale blonde hair, the hint of blue eyes under her long lashes, the delicate bones of her face, the tiny but determined chin. It was as if his wife had been reborn in his daughter. Bruckner's wife had died at the moment of Cheryl's birth.

"You're so much like your mother," Bruckner whispered, dismissing the young Frenchman beside his daughter from his mind. "Even to her stubbornness." Bruckner kissed her on the cheek again and walked away.

As he moved along the corridor toward the library, he glanced through one of the picture windows and across the darkened lawns and beyond to the other side of the dark bulk of wrought iron fence separating American embassy territory from Pakistan. There were vans and cars on the other side, and he could see lights for news cameras. The reporters had been there for twelve hours, ever since the United States and several of her allies had announced the intention of leaving the Pakistani capital. Official business was being left in the hands of the redoubtable Swiss. Almost bitterly. Bruckner realized he would be forced to say something to the reporters either when he left in six hours, or else at the airport.

Bruckner stopped at the double doors to the library and pulled down on his waistcoat. He hated formal wear. He placed both hands on the doors and pushed them open with a flourish.

"Gentlemen," he said briskly, then walked across the oriental rug toward his desk, nodding individually to each of the men waiting for him-the French, the British, the West German and the Swiss ambassadors. "I hope you gentlemen like the cognac," he said, whisking the tails out of his way as he sat down in the leather chair behind his desk. "Here, Reinhardt," he started, reaching for the cognac and starting to rise. The Swiss ambassador waved him back down.

"It is my doctor-and my wife. She spies on me for him. No liquor. A horrible way to live," the Swiss ambassador concluded, sucking on a dry pipe, the sound annoyingly loud to Bruckner.

Pouring a few ounces of cognac into a large crystal snifter for himself, Bruckner cleared his throat, then said, "I, ah, I imagine you all know what this is about?" Then turning back to the Swiss ambassador, he added, "I'm sorry we're leaving you with all our troubles, Reinhardt."

"That is part of being Swiss," the man said, gesturing with a casual wave of his right hand. Then he looked back to his pipe.

"I'm sure I speak for all my colleagues when I say that our governments will certainly not forget the kindness, Reinhardt. Then, on to business, hmmm?"

"Arnold?" It was the British ambassador. "What's your American CIA saying? Our chaps assess it as the Russians going full tilt. Will that mean war?"

Bruckner sat back, looked at the Englishman, then the Frenchman beside him, then at the others. "I hope not. But the Russians must be stopped. The president and our State Department are in touch with all the governments involved-the prime minister, the French president, the chancellor-I don't know, in all honesty."

"Will your president commit the American forces, as he has so indicated?" the French ambassador whispered through a cloud of cigarette smoke.

"If the answer won't leave this room," Bruckner began, knowing that it would, "then yes. Some of our rapid deployment forces are already preparing for takeoff from Egypt. All they need is the word."

"And vat ist this word," the West German said, his hands folded across his massive Bismarck-like stomach.

"There's a time deadline, actually, isn't there, Arnold," the British ambassador interjected.

"Yes-true," Bruckner said, staring into his cognac. "Less than a day, now." He transferred his gaze to his watch.

"Where did it all go wrong, mes amis," the Frenchman said, lighting another cigarette on the glowing tip of the nearly burnt out one between his fingers.

"What? Sorry, wasn't listening," Bruckner said, absently.

"I said, where did it go wrong?" The Frenchman stood and walked toward the window of Bruckner's office, parted the heavy drapes there for a moment.

"Where did what go wrong, Serge?" Bruckner asked, his voice suddenly lacking conviction.

"We are all logical men. The Russians are, too. And suddenly the end of humanity is upon us," the Frenchman whispered, his voice even and emotionless.

"I say, Serge-all this poof about the end of humanity-really," the British ambassador droned.

"He ist right," the West German said, his voice rough.

Bruckner stood up and walked around to the front of his desk, then sat on its edge. Staring down at the oriental rug, he said slowly, "You realize that it takes hundreds of hours to make a rug like this? The art is almost lost. Like engraving. No one wants to devote the effort to it anymore."

"Then I am not the only realist here," the Frenchman said, and as Bruckner looked up, their eyes met.

"I will take a glass of cognac now," Reinhardt Getsler, the Swiss ambassador said. "What? Oh, certainly Reinhardt," Bruckner said, reaching for the cognac. When he started to pour it, he noticed that his hand was shaking so badly that the cognac was spilling. The Frenchman walked over from the window and took the snifter and bottle from him.

"Serge," Bruckner said, ignoring the others in the room for a moment.

"Oui," the Frenchman answered, his hand rock steady as he poured the cognac for the Swiss ambassador, then passed the bottle around the room.

"Is your man, Montand-is he only what he claims to be with my daughter? I've got to know."

"Do you mean is he spying on you through her? No. Montand is not."

"Thank God," Bruckner said. "I'd hate it if she'd been cheated. You understand?"

"Oui. You can know she has not been cheated of that one thing." Then, putting his hand on Bruckner's shoulder he added. "I have known you since before Cheryl was born. Her mother was not cheated of that one thing either, mon ami."

Bruckner's hand stopped shaking. The cognac in the snifter he held settled into a smooth pool at the bottom. Without looking up, he whispered, "I have a few formal things that the secretary of state wants us to work out-in just a moment though." He emptied the glass.