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Commander, General Torrence, the Vice-President.

    "Yes, Ralph?"

    "Sorry about waking you. But it's pretty bad." The Secretary of State seemed to have trouble with words, as if he'd been drinking. But President Conner knew it wasn't that. If Hager had lost his seemingly indestructible poise, this crisis call was more serious even than those other, often-appalling night alarms he and his predecessors had so often received. As they had done in their time, Conner now tried for an initial easement.

    "I suppose," he said, rubbing an eye with his free hand, then using it to rake his now-white hair, "Costa Rica has just tested a neutron bomb?"

    The chuckle of the listening men ran from hollow to admiring. The Secretary of State then put it bluntly: "A so-called 'volunteer' army is crossing the borders of Hungary into Yugoslavia. With Tito gone the Reds have apparently been setting this up for years."

    "What's the NATO reaction?"

    "To wait for word from you. Because this one's tough! Moscow and Peking have sent a joint ultimatum to London, Paris, and us. If NATO, or anybody, tries to prevent this 'liberation' of Yugoslavia, Grovsky's threat is to use two shots on two cities. Wipe out Paris and London. Of course, both capitals are frantic. We have two hours--less about ten minutes, now--to decide."

    The President did not know he had stood up. Did not know he was breaking out in sweat. All he knew was that he had to concentrate his whole being-brain, heart, soul, and body--on this sudden and not wholly foreseen situation. He thought for a moment.

    "Okay," he said to the breathing men who waited. Said that, because it was a relaxed response. He added, "Get Moscow and Peking right away. Tell them we have to have six hours. Say that I'm taking a secret rest-up and can't be reached except by helicopter--better yet!--by horseback. A couple of times in my first years, you'll all recall, I did put myself in such a position! Just to establish it. In case we ever needed to gain time. We do now, God knows!"

    General Eade McClung, Chief of Staff, said in his deep, roaring tone, "We won't get six hours, Mr. President."

    "No. But we'll get four. Better than two."

    Another voice entered the discussion, light, effete, not at all indicative of the mind that was its master: the voice of Purdy Smythe, Intelligence Coordinator: "It is possible, Mr. President--"

    "Oh, 'morning, Purd!"
    "'Morning, sir." Reluctantly, it seemed, the Coordinator obeyed some standing recent presidential order: "I mean, Dave. Certain information makes us wonder, here at Intelligence, if this time they really mean to pull the plug."

    "The stuff you sent over yesterday? Subs sneaking around? The presumed 'wreck'
    the Navy just located off Boston, near one already on their charts? The new wreck? Have they looked it over?"

    "No, Mr. Presi--Dave. The Navy feels that even an undersea approach might--
    well--"

    "Detonate it? Providing it's what they fear?"

    Smythe breathed a relieved, "Exactly." David Conner, President of the United States, caught on fast, Smythe thought--and that, from a man as eclectically educated, as traveled, as accomplished in fifty diverse ways, was a great compliment.

    The President then spoke to all his auditors. "Right, gentlemen. Try for a six-hour delay. Get the London-Paris latest reactions. Remind Moscow and Peking we are ready and--if we must be--willing. Say that Yugoslavia recently chose, in a free, UN-supervised election, to side with the West, and the West stands for that freedom of determination, with or without London and Paris. Say I am adamant, but willing to confer--given six hours, not two. You'll know the distribution of other essential calls. Alert the retaliatory and defense system. And for the love of God, you who will talk to the Reds--sound calm!
    Lazy. Even bored! The way you're panting over your phones now is not how to do it! If Grovsky in Moscow, or any of his top men--or if Tsin-tsu in Peking-wants to talk to me, put