An Air Force general spoke up in the breezy jargon of the youngest
service. "I'm with the old man from the sea on this one," he said as the
admiral winced. "I just don't see spending billions for alphabet bombs
and then warming our tails on them while these psycho-noseys move in and
try to fight these sand-lot wars with voodoo and all that jazz."
* * * * *
An aide hurried in from the adjoining message center and handed the
chairman a paper. Everybody waited in silence while the chairman seemed
to take an unusually long time to read it. Finally he looked up and
said. "This is a special relay from the President's office and since it
concerns us all I'll read it aloud." He held the paper up and read,
"Apropos of your present conference with Dr. Titus, it may please the
General Staff to learn that the Russian Communist Party newspaper,
_Pravda_, has just denounced the newspaper of the Red Army, _Izvestia_,
as a tool of the decadent, warmongering, capitalist ruling circles of
the imperialist Western bloc. Other evidence of severe internal upheaval
of a nature favorable to the West is pouring in through news channels
and being confirmed by State and CIA sources. Congratulations, Dr.
Titus."
Dr. Titus arose with unconcealed triumph. "Gentlemen, apparently my
hypothesis is correct. The disintegration that will crumble our enemies
has already begun. Our secret weapon is a stunning success!"
The crusted admiral looked sourly at Titus. "Of course you're only
assuming that this Wims person is responsible. We'll never really know."
"Why won't we?" Titus demanded. "You speak of him as if he were dead or
doomed and I tell you he is no such thing. Don't you understand? He
cannot be harmed! And when he gets back here, as he will, he'll tell us
himself exactly what and how it happened."
The aide rushed in with another message. "Again from the President," he
announced. "It has been confirmed by CIA," he began reading aloud, "that
two weeks ago a group of Chinese officials in a Russian aircraft landed
at a Finnish airfield. It is now known definitely that an ostensibly ill
member of their group who was put aboard their plane in a stretcher was
in reality a young American officer. Among other things, this explains
the eighteen contradictory Five Year Plans announced by Peiping this
week. CIA says they are going the way of the Russians. Again
congratulations, Dr. Titus."
"Well, General Fyfe," Titus said, smiling at him, "perhaps you now feel
somewhat differently about this Wims business, hm-m-m?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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