//------------------------------// // Interlude: The Day After // Story: On Getting to the Bottom of this "Equestrian" Business // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Interlude: The Day After President Far Shooter emerged from a small hut that had been constructed outside the small village of Casteau, Belgium. Between the trees of the old forest, men (and the occasional woman) in military fatigues dashed from hut to hut, carrying messages. Able Archer ’85 was proceeding according to plan, which is to say that it was a diplomatic disaster. All attempts to stop the illusory Soviet Army from stopping its conquest of Central Europe had failed, as had attempts to quell the invasion via limited troop maneuvers. By dawn the next day, he, Prime Minister Thatcher and President Kohl would issue orders for the final escalation. Imaginary missiles would fly, and the Soviet Union would collapse. And the world would finally be free…until the exercise ended, and the sad state of reality would reinstate itself. Two people were waiting for him. The first was the man he had left outside so he could watch his little TV movie: Nicholas Meyer. The other was his assigned aide de camp for the exercise. “I’m sorry, Mr. Meyer, but this takes priority,” he said. “Of course, Mr. President.” Meyer stepped back to allow the other two their privacy. The aide whispered something into Shooter’s ear, pointing at the next hut down and handing over a file folder. Shooter shook his head and pointed at another hut. “I’ll be over in five minutes.” The aide nodded and walked quickly over to the hut he had originally pointed out. The President turned and strode over to Meyer, putting an arm around his shoulder. “That was a fine film you put together there, a fine film.” He held up a pair of video tapes held together by a rubber band. “And that’s not just my opinion—the Little Lady was in complete agreement. Did you keep that same team of yours when making it?” “The one where I’m pretty much the only non-Markist? The very same. We work well together.” “I don’t know why you don’t convert, Nick. You’re a better Markist than several members I could name.” “Well, I’m rather fond of my Christian name…and skin color.” Far Shooter laughed out loud. “So…you have no objections to having it aired?” Meyer asked meekly. “Oh no, of course not! And even if I did, this is a democracy. It is not, nor should it ever be, my place to say what opinions can or cannot be aired in public.” “Well I ask because the Joint Chiefs were concerned about the fact that neither side is clearly to blame in the film for the launching of missiles.” President Shooter laughed. “Well that’s because they’re not in the motion picture business. Now I may have never had the skills to direct…” He looked pointedly at Meyer. “Oh, but you made up for it by being such a good political director!” “True, true. But in any case, we know the power of ambiguity. The hawks watching it will declare that the Soviets shot first, and the doves will say it was us. Which means both of them will like it.” “Err…yes.” “Now would you like these back?” Far Shooter asked, holding out the videotapes. “Don’t know how paranoid ABC might be about leaks.” “No, those are yours to keep,” said Meyer. “I’ll be on my way now. You look rather busy.” “True, true. If you have the time, I’d recommend you visit one of the chocolate factories. And avoid the legalized drug dealers.” Meyer paused for a moment to see if the man before him was completely serious. “Of course,” he finally said. He managed to refrain from adding “…Dad” and an eye roll afterwards. Far Shooter walked into the small metal hut. “Privetstviya, Prezident Shooter,” a voice spoke from right next to the door. “Greetings, President Shooter,” a woman’s voice echoed. The President turned to see a large man sitting in a chair. His trench coat and trilby hat had been discarded, revealing the characteristic birthmark on his forehead. Standing next to him was a thin young woman with red hair and orange skin. Shooter bowed slightly. “Good day to you, Mr. Gorbachev, Ms. Meaning.” The translator smiled on being recognized. Mikhail Gorbachev rose to shake the American President’s hand then followed him over to a table. “Would you care for anything to drink?” President Shooter asked, gesturing to a mini-bar behind the table. The translator relayed the request, and came back with Gorbachev’s answer: “Just water is fine.” Far Shooter poured glasses of ice water for all three of them, and gestured for them to sit. “What brings you to Belgium?” he asked. True Meaning relayed the question to Gorbachev. A few seconds later, she translated the Russian’s answer: “I would just like the opportunity to ask you some questions, in a strictly informal setting.” “Questions about…?” He waited patiently for the translation to proceed. “Questions about your constant provocations to my country.” It was obvious that Ms. Meaning had stated Gorbachev’s words quite a bit more calmly than Gorbachev himself had stated them originally. Far Shooter placed his hands on one knee and smiled indulgently. “Perhaps, since this is an unofficial meeting, where none of us will be repeating the exact words spoken here to anybody else…we can resort to a little game?” It took a few moments for Ms. Meaning to figure out the best way to translate that sentence into understandable Russian, and even after she performed the translation, Gorbachev took the time to question her on some of her choices. He knew English, after all—it was just that he wasn’t particularly proficient at it. Finally, he crafted a reply: “I agree, so what sort of ‘game’ do you propose?” “Let us pretend that we are merely citizens of our two nations. Two patient, rational citizens, who don’t need to waste time with emotional outbursts if one of us insults the other’s national pride.” Gorbachev thought this over, before replying through Ms. Meaning to say “Very well. Mr. President—” “Ah, ah, ah!” Far Shooter said with a wag of one finger. “I am merely Mr. Shooter for the purposes of this conversation.” Gorbachev rolled his eyes before he had even heard the full translation. “Very well. Mr. Shooter, the Russian people, of whom I am an ordinary member, are distressed over your…over your nation’s recent actions against us. Again and again, America has seemed willing to start a nuclear war with us. Why is this? What has changed compared to the state of relations under previous presidents and general secretaries?” Far Shooter listened calmly, first to Gobachev’s original Russian, and then to Ms. Meaning’s impassioned translation. Finally he spoke, his tone deliberately quiet in contrast to the heat of the words he used. “You have to admit, Mr. Gorbachev, that the Soviet Union’s current leader is not the same as his immediate predecessors. Secretary-General Andropov has a great deal of blood on his hands, and if he was allowed to act as he wished, it would inevitably lead to the shedding of even more blood, not only of his own people, but of anybody who got in his way. “Under these circumstances, the American President has decided to act the part of the madman, much like Secretary-General Khrushchev did in his time. For if the Americans are acting irrationally, then it is to the Soviet Union’s immense benefit if they acted the part of the rational party, the party pointing out America’s insane behavior and setting out by example that they are the better nation. “And the better nation does not torture or oppress their own people.” President Shooter refilled his glass while waiting for his words to be translated. Mikhail Gorbachev, once he comprehended Far Shooter’s answer, was flabbergasted. He spoke rapidly to his translator, forcing her to question him to be sure of what he truly wanted to say. “I am still confused,” she said, relaying his words. “These provocations go beyond feigned madness, into legitimate causes for war. How can you be so certain that you have not already pushed affairs past the point of no return?” “So it’s true that the Politburo is running the country now.” True Meaning blanched. What she had heard so far was the common gossip of anyone following contemporary politics. But this latest revelation was way above her security clearance. “Thank you, Ms. Meaning,” Gorbachev told her in thickly-accented English. “I think I can…proceed from this point alone.” “My men will have a little form for you to fill out, Ms. Meaning,” Far Shooter said, rising to escort her to the door. “And you can be assured that I will remember your excellent work.” “Th…thank you, Mr. President.” The two men waited until the door had closed behind her. “Go ahead and take your time answering me, Mr. Gorbachev,” Far Shooter said, timing his speech to be slower than before. “I know what it’s like to be at the wrong end of a language gap, as a certain Mexican-American labor leader taught me on more than one occasion.” Thus reassured, Mikhail Gorbachev took his time crafting his next statement in English. “I assume that former Marshal Ustinov told you of the state of Secretary-General Andropov?” “He did.” “And why would this fact have any bearing on the matter?” “Because Andropov, like all supreme leaders of the USSR, knows something that the Politburo does not. This I also learned from Ustinov’s report.” Far Shooter waited until Gorbachev had completely assimilated his words before continuing. “Do you know why he defected?” “He had a disagreement with Andropov over how to respond to you,” Gorbachev said with some contempt. “No, that was the public reason for his defection, one designed to make him the sole villain in this drama. The true reason is that he had a fundamental disagreement with the Red Army, of a secret that they have been hoarding to themselves and the secretary general ever since the days of the Stalinist Purges. The biggest secret of the entire Cold War.” Gorbachev was getting tired of the American President’s flair for melodrama. After waiting nearly a minute, he finally took the bait and said, “And what is this big secret?” “That the American and Soviet nuclear arsenals are totally worthless. No weapon today has any more power than is contained in its detonator.” “O chem ty govorish? …What? How?” Gorbachev was on the edge of his seat. “Nobody knows,” Far Shooter answered, leaning back in his chair. “But…Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bikini Atoll, Pérvaya mólniya, Snezhok…those really happened. You couldn’t possibly fake those detonations!” “Oh they happened. But each one was weaker than the last, weaker than any known theory could compute. And that weakening over time could not be reversed, not by anything thought of by the most brilliant minds of either of our two nations.” The President smiled. “It’s almost as if a Higher Power stepped in to save us both from mutual annihilation. So it is that we have reached the point where we can only pretend we have the ability to ‘nuke the Reds into the Stone Age’, as a certain American general once advised one of my predecessors. You believe me, don’t you?” Gorbachev tried desperately to wrap his head around this revelation. “How has something this big been kept secret so long?” “Oh, it hasn’t. It’s been blurted out a half-dozen times in my lifetime alone. You probably even remember some prominent scientist shouting it out from the rooftops. But without either a believable explanation or confirmation by authority, nobody is willing to believe something that outlandish.” Gorbachev spent more time thinking. “So why don’t you reveal the truth?” Far Shooter smiled. “Mikhail, you’re our favored candidate to replace Andropov for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is your intelligence. You figure it out.” “Well, if the world believes that our two nations can only resolve our differences by wiping out all life on the planet, then that means we won’t ever be expected to directly fight each other. Meaning efforts like the Space Race and smaller proxy wars replace the large death toll of a direct conventional war. I still don’t like it, though—it’s dishonest. And that’s even assuming that this whole ‘secret’ business is true.” “Oh it’s true, Mr. Gorbachev, as I hope you’ll have the chance to find out directly.” “But there is one additional disadvantage to this—the pressure by our own people to use those weapons. It’s something that I’ve witnessed first-hand with the Politburo.” “Yes, that is a problem,” Far Shooter said. “I’m at least lucky to have Markists in my population. A group of them recently made a movie to broadcast, called The Day After. It depicts what the result of a nuclear war might look like in an ordinary American town—if the bombs still worked the way they did back in the 40’s. I hope it will have an effect on the public debate. Nothing could be more wonderful than if peace was forced upon us by our own people. That reminds me…” The President got up and walked over to a satchel, removing a pair of videotapes. “Here’s a copy of that very film—I recommend you watch it, perhaps suggest that a Russian studio create a film showing the Russian version of the same tragedy?” Gorbachev took the tapes. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” The President walked to the door of the small room. “Was there anything else you wished to ask me about?” Gorbachev stood up. “No, that’s more than enough information to me. Although…can you do me a favor, and never mention that ‘preference’ business again?” “Oh of course, Mr. Gorbachev. After all, I’m sure we’ll find plenty of legitimate reasons to disagree with each other if you succeed in taking over before my term ends.” The two men shook hands. The Russian put his concealing garments back on and left. It would be nearly a year before the two men would meet again.