Privateers Read Free Page B

the aide muttered, almost sullenly.
    Quistigaard held up his right hand, the thumb and forefinger hardly a centimeter apart. “Not even that much got through that was against the Russians’ wishes. Not one iota of disagreement was allowed.  They  run the IAC; you and I are merely figureheads.”
    The young man shook his head, frowning.
    “Come on, son, admit it. The Russians  own  outer space; they run things exactly the way they want to. Just as they run all of Europe.”
    For several moments neither of them said a word. Quistigaard took a long pull on his drink. His aide sipped at his demitasse of coffee and tried to avoid the older man’s eyes.
    The chill was getting to Quistigaard, despite the yellow heat of the Pernod. He pulled his topcoat closer around him and slouched deeper into the rickety chair.
    “They didn’t have to fire a shot, you know,” he muttered. “Once the Americans backed down, they could have had Europe for free.”
    “It was the French,” the younger man said. “They forced the Soviet retaliation.”
    “Bah! Do you believe what they told you in school? I was  there , when it happened.”
    “The war?”
    “It wasn’t a war. It wasn’t even a battle. The Americans announced their withdrawal from NATO. On the day it became effective, one hotheaded French submarine captain fired a missile—probably at the United States, if you ask me. Or maybe he was a Communist agent provocateur, working for the Russians. That thought occurred to me.”
    “That’s impossible!”
    Quistigaard smiled frostily at the young man’s naivete. “Was it? The Soviets announce that they have weapons in orbit that can shoot down ballistic missiles. The United States caves in to Soviet demands and quits NATO. One French submarine—part of their pitiful little Force de Frappe—fires one solitary missile from the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A Soviet laser beam destroys the missile within three minutes of its launch. The Soviets then launch a missile of their own and detonate a small hydrogen bomb in space, over Paris. The electromagnetic pulse from that explosion knocks out almost all the electrical power systems and equipment from Iceland to Kraków. No electric lights, cars don’t work, heaters don’t work, telephones don’t work, most of Europe is plunged into darkness and cold. And panic. People were throwing up in the streets out of sheer terror. Then three Soviet cruise missiles hit three French military bases with poison gas warheads.”
    “The French were preparing a counterstrike.”
    “So the history books say. I have my doubts. Most of those texts were written by Russians.”
    “No!”
    “Perhaps I exaggerate,” Quistigaard said, dryly enough to let the young aide know that he did not believe so.
    “But there was no other fighting. There was no nuclear war.”
    “Of course not. With the Americans humbled and Western Europe groping in the dark, there was no need for fighting. The Soviets had made their point. Paris, London, even Bonn fell all over themselves in their eagerness to make their accommodations with the new political situation. The Cold War ended almost overnight. And now you see the result.”
    “Things are getting better.”
    “So I am told.”
    Gazing up and down the wide boulevard, the two men saw a dark, wet, chilly, empty street. A steam-powered bus chuffed by, lumbering and lurching. The sidewalks were bare of people, except for a couple of stocky men in long gray raincoats hurrying along. They looked like Russians to Quistigaard.
    “The Americans,” the young man whispered, almost as if he were talking to himself. “It’s their fault. They abandoned Europe. They left us defenseless.”
    “Yes, that’s true. But they made themselves defenseless first. Once the Soviets established antimissile weapons in space, the American nuclear forces became rather useless.”
    “But why? How could they have been so blind?” Quistigaard lifted his glass again, only to find