through the regular monthly
exchange and they even deny having captured him which seems to indicate
that the plan is working."

An admiral stirred and shifted under his crust of gold. "How long have
they had him?"

"Six weeks."

"And nothing's happened yet," the admiral commented. "My guess is that
we could sit here for six years and nothing would come of such a
barnacle-brained scheme."

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