You must give us Alaska, he repeated in his mind. Alaska is the key.

Silence. Immobility.

Admiral Rapoport, beside Lexington on the sofa: still. No warmth, no message, on the crinkled parchment face, the outsize head. Only steely eyes, coldly staring. Hurry… come to the point… don't waste my time… how dare you…!

How dare he… How dare he face, across that flag-flanked desk, the incumbent of the mightiest office in the world… with himself – leader of a smaller, weaker power – outwardly calm, inwardly tense, his absurd, preposterous demand already spoken.

He remembered the exchange between himself and Arthur Lexington eleven days earlier, the day before the cabinet committee. 'The Americans would never agree, never,' Lexington had said. And he had answered: 'If they are desperate enough, I think perhaps they might.'

Alaska. Alaska is the key.

The President's eyes were staring. They mirrored disbelief.

And still the silence.

After time which seemed endless, the President swivelled in his chair. He said evenly, 'Unless I have misunderstood you, I cannot believe that you are serious.'

'I have never been more serious,' James Howden said, 'in all my political life.'

Now, standing himself, he said forcefully and clearly, 'You were the one, Tyler, who spoke today of our "common fortress"; it was you who declared that our policies must concern themselves with "how" rather than "if"; you who affirm urgency, the absence of time. Well, I tell you now, and speaking for the Government of Canada, that there is agreement with all you say. But I tell you too, that for our own survival- and this we are determined upon if the Act of Union is to be accomplished – Alaska must become Canadian.'

The President spoke earnestly, pleadingly, 'Jim, it could never be done, believe me.'

'You're mad!' It was Admiral Rapoport, his face flushed.

'It can be done!' Howden hurled the words across the room. 'And I'm not mad, but sane. Sane enough to want survival of my own country; sane enough to fight for it – as, by God, I will!'

'But not this way…!'

'Listen to me!' Howden crossed swiftly to the map and took the pointer resolutely. He swung the tip in an arc, from east to west, the line he followed tracing the 49th parallel. 'Between here and here' – he traced a second line across the 60th parallel – 'your experts and ours tell us there will be devastation and fallout, perhaps – if we are lucky – in great patches across the country; perhaps overall, if we are not. Therefore our only chance of rebuilding afterwards, our sole hope for consolidating whatever is left of Canada, is to establish a new focal point, a new national centre away from devastation and until such time as we can regroup and move back, if ever we do.'

The Prime Minister paused, surveying the others grimly. The President's eyes were riveted upon the map. Admiral Rapoport opened his mouth as if to interject once more, then closed it. Arthur Lexington was covertly watching the admiral's profile.

'The Canadian regrouping territory,' Howden continued, 'must meet three main needs. It must be south of the tree line and the sub-arctic zone; if it were not, communications and support of life would be beyond our means. Second, the area must be west of our combined northern missile line; and, third, it must be a place where fallout is likely to be negative or light. North of the 49th parallel there is only one such area meeting all requirements – Alaska.'

The President asked softly, 'How can you be sure about fallout?'

Howden replaced the pointer against the wall. 'If, at this moment, I had to pick the safest place in the Northern Hemisphere during a nuclear war,' he said, 'it would be Alaska. It is fortified against invasion. Vladivostok, the nearest major target, is three thousand miles away. Fallout, either from Soviet attacks or our own, will be unlikely. As certain as anything can be – Alaska will come through.'

'Yes,' the President said, 'I think I agree with you – about that at least.' He sighed. 'But as to the other… it's an ingenious idea – and I must admit in honesty that a good deal of it makes sense. But surely you must see that neither I nor Congress can barter away a state of the Union.'

'In that case,' James Howden replied coldly, 'there is even less reason for my Government to barter away a country.'

Admiral Rapoport snorted angrily, 'The Act of Union would involve no bartering away.'

'That scarcely seems true,' Arthur Lexington interceded sharply. 'Canada would pay a heavy price.'

'No!' The admiral's voice took on a cutting edge. Tar from paying a price, it would be an act of amazing generosity to a greedy, vacillating country which has made a national pastime of timidity, fence-straddling, and hypocrisy. You talk of rebuilding Canada, but why bother? America did it for you once before; we'll probably do it again.'

James Howden had resumed his chair. Now, his face suffused with anger, he sprang to his feet. He said icily, 'I don't believe I have to listen to this, Tyler.'

'No, Jim,' the President said calmly, 'I don't believe you do. Except that we agreed to speak plainly, and sometimes there are things better said, and out in the open.'

Tense with resentment, Howden fumed, 'Am I to assume that you subscribe to this vicious libel?'

'Well, Jim, I grant that what was said could have been put more tactfully, but then that isn't Levin's way, though if you like I apologize for his choice of words.' The voice drawled easily across the desk to the Prime Minister, still standing erect. 'But I'd also say he has a point about Canada always wanting a great deal. Even now, with all that we are offering in the Act of Union, you're demanding more.'

Arthur Lexington had risen along with Howden. Now he walked to the window and, turning, his eyes were on Admiral Rapoport. 'Perhaps,' he observed, 'it's because we're entitled to more.'

'No!' The word snapped back from the admiral as though a needle had been jabbed. 'I said you were a greedy nation and so you are.' His thin voice rose. 'Thirty years ago you wanted an American standard of living, but you wanted it overnight. You chose to ignore that American standards took a century of sweat and belt-tightening to build. So you opened up your raw wealth that you might have husbanded instead; and you let Americans move in, develop your birthright, take the risks, and run the show. That way you bought your standard of living – then you sneered at the things we had in common.'

'Levin…' the President remonstrated.

'Hypocrisy, I said!' As if he had not heard, the admiral stormed on, 'You sold your birthright, then went searching for it with talk about distinctive Canadianism. Well, there was a Canadianism once, but you got soft and lost it, and not all your Royal Commissions piled on end will ever find it now.'

Hating the other man, his own voice tight with anger, James Howden exclaimed, 'It hasn't all been softness. There's a list from two world wars you may have heard of: St Eloi, Vimy, Dieppe, Sicily, Ortona, Normandy, Caen, Falaise…'

'There are always exceptions!' the admiral snapped. 'But I also recall that while US Marines were dying in the Coral Sea, the Parliament of Canada was debating conscription – which you never had.'

Wrathfully Howden said, 'There were other factors -Quebec, compromise…'

'Compromise, fence-straddling, timidity… what in hell's the difference when it's a national pastime? And you'll still be fence-straddling on the day the United States defends Canada with nuclear weapons – weapons you're glad we have, but are too self-righteous to employ yourselves.'

The admiral had risen and was standing facing Howden. The Prime Minister resisted an urgent impulse to strike out, raining blows on the face before him. Instead the President broke the hostile silence. 'I tell you what,' he suggested. 'Why don't you two fellows get together tomorrow morning at dawn by the Potomac. Arthur and I will be seconds, and we'll have the Smithsonian lend us pistols and swords.'