The Telephone Number, also known as The Winning Number, is a mystery short story by Isaac Asimov.
Part of the Union Club series, it was first published in the October 1980 issue of "Gallery magazine, and later collected in The Union Club Mysteries.
Summary[]
At the Union Club, Griswold recounts a story from his time in a clandestine intelligence unit within the Pentagon during the early 1960s. His colleague, Bulmerson, possessed a phenomenal memory for numbers, particularly telephone numbers. Their most valuable asset was an anonymous, highly reliable informant they called "Our Boy," who provided crucial intelligence. This informant would contact them through an intermediary who would first provide a telephone number and a specific time window for the call to be made.
One day in September 1963, Bulmerson answered such a call. The informant had a top-priority message. After hanging up, Bulmerson, despite appearing unwell, contemptuously noted that the telephone number was so simple they could remember it even without his help, and he began to recite it with "9–". He then collapsed from a fatal heart attack before he could finish.
With only minutes left before the calling window closed, Griswold was forced to deduce the number. He reasoned that Bulmerson's clue that the number was easy to remember "today" indicated it was based on the date. The event occurred two months before the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, placing it on 22 September. In American date notation, this is written as 9/22. Griswold combined this with the year of the impending assassination, forming the number 922-1963, which he successfully dialed to receive the informant's message regarding a potential strategy to extract the U.S. from the escalating situation in Vietnam. However, subsequent political assassinations nullified the opportunity to act on the information.
Characters[]
- Griswold
- Club Member (the narrator)
- Jennings
- Baranov
- Bulmerson
- Smith
- Jones
- The anonymous informant
- The Intermediaries
- The Admiral
- The Paramedics