The Chancellor Manuscript (25 page)
Read The Chancellor Manuscript Online
Authors: Robert Ludlum
Peter again leaned forward. Consciously, he spoke with a hard edge in his voice. “That doesn’t sound like the professional I spoke with.”
“I know it doesn’t. That’s why I yelled at him. You see, I could argue with him. We were more than father and daughter. We were friends. Equals in a way. I had to grow up fast; he didn’t have anyone else to talk to.”
The moment was filled with anguish. Chancellor let it pass. “A few minutes ago you said I was wrong. Now it’s my turn. The last thing your father wanted to do was resign. And he didn’t go to Hawaii for a vacation. He went there to find the man who forced him out of the Army?”
“What?”
“Something happened to your father years ago. Something he didn’t want anyone to know about. This man found out and threatened him. I liked your father very much. I liked what he stood for, and I feel guilty as hell. That’s as honestly as I can put it. And I want to tell you about it.”
Alison MacAndrew sat motionless, her large eyes level with his. “Would you care for that drink now?” she asked.
He told her the story, everything he could remember. From the blond-haired stranger on the beach at Malibu to the astonishing phone call that morning to the Rockville
police. He omitted only the killing at Fort Tryon; if there was a connection, he did not want to burden her with it.
In the telling he felt cheap; the commercial novelist in search of a grand conspiracy. He fully expected her to be outraged, to damn him for being the means to her father’s death. In a very real sense he wanted her condemnation, so deep was his own guilt.
Instead, she seemed to understand the depth of his feelings. Remarkably, she tried to lessen his guilt, telling him that if what he told her was true, he was no villain; he was a victim. But regardless of what
he
believed,
she
would not accept the theory that there was an incident in her father’s past so damaging that threats of exposure could force him to resign.
“It doesn’t make sense. If anything like that existed, it would have been used against him years ago.”
“In the newspaper, you said he was driven out.”
“Yes, but not that way. By wearing him down, ignoring his decisions. That was the method. I saw it.”
Chancellor remembered his prologue; he was almost afraid to ask the question. “What about his report on the corruption in Saigon?”
“What about it?”
“Isn’t it possible they tried to stop him?”
“I’m sure they did. But it wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that. His field reports were always very critical. He loved the Army; he wanted it to be the best it could be. He would never have made it public, if that’s what you’re driving at.”
“It was.”
“Never. He wouldn’t do that.”
Peter did not understand, nor did he press for an explanation. But he had to ask the obvious. “Why did he go to Hawaii?”
She looked at him. “I know what you think. I can’t refute you, but I know what he told me. He said he wanted to get away, go on a long trip. There was nothing to prevent him. Mother was gone.”
It was no answer; the question remained suspended. And so they talked. For hours, it seemed. Finally, she said it. The next afternoon her father’s body was arriving in New York, flown in on a commercial jetliner from Hawaii. An army escort would meet the plane at Kennedy Airport,
the coffin be transferred to a military aircraft and taken to Virginia. The funeral was the day after in Arlington. She was not sure she could face the ordeal.
“Isn’t anyone going to be with you?”
“No.”
“Will you let me?”
“There’s no reason—?”
“I think there is,” said Peter firmly.
They stood together on the enormous field of concrete that was the cargo area. Two Army officers remained at attention several yards to their left. The wind was strong, swirling odd pieces of paper and leaves from faraway trees into the air in circles. The huge DC-10 taxied to a stop. Shortly, the large panel underneath the giant fuselage slid back; an electric freight dolly approached and was centered beneath. Seconds later the coffin was lowered.
And Alison’s face was suddenly ashen, her body rigid. The trembling began at her lips, then reached her hands; her brown eyes stared, unblinking; tears started to roll down her cheeks. Peter put his arm around her shoulders.
She held back as long as she could—far longer, in far greater pain, than made sense. Chancellor could feel the spasms that shot through her arms; he held her tighter. Finally she could take no more. She turned and fell against him, her head buried in his coat, the sobs muffled, the agony complete.
“I’m sorry.… I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I promised myself I wouldn’t.”
He held her close and spoke softly. “Hey, come on. It’s allowed.”
Peter had made up his mind, but she changed it for him. He was going to abandon the book; he had been manipulated, and the price of that manipulation was symbolized for him by the dead MacAndrew. He had implied as much to Alison the night before.
“Say you’re right,” she had said to him. “I don’t think you are, but say it’s true. Isn’t that all the more reason to go on?”
It was.
He sat across the aisle from her on the air force plane. She wanted to be alone; he sensed that and understood. Below them, in the cargo area of the aircraft, was the body of her father. She had a great deal to think about, and he could not help her. Alison was a private person; he understood that, too.
And she was unpredictable as well. He had learned that when he picked her up in the taxi earlier in the afternoon. He told her he had phoned the Hay-Adams in Washington and made reservations for them.
“Don’t be silly. There’s plenty of room in the Rockville house. We’ll stay there. I think we should.”
Why should they? He did not pursue the question.
Chancellor opened his briefcase and took out the leather notebook that traveled with him wherever he went. It had been a gift from Joshua Harris two years before. There was a row of sharpened pencils in the inside pocket of the cover. He removed one and wrote on the attached pad.
Chapter 8—Outline
Before he began he thought about Alison’s remark the night before.
…
say it’s true. Isn’t that all the more reason to go on?
He looked at the words he had just writen:
Chapter 8
—
Outline
. The coincidence was disquieting. This was the chapter in which Meredith is driven to the point of madness because of a terrible secret of his own.
Alex leaves his office at the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier than usual. He knows he’s being followed, so he tries to lose himself in the crowds, walking up short streets and alleys, through several buildings, going in one entrance, emerging from another. He dashes onto a bus; it takes him to within a block of the apartment where the assistant attorney general lives. They have agreed to meet.
At the apartment bouse the doorman hands him a note from the assistant attorney general. He will not see Alex. He does not want any further association. If Meredith persists, the man will be forced to report his odd behavior to others. In his judgment, Alex is unbalanced, paranoid over imagined abuses.
Meredith is stunned, the lawyer in him furious. The evidence
is
there. The assistant attorney general has been reached as so many others have been reached. Hoover’s forces have succeeded in blocking Meredith’s every move. The raw power of the FBI is all-pervasive.
Outside the apartment house he sees the bureau vehicle that has picked up his trail. There is a driver and a man beside him; they stare at Alex silently. It is part of the strategy of fear aroused when a man knows he is being watched, especially at night. It fits Hoover’s methods.
Meredith takes a cab to the garage where his car is parked. We see him speeding down Memorial Parkway, weaving in and out of traffic, aware of the FBI car behind him.
On impulse he changes direction, taking an unfamiliar exit off the highway into the Virginia countryside. The husband and father in him has rebelled. He will not lead those following him back to his house again, back to his wife and his children. His fear is turning into fury.
There is a chase through the back roads. The speed, the rushing scenery, the screeching tires around sharp curves, all contribute to Alex’s growing panic. He is a man alone racing in a maze for survival. We understand that the disorientation produced by the events of the past weeks is heightened by the madness of the chase. Meredith is beginning to crack.
In the growing darkness Alex miscalculates a sudden curve. He slams on the brakes; the car swerves, jumps the road and plunges through the fence into the field.
Bruised, his forehead bleeding from the impact with the windshield, Meredith climbs out of the car. He sees the FBI vehicle back on the road. He races toward it, screaming. His state
of mind demands violence, physical confrontation.
He does not get it in the way that he seeks it. Instead, the two FBI men get out of the car and swiftly subdue him. They feign professional procedures by searching him for a weapon.
The driver speaks coldly. “Don’t press us, Meredith. We don’t have much use for people like you. Men who put on a uniform and work for the other side.”
Alex collapses. It is the secret that is buried in his past. Years ago, during the Korean War, as a young lieutenant barely in his twenties, Meredith had been captured and broken by his captors. He was not alone; there were hundreds. Men driven mad by physical and psychological tortures unknown in modern warfare. The Army understood; the Geneva covenants had been violated. The broken men were assured that all records of their nightmare would be expunged. They had served honorably; they had faced things for which the Army had never prepared them. Each could pick up his life without punishment.
Now Alex realizes that the darkest moment of his life is known by men who will use it ruthlessly against him, and even against his wife and children.
The FBI agents release him. He wanders down the country road in the twilight.
Peter closed the notebook and looked over at Alison. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes wide, unblinking. The two-man military escort sat in the front of the plane, where their attentions could not fall on private grief.
She felt his gaze on her and turned to him, forcing a smile. “You working?”
“I was. Not now.”
“I’m glad you were. It makes me feel better. Less like I was interrupting you.”
“That’s hardly the case. You made me go on, remember?”
“We’ll be there soon,” she said mechanically.
“No more than ten or fifteen minutes, I think.”
“Yes.” She went back to her thoughts, looking out the window at the bright blue sky beyond.
The aircraft began its descent into Andrews Field.
They taxied to a stop, disembarked, and were instructed to wait in the officers’ lounge at terminal six.
The only person in the lounge was a young army chaplain, obviously ordered to be in attendance. He was both relieved and somewhat startled to find his presence superfluous.
“It’s kind of you to be here,” said Alison with authority, “but my father died several days ago. The shock’s worn off.”
The minister shook hands solemnly and left. Alison turned to Peter. “They’ve scheduled the service for ten tomorrow morning at Arlington. I’ve requested the minimum; just the officers’ cortege within the grounds. It’s nearly six. Why don’t we have an early dinner somewhere and get out to the house?”
“Fine. Shall I rent a car?”
“No need to. They’ll have one for us.”
“That means a driver, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” Alison frowned again. “You’re right. That’s a complication. Do you have your license with you?”
“Of course.”
“You can sign for the vehicle. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
“It’ll be simpler without a third person,” she said. “Army drivers are notorious scouts for superior officers. Even if we didn’t ask him in, I’m sure his orders would be to remain on the premises until relieved.”
Alison’s words could be taken on several levels. “What do you mean?” he asked.
Alison saw his caution. “If something did happen to my father years ago, something he considered so terrible it could change his life, then there might be a clue to what it was in the Rockville house. He kept mementos from his posts. Photographs, roster sheets, things that were important to him. I think we should go through them all.”
“I see. Better done by two than three,” added Peter, curiously satisfied that this was what Alison meant. “Perhaps you’d rather look by yourself. I can stand by and take notes for you.”
She searched his eyes in that strange noncommittal way that reminded him of her father. But there was
warmth in her voice. “You’re very considerate. It’s a quality I admire. I’m not. I wish I were, but I don’t think it went, as they say, with the territory.”
“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “I have one solid talent: I can cook a hell of a meal. You’re anxious to get to Rockville. So am I. Why don’t we stop at a supermarket and I’ll pick up some things? Like steaks and potatoes and Scotch.”
She smiled. “We’d save a lot of time.”
“Done.”
They took the eastern roads north and west into the Maryland countryside, stopping at a store in Randolph Hills for groceries and whisky.
It was growing dark. The December sun was below the hills; elongated shadows shot across the windshield of the army car, creating odd shapes that came and went swiftly. As he swung off the highway into the twisting back road that led to the general’s house, he reached the flat stretch of farmland and saw the outlines of the barbed-wire fence and the field beyond, where three months before he’d thought he would lose his life.
The road turned sharply. He held his foot on the accelerator, afraid to lessen the pressure. He had to get away. The ache was at his right temple now, spreading downward, curving in his neck, throbbing at the base of his skull. Faster!
“Peter! For God’s sake!”
The tires screeched; he held the wheel firmly as they rounded the turn and came out of it. He braked the car, reducing speed.
