The Chancellor Manuscript (63 page)
Read The Chancellor Manuscript Online
Authors: Robert Ludlum
“I remember,” said Peter, and he did. It had been called the Sutherland decision, an anathema to the law-and-order crowd. Had any other judge but Sutherland rendered it, it would have been appealed to the Supreme Court.
“I received a call from J. Edgar Hoover, requesting me to come to his office. More from curiosity than anything else, I bowed to his arrogance and accepted the invitation. During that meeting I listened to the unbelievable. On the desk of the highest law-enforcement officer in the country were spread the dossiers of every major black civil rights leader: King, Abernathy, Wilkins, Rowan, Farmer. They were volumes of filth—scurrilous rumor, unsubstantiated gossip, transcripts of telephone and electronic taps; words taken out of context made to appear inflammatory—morally, sexually, legally, philosophically! I was enraged, appalled! That it could happen in
that office!
Blackmail! Blatant extortion! But Hoover had been through it many times before. He let me vent my rage, and when I had finished, he viciously said that were I to continue to be an obstruction, those files would be put to use. Men and their families destroyed! The black movement
crippled!
At the very last, he said to me, ‘We don’t want another Chasǒng, do we, Judge Sutherland?’ ”
“Chasǒng,” said Peter, repeating the name softly. “That’s where you heard it first”
“It took me nearly two years to learn what happened at Chasǒng. When I did, I reached the decision. The children had been right all along. In their simplicity they saw what I did not see. As a people we were expendable. But then I saw what the young did not see. The answer was not indiscriminate violence and protests. It was to use the weapon Hoover used; make the system work from within. By
fear
!… We’ll talk no more. You should have silence. Make peace with your God.”
The man beside the driver studied a map with the aid of a pencil flashlight He turned his head slightly to speak with the judge in Ashanti.
Sutherland nodded and replied in the strange African tongue. He looked at Peter. “We’re within a mile and a half of the gas station. We’ll stop a quarter of a mile short of it. These men are efficient scouts. They learned the expertise of night patrol in Southeast Asia. Those patrols were usually the province of black soldiers; the casualty rates were the highest. If O’Brien’s brought anyone with him, if there’s any hint of a trap, they’ll come back, and we’ll drive away. The girl will die in front of you.”
Chancellor’s throat went dry.
It’s over
. He should have known. Sutherland would never settle for words over a telephone. Peter had sentenced Alison to death. He had loved two women in his life, and he had killed them both.
He thought of overpowering Sutherland when they were alone. It was something to keep him from screaming.
“How could O’Brien do that?” Peter asked. “You said he couldn’t go to anyone, that you’d know if he did.”
“On the surface it would appear impossible. He’s isolated.”
“Then, why are we stopping. Why are we wasting time?”
“I saw what O’Brien did at the marina yesterday morning. Courage and ingenuity are to be respected. It’s a simple precaution.”
The car stopped. Whatever thoughts Peter had of attacking Sutherland were dispelled quickly. The man beside the driver leaped out of the car, opened the door next to Chancellor, and grabbed his arm. A pair of handcuffs were snapped to his wrist and to the metal clasp below the window. The movement put his shoulder in agony. He winced and held his breath.
The judge climbed out of the back seat. “I leave you to your thoughts, Mr. Chancellor.”
The two young black men disappeared into the darkness.
It was the longest forty-five minutes Peter could imagine. He tried to think of the various tactics O’Brien might conceive of, but the more he thought about them, the more bleak were his conclusions. If Quinn had managed to get help, as surely he must have done, the additional men would be seen by Sutherland’s scouts. Death. If for some reason O’Brien had decided to come alone, then he would die. But at least Alison would live. There was some comfort in that.
The scouts returned, drenched with sweat They had been running hard; they’d covered a great deal of ground.
The black on the left opened the door and Sutherland climbed in. “It would appear that Mr. O’Brien keeps the rendezvous. He is sitting in an automobile with the motor running, in the center of the road where he can observe all sides. There is no one else within three miles of the station.”
Chancellor was too numb and too sick to think clearly. His last amateurish gesture had been to lead Quinn into the trap.
It’s over
.
The Mark
TV
started. They approached the intersection; the driver braked the Continental slowly, and they came to a stop. The black on the driver’s right got out and opened Chancellor’s door. He unlocked the cuffs; Peter shook his wrist trying to restore the circulation. His wounded shoulder began to hurt again. It did not matter.
“Get behind the wheel, Mr. Chancellor. You’ll drive now. My two friends will be crouched behind you in the back seat, their guns drawn. The girl dies if you disregard instructions.”
Sutherland got out of the car with Peter, and stood by the door, facing him.
“You’re wrong. You know that, don’t you?” said Chancellor.
“You look for absolutes. As with precedents, they’re all too often imperfect, and much of the time they don’t apply. There’s no right and wrong between us. We’re products of a long-standing crisis neither of us is responsible for but both are swept up in.”
“Is that a judicial opinion?”
“No, Mr. Chancellor. It’s the opinion of a Negro. I was a Negro before I was a judge.” Sutherland turned and walked away.
Peter watched him, then climbed in behind the wheel and slammed the door. It’s over. Dear God, if you exist, let it come quickly, furiously. I have no courage
.
Peter turned right at the intersection and drove down the road. The gas station was on the left, a single naked light bulb in a bracket above the pumps.
“Slow down,” came the quiet command from the back.
“What’s the difference?” said Chancellor.
“Slow down!”
The barrel of a gun was shoved into the base of his skull. He pressed the brake of the Mark IV and coasted toward the station. He approached the rear of O’Brien’s car; it had to be Quinn’s. The vapor from exhaust curled in the night air, the headlights illuminating the distant country road beyond.
Peter was alarmed. The lights from the Mark IV shone directly into the rear window of O’Brien’s car. It was empty.
“He’s not there,” whispered Chancellor.
“He’s below the seat,” said the low voice on his right.
“Get out and walk to the car,” said the other man.
Peter turned off the motor, opened the door, and stepped out on the road. He closed his eyes briefly, wondering if a gun would fire at him the instant Quinn appeared. He was not fooled. Sutherland would spare Alison, but there’d be no conversation over the telephone. The judge would take no such risk.
But O’Brien did not get out of the automobile.
“Quinn,” called Chancellor. There was no answer.
What are you doing, O’Brien? It’s over!
Nothing.
Peter walked toward the car, his temples throbbing, the pain in his throat agonizing. The sound of the idling engine mingled with the night noises; a breeze swirled dry leaves across the roadway. Any second now, Quinn would show himself; gunshots would follow. Would he hear them as his life ended? He approached the driver’s window.
There was no one there.
“Chancellor! Get down!”
The scream came from out of the darkness. The sudden roar of a powerful motor filled the night Blinding headlights shot out from the left, from the gas station! A car came racing out of the dim light, speeding directly at the silver Mark IV. The driver’s door swung open; a figure lunged out, rolling on the pavement.
The impact came, a thunderous collision, the crunching of metal, the shattering of glass, the screams of the two men inside … all came at once, and at once Peter knew the last fury he had hoped for had arrived.
Gunshots followed, as he knew they would. He closed his eyes and gripped the hard surface of the road; the searing, icelike pain would come. The darkness would come.
The firing continued; Chancellor rolled his face to the side. It came from Quinn O’Brien!
Peter raised his head. Smoke and dust billowed in the air. In front of him he saw O’Brien throw himself into the side of the idling car; he was only feet from Chancellor. The agent crouched, both hands extended over the trunk, his pistol leveled.
“Get over here!” he roared to Peter.
Chancellor lunged forward, knees and hands pounding the tar beneath, until he reached the automobile.
He saw O’Brien hesitate, then raise his head and take careful aim.
The explosion came. The gas tank of the Continental erupted. Peter crouched in front of Quinn. Through a blanket of flames one of Sutherland’s scouts lurched out of the burning car, firing at the source of O’Brien’s gunshots.
But the man could be seen clearly in the light of the spreading fires; flames had ignited his clothes. O’Brien aimed again. There was a scream; the scout fell to the ground behind the burning automobile.
“Quinn!” yelled Peter.
“How?”
“I understood you! When you used ‘senator’ in your code, you meant it was our last hope. You meant there was a crisis. You said I had to be alone; that meant you weren’t But you were in one car,
that
car, so I needed two. One a decoy!” O’Brien shouted as he inched forward around Chancellor toward the hood.
“A decoy?”
“A diversion! I paid a guy to follow me and leave his
car. If I could hit and run, we had a chance. What the hell, there was nothing left!” He raised his gun over the hood and leveled it.
“Nothing left …” Peter echoed the phrase, suddenly aware of its ultimate truth.
Quinn fired three shots in rapid succession. Chancellor’s mind went blank for a moment, then was brought back to the madness by a second explosion from the Continental.
O’Brien spun around toward Chancellor. “Get inside!” he yelled. “Let’s get out of here!”
Peter rose to his feet; he grabbed O’Brien’s jacket, stopping him. “Quinn! Quinn, wait! There are no others! Just
him!
Back in the road. He’s
alone!”
“Who?”
“Sutherland. It’s Daniel Sutherland.”
O’Brien’s wild eyes stared at Peter for a brief instant. “Get in,” he commanded. He swung the idling car around in a U-turn and sped toward the intersection.
In the distance the headlights showed the immense figure of Daniel Sutherland, standing in the middle of the road. The black giant had seen what had happened. He raised his hand to his head.
There was a final gunshot.
Sutherland fell.
Venice was dead. Inver Brass was gone.
Morning. Peter stood by the hatch table in his study, holding the telephone, listening to the words spoken in quiet anger from Washington. The sun streamed through the windows. Outside, the snow was deep, pure white; sharp reflections of sunlight bounced continuously up into the glass. Proof of the earth’s movement. As the voice on the telephone was proof of one aspect of the human condition; ultimately there was to be found a sense of morality.
The caller was Daniel Sutherland’s son, Aaron. Firebrand, brilliant attorney for the black movement, a man Chancellor wanted to call a friend but knew he never could.
“I will
not
fight you that way! I won’t lower myself to use your weapons. And I won’t let others use them. I found the files. I
burned
them! You’ll have to take my word.”
“I was willing to take your father’s when I thought I was going to die. I believed him. I believe you.”
“You don’t have a choice.” The lawyer hung up.
Chancellor walked back to his couch and sat down. Through the north window he could see Alison, bundled in a coat, laughing, her arms folded, warding off the winter chill. She was between Mrs. Alcott and the taciturn groundskeeper, Burrows, who today seemed positively voluble. Mrs. Alcott was smiling at Alison.
Mrs. Alcott approved. The lady of the house was in residence. The home needed that lady.
The three of them turned toward the barn and started down the shoveled path that was bordered by shrubs, a green and white colonnade. In the distance, beyond the fence, a colt raced freely, then stopped and cocked his head at the threesome. He pranced toward them, his mane flowing.
Peter looked down at the pages of his manuscript At the fiction. The fantasy that was his reality. He had made his decision.
He would start at the beginning, knowing it would be much better now. The invention would be there: thoughts and words put in the minds of others. But for himself no invention was needed. The experience was whole and never to be forgotten.
The story would be written as a novel. His reality. Let others find other meanings. He leaned forward and picked up a pencil from the tankard. He began on a fresh yellow pad.
The dark-haired man stared at the wall in front of him. His chair, like the rest of the furniture, was pleasing to the eye but not made for comfort. The style was Early American, the theme Spartan, as if those about to be granted an audience with the occupant of the inner office should reflect on their awesome opportunity in stern surroundings
.
The man was in his late twenties, his face angular, the features sharp, each pronounced and definite as if carved by a craftsman more aware of details than of the whole. It was a face in quiet conflict with itself.…
FOR MARY—
The reasons increase each day.
Above all, there is Mary.
Read on for an excerpt from Robert Ludlum’s
The Bourne Identity
The trawler plunged into the angry swells of the dark, furious sea like an awkward animal trying desperately to break out of an impenetrable swamp. The waves rose to goliathan heights, crashing into the hull with the power of raw tonnage; the white sprays caught in the night sky cascaded downward over the deck under the force of the night wind. Everywhere there were the sounds of inanimate pain, wood straining against wood, ropes twisting, stretched to the breaking point. The animal was dying.
Two abrupt explosions pierced the sounds of the sea and the wind and the vessel’s pain. They came from the dimly lit cabin that rose and fell with its host body. A man lunged out of the door grasping the railing with one hand, holding his stomach with the other.
A second man followed, the pursuit cautious, his intent violent. He stood bracing himself in the cabin door; he raised a gun and fired again. And again.
The man at the railing whipped both his hands up to his head, arching backward under the impact of the fourth bullet. The trawler’s bow dipped suddenly into the valley of two
giant waves, lifting the wounded man off his feet; he twisted to his left, unable to take his hands away from his head. The boat surged upward, bow and midships more out of the water than in it, sweeping the figure in the doorway back into the cabin; a fifth gunshot fired wildly. The wounded man screamed, his hands now lashing out at anything he could grasp, his eyes blinded by blood and the unceasing spray of the sea. There was nothing he could grab, so he grabbed at nothing; his legs buckled as his body lurched forward. The boat rolled violently leeward and the man whose skull was ripped open plunged over the side into the madness of the darkness below.
He felt rushing cold water envelop him, swallowing him, sucking him under, and twisting him in circles, then propelling him up to the surface—only to gasp a single breath of air. A gasp and he was under again.
And there was heat, a strange moist heat at his temple that seared through the freezing water that kept swallowing him, a fire where no fire should burn. There was ice, too; an ice-like throbbing in his stomach and his legs and his chest, oddly warmed by the cold sea around him. He felt these things, acknowledging his own panic as he felt them. He could see his own body turning and twisting, arms and feet working frantically against the pressures of the whirlpool. He could feel, think, see, perceive panic and struggle—yet strangely there was peace. It was the calm of the observer, the uninvolved observer, separated from the events, knowing of them but not essentially involved.
Then another form of panic spread through him, surging through the heat and the ice and the uninvolved recognition. He could not submit to peace! Not yet! It would happen any second now; he was not sure what it was, but it would happen. He had to
be
there!
He kicked furiously, clawing at the heavy walls of water above, his chest burning. He broke surface, thrashing to stay on top of the black swells. Climb up!
Climb up!
A monstrous rolling wave accommodated; he was on the
crest, surrounded by pockets of foam and darkness. Nothing. Turn!
Turn!
It happened. The explosion was massive; he could hear it through the clashing waters and the wind, the sight and the sound somehow his doorway to peace. The sky lit up like a fiery diadem and within that crown of fire, objects of all shapes and sizes were blown through the light into the outer shadows.
He had won. Whatever it was, he had won.
Suddenly he was plummeting downward again, into an abyss again. He could feel the rushing waters crash over his shoulders, cooling the white-hot heat at his temple, warming the ice-cold incisions in his stomach and his legs and.…
His chest. His chest was in agony! He had been struck—the blow crushing, the impact sudden and intolerable. It happened again!
Let me alone. Give me peace
.
And again!
And he clawed again, and kicked again … until he felt it. A thick, oily object that moved only with the movements of the sea. He could not tell what it was, but it was there and he could feel it, hold it.
Hold it! It will ride you to peace. To the silence of darkness … and peace
.
The rays of the early sun broke through the mists of the eastern sky, lending glitter to the calm waters of the Mediterranean. The skipper of the small fishing boat, his eyes bloodshot, his hands marked with rope burns, sat on the stern gunnel smoking a Gauloise, grateful for the sight of the smooth sea. He glanced over at the open wheelhouse; his younger brother was easing the throttle forward to make better time, the single other crewman checking a net several feet away. They were laughing at something and that was good; there had been nothing to laugh about last night. Where had the storm come from? The weather reports from Marseilles had indicated nothing; if they had he would have stayed in the shelter of the coastline. He wanted to reach the fishing grounds eighty kilometers south of La Seyne-sur-Mer by
daybreak, but not at the expense of costly repairs, and what repairs were not costly these days?
Or at the expense of his life, and there were moments last night when that was a distinct consideration.
“Tu es fatigué, hein, mon frère?”
his brother shouted, grinning at him.
“Va te coucher maintenant. Laisse-moi faire.”
“D’accord,”
the brother answered, throwing his cigarette over the side and sliding down to the deck on top of a net. “A little sleep won’t hurt.”
It was good to have a brother at the wheel. A member of the family should always be the pilot on a family boat; the eyes were sharper. Even a brother who spoke with the smooth tongue of a literate man as opposed to his own coarse words. Crazy! One year at the university and his brother wished to start a
compagnie
. With a single boat that had seen better days many years ago. Crazy. What good did his books do last night? When his
compagnie
was about to capsize.
He closed his eyes, letting his hands soak in the rolling water on the deck. The salt of the sea would be good for the rope burns. Burns received while lashing equipment that did not care to stay put in the storm.
“Look! Over there!”
It was his brother, apparently sleep was to be denied by sharp family eyes.
“What is it?” he yelled.
“Port bow! There’s a man in the water! He’s holding on to something! A piece of debris, a plank of some sort.”
The skipper took the wheel, angling the boat to the right of the figure in the water, cutting the engines to reduce the wake. The man looked as though the slightest motion would send him sliding off the fragment of wood he clung to; his hands were white, gripped around the edge like claws, but the rest of his body was limp—as limp as a man fully drowned, passed from this world.
“Loop the ropes!” yelled the skipper to his brother and
the crewman. “Submerge them around his legs. Easy now! Move them up to his waist. Pull gently.”
“His hands won’t let go of the plank!”
“Reach down! Pry them up! It may be the death lock.”
“No. He’s alive … but barely, I think. His lips move, but there’s no sound. His eyes also, though I doubt he sees us.”
“The hands are free!”
“Lift him up. Grab his shoulders and pull him over.
Easy
, now!”
“Mother of God, look at his head!” yelled the crewman. “It’s split open.”
“He must have crashed it against the plank in the storm,” said the brother.
“No,” disagreed the skipper, staring at the wound. “It’s a clean slice, razorlike. Caused by a bullet; he was shot.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“In more than one place,” added the skipper, his eyes roving over the body. “We’ll head for Ile de Port Noir; it’s the nearest island. There’s a doctor on the waterfront.”
“The Englishman?”
“He practices.”
“When he can,” said the skipper’s brother. “When the wine lets him. He has more success with his patients’ animals than with his patients.”
“It won’t matter. This will be a corpse by the time we get there. If by chance he lives, I’ll bill him for the extra petrol and whatever catch we miss. Get the kit; we’ll bind his head for all the good it will do.”
“Look!” cried the crewman. “Look at his eyes.”
“What about them?” asked the brother.
“A moment ago they were gray—as gray as steel cables. Now they’re blue!”
“The sun’s brighter,” said the skipper, shrugging. “Or it’s playing tricks with your own eyes. No matter, there’s no color in the grave.”
Intermittent whistles of fishing boats clashed with the incessant screeching of the gulls; together they formed the
universal sounds of the waterfront. It was late afternoon, the sun a fireball in the west, the air still and too damp, too hot. Above the piers and facing the harbor was a cobblestone street and several blemished white houses, separated by overgrown grass shooting up from dried earth and sand. What remained of the verandas were patched latticework and crumbling stucco supported by hastily implanted pilings. The residences had seen better days a number of decades ago when the residents mistakenly believed Ile de Port Noir might become another Mediterranean playground. It never did.
All the houses had paths to the street, but the last house in the row had a path obviously more trampled than the others. It belonged to an Englishman who had come to Port Noir eight years before under circumstances no one understood or cared to; he was a doctor and the waterfront had need of a doctor. Hooks, needles and knives were at once means of livelihood as well as instruments of incapacitation. If one saw
le docteur
on a good day, the sutures were not too bad. On the other hand, if the stench of wine or whiskey was too pronounced, one took one’s chances.
Tant pis!
He was better than no one.
But not today; no one used the path today. It was Sunday and it was common knowledge that on any Saturday night the doctor was roaring drunk in the village, ending the evening with whatever whore was available. Of course, it was also granted that during the past few Saturdays the doctor’s routine had altered; he had not been seen in the village. But nothing ever changed that much; bottles of scotch were sent to the doctor on a regular basis. He was simply staying in his house; he had been doing so since the fishing boat from La Ciotat had brought in the unknown man who was more corpse than man.
Dr. Geoffrey Washburn awoke with a start, his chin settled into his collarbone causing the odor of his mouth to invade his nostrils; it was not pleasant. He blinked, orienting himself, and glanced at the open bedroom door. Had his nap
been interrupted by another incoherent monologue from his patient? No; there was no sound. Even the gulls outside were mercifully quiet; it was Ile de Port Noir’s holy day, no boats coming in to taunt the birds with their catches.
Washburn looked at the empty glass and the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table beside his chair. It was an improvement. On a normal Sunday both would be empty by now, the pain of the previous night having been spiraled out by the scotch. He smiled to himself, once again blessing an older sister in Coventry who made the scotch possible with her monthly stipend. She was a good girl, Bess was, and God knew she could afford a hell of a lot more than she sent him, but he was grateful she did what she did. And one day she would stop, the money would stop, and then the oblivions would be achieved with the cheapest wine until there was no pain at all. Ever.
He had come to accept that eventuality … until three weeks and five days ago when the half-dead stranger had been dragged from the sea and brought to his door by fishermen who did not care to identify themselves. Their errand was one of mercy, not involvement. God would understand; the man had been shot.
What the fishermen had not known was that far more than bullets had invaded the man’s body. And mind.
The doctor pushed his gaunt frame out of the chair and walked unsteadily to the window overlooking the harbor. He lowered the blind, closing his eyes to block out the sun, then squinted between the slats to observe the activity in the street below, specifically the reason for the clatter. It was a horse-drawn cart, a fisherman’s family out for a Sunday drive. Where the hell else could one see such a sight? And then he remembered the carriages and the finely groomed geldings that threaded through London’s Regent Park with tourists during the summer months; he laughed out loud at the comparison. But his laughter was short-lived, replaced by something unthinkable three weeks ago. He had given up all hope of seeing England again. It was possible that might be changed now. The stranger could change it.
Unless his prognosis was wrong, it would happen any day, any hour or minute. The wounds to the legs, stomach, and chest were deep and severe, quite possibly fatal were it not for the fact the bullets had remained where they had lodged, self-cauterized and continuously cleansed by the sea. Extracting them was nowhere near as dangerous as it might have been, the tissue primed, softened, sterilized, ready for an immediate knife. The cranial wound was the real problem; not only was the penetration subcutaneous, but it appeared to have bruised the thalamus and hippocampus fibrous regions. Had the bullet entered millimeters away on either side the vital functions would have ceased; they had not been impeded, and Washburn had made a decision. He went dry for thirty-six hours, eating as much starch and drinking as much water as was humanly possible. Then he performed the most delicate piece of work he had attempted since his dismissal from Macleans Hospital in London. Millimeter by agonizing millimeter he had brush-washed the fibrous areas, then stretched and sutured the skin over the cranial wound, knowing that the slightest error with brush, needle, or clamp would cause the patient’s death.
