Messiah (30 page)

"You're quite sure of that?"

"Absolutely sure. I'm a director of the Establishment and don't forget it, Paul: it's Iris, Cave and I against you and Stokharin. You may control the organization but we have Cave himself." I gathered courage in my desperation. I purposely sounded as though I were in warm concert with the others.

"I realize all that." Paul was suddenly meek, conciliatory, sublimely treacherous. "But you must allow me as much sincerity as you withhold for yourself. I want to do what's best. I think he should die and I've done everything to persuade him. He was near agreement when you upset everything."

"For which I'm happy . . . though it was something of an accident. Are you sure that it is only for the sake of Cavesword you want him dead?"

"What other possible reason?" He looked at me indignantly. I could not be sure whether he was telling the truth or not. I doubted it.

"Many other reasons. For one thing you would be his heir, in complete control of the Establishment; and that of course is something worth inheriting."

Paul shrugged convincingly. "I'm as much in charge now as I would be with him dead," he said with a certain truth. "I'm interested in Cavesword, not in Cave. If his death enhances and establishes the Word more securely then I must do all I can to convince him to take that course."

"There is another way," I said, smiling at the pleasant thought.

"Another way?"

"To convince us of your dedication and sincerity to Cavesword."

"What's that?"

"You kill
yourself
, Paul."

There was a long silence. I pressed the buzzer and my secretary came in. Without a word, Paul left.

Immediately afterwards, I took the private elevator to Cave's penthouse. Two guards stopped me while I was announced by a third. After a short delay, I was admitted to Cave's study, but not to Cave; instead, Iris received me.

"I know what's happening," I said. "Where is he?"

"Obviously you do." Her voice was cold. She did not ask me to sit down. Awkwardly, I faced her at the room's center.

"We must stop him."

"John? Stop him from what?"

"Doing what Paul wants him to do."

"And what you want as well."

"You're mistaken. I thought I made myself clear the other night. But though my timing was apparently bad, under no circumstances do I want him to die."

"You made your speech to force him."

"And Paul thinks I made it to stop him." I couldn't help smiling. "I am, it seems, everyone's enemy."

"Paul has told me everything. How you and he and Stokharin all decided, without consulting us, that John should die." I was astonished at Paul's boldness. Could he really be moving so swiftly? How else explain such a prodigious lie? I told her quickly, urgently what I felt, what I had said to Paul and he to me. She heard me to the end without expressing either belief or disbelief. When I'd finished she turned away from me and went to the window where, through yellow glass, the city rose upon the band of horizon.

"It's too late," she said, evenly. "I hadn't expected this. Perhaps you're telling me the truth . . . if you are, you've made a terrible mistake." She turned about suddenly, with a precision which was almost military. "He's going to do it."

The awful words fell like a weight upon a scale. I felt blindly for a chair and sat down, all strength gone. "Stop him," I said, all that I could say. "Stop him."

"It's too late for that." She took pity on me. "I think you're telling me the truth, Gene." She came over to where I was sitting and looked down at me gently. "I'm sorry I accused you. I should have realized Paul was lying."

"You can stop him."

"I can't. I've tried but I can't." Her control was extraordinary. I did not then guess the reason for her calm, her strength.

"Then I must try." I stood up. She backed away at the expression on my face.

"You can't do anything. He won't see you. He won't see anyone but me."

"I thought he told Paul he agreed with me, that he didn't want to . . . to countenance all this, that he . . ."

"At first he took your side, if it is really what you yourself feel: then he thought about it and . . . this morning he decided to go ahead with Paul's plan."

I was confused. "Does Paul know?"

Iris smiled wanly. "John is reserving for himself the pleasure of doing what he must do without Paul's assistance."

"Or knowledge?"

Iris shrugged. "Paul will find out about it this evening, I suppose. There will be an announcement. John's secretary is getting it ready now . . . one for the public and another for the Establishment."

"When will it happen?"

"Tomorrow. I go with him, Gene."

"You? You're not going to die too?"

"I don't see that it makes much difference what I do when John dies."

"You can't leave us now. You can't leave Paul in charge of everything. He's a dangerous man. Why, if . . ."

"You'll be able to handle him." It was perfectly apparent to me that she was no longer interested in me or in the others; not even in the fate of the work we had begun.

"It's finished, if you go too," I said bleakly. "Together we could control Paul; alone, I'd not last ten days. Iris, let me talk to him."

"I can't. I won't."

I contemplated pushing by her and searching the penthouse but there were guards everywhere and I had no wish to be shot myself on such an errand.

She guessed my thought and said, quickly, "There's no possible way for you or anyone to get through to him. Sometime tonight or tomorrow he will leave and that's the end."

"He won't do it here?" This surprised me.

She shook her head. "He wants to go off alone, away from everyone. I'm to be with him until the end; then I'll send the body back here for burial . . . but he'll leave full instructions."

"You mean I'm never to see either of you again? Just like that, you both go?"

"Just like this." For the first time she displayed some warmth. "I've cared for you, Gene," she said gently. "I even think that of us all you were the one most nearly right in your approach to John. I think you understood him better than he did himself. Try to hold on after we go. Try to keep it away from Paul."

"As if I could!" I turned from her bitterly, filled with unexpected grief: I did not want to lose her presence even though I had lost her or, rather, never possessed more of her than that one bright instant years before on the California coast when we had both realized with the unexpected clarity of the lovers we were not that our lives had come to the same point at the same moment and the knowledge of this confluence was the one splendor I had known, the single hope, the unique passion of my life.

"Don't miss me, Gene. I couldn't bear that." She put her hand on my arm. I walked away, not able to bear her touch. Then they came.

Paul and Stokharin were in the study. Iris gasped and stepped back when she saw them. I spun about just as Paul shouted: "It won't work, Iris! Give it up."

"Get out of here, Paul." Her voice was strong. "You have no right here."

"I have as much right as you. Now tell me whose idea was it? yours? or was it John's? or Gene's? since he seems to enjoy playing both sides."

"Get out. All of you." She moved to the old-fashioned bell cord which hung beside Cave's massive desk.

"Don't bother," said Paul. "No one will come."

Iris, her eyes wide now with fear, tugged the cord twice: the second time it broke off in her hand. There was no response.

Paul looked grim. "I'm sorry to have to do it this way but you've left me no choice. You can't leave, either of you."

"You read . . ."

"I saw the release. It won't work."

"Why not? It's what you've wanted all along. Everything will be yours. There'll be nobody to stop you. John will be dead and I'll be gone for good. You'll never see me again . . . why must you interfere?" She spoke quickly, plausibly but the false proportion was evident now, even to me: the plan was tumbling down at Paul's assault.

"Iris, I'm not a complete fool. I know perfectly well that Cave has no intention of killing himself and that . . ."

"Why do you think I'm going with him? to send you the body back for the ceremony which you'll perform right here, publicly . . ."

"Iris." He looked at her for a long moment. Then: "If you two leave as planned tonight (I've canceled the helicopter by the way) there will be no body, no embalming, no ceremony, no point . . . only a mystery which might very well undo all our work. I can't allow that. Cave must die here, before morning. We might have put it off but your announcement has already leaked out. There'll be a million people out there in the street tomorrow. We'll have to show them Cave's body."

Iris swayed; I moved quickly to her side and held her arm.

"It's three to two, Paul," I said. "I assume we're still directors. Three of us have agreed that Cave and Iris leave. That's final." But my bluff was humiliatingly weak; it was ignored.

"The penthouse," said Paul softly, "is empty . . . just the five of us here. The Doctor and I are armed. Take us in to him."

"No." Iris moved instinctively, fatally, to the door which led to Cave, as if to guard it with her body.

There was a brief scuffle which ended with Iris and myself, considerably disheveled, facing two guns. With an apology, Stokharin pushed us through the door.

In a small sun-room we found Cave sitting before a television screen, watching the installation of a new Resident in Boston. He looked up with surprise at our entrance. "I thought I said . . ." he began but Iris interrupted him.

"They want to kill you, John."

He got to his feet quickly, his face pale and his eyes glaring. Even Paul was shaken by that glance. "You read my last statement?" Cave spoke sharply, without apparent fear.

"That's why we've come," said Paul; he and Stokharin moved, as though by previous accord, to opposite ends of the little room, leaving the three of us together, vulnerable at its center. "You must do it here." Paul signaled Stokharin who, after some fumbling, produced a small metal box which he tossed to Cave.

"Some of the new pills," he said nervously. "Very nice. We use peppermint in the outer layer and . . ."

"Take it, John."

"I'll get some water," said Stokharin; but Paul waved to him to keep his place.

Cave smiled whitely. "I will not take it. Now both of you get out of here before I call the guards."

"No more guards," said Paul. "We've seen to that. Now, please, don't make it any more difficult than it is. Take the pill."

"If you read my statement you know that . . ."

"You intend to take a pleasant trip around the world incognito with Iris. Yes, I know. As your friend, I wish you could do it. But, for one thing, sooner or later you'd be recognized and, for another, we must have proof . . . we must have a body."

"Iris will bring the body back," said Cave. He was still quite calm. "I choose to do it this way and there's nothing more to be said. You'll have the Establishment all to yourself and I will be a most satisfactory figure upon which to build a world religion." It was the only time in my experience with Cave that I ever heard him strike the ironic note.

"Leave us alone, Paul. You have what you want. Now let us go." Iris begged but Paul had no eyes for anyone but Cave.

"Take it, John," he repeated softly. "Take Cavesway."

"Not for you." Cave hurled the metal box at Paul's head and Stokharin fired. There was one almost bland moment when we all stood, politely, in a circle and watched Cave, a look of wonder on his face, touch his shoulder where the blood had begun to flow through a hole in the jacket.

Then Iris turned fiercely on Paul, knocking him off balance, while Cave ran to the door. Stokharin, his hand shaking and his face silver with fear, fired three times, each time hitting Cave who quivered but did not fall; instead, he got through the door and into the study. As Stokharin hurried after him, I threw myself upon him, expecting death at any moment; but it did not come for Stokharin had collapsed. He dropped his gun and hid his face in his hands, rocking back and forth on the floor, sobbing. Paul, free of Iris's fierce grip, got to Cave before I did. By then it was finished.

Cave lay in the corridor only a few feet from the elevator. He'd fallen on his face and lay now in his own blood, his hands working at the floor as though trying to dig himself a grave in the hard stone. I turned him on his back and he opened his eyes. "Iris?" he asked. His voice was ordinary though his breathing was harsh, uneven.

"Here I am." She knelt down beside him, ignoring Paul who stood looking down at them, his pistol held at an absurd angle in his inexperienced hand.

Cave whispered something to Iris; then a flow of blood, like the full moon's tide, poured from his mouth and he was dead.

"Cavesway," said Paul at last when the silence had been used up: the phrase he had prepared for this moment, inadequate to the reality at our feet.

"
Your
way," said Iris as she got to her feet. She looked at Paul calmly, as though they'd met only at that moment. "
Your
way," she repeated.

In the other room Stokharin moaned.

Ten

1

Now the work was complete. Cavesword and Cavesway formed a perfect design and all the rest would greatly follow . . . or so Paul assumed. I believe if I had been he I should have killed both Iris and myself the same day, removing at one stroke witnesses and opposition. But he did not have the courage and, too, I think he underestimated us, to his own future sorrow.

Iris and I were left alone in the penthouse. Paul, after shaking Stokharin into a semblance of calm, bundled Cave's body into a blanket and then, with the doctor's help, put it upon the private elevator.

The next twenty-four hours were a grim carnival. The body of Cave, beautifully arranged and painted, lay in the central auditorium of the center as thousands filed by to see him. Paul's speech over the corpse was telecast around the world.

Iris and I kept to our separate rooms, both by choice and from necessity since gentle guards stood before our doors and refused, apologetically, to let us out.