The Road to Omaha (60 page)

“Never mind, it’s silly small talk.”

“I don’t know about small talk, my dear, but it’s silly in the extreme.… It comes close to being as silly as the mental gymnastics our friend General Hawkins is going through. I just got off the phone with him.”

“What’s happening?” asked Devereaux quickly. “How are things at the lodge?”

“Apparently the ski lodge, or at least the problem contained therein, is moving its ‘bivouac’ to three suites at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.”

“
Huh
?”

“I was no more specific than you, Sam.”

“It means he’s eliminated the problem,” said Jennifer brightly.

“And assumed several new ones, I gather,” added Pinkus, looking at Devereaux. “He asked that you set up
a line of credit at the Waldorf to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars and not to worry. Since it’s his dilemma, he’ll transfer funds from Bern to Geneva—which I care to know
nothing
about.… Can you
do
that, can
he
? Never mind, nothing!”

“Actually, it’s a simple computer transfer, a bank draft to be drawn against by the assigned creditor—”

“I
know
how it’s done, that wasn’t the question!… Never mind,
nothing
!”

“That’s one problem,” said Redwing. “What are the others?”

“I’m not entirely sure. He asked me if I knew any motion picture producers.”

“What for?”

“I have no idea. When I told him I once knew a young man at temple—actually, he was thrown out of the temple—who I later learned produced several triple X-rated films, but outside of that fellow, no one else in the industry, he said not to worry, he’d go in another direction.”

“This is one of those times when I sense a devious strategy in the making.”

“Devereaux’s premonition?” asked Jenny.

“Devereaux’s prophecy,” rejoined Sam. “What else, Aaron?”

“Even odder. He wanted to know if we had any clients who had eye trouble, specifically straying left eyes, and preferably someone in need of an immediate infusion of money.”

“Odd?” questioned Redwing. “It sounds crazy!”

“Never underestimate the devious, as the gospel according to Oliver North says with dripping sincerity.” Devereaux paused. “I can’t think of any such client, but if I could, I’d march him right into a Chapter Eleven for whatever Mac’s got in his knapsack.… Other than that bit of useless trivia, what’s our next move, Boss? Did you and the Hawk discuss it?”

“Briefly. We’ve got two and a half days to go before the hearing, at which time you, Jennifer, and the general must get out of a vehicle, or vehicles, and mount the steps to the Supreme Court building, be admitted beyond the lobby by
the scheduling clerks, pass security, and be taken to the chambers of the Chief Justice.”

“Oh, oh, I hear Mac talking,” interrupted Sam.

“Quite right,” agreed Pinkus. “I believe those were his words, or an approximation thereof, minus a vulgarity or two—or three. He told me he had to approach the situation as if he were mounting a three-man insurgency strike behind enemy lines.”

“That’s very comforting,” said Redwing, swallowing. “What does he expect, a counterinsurgency interdiction where we get our heads blown off?”

“No, he ruled out overt violence—for it could be counterproductive, since they might be caught.”

“Thank heaven for small favors,” added Jenny.

“But he did not rule out interdiction, you had that part right, even the word. He thinks the counterstrategy will be to ‘interdict’ either himself or Sam or both from reaching the Chief Justice’s chambers, for without them the hearing’s a legal wash. Plaintiff and the attorney-of-record must appear together.”

“And
me
?”

“Your appearance, my dear, is by choice—insistence, if you like, as an interested party—and not a legal requirement. However, as you well know, your signed and notarized agreements with the general and Sam here are legally binding. In this situation the interested party controls the case for the plaintiff—not an unknown happenstance.”

“Read that as in mob trials where certain spectators hover around defendants’ tables,” said Devereaux, addressing Jenny, his eyes then straying back to Pinkus. “Why not stay here until around noon the day after tomorrow, take our own plane to Washington, then a couple of ordinary taxis to the Court? I can’t see it as a problem. No one knows where we are, except the man who hired Cyrus and Roman to join our guard detail, the one Mac spoke to. Even Cyrus agrees with the Hawk now; whoever that man is, he wants to keep us alive and well and heading directly into that hearing.”

“Cyrus also wants to know why,” said Redwing. “Or didn’t he mention that?”

“Mac told him; I was there. This ‘Commander Y’ is settling a
score with the people who want to stop the hearing, which means stopping us from getting there.”

“Apparently, my dear, our unknown benefactor was previously a staunch ally of those against us until he learned that these same people had other plans for him. Something in the order of a political sacrifice, if not a human one, neither of which is terribly unusual in Washington, according to the general.”

“But Mr. Pinkus.…” Jennifer squinted, pinching the features of her lovely face, part morning sunlight, part disturbing thought. “Something’s missing, something vital, I think. Perhaps I’m paranoid where Chief Thunder Head is concerned, and why shouldn’t I be? But all Hawkins told us last night was that everything was under control—‘under
control.’
What does that mean?… Okay, he’s somehow called off these actor-guerrillas from blowing us away in ravines—it’s always ravines, or cliffs, or whorehouses—but
how
? What happened in Fort Benning? We were all so relieved to hear we could sleep peacefully, we never
asked
him.”

“That’s not quite accurate, Jennifer. Prior to this morning, he and I agreed not to talk in specifics over the telephone, for as he pointed out, a previous assault team was sent after us in Hooksett, and a tap on the line would be routine.”

“I thought that line up there was cut,” interrupted Devereaux.

“In the telling, not the reality. He could not say last evening what he said this morning.”

“The tap was shut down? How could he know—”

“It wouldn’t matter. This morning he was calling from a pay phone at Sophie’s Diner on Route Ninety-three. He even extolled the kielbasy and eggs.”

“
Please
, Mr. Pinkus,” said Redwing. “What did he tell you about Fort Benning?”

“Maddeningly little, my dear, but enough to make this elderly lawyer wonder what happened to the rule of law among those guardians of the concept.… On second thought, I wonder why I’m even astonished any longer.”

“That’s pretty heavy, Aaron.”

“What the general told me carries considerable tonnage,
young man. To paraphrase our much-decorated soldier, the hostile action against us—essentially against the laws of airing public grievance—emanates from the office of one of our most powerful public figures, who has covered his tracks to the point of nonexistence. He cannot be confronted, for there’s nothing to confront him with—”

“
Goddamn
it!” exploded Devereaux.

“With everything that’s happened, there must be
something
!” cried Jennifer. “Wait a minute… that gangster from Brooklyn, the one Hawkins knocked out at the hotel, Caesar somebody-or-other. He was taken into custody!”

“And traced to the deceased director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” said Pinkus.

“That has a familiar ring to it,” noted Sam.

“Those naked men at the Ritz …?”

“Disowned by all of Washington, including the zoo. Subsequently they were bailed out by someone claiming to be a member of a nudist cult in California and disappeared.”

“
Damn
,” said Jenny, discouragement as well as anger in the drawn-out expletive. “We should never have permitted Hawkins to ship those four armed lunatics up at the ski lodge back to wherever it was. We had them for intended assault with deadly weapons, concealed invasion of property, masks, guns, grenades—even a tattooed forehead. We were
idiots
to let Thunder Cigar talk us into it!”

“My dear, they knew absolutely nothing; we questioned them at length—to no avail but incoherence. They themselves were maniacally programmed psychopaths, as deniable as the nudists. And to turn them over to the police would have revealed our whereabouts.… Worse, I’m embarrassed to say, since the lodge is in my firm’s name, there would have been considerable media interest.”

“Also,” added Devereaux, “and I’m not in the habit of throwing bouquets at Mac, but he was right: By sending them back, we created the climate that led directly to this crazy Suicidal Six flying into Boston.”

“
And
to General Ethelred Brokemichael,” said Aaron, smiling as wickedly as it was possible for him.

“What do you mean, Mr. Pinkus? You made it clear yesterday that Brokemichael would be out of reach,
shipped to an unmapped outpost, if he surfaces. You said Washington could not permit the name of the official who ordered up the
Air Force Two
—I remember, because I agreed with you.”

“And we were both right, Jennifer, but we lacked the general’s deviousness, as I believe Sam phrased it. That fine military tactician had a voice-activated recorder strapped to his chest during his entire interview with General Brokemichael. The Pentagon couldn’t send ‘Brokey the Deuce’ far enough away to be out of reach.… I must tell you, however, that General Hawkins wants it known that it was our mercenary-chemist, Colonel Cyrus, who suggested the device.”

“I assume the name of that powerful public figure is on the tape,” said Sam, controlled but dire hope on his face.

“Most definitely. Even to the fact that he got on the base without being recognized.”

“Who the hell
is
he?” pressed Devereaux.

“I’m afraid our general declines to reveal the name at this time.”

“He can’t
do
that,” exclaimed Redwing. “We’re all in this together, we have to tow!”

“He says if Sammy knew, he’d become a loose cannon and ‘… mount his high horse and take his personal cavalry into battle …’ to the detriment of Hawkins’s next strategy. The ‘high horse cavalry’ words were exact and accurate. I know, for I’ve lived through a number of Sam’s legal indignations.”

“I’m
never
a loose cannon,” protested Devereaux.

“Should I remind you of several loud criticisms you’ve given the court?”

“They were entirely justified!”

“I never said they weren’t—if they were, you’d be with another firm. To your credit, you caused the retirement of at least four judges in the Boston district.”

“
There
, you see?”

“So does the general. He claimed you got on that high horse of yours—by way of bribed pilots and stolen helicopters—from someplace in Switzerland to Rome, and he doesn’t care for a repeat performance.”

“I
had
to!”

“Why, Sam?” asked Jennifer quietly. “Why did you have to?”

“Because it was wrong. Morally and ethically wrong, against all the laws of civilized man.”

“Oh God, Devereaux, cut it out! You actually
can
turn me—forget it.”

“What?”

“
Forget
it!… So Thunder Trunk won’t tell us, Mr. Pinkus. What do we do now?”

“We wait. He’s having a duplicate made of the tape, and Paddy Lafferty will bring it to us this evening. Then if we don’t hear from the general within twenty-four hours, I’m to use whatever influence I have to reach the President of the United States and play the tape for him over the telephone.”

“
Very
heavy,” said Sam softly.

“The
heaviest
,” agreed Jennifer.

Although the trip south to New York City from Hooksett in Aaron Pinkus’s limousine was somewhat cramped in the rear quarters—the Suicidal Six sat three facing three while the Hawk rode in front with Paddy Lafferty—several things were accomplished. The first was made possible by a brief stop at a shopping mall in Lowell, Massachusetts, where the general purchased two additional tape recorders and a carton of one-hour tapes, enough, he figured, for the trip to New York. Along with these items, Mac bought a small patch cord with a built-in attenuator that enabled him to transcribe the spoken material from one tape onto a new one in a second machine, thus duplicating whatever recorded dialogue was stored.

“Here, let me show you how it’s done. It’s really very simple,” the Radio Shack clerk said.

“Son,” replied the Hawk in haste, “I was crosspatching prehistoric transmitters between the caves before you could turn on a radio.”

Back in the limousine, the first newly purchased tape recorder activated, Mac turned to Brokemichael’s men in the rear of the vehicle. “Gentlemen,” he began, “since I’ll be the liaison between you and these motion picture people
you’ll be meeting, your commander, my friend Brokey, suggested that you give me a complete rundown of your experiences, both as individuals and as members of your incredibly successful Suicidal Six. It will help me in my subsequent conversations with those big producers.… And don’t be put off by the presence of Mr. Lafferty here—Gunnery Sergeant Lafferty. We were comrades together at the Bulge.”

“I could die right here on the spot, me soul already sanctified!” choked Paddy under his breath.

“What was that, Gunny?”

“Nothin’, General. I’ll drive like you taught us to up through Roubaix. Greased lightnin’, it was.”

As the huge automobile raced forward, there began an uninterrupted four hours of narrative, the complete history of the unit called the Suicidal Six—uninterrupted, that was, except when the members interrupted one another, which was frequently, with explosive energy incarnate. By the time they reached Bruckner Boulevard on their way across the bridge to Manhattan’s East Side, the Hawk held up his left hand, his right turning off the tape recorder. “That’ll be fine, gentlemen,” he had said, his ears ringing from the Crescendos of melodramatics from the backseats. “I’ve got the full picture now, and both your commander and I thank you.”