America, it was learned today, has at last an absolute defense, not only to the atomic bomb, but to every gun, every airplane, every engine, every weapon capable of being used by man. Neither admitted nor denied at this early date by even the highest government officials, it was learned by our staff late last night that America's latest step forward....
America, it was learned today, has at last an absolute defense, not only to the atomic bomb, but to every gun, every airplane, every engine, every weapon capable of being used by man. Neither admitted nor denied at this early date by even the highest government officials, it was learned by our staff late last night that America's latest step forward....
Column after column of stuff like that. When the reporter got through burbling, he did have a few facts that were accurate. He did say it was my doing that set off the last atomic bomb test; he did say that I was apparently invulnerable to violence powered by electrical or internal combustion engines; he did say what I could do, and what I had done, and how often. He didn't say who I was, or what I looked like, or where I'd come from, or what I did or didn't know.
Sprinkled through the story—and I followed it back to Page 32 and the pictures rehashed of the traffic jam in Detroit—were references to T. Sylvester Colquhoun, the boy who dumped the original plate of beans. He attested this and swore to that. Whoever he was, wherever he got his information, he—there was his picture on Page 32, big as life and twice as obnoxious; Mr. Whom and the van Dyke.
Guiltily I handed the paper over to Stein, who turned back to the front page and started again from the beginning. I tried to carry things off in the nonchalant manner, but I couldn't. I had to watch the Old Man light a cigarette with fumbling fingers, take a few snorting puffs, and crush it viciously under his heel. Miller and his temper.
Whom—or T. Sylvester Colquhoun—had, quite obviously, a grudge against the short left that had given him his concussion. According to theSentinel, he had babbled a bit when he was released from the hospital, and an alert newshawk had trailed him to his home and bluffed him into spilling the whole story. He had sense enough, at that late stage of the game, to keep my name out of it, if he ever knew it. The reporter had gone to his editor with the story, who had laughed incredulously at first, and then checked Kellner at the laboratory. Kellner had clammed up, and when the now suspicious editor had tried to check Colquhoun's tale personally, Colquhoun had vanished. A snooping neighbor had noted the license of the car that had taken him away. The Highway Department—the editor must have moved fast and decisively—showed the license plate as issued to a man the editor knew personally as a special agent of the Kansas City Branch of the FBI.
Then hell began to pop. Repeated long-distance calls to Washington ran him up against a stone wall. The answers he got convinced him that there was something to Colquhoun's wild tale, something weird and yet something that had a germ of truth. (Half of this, understand, was in theSentinel. The other half I picked up later on, adding two and two.) As he was sitting mulling things over it was his turn to get a call from Washington. The State Department was on the line; Morgan, the Under Secretary.
Morgan fairly yelled at him. "Where did you get that information? What's the idea?" and so on. That clinched it for the editor. Then it was he knew.
Morgan made his mistake there. He began to threaten, and the editor hit the ceiling. Hit it hard, because he stretched things a little. He stretched it more than just a little.
He said, "Furthermore, that's on the street right now—this is a newspaper, not a morgue!"
It wasn't on the street, the editor knew. Perhaps he wanted to throw a scare into Morgan, perhaps—But Morgan!
Morgan gasped, "Oh, my God!" and hung up with a bang.
The editor flipped a mental coin. His circulation was not what it should be, the boss had been riding him lately, his job might be where a beat would tilt the balance up or down. The national safety that Morgan had shouted about—well, if we had the perfect weapon and the perfect defense, what was there to fear? And thiswasa newspaper, not a morgue! They replated, and the first extras hit the street to wake up half the city. The wire services had the story and extras were rolling throughout the country, or the world, about the time I was watching the sun over Lake Ste. Clair.
Neither the State Department nor the FBI were on their toes that day. Instead of denying everything, or instead of laughing heartily at the pipedream of an editor trying to sell an extra edition or two, whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes demanded flatly that all wire services kill and disregard all references to Colquhoun. No one ever made a newspaperman do what he really didn't want to do. The very fact that the government was so eager to kill the story made every newsman worthy of his salt all the more eager to break the paper-thin shell around the meaty yolk. By noon, the time we landed for fuel, every Washington correspondent for every news service had a little different story for his boss, the White House was practically besieged at the mere rumor that the President was to issue a statement, and the State Department was going quietly mad.
"Not so quietly, at that," the Old Man said sourly. "One hour straight I stayed on that telephone. One hour straight I talked to one bunch of raving maniacs, and all the common sense I heard would go into your left eye."
By that time his temper had cooled below melting, and we were again on reasonably good terms. I was curious to know just who the Old Man had talked to.
He grunted. "Just about everyone in Washington with any authority at all. No one with any intelligence."
I could appreciate that. I have a very low opinion of anyone who stays in Washington any longer than necessary.
I asked him, "We're apparently heading back there. Why? Where were we going when they stopped us?"
He wasn't sure. "I wanted to keep on going," he said, "and get you out of the country. I still think that would have been best. There was to be a cruiser waiting at Bremerton for a shakedown cruise. But whoever is running all this—and I don't think that the President has thought too much about it—wants us to get back to Washington for another conference."
"Another meeting?" I was disgusted. Washington political rashes manifest themselves most often by the consistent eruption of conferences in which nothing is said, nothing decided, nothing done. "What does who think what?"
He blinked, and then smiled. "I couldn't say. I've been in this game only twenty years. At any rate, you can see who's worried."
I didn't see, exactly.
"No?" He was amused. "Don't you remember the discussion we had about who was going to watch the watchers? Now that there's been a leak, the Army is going to blame the Navy, the Navy is going to blame the FBI, and I take punishment from all three." He sighed. "My department seems, invariably, to be in the middle."
I let it go at that. I didn't have the heart to remind him that a good portion of the trouble and friction this country has had in its history has been because the State Department has been sitting on the water bucket when it should have been playing deep centerfield. No use worrying about things until the fuse is burnt half its length, I thought. That might be, for me and all of us, a good policy to adopt, for the time being. Let the boys at the top fret and worry; let them wrack their brains and beat their heads against the wall. I'd do what they told me, if I could. The man that pays the salary worries about the unemployment tax.
"Stein," I said, "are there any more of those sandwiches?"
The Old Man settled back in his seat and began to read the Kansas CitySentinelall over again. He was still worried when we landed in Washington.
He left in a waiting black sedan, and Stein and I stayed in the ship until it was yanked into a dark hangar by a tiny tractor with great rubber tires. We slid out the back of the hangar when the wary Stein thought it was safe, and a taxi rolled us to the Mayflower. There we registered, I was told, as James Robertson and William Wakefield, Wisconsin Dells.
"Milwaukee," I suggested, "has better beer."
He took the hint, and when the waiter brought our late dinner, the ice bucket had eight frosty bottles. They practically sizzled when they went down. Bob Stein, at times, had some earmarks of genius, even if you had to lay them bare with an axe.
The first day wasn't bad; we sat around, drank beer and ate huge thick sirloins on the swindle sheet, and told all the stories we knew. The radio was blurting either soap operas, hill-billy music, or lentil-mouthed commentators. The story broken in theSentinelwas gathering momentum, by what we read and heard, and that was too close to home. So we made a pact to turn off the radio and keep it that way. We never missed it.
The second day the beer tasted as good as ever. The steaks were just as thick and just as tender, the hotel service just as unobtrusive. Stein was just as cheerful and as pleasant company. But I spent a lot of time looking out the window.
"You know, Bob," I said thoughtfully, "how would you like a big plate of spaghetti? Or ravioli? Maybe some pizza?"
He came out of the bathroom wiping his face with a towel, his hair wet and frizzled.
"Am I going to have trouble with you?" He was pessimistic. "Aren't you ever satisfied?"
I turned away from the window and let the curtain flap in the breeze. "Who wants to be satisfied? How about some sub-gum war mein, or chicken cacciatora?"
He tossed the towel back through the open door. "Now, look here," he protested.
I laughed at him. "Okay, but you get the point."
He did, but he didn't know what he could do about it. "We were supposed to wait here until—"
That one I'd heard before. "Until the hotel freezes over, sure. But I don't want to freeze. Do you?"
No, nor to rust. You could see that he liked his job of body-guard and factotum, and yet....
I pushed him over the edge. "Tell you what to do," I said. "You call up and say that I'm getting restless. Say that you're afraid I'll ease out of here when your back is turned. Say anything you like, as long as you lay it on thick, and I'll back you up. Okay?"
He weighed it awhile. He liked inaction, no matter how sybaritic as much as I. Then, "Okay," and he reached for the telephone.
The number he gave answered the first ring.
"I'm calling for Mr. Robertson," he said. "This is Mr. William Wakefield. W. W. Wakefield." He paused. Then, "Ordinarily, I wouldn't, but Mr. Robertson felt that I should get in touch with you at once."
The other end squawked, nervously, I thought.
Stein thought so, too. "That's quite possible. However, Mr. Robertson feels that his time here in Washington is valuable. So valuable that he thinks that his business is soon going to call him back to Wisconsin Dells, if the merger referred to is delayed any longer. I beg your pardon?"
He twisted to throw me a wink over his shoulder as the telephone chattered frantically.
"That's exactly what I told Mr. Robertson.... Yes, he knows of that.... Yes, I have assured him that, in these days of business uncertainty and production difficulties, mergers are not as easily arranged as—" That Stein had a sense of humor when he wanted to use it.
"Is that right? I'm glad to hear it. One moment, while I check with Mr. Robertson." He held his hand over the mouthpiece and grinned at me. "They are ready to have a stroke. This man I'm talking to has no more authority than a jackrabbit, and he knows it. He wants to check with his boss, and call us back later. All right with you, Mr. Robertson?"
I laughed out loud, and he clamped the mouthpiece tighter. "I think so, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. As long as he puts the heat on that merger."
He went back on the telephone. "Mr. Robertson thinks he might be able to wait a trifle longer. He asked me to warn you, that as he is a very busy man, every minute of his time can cost a considerable amount of money and goods.... Yes, I'll tell him that.... I'll be waiting for your call.... Yes, I will. Thank you, and good-bye." He hung up the telephone with a flourish.
"Satisfied, Mr. Robertson?"
I was satisfied. "Quite, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. Wouldst care for ein bier?"
Ein bier haben. He would.
The telephone rang about an hour later, and I answered it. It was the Old Man's voice.
"Mr. Robertson?" he said cautiously.
"Mr. Robertson speaking," I said. "Yes?"
"I'm calling," he told me in a voice that said he was annoyed, but didn't want to show it, "in reference to the Wisconsin Dells merger."
"Yes?" I gave him no help.
"You understand, Mr. Robertson, that such an important merger can hardly be arranged at a moment's notice."
Yes, I understood that. "But two days notice is more than sufficient, even allowing for an enormous amount of red tape." I put real regret into my voice. "It is not that I wouldn't like to let nature take its course, but other things must be taken into consideration." I hoped I sounded like the busy executive. "I believe that Mr. Wakefield, Mr. W. W. Wakefield, has explained that I am a very busy man, and that I can hardly be expected to wait indefinitely in even such a pleasant atmosphere."
The Old Man forced a cheery—and false—heartiness. "There are, or there might be, Mr. Robertson, other things that might induce you to stay. Many other things."
Threaten me, would he? "That, I doubt very much. I'm afraid I must insist—it's now two-twenty. If a merger, or at least a meeting cannot be arranged by tomorrow at the very latest, the reason for having a meeting will, for all practical purposes, have ceased to exist. Do I make myself clear?"
I certainly did. With a short-tempered bang, Smith hung up, after saying that he would call back later. I relayed the conversation to Bob Stein, and we sent down for lunch.
The Old Man called back about seven, when I was washing up, and Bob answered the telephone. By the time I came out he had all the information we needed, and was calling room service to clear the dishes.
"Meeting tonight," he said when he was finished. He was pleased with himself.
"Good." It was getting a little tiresome being cramped up. "When? Where?"
He shrugged. "Where? I couldn't say. Someone will call for us, somewhere between nine and ten. And," he added slowly, "it might be a good idea to wear the best bib and tucker, with Sunday School manners."
"Oh?" I said, "that kind of a party? Fine. I'm all ready now. Better get your hat."
At ten-thirty, the telephone rang. I answered it.
"This is the desk," it said. "Mr. Wakefield?"
"He's here," I said. "Wait a minute," and I passed the phone to Stein.
"Wakefield," he said. "Yes?"
The receiver chattered briefly.
"All right," and he waved at me. "Be right down." He turned. "Car waiting." It didn't take us long to get downstairs.
It was a sedan with a neat little drive-yourself tab on the right-hand door. Before we got near the car, Stein was careful to see who was the driver. He evidently was someone he knew, so Bob nodded curtly, and we got in and pulled away from the curb.
I don't know Washington at all, so I can't say where we made port. Not too far a drive, I imagine, if we had gone there directly. It was a good forty-five minutes before we ended our erratic turning of corners and sped up a long tree-bordered driveway.
"Nice place," I said to Stein as we braked to a stop in front of a long white-columned Southern portico. "Who lives here?"
He smiled and shook his head. "That's something I don't know. Does it matter?"
It didn't.
As we strode up the steps the Drive-Yourself pulled away, tires crackling on the white gravel. We both reached for the knocker at the same time, but before we had it, the door swung open. Stein recognized the young fellow who opened it and took our hats. A message passed between their eyes, and the young man almost imperceptibly shook his head in negation.
"Will you come this way, please?" and he led us down the hall.
The house was smaller than the outside had led me to expect. The builder had gone whole hog on the giant Greek columns and the wide sweep of the porch, and the inside of the house showed the results of the skimping. Not that it wasn't a far bigger and a far more expensive house than any average man would hope to have, but the limited space inside didn't go with those sweeping curves of the drive. I wondered who lived there.
The room where the doorman left us went with the inside of the house. So small it reminded me of the times when I tried to sell brushes during the depression, in Grosse Pointe, I expected every moment to have an underpaid maid, laundress, and butler come in to tell me that the lady of the house was out. In keeping with the faded appointments of the tiny room, a Chinese table held, for those who wait and read, an ancient collection of "Spur" and "Town and Country." As we sat and smoked, far off through the thin walls we could hear the soft rumble of voices. Occasionally a bass would rise above the sound, and a baritone would slide softly and soothingly across the pained roar. The front door opened and closed twice during the fifteen minutes or so we waited, and the footsteps that came in went past our room and pattered further down the hall. Each time, when the steps were out of reach of hearing, another door would open, and the distant voices would become almost distinguishable until the door again was shut. I looked curiously around the walls. Decorated with prints and pictures they were, yes, but with that faded permanency that to me spells the furnished house. The rugs were worn, worn to the shredding point, worn until the spurious Oriental design seemed an eerie Dali drawing. All it needed was the faroff smell of secondhand ham and cabbage.
The doorman slipped in and beckoned to us, a grim conspirator if ever I saw one. We followed him back to the entrance hall, back, back, to where the voices grew louder at every step. A double door—golden oak, or I don't know wood—barred the end of the hall, and the young fellow preceded us to throw it open with a semi-flourish. We walked in.
The place was blue with smoke. That was the first thing we saw. Lights there were in plenty, hanging around, hanging over the great oval table in the center of the room in a fiery glitter of glassy brilliants. The room was enormous, and I began to realize why this house was still in existence. Who cares about rugs if there is just one single room in the house where a ball or a party could be comfortably accommodated. Or a conference. I didn't know whose name appeared on the tax bills, but I would bet that it would be any other name besides the United States Government.
No group of men or women could produce that much smoke in a short time. That meeting had been going on for hours. As we stepped in through the double doors I tried to pick out anyone I knew, but the glare flickered in my eyes and I saw no face as more than just a pale blur against a background of tenuous blue. Tentatively I got inside the doors and they shut behind me with an abrupt finality. Two steps forward, three, four, five, and Stein drifted away from my side, away from the eyes that grew in size as I got closer to the table rim, toward the vacant chairs I saw slightly pulled away and ready for occupants. I stumbled over nothing and a reassuring hand touched mine. I felt callow, self-conscious, awkward. I never thought I'd be so glad to see Old Man Smith.
He stood alongside me as I sank gratefully into my ready chair. "Gentlemen," he announced quietly, "Mr. Peter A. Miller."
I half-bowed automatically, the proper thing to do, and the Old Man gave me his moral support by sitting next to me. He leaned over to say, "I won't introduce you formally. Point out who you want to know and I'll tell you who he is."
"Okay," I muttered, and felt in my pockets for cigarettes. I had to do something with my hands. I blew a cloud into the air and felt better. Settled back into the chair, I sent my glance around the table. Did I know anyone there?
At my right, the Old Man. His suit was wrinkled and his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. The large paper pad in front of him was covered with crisscross lines. On his right, a quite old man, bald and beetle-browed. His collar was open and wrinkled, his vest twisted under the lapel of his coat. I leaned toward Smith, and indicated his companion with my eyes.
"Morgan, Undersecretary of State," he said softly.
Morgan heard his name spoken, and shot a questioning glance my way. He realized what had been said and the beetlebrows slid upwards in a movement meant to be conciliatory. He bobbed his head with a cursory jerk and went back to staring across the table. I followed his glance.
The object of his affections seemed to be—yes, it was. Five-Star General Oliver P. Legree, not so affectionately called Simon by the men who served under him. I had been one of them. Trim and rigid and oh, so military he was, the very figure of a modern five-star general. His poker-stiff back thrust the tiers of ribbons to a sparkling glitter under the tinkling glare of the massive chandelier overhead. His face—well, it's been in enough rotogravures worldwide. The cigar was there, the big black cigar he never lit and never lost. His trademark was that cigar; his trademark was that and his jutting jaw that to everyone but his compatriots spelled determination and grit. To his staff and his men—me—it meant an ill-fitting lower plate.
That prognathous jaw was tilted, aimed at Morgan, and Morgan knew it. What had gone on just before I had come in? Just as I started to turn my glance away, the General threw his famous scowl directly at me. For one long second our eyes clung, almost glared. Then, without a sign of emotion or recognition he went back to staring at the Undersecretary with an intensity almost violent. Shaken back into self-consciousness by that grim stare I tried to fit together some of the other faces about the table.
Admiral Mason-Nason-Lacey—Admiral Lacey. I'd met him just a few days before, in that ill-fated conference in the White House. What was the other name? Jessop. He was there, too, alongside Lacey. But where was the Army, outside of Simon Legree? That was like Simon, at that. Let the Navy stick together; Legree was theGeneral, and as such was himself the Army.
Who were the others? I knew none of them, certainly, although some trick of memory made me sure that I had seen or heard of them before. Like faces in an old school album they presented themselves to me, and for a long fraction of a minute I delved deep, trying to recall. A voice, that deep barking bass I had heard while waiting, boomed across the table.
"Mr. Morgan!" and the table seemed to quiver. "Mr. Morgan!" and the tenseness seemed to flow back into that huge room like a warm current. The Old Man leaned over and answered my unspoken question.
"Senator Suggs, Foreign Affairs Chairman."
I eyed the redoubtable senator. Short, swarthy skin that belied all his ranted racial theories, hair that straggled by intent over his weak green eyes, and a chin that retreated and quivered and joggled in time with his twitching adolescent eyebrows. Six solid terms in the Senate; six solid terms of appealing to the highest in theory and the lowest in fact; six terms of seniority for the chairmanship of committees far too important for a bigot; six terms of Suggs, Suggs, Suggs. The bass rumbled on.
"We're no further ahead, Morgan, than we were two hours ago. This, definitely cannot go on, if it has to be taken to the people themselves."
Morgan pondered well before he answered, and the room stilled.
"Senator," he said at last; "this is right now in the hands of the people, if you consider that you are one of the elected representatives, and the rest of us are chosen, with one exception, by those same elected representatives. The exception, naturally, is Mr. Miller."
Five Star Simon snorted. His nasal voice carried well. "People?" and that brittle snap was only too familiar to me. "What have the people to do with it? This is no time for anything but a decision, and a quick one!"
Morgan agreed with that. "Correct, General. The question, I believe, is not that a decision be made, but the wording and definition of that decision."
"Bah!" and the cigar jumped to the other side. "Words! Definitions! Decisions! Words, words, words! Let's decide what's to be done and do it!"
The Undersecretary coughed gently behind his palm. "Unfortunately, General Legree, for the sake of speedy action, and as unfortunately for the sake of all concerned, words mean one thing to one man, and another thing to a second."
A fine party this turned out to be. In the dark as to what happened before I came in, and equally at sea as to what was going on, I leaned toward the Old Man.
"What's this?" I whispered.
He shot a quick retort. "Keep your mouth shut for the time being." He paused, and then bent in my direction. "You'll get your chance to talk." He grasped my extended arm tightly. "I'll nudge you when the time comes. Then talk, andtalk! You know what I mean?"
Did I? I didn't know. He saw my indecision and motioned for quiet. Evidently he was expecting me to catch the trend if I waited long enough. I waited, and I watched, and I listened.
Simon had been right about one thing. Words, words, words. But I began to get some of the drift. They'd already settled the part of the problem I thought was supposed to be bothering them. They'd decided that since the news on me was out, the facts had to be faced—the way they understand facing them.
I should have been reading the papers or listening to the radio. It must have been something to hear when the news that I was a new secret weapon to end them all was confirmed; but they'd confused the issue by indicating that I was just one of the men with the new power, and that the country was now practically blanketed with it.
It was fine for them. It meant that the people were happy, and that Army, Navy and all the other departments were being openly and publicly adulated for the fine thing they had done for everyone.
The Undersecretary made an answer to one of Simon's remarks. I hadn't been listening for a few seconds while the scheme sank in, but this registered.
"You're right, of course, General. Certain foreign information bureaus won't be deceived by the confusion we've created. And that still leaves us with the unfortunate need for speedy action on the case of Mr. Miller."
Suggs rolled his bass across the room. It was the only characteristic he had favorable to eye or ear.
"Unfortunate, Mr. Undersecretary? Unfortunate is hardly the word to describe an event so favorable for the fortunes for all."
Favorable. Me? Was I good or bad? I came in just in the middle of the picture. Keep your ears and your eyes and your ears open, Miller, and catch up on the feature attraction.
Suggs licked his razor-sharp lips and hooked his fingers in his stained vest.
"'Unfortunate,' Mr. Undersecretary? Hardly!" He loved to hear his own voice. "This country, these great United States, these states have never in their existence been in such a favorable position as today...."
I would rather have read the Congressional Record. That, at least, I could have discarded when I became bored.
"No, never in such a favorable position; diplomatically, economically...."
The Undersecretary coughed politely. It's nice to be tactful and know how to break in.
"To use your own words, Senator. 'Hardly!' Diplomatically we are at the brink of one of the worst imaginable pitfalls."
The medals on Five Star clinked. "Bosh!"
Morgan went on. "Where would you like to live, gentlemen?" and his glance flicked around the table; "in the best liked or most hated country in the world?"
It mattered not to Five Star, nor to Suggs.
"What difference does it make, Mr. Undersecretary? Speaking for myself and my constituents, I can truthfully say that the opinion of the world matters not one good solitary damn. Who cares what some other country has got to say, if words can't be backed up with action? Right now, and you know it as well as you're sitting there, Mr. Undersecretary, right now Uncle Sam is known all over the world as Uncle Sucker, and Uncle Shylock. Europe and Asia have had what they wanted over my protests and those of my constituents, and now Europe and Asia can go hang, for all I care. That's What they want us to do!"
He gave Morgan no chance to break in. That rolling bass rattled off the walls and crinkled my ears.
"Europe and Asia and the rest of the world could never affect us one way or another, favorable or otherwise, if it weren't for the ninny-headed mouthings of a few influential morons. Fight, Mr. Undersecretary, fight and murder and declare war and blow up millions of people and then run to Uncle Sam to pay the bills. I say, Mr. Undersecretary, I say what I've said before and what I'll say again; if Europe and Asia and the rest of the world don't like what we do here in these United States, let Europe and Asia and the rest of the world go to hell!"
Suggs wasn't a bit excited. Those grand, those mellifluous and rotund phrases rolled out of those skinny lips at a mile-a-minute pace with never a flicker of emotion but a nervous twitching of the drooping eyelids. If that was the way he talked when calm, I could see why he had been sent back and back to the Senate time after time.
The General deliberately tossed his cigar on the floor and pounded his fist on the table.
"Well said, Senator! My sentiments exactly. If Europe and Asia and the rest of the world don't like what we do here, let 'em all go to hell, or better yet, let's send them there in a hand-basket."
Bloodthirsty old bat. I never remembered seeing him any too close to the jumping-off point. That's what generals are for, they tell me.
"I say to hell with them all, and the sooner they know about it, the better for all concerned." His gaudy gold case, the gift of a grateful staff, was on the table in front of him, and he jerked out a cigar with a flourish. A light with a gold lighter, and he puffed thick clouds.
Morgan coughed politely. "Regardless, Senator, of what has or what is happening, we're concerned at present with what might happen."
Suggs opened his mouth like a thirsty carp and closed it again as Morgan went on.
"Call it what you like, Senator; General Legree will agree with me that this perfect defense—if defense is the word—is equally well the perfect weapon. Right, General?"
Legree pursed pontifical lips for a reply and was annoyed when Morgan paused only momentarily.
"Perfect defense means the nullification of an opposing weapon. Obviously, a weaponless army is no longer anything but a disciplined mob. In correlation, Senator,ourarms and weapons are still effective, and—you mentioned the distrust (or dislike, or hatred, or whatever you will) held for us by Europe and Asia. Now, Senator, think of yourself and your constituents: is it not far better that Europe and Asia and the world be solaced and comforted by the announcement that we would use our ... Iron Curtain only in our own defense? Would it not be better—how many years, Senator, have there been recorded of universal peace? How many years?"
Some men can sit poker-stiff, yet give the impression of teetering slowly on their heels, slowly counting the horses' teeth. Suggs was a horse trader from away back.
He said, "Mr. Morgan, I say I can appreciate your viewpoint. I can even appreciate the fact that you mean exactly what you say. But—!"
Sharks must have teeth like that; broken and yellow, and razor-keen. The smile of the Senator fascinated me.
"But—! Mr. Undersecretary, who's been doing all the fighting, and who's been starting all these wars? The United States? No, sir! We just get in them too late to do anything but pay all the bills!" He leaned forward and fixed the tabletop with a piscine stare.
"Look at it this way, the only way. When this whatshisname dies, all these countries look at the map and start mobilizing the Guards. How do we know how long he's going to live, or how long he's going to keep this magic head of his?"
My magic head itched, and I rubbed it.
"Now, here's what I've said before, and here's what I say now—we can't let the world get away with murder—'murder' is what I said, Mr. Undersecretary, and 'murder' is what I mean. Didn't you say—now, tell us the truth, now—haven't you always said that it would be just a question of time until just about anyone has the secret of the atomic bomb? Didn't you say that?"
Morgan nodded. "Quite often I've said that, Senator. Too often for some."
Suggs was triumphant. "All right, now. You've hung yourself on your own rope and you don't know it. Answer me this; now, what's to prevent anyone who has the bomb from coming over here and using it on us? What's to prevent them?"
They had been all through that before, and Morgan knew it was no use to answer.
Suggs was his own echo. "Nothing's to prevent them, not a thing in the world. How many times have I come right out and said in public that the only way to keep the world where we want it is to just make sure that no one else is going to get it? How many times?"
Morgan rubbed his cigarette in the ashtray and spoke to the table. "You've said that many times, Senator. That's true, too true. I, on the other hand, have asked you many times if you've thought that the only way to make sure no other nation gets the bomb would be to go right in and makesure. You agreed with me thatthatwould mean force. Force, meaning war. Right, Senator?"
And the Senator, champion of Man and Humanity and Right said, "Right, Mr. Undersecretary. Right. We have the bomb, haven't we?"
Morgan didn't say much in answer to that. I don't think there was much he could find to say. Psychologists claim there is hardly anyone, anyone with a modicum of logic in a brain-pan, who cannot eventually see the light of reason. Maybe. Maybe calm logic could force Senator Suggs and his brain-pan off his muddy detour. Maybe humanity and decency and all the other things that complement the civilized man to this day lie submerged in that pithecanthropic skull. Maybe, but I hated his guts then, and I do now.
I cleared my throat, and it must have been louder than I thought, because all the eyes swung my way. Well, so what? If I had anything at all to say about what was going to happen, or if I was ever going to be more than just a rubber stamp, now was the time to find out. After all, I'd been asked to bring my harp to the party, and I was going to play.
So I said, "Senator. Senator Suggs!"
He was a little taken aback. Like having the sweeper talk back.
"Senator," I said, "you talk big. Let's get right down to rock-bottom, and let's stay there until we're finished. Okay?... All right; in words of one syllable, you want us to do what amounts to declaring war on the rest of the world, winning the war and then running things our way. Right?"
The Senator teetered on those mental heels again. His lips sucked in and sharp hollows formed in his cheeks. I could see his mind reach all the way across the table and throw face-up the cards, one by one.
"You're Mr. Miller, I presume, although we haven't been formally introduced." His eager eyes flickered over me. "You haven't said much so far, and it's just as well that you spoke when you did."
Legree groped for his cigar case, and Suggs rumbled on.
"You said I talk big, Mr. Miller, and I'm going to take that as a compliment. Yes, I do talk big. And you talk plain. I like men who talk plain. We're going to get along well together." And he paused to let his thoughts catch up.
I gave my needle a little push. "You're still talking big, Senator," I reminded him.
He resented that, and tried to hide it. "Hardly, Mr. Miller. Hardly. But you asked a question, and I'll try to talk plain, like you do. If we have to fight the rest of the world to do things our way, the American way, then my answer is yes. Yes!"
Legree grinned his saturnine smile through a blue wreath of smoke and Morgan sat back in his chair with an almost silent exhalation. The rest of the group seated around that great table affected me hardly at all one way or another. Suggs was the spokesman for one faction and I—well, Morgan was willing to let me talk; the Old Man was sunk in the dumb obscurity of his chair, and who else was there to speak for me? Who else?
All right, Miller. Take it slow and easy. Watch your temper. Say what you have that's important, and let it go at that. But—say it!
Now, there's one thing I learned long ago; you get a lot further if the other loses his temper first, and the best way to pry the lid of a temper is the use of the unexpected. The man who is handy with his hands will crack wide open with ridicule, with words used as the lever. The man who is handy with words is a different nut to crack; slap him down with insults while his verbal guard is down. If his temper doesn't snap in the first two minutes, it never will.
So, because I thought it was the right thing to say, and because I didn't like the Senator anyway, I said, "Senator Suggs, you talked plain. That's good. I like men who talk plain. Let's have some more of that talk. Let's get this right on the record for everyone here to see and hear.
"I don't like you, Senator. I like neither you nor your ideas, nor anything about you or your thoughts. How long has it been, Senator, since anyone has told you right to your face—not in a newspaper—that you're a self-convinced liar and a hypocrite, and that you and your ideas and everything about you stink to high heaven?"
"Stink" was the word that got him. He'd expected a nice gentlemanly quarrel with gentlemanly words above the table and rapiers below, and instead had walked around the corner and taken a barrel-stave across the mouth. His face flushed in an instant to a livid unhealthy red, his lips pulled away from his yellow teeth, his eyes seemed to protrude visibly. A beautiful sight.
It took him long seconds to throttle his gasping shock. I gave him just enough time to inhale for a long tirade, just long enough to open that fish-like mouth for words that might have been anything, then I let him have it again. And I don't know whether or not I told you, I was a sergeant before I got busted back to private, first class.
"Shut up!" I bellowed, and my roar boomed back at me from all those startled, those stunned faces. Shut up shut up shut up shut up....
I'm certain that those walls had never heard anything above a quiet murmur before that night. I just shocked Suggs and the rest into a panicky silence while I ranted. I had to talk fast, because while volume and violence are a good temporary substitute for brilliance, I knew I wasn't going to have the floor forever.
"Let's talk straight, Suggs. Get this once, because I'm not repeating it, and get that silly look off your face—" I'd heard he was vain—"you and your constituents and your Army and your Navy can go to hell, as far as I care for any of them. I'm the man you want to keep your shirt clean while the rest of the world wallows in filth; I'm the man that's supposed to let you and your type, God forbid, rule the world; I'm the man—" I leaned over the table as far as I could, as far as I dared.
"Suggs," and I poured venom down his shirtfront, "the only thing that keeps me from despising the Government of the United States and the people in it is the fact that I know you're not typical. You're a freak, a monster!" And I threw in another to keep him off balance. "You evenlooklike a fish!
"Remember this, Senator. Remember this one thing; if I ever see, if I ever hear as much as one word from you about war or bombs, in private or public, you'll live just long enough for me to hear about it!"
I threw a disgusted glance at the rest of the table. "One thing you don't know, Senator, is that I can kill you where you sit. Smith!"
The Old Man was astonished as the Senator, who sat with gaping piscine mouth and pop eyes. "Yes, Peter?"
"Tell him," I snapped. "Tell him how Kellner found out that I can stop a heart just as fast as I can a truck. And you'd better tell him while you're at it that Kellner thinks I'm emotionally unstable, subject to fits of temper. Tell that to the Senator. Tell him what Kellner said about me."
Smith coughed. "I think you all agree that Mr. Miller is a trifle upset. You can form your own opinion as to his temper. As to the other ... well, Dr. Kellner is the top man in his field. He tested Peter—Mr. Miller—very thoroughly. I would give very careful consideration to whatever he says about Peter's capabilities."
Now you can see what makes a diplomat. When Smith was finished talking it sounded as though Kellner had actually said that I could murder someone. And yet Smith hadn't told even a tiny bit of a lie. Lying, as any married man knows, is knowing what to say and what not to say at the right time. But to get back to the rest. I dismissed Suggs. I ignored him for all the rest of the time he was there. Even when I looked directly at him, and that hurt him. I have hopes, high hopes, that might have brought on the real heart attack he had the next day.
"So," I said generally to the rest of the table, "let's just assume from now on that you're dealing with a homicidal maniac with unlimited power. Is that the phrase you were thinking of, General?"
General Legree jumped as though he had seen me pull the pin on a live grenade.
"Forget it, General," I told him kindly. "I just read a lot of your speeches. Now you, Mr. Morgan, you're apparently having a meeting. I got here a little late. How about telling me the score?"
The tension seemed to seep out of the room as tangible as a stream of water. Suggs shrank up in his chair like a little old kobold, the Generals shifted into easier positions with the old familiar creak of expensive leather, and the man Smith looked right at me with his right eye closed. I'd said what he wanted me to say, but now what? Where did we go from here?
Undersecretary of State Theodore Morgan was one of the career men to be found in State Departments throughout the world, if by that you mean someone who has had the same job for years. The newspapers liked to tee off on him occasionally, using his pseudo-British mannerisms and habits for caricature. And the great American public, I suppose, considered him pretty much as a jerk, as the public is most apt to do when regarding a man who wore striped pants and a top hat in public and apparently liked it. But the Old Man, Smith—and I never did find out if Morgan was Smith's boss or vice versa—set me straight on a lot of things about Morgan. He had a fairly rough job, as jobs are when you do something you dislike merely because policy has been set by higherups. Let's just say he did the best he could, and let it go at that.
He was in charge of the meeting, all right. He knew just how to handle Simon Legree, and without Suggs things went fairly smooth—on the surface.
"Mr. Miller," he said, "you made a rather abrupt entrance into the conversation. I think it better if we have it understood right now that we prefer to use reason instead of volume."
"Call me Pete," I said. I knew, somehow that he hadn't disapproved too much of what I'd said, and he was cracking down at the outset just to show the rest thathewasn't intimidated. "Pete is all right with me, since I'm sure that this is all among friends." I looked around, and they were all friends. Especially the two generals that had seen me stop the trucks from the Federal Building window. I don't say they were actually afraid; just cautious. Just friends.
I went on. "Maybe I can help break the ice. I suppose you were talking about what you were going to do about things in general, and in particular, me. Well, go ahead."
So they did.
I won't bother with the details of the rest of the meeting or conference, or whatever you want to call it, because I don't think the details are too important. For one thing, when the first flush wore off, and I began to realize the colossal bluff I'd gotten away with, I got a little weak in the knees. For another, Morgan and Smith did all the talking to amount to anything. Legree, who seemed to be the self-appointed spokesman for the Army, really didn't have much to say when he knew that the State Department had all the cards, with me the joker. The Navy played right along when it was tentatively agreed that it was to be an island where I would be "stationed," as they euphemistically called it; they knew that islands are surrounded by water, and who sails on the water? The FBI got in their little piece when they were made responsible for general security. My contribution was that I was to be responsible to State, in the person of Smith, and Smith was to be the boss as far as conditions were concerned. When I brought that up I knew the Old Man was thinking of all the times I'd complained about his guardianship, and wrote him a tiny note so he wouldn't get too pleased with himself.
"The lesser—or the least—of many evils. Don't get swell-headed." He just grinned when he read it, and stuck it in his pocket to save for Morgan, I feel sure.
Smith and Bob Stein and I were the last to leave, and Morgan's grip for an old man was firm as we shook hands. "You did an excellent demolition job on the Senator," he said. "You know, Pete, there is one of the few people that have made me regret the job I have."
"Forget it," I told him. "You can get fired. Me, I got seniority in a lifetime job. As far as that carp is concerned, you can consider me your chief steward. I'll run ten miles to take up your grievance with Suggs."
Morgan smiled politely as he ushered us to the door, but I don't think he knew what I meant. They don't have unions in State.
The island isn't too bad. I swore, years ago, with the first cold I ever remember having, that I would never care if I ever saw snow again. And where I am, there isn't any snow. The beach is yellow as gold, the sun comes up every day in the east and sets in the west, and I've got for my personal use the biggest, shiniest bar you ever saw in all your life. They ship in draft beer for me all the way from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and Munich, Germany. Every month I get a four-quart keg from Belfast in Ireland, and I've got all the gadgets I need to mix anything a barkeep could dream up. The ice I get from what probably is a six-hundred dollar refrigerator that makes nothing but ice cubes. I have a subscription to practically every magazine I ever heard of, and I get daily aerial delivery—that's right. A little Piper Cub with floats drops the New YorkTimes, theMonitor, and a couple of others every morning—of the newspapers with the least amount of junk. I used to get the Detroit papers, but I found out it took too much mental effort to avoid looking at the Vital Statistics, where they record the marriages and deaths.
I finally learned to play bridge. Euchre doesn't seem the same without a barful of people, and pinochle is not the game that Stein is good at. Bob Stein, the poor guy—although he never says one word about it—takes everything in his stride. He spends six weeks out of every eight here with me and the others that form the crew of this little island afloat in the Southern Sea. The food is good, and with no limit to variety and type. We can't be too far from somewhere, because every once in a while we hear a rattle and banging somewhere out to sea. Once we heard what sounded like a full scale battle. I pried it out of Bob Stein that it was just maneuvers, as he called it. I know better. I see nothing but naval craft, and I suspect that they're not always just at the horizon for practice.
National affairs? Well, they're not too bad. The big noise came when the UN wanted my custody and didn't get it. The Old Man once asked me why I wasn't in favor of it, and I told him. In theory, yes; in practice, the UN was too dangerous. Personally, I felt that I could trust very few, and none that I hadn't known before all this happened. UN supervision meant that I would serve too many masters, and that I didn't like. And too, there are too many people in the United States that don't believe in the UN, and might be tempted to do something about it if they thought I owed allegiance to someone else besides the United States. I couldn't stir up anything like that, I told him. Deep down in my heart, I wanted people to like me, to admire me, to think that I was their hero, and no other country's. I think I can see admiration and affection in the eyes of the civilians and sailors that supply me the food and the other things I ask for. They ask me every once in a while if I'm all right, if I need women. I tell them I don't, that I'm reconciled with living like I am. And that's true; I want no other woman except Helen, and her I can't have, for devious reasons; my name is just anonymous to the world. Smith talked me into that—his idea was that if no one knew who I was, I'd be just that much harder to find. He explained that there are several other islands set up the same as mine, with almost the same conditions and the same surroundings. He calls it camouflage on a grand scale, and he's the boss. I know I'm not very smart; just smart enough to know that the reports in theTimesabout other people in other parts of the world with my capabilities are some of the grand-scale camouflage started by Smith's agents. I'm all alone, and I know it. But sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and go for a walk along the beach and kick up a little sand with my bare feet like Helen and I did on our honeymoon. They asked me once if I really had to do that. I told them I felt like it, and they asked me why. I didn't tell them I was just lonesome.
CONFIDENTIAL MEMO