He arose, dressed in the new clothes he had demanded and obtained from Washington’s highest-class establishment, and walked out to the respectful bows of the entire staff. He was going home. The old ruts looked good to one weary of traveling. It is a surprising commentary on the limitations of the human mind that the whole revolution in the affairs of the nation, even the supreme power that Doolittle himself possessed, meant less to his awareness than the thought of Maria and his accustomed orbit in the nature of things.
He taxied to the Union station and ordered drawing-room accommodations on the Congressional Limited. A heavy, broad-shouldered man saw the transaction, saw the passage of tickets without concomitant cash, and hurried into a booth to phone the dictator. He did not attempt an arrest himself.
Doolittle hummed a senseless little tune, waiting for train time. His humming was interrupted by the march of a dozen bluebanded soldiers, with Jordan at their head. The dictator’s dark eyes glowered with grim satisfaction. Alison had betrayed the meek little bank clerk.
Alison, clad in seductive negligee, cuddled against Jordan’s shoulder. Her soft white hand rubbed his close-bristled cheek. She purred like a cat.
“Sugar baby,” she said, “you’re swell! I loved you even when you hurt poor little Alison. Ain’t gonna do that any more, are you, big boy?”
Jordan was enmeshed. In the old days his female contacts had been casual and never rose to the type displayed by Alison. Her seductive wiles stirred him; he was just so much putty in her hands. Within ten minutes from her first irruption into his office, he had been lost.
“Sucker!” she thought to herself and redoubled her efforts.
The man had the country in the hollow of his hands, and she had him. Beyond that she could not think. A dim thought of that silly old Bible story—what was it?—yeah—Samson and Delilah—floated through her mind and made it ache. Her thought processes were confined purely to feminine wiles and luxuriant living and did not extend to political power.
He kissed her hungrily. “I caught Doolittle this morning,” he said.
“Yeah! I told you he was here. What are you going to do with him?”
He said lazily: “Kill him.”
She jumped up, startled. She was not exactly bad-hearted. “You won’t do that.”
“Why not? I can’t take any more chances. Look how you got away.”
She ignored that. “But you mustn’t. I—I kinda liked the little feller; he was so meek an’ innocent.”
He shook his head decisively. He was once more Jordan the First.
“I can’t allow personal sympathies to stand in the way. We must get rid of all of them; all, that is”—he looked at her avidly—“except you. We shall rule the world, you and I, and these people are a menace to our power and continued safety. Doolittle must go; and as fast as we catch the others, they go, too.”
Alison sighed and relaxed into his arms again. She had done her best for the poor little bank clerk. After all, Alf was right, and a girl had to look out for herself these days.
He stroked her hair. “That’s better,” he said. “Now suppose you get dressed for the review. It’s scheduled for three o’clock.”
She yawned. “What’s the idea?”
“A mass showing of strength,” he explained. “A hundred thousand troops will parade in battle formation. I’ll address them, and broadcast to the entire nation. It will clinch my régime and at the same time show the rest of the world that I’m not to be trifled with.” His eyes flashed darkly, he forgot the girl in the grandiose vision.
“That’s the next step,” he said. “The conquest of the world. I’m building now a fleet of transatlantic planes. Once they’re finished—”
Alison was bored. She yawned again, showing white teeth. “Love me, big boy,” she said.
A man burst into the private chamber. His eyes were bloodshot, his dress in disorder, his fat stomach heaving under the stress of panting exhalations.
Jordan shoved Alison aside, jumped to his feet. His right hand pawed at his pocket, came out clutching a flat automatic.
“Marshall!” he breathed unbelievingly. “This time you won’t escape, you double-crossing—”
Alison La Rue flung herself across his arm, diverted his aim. The bullet sped wild, crashed into ornate molding.
“Don’t be a fool, Alf!” she screamed. “Wait; he has something to tell.” She had an aversion to blood spilled in her presence. And Tony had started her off on the road to success.
Marshall swayed. His legs could hardly hold him. Fear haunted his eyes. “Don’t shoot!” he pleaded. “I’ve got news. We’re lost, all of us; unless we get together.”
Jordan flung the girl off his arm, held his gun ready for action. “I’ll give you a minute, Marshall. So talk fast. I’ve no use for double-crossers.”
“It—it’s Wentworth,” Tony managed to gasp.
Jordan stiffened to attention. Wentworth! The man he feared most, the man who had evaded him all along, yet who had done nothing so far!
“What about Wentworth?” he flung out impatiently.
“He’s here—in Washington. He has a machine—”
The words poured from Marshall, the perspiration from his forehead. He was deathly afraid. He told the story of the raid, playing it up as an escape while they were en route to Jordan, of his discovery of the machine and the opinions of Verrill and Lofting. He told of Wentworth’s sudden reappearance, of the recapture of the machine, of his own escape.
He did not tell how he wandered the streets of Washington all night, trying to figure out what he should do. Run away and forget it all, or play ball with either side. Wentworth he finally disposed of. The man was honest, and hence incorruptible. He would insist on his fool operation. Jordan was of his own ilk, a bit of a rogue, and hence might listen to reason this time.
“So you see,” he concluded, “that we’ve got to work together, or we’re all cooked.”
Cold panic clutched at Jordan’s heart. At the pinnacle of his power, at the moment of supreme success, at the opening of vast new vistas, to have this menace arise, this threat to everything he held. Rage swept through him, all the more furious for being so helpless. The others stared at him. He had the brains, they knew. Without him they were lost.
Jordan calmed down and set his mind to work. He called New York and spoke to Verrill; he called Lofting and listened to him. There was no thought now of killing Marshall. When he was through, his brow smoothed out a bit. Alison and Tony pounced on this crumb of hope with avidity.
“You’ve thought of something!” they cried in unison.
“Yes,” he admitted, “I’ve thought of something. We’ll have to get busy at once.”
He rang for Hollis. When that catfooted secretary entered, he ordered:
“Bring Doolittle up here. You go along, Alison, to see he does no harm. Take the key.”
X.
The review was a vast, glittering display. The great parade ground on the banks of the Potomac resounded with the tread of war-accoutered battalions, the thundering plunge of interminable lines of tanks and heavy artillery. Each soldier, besides full marching pack, trench helmet, and bayoneted rifle, showed the distinctive blue band on the left arm. It was a tremendous sight, well calculated to throw fear and consternation into the hearts of alien nations. Unfortunately there were none represented.
The first overthrow had caused the cables to the home governments to hum with caustic reports from the diplomats stationed in Washington, but then, as they came under Jordan’s personal influence, the reports changed to uncritical adulation. Alarmed, the governments hastily severed relations, left the befuddled representatives to look out for themselves, and prepared for war behind a vigorous blockade. Even the short-wave receiving sets had been dismantled; one small experience of a broadcast reception from the United States had been enough. Now, for the first time in history, all inter-European feuds were forgotten. The common enemy was Jo
rdan.
The endless battalions marched past the reviewing stand, saluted with a thunder of cheers, and drew up at the farther end of the field in dress formation. On the reviewing stand a steel cupola had been erected. Within its comfortable dimensions rested the reviewing party. They were Jordan, Alison La Rue, Hollis, Marshall, and Doolittle.
They stared out at the parade through bullet-proofed glass. A cluster of microphones was grouped in one corner. From the dome of the cupola protruded the little sound-magnifying cones. Jordan was playing safe against all eventualities. The atmosphere was tense.
Alison said scornfully: “The show is almost over, and they ain’t showed up. I don’t think anything is going to happen.”
Marshall mopped his baldish brow. “You don’t know Wentworth. I’m scared.” He turned suddenly on Doolittle. “Every one remember what he’s to do,” said Jordan grimly. “Did you hear me?”
The little man started and blinked nervously. “Y-yes, sir.”
It was all very confusing, quite frightening, in fact. His reprieve from instant death, he had been told, depended on implicit obedience. Yet he was not quite certain in his mind what it was all about.
The parade was over; the great show was finished. The troops lined up to hearken to the words of their leader. The whole country was listening in, clinging to their radios, drawn like moths to their certain flaming destruction.
Jordan took a deep breath. For the first time that grim afternoon he smiled.
“Well,” he remarked, “Wentworth did not show up. Either the machine didn’t work, or he got cold feet.”
He switched on the microphones. “Brave Bluebands, men and women of America,” he orated. Then it happened.
Wentworth, Margaret, and Dr. Knopf were hidden in a little house about a mile up the Potomac. From there they could command a clear view of the parade ground. There, too, the atmosphere was tense.
“I hope it works,” Margaret said anxiously. Her hands were clenched white with the strain of waiting.
“I’m sure of it,” Wentworth returned positively. His face was drawn, but his eyes blazed with prospective consummation. “We figured it at about four times amplification, didn’t we, Knopf?”
“About that.”
“That’s plenty. We’ll not only blank out Jordan’s influence, but override it four times. I’ll make that army turn on him and bring him to us a prisoner.”
“I’m afraid,” the girl whispered.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know. Of something going wrong. Suppose Marshall teamed up with him.”
Wentworth smiled. “We’d still have the edge; two to one.” He swept the far-off scene with powerful glasses. “Hello, they’re starting!”
The tiny doll-like battalions swept across the field and lined up, waiting.
“Why don’t we begin?” Dr. Knopf asked impatiently.
“I’m waiting for the commencement of Jordan’s speech. It will be more dramatic to cut him off; to make him against his will confess his own sins.”
Just then the air was filled with voluminous clarity of sound. Even here, a mile away, the sono-magnifiers carried the speaking voice.
“Brave Bluebands, men and women of America—”
Wentworth flipped a tiny switch. Then he concentrated, fiercely, intently, with all the will power at his command. Over and over he willed:
“Stop, Jordan, stop! I am more powerful than you. Obey my will.”
The little disk on his chest vibrated with the driving impact. It caught the radiations of the unspoken thoughts, stepped them up to four times normal power, and sent them out in vibratory waves to impinge directly on the wills of all within a radius of twenty-five miles.
“Stop, Jordan, stop! I am more powerful than you. Obey my will.”
The heavens, that had been filled with the thunderous sound of Jordan, stilled suddenly. The deathly silence had something physical about it. Jordan had ceased, broken off his speech by a will now superior to his own.
Margaret gave a glad little cry; Dr. Knopf’s ascetic face wreathed into a weary smile.
“We’ve won; we’ve won,” the girl cried.
Within the steel cupola was consternation. Jordan, in full stride, felt an awful plucking at his mind. “Stop, stop!” cried an irresistible inner force. He broke off in the middle of a word. Huge globules of perspiration burst on his forehead. He turned helplessly to the others, mute appeal in his eyes. He could not speak.
Outside a cold wind sucked through the glittering ranks. Something seemed to lift from each man’s mind, something that had been a deadly incubus, a vampire that left only bloodless thoughts behind. Blueband stirred and looked uneasily at Blueband. An air of bewilderment engulfed them. What were they doing here, in martial array? It would take only a little word, an added impetus to the will, to start incalculable things in that great, suddenly released throng.
Alison and Doolittle were stricken dumb. They were not much good in an emergency.
It was Tony Marshall who rose to the occasion. “It’s Wentworth!” he cried feverishly. “Yell, damn you, every one of you. Yell: ‘Talk, Jordan, talk!’ ”
The others awoke from their daze, threw themselves into the task. Three brains poured out their influence in concerted waves, adding their strength to his helplessness. Currents eddied and lashed at each other in mortal combat in Jordan’s mind. His face was drawn and white from the terrific inner conflict. Again they yelled, willing themselves on.
The loud speakers crashed and boomed with the communal sound, flooded the little house up the Potomac with the ominous noise. It beat upon the three, beat with overriding force. Dr. Knopf succumbed at once to the influence. Margaret, after one anguished look, stared blankly, her own will crushed to earth.
Jordan’s voice, suddenly triumphant, beat and clamored through the air. “We are victorious!” he chanted. “Wentworth, wherever you are, obey my will.”
“Obey his will!” shouted the others, sweat pouring from every vein with the fury of their concentration.
The great army ceased their uneasy stirrings; minds went rigid, blank once more. Again they were automatons, harps to be played on by skillful fingers.
Wentworth reeled under the repeated blows on his consciousness. Invisible little hammers plunged with sickening thuds within his mind, beating out, hammering the iterated refrain: “Obey, obey!”
He felt himself slipping, going, a will-less mechanism. Despairing he turned for aid. There was none. Knopf of course was helpless. Margaret, too. She was staring straight in front, unconscious of Wentworth, of her surroundings. That part of Wentworth which was still free cursed himself for a fool. Why had he not foreseen? Why had he not made duplicate machines, given Margaret one? Jordan had outsmarted him. Somehow he had united all the others—four of them together—and they were fighting him, Craig Wentworth. His, Craig’s amplification, was a little less than four. He had miscalculated. That was why he was being defeated.
The little spark of freedom blazed brightly just an instant. Wentworth willed fiercely, with every atom of concentration he could muster against the implacable, heaven-filling sound:
“All of you, obey me, stop!”
It was a desperate, nerve-smashing effort.
Within the cupola four wills felt the inflowing tide. It engulfed, ripped their wills apart momentarily. Their voices faltered, were silent. Once again there was silence. Again the hundred thousand on parade, like puppets pulled this way and that by strings, moved uneasily.
But that last final surge of will had left Wentworth reeling, exhausted. He could not keep it up. He was drunk, drunk with fatigue. He lashed his mind to renewed efforts, he flogged his will unmercifully. It was no use. Toxic poisons clogged the cells of his brain; they refused their overloaded tasks, broke down. He wanted to lie down, to sleep. He staggered and swayed, and still he was victorious. No sound came through the waiting air.
It was the end, however. Jordan’s iron wil
l kept the four of them furiously shouting, even though no words came. Then Wentworth was through. He could not go on. The occupants of the cupola felt the sudden release, their voices rose triumphant.
“Wentworth, Wentworth, obey!”
Wentworth mumbled: “I obey!”
Vast weariness, cosmic indifference, engulfed him. Sleep, sleep, the blessedness of submission!
The two simple words flashed through their minds. Jordan’s face was a fury of exultation. He had won!
“Where are you, Wentworth?”
It was all over. Wentworth answered in halting, blurred words: “In a house up the river. On the bank. About a mile.”
“Good!” said Jordan. “Await my orders.” He turned his words to the rigid troops, once more safe within his power.
“Colonel Harman,” he snapped. “Proceed at once with your battalion up the river. Capture all occupants of house a mile up on the shore. Bring them back.”
A long file of troops detached themselves, wheeled to barked commands, and marched with quick, simultaneous tread.
“We’ve got him now,” Jordan chuckled and rubbed his hands. “There’s nothing to stop me now.”
“How about us?” Marshall interjected.
“Oh, sure, all of us together, of course,” Jordan answered hastily. But his eyes narrowed. He was thinking hard.
Wentworth was watching the approach of the column of infantry with pain-blasted eyes. He was through, washed up. Jordan had beaten him. Now the whole world lay at his feet. He, Wentworth, had failed. His head ached terribly. The awful beating word smashed down with damning, steady force upon him:
“Obey! Obey!”
Jordan was taking no chances, was holding him to his will by continued reiteration.
The marching troops were closer now. The low, frosty sun sent steam up in thin vanishing wreaths from their lips; bayonets gleamed businesslike, with strangely reddened tips. Already he could see the distinctive arm bands.
His lackluster eyes glanced feebly around the bare room. Within a minute the head of the column would be upon him, would seize and gag him. The back of his mind, that tiny spark which was still free, still under the influence of his instrument, thought:
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