When the water came, just as she got it in her hand, the nominee was on the air and his acceptance speech had begun. His voice was low but clear as he began to thank the delegations for the honor they had done him.
Only the speaker’s platform was lighted. Three rows in front of the speaker, as he faced the darkness of the hall, one of the men of Marco’s unit was crouched in the aisle, with walkie-talkie equipment. He spoke into the mouthpiece with a low voice, giving a running account of what was happening on the platform, and if the delegates seated near him thought of him at all, they thought he was on the air, although what he was saying would have mystified any radio audience.
“She just got a glass of water from the page. She is handling it very busily. She’s doing something with the rim of it. I’m not sure. Wait. I’m not sure. I’m going to take a guess that she has stuck something on the rim of the glass—I even think I can see it—and she just handed the glass to Iselin.”
On the platform, behind and to the left of the speaker, Raymond’s mother said to Johnny, “The pills are on the edge of the glass. Take them as you drink. That’s good. That’s fine. Now you’ll be O.K. Now just sit still, sweetheart. All you’ll feel will be like a very hard punch on the shoulder. Just one punch and it’s all over. Then you get up and do your stuff and we’re home free, honey. We’re in like Flynn, honey. Just take it easy. Take it easy, sweetheart.”
Marco, Amjac, and Lehner climbed the stairs. Lehner was carrying a walkie-talkie and mumbling into it. The nominee’s speech was booming out of the speakers and Amjac was saying, as though in a bright conversation with nobody, O Jesus God, they were too late, they were too late. Marco moved clumsily under his bandages but he held the lead going up the stairs.
As they got to the top level they were scrambling and they started to run along behind the gallery seats toward the iron ladder as the nominee’s voice reverberated all around them, saying: “…that which I would not gladly give myself—my life before my liberty,” and Amjac was screaming, “Oh, my good God, no! No!” when they heard the first rifle shot crack out and echo. “No! No!” Amjac screamed, and the sounds were ripped out of his chest as though they were being sent on to overtake the bullet and deflect its course when the second shot ripped its sound through the air, then everything was drowned out by a great, enormous roar of shock and fear as comprehension of the meaning of the first shot reached the floor of the arena. The noise from the Garden floor was horrendous. Lehner stopped to crouch against the building wall, pressing the earphones to his ears, trying to hear the message from the man in front of the platform on the arena floor. “What? What? Louder. Aaaaaaaah!” It was a wailed sigh. He dragged the earphones off his head, staring numbly at Amjac. “He shot Iselin, then he shot his mother. Dead. Not the nominee. Johnny and his wife are stone cold dead.”
Amjac wheeled. “Colonel!” he shouted. “Where’s the colonel?” He looked up and saw Marco moving painfully across the narrow catwalk toward the locked black box that was the spotlight booth. “Colonel Marco!” Amjac yelled. Marco turned slightly as he walked, and waved his left hand. It held a deck of playing cards. They watched him come to the door of the booth and kick at it gently.
When they reached the catwalk, Marco had disappeared into the booth. The door had closed again. Amjac started across the catwalk with Lehner behind him. They stopped short as the door opened and Marco came out. He couldn’t close the door behind him because of the sling, but they could not see through the darkness inside. They backed up on the catwalk as he came toward them, and then they heard the third shot sound inside the booth—short, sharp, and clean.
“No electric chair for a Medal of Honor man,” Marco said, and he began to pick his way painfully down the iron ladder listening intently for a memory of Raymond, for the faintest rustle of his ever having lived, but there was none.
The Manchurian Candidate Page 30