Line of Succession

by Brian Garfield

  Sturka was probably at one of the gunports in the front wall watching the passage of the caravan. He would have Fairlie with him or close to him: Fairlie was his shield against trouble.

  Lime had given the shooters the classic order: Shoot anything that moves. Their ammunition was tranquilizer darts; they would be able to sort out friend and foe afterward.

  They moved forward in silence through the tumbled corridors of the old outpost. The roofs were half caved in and there was a little light, enough to see by. An old splintered door stood half off its hinges at the end of the corridor, ajar two feet, giving access to the room beyond but blocking view of it. They crowded up close to the door, staying behind it; the others waited for Lime’s signal and Lime waited for his ears to tell him whether the room beyond the door was where Sturka stood with Fairlie. He was trying to reconstruct the architecture in his mind, trying to remember the plan of the place. Fifteen years.…

  4:35 A.M. North African Time Alvin was walking Fairlie back and forth. Peggy went across to the deep shadows of the front corner to look out one of the windows. Through the deep slit she saw the slow procession of camels and riders at the foot of the hill, hooded silent figures in the starlight. Sturka was at the window fifteen feet to her right—watching, more tense than she had ever seen him. She saw no danger but Sturka sensed something. He didn’t communicate it to the rest of them except by the taut line of his back, the high set of his head.

  A sound.

  Somewhere in back. She turned her head, trying to identify it. The scrape of a foot? But Cesar was back there.

  It was probably Cesar then, or a rodent in the walls.

  But Alvin had heard it too and had stopped in the center of the room with Fairlie draped against him, Fairlie’s arm over his shoulders. Alvin had his left arm around Fairlie’s waist and a revolver in his right hand. Sturka had been explicit, the brief sibilant command on the stairs: If there’s any trouble at all—shoot him and then worry about yourself.

  Fairlie wasn’t quite conscious; neither was he comatose. His legs functioned after a fashion but if let go he would fall. Like a drunk.

  Sturka turned and stared at the back door. Cesar had shut it when he’d gone to the back. It stood closed, mute—but something had drawn Sturka. Beyond was a half-demolished barrack room; then a door lodged askew, a corridor past the ruins of officer quarters, another door, finally wrecked ruins of rock and stucco too destroyed to indicate its previous use.

  Sturka was scowling; he had thrown the Arab hood back off his head. He made a hand motion to Alvin.

  But Alvin hadn’t time to move. Peggy saw the door crash open and abruptly the room was filled with men firing rifles.…

  It was dim. Probably a very bad light for shooting. Her eyes were used to it but still she wasn’t sure what happened. The eruptive flashes stung her eyes. The racket was earsplitting.

  Alvin was in the center of her vision and she saw that part of it most clearly: Alvin firing instinctively into the attackers, his revolver bucking. But Alvin waited to watch his target fall and that gave the rest of them plenty of time. Someone shot Alvin and the force of the blow knocked him into a spin.

  She watched in disbelief. Her head turned dreamily and she saw Sturka, his rough pitted face lifted, his eyes unrevealing, bracing the submachine gun to fire. To fire not at the attackers but at Fairlie who was already falling to the floor.…

  A big man with a revolver was firing as if he were on a target range somewhere: holding the revolver at arms’ length in both hands and shooting with a horrible rhythmic intensity, shooting and shooting until the gun was empty and the hammer clicked drily.…

  She saw Sturka fall and she thought suddenly They haven’t seen me yet it must be too dark here and she felt the weight of the pistol Sturka had pressed into her hand; she saw Fairlie stirring on the floor and she thought They haven’t killed him, it’s up to me to kill him isn’t it? But she didn’t lift the pistol. She only stood in the corner’s deep shadows and watched while one of the attackers discovered her and lifted his rifle.

  She saw the orange flame-tip when he fired.

  4:39 A.M. North African Time Lime had a stitch in his ribs. He stood soaked in his own juices.

  Sturka had six wounds, caliber .38 inches and any one of them might have killed him. Lime had fired with deliberation, knowing there was time to get the others out, knowing Sturka was the one he had to kill.

  Sturka died at Lime’s feet. Lime saw his face crumple in death but there was no recognition in Sturka’s eyes and no sign he realized anything: Sturka died in sulky silence without last words. He lay seeping blood into the stone floor and when the blood stopped flowing Lime went across the floor to where Clifford Fairlie lay.

  Fatigue was gritty in his eyes. He could smell already the sickening pungency of death in the room. Sturka was dead and Corby had killed one of the Early Birds. The Astin girl lay in a crumpled heap, stunned by the force of the dart that had struck her in the chest; the tranquilizer would keep her unconscious for a bit.

  And Fairlie. Orr had a flashlight, he was shaking it to strengthen its beam. Perhaps it was the quality of that light, but Fairlie had the pallor of death. Lime dropped to his knees beside the President-elect. He heard Orr say, “Get the doctor, Wilkes,” and one of the sharpshooters ran out front to signal the caravan.

  When the doctor arrived Fairlie had stopped breathing.

  “We’ll need an autopsy to be sure.”

  Lime was too drained to reply. He only stared at the doctor out of a dulled agony.

  “Probably they had him doped up to keep him docile,” the doctor said.

  “And that killed him?”

  “No. Your tranquilizer bullet killed him. On top of what was already in his system it became an overdose. Look, you had no way to anticipate this. I’ll testify to that.”

  Lime had no interest in trying to shift the blame. It was beside the point. There was only one point. He had made a mistake and it had cost Fairlie’s life.

  “You did everything right,” Orr was saying inaccurately. “None of them touched Fairlie with so much as a finger. We took them all out before they had a chance at him. Look it wasn’t your fault.…”

  But Lime was walking away. One of the men was on the walkie-talkie summoning the convoy and Lime went outside to meet it and waited in the night repressing all feelings and all thought.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so Goddamned sorry sir.”

  Lime accepted Chad Hill’s sorrow with a vague nod of his head. “I’ll have to talk to somebody on that scrambler. See if you can raise Washington for me.”

  “The President?”

  “Whoever you can get.”

  “You want me to do it sir?”

  He felt remote gratitude and he touched Chad Hill’s arm. “Thank you. I guess it’s up to me.”

  “I mean I could——”

  “Go on Chad.”

  “Yes sir.”

  He watched the youth lope down the hillside to the Land Rover. He followed more slowly, moving like a somnambulist, tripping over things.

  Eighteen or twenty riflemen stood around watching him with aggrieved compassion. He walked through their little knot and they made way for him. He reached the Land Rover and wasn’t sure he could stay on his feet; he pulled the tailgate down and sat on it. Chad Hill handed him the telephone-style handset. “It’s Mr. Satterthwaite in the war room.”

  There was a lot of racket. Static, or the scrambler operating imperfectly, or perhaps just the busy noise of the war room.

  “Lime here.”

  “David? Where are you?”

  “I’m in the desert.”

  “Well?”

  “… He’s dead.”

  “What? Who’s dead?”

  “Clifford Fairlie.”

  Silence against the background noise.

  Finally: “Dear sweet God.” A voice so weak Lime hardly caught it.

  “We got them all if it matters. Sturka and Renaldo bough
t the farm.” My God. Bought the farm. An expression he hadn’t heard or used in fifteen years.

  Satterthwaite was saying something. Lime didn’t catch it. “What?”

  “I said that puts President Brewster back in office for four more years. The Senate voted cloture on Hollander’s filibuster a couple of hours ago. They’ve amended the Act. It’s on the President’s desk for signature.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not sure I care.”

  “I think,” and Satterthwaite’s voice was very low and very slowly distinct, “I have to know how and why Fairlie died, David.”

  “He died of an overdose of tranquilizers. I suppose you could say I killed him. I suppose you could say that.”

  “Go on. Tell me all of it.”

  Lime told him. And then asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll have to see. Don’t say anything to anyone just yet. Keep all your people together, bring them all home. You’ll fly Fairlie’s body into Andrews—I’ll meet you or have someone meet you. There’ll have to be a debriefing—make sure you keep all your people incommunicado.”

  “No announcement at all?”

  “Not from you. We’ll have to release the news at this end. Actually I suppose it’s up to the President to make the announcement.”

  Lime fumbled for a cigarette. “You may as well recall those seven prisoners. There won’t be any exchange now.”

  “I will. All right, David, I’ll see you,” Satterthwaite said lamely and broke the connection.

  Lime tossed the handset into the bed of the Land Rover and began jabbing his pockets to find his cigarette lighter.

  12:20 A.M. EST It looked like snow again. Satterthwaite stood in a small bare room on the top floor of the Executive Office Building. He hadn’t switched any lights on. The city beyond the window threw in a little light. He had been standing alone in the dimness for some time. Just standing there.

  Everybody had gone home. The war room had been dismantled. He had sat in it alone until the clean-up crews had come to clear up the mess; then he had come up here to think.

  The Southern bloc had fought for Hollander but it had been no real contest. Brewster’s supporters had played on the senility issue; nothing overt had been said on the Senate floor about Hollander’s political leanings. That would have been too raw. In fact very little had been said about Hollander at all, except by his supporters. The issue—the pretended issue—was experience and qualifications. Mr. President, I gladly avail myself of the privilege of offering my support to the able and distinguished Senator from Montana in affirming that in national crises when time is of the essence, the laws of succession to the Presidency of the United States must take into account the realities of today’s complex administrative problems. We cannot and should not expect anyone to have to assume the burdens of this office without adequate preparation and introduction—that is to say briefings—on the multitude of critical ongoing problems which inevitably hang in the balance between changing administrations. Under the present circumstances where there is quite obviously no time at all to hand over the reins of government to a newcomer in an orderly fashion, is it not clear that we have but one intelligent course to follow? …

  Of course it was all poppycock, everyone knew it: Brewster could easily stay on as a guest in a White House wing for long enough to brief the new President if that were the only difficulty. Hollander’s supporters had pointed out such things with biting scorn and thundering anger but there had been no stemming the pressure for Brewster. Everyone remembered how close the popular election had been. The accusations against Los Angeles and other cities, the recounts, the solid Democratic majority in both houses which secretly applauded Brewster’s move because it vindicated the party.

  But all these were minor; there was only one real issue and that was Wendell Hollander. His senile paranoia, his political dementia. Hollander had the unique ability to terrify almost everyone in Congress. And those who knew him best were those whom he terrified most.

  Against that terror the anti-Brewster arguments, no matter how legion and logical, had carried no weight. It was true Brewster had usurped the prerogatives of the electorate: having lost the popular election he was overruling its results by act of Congress. It was true as Fitzroy Grant insisted that Brewster’s action was in defiance of every reasonable interpretation of the spirit of the Constitution’s safeguards. Maybe it was true also that Brewster’s ability to acquire power far exceeded his ability to exercise it wisely; at least Fitz Grant suspected as much.

  Yet what Brewster had done was not illegal, not unconstitutional, not technically refutable. He had seized upon the law—or a loophole in it—and had won because Congress had seized on an emotional loophole. The legislators had accepted the emergency plan primarily because it covered an emergency they had hoped and expected not to have meet. Like everyone else they had convinced themselves that Fairlie would be recovered alive. The irony was, they probably wouldn’t have voted for the measure if they had known Fairlie was about to die—and so Hollander would have been President after all.

  The Senate’s opposition had been led by Grant, who was respected even if unheeded; over in the House the resistance had been led by a handful of hysterical far-right Congressmen who had quite literally been hooted off the floor. Ways and Means had reported out the House resolution within hours of the President’s appeal and the roll-call vote had been taken with the relentless speed of a panzer blitz. The Acting Speaker, Philip Krayle of New York, had directed Ways and Means to form a subcommittee ready to meet on ten minutes’ notice with the Senate’s companion committee the instant the Senate bill had been ratified. It had all taken place with guilty haste and scores of them had slipped away furtively the instant their work had been done.

  Satterthwaite hated equally Brewster’s lunatic confidence and Fitz Grant’s lunatic misgivings. Congress had taken the better of two choices. No denying that. But to prevent one form of tyranny they had created another.

  Abruptly Satterthwaite stopped in front of the window. He made a number of grunts, audible punctuation to his thoughts. He was staring out at the city with the intense concentration of a lecher watching a woman disrobe but he wasn’t seeing much of anything: his mind was turned inward and abruptly he shot out of the room and hurried toward the elevators.

  The clean-up crew still mopped in the war room. Satterthwaite popped across the hall into the conference room and reached for the telephone and the federal directory. He found Philip Krayle’s number and dialed.

  It rang a dozen times. No answer. Well of course that would be Krayle’s office. It was one o’clock in the morning. Satterthwaite spoke an oath, looked in the city phone book. No number for Representative Krayle.

  Unlisted. Damn the son of a bitch. Satterthwaite pounded his fist on the table.

  Finally he dialed a number he knew: Liam McNeely’s home phone.

  McNeely answered on the second ring.

  “It’s Bill Satterthwaite, Liam.”

  “Hello Bill.” A voice utterly devoid of everything. Well it was understandable: McNeely had been Fairlie’s closest political advisor and friend and had only learned of Fairlie’s death within the past couple of hours. The President had gone on television at eleven to make two announcements. Someone—possibly Perry Hearn—had thought to call McNeely because McNeely had called Satterthwaite to ask for details. Satterthwaite had stuck to the prepared script: Fairlie had been dead before the rescuers arrived, the kidnappers had injected him with an overdose of drugs.

  “Liam, I’m sorry to bother you at a time like this but it’s vital. I need to reach Philip Krayle. I thought you might have his home number.”

  “Well I——”

  Satterthwaite waited for McNeely to wrench his thoughts onto the new subject. In the end McNeely said, “Hang on a minute, I’ll get it,” in a faraway tone.

  In a short while McNeely was back on the line. He spoke seven digits and Satte
rthwaite wrote them down on the cover of the directory by the phone.

  “That all you wanted Bill?”

  “Yes, thanks. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “It’s all right. I wasn’t about to sleep tonight.”

  “I’m—wait a minute, Liam, I think you can help me.”

  “Help you do what?”

  “I can’t talk on the phone. Are you dressed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in the Executive Office Building. The conference room across the hall from the NSC boardroom. Can you get over here right away? I need someone to help me do some telephoning. A lot of calls to make.”

  “I don’t know if I’d be much good talking to anyone tonight, Bill. I hate to cop out on you but——”

  “It’s for Cliff Fairlie,” Satterthwaite said, “and it’s important.”

  By the time McNeely arrived—improbably natty in a mohair suit and Italian shoes—the clean-up crew had finished in the boardroom. Satterthwaite took him inside and closed the door. “I’m glad you could come.”

  “Very mysterious. What the hell have you got in mind?”

  They were not exactly friends although they had had a great deal of contact since the election. It had been taken for granted McNeely would assume Satterthwaite’s role in the new administration.

  “You’ve been thinking about Fairlie I’m sure.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’ll be rumors Brewster had him killed.”

  “I suppose there will. There always are, when one man benefits from another’s death.”

  “Those rumors will have no basis in fact,” Satterthwaite said. “I have to clear that up with you before we go on.”

  McNeely’s one-sided smile was merely polite. “We called him a lot of names in the campaign but I don’t think any of them was murderer.”

  “He’s a surprisingly honest man, Liam. To use an archaic turn of phrase he’s a man of goodwill. I realize from your point of view he’s too much a prisoner of old-fashioned political values, but you’ve got to credit his integrity.”