The Devil's Advocate: The Epic Novel of One Man's Fight to Save America From Tyranny

by Taylor Caldwell

  Two Army doctors arrived in a flurry. They were stopped courteously by the Picked Guards outside the door, who explained that they must be searched, and their bags, also. The doctors made no protest, evidently. The door opened and they entered the room rapidly. Durant knew them both, and, as usual, he greeted them with contemptuous courtesy. He could never forget how supinely these professional men had submitted to authoritarianism, and how meekly they had served it, some with fear, some with abject approval because of Socialistic convictions. Tom Griffis stood by alertly, his hand on his gun while they examined Durant. Then they sat down and discussed Durant’s symptoms learnedly. The colonel had a fever, but there were no objective or subjective indications beyond that fever. The colonel was apparently overtired. Durant listened eagerly, and with relief. The doctors recommended a stay in bed for about twenty-four hours. In the meantime, they would leave him some sedatives and restoratives. They ceremoniously opened their bags, produced small bottles and counted out pills.

  Sadler came forward. “How soon will those sedatives work?” he asked.

  They blinked at him, baffled. Then one said: “In about an hour or so.”

  “Well, then,” said Sadler, picking up the bottles and extracting four pills from the two of them, “you gentlemen will take a dose of these.” He solmnly extended a blue pill and a pink pill in each of his palms. “You’ll both have time to reach the city before you feel too sleepy, I suppose.”

  One of the doctors twittered incoherently, while the other merely looked mystified. Durant began to smile.

  “You see,” explained Sadler patiently, “we have orders to guard the colonel closely. He can take nothing, or eat nothing, without its first being tested. We, his Guards, obviously can’t take sedatives, and we don’t need the ‘restoratives.’ So, gentlemen, you are nominated as tasters.”

  “This has never happened to us before!” exclaimed the younger doctor, in exasperation. “Did you expect we might try to poison the colonel?”

  “We can’t take chances,” said Sadler, inexorably forcing two pills into the other’s hand. The older doctor accepted his with incredulity. “Water, please,” Sadler said to young Griffis, who was obviously enjoying himself. The boy obeyed with alacrity, bowing as he extended two glasses of water to the doctors.

  They took their pills abstractedly, not looking away from Sadler. The latter glanced at his wristwatch. “You will remain here, gentlemen, for ten minutes. Poisons, these days, are fast and potent. If you aren’t dead in ten minutes, you may leave.”

  The doctors colored, but said nothing. They eyed each other, frowning. Their honor had been insulted, their loyalty questioned, their profession exposed to outrageous doubt. Durant began to feel much better. The grave silence in the room increased. Sadler had returned to his post, and Griffis, smiling from ear to ear, leaned negligently against the wall near Durant. He stared at the doctors, and finally the impact of his amused eyes was felt by them. As one, they turned to him, and he grinned wider. Again they colored, and sat up stiffly.

  The anonymous Minute Men in charge of their accelerated oppression had done excellent work, thought Durant, much satisfied. It was very evident that the doctors were indulging in very rebellious, seditious and enraged thoughts. They smoldered with them; their teeth clenched on them; their fists knotted with them. The younger man gave Durant an involuntary glance of pure venom and hate. He would have been considerably more careful a few months ago, Durant reflected. The older doctor was absorbed in his meditations; sometimes his eyebrows would jerk up and down, and sometimes his lips would tighten.

  “The ten minutes are up, gentlemen,” Sadler announced, at last. “And, as you’re obviously not dead, and show no indications of dying, you may leave.”

  They jumped to their feet, glared at Sadler with obvious detestation, snatched up their bags and went out of the room without a word. Durant was gratified that they did not speak to him with their old servility and eagerness to please. He took two of the pills, laughing. “If they haven’t thought of some good, slow-acting poisons before this, they’ll think of them now,” he remarked. “I don’t believe they love the Military any more.”

  Durant slept, and he dreamed. He was miles up in a radiant air, flying on hushed and mighty wings of his own. It was a majestic sensation, and he felt released and exalted. Below him flashed the earth, rolling in light, a green, blue, white and silver ball. He saw a vision of forests, of great harbors, of tilted cities, of mountains blindingly reflecting the sun, of pampas and prairies and golden lakes, of scarlet deserts and the bare teeth of yellow crags. He saw quietly rolling hills and shining bays, villages with red roofs and villages with plastered walls. He saw the herds of cattle, the coiling threads of roads, the smoke of thousands of industrial chimneys, the bulbous domes of strange metropolises, the ships of strange nations. There were peaks crowned with fire and green rivers and jungles tangled with monstrous red and yellow flowers.

  And nowhere were there armies or marching men or ruined cities, or the acrid blaze of guns or the wheeling carrion birds of war planes.

  How peaceful it is, he thought to himself in his dreams. It was then that he heard the bells, rolling up to him like gigantic waves of rapturous music. They beat as one triumphant song, sometimes rising to a thunderous pitch, sometimes dropping to a mere sweet whisper. There was not a scene or a city or a harbor or a river which did not send up its individual voice to join the universal chorus. Joy rolled in the bells, and release and love and peace and thanksgiving. It is Christmas, thought Durant. And then he thought: It is freedom. The world is delivered.

  The bells mingled, rejoicing, in the luminous light that engulfed the earth. There was such happiness, such surcease, in Durant that he began to weep as he flew through the pure air. There was no pain in him now. The bells thundered against each other, telling each other the glorious news, speaking to each other softly as if they were remembering, then crying out exultantly. Durant became dazed and stunned with sound; he could no longer tell where the thunder began and the light ended.

  He woke to the intense silence of night and the narrow walls of his room. A small lamp was burning in a corner. He lay quietly, and he could still hear the clamoring of the liberated bells, their laughing joy, their eager tongues. The music sailed off into the night and he strained his ears to catch its last echoes. He told himself it had not been a dream, for he had been awake before the bells had been muffled.

  Sadler sat on his chair before the door. Young Tom Griffis was sitting near Durant, reading one of his books. Durant said: “I heard the bells.”

  Sadler said unemotionally: “You’ve been dreaming, Colonel. A heavy sedative. Go back to sleep.”

  He got up, and under Tom’s surprised eyes, he detached the wires from behind the landscape. Tom laughed delightedly, as only a boy could laugh. He put down his book and smiled at Durant. Durant said obstinately, sitting up in bed with his dark face full of passion: “I tell you, I heard the bells. Not Christmas bells. Just bells, all over the world. Sadler, we’re on the eve.”

  “Yes. I know.” Sadler looked less tired and drawn, and Tom was as fresh as ever. Sadler went on, with more expression in his voice: “It must be very soon. None of us can stand this much longer.”

  Durant thought to himself that he had forgotten that he was not the only one enduring unbearable strain. He was elated that his malaise of the morning had gone. Strength returned to him in a surge of exultation. A natural mystic, he was certain that he had heard the shouting bells of the future, a future almost at hand. He stood up and stretched, and laughed. Then he said: “Did you fellows get any rest?”

  “Yes, Colonel. You’ve been asleep twelve hours, and Tom and I have had eight hours sleep, in four hour shifts. We just came on again about ten minutes ago. Do you feel like going downstairs for dinner? My—Dodge is ready, and we’ll get the other boys. And your own officers.” Sadler eyed him inscrutably. “Without their weapons, of course.”

  If Durant’s o
wn officers were still remembering their indignity, they showed no signs of it in the pleasant dining room downstairs. Bishop and Edwards unbent enough to talk with Durant and Sadler almost agreeably. Grandon was full of jokes, most of them ribald. Keiser listened, sometimes grinned. The four Picked Guards might have been friendly soldiers without a care in the world, young and happy men in the mood for holiday. Dr. Dodge, assisted by a frightened young girl, served them an excellent dinner, which was accompanied by some of John Lincoln’s fine wines and brandy.

  It was Christmas Eve, but no one spoke of it. It was, to them, only the eve of Democracy Day. The colonel was toasted, and he toasted the Army and the Picked Guard. For only an instant, at the mention of the latter, did the Army men frown, and then it was only slightly. Edwards said that he supposed the Picked Guard “must do their job,” and implied tolerantly that the Army sometimes had a good opinion of “the boys.” Sadler smiled wryly, but his three young sergeants were delighted to the point of excruciation. Grandon suddenly became silent, and his buoyant face darkened momentarily.

  “These kids are just out of training school,” said Sadler, with indulgence. The explanation satisfied everyone except Grandon, who began to turn the stem of his brandy glass in his fingers, broodingly. Once, involuntarily, he glanced at Durant, and the latter was taken aback by that glance of pure hatred. So, Grandon was the one. He, Durant, had always known it, but it depressed him. Who had given Grandon the poison? The FBHS? He tried to remember if Beckett and Grandon had had any contact in the past, if only for an instant. Of course, it was very possible.

  No one spoke of the dead man, whose body had been removed expeditiously. If Sadler were remembering, he showed no signs of it. He was talking to Bishop, while Dr. Dodge moved waveringly about the table and the girl refilled coffee cups.

  All about the house lay the smothered silence of a country winter. Durant wanted to see the snow and the moon again, and he got up and began to draw a curtain which shrouded the window. He felt a touch on his arm, and Sadler was saying pleasantly: “No, Colonel.” There was no change on his face, except for a warning signal in his eye. Durant’s officers had stopped talking, and they watched him return to his chair curiously.

  “Someone,” said Sadler, “might want to be a martyr, by shooting at the colonel.”

  “Like Beckett, for instance?” asked Grandon, with that peculiar knife-flash of a smile running over his face. It was obvious that he was feeling the effects of what he had drunk; he lurched a little in his chair.

  “Beckett?” asked Durant, puzzled. “Beckett committed suicide.”

  “So we heard,” replied Grandon, and he giggled.

  One of the Picked Guards was irritated. “Funny remark, Lieutenant, begging your pardon. We never heard that Lieutenant Beckett tried to kill the colonel. Did he? Do you know something about it, sir?”

  Bishop and Edwards looked to Durant indignantly and in expectation that he would defend the honor of the Army. Durant said, with mildness: “Now, why should Grandon know anything about anything, especially something that didn’t occur? I think it’s just because he’s an Army man, and doesn’t particularly like—shall I say?—the Picked Guard. And Beckett was a Picked Guard.” Durant smiled. “Sometimes our boys are willing to believe anything about your organization, you know.”

  “We are here to protect the colonel,” said Tom Griffis, with dignity. “No Picked Guard would dream of trying to shoot him.”

  Grandon would not be quiet, in spite of the gesture of Captain Edwards. He smiled at Griffis unpleasantly. “But you think one of his own men might?”

  Sadler looked about the table, and caught every eye. “One might,” he said. He shrugged. “Who knows? We only have our orders to protect him.”

  “Now why,” said Grandon, with exaggerated thoughtfulness, “would ‘one’ of us, his own men, want to kill our colonel?” He turned to his fellow officers. “Captain Edwards? Captain Bishop? And you, Keiser? Would you want to hurt a hair of our colonel’s head?”

  They were all deeply embarrassed, and angry. Durant said, with roughness: “Grandon, you’re drunk.”

  Grandon went on, as if he hadn’t heard. “It might have been one of the Lincolns, eh, and Beckett got shot protecting our colonel? By the way, sir—” and he turned his smile on Durant—“Bob Lincoln disappeared months ago.”

  Durant was silent. He regarded Grandon narrowly, remembering the secret conversation between Grandon and young Lincoln in the spring. Then he said: “Why wasn’t I told?”

  Grandon waved his hand airily. “Fact is, sir, I didn’t know, myself, until a few days ago. Old Lincoln told me. Almost cried about it. I didn’t think it important to mention it. If Bob wanted to run off, and starve somewhere, that was his own business.” Then, abruptly, he dropped his head and apparently fell into a drunken sleep.

  Durant stood up, and the men rose with him. “Take Grandon to bed,” he ordered, with a disgust he did not feel. He started to walk from the room, and the Picked Guard surrounded him. His old claustrophobia returned, and he felt he would choke if he went upstairs again. But he knew that he dared not walk stupidly in the snow as he had done the night before. Muttering, he climbed the stairs. The Army men did not immediately follow and their silence followed him portentously.

  Once in his locked room, he sat down and smoked without speaking. His earlier exultation was gone. Fear crept into his flesh once more, a prickling fear that ran along his nerves and made sweat burst out on his forehead. Within a week, two weeks, a few days, it was very possible that he would be dead. There was no doubt in his mind that he would receive the signal very shortly, and when that signal came the world would be convulsed. He remembered the civilian clothes in his drawer. Murmuring something about what he would wear tomorrow, he got up and went to the chest. He opened it slowly; the faded clothing lay under his shirts. Something rustled on top of them. It was a thin gelatine slip of paper which was only too familiar to him, and on it was printed: “Campbell Road, Elton, Florida.”

  He looked down at it, dumbfounded, and his heart thudded. Wild thoughts ran through his head. Who had put that slip there? Who knew about him? Who knew of his family? His real name, his identity? Dr. Dodge? That was impossible. One of his own men? Impossible, too. No one had access to his room except Dr. Dodge and no one was permitted to enter it in his absence. Was this slip a gloating message that he was known, or had it come from a friend who had been able, mysteriously, to enter his room without being seen? He crumpled the slip in his damp hand and looked at the windows. Had someone, during the day, climbed through one of those windows and left the message, leaving as invisibly as he had come? He pushed the little ball into his mouth, his back to his Guards, and tried to control his trembling. “Campbell Road, Elton, Florida.” A mockery, perhaps, or perhaps genuine. He tried to remember when he had last looked at the civilian clothes. A week ago? Two weeks? He could not remember, but he was sure it had not been more than two weeks.

  “Is something wrong, Colonel?” asked Sadler.

  Durant turned and tried to smile. Sadler commented: “You look sick again, sir. Better go to bed.”

  Durant nodded. “I’ll take another sedative,” he said abstractedly. He glanced at his watch. “Almost midnight,” he remarked. He began to undress, and went to bed. He closed his eyes, but his consternation and fear made his heart beat too fast. He tried to turn his thoughts away from the onrushing violence of the immediate future. It was Christmas Eve. The bells should be calling now, echoing over the countryside. The churches should be lit with candles. There ought to be the smell of incense in the air, trees in quiet and happy homes, the radiant faces of children, and singing voices. A year from tonight? He thought again of the bells he had heard in his dream, and he told himself that he had been fully awake before the final echo of them had been drawn back into space.

  He could not sleep, though he pretended to do so. He heard the changing of the Guard, their mutters. A brief wind rose about dawn. A dog barked m
ournfully. Gray light crept under the edges of the window shades. Someone was yawning.

  It was Christmas Day. It was Democracy Day, and a whole world was waiting.

  The President of The Democracy was to speak at three o’clock from New York, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, and his speech would be broadcast over all the nation. In the Eastern and Northern Sections there would be prior celebrations, and in the Western and Southern Sections the public celebrations would follow. So Durant and his Guards and executive officers left the Lincoln farm at half-past one.

  Before leaving, however, Durant ordered Dr. Dodge to send for John Lincoln. It had been a long time since he had talked with the farmer or any of his family; in fact, there were weeks when he hardly remembered that this was Lincoln’s house in which he had quartered himself and his men. He had heard, without interest, that Lincoln and his wife had moved away entirely from the big farmhouse and had gone to live with their elder son in his own home on the farm. While waiting for Lincoln, Durant and his men sat in the living room and talked of the approaching celebrations. Grandon had quite forgotten his disagreeable remarks of the night before. He was exuberant and playful, goaded the Picked Guards with contemporary jokes about their organization, smoked incessantly. No one but Durant and Sadler ever glanced at the blood-stained pink sofa where Beckett had lain.

  Bishop and Edwards were in a good mood, also, though they treated the Picked Guards with distant politeness. They began to tell Durant of the rumors they had heard in the city the day before. The Section which had once been Canada was reported to be in a turmoil; troops were being rushed by plane and train and vehicle to the border. Eight soldiers, including three sergeants, had been murdered in Philadelphia within the past twenty-four hours in spite of every precaution. Mr. Woolcott’s new assistant, who had replaced Andreas Zimmer, had been wounded by some assassin who had fired at him while he was entering his home. The assassin had not been caught. The Section which had originally been named Mexico was in total revolt, it was said, and the troops of The Democracy had retreated ten miles north of the Rio Grande, with great casualties. Three vital bridges had been blown up in Section 18, city unnamed. Four thousand young recruits had deserted the Armed Forces during the past three weeks. There were many more rumors, and Durant listened acutely.