The Road to Omaha: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “But I want to deny it! I don’t want my people put through this wringer! Many are quite old and many, many more are ill-equipped by lack of education to deal with these complexities. They’d only get confused, undoubtedly corrupted by special interests, and in the end, hurt. It’s wrong!”

  “Oh, I see,” said Sam, sitting back on the couch. “Let’s keep the happy darkies down on the plantation, singing their spirituals and driving the mules.”

  “What are you saying? How dare you say that to me!”

  “You just said it, Indian lady. You got out of there, and from your exalted professional perch in San Francisco you decree that the underlings are not fit to break the chains that keep them under.”

  “I never said they weren’t fit, I said they weren’t ready! We’re building another school, hiring the best teachers we can afford, appealing to the Peace Corps, and sending more and more children off the reservation for better educations. But it’s not all done overnight. You can’t change a disenfranchised people into a politically aware society in a month or two, it takes years.”

  “You don’t have years, Counselor, you’ve got right now. If you let this chance, as slim as it is, to right a vindictive wrong slip away, it’s not going to come around the bend again. Mac was right about that; it’s why he’s handled it the way he has—every weapon in place and concealed, the high command out of reach but still very much in control.”

  “What does that gobbledygook mean?”

  “I suppose the Hawk would call it something like Delta Strike Force, Zero Hour Shock.”

  “Oh, of course. Now I understand completely!”

  “Surprise attack, Red. No prior notice, no newspaper or media coverage of any kind, no attorneys proclaiming their march to the Court—everything stiletto-quick and quiet.”

  “Catching everyone off guard …,” concluded Jennifer, now beginning to understand.

  “Exactly,” said Devereaux. “Forget the odds, say they just get a single swing vote, there’s no appeal to a Supreme Court decision, only a legislative correction by changing the rules, the laws.”

  “And Congress, even galvanized, has the speed of a turtle,” completed the lady lawyer. “Thus leaving your crazy Hawk in the catbird seat.”

  “Thus leaving the Wopotamis in the same chair,” amended Devereaux. “It’s called write-your-ticket time.”

  “It could also be called an express elevator to hell,” said Redwing, getting up and walking to the hotel window overlooking Boston’s Public Garden. “It can’t happen, Sam,” she continued, shaking her head slowly. “They couldn’t handle it. The carpetbaggers in their limousines and Lear jets would descend on them like an army of pterodactyls, parading Bacchus and his Bacchae in numbers they couldn’t walk away from.… And I couldn’t stop them, none of us could stop them.”

  “Us?”

  “There’s about a dozen of us, kids the Council of Elders decided were ogottowa—smarter than the others, is the easiest translation, although it goes deeper—who were given opportunities not available to the other children. We’re all doing pretty well, and except for three or four who couldn’t wait to assimilate and buy their BMWs, we get together and look after the tribe’s interests. We do our best, but even we couldn’t protect them from this kind of Olympian spoils of law.”

  “We’re very Greek today, aren’t we?”

  “I wasn’t aware of it. Why?”

  “I don’t know. Some Greek is walking around in my best J. Press blazer. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “Yes you did. You’re trying to figure out how to answer me.”

  “Quick, very quick, Counselor.… Yes, I am, and I think I can. Am I correct in assuming that you’re the top gun of this specially chosen dozen?”

  “I suppose so. I’m very committed and I’m in a position to advise legally.”

  “Then use that expertise before the fact, if the fact ever becomes a reality.”

  “In what way?”

  “How many others of the tribal whiz kids can you trust?” answered Sam with another question.

  “My brother Charlie, of course, when he’s got his head straight … perhaps six or seven others who I don’t think could be bought into Alice in penthouse-land.”

  “Then form an irrevocable corporate trust, signed by each member of your Council of Elders, stating that no tribal business of an economic nature may be transacted or committed through any persons other than those constituting the executors of the aforesaid trust.”

  “That opens us up to collusion prior to an anticipated legal action,” objected Redwing.

  “What action? Have you been formally apprised of any legal action?”

  “You’re damned right I have. By my brother Charlie the nut, and my new acquaintance, Sam of the sotted trousers.”

  “So lie a little. It’s either that or an express elevator to hell.” Redwing walked back toward the desk; she paused, her hands on her hips, her head arched to the ceiling in thought. It was a provocative stance instantly provoking Devereaux. “Do you have to do that?” he asked.

  “Do what?” replied the Aphrodite of the Wopotamis, her eyes leveled at Sam.

  “Stand like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You may be a daunting lady, but you don’t have an excess of testosterone.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’re not a man.”

  “You’re damned right I’m not.” Redwing briefly surveyed her upright frontage. “Oh, come on, Counselor, get off it. Concentrate on your nun.”

  “Do I detect a note of jealousy? It’d be the best sign I could hope for.” Sam instantly began an impoverished rendition of the song. “Jell-loos-see, I hear you my jell-loos-see.…”

  “For God’s sake, shut up!… It’s something Charlie could do.”

  “I hope not.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. What could Charlie do?”

  “Form the corporate trust,” said Redwing, going to the desk and picking up the phone. “He can use my secretary and fax everything out, have it all wrapped up in a day.”

  “Hey,” shouted Devereaux, jumping up from the couch, “you dial, but can I act like your secretary at this end?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to hear the voice of the poor son of a bitch who got suckered into the Hawk’s larceny like I did. Call it perverse, but I did overlook your proposal of marriage. How about it?”

  “Be my guest,” said Jennifer, dialing.

  “What’s his full name?” asked Sam, standing beside the stunning Indian attorney. “So he knows I’m authentic.”

  “Charles … Sunset … Redwing.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “He was born during the last rays of the descending sun, and I don’t care to listen to any fatuous comment from you.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.” Jennifer completed dialing and handed the phone to Devereaux. After several moments, Sam replied to the quiet “hello” at the other end of the line. “Is this Charles Sunset Redwing?”

  “You calling for Eagle Eyes?” said the brother. “Is anything wrong back there?”

  “Eagle Eyes?” Devereaux covered the phone with his hand and turned to Jennifer. “He said ‘Eagle Eyes.’ What does that mean? Is it an Indian code?”

  “He’s our uncle. You used Charlie’s middle name, which he doesn’t exactly advertise. Let me talk to him.”

  “He scares the hell out of me.”

  “Charlie? Why? He’s a nice kid.”

  “He sounds like me!”

  “Two points for the white man,” said Redwing, taking the telephone. “Hello, you jackass, it’s your big sister and you’re going to do precisely what I tell you to do, and don’t you dare make any moves on my secretary or I’ll re-diaper you like I used to do but with a couple of missing parts. Got that, Charlie?”

  Sam returned to the couch, then decided against sitting down, opting instead for the suite’s mirror
ed bar built into the wall and stocked with all manner of spirits. As Red Redwing harangued her brother with instructions, he began producing a large glass pitcher of dry martinis. If there was nothing left to do but scream, he might as well yell half-plastered.

  “There!” said Jennifer, replacing the phone and turning, expecting to find Devereaux on the couch, instead shifting her eyes to the bar and the mixologist performing his ritual. “What are you doing?”

  “Making pain less painful, I guess,” answered Sam, poking a tiny fork into a jar of olives. “Aaron should be here shortly, and sooner or later Mac also—if he ever gets out of the Four Seasons.… It’s not a conference I look forward to. Care for a belt?”

  “No, thanks, because that’s what it would be. A heavy belt landing me on the floor. I’m afraid that, too, is part of the genes, so I stay away.”

  “Really? I thought that was just a dumb myth—Indians and firewater.”

  “Do you think Pocahontas would have looked twice at that scrawny WASP John Smith if she wasn’t tanked? Not with all those cute braves around.”

  “I consider that a racist remark.”

  “You bet your ass. Leave us something.”

  • • •

  The elegant manager of the exclusive Fawning Hill Country Club on the Eastern Shore of Maryland turned to his assistant as the heavyset man walked through the imposing front entrance and then past them, nodding his acceptance at having been greeted silently, no name mentioned. “Roger, my boy,” said the tuxedoed manager, “you have just witnessed at least twelve percent of the entire wealth of this country walk through those doors.”

  “You’re kidding,” said the younger, equally clean-cut subordinate, also in a tuxedo but without the white rose in his lapel.

  “Not for an instant,” continued the manager. “It’s a private meeting in the Gold Room with the Secretary of State. No lunch, no drinks other than bottled water, nothing. Very serious. Two men from the State Department arrived an hour ago and swept the room with electronic devices to make sure there were no taps anywhere.”

  “What do you figure it is, Maurice?”

  “The movers and the shakers, Roger. Inside that room are the heads of Monarch-McDowell Aircraft, Petrotoxic Amalgamated, Zenith Ball Bearings Worldwide, and the Smythington-Fontini Industries, which stretch from Milan, Italy, to California.”

  “Wow! Who’s the fifth guy?”

  “The king of international bankers. He’s from Boston and holds more purse strings than the Treasury Department.”

  “What do you think they’re doing?”

  “If I knew, I could probably get rich.”

  “Moose!” cried Warren Pease, greeting the owner of Monarch-McDowell Aircraft at the door with a hearty handshake.

  “Your left eye’s in orbit, Warty,” said the bull of a man. “Do we have problems?”

  “Nothing we can’t handle, sport,” replied the Secretary of State nervously. “Say hello to the crowd.”

  “Hi there, old buddies,” said Moose, walking around the table in his honorary green Fawning Hill golf jacket and shaking hands.

  “Good to see you, chum,” said Doozie from Petrotoxic Amalgamated, his blue blazer encrested, not with the emblem of a club but with the escutcheon of his family.

  “You’re late, Moose,” said the blond-haired Froggie, owner and CEO of Zenith Ball Bearings Worldwide. “And I’m in a hurry. They’ve developed a new alloy in Paris and it could make millions in our defense contracts.”

  “Hell, I’m sorry, Frog-face, but I couldn’t change the weather over St. Louis. My pilot insisted on a detour.… Hello, Smythie, how are the ladies in Milan?”

  “They still pine for you, Moose!” replied Smythington-Fontini. The half-British, half-Italian yachtsman wore his white flannels and his billowing yachtsman’s blouse replete with the ribbons of his yachting triumphs.

  “So, Bricky,” said Moose, grasping the extended hand of the Boston banker. “How’s the money pot? You made a bundle out of me last year.”

  “Most of it tax-deductible, old chum,” countered the New England banker, smiling. “Would you have it any other way?”

  “Hell, no, Brick! You sweeten my coffee every morning.… I sit here, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Right!” insisted Froggie. “I’m in a hurry. Those new alloys in Paris could fall into the hands of German industry. Get with it, Warren.”

  “All right, I shall,” said the Secretary of State, sitting down and furiously tapping his left temple to keep his wavering eye in place. “I’ve informed you all by security phones that our good buddy and my old roomie, the President, has put me on top of the Italian problem at the CIA.”

  “I suppose somebody has to be,” observed Doozie of Petrotoxic. “The man’s become something of a menace, I understand. The stories of his so-called abusive tactics are practically legend.”

  “Yet, since taking office,” said Moose, “he’s been effective. From the day he walked into Langley, our companies haven’t had a serious union problem. Whenever there’s a threat, former colleagues of his show up in limousines and the threats go away.”

  “Nice touch, the limousines,” said Doozie, dusting a speck of lint off the family crest on his jacket. “And I must say, he’s been an inspiration, the way he throws around his national security prohibitions at those scruffy environmentalists. Mummy and Daddy would have thought the world of him.”

  “And although he’s thoroughly unacceptable socially,” added the aristocrat of Boston merchant bankers, “through his connections with certain offshore institutions, he’s made possible extraordinary extensions of your corporate finances. We’ve all made millions by not paying millions in taxes.”

  “Damn decent fellow,” admitted Moose of Monarch-McDowell Aircraft, his jowls jiggling as he nodded his head.

  “No question,” concurred Doozie. “He truly understands that the success of his betters can mean the betterment of himself. The real trickle-down theory, indisputably proven.”

  “Also,” said the inheritor of the Smythington-Fontini multinational companies, “where else could so many of us turn? He’s an extremely patriotic American. He realizes every defense project on every drawing board in the country must be approved, no matter how questionable it may appear, for in the attempts, there’s always valuable … research, yes, research.”

  “Here, here!”

  “Here, here—”

  “Well,” broke in Secretary of State Pease, holding up a trembling right hand that he instantly grabbed with his left and pulled back on the table. “The splendid qualities that have made him such an asset may well be the very reasons why he could become an enormous liability.”

  “What?”

  “Why?”

  “Because every one of you has had extensive dealings with him.”

  “Buried, Warren,” said Froggie icily. “Deep down.”

  “Not for him.”

  “What happened?” asked Boston Bricky, his face, already bleached from the absence of sunlight in his vaults, growing paler.

  “It’s directly related to the other difficulty we face, which I’ll bring up later.”

  “Oh, my God,” whispered Doozie. “The savages … that Court with three left-wing senilities and one nerdy enigma still on it!”

  “Yes,” confirmed Warren Pease, barely audible. “In trying to short-circuit the whole stupid fiasco, Mangecavallo traced the crazy litigants to Boston, then called in his criminal hoods from New York. Real honest to P-and-L sheet killers. One was captured.”

  “Oh, great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts!” cried Bricky. “Boston?”

  “I read about that,” said Moose. “There was a riot at some hotel and the hood who was arrested said the President was his lawyer.”

  “I didn’t know your old roomie was a lawyer, Warty,” said Doozie.

  “He’s not. But if my old roomie’s name can even be mentioned, how long before Mangecavallo surfaces, and as sure as ther
e’s plea bargaining, you’ll all be next.”

  “What did you expect, Mr. Secretary?” remarked the blond Froggie, his voice in a deep freeze as he looked around the table at each member. “You give a thug responsibility, you’re responsible for thugs.”

  The silence was the silence of the damned. Finally, Moose of Monarch-McDowell spoke.

  “Good Lord, we’ll miss him.”

  “Then we’re in agreement?” asked Warren Pease.

  “Well, of course, old chum,” replied Doozie, his eyebrows arched in innocence. “What other avenue can we possibly take?”

  “All roads lead to my beautiful bank on Beacon Hill!” shouted Bricky. “He’s dead monkey meat!”

  “He’s too much for any of us!” cried Smythington-Fontini. “A criminal warlord at the core of the intelligence service—especially one who knows us—could name us!”

  “Who’s going to say it?” demanded Moose. “Goddamn it, somebody’s got to say it!”

  “I shall,” answered Froggie in a monotone. “Vincent Mangecavallo must as soon as possible become the late Vincent Mangecavallo.… A terrible accident, of course, nothing remotely suspicious.”

  “But how?” asked the Secretary of State.

  “I, perhaps, can answer you,” said Smythington-Fontini, casually inhaling on his long cigarette holder. “I am the sole owner of the Milano-Fontini Industries, and where but in Milan, Italy, are there always cadres of malcontents that my untraceable subordinates might appeal to with a few hundred million lire? Let’s say … I can arrange it.”

  “Stout fellow!”

  “Good man!”

  “Damn fine show!”

  “When it’s all over,” exclaimed Warren Pease, his left eye reasonably in place, “the President himself will award you a commendation medal!… A quiet ceremony, of course.”