The Road to Omaha: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “Who’s him?” asked Sylvester.

  “He,” corrected Sir Larry, adjusting his toupee. “Who’s he, Sly.”

  “Yeah, sure, but what is it?”

  “This is my plane,” replied the heir apparent to the Oval Office. “Isn’t it great?”

  “Take a seat, pilgrim,” said The Duke. “If you want some grub or a bottle of rot gut, just press one of the buttons over there.”

  “I know, I know. All these swell guys are my crew!”

  “He—he—he—he’s the—the—Vice—Vice—Vice … you know,” cried Dustin, shaking his head not back and forth but in circles. “He was born at precisely—precisely—precisely eleven twenty-two in the morning in 1951—–exactly six—six—six years, twelve days, seven hours—hours—hours and twenty-two—two—two minutes after the Japanese—Japanese—Japanese surrendered on the battleship—ship—ship Missouri.”

  “G’wan, Dusty!” shouted Marlon, scratching his left armpit with his right hand. “I’m sick of that bit—bit—bit, you got an understanding of wherefrom I’m coming from, huh, Dusty?”

  “You and your streetcar—streetcar—streetcar!”

  “Hey, come on, baby face, you wanna lollipop?” asked Telly, grinning at the Veep, but with eyes that were not smiling at all. “You’re okay, kid, but sit down and close the choppers, all right? We got work to do, you dig?”

  “I was told you’re actors!” said the Vice-President, lurching into an aisle seat across from the foursome, his expression alive with excitement. “I’ve often thought I’d like to be an actor. You know, a lot of people think I look like that movie star—”

  “He can’t act!” pronounced Sir Larry in high British dudgeon from the table behind. “It was all luck and pull and that stupid, implausible face of his, totally devoid of character.”

  “A passable director—director—director,” offered Dustin.

  “Wadda you, crazy?” belched Marlon. “That was casting. The actors carried him!”

  “Maybe he cast ’em,” suggested Sylvester. “Y’know, it’s possible-like, man.”

  “You listen to me, pilgrims,” said The Duke, squinting, his eyes roving around the chairs. “It’s all that dirty business in those offices of them land-grabbin’, cattle-rustlin’ agents. It’s what they call ‘pyramid deals.’ You get the star, you take all the crap beneath.”

  “Boy, this is real actor talk!” exploded the Vice-President.

  “It’s shit, baby, and don’t get your pretty face near it.”

  “Telly!” cried Sir Larry angrily. “How many times have I told you that some people can get away with obscenity, but you can’t, dear heart! From you, it’s offensive.”

  “Hey, man,” intruded Marlon, making facial contortions into his mirror. “What the hell is he supposed to say? ‘Fie on you, great Caesar?’ I tried that a couple of times and it din’t work.”

  “You don’t speak so good, Marley,” said Sylvester, gluing on his chin beard. “You gotta speak real good to make them stupid words make sense.”

  “You should talk, you gutter person!”

  “I also don’t try too much of that Jake’s beer, which for me is a dollar a pitcher!”

  “Hey, very good, Sly!” shouted Marlon in his perfectly normal Midwest voice, devoid of slurs and slushes. “Really terrific!”

  “Fine retort, mi’boy,” said Telly, as if he were a cultured university professor of English.

  “We can do anything,” added Dustin, smoothing his mustache.

  “Well, we’d better be damn good down there at Logan Airport, gentlemen,” said The Duke, checking his slightly rouged nose and speaking in a voice properly belonging to a high-ranking corporate executive.

  “Hog damn, we’re great!” yelled Sir Larry, in tones reminiscent of the Okefenokee Swamp.

  “Good Lord,” exclaimed Sylvester, the mid-Atlantic vowels of a Yale Drama School graduate coming through as he stared at the Vice-President. “You really are him!”

  “He, Sly!” Larry corrected again, briefly slipping back into aristocratic British. “At least, I think so.”

  “A naturally evolved vernacular legitimatizes its usage,” retaliated Sylvester, still looking at the Vice-President. “We appreciate the use of your aircraft, sir, but how come?”

  “Secretary of State Pease thought it would make a nice impression on Boston, and since I wasn’t doing anything—I mean, I do a lot, but I wasn’t doing anything this week—so I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ ” The heir apparent leaned forward conspiratorially. “I even signed the ‘finding.’ ”

  “The what?” asked Telly, taking his eyes off his face in the mirror.

  “The intelligence finding for your operation.”

  “We know what it is, young man,” said The Duke, his well-spoken voice reflecting his current role as somebody’s chief executive officer. “But I believe only the President can sign such a document.”

  “Well, he was in the bathroom, and I was there, so I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ ”

  “Fellow thespians,” pronounced Telly, returning to his mirror, his vibrato right out of that famed theatrical institution, The Players, in New York’s Gramercy Park. “If we don’t pull it oft, Congress will give this young man a testimonial dinner he’ll never forget.”

  “Actually, I’ve made some new friends over there—”

  “With him on the spit—spit—spit,” completed Dustin, jerkily revolving his head. “For exactly—exactly—exactly four—four hours, twenty—twenty—twenty minutes and thirty-two—two—two seconds. His ass will be extremely well done.”

  “Oh, a roast! I’d like that. It shows they really like you!”

  “Are you going to introduce us at the airport press conference?” asked Marlon skeptically, his quiet, warm Midwest accent pronounced.

  “Me? No, the mayor will meet you. Actually I’m not supposed to get off the plane for an hour or so, and then without any press whatsoever.”

  “Then why get off the plane at all?” said the erudite Yalie who called himself Sylvester. “We’re using air force equipment to take us to—”

  “Don’t tell me,” shrieked the Vice-President, cupping his ears with his hands. “I’m not supposed to know anything!”

  “Not supposed to know anything?” questioned The Duke. “You signed the finding, sir.”

  “Well, sure, why not? But who the heck ever reads those dumb things?”

  “Pore Jud is daid, a candle lights his haid,” sang Telly softly from his swivel chair, his bass-baritone perfectly acceptable for the touching Rodgers and Hammerstein song.

  “I repeat,” repeated Sylvester. “Why leave the plane?”

  “I have to. You see, some son of a butterball stole my wife’s car from back home—her car, not mine—and I have to identify it.”

  “You’re kidding!” said Dustin, no eccentricities in his delivery. “It’s here in Boston?”

  “I’m told it was driven by some very unsavory characters.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Marlon.

  “Kick some fucker’s ass to the eighteenth hole and back, that’s what I’m going to do!”

  Once more there was a brief silence as The Duke rose to his full height, surveying his comrades’ quiet attention on the Vice-President, then spoke in the lingo of his namesake. “You may be rancho correcto after all, pilgrim. Maybe we could even help.”

  “Well, of course, I never curse, at least hardly ever—”

  “Curse, baby,” broke in Telly, reaching into his vest pocket and withdrawing a stringed piece of candy. “Have a lollipop and don’t back off. You just may have made a couple of friends here. I figure you can use ’em.”

  “Prepare for our final descent into Boston’s Logan Airport,” came the words over the loudspeaker from Air Force II’s flight deck. “Estimated arrival in eighteen minutes.”

  “There’s still time for us to have a drink, sir,” said the soft-spoken Marlon, studying the young, blond-haired politician. “All yo
u have to do is summon your steward.”

  “Why the hell not?” The Vice-President of the United States rebelliously pressed the button, and within moments—perhaps too many moments—the air force steward appeared—perhaps not too enthusiastically.

  “Wadd’ya want?” asked the corporal, insistently cowing the young Veep.

  “What did you say, pilgrim?” shouted The Duke, still standing.

  “I beg your pardon …?”

  “Do you know who this man is?”

  “Yes, sir, of course, sir!”

  “Then sit straight in yer saddle and canter, don’t trot!”

  In far fewer minutes than his arrival might have indicated, the corporal and a second crewman returned with drinks for everyone. And everyone smiled as they raised their glasses.

  “To you, sir,” toasted Dustin in his clear, precise voice.

  “I’ll second that,” said Telly. “And forget the lollipop, my friend.”

  “Third …!”

  “Fourth …!”

  “Fifth …!”

  “Sixth!” finalized The Duke, nodding his head in the best tradition of corporate acknowledgment.

  “Gosh, you guys are really great fellows!”

  “It’s our convenient and ubiquitous privilege to befriend the Vice-President of the United States,” said the gentle Marlon, glancing at the others as he drank.

  “Gee, I don’t know what to say. I feel like I’m one of you!”

  “You are, pilgrim, you are,” said The Duke, raising his glass for a second time. “You’ve been crapped upon, too.”

  Jennifer Redwing, with the enthusiastic assistance of Erin Lafferty, as well as the sous-chef labors of Desis One and Two, created a multinational barbecue on the redwood porch. Since the steel-constructed pit contained four broiling areas, each regulated by a separate dial, the tastes of everyone could be served. Paddy Lafferty’s wife called the kosher boys in Marblehead and had them deliver the finest salmon and the freshest chickens, then she reached the boyos in Lynn to send up the best porterhouses they had in stock.

  “I don’t know what I can do about you, you outrageously beautiful lass,” cried Erin, looking wide-eyed at Jennifer in the kitchen. “Should I try to get some buffalo meat?”

  “No, dear Erin,” replied Jenny, laughing as she peeled the large Idaho potatoes they had found in the subcellar. “I’ll broil a few slices of the salmon.”

  “Oh, like yer Indian fishes in them rushin’-like-hell rivers?”

  “No again, Erin. Like those less-in-cholesterol meals we’re all supposed to eat.”

  “I tried some of those on Paddy, and y’know what he told me?… He told me he’d tell the Lord God himself—face to face, mind you—that if He didn’t want his red-blooded boyos to eat porters, why the hell did He put them creatures on the earth for us to eat?”

  “Did your husband ever get an answer?”

  “By his lights, he did. Two years ago, thanks to Mr. Pinkus, we visited our roots in Ireland, and Paddy got on his ass and kissed the Stone of Blarney. When he got up he said to me, he said: ‘I got the message, wifey. Where porters are concerned, I’m the exception, and that’s the holy truth!’ ”

  “You accepted that?”

  “Come now, lass,” replied Erin Lafferty, smiling sweetly, not necessarily innocently. “He’s my boyo, the only boyo I’ve ever wanted in m’life. After thirty-five years I’m going to question his visions?”

  “Then give him his porters.”

  “Oh, I do, Jenny, but I cut out all the fat and he screams like hell that the butcher’s cheatin’ us or I’m cookin’ ’em wrong.”

  “What do you do then?”

  “An extra glass of whisky, lass, and maybe a few strokes where it takes his mind off his mouth.”

  “You’re a remarkable woman, Erin.”

  “Oh, cut the bullshit, girl!” said Paddy Lafferty’s wife, laughing as she chopped the lettuce for a salad. “When you get a man of your own, you’ll learn a few things. The first is to keep him alive; the second is to keep his batteries from goin’ dead, and that’s all there is to it!”

  “I envy you, Erin.” Redwing studied the fine-featured yet fleshed-out face of Mrs. Lafferty. “You have something I don’t think I’ll ever have.”

  “Why not, girl?” Erin stopped chopping.

  “I don’t know.… Perhaps I have to be stronger than any man that wants me in that way—the marriage bit, I mean. I won’t be subjugated.”

  “You mean like being below the guy what marries you, no dirty language intended?”

  “Yes, I guess that’s what I mean. I can’t be subservient.”

  “I’m not sure what sub—subservant means, but I figure it’s like bein’ low class, or no class, is that what you’re sayin’?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Well, ain’t there a better way? Like what I do with Paddy—who I would care to spend the rest of my life with—by tellin’ him that he can still have his porters, but he don’t know I cut off the fat. He gets his steaks—so he stops complaining—but that fat crap goes away until he gets his teeth into the last quarter inch of the bone. Y’see what I mean? Give the gorilla the last small taste on the bone and he forgets the rest. He’s happy.”

  “Are you suggesting that we women manipulate our male counterparts?”

  “What have we been doing for years?… Until you screechers came along we had it right. Tell ’em anything, but give ’em yer own perfume.”

  “Remarkable,” said the daughter of the Wopotamis pensively.

  Suddenly, from the huge living room beyond the kitchen door, there were screams of anguish or exultation, or both—it was impossible to differentiate. Jennifer dropped a potato on the floor as Erin involuntarily threw a head of lettuce up into a light fixture, smashing a long neon tube, the glass particles descending into her salad bowl. Desi the First appeared, crashing the door open with such force it slammed back from the wall into his face, dislodging the temporary dentistry in his mouth.

  “Chu!” he yelled. “Come out here and look at the teledifusión! Ees loco—ees crazy like vacas with testículos!”

  Both women raced to the door, ran out into the living room, and stared in total bewilderment at the television screen. There were six obviously important visitors to Boston, all in formal clothes, some with short, clipped beards, others clean-shaven or with waxed mustaches, and each wearing a black homburg. They were being greeted by the mayor of Bean Town, who was equally obvious in his inability to express the city’s greetings.

  “So we welcome you to Bahsten, gentlemen of the Noble committee from Swedeland, and extend to you our haartfelt thanks for choosin’ the great university of Haavadd for your seminal on international relatives and your search for the Soldier of the Century, namely a certain General MacKenzie Hawkins, who you presume to be in our far west frontiers and will hear or watch this broadcast—who wrote this shit?”

  “We break away to bring you up to date!” intruded the voice of the announcer as the screen went mute. “The illustrious Nobelll committee has arrived in Boston to participate in Harvard’s symposium on international relations, yet the spokesman, Sir Lars Olafer, stated upon arrival a few minutes ago that a secondary purpose was to determine the whereabouts of General MacKenzie Hawkins, twice recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor and selected by the Nobel committee as the Soldier of the Century.… The mayor’s motorcade will soon be off to the Four Seasons Hotel, where the Swedish committee will reside during the Harvard symposium.… One minute, please. We have a call from the President of Harvard University.… What symposium? How the hell do I know, you run the place, not me!… Sorry, folks, a minor communications glitch in Cambridge.… Now, back to our regular program, a rerun of our most popular program, Watch Your Assets.”

  “Somebody send in the dwarfs …!”

  MacKenzie Hawkins got out of his chair and roared. “Goddamn, Soldier of the Century! Did you all hear that?… Of course, it had
to happen sooner or later, but the fact that it actually did makes me the proudest combat officer that ever lived! And let me tell you, boys and girls, I intend to share this great honor with every grunt who ever served under my command, because they’re the real heroes and I want the world to know it!”

  “General,” said the giant black mercenary calmly, even gently. “You and I have to talk.”

  “About what, Colonel?”

  “I’m not a Colonel and you’re not the Soldier of the Century. This is the setup.”

  20

  The silence was both electric and affecting. It was as if all gathered were witnessing the pain of a large, faithful animal being betrayed by some unseen master who had cast it aside, leaving it to the murderous whims of a wolf pack. Jennifer Redwing walked quietly to the television set and turned it off as MacKenzie Hawkins stared at Cyrus.

  “I think you should explain yourself, Colonel,” said the general, his eyes conveying astonishment and hurt. “You and I just saw a network news program and heard the words spoken by a distinguished foreign visitor, a spokesman for the Swedish Nobel committee; and unless my hearing is beyond repair, he announced that I was to be the recipient of the Soldier of the Century award. Since this broadcast, and the reporting of it, will undoubtedly be seen by millions of people throughout the civilized world, I submit that a fabrication is unthinkable.”

  “The ultimate permanent sting,” said Cyrus M softly. “I tried to explain that to your colleagues, Miss R. and Mr. D.”

  “Try again with me, Colonel.”

  “To repeat myself, I’m not a colonel, General—”

  “And I’m not the Soldier of the Century,” broke in Hawkins. “I assume you care to repeat that, too.”

  “You may be entitled to that honor, sir, but it would never come from anyone associated with the Nobel committee.”

  “What?”

  “Let me spell it out for you so there’s no misunderstanding.”

  “Are you, by chance, an attorney?” interrupted Aaron Pinkus.

  “No, but among other pursuits, I am a chemist.”

  “A chemist?” asked the further-stunned Hawkins. “Then what the hell do you know about anything?”