The Almighty

by Irving Wallace

  They were barging into the lobby, and Victoria was right behind them.

  She squeezed into the elevator, apologizing to Crawford. "I've got to be there."

  Breaking into the sixth-floor foyer, Crawford held his men until the other half of the arrest detail came up the staircase. Crawford ordered these arrivals to stand guard. He raised his hand, and signaled the rest into the city room.

  Victoria dashed ahead, followed by Crawford and his squad. The room was full, buzzing with activity when they entered and moved purposefully between the endless desks toward the executive offices in the rear. Gradually all work ceased as editors, reporters, rewrite men remained motionless and curious, watching the steady march of the five of them through the vast room to the publisher's office.

  Passing her own desk, Victoria heard her telephone ringing. She tried to ignore it, then saw someone else pick it up.

  "For you, Vicky," the reporter called to her.

  "Not now," said Victoria.

  "He says you'll want to hear. He says his name is Sy Rosenbloom."

  Victoria stopped, looked at Crawford. Victoria said, "A second. It must be about—Air Force One." She hurried to the phone, listened briefly, felt her strained facial muscles beginning to relax.

  She returned to Crawford's side, face wreathed in a smile. "Air Force One made it," she said. "Interceptors shot down Armstead's terrorist."

  Crawford's crooked teeth revealed his pleasure. "Okay, then we only have to wrap it up."

  The march resumed. Victoria preceded them into Estelle Rivkin's reception room. Estelle brought her head up from the typewriter and tried to understand the interruption. "What do you want?"

  "Is Mr. Armstead in?" demanded Victoria.

  "He was. He's in, but he may be with Mr. Dietz. Let me ring him."

  Crawford stepped forward. "Don't lift a finger, lady. We'd like to surprise your boss." His head made a gesture toward Armstead's door.

  Victoria threw the door open, heart beating faster as she watched the police hurry into the publisher's office. Then she went inside, in time to hear Captain Crawford announce, "No one here."

  At that instant the door across the room opened, the door into the corridor that led to Dietz's office, and there was Edward Arm-stead holding aloft some sheets of paper, his head turned as he laughed jubilantly at Dietz behind him. Victoria thought there was someone else, too, partially visible, possibly Pagano. Arm-stead was still laughing, speaking to Dietz over his shoulder.

  "Greatest electronic contraption I ever heard of. Jacklin said he heard the midair explosion clear as day. Now we've got the big one. I'm—"

  "Chief," Dietz croaked. "Turn around—"

  Puzzled, Armstead swung around and saw the police. "What in the hell is this?"

  Crawford took a step toward him. "Edward Armstead, you are under arrest for criminal conspiracy and attempted murder."

  Victoria emerged from behind the other police, and stood beside Crawford. Armstead had not been aware of her before and his eyes widened.

  "We got out, Hannah and I. We told it all." Victoria was having difficulty with her voice, but she went on. "You've got no story. The explosion you heard about was the explosion of your kamikaze, shot down by interceptors. Air Force One is safe."

  Armstead was shaking his head in disbelief, looking wildly at everyone in the room with the glazed eyes of a lunatic, backing away slowly, until he had backed against the sliding doors to his balcony.

  "Read him his rights, boys, and then book him!" Crawford called out.

  "No!" Armstead shrieked, yanking the sliding doors wide open and whirling around toward the balcony.

  Crawford instinctively whipped out his service revolver and was taking aim when Victoria grabbed at his wrist. "Don't—don't kill him. His wife, she— He has no place to go out there. He's sick, crazy."

  The detective was staring at Armstead. "Look at him. Nuttier than a fruitcake."

  Armstead was climbing to the top of the cement parapet. He was teetering on the narrow railing.

  "I can't let him," growled Crawford, moving toward the balcony. Victoria was running alongside the detective, calling out to Armstead, "Let them help you! They want to help you!"

  Swaying there on the railing, Armstead knotted his right hand into a fist and shook it at Victoria. "You—you bitch—you'll never make a reporter—ruining the story of the century! All of you—leave me alone—I want to see my old man! I need him!"

  With that, he stepped off the balcony rail into space and plummeted out of sight.

  Victoria screamed, but he was gone. She stumbled onto the balcony. Crawford was already there, bent over the railing, peering down at the street: six stories below. As Victoria came up to him, Crawford firmly turned her away. "It's a long way down. You wouldn't want to see what happened."

  "He's dead."

  "Very."

  They had left the balcony for the office when they were startled by a gunshot reverberating in the corridor beyond the door that Armstead had left open.

  Two policemen dashed into the corridor in the direction of the sound, and Crawford and Victoria followed them into the corridor. The police had hurried into the next office, and one of them quickly emerged. "The guy in here—suicide—shot himself in the head."

  Crawford looked at Victoria. "Who is he?"

  "Armstead's assistant. Harry Dietz."

  Crawford grunted. "They've sure saved the state a lot of trouble."

  Later, after Dietz's body had been removed and Crawford was leaving, Victoria caught up with the detective as they entered the city room.

  "Tim," Victoria said. "About Mr. Armstead's fall—"

  "Yes?"

  "It was an accident, you know."

  Crawford stared at her a long time. At last he gave a short shrug. "Could have been. Whatever you say. It's your story now.',

  He walked off.

  After the immediate sensation, and the tumult, and the questions, and her lies, Victoria was left alone to write her story.

  But not right away. There was one more thing to be done. She picked up the telephone and placed a call to Sid Lukas's Paris apartment.

  Lukasanswered the phone himself.

  She started right in about Carlos, but Lukas stopped her. "Vicky, I've got to tell you, Edward Armstead doesn't believe you saw Carlos and made it clear he doesn't want me to pursue the story."

  She hesitated, considering telling Sid Lukas the full truth, that there was no Edward Armstead anymore. She decided against it. This would only divert him from what she wanted him to do, require explanations when there was no time to lose. Lukas would learn what had happened to Armstead soon enough. Right now, the subject was Carlos.

  "Sid," she replied, "Armstead doesn't want you to pursue the story because it's Armstead's own terrorist gang that has Carlos."

  "What? What are you saying?"

  "You heard me. Don't make me explain. Don't waste a minute. You'll know about everything in the morning. Just believe me that Edward Armstead turned terrorism into a big business. Have the Sûreté pursue Armstead's gang, and Carlos. Tell the Sûreté to get to No. 3 Rue Jacob as fast as possible. I'll fill you in on the rest tomorrow, I promise. But do something, Sid, soon as you can."

  "If this is a false alarm, Vicky, it'll ruin me with Armstead and the Sireté."

  "They'll decorate you, Sid, I guarantee it. Go to it, this minute. Will you?"

  "Okay, Vicky. No. 3 Rue Jacob."

  Done.

  Hanging up, she pulled her chair closer to the desk. Now, the story.

  It was to be tomorrow's lead front-page story, unless Air Force One chose to announce its own close call. Victoria, at the keys of her word processor, went to work, working hard on it, writing and rewriting.

  Several hours passed. The editorial room thinned out, quieted down, and it was late afternoon when Victoria was through with the story. She punched the printer beside the word processor, and the final draft was automatically typed out.

&n
bsp; Tearing it free, Victoria leaned back in her chair and reread it one final time.

  The story of the Almighty's accidental fall to his death, at the peak of a distinguished career. His life. His achievements. His instinct for news. His memorable exclusive stories.

  All of that. Nothing else. Hannah had implored someone to be kind.

  Victoria rolled up the story.

  Hannah's legacy.

  Drained, Victoria managed to get to her feet. With weariness, she trudged to Ollie McAllister's coop. He was hunched over his desk, studying copy for the first edition to go.

  He glanced up. "Got it?"

  "All done," said Victoria. She tossed the pages on his desk. "Long day. Good night."

  She walked slowly through the editorial room. Outside the end alcove, she could hear the Teletypes clattering away. She paused to go inside the wire room, making her way to the machine that was spewing out the latest news from Europe via London. She watched the automatic keys hitting the roll of paper, which cascaded to the floor. She picked up the stream of paper that had already been printed out, seeking a Paris dateline.

  There it was, second story from the top.

  BULLETIN MATTER . . . FIRST LEAD PARIS . . . TONIGHT THE FRENCH SÛRETE RAIDED A LEFT BANK HIDEOUT OF THE LEGENDARY TERRORIST CARLOS, WHO SUCCESSFULLY ESCAPED MINUTES BEFORE POLICE BROKE INTO HIS APARTMENT. HE HAD BEEN HIDING WITH ANOTHER TERRORIST GROUP LED BY SOMEONE KNOWN ONLY AS COOPER. MEMBERS OF THIS GROUP, ALONG WITH COOPER, ALSO SUCCEEDED IN EVADING POLICE. ONE MEMBER WHO HAD LINGERED BEHIND TO DESTROY EVIDENCE, AND HAD BEEN MORTALLY WOUNDED, GAVE HIS NAME AS PETER QUICGS, OF LEEDS, ENGLAND. HE CONFESSED BEFORE DYING THAT THE COOPER GANG HAD BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR MANY RECENT TERRORIST ACTS. SÛRETE INVESTIGATING FURTHER. . . XXX MORE.

  Victoria dropped the Teletype printout.

  Someone had alerted Cooper just before the raid, allowing Cooper to release Carlos and escape himself with most of his men.

  Someone had got to them first.

  Of course, someone was Gus Pagano. She was sure that she had seen him with Armstead and Dietz. Afterward, she had not seen him at all. He had got away. She knew that she would never see him again. He was not the Almighty. He was the Survivor.

  She heard her name, and saw that it was Ollie McAllister outside the Teletype alcove, holding her story. She went to him.

  McAllister was shaking the story and studying her owlishly.

  "Vicky, it says here—it was an accident. Is that true?"

  She met his eyes. "Ollie. I was there. I say it's true. I think the new owners of the paper—Hannah Armstead and Roger—would agree with me."

  "Then, it is true," said McAllister.

  Victoria made to leave, when the managing editor's hand caught her. "One more thing."

  Victoria waited.

  McAllister was tapping the story again. "The by-line here. You want it to stand? It reads 'by Mark Bradshaw."

  "Yes, Ollie." She smiled. "I want it to stand."

  And she left for the elevator.

  One week and one day later.

  The evening of his homecoming. He would be here any minute, and Victoria had begun the celebration by herself.

  She had spruced up the old studio apartment, turned away as workers removed the sofa bed in which Kim Nesbit had died, watched as they replaced it with a fresh new one. She had bathed herself and perfumed herself, and changed into the sheer shift of a nightgown she had saved for a night like this since Paris. The chilled champagne bottle was uncorked on the table beside her, and she reclined against the pillow placed against the back of her new sofa bed, enjoying her fourth glass of champagne while waiting.

  The fourth glass went down quickly, and she was sipping from her fifth glass when she heard the buzzer.

  She set down the goblet, jumped off the bed, running to the door, undoing the elaborate new safety locks, flinging the door wide, knowing it would be he.

  Nick Ramsey, carrying a suitcase and typewriter, grinning, walked in, dropped the suitcase and typewriter, and lifted her up and off the floor.

  They were hugging each other and kissing.

  "You're here, Nick, you're here."

  "You bet I am," he said. "That's quite a getup you're wearing or not wearing."

  "I'll take it off," she said gaily.

  "Not yet," he said, removing his jacket. "Did you save a glass of bubbly for me?"

  "Right here," she said, padding on bare feet to the table and filling the other glass. He had undone his tie, and was unbuttoning his shirt. "You know, Vicky—"

  "You're staying tonight," she said.

  He grinned again. "I thought you'd never ask." He stripped off his shirt. "Where's the bathroom? I see it. Don't move. I'll be right back."

  He disappeared into the bathroom.

  Victoria bounced herself down on the bed, lay on her back admiring her legs, and humming foolishly.

  She'd never felt more light-headed.

  She reached over to get the rest of her fifth drink, then poured her sixth, and feeling drowsy after it, poured her seventh and finished it.

  Five minutes later, Nick Ramsey came out of the bathroom, naked. "Vicky?"

  There was no response. He did a half circle around the bed and looked down at her. She was curled on her side under the blanket, eyes shut, breathing nasally. She was sound asleep. Ramsey glanced at the champagne bottle. Empty. Asleep or passed out.

  Smiling, he let her rest, walked to the other side of the bed, and slid under the blanket beside her. She did not stir. Still smiling, he lay back, closed his eyes, and soon he, too, was asleep.

  In the early morning, they were both awake and sober—but high—higher and happier, in each other's arms, than they had ever been in their entire lives.