There is one thing,said Rick, ‘and if you ever thought you’d hear a one-time card-carrying member of the Weather Underground say this … well, I wouldn’t believe you. But the one thing you can relate to is the American Constitution. What it says in the Constitution is what we’re fighting for now. And everything you learned in school. John Paul Jones, Sam Houston, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington. The spirit lives on - and always will do. They still have their own heroes in Poland, remember. They still remember Imre Nagy in Hungary.’ Softly, Kathy said, ‘What are we going to do?’ There’s nothing we can do, except go on fighting. If you want to join in, you’re welcome.’ Daniel said, ‘The risk - ‘
‘Is very high,’ Rick interrupted. ‘You saw for yourself today what Ikon’s hit-men can do. It was only by plain old California luck that we managed to get away.’ ‘Why were you so keen on capturing Skellett?’ ‘He’s a leading agent of theirs, that’s why. And he has a reputation for being one of the most vicious. We’ll take him out to the Mojave Movie Ranch, that’s where we usually take any Soviet infiltrators we capture. We’ll interrogate him; and then I guess we’ll probably kill him.’ ‘That’s murder.’
‘You think so? There are dozens of agents like Skellett, and they’re all as cold-blooded as anybody can be. They’ve got Siberian ice-water in their veins.’ ‘Is he Russian?’
‘Some of them are, not him. The Soviets have a programme of recruitment from most of the major American penitentiaries. They pick the real hard nuts and train them in weapons and unarmed combat to make them even harder. Some of them are kind of weird, you know, head-cases. That’s why you get the occasional well-publicized mass-murder, or shoot-out. And we’ve believed for about a year now that there’s something of a power struggle going on inside the Soviet committee, and that some of Ikon’s agents have become polarized to another leader. Ikon is obviously ruthless, but there’s some evidence now that one or two agents are acting even more violently and even more openly than Ikon’s men usually do. It could be that one of the Soviet leaders is trying to
show Ikon up, or threaten him in some way. We don’t know, and that’s why I want to interrogate Skellett.’
‘Do you think he’ll tell you anything?’
‘I don’t know. Some of them do. We’ve captured maybe six in the past three years. But some of the new agents are like kamikaze pilots, completely indoctrinated to the point where they’ll shoot themselves just to annoy you.’
‘I saw one like that,’ said Kathy. ‘A young man in Arizona, who packed his own intestines with explosives and blew himself up, simply to give Skellett time to escape.’
‘Some way to go, huh?’ nodded Rick.
Later, Daniel went into Susie’s room and watched her sleeping. Her hair was spread on the pillow, one hand was clutching the sheet, as if to prevent herself from falling into some dark and unwanted dream. Daniel wondered how he would ever be able to explain to her that America was no longer free, that within her lifetime she may be a slave to Communism, that the land he had hoped to give her as her birthright had been forfeited before she had even been born.
‘My daddy is dead, but I can’t tell you how
He left me six horses to follow the plow.
I sold my six horses to buy me a cow;
And wasn’t that a pretty thing to follow the plow?
I sold my cow to buy me a cat,
To sit down before the fire to warm her little back.
I sold my cat to buy me a mouse,
But she took fire in her tail and burn’d down my house.
With my whim wham waddle ho!’
Susie stirred. Daniel closed the bedroom door, although he stood outside for a long time, listening, keeping guard.
Thirty-Two
Nadine came back to the house at midnight that night to find that Titus was still up, sitting by himself in the library, drinking the bottle of 1924 brandy which had been given him by President Giscard d’Estaing of France, and which he had always sworn he would never open. He raised his head in some surprise as she came through the door, and stood there in her smart grey-flecked dress, her gloves upraised in one hand, her hat at an angle so that the brim shadowed her face.
‘Well,’ he said gruffly, ‘you’ve got a goddammed nerve. I’m surprised they let you in.’
‘Don’t worry. They’ve probably called the FBI already.’
Titus said, ‘You killed those people, all of them. You actually killed them.’
‘You won’t find any proof. Nor will you ever find your precious videos again.’
‘God damn it, Nadine. I know you killed those people.’
‘What you know and what you can prove are two very different things. Now, since you’ve opened up your precious bottle of 1924 brandy, aren’t you going to offer any to me?’
A security guard arrived breathlessly in the hallway outside, and knocked on the panelling.
‘Mr Secretary? Are you okay?’
‘It’s just as well that I am,’ growled Titus. ‘If she’d had any intention of killing me, I would have been well dead by now.’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’
‘You’re sorry? Get back to your station.’
Titus poured Nadine a small measure of brandy and held it out to her, without getting up from his chair. Nadine came forward with an arch smile and took it.
‘I’m sorry it had to happen this way,’ she said. ‘You didn’t leave me with any alternative.’
‘I’ve been hearing a lot of people saying that lately.’
‘You seem angry.’
‘I am angry. I’m also sick, confused, bewildered, frightened, disoriented, upset, and tired.’
‘That’s quite a list.’
Titus swallowed the remaining liquor in his glass, stared at the bottle, and then poured himself another one, much larger this time. ‘What the hell, it’s only brandy.’
Nadine sniffed it. ‘It’s very fine.’
Titus said, ‘Yesterday afternoon I went down to Boiling Air Force Base and spoke to my old friend Pierce Caulfield.’
‘General Caulfield? I know him,
‘You should. He’s one of your stooges. He’s known about Ikon since 1974, and do you know something, he’s never once breathed a word about it. Never once! God damn it all, I’ve been to dinner with that man, gone fishing with him, attended his stupid daughter’s wedding, and all the time he knew about Ikon and he never told me!’
Nadine sat down on the floor, and rested one hand on Titus’ knee. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a remarkable husband, even if we have argued all the time. An unparalleled lover. And you’re the best Secretary of State that America ever had.’
‘America?’ asked Titus, bitterly. ‘The Autonomous Capitalist Oblast of Sod-all.’
Nadine said, ‘Joe was one of ours too, you know.’
Titus stared at her; and then said, ‘Really?’ and then ‘Mmh’, as if he didn’t care at all. He had already suffered the greatest disenchantment, a few minor betrayals didn’t seem to make very much difference.
I wasn’t going to leave you, you know,’ said Nadine.
‘I think I’d prefer it if you did.’
I want you to come and meet Ikon.’
‘You want what?’
Tomorrow morning, I want you to come and meet Ikon. I want you to see what he’s like, talk to him, and understand his problems. Ikon needs all the help he can get right now, and whatever you think about the Capitalist Oblast of America, Ikon is the lesser of two evils. I think you have a duty to help him survive.’
‘I’ll tear his goddammed Commie head off.’
Titus, please. I’m trying to help.’
‘How can you help?’ Titus shouted at her. ‘How can you possibly help? My entire life was flushed down some sneaky historical toilet when I wasn’t looking, and for twenty years I’ve been marching forward with my head in the air and my pants round my goddammed ankles. How the hell can you help?’
‘Titus -
‘
‘Leave me alone, Nadine, for the love of God. I’ve got a bottle of brandy to finish.’
‘Titus, please.’
Titus shook his head, again and again and again, until his jowls wobbled. Then he stamped both feet on the floor and roared, ‘No! No! No! No! No!’
Nadine put down her drink, stood up quietly, and left him. On the way out, the security guard said, ‘Everything all right, Mrs Alexander?’
‘Everything’s fine, thank you. Oh - and could you do something for me? Could you arrange for Mr Alexander’s car to be waiting outside for us at ten o’clock tomorrow morning? We have an appointment on Pennsylvania Avenue.’
The security guard glanced into the library where Titus was glowering at the floor as if he could make the rug catch fire by the heat of his vision alone. ‘Sure thing, Mrs Alexander/ he said, in a cautious voice. ‘Ten o’clock sharp.’
Thirty-Three
Two other incidents occurred at midnight that night, although in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the Pacific Time Zone, midnight came three hours later. A chambermaid from the Las Vegas Futura Hotel left the hotel’s service entrance and walked north-eastwards along the alleyway which led out on to Bonanza Road, where she intended to catch a cab to take her home. Her cleaning shift had finished at 11:15 p.m., but she had spent three-quarters of an hour in the hotel kitchen, talking to a friend who had recently divorced her husband and eating a supper of cold ham, cheese, and salad.
She was halfway along the alleyway when a voice called out, ‘Anna!’ She turned around to say, T’m not Anna,’ when there was a deafening shotgun blast, then another. The shots were fired at such close range that she was completely eviscerated, and she died before she fell to the ground. The Chinese night-chef, who had heard the shots, came running out to the alleyway to find it plastered spectacularly in blood. But there was no sign of the chambermaid’s killer; only an inquisitive cat which had jumped away when the gun first went off, and had now returned to sniff the warm scent of death.
At home, on the scrubby edge of the Nevada desert, the chambermaid’s husband lay awake, waiting for the familiar sound of the cab bringing his wife back from town. The radio beside his bed was turned down low, so that it wouldn’t wake up the children. It played Stand By Your Man, by Tammy Wynette, and he whistled along i it, under his breath.
He had never known that two years ago his wife had caught a glimpse of Senator Marshall Roberts leaving Room 1198 of the Futura Hotel with a high-class hooker known as Rheta Haze. He never would know. But, in about twenty minutes’ time, he would hear the warble-idibble-warble of a police siren as a patrol-car sped out
along the desert road to bring him the news that his wife was dead. He would see the red light flashing across his bedroom ceiling and know, before they told him, that something had gone terribly wrong.
Also at midnight, the President of the United States Marshall Roberts was undressing for bed when there was a ring on his private telephone. He called to his wife, ‘It’s all right, dear, I’ll get it,’ and walked across the white-carpeted bedroom, unbuttoning his cuffs as he went. He picked up the Louis Quinze-style telephone, and said, ‘Marshall Roberts.’
‘Good evening, Mr President,’ said a thick voice. “This is Nikolai. Please forgive me for calling you so late.’
‘Not at all,said Marshall, although without much patience. ‘What can I do for you, Nikolai?’
‘I couldn’t sleep, Mr President.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘Well, I have my tablets. But it is not the pain … I have a feeling of fear, Mr President. I feel like Caesar before the Ides of March.’
‘Is it Kama you’re worried about?’
‘I’m not sure. I’ve never felt like this before, not in my entire career. Mr President, do you think perhaps that tonight is the night when I am going to die?’
‘Don’t talk nonsense. You’re probably over-tired.’
‘Perhaps.’ There was a breathy pause. Then Ikon said, ‘You know that the RING talks may now proceed. All opposition has been completely eliminated.’
The chambermaid?’
‘Later tonight. But there won’t be any slip-ups.’
‘I see. Well, I’ll start drafting the announcement tomorrow.’
There was another, longer pause. Marshall Roberts said, ‘Is that all, Nikolai? I’m quite tired. I’d like to get some sleep now.’
‘I’m afraid, Mr President. Don’t you think that’s strange?’
‘Not in your position, not at your time of life.’
‘But I’m afraid.’
‘Have a drink. Some of that cherry vodka of yours. Then count sheep. Or blessings.’
‘What blessings do , have, Mr President?’
‘You’re still alive, Nikolai. That’s a blessing. And the world hasn’t yet been incinerated by nuclear weapons. That’s another blessing. And, if you like, I’ll stop by at Pennsylvania Avenue tomorrow afternoon and share a drink with you.’
‘Very well, said Ikon, with audible uncertainty. Then, ‘Very well, I will try to sleep. But this feeling I have … of death. It makes me cold!’
Try an electric blanket, suggested Marshall Roberts, and hung up.
Thirty-Four
That night, as Daniel lay in bed, he heard the door creak open. He froze, and reached across for the three-foot long section of angle-iron which he had left beside his bedhead. The room was utterly dark, except for a single yellow wedge of light, the size of a piece of cheese, on the opposite side of the ceiling.
Who’s there?’ Daniel whispered. His nose had been feeling slightly blocked up, which was one reason he had been finding it difficult to sleep; but now his sinuses emptied instantly. His balls tightened, and there was a flicker of nerves in his stomach.
‘It’s me,’ came the whispered reply. ‘Kathy. Can I come in?’
Daniel let out a breath, and relaxed. ‘For God’s sake, I could have killed you. What do you want?’
She tiptoed across the room and leaned over him. He saw dimly the shape of her breasts, and realized that she was naked. She smelled of Cie. ‘I can’t get to sleep in that room, right next to the bathroom. Skellett keeps banging his head against the wall and making terrible groaning noises.’
‘Well, jump in here, then.’
She lifted the cover and bounced in beside him, taking him immediately into her arms. She was warm and rounded and soft, but her nipples were as stiff and sweet and wrinkled as California dried plums. She thrust one leg in between Daniel’s legs, so that she was straddling his thigh; and the message of that move was obvious when he felt the night-cooled stickiness of her pubic hair against his bare skin. He said, ‘Kathy?’ But questions were unnecessary. His cock rose against her stomach until it was pushing against her navel; and he took her face in her hands and kissed her, deeply and urgently.
‘Don’t let’s wait,’ she gasped. ‘Please don’t let’s wait.’
He twisted around in the bedsheets, and climbed on top of her. She reached down and held his erection in her hand, and guided it up between her legs. He hesitated for a second, and then pushed slowly forward so that he slid deep into her slippery warmth, until it was impossible for him to push any deeper.
‘Fuck me, she demanded, digging her fingernails into the muscles at the small of his back. ‘I don’t want to think, I don’t want to do anything. I just want to fuck.’
They made love for nearly an hour, strenuously and sometimes furiously. She cursed him and cooed at him, stroked him and bit him. She forced her hips up against him whenever he began to falter, and coaxed him into one erection after another. Then the moment came when she was straddling him, pushing herself up and down on him so quickly that with each upward stroke she almost lost the tip of his penis. And in that moment she seemed to collapse like a convolvulus flower, like a dark warm wind drawing in on itself, and she trembled and shook and cried out to him, ‘Daniel, save me! Daniel!’
They lay for a long time side by side in si
lence. It had
all happened so quickly that they had to turn it over in their minds, from the moment when Kathy had first opened the door, and Daniel had reached for his homemade billy-club. Kathy said, after a while, ‘You’re thinking what a whore I am.’
‘A whore? No? Exactly the opposite. Whores do it for money. You did it because you wanted to.’
‘And you?’
I did it because I like you, and because I think you’re very pretty, and very attractive, and because you’re exactly my type.’
‘I thought country-and-western heroines were your type.’
‘Isn’t a man allowed to change his type?’
‘A man’s allowed to do anything he wants to. But then so is a woman.’
Daniel reached across her and switched on the bedside lamp. ‘Do you want a drink or anything? I don’t think I’m going to be able to sleep tonight. I keep thinking about Ikon.’
She kissed his shoulder. ‘You know something …
when I went out to report on Margot Schneider’s murder
I never dreamed it would lead to anything like this.’
‘Neither did Willy Monahan. God, if only he’d known.’
‘Poor Willy.’
‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘Poor Willy.’
Kathy stroked the inside of his upraised arm. ‘You know something?’ she said, ‘I liked the look of you the moment I first met you. Did anyone tell you how attractive you are, as a man? You have this beautiful face. You look sensitive, but you look strong, too.’
He leaned forward and kissed her. ‘I’m not always strong. I haven’t been particularly strong over the past few years.’
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