by Mick Farren
Gibson, however, was a lot more interested in Rampton than he was in the theory. "While all this explaining is going on. how about someone explaining to me what exactly Rampton is doing here?"
Rampton looked at Gibson coldly. "I don't see what concern it is of yours, Gibson."
Smith still didn't seem particularly pleased with Rampton. "Rampton is simply here to observe."
"Like observing the sacrifice to Balg?"
"He's here to study our methods."
Gibson smiled in disbelief. "That seems about as plausible as the CIA taking along a Boy Scout to show him how they work. What did they promise you, Sebastian? To make you king of the hill back in our dimension once they're finished with this one?"
Rampton only kept his temper under control with some difficulty. "At least I'm not begging for my life."
"Don't speak too soon, Jack. You may be yet."
Smith had had quite enough of this. "Really, Gibson, the reasons for Rampton's being here don't concern you."
Rampton's face broke into a faint sneer. "Ever heard the phrase 'need to know,' Joe?"
"The only thing that I need to know is that he isn't going to be coming up behind me at some crucial moment."
Smith put a final stop to the exchange. "You have our assurance on that."
"I seem to be getting a lot of assurances. "
Rampton laughed. "What did you call it, Gibson? A conspiracy of mistrust?"
For the next three days, the streamheat were as good as their word. Gibson was taken by car to various locations in the city and expected to perform simple tasks under the watchful eyes of either French, Burroughs, or Wellcome. He was sent to walk down a specific block, or through the lobby of a building. On one occasion, he had to walk into the offices of a bank and exchange briefcases with a man in a dark suit. Gibson assumed that all this was probably being filmed or photographed or at least watched by a third party who might serve as a witness at some point in the future. Gibson knew that these actions were probably digging him deep and that he was setting up a lot of stuff that could backfire on him if anything went sour. This was an eventuality, however, that he tried not to dwell on. For the moment, he was alive and functioning and that was what counted when you were living on a one-day-at-a-time basis. The fact that he didn't have a solitary clue regarding the relevance of any of the things that he was doing was something else that he preferred not to ponder.
Before the first of these excursions, Gibson had created a fuss about how exactly they expected an albino to impersonate a normal man, no matter how much alike they might look in every other respect. Fortunately, this problem had been anticipated. A makeup artist was brought in, an attractive Luxor native who looked a little like Elizabeth Taylor, who spent a half hour transforming him but didn't seem too pleased that she was hired.to help some dirty albino pass as blue.
While all this was going on, Gibson was totally insulated from the outside world. The streamheat made sure that nothing came to him except through them. He saw no television, and, even when he passed a newsstand, the knowledge that Smith, Burroughs, or Wellcome probably had a gun on him didn't encourage him to pause to even look at the pictures on the banner front pages of the newspapers. Thus it came as something of a surprise to be told, as he was returning from an afternoon of posing for photographs in front of a brick wall at some abandoned industrial site, holding a rifle and looking belligerent, that the assassination would take place in the morning.
"As soon as that? I thought it wasn't for a week or more." Gibson had no tangible facts on which to base this assumption. He had just been hoping.
French had smiled one of his contemptuous smiles. "What's the matter, don't you feel ready for it?"
Gibson had scowled. "I don't know what I'm ready for. Shouldn't I be briefed for this? It'd be nice if I knew what I was doing."
"In fact, you won't be briefed until the last moment."
"Security or just keeping old Gibson in the dark as usual?"
"Neither, actually. The truth is that we aren't even sure if we'll need to use you at all. If things go smoothly, we won't."
"That's good news."
"I thought it might be."
Despite French's words, though, a clawing tension built inside Gibson all through the evening. He was no longer locked in the small bedroom, and the streamheat had gone so far as to allow him a couple of beers, but that was it, and it hardly made a dent. Unable to read and without a TV to distract him, Gibson found that there was nothing to do except pace, chain-smoke, and stare down at the lights of the cars in the street below. It had gone beyond the level of thinking about it. He wasn't asking himself how or why or what-if any longer; anxiety was a fist-size knot in his stomach, and he had a fist-clenching need to be constantly on the move. The robot state of just doing what he was told, by which he'd been surviving since he'd agreed to cooperate, was a trick that had been used from the dawn of time by those who only stand and wait, but there was a limit to how long he could turn it. He'd reached the point, this final evening, when he simply couldn't pretend anymore, or keep on shifting the fear along with the responsibility. In the morning, he'd be involved in the killing of a president, and that was all she was going to write. His life had become so terrifyingly fragmented that nothing remained on which a hold could be maintained. Mindless motion was the only thing stopping him from coming apart. Finally, even Smith realized that he couldn't go on building up this kind of pressure without something blowing. "Gibson, do you want a tranquilizer? "
"I'd rather have a bottle of Scotch."
"We can't have you hung over in the morning." Down on the street, a black police cruiser was scanning doorways with a spotlight.
Gibson watched until it was gone. "I thought you weren't expecting to have to use me."
"Nothing's settled yet."
"Suppose the local cops have a line on us?"
"They don't. They've been taken care of."
Gibson turned away from the window and paced across the living room. "This shit is starting to get to me. I need a fucking drink."
"Let me give you a shot."
"Will it put me out?"
"It should. You probably won't even dream."
She was already reaching in a drawer for a syringe, a foil-wrapped needle, and a bottle of colorless fluid. "Roll your sleeve up."
Gibson didn't like the idea of being shot up by Smith, but it was worth it if it stopped him twitching. He bared his arm without a word. Doing what he was told seemed to have become habitual.
The drug put Gibson out almost immediately, and he only just made it to the small bedroom before his eyes stopped focusing and their lids began to droop. It didn't stop him dreaming, though, and sleep became an ordeal as his subconscious disgorged a fearful invasion of violent newsreel images, stampeding crowds, screaming mouths, terrified faces, and helpless, ineffectual gestures as flesh tried to ward off bullets.
The images came on relentlessly: huge black cars with Secret Service men swarming all over them, a woman in a pink wool suit crawling back over the trunk of one of them, hand reaching out. Brown hair, a head haloed in the pink spray of its own brains going forward and back, forward and back. Knives slashing, a machete-wielding figure being clubbed to the ground by riot police. Another figure, a wild-eyed, tubercular kid, running alongside an open, horse-drawn carriage. A dead man's pistol shot, and the kid was cut down by the sabers of the hussars, blood spurting, head going backward and forward, backward and forward. And more pistols in the night, pistols in the light of the TV cameras and more shots and more blood, blood matting more brown hair and more hands reaching out, bloodstained white uniforms, and blood running in the gutter, white shirts, dark suits, clubs and sabers swinging, fists hurting, faces blank with shock, screaming. "Get him! Get him!"
And each time he was the assassin. He was always the assassin. Eternal, now and forever, world without end, universe of pain.
"Amen."
"Get him!" "Get him!"
&nbs
p; Twice Gibson woke sweating, fearing psych attack but knowing that the nightmares were only the creations of the terror in the black bilges of his own mind.
And then it was morning and Klein was sitting on the bed, holding out a cup of coffee. "Are you okay, Joe? You were screaming during the night."
Gibson struggled and sat up.
"Yeah, yeah. I guess so. I've been having nightmares ever since this thing got started."
He took the coffee and sipped it tentatively.
"What time is it?"
"Six A.M."
"What's happening?"
"I'm afraid I have some bad news."
Gibson lowered the coffee with a sinking feeling in his stomach. "What?"
"Zwald is dead."
"Huh?"
"He tried to back out at the last minute."
"Back out of the assassination?"
"Right."
"I know how he felt."
"Raus's people killed him."
"What did they do? Feed him to Balg?"
Klein shook his head. "I believe they shot him."
Gibson beamed as though the sun had just come up in a blaze of glory and a great weight had slipped from his shoulders. "I don't want to come on like I'm self-obsessed or anything, and I'm sure it's real bad news for the late Leh Zwald, but what does this mean for me? The assassination is canceled, right? So you don't need me anymore, right?"
Klein wasn't smiling. "The assassination hasn't been canceled, Joe."
The sun went out and the weight crashed back onto Gibson like a cement overcoat. "What?"
"The assassination is still on. There are two other shooters, don't forget."
"What happens to me?"
"I'm afraid you're going to have to play the assassin."
Gibson feit sick. "I can't do that. I'll never hold together."
"All you have to do is to walk through the moves that Zwald was going to make. It's no different from what you've been doing already, and you'll be covered every inch of the way."
Gibson started slowly, shaking his head. He felt as though he was going into shock. "No."
"It's very simple. All you have to do is walk into a building, ride up in the elevator, wait awhile, then ride back down again and leave. Once you're clear of the immediate area you'll be pulled out, and Zwald's body produced as that of the lone assassin. All you have to do is allow yourself to be spotted by a few witnesses and that's it."
"That's it? Aren't you forgetting the fact that the president of the country will be shot between this going in and coming out? Won't that make this getaway a little difficult, particularly if I'm pretending to be the assassin?"
"It'll be a total chaos right after the shooting. No one will imagine you're the assassin until well after the fact. Remember that Raus controls most of the news media. He'll make sure that everything is pinned on the late Leh Zwald. Besides, French will be with you every step of the way."
French's voice came from the doorway. "Doesn't that fill you with confidence, Gibson, that I'll be right beside you?"
Gibson was shaking his head again. "I'm not doing this."
French leaned against the doorjamb. He was wearing duty tan workman's coveralls and holding another set, which he tossed onto the bed in front of Gibson. "Put those on and cut out the dramatics."
"I'm telling you, I'm not doing this."
French straightened up and put one hand in his pocket. "I'm going to keep this real simple, Joe." He pulled out a large revolver of local design, not unlike the one that Gibson had fired in Raus's shooting gallery, and pointed it at Gibson. "You see this gun, Joe? Regular pistol, no fancy technology, straight bullet in the brain, right? Well, that's exactly what you're going to get if you're not out of that bed and into those coveralls in the next thirty seconds. You understand me?"
Gibson sighed. "I understand you."
Watched by French and Klein, Gibson crawled from the bed and began pulling on the coveralls. His only thought was that it was a sorry set of clothes in which to die.
French hadn't finished with him. "I'm going to have the same gun all the way through the operation, and if I have the slightest feeling that you're trying to screw things up, I use it on you. You understand that?"
Anger came to Gibson's rescue. "Yes, I understand it. Death is real easy to grasp."
French nodded and then looked at Klein. "Okay, give him his shot."
"Shot? What shot?"
"A stimulant, to help you through."
"Not more goddamned speed?"
Klein was preparing the needle. "No, something of ours. It has a long complicated name, but usually it's called hero serum."
The needle went into his arm, and within seconds Gibson was feeling a whole lot better, light-headed and reckless. Rolling down the sleeve of his coveralls, he followed French into the living room. He was seeing things from a detached, insulated point of view that had to be an effect of the drug. He noticed a line of local script, presumably the name of a company, was stenciled across the back of French's coveralls, and Gibson presumed that his carried the same name and that they'd be posing as workmen.
Beyond the living room windows, the first gray dawn was creeping over the city and the sky was streaked with high pink clouds. It looked as though it was going to be a fine day. What was the Indian saying, "It's a fine day to die." Lights were burning in some of the apartment buildings nearby, others rising early or nighthawks not yet ready to give up and go to bed. It was all so damned normal. He wanted thunder in the distance and portents of doom. His mind wandered further. Somewhere out there, the president was sipping his coffee or talking on the phone, maybe dressing, maybe, at that very moment, splashing water on his face and blinking at his reflection in a bathroom minor, readying himself for the parade through Luxor and unknowingly readying himself for death.
French, briskly getting down to business, put a stop to Gibson's speculations. "Do you want to eat?"
Gibson quickly shook his head. "No."
"I didn't think you would. The hero serum tends to suppress the appetite." He pointed to a small collection of objects that had been placed on a side table: two packs of cigarettes, Leh Zwald's wallet, some loose change, and a couple of packs of matches.
"Put that stuff in your pockets."
"What's this, my junior assassin's kit?"
French ignored the remark. "Is there anything else that you want?"
"I want a drink."
French didn't argue and called out to Klein. "Get Gibson a large shot of whiskey."
Gibson flipped open the wallet. It contained Leh Zwald's ID and a bundle of notes. Gibson didn't count it, as at that moment Klein had come into the room with a generous measure of booze in a tumbler. Gibson took the glass gratefully and downed its contents in two swallows. When he spoke, the words came out as a hoarse gasp. "Damn but that's better."
He glanced at French. "What about my makeup?"
"The woman will be here momentarily."
The makeup woman was as good as French's word. In a matter of minutes, the door buzzer sounded and Klein let her in. She quickly rendered Gibson blue and left again. After she'd left, Gibson was thoughtful. "Aren't you running a risk using her? I mean, she could talk. She knows that I'm an albino."
French didn't look in the least perturbed. "She won't talk."
"She won't?"
"As we speak, she's being picked up by Raus's people on her way out of the building."
"What's going to happen to her?"
French was putting things in his own pockets. "That's none of your concern."
"Are you saying that she's going to be killed? Christ, she was an attractive young woman and has nothing to do with any of this."
"She was a drug addict, deliberately selected because of that. No one cares what happens to them."
Gibson's expression was grim. "Oh, of course. No one cares about drug addicts, do they?"
French gestured to the door. "Shall we go?"
"Where are we going
?"
"I'll explain in the car."
On the way down to the street, another question came up.
"Where are Smith and Rampton?"
"Smith has duties elsewhere. I don't know what Rampton might be up to."
"How come he isn't along on this little junket? Shouldn't he be observing or something?"
French scowled. For once, he seemed to agree with Gibson's sentiments. "I don't think Rampton does field work."
A beat-up blue car that was completely in keeping with the two men's blue-collar image was parked at the curb. French got behind the wheel, and they pulled out into the stream of traffic. French talked as he drove. "We are heading for a warehouse building across town. It belongs to the Crown Electrical Company, and the reason that we're going there is that it overlooks the point where Lancer's motorcade will pass through Craven Plaza."
Gibson nodded. "This is the building that Zwald was going to shoot from? "
"Exactly. It was arranged some four weeks ago that Zwald would go to work there. We're going to park the car in the employees' lot and go into the building just like two regular guys on their way to work. From the moment that you enter the building, you will be Zwald. Fortunately, he kept very much to himself and it's unlikely that anyone will engage you in anything but the briefest conversation."
"What if they do?"
"Make an excuse, say that you're busy and have to be somewhere."
"Wouldn't that appear a little weird?"
"Not for Zwald, believe me. He was weird, you can take my word for that."
"So what do I do once I'm inside the building?"
"You punch in just like anyone else. I know you can't read but I'll indicate which card to use. After you've punched in, we take the elevator up to the sixth floor. Turn right out of the elevator and the fourth door along the corridor will be that of a large, empty storeroom. We go inside and wait."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"And you'll be with me?"
French smiled nastily. "I'll be right behind you, Gibson. There's no way you'll be able to give me the slip."
Gibson sighed. "I think you've made that point."
"So, is there anything else you need to know?"