by Gayle Wilson
While he was still trying to decide what to say, Robin sat up, propping herself on one elbow. She carried the top sheet with her, holding it in place over her bare breasts with one hand. With the other, she pointed toward the center of her chest, eyebrows raised, and mouthed the word “Me?” He nodded.
“Uncle Jim?” she asked, her voice sounding perfectly normal, and he nodded again. She held her hand out for the phone.
After a second’s hesitation, Jared put the receiver into her palm, and her fingers closed around it to bring it to her ear. The movement seemed hesitant.
“I’m here, Uncle Jim,” she said. And then she listened, her eyes cutting back to meet Jared’s occasionally, but more often seeming to concentrate on the distant frame of the bedroom door. He could tell from the set of her mouth she wasn’t pleased with whatever McCord was saying.
What he couldn’t tell was whether that was because it had something to do with the campaign, with Gus’s death or with the fact that she was again sharing Jared’s bed. All of those possibilities skated in and out of his head as he listened to Robin’s occasional monosyllabic responses.
“I’ll be there,” she said.
His full attention captured by the finality of that phrase, Jared looked up to find she was holding the phone out to him. He took it, reaching across her body to put it back onto its cradle.
“I have to go,” she said.
She had already started to climb out of bed when he grabbed her arm. She stopped, looking back at him and then down on his fingers, which were wrapped tightly around her wrist.
“Was he angry?” Jared asked.
“He was...concerned,” she said carefully.
“I thought this was what he wanted.”
“He wants us to get married,” she corrected, and then, almost involuntarily, considering her previous tone, her lips quirked. “He seemed to have some doubts that this kind of behavior is going to lead us to the altar.”
“Shows how little he knows,” Jared said, smiling at her, relieved by her attitude about her uncle’s lecture.
She didn’t return the smile. Instead, there was a tightness around her lips, and her eyes looked almost as they had last night when she had started that mumbo jumbo about a premonition.
Maybe this was it, he thought. Whatever she thought she’d felt. Maybe she’d simply been anticipating McCord’s reaction when he discovered where she’d spent the night.
“I have to go,” she said again, without answering his comment. “They’re waiting for me.”
“They?”
“Staff meeting.”
He nodded, releasing her. He had promised she could have until New Year’s Eve to finish this up and get out, but somehow the hard reality of having to let her go back to that situation hadn’t hit him last night. He could go with her, but he had a feeling Robin wasn’t going to be willing to have him sit in on a staff meeting. Never mind McCord’s reaction.
Besides, he had to show up at work himself and make arrangements to take the next few days off. He had known all that last night, he supposed, but somehow he hadn’t realized how damned difficult it was going to be to let Robin walk out the door this morning. To let her go back to where people planted explosives on the underside of cars she might be riding in.
“I’ll catch up with you,” he said.
Her head tilted, questioning that.
“I have to report in,” he explained. “Do my shift. Arrange to take my days. Tell me where you’ll be later on.”
“In the suite. Uncle Jim’s suite. At least this morning. After that...” She hesitated, apparently trying to remember her schedule. “After that, I’m not sure.”
“Call me,” he said.
“Here?”
“I’ll give you a number. Leave a message if I’m not available. Do it as soon as you know your plans. I’ll catch up to you.”
She nodded, putting her feet on the floor.
“And take cabs,” he ordered.
She turned back to face him again, her eyes studying his.
“You think they’ll try again?” she asked.
“I think I don’t want you around if they do. Stay out of the senator’s cars. Stay away from him as much as you can. I mean that, Robin. You’ve got another life to consider now.”
“You really think they’re going to try again. You think they’re going to try to kill him before New Year’s Eve.”
He realized that that was exactly what he thought. Somebody who was willing to put that much explosive in a car without being able to verify that their target was even in the car would stop at nothing. And he knew from the note the senator had shown him that they didn’t intend to allow McCord to declare.
He knew all that, and yet, like a fool, he had promised Robin she could keep her job. A job that put her right back in the middle of that mayhem. At least until New Year’s Eve.
“We can’t afford to take the chance that they won’t,” he said softly. “And if they do...” He hesitated, thinking about everything he really wanted, and then he finished, trying to impress on her the importance of this. “I don’t want you—and our baby—anywhere around.”
Chapter Eleven
“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” As Robin opened the door of the suite, the Reverend Avamore’s voice was blaring from the television in the sitting room. She could see the screen, a straight shot down the hall that led from the foyer where she was standing.
Avamore was on a makeshift platform in front of a crowd of his followers, most of whom were clad as he was, in robes and sandals. In contrast to the florid complexion of the preacher, their faces were pinched and blue, suffering in the brutal cold.
“I think our boy’s been promoted,” Paul Farley said.
Robin had started down the hall, and then, hearing Paul’s comment, she hesitated at the threshold of the sitting room, watching its occupants without their being aware of her presence.
“How’s that?” Whitt Emory asked. He was standing beside the windows, pouring sugar into a cup of coffee.
“Last week Avamore had the senator pegged as one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This week, McCord seems to have moved up to being the beast himself. That deadly wound stuff is obviously a reference to McCord’s leg.”
“What beast?” Katie asked, her voice raised so her question could be heard over Avamore’s. “I don’t understand.”
“The Antichrist,” Whitt said, still smiling. “End of the world. You know. Everybody wearing the mark of the beast.”
“Destruction and damnation,” Paul said.
“What’s that got to do with the senator?” Katie asked.
“According to Avamore, when the world economies fail as a result of the computer meltdown,” Paul explained, “one leader will emerge. He’ll challenge and then defeat all the other countries and take control of the world after a massive battle. Armageddon,” he said, his eyes still on the preacher.
He was smiling as he talked. Robin wasn’t sure whether that was because of the ideas embodied in the prophecy itself or because of his opinion of the people he was watching. She couldn’t see anything remotely amusing about either.
“He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword,” the Reverend Avamore’s voice intoned.
“Well, I can sure see where that would fit McCord,” Katie said. She was also smiling, her comment an obvious reference to McCord’s confession about killing his commanding officer.
“Turn it off,” Robin ordered. They looked toward her in surprise. With the noise Avamore was making, none of them had been aware she was there until she spoke. “Turn it off, please,” she said, moderating her tone so it was a request.
Obediently, Paul muted the sound, although the preacher’s image was still on the screen, his hand occasionally raised, chopping the air in a gesture of defiance or admonition.
“Sorry. I forgot he bothers you,”
Paul said.
“He doesn’t bother me,” Robin said. “It’s what he fosters that bothers me.” She put her purse down on the credenza by the door and walked into the sitting room. “Gus was killed last night. It could just as easily have been Uncle Jim. And people like that...” She looked at the figure on the screen. “People like that are responsible for producing a climate of hate so strong that it would cause someone to put that bomb in his car.”
No one said anything. Whitt’s eyes fell to examine the coffee cup he was holding. Katie’s were still focused in fascination on the television. Paul had turned away, so that Robin couldn’t really see his expression. It was obvious, however, that they were embarrassed by her outburst. It didn’t fit with their easy dismissal of people like Avamore as harmless and amusing. Religious nuts. Maybe they were, but there had been nothing amusing about what happened last night.
“What’s going on?” Jim McCord asked. Her uncle was standing in the doorway that led back to the bedroom and bath, looking straight across the room at Robin.
It was obvious he had just showered. His thick hair was still damp and his cheeks flushed from his recent shave. He was wearing a white shirt and a dark striped tie, nicely conservative, but he hadn’t put on his jacket yet. Apparently he had walked out of the bedroom and into the sitting room in time to hear what Robin had been saying.
“Reverend Avamore is now equating you with the beast,” Robin said. “I just said that I thought his kind of...hate mongering is what led to what happened last night.”
“You can’t know that, Robin,” Whitt said reasonably.
“I know someone put a bomb in the limousine. In a car Uncle Jim had been in only minutes before. And now a man is dead. Give me another reason why someone would do something like that.”
“I’m just saying that you can’t be sure that whoever planted that bomb was influenced by anything Avamore’s ever said. Or by anything any of the rest of them are saying, for that matter.”
She couldn’t, of course, but she felt it so strongly that in her own mind she was sure. She might never be able to convince Whitt or the rest, but maybe she could convince her uncle.
“To a lot of people, the stuff he’s talking about...” Robin turned to glance at the screen, where Avamore’s mouth was still moving, his hand rising and falling, before she looked back at her uncle. “It isn’t fantasy. Or even ancient history. It’s fact. Prophecy. You and I have both sat in church and heard those same events foretold all our lives.”
“I’m not saying that the belief that the end of the world is approaching isn’t widespread,” McCord said, “but...for somebody to associate those prophecies with me? How in the world could anyone make that ridiculous leap in logic? And how could anyone take seriously someone who did make it?”
“I think we gave people like Avamore fuel for that fire with our emphasis on the millennium. Especially about you being a leader strong enough to make the hard decisions. A New Leader for the New Millennium.” She repeated the slogan bitterly.
“Here we go again,” Katie said, just loudly enough to be sure Robin could hear her.
“Do you still think I’m overreacting?” Robin asked. “Even after last night?”
“What happened last night was a tragedy,” Whitt said quickly. “And I promise you that every precaution will be taken to ensure that nothing like it happens again.”
“Did you contact the FBI?” she asked.
“The bureau is already involved,” her uncle said.
Surprised, she turned to look at him. “Since when?”
“Since before I left Texas,” he said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ironically, because I didn’t want to worry you.”
That was possible, especially after the news she had given him about her pregnancy. She had hit him with that almost as soon as he’d arrived in New York.
“What do they think about last night?” she asked.
The senator didn’t answer for a few seconds, and Robin realized he would still like to be able to protect her from what was happening, but he must know he couldn’t. She had been even more directly affected by that bomb last night than he had.
“They’re looking into the possibility that someone else from the team might be alive,” he said.
“Someone else? From Vietnam? But...” She paused, confused, trying to understand because it was so important. “Why would someone from the team want to do you harm?” she asked. No one else was saying anything. It was as if the others recognized that this was between Robin and her uncle. Or maybe they had already known all this. “Uncle Jim?”
McCord’s lips pursed a little as if he was thinking about her question, but surely he must already have tried to find a reason why someone on that mission—one of the men whose lives he had saved—might now be trying to kill him.
“It may not be someone from the team. I guess really anybody in the unit...” Again he hesitated, his voice fading away as if he was carefully considering what he wanted to say. And when he spoke again, it was something different “Some folks came out of that war with a whole hell of a lot of antiwar sentiment. Some with a pretty strong anti-U. S. sentiment as well. I didn’t. If anything, being involved with the military, even during Vietnam, made me love and value this country more than ever before. And it made me more promilitary. Not less.”
Again, no one made any response, perhaps because of the emotion in his voice. Perhaps they were remembering, as Robin was, how much that war had cost this man. And remembering how proud he had always been of having served his country.
“But...not all veterans of that war feel the way I do,” McCord added. “Some of them don’t like my stand on improving our combat readiness, because it takes money away from social programs. I acknowledge that. So I guess this doesn’t have to be about Nam. Or even about the military. A lot of people don’t like some of the other things they know I’m going to push for if I get a chance. My issues aren’t secret.
“Or maybe...maybe they just don’t like me,” he admitted softly. “I guess all you’d have to do to verify that is look out in front of this hotel. Listen to what they’re saying. And the strength of those reactions is just the nature of politics today. Anything you believe strongly about, passionately about, somebody else believes just as passionately about the opposite.”
“Enough to try to kill you, Senator?” Paul Farley asked.
“You want a list of politicians somebody has felt passionately enough about to try to kill?” McCord countered. His lips were smiling, but his eyes were completely serious.
Again no one responded. Maybe in their heads were the same images those words created in Robin’s, the old news reels running through her brain. Of the Kennedys. Reagan. Ford. Wallace.
“This doesn’t have to be about the garbage he’s spouting,” McCord said, his eyes cutting to the television. “Or about what any of those others out on the sidewalk are saying. Or about Vietnam. About what happened there.”
“Then...” Robin hesitated. “Somebody tried to kill you last night, Uncle Jim,” she said finally. “There has to be a reason.” There had to be, she thought, because if there was no reason, there would be no way to figure out who was involved. Or why. And no way to keep them from trying again.
“There’s something about the idea of somebody like me,” McCord said, his voice very soft now, “somebody who thinks he might be big enough to take on the problems of this country and try to solve them, that just rubs folks the wrong way. Some people can’t stand for one man to achieve a following. Have kids look up to him. As soon as that happens, there’s always someone around—the press, the other party—trying to tear him down. To destroy whatever he’s achieved. Destroy him, I guess.”
He paused, his eyes not focused on any of them now. And when he spoke again, his voice was even quieter than before. “Or it may be somebody who thinks that by destroying a man people look up to, he will finally have achieved something himself. History’s f
ull of those. Oswald. Bremer. Hinkley. Poor, sad losers who could never accomplish anything on their own.”
“So are you saying we just...do nothing?” Robin asked bitterly. “We just wait for whoever this is to try again?”
“The FBI has been informed about what happened last night,” her uncle said. “They’re working on it. And just because someone tried once doesn’t mean they’ll try again, baby.”
“We’ll take every precaution from here on out,” Whitt promised, “to see that nothing else like that happens.”
“Then start by clearing those people off the sidewalk,” Robin demanded.
“The right to protest is pretty deeply ingrained. Nobody wants to stifle it,” Whitt suggested.
“Exercise the law they use to keep the protesters away from the entrances to abortion clinics.”
“RICO,” the senator said, looking at Whitt. “Smart girl.”
“I was raised by a pretty smart guy,” Robin said. “Except when it comes to taking care of himself.”
“You can’t live your life afraid of what might happen,” McCord said. “If you do, one day you’ll wake up and realize you’ve come to the end without ever having had a life.”
A warning about her and Jared’s situation? That would be so like Uncle Jim. Not telling her directly what he felt about her decisions, but trying to lead her to the conclusion he had already reached. To the lessons he had learned.
“We’ll take every precaution,” Whitt said again, “to make sure everything goes without any hitch from now on.”
Robin looked at him, at his homely face, and read sincerity. After all, Whitt had tied his wagon to McCord’s star. He had an awful lot to lose if Uncle Jim didn’t enter the race.
Not as much as she did. Or as Uncle Jim, of course. But there was nothing else to say that she hadn’t already said too many times. Every precaution, Whitt had promised. And she believed him.
Besides, she had a resource of her own that Emory and Uncle Jim weren’t even considering. Someone who knew far more about the kind of madmen who built bombs than either one of them could possibly know. Someone who might even know more about those kinds of people than the FBI.