by John Boyd
“Since you know this,” the admiral said in frank consternation, “why are you objecting to going home for a weekend and telling the family about your work at the office?”
Hansen felt a blast of reality. By heavens, he had risked mutiny and his career because this kindly man had offered him a weekend with his family.
“Sir, I must have been in a state of shock over Queen Swap. When I began to understand the operation, well, it seemed treachery.”
“Oh, the war plans, of course…”
Suddenly the admiral’s face sagged, and he seemed very tired. “Captain, what to you was brain wrenching was, for me, merely routine…”
Again he paused, and lifted his hands, palms upward, toward the captain. “Ben, in these hands lies the power to overkill the entire planet eight times. When one lies down at night to ponder methods of mass homicide, and wakes to schemes of genocide—when death is one’s profession—one loses one’s sense of proportion.”
He folded his hands and dropped them to the desk. Primrose resembled a man praying to himself. His head tilted down, and his eyes focused on infinity. Hansen, waiting, understood why this man could evaluate the logic of God; but it was already 1650, and if he didn’t get to the airport by 1715 he would miss his plane, leaving Helga waiting for another two hours at the Norfolk Airport. He cleared his throat.
“Oh, the war plans,” the admiral snapped to alertness. “Queen Swap is a bona fide plan initialed by the Russians, but I have plans for invasion of Israel initialed by Egyptians and plans for invasion of Egypt initialed by Israelis. I keep planners planning as you keep sailors swabbing desks. Idleness would drive them batty. But Plans and Operations is important. When you suggested sea duty for Waves, you marked yourself as P. and O. material, but I want this intelligence mission completed first. We have plans for dropping nuclear bombs on individual states of the United States in the event of a rebellion. Next week, I’ll let you nuke Texas as a starter. After Virginia, you’ll have toughened up for the mind wrencher. Ultimate Thule. But you’ll be in cold storage when you start work on that one. Let slip one word about Ultimate Thule and I’ll be assassinated.”
“Admiral, are you freezing me in rank?”
“Temporarily, Ben, I have to, but I promise you, when you are promoted, you’ll be jumped so far over the captains who jeered at you on their way up that you’ll have to start now to practice compassion. You’ve been slated to fill my shoes, Ben.”
“By heavens. Admiral, it’s gracious of you to tell me this.”
“It’s my pleasure, Ben. Now, you go home and talk shop to that wife and daughter of yours. Drop hints about Queen Swap. Ogie and I would like the grass-roots reaction. We’ll be interested to know if your wife tries to wrangle more information from you.”
“Thank you, Admiral, but let me assure you that my wife is loyal.”
“Good! Keep the faith, Ben. Just know she’s a loyal American wife, untainted by Vita-Lerp, and if ten little Parooskie goodies come traipsing off that plane, Tuesday, I’ll know it, too.”
CHAPTER 9
Pope waited on the rise above the spring where Cora Lee Barnard came each day at five for water. Five years before, he had spotted her at the task as he scouted the ridge, waiting for her father. She had been twelve or thirteen, then, and in her lithe gawkiness he had seen the potential for beauty. Her chastity was guaranteed by other factors: The cove was two miles off the main road, it was secluded, and her mother, a former schoolteacher, had been given permission to take her out of school after her father was convicted.
Pope lay north of the spring about thirty yards, with a clear line of vision up the trail that came down from the east. Under a pokeberry bush, in his checkered green and brown sports coat and his green trousers, he would have been difficult for a hawk to see, and anyone coming to the spring from the east must look into the rays of the westerning sun.
Cuddling the polished stock of his rifle and smelling the familiar odor of oak and hickory humus around him, he knew with contentment that he was in the best sniper country in the world. If Mao had been on the Confederate High Command, the South could still be holding out in these hills.
Once in a while he glanced at his wristwatch, and the minute hand moving toward five created no tensions in him. Cora Lee was no problem. At thirty yards he could have nipped her earlobe.
It was good to stretch out, feeling the polished stock of the rifle against his cheek and watching clouds sail through the skies of home. He knew, without sadness, that someday he would die and be buried here, that his volatile gases would escape upward to form a part of the blue haze he loved.
“Glory to God for dappled girls!” he ejaculated under his breath.
Cora Lee Barnard swung into view, moving as lightly as a fawn through the dappling shadows, swinging her pail, her dark hair rippling below her shoulders, and Pope began to think in sprung rhythms. Originally, her gingham dress had been modestly long and full-bodiced, but she had grown to fill it and to lift the hem line well above her knees.
Swinging from beneath her skirt, thighs, knees, calves, and ankles blended into two long, tapering wholes. Walking on such legs would have been a desecration had not the swinging pelvis orchestrated them into a soaring oratorio, and Pope lay awed.
He slid the rifle slightly forward as she neared the spring, looking over the telescope to command a wider field of vision.
She stooped to skim the surface of the water with her hand, and stood for a moment, looking around her, her body arched slightly backward, her waist pivoting easily on her hips.
With a flowing motion she bent down to dip the bucket, and Pope dropped his eyes to sight her northwest hemisphere through the telescope. As she stooped lower, to flood and sink her pail, he closed his left eye, placing the crosshairs of his sight three inches to the right of her caudal disc and three inches down.
Slowly he squeezed off a pellet.
She eeked one bell-toned yelp, slapped her hand behind her, set the bucket down, and felt the spot in wonderment. Turning, she walked away from the spring, lifting her dress to see what had bitten her.
She wore no panties.
She dropped her skirt, yawned, and walked over to a hummock of fallen leaves. Pope, brought erect by the sight, walked through the underbrush toward her. She heard him, looked up, and waved. He waved back, and she lay down, cupping her head in the bend of her elbow. When he reached her, she was asleep.
She was sprawled over the leaf bed, her profile toward him, her bosom rising and falling with the respiration of sleep. Her hair cascaded down to split at her shoulders, part flowing beneath her chin and the rest rippling behind her shoulders.
A photo of her body, full length, would have earned a lively profit sold door-to-door. With the camera angle lowered slightly, a color photograph of Cora Lee Barnard could have been traded for an oil field. Her stomach, white with an underglow of pink, swelled from a flat plane into a mons veneris crowned with a fluff of hair, black but copper-glinted in the slanting sunlight. Below, the labia majora arced with the line of a lightly pulled bow. From his angle—his head was lowered and bent sidewise—the labia minora, pink and peeking, smiled up at him with the enigmatic lure of a Mona Lisa.
He reached down, slung her over his shoulder, and swung westward along the overgrown path to the logging road. Her 130 pounds were the lightest he had ever carried, and the four miles were the shortest he had ever walked.
Darkness had fallen when he pulled his car up to the door of the Birch Mountain Monastery. Slinging her over his shoulder, he walked up the stone steps to the heavy wooden door, pulled a rope, and waited until a peephole opened and a cowled face peered out.
“Brooks,” he said, using the cover name Mr. Powers had chosen, to conceal his identity from the girl and to spare the sensibilities of the monks who belong to a merged order of Trappists and Capuchins.
Slowly the door creaked inward, and a monk motioned him in. He followed the brother down a long hall to the right wh
ich ran parallel to the front of the building, passing four doors on his left. Barefooted, the monk padded ahead and pointed to the fifth door. Pope nodded, and the monk continued on down the long hallway lighted by sparsely placed and dim, unshaded bulbs.
Pope shouldered the door open, noting with satisfaction its heavy oak paneling, and walked onto an Oriental rug which carpeted a spacious bedroom-dining room. On his right was a fourposter bed with canopy and curtains adjacent to a door leading into a tiled bathroom. He could see another door to the bathroom opening onto an adjacent compartment. On the far side of the room, its curtains drawn, was a large window. In front of the draped window was a writing table.
Nurse Hathaway and Dr. Cabrone, both from the bureau, were seated at the table playing gin rummy, and a bottle of wine was on the table. They were smoking, and each had a large stack of quarters on the table, although Nurse Hathaway’s stack was much smaller than the doctor’s.
“Hello, John,” the doctor said, “welcome to the bridal suite. Just lay the patient on the bed.”
“Hello, Doctor. How goes it, Hathaway?”
“Poorly, poorly,” she said, pointing to her stack.
Pope flipped the limp girl forward, held her for a moment in both arms, and tossed her onto the mattress through the inverted V of the canopy at the foot of the bed. He let her ankles drag through his palms to slow her in midair and flip her dress up.
She landed on her back, her arms spread, legs slightly akimbo, with her short skirt almost precisely on the Plimsoll mark.
“There it is. Doctor, ready for inspection.”
Dr. Cabrone arose with the nurse who walked over and turned on the bedlamp.
“She’s beautiful,” Hathaway said, “and she isn’t wearing a smidgin of makeup.”
“Hathaway,” Pope said, “with that girl holding my hand, I could make love to you.”
Unshockable from fifteen years of association with police-type males, Nurse Hathaway nodded. “With her holding my hand, I might let you.”
After an awed silence. Dr. Cabrone walked over and took a flashlight and a pair of rubber gloves from his briefcase. “There’s one part of this inspection I can tell at a glance is unnecessary, but I’m going to perform my soul-shattering duty with bureau thoroughness. How much sodium pentothal was in the pellet?”
Pope shrugged. “The zoo man said it should keep her out for about four hours, but I told him she weighed about one hundred and ten. He could be wrong.”
“Well, to work. Nurse, would you pull the curtains.”
Pope’s voice was low and deadly. “Hathaway, if you pull that curtain, I’ll kick your rib cage from your backbone. I’m not letting that Neapolitan abortionist out of my sight.”
“He’s in charge. Doctor. He kicks hard.”
“Nurse,” the doctor insisted, “why don’t you run down to Charlottesville and pick me up a vial of plutonium while the operative and I work out an arrangement?”
Pope wandered over to the card table and looked down at the cards. “No deals. Doctor.” Hathaway needed a seven of clubs to rummy, and it was her draw. He riffled through the cards remaining in the deck and put the seven of clubs on top. “Cabrone, what’s a good Catholic like you doing smoking, gambling, and drinking in a monastery?”
“It’s their wine. They grow tobacco here, and I got special dispensation from the pope.”
“You got the wrong pope. One of the brothers has complained to me, already, so I’ll have to report you to Mr. Powers.”
“They’ve taken a vow of silence,” the doctor said. “If anybody rats on me, I’ll know who.”
He straightened up. “She’s all right. I’ll put her in the bathtub.”
“Hathaway can handle her. I ran fourteen miles with her on my shoulder. You just make out the report and haul it back to Washington.”
As they talked, the nurse reached over and gathered the girl easily into her arms.
“I’ll finish the game for Hathaway. What’s stakes?”
“Quarter to win. Fifty cents to rummy.”
“Let’s double it.”
“Okay,” the doctor said. “It’s Hathaway’s money.”
Pope drew the seven of clubs, rummied and laid the money and the cards on the bed. “It’s your deck, Doctor.”
“By the way, John, Mr. Powers called. He wants you to call him, rapido. An emergency.”
“Where’s the telephone?”
“Two doors to your left, in the Father Superior’s office.”
“What’s a silent order doing with a telephone?” Pope asked.
“Mr. Powers had it installed.”
Down the hall. Pope came to an open door of an office with a desk inside and a tall man, partially bald, seated behind the desk. Without his robe, the man could have been head of a steel company. Pope pointed toward the phone in the corner, and the man nodded in assent.
Since the phone had no dial. Pope knew it was a direct line. He lifted it, and the night duty officer answered.
“Brooks,” Pope said.
“One minute, John. Mr. Powers wants you.”
Gravel rolled in the next voice on the line. “This is Mr. Powers. What’s your situation, John?”
“I just brought her in. She should be coming out from under in about an hour. Her indoctrination shouldn’t take long.”
“I need you here, fast. As soon as you’re through, go immediately to the highway patrol in Charlottesville, and get an escort in. I’ll wait up.”
“State again, sir?”
Glancing at his watch, Pope saw that it was eight fifteen. It would be well after midnight before he reached Washington.
“No. Papa Pepite is asking for our help. Something big has broken in Manhattan. I’ll brief you when you get in.”
“Thank you,” he said automatically to the monk after he hung up.
“My pleasure,” the monk answered him.
“Oh, you can talk?” Pope felt silly after the question, and added, “Quite a place you have here. Father. Are all the suites as lush as the girl’s?”
“No,” the Father smiled. “That’s Mr. Powers’ doing. Is there anything I can do for you, my son?”
“Neither the girl nor I have eaten supper.”
“When she’s ready, ring the bell by her bed. A brother will serve you.”
“I may take you up on that… but I’m worried about that large window.”
“Mr. Powers had bullet-proof glass installed. It opens on a garden in the quadrangle, completely enclosed. In addition, Mr. Powers is sending three of you men to protect her. They’ll be here by ten, but she’s quite safe.”
“What’s in the room adjoining hers?”
“A bedridden monk. Brother Johannis. The bathroom door locks from the girl’s side, but the brother has not moved from his bed in ten years. His muscles are atrophied.”
“Then I won’t disturb you further. Thank you. Father.”
Cabrone was leaving when Pope got back to the room, and the doctor wished him luck.
“I might need it,” Pope admitted. “Her father works for me down in Atlanta. She might remember me from a photograph taken during his trial.”
After the doctor had gone, Hathaway entered, carrying Cora Lee wrapped in a nylon nightgown, and laid her on the bed. “Imagine that, John. All this beauty with no props. I only brushed her hair.”
From across the room, he noticed the tempo of Cora Lee’s breathing change, and he said, “Begone, Hathaway. She’s coming around.”
Hathaway counted out her money on the table and said, “Thanks for the dollar. I saw you stack the deck.”
“Good,” he said. “If you were watching me, the girl is safe with you.”
Hathaway’s room was next door, to the right. Standing in the doorway to check for forgotten articles, she said, “You may have to massage her legs below the knees. They’ll feel dead when she awakens.”
“Leg massages are my specialty,” he said. “Good night, Nurse.”
Pope took o
ff his coat and threw it over the chairback. He sat down on the edge of the bed and slapped Cora Lee’s cheeks, sharply. “Wake up, Cora Lee!”
Her eyes opened and she looked up at him. He sent his eyes out of focus, brought them in again, and saw her smile at his expression of friendly sympathy.
“Hello,” she said amiably, and closed her eyes again.
He reached down and pried her left eye open with his fingers and said, “Cora Lee Barnard, are you in there?”
She opened both eyes and laughed. “You’re funny. Are you a doctor?”
“No, ma’am. What’s your name?”
“Cora Lee Barnard, you just said.”
“Was I right?”
“You were if you weren’t lying to me.”
“Cora Lee, I’ve never told a lie in my life, and I’m one hundred and eighty-two years old.”
“Say you sooth?”
“I say sooth.”
“You look real young for your age. My legs feel paralyzed.”
“Cora Lee, I’m the best friend you ever had. I wouldn’t do this for just any girl, but I’m going to exercise your legs.”
He leaned down and flexed her legs by lifting them at the knee joints and letting them drop. Exercising her legs, he knew, would do little except show her they were not paralyzed, but in her highly impressionable state of mind it would help assure her that he was the best friend she ever had.
“I know you,” she said drowsily.
In her euphoria, she would speak only the truth, and she was not likely to conceal anything. Oh, hell, he thought, and asked her, “Who am I?”
“You’re the shire reeve’s man.”
“Shire reeve?”
The word had a peculiar familiarity.
“Yes, sir. I saw you coming down the hill right after that scorpion stung me.”
“Cora Lee, that wasn’t any scorpion. That was me.”
“You telling me you’re a caeco-demon who changes shapes?”
“No. I shot you with a tranquilizing pellet that put you to sleep.”
“Well, I’m right glad to hear that. I’d hate to have you change into a spreading adder while you’re rubbing my legs.”