The Road to Omaha: A Novel

by Robert Ludlum

  “Are you into geriatric medicine now?” asked Devereaux, going to the room-service table and pouring himself black coffee. “Selling tonic to natives?”

  “I’m not getting any younger, Sam,” answered Hawkins, a note of sadness in his voice.

  “I was just thinking about that in a roundabout way, and you know what I decided? I decided that you were going to live forever, an eternal threat to the planet.”

  “That’s an impressive evaluation, son. There are good threats and bad threats, and I thank you for the status you afford me.”

  “Christ, you’re impossible!” mumbled Devereaux, carrying his coffee to the chair in front of the desk and sitting down. “Mac, where did you get all that stuff? How did you get it? Who put it together?”

  “Oh, didn’t I mention that?”

  “If you did, my state of shock precluded my hearing it.… Let’s start with the sealed archive materials. How?”

  “Well, Sam, you’ve got to understand the psychological manifestations of those of us who toil in the vineyards of our government, both civilian and military. Try to comprehend the paradox in which we generally find ourselves after long years of service—”

  “Cut the preamble horseshit, Mac,” Devereaux broke in harshly. “Spell it out.”

  “We’re screwed.”

  “That spells it out.”

  “We make half, if that, of what we could make in the private sector, most of us believing that we’re making something else as important as financial gain. It’s called ‘contribution,’ Sam, real, honest-to-God contributions to a system we believe in—”

  “Stop it, Mac. I’ve heard all of this before. You also have damn good pensions and retirement perks, like buying at PXs at half price, and generous insurance, and it’s damned hard to fire you if you’re no good at your jobs.”

  “That’s a particularly narrow point of view, Sam, and applicable to the few, not the overwhelming many.”

  “All right,” said Devereaux, sipping his coffee and looking hard at the Hawk. “I’ll concede that. I just got up from three hours’ sleep, I feel rotten, and you’re an easy target. Now, how did you get the archival stuff?”

  “Remember ‘Brokey’ Brokemichael, not Ethelred but Heseltine, the one you hung that bum drug rap on?”

  “If I live to be four hundred and ten, I’ll carry those preposterous names to my grave.… If you remember, they, or he started me on my road to hell with General Lucifer by having me walk out of the data banks with a couple of thousand top-secret files.”

  “Yeah, well, there’s sort of a connection in a way. You see, when the army wouldn’t give Brokey his third star—because of you, young fella, and the confusion over the names—he mounted his high horse and said ‘I quit!’ … Well, even the army has a conscience, as well as connections. You can’t cut loose a goddamned military legend and just let him fade away like that rich fruitcake MacArthur opined to Congress. I mean, Brokey didn’t sell his expertise to a foreign government like Manila and have a bundle in reserve. So the boys over at Defense scouted around for a job for old Brokey, something not too tough in the brain-scan department, but the kind of title that warrants a fair sum, so Brokey could augment his retirement pay, both of which he so richly deserves.”

  “Don’t tell me,” interrupted Sam. “The Bureau of Indian Affairs. The big office.”

  “I always said you were the brightest lieutenant I ever met, boy.”

  “I was a major!”

  “Temporary, and reduced in rank by Heseltine’s friends. Didn’t you read your discharge?”

  “Only my name and the date of separation.… So we have déjà vu; you and the insidious Brokemichael are really back in my life.… Obviously, Brokey—honor-bound by comrades bonded in battle—saw fit to let some air into a few musty archive depositories and rummage through a number of sealed files.”

  “Oh, nothing so random as that, Sam,” protested the Hawk. “A lot of research went into this investigation before that action was deemed necessary. Of course, the fact that Brokey was where he was had a kind of stimulating effect at the beginning, and I can’t deny that having access to all that centralized Indian history wasn’t a help, but months of research were required to uncover some mighty peculiar shenanigans that called for aggressive decisions.”

  “Decisions like illegally breaking into the sealed archives without judicial appeals or warrants, which are available to any legitimate party with probable cause?”

  “Now, son, certain operations are best carried out away from the floodlights, if you know what I mean.”

  “Such as holding up a bank or breaking out of prison.”

  “That’s harsh, Sam. Those are criminal activities; this is rectifying a great crime.”

  “Who put it all together?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who wrote it? The structure, the verbiage, the arguments and appraisals … the concrete refutations of the status quo?”

  “Oh, that wasn’t hard, just time-consuming.”

  “What?”

  “Hell, there are all kinds of forms to follow in the law books, and fancy language that complicates simple meanings to the point where you can go nuts trying to follow the nonsense, but it reads very official-like.”

  “You did this?”

  “Sure. I just worked backward, from the simple to the obscure, with a little heartfelt indignation thrown in.”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  “You’re spilling your coffee, Sam.”

  “It’s a casebook brief!”

  “Well, I don’t know about that, but thanks, son. I just took it one sentence at a time, cross-checking with all those law-school textbooks. Hell, anybody could do it if they’ve got twenty-one free months to write it in and their brains don’t blow out with all that mumbo-jumbo horse-shit. You know, sometimes it took me a whole week just to get down half a page so it sounded right.… Now you went and spilled the rest of your coffee, boy.”

  “I may also throw up,” said Devereaux with a quiver in his voice as he rose from the chair, his trousers stained throughout the pelvic area. “I am vapor, I don’t exist. I am merely an aspect of some undiscovered dimension where eyes and ears float indiscriminately in spirals, seeing and hearing but with no knowledge of form or matter, reality itself an abstraction.”

  “Sounds fine, Sam. Now if you’ll throw in ‘whereas’ a couple of times, and a few ‘parties of the first and second parts,’ you could take it into court.… You all right, boy?”

  “No, I am not all right,” replied Devereaux in what could only be described as words spoken in a soft ethereal cadence. “However, I must heal myself and find my karma so as to struggle through another day and find the shadows in the light.”

  “The shadows where …? You got funny cigarettes stashed away in that bedroom?”

  “Speak not of things beyond your understanding, Sir Neanderthal. I am a wounded eagle soaring up into the sky for my final release from earth.”

  “Hey, Sam, that’s good. I mean it’s real Indian talk!”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Now you broke the spell, son. The tribal elders don’t countenance that kind of language.”

  “Well, hear this, you Anglo-Saxon savage!” yelled Sam suddenly, close to losing control but abruptly pulling back to the vocal strains of his previous search for karma. “I remember Aaron’s words precisely: ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ that’s what he said, and ‘tomorrow’ in itself does not define a specific time. Therefore, as party of the second part whose opinions were solicited, I prefer to construe ‘tomorrow’ as having a wide latitude of hours, since the word fundamentally implies ‘toward morning’ but without prior restrictions regarding the rest of the day until darkness descends.”

  “Sam, can I get you an ice bag, an aspirin—maybe a drink of that fine brandy?”

  “No, you may not, you diseased plaguer-of-the-planet. You will listen to my determination.”

  “Termination …? That’s my li
ngo, boy!”

  “Be quiet,” continued Devereaux, walking to the hotel door and turning, the unfortunate coffee stain on his light-colored trousers having spread maliciously. “I hereby determine that the hour of our conference will take place post meridiem, the specific time to be mutually agreed upon with later communication by telephone.”

  “Where are you going, son?”

  “To where I can find solitude in isolation and collect my thoughts. I have a great deal to think about, Mr. Monster. I’m going home to my lair, shower in steam for an hour or so, and then sit in my favorite chair and ponder. Au revoir, mon ennemi du coeur, for so it must be.”

  “What?”

  “See you later, General Asshole.” Devereaux went out into the hotel corridor, closed the door, and walked to the nearby bank of elevators on the right. Having used his limited French on the Hawk, his thoughts briefly returned to Anouilh, and the conclusion the playwright reached when he wrote that there were times when there was nothing left but to scream. This was one of those times, but Sam refused to give in to the temptation. He pressed the descending button, his entire being on hold.

  The elevator door opened and Devereaux walked inside, nodding briefly, unconsciously, at the only other passenger, a woman. And then he looked at her. Suddenly lightning flashed before his eyes and thunder crashed into his ears, as life and blood instantly returned to the walking corpse he had been only seconds before. She was glorious! A bronzed Aphrodite with glowing dark hair and incandescent eyes of a light, bewildering color, with a face and body sculpted by Bernini! She responded to his stare with a modest glance until her gaze obviously strayed to the large wet circle of cloth that saturated the crotch of his trousers. Oblivious to anything but her beauty, yet conscious of the weakness in his knees, Devereaux spoke.

  “Will you marry me?” Sam said.

  11

  “You take one step toward me and you won’t see for a month!” With the speed of a vice-squad decoy, the striking, bronze-skinned woman ripped open her purse and whipped out a small metal cylinder. Arm outstretched, she held it in front of her, the can of Mace upright and aimed at Devereaux’s face barely three feet away.

  “Hold it!” cried Sam, his hands above his head in abject surrender. “I’m sorry—please—I apologize! I don’t know what made me say that … it was an involuntary slip, a result of stress and exhaustion—a mental accident.”

  “It seems you’ve had a physical one as well,” said the woman, her tone ice-cold as her eyes dropped briefly down to Devereaux’s trousers.

  “What?” Sam saw exactly what she meant. “Oh, my God, the coffee—it was coffee … is coffee! You see, I’ve been working all night and there’s this crazy client—you probably won’t believe this, but I’m an attorney—and he drives me up the wall, and I was having coffee when I just couldn’t stand it any longer, him any longer, and I spilled the coffee. I just wanted to get out of there—see, I was in such a hurry I forgot my jacket!” Devereaux suddenly stopped, remembering that he didn’t have his jacket; some bearded Greek had it. “Actually … never mind, it’s all too grotesque.”

  “That thought occurred to me,” said the woman, studying Sam, and, satisfied, putting the cylinder of Mace back in her purse. “If you’re really an attorney, I suggest you get some help before the court insists on it.”

  “I’m considered a rather superior attorney,” offered Devereaux defensively, drawing himself up to his full height, the image somewhat vitiated by roaming hands trying to cover his soiled trousers. “I really am.”

  “Where? In American Samoa?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Forget it. You remind me of someone.”

  “Well,” began Sam, a touch relaxed and genuinely embarrassed. “I’m sure he was never the idiot I look like.”

  “I wouldn’t cover that bet with a great deal of money.” The descending elevator slowed to a stop. “I wouldn’t cover it with a dime,” the woman added quietly as the door opened.

  “I am sorry,” repeated Devereaux as they walked out into the hotel lobby.

  “It’s okay. To tell you the truth, it was a real mallet. I’ve never been hit with that one before.”

  “Then the men of Boston have lost their eyesight,” said Sam brightly, but innocently, no leer in his statement.

  “You do remind me of him.”

  “I hope the resemblance isn’t too unpleasant.”

  “At the moment, mezzo-metz.… If you’re going into an early conference, change your trousers.”

  “Oh, no. This stressed-out legal beagle is taking a taxi home to get unwound before the next dog race.”

  “I’m getting a taxi, too.”

  “At least let me tip the doorman, my apology thus backed up with a couple of bucks.”

  “Very lawyerlike. Maybe you are good.”

  “Not bad. I wish you needed legal advice.”

  “Sorry, Clarence Darrow, it’s in oversupply.”

  Out on the pavement and the doorman attended to, Devereaux held the door of the taxi as she climbed inside. “In light of my asinine behavior, I don’t suppose you’d care to meet me again.”

  “It’s not your behavior, Counselor,” answered the siren of his morning dreams as she once again opened her purse, this time removing a piece of paper—to Sam’s relief, “but I’m only here for a day or two and my court calendar is jammed.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Devereaux, perplexed. And then his lady of the morning sunlight turned to the driver and gave him the address of her destination. “Christ Almighty!” whispered Sam in shock as he involuntarily closed the door.

  Conference … Clarence Darrow … Counselor—court calendar! The address the bitch gave was his own house!

  Sitting anxiously forward in his chair in the Oval Office, the President of the United States was annoyed, really annoyed, as he gripped the telephone in his hand. “Now, come on, Reebock, give a little, you ca-ca-faced son of a doggie girl! The Court has to take some responsibility if there’s even an outside possibility that we all get our tailgates blown away by those aggressor islands in the Caribbean, to say nothing of the superpowers in Central America!”

  “Mr. President,” intoned the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, his somber vocal presence marred by a nasal twang. “Our system of the rule of law in an open society requires expeditious adjudication of legal redress, the relief from injury swift and adequately compensatory. Therefore the Wopotami hearings must be made public. To coin a phrase, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’ ”

  “I’ve heard that before, Reebock, you didn’t make it up.”

  “Really? No doubt I was the inspiration. I’m known for that sort of thing, I’m told.”

  “Yes, well, along those lines, Mr. Chief Justice—”

  “Inspiring people, you mean?” interrupted the leader of the Supreme Court. “Do tell.”

  “No, regarding things you’re known for,” corrected the President. “I’ve just had a call from Vincent Mangee … Mangaa—that fellow over at the CIA.”

  “In my early days as a young prosecutor, Mr. President, he was known as Vinnie the Bam-Bam.”

  “No kidding?”

  “One does not kid about such sobriquets, sir.”

  “I guess not. Gosh, it sounds like it could sort of deflate his degree from Oxford.”

  “From where?”

  “It’s not important, Reebock, but it’s a real coincidence that you should mention your early days as a prosecutor—”

  “A very young prosecutor, Mr. President,” broke in the Chief Justice apprehensively.

  “Yes, Vincent understands that. He even said there’s probably no relevance now—today, so many years later—but still we’ve all got to cover our backsides, because this Wopotami thing is going to set off a national debate, I mean a real zing doozer!”

  “I’m afraid that’s your problem, Mr. President, or should I say the combined responsibilities of the Executive and the Legislative branches.” T
he Chief Justice paused, then added, stifling a giggle. “It’s in your lap, baby—tee hee.”

  “Reebock, I heard that!”

  “Terribly sorry, sir, an insect in my nose.… I’m merely trying to explain that we are not an activist Court. We do not make the laws, we uphold them in the grand tradition of strict constructionists. And as you know, several members of the Court feel strongly that the Wopotami case may be built on a firm foundation of constitutional law, although they certainly haven’t rendered any final decisions, and they better not. However, to keep the hearings closed would be construed as interpreting that great document like those dirty liberals do, not reflecting its true intent.”

  “Golly, I know that,” said the President, drawing out his words plaintively, “and that’s what’s got Vincent upset. All your individual opinions will be studied by scholars, and newspaper editors and columnists and, well, darn it to doo-doo-ville, everybody! And you could be in trouble, Reebock.”

  “Me?… I don’t support the goddamn thing! My correct-thinking colleagues and I will argue until we bury those sanctimonious idiots who keep throwing that garbage of ‘collective conscience’ at us. We’ll run them out of the Court before we give in, and they know it. Good Christ, you think I’d give those arrow-happy aborigines a nickel’s worth of muleshit? They’re no better than the Negroes!”

  “That’s what Vincent figured—”

  “Figured what?”

  “It seems that when you were a young assistant prosecutor there was a definite pattern in your indictments and the cases you tried—”

  “With a record of convictions that was the envy of the office!”

  “Almost exclusively black and Hispanic,” completed the President.

  “Hell, yes, and I got those mothers! They were the ones committing all the crimes, you know.”

  “All of them?”

  “Let’s put it this way … the ones I wanted to go after for the good of the country. With felonies on their records, they couldn’t vote!”