Robert Ludlum - Road To Gandolfo.txt
Page 8
speaker.
"Get off it, you chickenfucker! Show
that hairy ass you call a face or I'll
open the slop-shoot and drop in that
bucking lipstick! I'll fray you, you
miserable son of a bitch!
Incidentally, Regina Greenberg says
hello."
The immense head of MacKenzie
Hawkins slowly appeared in the pane of
unidirectional glass It merged from
the side, huge, crew-cut,
leather-lined. Mac's expression was
one of utter consternation. A
half-chewed cigar was gripped between
his teeth, beneath wide, bloodshot
eyes that betrayed disbelieving
curiosity.
"How so? What do you say?" Lin
Shoo's controlled lips were parted in
astonishment.
"It's a highly classified military
code," said Devereaux. "We only employ
it under extreme conditions."
"I will not pursue the matter; it
would not be courteous. If you flip
the lever on the side of the glass,
General Hawkins will see you. When you
feel comfortable, I shall admit you.
However, I will remain outside,
please."
Sam pushed the small handle on the
sides of the glass; there was a click.
The large, squinting face reacted with
instant hostility. Devereaux had the
feeling that Hawkins was observing
something very obscene but
unimportant: Sam, the military
accident.
Devereaux nodded to Lin Shoo. The
Chinese reached out with both hands,
as if to pull with one and push with
the other, and unlatched the door. The
heavy steel panel opened; Sam walked
in.
To an enormous fist that came
rushing toward him, on a direct
collision course with his left eye.
The impact came; the room, the world,
the galaxy spun out of orbit into the
50
1
shimmering of a hundred thousand
splotches of white light.
Sam felt the wet cloth over his face
before he felt the pain in his head,
especially his eye, and he thought
that was strange. He reached up,
pulled the cloth away and blinked. All
he saw at first was a white ceiling.
The center light hurt his head,
especially his left eye. He realized
he was on a bed, so he rolled over and
everything came back to him.
Hawkins was at the writing desk,
papers and photographs scattered about
the top. The general was reading from
a sheaf of stapled papers.
Devereaux did not have to move his
painful head farther to know that his
opened attache case was somewhere near
the general. Nevertheless, he did so
and saw it at Hawkins's feet. Open and
upside down. Empty. The contents in
front of the general.
Sam cleared his throat. He could not
think of anything else to do. Hawkins
turned; his expression was not pleas-
ant. Somehow absent was that
welcoming, manly bond of recognition
between comrades-at-arms.
"You little pricky-shits have been
busy, haven't you?"
Painfully, Devereaux swung his legs
over the side of the bed and touched
his left eye. He touched it gently,
mainly because he could barely see out
of it. "I may be a shit, General, but
I'm not so little, as one day I hope
to prove to you. Christ, I hurt."
"You want to prove
something" Hawkins gestured at the
papers and allowed himself the inkling
of a cynical grin " to meP With what
you know about me? You've got moxie,
boy. I'll say that for you.''
' That phrase is about as
antediluvian as you are," muttered Sam
as he stood up. Unsteadily. 'You
enjoying the reading material?"
"It's some goddamned recordl They'll
probably want to make another movie
about me."
"Leavenworth Productions. Film
processed in the prison laundry. You
are a bonafide fruitcake." Devereaux
pointed to a blanket draped over the
door covering the 51
pane of unidirectional glass. "Is that
smart?" He gestured at the blanket.
"It's not dumb. It confuses them. The
oriental mind has two very pronounced
pressure points: confusion and em-
barrassment." Hawkins's eyes were
level.
The statement startled Sam. Perhaps it
was Hawkins's choice of words, or maybe
the quiet intelligence behind
- the voice. Whatever it was, it was
unexpected. "I mean it's a little
useless; the room is bugged. Bugged,
helll All they have to do is push a red
button and they can hear everything we
say."
"Wrong, soldier," replied the general
as he got out of the chair. "If you are
a soldier and not a goddamn lacepants.
Come here." Hawkins walked over to the
blanket and folded back, first, a
corner on the right, then the opposite
section of the cloth on the left. In
both small areas were barely visible
holes-in the wall, now very visible
with wet toilet paper shoved into the
centers. Hawkins dropped the two
sections of the blanket and then
pointed to six additional plugs of wet
toilet tissue two on each wall, upper
and lower and grinned his leather-lined
grin. "I've gone over this Lucking cell
palm-spread by palm-spread. I've
blocked out each mike, there aren't any
others. Naturally, I didn't touch 'em
before. See how careful the goddamned
monkeys were? Even got one right over
the pillow in case I talked in my
sleep. That was the toughest to spot."
Grudgingly, Sam nodded his approval.
And then he thought of the obvious. "If
you have plugged every one, they'll
race in here and move us. You should
realize that."
"You should think better. Electronic
surveillance in close areas is wired
terminally into a single unit. First,
they'll figure they've got a short in
the unit circuit, which will take 'em
an hour to trace if they don't have to
break down the walls and can do it with
sensors and that'll confuse 'em. Then,
if they rule out a short, they'll guess
I plugged 'em and that'll embarrass
'em. Confusion and embarrassment; the
pressure points. It'll take 'em another
hour to figure how to get us somewhere
else without admitting error. We've got
at least two hours. So you better do
some pretty fine explaining in that
time."
52
i
Devereaux had the distinct feeling
that he had better be capable of some
pr
etty fine explaining. Hawkins was a
wily pro and Sam did not relish any
confrontation. Certainly not physical
or, he was beginning to suspect,
mental.
"Don't you want to hear about Regina
Greenberg?"
"I've read your notes. You've got
lousy handwriting."
"I'm a lawyer; all lawyers have
lousy handwriting. It's part of the
bar exam. Also I didn't intend to have
them typed up."
"I should hope not," said Hawkins.
"You've also got a dirty mind."
"You've got terrific taste."
"I don't discuss former wives."
"They've discussed you," countered
Sam.
"I know the girls. You didn't get
anything you could use. Not from the
girls, you didn't. Anything else you
got is none of my business."
"Do I detect a moral position?"
"In my own crude way. I got a little
class, boy." Hawkins pointed to the
desk; his arm, hand, and extended
finger all were very steady. "Now,
start explaining that stuff."
"What's there to explain? You've
read it, you say. So do I have to tell
you that it represents an airtight
case of persona non "rata on one side,
and a large embarrassment for the
other? If I do, I just have."
Devereaux touched his eye; it hurt
like hell, so he sat down again on the
bed.
"That stuff in Indochina," growled
Hawkins, walking to the desk and
picking up the stapled pages, "it's
written up like I was working for the
bucking gooks!"
"I wouldn't go that far. It raises
certain questions as to your methods
of operation "
"That's going that far, boy!"
interrupted the general. "I was either
working for 'em or working with troth
sides, or just pocketing half the
pouch money in Southeast Asia! Or I
was so dumb I didn't know what I was
doing at all!"
'lAhh!" sang Sam in a lilting, false
tremolo. "Now we are beginning to
understand, said Alice to Cock Robin.
Amilitary, really military, man with
two Congressional Medals of Honor is a
dubious bet for traitor. But all that
combat, all those banging noises and
that scurrying behind the line and
capture and torture and primitive
means of 53
brutal surviva~the cumulative effect
of all that would certainly flip out
said hero right into laughing land.
Very sad, but the human psyche can
take only so much."
"Horseshit!"roared Hawkins. "My
head's screwed on a hell of a lot
tighter than those Puckers who asked
for all this crapl"
"Two points for the general," said
Devereaux, holding up his fingers in
the V sign. "I hereby state for the
record that the general's head is
screwed better than anyone at
Sixteen-hundred. And, I might add, so
is the general."
"What does that mean, boy?"
"Oh, come on, Hawkins. You're
finished! How and why it happened, I
don't know. I just know that you got
in the way at a rotten time, you made
too much noise and you are expendable!
Not only expendable, but a goddamned
pawn that Sixteen-hundred's giving up
loud and clear. You're even an
example!"
"Horseshit, again! Wait'll the
Pentagon gets wind of this!"
"They've it'~already got its
nostrils full. The brass noses are
colliding with each other, running to
the deodorant factories. You don't
exist, General! Except maybe as a
wayward memory." Sam got up from the
bed. The pain in the eye was spreading
throughout his head again.
"You can't sell that and I won't buy
it," said Hawkins defensively, his
voice indicating a slightly diminished
confidence. "I've got friends. I've
got a career sheet that reads like a
recruiting poster. Goddamn it,
soldier, I'm a general officer who
came up from the ranks from the
Sucking mud in Belgium! They won't
treat me this way!"
"I'm not a soldier. I'm a lawyer and
I'm telling you you've been treated
with several layers of forget-me gas.
Those telephotos from your buddies in
Peking sealed the whole ball of wax.
You've bubbled over."
"They've got to prove it!"
"They've got that, too. I was given
it in a pitch-black wine cellar about
an hour ago. By a psychotic holding a
candle. A very solid citizen. They've
got you."
Hawkins squinted his eyes and
removed the chewed unlit cigar from
his mouth. "How?"
"'Medical records.' That's the hard
evidence. Psychiatric and physical.
'Stress collapse' is only the
beginning. 54
The Defense Department will issue a
statement that says, in essence, you
were purposely placed in ambivalent
situations so they could ascertain the
development. 'Schizoid progression,'
I think it's called. Conflicting
objectives like the Indochina stuff.
Also those pictures of you pissing on
the mission's roof have a very
complicated psychiatric explanation."
"I've got a better one. I was
goddamned angry! Wait'll I give my
version.
"You won't get a chance to tell it.
If the game plan becomes an issue, the
President plans to go on the air,
praise your past, show your current
medical records with heartbreaking
reluctance, of course and ask the
country to pray for you.
"Couldn't happen." The general shook
his head confidentially. "No one
believes a president anymore."
"Maybe not, but he's got the
buttons. Not his own, maybe, but
enough others. You'll be strapped down
in a Nike silo, if he says so." Sam
saw that there was a metal mirror in
the small cubicle that housed the
toilet. He walked toward the door.
"But why should he do it? Why would
anyone let him do it?" Hawkins's cigar
was held limply in his hand.
Devereaux looked at the size and hue
of the shiner over his left eye.
"Because we need gas," he replied.
"Huh?" Hawkins dropped his cigar on
the rug. Obviously without thinking,
he stepped on it, grinding it into the
surface. Gas?
"It's too complicated. Never mind."
Sam pressed the sensitive flesh around
his eye with his fingers. He hadn't
had a mouse in over fifteen years; he
wondered how long it would take for
the swelling to recede. "Just accept
the situation for what
it is and make
the best deal you can. You haven't got
much choice."
"You mean I'm supposed to lie down and
take it?"
Devereaux walked out of the toilet,
stopped and sighed. "I'd say the
immediate objective was to keep you
from lying down in Mongolia. For some
four thousand-plus years. If you
cooperate, maybe I can pull it off."
"Out of China?"
"Yes."
55
"How much cooperation? With the
gooks and Washy ington?" Hawkins's
squint was very pronounced.
"A lot. All the way down the pike."
"Out of the army?"
"No point in staying. Is there,
really?"
"Goddamn!"
"I agree. But where does it get you?
There's a big world out of that
uniform. Enjoy it."
- Hawkins crossed back to the desk in
angry silence. He picked up one of the
photographs, shrugged and dropped it.
He reached into his pocket for a fresh
cigar. "Goddamn boy, you're not
thinking again. You're a lawyer,
maybe, but like you say, you're no
soldier. A field commander sucks in a
hostile patrol, he doesn't feed it, he
cuts it down. Nobody's going to let me
enjoy. They'll put me in that Nike
silo you mentioned. To keep me from
talking."
Devereaux exhaled a long breath
through his lips. "It's just possible
I can build a shield acceptable to all
parties. APrer you went down the pike
over here. Full confession, public
apology, the works."
"Goddamn!"
"Mongolia, General...."
Hawkins bit into the cigar, the