After Oscar hung up, Adelaide, who had overheard some of what he had said to Ryan, asked with concern, “What’s this about shooting people?”
“Nothing, honey. Just a rhetorical dispute with a fellow I know.” Oscar made an excuse to her and drove out into the night to retrieve the information packet. He needed time to think, and he wanted to know exactly what information the Agency had on Saul.
He soon discovered that that information was minimal: name, address, place and date of birth, former occupation, physical description. All of this was on a standard Agency form, to which a photograph taken from the personnel files of the school where Saul had worked was attached. There also was a Xerox copy of a school personnel form Saul had filled out years ago. But in the space on the Agency form which asked for organizational affiliations was typed the word “unknown.” Apparently the Agency was unaware of Saul’s League membership.
Oscar didn’t get much sleep that night. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation with Ryan. If he refused to kill Saul, Ryan probably would be willing to risk having an Agency man do it. Then not only would his relationship with Ryan be irreparably damaged, but his own life would be in danger. Furthermore, the Agency might investigate Saul further in preparation for the assassination and discover the League connection, which could jeopardize other people. The situation was bad, bad, bad.
One especially troubling thing about it was that it wasn’t all one-sided. Oscar couldn’t say that he really liked Ryan, but he had come to have a great deal of respect for the man. Tied up with Ryan’s Praetorian ambition were some genuine ideals. And in fighting the Jews to determine the issue of racial survival, it seemed to Oscar that it made strategic sense to be fighting on more than one front.
Certainly Ryan already was in a much better position to affect the outcome of the struggle than was the League, even if he had a somewhat different goal in mind. In fact, he was in a world-historical position, and to tamper recklessly with that seemed the worst sort of irresponsibility to Oscar. The overall situation, apart from the immediate problem of Saul, might be much, much worse with someone other than Ryan as chief Praetorian.
That was one side of the coin. The other side was that Oscar felt himself in much closer spiritual harmony with the League’s approach to the struggle than with Ryan’s. Oscar’s nature was such that it seemed right and natural to him to fight the way they were fighting with Saul’s program, by attempting to wake up and re-educate as many White people as they could, to salvage everyone who could be salvaged and then to enlist them into the common cause of racial survival; or, failing that, to take up arms and fight the way he had been fighting before Ryan caught him. He just wasn’t as ready as Ryan was to opt for stasis, to write off the chance for cleaning up the racial situation and making a fresh start. If he had to choose between the stasis of Ryan’s Caesarism and the uncertainty and flux of civil war, he would choose the latter.
Oscar finally drifted into a troubled sleep around three o’clock in the morning. Adelaide shook him awake at eight. After a cup of strong, hot coffee an idea gradually began forming in his mind at the breakfast table. Suppose, he thought, he faked an assassination attempt on Saul, an unsuccessful but noisy attempt. That would give Saul a plausible excuse for suddenly surrounding himself with a security screen, and the publicity would make it much more dangerous for Ryan to sic an Agency killer on him. Furthermore, it would take Oscar off the hook — sort of. He did not relish the idea of pretending to botch a job; it hurt his pride even to contemplate it. And it might make Ryan suspicious. At the very least it would badly erode Ryan’s confidence in him. But it should buy some time — enough time, perhaps, for Saul to continue his program until the Jews finally succeeded in blackmailing all of his stations into cutting him off.
After breakfast he called Harry and asked him to give Saul a call from a pay phone and use some pretext — without mentioning Oscar’s name — to get over to the recording studio right away. Oscar wasn’t worried about his own phone being bugged, since the last thing Ryan wanted was for anyone else in the Agency to investigate Oscar, but he was afraid that Saul’s phone might not be safe. He arrived at the studio before either of the others and began planning just how he would explain things to Saul and Harry. He needed to tell them part of the truth, but he wasn’t prepared to tell them the whole truth.
He began: “Listen, Saul, don’t press me for details, but I happen to know that there’s a contract out on you. There are some folks who want you killed as soon as possible. We’re going to have to make them pull back a little — hopefully for as long as we can keep you on the air — and I think I know how to do that.”
Harry looked at Oscar intently: “Hey, pal, you got connections in the Mafia?”
“No, not at all. But I am plugged into a certain grapevine. I really can’t say much more than that. You’ll just have to believe me. The folks who’ve put the contract out on Saul are heavyweight people, and they’re very serious. But they’re also afraid of publicity. They’ll only act if they think the blame will fall on someone else; they won’t take a chance on being blamed themselves. Saul needs two things now to be safe. He needs the best security force we can buy, and he needs a lot of publicity about the threat to his life. So here’s what we’re going to do.
“Harry, you’re going to get on the phone and line up a security team. Get professionals, not League volunteers. At least a dozen, so there’ll always be a couple in Saul’s house, a couple to accompany him everywhere, someone to stay day and night with any vehicle he’ll be using, someone to sleep in the studio — and in any other place he goes regularly. Line them up today, but they’re not to report for work until tomorrow morning.
“Saul, today you’ll go about your daily routine as if nothing has changed, and tonight I’ll make an attempt on your life. Specifically, I’ll blow up your car. I want something spectacular and noisy that’ll attract as much media attention as we can get.
“Let’s see, it gets dark by seven. You park whichever of your cars you’ve got the most insurance on outside your garage this evening, well away from your house and anything else you don’t want damaged. At seven I’ll attach a bomb with a radio-controlled detonator to the underside. At seven-thirty you tell Emily you’re going to pop over to the studio for an hour to check out some props for your next sermon. You get in the car, start the engine, turn on the lights, then remember something you forgot. Leave the engine running and the lights on, and go back in the house as quickly as you can. That’s when I’ll hit the button. Got it?”
Saul looked at him doubtfully. “Oscar, are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”
XXXVII
Ryan was not pleased. Oscar had executed the plan he had outlined to Saul and Harry, deliberately using a bomb much larger than necessary. Not only had it blown Saul’s Mercedes into mangled halves fifty feet apart, but it had shattered windows in nearly every home within a two-block radius of Saul’s. Police and FBI agents were swarming over the scene within minutes, and the papers and television news were full of the story the next morning.
Saul, his face bandaged where it had been cut by flying glass, explained in a network television news interview how his life had been miraculously spared by his remembering that he had left his Bible in his house. “I felt Jesus’ presence as I started my car, and I heard a voice say, ‘Your Bible, Saul.’ If it hadn’t been for that reminder, I’d have been blown to bits.” Then he added, “I know that the supporters of Israel want to silence me. They’re blackmailing all of the stations which carry my sermons, threatening to bankrupt them if they don’t break their contracts with me. I didn’t realize they’d go this far to keep me quiet. I know that the fear of the Jews has silenced many others who wanted to bring the truth to the people, but I’m not afraid because I know that Jesus is guarding my life, and he will use as many miracles as he has to while I’m serving him.”
The real miracle was that Saul’s statement actually went out on the news programs
uncensored.
“Dammit, Yeager, you’ve really botched this one!” Ryan said caustically in a call that evening.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. I figured he might be planning to use his car last night when I saw it parked outside his garage. 1 clamped 15 pounds of Tovex under his floorboards with a magnet. I had one of those radio-controlled detonators you gave me strapped to it. Then I went back to my own car, which was parked about 200 yards away on the street, and waited. When I saw his lights come on, I pushed the button. From where I was I couldn’t see that he’d hopped out of his car and gone back in his house right after he turned on his lights. I really tried to do a good job, but sometimes these things happen.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to try again, and the job is going to be a lot harder. The bastard has guards all around him now.”
Oscar had hoped that Ryan would pull back in the face of all the publicity about the bombing and give him a breathing spell. That had been his primary goal in staging the bombing. He wanted very badly to avoid a showdown with Ryan, and when he heard Ryan’s insistence on going ahead his heart sank. He had anticipated this eventuality, however, and he had prepared himself for it.
“Whatever you say. I’ll just have to figure out another way to get to him. Hey, listen: I almost forgot to tell you. I found something really interesting in Rogers’ car. When I was checking it out I saw a briefcase on the rear seat. The door was unlocked, so I peeked in the briefcase. I grabbed a packet of papers and stuck them in my pocket. When I got home I looked through them, and guess what! Rogers is planning to hit you in one of his sermons. He’s got a bunch of stuff on you. Looks like it came from the FBI.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Yeager? What stuff?” The alarm was evident in Ryan’s voice.
“The papers are down in my basement. I can’t remember everything in them, but there were several FBI investigative reports about civil-rights violations your Agency allegedly committed in putting down the nigger riots in Washington and Chicago. Rogers has gone over the reports with a fine-toothed comb, with things underlined and notes in the margin saying, ‘Use this,’ and so forth. He’s apparently getting the information from somebody in the FBI who wants to get you. I remember one marginal note said something like, ‘See Thorstein again Thursday at Hoover Building for more details.”
“Thorstein?”
“Thorstein, Thurstein, something like that.”
“Thonstein! Jules Thonstein! That bastard!” Ryan exploded.
Oscar’s ignorance of the spelling and pronunciation of the name was pretended. He knew quite well that Jules Thonstein was the director of the Bureau’s Racketeering Section. He remembered seeing the man’s name in the news reports at the time the Agency was formed; he was mentioned as a possible candidate to head the new organization. Oscar had calculated that that fact alone would make the two men rivals, and he had calculated well. Ryan responded almost exactly as Oscar thought he would.
“Okay, listen, Yeager. You’ve got to get those papers to me right away. I can’t take a chance on having them go through anybody else. I’ll go to the Capri, you know that restaurant in Georgetown?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. I think I know where it is.”
“All right, I’ll be there in half an hour. You be there too, with all of those papers. At exactly 8:30 I’ll go into the men’s room. You go in at 8:25 and pass the papers to me when I come in.”
“No, no, Ryan. If I’m going to meet you again, I want it to be some place where we can sit down and talk face to face for a few minutes. If these papers are as important to you as I’m beginning to think they are, then you can figure a way to ditch your bodyguards for an hour and meet me where we can talk privately.”
“What have you got in mind? You don’t think you’re going to blackmail me do you, Yeager?” Suspicion was heavy in Ryan’s voice.
“That’s the last thing in my mind. But things have changed a lot since we formed our little partnership. I need to get some things clarified, so that I’ll know exactly what our relationship is going to be in the future.”
There was a pause while Ryan considered the matter, then he said: “All right, Yeager. I have a boat at the marina, down on Maine Avenue. Know where that is?”
“Yep.”
“My boat’s in slot K-2, a big white one with blue trim. You can’t miss it. I’ll go there now. You come on board between 8:30 and 8:40, and we’ll talk for… I can give you half an hour. Okay?”
“Yeah. That’ll probably be enough time.”
“You just make sure you bring all of those papers you found with you — all of them.”
When Oscar hung up he sighed. Well, Ryan had fallen into his trap very neatly. He almost wished it hadn’t worked.
XXXVIII
“Come on in, Yeager.” Ryan waved Oscar into the spacious but dimly lighted cabin of his 55-foot cruiser. Oscar noted that the ports were tightly shuttered. It certainly seemed an ideal place for private meetings.
While Oscar was continuing to take in his surroundings, he felt Ryan’s pistol prod him in the back. “Just take it easy, Yeager. I don’t know exactly what’s on your mind tonight, and as I told you before I’m a careful man.”
Oscar allowed himself to be expertly patted down. Ryan removed Oscar’s revolver from his waistband, completed the search, then demanded, “Okay, Yeager, where are the papers?”
“There aren’t any papers.”
“Don’t you try to jerk me around, you son of a bitch!” Ryan was angry now.
Oscar turned to face Ryan, ignoring the weapon in the other’s hand, and said, “I told you I wanted to talk with you, Ryan. I made up the story about finding the papers in Rogers’ car just to persuade you to meet with me for a few minutes.”
“You really like to live dangerously, Yeager. I ought to kill you now and be done with you. It would make me feel good. Whatever possessed you to pull such a dumb stunt? Do you realize how busy I am?”
“Yes, I’m sure you’re a very busy man,” Oscar replied. “And I’m sure you’re going to be even busier in the future, considering the way this country is going. So it’s better that we get some things straight now rather than later. I’ve stuck my neck out for you, Ryan. You wouldn’t be where you are today but for some of the jobs I’ve done for you. You may want me to do something else for you later. It seems to me that you’d regard a few minutes of quiet discussion every now and then as time well spent.”
Ryan’s eyes flashed and his nostrils flared at the assertion that he owed his position to Oscar. “You’re too big for your britches, sonny,” he shot back at Oscar. “You’re nothing but a goddamned errand boy, and you’d be sitting on death row waiting for the juice right now if I hadn’t decided to save your hide for better things. Sure, I know all about the battle being lost for want of a horseshoe nail, but you’d better keep in mind that you’re not the only horseshoe nail around.”
Having let off a little steam, Ryan shifted his tone from threatening to brusque and asked, “All right, what’s on your mind tonight?” He waved Oscar to a lounge chair on one side of the cabin and took a seat for himself on the other side, on a couch. Fifteen feet and a coffee table separated the two men. Ryan glanced at his watch and then placed his pistol on the cushion beside him, within easy reach.
“Is it really necessary for Saul Rogers to be killed?” Oscar began.
“Is that what’s bothering you? You don’t want to finish the job on that preacher? What’s the matter, Yeager? You’ve killed preachers before. You must’ve gotten a dozen of them when you blew up the People’s Committee Against Hate. Maybe you believe this Rogers really is Jesus’ mouthpiece, huh?”
“Come on, Ryan. You know I’m not superstitious. I’ve heard some of Rogers’ broadcasts. I… uh, got some tapes from a friend who records his sermons. Rogers is saying things that need to be said. He’s really on our side and can do a lot to help neutralize the Jews. I just don’t see why he should be killed. Nobody else is turning so
many ordinary Americans against the Jews as he is.”
Ryan sighed and then began his reply in a conciliatory tone. “Look, Yeager, if it were up to me I’d be inclined to leave the guy alone, at least for now. If his followers really looked like they might make economic problems for the government, I’d bust up his act the way we used to do it all the time back in the Bureau. I’d slip an infiltrator into his operation, a seeming starry-eyed volunteer from the Bible Belt who’d offer to help out in the office for almost no salary. We’d find something to get Rogers on — irregularities in his bookkeeping, conspiracy to incite a disorder, something. And if we couldn’t find what we needed we’d cook it up ourselves. Then we’d have our man go to the local cops or to the Bureau — not to the Agency — and pretend to be outraged by what he’d discovered. We put a hell of a lot of radical organizations out of business that way, on both the left and the right, back in the seventies, and we could do it to Rogers too. And we could do it in such a way that I wouldn’t even get the heat from his followers.
“But, you see, I’m not the only one who’s concerned about the commotion Rogers is making. If I let him keep hitting the Jews, they’ll start hitting back. They’ll start rocking the boat again, and I can’t let that happen. Right now the smart ones, the ones at the top, know that it’s in their best interests for the government to be able to keep the lid on things, to maintain order. And, believe me, they’re the only people who can keep all the rest of the Jewboys, whose natural inclination is to make trouble, in line. If the top Jews are convinced that the government — that I — will protect them from people like Rogers, they’ll stay in line and keep their wilder brethren in line as well. More than that, they’ll help me keep the general public in line. Have you noticed how calmly the media bosses have been taking my pacification measures when the Blacks have gotten out of line? That’s no oversight on their part; it’s calculated policy. A few years ago they all would have been screaming bloody murder if the government had gotten rough with their precious Blacks. And if they get the idea now that I can’t or won’t protect them and their interests, all hell will break loose. They’ll sir up no end of trouble: riots, strikes, demonstrations, everything to keep the White majority off balance, everything to keep people like Rogers’ followers from organizing themselves and beginning to have some influence on wider public opinion and governmental policy. Understand?”
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