Джон Болл - The First Team

Zalinsky led the way outside to the South Lawn. They had advanced only a few paces when Zalinsky stopped and turned around, facing the executive mansion. Dutifully Hewlitt did the same, waiting for the next cue that he might receive. He looked at Zalinsky, but the administrator simply stood there as though he was communicating with himself and did not choose to be disturbed.

Hewlitt watched him, waiting, until he realized that they were no longer alone. He turned to discover two more of the enemy, wooden-faced uniformed troops who now made up the security guard for the White House. Between them was Bob Landers, his eyes fixed straight forward, his smartly tailored uniform seeming now only to hang from his body. Hewlitt was shocked by his appearance. Clearly he had been through some kind of concentrated hell — for a few hours or for several days — there was no way of telling.

“You will talk to him,” Zalinsky said.

Holding himself in the tightest grip of which he was capable, Hewlitt walked the few steps to where Landers stood and tried to read whatever was written on his face. “What happened, Bob?” he asked.

“I disobeyed an order,” Landers answered. “I tried to contact some of my old Air Force buddies.”

“What’s wrong with that?” He was doing his desperate best to give Landers an opening, to learn whatever he could before they took him away.

“I wanted to fight back,” the major answered. “They didn’t like that. So now I am to die for my country.”

“No!” Hewlitt could not help himself; the word was out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying.

Landers looked at him and his intelligence penetrated through the fog of whatever ghastly experience he had been through. “Goodbye, Hewlitt,” he said. “Nice to have met you.”

By the grace of God Hewlitt understood; Bob Landers was denying any close association. In a way that answered one question.

Zalinsky spoke to the guards in his own language. Upon receiving his order they led Landers up to the wall and turned him around. The man on his left drew his pistol from its holster, held it directly against the major’s head, and pulled the trigger.

The sharp report of the gun blasted through the air of the presidential garden. As Hewlitt stood frozen he saw Landers’ knees unlock; then as his body slumped to the ground, a blackened hole in the side of his head became obscenely visible.

Hewlitt’s arms quivered at his sides; his hands knotted into straining fists. He wanted to lunge forward and yank out the life of the loathsome guard with his bare hands. He forced himself to look again and saw the corpse of what had seconds before been an intelligent, dedicated human being lying like a broken, bloodied doll, the bright command pilot’s wings still, unknowingly, proudly reflecting the sunlight.

For a blinding moment Hewlitt thought that he could get to Zalinsky before either of the guards could interfere. Violent rage stormed through him, seized him, screaming for action regardless of consequences. He crouched to spring, to leap and break the vile creature’s neck with one mighty yank of its head, but at that instant Zalinsky stepped back and out of range.

“Learn from that!” He hurled the words at Hewlitt. “He is not the first. There will be many more before you learn, but learn you will!”

His eyes blazed as he stood there, watching the shock pass through Hewlitt’s body. “We are the masters, forget it not for one moment.” Venom reeked from every word. “You will go!”

The hardest decision that Hewlitt could recall ever having had to make was to go to work the next morning. For a long and nearly sleepless night he had lain in his bed, living over and over again the hideous scene he had been forced to witness on the White House lawn. Often he found it difficult to believe that it had actually occurred; it seemed a dreadful nightmare that the dawn would at last dispel.

During the first hours of daylight he thought the problem out. If he went to work, he stood a good chance of being dealt with in the same manner as Bob Landers, and he had no desire to have his brains blown out by some animal on two feet with the intellect of a cretin. The risk was definitely there, because he was a member of Landers’ little organization, even though his role so far had been an entirely passive one.

He visualized the possible scene in the Oval Office: Zalinsky would say to him, “Were you a member of his organization?” If he were to answer no and Zalinsky knew better, as he very well might by now, that would be it — then and there.

If he admitted to it, it would be pure suicide. If he tried to vacillate by saying that he had been approached but had not agreed to participate, it would not only be cowardly, but also it would in all probability totally wreck the White House cell. It was worse than Hobson’s choice; he had nowhere to go at all.

If he simply did not show up, his personal situation would be bad and his usefulness to the organization would be over. Considerations of personal risk retreated when he remembered again that sight he had seen on the South Lawn: Landers’ cadaver lying there with the sick ooze coming from the hole in his skull. The abiding concern now was to find a way to counterattack. He knew then that he was going to go to work; he got up and went into the bathroom to shave.

For the rest of the working week he was left strictly alone. After the first few hours had passed the suspense grew less; then he began to wonder if Zalinsky was waiting for him to make some sort of move. The obvious counter to this was to do nothing, particularly since he now had no contact and no assigned mission to perform. He spent the time in his office reading; it kept his mind busy and was as good an occupation as any for the time being.

As the time passed, he did not drop his guard. With his nerves at concert pitch his temper with himself became short as he tried to carry on under the almost intolerable strain.

Late on Friday afternoon his phone rang. His heart jumped at the sound, fear he could not control began to edge through his body as he picked up the instrument. “Hewlitt,” he said.

“This is Barbara.” Her voice recalled her at once — her face, her shining black hair.

“Yes.”

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “about the suggestion you made the other day.”

He picked up her lead at once. “I remember.”

“Well, the way that things are, and after what’s happened, it doesn’t seem to make much difference anymore. I guess that we might as well have a little fun while we can.”

“Good,” he answered her. “I feel very much the same way. How about after work tonight? We could have dinner…”

“As good a time as any, I guess.” The line went dead.

He hoped, almost fervently, that the call marked the beginning he had been waiting for. He remembered the risk, but he thrust that thought aside; there would be no point in trying to exist like a vegetable. If he couldn’t be around at the finish some others would be. And they might remember his name.

When his watch at last told him that he was free to go, he locked his desk just to give them trouble opening it, wrote “T.G.I.F.” on his calendar pad, and felt for a few moments that he was again the master of his own destiny. As he made his way toward the West Gate he realized that he didn’t know the girl’s last name and had no idea where she lived. It didn’t matter; what he did know was that Landers had vouched for her and that was enough.

She was waiting for him outside, wrapped in a coat which to some degree concealed her succulent figure, but not the striking black hair. Fcr an instant he wished that the rendezvous was a real one; Barbara in bed was something sensational to contemplate.