Irving Wallace - The Man

Dilman’s mention of his son aroused the last crouched hope inside Leroy Poole, and suddenly he found himself standing again.

“Mr. President, Mr. President!” Poole cried out, his voice a shriek. “Listen to me, listen! This is just for the three of us in the privacy of this room, this one more thing. You keep saying you’re a human being, not just a Negro like us. Okay. Then like a human being you’re fighting for your rights and your life in the Senate, you sure are. I listened some today, and it’s not going good for you, no, but you’ve got a chance, maybe a chance, if it doesn’t get any worse. Okay. That Article II of Zeke Miller’s, one-fourth of all the case against you, that’s leveled at your conspiring to protect the Turnerites because you knew your son was a member, right? Okay. What have your enemies got to support that serious accusation? Nothing much except circumstantial evidence, and some exhibit of a letter from Julian to someone who’s name was not even mentioned, in which he said he was planning to join the Turnerites. That’s all their evidence is, and it’s nothing, because Julian answered, through your attorney, that he was only angry when he wrote that letter, and talking big, and that he never actually joined and there’s no proof he ever joined. Isn’t that the way it is, Mr. President?”

“What of it?” said Dilman suspiciously.

“What of it? Listen to me, man to man. What if that crummy, flimsy evidence in Article II against you overnight became real factually proved evidence, huh, what then? Well, I told you before, and you blew me down, I told you before that your Julian was a member of the Turnerites. I once had it in a letter from Jeff Hurley. But no, father and son, your son, you wouldn’t believe me then. Okay. Mitts off. We, the two of us, Mrs. Hurley and yours truly, we got the living, breathing proof that your Julian was an extremist agitator, an extremist Turnerite-a member of a subversive outfit, as you put it. We have the proof. After you banned the organization, and before he took it on the lam, Jeff, who was personal custodian of every secret membership application and pledge, filled in and signed by every Turnerite, he gave this file over to the one person he trusted in the world, to his mom, to Gladys Hurley here. She has that file, and there is one application and blood pledge in it, swearing to work underground for the cause and die for the cause, and it is signed by none other than your son, namely, Julian Dilman, in his own handwriting, which you’ll recognize and an expert can prove.”

Poole had the satisfaction of seeing that the blow had struck its mark. Dilman’s self-assurance appeared to falter, give way. Dilman’s troubled eyes darted from Poole to Gladys Hurley. She gave a slow nod of confirmation.

For Poole the exalting moment had arrived. On the success of his surrender deal depended Jeff Hurley’s life or extinction from the world of the living. With all the power he could muster, Leroy Poole pressed home his last effort.

“Okay, there’s the membership evidence Zeke Miller wished he had, but doesn’t have, doesn’t know exists, somewhere in Louisville, somewhere in the keeping of Jeff Hurley’s mother. Okay, inside the four walls of this room, let’s come to a businesslike understanding. You’ve been a politician most of your life, and you know there’d be no politics, no economics, no survival, no nothing without bartering and trading, without wheeling and dealing. Mrs. Hurley and I already discussed this, and I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to speak of it, but she agreed that I could if it was necessary. I’ll offer you a deal here and now, Mr. President. You do what should’ve been done anyway, you commute Jeff Hurley’s death sentence to life imprisonment, and Mrs. Hurley will turn over her file to you instead of to Representative Zeke Miller.”

He waited, out of breath, now that the final terms were in the open. He waited for reasonable capitulation.

Curiously, Dilman had seemed to regain his poise. He contemplated the Negro author with equanimity. When he spoke, his tone was almost gentle. “Leroy, that is no deal, that is blackmail.”

“An eye for an eye, like Jeff used to say,” said Poole. “You spare Jefferson Hurley, we spare Julian Dilman-and yourself. It’s take it or leave it, because-”

The buzzer on the President’s desk pierced through Poole’s threat, and then urgently persisted.

Dilman left the Revels chair, hastened to his desk, and snatched up the telephone. “Yes?… What? No, bring them right in, right in now, Miss Foster!”

Confused, Poole’s gaze went from the President to the secretary’s door, and then back to him. Dilman had gone behind his desk, suddenly so agitated, so nervously distracted, that he now seemed entirely oblivious of the presence of Poole and Mrs. Hurley in his Oval Office.

The door flew open, and into the office, striding fast, came a tall, long-legged African, turban on his head but otherwise garmented in a conservative blue suit. Behind him came a slender, uniformed Air Force officer, whom Poole recognized a moment later as the hero of outer space, General Leo Jaskawich. Bringing up the rear, pad and pencil fluttering, came a disheveled Edna Foster.

All of them crowded around the desk. There were no greetings, there was no formality, there was only an electric air of emergency.

“Ambassador Wamba,” Dilman was saying to the African, “Miss Foster says you have definitely heard. What is it?”

Before the Barazan Ambassador could reply, General Jaskawich, after a nervous glance behind him at Mrs. Hurley and Poole, quickly said to Dilman, “Mr. President, your other guests-this may be confidential-”

Impatiently, Dilman dismissed Jaskawich’s concern with a gesture. “Forget them,” he said. His attention was again entirely concentrated upon the Barazan. “Ambassador Wamba, do you have news?”

Wamba’s speech, with a lilting English accent, precise and Sussex public-school, was forceful. “I have heard from President Amboko directly on our Embassy telephone. The word is in, sir, and the evidence is being flown to you by the CIA. Our own best agents have discovered that our Communist insurgents in the hills will launch their attack at daybreak, in ten days from tomorrow morning.”

Anxiety bunched Dilman’s features. “There can be no mistake? This is positive?”

“Positive,” said Wamba, without equivocation.

Jaskawich stepped forward. “This is it, Mr. President, no question. Scott said for sure they’ll raise the reliability rating from 2 to top 1 on this.”

“Then it is clear-cut,” said Dilman. “We’ve got to prevent their first offensive, and we can only do it by letting the Soviets know we are onto it and that we are prepared to stop it. Very well, Ambassador Wamba, speak to President Amboko at once. Tell him to convene the Foreign Ministers of the African Unity Pact nations in Baraza City, and brief them, and request that they mobilize their forces, and inform them that the United States stands ready to honor its mutual defense treaty with them. Unless Premier Kasatkin gives me absolute assurance there will be no further action, I shall order dispatched by air and sea, within ten days, our fully equipped forces, our very finest troops and rocketry teams, to fight side by side with the armies of the African democracies… General Jaskawich, notify Secretary Steinbrenner of this development. Tell him I want the Dragon Flies battalions on red alert, and I want them quietly, speedily positioned at points of takeoff. When you’re through with him, let’s get out our note of protest and warning to Ambassador Rudenko, for immediate transmission to Premier Kasatkin. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” said Jaskawich.

Jaskawich had Ambassador Wamba by the arm, and hastily the two of them, in whispered consultation, left the office.