Ben Bova - The Multiple Man

“Look,” I blurted, “it’d be a lot easier for all of us if we stopped playing games. I was in love with you. Maybe I still am. Let’s not act like it never happened.”

Her face went serious, almost scared.

“Okay,” I went on. “So what do you want this time? To find out if I’m still loyal to him? If I’m going to keep the lid on this thing?”

“It’s important.”

“It’s cost four lives,” I snapped. “Five. I forgot about the helicopter pilot. McMurtrie was a damned good man—”

“I know that better than you do.”

It was the President. I jumped to my feet as he slowly walked out onto the porch. He looked at Laura.

“You shouldn’t be wearing that. Not here. This isn’t Key West.”

She made a sly smile. “There’s nothing to worry about. Even if some news photographer got close enough to snap a picture, Meric would pull the right wires to keep it from being published. Wouldn’t you, Meric?”

“That’s not what I came here to talk about,” I said.

“You’re here,” the President said, “because I told you to come here.”

I felt a shock inside me. He sounded more like his father than himself. He was blazingly angry, for some reason. Down in the Oval Office, even though he was arguing strongly with Del Bello, he could smile. But now he was radiating anger.

“You were talking about McMurtrie,” the President said to me.

“That’s right. And four other dead men.”

“What about them?”

I’d never seen him this way before. Was he sore about Laura? Maybe it had been her idea to invite me over here and he didn’t like it.

“Mr. President… do you still want me to keep quiet about the attempts on your life?”

He stood straight and rigid in front of me. Not the usual relaxed slouch, not at all. “As far as I know,” he answered stiffly, “there have been no attempts on my life.”

I couldn’t believe I’d heard him right. “No attempts…?”

“Two imposters have been found, both dead of unknown causes. A helicopter accident has killed the chief of my personal security force and my personal physician. No one has fired a shot at me; no one has made any attempt whatsoever on me.”

“And the investigation on those two… imposters? Who’s taking that over, with McMurtrie dead?”

“Robert Wyatt is handling that. We’ll be using selected personnel from the Secret Service and the FBI.”

“And you want me to keep it all under wraps?”

“I expect you to keep everything quiet, until I’m ready to make a public announcement.”

“And when will that be?”

“Maybe never. If we find out who’s responsible for those duplicates, and the story’s sensitive enough, you might never get to tell the press about it.”

About the only thing I could say was, “I see.”

“Now I need to know, Meric,” he went on, deathly cold now, “if I can count on your cooperation and your help. There’s no reason for you to play detective in this. We have enough experts for that. We’ll find out who’s behind these killings. What I need from you is silence. Or your resignation. Which will it be?”

It was like getting punched between the eyes. I bet I staggered backwards a step or two. “My resignation? You’re asking for…”

“I’m asking you to decide. I don’t want you to resign. But I’ve got to have absolute loyalty and cooperation. There’s no third possibility.”

“I see,” I said again.

“You can think it over for a day or so. Sleep on it. Let me know Monday.”

“No need to,” I heard myself say. “I’ll stick. I’ll get the job done.”

“You’re sure?”

For the first time in my life, I was knowingly lying about something important. But I had the feeling that if I resigned, a fatal accident might hit me, too. And moreover, if Halliday was starting to purge his staff of everyone except blindly loyal followers, something ugly was going on.

“I’m sure,” I said. “As long as you have Wyatt keep me informed on the progress of the investigation. I still have to know what I should avoid stepping on in front of the press.”

He nodded once, curtly. “Good. I’ll go in and phone Robert right now. I’ll tell him that you’re still on the team, and he should cooperate with you.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“Meet me in the dining room,” he said.

My drink arrived as the President left the balcony. Laura excused herself to dress for dinner. I sipped sherry and knew what it felt like to be a politician. I had said one thing and meant something else altogether. One slip-up, though, and he’ll know where you stand, I thought. And when that happens, you won’t be standing for long.

But by the time we’d gathered together in the President’s Dining Room, with its wallpaper depicting wildly inaccurate scenes from the American Revolution, The Man was his old cheerful, relaxed self again. He even joked about how grim-faced I looked.

It wasn’t until the dinner was over and I was sitting in the dark rear seat of a White House limousine on my way back to my apartment that I realized the entire truth of it. He’s in on it. Whatever’s going on, the President is not one of the intended victims of the plot; he’s the chief plotter!

I never did go out to the country. I stayed holed up in my apartment, thinking, worrying, wondering what to do. I couldn’t sleep Saturday night after that dinner with The Man and Laura. I paced my three rooms all Sunday morning, then started cleaning the place, desperate for something to occupy my time and fidgety hands. I wondered briefly if any of the neighbors would complain about the vacuum running so early in the day, or cause a fuss with the cleaning service and its union. But everyone else in the building must have either been out at church or sleeping soundly; the phone didn’t buzz once.

By midafternoon I was trying to force myself to watch a baseball game on television. Even in three dimensions it bored the hell out of me. I couldn’t concentrate on it. My mind kept circling back to the same thoughts, the same fears, the same conclusions. If he’s in on it, then Laura must be, too. I wanted to believe otherwise, but I knew that was a stupid straw to clutch at. She’s part of it.

Part of what? What in hell is the President trying to do with men made to look exactly like him? Why was McMurtrie murdered? Was there a power struggle going on? A coup?

Have they—whoever they are—already slipped their man into the White House? No. That much I was certain of. They could make somebody look exactly like the President, but not behave so minutely similar to him. Despite that little show of real rage on the back porch Saturday evening, The Man was still James J. Halliday, not a duplicate. Of that I was certain.

But why is he behaving this way? Why so secretive about it? All right, keep it out of the press. That stands to reason. But most of the White House staff didn’t know about this. Certainly the Cabinet didn’t. Nor the Vice-President. I wondered if even the FBI had been told about it. There would’ve been rumors and rumbles all over town if more than eleven people were in on the investigation. Even after McMurtrie and Klienerman were killed, the only chatter was the “too bad, they were good men” kind of talk that follows every accidental death.

Who’s trying to get rid of the President? And why is The Man keeping the battle so tightly under wraps?

My apartment was spotless and even the laundry was done by the time the answer hit me. I was standing in the middle of the living room, looking for something else to do, trying to keep myself occupied. The sun was low in the west, sending red-gold streams of light through my windows. The TV set was blathering mindlessly: some game show. And the answer hit me. The General.