Ben Bova - The Multiple Man

“And we’re agreed it can’t be Joshua.”

“Josh couldn’t…”

Laura fidgeted with the little purse she was holding on her lap. “Do get on with it.”

“You’re absolutely certain Jeffrey’s the right one?” Jackson asked me.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he called me this evening and threatened to kill Vickie and me both if I don’t call off my press conference tomorrow.”

Jackson looked at me curiously. “How do you know it was Jeffrey?”

“It had to be. John was already speaking here. We agree it can’t be Joshua. You were here with the General…”

“They have phones here,” Jackson said.

I stopped with my mouth still open. “But… your father said… the General told me he was with you all night.”

“That’s right, he was,” Jackson said. “Just as he is now,” Laura added. “Down there.”

I suddenly understood how a mouse feels when it is cornered by a pair of cats: very small, very alone, and scared mindless.

“Y… You’re the one who called me?”

“That’s right, Meric. Tonight I finish the task I started eighteen months ago. Tomorrow morning I will be the sole occupant of the Oval Office. I will be the President, alone and entirely.”

I turned to Laura. “And you’re going to let him?”

“Of course.”

“For God’s sake, Laura—stop him!”

“Why? So John can go on making pretty faces to the public and compromising with every beggar who comes in off the street? Or Josh can stay in hiding all the time? Or Jeff can keep on playing soldier? Jackson’s been the only real man in this whole family. I’ve known that for years. Jackson’s the strong one. It’s survival of the fittest.”

“But he’s killing his brothers!” My voice was a mousy squeak. I could barely hear it myself.

‘The President’s got to be strong.” Laura’s voice practically purred. Her eyes were afire now.

“But he’s a murderer!”

Jackson snapped, “Name one President who wasn’t. Truman? Lincoln? Either Roosevelt? Nixon? Brown? They all had blood on their hands.”

“Sweet Jesus, the two of you are insane.”

“Meric,” Jackson said, in that tone, that inflection, that I’d heard a thousand times in the White House.

I stared at him.

“We’ve been very patient with you, Meric. I’ve given you every opportunity to stop opposing me. Even Laura has tried to make you see…”

“Tried to buy me off, you mean.”

“You had your chance,” Laura said.

I started to shake my head.

Jackson said, “There’s no other way, Meric. We’ll have to do away with you. And Ms. Clark, too.”

“Like you killed the others?”

“No…” He fumbled in his tunic pocket and pulled out a small plastic syringe. “No, you’re not going to die of immunological breakdown. That would raise too many questions. And, incidentally, I got the virus from the University of Pennsylvania’s biochemistry labs. They have very lax security systems at universities, you know. A Government man can go anywhere and see anything he wants to. The professors all trail him with their tongues hanging out, hoping to lap up some droppings of Federal grant money.”

“How’d you know?”

“Don’t be naive. I didn’t do it personally. I’m an economist, not a biochemist.”

I turned back toward Laura. “You’re going to let him do it?”

She pulled a small handgun from her purse. “I’m going to help him.”

“It’ll be hard to explain a gunshot wound.”

“This doesn’t shoot bullets,” she replied. “Tranquilizer darts. They make the same puncture as a doctor’s needle.”

“You’re going to die of a fatal heart attack,” Jackson said, holding the syringe up beside his face. “The stairs were too much for you. You’re really not in good physical shape. All the excitement of the President’s impromptu meeting with the Neo-Luddites outside the Capitol… too much for the press secretary’s heart.”

“The day I die,” I said as evenly as I could, “my whole story gets published. Not only here, but overseas as well.”

“Wrong,” Jackson said. “We’ve already intercepted the two tapes you sent overseas. They’ve been destroyed.”

“I don’t believe you!” But I really did. Why else would they feel free to knock me off?

“And we have a good idea of where the third tape went,” he added. “The publisher of the Globe likes to think he’s a friend of Presidents. I’ll get the tape before any of your old cronies listen to it.

I started to reply, but clamped my mouth shut instead. “That leaves only your erstwhile bodyguard,” Jackson said, “who seems to have run off to parts unknown.”

“Nope. I’m right here.”

Hank Solomon’s voice!

“Y’all jes’ better line up along th’ railin’ there and put yer assorted instruments down on th’ top of it.”

Jackson spun around fiercely and tried to find the source of the disembodied voice. Hank’s twang echoed through the shadows. He might have been anywhere. Laura jumped to her feet and also peered into the darkness.

“Now lissen,” Hank said. “I got a regulation 7.6-millimeter pistol in mah hand. Nothin’ fancy. It makes a lotta noise, and it puts a big ol’ hole in yew. It’ll make a mess outta yer pretty white dress, ma’am. So put them instruments down. Y’hear?”

But Laura, instead of giving up, grabbed me by the collar and jammed her gun to my head. “I’ll kill him!” she shouted, and her voice shrilled off every corner and curve of the stonework around us.

I reacted without thinking. Instead of being scared, I was damned sore. I shoved Laura away from me and turned toward Jackson. Something went pop and I felt a sting in the back of my neck.

Jackson pushed past me and ran clattering along the gallery, heading for the stairs. I saw Laura glaring pure hatred at me. I took a step toward her, but my feet wouldn’t work right. I stumbled. She cracked me in the face with her goddamned popgun and down I went.

The marble was cold.

Somebody turned me over on my back. Hank grinned down at me. “Y’all got a buzzful of trank in yew, boy.”

“Get them,” I mumbled, feeling like my head was numb with Novocain. “Why dintcha shoot him?”

“Eighty Secret Service agents down there and yew want me t’ take a shot at the President?”

“You’ve got to…” I tried to get my legs working, tried to get to my feet.

“Stay there,” Hank commanded. “I’ll get him.” He disappeared while I was still doing an imitation of a beached flounder. The echoes! I heard feet running on marble as if they were racing in circles inside my head. Hard breathing. Whispers. Coughs.

I finally struggled to my feet and grabbed the balustrade. Leaning over it like a seasick tourist, I tried to peer into the gloomy shadows to find out what was happening. Couldn’t see a damned thing. And it was all wavering in front of my eyes, lurching up and down and sideways. Damned if I wasn’t seasick.

I looked down to the floor of the rotunda. A long way down. Tiny little people were slowly gathering down there, their heads craned upward. They had heard the sounds of a struggle coming from somewhere.

A shout. A pair of voices cursing. Then a body crashed through one of those flimsy railings, screaming all the way down to the floor. It hit with a solid thunk that ended its screaming forever. The body was wearing a light-colored mandarin suit. I threw up.

I must have passed out. The next thing I knew, Hank was bending over me, his face very solemn. “I got him,” he said simply. Then he helped me to my feet and we staggered downward, on those dark narrow stairways, toward the floor of the rotunda.