“Did you speak to anyone else?”
Dan Wayne shrugged. “Not really…Wait a minute. I talked a little bit to some fellow who owns a bank in Canada.” He ran his tongue across his lips. “To tell you the truth, I’m having a little financial problem here with the ranch. It looks as though I might lose it. I hate goddamn bankers. They’re all bloodsuckers. Anyway, I thought this fellow might be different. When I found out he was a banker, I talked to him about trying to work out some kind of loan arrangement here. But he was just like all the rest of them. He couldn’t have been less interested.”
“You said he was from Canada?”
“Yeah, Fort Smith, up in the Northwest Territories. I’m afraid that’s about all I can tell you.”
Robert tried to conceal his excitement. “Thank you, Mr. Wayne, you’ve been very helpful.” Robert rose.
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Would you like to stay for supper?”
“No, thanks. I have to be on my way. Good luck with the ranch.”
“Thanks.”
Fort Smith, Canada
Northwest Territories
Robert waited until General Hilliard came on the line.
“Yes, Commander?”
“I found another witness. Dan Wayne. He owns The Ponderosa, a ranch outside of Waco, Texas.”
“Very good. I’ll have our office in Dallas speak to him.”
FLASH MESSAGE
TOP SECRET ULTRA
NSA TO DEPUTY DIRECTOR DCI
EYES ONLY
COPY ONE OF (ONE) COPIES
SUBJECT: OPERATION DOOMSDAY
6. DANIEL WAYNE—WACO
END OF MESSAGE
In Langley, Virginia, the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency studied the transmission thoughtfully. Number six. Things were going well. Commander Bellamy was doing an extraordinary job. The decision to select him had been a wise one. Janus had been right. The man was always right. And he had the power to have his wishes carried out. So much power…The director looked at the message again. Make it look like an accident, he thought. That shouldn’t be difficult. He pressed a buzzer.
The two men arrived at the ranch in a dark blue van. They parked in the courtyard and got out of the car, carefully looking around. Dan Wayne’s first thought was that they had come to take possession of the ranch. He opened the door for them.
“Dan Wayne?”
“Yes. What can I—?”
That was as far as he got.
The second man had stepped behind him and hit him hard across the skull with a blackjack.
The larger of the two men slung the unconscious rancher over his shoulder and carried him outside to the barn. There were eight horses in the barn. The men ignored them and walked to the last stall in back. Inside was a beautiful black stallion.
The large man said, “This is the one.” He put Wayne’s body down.
The second man picked up a cattle prod from the ground, stepped up to the stall door, and hit the stallion with the electric prod. The stallion whinnied and reared up. The man hit him hard again across the nose. The stallion was bucking wildly now, confined in the small space, smashing against the walls of the stall, his teeth bared and the whites of his eyes flashing.
“Now,” the smaller man said. His companion lifted the body of Dan Wayne and tossed it over the half door into the stall. They watched the bloody scene for several moments, then, satisfied, turned and left.
FLASH MESSAGE
TOP SECRET ULTRA
DCI TO DEPUTY DIRECTOR NSA
EYES ONLY
COPY ONE OF (ONE) COPIES
SUBJECT: OPERATION DOOMSDAY
6. DANIEL WAYNE—WACO—TERMINATED
END OF MESSAGE
Chapter Twenty-eight
Day Nine
Fort Smith, Canada
Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, is a prosperous town of two thousand people, most of them farmers and cattle ranchers, with a sprinkling of merchants. The climate is demanding, with long and rigorous winters, and the town is living proof of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest.
William Mann was one of the fit ones, a survivor. He had been born in Michigan, but in his early thirties, he had passed through Fort Smith on a fishing trip and had decided that the community needed another good bank. He had seized the opportunity. There was only one other bank there, and it took William Mann less than two years to put his competitor out of business. Mann ran his bank the way a bank should be run. His god was mathematics, and he saw to it that the numbers always came out to his benefit. His favorite story was the joke about the man who went to a banker pleading for a loan so that his young son could have an immediate operation to save his life. When the applicant said he had no security, the banker told him to get out of his office.