‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said wait a minute, will you, please?’
‘My rank is colonel in the United States Army, and I expect to be addressed as such,’ said the officer testily.
Evan looked hard at the witness, momentarily forgetting the microphone. ‘I’ll address you any way I like, you arrogant bastard.’ Cameras jolted, bleeps filled audios everywhere, but too late for the exclusion. ‘… unless you’ve personally amended the Constitution, which I doubt you’ve ever read,’ continued Kendrick, studying the papers in front of him, chuckling quietly as he recalled his meeting with Frank Swann at the State Department before he went to Masqat. ‘Inquisition, my ass.’
‘I resent your attitude—’
‘A lot of taxpayers resent yours, too,’ interrupted Evan, looking at Barrish’s service record and remembering Frank Swann’s precise words over a year ago. ‘Let me ask you, Colonel, have you ever fired a gun?’
‘I’m a soldier!’
‘We’ve both established that, haven’t we? I know you’re a soldier; we inquisitorial civilians are paying your salary—unless you rented the uniform.’ The congressional chamber rippled with quiet laughter. ‘What I asked you was whether you had ever fired a gun.’
‘Countless times. Have you?’
‘Several, not countless, and never in uniform.’
‘Then I think the question is closed.’
‘Not entirely. Did you ever use a weapon for the purpose of killing another human being whose intention was to kill you?’
The subsequent silence was lost on no one. The soft reply was registered on all. ‘I was never in combat, if that’s what you mean.’
‘But you just said you were in lethal combat, et cetera, et cetera, which conveys to everyone in here and the audience out there that you’re some kind of modern-day Davy Crockett holding the fort at the Alamo, or a Sergeant York, or maybe an Indiana Jones blasting away at the bad guys. But that’s all wrong, isn’t it, Colonel? You’re an accountant who’s trying to justify the theft of millions—maybe billions—of the taxpayers’ money under the red, white and blue flag of super patriotism.’
‘You son of a…! How dare you—’ The jolting cameras and the bleeps again came too late, as Colonel Barrish rose from his chair and pounded the table.
‘The committee is adjourned! yelled the exhausted chairman. ‘Adjourned, goddamn it!’
In the darkened control room of one of Washington’s network stations, a grey-haired newscaster stood in a corner studying the congressional monitor. As most of America had seen him do countless times, he pursed his lips in thought, then turned to the assistant beside him.
‘I want that congressman—whoever the hell he is—on my show next Sunday.’
The upset woman in Chevy Chase cried into the phone, ‘I tell you, Mother, I never saw him like that before in my life! I mean it, he was positively drunk. Thank God for that nice foreigner who brought him home! He said he found him outside a restaurant in Washington barely able to walk—can you imagine? Barely able to walk! He recognized him, and, being a good Christian, thought he’d better get him off the streets. What’s so insane, Mother, is that I didn’t think he ever touched a drop of alcohol. Well, obviously I was wrong. I wonder how many other secrets my devoted minister has! This morning he claimed he couldn’t remember anything—not a thing, he said… Oh, my sweet Jesus! Mother, he just walked in the front door—Momma, he’s throwing up all over the rug!’
‘Where the hell am I?’ whispered Arvin Partridge, Sr., shaking his head and trying to focus his eyes on the shabby curtained windows of the motel room. ‘In some rat’s nest?’
‘That’s not far off the mark,’ said the blond man, approaching the bed. ‘Except that the rodents who frequent this place usually do so for only an hour or two.’
‘You!’ screamed the representative from Alabama, staring at the Czech. ‘What have you done to me?’
‘Not to you, sir, but for you,’ answered Varak. ‘Fortunately, I was able to extricate you from a potentially embarrassing situation.’
‘What?’ Partridge sat up and swung his legs over the bed; although not yet oriented, he realized he was fully clothed. ‘Where? How?’
‘One of my clients was dining at the Carriage House in Georgetown where you met the congressman from North Dakota. When the unpleasantness started, he called me. Again fortunately, I live in the area and was able to get there in time. Incidentally, you’re obviously not registered here.’
‘Wait a minute!’ yelled Partridge. ‘Muleshit! That meeting between the holy roller and me was a set-up! His office gets a call that I want to meet him on urgent committee business and my office gets the same. We got that Pentagon prick, Barrish, coming in the morning, so we both figure we’d better see each other. I ask him what’s going on and he asks me the same!’
‘I wouldn’t know anything about that, sir.’
‘Hogshit!… What unpleasantness?’
‘You overindulged.’
‘Rabbitshit! I had one fuckin’ martini and the sky padre had lemonade!’
‘If that’s the truth, you both have odd tolerances. You fell over the table and the minister tried to drink the salt.’
The chairman of the Partridge Committee glared at the Czech. ‘Finns,’ he said quietly. ‘You dosed us both with Mickey Finns!’
‘Before last night I never set foot inside that restaurant.’
‘You’re also a liar, a hell of an experienced one… Good Christ, what time is it?’ Partridge whipped his wrist up to look at his watch; Varak interrupted.
‘The hearing is over.’
‘Shit.’
‘The minister was not terribly effective, but your new appointee made an indelible impression, sir. I’m sure you’ll see portions of his performance on the evening news, certain words deleted, of course.’
‘Oh, my God,’ whispered the congressman to himself. He looked up at the Czech from Inver Brass. ‘What did they say about me? About why I wasn’t there.’
‘Your office issued a statement that was perfectly acceptable. You were on a fishing boat on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The engine failed and you had to drop anchor a mile from the marina. It’s been substantiated; there are no problems.’
‘My office issued a statement like that? On whose authorization?’
‘Your son’s. He’s a remarkably forgiving young man. He’s waiting outside in your car.’
The red-haired salesman in the Saab showroom fairly glowed in astonishment as he signed the papers and counted out ten one-hundred dollar bills. ‘We’ll have the car ready for you by three o’clock this afternoon.’
That’s nice,’ said the buyer, who had listed his profession on the finance-loan agreement as a bartender, currently employed at the Carriage House in Georgetown.
* * *
Chapter 18
‘Zero hour, Mr. Kendrick,’ said Colonel Robert Barrish, smiling pleasantly into the camera, his voice the soul of reason. ‘We must be prepared for it, and with pre-emptive escalation we push it farther and farther away.’
‘Or conversely, overstock the arsenals to the point where one miscalculation blows up the planet.’
‘Oh, please,’ admonished the army officer condescendingly. ‘That line of rationalization has long since been rendered modus non operand!. We’re the professionals.’
‘You mean our side?’
‘Of course I mean our side.’
‘What about the enemy? Aren’t they professionals, too?’
‘If you’re attempting to lateralize our enemies’ technological commitments with ours, I think you’ll find you’re as misinformed about that as you are about the cost control effectiveness of our system.’
‘I take that to mean they’re not as good as we are.’
‘A sagacious assessment, Congressman. Beyond the superiority of our moral commitment—a commitment to God—the high tech training of our armed forces is the finest on earth. If you’ll forgive me here, I must say as part of a great team that I’m immensely proud of our splendid fellows and girls.’
‘Golly gee, so am I,’ said Evan, a minor smile on his lips. ‘But then I must say here, Colonel, that I’ve lost your line of reasoning, or was it pre-emptive escalation? I thought your comment about professionalism was in response to my remark about the possibility of miscalculation with all those arsenals so full.’
‘It was. You see, Mr. Kendrick, what I’m patiently trying to explain to you is that our weapons personnel are locked into manuals of procedures that eliminate miscalculation. We are virtually fail-safe.’
‘We may be,’ agreed Evan, ‘but what about the other guy? You said—I think you said—that he wasn’t so smart, that there was no lateralization, whatever that means. Suppose he miscalculates? Then what?’
‘He would never have the opportunity to miscalculate again. With minimum loss to ourselves, we would take out—’
‘Hold it, soldier!’ interrupted Kendrick, his tone suddenly harsh, issuing no less than an order. ‘Back up. “With minimum loss to ourselves…” What does that mean?’
‘I’m sure you’re aware that I’m not at liberty to discuss such matters.’
‘I think you damn well better. Does “minimum loss” mean just Los Angeles, or New York or maybe Albuquerque or St Louis? Since we’re all paying for this minimum-loss umbrella, why not tell us what the weather’s going to be like?’