Benchley, Peter - Novel 06 (37 page)

 
          
 
"Something's wrong with our phones,"
she called after him. "I think they're out."

 
          
 
"No, they're not." Burnham sat down,
gathered all the papers on his desk—the CIA report on the pasha, the drafts of
the toast, his DOE mail—into a pile and dropped it onto the floor. He placed a
yellow legal pad and two sharp pencils before him. Then he unfolded the telex
and smoothed it on top of the legal pad.

 
          
 
Dyanna stood in the doorway, holding a pad,
frowning.

 
          
 
"Sit over there," Burnham said,
pointing to the conference table, on which was a telephone console. "How's
your shorthand?"

 
          
 
"Rusty."

 
          
 
"Oil it up. I want you to listen to this
conversation and take down every word."

 
          
 
"Whatever for?"

 
          
 
"Because I said so!" Easy, Bumham
thought, easy. Even Stalin didn't start the day hollering at the help.

 
          
 
Dyanna reacted as if he had slapped her. Her
head jerked and her mouth opened.

 
          
 
He wanted to say "Sorry," but then
he remembered Evelyn Witt's admonition about apologizing, so he said,
"I'll start again. We have to try to stop someone from blowing up a
Russian ship. If we succeed, you'll probably be made Vice-President of the
United States
. If we fail, you'll end your days as a bag
lady in
Rock
Creek
Park
. Okay?"

 
          
 
"Wow!" was all Dyanna said, but she
smiled.

 
          
 
"If I snap my fingers at you during the
conversation, you get off the line and call the President's office and tell
Evelyn I need a confirmation of authority."

 
          
 
"To whom?"

 
          
 
"Whoever's giving me grief. You'll have
written down his name. Okay?"

 
          
 
“Yes, sir!"

 
          
 
Burnham punched a button on his phone console
and picked up the receiver. Dyanna did the same on her console. There was no
dial tone. Dyanna shrugged, saying, "See?"

 
          
 
Then a voice said, "Yes, Mr. Burnham."

 
          
 
Burnham winked at Dyanna. "Who is
this?" he said.

 
          
 
"Pingrey, sir, Thomas L. Sergeant First
Class."

 
          
 
"Here's what we have to do, Sergeant. In
Havana
harbor there is an American yacht called
Bilitis.” He spelled the name. "I want you to raise him for me. He's got
single sideband, VHF and AM. I doubt he has anything newer."

 
          
 
"No sweat, sir."

 
          
 
"Wrong. He says he won't speak to anybody
but Fidel Castro. I do a lousy Castro impression."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
"I think he'll speak to me. Personally.
No White House, no government, no military, and especially no President. Try to
raise him on my name alone. Timothy Burnham."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
"While you're setting that up, get me
General Starkweather at
Guantanamo
."

 
          
 
"Your name alone?"

 
          
 
"No. The White House, the President, the
cosmos. God, if you have to."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
"You want to call me back?"

 
          
 
"No, sir. Hang on."

 
          
 
As he waited, Burnham reread the NSC telex,
searching for any clue to Toddy's state of mind, to what had made him snap, for
Burnham was sure that something had short-circuited inside that gentle person.
But all he was able to do was reinforce his fear that within three hours, one
way or another Toddy Thatcher would be dead.

 
          
 
"Starkweather," said a voice forged
from old machine-gun parts.

 
          
 
"General, this is Timothy Burnham, in the
White House."

 
          
 
"So they said. You work for Duggan?"

 
          
 
"No, s—" Forget the "sir."
"I work for the President."

 
          
 
"Sure. So do I."

 
          
 
"The President wants me to get the
Bilitis out of there."

 
          
 
"He wants me to, too, and I'm here and
you're there."

 
          
 
"General ..." Bumham broke the
pencil in his hand. Not yet, he told himself. Save your big guns. "I
intend to get the Bilitis out of there. Until and unless I say so, you are not
to send any SEALs, any Marines, any anybody anywhere near that yacht. Is that
clear?"

 
          
 
"Look, Mr. . . . Burnham. I got a
possible war on my hands down here. I'm not gonna take orders from some—"

 
          
 
Burnham snapped his fingers at Dyanna. She
punched a new button on her console and tapped out a four-digit number.

 
          
 
When the general had finished, Burnham waited
a beat, and then he said, with what he hoped was menacing calm, "You fuck
with me, General, you're fuckin' with your heartbeat. In thirty seconds, you're
gonna get a call, and when I come back on the line, you'd better have lost your
fuckin' attitude, or you're gonna wish you'd chosen a career in the Salvation
Anny."

 
          
 
Burnham punched a button that cut Starkweather
off.

 
          
 
He was appalled at himself. His heart was
tripping along at about 150. "Fuckin' with your heartbeat?" Where had
he dredged that from? To a Marine Corps general? What had he done? He didn't
know how to handle power; he'd never had any before. Giving him power was like
putting a blind man behind the wheel of a tank. The President wasn't about to
let Timothy Y. Burnham become Commander-in-Chief. Was he?

 
          
 
Dyanna was staring at him, stunned.
"Wow!" she said.

 
          
 
"See if you can get General Starkweather
on the line again."

 
          
 
Dyanna spoke to Sergeant Pingrey and, a moment
later, said, "Just a moment. General." She nodded to Burnham.

 
          
 
Burnham took a deep breath and picked up the
receiver. "General."

 
          
 
"You have my apologies, Mr. Burnham."

 
          
 
The feeling inside Burnham was orgasmic, an
explosion in his pleasure center that sent radial messages throughout his body.
He had never talked back, even to a taxi driver, didn't dare send putrid food
back to a restaurant's kitchen, became aphasic when confronted by aggressive
strangers. Now, suddenly, armed with a cause and with authority, he had become
a force to reckon with. Or, at least, a human being.

 
          
 
And he hadn't stammered.

 
          
 
"Accepted. It's hard to keep lines of
authority straight. We're both just trying to do our jobs." Oh, spare me
your smarmy garbage, Burnham told himself. You sound like the President. He
said, "Are we agreed? You'll do nothing till you hear from me?"

 
          
 
"Agreed. You're aware of his deadline?
Seventeen hundred hours."

 
          
 
"Yep. I better get to it. Thanks,
General."

 
          
 
Burnham counted back from 2400, just to make
sure that 1700 hours was
five o'clock
. Then he picked up the receiver and waited
for Sergeant Pingrey.

 
          
 
"Mr. Burnham?"

 
          
 
"Go ahead."

 
          
 
"I've got his SSB wide open, and I've
jammed the rest of the neighborhood, so he can't talk to anybody but me. But he
won't talk. He doesn't believe it's you."

 
          
 
"Put me on, then."

 
          
 
"He says the President's trying to trick
him. He says he won't recognize your voice on the radio. He may be right."

 
          
 
Burnham thought for a moment. He could mention
Sarah's name or Toddy's parents, or
Groton
or Elon, but Toddy would know that by now
the government could have obtained all those names.

 
          
 
The answer came to him. He blushed and laughed
to himself and said, "Sergeant, ask him if he still has the plaque on the
powder-room door . . ." He looked over at Dyanna, feverishly scribbling in
shorthand. ". . . the one that says that Timothy Burnham gives good
head."

 
          
 
Pingrey sounded as if he had swallowed his
tongue.

 
          
 
Dyanna's pencil stuttered on the page, and her
ears became a pretty crimson against her yellow hair.

 
          
 
"Oh, and Sergeant: Address him as Miss
Thatcher."

 
          
 
"Yes, sir."

 
          
 
The line was dead for fifteen seconds, and
then:

 
          
 
"Timothy?"

 
          
 
"Toddy?"

 
          
 
"Timothy!"

 
          
 
"Sorry. Teresa."

 
          
 
"How are you?"

 
          
 
"I'm fine. Teresa. But that's not why I'm
calling."

 
          
 
"No."

 
          
 
"What are you doing down there?"

 
          
 
"Things got out of hand, Timothy."

 
          
 
"What things?"

 
          
 
"You don't want to know. It's
sordid."

 
          
 
"I've got to know, Teresa, if I'm going
to help you."