Promise of Joy (31 page)

“Blair, I’m sorry we haven’t been able to wangle confirmation for you yet, but we’re working on it. I don’t think it will be too long.”

For a moment Blair Hannah gave him a sharply contemplative look.

“You sound as though life were still going along quite normally,” he observed in a puzzled tone. “How do you figure that?”

“It will,” he said calmly, “if you will all cooperate and if the Lord, as I believe, still takes some interest in America.”

“Maybe He does,” Blair Hannah said bleakly, “but I’m damned if I see much sign of it at the moment.”

And by six o’clock that night the word that always leaks through the sieve that is Washington had leaked, as usual, from someone in the Pentagon who belonged to a generation well-trained in the uses of publicity to thwart a President.

“According to well-informed military sources,” Frankly Unctuous said with a despair and disgust in his voice so great that it might have led to some questioning of his journalistic integrity if that had been a subject that still concerned anyone, “President Knox is apparently planning a major new offensive in the two tragic wars in which America is hopelessly entangled. All one can say is, God help this poor nation and all the peoples of the world whose hopes for peace are so inextricably bound up in what we do!…”

“A move of uttermost desperation appears to be shaping in the White House,” the
Times
wrote. “President Knox, the kidnapping of his son and daughter-in-law still unresolved, beset now by the drive for impeachment in both houses of Congress, is reportedly about to resort to the last weapon of the frantic: a wild military gamble, a renewed offensive in Gorotoland and Panama, a foredoomed, blood-drenched exercise in futility.…”

“Orrin Knox, teetering on the brink of what can only be described as mental unbalance for some days now,” the
Post
said, “is apparently slipping over. New U.S. military offensives are rumored in Gorotoland and Panama, new sacrifices of men and matériel—and with it, almost assuredly, the sacrifice of his own son and daughter-in-law, for certainly their captors will not accept this new defiance of the wishes of the peace-loving without reacting strongly. Poor Orrin Knox—poor America! And poor world, that must suffer such a man.…”

“Orrin Knox is apparently passing across that border that divides the rational from the irrational, the quick from the dead,” Walter Dobius wrote for his 436 client newspapers. “Washington buzzes today with the latest rumor about this strange, stubborn man who is defying the lessons of history and the wishes of the world in his adamant opposition to the peace-seeking efforts of the Communist powers. The rumor is that he has ordered a new offensive on the battlefields—a new, empty, foredoomed, grandiose, blood-drenched military venture. When all the Communists want is peace. When all the world wants is peace. All humankind—all nature—all everything, everywhere—wants peace. And still Orrin Knox resorts to war. The threat of impeachment, the probable murders of his children—nothing seems to deter this strange, lost man. The Angel of Death wings low over America tonight. How much longer can Orrin Knox go on?”

Yet in the White House, his face growing gaunter with strain and worry but his mood outwardly as firm and unshakable as ever, he went about his duties calmly and issued no further public word.

“Mr. President,” the general director of the
Post
said, and on the Picturephone his face too showed strain and worry and, also, a fear and shock that immediately commanded his listener’s attention. “Mr. President, I thought you should know that—that we have—”

“What?” he interrupted, and something of the old sarcasm he was accustomed to show this individual whose publication had hounded him so many years, broke through. “Written another editorial calling me a madman?”

“No, sir,” the director of the
Post
said quickly. “Please, Mr. President. This is too serious for that. This is too—”

“And that isn’t serious?” he demanded sharply. “When you bastards denounce and demean me every day of my life, doing everything you can to make it impossible for me to function, as you have tried to do to so many of my predecessors? That isn’t important, man? My God, you tell me what is!”

“I will, Mr. President,” the director of the
Post
said, neither his face nor his voice displaying the anger that Orrin might have expected from him under other circumstances; so that for the first time a frightening chill began to run along his spine.

“What is it?” he demanded sharply. “What’s on your mind? I haven’t got all day.”

“This,” the general director of the
Post
said: and reaching somewhere off-camera, he produced and held up for the President to see an object that for a moment made his head swim, his eyes blur and his body actually start to slump against the desk.

“It isn’t real!” the director of the
Post
cried hastily. “Mr. President, it isn’t real! But the hair—we think the hair—is.”

Forcing himself to open his eyes and study the grimacing blood-daubed head that the general director held balanced on one trembling palm, he could see that it was made of Styrofoam, that its features were crayoned in, that to its scalp were pasted several large swatches of blonde hair which he recognized instinctively as Crystal’s. Across the bottom of its jagged severed neck was a large card on which were scrawled, also in blood, the words: “Hello, Daddy. This is Crystal, Daddy. Crystal wants peace, Daddy. Or do you want a piece of Crystal, Daddy?”

“How did you get it?” he asked at last, a sick horror in his voice. The director of the
Post
replied in the same tone as he set the awful grotesquerie down on the desk beside him.

“It was sent to me via United Parcel Service delivery van about fifteen minutes ago, apparently as a means of assuring the widest possible publicity—which,” he added as the President stirred and started to say something, “we will not give it unless you want us to, Mr. President. Do you want us to?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, his tone suddenly cold with anger as the true monstrosity of it hit him. “I want to see if you have guts enough to show the world the kind of people you’re running with these days.”

“Very well,” the director of the
Post
said sharply, his tone too reverting instantly to its long-time hostility. “I only wanted to help—”

“On the front page,” the President suggested harshly, knowing he shouldn’t but too tired and embittered to hold himself back. “With a banner. Rub their noses in it. Write an editorial. Tell us how proud you are of your fellow workers in the cause of getting Orrin Knox. Show them what monsters you have created with your damned destructive attitude toward your own country all these years.”

“We
have created?” the director of the
Post
demanded, stung into the open anger and contempt he had always felt for this obdurate public figure who had always failed to respect the
Post’s
ineffable worth and unassailable virtue.
“We
have created? Whose are the war policies that have brought about this terrible climate in the country? Who is about to lead us into further insanities to throw after those already committed? Who is about to take us straight into a defeat from which we may never recover?”

“And who wants a ‘peace’ from which we may never recover?” the President demanded with equal anger. “A ‘peace’ which is nothing but surrender, God save the mark!”

For a long moment their eyes held in furious dislike. Then the President broke the moment with a contemptuous gesture.

“Publish if you have the guts,” he said. “And be proud of your co-conspirators against the peace of the world and the perpetuation of the United States of America.”

And reaching over before the director of the
Post
had time for more than the start of some incoherent, blurted, bitterly protesting reply, he snapped off the machine and sat back, breathing hard.

Then presently the utter horror of it hit him, and for a time he sat in the silent office, arms clasped tightly in front of him, body shaken by a silent shuddering so strong he began to think he could never control it. But presently he managed. Presently some steadiness returned. Presently, white-faced and drawn but again outwardly calm, he rang for his secretary and resumed his routine duties.

Outside, the dark winter afternoon died into night. On the streets the extra editions of the
Post
and the
Times
appeared with the horrible picture and the horrible news and the hysterical denunciatory editorials. And everywhere across the country, in print, on the air and in pompous public comment, the chant resumed.

Some few there were who understood the terrible ordeal he must be going through, and who were compassionate and courageous enough to oppose the tide and express admiration and sympathy for his determination to do the right thing as he saw it for his country and the world, even against such terrible odds.

But mostly the chant was the usual chant, for that was the popular and fashionable thing, and indeed for many the honest one: the awfulness of obdurate, unyielding, blood-thirsting, war-loving, mass-murdering, peace-destroying, humanity-betraying Orrin Knox.

White House says president will have no comment on death effigy of daughter-in-law. FBI says no direct word received from kidnappers, still draws blank on whereabouts of missing congressman and wife. Pentagon refuses to confirm or deny plans for U.S. counter-offensive. President announces he will pay cabinet out of own emergency funds, business of government will proceed “regardless of whether senate confirms them or not.” Temporary lull grips war zones as rumors of “last chance” U.S. blow continue to come from many capitals. Moscow, Peking ignore reports, show no signs of making any new overtures to beleaguered president.

But that, of course, as so often happened with the media’s flat reports to the world of what was or was not going on, was not the way the President heard it. He had felt with some instinct beyond instinct, some inner belief that had really been all the support he had known in the past forty-eight hours, that a break was coming somewhere. To that conviction he had sacrificed most of what remained of his good standing with his countrymen, nearly all of his remaining influence with the world, very possibly (although he did not believe it, otherwise he really could not have gone on) the lives of the two beings who now were all the family he had left. And still the break had not come.

But now, at precisely 11:23 p.m. by the gently humming, softly flicking digital clock on the night stand beside his bed, it did.

“You would not come to me,” a voice he instantly recognized said softly from the blacked-out screen of the Picturephone, “so I have decided to come to you.”

“Where are you?” he demanded sharply. “And how did you get to this country without being recognized?”

“Simply. An ‘elderly clerk’ flew over, complete with white hair, beard, mustache, scarf, overcoat, important papers. There was no trouble. I am at the embassy. I shall expect you within the hour. I trust there will be no more nonsense about standing on dignity. Bring friends, if you like”—he chuckled slightly, without much humor—“I have brought some with me. If I might suggest: The Vice President. President Abbott. Senator Munson. Senator Strickland. Secretary Leffingwell. Secretary Hannah. Within the hour.”

For a moment he did not reply. Then with equal firmness he said:

“It may take a few minutes to rouse the others, but as nearly as possible we shall be there—within the hour.”

“Good. Now we may do business.”

“Perhaps.”

“Within the hour.”

“I said so,” he reminded with a sudden annoyance he made no attempt to conceal. “Within the hour.”

“Good.”

Despite the best efforts of everyone concerned, however, it was closer to an hour and fifteen minutes when their small convoy of two limousines and two Secret Service cars crunched over the icy snow to the door of the embassy. The streets had been almost entirely deserted, it seemed likely that no more than a dozen startled citizens had seen them pass. None of them could have known what the unmarked cars portended.

They got out. The iron gates clanged open. The small figure of the Chairman stood outlined in the flood of light.

“You are late,” he said in an accusatory voice, offering no other greeting. “Come!” And he turned on his heel and disappeared, leaving them to follow unescorted through two lines of black-suited guards obviously trying hard to look as grim and unfriendly as possible.

“What is this?” William Abbott demanded in a deliberately loud and disgusted voice.

“I am a bad boy,” the President said grimly, “and I think we are in for a very unpleasant session.”

But none of them was prepared for the type of unpleasantness it turned out to be. They had expected bullying, denunciation, ranting, threats—a reprise of every major Soviet diplomatic
démarche
of the past three decades. Instead it began as a quiet, almost conversational discussion by their host, who, once he had them seated on one side of a long rectangular table, placed himself and six advisers, four in the uniforms of the military forces, on the other. During this he spoke no word, greeted none of them by name or title, maintained an aspect as ostentatiously cold and rigid as any of his guards along the corridor. After a couple of abortive attempts to speak to him, they accepted this, became rapidly as grim and matter-of-fact as he.

By the time he had the meeting arranged to suit him it had already, without a word spoken on either side, moved beyond the conventions of preliminary cordiality to the point of open hostility. This was apparently how he wanted it, and this, they promised themselves, was how he was going to get it.

“Mr. President!” he said finally, when all apparently satisfied him. “Gentlemen: I have called you here to receive the terms on which the Soviet Union will make peace with you, not only in the nations of Gorotoland and Panama but everywhere throughout the world. I have called you here secretly, and have come here myself secretly, because I thought we could better conclude our business free from the pressures of an open meeting held before the eyes of the world. I hope this meets with your approval. Apparently it does, for you are here.