The Chancellor Manuscript (4 page)

The voice on the Continental’s radio was precise, commanding.

The highway department urges all motorists to stay off the roads in the Jamestown-Warren area. If you are currently en route, drive into the nearest service areas. We repeat: Storm warnings out of Lake Erie have now been confirmed. The storms have winds of hurricane force.…

“There’s a turnoff about four miles up,” said Peter, squinting at the windshield. “We’ll take it. There’s a restaurant two or three hundred yards out of the exit.”

“How can you tell?”

“We just passed a Pittsfield sign; it used to be a mark for me. It meant I was an hour from home.”

Chancellor never understood how it happened; it was a question that would burn into his mind for the rest of his life. The steep hill was an opaque blanket of torrential rain, which fell in successive, powerful gusts that literally caused the heavy car to sway on its axis, like a small boat in terrible seas.

And suddenly there were headlights blinding through the rear window, reflecting harshly off the mirror. White spots appeared in front of his eyes, obscuring even the
torrents of rain against the glass. He saw only the glaring white light.

Then it was beside him! An enormous trailer truck was overtaking him on the dangerous incline of rushing water! Peter screamed at the driver through the closed window; the man was a maniac. Couldn’t he see what he was doing? Couldn’t he see the Mark IV in the storm? Was he out of his mind?

The unbelievable happened. The huge truck veered toward him! The impact came; the steel chassis of the carriage crashed into the Continental. Metal smashed against metal. The maniac was forcing him off the road! The man was drunk or panicked by the storm! Through the blanket of slashing rain Chancellor could see the outline of the driver high up in the perch of his seat. He was
oblivious
to the Mark IV! He did not know what he was doing!

A second crunching impact came with such force that Peter’s window shattered. The Mark IV’s wheels locked; the car whipped to the right, toward a vacuum of darkness that lay beyond the ridge of the embankment.

The hood rose up in the rain; then the car lurched over the shoulder of the highway, plunging downward.

Catherine’s screams pierced the sounds of shattering glass and crushing steel as the Continental rolled over and over and over. Metal now screeched against metal as if each strip, each panel were fighting to survive the successive impacts of car against earth.

Peter lunged toward the source of the scream—toward Catherine—but he was locked in place by a shaft of steel. The automobile twisted, rolled, plunged down the embankment.

The screams stopped. Everything stopped.

The fifth limousine drove slowly through the dark, tree-lined streets of Georgetown. It stopped in front of marble steps that led up through sculptured foilage to a porticoed entrance sixty feet away. The entrance, like the rest of the house, had a quiet grandeur heightened by the muted lighting beyond the pillars that supported the balcony above it.

The four previous limousines had arrived three to six minutes apart; all were deliberately paced. They had been rented from five separate leasing agencies from Arlington to Baltimore.

Should an observer in that quiet street wish to learn the identities of the single passenger within each vehicle, he would not be able to do so. For none could be traced through the leasing arrangements, and all were unseen by the chauffeurs. A pane of opaque glass separated each driver from his charge, and none was permitted to leave his seat behind the wheel while his passenger entered or left the automobile. These chauffeurs had been selected with care.

Everything had been timed, orchestrated. Two limousines had been driven to private airfields, where for an hour they had been left locked and unattended in designated areas of the parking lots. At the end of that hour the drivers had returned, knowing their passengers would be there. The other three vehicles had been left in the same manner in three different locations: Washington’s Union Station; the shopping complex in McLean, Virginia; and the country club in Chevy Chase, Maryland—to which the specific passenger did not belong.

Finally, should any observer in that quiet street in Georgetown try to interfere with the emerging passengers,
a blond-haired man stood in the shadows on the balcony above the portico at the top of the marble staircase to prevent him. Around the man’s neck was strapped a transistorized, high-impedence microphone through which he could relay commands to others on the block, using a language that was not English. In his hands was a rifle, a silencer attached to the barrel.

The fifth passenger got out of the limousine and walked up the marble steps. The automobile drove quietly away; it would not return. The blond-haired man on the balcony spoke softly into the microphone; the door beneath was opened.

The conference room was on the second floor. The walls were dark wood, the lighting indirect. Placed at the center of the east wall was an antique Franklin stove, and in spite of the fact that it was a balmy spring evening, a fire glowed from within the iron casement.

In the center of the room was a large circular table. Around it sat six men, their ages ranging from mid-fifties to eighties. Two fell into the first category: a graying, wavy-haired man with Hispanic features; and a man with very pale skin, Nordic face, and dark, straight hair combed smoothly back above his wide forehead. The latter sat to the left of the group’s spokesman, the focal point of the table. The spokesman was in his late seventies; a fringe of hair extended around his balding head, and his features were tired—or ravaged. Across from the spokesman was a slender, aristocratic-looking man with thinning white hair and a perfectly groomed white mustache; he was also in the indeterminate seventies. On his right was a large Negro with an immense head and face that could have been chiseled from Ghanaian mahogany. On his left, the oldest and frailest man in the room; he was a Jew, a yarmulke on his hairless, gaunt skull.

All their voices were soft, their speech erudite, their eyes steady and penetrating. Each man had a quiet vitality born of extraordinary power.

And each was known by a single name that had specific significance to all at the table; no other name was ever used among them. In several cases the name had been held by the member for nearly forty years; in other cases it had been passed on, as predecessors died and successors were elected.

There were never more than six men. The spokesman
was known as Genesis—he was, in fact, the second man to hold the name. Previously, he had been known as Paris, the identity now held by the Hispanic man with the graying wavy hair.

Others were known as Christopher, Banner, Venice. And there was Bravo.

These were the men of Inver Brass.

In front of each was an identical manila folder, a single page of paper on top. Except for the name in the upper left-hand corner of the page, the remaining typewritten words would have been meaningless to any but these men.

Genesis spoke. “Above all, at all costs, the files must be taken and destroyed. In this there can be no disagreement We’ve finally established that they’re stored in an upright vault, built into the steel wall of the walk-in closet, behind and to the left of the office desk.”

“The closet lock is controlled by a switch in the center drawer,” said Banner quietly. “The vault is protected by a series of electronic releases, the first of which must be triggered from his residence. Without the first release none of the others will activate. It would take ten sticks of dynamite to break in; the estimated time of operation for an acetylene torch is roughly four hours, with alarms sounding at the first touch of heat.”

Across the table, his black face obscured in the dim light, Venice asked, “Has the location of this first release been confirmed?”

“Yes,” answered Banner. “In the bedroom. It’s in the shelf of the headboard.”

“Who confirmed it?” asked Paris, the Hispanic member of Inver Brass.

“Varak,” was Genesis’s reply from the south end of the table.

Several heads nodded slowly. The elderly Jew, to the right of Banner, addressed him. “What of the rest?”

“The subject’s medical records were obtained from La Jolla, California. As you know, Christopher, he refuses to be examined at Bethesda. The most recent cardioanalysis indicates minor hypochloremia, a low potassium condition in no way dangerous. The fact in itself, however, might be sufficient to warrant administering the required dosage of digitalis, but there’s risk of exposure through autopsy.”

“He’s an old man.” That statement was made by
Bravo, a man older than the subject in question. “Why would an autopsy be considered?”

“Because of who he is,” said Paris, the Hispanic member, his voice evidence of his early years in Castile. “It might be unavoidable. And the country cannot tolerate the turmoil of another assassination. It would give too many dangerous men the excuse to move, to implement a series of horrors in the name of patriotism.”

“I submit,” interrupted Genesis, “that should these same dangerous men—and I refer without equivocation to Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue—should these men and the subject reach an accommodation, the horrors you speak of will be minuscule by comparison. The key, gentlemen, is in the subject’s files. They’re held out like raw meat to hungry jackals. Those files in the hands of Sixteen hundred would usher in government by coercion and blackmail. We all know what’s taking place right now. We
must
act.”

“Reluctantly I agree with Genesis,” said Bravo. “Our information shows that Sixteen hundred has gone beyond the unattractive limits experienced in previous administrations. It’s approaching the uncontrollable. There’s hardly an agency or a department that has not been contaminated. But an Internal Revenue investigation, or a DIA surveillance report, pales beside those files. Both in nature and—far more seriously—in the stature of those they concern. I’m not sure we have an alternative.”

Genesis turned to the younger member at his side. “Banner, would you summarize, please?”

“Yes, of course.” The slender, fiftyish man nodded, paused, and placed his hands in front of him on the table. “There’s very little to add. You’ve read the report. The subject’s mental processes have disintegrated rapidly; one internist suspects arteriosclerosis, but there’s no way to confirm the diagnosis. The La Jolla records are controlled by the subject. At the source. He screens the medical data. Psychiatrically, however, there’s complete agreement: The maniac-depressive condition has advanced to the state of acute paranoia.” The man stopped, his head turned slightly to Genesis but not excluding anyone else at the table. “Frankly that’s all I have to know to cast my vote.”

“Who reached this agreement?” asked the old Jew known as Christopher.

“Three psychiatrists, unknown to each other, retained
by remote and asked to submit independent reports. These were collectively interpreted by our own man. Acute paranoia was the only conceivable judgment.”

“How did they go about their diagnosis?” Venice leaned forward, his large black hands folded as he asked the question.

“Infrared, telescopic motion-picture cameras were used over a thirty-day period in every possible situation. In restaurants, the Presbyterian Church, in arrivals and departures at all formal and private functions. Two lip-readers provided texts of everything said; the texts were identical. There are also extensive, I should say exhaustive, reports from our own sources within the bureau. There can be no dispute with the judgment. The man’s mad.”

“What of Sixteen hundred?” Bravo stared at the younger man.

“They’re getting closer, making progress every week. They’ve gone so far as to suggest a formal, internal association, the objective obviously the files. The subject’s wary; he’s seen them all, and those at Sixteen hundred aren’t the best. But he admires their arrogance, their
macho
, and they stroke him. That’s the word that’s used, incidentally.
Stroke.”

“How appropriate,” replied Venice. “Is their progress substantive?”

“I’m afraid so. There’s hard evidence that the subject has delivered several dossiers—or the most damaging information contained in them—to the Oval Office. Understandings are being reached both in the area of political contributions and the election itself. Two contenders for the opposition’s presidential nomination have agreed to withdraw—one by exhausted finances, the other by an act of instability.”

“Please explain that,” instructed Genesis.

“A gross mistake by words or action that eliminates him from the presidential stakes but is not serious enough to threaten his congressional standing. In this case, a display of unreasonable behavior during the primaries. These things are well thought out.”

“They’re frightening,” said Paris angrily.

“They stem from the subject,” said Bravo. “May we touch once again on an autopsy. Can it be controlled?”

“It may not have to be,” answered Banner, his hands now separated, the palms face down on the table. “We’ve
flown in a man from Texas, an expert in cardiovascular research! He thinks he’s dealing with a prominent family on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A patriarch going insane, capable of extraordinary damage, organic and psychiatric symptoms indistinguishable. There’s a chemical derivative of digitalis that, when combined with an intravenous injection of air, may be untraceable.”

“Who’s overseeing this aspect?” Venice was unconvinced.

“Varak,” said Genesis. “He’s the source control of the entire project.”

Once more there was a nodding of heads.

“Are there further questions?” asked Genesis.

Silence.

“Then, we vote,” continued Genesis, removing a small pad from beneath the manila envelope. He tore six pages and passed five to his left. “The Roman numeral one signifies affirmative; two, negative. As is customary a tie vote is negative.”

The men of Inver Brass made their marks, folded the papers, and returned them to Genesis. He spread them out.

“The vote is unanimous, gentlemen. The project is on.” He turned to Banner. “Please bring in Mr. Varak.”