Chapter III: Part 3

The rest of the tests, you can imagine, were almost anticlimactic. I stopped motors, blew tubes, turned lights off and on, rang bells and cooked the insulation on yards and yards of wire. My head they kept connected with taped terminals and every time I blew a fuse or a motor they would see the dials spin crazily. Then they would stand around clucking and chattering desperately. They took X-rays by the score, hoping to find something wrong with the shape of my head, and for all the results they got, might have been using a Brownie on a cue ball. Then they'd back off to the corner and sulk. One little bearded rascal, in particular, to this day is certain that Kellner was risking his life in getting within ten feet. He never turned his back on me that I recall; he sidled around, afraid I would set his watch to running backwards. You know, one of the funniest and yet one of the most pathetic things in the world is the spectacle of someone who has spent his life in mastering a subject, only to find that he has built a sled without runners. Long before we were finished I thought Kellner, for one, was going to eat his tie, stripes and all. Running around in ever-widening circles they were, like coon dogs after a scent. They didn't get a smell. The medico who ran the electro-cardiograph refused to make sense, after the fifth trials, out of the wiggly marks on his graphs.

"Kellner," he stated flatly, "I don't know just what your game is, but these readings are not true."

Kellner didn't like that. Nor did he like the man who wanted to shave my head. I wouldn't let them do that. I look bad enough now. I compromised by letting them soak my head in what smelled like water, and then tying or pasting strands of tape all over my scalp. A pretty mess I was, as bad as a woman getting a permanent wave. Worse. One whole day I stood for that. This specialist, whatever he did, had Kellner get me to run through my repertoire of bells and fans and buzzers while he peered nearsightedly at his elaborate tool shop. When the fuse would blow or the bell would ring, the specialist would wince as though he were pinched. Kellner stood over his shoulder saying at intervals, "What do you get? What do you get?" Kellner finally got it. The specialist stood up, swore in Platt-deutsch, some at Kellner and some at me and some at his machine, and left in all directions. The gist of it was that he was too important and too busy to have jokes played on him. Kellner just wagged his head and walked out.

The Old Man said, "You're not one bit different from anyone else."

"Sure," I said. "I could have told you that long ago. It shouldn't take a doctor."

"Miller, what in blazes are we going to do with you?"

I didn't know. I'd done my share. "Where do we go from here?"

The Old Man looked out the window. The sun was going down. "Someone wants to see you. He's been waiting for Kellner to finish with you. We leave tonight."

"For where?" I didn't like this running around. "Who's 'he'?"

"For Washington. You'll see who it is."

Washington, more than just a sleeper jump away. Washington? Oh, oh.... Well, let's get it over with. We did. We left for the capital that night.

We slipped in the back door, or what passed for the back door. Pretty elaborate layout, the White House. Our footsteps rang as hollow as my heart on the shiny waxed floors.

The Old Man did the honors. "Mr. President, this is Mr. Miller."

He shook hands. He had a good grip.

"General Hayes, you know. Admiral Lacey, Admiral Jessop, Mr. Hoover you know, General Buckley. Gentlemen. Mr. Miller."

We shook hands all around. "Glad to know you." My palms were slippery.

The President sat, and we followed suit. The guest of honor, I felt like my head was shaved, and I had a slit pants leg. You don't meet the President every day.

The President broke the ice. It was thin to begin with. "You have within yourself the ability, the power, to do a great deal for your country, Mr. Miller, or would you prefer to be called Pete?"

Pete was all right. He was older, and bigger. Bigger all around.

"A great deal of good, or a great deal of harm."

No harm. I'm a good citizen.

"I'm sure of that. But you can understand what I mean, by harm."

Likely I could, if I really wanted to. But I didn't. Not the place where you were born.

"Naturally, Pete, it makes me feel a great deal better, however, to hear you say and phrase it just like that." The light of the lamp glittered on his glasses. "Very, very much better, Pete."

I was glad it was dark beyond the range of the lamp. My face was red. "Thank you, Mr. President."

"I like it better, Pete, because from this day on, Pete, you and I and all of us know that you, and you alone, are going to have a mighty hard row to hoe." That's right; he was a farmer once. "Hard in this respect--you understand, I know, that for the rest of your natural life you must and shall be guarded with all the alert fervor that national security demands. Does that sound too much like a jail sentence?"

It did, but I lied. I said, "Not exactly, Mr. President. Whatever you say is all right with me."

He smiled. "Thank you, Pete.... Guarded as well and as closely as--the question is, where?"

* * * * *

I didn't know I'd had a choice. The Old Man had talked to me before on that.

"Not exactly, Pete. This is what I mean: General Buckley and General Hayes feel that you will be safest on the mainland somewhere in the Continental United States. Admirals Lacey and Jessop, on the other hand, feel that the everpresent risk of espionage can be controlled only by isolation, perhaps on some island where the personnel can be exclusively either military or naval."

I grinned inwardly. I knew this was going to happen.

"Mr. Hoover concedes that both possible places have inherent advantages and disadvantages," the President went on. "He feels, however, that protection should be provided by a staff specially trained in law-enforcement and counter-espionage."

So where did that leave me? I didn't say it quite that way, but I put across the idea.

The President frowned a bit at nothing. "I'm informed you haven't been too ... comfortable."

I gulped. Might as well be hung for a sheep. If the Boss likes you, the Help must. "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but it isn't much fun being shifted around pillar and post."

He nodded slowly. "Quite understandable, under the circumstances. That, we'll try to eliminate as much as we can. You can see, Pete," and he flashed that famous wide grin, "it will be in the national interest to see that you are always in the finest physical and mental condition. Crudely expressed, perhaps, but the truth, nevertheless."

I like people to tell me the truth. He could see that. He's like that, himself. On his job, you have to be like that.

"Now, Pete; let's get down to cases. Have you any ideas, any preferences, any suggestions?" He took a gold pencil out of his breast pocket and it began to twirl.

I had an idea, all right. "Why not just let me go back home? I'll keep my mouth shut, I won't blow any fuses or raise any hell, if you'll excuse the expression."

Someone coughed. The President turned his head out of the circle of light. "Yes, Mr. Hoover?"

J. Edgar Hoover was diffident. "Er ... Mrs. Miller has been informed of her husband's ... demise. An honorable one," he hastened to add, "and is receiving a comfortable pension, paid from the Bureau's special funds."

"How much?" I wanted to know.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well ... a hundred a month."

I looked at the President. "Bought any butter lately?"

The President strangled a cough. "Have you, Mr. Hoover, bought any butter lately?"

J. Edgar Hoover couldn't say anything. It wasn't his fault.

I flicked a glance at General Hayes. "How much does it cost the Army for an antiaircraft gun?" I looked at one of the admirals. "And how much goes down the drain when you launch a battleship? Or even a PT boat?"

The President took over. "Rest assured, Mr. Miller. Your wife's pension is quadrupled, effective immediately." He swung his chair to face Hoover; "Cash will be transferred tomorrow to the Bureau from the State Department's special fund. You'll see to that?" to the Old Man. So that was what he did for a living. That State Department is a good lifetime job, I understand.

* * * * *

That took a load from my mind, but not all. I spoke to Hoover directly.

"How is my ... widow?"

As tense and as bad as I felt just then, I was sorry for him.

"Quite well, Mr. Miller. Quite well, considering. It came as a blow to her, naturally--"

"What about the house?" I asked him. "Is she keeping up the payments?"

He had to admit that he didn't know. The President told him to finish the payments, pay for the house. Over and above the pension? Over and above the pension. And I was to get a regular monthly report on how she was getting along.

"Excuse me, Mr. President. I'd rather not get a regular monthly report, or any word at all, unless she--unless anything happens to her."

"No report at all, Pete?" That surprised, him, and he eyed me over the top of his bifocals.

"She's still young, Mr. President," I said, "and she's just as pretty as the day we got married. I don't think I'd want to know if ... she got married again."

The quiet was thick enough to slice. If they talked about Helen any more I was going to throw something. The President saw how I felt.

"Now, Mr. Miller--Pete. Let's get back to business. You were saying--?"

Yes, I had an idea. "Put me on an island somewhere, the further away the better. I wouldn't like being around things without being able to be in the middle. Better put me where I can't weaken, where I can't sneak out a window or swim back." Everyone was listening. "Keep the uniforms away from me, out of sight." The Brass didn't like that, but they heard me out. "Feed me a case of beer once in a while and a few magazines and some books and right boys to play euchre. I guess that's all I want."

The gold pencil turned over and over. "That isn't very much, Pete."

"That's all. If I'm going to do the Army's and the Navy's work they can leave me alone till they need me. If I can't live my life the way I want, it makes no difference what I do. My own fault is that all my family lived to be eighty, and so will I. Is that what you wanted to know?"

The gold pencil rolled off the table. "Yes, yes, Pete. That's what I wanted to know."

I tried once more. "There isn't any way I can just go home?"

A slow shake of his head, and finality was in his voice. "I'm afraid there isn't any way." And that was that.

The President stood up in dismissal, and we all rose nervously. He held out his hand. "Sorry, Pete. Perhaps some day...."

I shook his hand limply and the Old Man was at my elbow to steer me out. Together we paced back through the dark hall, together we stepped quietly out into the black Washington night. Our footsteps echoed softly past the buildings of the past and the future. The car was waiting; Stein, the driver. The heavy door slammed, and the tires hissed me from the pavement.

The Old Man's voice was gentle. "You behaved well, Peter."

"Yeh."

"I was afraid, for a moment, that you were going to kick over the traces. The President is a very important man."

"Yeh."

"You are, too. Right now, probably the most important man in the world. You took it very well."

"Yeh."

"Is that all you have to say?"

I looked out the window. "Yeh," and he fell quiet.

Stein got us to the airport, and there was waiting an Army ship for the three of us. I might have been able to see the Monument or the Capitol when we were airborne. I don't know. I didn't look.

Later I asked Stein where we were going. He didn't know. I prodded the Old Man out of a doze. I wished I could sleep.

He hesitated. Then, "West. Far west."

"West." I thought that over. "How much out of your way would it be to fly over Detroit?"

"You couldn't see much."

I knew that. "How much out of your way?"

Not too much. He nodded to Stein, who got up and went forward. After he came back and sat down the plane slipped on one wing and straightened on its new course. No one said anything more after that.

We hit Detroit about five thousand feet, the sun just coming up from Lake Ste. Clair. Smith was right. Although I craned my neck I couldn't see much. I picked up Gratiot, using the Penobscot Tower for a landmark, and followed it to Mack, and out Mack. I could just pick out the dogleg at Connors, and imagined I could see the traffic light at Chalmers. I had to imagine hard. The way we were flying, the body and the wing hid where I'd lived, where--the cigarette I had in my fist tasted dry, and so did my mouth, so I threw it down and closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Somewhere around Nebraska we landed for fuel.

* * * * *

Maybe it was Kansas. It was flat, and hot, and dry. The Old Man and Stein and I got out to stretch. There was no shade, no trees, no green oasis for the traveler. The olive drab tanker that pulled up to pump gas into our wing tanks was plastered with "No Smoking" tabs, and we walked away before the hose was fully unreeled. Off to our right was the only shade, back of the landing strip, a great gray hangar glutted with shiny-nosed, finny monsters. Out of the acrid half-pleasant reek of high-octane, we stood smoking idly, watching the denimed air-crews clamber flylike over the jutting wings. From the post buildings off to the right jounced a dusty motorcycle. We watched it twist to a jerking stop at our refueling ship, and the soldier that dismounted bobbed in salute to the two pilots watching the gassing operation. Two motions only they used; one to return the salute and another to point us out in the shadow of the hangar. The soldier shaded his eyes from the sun to peer in our direction, calculated the distance with his eye, and then roared his motorcycle almost to our feet.

"Post Commander's compliments," he barked. "And will the gentlemen please report at once to the Colonel's office?"

The Old Man eyed the motorcycle and the empty sidecar. He looked at Stein.

"Better stay here," he said thoughtfully. "If I need you, I'll come back." He climbed awkwardly into the sidecar, and the soldier, after a hesitant acceptance, kicked the starter. The Old Man gripped the sides firmly as they bounced away in the baking breeze, and Stein looked absently at his watch. It was close to noon.

At twelve-thirty the gas truck rolled ponderously back to its den. At one, our two pilots struck out across the strip for the post buildings, shimmering in the heat. At one-thirty, I turned to Stein, who had been biting his nails for an hour.

"Enough is enough," I said. "Who finds out what--you or I?"

He hesitated, and strained his eyes. The Old Man, nor anyone, was not in sight. The post might have been alone in the Sahara. He chewed his lip.

"Me, I guess." He knew better than to argue with me, in my mood. "I'll be back. Ten minutes," and he started for the post. He got no further than half the distance when an olive sedan, a big one, raced toward us. It stopped for Stein, sucked him into the front seat, whirled back past me to our plane standing patiently, and dumped out our two pilots. A final abrupt bounding spin brought it to the hangar. The Old Man leaned out of the back door.

"In, quick," he snapped.

I got in, and the soldier driver still had the sedan in second gear when we got to our ship. One motor was already coughing, and as we clambered into the cabin the starter caught the second. Both propellers vanished into a silvered arc, and without a preparatory warmup we slewed around and slammed back in the bucket seats in a pounding takeoff. Stein went forward to the pilot's cabin, and I turned, half-angrily, to the Smith. His face was etched with bitterness. Something was wrong, something seriously wrong.

"What's up?" I asked. "What's the big hurry?"

He flicked a sidelong glance at me, and his brows almost met. He looked mad, raving mad.

"Well?" I said. "Cat got your tongue?" I noticed then that he was fraying and twisting a newspaper. I hadn't seen a newspaper for what seemed years. Stein came back and sat on the edge of the seat. What in blazes was the matter?

Smith said something unprintable. That didn't sound right, coming from that refined face. I raised my eyebrows.

"Leak," he ended succinctly. "There's been a leak. The word's out!"

That was a surprise. A big one.

"And it's thanks to you!"

"Me?"

He flipped the newspaper at me. I caught it in midair, and there it was, smeared all over the face of the Kansas City _Sentinel_. Great, black, tall shrieking streamer heads:

AMERICA HAS ATOMIC DEFENSE!

I scanned the two columns of stumbling enthusiastic prose that trailed over on to Page Two. Stein came over and leaned over my shoulder and breathed on my ear as we read. He hadn't seen the sheet, either. It ran something like this:

America, it was learned today, has at last an absolute
defense, not only to the atomic bomb, but to every gun,
every airplane, every engine, every weapon capable of being
used by man. Neither admitted nor denied at this early date
by even the highest government officials, it was learned by
our staff late last night that America's latest step
forward....

Column after column of stuff like that. When the reporter got through burbling, he did have a few facts that were accurate. He did say it was my doing that set off the last atomic bomb test; he did say that I was apparently invulnerable to violence powered by electrical or internal combustion engines; he did say what I could do, and what I had done, and how often. He didn't say who I was, or what I looked like, or where I'd come from, or what I did or didn't know.

Sprinkled through the story--and I followed it back to Page 32 and the pictures rehashed of the traffic jam in Detroit--were references to T. Sylvester Colquhoun, the boy who dumped the original plate of beans. He attested this and swore to that. Whoever he was, wherever he got his information, he--there was his picture on Page 32, big as life and twice as obnoxious; Mr. Whom and the van Dyke.

Guiltily I handed the paper over to Stein, who turned back to the front page and started again from the beginning. I tried to carry things off in the nonchalant manner, but I couldn't. I had to watch the Old Man light a cigarette with fumbling fingers, take a few snorting puffs, and crush it viciously under his heel. Miller and his temper.

Whom--or T. Sylvester Colquhoun--had, quite obviously, a grudge against the short left that had given him his concussion. According to the _Sentinel_, he had babbled a bit when he was released from the hospital, and an alert newshawk had trailed him to his home and bluffed him into spilling the whole story. He had sense enough, at that late stage of the game, to keep my name out of it, if he ever knew it. The reporter had gone to his editor with the story, who had laughed incredulously at first, and then checked Kellner at the laboratory. Kellner had clammed up, and when the now suspicious editor had tried to check Colquhoun's tale personally, Colquhoun had vanished. A snooping neighbor had noted the license of the car that had taken him away. The Highway Department--the editor must have moved fast and decisively--showed the license plate as issued to a man the editor knew personally as a special agent of the Kansas City Branch of the FBI.

Then hell began to pop. Repeated long-distance calls to Washington ran him up against a stone wall. The answers he got convinced him that there was something to Colquhoun's wild tale, something weird and yet something that had a germ of truth. (Half of this, understand, was in the _Sentinel_. The other half I picked up later on, adding two and two.) As he was sitting mulling things over it was his turn to get a call from Washington. The State Department was on the line; Morgan, the Under Secretary.

Morgan fairly yelled at him. "Where did you get that information? What's the idea?" and so on. That clinched it for the editor. Then it was he knew.

Morgan made his mistake there. He began to threaten, and the editor hit the ceiling. Hit it hard, because he stretched things a little. He stretched it more than just a little.

He said, "Furthermore, that's on the street right now--this is a newspaper, not a morgue!"

It wasn't on the street, the editor knew. Perhaps he wanted to throw a scare into Morgan, perhaps--But Morgan!

Morgan gasped, "Oh, my God!" and hung up with a bang.

The editor flipped a mental coin. His circulation was not what it should be, the boss had been riding him lately, his job might be where a beat would tilt the balance up or down. The national safety that Morgan had shouted about--well, if we had the perfect weapon and the perfect defense, what was there to fear? And this _was_ a newspaper, not a morgue! They replated, and the first extras hit the street to wake up half the city. The wire services had the story and extras were rolling throughout the country, or the world, about the time I was watching the sun over Lake Ste. Clair.

Neither the State Department nor the FBI were on their toes that day. Instead of denying everything, or instead of laughing heartily at the pipedream of an editor trying to sell an extra edition or two, whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes demanded flatly that all wire services kill and disregard all references to Colquhoun. No one ever made a newspaperman do what he really didn't want to do. The very fact that the government was so eager to kill the story made every newsman worthy of his salt all the more eager to break the paper-thin shell around the meaty yolk. By noon, the time we landed for fuel, every Washington correspondent for every news service had a little different story for his boss, the White House was practically besieged at the mere rumor that the President was to issue a statement, and the State Department was going quietly mad.

"Not so quietly, at that," the Old Man said sourly. "One hour straight I stayed on that telephone. One hour straight I talked to one bunch of raving maniacs, and all the common sense I heard would go into your left eye."

By that time his temper had cooled below melting, and we were again on reasonably good terms. I was curious to know just who the Old Man had talked to.

He grunted. "Just about everyone in Washington with any authority at all. No one with any intelligence."

I could appreciate that. I have a very low opinion of anyone who stays in Washington any longer than necessary.

I asked him, "We're apparently heading back there. Why? Where were we going when they stopped us?"

He wasn't sure. "I wanted to keep on going," he said, "and get you out of the country. I still think that would have been best. There was to be a cruiser waiting at Bremerton for a shakedown cruise. But whoever is running all this--and I don't think that the President has thought too much about it--wants us to get back to Washington for another conference."

* * * * *

"Another meeting?" I was disgusted. Washington political rashes manifest themselves most often by the consistent eruption of conferences in which nothing is said, nothing decided, nothing done. "What does who think what?"

He blinked, and then smiled. "I couldn't say. I've been in this game only twenty years. At any rate, you can see who's worried."

I didn't see, exactly.

"No?" He was amused. "Don't you remember the discussion we had about who was going to watch the watchers? Now that there's been a leak, the Army is going to blame the Navy, the Navy is going to blame the FBI, and I take punishment from all three." He sighed. "My department seems, invariably, to be in the middle."

I let it go at that. I didn't have the heart to remind him that a good portion of the trouble and friction this country has had in its history has been because the State Department has been sitting on the water bucket when it should have been playing deep centerfield. No use worrying about things until the fuse is burnt half its length, I thought. That might be, for me and all of us, a good policy to adopt, for the time being. Let the boys at the top fret and worry; let them wrack their brains and beat their heads against the wall. I'd do what they told me, if I could. The man that pays the salary worries about the unemployment tax.

"Stein," I said, "are there any more of those sandwiches?"

The Old Man settled back in his seat and began to read the Kansas City _Sentinel_ all over again. He was still worried when we landed in Washington.

He left in a waiting black sedan, and Stein and I stayed in the ship until it was yanked into a dark hangar by a tiny tractor with great rubber tires. We slid out the back of the hangar when the wary Stein thought it was safe, and a taxi rolled us to the Mayflower. There we registered, I was told, as James Robertson and William Wakefield, Wisconsin Dells.

"Milwaukee," I suggested, "has better beer."

He took the hint, and when the waiter brought our late dinner, the ice bucket had eight frosty bottles. They practically sizzled when they went down. Bob Stein, at times, had some earmarks of genius, even if you had to lay them bare with an axe.

The first day wasn't bad; we sat around, drank beer and ate huge thick sirloins on the swindle sheet, and told all the stories we knew. The radio was blurting either soap operas, hill-billy music, or lentil-mouthed commentators. The story broken in the _Sentinel_ was gathering momentum, by what we read and heard, and that was too close to home. So we made a pact to turn off the radio and keep it that way. We never missed it.

The second day the beer tasted as good as ever. The steaks were just as thick and just as tender, the hotel service just as unobtrusive. Stein was just as cheerful and as pleasant company. But I spent a lot of time looking out the window.

"You know, Bob," I said thoughtfully, "how would you like a big plate of spaghetti? Or ravioli? Maybe some pizza?"

He came out of the bathroom wiping his face with a towel, his hair wet and frizzled.

"Am I going to have trouble with you?" He was pessimistic. "Aren't you ever satisfied?"

I turned away from the window and let the curtain flap in the breeze. "Who wants to be satisfied? How about some sub-gum war mein, or chicken cacciatora?"

He tossed the towel back through the open door. "Now, look here," he protested.

I laughed at him. "Okay, but you get the point."

He did, but he didn't know what he could do about it. "We were supposed to wait here until--"

That one I'd heard before. "Until the hotel freezes over, sure. But I don't want to freeze. Do you?"

No, nor to rust. You could see that he liked his job of body-guard and factotum, and yet....

I pushed him over the edge. "Tell you what to do," I said. "You call up and say that I'm getting restless. Say that you're afraid I'll ease out of here when your back is turned. Say anything you like, as long as you lay it on thick, and I'll back you up. Okay?"

He weighed it awhile. He liked inaction, no matter how sybaritic as much as I. Then, "Okay," and he reached for the telephone.

The number he gave answered the first ring.

"I'm calling for Mr. Robertson," he said. "This is Mr. William Wakefield. W. W. Wakefield." He paused. Then, "Ordinarily, I wouldn't, but Mr. Robertson felt that I should get in touch with you at once."

The other end squawked, nervously, I thought.

Stein thought so, too. "That's quite possible. However, Mr. Robertson feels that his time here in Washington is valuable. So valuable that he thinks that his business is soon going to call him back to Wisconsin Dells, if the merger referred to is delayed any longer. I beg your pardon?"

* * * * *

He twisted to throw me a wink over his shoulder as the telephone chattered frantically.

"That's exactly what I told Mr. Robertson.... Yes, he knows of that.... Yes, I have assured him that, in these days of business uncertainty and production difficulties, mergers are not as easily arranged as--" That Stein had a sense of humor when he wanted to use it.

"Is that right? I'm glad to hear it. One moment, while I check with Mr. Robertson." He held his hand over the mouthpiece and grinned at me. "They are ready to have a stroke. This man I'm talking to has no more authority than a jackrabbit, and he knows it. He wants to check with his boss, and call us back later. All right with you, Mr. Robertson?"

I laughed out loud, and he clamped the mouthpiece tighter. "I think so, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. As long as he puts the heat on that merger."

He went back on the telephone. "Mr. Robertson thinks he might be able to wait a trifle longer. He asked me to warn you, that as he is a very busy man, every minute of his time can cost a considerable amount of money and goods.... Yes, I'll tell him that.... I'll be waiting for your call.... Yes, I will. Thank you, and good-bye." He hung up the telephone with a flourish.

"Satisfied, Mr. Robertson?"

I was satisfied. "Quite, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. Wouldst care for ein bier?"

Ein bier haben. He would.

The telephone rang about an hour later, and I answered it. It was the Old Man's voice.

"Mr. Robertson?" he said cautiously.

"Mr. Robertson speaking," I said. "Yes?"

"I'm calling," he told me in a voice that said he was annoyed, but didn't want to show it, "in reference to the Wisconsin Dells merger."

"Yes?" I gave him no help.

"You understand, Mr. Robertson, that such an important merger can hardly be arranged at a moment's notice."

Yes, I understood that. "But two days notice is more than sufficient, even allowing for an enormous amount of red tape." I put real regret into my voice. "It is not that I wouldn't like to let nature take its course, but other things must be taken into consideration." I hoped I sounded like the busy executive. "I believe that Mr. Wakefield, Mr. W. W. Wakefield, has explained that I am a very busy man, and that I can hardly be expected to wait indefinitely in even such a pleasant atmosphere."

The Old Man forced a cheery--and false--heartiness. "There are, or there might be, Mr. Robertson, other things that might induce you to stay. Many other things."

Threaten me, would he? "That, I doubt very much. I'm afraid I must insist--it's now two-twenty. If a merger, or at least a meeting cannot be arranged by tomorrow at the very latest, the reason for having a meeting will, for all practical purposes, have ceased to exist. Do I make myself clear?"

I certainly did. With a short-tempered bang, Smith hung up, after saying that he would call back later. I relayed the conversation to Bob Stein, and we sent down for lunch.

The Old Man called back about seven, when I was washing up, and Bob answered the telephone. By the time I came out he had all the information we needed, and was calling room service to clear the dishes.

"Meeting tonight," he said when he was finished. He was pleased with himself.

"Good." It was getting a little tiresome being cramped up. "When? Where?"

He shrugged. "Where? I couldn't say. Someone will call for us, somewhere between nine and ten. And," he added slowly, "it might be a good idea to wear the best bib and tucker, with Sunday School manners."

"Oh?" I said, "that kind of a party? Fine. I'm all ready now. Better get your hat."

At ten-thirty, the telephone rang. I answered it.

"This is the desk," it said. "Mr. Wakefield?"

"He's here," I said. "Wait a minute," and I passed the phone to Stein.

"Wakefield," he said. "Yes?"

The receiver chattered briefly.

"All right," and he waved at me. "Be right down." He turned. "Car waiting." It didn't take us long to get downstairs.

It was a sedan with a neat little drive-yourself tab on the right-hand door. Before we got near the car, Stein was careful to see who was the driver. He evidently was someone he knew, so Bob nodded curtly, and we got in and pulled away from the curb.

* * * * *

I don't know Washington at all, so I can't say where we made port. Not too far a drive, I imagine, if we had gone there directly. It was a good forty-five minutes before we ended our erratic turning of corners and sped up a long tree-bordered driveway.

"Nice place," I said to Stein as we braked to a stop in front of a long white-columned Southern portico. "Who lives here?"

He smiled and shook his head. "That's something I don't know. Does it matter?"

It didn't.

As we strode up the steps the Drive-Yourself pulled away, tires crackling on the white gravel. We both reached for the knocker at the same time, but before we had it, the door swung open. Stein recognized the young fellow who opened it and took our hats. A message passed between their eyes, and the young man almost imperceptibly shook his head in negation.

"Will you come this way, please?" and he led us down the hall.

The house was smaller than the outside had led me to expect. The builder had gone whole hog on the giant Greek columns and the wide sweep of the porch, and the inside of the house showed the results of the skimping. Not that it wasn't a far bigger and a far more expensive house than any average man would hope to have, but the limited space inside didn't go with those sweeping curves of the drive. I wondered who lived there.

The room where the doorman left us went with the inside of the house. So small it reminded me of the times when I tried to sell brushes during the depression, in Grosse Pointe, I expected every moment to have an underpaid maid, laundress, and butler come in to tell me that the lady of the house was out. In keeping with the faded appointments of the tiny room, a Chinese table held, for those who wait and read, an ancient collection of "Spur" and "Town and Country." As we sat and smoked, far off through the thin walls we could hear the soft rumble of voices. Occasionally a bass would rise above the sound, and a baritone would slide softly and soothingly across the pained roar. The front door opened and closed twice during the fifteen minutes or so we waited, and the footsteps that came in went past our room and pattered further down the hall. Each time, when the steps were out of reach of hearing, another door would open, and the distant voices would become almost distinguishable until the door again was shut. I looked curiously around the walls. Decorated with prints and pictures they were, yes, but with that faded permanency that to me spells the furnished house. The rugs were worn, worn to the shredding point, worn until the spurious Oriental design seemed an eerie Dali drawing. All it needed was the faroff smell of secondhand ham and cabbage.

The doorman slipped in and beckoned to us, a grim conspirator if ever I saw one. We followed him back to the entrance hall, back, back, to where the voices grew louder at every step. A double door--golden oak, or I don't know wood--barred the end of the hall, and the young fellow preceded us to throw it open with a semi-flourish. We walked in.

The place was blue with smoke. That was the first thing we saw. Lights there were in plenty, hanging around, hanging over the great oval table in the center of the room in a fiery glitter of glassy brilliants. The room was enormous, and I began to realize why this house was still in existence. Who cares about rugs if there is just one single room in the house where a ball or a party could be comfortably accommodated. Or a conference. I didn't know whose name appeared on the tax bills, but I would bet that it would be any other name besides the United States Government.

No group of men or women could produce that much smoke in a short time. That meeting had been going on for hours. As we stepped in through the double doors I tried to pick out anyone I knew, but the glare flickered in my eyes and I saw no face as more than just a pale blur against a background of tenuous blue. Tentatively I got inside the doors and they shut behind me with an abrupt finality. Two steps forward, three, four, five, and Stein drifted away from my side, away from the eyes that grew in size as I got closer to the table rim, toward the vacant chairs I saw slightly pulled away and ready for occupants. I stumbled over nothing and a reassuring hand touched mine. I felt callow, self-conscious, awkward. I never thought I'd be so glad to see Old Man Smith.

He stood alongside me as I sank gratefully into my ready chair. "Gentlemen," he announced quietly, "Mr. Peter A. Miller."

I half-bowed automatically, the proper thing to do, and the Old Man gave me his moral support by sitting next to me. He leaned over to say, "I won't introduce you formally. Point out who you want to know and I'll tell you who he is."

"Okay," I muttered, and felt in my pockets for cigarettes. I had to do something with my hands. I blew a cloud into the air and felt better. Settled back into the chair, I sent my glance around the table. Did I know anyone there?

* * * * *

At my right, the Old Man. His suit was wrinkled and his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. The large paper pad in front of him was covered with crisscross lines. On his right, a quite old man, bald and beetle-browed. His collar was open and wrinkled, his vest twisted under the lapel of his coat. I leaned toward Smith, and indicated his companion with my eyes.

"Morgan, Undersecretary of State," he said softly.

Morgan heard his name spoken, and shot a questioning glance my way. He realized what had been said and the beetlebrows slid upwards in a movement meant to be conciliatory. He bobbed his head with a cursory jerk and went back to staring across the table. I followed his glance.

The object of his affections seemed to be--yes, it was. Five-Star General Oliver P. Legree, not so affectionately called Simon by the men who served under him. I had been one of them. Trim and rigid and oh, so military he was, the very figure of a modern five-star general. His poker-stiff back thrust the tiers of ribbons to a sparkling glitter under the tinkling glare of the massive chandelier overhead. His face--well, it's been in enough rotogravures worldwide. The cigar was there, the big black cigar he never lit and never lost. His trademark was that cigar; his trademark was that and his jutting jaw that to everyone but his compatriots spelled determination and grit. To his staff and his men--me--it meant an ill-fitting lower plate.

That prognathous jaw was tilted, aimed at Morgan, and Morgan knew it. What had gone on just before I had come in? Just as I started to turn my glance away, the General threw his famous scowl directly at me. For one long second our eyes clung, almost glared. Then, without a sign of emotion or recognition he went back to staring at the Undersecretary with an intensity almost violent. Shaken back into self-consciousness by that grim stare I tried to fit together some of the other faces about the table.

Admiral Mason-Nason-Lacey--Admiral Lacey. I'd met him just a few days before, in that ill-fated conference in the White House. What was the other name? Jessop. He was there, too, alongside Lacey. But where was the Army, outside of Simon Legree? That was like Simon, at that. Let the Navy stick together; Legree was the _General_, and as such was himself the Army.

Who were the others? I knew none of them, certainly, although some trick of memory made me sure that I had seen or heard of them before. Like faces in an old school album they presented themselves to me, and for a long fraction of a minute I delved deep, trying to recall. A voice, that deep barking bass I had heard while waiting, boomed across the table.

"Mr. Morgan!" and the table seemed to quiver. "Mr. Morgan!" and the tenseness seemed to flow back into that huge room like a warm current. The Old Man leaned over and answered my unspoken question.

"Senator Suggs, Foreign Affairs Chairman."

I eyed the redoubtable senator. Short, swarthy skin that belied all his ranted racial theories, hair that straggled by intent over his weak green eyes, and a chin that retreated and quivered and joggled in time with his twitching adolescent eyebrows. Six solid terms in the Senate; six solid terms of appealing to the highest in theory and the lowest in fact; six terms of seniority for the chairmanship of committees far too important for a bigot; six terms of Suggs, Suggs, Suggs. The bass rumbled on.

"We're no further ahead, Morgan, than we were two hours ago. This, definitely cannot go on, if it has to be taken to the people themselves."

Morgan pondered well before he answered, and the room stilled.

"Senator," he said at last; "this is right now in the hands of the people, if you consider that you are one of the elected representatives, and the rest of us are chosen, with one exception, by those same elected representatives. The exception, naturally, is Mr. Miller."

Five Star Simon snorted. His nasal voice carried well. "People?" and that brittle snap was only too familiar to me. "What have the people to do with it? This is no time for anything but a decision, and a quick one!"

Morgan agreed with that. "Correct, General. The question, I believe, is not that a decision be made, but the wording and definition of that decision."

"Bah!" and the cigar jumped to the other side. "Words! Definitions! Decisions! Words, words, words! Let's decide what's to be done and do it!"

The Undersecretary coughed gently behind his palm. "Unfortunately, General Legree, for the sake of speedy action, and as unfortunately for the sake of all concerned, words mean one thing to one man, and another thing to a second."

* * * * *

A fine party this turned out to be. In the dark as to what happened before I came in, and equally at sea as to what was going on, I leaned toward the Old Man.

"What's this?" I whispered.

He shot a quick retort. "Keep your mouth shut for the time being." He paused, and then bent in my direction. "You'll get your chance to talk." He grasped my extended arm tightly. "I'll nudge you when the time comes. Then talk, and _talk_! You know what I mean?"

Did I? I didn't know. He saw my indecision and motioned for quiet. Evidently he was expecting me to catch the trend if I waited long enough. I waited, and I watched, and I listened.

Simon had been right about one thing. Words, words, words. But I began to get some of the drift. They'd already settled the part of the problem I thought was supposed to be bothering them. They'd decided that since the news on me was out, the facts had to be faced--the way they understand facing them.

I should have been reading the papers or listening to the radio. It must have been something to hear when the news that I was a new secret weapon to end them all was confirmed; but they'd confused the issue by indicating that I was just one of the men with the new power, and that the country was now practically blanketed with it.

It was fine for them. It meant that the people were happy, and that Army, Navy and all the other departments were being openly and publicly adulated for the fine thing they had done for everyone.

The Undersecretary made an answer to one of Simon's remarks. I hadn't been listening for a few seconds while the scheme sank in, but this registered.

"You're right, of course, General. Certain foreign information bureaus won't be deceived by the confusion we've created. And that still leaves us with the unfortunate need for speedy action on the case of Mr. Miller."

Suggs rolled his bass across the room. It was the only characteristic he had favorable to eye or ear.

"Unfortunate, Mr. Undersecretary? Unfortunate is hardly the word to describe an event so favorable for the fortunes for all."

Favorable. Me? Was I good or bad? I came in just in the middle of the picture. Keep your ears and your eyes and your ears open, Miller, and catch up on the feature attraction.

Suggs licked his razor-sharp lips and hooked his fingers in his stained vest.

"'Unfortunate,' Mr. Undersecretary? Hardly!" He loved to hear his own voice. "This country, these great United States, these states have never in their existence been in such a favorable position as today...."

I would rather have read the Congressional Record. That, at least, I could have discarded when I became bored.

"No, never in such a favorable position; diplomatically, economically...."

The Undersecretary coughed politely. It's nice to be tactful and know how to break in.

"To use your own words, Senator. 'Hardly!' Diplomatically we are at the brink of one of the worst imaginable pitfalls."

The medals on Five Star clinked. "Bosh!"

Morgan went on. "Where would you like to live, gentlemen?" and his glance flicked around the table; "in the best liked or most hated country in the world?"

* * * * *

It mattered not to Five Star, nor to Suggs.

"What difference does it make, Mr. Undersecretary? Speaking for myself and my constituents, I can truthfully say that the opinion of the world matters not one good solitary damn. Who cares what some other country has got to say, if words can't be backed up with action? Right now, and you know it as well as you're sitting there, Mr. Undersecretary, right now Uncle Sam is known all over the world as Uncle Sucker, and Uncle Shylock. Europe and Asia have had what they wanted over my protests and those of my constituents, and now Europe and Asia can go hang, for all I care. That's What they want us to do!"

He gave Morgan no chance to break in. That rolling bass rattled off the walls and crinkled my ears.

"Europe and Asia and the rest of the world could never affect us one way or another, favorable or otherwise, if it weren't for the ninny-headed mouthings of a few influential morons. Fight, Mr. Undersecretary, fight and murder and declare war and blow up millions of people and then run to Uncle Sam to pay the bills. I say, Mr. Undersecretary, I say what I've said before and what I'll say again; if Europe and Asia and the rest of the world don't like what we do here in these United States, let Europe and Asia and the rest of the world go to hell!"

Suggs wasn't a bit excited. Those grand, those mellifluous and rotund phrases rolled out of those skinny lips at a mile-a-minute pace with never a flicker of emotion but a nervous twitching of the drooping eyelids. If that was the way he talked when calm, I could see why he had been sent back and back to the Senate time after time.

The General deliberately tossed his cigar on the floor and pounded his fist on the table.

"Well said, Senator! My sentiments exactly. If Europe and Asia and the rest of the world don't like what we do here, let 'em all go to hell, or better yet, let's send them there in a hand-basket."

Bloodthirsty old bat. I never remembered seeing him any too close to the jumping-off point. That's what generals are for, they tell me.

"I say to hell with them all, and the sooner they know about it, the better for all concerned." His gaudy gold case, the gift of a grateful staff, was on the table in front of him, and he jerked out a cigar with a flourish. A light with a gold lighter, and he puffed thick clouds.

Morgan coughed politely. "Regardless, Senator, of what has or what is happening, we're concerned at present with what might happen."

Suggs opened his mouth like a thirsty carp and closed it again as Morgan went on.

"Call it what you like, Senator; General Legree will agree with me that this perfect defense--if defense is the word--is equally well the perfect weapon. Right, General?"

Legree pursed pontifical lips for a reply and was annoyed when Morgan paused only momentarily.

"Perfect defense means the nullification of an opposing weapon. Obviously, a weaponless army is no longer anything but a disciplined mob. In correlation, Senator, _our_ arms and weapons are still effective, and--you mentioned the distrust (or dislike, or hatred, or whatever you will) held for us by Europe and Asia. Now, Senator, think of yourself and your constituents: is it not far better that Europe and Asia and the world be solaced and comforted by the announcement that we would use our ... Iron Curtain only in our own defense? Would it not be better--how many years, Senator, have there been recorded of universal peace? How many years?"

Some men can sit poker-stiff, yet give the impression of teetering slowly on their heels, slowly counting the horses' teeth. Suggs was a horse trader from away back.

He said, "Mr. Morgan, I say I can appreciate your viewpoint. I can even appreciate the fact that you mean exactly what you say. But--!"

Sharks must have teeth like that; broken and yellow, and razor-keen. The smile of the Senator fascinated me.

"But--! Mr. Undersecretary, who's been doing all the fighting, and who's been starting all these wars? The United States? No, sir! We just get in them too late to do anything but pay all the bills!" He leaned forward and fixed the tabletop with a piscine stare.

"Look at it this way, the only way. When this whatshisname dies, all these countries look at the map and start mobilizing the Guards. How do we know how long he's going to live, or how long he's going to keep this magic head of his?"

My magic head itched, and I rubbed it.