Destroyer - Master's Challenge Part 6

"You cannot enter without permission of the pre-wake s.h.i.+ft supervisor."

"Let's get it."

"You know what this can do to your career?" asked the black Secret Service man.

"Call him," said Smith. The Uzi never left Smith's direction as the agent used a wall device to phone his s.h.i.+ft supervisor.

"He'll be down in five minutes," the agent said.

"That's too late," Smith said.

"You cannot enter," the bodyguard said. "You can only protect this station."

"Three minutes from now will be too late. We might already be too late."

"I'm sorry. You cannot enter."

Very slowly and without a sudden motion, because it 63.had to be done slowly, Smith reached his right hand under his jacket and withdrew his pistol between thumb and forefinger. The Uzi raised to Smith's eye. Smith bent and placed the pistol on the carpeting. If he had dropped the old thing, it might have gone off.

Then, with knees creaking, he stood up and said to the Secret Service agent, "You are going to have to kill me to stop me from entering."

"You cannot enter," the agent said.

Smith very slowly turned the handle on the door to the president's sleeping quarters. The large-barreled Uzi went to his right eyeball. He could feel his eye touch the gun metal. It make him blink. In a moment, the great black hole of the barrel would flash, and Smith's head would be splashed all over the White House hallway.

"I am sorry," Smith said. "I have to enter."

And he pushed the door open silently. It opened to a small Georgian living room with the embers of a pre-night fire dying down. The carpeting made no noise under Smith's feet. The agent walked alongside him, the Uzi still pressed to Smith's head.

A large white door with a polished bra.s.s handle stood at the right. Smith moved across the carpet and opened the door. He could see the agent's trigger finger tense. If the man hiccupped, that gun was going off.

Smith opened the door. He could hear snoring. It came from a large white canopied bed.

It came from a woman with her eyes s.h.i.+elded by night blinders. A man slept next to her. He looked camera-perfect, even in his sleep.

"Mister President," Smith said. "Get out of that bed. Get out now." The gun still pointed at his head.

"What? What?" said the president. "Who? What? Oh, you. Yes. Yes." The president nudged his wife.

"Dear, you've got to get up."

64."I just fell asleep," she said.

"You've got to get up," the president said.

"You really do, ma'am. Right now," Smith said.

"Oh, my G.o.d," said the president's wife, covering herself with covers as she sat up with night-blinders on.

"Come quickly," said Smith. The president led her by the hand out of the bed. Smith nodded them toward the door to the hallway, and shut their bedroom door. It was 6 A.M. exactly.

Smith knew the door was very good because it stayed on its hinges as the blast went off behind it. The floor shook.

"My G.o.d," said the black Secret Service agent. He lowered the Uzi.

"That was close," said the president. His voice was almost cheerful.

Smith had never seen anyone barely escape death and still exhibit such charm. "Are you all right, sir?" he asked.

"You bet," the president said. "I just started the day a bit earlier."

"How can you be smiling, sir?" Smith asked.

"I'm just imagining how disturbed the press corps is going to be when they find out someone missed again."

"Eeeeek," screamed the president's wife. The agent stepped back as though punched by her scream. Smith looked dumbfounded. Only the president was calm.

"You," she screamed at the president. "You and your frigging good nature. Will you hate, d.a.m.n you? They almost killed us."

"But they missed," said the president with a smile. He looked around for a jelly bean.

"Hate," she shrieked. "Hate someone. Hate anything. Dammit, will you hate?"

"If it will help you, sure, dear. I'll hate whoever you want me to hate."

65."Anyone, d.a.m.n you," she screamed. Veins bulged in her neck as she turned to Smith. "I've had to live with this d.a.m.ned good nature for thirty years now. Vilification in the press. Daily attacks and now bombs, and that . . . that . , . that whatever-it-is won't hate."

The s.h.i.+ft supervisor finally made it down, and there was a confusion of men and guns and walkie-talkies. With the president's consent, Smith took charge.

"Sir, there is no time as safe for you as the next few minutes. Please get dressed. I would like to meet with you and your one most trusted advisor."

"I trust them all," the president said.

"Wouldn't you know?" said his wife. "And you," she said, pointing to Smith. "Why is now so d.a.m.ned safe?"

"Because they've just missed. They think the president is dead, tie is safe until they find out he is still alive. Then it becomes dangerous again because they'll try again."

"Good," said the First Lady. "That's something I can deal with. At least there are some reasonably vicious people around. Good. I can hate them."

"You can't blame her," said the president. "It's lousy getting awakened in the middle of the night."

"Yes sir," said Smith.

The man the president chose to accompany him to the meeting with Smith was his secretary of the interior. A bald man who also had a good nature. Smith was grim.

"First, let me thank you for giving me authority here in the White House, but I am going to have to leave you."

"Why?" asked the secretary.

"Because if I stay here, the president is definitely going to die. Eventually, one of these attempts will work. This is not some nut somewhere with a fast shot in a crowd. This is a determined methodical attempt on the president's life."

"Another government?" asked the president.

66."I don't know yet. But until we put them away, you are not safe."

"How do you know it's even an organization?" asked the secretary of the interior. "How do we know we're not dealing with one nut?"

"Because they have a communications network. And because we found the person who planted the bomb. She was the chambermaid who made the bed."

"And she said there were others?"

"Most eloquently," Smith said drily. "Her throat was cut by a not too sharp instrument."

The good nature left the face of the president. The secretary of the interior shook his head.

"How can you be sure you can get them before they strike again?" asked the president.

"I can't."

"Then I'm still vulnerable. Other people could get hurt around here if this keeps up," the president said.

"1 have a plan to deal with that. Go abroad," Smith said.

"What will that do?" asked the secretary.

"That will get the host country's secret service in charge of the president's safety."

"You mean the president has to leave the country because it's not safe for him to stay here?" the secretary of the interior asked. It was not so much a question as a statement.

"Exactly," said Smith.

"Well, that is one piece of garbage," said the secretary.

"Yes," Smith agreed.

The secretary of the interior's forehead was perspiring. He pulled a handkerchief from his vest pocket, and a few seeds fell from the handkerchief.

"Where did you get those?" Smith snapped.

67."Are they back again?" asked the secretary, holding up a seed. It was pale yellow and the size of a gnat.

"It's a gra.s.s seed," he said. "They're trying to frighten me. Just some environmentalist nuts."

"Do these people always leave gra.s.s seeds around?" Smith asked.

"Yeah. It's their calling card. They believe in the universal goodness of everything. Except people. They are the fringe of fringes. They protest everything."

"When did you put that handkerchief in your pocket?" Smith asked.

"Could you two deal with this later?" the president asked. "We ought to move along with our plans if I'm to leave the country."

"This is why you have to leave the country," Smith said. He took the seeds from the secretary along with the handkerchief. "We found the chambermaid dead. In the ragged edges of her throat were sprinkled a few gra.s.s seeds. They may be crazy, Mr. Secretary, but they're not so harmless."

But the secretary of the interior was not listening. At the very moment he realized that the people who had attempted to kill the president had gotten as close to him as his handkerchief, the fear and tension overloaded his nervous system, and he removed himself from the horror of it by simply pa.s.sing out.

Chapter Six.

They called him the Dutchman.

He was an American. His real name had been Jeremiah Purcell, but now 'the Dutchman' suited him as well as any. Long ago, before the madness in him forced him to run endlessly away from the world, he had lived on a small Dutch Caribbean island. The natives there gave him the name. He had tried to isolate himself then, thinking that if he could hide well enough, his powers could be controlled.

But nothing could control what the Dutchman had inside him.

He awoke in the full blaze of afternoon light. He felt a sharp stab of fear, as he did every time he faced a new day.

Where am 1?

Squinting into the brilliant sunlight, he made out the conical shapes of the Anatolian lava mountains with their almost absurd-looking little cutout squares where the inhabitants of the area chose to live.

Cappadocia. Now he remembered. He had been in Asia 68.69.Minor for three days. Although the name was not to be found on any modern map, the residents of this part of eastern Turkey south of Ankara still called their home by its Biblical name.

He was thirsty. He felt his lips with his fingers. They were dry and cracked. His face was tender. He was fair skinned, and burned easily. He didn't remember falling asleep. Sleep was so rare for him that he was grateful whenever it came, but he wished he hadn't slept where the sun could burn him so badly.

What have I done?

There was a woman . . . blisters ... a fire . . . Death, death everywhere . . .

Stop it, he told himself. He couldn't change the past.

Or the future. It will all be the same.

Nearby, a farmer led a goat cart filled with containers of milk toward the village. Jeremiah stumbled forward on wobbly legs. The first hours after waking were sometimes painfully sane. At night, when his energies were high, when his mind flew, free and out of control, he could forget. There was no terrible past for him then, no future filled with dread and loathing. But now, and for a few minutes every day, he remembered the freakish thing that he was with an awful clarity.

/ am the Dutchman.

Maker of nonexistent worlds, manipulators of minds. Heir to the secrets of Sinanju. Possessor of a power greater than any man should have to bear. The Dutchman, specter of death, fated to live without peace, without rest, until his mission was fulfilled.

He moved on silent feet toward the goat cart. As usual, the animals reared and panicked when they caught his scent, knocking the heavy metal containers on their sides. Animals had always feared him. They understood the disguises of death better than humans did.

70 -.

But here, among the primitive mountain dwellers of Cappadocia, even the humans knew him. They had seen him kill. They had some idea of the terrible extent of his madness. The farmer fled, screaming. His goats pulled in all directions, their eyes bulging as the Dutchman drew nearer.