Pitt awkwardly raised himself to his hands and knees and tried to orient himself. Then slowly, as the haze before his eyes melted away, he realized what had happened and what was coming. Lee Tong had detonated an explosive charge before he died and already the water was flowing across a corridor deck.
Pitt pushed himself to his feet and reeled drunkenly into the isolation chamber again. The Vice President looked up at him and tried to say something, but before he could utter a sound, Pitt had hoisted him over a shoulder and was lurching toward the elevator.
The water was surging around Pitt’s knees now, splashing up the walls. He knew only seconds were left before the barge began its dive to the seabed. By the time he reached the open elevator, the sea was up to his chest and he half walked, half swam inside. It was too late to repeat the rope lift procedure. Furiously he manhandled Margolin through the ceiling trapdoor, clasped him under the chest and began climbing the iron ladder to the tiny square patch of blue sky that seemed miles away.
He remembered then that he had tied Loren to the upper deck to keep her from rolling into the sea. The sickening thought coursed through him that she would be pulled to her death when the barge sank.
Beyond fear lies desperation, and beyond that a raging drive to survive that cuts across the boundaries of suffering and exhaustion. Some men yield to hopelessness, some try to sidestep its existence, while a very few accept and face it head-on.
Watching the froth tenaciously dog his rise up the elevator shaft, Pitt fought with every shred of his will to save the lives of Margolin and Loren. His arms felt as if they were tearing from their sockets. White spots burst before his eyes and the strain on his cracked ribs passed from mere pain to grinding agony.
His grip loosened on flakes of rust and he almost fell backward into the water boiling at his heels. It would have been so easy to surrender, to let go and drop into oblivion and release the torture that racked his body. But he hung on. Rung by rung, he struggled upward, Margolin’s dead weight becoming heavier with each step.
His ears regained a partial sense of hearing and picked up a strange thumping sound, which Pitt wrote off as blood pounding in his head. The sea rose above his feet now, and the barge shuddered; it was about to go under.
A nightmare world closed in on him. A black shape loomed above, and then his hand reached out and clasped another hand.
Accounting
The Liftonic QW-607
75
House Speaker Alan Moran, his face wreathed in a confident smile, circulated around the East Room of the White House conversing with his aides and inner circle of advisers while awaiting final word of the trial taking place on the floor of the Senate.
He greeted a small group of party leaders and then turned and excused himself as Secretary of State Douglas Oates and Defense Secretary Jesse Simmons entered the room. Moran came over and held out his hand, which Oates ignored.
Moran shrugged off the snub. He could well afford to. “Well, it seems you’re not of a mind to praise Caesar, but you haven’t a prayer of burying him either.”
“You’ve just reminded me of an old gangster movie I saw when I was a boy,” Oates said icily. “The title fits you perfectly.”
“Oh, really? What movie was that?”
“Little Caesar.”
Moran’s smile turned into a sinister glare. “Have you come with your resignation?”
Oates pulled an envelope partway out of his inside breast pocket. “I have it right here.”
“Keep it!” Moran snarled. “I won’t give you the satisfaction of bowing out gracefully. Ten minutes after I take the oath I’m holding a press conference. Besides assuring the nation of a smooth succession, I intend to announce that you and the rest of the President’s Cabinet planned a conspiracy to set up a dictatorship, and my first order as chief executive is to fire the whole rotten lot of you.”
“We expected no less. Integrity was never one of your character traits.”
“There was no conspiracy and you know it,” Simmons said angrily. “The President was the victim of a Soviet plot to control the White House.”
“No matter,” Moran replied nastily. “By the time the truth comes out, the damage to your precious reputations will have been done. You’ll never work in Washington again.”
Before Oates and Simmons could retort, an aide rushed up and spoke softly in Moran’s ear. He dismissed his enemies with a snide look and turned away. Then he stepped to the center of the room and raised his hands for silence.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced. “I’ve just been informed that the Senate has voted for conviction by the required two-thirds. Our beleaguered President is no longer in office and the Vice Presidency is vacant. The time has come for us to put our house in order and begin anew.”
As if on cue, Chief Justice Nelson O’Brien rose from a chair, smoothed his black robes and cleared his throat. Everyone crowded around Moran as his secretary held what was dubiously touted as his family Bible.
Just then Sam Emmett and Dan Fawcett came through the doorway and paused. Then they spied Oates and Simmons and approached.
“Any word?” Oates asked anxiously.
Emmett shook his head. “None. General Metcalf ordered a communications blackout. I haven’t been able to reach him at the Pentagon to find out why.”
“Then it’s all over.”
No one replied as they all turned in unison and stood in powerless frustration as Moran raised his right hand to take the oath of office as President, his left hand on the Bible.
“Repeat after me,” Chief Justice O’Brien intoned like a drumroll. “I, Alan Robert Moran, do solemnly swear…”
“… that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States,” O’Brien droned on.
Suddenly the room behind Oates went quiet. The prompting of the oath by the Chief Justice went unanswered by Moran. Curious, Oates turned around and looked at the crowd. They were all staring in frozen wonder at Vice President Vincent Margolin, who walked through the doorway preceded by Oscar Lucas and flanked by General Metcalf and Admiral Sandecker.
Moran’s upraised arm slowly fell and his face turned ashen. The silence smothered the room like an insulating cloud as Margolin stepped up to the Chief Justice, the stunned audience parting for him. He gave Moran a frigid look and then smiled at the rest.
“Thank you for the rehearsal,” he said warmly. “But I think I can take over from here.”
76
SAL CASIO WAS WAITING in the vast lobby of the World Trade Center when Pitt came slowly through the entrance. Casio looked at him in stark appraisal. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen any man so near the edge of physical collapse.
Pitt moved with the tired shuffle of a man who had endured too much. He wore a borrowed foul-weather jacket two sizes too small. His right arm hung slack while his left was pressed against his chest, as if holding it together, an^l his face was etched in a strange blending of suffering and triumph. The eyes burned with a sinister glow that Casio recognized as the fires of revenge.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Casio said without referring to Pitt’s haggard appearance.
“It’s your show,” said Pitt. “I’m only along for the ride.”
“Only fitting and proper we be together at the finish.”
“I appreciate the courtesy. Thank you.”