The images came on relentlessly: huge black cars with Secret Service men swarming all over them, a woman in a pink wool suit crawling back over the trunk of one of them, hand reaching out. Brown hair, a head haloed in the pink spray of its own brains going forward and back, forward and back. Knives slashing, a machete-wielding figure being clubbed to the ground by riot police. Another figure, a wild-eyed, tubercular kid, running alongside an open, horse-drawn carriage. A dead man's pistol shot, and the kid was cut down by the sabers of the hussars, blood spurting, head going backward and forward, backward and forward. And more pistols in the night, pistols in the light of the TV cameras and more shots and more blood, blood matting more brown hair and more hands reaching out, bloodstained white uniforms, and blood running in the gutter, white shirts, dark suits, clubs and sabers swinging, fists hurting, faces blank with shock, screaming. "Get him! Get him!"
And each time he was the assassin. He was always the assassin. Eternal, now and forever, world without end, universe of pain.
"Amen."
"Get him!" "Get him!"
Twice Gibson woke sweating, fearing psych attack but knowing that the nightmares were only the creations of the terror in the black bilges of his own mind.
And then it was morning and Klein was sitting on the bed, holding out a cup of coffee. "Are you okay, Joe? You were screaming during the night."
Gibson struggled and sat up.
"Yeah, yeah. I guess so. I've been having nightmares ever since this thing got started."
He took the coffee and sipped it tentatively.
"What time is it?"
"Six A.M."
"What's happening?"
"I'm afraid I have some bad news."
Gibson lowered the coffee with a sinking feeling in his stomach. "What?"
"Zwald is dead."
"Huh?"
"He tried to back out at the last minute."
"Back out of the assassination?"
"Right."
"I know how he felt."
"Raus's people killed him."
"What did they do? Feed him to Balg?"
Klein shook his head. "I believe they shot him."
Gibson beamed as though the sun had just come up in a blaze of glory and a great weight had slipped from his shoulders. "I don't want to come on like I'm self-obsessed or anything, and I'm sure it's real bad news for the late Leh Zwald, but what does this mean for me? The assassination is canceled, right? So you don't need me anymore, right?"
Klein wasn't smiling. "The assassination hasn't been canceled, Joe."
The sun went out and the weight crashed back onto Gibson like a cement overcoat. "What?"
"The assassination is still on. There are two other shooters, don't forget."
"What happens to me?"
"I'm afraid you're going to have to play the assassin."
Gibson feit sick. "I can't do that. I'll never hold together."
"All you have to do is to walk through the moves that Zwald was going to make. It's no different from what you've been doing already, and you'll be covered every inch of the way."
Gibson started slowly, shaking his head. He felt as though he was going into shock. "No."
"It's very simple. All you have to do is walk into a building, ride up in the elevator, wait awhile, then ride back down again and leave. Once you're clear of the immediate area you'll be pulled out, and Zwald's body produced as that of the lone assassin. All you have to do is allow yourself to be spotted by a few witnesses and that's it."
"That's it? Aren't you forgetting the fact that the president of the country will be shot between this going in and coming out? Won't that make this getaway a little difficult, particularly if I'm pretending to be the assassin?"
"It'll be a total chaos right after the shooting. No one will imagine you're the assassin until well after the fact. Remember that Raus controls most of the news media. He'll make sure that everything is pinned on the late Leh Zwald. Besides, French will be with you every step of the way."
French's voice came from the doorway. "Doesn't that fill you with confidence, Gibson, that I'll be right beside you?"
Gibson was shaking his head again. "I'm not doing this."
French leaned against the doorjamb. He was wearing duty tan workman's coveralls and holding another set, which he tossed onto the bed in front of Gibson. "Put those on and cut out the dramatics."
"I'm telling you, I'm not doing this."
French straightened up and put one hand in his pocket. "I'm going to keep this real simple, Joe." He pulled out a large revolver of local design, not unlike the one that Gibson had fired in Raus's shooting gallery, and pointed it at Gibson. "You see this gun, Joe? Regular pistol, no fancy technology, straight bullet in the brain, right? Well, that's exactly what you're going to get if you're not out of that bed and into those coveralls in the next thirty seconds. You understand me?"
Gibson sighed. "I understand you."
Watched by French and Klein, Gibson crawled from the bed and began pulling on the coveralls. His only thought was that it was a sorry set of clothes in which to die.
French hadn't finished with him. "I'm going to have the same gun all the way through the operation, and if I have the slightest feeling that you're trying to screw things up, I use it on you. You understand that?"
Anger came to Gibson's rescue. "Yes, I understand it. Death is real easy to grasp."
French nodded and then looked at Klein. "Okay, give him his shot."
"Shot? What shot?"
"A stimulant, to help you through."
"Not more goddamned speed?"
Klein was preparing the needle. "No, something of ours. It has a long complicated name, but usually it's called hero serum."
The needle went into his arm, and within seconds Gibson was feeling a whole lot better, light-headed and reckless. Rolling down the sleeve of his coveralls, he followed French into the living room. He was seeing things from a detached, insulated point of view that had to be an effect of the drug. He noticed a line of local script, presumably the name of a company, was stenciled across the back of French's coveralls, and Gibson presumed that his carried the same name and that they'd be posing as workmen.
Beyond the living room windows, the first gray dawn was creeping over the city and the sky was streaked with high pink clouds. It looked as though it was going to be a fine day. What was the Indian saying, "It's a fine day to die." Lights were burning in some of the apartment buildings nearby, others rising early or nighthawks not yet ready to give up and go to bed. It was all so damned normal. He wanted thunder in the distance and portents of doom. His mind wandered further. Somewhere out there, the president was sipping his coffee or talking on the phone, maybe dressing, maybe, at that very moment, splashing water on his face and blinking at his reflection in a bathroom minor, readying himself for the parade through Luxor and unknowingly readying himself for death.
French, briskly getting down to business, put a stop to Gibson's speculations. "Do you want to eat?"
Gibson quickly shook his head. "No."
"I didn't think you would. The hero serum tends to suppress the appetite." He pointed to a small collection of objects that had been placed on a side table: two packs of cigarettes, Leh Zwald's wallet, some loose change, and a couple of packs of matches.
"Put that stuff in your pockets."
"What's this, my junior assassin's kit?"
French ignored the remark. "Is there anything else that you want?"
"I want a drink."
French didn't argue and called out to Klein. "Get Gibson a large shot of whiskey."