"... Appreciate your letting us come out at night, General. It's about the only time all week that I'll be free, and I wanted to firm up the details. And after our troubles with the last one, I want to check things myself."
"That's perfectly all right, sir." Garlock was being properly respectful, although he sounded puzzled. "We're open for business twenty-four hours a day up here. Will there be anything special for this alert?" "Well, the President is coming up to take a look this time," Scott said. "So we decided it might be a good idea to lay on some extra troops."
"Oh." Garlock was surprised. "We've never done that before."
Riley chimed in. "Well, you know, we thought we might put on a little something extra for him. He wasn't very happy about the last All Red."
"And a little extra security, too, with the President here," Scott said. "Accommodations for about two hundred men would do it. You wouldn't have to worry about feeding them. They'll carry full field rations for a couple of days as part of the maneuver. After all, they'll be under full security and won't know where they're headed when they start out."
"Oh, messing the men would be no problem," Garlock said. "We've got plenty of food. But I don't know about the bunks. We're in pretty close quarters down there, General."
"Why can't some of them bivouac aboveground?" asked Riley. "Most of them would be up there anyway, on a perimeter, in case of the real thing."
"Well," said Garlock, "if they're coming in early, I'm afraid it might break security on the alert. A lot of people drive along that ridge road and some of them are service people who keep their eyes open."
"Well, how about lower down on the hill, behind some of those old buildings?" suggested Riley.
"That might do it," Garlock agreed. "By the way, when does the President arrive?"
"About noon Saturday," Scott said. "Of course, the five chiefs will be here by 11:15. If you're worried about any loose ends concerning the President, I can help you wrap them up then. There'll be time."
"The extra security guard is the only problem," said the local commander. "I hadn't realized you planned anything like that. We have almost a hundred men on permanent security detail here, you know."
Corwin thought Garlock sounded a bit miffed, as though the visiting generals were implying some laxity on his part. Scott apparently had the same reaction.
"Don't take this as any criticism of your command, General," Scott said. "It's just that we've got to learn to move security forces around this country much faster than we have. The last alert showed that clearly."
"If that's what the President wants," said Garlock, "well, of course, I have no objection."
There was silence for a moment and Corwin could imagine Scott's gaze following the smoke from his cigar. When Scott spoke, his voice dropped a tone.
"Actually, this is being done independently of the President," he said. "As you know, he was pretty unhappy with our performance last time, and we want to show him-"
Corwin had stood up to rest his cramped knee and in doing so had brushed against a euonymus bush. A branch, pushed back by his shoulder, was released when he moved again and swung against the side of the house with a wet slap. In the kitchen, a dog growled. The woman said, "Want to go out, Lady?"
Corwin jumped across the gravel driveway and ran up the sloping yard. He threw himself flat on the lawn and squirmed around to peer at the house under a large boxwood which flanked the roses lining the terrace. The kitchen door banged and a shiny black Labrador hustled along the drive to sniff at the shrubbery where Corwin had been.
"Let's go out," said Garlock, opening a door from the room where the three officers had been talking. "We'll have some fun if it's another one of those deer."
Corwin saw him reach up on the mantel for a long flashlight. He crawled across the yard, reaching the edge of the woods just as Garlock, followed by Scott and Riley, came out of the house. Garlock swept the light around in a narrow circle, beginning at the barn and continuing along the terrace where Corwin had been only a moment before. Corwin, now flattening his broad-shouldered frame behind a log, could feel the wet moss soaking his shirt.
The three men walked along the driveway as Garlock probed the yard with his flashlight. The dog sniffed along Corwin's trail up to the terrace, but apparently lost the scent on the flagstones, for he began to run back and forth, barking unhappily.
"A deer's a beautiful sight," Garlock said, "when you catch him in the light. Those eyes look like two hot coals."
He turned back to the house, but Riley took the flashlight from him, and with Scott moved up toward the woods. Garlock stayed near the house, and the dog stayed with him. Riley and Scott were about twenty yards from Corwin when he heard Riley say:
"It might have been an animal, Jim, but I had a funny feeling coming out here tonight."
"I don't think you need to worry," said Scott. "I stood a pretty good watch on that rear-view mirror. I don't think anyone was following us."
Scott and Riley gave up the hunt a few seconds later and rejoined Garlock at the house. They went back to the living room, and the woman in the kitchen called Lady back in. Not until the kitchen door banged shut did Corwin move. When he did, he felt as if he were rolling in an old sleeping bag that had been left out in a downpour. Hardly a patch of clothing was dry. Regaining the gravel road, he broke into a run, and by the time he reached his car he was puffing hard.
My God, he thought, I must be mud and slop all over from shoes to collar. Mr. President, if you think I'm not going to put in for out-of-town per diem for this joyride, plus ten cents a mile for the car, plus a good dry-cleaning bill, you're crazy.
Then Corwin remembered that it would be the Secret Service, not the President, to whom the expense account would have to go. Working for the government, he thought, you can't win.
Corwin drove back about half a mile along the macadam road until he came to a slight bend. He parked a few yards beyond it, calculating that from here he could see Scott's headlights when he came out of Garlock's road. It seemed unlikely that Scott would turn south, for that was the long way around for the return trip to Washington. Garlock might take them that way to Mount Thunder, of course, but Corwin decided that from his position he could go either way without being spotted. He wished he had a cigarette now. He had quit smoking five years ago, but now could recall exactly how good that first big drag on a cigarette used to taste when he came off a long stakeout on some counterfeiting gang.
He didn't have long to wait. Lights swept out from Garlock's road, hesitated, and then came north toward him. He gunned his car over a small hill in the dark. Then he switched his lights on and sped for Route 9, turned toward Washington and drove-too fast- down the winding road which fell off the Blue Ridge. At the bottom, Corwin swung into a dirt road, turned his car around and waited again in the dark. A few minutes later the big Chrysler rolled past, Riley in the front seat with Scott. Corwin picked up the shadow, but much farther back this time.
The ride home seemed to go more quickly. The night was clear now, as the last black cloud moved away to the east. The road had dried and a breeze had come up. The taillights of Scott's car had assumed an identity of their own for Corwin, and he kept his eyes on them.
At the little crossroads in Dranesville, Scott bore off to the left. This will be harder, Corwin thought, he's taking the back road to Chain Bridge. That means he isn't going back to Fort Myer. And he isn't driving Riley home to the Marine Barracks in Southeast Washington, either. He must be heading for some place in Northwest Washington or Maryland.
The road dodged and bent through the trees. Corwin had to stop several times to avoid getting too close to Scott.