“Us?”
“Right.”
“How?”
“You delay the barge right here,” I said, indicating a spot a few inches to the west on my little map. “There’s a narrows here – the river dips around an island to the south, which I didn’t put on the map, but it’s right around there somewhere. That’s where you stop the good lady.”
“With what?”
“A demonstration. Queen Elizabeth – Stop The Shitty War In Vietnam. Something like that. It doesn’t-”
Seth was looking at me oddly. “Evan,” he said, “just what in the hell can Queen Elizabeth do about the war in Vietnam?”
“Nothing. The point is-”
“I mean, England isn’t even in the war, for Christ’s sake.”
“I know. The point is-”
“I mean, of all the people to picket, I don’t see-”
“Will you please let me tell you what the point is?”
“I’m sorry.”
“God in Heaven,” I said. I drew a breath. “I don’t really care whether the demonstration is about the Vietnam war or the British presence in Aden or Hong Kong or whatever the hell you want. I said Vietnam because I figured you already had plenty of signs made. We don’t have much time.”
“I’m sorry, Evan.”
“And if you interrupt every ten seconds, we’ll have even less time.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Mmmm,” I said. Evan Michael Tanner, Leader of Men. “You organize a demonstration,” I went on, more calmly this time. “Get everybody you possibly can in on it, the more the merrier. Mass at the narrows at seven thirty. No earlier, or the police might break you up and send you home before the Queen arrives. You won’t have trouble spotting the royal barge. It will be flying English and Canadian flags and will probably have an escort. Once the barge comes into view, do your bit.” I thought for a moment. “On second thought, hold off until the barge enters the narrows. Then do your bit in front of it. Otherwise someone might decide to get clever and take an end run around the island.”
“Got it. What do we do, just make a lot of noise and wave the signs?”
“No. They’d sail right by.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“You’ll need boats. You’ll have to form a regular boat bridge across the channel. They’ll break you up sooner or later, but that should give us all the time we need.”
“To do what?”
“There’s no time now. Get rowboats, canoes, rafts, anything that can float. And as large a crowd as you can put together. And-”
“We’ll get busted,” Randy said.
“Probably, but the charges won’t amount to anything. You might get fined, you might even have to do ten days. I’ll take care of the fines-”
He was shaking his head. “You don’t get it. We don’t mind the fines, or even doing a short bit. That’s not the point. The thing is, what they would probably do, in fact what they already did to a cat who got picked up for possession of pot, is ship us back to the States as undesirable aliens. We don’t have Canadian citizenship or anything. So getting busted might mean getting sent home.”
“Which would mean the draft board,” Seth said.
“Which would mean Leavenworth,” Randy said.
“For five years.”
“Or Vietnam.”
“For as long as it takes to get killed.”
“Oh,” I said. I thought about it. “This pacifist organization you belong to – does it have any Canadian members?”
“Quite a few.”
“And there are probably some other political groups, local ones, that you have ties with?”
“Oh, sure. There’s the Labor Youth League, and there’s-”
“Just so there are some, that’s all I’m interested in. Suppose you just set up the demonstration without participating in it? Suppose you stocked it with local people? You could stay on the sidelines and do the planning and set up the timing, and then you could slip away as soon as things got started.”
“It might work.”
“I like that better,” I went on. “Because I could probably use you later on. You think you could round up a sufficient number of Canadians to stop that boat? It would take at least thirty, and fifty would be better. There’s not much time.”
“We can do it.”
“Are you sure?”
“No sweat. There’s not that much really active political work going on, and plenty of our crowd would be glad to join in. Especially when they realize they’ll be saving the Queen’s life.”
“Uh-uh.”
“What?”
“You can’t tell anyone that,” I said. “Not a word. That’s the whole point – if we just wanted to keep the woman alive, we could tip off the police and let justice be done. The assassination would be stopped and that would be the end of it. The important thing is to louse it up without lousing it up, if you follow me. Nobody can know a thing.”
“They wouldn’t talk, Evan.”
“They’d talk the minute they were arrested.”
He scratched his head. “You could be right. That makes it harder, though. Fifty Canadians who have to protest without knowing why. I think we can forget the Vietnam angle, Evan. They’d never go for it. Maybe Aden would do it, unless they happen to support the British stand in Aden -”
“Some of them probably do,” I agreed. “Make it Modonoland.”
“I never heard of it.”
“It’s one of the new African nations. Protest the British policy on Modonoland. The signs could say something like Hands Off Modonoland, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds good,” Seth said. “Uh, just so we know, I mean, like, if anybody asks-”
“What?”
“Well, man, I hate to seem uninformed, but just what is the British policy on Modonoland?”
“I don’t think they have one.”
“Huh?”
“There hasn’t been any trouble in Modonoland,” I said. “Not that I know of. If Britain has had any involvement with the country, I never heard about it. So who’ll disagree with you? Oh, I suppose one or two contrary types will insist that Britain has every right to be in Modonoland, but everyone else will go along with you. They can’t support a policy that doesn’t exist, but they can certainly attack it.”
“That’s brilliant.”
“Think you can handle it?”
“I hope so. It’s what – nine thirty now? And you want us to be in position by seven thirty? That’s nine hours-”
“Ten hours.”
“Well, whatever it is. Ten hours. Five people an hour, that shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.”
“And boats. Don’t forget the boats. And it would probably be a good idea if the two of you went on ahead to the narrows to look the place over in advance. Determine just how many boats you’ll need and how you want to stage it. Make sure your demonstrators know where the place is and have them all meet there. Have them come individually or in small groups. Otherwise one inquisitive cop could spoil the whole show in advance.”
“We always work demonstrations that way.”
“Good.”
They got to their feet. Then Seth turned to me. “How much of an edge do you want, Evan? How long do you expect us to hold them?”
“As long as possible, naturally.” I shrugged. “That’s really as much as I can say. A half hour would be good. Fifteen minutes might be enough, but that would be cutting it a little close. The longer the barge is delayed, the better our chances are of cooling things at Point X.”
“How are you going to handle that, by the way?”
“I’m going to try to get them to blow up the wrong boat. The idea is-” I broke off. “To hell with it, there’s no time now. If it works, you’ll know what happened. If it doesn’t, it won’t matter what was supposed to happen. Do what you can to set things up. Remember, the more demonstrators the better, and the longer you can hold the barge the better. When something goes wrong-”
“You mean if something goes wrong.”