A unshaven man wearing aviator sunglasses and a blue L.A. Dodgers baseball cap kept saying, "I'm ashamed to be an American today. I'm ashamed to be an American." A video camera hung from his dead fingers. From time to time he filmed the stunned faces of the crowd.
At the top of the third hour, Pepsie Dobbins leapt from a cab and forced her way through the crowd. They stood about like sheep, eyes turned up to the top of the building. A few hung their heads in sorrow or prayer.
Pepsie wormed her way through the crowd, fighting toward the hospital entrance, which was guarded by stony-faced state troopers at stiff attention. An ANC cameraman followed, lugging his Minicam.
"Let me in. I'm Pepsie Dobbins."
"No admittance."
Pepsie started to argue.
The clatter of a helicopter rotor began bouncing off the buildings. All eyes looked upward. Pepsie took a step back in order to see.
The big olive-green-and-black shape floated majestically to the hospital roof and disappeared from view. It was out of sight in less than forty seconds. It lifted off again, lumbering majestically in the direction of Logan Airport.
"That's Marine One," someone whispered. "The President's helicopter."
"Maybe he's all right," someone else said.
A third person said in a dead tone, "Maybe they're taking the body back to Washington."
Pepsie whirled on the state troopers and demanded, "Where are they taking the President?"
"Back to Washington," said one state trooper in a robotic voice.
"I demand to speak with the hospital director," Pepsie demanded.
"Sorry."
"I demand some information."
"You know what we know."
"Is the President alive or dead?"
"Unknown."
"Is there a cover-up going on here? Is that it? Has the cover-up already begun?"
"There's no cover-up," the second trooper said, tight-upped.
"How do you know unless you know more than you're saying?"
"No fucking comment," said the first and second state troopers a beat apart. Then they sealed their lips and looked stony eyed over Pepsie Dobbins's head at nothing.
Pepsie Dobbins struggled her way to a pay phone and dialed the Washington bureau of ANC News and said, "The President has died."
"You have that confirmed this time?"
"Marine One touched down on the hospital roof and took off again before the wheels bit gravel. It's on its way to Logan Airport."
"Have you confirmation the President's body is aboard?"
"You saw the footage. No one could have survived that shot. Mass General Hospital is one of the best in the nation. If he were alive, they wouldn't dare move him."
"This is too important to put on the air without corroboration, Pepsie."
"You idiot! Do you want CNN to beat us again?"
"Do you want to look like a fool to all America again?" the news director countered.
"This morning wasn't my fault. It was that screw-up technician."
"Hold the line."
Pepsie held. She tapped her toes impatiently, counting the seconds. She wasn't going to be scooped again. Not if she had to march up to a local camera crew and seize a microphone.
The news director came back on the line. "The White House has put out a statement," he said.
"Yeah?"
"They say the President will address the nation later this afternoon."
"That's crazy! We all saw the top of his head come off."
"They're hinting he's alive."
"My God! It's a cover-up. Do you realize how big this story just got?"
"Pepsie, get a grip. Maybe they mean the Vice President. If the worst has happened, he's President now."
"What are the call letters of our local affiliate?"
"Don't you dare go over my head and air this story like that time in Baltimore."
"There's a cover-up going on. And I'm on ground zero."
"Look, we'll sort the pieces out on this end. Everybody's at the hospital, right?"
Pepsie scanned the crowd with her wide feral eyes. "Right. Of course. I see MBC. BCN. And Vox."
"Go back to the shooting scene. See what you can pick up there."
"But the story's here. "
"No, the story's on Marine One heading for Air Force One. "
"Maybe I can sneak on board ...."
"Fat chance. But if there's a cover-up brewing, that story's back at the Kennedy Library."
"You'll hear from me," said Pepsie, hanging up and sticking two fingers into her mouth. She blew a whistle shrill enough to derust the Lusitania.
Looking like a chocolate-milk carton on wheels, a brown-and-white Boston taxicab stopped briefly and whisked her away.
"Kennedy Library," she snapped, shoving her cameraman in ahead of her.
The driver stared into his rearview mirror in surprise. "Aren't you Pepsie Dobbins?"
"None other."
"Can I get your autograph? I think you're the funniest newswoman on the air."
"I'm not supposed to be funny," Pepsie snapped.
"That's why you're so funny."
"Shut up and drive," fumed Pepsie.
Chapter 6
In the hothouse control room under Sam Beasley World, Remo Williams blocked the animatronic stainless-steel hand that clutched at his throat.
It was neither swift nor strong. The wrist encountered Remo's thicker wrists and, thwarted, the steel hand opened and closed like a clutching flower of metal.
Remo unblocked his wrists and captured the steel fist in his own fingers. He exerted pressure. The fingers, tiny servo motors whirring in complaint, tried to reopen. And failed.
Remo looked up at the screen and the eager face of the real Uncle Sam Beasley.
Uncle Sam was snapping an unseen switch over and over again angrily.
"Watch this," Remo said.
And he crushed the metal hand into a ball of steel wool.
The head of the animatronic Beasley snapped around and, teeth champing, tried to take a chunk out of Remo's wrists. As the porcelain teeth disturbed the tiny guard hairs on Remo's wrist, he brought his hand down hard. Uncle Sam's jaw fell off, trailing sparks and wires.
Up on the screen, the real Beasley's jaw dropped open. He shut it and demanded, "What the hell are you made out of?"
"Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails," Remo said, casually batting the head off its spinal stalk. It flew at the screen. The real Beasley, caught off guard, recoiled. The head burrowed into the shattered screen, and both began emitting acrid electrical smoke after the screen went dead.
Remo turned his attention back to Captain Maus.
"Where is he?"
"I will die before I betray Uncle Sam."
"Let's test that theory," said Remo, taking Maus's right hand by the wrist.
"This little piggy went to market," Remo said, dislocating Maus's right index finger simply by yanking it straight. The joint gave a tiny pop. "This little piggy started home," said Remo, doing the same to the ply.
Maus's eyes widened as he watched his fingers wilt like fleshy flowers under the casual violence of the thick-wristed man.
"The Sorcerer's Castle!" he bleated.
From a hidden speaker, Uncle Sam Beasley snarled, "Maus, you are a traitor."
"But-but," Maus protested, his face twisting like heated wax. "I've been a fan of yours since I was a little boy!"
"Consider yourself defrocked of your mouse ears."
Captain Maus hung his head and blubbered like a child.
"Grow up," said Remo. "What's the best way to get to the castle from here?"
Maus kept blubbering, so Remo took his temples between his forefinger and thumb and exerted pressure. The fused skull plates at the top of Maus's skull actually bulged upward under his thin hair, and he let out an inarticulate scream that would have meant nothing to anyone except Remo, who over years of practice had learned to understand people when he squeezed the truth out of their skulls.