Landers changed the tone of his voice. “Of course you do. I’m following my orders and I believe in them, because this is damn serious business. Now I want to tell you something else: the three of you were all preselected some time ago when our planners saw possible trouble ahead and set up the organization at that time. I didn’t just pick you up off the top of my head. You’ve been checked in ways that you wouldn’t believe, with the result that we feel that we can trust you completely and that you can trust each other. They’ve been particularly careful because this will be one of the key cells in the country.”
“Will we have meetings?” Hewlitt asked.
“I think so, but that’s something that hasn’t been worked out yet. Perhaps you might undertake to teach us their language. That might be an effective cover.”
“I don’t think so,” Hewlitt answered. “These people know that we hate their guts and despise them for what they’ve done to us. For us to pretend to be learning their language now would be too cooperative to be believed. It would imply that we expect them to be here a long time and no American, no real one, that is, will admit to that right now.”
“He’s right,” Mary said. She did not elaborate.
Landers agreed. “I haven’t anything else in mind, but I’ll think about it and check with my controller. You think too, unless someone has an idea right now.”
There was no response.
“Then that’s that. I’ll find a way to get in touch with each of you after something has been decided. One more item: if anything happens to me, the person who will take over will be identified by the name Asher. It could be a man or a woman. If that person is eliminated, the code name is known at the top levels and someone else will be assigned to take his place. He will use the same ID. Now let’s go through the motions of getting something to eat.”
He started the engine and moved the car back onto the main part of the road. For a moment Hewlitt wondered if they ought to go back and erase the tire marks on the shoulder where they had parked, then he dismissed the idea as unnecessary — if it came to that they had a simple explanation that would hold up.
Midway through the next morning Hewlitt was in a much heartened frame of mind. Not even the fact that the security guards at the West Gate were now all from the enemy’s camp upset him unduly, because he was convinced, or very nearly so, that as soon as things got properly organized the return to sanity would be under way. He had no doubt that American ability and ingenuity would in some way manage to reverse the disasters of the past few weeks despite the overwhelming military pressure that the enemy had been able to bring to bear. The underground, once it got going, would be able to work unimpeded with no Fitzhughs to get in the way. Even the inertia of forced inaction which now pervaded his office could not dampen the determined optimism which charged his whole being.
Then a man came in.
He was one of the enemy, a structure of human flesh and bone in a poorly designed and badly worn uniform, but inflated with the confidence of total victory. He was a soldier, conspicuously armed and with the attitude that the weapon holstered on his hip gave him total authority. His face was anonymous in its frozen expressionlessness of military conformity. It was his pride that he was one unit in a conquering army.
He entered Hewlitt’s small office holding a few sheets of paper. When he spoke it was with the voice of a not too intelligent NCO dispensing a minor order to a mechanical subordinate. “You will take this and translate it into English at once,” he directed in his own language. He thrust the document at Hewlitt and then left without ceremony.
Before Hewlitt read the material he had been given he evaluated the handwriting. It was moderately good, an educated person’s work, but he doubted that it was Zalinsky’s. He had no good reason for that conclusion, simply the feeling that it had been done by someone else. The paper was from the regular White House supply; to make sure he held it up against the lamp on his desk and checked the watermark. That minute fact upset him — they had no right, no bloody right whatever, to invade the supply closets and take government property for their own use.
When he read the text he found that it was for a speech to be delivered by some unnamed individual at a time and place not specified. It was brusk, overbearing, and rock-hard in its content. Again, it was a warning and a directive of things to be done. In particular it laid out a familiar communist tactic — that every listener could protect himself only by acting as a listening post and reporting immediately to those in charge any deviations from the rules which had been set down. As Hewlitt turned the pages a certain sense of hopelessness fought for lebensraum within his mind. The document was totally uncompromising; the enemy maintained an inflexible posture.
He fed paper into his typewriter, setting up for two carbon copies. Then he typed in a title which might apply and began the translation into English. It pleased him to make it as literal as possible by putting all of the harsh intransigence of the original into his rendition. He wanted it to be that way; perhaps it would help to educate a little more some of the members of Congress who had been maintaining, right up to the moment that the first surprise blow had fallen, that negotiation and concession over a protracted period would resolve all differences. Too strong a military posture, they had argued, would only antagonize the other side. They had been sincere, and because many of them were reasonable men they could not conceive that others could or would be any different.
They knew now.
When he had finished his work Hewlitt read over the translation and was satisfied with it. It would grate on the nerves of those who heard or read it, which was what he wanted it to do. In that way the firmness and resolve of the American public, or whatever part of it was destined to endure these words, might be stiffened a little. At the same time the translation was totally accurate; there could be no question of his having reshaped the text in any way.
He laid the work out on his desk and collated the sheets. The original and one carbon he clipped together to be delivered or called for, the second carbon he put into a manila folder and placed it carefully in full view on the top of his desk.
That was on Wednesday. For the rest of that day, and for the rest of the working week, he was ignored. The translation he had made was picked up sometime overnight from his desk; the carbon in the folder was left undisturbed. Otherwise no one came to see him, he received no messages, and he had no contact with Landers. Outside the office his life was almost equally uneventful. He was already accustomed to the steady inflow of aircraft from overseas, augmented now by many of MAC’s heavy airlifters. He did not know whether they were being flown by Air Force crews acting under orders or by the enemy, but the steady flood of men and materiel continued around the clock. It had been a popular impression for some time that the enemy had not understood the full implications of airlift — that illusion, too, was now dispelled.
Frank passed on to him the rumor that the ships were on the way. According to the reports that the cabdriver had heard, they would make port all up and down the East Coast. There was one ugly piece of news which, if it was true, was grimly foreboding. Somewhere in the Carolinas a union official had dared to speak out. He had said something to the effect that if the enemy put into the port where he was in charge, the members of his local would not unload the ships; they would have to provide their own men. According to the rumor, he had been taken outside and shot against the wall of his own office, summarily and without the least question of a trial or hearing.
On Friday night Senator Fitzhugh, with permission, made a television address to the nation. He read visibly from a prepared manuscript and seldom looked up from the paper before him into the eye of the camera. He appealed for moderation and restraint. Humanity, he declared, would always prevail; the Dark Ages and the torture chambers of the Inquisition had long since been banished forever and were impossible of revival. Already, he continued, he had been in touch with several of the enemy leaders who under happier circumstances had been his personal friends. He had served the nation for many years, he reminded his audience, and he intended to continue doing so now. Congress was not in session, but he had been elected to represent the people and that mandate was still upon him. He would inform everyone soon of the progress which he had been able to achieve.