“When are you going to spring it?” the general asked.
Higbee glanced at his watch. “No good news story is improved by needless delay; it goes out tonight. The cut-ins on the major networks are all set up, and you can take it from me that it’s been one hell of a job. We won’t get full coverage, and we’ll undoubtedly get cut off in some places, but in the main we’ll get through.”
“You said you had a gimmick for building the audience.”
Higbee nodded. “There are still a considerable number of air-raid sirens left operational in the major cities around the country, and in most of the smaller ones as well. Stan Cumberland worked out a system so that we can set most of them off about five minutes before air time. When the American public hears that racket, you know what’s going to happen: everybody’ll be running to turn on the TV or radio to find out what it’s all about. Then on goes the Fitzhugh tape. I’m counting on a lot of the local fuhrers to think that this is their own people’s work and to let it ride. It was pretty carefully written with that in mind.”
“You should reach a good percentage of the country,” Gifford said. “I like the air-raid warning idea — if it works, it’s good.”
Higbee punched a cigarette into an ashtray. “I hope to reach as many as I can for their own good, but I’m really talking to the Actor; you understand that. And to Zalinsky and Rostovitch. Zalinsky may miss it, in the hospital, but he’ll get the word.”
“I think everyone concerned should see the tape before it goes out.”
“Barney had the same idea; I’ll screen it at this afternoon’s meeting and outline the plans. Then, unless someone disagrees, we’ll go—”
The conversation stopped there, the men at the top of Thomas Jefferson had long ago cultivated the habit of leaving out unnecessary things that were mutually understood.
It seemed to Hewlitt that the air had suddenly become much sweeter to breathe. The tension that he had been living under for weeks had been lifted; now he no longer had to hold himself in continuous check, guarding every sentence that he spoke, every gesture that he made. All playacting was ended. He was under a new kind of cloud, but the danger that it represented was simply the hazard of getting physically caught. He could get the breaks or they could get him, but so long as he remained free the air was wonderful.
And he had Barbara with him. He remembered very keenly what she had said while she had been throwing things literally into her suitcase and he presumed that he was responsible. In fact he hoped to God that he was, because she was his girl and if anyone was going to get her pregnant he preferred that it be himself. He had no illusions that he was the first man ever to make love to her, as he had never pretended that she was the first girl with whom he had ever been in bed. Somewhere in the dim past Mrs. Grundy had run screaming up the flue and people had changed their thinking about such things.
Of course she could be made unpregnant, and perhaps that would be the thing to do, but that decision should be hers and no one else’s. The occupying authorities had put out an edict about that, but he doubted very much if anyone paid any real attention to it except to see that some additional precautions were taken.
The movement of the members of the little ex-White House party had been handled very smoothly indeed. A Helio Courier aircraft had picked them up out of an almost impossibly small field and had carried them a considerable distance at night and at very low altitude with the aid of terrain-avoidance radar. Later there had been a much faster aircraft on an unspecified kind of disguised business and then a Land Rover ride up to the mountain hideaway where Senator Solomon Fitzhugh had been housed. In that retreat there had been a blessed opportunity to bathe, to sleep, and to savor a fresh sense of freedom.
Percival did not accompany them past the point where the Courier aircraft had taken them on board. He had left them without explanations other than a very brief farewell. “I’ve got a great deal to do in a short time,” he had said. After that he had shut the cabin door and waved once at them before he had disappeared into the darkness.
Hewlitt did not know when he would be summoned for his promised meeting with the First Team, but he kept himself as prepared as he was able. He was considerably relieved when his luggage was delivered to him with almost all of the essential things that had been in his apartment. Everything had been tossed in evident great haste, but Barbara obligingly pressed a few items for him along with her own clothes and restored his confidence in his ability to make a presentable appearance. When he met the First Team, he wanted to look like the man from the White House who had faced Colonel Rostovitch and had outbluffed him, even if only for a few minutes.
When Mrs. Smith came for him, he was ready. He rode beside her in the simple car she had brought and talked with her about relatively neutral topics during the considerable ride that followed.
He noticed that she had modified her appearance somewhat; she was still very much the same person, but the chic, perfectly turned-out look that had characterized her in Washington was replaced by a far less sophisticated outward image. She had transformed herself into what appeared to be a properly dressed, well-mannered Midwestern housewife, one who had three children to care for and when she was not doing that, belonged to the church women’s club and subscribed to the Reader’s Digest. Her manner changed, too, to match her altered appearance; she was simpler in what she did and more matter-of-fact. It was Hewlitt’s judgment that she had blended herself remarkably well into the environment in which she was apparently now living and, despite the fact that she was notably attractive, she could pass all but unnoticed almost anywhere.
“We could stop for lunch,” she suggested. “I believe that it would be quite safe unless we had a particularly bad break. Or, if you prefer, we can keep going for another two hours or so.”
“How about yourself?” he asked.
“It’s immaterial to me.”
“Then I suggest that we go on. I’m in favor of avoiding any risk that it isn’t essential to take.”
She drove on; Hewlitt looked at her profile and wondered whether or not she had been testing him with that bit of business. If she had wanted to stop to eat, she would have known the proper place and would have pulled in without consulting him.
It was close to three in the afternoon when they turned off onto a side road and were out of sight of the highway in a matter of a minute or two. Hewlitt rode on, awaiting what lay before him. When they reached the boarded-up entrance to an old mine shaft, he was slightly surprised to find a hunter with a gun who took over the car without comment as soon as they had gotten out. The man drove away farther into the mountains and they were alone, appar-endy in the midst of desolation.
He knew better very shortly thereafter. As soon as they were both inside Mrs. Smith dropped her provincial manner and became what could have been a highly efficient executive secretary. “You are expected, of course, Mr. Hewlitt,” she told him, “but we have an operation under way right now and your interview may be delayed for a little while. I believe that all I need to tell you is that anyone you meet here you may and should talk to freely and with total candor.”