Casey brought his flat hand around in a quick clip. The servant folded up with a lung-emptying sigh and Casey caught him before he hit the floor, dragged him to the broom closet, pushed and wedged him inside. He darted a hand to a vest pocket and brought forth a syrette. “That’ll keep you out for a couple of hours,” he muttered, closing the closet door.
He went over to the heavy door which the butler had indicated as Senator McGivern’s study, and knocked on it. In a moment it opened and a husky in his mid-twenties, nattily attired and of obvious self-importance, frowned at him.
“Yes?” he said.
“Steve Jakes of Hemisphere News,” Warren Casey said. “The editor sent me over . . .” As he talked, he sidestepped the other and emerged into the room beyond.
Behind the desk was an older edition of nine-year-old Fredric McGivern. A Fredric McGivern at the age of perhaps fifty, with what had been boyish plump cheeks now gone to heavy jowels.
“What’s this?” he growled.
Casey stepped further into the room. “Jakes, Senator. My editor . . .”
Senator Phil McGivern’s abilities included cunning and a high survival factor. He lumbered to his feet. “Walters! Take him!” he snapped. “He’s a fake!” He bent over to snatch at a desk drawer.
Walters was moving, but far too slowly.
Warren Casey met him half way, reached forward with both hands and grasped the fabric of the foppish drape suit the secretary wore. Casey stuck out a hip, twisted quickly, turning his back halfway to the other. He came over and around, throwing the younger man heavily to his back.
Casey didn’t bother to look down. He stuck a hand into a side pocket, pointed a finger at McGivern through the cloth.
The other’s normally ruddy face drained of color. He fell back into his chair.
Warren Casey walked around the desk and brought the gun the other had been fumbling for from the drawer. He allowed himself a deprecating snort before dropping it carelessly into a pocket.
Senator Phil McGivern was no coward. He glowered at Warren Casey. “You’ve broken into my home—criminal,” he said. “You’ve assaulted my secretary and threatened me with, a deadly weapon. You will be fortunate to be awarded no more than twenty years.”
Casey sank into an easy chair so situated that he could watch both McGivern and his now unconscious assistant at the same time. He said flatly, “I represent the Pacifists, Senator. Approximately an hour ago your son was kidnapped. You’re one of our top-priority persons. You probably realize the implications.”
“Fredric! You’d kill a nine-year-old boy!”
Casey’s voice was flat. “I have killed many nine-year-old boys, Senator.”
“Are you a monster!”
“I was a bomber pilot, Senator.”
The other, who had half-risen again, slumped back into his chair. “But that’s different.”
“I do not find it so.”
In his hard career, Phil McGivern had faced many emergencies. He drew himself up now. “What do you want—criminal? I warn you, I am not a merciful man. You’ll pay for this, Mr. . . .”
“Keep calling me Jakes, if you wish,” Casey said mildly. “I’m not important. Just one member of a widespread organization.”
“What do you want?” the Senator snapped.
“How much do you know about the Pacifists, McGivern?”
“I know it to be a band of vicious criminals!”
Casey nodded, agreeably. “It’s according to whose laws you go by. We have rejected yours.”
“What do you want?” the Senator repeated.
“Of necessity,” Casey continued, evenly, “our organization is a secret one; however, it contains some of the world’s best brains, in almost every field of endeavor, even including elements in the governments of both Hemispheres.”
Phil McGivern snorted his contempt.
Casey went on, an eye taking in the fact that Walters, laid out on the floor, had stirred and groaned softly. “Among our number are some capable of charting world developments. By extrapolation, they have concluded that if your policies are continued, nuclear war will break out within three years.”
The other flushed in anger, finding trouble in controlling his voice. “Spies! Subversives! Make no mistake about it, Jakes, as you call yourself, we realize you’re nothing more than catpaws for the Polarians.”
The self-named Pacifist chuckled sourly. “You should know better, Senator. Our organization is as active on the Northern Hemisphere as it is on this one.” Suddenly he came quickly to his feet and bent over Walters who had begun to stir. Casey’s hand flicked out and clipped the other across the jawbone. The secretary collapsed again, without sound.
Warren Casey returned to his chair. “The point is that our experts are of the opinion that you’ll have to drop out of politics, Senator McGivern. I suggest a resignation for reasons of health within the next week.”
There was quick rage, then steaming silence while thought processes went on. “And Fredric?” McGivern growled finally.
Casey shrugged. “He will be freed as soon as you comply.”
The other’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know I’ll stick to my promise? A contract made under duress has no validity.”
Casey said impatiently, “Having Fredric in our hands now is a minor matter, an immediate bargaining point to emphasize our position. Senator, we have investigated you thoroughly. You have a wife of whom you are moderately fond, and a mistress whom you love. You have three adult children by your first wife, and four grandchildren. You have two children by your second wife, Fredric and Janie. You have a living uncle and two aunts, and five first cousins. Being a politician, you have many surface friends, which we shall largely ignore, but you also know some thirty persons who mean much to you.”
McGivern was beginning to adjust to this abnormal conversation. He growled, “What’s all this got to do with it?”
Warren Casey looked into the other’s eyes. “We shall kill them, one by one. Shot at a distance with a rifle with telescopic sights. Blown up by bomb. Machine gunned, possibly as they walk down the front steps of their homes.”
“You’re insane! The police. The . . .”
Casey went on, ignoring the interruption. “We are in no hurry. Some of your children, your relatives, your friends, your mistress, may take to hiding in their panic. But there is no hiding—nowhere on all this world. Our organization is in no hurry, and we are rich in resources. Perhaps in the doing some of us will be captured or dispatched. It’s beside the point. We are dedicated. That’s all we’ll be living for, killing the people whom you love. When they are all gone, we will kill you. Believe me, by that time it will be as though we’re motivated by compassion. All your friends, your loved ones, your near-of-kin, will be gone.
“We will kill, kill, kill—but in all it will be less than a hundred people. It will not be thousands and millions of people. It will only be your closest friends, your relatives, your children and finally you. At the end, Senator, you will have some idea of the meaning of war.”
By the end of this, although it was delivered in an almost emotionless voice, Phil McGivern was pushed back in his swivel chair as though from physical attack. He repeated, hoarsely, “You’re insane.”
Warren Casey shook his head. “No, it is really you, you and those like you, who are insane. Wrapped up in your positions of power, in your greed for wealth, in the preservation of your privileges, you would bring us into a conflagration which would destroy us all. You are the ones who are insane.”
The Pacifist agent leaned forward. “Throughout history, Senator, there have been pacifists. But never such pacifists as we. Always, in the past, they have been laughed at or sneered at in times of peace, and imprisoned or worse in time of war.”