“Wilson Conroy.”
“Ah yes, Professor Conroy, Georgetown University. You’re something of a celebrity.”
The professor didn’t seem overjoyed at that comment. He grunted something and took a sip of his drink, something clear in a tall glass.
“Political science, isn’t it?” Yocke knew that it was. Conroy was a card-carrying communist with tenure on the Georgetown faculty. A couple of years ago the paper had a reporter attend several of his classes, during which Conroy vigorously championed the Stalinist viewpoint in a one-sided debate with his students, few of whom could defend themselves from the professor’s carefully selected facts and acid tongue. The resulting story in the Sunday edition of the Post had ignited yet another public drive to have the professor fired. The encrusted layers had been thoroughly blasted from the pillars of academic freedom with columns, editorials, and a flood of letters to the editor, all of which sold a lot of newspapers but accomplished nothing else whatever. A half dozen congressmen had gotten into the act for the edification of the folks back home, on the off chance there might be a couple of votes lying around loose in their districts.
Conroy had relished the villain’s role, reveled in the notoriety, right up until the fall of 1989, when communist governments in Eastern Europe had begun collapsing like houses of cards. Since then he had been keeping a low profile, refusing to grant interviews to the press.
“Yes. Political science.” The academic’s eyes flicked nervously over the crowd of people, who were chattering in the usual cocktail-party hubbub.
“Tell me, Professor, what do you make of the latest moves in the Soviet Politburo?”
The professor turned to face Yocke squarely. As he did Jake Grafton lightly touched Yocke’s arm, then slid away from the wall and moved toward the snacks.
“They’re abandoning the faith. They’re abandoning their friends, those who have believed and sustained them.”
“Then, in your opinion, communism hasn’t failed?”
The professor’s lips quivered. “It’s a great tragedy for the human race. The communists have become greedy, sold their souls for dollars, sold their dream to the American financial swashbucklers and defrauders who have enslaved working people….” He ranted on, becoming more and more embittered.
When he paused for breath, Yocke asked, “What if they’re right and you’re wrong?”
“I’m not wrong! We were never wrong!” Conroy’s voice rose into a high quaver. “I’m not wrong!” He backed away from Yocke, his arms rigid at his sides. His empty glass fell unnoticed to the carpet. “We had a chance to change mankind for the better. We had a chance to build a true community where all men would be brothers, a world of workers free from exploitation by the strong, the greedy, the lazy, those who inherit wealth, those …”
All eyes were on him now. Other conversations had stopped. Conroy didn’t notice. He was in full cry: “… the exploiters have triumphed! This is mankind’s most shameful hour.” His voice grew hoarse and spittle flew from his lips. “The communists have surrendered to the rich and powerful. They have sold us into bondage, into slavery!”
Then Callie Grafton was there, her hand on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. Wilson Conroy’s eyes closed and his shoulders sagged. She led him gently from the silent room and the startled eyes.
Subdued conversations began again.
Jack Yocke stood there isolated, all eyes avoiding him. Tish Samuels was nowhere in sight. Suddenly he was desperately thirsty. He headed for the kitchen.
He was standing there by the sink working on a bourbon and water when Jake Grafton came in.
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Jack Yocke, Captain. Look, I owe you and your wife an apology. I didn’t mean to set Conroy off.”
“Umm.” Jake opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of beer. He twisted off the cap and took a sip. “What kind of work do you do?”
“I’m a reporter. Washington Post.”
Grafton nodded once and drank beer.
“Your wife is a fine teacher. I really enjoyed her course.”
“She likes teaching.”
“That comes through in the classroom.”
“Heard anything this afternoon about that Colombian druggie, Aldana? Where is he going to end up?”
“Here in Washington. Justice announced it three or four hours ago.”
Jake Grafton sighed.
“Think there’ll be trouble?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Yocke’s host said. “Seems every age has at least one Caligula, an absolute despot absolutely corrupted. Ours are criminal psychopaths, and we seem to have a lot more than one. I hear Chano Aldana has a net worth of four billion dollars. Awesome, isn’t it?”
“Is the American government ready to endure the problems the Colombian government is having?”
Jake Grafton snorted. “My crystal ball is sorta cloudy just now. Why’d you take a Spanish class, anyway, Jack?”
“Thought it would help me on the job.” That was true enough, as far as it went. Jack Yocke had taken the course so he could get bargaining chips to talk his way onto the foreign staff where reporters fluent in foreign languages had a leg up. Still, he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to meet anybody who might help him later in his career, so he had come to the end-of-semester party to meet Jake Grafton. “Maybe I can get a jail-cell interview with Aldana.”
That comment made Grafton shrug.
“I understand you’re in the Navy?”
“Yeah.”
“On the staff of the Joint Chiefs?”
Those gray eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles appraised Yocke’s face carefully. “Uh-huh.”
Yocke decided to try a shot in the dark. “What do you think will happen when they bring Aldana here for trial?”
Jake Grafton’s face registered genuine amusement. “Enjoy the party, Jack,” he said over his shoulder as he went through the door.
Oh well, Yocke reflected. Creation took God six days.
He heard someone knocking on the hall door and stepped to the kitchen door, where he could inspect the new arrival. The daughter, Amy, passed him and pulled the door open.
“Hey, beautiful.” The man who entered was about thirty, five feet ten or so, with short brown hair and white, even teeth. He presented Amy with a box wrapped in Christmas paper. “For you, from some ardent admirers. Merry yo ho ho and all that good stuff.”
The girl took the box and shook it enthusiastically.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the newcomer said seriously. “That thing breaks, the world as we know it will cease to exist. Time and space will warp, everything will be twisted and grossly deformed and sucked right in — rocks and dirt and cats and kids and everything.” He made a slurping sound with his mouth. “The moon’ll probably go too. Maybe a couple planets.”
Smiling broadly, Amy shook the box vigorously one more time, then threw her arms around the man. “Oh, Toad! Thank you.”
“It’s from me and Rita.” He ran his fingers through her hair and arranged a lock behind an ear.
“Thank her too.”
“I will.”
As Amy trotted away, Jack Yocke introduced himself.
“Name’s Toad Tarkington,” the newcomer informed him.
Another navy man, Jack Yocke thought with a flash of irritation, with another of those childish buddy-buddy nicknames. He wondered what they called Grafton. “Toad, eh? Bet your mother cringes when she hears that.”
“She used to. The finer nuances, sometimes they escape her.” Tarkington gestured helplessly and grinned.
Jack Yocke suddenly decided he didn’t like the smooth, glib Mr. Tarkington. “Most civilians don’t understand the subtleties of male bonding, do they? But I think it’s quaint.”