Hooper and Murray went.
With the door closed, Bob Cherry sat for a minute or two lost in thought. Automatically he reached out and rearranged the mementos on his desk, handling them and brushing off any specks of dust that might have come to rest on them. This altimeter mounted on a walnut stand — a presentation from a Florida veterans association. The gold doubloon from a Spanish treasure galleon, the baseball signed by Hank Aaron, the fifty-caliber machine-gun round on an alabaster base — all these things had been presented to him by groups of Florida citizens who appreciated his loyal service in the Senate, his sacrifices on their behalf.
He rose from his chair and went around the room looking at the photos on the wall, dusting an occasional frame with a finger and here and there straightening one. He was in every photo. He had posed with presidents, with movie idols, with famous industrialists and writers and athletes. Many of the photos bore handwritten inscriptions safely preserved forever behind nonglare glass: “To Senator Bob Cherry, a real American.” “To Bob Cherry, a friend.” “To Senator Cherry, a true friend of the American working man.” “To Florida’s own Senator Bob Cherry, who believes in America.”
After he had looked at every picture and made sure it was hanging correctly on its private nail, he lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. He would rest a while.
Going down in the elevator, Freddy Murray said, “You know, he might have gotten down off his high horse if you’d told him Freeman McNally was dead.”
“I was going to,” said Tom Hooper, “but the jerk never gave me a chance.”
From a sound sleep Henry Charon came instantly awake. He lay in the darkness listening. He could hear the drip of water — the rain had begun again just as he drifted off to sleep — and the sound of branches rustling in a gentle breeze. Charon’s eyes roamed freely in the dim half light that passed for darkness under that glowing overcast.
Something was not right. Something was out there in the night. Something that should not be there. It was very quiet. No traffic sounds at all from the road a hundred yards down the hill. No sound of aircraft overhead.
Yes. There it was again. Very faint.
He slipped out of the sleeping bag and pulled his boots on, then his sweater and waterproof parka. He reached down into the sleeping bag and retrieved the pistol.
In less than a minute he was completely dressed, the pistol in his pocket and the rifle in his hand. He swung the rucksack containing the hand grenades and ammo and the duffle bag that he would need to hide the rifle over his shoulder. Everything else he left.
Only now did Henry Charon check the luminous hands of his watch. Eleven thirty-four.
He carefully left the little cave and moved with sure, silent steps twenty feet around to his right, to a prominence where he could look and listen. He sank to the ground at the base of a tree so he would not present a clear silhouette, motionless, a part of the rock, a dark, indistinct shape in a dark, wet universe.
The glow of the city lights reflecting on the clouds was only thinly dissipated by the naked branches of the trees.
And he heard the noise again. A man, moving slowly and carefully, but moving.
Charon saw nothing. His ears told him what he wanted to know. One man, sixty or so yards away, around the slope and down a bit.
And coming this way.
Henry Charon didn’t form hypotheses about who this intruder might be or why he was here. Like the wary wild animal he was, he waited. He waited with infinite patience.
Now he got a fleeting look at the man. A soldier, judging by the helmet and the bulky shape, indistinct among the brush and trees. The man was moving slowly, warily, listening and looking.
But wait! Above on the ridge — another man. Two of them.
He turned his head ever so slowly to acquire the second man. He could hear him but that was all.
The second man was closer than the one lower on the slope. That he had gotten this close without Charon hearing him was a tribute to his skill. The first man was much clumsier.
Charon had a decision to make. Should he wait and see if these men would pass him without detecting him or should he move away? If they were hunting him, which was likely, they would check out this overhang of rock and, if they were halfway competent, find the cave and his gear.
He mulled these questions as an animal would, without consciously thinking about them, merely waiting for his instinct to tell him it was time to move.
The first man he had heard came closer, now plainly visible as he moved between the trees and rock outcrops. He was carrying a rifle in his hands.
The second man was right up the slope even with Charon, judging by the sound. Charon did not turn his head. Only his eyes moved.
“Psst. Pssst!” The hissing came from the lower man. He gestured in Charon’s direction, then said in a stage whisper, “There’s some rocks to my left.”
Charon remained frozen. The man who had whispered moved behind the tree that sheltered Charon, but he did not move to reacquire him. The man was less than a dozen feet away.
At this distance Charon could hear every step the man took. He could hear him breathing deeply, as one does when one is trying to get plenty of air and be quiet too. He could hear his clothing rustle. He could hear the gentle, rhythmic swish of the water in his canteen. He even got a faint whiff of the odor of stale cigarette smoke.
The man moved away from Charon’s back, toward the cave. Still Charon remained motionless. Slowly, ever so slowly, he rotated his head to try to acquire the man above him on the ridge. Nothing. The man was behind the trees or just over the rocky crest. In any event Charon couldn’t see him from where he had made himself a part of the earth.
A minute passed. The man behind brushed against the bushes, broke several branches.
“Billy! Billy! We got a cave here.”
Seconds passed.
“Billy! There’s a bunch of stuff in the cave.”
“Say again.”
Now the soldier behind Charon spoke normally. “There’s a cave down here with a sleeping bag and some other stuff in it. Better report.”
As the metallic sounds of a walkie-talkie became audible, Henry Charon moved. He moved straight ahead, back in the direction the men had come from. He kept low yet moved surely and silently and used the brush and trees and rocks to screen himself from the men behind him.
The voices of the two men around the cave carried. They were still audible though the words were indistinct when Charon halted beside the base of a large tree and scanned the terrain.
Other men would be coming up this slope to check out the cave. He had to get well away but he didn’t want to move onto someone who was sitting motionless. So he paused to scan and listen.
He could hear someone down the slope. The person slipped and fell heavily, then regained his feet. He moved steadily without pause, working his way upwards toward Charon. No doubt he was trying to find the cave.
Charon slipped along, staying low.
He froze when he heard the sound of a walkie-talkie. Below, to the left. Another one!
He kept going parallel with the ridge line. After several hundred yards the ridge began to curve. Perfect. The road below would also curve since it ran along the creek. Charon turned ninety degrees left and began his descent.
Through the trees he saw the glint of light reflecting on the asphalt when he was still twenty-five yards away. His progress was slow now, glacial. He flitted from tree to tree, looking and listening. It took him three minutes to get across the creek, which was small but full.
Then he got down on his stomach and crawled toward the road.
The roadside was brushy with dead weeds and briars. Charon lay prone, listening.
Nothing.
Ever so slowly he raised his head. He was beside a crooked little tree that had all its branches tilted toward the road. The bare branches formed a partial canopy that left him in deeper darkness. He scanned right and left, searching the shadows.