The Chancellor Manuscript (54 page)

“I know it now,” said the judge in a flat, ominous monotone. “You found him in Hawaii, you brought him back and broke him. You may have touched off a chain of events that could drive the fanatics over the edge! Send them screaming into the streets with their charges of conspiracy and worse! What Longworth did was necessary. It was
right!”

“What the hell are you talking about? Longworth was Varak, and you damned well know it! He found
me!
He saved my life, and I watched him die.”

Sutherland seemed to lose his equilibrium. His breathing stopped, his immense body wavered as if he might fall. He spoke softly, in deep pain. “So Varak was the one. I had considered it but didn’t want to believe it He worked with others; I thought it was one of them. Not Varak. The wounds of his childhood never healed; he couldn’t resist the temptation. He had to have all the weapons.”

“Are you telling me he took the files? It won’t wash. He didn’t have them.”

“He delivered them to someone else.”

“He what?” Chancellor took a step forward, stunned by Sutherland’s words.

“His hatred ran too deep. His sense of justice was twisted; all he wanted was revenge. The files could give him that.”

“Whatever you’re saying, it’s wrong! Varak gave his life to find those files! You’re lying! He told me the truth! He said it was one of four men!”

“It is.…” Sutherland looked away across the water. The awful silence was broken by the sounds of the boat basin. “Almighty God,” he said, turning back to Peter. “If he had only come to me. I might have convinced him there was a better way. If he’d only come to me—”

“Why should he? You weren’t above suspicion. I’ve spoken to the others; you’re still not. You’re one of the four!”

“You arrogant young
fool
!
”
thundered Daniel Sutherland, his voice echoing throughout the bay. Then he spoke quietly, with enormous intensity. “You say I lie. You say you’ve spoken to the others. Well, let me tell you, you’ve been lied to far more expeditiously by someone else.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I know who has those files! I’ve known for weeks! It is, indeed, one of four men, but it’s not !. This discovery was not so difficult What will be difficult is getting them back! Convincing a man who’s gone mad to seek help. You and Varak may have made that impossible!”

Peter stared at the black giant “You’ve never said anything to anyone—”

“I couldn’t!” interrupted the judge. “The situation had to be contained; the risks were too great He hires killers. He has a thousand hostages in those files.” Sutherland took a step toward Chancellor. “Did you tell anyone you were coming here? Did you watch to see if you were followed?”

Chancellor shook his head. “I travel with my own protection. No one followed me.”

“You travel with what?”

“I’m not alone,” said Peter quietly.

“Others are
with
you?”

“It’s all right,” said Chancellor, frightened by the old man’s sudden dread. “He’s
with
us.”

“O’Brien?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, my God!”

There was a sudden loud splash of water. It could not be mistaken for an anxious fish. There was a human being beneath the dock. In darkness. Peter ran to the edge.

Two rapid explosions of gunfire came from behind him. From the direction of Quinn’s boat! Chancellor dove to the wood, flattening himself against the planks. The whole area erupted; shots came from the surface of the water, from the railings of other boats. Spits cracked in the air: bullets fired from weapons equipped with silencers. Peter rolled to his left, instinctively seeking the cover of adjacent pilings. Wood splintered in front of his face; he covered his eyes, opening them in time to see a flash of gunfire from an opposing dock. He brought his own gun up and pulled the trigger in panic.

There was a scream, followed by the sounds of a falling body, crashing into unseen objects and rolling over the dock into water.

Chancellor heard a grunt to his left. He turned. A man in a black wet suit was climbing over the edge of the pier. Peter aimed and fired; the man-monster arched his back, then fell forward in a last attempt to reach out at him.

Alison!
He had to get to her! He lunged backward and came in startled contact with human flesh. It was Sutherland’s body! The face was covered with blood, the overcoat stained throughout the upper section; splotches of deep red were everywhere.

The black giant was
dead
.

“Chancellor!” O’Brien was yelling at him, his voice penetrating the explosions and the spits of gunfire. For what purpose? To kill him? Who was O’Brien?
What
was O’Brien?

He would not answer; he would not become a target Survival forced him to move. He lurched over the slain Daniel Sutherland toward the mass of steel machinery at the foot of the dock. He scrambled on all fours, diving, twisting, zigzagging as fast as he could over the filthy planks.

There was the ping of a ricocheting bullet. He had been
seen!
He had no choice; he rose partially off the ground, his legs aching in fear, and sped toward the black iron objects. He was in front of them; he plunged between the arch of cascading coils, twisting to his right behind a shield of steel.

“Chancellor!
Chancellor!
” Still O’Brien’s shouts punctuated the gunfire. Still Peter would not heed him. For there was only one explanation. The man he had pitied, admired, given his life to, had led him into the trap!

There was a sudden fusillade, followed by an explosion. Flames leaped up from the stern of a trawler two docks away. Then a second detonation; another boat erupted in fire. There were shouts, orders; men ran over the docks and jumped from railings into the water. The gunfire seemed to diminish in the confusion. Then there was a single loud report, and a third boat burst into flames. Another shot followed; a man screamed. He screamed
words
.

The words were unintelligible. All but one: Chasǒng.

Chasǒng!

A man was hit, his last words a roar of defiance before death; no other motive could cause the fanatic sound. It was the language Varak had not understood! Chancellor now heard it for himself; it was like no other he had ever heard.

The noise abated. Two men in wet suits climbed over the end of the short pier where Daniel Sutherland lay dead. Across the water on the opposing dock three shots came in rapid succession; a ricocheting bullet glanced harshly off a gearbox above Peter and imbedded itself in the wood beside him. A figure raced toward the shore, jumping between the boats, over railings, onto decks, around wheelhouses. More shots; Chancellor ducked beneath the shield of steel. The figure of the racing man reached the muddy shore and dove beyond a beached rowboat. He stayed there only seconds, then rose and ran into the darkness.

It was
O’Brien!
Peter watched in disbelief as he disappeared into the woods that bordered the boat basin.

The gunfire stopped. From the water beyond the docks came the sound of a motor launch. Chancellor could not wait any longer. He crawled out of his sanctuary, got to his feet, and raced between the boats toward the automobile.

Alison lay prostrate on the ground next to the car. Her eyes were glazed, her body trembled. Peter sank down beside her and held her in his arms.

“I never thought I’d see you alive!” she whispered, her fingers digging into him, her moist cheek against his.

“Come on. Quickly!” He pulled her to her feet. He yanked the car door open and pushed Alison inside.

There was a commotion on the dock. The motor launch he had heard in the distance had pulled alongside. There was an argument; men turned, several started toward the shore.

It was the moment to move. In seconds it would be too late. He looked through the windshield and turned the ignition key. The motor groaned but did not start.

The morning dampness! The car had not run in hours!

He heard shouts from the base of the dock. Alison heard them, too; she grabbed for his gun from the seat where he had dropped it. Automatically, with the swiftness born of experience, she cracked out the magazine.

“You’ve only got two shells left! Do you have others?”

“Bullets? No!” Peter turned the key again, pressing the accelerator.

The figure of a man in a wet suit loomed between the hulls of the beached trawlers. He started toward them.

“Watch your eyes!” shouted Alison.

She fired the weapon, the explosion thunderous inside the car. The side window blew open. The motor started.

Chancellor yanked the gearshift into drive and plunged his foot on the accelerator. The car lurched forward wildly. He swung the wheel to his right; the car skidded sideways, throwing up sprays of mud and dust. He straightened the wheel out and sped toward the exit turn.

They could hear shots behind them; the back window exploded.

Chancellor pushed Alison to the floor of the car as he whipped the steering wheel to the left. She would not stay down but lunged up, firing the second and last bullet. Briefly the gunshots behind them stopped.

Then they resumed, the bullets wild, without effect. Peter reached the entrance of the boat basin and raced down the road cut out of the forest toward the highway.

They were alone. An hour before there had been three fugitives; now there were two.

They had given their trust to Quinn O’Brien; he had betrayed them.

Whom would they turn to now?

They had only each other. Houses and office buildings were watched. Friends, acquaintances, placed under surveillance. Telephones were tapped, their car known. The highways and back roads would soon be patrolled.

Peter began to feel a remarkable change within himself. He wondered for a moment whether it was real or merely another aspect of his imagination; whatever, he decided he was grateful for it.

The fear—the sense of utter helplessness—was replaced by anger.

He gripped the wheel and drove on, the scream of death he had heard only minutes before echoing in his ears.

Chasǒng!

After everything was said, it was still the key.

The average citizen was not aware of their flight. No radio broadcasts described them; no photographs appeared on television or in the newspapers. And yet they ran, for ultimately there would be no protection; laws had been broken, men had been killed. To turn themselves in would lead to a dozen traps. The unknown men were everywhere among the authorities.

Hoover’s private files were their only vindication, their only hope of survival.

Death had brought them nearer to the answer. Varak had said it was one of four men. Peter had added a fifth. Now Sutherland was dead and Dreyfus was dead and that left three. Banner, Paris, and Bravo.

Frederick Wells, Carlos Montelán, Munro St. Claire.

You’ve been lied to far more expeditiously by someone else
.

But there was the key.
Chasǒng
. It was not a lie. One of the three remaining members of Inver Brass was somehow deeply, irrevocably associated with the waste at Chasǒng twenty-two years ago. Whoever he was had the files.

Peter recalled Ramirez’s words.
Chasǒng is … represented in scores of veterans’ hospitals
.

There was only a remote chance that something might be learned from the survivors. Their memories would be vague, but it was the only step he could think of. Perhaps the last one.

His thoughts turned to Alison. She had developed an anger matching his own, and in that anger was a remarkable sense of inventive determination. The general’s daughter had resources, and she used them; her father had accumulated favors during a lifetime of service. She approached only those she knew were far removed from the centers of Pentagon influence and control. Men she had not spoken with in years received telephone calls asking for help—tactful assistance to be rendered privately, without questions.

And so that no complete picture be traced to a single source, the requests were divided.

An Air Force colonel attached to NASA Ordnance met them across the Delaware line in Laurel and gave them his car. O’Brien’s automobile was hidden in the woods near the banks of the Nanticoke River.

An artillery captain at Fort Benning made reservations for them in his name at a Holiday Inn outside of Arundel Village.

A lieutenant commander in the Third Naval District, once a skipper on an LCI at Omaha Beach, drove to Arundel and brought three thousand dollars to their room. He accepted—without question—a note from Chancellor addressed to Joshua Harris instructing the literary agent to pay the borrowed sum.

The last thing they needed was the hardest to get: the casualty records of Chasǒng. Specifically, the whereabouts of the permanently disabled survivors. If there was a single focal point that might be under round-the-clock surveillance, it was Chasǒng. They had to work on the assumption that unseen men were watching, waiting for an interest to be shown.

It was nearly eight in the evening. The lieutenant commander had left minutes ago, the three thousand dollars dropped casually on the night table. Peter reclined wearily on the bed, leaning against the headboard. Alison was across the room at the desk. In front of her were her
notes. Dozens of names, most crossed out for one reason or another. She smiled.

“Are you always so nonchalant about money?”

“Are you always so handy with a gun?” he replied.

“I’ve been around weapons most of my life. It doesn’t mean I approve of them.”

“I’ve been around money for about three and a half years. I approve of it very much.”

“My father used to take me out to the pistol and rifle ranges several times a month. When nobody was around, of course. Did you know I could dismantle a carbine and a regulation .45 blindfolded by the time I was thirteen? God, how he must have wished I were a boy!”

“God, how he must have been out of his mind,” said Chancellor, imitating her cadence. “What are we going to do about the casualty lists? Can you pull another string?”