Authors: Robert Ludlum
Kendrick closed his eyes, feeling weak as he sank back into the pillows. “He’s with a group or a committee that calls itself … Inver Brass.”
“You
know
?”
“Only that much. I’ve no idea who they are or what they are, just that they’ve screwed up my life.”
The tan sedan, its codified government plates signifying the Central Intelligence Agency, drove through the imposing gates of the estate on Chesapeake Bay and up the circular drive to the smooth stone steps of the entrance. The tall man in an open raincoat that revealed a rumpled suit and shirt—evidence of nearly seventy-two hours of continuous wear—got out of the backseat and walked wearily up the steps toward the large stately front door. He shivered briefly in the cold morning air of the overcast day that promised snow—snow for Christmas, reflected Payton. It was Christmas Eve, simply another day for the director of Special Projects, yet a day he dreaded, the impending meeting one he would trade several years of his life not to have insisted upon. Throughout his long career he had done many things that caused the bile to erupt in his stomach, but none more so than the destruction of good and moral men. He would destroy such a man this morning and he loathed himself for it, yet there was no alternative. For there was a higher good, a higher morality, and it was found in the reasonable laws of a nation of decent people. To abuse those laws was to deny the decency; accountability was the constant. He rang the bell.
A maid preceded Payton through an enormous sitting room overlooking the Chesapeake to another stately door. She opened it and the director walked inside the extraordinary library, trying to absorb everything that struck his eyes. The huge console that took up the entire wall on the left with its panoply of television monitors and dials and projection equipment; the lowered silver screen on the right and the burning Franklin stove in the near corner; the cathedral windows directly across and the
large circular table in front of him. Samuel Winters got up from the chair beneath the wall of sophisticated technology and came forward, his hand extended.
“It’s been too long, MJ—may I call you that?” said the world-renowned historian. “As I recall, everyone called you MJ.”
“Certainly, Dr. Winters.” They shook hands and the septuagenarian scholar waved his arm, encompassing the room.
“I wanted you to see it all. To know that we have our fingers on the pulse of the world—but not for personal gain; you must understand that.”
“I do. Who are the others?”
“Please sit down,” said Winters, gesturing at the chair facing his own, on the opposite side of the circular table. “Take off your coat, by all means. When one reaches my age, all the rooms are much too warm.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll keep it on. This will not be a long conference.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Very,” replied Payton, sitting down.
“
Well
,” said Winters softly but emphatically as he went to his chair, “it’s the unusual intellect that chooses its position without regard to the parameters of discussion. And you
do
have an intellect, MJ.”
“Thank you for your generous, if somewhat condescending, compliment.”
“That’s rather hostile, isn’t it?”
“No more so than your deciding for the country who should run and be elected to national office.”
“He’s the right man at the right time for all the right reasons.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s the way you did it. When one lets loose a rogue force to achieve an objective, he can’t know the consequences.”
“
Others
do it. They’re doing it
now
.”
“That doesn’t give you the right. Expose them if you can, and with your resources I’m sure you can, but don’t imitate them.”
“That’s sophistry! We live in an animal world, a politically oriented world dominated by
predators
!”
“We don’t have to become predators to fight them.… Exposure, not imitation.”
“By the time the word gets out, by the time even the few understand what’s happened, the brutal herds have stampeded, trampling us. They change the rules, alter the laws. They’re untouchable.”
“I respectfully disagree, Dr. Winters.”
“Look at the Third Reich!”
“Look what happened to it. Look at Runnymede and the Magna Carta, look at the tyrannies of the French court of Louis, look at the brutalities of the czars—for
Christ’s
sake, look at Philadelphia in 1787! The
Constitution
, Doctor! The people react goddamned quickly to oppression and malfeasance!”
“Tell that to the citizens of the Soviet Union.”
“Checkmate. But don’t try to explain that to the refuseniks and the dissidents who every day make the world more aware of the dark corners of Kremlin policy. They
are
making a difference, Doctor.”
“
Excesses!
” cried Winters. “Everywhere on this poor doomed planet there is excess. It will blow us apart.”
“Not if reasonable people expose excess and do not join it in hysteria. Your cause may have been right, but in
your
excess you violated laws—written and unwritten—and caused the deaths of innocent men and women because you considered yourself above the laws of the land. Rather than telling the country what you knew, you decided to manipulate it.”
“That is your determination?”
“It is. Who are the others in this Inver Brass?”
“You
know
that name?”
“I just said it. Who
are
they?”
“You’ll never learn from me.”
“We’ll find them … ultimately. But for my own curiosity, where did this organization start? If you don’t care to answer, it doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, but I
do
care to answer,” said the old historian, his thin hands trembling to the point where he gripped them together on the table. “Decades ago Inver Brass was born in chaos, when the nation was being torn apart, on the edge of self-destruction. It was the height of the great depression; the country had come to a stop and violence was erupting everywhere. Hungry people care little about empty slogans and emptier promises, and productive people who’ve lost their pride through no fault of their own are reduced to fury.… Inver Brass was formed by a small group of immensely wealthy, influential men who had followed the advice of the likes of Baruch and were unscathed by the economic collapse. They were also men of social conscience and they put their resources to work in practical ways, stemming riots and violence not only by massive infusions of capital and supplies into inflamed areas, but by silently ushering laws
through Congress that helped to bring about measures of relief. It is in that tradition that we follow.”
“Is it?” asked Payton quietly, his eyes cold, studying the old man.
“
Yes
,” answered Winters emphatically.
“Inver Brass.… What does it mean?”
“It’s the name of a marshland lake in the Highlands that’s not on any map. It was coined by the first spokesman, a banker of Scot descent, who understood that the group had to act in secrecy.”
“Therefore without accountability?”
“I repeat. We seek
nothing
for ourselves!”
“Then why the secrecy?”
“It’s necessary, for although our decisions are arrived at dispassionately for the good of the country, they’re not always pleasant or, in the eyes of many, even defensible. Yet they
were
for the good of the nation.”
“ ‘Even defensible’?” repeated Payton, astonished at what he was hearing.
“I’ll give you an example. Years ago our immediate predecessors were faced with a government tyrant who had visions of reshaping the laws of the country. A man named John Edgar Hoover, a giant who became obsessed in his old age, who had gone beyond the bounds of rationality, blackmailing presidents and senators—decent men—with his raw files, which were rampant with gossip and innuendo. Inver Brass had him eliminated before he brought the executive and the legislative, in essence the government, to its knees. And then a young writer named Peter Chancellor surfaced and came too close to the truth. It was he and his intolerable manuscript that caused the demise of Inver Brass then—but could not prevent its resurrection.”
“Oh, my
God
!” exclaimed the director of Special Projects softly. “Good and evil, decided solely by you, sentences pronounced
only
by you. A legend of arrogance.”
“That’s unfair! There was no other solution. You’re wrong!”
“It’s the truth.” Payton stood up, pushing the chair behind him. “I’ve nothing more to say, Dr. Winters. I’ll leave now.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What has to be done. I’m filing a report for the President, the Attorney General and the congressional oversight committees. That’s the law.… You’re out of business, Doctor. And don’t bother to see me to the door, I’ll find my way.”
Payton walked out into the cold gray morning air. He
breathed deeply, trying to fill his lungs but was unable to do so. There was too much weariness, too much that was sad and offensive—on Christmas Eve. He reached the steps and started down to his car when suddenly, shattering the grounds, was a loud report—a
gunshot
. Payton’s driver lunged out of the car, crouching in the drive, his weapon steadied by both hands.
MJ slowly shook his head and continued toward the back door of the vehicle. He was drained. There were no reservoirs of strength to draw from; his exhaustion was complete. Neither was there now the urgency to fly out to California. Inver Brass was finished, its leader dead by his own hand. Without the stature and authority of Samuel Winters, it was in shambles and the manner of his death would send the message of collapse to those who remained.… Evan Kendrick? He had to be told the whole story, all sides of it, and make up his own mind. But it could wait—a day at least. All MJ could think of as the driver opened the door for him was to get home, have several more drinks than were good for him, and sleep.
“Mr. Payton,” said the driver, “you had a radio Code Five, sir.”
“What was the message?”
“ ‘Reach San Jacinto. Urgent.’ ”
“Return to Langley, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, in case I forget. Have a Merry Christmas.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“We’ll look in on him at least once an hour, Miss Rashad,” said the middle-aged navy nurse behind the counter. “Rest assured of it.… Did you know the President himself called the Congressman this afternoon?”
“Yes, I was there. And speaking of phones, there are to be no calls put through to his room.”
“We understand. Here’s the note; it’s a copy of the one each operator has at the switchboard. All calls are to be referred to you at the Westlake Hotel.”
“That’s correct. Thank you very much.”
“It’s a pity, isn’t it? Here it is Christmas Eve, and instead of
being with friends and singing carols or whatever, he’s bandaged up in a hospital and you’re stuck by yourself in a hotel room.”
“I’ll tell you something, Nurse. The fact that he’s here and alive makes it the best Christmas I could ever hope to have.”
“I know, dear. I’ve seen you two together.”
“Take care of him. If I don’t get some sleep, he won’t consider me much of a present in the morning.”
“He’s our number one patient. And you rest, young lady. You look a mite haggard and that’s a medical opinion.”
“I’m a mess is what I am.”
“In my best days I should be such a mess.”
“You’re sweet,” said Khalehla, putting her hand on the nurse’s arm and squeezing it. “Good night. See you tomorrow.”
“Merry Christmas, dear.”
“It
is
. And have a merry one yourself.” Rashad walked down the white corridor to the bank of elevators and pressed the lower button. She had meant it about needing sleep; except for a brief twenty minutes when both she and Evan dozed off, she had not closed her eyes in nearly forty-eight hours. A hot shower, a warm room-service meal, and bed was the order of the night. In the morning she would shop in one of those stores that stayed open for the benefit of errant people who had forgotten someone and buy a few silly presents for her … intended? My God, she thought. For my
fiancé
. Too much.
It was funny, though, how Christmas undeniably brought out the gentler, kinder aspects of human nature—regardless of race, creed, or lack of both. The nurse, for instance. She
was
sweet, and probably a rather lonely woman with too large a body and a pudgy face unlikely to be chosen for a Wave poster. Yet she had tried to be warm and kind. She had said that she knew how the Congressman’s lady felt because she had seen them together. She had not. Khalehla remembered every person who had come into Evan’s room and the nurse was not one of them. Kindness … reaching out, whatever one cared to call it, it was Christmas. And her man was safe. The elevator doors parted and she walked into the descending cage feeling secure and warm and kind.
Kendrick opened his eyes to the darkness. Something had awakened him … what was it? The door to his room?… Yes, of course, it was the door. Khalehla had told him he was going to be checked and rechecked all night long. Where did she think he would go? Out dancing? He sank back into the pillow, breathing
deeply, no strength in him, all energy elusive.…
No
. It was not the door. It was a presence. Someone was there in the room!
Slowly he moved his head, inch by inch on the pillow. There was a blurred splash of white in the dark, no upper or lower extensions, just a dull space of white in the darkness.
“Who is it?” he said, finding his barely audible voice. “Who’s there?”
Silence.
“Who the hell
are
you? What do you
want
?”
Then, like a rushing onslaught, the white mass came toward him out of the dark and crashed into his face. A
pillow
. He could not
breathe
! He swung his right hand up, pushing against a muscular arm, then sliding off the flesh into a face, a soft face, then into the scalp of …
woman’s
hair! He yanked the strands in his grip with all the strength he could summon, rolling to the right on the narrow hospital bed, pulling his predator down to the floor beneath him. He released the hair and hammered the face under him, his shoulder in torment, the sutures broken, blood spreading through the bandages. He tried to yell, but all that emerged was a throated cry. The heavy woman clawed at his neck, her fingers sharp, heard points breaking his skin … then up into his eyes, tearing his lids and scraping his forehead. He surged up, spinning out of her grip, beyond her reach, crashing into the wall. The pain was intolerable. He lurched toward the door, but she was on him, hurling him into the side of the bed. His hand struck the carafe of water on the table; he grabbed it, and, spinning again, swung it up into the head, into the maniacal face above him. The woman was stunned; he rushed forward, throwing his right shoulder into her heavy body, smashing her into the wall, then lunged for the door and yanked it open. The white antiseptic hall was bathed in dim gray light except for a bright lamp behind the floor counter halfway down the corridor. He tried again to scream.