The Road to Omaha (2 page)
Authors: Robert Ludlum
MacKenzie Lochinvar Hawkins
—Former general of the army, former by request of the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and most of Washington. Twice decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor. A.k.a. Madman Mac the Hawk.
Samuel Lansing Devereaux
—Brilliant young attorney, Harvard Law School, U.S. Army (reluctantly), lawyer for the Hawk in China (disastrously).
Sunrise Jennifer Redwing
—Also an attorney, also brilliant, outrageously gorgeous, and a fiercely loyal daughter of the Wopotami Indian nation.
Aaron Pinkus
—Soft-spoken giant of Boston law circles, the consummate attorney-statesman who happens to be Sam Devereaux’s employer (unfortunately).
Desi Arnaz I
—An impoverished miscreant from Puerto Rico who falls under the Hawk’s spell, and who one day may be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Desi Arnaz II
—See above. Less of a leader but a mechanical genius, such as in hot-wiring cars, picking locks, fixing ski lifts, and turning pesto sauce into an anesthetic.
Vincent Mangecavallo
—The
real
director of the CIA, courtesy of the Mafia dons from Palermo to Brooklyn. Any administration’s secret weapon.
Warren Pease
—Secretary of State. Every administration’s malfunctioning weapon, but a former prep school “roomie” of the President.
Cyrus M
—A black mercenary with a doctorate in chemistry. Screwed by Washington, and a gradual convert to the Hawk’s sense of justice.
Roman Z
—A Serbo-Croatian Gypsy who was a cell mate of the above. In chaos he finds total delight, as long as he has an unfair advantage.
Sir Henry Irving Sutton
—One of the theater’s finest character actors, and, by happenstance, a hero of World War II’s North African campaign, because “there were no lousy directors to warp my performance.”
Hyman Goldfarb
—The greatest linebacker ever to have graced the football fields of the NFL. In his postprofessional days, he was calamitously recruited by the Hawk.
| | |
| “Suicidal Six” | |
| Duke Dustin Marlon Sir Larry Sly Telly | Professional actors who have joined the army and are considered the finest antiterrorist unit ever produced by the military. They have never fired a shot . |
| | |
| Fawning Hill Country Club Members | |
| Bricky Doozie Froggie Moose Smythie | Fine fellows from the right schools and the right clubs who passionately support the interests of the country—as long as theirs comes first , way first . |
Johnny Calfnose
—Information officer of the Wopotami tribe; he picks up a phone and usually lies. He also still owes Sunrise Jennifer bail money. What more can be said?
Arnold Subagaloo
—White House Chief of Staff. He flies off the handle (free on government aircraft) whenever anyone mentions that he’s not the President. What more can
anyone
say?
The rest of the
personae
may be of lesser importance, but it is vital to remember that there are no small parts, only small players, and none of ours are in that ignominious category. Each carries forth in the grand tradition of Thespis, giving his and her all for the play, no matter how inconsequential the offering. “The play’s the thing wherein [we’ll] catch the conscience of the king!” Or maybe somebody.
PROLOGUEThe flames roared up into the night sky, creating massive shadows pulsating across the painted faces of the Indians around the bonfire. And then the chief of the tribe, bedecked in the ceremonial garments of his office, his feathered headdress swooping down from his immensely tall frame to the ground below, raised his voice in regal majesty.
“I come before you to tell you that the sins of the white man have brought him nothing but confrontation with the evil spirits! They will devour him and send him into the fires of eternal damnation! Believe me, my brothers, sons, sisters, and daughters, the day of reckoning is before us, and we will emerge
triumphant
!”
The only problem for many in the chief’s audience was that the chief was a white man.
“What cookie jar did he jump out of?” whispered an elderly member of the Wopotami tribe to the squaw next to him.
“
Shhh
!” said the woman, “he’s brought us a truckload of souvenirs from China and Japan. Don’t louse up a good thing, Eagle Eyes!”
1The small, decrepit office on the top floor of the government building was from another era, which was to say nobody but the present occupant had used it in sixty-four years and eight months. It was not that there were dark secrets in its walls or malevolent ghosts from the past hovering below the shabby ceiling; quite simply, nobody
wanted
to use it. And another point should be made clear. It was not actually on the top floor, it was
above
the top floor, reached by a narrow wooden staircase, the kind the wives of New Bedford whalers climbed to prowl the balconies, hoping—most of the time—for familiar ships that signaled the return of their own particular Ahabs from the angry ocean.
In summer months the office was suffocating, as there was only one small window. During the winter it was freezing, as its wooden shell had no insulation and the window rattled incessantly, impervious to caulking, permitting the cold winds to whip inside as though invited. In essence, this room, this antiquated upper chamber with its sparse furniture purchased around the turn of the century, was the Siberia of the government agency in which it was housed. The last formal employee who toiled there was a
discredited American Indian who had the temerity to learn to read English and suggested to his superiors, who themselves could barely read English, that certain restrictions placed on a reservation of the Navajo nation were too severe. It is said the man died in that upper office in the cold January of 1927 and was not discovered until the following May, when the weather was warm and the air suddenly scented. The government agency was, of course, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.
For the current occupant, however, the foregoing was not a deterrent but rather an incentive. The lone figure in the nondescript gray suit huddled over the rolltop desk, which wasn’t much of a desk, as all its little drawers had been removed and the rolling top was stuck at half-mast, was General MacKenzie Hawkins, military legend, hero in three wars and twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This giant of a man, his lean muscular figure belying his elderly years, his steely eyes and tanned leather-lined face perhaps confirming a number of them, had once again gone into combat. However, for the first time in his life, he was not at war with the enemies of his beloved United States of America but with the government of the United States itself. Over something that took place a hundred and twelve years ago.
It didn’t much matter when, he thought, as he squeaked around in his ancient swivel chair and propelled himself to an adjacent table piled high with old leather-bound ledgers and maps. They were the
same
pricky-shits who had screwed
him
, stripped him of his uniform, and put him out to military pasture! They were all the goddamned same, whether in their frilly frock coats of a hundred years ago or their piss-elegant, tight-assed pinstripes of today. They were
all
pricky-shits. Time did not matter, nailing them did!
The general pulled down the chain of a green-shaded, goosenecked lamp—circa early twenties—and studied a map, in his right hand a large magnifying glass. He then spun around to his dilapidated desk and reread the paragraph he had underlined in the ledger whose binding had split with age. His perpetually squinting eyes suddenly were wide and bright with excitement. He reached for the
only instrument of communication he had at his disposal, since the installation of a telephone might reveal his more than scholarly presence at the Bureau. It was a small cone attached to a tube; he blew into it twice, the signal of emergency. He waited for a reply; it came over the primitive instrument thirty-eight seconds later.
“
Mac
?” said the rasping voice over the antediluvian connection.
“Heseltine, I’ve
got
it!”
“For Christ’s sake, blow into this thing a little easier, will you? My secretary was here and I think she thought my dentures were whistling.”
“She’s out?”
“She’s out,” confirmed Heseltine Brokemichael, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “What is it?”
“I just told you, I’ve
got
it!”
“Got what?”
“The biggest con job the pricky-shits ever
pulled
, the same pricky-shits who made us wear civvies, old buddy!”
“Oh, I’d love to get those bastards. Where did it happen and when?”
“In Nebraska. A hundred and twelve years ago.”
Silence. Then:
“
Mac
, we weren’t around then! Not even you!”
“It doesn’t matter, Heseltine. It’s the same horseshit. The same bastards who did it to
them
did it to you and me a hundred years later.”
“Who’s ‘them’?”
“An offshoot of the Mohawks called the Wopotami tribe. They migrated to the Nebraska territories in the middle 1800s.”
“
So
?”
“It’s time for the sealed archives, General Brokemichael.”
“Don’t
say
that! Nobody can
do
that!”
“You can, General. I need final confirmation, just a few loose ends to clear up.”
“For
what? Why
?”
“Because the Wopotamis may still legally own all the land and air rights in and around Omaha, Nebraska.”
“You’re
crazy
, Mac! That’s the Strategic Air Command!”
“Only a couple of missing items, buried fragments, and the facts are there.… I’ll meet you in the cellars, at the vault to the archives, General Brokemichael.… Or should I call you co-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with me, Heseltine? If I’m right, and I know damn well I am, we’ve got the White House-Pentagon axis in such a bind, their collective tails won’t be able to evacuate until we tell ’em to.”
Silence. Then:
“I’ll let you in, Mac, but then I fade until you tell me I’ve got my uniform back.”
“Fair enough. Incidentally, I’m packing everything I’ve got here and taking it back to my place in Arlington. That poor son of a bitch who died up in this rat’s nest and wasn’t found until the perfume drifted down didn’t die in vain!”
The two generals stalked through the metal shelves of the musty sealed archives, the dull, webbed lights so dim they relied on their flashlights. In the seventh aisle, MacKenzie Hawkins stopped, his beam on an ancient volume whose leather binding was cracked. “I think this is it, Heseltine.”
“Good, and you can’t take it out of here!”
“I understand that, General, so I’ll merely take a few photographs and return it.” Hawkins removed a tiny spy camera with 110 film from his gray suit.
“How many rolls have you got?” asked former General Heseltine Brokemichael as MacKenzie carried the huge book to a steel table at the end of the aisle.
“Eight,” replied Hawkins, opening the yellow-paged volume to the pages he needed.
“I have a couple of others, if you need them,” said Heseltine. “Not that I’m so all fired-up by what you think you may have found, but if there’s any way to get back at Ethelred, I’ll
take
it!”
“I thought you two had made up,” broke in MacKenzie, while turning pages and snapping pictures.
“
Never
!”
“It wasn’t Ethelred’s fault, it was that rotten lawyer in the Inspector General’s office, a half-assed kid from Harvard named Devereaux, Sam Devereaux. He made the mistake, not Brokey the Deuce. Two Brokemichaels; he got ’em mixed up, that’s all.”