Pratt made his way with caution. He managed to slide through the final fringes of the crowd and out into the open. A moment later he was standing at the main police barricade, erected at the edge of the highway. The uniformed cops gazed at him blankly; he wasn’t known to them. One of them, a giant with a vast moon-like face, detached himself and came striding ominously over, his machine gun raised.
“Get over to the other side!” he yelled at Pratt. “Get off the highway!”
The police were stretching heavy white rope on both sides of the pavement, to keep the march confined. They wanted to be sure it went in the right direction; it was supposed to go where the weapons-units waited.
“God damn you!” the big cop yelled. “I told you to get out of here! You want to get killed?”
“Where’s McHaffie?” Pratt said.
“Who are you?”
Pratt located Police Major McHaffie, the officer in charge of the detail. Approaching him, he showed his identification. “All right,” McHaffie muttered, preoccupied. He didn’t know what Pratt’s mission was, only that he was on a Security job. “Get up there on one of the trucks; that’s where you’ll get the best view. The stupid bastards are starting any minute.”
McHaffie had picked a good place for the barricade. Once the marchers had gone past it toward the city, the trucks would cut through the rope and swing around, blocking the highway. Then, as the crowd streamed back, the police teams would sort through them. Caught between two police walls, Jones and his followers would be trapped like cattle. More trucks were waiting: to take the followers off to forced labor camps.
The barricade itself was formidable. He doubted if the mob—and it would be a mob by that time—could break it. Trucks, plus heavy guns, and maybe a line of tanks. He wasn’t too familiar with that part. This would be the initial police attack: Jones dead, the policy-level followers rounded up. And then, all over the world, city by city, the rest would be netted. Over a period of days, perhaps weeks, the roundup would continue. Slowly, efficiently.
Reaching up to the truck, Pratt began to climb. Six or seven hands reached to help him; he sprawled awkwardly, clutching his rifle and struggling, until somebody helped him to his feet. He brushed himself off and found a place near the front. He wasn’t the only one with a war-rifle; several flashed in the afternoon sunlight. As he stood his gun upright, nobody paid attention. They were all watching the marchers.
“This is a good location,” he said to McHaffie, as the police major followed after him.
McHaffie eyed the rifle. “What’s that you have there? An old A-5? I wish you guys had thrown them away.” Obviously, he thought Pratt was a bellicose war veteran, nothing more. “We ought to have yanked the firing pins out.”
“There’re a lot of people down there,” a sergeant observed uneasily.
“You think they’ll get by us?” another asked nervously, a young kid. “They’re crazy—they might do anything.”
“I don’t think so,” McHaffie said vaguely, peering at the mob through his binoculars.
“They want to get killed,” the sergeant said. “That’s what they’re out there for. They can see us—Jones must know we’re going to close in on them. Can’t he see the future? Isn’t that his line?”
Warm wind smacked at them from the ruins and half-filled craters. In the distance, across the hazy sky, a row of transports moved slowly, inexorably. The men in the trucks were restless and irritable; they whacked their guns against the metal hull around them, spat over the edge, shaded their eyes against the bright sun and peered angrily at the gray wheel of marchers.
“It won’t be long,” McHaffie commented. The crowd was obediently forming behind the gray phalanx.
“How many do you figure are there?” Pratt asked.
“Thousands. Millions. I guess the big cheese is going to ride in his car while the others walk.” McHaffie indicated a parked limousine. “One of his rich backers gave that to him.”
“He’s supposed to be out front,” a reporter said, overhearing McHaffie. “According to the crap they put out, he’ll be right up there marching at the head.”
“I think he will,” Pratt said.
“You know anything about him?” the reporter demanded, his puffy face slack and avid at once. He was a typical Berlin newspaper man, in baggy tweeds, a pipe in his mouth, cynical and aloof.
“No,” Pratt said.
“Is it true Jones is an escaped con from the Bolivian forced labor camps?”
“I heard he used to be with a freak show,” the sergeant said. “He’s a mutant, one of those war-time sports.”
Pratt said nothing. His head ached from the glare and the dust blown by the dry wind. He wished things would hurry.
“Look,” the reporter said to McHaffie. “Let me ask you something. Those guys there. What is it, some sort of racket? What’s the story on this thing?”
“Get going,” McHaffie muttered.
“Isn’t it a racket? What’s Jones in it for? He’s got a lot of rich backers—right? He’s a minister or something. This is a cult—right? Rich people kick in money and a lot of swank clothes and cars and jewelry, he has all the babes he wants—right?”
Nobody answered.
Presently the reporter addressed himself to a tall thin cop, who stood pressed against the railing, his arms full of rocket-firing equipment. “Hey,” the reporter said softly. “Is this really a Fedgov stunt? To whip up interest in colonization? They going to spring a big immigration deal? Let me in on it.”
“Christ,” the reporter muttered plaintively, “I’m just trying to understand this thing. There must be an angle . . . I’m trying to figure out what he’s in it for.”
A short, red-faced cop swarmed up onto the truck, carrying telephone lines. “I’m glad I’m up here,” he panted to McHaffie. “That’s going to be a mess when they hit the blocks in town.”
The reporter put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Hey, friend,” he said, “what the hell is all this? What are those loons in this for?”
Catching his breath, the red-faced cop paused. “It’s not a racket.”
“Then what are they after? Give me the word.”
“If it was a racket we wouldn’t have any trouble. We could buy them off.”
“That’s interesting.” The reporter eyed him languidly. “You ever met this Jones?”
“No,” the red-faced cop admitted. “But my wife shook hands with him once.” He added: “She’s a member.”
The reporter was incredulous. “No kidding?”
“She’s probably down there marching.”
“Take off,” McHaffie snapped at the red-faced policeman. “Report back to your unit.”
The cop obediently pushed to the back of the truck and leaped down onto the highway.
The reporter scratched a few notes on a pad of paper and then put it away. He eyed Pratt’s rifle curiously. “What’s that you got there, Dad?” he asked.
Pratt said nothing. He was feeling worse each minute, as the sun glared above them. His mouth was dry and acid. The touch of an ancient malaria shivered through him, bringing its weakness and chills. It was always this way, before a kill.
“That’s a wicked-looking hunk of metal,” the reporter observed. “You going to blow some guy’s head off with that?”
“Get out of here, you big-mouth bastard,” the thin cop grated, “before he blows your ass off with it.”
“Jesus,” the reporter said. “You guys are sure touchy.” He edged toward the far side of the truck. “You’re as bad as those loons down there.”
Pratt wiped sweat from his upper lip and steadied the rifle against the side of the truck. The metal shone bright and hot in the furious heat. His eyes burned, and his legs were beginning to wobble. He wondered how long it would be before the gray started unwinding and flowing forward. Not long, probably.
“Let me use your glasses,” he said to McHaffie.
“Don’t drop them.” McHaffie passed the binocula
rs over; his hands were shaking. “Christ, this thing is getting me. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be in a labor camp along with them.”
Pratt gazed through the binoculars at the wheel of gray, with its dense and obedient mob packed in behind it. Jones had arrived. He was standing in front, conversing with the organization workers. Now the marchers were being formed in columns of ten; a long snake with its gray head on the edge of the highway and its body out among the ruins. The waiting marchers milled and pushed. Pratt could hear them, a thin constant din. They were shouting and yelling as loud as they could.
“Hear them?” he said to McHaffie.
“Give me back my glasses; I think they’re starting.”
“They’re not starting.” Pratt adjusted the focus-screw. There was his prey: the small, gaunt, familiar man, with his steel-rimmed glasses, unimpressive, unimportant-looking. That was Jones.
“Come on!” McHaffie shrieked. “Let’s have them!”
Pratt returned the binoculars. McHaffie quickly swept them up and refocused them. “By God,” he whispered, “here they come. They’ve started.”
The columns of gray had moved onto the highway. The yelling, shouting crowd was creeping along behind them. Dogs barked furiously. Children ran back and forth in frenzied excitement. On the trucks, the weapons-police shuffled uneasily and raised their guns.
Jones, at the head of the columns, marched with jerky, uneven strides, directly down the center of the highway. A quick, mechanical pace, like a wound-up doll. Without the binoculars, Pratt could not make out his face; Jones was still a long way off. He grabbed up his rifle and threw off the safety catch. Raising it, he stood tense and expectant. Around him, those with guns were doing the same.
“Remember,” McHaffie muttered, “don’t fire. Let them past; let them beyond the barricade. Then get ready to close in.”
On one of the trucks a policeman teetered, then fell sprawling onto the highway. He rolled, quickly picked himself up, and scampered in panic for safety beyond the white rope.
“Bring up the first trucks,” McHaffie ordered into his phone.
The columns of marchers were moving past the barricade. Some of them glanced fearfully at the parked trucks, the crouching police.
“Get them up!” McHaffie screamed. “Start the motors, you jackasses!”
The first of the marchers had passed the barricade. Coming from Frankfurt was the first line of police tanks; the other jaw of the trap was closing. The marchers would never reach town. With shrieking roars, truck motors came to life. Driving around behind the marchers, the trucks flowed out onto the highway, cutting them off. Abruptly, the marchers halted. Roars of dismay rose above the thunder of motors. The columns broke and wavered; the long gray snake suddenly dissected itself. Those behind hesitated. Those ahead began to mill in confusion.
“They’re in,” McHaffie was tonelessly saying. “They’re between.”
The marchers were not moving forward. Jones had halted; he stood peering warily around. Like a little rat, Pratt thought. A dirty little yellow-toothed rat. He raised his rifle and aimed.
Now the whole crowd was in motion. The mass that had been heading up the highway split into aimless pieces, people hurrying in various directions, off the highway, through the rope; it made no difference. Fast-moving police cars were racing along the rim of the ruins, herding them back. It was chaos. Pratt paid no attention; he saw only the small, thin figure of Jones.
“You’re under arrest!” loudspeakers boomed. “Stop moving and stand still. You’re under Security arrest!”
Some of the people halted. Stricken faces turned upward; air-borne police units were landing. A group of organization toughs broke into life and raced toward a police team. Clubs swinging, the toughs crashed head-on into the waiting unit; a tangled mass of gray and brown struggled on the pavement. More marchers fled from the highway toward the ruins beyond. On foot, running police batted them down; clouds of thick dust rose, obscuring the scene. The air was filled with screams and crashing roars. A truck groaned, then slid gradually on its side. A wall of crazed fanatics had pushed it over.
Aiming carefully, Pratt fired.
His bullet missed Jones entirely. Stunned, he threw the bolt and again raised the rifle. As he had fired, Jones miraculously, inexplicably, had stepped aside. A split second—it was incredible. Obviously, Jones had expected it.
Scrambling from his truck onto the next, Pratt made his way around the edge of the crowd. He leaped down onto a mass of ruins; grasping his rifle, he gained a precarious footing and loped rapidly forward. This time he would fire from a few feet away; this time he would be directly in front of Jones.
Dropping to the highway, Pratt forced his way into the crowd. Using the butt of his rifle as a club, he beat his way among them. A bottle burst over his head; for an interval darkness swirled, and he floundered against a mass of wildly struggling human bodies. Then he dragged himself up and crept on.
All at once, he was sprawling. Clutching the rifle, he rolled to his feet and managed to get to his knees before a gray-clad shape smashed him with a length of pipe. This time he lost teeth; warm blood gushed down his throat, choking him. Blinded, he lay gasping. Huge, crushing boots stamped on his ribs; he shrieked, groped upward, caught hold of a trouser leg, and tugged. The figure stumbled and fell. Pratt rolled on him, his hands around a section of broken bottle. With a swift stroke he cut the man’s throat, pushed the body away, and climbed up.
Ahead of him was a cleared spot, a dead center in the maelstrom of frenzied shapes. Jones stood inert; behind his glasses, his eyes darted frantically. Around him had grouped a knot of organization fighters, a last-ditch defense.
Kneeling, Pratt managed to get his rifle up. Flickering mists danced in front of him; he was suspended in a silent, unmoving interval. Automatically, his fingers squeezed the trigger; there was no noise, only a faint shudder of the gun stock.
He saw Jones stumble, clutch at his belly, and then pitch over on his back. He had only wounded him—got him in the gut, not the head. Cursing, weeping, Pratt fumbled with the bolt. He had failed; he had not killed him.
While he was trying to fire again, a vast gray shape loomed up, drew back its foot, and kicked the gun from his hands. Two more shapes appeared; he experienced a blossoming second of agony, and then it was over. His last instant of life had passed. Between the three of them, the gray toughs had decapitated him.
Sitting on the pavement, spitting blood, Jones sat waiting for the police medical teams to reach him. From where he squatted, he could see the remains of the assassin. Dimly, through a haze, he watched the infuriated gray figures destroy what was left.
It was over. Between his clenched fingers, the living warmth of his blood oozed. He had been wounded; but he was still alive. In his agony there was already the roaring joy of victory.
14
PEARSON WAS SITTING at his desk when the first reports came in. He listened idly; they seemed to come from a long way off, remote and theoretical, without immediate importance. He gave his acknowledgment and turned away from the relay.
After awhile it occurred to him that he had failed. Pratt was dead, and Jones lay groaning in a police hospital. Jones was still alive. Well, that was it.
Getting to his feet, he walked over to the window. Hands in his pockets, he stood gazing out at the dark, nocturnal city. Very little stirred. In the next day or so, police units would round up Jones’ followers in this area. There was no hurry; it could wait. In fact, it could wait forever.
But he had to go through with it. All the way to the bitter end. He had started it; he had to finish it. He did not intend to back out now, simply because there was no hope.
He thought briefly of trying to murder Jones in the hospital, as he lay helpless. No, he had already made his quixotic gesture. He had already proven what he set out to prove, what he had to know.
Jones could not be killed. It was futile. Fedgov was through; he might as well throw in the sponge.
/> As a matter of fact, he waited two weeks. He waited until the actual figures on the plebiscite began to trickle in. He even procrastinated until the building reeked with the acrid fumes of burning paper: the official documents of Security going up in smoke. When the Supreme Council resigned, Pearson was still standing mutely in his Detroit office, head sunk down on his chest, hands in his pockets.
A few hours before the pale, weak figure of Jones rose from the hospital bed, entered an official car and headed toward Detroit, Pearson put in a call to Cussick.
“I’ll come over there,” Pearson told him. “I’ll talk to you at your apartment; we’re blowing up this building. We don’t want to leave anything.”
The first thing he noticed as he entered Cussick’s apartment was the general untidiness. He didn’t remember it that way. For a moment he stood in the doorway, baffled and disturbed.
“That’s right,” he said finally. “Your wife’s gone. You’re here all alone.”
Cussick closed the hall door. “Can I pour you a drink?”
“You bet your life,” Pearson said gratefully. “A water high.”
“I’ve got a fifth of good Scotch,” Cussick said. He fixed the drinks, and the two of them sat down.
“We’re through,” Pearson said.
“I know.”
“It was a mistake. Of course he couldn’t be killed. But I had to try. You know, the son of a bitch might have been bluffing. It was an outside chance; I wanted to test him. Pragmatic, you know.”
“What comes next?” Cussick asked. “Is there anything we haven’t done?”
Pearson’s hard, relentless face twisted. “As a matter of fact,” he said slowly, “we have—technically—two more hours of authority. It’ll take that long to make Jones the legal government. As of right now, I still have charge of Rafferty’s project.”