The two spokesmen for the executive committee arrived at Rockrimmon in a sweet little Jovair that was affected by its pilot. It was a red, white and blue four-seater, tandem-rotor helicopter, with egg-shaped tail fins mounted on outriggers below the rear rotor head. It was supercharged with a 235 horsepower 6A-350 Franklin engine, and it had a range of 200 miles at 105 miles per hour. Its owner-pilot was Francis Manning Winikus, “the grand old man of the CIA,” cultivated, healthy and pink behind his neat white moustache and his twinkling eyeglasses. “The Incomparable Spymaster,” Georges Marton, the espionage chronicler, had called him. His passenger was Dr. Hugh “Horse” Pickering, leader of the Federal Synod of American Churches Pro-Christ, who was heavy-boned, hearty and cunning. The two men were dressed for the country, except that Dr. Pickering wore a black-and-white-checked sports jacket and black slacks and loafers, as befitted his calling, and Winikus wore a blood-red-flecked and -lined tweed jacket with blood-red slacks and kerchief, as befitted his.
Pa and General Nolan were waiting for them at the pad. For the day only, the General wore his full kit: brass glowing, fruit salad bulging, overseas cap at a merry tilt. It had not been the uniform he had worn in World War II. He had gained sixty-one pounds since the old, flat days, but Pa liked him to be dressed out for ceremonial occasions, and the uniform had been measured, cut and tailored by Welshman in London only five weeks before. Pa wore knickers and a pullover under a heavy overcoat.
They rode to the house in two golf carts under sable throws, Pa riding in the lead cart with Francis Winikus, the General handling the rear guard in the cart with Dr. Pickering. Si had a bowl of hot punch waiting for them. Winikus asked for a Dr. Pepper drink. Dr. Pickering wanted Ovaltine laced with Southern Comfort. General Nolan waded into the hot punch. Pa drank beer.
There was a roaring fire going in the high-manteled, wide fireplace. Standing around it, sipping their drinks, they settled what had gone wrong with the Army-Navy game the previous Saturday. In a little while luncheon was called.
At Dr. Pickering’s curate’s request, Pa had laid on a sound, high-protein meal (because Dr. Pickering did not feel it right for his presbytery to buy and serve proteins openly): jambon persillé, slabs of cold roast beef, cold haricot beans in oil and garlic, and a magnum of 1949 Bonnes Mares. Francis kept them entertained with stories of how he had gotten ITT into France the day before World War II was over, what an advantage it had turned out to be, and how it had all become quite a large pot. Dr. Pickering ate 2.3 pounds of beef, 1.2 pounds of ham, but bypassed the beans. After lunch they went into Pa’s study, with its four five-foot-wide balconies cantilevered high up on the forty-two-foot-high walls to get at the upper books. They sat around the open fire this time, the two visitors on sofas on either side of Pa, Pa in a low, comfortable, calfskin chair. General Nolan was at a desk, making notes to keep up the pretense that the conversations were not being recorded.
Si brought in a glass cona of black South African coffee on a battery-operated heating stand. The General passed among them with a bottle of Pelisson cognac that had been in the cask for thirty years. When Si left, Francis said in his wonderful voice that could speak so many languages, “We are interested to hear your final reactions, Tom.”
Pa stayed impassive. Everything had been handled courteously and skillfully, as though to convey the impression that he really had a choice in the matter—which he did not. The owners of America in plenary session had voted death for Tim unanimously. Pa’s loyalty to himself and to them—call it bushido, call it omertà, call it love of country—now required that Pa re-establish himself for having made the move that had disaffected Tim, rendering the President useless to them. Pa felt no mawkishness about what he would have to do. Tim knew better than most people about what would happen to him once he dared to pull this man-of-the-people stunt. Now it was either Tim or Pa. As far as Pa was concerned, Tim had already stretched him out on the ice as though he were an old Eskimo whose time was up—over a couple of suitcases filled with some lousy campaign money that they used to buy whores and burglars with. He had barred Pa from Washington. He had locked the door on Pa’s mutual owners of the country, and that was ritual murder. Pa could tell himself with total confidence that if Tim had ever had to have him killed, the way Pa now had to have Tim killed, Tim would have done it with a big, toothy grin. All right. If he didn’t get rid of Tim himself, personally, to hold the esteem of the men like Francis Manning Winikus and Hugh Pickering, he would go down. He would be brought down swiftly, efficiently, painlessly and impersonally. If he didn’t insist, as he had, on doing this job himself, it would be the end. So Pa answered Francis imperturbably. “I thought we’d make the move on the twenty-second of February,” he said. “That’s Washington’s Birthday, and the President will be making the traditional visit to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. We’ll be able to lay out a pretty good plan.”
“Is there anything we can do to ease the way for you, Tom?” Francis asked courteously. “Do you need weapons, disguises, master keys, infrared cameras, surveillance equipment—anything?”
“Do you have plants inside the White House detail of the Secret Service?” Pa asked.
“Yes. Eleven men.”
“When the time comes, we’d like to eliminate building checks on the site.”
“Of course.”
“We’ll need some safe weapons. Just what we’ll need we’ll have figured down to a T by the eighth or ninth.”
“Have you set your contacts with the police?”
“We’re doing that now.”
“Have you chosen the marksmen you’ll want?”
“We’re organizing that right now too, Francis.”
“I have a sound list of men, if you think that can help you.”
“No,” Pa said flatly, “I think we’ll be all right there. We’ll have the marksmen and the police and a fall guy for the press and TV. We’ll look to you for weapons and some help from the Secret Service boys, and I think we’ll be all right.”
“We know you’ll understand, Tom, that the Committee decided it would be necessary,” Dr. Pickering rumbled, “to back you up with an independent team.”
“Perfectly all right, Horse,” Pa said. “I certainly understand and approve. I just would like it understood, however, that when my team breaks through and does the whole job in the perfect manner in which it is going to be done, it is agreed that this back-up team, this team that is in effect a witnessing element, will be eliminated by Francis’ people.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Dr. Pickering said.
“That is understood,” Francis Winikus assured Pa. He turned a red carnation from his buttonhole in his two hands and stared into the fire speaking almost wistfully. “These are sad days for all of us,” he said, “but the saddest for you. I am very, very fond of Tim, as well you know. But, sentimentality to the contrary, I know of no other American whom I would rather have in charge of what must be done.”
“So say we all of us,” Dr. Pickering intoned.
***
When Francis Winikus and Dr. Pickering took off in the Jovair, Pa and General Nolan drove back to the house silently in a golf cart, then settled down to play pinochle. After a while the General asked, “How do we find this corrupt, well-placed cop, Tom?”
“Frank Mayo will find him.”
The General brightened. “Oh—sure. And how will we find the marksmen?”
“We’ll import one and use a local for the other.”
“A local?”
“The cop will find him.”
“Where do we import the other one from?”
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
“Casper.”
“Okay. You are now William Casper. You go back to Dallas, where you like it, where you came from, and you call Eddie Tropek at the National Rifle Association, the state office, and ask him to dig you out just the names of the three best marksmen in the state. Then you talk to them one by one until you get a feel of the one who’ll move anything for money. Then we import him to Philadelphia.”
“When do I talk to this corrupt policeman?”
“I’ll talk to Mayo right now,” Pa said.
***
General Nolan had been born a Texan, and that had meant just about everything to him. He felt he was a Texan to the marrow of his bones, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. It meant a very great deal to him to get this assignment from Tom to go back to the land of the sons of the pioneers and to become William Casper/Casper Junior. He could talk again as he had talked as a boy without any fear that he would not be understood. He loved the sound of Texas speech. It was like a concert of massed banjos. At last, after a lifetime of uniforms and eastern clothes, he would be able to dress as his father had dressed. He bought real thick, old b’ar-grease hair tonic. He trained his hair down over his forehead the way his daddy had worn his. He liked the style of it so much that he vowed never to change it back. He got himself a big, old-fashioned gold watch and chain in a New Haven pawn shop. It had a huge elk’s tooth suspended from it. He carried a package of quill toothpicks and one pure gold toothpick for after Sunday dinner. He listed and did all the things his father had done, such as polishing anything he picked up or farting unexpectedly and unself-consciously. It had been near to forty years since he’d even stepped inside the Texas line. He had forgotten how much he liked people like ole Turk Fletcher, who was as plain as a sweaty old hatband.
Everything went well. There was no need to use the back-up team. They were eliminated on the afternoon of the assassination in an airplane explosion over Champaign, Illinois.
There was a certain amount of mopping up to do for the intensive four-month period after the assassination until the Pickering Commission could complete its report and disband. Francis Manning Winikus’ specialists handled the elimination of those people who had either observed something inconsistent in Hunt Plaza or who had followed their own hunches in various directions, such as journalists, blackmailers or amateur detectives.
Then everything settled down. The public bought the Pickering Commission’s recommendations without question, and, happily, the men and women who owned the country could return to their work for a better world, for a better America.
Fourteen years went by, each one of them a busy and profitable year for Pa. General Nolan gained twenty-six additional pounds. He had to give up coitus and accept fellatio as a way of life, because there was just no other way for him to do otherwise. “I don’t see how can you find it even to pee,” Pa said.