9

10:55 P.M.

IN THE AMBULANCE LoIah Tayback lay on a cot, strapped down at chest and thighs.

A crisp white sheet was drawn

up to her neck. Her head had been elevated with two pillows to prevent her from choking on her own blood during the trip to the hospital in Bexford. Although her breathing was regular, it was labored; and she moaned softly as she exhaled.

Behind the ambulance, at the open bay doors, Sam stood with Anson Crowell, Thorp’s night deputy. “All right. Let’s go through it one more time. ‘What happened to her?”

“She was attacked by a rapist,” the deputy said, as Sam had programmed him to say.

“Where did it happen?”

“In her apartment.” “Who found her?” “I did.”

“Who called the police?” “Her neighbors.” “Why?”

“They heard screaming.” “Did you catch her assailant?” “I’m afraid not.”

“Do you know who he is?” “No. But we’re working on it.”

“Have any leads?”

“A couple.”

“What are they?”

“I’d prefer not to say at this time.” “Why not?”

“I might prejudice the case.”

“By talking to other policemen?”

“We’re real careful in Black River.” “That’s being too careful, isn’t it?”

“No offense. That’s just how we operate.”.

“Do you have a description of the man?”

The deputy recited a list of physical characteristics that Sam had made up off the top of his head. The fictitious assailant did not remotely resemble the real one, Ogden Salsbury.

“What if the state police or the Bexford police offer assistance in the case?”

“I tell them thanks but no thanks,” the deputy said. “We’ll handle it ourselves.

We prefer it that way. Besides, I don’t have the authority to allow them to come in on it. That would be up to the chief.”

“Good enough,” Sam said. “Get in.”

The deputy clambered into the passenger bay of the ambulance and sat on the padded bench beside Lolah Tayback’s cot.

“You’ll be stopping at the end of Main Street to pick up her boyfriend,” Sam said. He had already talked to Phil Karkov on the telephone, had primed him to play the role of the anxiety-stricken lover at the hospital—just as he had primed Lolah to play a bewildered rape victim who had been attacked in her apartment. “Phil will be staying at the hospital with her, but you’ll come back as soon as you’ve learned she’s going to be okay.”

“I understand,” Crowell said.

Sam closed the doors. He went around to the driver’s window to reinforce the story that he had planted in the mind of the night duty volunteer fireman who was behind the wheel.

At first it seemed that there was no way to break through Salsbury’s iron resolve, no way to open him up and make him talk. He was in great pain—shaking, sweating, dizzy—but he refused to make things easier for himself. He sat in Thorp’s office chair with an air of authority that simply did not make sense under the circumstances. He leaned back and gripped his shoulder wound and kept his eyes shut. Most of the time he ignored Paul’s questions. Occasionally he responded with a string of profanities and sex words that sounded as if they had been arranged to convey the minimum of meaning.

Furthermore, Paul wasn’t a born inquisitor. He supposed that if he knew the proper way to torture Salsbury, if he knew how he could cause the man mind-shattering pain without actually destroying him—and if he had the stomach for it—he could get the truth in short order. When Salsbury’s stubbornness became particularly infuriating, Paul used the butt of his revolver to jar the man’s shoulder wound. That left Salsbury gasping. But it wasn’t enough to make him talk. And Paul was incapable of any more effective cruelties.

“Who were the men in the helicopter?” Salsbury didn’t answer.

“Were they government people?” Silence.

“Is this a government project?” “Go to hell.”

If he knew what most terrified Salsbury, he could use that to crack him. Every man had one or two deeply ingrained fears— some of them quite rational and some utterly irrational—that shaped him. And with a man like this, a man so apparently in the borderlands of sanity, there should be more than the usual number of terrors to play upon. If Salsbury were afraid of heights, he could take the bastard up to the church bell tower and threaten to throw him off if he didn’t talk. If Salsbury were severely afflicted with agoraphobia, he could take him to the flattest and biggest open space in town—perhaps to the baseball field—and stake him down in the very center of it. If, like the protagonist in i 984, he were brought near to madness merely by the thought of being placed in a cage with rats— Suddenly Paul remembered how Salsbury had reacted to him when he had first come into the room. The man had been shocked, damned scared, devastated. But not just because Paul had surprised him.

He had been terrified because, for some reason known only to himself, he had thought that Paul was a man named Parker.

What did this Parker do to him? Paul wondered. What could he possibly have done to leave such a deep and indelible scar?

“Salsbury?”

Silence.

“V/ho were the men in the helicopter?” “You’re a fucking bore.”

“Were they government people?”

“A regular broken record.”

“You know what I’m going to do to you, Salsbury?” He didn’t deign to answer.

“You know what I’m going to do?” Paul asked again. “Doesn’t matter. Nothing will work.”

“I’ll do—what Parker did.”

Salsbury didn’t respond. He didn’t open his eyes. However, he grew stiff in the chair, tense, every muscle knotted tight.

“Exactly what Parker did,” Paul said.

‘When Salsbury finally opened his eyes there was a monstrous horror in them, a trapped and haunted look that Paul had never seen anywhere but in the eyes of cornered, panic-stricken wild animals.

This is it, Paul thought. This is the key, the pressure point, the knife with which I’ll open him. But how should I react if he calls my bluff?

He was close to getting the truth, so close—but he hadn’t the vaguest idea what Parker had done.

“How do you… How do you know Parker?” Salsbury asked. His voice was a thin, pathetic whine.

Paul’s spirits lifted even further. If Salsbury didn’t recall that it was he who had first mentioned this Parker, then the use of the name carried a great deal of weight.

“Never mind how I know him,” Paul said shortly. “But I do. I know him well. And I know what he did to you.”

“I … was only … eleven. You wouldn’t.”

“I would. And enjoy it”

“But you aren’t the type,” Salsbury said desperately. He had been shiny with sweat; now he was dripping with it “You just aren’t the type!”

“What type is that?”

“Queer!” he blurted. “You aren’t a damned queer!” Still bluffing but with more good cards on the table to back

his hand, Paul said, “We don’t all look like what we are, you know. Most of us don’t advertise it.”

“You were married.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“You had children!” Paul shrugged.

“You’re sniffing around that Edison bitch!”

“Have you ever heard of AC-DC?” Paul asked. He grinned. Salsbury closed his eyes.

“Ogden?”

He said nothing.

“Get up, Ogden.”

“Don’t touch me.”

“Lean against the desk.”

“I won’t get up.” “Come on. You’ll love it.”

“No. I won’t.” “You loved it from Parker.”

“That’s not true!” “You’re the type.” “I’m not.” “Admit it.” He didn’t move. “A talent for Greek.” Salsbury winced. “No.” “Lean on the desk.” “It hurts . .

“Of course. Now get up and lean on the desk and drop your pants. Come on.”

Salsbury shuddered. His face was drawn and ashen.

“If you don’t get up, Ogden, I’ll have to throw you out of that chair. You can’t refuse me. You can’t get away from me. You can’t fight me off, not when I’ve got the gun, not when your arm’s all torn up like that.”

“Oh, Jesus God,” Salsbury said miserably.

“You’ll love it. You’ll love the pain. Parker told me how much you love the pain.”

Salsbury began to cry. He didn’t weep gently or quietly, but let go with great, wracking sobs. Tears seemed to spurt from his eyes. He shook and gagged.

“Are you scared, Ogden?” “S-Scared. Yes.”

“You can save yourself.” “From … from …“

“From being raped.”

“H-How?”

“Answer my questions.” “Don’t want to.”

“Get up then.”

“Please . .

Ashamed of himself, sick of this violent game but determined to carry on with it, Paul took hold of the front of Salsbury’s shirt. He shook him and tried to lift him out of the chair. “When I’m done with you, I’ll let Bob Thorp have you.

I’ll tape your mouth so you can’t talk to him, and I’ll program him to put it to you.” He was incapable of doing that, of course. But Salsbury obviously believed he would. “And not just Thorp. Others. Half a dozen others.”

With that, Salsbury’s resistance dissolved. “Anything. I’ll tell you anything,”

he said, his voice distorted by the wretched sobbing that he couldn’t control.

“Anything you want. Just don’t touch me. Oh, Jesus. Oh, don’t touch me. Don’t make me undress. Don’t touch. Don’t.”

Still twisting Salsbury’s shirt in his left hand, leaning toward the man, nearly shouting in his face, Paul said, “Who were those men in the helicopter? Unless you want to be used until you’re raw, you better tell me who they were.”

“Dawson and Klinger.”

“There were three.”

“I don’t know the pilot’s name.”

“Dawson and Klinger. First names?”

“Leonard Dawson and—” “The Leonard Dawson?” “Yes. And Ernst Klinger.”

“Is Klinger a government man?”

“He’s an army general.”

“Is this a military project?”

“No.”

“A government project?”

“No,” Salsbury said.

Paul knew all of the questions. There was no point in the rapid-fire interrogation at which he had to hesitate.

And there was never a single moment when Salsbury dared hesitate.

Ernst Klinger crouched behind a yard-high wall of shrubbery across the alleyway from the municipal parking lot. Stunned, confused, he watched them load the woman into the white Cadillac van with the words BLACK RIVER—EMERGENCY painted in red letters on the side.

At 11:02 the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot, swung into the alley and from there onto North Union Road. It turned right, toward the square.

Its bright red flashers washed the trees and the buildings, and Sent crimson snakes of light wriggling along the wet pavement.

The bearded, white-haired man who stood in the parking lot was Sam Edison.

Klinger recognized him from a photograph that he had seen in one of the rooms above the general store, little more than an hour ago.

Edison watched the ambulance until it turned east at the Square. He was too far away for Klinger to get a shot at him with the Webley. When the ambulance was out of sight, he went inside the municipal building.

Have we lost control of the town? Klinger asked himself. Is it all coming down on our heads: the field test, the plan, the project, the future? Sure as hell looks that way. Sure does. So… Is it time to get out of Black River, out of the country with a big bundle of cash and the phony identity Leonard provided?

Don’t panic, another part of him thought. Don’t be rash. Wait. See what happens.

Give it a few minutes.

He looked at his watch. 11:03.

Thunder rumbled in the mountains.

It was going to rain again.

11:04.

He had been hunkered down for so long that his legs ached. He longed to stand up and stretch.

What are you waiting here for? he asked himself. You can’t plan your strategy without information. You’ve got to reconnoiter. They’re probably in Thorp’s office. Get under those windows. Maybe you can hear what they’re up to.

At five minutes past the hour, he hurried across the alley. He dodged from car to car in the parking lot, and then to the thick trunk of a pine tree.

Just like in Korea, he thought almost happily. Or Laos in the late fifties. Just like it must have been for the younger guys in Nam. Commando work in an enemy town. Except this time the enemy town is American.

 

11:05 P.M.

 

Sam stood in the doorway and studied Ogden Salsbury, who was still in the spring-backed office chair. To Paul, Sam said, “You’re sure he told you everything?”

“Yes.”

“And that everything he’s told you is true?”

“Yes.”

“This is important, Paul.”

“He didn’t withhold anything,” Paul said. “And he didn’t lie to me. I’m sure of it.”

Stinking of sweat and blood, crying quietly, Salsbury looked from one to the other of them.

Does he understand what we’re saying? Paul wondered. Or is be broken, shattered, unable to think clearly, unable to think at all?

Paul felt unclean, sick to his soul. In dealing with Salsbury, be had descended to the man’s own level. He told himself that these were after all the 1970s, the very first years of a brave new world, a time when individual survival was difficult and when it counted for more than all else, the age of the machine and of the machine’s morality, perhaps the only era in the entire span of history when the ends truly did justify the means—but he still felt unclean.

“Then the time has come,” Sam said quietly. “One of us has to—do it.”

“A man named Parker apparently raped him when he was eleven years old,” Paul said. He was speaking to Sam, but he was watching Ogden Salsbury.

“Does that make any difference?” Sam asked.

“It should.”

“Does it make any difference that Hitler might have been born of a syphilitic parent? Does it make any difference that he was mad? Does that bring back the six million dead?” Sam was talking softly but with tremendous force. He was trembling. “Does what happened to him when he was eleven justify what he did to Mark? If Salsbury wins, if he takes control of everyone, does it matter what happened to him when he was eleven?”

“There’s no other way to stop him?” Paul asked, although he knew the answer.

“We’ve already discussed that.”

“I guess we have.”

“I’ll do it,” Sam said.

“No. If I can’t get up the courage here, I won’t be any help to you later, with Dawson and Klinger. We may be in a tight spot with one of those. You’ll have to know that you can count

Letting go of his left shoulder, reaching out as if to shake with one bloody hand, Salsbury said, “Wait. I’ll make you a partner. Both of you. Partners.”

Paul aimed at the center of the man’s chest.

“If you’re partners, you’ll have everything. Everything you could want. All the money you could ever spend. All the money in the world. Think of that!”

Paul thought of Lolah Tayback.

“Partners. That doesn’t mean just money. Women. You can have all of the women you want, any women you want, no matter who they are. They’ll crawl to you. Or men, if that’s what you like. You can even have children. Little girls. Nine or ten years old. Little boys. Anything you want.”

Paul thought of Mark: a lump of frosted meat jammed into a food freezer.

And he thought of Rya: traumatized perhaps, but with a chance to live a halfway normal life.

He squeezed the trigger.

The Magnum bucked in his hand.

Because of his revolver’s impressive kick—which jolted Paul from hand to shoulder in spite of that fact that he was using .38 Special ammunition rather than Magnums—the bullet was high. It tore through Salsbury’s throat.

Blood and bits of flesh spattered the metal firearms cabinet. The roar of the shot was deafening. It bounced back and forth between the walls, echoed inside Paul’s skull, reverberated as it would forever in his memory.

He squeezed off another round.

That one took Salsbury in the chest, nearly rocked him and the chair backward onto the floor.

He turned away from the dead man.

“Are you going to be sick?” Sam asked.

“I’m all right.” He was numb.

“There’s a toilet at the end of the hail, to your left.”

“I’m okay, Sam.”

“You look—”

“I killed men in the war. Killed men over in Asia. Remember?”

“This is different. I understand that. In the war it’s always with rifles or grenades or mortars. It’s never from three feet with a handgun.”

“I’m fine. Believe me. Just fine.” He went to the door, pushed past Sam, stumbled into the corridor as if he had tripped, turned left, ran to the washroom, and threw up.

Scuttling sideways like a hermit crab, the Webley ready in his right hand, Klinger reached the western flank of the municipal building and found that the lawn there was littered with glass. He hadn’t made a sound on his run from the shrubbery. Now, pieces of glass snapped and crunched under his shoes, and he cursed silently. One of the windows in the police chief’s office was broken, and a few of the slats in the Venetian blind were bent out of shape, providing a convenient peephole for his reconnaissance work.

As he was rising up to have a look inside—cautious as a suspicious mouse sniffing the cheese in the trap—two shots exploded virtually in front of his face. He froze—then realized that he hadn’t been seen, that no one was firing at him.

Through the twisted slats of the blind, he could see two-thirds of Thorp’s starkly furnished and somewhat sterile office: gray-blue walls, a pair of three-drawer filing cabinets, an oak work table, a bulletin board with an aluminum frame, bookshelves, most of a massive metal desk— And Salsbury.

Dead. Very dead.

Where was Sam Edison? And the other one, Annendale? And the woman, the little girl?

There appeared to be no one in the room except Salsbury. Salsbury’s corpse.

Suddenly afraid of losing track of Edison and Annendale, afraid that they might somehow get away or sneak around behind him, afraid of being outmaneuvered, Klinger turned from the windows. He loped to the end of the lawn, then across the

parking lot and the alleyway. He hid behind the hedge again, where he commanded a good view of the back door of the municipal building.

When he came out of the washroom, Sam was waiting in the corridor for him.

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah,” Paul said.

“It’s rough.”

“It’ll get worse.”

“That it will.”

“Christ.”

“What did you learn from Salsbury? Who were those men in the helicopter?”

Leaning against the wall, Paul said, “His partners. One of them was H. Leonard Dawson.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“The other one is a general. United States Army. His name’s Ernst Klinger.”

Scowling, Sam said, “Then this is a government project?”

“Surprisingly, no. Just Salsbury, Dawson, and Klinger. A bit of private enterprise.” Paul took three minutes to outline what he had learned about the field test and the conspiracy behind

it.

Sam’s scowl disappeared. He risked a slight smile. “Then we have a chance of stopping it right here, for good.”

“Maybe.”

“It’s just a simple four-part problem,” Sam said. He held up one finger. “Kill Dawson.” Two fingers. “Kill Ernst Klinger.” Three fingers. “Destroy the data in the computer at the house in Greenwich.” Four fingers. “Then use the keylock code to restructure the memories of everyone in town who’s seen or heard anything, to cover up every last trace of this field test.”

Paul shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t sound so simple to me.”

For the moment at least, positive thinking was the only sort of thinking thatinterested Sam. “It can be done. First . .

where did Dawson and Klinger go when they left here?”

“To the logging camp.”

“Why?”

Quoting Salsbury, he told Sam about Dawson’s plan to organize a search in the mountains. “But he and Klinger won’t be at the camp now. They intended to fall back to the mill and establish a sort of field headquarters there once the manhunt was underway. There are about eighty or ninety men working on the night and graveyard shifts up there. Dawson wants to post a dozen of them as guards around the mill and pack the rest of them off to join the search beyond the logging camp.

“Any guards he posts are worthless,” Sam said. “We’ll use the code phrase to get past them. We’ll move in on Dawson and Klinger before they know what’s happened.”

“I suppose it’s possible.”

“Of course it is.”

“But what about the computer in Greenwich?”

“We can deal with that later,” Sam said.

“How do we get to it?”

“Didn’t you say Dawson’s household staff is programmed?”

“According to Salsbury.”

“Then we can get to the computer.”

“And the cover-up here?”

“We’ll manage.”

“How?”

“That’s the least of our problems.”

“You’re so goddamned optimistic.”

“I’ve got to be. So do you.”

Paul pushed away from the wall. “All right. But Jenny and Rya must have heard the shots. They’ll be worried. Before we go to the mill, we should stop back at the church and fill them in, let them know where we all stand.”

Sam nodded. “Lead the way.”

about—Salsbury?”

Later.

They left by the rear door and started across the parking lot toward the alley.

After a few steps Paul said, “Wait.”

Sam stopped, turned back.

“We don’t have to sneak around the long way,” Paul said. “We’re in control of the town now.”

“Good point.”

They circled around the municipal building and went out to East Main Street.

 

11:45 P.M.

 

Klinger stood in the velvety darkness, two-thirds of the way up the bell tower stairs, listening. Voices drifted down from above: two men, a woman, a child.

Edison. And Jenny Edison. Annendale and his daughter…

He now knew what was happening in Black River, what the carnage at Thorp’s office signified. He knew the extent of these people’s knowledge of the field test and of all the working, planning, and scheming that lay behind the field test—and he was shocked.

Because of what he had heard, he knew that they were motivated to resist, at least in part, for altruistic reasons. He didn’t understand that. He could easily have understood them if they had wanted to seize the power of the subliminals for their own. But altruism … That had always seemed foolish to him. He had decided a long time ago that men who eschewed power were far more dangerous and deadly than those who pursued it, if only because they were so difficult to fathom, so unpredictable.

However, he also knew that these people could be stopped. The field test wasn’t an unmitigated disaster; not yet. They weren’t going to win as easily as they thought. They hadn’t yet brought him or Dawson to ruin. The project could be saved.

Overhead, they finished discussing their plans. They said good-by to one another and told one another to be careful and wished one another luck and hugged and kissed and said they would pray for one another and said that they really had to get on with it.

In the perfect darkness, without a flashlight or even a match to show them the way, out of sight around two or three bends in the long spiral staircase, Sam Edison and Paul Annendale started down the narrow, creaking steps.

Klinger’s own hurried descent was masked by the noise that the two men made above him.

He paused in the whispery, echo-filled nave of the church, where the walls and the altar and the pews were no more than adumbrated by the meager nocturnal storm light that shone through the arched windows. He wasn’t certain what he should do next.

Confront them here and now? Shoot them both as they came out of the stairwell?

No. The light was much too poor for gunplay. He couldn’t target them with any accuracy. Under these conditions he would never bring down both of them—and perhaps not either of them.

He thought of searching quickly for a light switch. He could flip it on as they entered the nave and open fire on them in the same instant. But if there was a switch nearby, he would never find it in time. And if he did find it in time, he would be every bit as surprised and blinded by the light as they would be.

Even if, by the grace of one of the saints depicted in these stained-glass windows, he did somehow kill both of them, then he would have alerted the woman in the tower. She might be armed; she almost certainly was. And if that was the case, the belfry would be virtually impregnable. With any sort of weapon at all—rifle or shotgun or handgun—and a supply of ammunition, she would be able to hold him off indefinitely.

He wished to God that he were properly equipped. He should have at least those few essentials of behind-the-lines combat: a pretty damned good machine pistol, preferably German-made or Belgian, and several fully loaded magazines for it; an automatic rifle with a bandolier of ammo; and a few grenades, three or four. Especially the grenades. After all, this was no ladies’ tea party. This was a classic commando operation, a classic clandestine raid, deep in hostile territory.

Behind him, Edison and Annendale were unsettlingly close, on the last twenty steps and coming fast.

He dashed along the side aisle to the fourth or fifth row of pews where he intended to hide between the high-backed seats. He tripped over a kneeler that some thoughtless member of the congregation had forgotten to put up after saying a prayer, and he fell with a loud crash. His heart hammering, he scrambled farther along the row toward the center aisle, then stretched out on the bench of the pew, flat on his back, the Webley at his side.

As they came into the dark church, Paul put one hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam stopped. “Yeah?” he said softly.

“Sssshhh,” Paul said.

They listened to the storm wind and to the distant thunder and to the settling sounds that the building made.

Finally Sam said, “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah. What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That noise.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”

Paul studied the darkness that seemed to pulse around them. He squinted as if that would help him penetrate the inky pools in the corners and the purple-black shadows elsewhere. The atmosphere was Lovecraftian, a dank seed bed of paranoia.

He rubbed the back of his neck which was suddenly cold.

“How could you have heard anything with all that racket we were making on the stairs?” Sam asked.

“I heard it. Something…“

“Probably the wind.”

“No. It was too loud for that. Sharp. It sounded as if—as if someone knocked over a chair.”

They waited.

Half a minute. A minute.

Nothing.

“Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s go.”

“Give it another minute.”

As Paul spoke a particularly violent gust of wind battered the east side of the church; and one of the ten-foot-high windows fluttered noisily in its frame.

“There you are,” Sam said. “You see? That’s what you heard. It was just the window.”

Relieved, Paul said, “Yeah.”

“We’ve got work to do,” Sam said.

They left the church by the front door. They went east on Main Street to Paul’s station wagon, which was parked in front of the general store.

As the station wagon reached the mill road and its taillights dwindled to tiny red dots beyond the west end of town, Klinger left the church and ran half a block to the telephone booth beside Ultman’s Cafe. He paged through the slim directory until he found the numbers for the Big Union Supply Company: twenty of them, eight at the logging camp and twelve at the mill complex. There wasn’t time to try all of them. In what part of the mill would Dawson establish his HQ?

Klinger wondered. He thought about it, painfully aware of the precious seconds ticking by. Finally he decided that the main office was the location most consistent with Dawson’s personality, and he dialed that number.

After it had rung fifteen times, just as Klinger was about to give up, Dawson answered it warily. “Big Union Supply Company.”

“Klinger here.”

“Have you finished?”

“He’s dead, but I didn’t kill him. Edison and Annendale got to him first.”

“They’re in town?”

“That’s right. Or they were. Right now they’re coming for you. And for me. They think we’re both at the mill.” As best he could in less than a minute, the general summed up the

Situation

“Why didn’t you eliminate them when you had the chance, in the Church?” Dawson asked.

“Because J didn’t have the chance,” Klinger said impatiently.

“I didn’t have time to set it up right. But you can set it up just perfectly.

They’ll probably park half a mile from the mill and walk in to you. They expect to surprise you. But now you can surprise them.”

“Look, why don’t you get in a car and come up here right away?” Dawson asked.

“Come in behind them. Trap them between us.”

“Under the circumstances,” Klinger said, “that makes no military sense, Leonard.

As a group of four, three of them armed, they’d be too formidable for us. Now that they’re split into pairs and puffed up with self-confidence, the advantage is ours.”

“But if Edison and Annendale know the keylock phrases, I can’t keep guards posted. I can’t use any of these people up here. I’m alone.”

“You can handle it.”

“Ernst, my training is in business, finance. This is more your line of work.”

“And I’ve got work down here in town.”

“I don’t eliminate people.”

“Oh?”

“Not like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not personally.”

“You brought guns back from the camp?”

“A few of them. I’ve posted guards.”

“With a rifle or shotgun, you can do what’s necessary. I know you can. I’ve seen you shoot skeet both ways.”

“You don’t understand. It’s against my beliefs. My religious beliefs.”

“You’ll have to set those aside for now,” Klinger said. “This is a matter of survival.”

“You can’t just set aside morality, Ernst, whether or not it’s a matter of survival. Anyway, I don’t like being here alone. Handling this alone. It’s no good.”

Trying to think of some way to convince the man that be could and should do what had to be done so that he would get

off the phone, the general hit upon an approach that he recognized at once as custom-tailored for Dawson. “Leonard, there’s one thing that every soldier learns his first day on the battlefield, when the enemy is firing at him and grenades are exploding around him and it seems like he’ll never get through to the next day alive. If he’s fighting for the right cause, for the just cause, be learns that he’s never alone. God’s always with him.”

“You’re right,” Dawson said.

“You do believe ours is a just cause?”

“Of course. I’m doing all of this for Him.”

“Then you’ll come out just fine.”

“You’re right,” Dawson said. “I shouldn’t have hesitated to do what He so obviously wishes me to do. Thank you, Ernst.”

“Don’t mention it,” Klinger said. “You better get moving. They’re probably leaving the station wagon about now. You’ll have ten minutes at most to prepare for them.”

“And you?”

“I’ll go back to the church.”

“God be with you.”

“Good luck.”

They both hung up.