The clothes didn't hurt the image either. The tailored seersucker suit with the blue silk shirt and matching tie. Black Gucci moccasins coated lightly with New Mexico dust. A classy, breezy guy who was no dummy. He never showed anger, never let the correspondents' needles slip under his fingernails. Bob Finkel of the haltimore Sun slyly suggested that an undercover investigation revealed that Thompson had graduated with honors from the Joseph Goebbels School of Propaganda.
He stopped at the CNN television motor home. Curtis Mayo, the White House correspondent network newscaster, sagged in a director's chair looking generally miserable.
"Got your crew set up, Curt?" Thompson asked jovially.
Mayo leaned back, pushed a baseball cap to the rear of a head forested with billowy silver hair and gazed up through orange tinted glasses. "I don't see anything worth capturing for posterity."
Sarcasm ran off Thompson like rainwater down a spout. "In five minutes the President is going to step from his house, walk to the barn and start up a tractor."
"Bravo," Mayo grunted. "What does he do for an encore?"
Mayo's voice had a resonance to it that made a symphonic kettledrum sound like a bongo: deep, booming, with every word enunciated with the sharpness of a bayonet.
"He is going to drive back and forth across the field with a mower and cut the grass."
"That's alfalfa, city slicker."
"N"atever," Thompson acknowledged with a good-natured shrug.
"Anyway, I thought it would be a good chance to roll tape on him in the rural environment he loves best."
Mayo leveled his gaze into Thompson's eyes, searching for a flicker of deception. "What's going down, Sonny?"
" Sorry? "
"Why the hide-and-seek? The President hasn't put in an appearance for over a week."
Thompson stared back, his nut-brown eyes unreadable. "He's been extremely busy, catching up on his homework away from the pressures of Washington."
Mayo wasn't satisfied. "I've never known a President to go this long without facing the cameras."
"Nothing devious about it," said Thompson. "At the moment, he has nothing of national interest to say-"
"Has he been sick or something?"
"Far from it. He's as fit as one of his champion bulls. You'll see."
Thompson saw through the verbal ambush and moved on along the fence, priming the other news people, slapping backs and shaking hands.
Mayo watched him with interest for a few moments before he reluctantly rose out of the chair and assembled his crew.
Norm Mitchell, a loose, ambling scarecrow, set up his vineo camera on a tripod, aiming it toward the back porch of the President's farmhouse, while the beefy sound man, whose name was Rocky Montrose, connected the recording equipment on a small folding table. Mayo stood with one booted foot on a strand of barbed wire, holding a microphone.
"Where do you want to stand for your commentary?" asked Mitchell.
"I'll stay off camera," answered Mayo. "How far do you make it to the house and barn?"
Mitchell sighted through a pocket range finder. "About a hundred and ten yards from here to the house. Maybe ninety to the barn."
"How close can you bring him in?"
Mitchell leaned over the camera's eyepiece and lengthened the zoom lens, using the rear screen door for a reference. "I can frame him with a couple of feet to spare."
"I want a tight close-UP.
"That means a two-X converter to double the range."
"Put it on."
Mitchell gave him a questioning look. "I can't promise you sharp detail. At that distance, we'll be giving up resolution and depth of field."
"No problem," said Mayo. "We're not going for air time."
Montrose looked up from his audio gear. "Then you don't need me."
"Roll sound anyway and record my comments."
Suddenly the battalion of news correspondents came alive as someone shouted, "Here he comes!"
Fifty cameras went into action as the screen door swung open and the President stepped onto the porch. He was dressed in cowboy boots and a cotton shirt tucked into a pair of faded Levi's.
Vice President Margolin followed him over the threshold, a large Stetson te in conversation, the President gesturing animatedly while Margolin appeared to listen thoughtfully.
"Go tight on the Vice President," Mayo ordered.
"Have him," Mitchell responded.
The sun was climbing toward the middle of the sky and the heat waves were rising over the reddish earth. The President's farm swept away in all directions, mostly fields of hay and alfalfa, with a few pastures for his small herd of breeding cattle. The crops were a vivin green in contrast to the barren areas, and watered by huge circular sprinkling systems. Except for a string of cottonwoods bordering an irrigation ditch, the land unfolded in flat solitude.
How could a man who had spent most of his life in such desolation drive himself to influence billions of people? Mayo wondered.
The more he saw of the strange egomania of politicians the more he came to despise them. He turned and spat at a colony of red ants, missing their tunnel entrance by only a few inches. Then he cleared his throat and began describing the scene into the microphone.
Margolin turned and went back into the house. The President, acting as though the press corps were still back in Washington, hiked to the barn without turning in their direction. The exhaust of a diesel engine was soon heard and he reappeared seated on a green John Deere tractor, Model 2640, that was hooked to a hay mower. There was a canopy and the President sat out in the open, a small transistor radio clipped to his belt and earphones clamped to his head. The correspondents began yelling questions at him, but it was obvious he couldn't hear them above the rap of the exhaust and music from the local FM station.
He wrapped a red handkerchief over the lower part of his face, bandit style, to keep from breathing dust and exhaust fumes. Then he let down the mower's slining blades and started cutting the field, driving back and forth in long rows, working away from the people crowding the fence.
After about twenty minutes the correspondents slowly packed away their equipment and returned to the air-conditioned comfort of their trailers and motor homes.
"That's it," announced Mitchell. "No more tape, unless you want me to reload."
"Forget it." Mayo wrapped the cord around the microphone and handed it to Montrose. "Let's get out of this heat and see what we've got."
They tramped into the cool of the motor home. Mitchell removed the cassette holding the three-quarter-inch vineotape from the camera, inserted it into the playback recorder and rewound it.
When he was ready to roll from the beginning, Mayo pulled up a chair and parked himself less than two feet from the monitor.
"What are we looking for?" asked Montrose.
Mayo's concentration didn't waver from the images moving before his screen. "Would you say that's the Vice President?"
"Of course," said Mitchell. "Who else could it be?"
"You're taking what you see for granted. Look closer."
Mitchell leaned in. "The cowboy hat is covering his eyes, but the mouth and chin match. The build fits too. Looks like him to me."
"Anything odd about his mannerisms?"
"The guy is standing there with his hands in his pockets," said Montrose dumbly. "What are we supposed to read in that?"
"Nothing unusual about him at all?" Mayo persisted.
"Don't notice a thing," said Mitchell.
"All right, forget him," said Mayo as Margolin turned and went back into the house. "Now look at the President."
"if that aid't him," muttered Montrose acinly, "then he's got an identical twin brother."
Mayo brushed off the remark and sat quietly as the camera followed the President across the barnyard, revealing the slow, recognizable gait known to millions of television viewers. He disappeared into the dark of the barn, and two minutes later emerged on the tractor.
Mayo snapped erect.
"Stop the tape!" he shouted.
Startled, Mitchell pressed a button on the recorder and the image froze.
"The hands!" Mayo said excitedly. "The hands on the steering wheel!"
"So he's got ten fingers," mumbled Mitchell, his expression sour.
"So what?"
"The President wears only a wedding band. Look again. No ring on the middle finger of the left hand, but on the index finger you see a good-sized sparkler. And the pinkie on the right-"
"I see what you mean," Montrose interrupted. "A flat blue stone in a silver setting, probably an amethyst."
"Doesn't the President usually sport a Timex watch with an Indian silver band inlain with turquoise?" observed Mitchell, becoming swept along.
"I think you're right," Mayo recalled.
"The detail is fuzzy, but I'd say that's one of those big Rolex chronometers on his wrist."
Mayo pounded a fist on his knee. "That clinches it. The President is known never to buy or wear anything of foreign manufacture."
"Hold on," Montrose said slowly. "This is crazy. We're talking about the President of the United States as if he wasn't real."
"Oh, he's flesh and bone all right," said Mayo, "but the body sitting on that tractor belongs to someone else."
"If you're right, you've got a live bomb in your hands," said Montrose.
Mitchell's enthusiasm began to dim. "We may be digging for clams in Kansas. Seems to me the evidence is damned shaky. You can't go on the air, Curt, and claim some clown is impersonating the President unless you have documented proof."
"Nobody knows that better than me," Mayo admitted. "But I'm not about to let this story slip through my hands."
"You're launching a quiet investigation then?"
"I'd turn in my press card if I didn't have the guts to see it through." He looked at his watch. "If I leave now, I should be in Washington by noon."
Montrose crouched in front of the TV screen. His face had the look of a child who found his tooth still in the glass of water the next morning. "It makes you wonder," he said in a hurt tone, "how many times one of our Presidents used a double to fool the public."
VLADIMIR POLEVOI GLANCED UP from his desk as his chief deputy and number-two man of the world' largest intelligence organization, Sergei Iranov, walked purposefully into the room.
"You look as if you've got a hot stake up your ass this morning, Sera-..
"He's escaped," Iranov said tersely.
"Who are you talking about?"
"Paul Suvorov. He's managed to break out of Bougainville's hidden laboratory."
Sudden anger flushed Polevoi's face. "Damn, not howl"
"He called our New York covert action center from a public telephone in Charleston, South Carolina, and asked for instructions."
Polevoi rose and furiously paced the carpet. "Why didn't he call the FBI and ask them for instructions too? Better yet, he could have taken out an advertisement in USA Today."
"Fortunately his superior immediately sent a coded message to us reporting the incinent."
"At least someone is thinking."
"There's more," said Iranov. "Suvorov took Senator Larimer and Congressman Moran with him."
Polevoi halted and spun around. "The idiot! He's queered everything!"
"He is not entirely to blame."
"How do you draw that conclusion?" Polevoi asked cynically.
"Suvorov is one of our five top agents in the United States. He is not a stupid man, He was not briefed on Lugovoy's project and it's logical to assume it was entirely beyond his comprehension. He undoubtedly treated it with great suspicion and acted accordingly-', "In other words, he did what he was trained to do."
"In my opinion, yes."
Polevoi gave an indifferent shrug. "If only he'd concentrated on simply giving us the location of the laboratory. Then our people could have moved in and removed the Huckleberry Finn operation from Bougainville's control."
"As things are now, Madame Bougainville may be angry enough to cancel the experiment."
"And lose a billion dollars in gold? I doubt that very much. She still has the President and Vice President in her greedy hands.
Moran and Larimer are no great loss to her."
"Nor to us," Iranov stated. "The Bougainvilles were our smokescreen in case the American intelligence agencies scuttled Huckleberry Finn. Now, with two abducted congressmen in our hands, it might be considered an act of war, or at very least a grave crisis.
It would be best if we simply eliminated Moran and Larimer."
Polevoi shook his head. "Not yet. Their knowledge of the inner workings of the United States military establishment can be of incalculable benefit to us."
"A hazardous game."
"Not if we're careful and quickly dispose of them when and if the net tightens."
"Then our first priority is to keep them from discovery by the FBI."
"Has Suvorov found a safe place to hide?"
"Not known," Iranov answered. "He was only told by New York to report every hour until they reviewed the situation and received orders from us in Moscow."
"Who heads our undercover operations in New York?"
"His name is Basil Kobylin."
"Advise him of Suvorov's predicament," said Polevoi, "omitting, of course, any reference pertaining to Huckleberry Finn. His orders are to hide Suvorov and his captives in a secure place until we can plan their escape from U.S. soil."
"Not an easy matter to arrange." Iranov helped himself to a chair and sat down. "The Americans are searching under every rock for their missing heads of state. All airfields are closely watched, and our submarines can't come within five hundred miles of their coastline without detection by their underwater warning line."
"There is always Cuba."
Iranov looked doubtful. "The waters are too closely guarded by the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard against drug traffic. I advise against any escape by boat in that direction."
Polevoi gazed out the windows of his office overlooking Dzerzhinsky Square. The late-morning sun was fighting a losing battle to brighten the drab buildings of the city. A tight smile slowly crossed his lips.
"Can we get them safely to Miami?"
"Florida?"
"Yes."
Iranov stared into space. "There is the danger of roadblocks, but I think that could be overcome."
"Good," said Polevoi, suddenly relaxing, "See to it."
Less than three hours after the escape, Lee Tong Bougainville stepped out of the laboratory's elevator and faced Lugovoy. It was a few minutes before three in the morning, but he looked as if he had never slept.
"My men are dead," Lee Tong said without a trace of emotion.
"I hold you'responsible."
"I didn't know it would happen." Lugovoy spoke in a quiet but steady voice.
"How could you not know?"
"You assured me this facility was escape-proof. I didn't think he would actually make an attempt."
"Who is he?"
"Paul Suvorov, a KGB agent, who your men picked off the Staten Island ferry by mistake."
"But you knew."
"He didn't make his presence known until after we arrived."
"And yet you said nothing."
"That's true," Lugovoy admitted. "I was afraid. When this experiment is finished I must return to Russia. Believe me, it doesn't pay to antagonize our state security people."
The built-in fear of the man behind you. Bougainville could see it in the eyes of every Russian he met. They feared foreigners, their neighbors, any man in uniform. They'd lived with it for so long it became an emotion as common as anger or happiness. He did not find it in himself to pity Lugovoy. Instead, he despised him for willingly living under such a depressing system.
"did this Suvorov cause any damage to the experiment?"
"No," Lugovoy answered. "The Vice President has a slight concussion, but he is back under sedation. The President was untouched."
"Nothing delayed?"
"
Everything is proceeding on schedule."
"And you expect to finish in three more days?"
Lugovoy nodded.
"I'm moving your deadline up."
Lugovoy acted as though he hadn't heard correctly. Then the truth broke through to him. "Oh, God, no!" he gasped. "I need every minute. As it is, my staff and I are cramming into ten days what should take thirty. You're eliminating all our safeguards. We must have more time for the President's brain to stabilize."