“When will you shoot the candidate, Raymond?” Marco’s voice asked.

“Well, Mother wants him to be dead at about six minutes after he begins his acceptance speech, depending on his reading speed under pressure, but I will hit him right at the point where he finishes the phrase which reads: ‘nor would I ask of any fellow American in defense of his freedom that which I would not gladly give myself—my life before my liberty.’ ”

“Where will you shoot from?”

“There is a spotlight booth that will not be in use. It’s up under the roof of the Eighth Avenue side of the Garden. I haven’t been in it, but Mother says I will have absolutely clear, protected shooting from it. She will seat Johnny on the platform directly behind the candidate, just a little to his left, so I’ll be able to swing the sights and wing him with minimal time loss. That’s about it. It’s a very solid plan.”

“They all are,” Marco’s voice said. “There are going to be one or two important changes, Raymond. Forget what your mother told you. This is what you are going to do.”

There was a click. The tape in the playback machine rolled to a stop.

“What happened?” Amjac said quickly.

“The colonel stopped the machine,” Lehner said, watching Marco.

“Come on,” Marco said. “We have seconds, not minutes. Let’s go.” He started out of the room, forcing them to follow him.

“But what did you tell him, Colonel?”

“Don’t worry,” Marco said, walking rapidly. “The Army takes care of its own.”

“You mean—Raymond?”

They crowded into the elevator at the end of the hospital corridor. “No,” Marco answered. “I was thinking about two other things. About a General Jorgenson and the United States of America.”

Thirty

A HUSH FELL UPON THE DELEGATIONS IN THE great hall as the Chairman announced that within a very few minutes their candidates would be facing the television cameras, when, for the first time together, eighty million American voters would see the next President and Vice-President of the United States standing before them. The convention thundered its approval. As they cheered the top brass of the party, made up of governors, national committeemen, fat cats, senators, and congressmen, were herded upon the platform, followed by the two nominees and their wives.

They moved with great solemnity. Senator Iselin and his wife seemed to be affected particularly. They were unsteady and extremely pale, which occasioned more than one delegate, newspaperman, committeeman, and spectator to observe that the vast dignity and the awful responsibility, truly the awesome meaning of that great office, had never failed to humble any man and that John Iselin was no exception, as he was proving up there now. When he sat down he was actually trembling and he seemed—he, of all people, whom audiences and speeches had stimulated all his life—nervous and apprehensive, even frightened. They could see his wife, a beautiful woman who was always at his side, a real campaigner and a fighter who, more than once, had looked subversion in the face and had stared it down, as she spoke to him steadily, in an undertone which was obviously too low-pitched and too personal for anyone to hear.

“Sit still, you son-of-a-bitch! He has never missed with a rifle in his life. Johnny! Damn it, Johnny, if you move you can get hurt. Give him a chance to sight you and to get used to this light. And what the hell are you sweating now for? You won’t be hit until after the speech is under way. Did you take those pills? Johnny, did you? I knew it. I knew I should have stood over you and made you take those goddam pills.” She fumbled inside her handbag. She worked three pills out of a vial and placed them together on the adhesive side of a piece of Scotch tape, within the purse. Very sweetly and with the graciousness of a Schrafft’s hostess she gestured unobtrusively to a young man who was at the edge of the platform for just such emergencies and asked him for a glass of water.

When the water came, just as she got it in her hand, the nominee was on the air and his acceptance speech had begun. His voice was low but clear as he began to thank the delegations for the honor they had done him.

Only the speaker’s platform was lighted. Three rows in front of the speaker, as he faced the darkness of the hall, one of the men of Marco’s unit was crouched in the aisle, with walkie-talkie equipment. He spoke into the mouthpiece with a low voice, giving a running account of what was happening on the platform, and if the delegates seated near him thought of him at all, they thought he was on the air, although what he was saying would have mystified any radio audience.

“She just got a glass of water from the page. She is handling it very busily. She’s doing something with the rim of it. I’m not sure. Wait. I’m not sure. I’m going to take a guess that she has stuck something on the rim of the glass—I even think I can see it—and she just handed the glass to Iselin.”

On the platform, behind and to the left of the speaker, Raymond’s mother said to Johnny, “The pills are on the edge of the glass. Take them as you drink. That’s good. That’s fine. Now you’ll be O.K. Now just sit still, sweetheart. All you’ll feel will be like a very hard punch on the shoulder. Just one punch and it’s all over. Then you get up and do your stuff and we’re home free, honey. We’re in like Flynn, honey. Just take it easy. Take it easy, sweetheart.”

Marco, Amjac, and Lehner climbed the stairs. Lehner was carrying a walkie-talkie and mumbling into it. The nominee’s speech was booming out of the speakers and Amjac was saying, as though in a bright conversation with nobody, O Jesus God, they were too late, they were too late. Marco moved clumsily under his bandages but he held the lead going up the stairs.

As they got to the top level they were scrambling and they started to run along behind the gallery seats toward the iron ladder as the nominee’s voice reverberated all around them, saying: “…that which I would not gladly give myself—my life before my liberty,” and Amjac was screaming, “Oh, my good God, no! No!” when they heard the first rifle shot crack out and echo. “No! No!” Amjac screamed, and the sounds were ripped out of his chest as though they were being sent on to overtake the bullet and deflect its course when the second shot ripped its sound through the air, then everything was drowned out by a great, enormous roar of shock and fear as comprehension of the meaning of the first shot reached the floor of the arena. The noise from the Garden floor was horrendous. Lehner stopped to crouch against the building wall, pressing the earphones to his ears, trying to hear the message from the man in front of the platform on the arena floor. “What? What? Louder. Aaaaaaaah!” It was a wailed sigh. He dragged the earphones off his head, staring numbly at Amjac. “He shot Iselin, then he shot his mother. Dead. Not the nominee. Johnny and his wife are stone cold dead.”

Amjac wheeled. “Colonel!” he shouted. “Where’s the colonel?” He looked up and saw Marco moving painfully across the narrow catwalk toward the locked black box that was the spotlight booth. “Colonel Marco!” Amjac yelled. Marco turned slightly as he walked, and waved his left hand. It held a deck of playing cards. They watched him come to the door of the booth and kick at it gently.

When they reached the catwalk, Marco had disappeared into the booth. The door had closed again. Amjac started across the catwalk with Lehner behind him. They stopped short as the door opened and Marco came out. He couldn’t close the door behind him because of the sling, but they could not see through the darkness inside. They backed up on the catwalk as he came toward them, and then they heard the third shot sound inside the booth—short, sharp, and clean.

“No electric chair for a Medal of Honor man,” Marco said, and he began to pick his way painfully down the iron ladder listening intently for a memory of Raymond, for the faintest rustle of his ever having lived, but there was none.