THE ROAD TO OMAHA

by ROBERT LUDLUM

Bantam Books by Robert Ludlurn
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-THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION THE BOURNE IDENTITY JHE
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CIRCLE c,THE MATLOCK PAPER ,-,fHE OSTERMAN WEEKEND
4HE PARSIFAL MOSAIC THE RHINEMANN EXCHANGE E ROAD
TO GANDOLFO ZHE ROAD TO OMAHA
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T H E                                            *2
ROAD
TO
OMAHA

...    :  ....................
ROBERTLUDLUM

ON"

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This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover
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NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMIT-MD.

THE ROAD TO OMAHA
A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY
Random House edition published 1992 Bantam export edition /
August 1992
Bantam edition / February 1993

All rights reserved.
Copyright Q 1992 by Robert Ludlum.
Cover art copyright 0 1993 by Paul Bacon.
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form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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that this book is stolen property.  It was reported as "unsold and
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has received any payment for this "stripped book."

ISBN 0-553-56044-1

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For Henry Sutton

Godfather, wonderful actor, superb friend, and a great I human
being

"r

PREFACE

A number of years ago, the undersigned wrote a novel entitled-The
Road to Gandolfo.  It was based on a staggering premise, an
earthshaking concept that should have possessed the thunder of
the ages ... and you don't hardly come upon them things no more. 
It was to be a tale told by demons, the legions of Satan marching
out of hell to commit a heinous crime that would outrage the world,
a mortal blow to all men and women of faith regardless of their
specific religion, for it would show how vulnerable are the great
spiritual leaders of our times.  Stripped to its essentials, the story
dealt with the kidnapping of Rome's Pontiff, a true man of God and
of ordinary people everywhere, Pope Francesco the First.
     Are you with me? I mean, it's really heavy, isn't it? It should have
been, but it wasn't.... Something happened.  Poor Fool, the novelist,
peeked around the edges, glimpsed the flip side of the coin, and to
his eternal condemnation he began to giggle.  That's no way to treat
a staggering premise, a magnificent obsession! (Not too shabby a
tide, by the way.) Unfortunately,,Poor Fool could not help himself,
he began to think, which is always dangerous for a storyteller.  The
what-if syndrome came into play.

X                         PREFACE

     What if the instigator of this horrible crime wasn't actually a bad
fellow, but in fiction's reality, a genuine military legend whom the
politicians crippled because he vociferously objected to their
hypocrisies ... and what if the beloved Pope wasn't actually averse
to being kidnapped, as long as his look-alike cousin, a none too
bright spear carrier from La Scala Opera, took his place, and the
true Pontiff could run the immense responsibilities of the Holy See
by remote, without the debilitating agenda of Vatican politics and
the endless procession of blessings administered to supplicants
expecting to buy their way into Heaven by way of the collection
plate? Now there was another story.  I I can hear you, I can hear
you! He sold himself down his own river of betrayal. (I've frequently
wondered what river the bromide refers to.  The Styx, the Nile, the
Amazon? Certainly not the Colorado; you'd get hung up on the
white-water rocks.)
     Well, maybe I did, and maybe I didn't.  I only know that during
the intervening years since Gandolfo, a number of readers have
asked me by letter, telephone, and outright threats of bodily harm,
"Whatever happened to those clowns?" (The perpetrators, not the
willing victim.)
     In all honesty, those "clowns" were waiting for,another
staggering premise, And late one night a year ago, the squirrelfiest
of my insignificant muses shrieked, "By Jove, you've got it! " (I'm
quite sure she stole the line.)
     At any rate, whereas Poor Fool took certain liberties in the areas
of religion and economics in The Road to Gandolfo, he hereby
freely admits having taken similar liberties in this current scholarly
tome with respect to the laws and the courts of the land.
     Then again, who doesn't? Of course, not my attorney or your
attorney, but certainly everybody else's!
     The accurate novelization of authentic undocumented history of
questionable origin demands that the muse must forego certain
ingrained disciplines in the search for improbable truths.  And
definitely where Blackstone is concemed.
Yet never fear, the moral is here:
     Stay out of a courtroom unless you can buy the judge.  Or, if in
the unlikely event you could, hire my lawyer,

                   PREFACE                          xi

which you can't because he's all tied up keeping me out of jail.
     So, to my many friends who are attorneys (they're either
attorneys, actors, or homicidal killers-is there a running
connection?), skip over the finer points of law that are neither fine
nor very pointed.  However, they may well be inaccurately accurate.
                                             -RL

     What Robert Ludlum is too modest to say is that when The
     Road to Gandolfo was published under his own name, it
     immediately became an international best-seller in eighteen
     different countries.
          Readers were delighted to discover that his giftfor comedy
     matched his talent for writing entertaining yet meaningful
     thrillers.

                                   The Publisher

DRAMATIS
PERSONAE

MacKenzie Lochinvar Hawkins-Former general of the army, former
by request,of the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department,
and most of Washington.  Twice decorated with the Congressional
Medal of Honor.  A.k.a. Madman Mac the Hawk.

Samuel Lansing Devereaux-Brilliant young attorney, Harvard Law
School, U.S. Army (reluctantly), lawyer for the Hawk in China
(disastrously).

Sunrise Jennifer Redwing-Also an attorney, also brilliant,
outrageously gorgeous, and a fiercely loyal daughter of the
Wopotami Indian nation.

Aaron Pinkus-Soft-spoken giant of Boston law circles, the
consummate attorney-statesinan who happens to be Sam
Devereaux's employer (unfortunately).

Desi Arnaz I-An impoverished miscreant from Puerto Rico who falls
under the Hawk's spell, and who one day may be the director of the
Central Intelligence Agency.

Xiv                DRAMA71S PERSONAE

Desi Arnaz 11-See above.  Less of a leader but a mechanical
     genius, such as in hot-wiring cars, picking locks, fixing ski
     lifts, and turning pesto sauce into an anesthetic.

Vincent Mangecavallo-The real director of the CIA, courtesy of the
Mafia dons from Palermo to Brooklyn.  Any administration's secret
weapon.

Warren Pease-Secretary of State.  Every administration's
malfunctioning weapon, but a former prep school ,4 roomie" of the
President.

Cyrus M-A black mercenary with a doctorate in chemistry.  Screwed
by Washington, and a gradual convert to the Hawk's sense of
justice.

Roman Z-A Serbo-Croatian Gypsy who was a cell mate of the above. 
In chaos he finds total delight, as long as he has an unfair
advantage.

Sir Henry Irving Sutton-One of the theater's finest character actors,
and, by happenstance, a hero of World War II's North African
campaign, because "there were no lousy directors to warp my
performance."

Hyman Goldfarb-The greatest linebacker ever to have graced the
football fields of the NFL.  In his postprofessional days, he was
calamitously recruited
     by the Hawk.

"Suicidal Six"

Duke
Dustin
Marlon
Sir Larry
sly
Telly

Professional actors who have joined the army and are considered
the finest antiterrorist unit ever produced by the military.  They have
neverfired a shot.

              DRAMA71S PERSONAE                      xv

Fawning Hill Country Club Members

Bricky    Fine fellows from the right schools
Doozie    and the right clubs who passionately
Froggie   support the interests of the coun-Moose try-as long as
                                                  theirs comes
                                                  first,
Smythie   way first.

Johnny Calfhose-Information officer of the Wopotami tribe; he picks
up a phone and usually lies.  He also still owes Sunrise Jennifer
bail money.  What more can be said?

Arnold Subagaloo-White House Chief of Staff.  He flies off the
handle (free on government aircraft) whenever anyone mentions
that he's not the President.  What more can anyone say?

The rest of the personae may be of lesser importance, but it is vital
to remember that there are no small parts, only small players, and
none of ours are in that ignominious category.  Each carries forth
in the grand tradition of Thespis, giving his and her all for the play,
no matter bow inconsequential the offering.  "The play's the thing
wherein [we'll] catch the conscience of the king!" Or maybe some-
body.

PROLOGUE

The flames roared up into the night sky, creating massive shadows
pulsating across the painted faces of the Indians around the
bonfire.  And then the chief of the tribe, bedecked in the ceremonial
garments of his office, his feathered headdress swooping down
from his immensely tall fraine to the ground below, raised his voice
in regal majesty.
     "I come before you, to tell you that the sins of the white man
have brought him nothing but confrontation with the evil spirits!
They will devour him and send him into the fires of eternal
damnation! Believe me, my brothers, sons, sisters, and daughters,
the day of reckoning is before us, and we will emerge triumphant!"
     The only problem for many in the chief's audience was that the
chief was a white man.
     "What cookie jar did he jump out of T' whispered an elderly
member of the Wopotanii tribe to the squaw next to him.
     "Shhh!" said the woman, "he's brought us a truckload of
souvenirs from China and Japan.  Don't louse up a good thing,
Eagle Eyes!"

THE
ROAD
TO -OMAHA
........................

The small, decrepit office on the top floor of the government
building was from another era, which was to say nobody but the
present occupant had used it in sixty-four years and eight months. 
It was not that there were dark secrets in its walls or malevolent
ghosts from the past hovering below the shabby ceiling; quite
simply, nobody wanted to use it.  And another point should be made
clear.  It was not actually on the top floor, it was above the top floor,
reached by a narrow wooden staircase, the kind the wives of New
Bedford whalers climbed to prowl the balconies, hoping--most of
the time--for familiar ships that signaled the return of their own
particular Ahabs from the angry ocean.
     In summer months the office was suffocating, as there was only
one small window.  During the winter it was freezing, as its wooden
shell had no insulation and the window rattled incessantly,
impervious to caulking, permitting the cold winds to whip inside as
though invited.  In essence, this room, this antiquated upper
chamber with its sparse furniture purchased around the turn of the
century, was the Siberia of the government agency in which it was
housed.  The last formal employee who toiled there was a

2                  ROBERT LUDLUM

discredited American Indian who had the temerity to learn to read
English and suggested to his superiors, who themselves could
barely read English, that certain restrictions placed on a reservation
of the Navajo nation were too severe.  It is said the man died in that
upper office in the cold January of 1927 and was not discovered
until the following May, when the weather was warm and the air
suddenly scented.  The government agency was, of course, the
United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.
     For the current occupant, however, the foregoing was not a
deter-rent but rather an incentive.  The lone figure in the
nondescript gray suit huddled over the rolltop desk, which wasn't
much of a desk, as all its little drawers had been removed and the
rolling top was stuck at half-mast, was General MacKenzie Hawkins,
military legend, hero in three wars and twice winner of the
Congressional Medal of Honor.  This giant of a man, his lean
muscular figure belying his elderly years, his steely eyes and
tanned leatherlined face perhaps confirming a number of them, had
once again gone into combat.  However, for the first time in his life,
he was not at war with the enemies of his beloved United States of
America but with the government of the United States itself.  Over
something that took place a hun-dred and twelve years ago.         
                   I
     It didn't much matter when, he thought, as he squeaked around
in his ancient swivel chair and propelled himself to an adjacent
table piled high with old leather-bound ledgers and maps.  They
were the same pricky-shits who had screwed him, stripped him of
his uniform, and put him out to military pasture! They were all the
goddamned same, whether in their frilly frock coats of a hundred
years ago or their piss-elegant, tight-assed pinstripes of today. 
They were all pricky-shits.  Time did not matter, nailing them did!
     The general pulled down the chain of a green-shaded,
goosenecked lamp-circa early twenties-and studied a map, in his
right hand a large magnifying glass.  He then spun around to his
dilapidated desk and reread the paragraph he had underlined in the
ledger whose binding had split with age.  His perpetually squinting
eyes suddenly were wide and bright with excitement.  He reached
for the

              THE ROAD TOWAHA                           3

only instrument of communication he had at his disposal, since the
installation of a telephone might reveal his more than scholarly
presence at the Bureau.  It was a small cone attached to a tube; he
blew into it twice, the signal of emergency.  He waited for a reply;
it came over the primitive instrument thirty-eight seconds later.
     "Mac?" said the rasping voice over the antediluvian connection.
          "Heseltine, I've got it!"
     "For Christ's sake, blow into this thing a little easier, will you?
My secretary was here and I think she thought my dentures were
whistlin

. 9
     "She's out?"
     "She's out," confirmed Heseftine Brokernichael, director of the
Bureau of Indian Affairs.  "What is it?"
     "I just told you, I've got it!"
     "Got what?"
     "The biggest con job the pricky-shits ever pulled, the same
pricky-shits who made us wear civvies, old buddy!"
     "Oh, I'd love to get those bastards.  Where did it happen and
when?"
     "In Nebraska.  A hundred and twelve years ago."
     Silence.  Then:
     "Mac, we weren't around then! Not even you!"
     "It doesn't matter, Heseltine.  It's the same horseshit.  The same
bastards who did it to them did it to you and me a hundred years
later."
          "Who's 'them'?"
     "An offshoot of the Mohawks called the Wopotami tribe.  They
migrated to the Nebraska territories in the middle 1800s."

     "so?"

     "It's time for the sealed archives, General Brokemichael."
"Don't say that! Nobody can do that!"
     "You can, General.  I need final confirmation, just a few loose
ends to clear up."
"For what? Why?"
     "Because the Wopotamis may still legally own all the land and
air rights in and around Omaha, Nebraska."

4                  ROBERT LUDLUM

     "You're crazy, Mac! That's the Strategic Air Command!"
     "Only a couple of missing items, buried fragments, and the facts
are there.... I'll meet you in the cellars, at the vault to the archives,
General Brokernichael.... Or should I call you cochairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with me, Heselfine? If I'm right, and I
know damn well I am, we've got the White House-Pentagon axis in
such a bind, their collective tails won't be able to evacuate until we
tell 'em, to."
     Silence.  Then:
     .41,11 let you in, Mac, but then I fade until you tell me I've got
my uniform back."
     "Fair enough.  Incidentally, I'm packing everything I've got here
and taking it back to my place in Arlington.  That poor son of a bitch
who died up in this rat's nest and wasn't found until the perfume
drifted down didn't die in vain!"

The two generals stalked through the metal shelves of the musty
sealed archives, the dull, webbed lights so dim they relied on their
flashlights.  In the seventh aisle, MacKenzie Hawkins stopped, his
beam on an ancient volume whose leather binding was cracked.  "I
think this is it, Heseltine."
     "Good, and you can't take it out of here!"
     "I understand that, General, so I'll merely take a few
photographs and return it." Hawkins removed a tiny spy camera with
110 film from his gray suit.
     "How many rolls have you got?" asked'fortner General Heseltine
Brokernichael as MacKenzie carried the huge book to a steel table
at the end of the aisle.
     "Eight," replied Hawkins, opening the yellow-paged volume to
the pages he needed.
     "I have a couple of others, if you need them," said Heseltine. 
"Not that I'm so all fired-up by what you think you may have found,
but if there's any way to get back at Ethelred, I'll take it!"
     "I thought you two had made up," broke in MacKenzie, while
turning pages and snapping pictures.
     "Never!

              TM ROAD TO CMAHA                          5

     "It wasn't Ethelred's fault, it was that rotten lawyer in the
Inspector General's office, a half-assed kid from Harvard named
Devereaux, Sam Devereaux.  He made the mistake, not Brokey the
Deuce.  Two Brokeinichaels; he got-'em mixed up, that's all."
          "Horseshit! Brokey-Two put the finger on me!"
     "I think you're wrong, but that's not what I'm here for and neither
are you.... Brokey, I need the volume next to or near this one.  It
should say CXII on the binding.  Get it for me, will you?" As the
head of Indian Affairs walked back into the metal stacks, the Hawk
took a single-edged razor out of his pocket and sliced out fifteen
successive pages of the archival ledger.  Without folding the
precious papers, he slipped them under his suit coat.
     "I can't find it," said Brokemichael.
     "Never mind, I've got what I heed."
     "What now, Mac?"
     "A long time, Heseltine, maybe a long, long time, perhaps a year
or so, but I've got to make it right-so right there's no holes, no holes
at all."
          "In what?"
     "In a suit I'm going to file against the government of the United
States," replied Hawkins, pulling a mutilated cigar out of his pocket
and lighting it with a World War 11 Zippo.  "You wait, Brokey-One,
and you watch."
     "Good God, for what? ... Don't smoke! You're not supposed to
smoke in here!"
     "Oh, Brokey, you and your cousin, Ethelred, always went too
much by the book, and when the book didn't match the action, you
looked for more books.  It's not in the books, Heseltine, not the
ones you can read.  It's in your stomach, in your gut.  Some things
are right and some things are wrong, it's as simple as that.  The gut
tells you."
          "What the hell are you talking about?"
     "Your gut tells you to look for books you're not supposed to
read.  In places where they keep secrets, like right in here."
          "Mac, you're not making sense!"
     "Give me a year, maybe two, Brokey, and then you'll understand. 
I've got to do it right.  Real right." General MacKenzie Hawkins
strode out between the metal racks of

6               ROBERT LUDLUM

the archives to the exit.  "Goddamn, " he said to himself.  "Now I
really go to work.  Get ready for me, you magnificent Wopotamis. 
I'm yours!"

Twenty-one months passed, and nobody was ready for Thunder
Head, chief of the Wopotamis.

The President of the United States, his jaw firm, his angry eyes
steady and penetrating, accelerated his pace along the steel-gray
corridor in the underground complex of the White House.  In
seconds, he had outdistanced his entourage, his tall, lean frame
angled forward as if bucking a torrential wind, an impatient figure
wanting only to reach the storm-tossed battlements and survey the
bloody costs of war so as to devise a strategy and repel the
invading hordes assaulting his realm.  He was John of Arc, his rac-
ing mind building a counterattack at Orleans, a Harry Five who knew
the decisive Agincourt was in the immediate picture.
     At the moment, however, his immediate objective was the
anxiety-prone Situation Room, buried in the lowest levels of the
White House.  He reached a door, yanked it open, and strode inside
as his subordinates, now trotting and breathless, followed in unison.
     "All right, fellas!" he roared.  "Let's skull!"
     A brief silence ensued, broken by the tremulous, highpitched
voice of a female aide.  "I don't think in here, Mr. President."
"What? Why?"

8   ROBERT LUDLUM

     "This is the men's room, sir."
     "Oh? ... What are you doing here?"
     "Following you, sir."
"Golly gee.  Wrong turn.  Sorry about that.  Let's go.  Out!"
The large round table in the Situation Room glistened under the
wash of the indirect lightin , reflecting the shad.9
ows of the bodies seated around it.  These blocks of shadow on the
polished wood, like the bodies themselves, remained immobile as
the stunned faces attached to those bodies stared in astonishment
at the gaunt, bespectacled man who stood behind the President in
front of a portable blackboard, on which he had drawn numerous
diagrams in four different colors of chalk.  The visual aids -were
somewhat less than effective as two of the crisis management team
were color-blind.  The bewildered expression on the youthful Vice-
President's face was nothing new and therefore dismissible, but the
growing agitation on the part of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff was not so easily dismissed.
     "Goddamn it, Washburn, I don't---" "I'liat's Washburn, General."
     "That's nice.  I don't follow the legal line." "It's the orange one,
     sir."
     "Which one is that?"
     "I just explained, the orange chalk." "Point it out."
Heads turned; the President spoke.  "Gee whiz, Zack, can't you tell?"
     "It's ' dark in here, Mr. President."
     "Not that dark, Zack.  I can see it clearly."
"Well, I've got a minor visual problem," said the general, abruptly
lowering his voice,            distinguishing certain colors."
     "What, Zack?"
"I heard him," exclaimed the towheaded, VicePresident, seated next
to the J.C. chairman.  "He's colorblind."
::Golly, Zack, but you're a soldier!"
     Came on late, Mr. President." "It came on early with me,"
     continued the excitable heir

                   THE ROAD TO OMAHA                          9

to the Oval Office.  "Actually, it's what kept me out of the real army. 
I would have given anything to correct the problem!"
     "Close it up, gumball," said the swarthy-skinned director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, his voice low but his half-lidded, dark
eyes ominous.  "The friggin' campaign's over."
     "Now, really, Vincent, there's no cause for that language,"
intruded the President.  "There's a lady present."
     "That judgment's up for grabs, Prez.  The ladyin question is not
unfamiliar with the lingua franca, as it were." The DCI smiled grimly
at the glaring female aide and returned to the man named Washburn
at the portable blackboard.  "You, our legal expert here, what kind
of ... creek are we up?"
     "That@ better, Vinnie," added the President.  "I appreciate it."
     "You're welcome.... Go on, Mr. Lawyer.  What kind of deep ca-ca
are we really intoT'
     "Very nice, Vinnie." -     "Please, Big Man, we're all a little
     stressed here." The director leaned forward, his apprehensive
     eyes on the White House legal aide.  "You," he continued, "put
     away the chalk and let's have the news.  And do me 'a favor,
     don't spend a week getting ther ' e, okayT'
     "As you wish, Mr. Mangecavallo," said the White House attorney,
placing the colored chalk on the blackboard ledge.  "I was merely
trying to diagram the historical precedents relative to the altered
laws where the Indian nations were concerned."
     "What nations?" asked the Vice-President, in his voice ,a trace
of arrogance.  "They're tribes, not countries."
     "Go on," interrupted the director.  "He's not here."
     "Well, I'm sure you all recall the information our mole at the
Supreme Court gave us about an obscure, impoverished, Indian
tribe petitioning the Court over a supposed treaty with the federal
government that was allegedly lost or stolen by federal agents.  A
treaty that if ever found would restore their rights to certain
territories currently housing vital military installations."
     "Oh, yes," said the President.  "We had quite a laugh

10                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     over that.  They even sent an extremely long brief to the Court
that nobody wanted to read."
     "Some poor people will do anything but get a job!" joined in the
Veep.  "That is a laugh."
          "Our lawyer isn't laughing," observed the director.
     "No, I'm not, sir.  Our mole sends word that there've been some
quiet rumors which may mean absolutely nothing, of course, but
apparently five or six justices of the Court were so impressed by the
brief that they've actually debated its merits in chambers.  Several
feel that the lost Treaty of 1878, negotiated with the Wopotami tribe
and the Forty-ninth Congress, may ultimately be legally binding
upon the government of the United States."
     "You gotta be outta your lemon tree!" roared Mangecavallo. 
"They can't do that!"
     "Totally unacceptable," snapped the pinstriped, acerbic Secretary
of State.  "Those judicial fruitcakes will never survive the polls!"
     "I don't think they have to, Warren." The President shook his
head slowly.  "But I see what you mean.  As the great communicator
frequently told me, 'Those mothers couldn't get parts as extras in
Ben-Hur, not even in the Colosseum scenes.' "
     "Profound," said the Vice-President, nodding his head.  "That
really says it.  Who's Benjamin Hurr?"
     "Forget it," replied the balding, portly Attorney General, still
breathing heavily from the swift journey through the underground
corridors.  "The point is they don't need outside employment. 
They're set for life, and there's nothing' we can do about it!"
     "Unless they're all impeached," offered the nasal-toned Secretary
of State, Warren Pease, his thin-lipped smile devoid of bonhomie.
     "Forget that, too," rebutted, the Attorney General.  "They're
pristine white and immaculate black, even the skirt.  I checked the
whole spectrum when those pointyheads shoved that negative poll
tax decision down our throats."
     "That was simply grotesque!" cried the Vice-President, his wide
eyes searching for approval.  "What's five hundred dollars for the
right to vote?"

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                      I I

     "Too true," agreed the occupant of the Oval Office.  'The good
people could have written it off on their capital gains.  For instance,
there was an article by a fine economist, an alumnus of ours, as a
matter of fact, in The Bank Street Journal, explaining that by
converting one's assets in subsection C to the line item projected
losses in-2'
     "Prez, please?" interrupted the director of the Central
Intelligence Agency gently.  "Mat bum's doing time, six to ten years
for fraud, actually.... A lid, please, Big Man, okayT'
     "Certainly, Vincent.... Is he really?"
     "Just remember, none of us I remember him," replied the DCI,
barely above a whisper.  "You forgot his line item procedures when
we had 'him at Treasury? He put half of Defense into Education, but
nobody got no schools."
     "It was great PR-"
     "Stow it, gumball--2'
     " 'Stow it,' Vincent? Were you in the navy? 'Stow it' is a navy
term."
     "Let's say I've been on a lot of small, fast boats, Prez. 
Caribbean theater of operations, okay?"
     "Ships, Vincent.  They're always 'ships.' Were you by way of
Annapolis?"
     "There was a Greek runner from the Aegean who could smell a
patrol boat in pitch dark."
     "Ship, Vincent.  Ship.... Or maybe not when applied to patrols--2'
     "Please, Big Man." Director Mangecavallo stared at the Attorney
General.  "Maybe you didn't look good enough into that dirtbag
character spectrum of yours, huh? On those judicial fruitcakes, as
our high-toned Secretary of State called 'em.  Maybe there were
omissions, rightT'
     "I used the entire resources of the Federal Bureau," replied the
obese Attorney General, adjusting his bulk in the inadequate chair
while wiping his forehead with a soiled handkerchief "We couldn't
hang a jaywalking ticket on any of them.  They've all been in Sunday
school since the day they were born."
     "What do those FBI yo-yos know, huh? They cleared me, rights
I was the holiest saint in town, right?"
     "And both the House and the, Senate confirmed you

1 2            1 ROBERT LUDLUM

with rather decent majorities, Vincent.  That says something about
our constitutional checks and balances, doesn't itT'
     "More about checks made out to 'cash' than balances, Prez, but
we'll let it slide, okay? ... Owl Eyes here says that five or six of the
big robes may be leaning the wrong way, right?"
     "It could simply be minor speculation," added Washburn.  "And
completely in camera."
          "So who's takin' pictures?"
     "You misunderstand, sir.  I mean the debates remain secret, not
a word of them leaked to the press or the public.  The blackout was
actually self-imposed on the grounds of national security, in
extremism"
          "In who?"
     "Good heavens!" cried Washburn.  "This wonderful country, the
nation we love, could be placed in the most vulnerable military
position in our history if five of those damn fools vote their
consciences.  We could be obliterated!"
     "Okay, okay, cool it," said Mangecavallo, staring at the others
around the table, quickly passing by the eyes of the President and
his heir apparent.  "So we got us some room by this top-secret
status.  And we also got five or six judicial fruitcakes to work on,
right? ... So, as the intelligence expert at this table, I say we should
make sure two or three of those zucchinis stay in the vegetable
patch, right? And since this sort of thing is in my personal realm of
expertise, I'll go to work, capisce?"
     "You'll have to work quickly, Mr. Director," said the bespectacled
Washburn.  "Our mole tells us that the Chief Justice himself told
him he was going to lift the debate blackout in forty-eight hours.  In
his own words, Chief Justice Reebock said, 'They're not the only
half-assed ball game in town'-that's a direct quote, Mr. President. 
I personally do not use such language."
"Very commendable, Washbloom--2'
"That's Washburn, sir."
"Him, too.  Let's skull, men-and you, too, Miss ...
Miss
"Trueheart, Mr. President.  Teresa Trueheart."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        13

     "What do you do?"
     "I'm your Chief of Staff's personal secretary, sir."
     "And then some," mumbled the DCL
     "Stow it, Vinnie."
     "My Chief of Staff ... ? Gosh W crackers, where is Arnold? I
mean this is a crisis, a real zing doozer!"
     "He has his massage every afternoon at this hour, sir", replied
Miss Trueheart brightly.
     "Well, I don't mean to criticize, but--7@'
     "You have every right to criticize, Mr. President," interrupted the
wide-eyed heir apparent.
     "On the other hand, Subagaloo's been under a great deal of
stress lately.  The press corps call him names and- he's quite
sensitive."
     "And there's nothing that relieves stress more than a massage,"
added the Vice-President.  "Believe me, I know!"
     "So where do we stand, gentlemen? Let's get a fix on the
compass and tighten the halyards."
          "Aye, aye, sir!"
     "Mr.  Vice-President, give us a break, huh? ... The compass we're
locked into, Big Man, should better be fixed on a full moon, 'cause
that's where we're at-lo6ney-tune time, but nobody's laughin'."
     "Speaking as your Secretary of Defense, Mr President," broke in
an extremely short man whose pinched face barely projected above
the table and whose eyes glared disapprovingly at the CIA director,
"the situation's utterly preposterous.  Those idiots on the Court can't
be allowed to even consider devastating the security of the country
over an obscure, long-forgotten, so-called treaty with an Indian tribe
nobody's ever heard of!"
     "Oh, I've heard of the Wopotamis," the Vice-President interrupted
again.  "Of course, American history wasn't my best subject, but I
remember I thought it was a funny name, like the Choppywaws.  I
thought they were slaughtered or died of starvation or some dumb
thing."
     The brief silence was ended with Director Vincent
Mangecavallo's strained whisper as he stared at the young man
who was a heartbeat away from being the nation's Commander in
Chief.  "You say one more word, butter

14                ROBERT LUDLUM

skull, and you're gonna be in a cemen@ bathrobe at the bottom of
the Potomac, do I make myself clearT' "Really, Vincent!",
     "Listen, Prez, I'm your head honcho for the whole country's
security, right? Well, let me tell you, that kid's got the loosest mouth
in the beltway.  I could have him terminated with extreme prejudice
for saying. and doing what he didn't even know he said or did.  The
hit off the record, naturally."
          "That's not fair!"
     "It's not a fair world, son," observed the perspiring Attorney
General, turning his attention to the White House lawyer, at the
blackboard.  "All right, Blackburn-2' "Washburn-2'
     "If you say so.... Let's zero in on this fiasco, and I mean zero to
the max! For starters, just who the hell is the bastard, the traitor,
who's behind this totally unpatriotic, un-American appeal to the
Court?"
     @'He calls himself Chief Thunder Head, Native American,"
answered Washburn.  "And the brief his attorney submitted is
considered one of the most brilliant ever received by the judiciary,
our informer tells us.  They sayconfidentially-that it will go down in
the annals of jurisprudence as a model of legal analysis."
     "Annals, my ass!" exploded the Attorney General, once more
working his soiled handkerchief across his brow.  "I'll have that
legal banana peeled to his bare bones! He's finished, eliminated. 
By the time the departmnt's through with him, he won't get a job
selling insurance in Beirut, -forget the law! No firin'll touch him and
he won't find a client in the meat box at Leavenworth.  What's the
son of a bitch's name?"
     "Well, " began Washburn hesitantly, hisvoice squeaking briefly
into a falsetto,      there we have a temporary glitch, as it were." ,
     "Glitch-what glitchT' The nasal-toned Warren-Pease, whose left
eye had the unfortunate affliction of straying to the side when he
was excited, pecked his head forward like a violated chicken.  "Just
give us the name, you idiot!"
     "Mere isn't any to give," choked Washburn.
     "Thank God this moron doesn't work for the Pentagon,"

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       1 5

snarled the diminutive Secretary of Defense.  "We'd never find half
our missiles."
     "I think they're in Teheran, Oliver," offered the President.  "Aren't
they?"
     "My suggestion was rhetorical, sir." The pinch-faced head of the
Pentagon, seen barely above the surface of the table, shook back
and forth in short lateral jabs.  "Besides, that was a long time ago
and you weren't there and I wasn't there.  Remember, sir?"
     "Yes, yes, of course I don't."
     "Goddamn it, Blackboard, why isn't there a name?"
     "Legal precedent, sir, and my name is ... never mind--2'
     "What do you mean, 'never mind,' you wart? I want the name!"
     "That's not what I meant-"
     "What the hell do you mean?"
     "Non nomen amicus curiae, " mumbled the bes tacled White
House attorney barely above a whisper. pec
     "What are you doin', a Hail Mary?" asked the DCI ,softly, his dark
Mediterranean eyes bulging in disbelief.
     "It goes back to 1826, when the Court permitted a brief to be
filed anonymously by a 'friend of the Court' on behalf of a plaintiff."
     "I'll kill him," mumbled the obese Attorney General, an audible
flatus emerging from the seat of his chair.
     "Hold it!" yelled the Secretary of State, his left eye swinging back
and forth unchecked.  "Are you telling us that this brief for the
WopotwW tribe was filed by an unnamed attorney or attorneysT'
     "Yes, sir.  Chief Thunder Head sent his representative, a young
brave who recently passed the state's bar, to appear before the
justices in camera and act as temporary counsel anticipating the
necessity of the original anonymous counsel should the brief be
held inadequate.... It wasn't.  The majority of the Court deemed it
sufficient under the guidelines of non nomen amicus curiae."
     "So, We don't know who the hell prepared the goddamned
thing?" shouted the Attorney General, his attacks of duodenal gas
unrelenting.

16                ROBERT LUDLUM

     "My wife and I call those 'bottom burps,' " snickered the Vice-
President quietly to his single superior.
     "We used to call them 'caboose whistles,' " replied the President,
grinning conspiratorially.
     "For Christ's sake!" roared the Attorney General.  "No, no, not
you, sir, or the kid here-I'm referring to Mr. Backwash--2'
          "That's ... never mind."
     "You mean to tell us we're not allowed to know who wrote this
garbage, this swill that may convince five airheaded judges on the
Court to affirm it as law and, not incidentally, destroy the
operational core of our national defense?"
     "Chief Thunder Head has informed the Court that in due time,
after the decision has been rendered and made' public and his
people set free, he will make known the legal mind behind his -
tribe's appeal.
     "That's nice," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.  "Then we'll
put the son of a bitch on the reservation with his redskin buddies
and nuke the whole bunch of them off the goddamned map."
     "To do that, General, you'd have to wipe out all of Omaha,
Nebraska."

The emergency meeting in the Situation Room was over; only the
President and his Secretary of State remained at the table.
     "Golly, Warren," said the chief executive.  "I wanted you to stay
because sometimes I don't understand those people."
     "Well, they certainly never went to our school, old roonfie."
     "Gosh, I guess they didn't but that's not what I mean.  They. all
got so excited, shouting and cursing and everything."
     "The ill-born are prone to emotional outbursts, we both know
that.  They have no ingrained restraint.  Do you remember when the
headmaster's wife got drunk and began singing 'One-Ball Reilly' at
the back of the chapel? Only the scholarship boys turned around."

                   THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        17

     "Not exactly," said the President sheepishly.  "I did, too.11

     "No, I can't believe it!"
     "Well, I sort of peeked.  I think I had the hots for her; it started
in dancing class-the fox trot, actually."
     "She did that to all of us, the bitch.  It's how she got her kick

     "I suppose so, but back to this meeting.  You don't think
anything could come of that Indian stuff, do you?"
     "Of course not! Chief Justice Reebock is just up to his old tricks,
trying to get you mad because he thinks you blackballed him for our
Honorary Alumni Society."
          "Gee, I swear I didn't!"
     "I know you didn't, I did.  His politics are quite acceptable, but
he's a very unattractive man and wears terrible clothes.  He looks
positively ludicrous in a tuxedo.  Also, I think he drools-not for us,
old roomie.  You heard what that Washboard said ... he said
Reebock told our mole that we 'weren't the only half-assed ball
game in town.' What more do you need?"
     "Still, everybody got so angry, especially Vincent Manja ... Manju
... Mango whatever."
     "It's the Italian in him.  It goes with the bloodlines."
     "Maybe, Warren.  Still, he bothers me.  I'm sure Vincent was a
fine naval officer, but he could also be a loose cannon ... like you-
know-who."
     "Please, Mr. President, don't give either of us nightmares!"
     "I'm just trying to prevent 'em, old roomie.  Look, Warren,
Vincent doesn't get along too well with our Attorney General or the
Joint Chiefs, and definitely not with the whole Defense Department,
so I want you to sort of cultivate him, stay in close touch with him
on this problem-be his confidential friend."
     "With a Mangecavallo?"
     "Your office calls for it, Warty old boy.  State's got to be involved
in something like this."
          "But nothing will come of it!"
     "I'm sure it won't, but think of the reactions worldwide when the
Court's arguments become public.  We're a nation of laws, not
whims, and the Supreme Court doesn't

is              ROBERT LUDLUM

suffer nuisance suits.  You have some international spincontrol in
front of you, roornie."
"But why me?"
"Golly gosh and zing dam, I just told you, Warty!"
     "Why not the Vice-President? He can relay all the news to me."
"Who?"
"Me Vice-President!"
"What is his name, anyway?"

fall*

It was a bright midsummer's afternoon, and Aaron Pinkus, arguably
the finest attorney in Boston, Massachusetts, and certainly one of
the kindest and most gentle of powerful men, climbed out of his
limousine in the fashionable suburb of Weston and smiled at the
uniformed chauffeur who held the door.  "I told Shirley this huge car
was ostentatious enough, Paddy, but that silly cap with the shiny
visor on your head comes perilously close to the sin of false pride."
     "Not in old Southie, Mr. Pinkus, and we got more sins than they
got votive candles in a wax factory," said the large middle-aged
driver, whose partially graying hair bespoke a once full crown of
bright red.  "Besides, you've been saying that for years now and it
doesn't do much good.  Mrs. Pinkus is a very insistent woman."
     "Mrs.  Pinkus's brain has been refried too often under a beauty
shop hair dryer... I never said that, Paddy."
"Of course not, sir."
     "I don't know how long I'll be, so drive down the block, perhaps
around the comer, out of sight--2'
     "And stay in touch with you over the beeper," completed the
Irishman, grinning, obviously enjoying the sub-20                 ROBERT LUDLUM

terfuge.  "If I spot Mr. Devereaux's car, I signal you, and you can get
out through the back door."
     "You know, Paddy, if our words were part of a transcript, any
transcript, we'd lose the case, whatever it was."
     "Not with your office defending us, sir."
     "False pride again, my old friend.  Also, criminal law is but a
small part of the firm and not really outstanding."
     "Hey, you ain't doing nothin' criminal!"
     'llen let's lose the transcript.... Do I look presentable for the
grande dame, Paddy?"
     "Let me straighten your tie, sir, it slipped a touch down."
     'Hank you," said Pinkus as the driver adjusted his tie.  His eyes
strayed to the imposing blue-gray Victorian house, fronted by a
white picket fence and profuse with gleaming white trim around the
windows and below the high gables.  Inside was the matron of this
landmark residence, the formidable Mrs. Lansing Devereaux 111,
mother of Samuel Devereaux, potential attomey-extraordinary and
currently an enigma to his employer, one Aaron Pinkus.
     'lure you are, sir-" The chauffeur stepped back and nodded
approvingly.  "You're a grand and splendid sight for one of the
opposite sex."
     "Please, Paddy, this is not an assignation, it's a mission of
compassionate inquiry."
     "Yeah, I know, boss.  Sam's been kind of off the wall every now
and again."
          "You've noticed then?"
     "Hell, you've had me pick him up at Logan Airport a dozen times
or more this year.  As I say, every now and again he seemed a little
squirrelly, and it wasn't just the boyo booze.  He's troubled, Mr.
Pinkus.  The lad's got a trouble in his head."
     "And that head contains a brilliant legal mind, Paddy.  Let's see
if we can find out what the trouble is."
     "Good luck, sir.  I'll be out of sight but in sight, if you know what
I mean.  And when you hear my beep, get the hell out of there."
     "Why do I feel like a bony, overage Jewish Casanova who
couldn't scale a trellis if a horde of pit bulls was snapping at my
rear endT' Pinkus understood that he asked

              ThE ROAD TO OMAHA                         21

the question of himself, as his driver had raced around the hood,of
the limousine so as to climb inside and vanish-in sight but out of
sight.
     Aaron had met Eleanor Devereaux only twice over the years
since he had known her son.  The first time was the day Samuel
came to work for the firm several weeks after his graduation from
Harvard Law School, and then, Aaron suspected, it was because his
mother wanted to look over her son's workaday environs as she
might inspect the counselors and the facilities of a summer camp. 
The second and only other time was at the welcome-home party the
Pinkuses gave for Sam upon his return from the army,, said
homecoming one of the strangest in the chronicles of military
separation.  It took place over five months past the day that
Lieutenant Devereaux was to arrive in Boston as an honorably
discharged civilian.  Five months unaccounted for.
     Five months, mused Aaron, as he started toward the gate in the
white picket fence, nearly half a year that Sam would not talk about-
would not discuss except to say he was not permitted to discuss it,
implying some type of topsecret government operation.  Well,
Pinkus had thought at the time, he certainly could not ask
Lieutenant Devereaux to violate a sworn oath, but he was curious,
both personally as a friend and professionally in terms of
international legal negotiations, and he did have a few connections
in Washington.
     So he telephoned the President on the private White House line
that rang in the upstairs living quarters and explained his
conundrum to the chief executive.
     "You think he may have been involved in a covert operation,
AaronT' the President had asked.
     "Speaking frankly, I wouldn't think he's at all the type."
     "Sometimes they go for that, Pinky.  You know, rotten casting
turns out the best casting.  Also speaking frankly, a lot of these
lousy long-haired, dirty-minded directors stink up the big screen
with that kind of thing.  I hear they wanted Myrna to use the S word
a couple of years ago, can you believe it?"-     "It's difficult, Mr.
President.  But I know you're busy--21 "Heck no, Pinky.  Mornmy
and.  I are just watching

22                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     Wheel of Fortune.  You know, she beats me a lot, but I don't
care.  I'm President and she's not."
     "Very understanding.  Could you just possibly make a few
inquiries for me on this matter?"
     "Oh, sure.  I wrote it down.  Devereaux-D-e-v-a-r-o, right?"
     "That will do, sir."
     Twenty minutes later the President had called him back.  "Oh,
wow, Pinky! I think you stepped into it!"
          "Into what, Mr. President?"
     "My people tell me that 'outside of China'-those were the words-
whatever this Devereaux did had 'absolutely nothing to do with the
United States govemment'-those, too, were the exact words, I wrote
them down.  Then when I pressed them, they told me I didn't 'want
to knoW-"
     "Yes, of course, the exact words.  It's called deniability, Mr.
President."
          'There's a lot of that going around, isn't there?"
     Aaron paused on the path and looked up at the grand old house,
thinking about Sam Devereaux and the rather odd, even touching
way he had grown up in this gracefully restored relic from a far
moral graceful era.  In truth, considered the vaunted attorney, the
sparkling restoration had not always been in evidence; for years
there had been the aura of neat but shabby gentility about the place
rather than the current facade of spanking new paint and a man-
icured front law.  These days, care was lavished continuously, no
expense spared-spared, that was, ever since Sam had returned to
civilian life after a five-month disappearing act.  As a matter of
course, Pinkus always studied the personal and academic histories
of each potential employee of his firm so as to avoid heartbreak or
a mistake.  Young Devereaux's r6sumd had caught his eye as well
as his curiosity, and he had frequently driven by the old house in
Weston, wondering what secrets were held within its Victorian walls.
     The father, Lansing Devereaux III, had been a scion of the
Boston Brahmin elite on a par with the Cabots and the Lodges, but
with one glaring aberration.  He was a bold risktaker in the world of
high finance, far more capable of losing money than hoarding it.  He
had been a good man,

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        23

if somewhat wild and tempestuous, a hard worker who had opened
doors of opportunity for many, but for himself saw too few initiatives
come to fruition.  While watching a stock market report on
television, he had died of a stroke when Sam was a boy of nine,
leaving his widow and his son a fine name, a grand residence, and
insufficient insurance to maintain the life-style to which they were
accustomed and the appearance of which Eleanor refused to
abandon.
     As a result, Samuel Lansing Devereaux became that conduction
among the wealthy, a scholarship boy who waited on tables at
Phillips Andover.  While his classmates attended proms, he tended
a snack bar at those proms; and when his increasingly distant
acquaintances in the social set entered regattas on the Cape, he
worked on the roads they traveled leading to Dennis and Hyannis. 
He also worked on his studies, like a young man possessed, fully
understanding that academia was the only route back to the affluent
world of the ancestral Devereauxes.  Besides, he was sick of being
merely an observer of the good life instead of a participants
     More generous scholarships followed at Harvard and its Law
School, his expense monies supplemented quite nicely by a heavy
schedule of tutoring his brother and sister classmates,
the'preponderance-of whom were the latter as there were frequently
bonuses having nothing to do with finance.  There followed an
auspicious beginning at Aaron Pinkus Associates, menacingly
interrupted by the United States Army, which, in the era of massive
Pentagon expansion, desperately needed all the lawyers it could
dredge up to forestall wholesale indictments of its procurement
personnel on bases at home and abroad.  The fascist military
computers unearthed a long-forgotten deferment granted one
Samuel Lansing Devereaux, and the armed services gained a
handsome, if pathetic, soldier, but one with a superb legal brain,
which they used and obviously abused.
     What had happened to him? questioned Pinkus in the silence of
his mind.  What horrible events had taken place years ago that had
come back to haunt him now? To warp and, at times, to short-circuit
that extraordinary mind, a

24                ROBERT LUDLUM

mind that cut through legalistic abstractions and made common
sense out of the most abstruse constitutional interpretations, so that
judges and juries alike were in awe of his erudition and his deeply
penetrating analyses.
     Something had happened, concluded Aaron, approaching the
huge front door, replete with antique beveled panes of glass in the
upper panel.  Also, where did Sam ever get the money to restore
the damn house to begin with? Pinkus was, indeed, generous with
his outstanding and, in truth, his favorite employee, but not to the
extent that he could pour a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars
into the renovation of the family residence.  Where had the cash
come from? Drugs? Laundering money? Insider trading? Selling
illegal armaments abroad? None made sense where Sam Devereaux
was concerned.  He'd be a total bust at any of those endeavors; he
was a klutz where subterfuge was concerned.  He was--God in
heaven be praised-a truly honest man in a world of worms.  This
judgment, however, did riot explain the apparently inexplicable---the
money.  Several years ago, when Aaron had casually mentioned the
fine improvements made on the house, which he drove by
frequently on his way home, Samuel had, with equal casualness,
offered that a well-to-do Devereaux relative had passed away and
left his mother a very decent bequest.
     Pinkus had pored over the probate rolls and the taxable
inheritance records only to discover that there was no such relative
and no such bequest.  And he knew deep in his religious heart that
whatever was plaguing Sam now had something to do with his
unexplained affluence.. What was it? Perhaps the answer was
hidden inside this grand old house.  He rang the bell-bass-toned
chimes, naturally.
     A full minute passed before the door was opened by a plumpish
middle-aged maid in a starched green and white uniform.  "SirT' she
said, somewhat more coldly than was necessary, thought Aaron.
     "Mrs.  Devereaux," replied Pinkus.  "I believe she's expecting
me."
     "Oh, you're the one," responded the maid, perhaps even more
icily, thought Aaron.  "Well, I hope you like the damn chamomile tea,
Buster, it sure isn't my taste.  Come on any$

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        25

     "Thank you." The celebrated but less than physically imposing
attorney walked into the foyer of Norwegian rose marble, his mental
computer estimating its extravagant cost.  "And what variety do you
prefer, my dear?" he asked pointlessly.
     "A cup laced with rye!" exclaimed the woman, laughing
raucously and jabbing her elbow into Pinkus's frail shoulder.
     ,,I'll remember that when we have high tea at the Ritz some
afternoon."
     "That'll be the Jesus-lovin' day, won't it, little fella?"
     "I beg your pardon?"
     "Go on through those double doors over there," continued the
maid, gesturing to her left.  "The hoity-toity's waiting for you.  Me,
I got work to do." With that command-cum-explanation, the woman
turned and walked without precision across the expensive floor,
disappearing beyond the elegantly balustraded winding staircase.
     Aaron approached the closed double doors, opened the right
panel, and peered inside' At the far end of the ornate Victorian room
sat Eleanor Devereaux on a brocaded white couch, a glistening
silver tea service on the coffee table in front of her.  She was as he
remembered her, an erect, fine-boned woman, with an aging face
that must have launched a thousand yachts in its prime, and with
large blue eyes that said far more than she would ever reveal.
     "Mrs.  Devereaux, how good to see you again."
     "Mr.  Pinkus, how good to see you.  Please come and sit down."
     "Thank you." Aaron walked inside, conscious of the huge,
priceless Oriental rug beneath his feet.  He lowered himself into the
white brocaded armchair to the right of the sofa, the spot indicated
by a nod of Mrs. Devereaux's aristocratic head.
     "From the rather frantic laughter I heard in the hallway," said the
grand lady, "I gather you've met Cousin Cora, our maid."
"Your cousin ... T'
     "If she weren't, do you think she'd last five minutes in this
house? In a family sense, being more fortunate imposes certain
obligations, doesn't it?"

26  ROBERT LUDLUM

          "Noblesse oblige, madam.  And very nicely said."
     "Yes, I suppose so, but I wish to hell nobody ever had to say it. 
One day she'll choke on the whisky she steals and the obligation
will be over, won't it?"
          "A logical conclusion."
     "But you're not here to discuss Cora, are you? ... Chamomile tea,
Mr. Pinkus? Cream or lemon, sugar or no?"
     "Forgive me, Mrs. Devereaux, but I must resist.  An old man's
aversion to volatile oil."
     "Good! An old wornan's, too.  This fourth little dear I fill myself."
Eleanor picked up a Limoges teapot to the left of the silver service. 
"A fine thirty-year-old brandy, Mr. Pinkus, and its kind of acid
couldn't hurt anybody.  I also wash the damn thing myself, so Cora
doesn't get ideas."
     "My very favorite, Mrs. Devereaux," said Aaron.  "And I shan't tell
my doctor, so he won't get any ideas."
     'Wchaim, Mr. Pinkus," toasted Eleanor Devereaux, pouring them
each a good dram and then raising her-teacup.
          "A votre santi, Mrs. Devereaux," said Aaron.
     "No, no, Mr. Pinkus.  The Devereaux name may be French, but
my husband's ancestors migrated to England in the fifteenth
century-actually they were captured during the battle of Cr6cy but
stayed long enough to raise their own armies and be knighted by
the crown.  We're High Anglican."
"So what should I say?"
,"How about 'Up your banners'?"
"That's religiousT'
     "If you're convinced He's on your side, I imagine it is." They both
sipped, and replaced their cups in the delicate saucers.  "That's a
good beginning, Mr. Pinkus.  And now shall we plunge right into the
puzzling issue at handnamely, my son?"
     "I believe it would be prudent," nodded Aaron, glancing at his
watch.  "Right now he's about to go into a conference entailing an
extremely complex litigation that should take the better part of
several hours.  However, as we both agreed over the telephone,
these past months he's fre-7HE ROAD TO CMAHA                        27

     quently displayed erratic behavior; he might very well leave the
conference in midsentence and drive home."
     "Or go to a museum or a movie or, God forbid, to the airport and
take a plane to heaven knows where," interrupted Eleanor
Devereaux.  "I'm all too aware of Sam's impetuous proclivities.  Only
two Sundays ago I returned from church and discovered a note that
he'd left for me on the kitchen table.  In it he wrote that he was out
and would call me later.  He did so during dinner.  From
Switzerland."
     "Our experiences are too painfully similar, so I will not take up
our time recounting my and my firm's variations."
     "Is my son in danger of losing his position, Mr. Pinkus?"
     "Not if I can help it, Mrs. Devereaux.  I've looked too long and
too hard for a successor to give up so easily.  But I'd be less than
honest if I told you that the status quo was acceptable.  It isn't. 
It's,not fair to Sam or to the firm."
     "I'm in total agreement.  What can we do-what can I do?"
     "At the risk of presuming on the privilege of privacy, and I do so
only out of affection and professional concern of the highest regard,
what can you tell me about your son that might shed light on his
increasingly enigmatic behaviorTI assure you that whatever is said
between us will remain in the strictest confidence-as -it were, a
lawyerclient relationship, although I would never presume to be
your attorney of choice."
     "Dear Mr. Pinkus, a number of years ago I could never presume
to approach you to be my attorney of choice.  Had I felt that I was
capable of paying your fee, I might have salvaged large sums of
money owed my husband's estate after his death."
     "Oh ... T,
     "Lansing Devereaux steered a great many of his colleagues into
immensely lucrative situations with the understanding of reasonable
participation after their venture capital was recouped.  Once he
died, only a few honored those agreements, a precious few."
     "Agreements? Written agreements?" "Lansing was not the most
precise person when it came

28                 ROBERT LUDLUM

to specifics.  However, there were minutes of meetings, synopses
of business conversations, that sort of thing."
     "You have copies of these?"
     "Of course.  I was told they were worthless."
     "Your son, Samuel, confirmed that judgment?"
     "I've never shown him those papers and I never will.... He had
a rather painful adolescence in some regards, no doubt character
building, but why open healed wounds?"
     "One day we may go back to those 'worthless' papers, Mrs.
Devereaux, but at the moment letis return-to the moment.  What
happened to your son in the army? Have you any idea?"
     "He had a 'rather good show,' as the British say.  He was a legal
officer both here and overseas and, I'm told, did outstanding work
in the Far East.  When he was discharged, he was an adjutant in the
office of the Inspector General with the temporary rank of major. 
You don't do much better than that."
     "Me Far East?" said Aaron, his antennae picking up a nuance. 
"What did he do in the Far East?"
     "China, of course.  You probably wouldn't remember because his
contribution was 'played down,' as they say politically, but he
negotiated the release of that crazy American general in Beijing, the
one who shot the - . private parts ... off a venerated statue in the
Forbidden city.l@
     "'Madman' MacKenzie Hawkins?"
     "Yes, I believe that was his name."
     "Me most certifiable lunatic of the lunatic fringe? The gorilla's
guerilla who almost plunged the entire planet into World War Three?
Sam represented him?"
     "Yes.  In China.  Apparently he did a fine job."
     Aaron swallowed several times before he found his voice again. 
"Your son never mentioned any of this to me," he said barely
audibly.
     "Well, Mr. Pinkus, you know the military.  So much is hush-hush,
as I understand it."
     "Hush-bush, mush-mush," mumbled Boston's celebrated
attorney, in his voice a Talmudic prayer.  "Fell me, Mrs. Devereaux,
did Sammy--@'

              THE ROAD TO, OMAHA                       29

     "Sam or Samuel, Mr. Pinkus."
     "Yes, of course.... Did Sam ever mention this General Hawkins
to you after his separation from the army?"
     "Not with that title or that name, and never when he was entirely
sober... I should explain that before he was discharged and came
back to Boston, somewhat later than we expected, I should add ----
2'
     "Don't add to me, Mrs. Devereaux.  Explain to the deli that
supplied fifty pounds of lox why he never showed up.,,

     "I beg your pardon?"
     "It's insignificant.  What were you sayingT'
     "Well, a colonel in the Inspector General's office phoned me and
told me that Sam had been put through 'pressure-point-max' in
China.  When I asked him what that meant, he became rather
abusive and said that as a 'decent army wife' I should understand. 
And when I explained that I wasn't Sam's wife but his mother, that
very abusive man said something to the effect that he 'figured the
clown was a little weird,' and told me that I should expect a couple
of months of mood swings and conceivably some heavy drinking."
     "What did you say to that?"
     "I wasn't married to Lansing Devereaux without learning a few
things, Mr. Pinkus.  I know damned well that when a man gets
broiled because the pressures become too much, it's a reasonable
petcock to let off steam.  Those Janie-come-lately liberated females
should give a little in that department.  The man still has to keep die
lion from invading the cave; that hasn't changed, and biologically it
shouldn't.  He's the poor fool who has to take the heatphysically,
morally, and legally."
"I'm beginning to see where Sam gets his acumen."
"Y'lien you'd be wrong, Aaron-may I call you Aaron?"
"With the greatest of my pleasure ... Eleanor."
     "You see, 'acumen' or perception or whatever you want to call
it can only be useful if there's imagination first.  That's what my
Lansing had, only the macho times restricted my supplying a
stronger balance, the supplemental caution, if you like."
"You're a remarkable woman ... Eleanor."

30  ROBERT LUDLUM

          "Another brandy, Aaron?"
     "Why not? I'm a student in the presence of a teacher of things
I have never really considered.  I may go home to my wife and fall
on my knees."

     "Don't overplay it.  We like to believe we're manipulators.,,

     "Back to your son," said Pinkus, sipping his brandy in two
swallows rather than one.  "You say he didn't refer to General
Hawkins by name or by title, but you implied that he did allude to
him ... when not necessarily sober, which is perfectly
understandable.  What did he say?"
     "He'd ramble on about 'the Hawk,' that's what he called him,"
mused Eleanor softly, her head arched back in the brocaded sofa. 
"Sam said he was a legitimate hero, a military genius abandoned by
the very people who once praised him as their spokesman, their
idol, but who fled from him the moment he became an
embarrassment.  An embarrassment despite the fact that in his
actions he was fulfilling their fantasies,- their dreams.  But he was
doing it for real, and that terrified them, because, again, they knew
that their fantasies, if acted upon, might lead to disaster.  Like most
fanatics who've never been in a real fight, they find embarrassment
and death unattractive."
          "And Sam?"
     "He claimed he never agreed with the Hawk, never wanted to be
associated with him, but was somehow forced to-how I don't know. 
Sometimes when he just wanted to talk, he'd make up incredible
stories, pure nonsense, like meeting hired killers at night on a golf
course-he actually named a country club on Long Island."
          "Long Island, as in New York?"
     "Yes.  And how he negotiated contracts worth a great deal of
money with British traitors in London's Belgrave Square and with
former Nazis on chicken farms in Germany ... even Arab sheiks in
the desert who were actually slunilords in Tel Aviv and wouldn't
permit Egypt's army to shell their properties during the Yom Kippur
war.  Insane stories, Aaron, I tell you the were--are-toially y

mad."

"Totally mad," repeated Pinkus quietly, weakly, a knot

              7HE ROAD TO OMAHA                        31

forcing in his stomach.  "You say, 'are'? He still tells these crazy
stories?"
     "Not as much as he used to, but yes, when he's terribly
distressed or has had that extra martini he didn't need, and wanders
down from his lair."
     "His lair, like in cave, perhaps?"
     "That's what he calls it, his 'chAteau's lair.'
     " 'Chfiteau,' like in a very big house or a@ castle?"
     "Yes, he even speaks now and then of a great chfiteau in
Zermatt, Switzerland, and of his 'Lady Anne' and 'Uncle Zio'-pure
unadulterated fantasies! I believe the word is 'nuts.' "
     "I sincerely hope so," mumbled Pinkus.
     "I beg your pardon?"
     "Oh, nothing.  Does Samuel spend much time in his Ur,'
Eleanor?"
     "He never leaves it except for an occasional dinner with me. It's
actually the east wing of the house, shut off from the rest of us with
its own entrance and facilities-two bedrooms, office, kitchen-the
usual amenities.  Even his own cleaning service--oddly enough,
they're Muslims."
     "His own apartment, really."
     "Yes, and he thinks he has the only keys--2' "But he doesn't?"
     asked Aaron quickly.
     "Good heavens, no.  The insurance people insisted that Cora
and I should have access.  Cora stole his key ring one morning and
had duplicates made.... Aaron Pinkus!" Eleanor Devereaux looked
into the attorney's deep-set eyes and saw the message in, them. 
"Do you really think we might learn something by ... by going
through the chfiteau's lair? Isn't that illegal?"
     "You're his mother, my dear lady, and you're justifiably
concerned about his current state of mind.  That's a calling beyond
any law.  However, before you make that decision, one or two more
questions.... This house this grand old house, has had many
splendid things Won_@ to it over the past years.  From the outside
alone, I judged the expenditures to be in the neighborhood of a
hundred thousand dollars.  Now, seeing the inside, I'd have to place
the figure at many times that.  Where did the money come from? Did
Sam tell youT'

32                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Well, not in so many words; that is, not precisely... He said that
while he was in Europe on this very secret mission after his
discharge, he invested in some works of art, newly discovered
religious artifacts actually, and in a matter of months the market
exploded and he did enormously well."
     "I see," said Pinkus, the knot in his stomach tightening, but
nothing clear, only the rumbling of distant thunder in his mind. 
"Religious artifacts.... And this 'Lady Anne' you say he talked about. 
What did he say?"
     "It was all pure rubbish.  In my son's delusions, or deliritims, if
you will, this Lady Anne, this fantasy of his that he calls the
perpetual love of his existence on earth, left him and ran away with
a Pope."
     "Oh, dear God of Abraham," whispered Pinkus, reaching for his
teacup.
     "We of the High Church of England can't really accept that
connection, Aaron.  Henry the Eighth aside, the apostasy of any
pontiff's infallibility simply doesn't wash.  He's a reasonable, if
somewhat pretentious, symbol, but not a scratch more."
     "I think _W& time you made your decision, dear Eleanor," said
Pinkus, swallowing the rest of his brandy, wishing the spreading
pain in his stomach would go away.  "To glance over the chfiteau's
lair, I mean."
     "You really think it might help us?"
     "I'm not sure what I think, but I am sure that we'd better."
     "Come along, then." Lady Devereaux rose from, the couch, a
touch unsteadily, and gestured toward the double doors.  "The keys
are in a flower pot in the foyer.  'Flower pot in the foyer,' that's a
hell of a mouthful, isn't it? Try it backwards, Aaron."
     "Foyer, flowerflot, flowernot, floyer," attempted Pinkus, getting to
his feet, not entirely sure where they were.
     They approached the thick, heavy door of Samuel Lansing
Devereaux's chAteau's lair, and Sam's mother inserted the key with
the gentle assistance of the man who was now her attorney of
choice.  They entered the sanctum sanctorum, walking down a
narrow corridor that opened onto a wider hallway, the rays of the
afternoon sun stream-THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        33

ing through an imposing, seemingly impenetrable glasspaneled
door on the left, which was the apartment's separate entrance. 
They turned right, and the first open door they came to revealed a
darkened room; the venetian blinds were securely down and closed.
     "What's in here?" asked Aaron.
     "I believe it's his office," replied Eleanor, blinking.  "I haven't
been up here since I can't remember whenprobably when the
construction was finished and Sam showed me through."
     "Let's take a look.  Do you know where the lights are?"
     "The switch is usually on the wall." It was, and three floor lamps
lit up the three visible walls of a large pinepaneled office.  The walls
themselves, however, could barely be seen, as they were covered
with framed photographs and, contrarily, Scotch-taped newspaper
articles, many askew as if hastily, perhaps angrily, stuck to the sur-
faces between the profusion of photographs.  "This place is a
bloody mess!" exclaimed the mother of the inhabitant.  "I'll insist he
clean it up!"
     "I wouldn't even consider it," remarked Pinkus, approaching the
nearest newspaper clippings on the left wall.  In the main, they
depicted a white-habited nun dispensing food and clothing to
indigent people-white, black, and Hispanic-in various parts of the
world.  SISTER ANNE THE BENEVOLENT CARRIES HER MESSAGE
TO ALL POINTS OF TM GLOBE, cried one headline over a
photograph of a slum in Rio de Janeiro, the mountain crucifix seen
clearly in the upper distance of that jet-set city.  The other clippings
were a variation of the same theme-photos of a markedly attractive
nun in Africa, Asia, Central America, and the leper islands in the
Pacific.  SISTER ANNE, SISTER OF CHARITY, SISTER OF HOPE
and, finally, ANNE THE BENEVOLENT, A CANDIDATE FOR
SAUqTHOOD?
     Aaron, putting on his steel-rimmed glasses, studied the.
photographs.  They were all taken at some extravagant retreat
reeking of edelweiss, the Alps generally in the background, the
subjects in the photographs happy and carefree, the enjoyment of
life lighting up their faces.  Several were instantly recognizable: a
somewhat younger Sam Devereaux; the tall, aggressive figure of the
maniac gen-34                 ROBERT LUDLUM

eral, 'Madman' MacKenzie Hawkins; an ash-blond woman in shorts
and a halter-voluptuous, indeed, and unmistakably Anne the
Benevolent; and a fourth figure, a stout, smiling, jovial fellow in a
short chef's apron that barely concealed his lederhosen.  Who was
he? The face was familiar but-no, no, NO!
     "The God of Abraham has deserted us," whispered Aaron
Pinkus, trembling.
     "What in the name of the Celtics are you talking aboutT' asked
Eleanor Devereaux.
     "You probably wouldn't remember, because it meant nothing to
you," answered Aaron rapidly, unsteadily, a distinct quaver in his
soft voice.  "But a number of years ago the Vatican was in disarray-
financial disarray.  Monies were flowing out of its treasury in ... in
megabuckets, supporting causes so unlikely as third-rate opera
companies and carnivals and houses throughout Europe to reha-
bilitate prostitutes, all manner of insanities.  The people thought the
Pope had gone crazy, that he was, as they say, pazzo! Then, just
before the Eternal City's complete collapse, which would have
resulted in panic throughout the investment world, everything
suddenly returned to normal.. The Pontiff was back in control, his
old self! The media everywhere said it was like he had been two
people--one pazzo, the other the fine good man they all knew and
loved."
     "My dear Mr. Pinkus, you're not making the slightest bit of
sense."
     "Look, look!" cried Aaron, pointing at a smiling, fleshed-out face
in one of the photographs.  "Mat's him!"

     "The Pope! That's where the money came from.  The ransom!
The press was right, they were two people! General Hawkins and
@your son kidnapped the Pope! ... Eleanor, EleanorT' Aaron, turned
from the wall.
Lady Devereaux had collapsed to the floor unconscious.

ten

"Nobody @ that clean," said Director Mangecavallo quietly, his voice
laced with incredulity as he addressed the two dark-suited men
seated across the table in the DCPs dimly lit kitchen in McLean,
Virginia.  "It's not natural, you know what I mean? Maybe you didn't
scrounge around hard enough, huh, Fingers?"
     "I tell you, Vinnie, I was shocked," replied the short, obese man
who answered to the name of Fingers as he touched the knot of his
white silk tie that fell over his black shirt.  "Like you say, it ain't
natural-it ain't even human.  What kind of world do these high-type
judges live in? One with no germs, maybe?"
     "You didn't answer my question," interrupted Vincent softly,
arching his brows and quickly shifting his penetrating gaze to his
second visitor.  "What do you say, Meat? You boys aren't getting
sloppy, are you?"
     "Hey, Vin," protested the large, barrel-chested guest, his heavy
hands spread out in front of him, partially obscuring the red tie
above his pink shirt.  "A firstclass-world-class-job we did, what can
I tell ya? The high-types called for it, right? We even brought in

36                 ROBERT LUDLUM

Hymie Goldfarb's boys in Atlanta, and who better to get the goods
on a saint, am I right or not?"
     "Yeah, Hymie's boys know the tunnels, no question," agreed the
CIA director, pouring himself another glass of Chianti and removing
a Monte Cristo cigar from his shirt pocket.  "A lot better than all the
feds in Hooverville.  They dug us up garbage on a hundred and
thirty-seven congressmen and twenty-six senators that guaranteed
my confirmation, along with- a little largesse spread around, of
course."
          "Largest what, Vinnie?" asked Fingers.
     "Largesse-forget it.... I just can't figure it.  Every one of these six
squftTelly judges got nuthin' we can tap into? That's
extraterrestrial!" Mangecavallo got up from the table and lit his
cigar.  He paced back and forth in front of a darkened wall upon
which hung alternating prints of saints, popes, and vegetables until
he suddenly stopped, a cloud of smoke ringing his skull like a halo
from way down under.  "Let's go back to the basics," he said, stand-
ing motionless.  "Let's really look"
          "At what, Vinnie?"
     "these four or five maybe liberal clowns who can't think straight. 
What's with them that Goldfarb's people couldn't find? ... What
about the big black cat? Maybe he ran numbers as a kid, did
anyone think of that? Maybe no one went back far enough.  That
could be the mistake!"
     "He was an acolyte and a choirboy, Vin.  Right down the pike, a
real angel, plus a big, big brain."
     "How about the lady judge? She's a big cannoli, right? That
means her husband has to shut up and pretend he likes her being
the big cannoli-which he can't nohow be cause he's a man.  Maybe
she doesn't feed him and he's mad like hell but can't say anything. 
People keep stuff like that quiet."
     "It's also a wash, Vin," said Meat, shaking his head sadly.  "He
sends her flowers every day at the office and tells everybody how
proud he is of her.  It could be legit on accounta he's a big
avvocato himself and he ain't gonna make no enemy on that court,
even his own wife."
     "Shit! ... Hey, that Irish drink of water, maybe he has a couple
too many like a lot of Micks do after their big pa-THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       37

rade.  How about that? We could build a little file--top secret,
national security, that sort of thing.  We buy a couple a dozen
witnesses who state they've seen him fried and gurgling in his suds
after he leaves the office.  It could work.  Also, with his name we
could add a few girlies.  It's a natural!"
     "It's snake eyes, Vin," countered Meat, sighing and again
shaking his head.  "Me Irish guy's so Clorox he makes the sheets
squeak.  He's never been known to have more than a glass of white
wine, and girlies aren't even in his ballpark."
     "Something there, maybe?"
"You're reaching, Vin.  He's Boy Scout time."
     "Double shit.... All right, all right.  We don't touch the two WASPs
because our people are making nice inroads with the banking boys
in the better part of town.  There should be no offense to the
country club set, that's the word.  I don't like it, but I accept it.... So
we come to our own paisan."
     "A bad person, Vinnie!" interrupted Fingers angrily.  "He's been
very rough on a lot of our boys-like he didn't even know us, you
know what I meanT'
     "Well, maybe we'll let him know we know who he is, how about
thatT'
     '@Okay, Vin, but how about whatT'
     "How the hell do I know? Goldfarb's boys should have come up
with something, anything! Like maybe he slugged a couple of nuns
in parochial school, or he skimined the collection plates at mass so
he could buy a Harley and join a motorcycle gang, whatever! I gotta
think of everything? He's got a weakness, he has to.  All fat paisans
do!"
"Meat's kinda fat-"
"A lid, Fingers, a bean pole you're not."
     "You can't touch that paisan, Vin," intedected the pinkshirted
Meat.  "He's a real erudito, a man with so many big words he
confuses the biggest brains and he's as clean as the bleached
Mick, no action at all except maybe he irritates people by singing
opera a lot in not too good a voice.  Goldfarb's boys went after him
first because, like most yarniulkes, they call themselves liberals and
the heavy

38                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     boy's not.  They were like politically motivated, you know?"
     "What the hell has politics got to do with any of this? We got a
problem, the biggest problem this country has ever faced, and we're
chewing ass over politics?"
     "Hey, Vinnie," pleaded Fingers, "you were the one who wanted
the mud on these big judges, right?"
     "Okay, okay!" said Mangecavallo, puffing on his cigar erratically
and returning to his chair at the kitchen table.  "I know when the
barn-barns won't work, all right? So where are we? We gotta protect
the country we love, because without the country we love, we are
out of business! Do I make my case?"
     "Oh,, yeah," said Fingers.  "I don't wanna live nowhere else."
     "I couldn't," added Meat.  "What with Angelina and the seven
kids', where could I go? Palermo's too hot, and I sweat, you know?
Angie's even worse than me--boy, does she sweat! She can really
stink up a room." . "That's disgusting," said Mangecavallo softly, his
dark eyes leveled on his huge, pink-shirted associate.  "I mean
really disgusting.  How can you talk about the mother of your
children like that?"
     "It's not her fault, Vin.  It's her glands."
     "You take the whole mozzarella, you know that, Meat? ... Basta,
this ain't gettin' us nowhere." The CIA director again rose from the
chair and paced angrily about the kitchen, puffing on his cigar and
pausing long enough to briefly lift the lid of a steaming pot on the
stove, only to drop it because of the scorching metal.  "What the
hell is she cooking now? Looks like monkey brains." He shook his
hand in pain.
     "Your maid, Vinnie?"
     "Maid? What maid? You mean the contessa who sits around with
Rosa knitting and talking, talking and knitting, like two old Sicilian
broads trying to remember who humped who in Messina forty years
ago! She don't cook-she don't cook and she don't do windows or
the cans and together she and Rosa waddle around the super-
markets buying crap I wouldn't feed the cats."
"Get rid of her, Vin."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       39

     "Oh, funny scungilli, you! Rosa says she's like one of her sisters,
only nicer and not so ugly.... No, they can eat that escremento
themselves, we're goin' out.  National security emergency, you get
my drift?"
     "Got it, Vinnie," affirmed Fingers, nodding his large head with the
slightly irregular nose.  "Like when they say the 'natives are
restless,' rightT'
     "Jeez, what the hell have natives got to do with-hold it ... hold it!
Natives.  'Native American.' That's it! ... Maybe, like."
     "Like maybe what, VinT'
     "We can't scrounge out the judges, right?"
     "Right, Vinnie."
     "So the Supreme Court could maybe dump us all in the toilet,
right?"
          "Right, Vin.
     "Not necessarily.... Suppose, just suppose, this meatball Indian
chief who could just maybe cause our biggest national security
crisis in history is a very bad man, a screwed-up individual with no
love in his heart, only evil intentions, you see what I mean?
Suppose he don't care crapola about his Wild West Indian brothers
but just wants a motherlode for himself, with all the publicity that
goes with it? We knock his faked-up good character off, we knock
his case off.  It's done all the time!"
     "I dunno, Vin," countered Meat haltingly.  "You yourself told me
that when you questioned that White House legal brain-the one with
the colored chalk-he said that five or six of those judges admitted
crying their eyes out when they read this Sitting Bull's case.  How
there was a whole litany-you said 'litany,' Vin, I had to look it up-of
deceit and dishonesty, even killing and starving whole tribes in the
original U.S. of A. Now, you, me, and Fingers here-you bein' the
smartest, naturally, and me maybe pretty far behind and Fingers not
actually in the runningbut do any of us figure a crumb phony could
flatten out the brains of these high-type big judges with pure
bullshit? It don't make sense."
     "We're not looking for sense, amico, we're looking for a way out
of a possible national emergency, get that

40                 ROBERT LUDLUM

through your skull.  And right now its name is this Thunder Head. 
Send Goldfarb's boys out to Nebraska!"

"Nebraska ... Nebraska ... Nebraska," intoned Hyman Goldfarb into
the telephone, as if the state were incorporated into an Old
Testament psalm.  Seated behind his elegant desk in his elegant
office on Atlanta's very elegant Phipp Plaza, he rolled his eyes
upward and brought them down to gaze fondly at the slender, well-
dressed, niiddle-aged couple sitting in front of him-middle-aged
being mid-forties, only several years younger than the muscular,
tanned Goldfarb, himself attired in a tight-fitting white linen suit that
framed his still awesome athlete's body.  "I should once again send
my best people out to this-to say the least-this out-of-the-way
Nebraska so they can chase after a fog, a mist ... a cloud of vapor
who calls himself Thunder Head, chief of the Wopotamis? Is that
what you're saying? Because if it is, I should have been a rabbi,
which I studied for, instead of a football player, which entailed very
little knowledge." Hyman Goldfarb paused, listening, every now and
then removing the phone from his ear, sighing, and finally,
obviously, interxupting the caller.
     "Please pay attention to me and let me save you some money,
will you do that? ... Thank you, just listen.  If there is a Chief
Thunder Head, he's nowhere to be found.  My people cannot say he
doesn't exist.  Whenever they mentioned the name among what's
left of the Wopotamis on their pathetic reservation, they were met
with silence, interspersed with incomprehensible whispers in the
Wopotami language.  They tell me that suddenly you think you're in
some cathedral cut out of a scrawny forest primeval where there's
far too much available alcohol, and you begin to believe that this
Thunder Head, is more of a myth than a reality.  An icon, perhaps,
a tribal god sculpted on a totem pole to which his believers pay
obeisance, but not a human being.  In plain words, I do not believe
such a per-son exists.... What do I think, is that your question--and
it's not necessary to shout? Quite frankly, my excitable friend, I
believe Chief Thunder Head is a symbolic

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        41

amalgam of-no that is not a reference to sexual preference-of
narrowly defined special interests, no doubt benevolent, and
centered about our government's unfortunate treatment of the
American Indian.  Perhaps a small group, of legal scholars from
Berkeley or NYU who've unearthed sufficient precedents to
embarrass the lower courts.  A scam, my friend, pure and simple a
scam, but a very brilliant scam."
     Goldfarb pulled the telephone away from his ear and briefly
closed his eyes as the voice over the line metallically filled the
elegant office.  "What kind of talk is that?" roared the caller.  "This
great country could be in a big national crisis, and you got nothin'
to. offer but 'presents' that don't make no sense? Well, lemme tell
ya, Mister Big Linebacker, the man in Langley, Virginia, who you
can't talk to nohow, says you better come up with somethin' on this
77zunder Head and come up quick! I mean none of us want to live
in Palenno, you know what I mean?"
     "Redundancy aside, 'Per cento anno, Ngnore, "' said Goldfarb. 
"We'll be in touch." The CIA consultant replaced the telephone,
leaned back in his swivel chair, and sighed audibly as he addressed
the attractive couple in front of his desk.  "Why me, oh Lord, why
rneT he asked, shaking his head.  "You're positive you're right?"
     ;"I wouldn't put it so strongly, Hyman," replied the woman in a
clipped British accent that bespoke several generations of
expensive breeding.  "No, we're not positive, I don't think anybody
could be, but if there is aMunder Head, he's simply nowhere to be
found, as you so clearly explained to the gentleman on the phone."
     "I used your words, of course," added Goldfarb.  "And I question
the title of 'gentleman.' "
     "With good reason, I suspect," said the woman's male
companion, also obviously British.  "We employed Plan C. We were
Cambridge-based anthropologists studying a great if diminished
tribe whose ancestors were brought over to the Crown by Walter
Raleigh in the early seventeenth century.  If there really is a 'Munder
Head, by all logic he should have rushed forth to claim the Crown's
recognition, as well as the long-buried remittance, which at the time
was no doubt minor, but by any standard an

42                 ROBERT LUDLUM

enormous sum today.  He didn't; therefore, our conclusion: he
doesn't exist."
     "But the brief to the Supreme Court does," insisted the
consultant.  "It's crazy."
     "Simply incredible," agreed the Englishman.  "Where do we go
from here, Hyman? I gather you're 'under the gun,' as we used to
say in Her Majesty's Secret Service, although I always thought it
was a rather banal expression conveying more melodrama than was
necessary."
     "It both is and it isn't," said Goldfarb.  "We're dealing with an off-
the-wall megillah, but it's still an extremely dangerous situation....
What are those judges thinking

Of ?11

     "Justice and the law, I daresay," offered the woman.  "At a cost
we all recognize as beyond the extraordinary.  Regardless, dear Hy,
and forgive me for saying it, but the man on the phone you say is
no gentleman is basically correct.  Whoever's hiding behind the
mantle of this Tbunder Head-or whoever they #re-that's the key."
     "But Daphne, by your own admission, you can't find him."
     "Tben perhaps we didn't look hard enough, Hyman.  Eh,
Reggie?"
     "Dear girl! We trekked all over that blasted backwater bog with
horrible lodgings and no civilized facilities, I remind you, and got
absolutely nowhere.  No one made any sense at all!"
     "Yes, I know, dear, but there was one who didn't want to make
sense, do you recall my mentioning it?"
     "Oh, him," replied the Englishman, his tone dismissing the
memory.  "Nasty young fellow, quite sullen, really."
     "Who?" Goldfarb instantly sat forward.
     "Not sullen, Reggie, simply uncommunicative, incoherent,
actually, but he understood everything we were saying.  It was in
his eyes."
     "Who was he?" pressed the CIA consultant.
     "An Indian brave-that's the word, I think-in his early twenties, I'd
judge.  He claimed not to understand English very well and just
shrugged and shook his head when we asked him several
questions.  I didn't think much about it

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        43

at the time-the young are so hostile these days, aren't theyT'
     "He was indecently dressed, if I do say," interrupted Reginald. 
"Hardly more than a loincloth, really.  Rather disgusting.  And when
he leaped up on that horse, I can tell you he betrayed a definite lack
of equestrian skill."
     "What are you talking about?" asked a bewildered Goldfarb.
     .'He fell off," answered Daphne.  "Dressage is hardly his strong
suit."
     "Wait a minute, wait a minute!" Goldfarb's broad chest was
halfway across the desk.  "You say you didn't think much about this,
this young Indian at the time, but you're thinking about him now. 
Why?"
     "Well, in light of the circumstances, dear Hy, I'm trying to think
of everything."
     "What you mean is he may know something he didn't want to tell
you?"'
     "It's only a possibility-2'
     "Do you think you could find him againT'
     "Oh, yes.  I -saw which tepee he came out of, which one
belonged to him."
     "Tepee? They live in tepees?"
     "Well, naturally, Hyrnan," replied Reginald.  'They're Indians,
chap.  Redskins, as you say in _your cinema."
     "There's also a rotten whitefish somewhere," said Goldfarb,
picking up the telephone and dialing.  "Tepees! Nobody sleeps in
tepees anymore! ... Don't unpack," he added to the couple, instantly
shifting his attention back to the phone.  "Manny? ... Reach 'The
Shovel' and get over to the field.  You're taking the Lear out to the
state of Nebraska."

The,young Indian brave, naked but for an odd-looking short leather
skirt, stood outside the large decorated tepee and shouted.  "I want
my clothes back, Mac! You can't do this.  I'm sick of it-we're all sick
of it! We don't steep on dirt in these dumb tents and we don't bum
our hands trying to cook over campfires and we do use toilets, not
the goddamp woods! -And while I'm at it, you can take that

44                 ROBERT LUDLU-M

miserable, distempered nag and ship him back to Geronimo! I hate
horses and I don't ride-none of us do, for God's sake.  We drive
Chevys and Fords and a couple of old Cadillacs, but not horses! ...
Mac, are you listening to me? Come on, Mac, answer me! ... Look,
we appreciate the money and your good intentions-even the nutty
clothes from that costume factory in Hollywood, but it's all gone too
far, can't you see that?"
     "Did you ever see the movie they made about me?" came the
bellowing roar from within the closed tepee.  "The son of a bitch
playing me had the biggest lisp I ever heard! Embarrassing, real
embarrassing!"
     "Mac, that's what I'm talking about! This crazy charade you're
putting us through is embarrassing to us.  We're going to get shot
down and be the laughingstock of all the reservations!"
     "Not yet you're not-we're not! Although the term ,shot down' is
kinda interesting."
     ,,No it isn't, you lotus brain! It's been over three months now and
we haven't heard a word Three months of insanity, running around
half-naked or in costumes with beads that scratch our asses like
hell, and burning our fingers and getting poison ivy in places also
embarrassing whenever we have to run into the woods--2'
     "Slit trenches have always been an,acceptable part of military
life, boy.  And you can't argue with the separation of the sexes-the
army wouldn't have it any other way.1f
     "This isn't the army and I'm not a soldier and I want my clothes
back--2'
     "Any day now, son!" interrupted the harsh, gravelly voice inside
the tepee.  "You'll see!"
     "No, you lunatic, not any day or any month or any year! Those
old farts on the Supreme Court are probably sitting around in
chambers laughing their heads off, and I won't be able to practice
in the loosest court- in American Samoa.... Come on, Mac! Admit it,
it's over-it was a hell of an idea and I've got to say there was maybe
a grain, a grain, maybe, of substance, but now it's become
ridiculous."
"Our good people have suffered for a hundred and

              YHE ROAD TO OMAHA                         45

twelve years, boy.  Suffered at the hands of the brutal, avaricious
white man, and we shall be justly recompensed and set free! ...
What's a few more days?"
     "Mac,, you're not remotely related!"
     "In this old soldier's heart we're bonded, son, and I won't let you
down."
     "Let us down, please? Let me down, and give me my clothes
back and tell those two idiots who follow me around to leave me
alone!"
     "You're too impatient, young fella, and I can't let you turn on our
tribal brothers-"
     "Our ... ? Mac, you're certifiable, so let me lay one on you,
brother brave.  It's a little matter of a pro forma judicial statute of
which you may not be aware, but you damn well should be.  Four
months ago, when this whole whacka-doo war dance started, you
asked me if I'd passed my bar exam, and I told you that I was sure
I had.  Well, I'm still sure I passed the damn thing, but if you asked
me to provide you with certification, I couldn't do it.  You see, I
haven't received formal notification from the Nebraska bar, and I
may not for another two months, which is perfectly normal for the
bar and perfectly impermissible where your legal powwow with the
Supreme Court is concerned."
     "What ... ?" came the prolonged, disemboweling roar from
behind the closed front flap of the tepee.
     "That joint's a busy place, brother, and except under ex-
traordinary circumstances, which must be spelled out and
approved, no unaccredited attorney may petition the Supreme
Court, even as temporary counsel.  I told you that.  You're dead by
default even if you were awarded a positive decision,,which is about
as Rely as this Indian brave leaming to ride a goddamned horse!"
     The harrowing scream from within the cone of painted ersatz
animal skins was longer than before and infinitely more
heartrending.  "How could you do this?"
     "I didn't do it, Mac, you did! I told you to officially list your
attorney-of-record, but you said you couldn't because he was dead
and you'd figure something out later, and in the meantime we'd use
the non nomen precedent from 1826."

46  ROBERT LUDLUM

     "You dug that one up!" cried the faceless roar.
     "Yes, I did, and you were grateful, and now I suggest you dig up
your late attorney of research-and-record."
     "I can't." The roar suddenly became the whimper of a bewildered
kitten.
     "Why not?"
     "He won't talk to me."
     "I would hope to hell not! Christ, I don't mean his corpse, I mean
his papers, his findings, interrogatorieshis research.  They're all
acceptable."
     "He wouldn't like that." The kitten was now a piping mouse.
     "He wouldn't know! ... Mac, listen to me.  Sooner or later, one of
those judges' law clerks in D.C. will learn that I'm a kid barely out
of law school with hardly six months of clerking myself, and he'll
blow a shrill whistle.  Even if you had a prayer, the lord god of the
Court, Chief Justice Reebock, would throw a lightning bolt into it for
defrauding his holy institution.  Worse, for making fools of them, if
even one or two corkscrews were leaning in your favor, which, as
I say, is totally impossible.  Forget it, Mac! It's over Give me my
clothes back okay, and let me get out of here-"
     "Where would you go, son?" The unseen piping mouse was
getting out of the vocal cellar and climbing back up to a crescendo. 
"I mean where, boy?"
     "Maybe American Samoa with a forwarded certification from the
Nebraska bar, who the hell knows?"
     "I never thought I'd say this, son," cried the faceless, once more
shouting voice from the tepee, "because I really thought you had the
right stuff, but I can see now that I can't bring you up to snuff!"
     "Thanks for the rhyme, Mac.  Now, how about my clothes?"
     "You got 'em, you yellow-skinned coyote!" The fake animal skin
flap opened and an assortment of Ivy League garments was hurled
out of the dark space.
     "That's redskin, Mac.  Not yellow-skinned, remember?" The
young loinclothed brave lurched for the flying shorts, shirts, gray
flannel trousers, and navy blue blazer.  "Thank you, Mac, I really
thank you."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        47

     "Not yet, boy, but you will.  A good officer never forgets the
grunts, no matter how unworthy they might appear in the heat of
battle.... You were a help, I'll say that, in the GHQ strategy sessions. 
Leave your forwarding address with that drunken flake you call
Eagle Ass!"
     "Eagle Eyes," corrected the brave, discarding his loincloth and
putting on his shorts.  He reached for his blue oxford shirt.  "And
you gave him the booze-you gave everyone cases of booze-I never
allowed so much."
     "Beware the sanctimonious Indian who turns on his tribe!" yelled
the unseen manipulator of the Wopotamis.
     "Fuck off, Mac!" cried the brave, shoving his feet into his Bally
loafers and his striped tie into his pocket, and getting into his
blazer.  "Where the hell's my Camaro?"
     "Camouflaged beyond the east pasture, sixty running deer
strides to the right of the August owl's tall pine."
     "Sixty what? What goddamned owl?"
     "You never were too sharp in the field; Eagle Ass told me that
himself."
     "Eagle Eyes, and he's my uncle, and he hasn't inhaled a sober
breath or seen straight since you got here! ... East pasture? Where
is it?"
     "Check the sun, boy.  It's the compass that never fails you, but
make damn sure you ash up your weapons, so the glares don't give
you away."
     "Certifiable!" screamed the young brave of the Wopotamis as he
fled due west.
     At that moment, accompanied by a primordial roar of defiance,
a tall figure strode out of the tepee, the flap whipping up and
sticking to the exterior wall of animal hides.  This giant of a man,
gloriously resplendent in full, flowing Indian headdress and beaded
buckskins, all signifying his highest tribal office, squinted in the
sunlight as he shoved a mutilated cigar into his mouth and began
chewing on it furiously.  His bronzed, leather-lined face and
narrowed eyes betrayed an expression of consummate frustration-
also perhaps a degree of fear.
     "Goddamn!" swore MacKenzie Hawkins to himself.  "I never
thought I'd ever have to do this." The Hawk

48                ROBERT LUDLUM

reached inside his painted buckskin doublet with the beaded yellow
bolts of lightning across the chest and pulled out a cellular
telephone.  "Boston area information? I want the number of the
Devereaux residence, first name Sam-"

Samuel Lansing Devereaux drove cautiously on the Waltham-
Weston road at the height of the Friday evening rush hour exodus
from Boston.  As usual, he drove carefully, as though he were
maneuvering a tricycle through a battlefield of opposing tanks
closing in for their thunderous kills, but tonight was worse than
usual.  It was not the trafflic; that was maddeningly standard.  It was
the pulsating pain in his eyes along with the pounding in his chest
and the movable vacuum in his stomach, all the result of an acute
seizure of depression.  He found it almost impossible to keep his
mind on the erratic rhythms of the surrounding vehicles, but forced
himself to concentrate on those nearest him, hoping to heaven he
stopped short of a collision.  He kept the window open, his hand
waving continuously until a truck swerved so close that he touched
its sideview mirror he shrieked and instinctively grabbed it, thinking
for a moment he was watching his arm disappear over his hood.
     There was nothing else for it, or, as the great French playwright
phrased it-he could not actually remember the man's name or the
exact phrase in French, but he knew the words said it all.  Oh,
Christ, he had to get home to his lair

50                 ROBERT LUDLUM

and let the music swell and the memories revive until the crisis
passed! ... Anouilh, that was the goddamned playwright's name-and
the phrase ... On ne pouvait plus que crier-hell, it sounded better in
English than in the lousy French he had trouble recalling: There was
nothing left but to scream, that was it! Actually, it was pretty stupid,
thought Sam.'So he screamed and turned north into the Weston
exit, only minimally aware of those drivers and passengers nearest
his car who stared at him through their windows as if watching an
act of sodomy between man and beast.  The prolonged scream had
to go; it was replaced by a wide grin worthy of Alfred E. Neuman as
Devereaux pressed the accelerator and three cars crashed behind
him.
     It had all started within minutes after he left the office following
an afternoon conference with a gaggle of related corporate
executives whose single-family company was in deep shit if they did
not take his advice.  The problem was not in their criminality, it was
in their stupidity, which could not be pried away from their
stubbornness until Sam had made it clear that if they ffid not follow
his instructions, they could all look for different representation, and
he would visit each of them in prison, but only on a social basis. 
Although somewhat obscure, the law did make it clear that
grandfathers and grandmothers could not place their grandchildren-
-especially those between the ages of six months and twelve years-
on the company's board of directors at salaries exceeding seven
figures.  He had weathered the onslaught of Irish indignation,
accepted the eventuality of eternal damnation for shorting the
bloodlines of the clan of Dongallen, and fled to his favorite bar two
blocks from the firm of Aaron Pinkus Associates.
     "Ahh, Sammy boyo," the owner-barkeep had said as Devereaux
slumped on the stool farthest from the entrance.  "It's been a rough
day, it has, I can see it.  I always know when one or two liquid
remedies may lead to a couple more-you sit down at this end of the
bar."
     "Do me a favor, O'Toole, and soften the brogue.  I've spent damn
near three hours with your crowd."
     "Oh, they're the worst, Sam, let me tell you! Especially the two-
toilet variety, who are the only ones who can af-THE ROAD TO OMAHA                      5 1

ford you fellas.  Here, it's early, so let me pour you the usual and
turn on the tellyvision and you take your mind off business....
There's no Sox game this afternoon, so I'll turn on the all-day news."
     "Thanks, Tooley." Devereaux had accepted his drink with a
grateful nod as the solicitous owner turned on the cable news
network, which was apparently in the middle of a human-interest
segment, in this case depicting the good works of a supposedly
obscure individual.
     ". . . a woman, whose selfless charity and kindness keeps her
forever young, a face the angels kiss with the gift of youth and
clear-eyed perseverance, " proclaimed the sonorous voice as the
camera zoomed in on a white-habited nun dispensing gifts in a
children's hospital located in some war-torn Third World country. 
"Sister Anne e Benevolent, they call her, " continued the vowel-
rolling announcer, "but that's all the world knows about her ... or will
ever know from her own lips, we are told.  What her true name is or
where she camefrom remains a mystery, a mys tery wrapped in an
enigma perhaps filled with unendurable pain and sacrifice-"
     "Mystery, my ass!" Samuel Lansing Devereaux had screamed,
leaping and falling off the barstool as he roared at the television
screen.  "And the only unendurable pain is mine you bitch!"
     ,iSl@@y, Sammy!" yelled Gavin O'Toole, racing down the length
of the mahogany, waving his arms in a sincere effort to quiet his
friend and customer.  "Shut the fuck up! The woman's a goddamned
saint, and my goddamned clientele ain't exactly all Protestant, do
you get my goddamned message?" O'Toole had lowered his voice
while pulling Devereaux over the bar-then he glanced around. 
"Jesus, a few of my daytime regulars are takin' exception to your
words, Sammy! Don't worry, Hogan can handle them.  Sit down and
shut up!"
     "Tooley, you don't understand!" cried the fine Boston lawyer,
close to weeping.  "She's the enduring love of my life on earth-"
"That's better, that's much better," whispered O'Toole.
"Keep it up."
"You see, she was a hooker and I saved her!"

52  ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Don't keep it up."
     "She tan off with Uncle Zio! Our Uncle Zio-he corrupted her!"
     "Uncle who? What the.hell are you talkin' about, boyo?"
     "Actually, he was the Pope, andbe messed up her head and he
took her back to Rome, to the Vatican-`
     "Hogan! Get over the wood and hold back the bastards! ... Come
on, Sammy, you're leavin' through the kitchen, the front door you'd
never make!"
     That innocent episode had brought on his acute depression,
thought Devereaux, as he sped north on the lesstraveled road to
Weston.  Couldn't the unknowing "world" understand that the
"mystery" was not unknown to one lovesick, adoring Sam-the-lawyer
type, who had nurtured Anne-the-many-times-married-hooker from
Detroit back into self-respect, only to have her slain the gates shut
on their marriage to follow in the steps of crazy Zio? ... Well, Uncle
Zio hadn't actually been crazy, he was only misguided where the life
of Samuel-my-son-the-fineattorney was concerned.  He was also
Pope Francesco I, the most beloved Pope of the twentieth century
who had permitted his own kidnapping on Rome's Via Appia Antica
because he had been told he was dying, and it was better that his
identical cousin, one Guido Frescobaldi from LaScala Minuscolo, be
put on Saint Peter's throne and take radio instructions from the true
Pontiff somewhere in the Alps.  It all had worked! For a while.  Mac
Hawkins and Zio for weeks on end would go up to the ramparts of
Zermatt's ChAteau Machenfeld and over the shortwave radio explain
to the less than bright, tone-deaf Frescobaldi what to do next in the
cause of the Holy See.
     Then everything fell apart-with a thud that had to sonically rival
the first creation of planet Earth.  The Alpine air restored Uncle Zio-
Pope Francesco, of course-to his former healthy self, and,
conversely, Guido Frescobaldi accidentally fell on the private
shortwave radio, his bulk smashing it to smithereens, and the
Vatican went into an economic tailspin.  The remedy was painful but
obvious; however, far more painful to Sam Devereaux-far, far more
painful-was the loss of his one true love, Anne the

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        53

Rehabilitated, who had listened to all that crap Uncle Zio kept
spewing quietly into her ear as they played checkers every morning. 
Instead of marrying one Samuel Lansing Devereaux, she opted for
"marrying" one Jesus Christ, whose credentials, Sam had to admit,
were considerably more impressive than his own, although the
more earthly perks somewhat less so-immensely less so when one
took into account the life that the glorious Anne the Rehabilitated
had chosen.  My God, Boston at its worst was better than leper
colonies! Well, certainly most of the time.
     Life marches on, Sam.  It's combat all the way, so don't let
yourse@f be boondoggled if you lose a skirmish or two.  Get your
ass up and charge ahead!
     Words from the lowliest lowlife in the universe, the ultimate,
incontestable argument for sexual abstinence or stringent birth
control.  General MacKenzie Hawkins, Madman Mac the Hawk,
scourge of sanity and destroyer of all things good and decent. 
Those fatuous words, that clich6d military psychobabble, were all
the slugworm could offer during Sam's moments of desperate
anguish.
     She's leaving me, Mac.  She's actually going with him!
     Zio's a damn good man, son.  He's a fine commander of his
legions, and we who know the loneliness of command respect one
another
     But, Mac, he @ a priest, the big enchilada of priests, the Pope!
They won't be able to dance, or cuddle, or have kids or any of those
things!
     Well, you're probably right about the last two, but Zio does a hell
of a tarantella, or have you forgotten?
     Nobody, touches in tarantellas.  They whirl around and kick up
their legs, but they don't come near each other!
     Must be the garlic.  Or maybe the legs.
     You're not listening to me.  This is the mistake of her life-you
should know that! For God's sake, you were married to her, which
hasn't made me entirely comfortable these past weeks.
     Pull back your caissons, boy.  I was married to all the girls, and
none of them came out the worse for it.  Annie was the toughest--
and considering her background, maybe it was to be expected-but
she caught on to what I was trying to tell her

54  ROBERT LUDLUM

     What the hell was that, Mac?
     That she could be better than herself, but still be herself.
     Slugworm! Devereaux swung the wheel to the left so as to avoid
an intruding guardrail on the right.  All the girls, God, how did he do
it? Four of the most entrancing and endowed women on earth had
married the maniacal military delinquent and after each marriage
had been-not amicably, but lovingly-terminated, the four divorc6es
had willfully, enthusiastically banded together to form their own
unique club, which they called "Hawkins's Harem." At the press of
the Hawk's button, they all rallied around to support their former
husband, whatever the time, and wherever he was in the world. 
Jealousies? None whatsoever, for Mac had set them free, free of the
ugly chains that had bound them before he came into their lives. 
Sam could accept all that, for throughout the events that led up to
Chfiteau Machenfeld, each former wife had succored him in his
moments of hysterical crisis.  Each had been not only
compassionately-even passionately-warm in her efforts to extricate
him from the impossible situations the Hawk had placed him in, but
expert in the ways that led to his escape.
     All had left their indelible marks on both his body and his mind,
all were extraordinary memories, but the most glorious of all was
the ash-blond, statuesque Anne, whose large blue eyes held an
innocence far more real than the reality of her past.  Her
neverending stream of hesitant questions on just about ahy topic
imaginable was as starding as her voracious appetite for books, so
many of which she could not possibly understand, but understand
she eventually would, if it took her a month on five pages.  She was
truly a lady making up for the lost years, but never with a hint of
pity for herself, and always giving, despite what had been taken
from her so brutally in the past.  And, oh God, could she laugh, her
eyes lighting up with mischievous humor, yet never mean, never at
the expense of another's hurt.  He loved her so!
     And the crazy bitch had opted for Uncle Zio and those
goddamned leper colonies instead of a wonderful life as the wife of
Sam Devereaux, attomey-at-law, eventually, inevitably, Judge
Samuel Lansing Devereaux, who could en-THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        55

ter any lousy regatta he wanted to on Cape Cod.  She was bananas!
     Hurry! Hurry home and get to the lair and find solace in the
memories of unrequited love.  'Tis better to have loved and lost /
Than never to have loved at all.  Who was that asshole?
     He sped down the street in Weston and swerved around the
comer into his block.  Only minutes now, and then, with the aid of
the grape and the swelling sounds of The Alpine Yodelers' one and
only recording, he would retreat into the cave of his dreams, his lost
dreams.
     Holy shit! Up ahead, in front of his house ... was that-was it ... ?
Jesus, it was! Aaron Pinkus's limousine! Had something happened
to his mother that he knew nothing about? Had an emergency
occurred while he had been screaming at O'Toole's television set?
He'd never forgive himself!
     Screeching to a stop behind Aaron's outsized vehicle, Sam
leaped out of his car and ran forward as Pinkus's chauffeur
appeared from around the hood of the limousine.  "Paddy, what
happened?" yelled Devereaux.  "Is anything wrong with my mother?"
     "Not that I could tell, Sammy, except maybe the language, some
of which I haven't heard since Omaha Beach."
     "INhat?"
     "I'd get in there if I were you, boyo."
     Devereaux sped to the gate, leaped over it, and raced up to the
door, fumbling in his pocket for his key ring.  It wasn't necessary,
as the door was opened by Cousin Cora, who wasn't necessarily
altogether there.  "What's happened?" repeated Sam.
     "Hoity-toity and the little fella are either stinkin' drunk or under
the curse of a full moon while the sun's still in the sky." Cora
hiccuped once, then belched.
"What the hell are you talking about? Where are they?"
"Up in your place, buster boy."
"My place? You mean ... T' "That's what I mean, big fella."
"Nobody goes into the lair! We all agreed-"
"Somebody lied, I guess."

56                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Oh, my God!" screamed Samuel Lansing Devereaux, as he ran
across the huge foyer of Norwegian rose marble and raced up the
winding staircase to the east wing of the house.

"Reduce power for final approach," said the pilot calmly, looking out
the side left window, wondering briefly if his wife had made the
roast beef hash she had promised him for dinner.  "Prepare ftill
flaps, please."
     "Colonel Gibson?" The radio operator sharply intruded on his
thoughts.
     "Hoot's on the toot, Sergeant.  What is it?"
          "You're not plugged into the tower, sir!"
     "Oh, sorry, I just switched them off.  Anyway, it's a beautiful
sunset and we've got our instructions, and I have every confidence
in my first officer and in you, you great communicator."
          "Switch over, Hoot! ... I mean, Colonel."
     The pilot snapped his head over at his co-pilot, astonished to
see his subordinate's open mouth and bulging eyes.
     "They can't do this!" cried the first officer under his breath.
     "Do what, for Christ's sake?" Gibson instantly flipped on the
tower frequency.  "Repeat the information, please.  The flight deck
was in the middle of a crap game."
     "Funny man, Colonel, and you can tell that gentleman sky-jock
on your right that we can do it, because it's a direct order from Rec-
Wing command, sir."
     "I repeat, please repeat.  The gentleman-jock's in shock."
     "So are we, Hoot!" came a second familiar voice from the tower,
a fellow officer of Gibson's rank.  "We'll fill you in when we can, but
right now follow the sergeant's instructions to your refueling
coordinates."
     "Refueling ... ? What the hell are you talking about? We've done
our eight hours! We scanned up the Aleuts and into the Bering so
close to the Mother we could smell her borscht.  It's time for dinner,
for roast beef hash, to be exact!"

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        57

     "Sorry, I can't say any more.  We'll bring you back as soon as we
can."
     "An alert?"
     "Not Mother Borscht, I can tell you that much."
     "That much isn't enough, especially that much.  Are the little
lucite people on their way from Quasar Tinkerbell?"
     "We're operating direct on CINCSAC with SCD controls, is that
enough for you, Hoot?"
     "It's enough to louse up my roast beef hash," replied a subdued
Gibson.  "Call my wife, will you?"
     "Sure.  All spouses and/or live-in relations will be apprised of the
change in orders."
     "Hey, Colonel!" interrupted the first flight officer.  "There's a little
place in downtown Omaha, on Farnarn Street, called Doogies. 
Around eight o'clock there'll be a redhead at the bar-dimensions
roughly thirty-eight, twenty-eight, thirty-four, and she answers to the
name of Scarlet 0. Would you mind sending-2'
     "That'll be enough, Captain, you're out of order! ... Did you say
Doogies?"
     The mammoth EC-135 jet, known as "Looking Glass" for the
Strategic Air Command's neverending search of the skies, angled
upward, accelerating airspeed to an initial altitude of eighteen
thousand feet, where it banked northeast across the Missouri River,
leaving Nebraska and entering the state of Iowa.  On the ground,
the tower at Offutt Air Force Base, the control center for worldwide
Strategic Air Command, instructed Colonel Gibson to switch to a
coded northwest heading and rendezvous in the still bright western
sky with its refueling cargo aircraft.
     I There could be no argument.  The 55th Strategic Recon-
naissance Wing was the host unit at Offutt and conducted global-
scale observation missions, but, host or not, it, too, like its brother
544th Strategic Intelligence Wing, was subject to the needs of the
Cray X-MP supercomputer, which was conveniently placed under
the ostensible control of AFGWC, otherwise known as the Air Force
Global Weather Control, and which few sophisticated students of
SAC believed had anything to do with meteorology.
     "What's going on down there?" asked Colonel Gibson.

58                  ROBERT LUDLUM

     "What the hell will be going on at Doogies, that's what I'd like to
know," said the young, angry captain.  "Shit!"

At the Pentagon, in the beflagged office of the omnipotent Secretary
of Defense, a tiny man with a pinched face and a slightly askew
toupee sat on three cushions behind an enormous desk and
virtually spat into his telephone.
     "I'll screw 'em! By God, I'll ream those ungrateful savages until
they beg for poison, and I won't even let them have that! Nobody's
going to mess around with me.... I'm keeping those 135s in the air
in force if I have to keep refueling night and day!"
     "I'm on your side, Felix," said the somewhat bewildered chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "but then I'm not air force.  Don't we
have to let them come down every now and then? You'll have four
135s inthe air by tomorrow afternoon, all out of Offutt, and that's the
cutoff time.  Couldn't we share the load with the other SAC bases?"
     "No way, Corky.  Omaha's the control center, and we're not
giving it up! Haven't you ever seen the Duke's movies? Once you let
those bloodthirsty reds@in scum have an inch, they'll sneak up
behind you and take your scalp!"
          "But what about the aircraft, the crews?"
     "You don't know anything, Corky! Haven't you ever heard of
'Beam me up, Scotty,' and 'Beam me down, Scotty, T,
     "Maybe I was in Nam."
     "Get with it, Corky!" The Secretary of Defense slammed down the
telephone.

     I

Brigadier General Owen Richards, supreme commandant of the
Strategic Air Command, stared silently at the two men from
Washington, both dressed in black trench coats and dark
sunglasses under dark brown hats, which they had not removed
even in the presence of the female air force nia . or who had
escorted them into his office.  That discourtesy Richards had
ascribed to a nonsexist military, which he had never really
accepted; he usually opened a door for his secretary and she was
only a sergeant, but she

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                         59

was also a woman, and some things were just natural.  No, it was
not the lack of courtesy on the Washingtonians' part, it was the fact
that they were lunatics, which probably accounted for their wearing
their heavy trench coats and their dark hats on a warm summer's
day, and not removing their smoked sunglasses in the decidedly
dim light of the general's office; all the venetian blinds were closed
to block out the blinding rays of the setting sun.  No, thought Owen,
they were just crazy.  Nuts!
     "Gentlemen," he began calmly, in spite of his apprehensions,
which had caused him to quietly open a lower drawer, where there
was a weapon.  "Your credentials got you in here, but perhaps you'd
better give them to me for personal verification.... Don't reach under
your coats or I'll blow you both away!" roared Richards suddenly,
yanking his GI-issue .45 out of the drawer.
     "You asked for our 113s," said the man on the left.
     "How do you expect us to show them to you?" asked the man on
the right.
     "Two fingers!" ordered the general.  "If I see a full hand, you're
both splattered into the wall."
     "Your combat background makes you inordinately suspicious."
     "You'v6 got that right, I spent two years in Washington.... Put 'em
on the desk." Both did so.  "Goddamn it, these aren't IDs.  They're
handwritten notes!"
     "With a signature you must certainly recognize," said the agent
on the left.  "And a telephone number-which you certainly know-
should you care to embarrass yourself with verification."
     "With what you just ordered me to do, I'd check the President's
stool before I complied." Richards picked up his private Red Line,
punched four buttons, and moments later winced as he heard the
voice of the Secretary of Defense.  "Yes, sir, yes, sir.  Orders
received, sir." The general hung up the phone, his eyes glazed, and
looked at the two intruders.  "All Washington's gone crazy," he
whispered.
     "No, Richards, not all Washington, only a very few people in
Washington," said the agent on the right, keeping his voice low. 
"And everything must be kept maxclassified-to the ultimate max. 
Your orders are to pretend

60                 ROBERT LUDLUM

to stand down as of eighteen hundred hours tomorrowSAC's
command center is for all intents and purposes shut down.
          "For Christ's sake, why?"
     "In real phony deference to a debate over a decision that could
make a new law we can't permit," replied the agent on the left, his
eyes invisible behind the sunglasses.
          "What law?" shouted the general.
     "Probably Commie-oriented," answered the other emissary from
the nation's capital.  "They've got moles in the Supreme Court."
     "Commie ... ? What the hell are you talking about? There's no
more Soviet Union and the goddamned Court is as far right as the
communicator and his understudy could make it!"
     "Wishful thinking, soldier boy.  Just get one thing through your
GI brain.  We're not giving up this base! It's our nerve center!"
     "Give it up to whom?"
     "I'll tell you this much.  Code name WOPITACK, that's all you
have to know.  Keep it under your sombrero."
     "Wop ... attack? The Italian army is invading Omaha?"
     "I didn't say that.  We don't indulge in ethnic slurs."
     "Then what the hell did you say?"
     "Maximum-classified, General.  You can understand that."
     "Maybe I can and maybe I can't, but what about my four air-craft
that'll be upstairs?"
     " 'Beam 'em down, Scotty,' then 'Beam 'em up.' "What?"
screamed Owen Richards, lunging up from his chair.
     "We listen to, our superiors, General, and so should YOU."

Eleanor Devereaux and Aaron Pinkus, their faces devoid of color,
their mouths agape, and their eyes four stationary glass orbs, sat
next to each other on Sam Devereaux's twoseater leather couch in
the private off-limits office he had built for himself in the restored
Victorian house in Weston, Massachusetts.  Neither spoke, for
neither was capable of

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        61

speech; the babbling, moaning, incoherent gurgles that had
emanated from Sam's throat had, in.essence, formed contiguous
affirmatives to the initial questions both had posed.  It did not help
matters that Samuel Lansing Devereaux, paralyzed by the assault
on his chAteau's lair, had pinned himself against the wall, both
arms outstretched, palms spread, covering as many of the
incriminating photographs and newspaper articles as he could
manage.
     "Samuel, my son," began the elderly Pinkus, finding his voice,
but only to the extent of a hoarse whisper.
     "Please don't say that!" protested Devereaux.  "He used to say
that."
     "Who said, who?" mumbled the barely cognizant Eleanor.
     "Uncle Zio-2'
     "You don't have an uncle named See Oh, unless you mean
Seymour Devereaux, who married a Cuban and had to move to
Miami."
     "I don't believe that's who he means, dear Eleanor.  If an old
man's memory doesn't fail him, especially during certain
negotiations in Milan, zio is 'uncle,' and there were more uncles
than this attorney could handle in Milan.  Your son is saying,
literally, 'Uncle Uncle,' do you comprehend?"
     "Not for a minute---2'
     "He is referring to-2'
     "Don't say it!" shrieked Lady Devereaux, covering her slim,
aristocratic ears.
     "Pope Francesco the First," trailed off the foremost attorney of
Boston, Massachusetts, his face now the pallor of a six-week-old
corpse without refrigeration.  "Sammy ... Samuel ... Sam.  How could
you?"
     "It's difficult, Aaron--2'
     "It's incredible!" thundered Pinkus, now in full if uncontrollable
volume.  "You exist in another world!"
     "You might say that," agreed Devereaux, pulling his arms down
from the wall and falling to his knees, then knee by knee inching his
way to the small oval table in front of the miniature couch.  "But you
see, I had no choice.  I had to do whatever that slugworm told me
to do--2'

62                ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Including the kidnapping of the Pope!" squeaked Aaron Pinkus,
unable once again to find his voice.
     "Stop it!" roared Eleanor Devereaux.  "I'll hear no more!"
     "I think we'd better, dear Eleanor, and if you'll pardon my
untenable language, please be quiet.  Go on, Sammy.  I don't wish
to hear it, either, but, by the god of Abraham, who controls the
universe and who may now have some explaining to do, how did it
happen? And it's all so obvious that it did happen! The press was
right, the media everywhere were right! There were two people-it's
there on your walls! There were two popes and you kidnapped the
original!"
     "Not exactly," pleaded Devereaux, each inhaled breath more
difficult than the last.  "You see, Zio figured it was okay--2'
     "Okay?" Aaron's chin came perilously close to the top of the
coffee table.
     "Well, yes.  He wasn't well and . .. well, that's another part of the
story, but Zio was smarter than any of us.  I mean he was really with
it."
     "How did it happen, Sam? It was because of this lunatic General
MacKenzie Hawkins, wasn't it? He's in all these photographs.  He
was the one who made you become the most unknown notorious
kidnapper in the history of the world! Am I even reasonably
accurate?"
          "You might say that.  Then again you might not."
     "How, Sam? How?" pleaded the elderly attorney, as he picked up
a copy of Penthouse from the coffee table and began waving it in
front of the comatose face of Eleanor Devereaux.
     "There are some excellent articles in that magazine .... very
academic."
     "Sammy, I beg you, do not do this to me, or to your lovely
mother here, who bore you in pain, and at this moment may be in
need of ministrations beyond our capabilities.  In the name of the
Lord God of Hosts, to whom I shall vigorously protest in temple on
tomorrow's Sabbath, what possessed you to be a part of this
monstrous act?"
"Well, actually, Aaron, 'possessed' is a fairly accurate

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        63

description of the alleged-I restate, the alleged-criminal enterprise
to which you refer."
     "I don't have to 'refer,' Sam, I simply point to these very specific
articles of evidence on your walls!"
     "Yes, well, actually, Aaron, they're not entirely conclusive--2'
     "You want I should subpoena the Pope?"
     "Vatican executive privilege wouldn't permit it."
     "These photographs alone would obviate the rules of evidentiary
procedure! I've taught you nothing?"
     "Pick Mother's head up, please."
     "It's better she's out, Sam.  What was this 'possessed'?"
     "Yes, well, actually, Aaron, without any intent on my part, I
walked out of the army intelligence G-Two cornputer banks with
copies of maximum-classified files chained to my wrist twenty-four
hours before my discharge."

          "So?"

     "Well, you see, Aaron, as MacKenzie Hawkins's attomey-of-
record, I had to accompany him to his final Six-thirty-five resolution
of all the classified intelligence reports relative to his military
career, from World War Two through Southeast Asia."

          "so?"

     "Well, you see, Aaron, that's when Mac's friends in the army
intruded on the procedure.  I'd made a minor mistake in the Golden
Triangle and instituted charges against a certain General Ethelred
Brokernichael for dealing in drugs, when it actually was his cousin
Heseltine Brokernichael, and Ethelred's supporters were mad as
hell, and since they were all ftiends of Mac Hawkins, they rallied
around the Hawk and played his game."
     "What game? Heseltine ... Ethelred! Drugs, Golden Triangle! So
you made a mistake, you withdraw the indictment.  So?"
     "It was too late.  The military's worse than Congress.  Ethelred
didn't get his three stars, and his buddies blamed it on me and
helped Mac."

     "so?"

     "One of those bastards chained a briefcase on my wrist, slapped
a max-security label on it, and I signed out with

64                ROBERT LUDLUM

two thousand six-hundred forty-one copies of top-secret files on my
person, the majority of which had nothing to do with Mac Hawkins,
who stood innocently at my side."
     Aaron Pinkus closed his eyes and      sank back on the small
settee, his shoulder touching      the totally dazed Eleanor
Devereaux.  "So you were his      for the immediate future-roughly
five months." Aaron       cautiously opened his eyes.
     "Either that or have my discharge postponed indefinitely ... or I'd
spend twenty years in Leavenworth."
          "Then the money came from the ransom-2' "What money?"
     interrupted Sam.
     "The money you spent so lavishly on this house ... hundreds of
thousands of dollars! It was your share of the ransom, wasn't it?"
     "What ransom?"
     "For Pope Francesco, naturally.  When you released him."
     "We didn't get any ransom.  Cardinal Ignatio Quartz refused to
pay."
     "Cardinal who?"
     "It's another story.  Quartz was happy with Guido."
     "Guido?"
          "You're shouting, Aaron," murmured Eleanor.
     "Guido Frescobaldi," answered Devereaux.  "Zio's lookalike
cousin; he was an extra in La Scala's third opera company and
sometimes got to play small parts."
     "Enough!" The celebrated attorney took several deep breaths,
doing his best to find some self-control.  Lowering his voice, he
spoke as calmly as possible.  "Sam, you returned home with a great
deal of money that did not come from a deceased wealthy
Devereaux.  Where did it come from, Sam?"
     "Well, actually, Aaron, as a general partner, it was my pro rata
share of the remaining capitalization initially raised for the
corporation."
     "What corporation?" asked Pinkus, his quiet voice floating and
barely audible.
"I'lie Shepherd Company."
"Me Shepherd .. T'
"Like in the Good Shepherd."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        65

     "Like in the Good Shepherd," repeated Aaron, as if in a trance. 
"Money was raised for this corporation-"
     "Actually, in increments of ten million dollars per investor, said
investors restricted to four and forming a limited partnership with
the general partners, their individual risks naturally limited to the
capital ventured and based on projections anticipating a ten-to-one
return on their investments.... Actually, none of the four investors
cared to be legally acknowledged and preferred to consider their in-
vestments as charitable contributions in exchange for anonymity."
     "Anonymity ... ? Forty million dollars' worth of anonymity?"
     "Actually, that was pretty much guaranteed.  I mean, where could
I possibly file the papers of incorporation, Aaron?"
     "You? You were counsel for this travesty of a business
enterprise?"
     "Not by choice," protested Devereaux.  "Never by choice."
     "Oh, yes, those two-thousand-plus intelligence files you walked
out with.  No discharge.  Leavenworth."
     "Or worse, Aaron.  Mac said there were ways less public than a
firing squad if Pentagon public relations ruled out an execution."
     "Yes,@ yes, I understand.... Sam, your dear mother here, who
mercifully is in a state of shock, mentioned that you told her your
money came from religious artifacts--2' "Actually, as was clearly
stated in the bylaws of the limited partnership, the primary function
of the corporation was the 'brokering of acquired religious artifacts.'
I covered it rather nicely, I thought."
     "Dear God," exclaimed Pinkus, swallowing.  "And naturally the
'acquired' religious artifact in question was the person of Pope
Francesco the First, whom you kidnapped.,,
     "Well, actually, Aaron, that's not really legally sound, much less
conclusive.  The allegation itself might even be considered
libelous."
     "What are you saying? Look at your walls, the photographs!"

66                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Actually, I might suggest that you-you, Aaron-look at them
again.  Legally speaking, kidnapping is defined as abduction by
force or coercion and holding a person or personages against their
will, their being freed subject to the payment of funds.  Although, as
I've acknowledged, a preliminary strategy had been meticulously
financed and was in place to implement such an objective, the
strategy failed and would have been aborted but for the voluntary-I
might say enthusiastic-cooperation of the subject.  And those
photographs hardly depict the subject in question to be under any
constraints whatsoever.  In fact, he appears to be content and in
excellent spirits."
     "Sam, you belong in a room made of thick sponge rubber! Hasn't
the enormity of what you did made even a dent in your moral
armor?"
          "The crosses I bear are heavy, indeed, Aaron."
     "Fhat's not the most appropriate allusion you could employ.... I
don't really want to know, but how did you ever get-him-back to
Rome?"
     "Mac and Zio worked it out.  The Hawk called it a 'very back-
channel' mission, and Zio began singing opera."
     "I'm exhausted," whispered Pinkus.  "I could only wish this day
never happened, that I had not heard a word uttered in this room
and that my sight had deserted me."
     "How do you think I feel every day of my life? The eternal love
of my life is gone, but I've learned something, Aaron.  Life must go
on!"
          "How uniquely phrased."
     "I mean it, it's over It's all in the past, and in a way, I'm glad
today did happen.  Somehow, it's freed me.  Now I have to get off
my ass and charge ahead, knowing that slugworrn son of a bitch
can never touch me again!"
And, of course, the telephone rang.,
     "If that's the office, I'm in temple," said Pinkus.  "I'm not
prepared for the outside world."
     "I'll get it," said Sam, rising and heading for the desk as the
phone rang again.  "Mother's up here-sort of-and it's better Cora
doesn't answer.  You know, Aaron, now that it's all out in the open,
I really feel better.  With your support, I know I can charge ahead
and face new challenges, find new horizons--2'

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                      67

"Answer the damn thing, Sammy.  My head is splitting."
"Oh, yes, of course, sorry." Devereaux picked up the phone, greeted
whoever was on the line, paused for a reply, and then proceeded to
scream hysterically, with such uncontrollable frenzy that his mother
bolted up from the settee, shot over the oval coffee table, and
ended up splayed out on the floor.

"Sammy! " shouted Aaron Pinkus, dashing back and forth between
the unconscious Eleanor and her son, who was now, in an outburst
of panic, ripping down every framed photograph he could reach on
the walls and smashing them down on the floor.  "Sam, get hold of
yourself!"
     "Slugworm!" screamed Devereaux.  "Maggot of the universe, the
most despicable human being on the face of the earth! He has no
right--2'
          "Your mother, Sammy.  She may be dead!"
     "Forget it, she wouldn't know how," replied Devereaux, racing to
the wall behind the desk and continuing his assault on the myriad
photos and newspaper clippings.  "He's sick, sick, sick!"

     "I didn't say sick, Sam, I said dead," continued Aaron, kneeling
painfully and holding the mother's quivering head firmly, hoping his
ruse might have an effect on the son.  "You really should show
some concern."
     "Concern? Has he ever shown me any concern? He tears my life
apart then steps on the pieces, grinding them into the dirt! He rips
my heart out and blows it up into a balloon--2'
I didn't say he, Sam, I said she! Your mother."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                      69

          "Hello, Mother, I'm busy."
     Pinkus withdrew the beeper from his pocket and held his finger
down on the signal button; then he kept pressing it in bursts.  His
driver, Paddy Lafferty, would somehow get the message of
emergency.  He had to.
     He did.  In moments, Paddy could be heard crashing through the
east wing entrance, ordering Cousin Cora in his most commanding
sergeant's roar to get out of his way or he'd throw her to a bunch
of war-weary drunken infantrymen looking for a little feminine
amusement.
     "It's no threat, Mick!"

Sam Devereaux was tied to the chair behind his desk, his arms and
legs bound with sheets torn from his bed and ripped with abandon
by the once and former Sergeant Patrick Lafferty of Omaha Beach,
World War II.  Ripped, that was, after he had cold-cocked Sam and
found the bedroom.  Devereaux shook his head while blinking and
attempted'a semblance of his voice.  "Five drug addicts attacked
me," he offered.
     "Not exactly, Sam boyo," said Paddy, holding a glass of water to
the lawyer's lips.  "Unless you consider a touch of Bushmills in that
category, which I don't advise you to do in old Southie, or even in
O'Toole's saloon."
          " You did this to me?"
     "I had no choice, Sam.  When a man goes over the edge of
combat fatigue, you bring him back however you can.  It's no
disgrace, boyo."
     "You were in the army? In combat ... ? You were with MacKenzie
Hawkins?"
          "You know that name, Sam?" 11 Were you?"
     "I never had the privilege of meetin' the great general personally,
but I seen him! For ten days in France he took over our division,
and I tell you this, laddie, Mac the Hawk was the finest commanding
officer the army ever had.  He made Patton look like a ballet dancer,
and frankly I kinda liked old George, but he just wasn't in the
Hawk's league."
"I'm screwed!" screamed Devereaux, straining at the

70                 ROBERT LUDLUM

binding sheet strips.  "Where's my mother ... where's Aaron?" he
asked suddenly, glancing around the empty room.
     "With your mother, boyo.  I carried her to her bedroom.  Mr.
Pinkus is administering a little brandy to help her sleep."
          "Aaron and -my mother?"
     "Be a touch flexible, lad.  You've met Shirley with the concrete
hairdo.... Here, now, drink a little water-I'd give you some whisky,
but I don't believe you could handle it.  Your eyes don't convey
much human, more like a cat's that's heard a loud noise."
          "Stop it! My whole world is coming apart!"
     "Don't unravel, Sam, Mr. Pinkus'll stitch it back together.  A
grander man in that department there never was.... There, he's
cornin' back now.  I hear what's left of the door."
     The exhausted, frail figure of Aaron Pinkus trudged into the off-
limits office as if he had just returned from an assault on the
Matterhorn.  "We have to talk, Samuel," he said, sinking breathlessly
into a chair in front of the desk.  "Would you please leave us,
Paddy? Cousin Cora suggested that you might enjoy a char-grilled
porterhouse in the kitchen."
     "A porter?"
     "With Irish ale, Paddy."
     "Well ... you understand that first impressions are not always
written in stone, am I correct, Mr. Pinkus?"
-Fhat, too, is written in stone, my old friend."
     "What about me?" yelled Devereaux.  "Will somebody cut me
loose?"
     "You will remain exactly where you are and how you are until our
conversation's over, Samuel."
     "You always call me 'Samuel' when you're mad at me."
     "Mad? Why should I be mad? You've only involved me and the
firm in the most heinously insidious crime in the history of
civilization since the Middle Empire of Egypt four thousand years
ago.  Mad? No, Sammy, I'm merely hysterical."
"I think I'd better leave, boss."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       71

     "I'll beep you later, Paddy.  And enjoy your porterhouse as if you
were having-my last meal in this life."
          "Oh, you carry on so, Mr. Pinkus."
     "Then carry me out to the temple if I do not signal you within the
hour." Lafferty made a rapid exit, signified by the screeching sound
of the shattered outside door being pulled shut.  Hands folded in
front of him, Aaron spoke.  "I must assume," he began calmly, "that
the person who contacted you on the telephone was none other
than General MacKenzie Hawkins, am I correct?"
     "You know damn well you're correct, and that sewer rat can't do
this to me!"
     "What precisely has he done?"
     "He talked to me."
          "There's a law prohibiting communication?"
     "Between the two of us, there certainly is.  He swore on the
Manual of Army Regulations never to speak to me again for the rest
of his miserable, misbegotten life!"
     "Yet he saw fit to violate this solemn oath, which means he felt
he had something of great import to tell you.  What was it?"
     "Who listened?" yelled Devereaux, again straining against the
constricting white strips pinning him to the chair.  "All I heard him
say was that he was flying into Boston to see me and everything
went crazy."
     "You went crazy, Sam.... When is he to make this joumeyT'
          "How do I know?"
     "That's right.  You turned off your ears and turned on your
precordial anxiety.... However, based on the assumption that he had
something vital to tell you, or he would not have broken his
agreement never to contact you, we can assume that his flight to
Boston is imminent."
     "So's my departure for Tasmania," said Devereaux emphatically.
     "That is the one thing you must not do," interjected Pinkus with
equal firmness.  "You cannot run away nor can you avoid him-"
     "One reason!" broke in Sam, shouting.  "Give me one reason
short of murdering the son of a bitch why I

72                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     shouldn't avoid him? He's a walking distress signal from the
Titanic!"
     "Because he will continue to hold over your head-and, by
extension, mine, as your only employer since law school-your
participation in this crime of the ages."
     "You didn't walk out of the data banks with over two thousand
top-secret intelligence files, I did."
     "That seemingly ominous act sinks to the level of complete
insignificance compared to the evidence you've been trying to tear
off your walls.... But since you mention it, was there any point to the
theft of those files?"
     "Forty million points," answered Devereaux.  "How do you think
that diabolical general from the River Styx raised his capital?"
     "Blackmail ... T'
     "From the Cosa Nostra to some Brits who weren't exactly in line
for the Victoria Cross; from former Nazis whose respectability was
up to their thighs in chickenshit, to Arab sheiks who made money
by protecting their Israeli investments.  He refined the whole sticky
ball of wax and
made me go after them."                           I
     "Good God, your mother said those were all your delusions!
Killers on a golf course, Germans in chicken farms ... Arabs in the
desert.  They were real."
     "Sometimes, not often, I have a martini I shouldn't have."
     "She also mentioned that.... And Hawkins unearthed these
scoundrels from the intelligence files and forced them to capitulate
to his demands?"
     "How low can you get--2'
     "How ingenious can a man be?"
     "Where's your moral armor, Aaron?"
     "Certainly not for the benefit of scoundrels, Sam."
     "Then in support of the evidence you've seen on my walls?"
"Deflnitely not!"
"So where do you stand?"
     "One has nothing to do with the other.  There's no linkage.
     "Not if you were me, Counselor." Aaron Pinkus took several deep
breaths in silence while

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                         73

placing his ten fingers across his forehead, his head bowed.  "For
every impossible problem there must be an eventual solution, either
in this life or in the hereafter."
     "I prefer the former, if you don't mind, Aaron."
"I tend to agree," said the elderly attorney.  "Therefore, we will, as
you expressed in your own singular vernacular, get off our asses
and charge ahead."
     "To what?"
     "To our mutual confrontation with General MacKenzie Hawkins."
     "You'd do that?"
"I have a vested interest, Sammy.  You might even say a potentially
disastrous one.  Furthermore, I should like to bring to your attention
a truism of our profession, true because of its validity... A lawyer
who represents himself has a fool for a client.  Your General
Hawkins may possess an ex ' traordinary military mind, with all its
brilliant eccentricities, but, I modestly submit, he has not matched
his skills against those of Aaron Pinkus."

The befeathered Chief Thunder Head of the Wopotamis spat out his
mutilated cigar and returned to the interior of his huge tepee,
where, in addition to the expected American Indian artifacts, such
as ersatz scalps lining the walls, he had installed a waterbed and
various electronic equipment that would make the Pentagon proud-
had made the Pentagon proud, before it was stolen.  Sighing
audibly, in both sadness and anger, Thunder Head carefully
removed his awesome tribal headdress, dropping it on the dirt floor. 
He reached into a buckskin satchel and pulled out a fresh cigar of
indeterminate make and limited quality; he shoved it into his mouth
and proceeded to mangle a good two inches of the end until his
teeth were stained.  He crossed to the waterbed, lowered himself
down on its instantly rolling swells, and immediately lost his
balance, falling backward, as the cellular telephone inside his
beaded tribal tunic erupted.  The ringing persisted as he thrashed
about, trying to calm the rough waters beneath him, finally suc-
ceeding by pushing himself forward and planting his boots

74                ROBERT LUDLUM

firmly on the dirt.  Angrily he yanked out the phone and spoke
harshly.  "What is it? I'm in powwow!"
     "Come on, Chief, the only powwows around here are when the
kids hear their dogs bark."
     "You never know who's calling, son."
     "I didn't know anyone else had the number."
     "Always operate on the assumption that the enemy can scan and
lock into a frequency."
     "What ... T'
     "Just stay alert, boy.  Now, what is it?"
     "You know that English couple who were here yesterday asking
for you, the ones we played dumb Injun for?"
          "What about 'em?"
     "They're back, but with a couple of associates.  One looks like
his keeper doesn't know he's missing from his cage, the other sniffs
a lot-he's got either a bad cold or a couple of very inflamed
nostrils."
     "They must have smelled something."
     "Not with his honker-"
     "I don't mean the support troops, I mean the English types.  That
legal idiot of yours, Charlie Redwing, must have tipped them off to
something."
     "Hey, come on, T.H., except for falling off that lousy horse, he
was terrific.  They didn't learn bean one about you, and that fancy
lady kept looking at his jockstrap-2' "Loincloth, son, loincloth. 
Maybe it was the horse."
     "Maybe it was the loincloth," suggested the caller, as Thunder
Head, caught in a rolling vinyl wave, was thrown back on the
waterbed.
     "Augh! 11
     "Hey, our legal eagle may really have something, huh? I guess
you agree."
     "I agreed to nothing! My 130Q accoutrements here are loused
up-"
"You designed them, T.H."
     "And I'd advise you to cut the familiarity, boy! You're a low-life
enlisted man and you will address me as Chief!"
     "Fine, Chiefy-baby, then you can drive into town and get your
own rotten cigars-"
     "I didn't redress you that severely, son, I just want to maintain
a logical order of command.  All -I'm saying is

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                         75

that support troops are not called up for such R and R as
'loincloths,' do I make myself clear?"
     "Maybe.... So What do you figure? What they smelled, I mean."
     "Not what they smelled, young man, but what someone else
smelled that called for auxiliary support.  Those Brits didn't
reassault by themselves, they were ordered back by a combat
officer who wanted a reassessment.  It's as clear as Porkchop Hill."
     "Porkchops ... T'
          "Where are they now, boy?"
     "At the souvenir lean-to.  They're buying up a load of stuff and
being very friendly, even the ox.  Incidentally, the girls---excuse me,
the squaws-are happy as hell.  We just got in a new supply from
Taiwan."
     Thunder Head frowned, lit his cigar, and spoke.  "Stay on the
line, I've got to think." Several quarts of smoke fogged the tepee
when, finally, the Hawk resumed speaking.  "Pretty soon the Brits
will bring up my name."
          "I guess they will."
     "So, have one of our downtrodden brethren tell them my tepee
is roughly two hundred running antelope strides above the north
pasture, past the buffalo mating ground, by the great oaks, where
the eagles lay their precious eggs.  It's an isolated place, so I can
commune with the gods of the forest and contemplate.  Got it?"
     "I can't understand a word you just said.  We've got a few cows
but no buffalo,'and I've never seen an eagle except in the Omaha
zoo."
     "You'll admit there's a forest."
     "Well, woods, maybe, but I don't remember any great big trees."
     "Damn it, son, just get 'em up into those woods, okay?"
     "Which of the paths? They're all clear, but some are better
than others.  It's been a lousy tourist season--2' "Good thinking,
boy!" exclaimed Thunder Head.  "Fine tactics.  Tell 'em they'll find
me quicker if they separate.  The one who reaches me can call
the others; they're not that far away from one another."
"Considering the fact that you're not anywhere near

76                 ROBERT LUDLUM

those woods, it's not 'fine tactics,' it's dumb.  They'll get lost."
     "Hopefully, son, hopefully."
     46'ftat?"
     "In light of the nature of this engagement, the enemy's using
unorthodox strategy.  Nothing wrong with unorthodoxy-hell, I've
employed it most of my career-but it doesn't make any sense if it
retards your progress.  In this situation, a frontal assault is our
adversary's most productive course-his only course, really-but
instead he's going around our flanks firing mortars filled with
horseshit."
     "Lost me again, Chief," said the caller.
     "Anthropologists looking for the remnants of a great tribe?"
scoffed Thunder Head.  "A tribe from the Shenandoahs, savages
brought over to the English court by Walter Raleigh, you believed
all that crap?"
     "Well, I suppose it's possible.  The Wopotamis came from
someplace in the East."
     "From the Hudson Valley, not the Shenandoahs.  For a fact, they
were run off by the Mohawks 'cause they couldn't farm and they
couldn't raise cattle and wouldn't get out of their tepees if it
snowed.  They weren't a great tribe, they were losers from day one
until they reached the Missouri River, in the middle eighteen
hundreds, where they found their true calling.  They first
hornswoggled, then corrupted the white settlers!"
     "You know all thatT'
     "Mere's very little about your tribe's history I don't know.... No,
son, someone's behind this covert operation, and I'm going to find
out who it is.  Get to work now.  Send lem up to the woods!"
     Twenty-three minutes passed, and one by one the members of
Hyman Goldfarb's scouting patrol entered the four paths in the
dense forest.  They had decided to separate insofar as the precise
instructions they had received at the souvenir lean-to were totally
imprecise and contradictory, the crowd of yelling squaws in a
raucous debate over which path actually led to the great Thunder
Head's tepee, a residence obviously equated with some holy shrine.
     Forty-six minutes later, one by one, each member had

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       77

been ambushed and bound-arms and legs-to a sizable tree.trunk,
their mouths gagged with ersatz beaver pelts, all assured that
rescue was imminent as long as they did not somehow find a way
to remove the gags and scream.  Should that happen, the wrath of
a downtrodden, exploited people would descend on their heads,
specifically their scalps, which would be no longer attached to their
heads.  And each, of course, was accorded treatment commensu-
rate with his or her station and sex.  The English lady was much
tougher than her like-talking male associate, who attempted some
complicated Oriental defense, only to wrench his left arm out of its
elbow socket.  The shorter, sniffing American tried to make a deal
while slowly removing a short-barreled Charter Arms automatic from
his belt and therefore had to be visited with several cracked ribs. 
The most strenuously difficult, however, Chief Thunder Head-n6
MacKenzie Lochinvar Hawkins (his middle name having been
stricken from all records)-saved for the last.  The Hawk always felt
it was proper to permit his harshest challenge to have the honor of
being the final barrier.  You didn't take out a Rommel with the first
wave against the Afrika Korps-it just wasn't, well, proper.
     The challenge in question was outsized in bulk but not too
sizable in the brain department.  Following a damn good workout
with a man no more than half his age, the Hawk prevailed by
ducking twice in rapid succession and sending rigid, pointed fingers
into the middle of the enemy scout's stomach; he knew it would
work by smelling the hostile's breath.  Up came an excess of Indian
food from the scout's throat; a hammerlock forcing the huge enemy
head down toward his embarrassing accident did the rest.
"Your name, rank, and serial number, soldier!"
     "Wadda ya talkin'T' belched the hostile, referred to as the ox by
Thunder Head's security.
"I'll settle for your name and who you work for.  Now!"
"I got no name and I don't work for nobody."
"Down you go."
"Holy shit, have a heart!"
     "Why? You tried to rip it out of my chest.  Into the mess you go,
soldier."
"It smells so bad!"

78                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Not as bad as what I smell around all four of you clowns.  Give
me what I want, prisoner!"
     "It's wet ... Okay, okay! They call me the Shovel."
     "I'll accept a nom de guerre.  Who's your commander?"
     "Wadda ya talkin'T'
     "Who do you work for?"
     "Wadda ya now, nuts?"
     "All right, soldier, lose the rest of your stomach! You
like our grub? Have it again, you old redskin lover!"
     "Jeez, you got it yourseUl I didn't have to say nothin'. 
Redskins!"
     "Come again, grunt?"
     "He played for 'em! The Redskins ... Lernme up, for Christ's
sake!"
     "Played for ... ? I need more, you latrine-cleaner! What kind of
hot air are you trying to peddle?"
     "You're closer, real close! They couldn't put nuthin' in the air
while he was around.  He didn't need no defense hulks, he just
broke right through and nailed the quarters from Namath on down!
The Hebrew Hercules, maybe ...  T'
     "Quarters-? Namath? Redskins? ... Christ on a surfboard,
football! And Hercules? ... There was only one linebacker like that
in NFL history.  Hymie the Hurricane!"
          "I didn't say nuthin'! You said it."
     "You haven't the vaguest idea what I said, soldier." The Hawk
spoke softly, rapidly, as he released the bull of a man while swiftly
manipulating the ropes that secured him to the tree.  "The Golden
Goldfarb," he continued hoarsely under his breath.  "I recruited the
son of a bitch when I was posted at the Pentagon!"
          "You what?"
     "You never heard that, Shovel-believe me, you never heard it! ...
I've got to get out of here, pronto.  I'll send someone back for you
idiots, but you, you never told me anything, you understand?"
     "I didn't! But I'm also happy to oblige, Mr. Big Indian Chief."
     "That's a small accomplishment, son, we're on to bigger things. 
We just struck the gusher by rattling the biggest exposed nerve in
Dizzy City! ... The Golden Goldfarb,

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                         79

wadda ya know? Right now, I need a goddamned attorneyof-record
fast, and I'know exactly where that ungrateful asshole is!"

Vincent Mangecavallo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
stared at the secure telephone in his outstretched hand as though
the instrument were the inanimate embodiment of a communicable
disease.  When the hysterical voice on the line paused for breath,
the DCI yanked the phone to his ear and mouth and spoke quietly
but grimly.  "You listen to me, you pinstriped baked apple.  I'm
doing the best I can with talent your crowd only pays for but
wouldn't know how to talk to, much less let into your ladi-da country
clubs.  You wanna take over? Be my guest, and I'll laugh like a
goosed fruit when you get drowned in a vat of minestrone.... You
wanna know something else, you lockjawed cannoli?" Mangecavallo
suddenly, briefly stopped, then resumed speaking in a much softer,
friendlier voice.  "Who's kidding who? We all may be drowning in
that barrel of soup.  So far, all we got is zilch.  That Court's as clean
as my mother's thoughts-and no cracks from the Whiffenpoof group,
thank you very much."
     "Sorry I blew up, old fellow," said the Secretary of State, on the
other end of the line.  "But surely you can understand the
extraordinary disadvantages we face in the upcoming summit.  My
God, think of the embarrassment! How can the President negotiate
from a position of strength, with the full authority of his office, if the
Court even thinks of pen-nitting a totally unknown, tiny tribe of
Indians to cripple our first line of defense? The sky's where it's at,
you know, old boy!"
"Yeah, I figured, bambino vecchio."
"I beg your pardon?"
     "It's Guinea-speak for something I never could understand with
your types.  How can a little kid be old?"
     "Well, the tie, you see.  The old schools, old bonds, the symbols,
I suppose.  Therefore, the 'old boys.' Quite simple, really."
"Maybe like vecchia maledizione difamiglia, huh?" "Well, I got the
'familiar' part, and I imagine in a broad

80                 ROBERT LUDLUM

sense there's a correlation.  It's a'rather lovely foreign phrase."
          "We don't think so.  You get killed for it." "I beg your
     pardon-"
     "No matter, I just wanted a couple of moments to think."
          "I do that all the time.  Tangential intrusions."
     "Yeah, sure, so let's intrude on this summit problem.  Number
one, can the Big Man call it off because he's got the flu-or maybe
shingles-hey, they're rough, how about it?"
     "Terrible image, Vincent.  No way."
     "His wife has a stroke? I can arrange it."
     "Again, no, old sport.  He'd have to rise above personal tragedy
and perform heroically-that's bible."
     "I'lien we're in the minestrone.... Whoa, whoa, I think I got it! If
the Court's debate goes public, suppose the Big Fella says he
supports the right of what do you call itpetition?"
     "You're bonkers!"
     "Who?"
     "Insane! On what possible basis could he endorse such a
position? This isn't merely pro choice or against it, it's real.  You
can't tab votes on this, you have to take a stand-and the only stand
he can take pits him against the constitutional balances of power. 
He's embroiled in a battle between the Executive and -the Judicial. 
Everybody loses!"
     "Boy, you got a lot of big words, baked apple.  I don't mean he
'endorses,' I mean he 'supports' the public debate, in the sense that
he looks after the little people-like the Commies used to do but
never did-and, anyway, he knows he's got twenty-two other SAC
bases in the country, and eleven or twelve outside.  So what's his
problem?"
     "Roughly seventy billion dollars' worth of equipment in Omaha
he can't move out!"
"So who knows that?"
"The General Accounting Office."
     "Now we're getting down to the marbles.  We can shut those
guys up.  I can arrange it."
"You're relatively new in this town, Vincent.  By the

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        81

time your enforcers are in place, the leaks will have begun, the
seventy billion instantly escalated to well over a hundred, and any
attempt to suppress even the rumors, those figures will reach nine
hundred billion, making the Savings and Loan fiasco petty cash.  By
that time, since there's obviously a healthy grain of validity in that
malodorous brief, we'd all be prosecuted under the laws of
Congress for covering up something we had absolutely nothing to
do with over a hundred years ago for the sake of political
advantage.  Furthermore, despite, the fact that this is the most
intelligent course of action we professionals could take, we'd not
only be facing fines and imprisonment, but they'd also take away
our limousines."
     "Basta!" yelled Mangecavallo, switching the phone to his other,
less-abused ear.  "This is nuthouse time!"
     "Welcome to the real world of Washington, Vincent.... Are you
absolutely certain there's nothing, shall we say, 'convincing,' on any
of those six idiots on the Court? What about the black fellow? He's
always struck me as quite uppity."
     "He would and you would, but he's probably the cleanest and
the brightest."
     "You don't say?"
     "And the paisan's right behind him, if he's your next in line for
heavy objective thinking."
     "Actually, he was-nothing personal, you understand, I love
opera."
     "Nothing personal, and opera loves you, especially Signor
Pagliacci."
     "Ali, yes, all those Vikings."
"Yeah, Vikings.... And speaking of thunder--2' "Were we?"
     "You were.... We're still waiting for word on that Chief Crazy Ass
who calls himself Thunder Head.  Once we got him, he could be our
way out of this whole mess."
     "Really? How?"
     "Because as the principal, what do you call it, the plaintiff, he
has to show up in the big Court with his attorneys for all arguments. 
That's mandatory."
     "Well, of course he does, but how would that change anything?"

82                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Suppose-just suppose-this big scungilli shows up like a total
psychiatric outpatient screaming that the whole scam is a joke?
That he doctored all those historical records to make some kind of
radical statement.  How about that, huh?"
     "It's absolutely brilliant, Vincent! ... But how can you possibly do
that?"
     "I can arrange it.  I got a few medical types on a special payroll. 
Like with chemicals not exactly approved by the FDA, okay?"
          "Magnificent! Why are you holding back?"
     1.1  got to find the son of a bitch! ... Hold it, baked apple, I'll
call you back.  My other subterranean line is blinking."
          "Please do so, old boy."
     "Basta with the old bambino crap!" The honorable director of the
Central Intelligence Agency broke off one line and admitted the
second call with a touch of two buttons.  "Yeah, what is it?"
     "I realize that I should not call you directly, but I felt that -in light
of the information, you would not accept it from anyone but myself."
     "Who is this?"
     "Goldfarb."
     "Hymie the Hurricane? Lemme tell you, pal, you were the
greatest-2'
     "Stop it, silly boy, I'm in a different business."
     "Sure, sure, but do you remember the Super Bowl of '73, when
you--2'
     "I was there, pal, so naturally I remember.  However, right now
we have a situation that you should be apprised of before you make
any moves.... Thunder Head got out of our net."
          ")What?"
     "I've spoken to each member of my very expensive unit, for
which you will be billed via the sleazy motel in Virginia Beach, and
their unanimous conclusion may appear difficult to accept, but from
everything I've heard, it's as good as any."
          "What are you talkin'T' "This Thunder Head is, in actuality,
     the living person of

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                      83

Bigfoot, the supposedly mythical creature that roams the Canadian
forests, but who is very much a human being."
"What?"
"The only other explanation is that he's the yeti, the Abominable
Snowman of the Himalayas, who has crossed continents to put a
curse on the government of the United States....  Have a nice day."

General MacKenzie Hawkins, his shoulders stooped, and dressed
in a rumpled, nondescript gray gabardine suit, walked through
Boston's Logan Airport looking for a men's room.  Finding one, he
rushed inside with his oversized flight bag, placed it on the floor,
and checked his appearance in the long miffor running the length
of the sinks, where two uniformed airline personnel washed their
hands at each end.  Not bad, he thought, except for the color of the
wig; it was a mite too red and a touch too long in the back.  The thin
steel-rimmed glasses, however, were splendid; sloping downward
over his aquiline,nose, they gave him the appearance of a distracted
academic, a pointyheaded thinker who could never find a latrine in
a crowded airport with the cool efficiency of a trained military man. 
And "military," or specifically the lack of same, was the linchpin of
the Hawk's current strategy.  All traces of his background had to be
buried; the city of Boston was pointy-head territory, everyone knew
that, and he had to meld in for the next twelve hours or so, enough
time to reconnoiter and study Sam Devereaux in his own environ-
ment.
     Sam seemed to have some minor objections to their get-THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       85

ting together, and as much as it pained Mac, it was entirely possible
that he might have to take Devereaux by force.  Time was of the
essence now, and the Hawk needed Sam's legal credentials just as
soon as possible; no hour could be, wasted, although several might
be used up convincing the attorney to join forces in a holy cause....
Strike the word "holy," thought the general; it could revive memories
best left forgotten.
     Mac washed his hands, then proceeded to remove his glasses
and dab water on his face, careful not to disturb the reddish wig,
which was also a touch loose.  He had a tube of scalp adhesive in
his flight bag, and when he checked into a hotel ...
     All thoughts of the inadequate wig instantly vanished as the
Hawk felt the presence of a nearby body.  He rose from the sink to
find a uniformed man standing beside him, his ugly grin revealing
that several of his teeth were missing.  A short glance to his right
revealed a second man in uniform shoving a couple of rubber
doorstoppers under the door of the men's room.  Further swift
appraisal of both men disclosed the obvious: the only airline they
could possibly be associated with had neither aircraft nor passen-
gers, only getaway cars and mugging marks.
     "You got yourself a liddle agua refreshment, hey manT' said the
first grinning hostile, in a pronounced Hispanic accent, confidently
smoothing his dark hair, which flared from the sides of the visor of
his officer's hat.  "You know, is good for you to splash a liddle agua
on the face after a long flight, Wain't it?"
     "Oh, yeah, man!" cried the second hostile, approaching, his
officer's hat improperly askew.  "Is better than shoving your head
into a toilet, right, man?"
     "Is there a point to these remarksT' asked the former general of
the army, alternately staring at both men, appalled at the sloppy
open collars of their shirts beneath their tunics of authority.
     "Well, is not such a good idea to put your head in a toilet,
Wokay?"
     "I must agree with you there," replied the Hawk, suddenly
considering that which he actually considered im-86                 ROBERT LUDLUM

possible.  "You're not by any chance advance combat intelligence,
are you?"
     "We got enough brains-and kindness-not to let you put your
head in a toilet, which would not be so intelligent, right?"
     "I didn't think so.  The man who's expecting me wouldn't
consider recruiting battle scouts like you.  I taught him better than
that."
     "Hey, man!" said the second improperly dressed impersonator
of an officer, as he edged himself to the Hawk's opposite flank. 
"You trying to insult us? Maybe you don't like the way we talk-we're
not good enough for you?"
     "Get this straight, soldados esuipidos! Never in all my years
have I ever let a man's race, religion, or the color of his flesh have
a goddamned thing to do with my appraisal of his qualifications. 
I've promoted more Coloreds and Chinks and Spanish-speaking
personnel to the officer corps than most anyone in my position-not
because they were Coloreds or Chinks or Spics, but because they
were better than their competition! Is that clear? ... You're just not
in their ranks.  You're pissants."
     "I think that's enough conversation, man," interrupted the first
hostile, his grin disappearing as he withdrew a long-bladed knife
from under his jacket.  "Popguns make too much noise-just hand
over your wallet, your watch, and anything else us Spanish-
speaking Spics might consider valuable."
     "You've got balls, I'll say that for you," said MacKenzie Hawkins. 
"But tell me, why should IT'
     "This!" yelled the grinless man, snapping the knife up in front of
the Hawk's face.
     "You've got to be kidding!" With that expression of bewilderment,
the Hawk spun in place, gripping the wrist holding the knife and
wrenching it counterclockwise with such force the weapon was
instantly dropped while he crashed his left elbow up into the throat
of the man behind him, rendering him sufficiently dazed to
administer a chi sai chop to his forehead.  He then immediately
returned to the thug with missing teeth who was on the floor
holding his painfully injured hand.  "All right, you jackasses, that's
a short lesson in counterinsurgency."

. I
                    THE ROAD TO OMAHA                          87

     "What ... manT' mumbled the conscious hostile on the floor,
trying to reach for the hunting knife, which Hawkins pinned to the
tiles with a stomping foot.  "Wokay, I got no leverage," admitted the
perpetrator.  "So I go back to a cell, what else is new, huh, man?"
     "Just hold it, amigo zonzo," said the Hawk, squinting and
thinking rapidly, "maybe you can be better than that.  For a fact,
your tactics weren't bad, just poorly executed.  I liked the uniforms
and the doorstoppers, that showed imagination under these flexible
rules of engagement.  What you didn't have was your follow-up
strategy-the what-ifs in the event the enemy counters with a
sidewinder you hadn't considered.  You simply didn't project your
analysis properly, son! ... And for another fact, I'm going to need
support adjutants who've faced fire.  Maybe with a little discipline
I can use you.  You got a vehicle?"
          "A what?"
     "A car, an automobile, a means of conveyance that isn't
necessarily registered to a person living or dead who could be
traced by a license plate."
     "Well, we got a chopped-up h'Oldsmobile from the Midwest
that's still registered to a big shot who don't know he's got a
duplicado with a very old Mazda engine."
     "Perfect.  We ride, caballeros! And with thirty minutes' worth of
training and a couple of haircuts, you've got yourselves temporary,
respectable employment that pays handsomely.... I do like the
uniforms-very imaginative and extremely useful."
          "You're one loco, mister."
     "Not at all, son, not at all.  I've always believed in doing my best
for the disenfranchised-which is at the heart of my current
pursuits.... Come along now, fall to, and stand up straight, boy, I
want perfect posture from both of you! Help me get your comrade
off the floor, and let's roll!"

Devereaux's head slowly emerged from the right panel of the heavy
glistening double doors that led to the exclusive penthouse offices
of Aaron Pinkus Associates.  Furtively, he peered first to his right,
then to his left, repeated the ex-88                 ROBERT LUDLUM

ercise, and nodded.  Instantly, two heavyset men in brown suits
walked out into the corridor and faced the elevators at the end of
the hallway, sufficiently apart to allow Sam to walk between them.
     "I promised Cora I'd pick up some scrod on my way home," said
the attorney without expression to his guards as they proceeded
down the corridor.
     "We get scrod," said the man on Sam's left, looking straight
ahead, in his voice a mild complaint.
     "She feeds Paddy Lafferty porterhouses," added the guard on
the right, more than a mild complaint in his voice.  "Char-grilled."
     "All right, all right, we'll also stop and get a couple of steaks,
okay?"
     "Better get four," suggested the left guard in a quiet monotone. 
"We're relieved at eight o'clock, and those gorillas will smell the
porters."
     "It's the rim of fat," opined the right guard, his focus rigidly
forward.  "it lingers so good for a long tmle."
     "So be it," agreed Devereaux.  "Four steaks and the scrod."
     "What about potatoes?" asked the left guard.  "Cora's not too big
with potatoes, and everybody likes potatoes."
     "After six o'clock Cora don't cook potatoes so good," said the
RG, permitting himself a slit of a smile on his impassive face. 
"Sometimes it's a little rough finding the oven."
"I'll bake 'em," said LG.
     "My Polish associate can't live without his Icartoffables.' "
     "That's kartofla, you dupa.  My Swedish associate shoulda
stayed in Norway, right Mr. DT'
     "Whatever."
     The elevator doors parted and the threesome walked inside,
where they were startled to find two uniformed men who had
obviously ridden to the penthouse by mistake, since they made no
attempt to get off.  Sam nodded politely, turned to face the closing
panels, and then blanched, his eyes widening in astonishment. 
Unless his practiced lawyer's vision had deceived him, both
uniformed officers at the rear of the elevator had small swastikas
attached to

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        89

their shirt collars! Pretending to have an itch at the back of his
neck, Devereaux turned casually to scratch, his eyes taking in their
necks.  The small black emblems were swastikas! He briefly locked
eyes with the man in the comer who smiled, the friendly grin
somewhat diminished by the absence of several teeth.  Sam quickly
turned his head back to the front, his confusion mounting-then
suddenly the explanation was clear.  In New York's Broadway
parlance, Boston was a "tryout town." Obviously, there was a World
War II play, probably at the Shubert or the Wilbur, presenting its
wares in Bean Town before assaulting the Big Apple.  Still, these
actors should know better than to appear off the stage and on the
streets in such costumes.  On the other hand, he had always heard
that actors were a breed apart; some lived their roles twenty-four
hours a day.  Wasn't there an English Othello who actually tried to
kill his Desdemona in a Jewish delicatessen one night on Forty-
seventh Street over a pastrami sandwich?
     The doors opened onto the crowded lobby and Devereaux
stepped out; he stood in place, glancing around, as his guards
flanked him.  The threesome proceeded rapidly toward the
building's entrance, dodging bodies and a plethora of attach6
cases, finally emerging on the wide pavement, where Aaron
Pinkus's limousine awaited them at the curb.
     "You'd think we were in Belfast, coverin' our asses from all those
bomb-throwin' lunatics," said Paddy Lafferty behind the wheel, as
the three passengers plummeted into the rear seat, Devereaux vised
between his two barrel-chested protectors.  "Straight home, Sam?"
continued the chauffeur, as he swung the huge car into the flow of
traffic.
     "Two stops, Paddy," replied Devereaux.  "Scrod and steaks."
     "Cora's doin' her thing, eh, boyo? She cooks a mean porter as
long as you remind her to get it off the fire quick enough. 
Otherwise you've got nuked gristle, and floatin' in bourbon, it is. 
But you better make it three porters, Sam.  My orders are to stay
and bring you back into town by eight-thirty."
"Mat's five porters," said the Polish praetorian.

90  ROBERT LUDLUM

     "Thanks, Stosh, but I'm not so hungry--2' "Not you, the relief."
     "Oh, yeah, they'll smell 'em.  You know why, don't you? It's the
border of fat that sizzles and hangs around-2' "All right," cried
Devereaux, trying to find a pause in the rapid conversation so as to
ask what he felt was a fairly vital question.  "Scrod, five porters,
rims of sizzling fat, and the goddamned relief's olfactory senses-it's
all settled.  Now why is Aaron bringing me back into town at eight-
thirty?"
     "Hey, boyo, it was your idea, Sammy, and I tell you, Mrs. Pinkus
thinks you're the darlin' of the day."
          "What for?"
     "You got that fancy invite to the art gallery soiree-how do you
like that? I heard her say soiree, which means you get pickled at
night after work and nobody cares."
     "Art gallery ... T'
     "Remember, lad, you told me it was that fancy-dan client who
thinks his wife has the hots for you, which is fine by him, and then
you told Mr. Pinkus that you didn't want to go, and he told Mrs.
Pinkus, who read that the senator was going to be there, so now
you're all going."
     "That crowd's a bunch of leeching fund-raisers and political
vultures."
     "They're top society, Sammy."
     "Same thing."
     "Then we go back with you, Paddy?" asked the guard on
Devereaux's right.
     "No, Knute, there won't be time.  You take Mr. D.'s car here. 
Your relief can follow us in their own."
     "What's with the time?" Stosh objected.  "Just drop us off
downtown.  Mr. D.'s car is very shaky in the turns." "You didn't get
it fixed, Sam?"
          "I forgot."
     "You' ' 11 have to live with it, Stosh.  Nothing suits the boss
better than driving his little Buick like he's doing now from the
office, but not Mrs. Boss.  This is her chariot, especially with the
license plate he happens to hate, and especially for a wingding Re
tonight."
"]Leeches and politicians," muttered Sam.
"Same thing, huhT' said Knute.

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                        91

MacKenzie Hawkins squinted through the windshield of the stolen
Oldsmobile at the limousine's license plate directly infront of him. 
The raised white letters across the green background spelled out
the name PINKus as though the announcement should strike fear
in the hearts of observers.  It would help if the name were
somewhat more threatening, thought Mac, nevertheless glad that he
had spotted it in front of Devereaux's place of employment, the
name itself one the Hawk would never forget.  For weeks during the
young lawyer's initial work on behalf of their former corporation,
Sam had kept yelling, What would Aaron Pinkus think? until Mac
could not stand it any longer and confined the hysterical attorney
to quarters just to get some peace.  This afternoon, however, a brief
telephone call to the law office confirmed the fact that Sam had
come home and somehow-God knew howmade peace with one
Aaron Pinkus, whose name was anathema to the Hawk.
     From there it was a simple matter to show his newly trained and
newly sheared aides-de-camp a six-year-old photograph of
Devereaux and order them to stay riding on the single elevator that
went up to the penthouse floor until the subject appeared and
subsequently to follow him at a discreet distance wherever he
walked, keeping in touch with their commanding officer over the
walkie-taMes he supplied them from his flight bag.  Don't get any
ideas, caballeros, because stealing government property is a thirty-
year offense, and I've got your stolen car with your fingerprints all
over it.
     Frankly, Mac thought that Sam would head to a friendly bar after
work.  Not that his former legal liaison was a heavy drinker-he was
barely a decent one-but he did like a nip or two after a hard day in
the field.  Well, goddamn, the Hawk had thought when he saw Sam
emerge from the building under protective escort.  How suspicious
and how ungrateful could a man be? Of all the unmitigated,
detestable strategies to employ-convoys! And to bring in his
employer, the obviously equally detestable Aaron Pinkus, was
downright treasonous, definitely unAmerican! The Hawk was not
sure his newly acquired

92                ROBERT LUDLUM

aides-de-camp were up to a new strategy.  On the other hand, a
good combat officer always brought out the best in his troops, no
matter how raw they were.  So he glanced at them, scrunched
beside him in the front seat-he certainly could not permit a potential
adversary to sit behind him in a foxhole.
     They definitely looked better with regulation haircuts and clean-
shaven faces, even though both were bobbing their heads up and
down to the Latin beat emanating from the radio.  "Okay, men,
'tenhut!" cried the Hawk, snapping off the radio while holding the
wheel.
     "Wot, loco man?" asked the astonished aide with less than all his
teeth, sitting next to the window.
     "That means 'attention.' You're to pay attention to what I say.,,

     "Maybe better, man, you pay us some cash, huh?" said the aide
sitting next to Mac.
     "All in good time, Corporal-I've decided to make you each a
corporal because I'm forced to place additional responsibilities on
your basic assignments.  Naturally, that calls for an upgrade in
pay... Incidentally, for identification purposes, what're your names?"
     "I'm Desi Arnaz," replied the aide by the window.
     "So am I," said his associate.
     "Fair enough.  D-One and D-Two, in that order.  Now, listen up."
          "Up where?"
     "Just listen.  We've encountered complications from the enemy
that will require,some aggressive initiative on both your parts.  You
may have to separate so as to draw hostile personnel away from
their posts, thus allowing the objective to be taken--2'
     "So far," interrupted D-One, "I got the 'required' 'cause it's used
a lot in courtrooms, like 'remanded.' The rest, I'm not so sure."
     So the Hawk shifted to fluent Spanish, which he had learned as
a young guerrilla leader in the Philippines fighting the Japanese. 
"iComprende?" he asked when he had finished.
     "iAbsolutamente!" cried D-Two.  "We cut up the

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       93

chicken and spread around the pieces so we catch the big lousy
fox!"
     "Very good, Corporal.  You learn that from one of your Latino
revolutions?"
     "No, seftor.  My mama used to read the noosurTy stories when
I was a liddle kid."
     "Wherever it comes from, grunt, use it.... Now, this is what we're
going to do-Christ on a pogo stick! What the hell are you wearing
on your collar?"
     "What, man?" asked D-One, shaken by the Hawk's sudden vocal
explosion.
     "You, too!" cried Hawkins.  "Your shirts-the collars on your shirts
... I didn't see them before!"
     "We didn't have no ties on before, neither," explained D-Two. 
"Chu give us dinero and to' us to buy two black ties before we go
into the big building with d'fancy elevator... Also, loco man, these
Wain't our own shirts.  A couple of bad gringos on motorcycles
were very unfriendly to us outside a restaurant on the highway... We
sold the motorcycles but we kept the shirts.  Nice, hub?"
     "You idiots! Those insignias are swastikas!"
     "Waz that?"
     "Pretty liddle things," observed D-Two, fingering the black
emblem of the Third Reich.  "We got big fancy ones on the back--2'
     "Rip 'em off your collars, Corporals, and keep your goddamn
tunics on."
          "Toon hocks?" D-One asked, bewildered.
     "The jackets, your coats, your unifonns-keep them." The Hawk
stopped in midstatement as up ahead the Pinkus limousine slowed
down and turned right into a side street; Mac did the same.  "If Sam
lives in this neighborhood, the boy's sweeping floors, not filing
briefs." The neighborhood referred to was a short, dark block lined
with small shops sandwiched between entrances to time-worn apart-
ments above, bringing to mind those tum-of-the-century sections of
large cities teeming with immigrants.  All that was missing were
pushcarts and peddlers and the sound of foreign tongues in
abrasive counterpoint.  The limousine glided into the curb fronting
a fish market; Mac could not do the same, as there was no available
parking space until

94                 ROBERT LUDLUM

the end of the block, at least a hundred feet away and barely seen. 
"I don't like it," said the Hawk.
     "You no like what?" asked D-One.
     "It could be an evasion maneuver."
     "Invasion?" cried D-Two, his eyes wide.  "Hey, loco man, we no
fight in no war, no revoluci6n! We are peaceful malefactors, dat's
all."
     "Malefactors ... T'
     "They also use that lots a' times in court," clarified the uniform
by the window.  "Like 'required' and 'remanded,' you know?"
     "No war and no revolution, son, just a cowardly, ungrateful
malefactor whose escorts may have spotted us.... You, D-One, I'm
going to stop for a moment; you get out and look around that fish
store-pretend you're shopping for dinner-and stay in touch.  There
may be a back door, but it isn't likely; they may even change
clothes, but our target would swim in his convoy's duds.  Still, we
can't take chances.  He's in the hands of pros now, men, and we've
got to show our calibers!"
     "Does all dat tonterfa mean I should watch the tall guy in the
picture?"
     "That's it, Corporal, and it's not proper to question your
superior's direct orders with improper invective."
          "Dat's beautifool!"
     "Move!" yelled the Hawk, braking the car as D-One opened the
door and got out, slamming it shut behind him.  "You, D-Two,"
continued Mac, shooting forward, "as soon as I park, I want you to
cross the street and walk halfway back to that big vehicle and keep
your eyes on it and the store.  If anybody comes out in a hurry and
gets into the limo or any car near it, let me know."
     "Isn't dat what Desi-One is doin', man?" asked D-Two, taking the
walkie-talkie out of his pocket.
     "He could be ambushed if the Eye-Corps is sharp enough, but
I sort of doubt it.  I generally stayed two vehicles behind the target-
movable, so I don't think they reconnoitered positive."
     "You talk funny, you know dat?"
     "Into position!" ordered the Hawk, swerving into the parking
space near the comer and instantly switching off

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                         95

the ignition.  D-Two leaped out of the car, rounded the hood, and
raced across the street with the alacrity of a seasoned point.  "Not
bad, caballero," said Mac to himself, reaching into his shirt pocket
for a cigar.  "You've both got definite possibilities.  Real noncom
stature."
     And then there was a gentle tapping on the windshield.  A
policeman stood on the curbside, gesturing with his club. 
Momentarily confused, the Hawk looked across the street at the
opposing empty space.  Just before it was a sign: NO PARKING
HERE TO CORNER.

Sam selected the slabs of scrod, thanked the Greek owner with his
customary, if mispronounced, "Epharist6, " and was welcomed by a
courteous "Parikala, Mr Deveroo, " as he paid the bill.  The two
guards, their interest in fish minimal, were bored, and so they
looked at the enlarged, faded, framed photographs of various
Aegean islands on the wall, but with no interest whatsoever. 
Several other customers, seated at two white Formica tables and all
speaking Greek, seemed more intent on conversing with one
another than buying anything.  They greeted two newcomers to the
store, but not a third, a man in an oddly unidentifiable uniform who
proceeded to walk to the rear counter, which was empty except for
chopped ice, and kept peering over the top.  Under the scrutiny of
his observers, he then pulled a hand-held radio out of his pocket,
raised it to his lips, and began to speak.
     "Fascistas!" screamed an elderly bearded Zorba from the table
nearest the rear counter.  "Look! He signals the Gennans!"
     As one, the former overage partisans from Salonika stumbled
forward to attack and, capture the hated enemy of fifty years ago
even as Sam's two guards rushed to his side, their weapons drawn. 
The object of the aged Greek warriors' assault slashed his arms and
kicked his feet out at his attackers, parting them with a certain
professional expertise, and raced to the door, stopping just briefly
enough to reach into a fishtank by the entrance.
     I know that man!" yelled Devereaux, breaking away

96                 ROBERT LUDLUM

     from the grips of his protectors.  "He wore a swastika on his
     collar! I saw it when we were in the elevator!' "What
     elevator?" asked the Scandinavian cohort.  "The one we rode
     down on from the office!" "I didn't see no colored swastikas
     in the elevator," proclaimed the Polish contingent.
     "I didn't say color, I said on his collar!"
     "You talk funny, you know?"
     "You hear funny, have you ever considered that? ... He's closing
in, I can feel it!"
          "Feel what?" asked Knute.
     "The Titanic.  He's on his disaster course-for me-I know it! He's
the most devious son of a bitch that hell ever created.  Let's get out
of here!"
     "Sure, Mr. D. We'll pick up the porterhouses at that meat market
in Boylston and head right to your place."
     "Hold it!" cried Devereaux.  "No, we won't.... Give your coats to
a couple of those fellows over at the tables and pass out a few
hundred dollars to convince them to get into Aaron's limo, and be
driven around the harbor... You go out first, Knute, and tell Paddy
to drop them off at some gin mill on the way to the Pinkus house
and I'll meet him there.  Stosh, you call for a cab, and we'll coor-
dinate the whole thing."
     "This all sounds crazy, Mr. DX' said Stosh, taken aback at Sam's
sudden tone of authority.  "I mean, sir, it doesn't sound like yourself
... sir."
     "I' in going back in time, Stanley, and I was taught by a master. 
He is closing in.  I really do know it.  But he made a mistake."
          "What was that ... sir?" asked Knute.
     "He used a real U.S. Army man to do his dirty work.  The uniform
was plucked like a chicken, but did you notice the posture, the
clipped hair on the back of his neckthat bastard was government
issue!"

"Loco man, where are you?"
"Around the block, stuck in the goddamned traffic!
Which one are you?"
"Desi-Dos.  Desi- Uno is wid me."

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                      97

     "Hello, loco man.  You are crazier than a bunch of coocoo
parrots.  "
     "What's the on-scene evaluation?"
     "Cut the crap, man, I got almost killed!"
     "A firefight? "
     "Wid fish? Don't be dumb ... wid crazy old men wid beards
who don't speak no h'English.
          "You're not making sense, D-One.  "
     "There h'ain't a lot of that goin' around.  Specially wid the tall
skinny gringo you got a bad thing for "Be clearer, Corporal!"
     "He sent some old men away in the big black car wearing silly
clothes-he thinks we don't catch on.  He's one dumb gringo!"
     "Catch on to what?"
     "He @ waidin' for annuder car One of his amigos is standing
in front, lookin' around.  "
     "Goddamn, I'll never get back there in time.  We're going to
lose him! "
     "Not to worry, loco man-"
     "Not worry? Every hour counts!"
     "Hey, man, how far do these liddle radios go for talkin'?
     "They're military-cellular megahertz frequencied.  Up to a
hundred and ftfiy miles over land, twice that over water "
     "We h'ain't goin' swimmin' in no cars, so everything@ Wokay. 
"
     "What the hell are you talking about?"
     "We're gonna follow the gringo and his amigos.
     "Follow ... ? For the love of Caesar's legions, in what? "
     "Desi-Dos already hotwired a nice Cheffy.  Not to worry, we'll
stay in touch wid chu.
     "You're stealing a car?"
     "Hey, we don' steal nudding.  It's like you say-good estrategia. 
Right, loco man?"

Paddy Lafferty was definitely not amused by the three bearded,
elderly Greeks in the back of the Pinkus limou-98                 ROBERT LUDLUM

sine.  One, they smelled like a combination of dead fish and
baklava; two, they kept turning on every switch they could find, like
mental cases in a Video World; three, they looked ridiculous in the
ill-fitting jackets belonging to Sam, Stosh, and Knute--especially
with their beards halfcovering the lapels; four, there was a distinct
possibility that one of them had blown his nose-twice--on the velour
window drapes; five--oh, hell, what was the point? He'd have to do
a complete detail job on the car before Mrs. Pinkus stepped into it.
     It wasn't that Paddy objected to what Sam was doing; actually,
it was kind of exciting and surely broke up the monotony of his
daily driving schedule, but nothing was really clear to Lafferty.  In
truth, the whole truth was known only to the Devereaux boyo and
Mr. Pinkus.  Apparently, Sammy had been mixed up in some terrible
shenanigans a few years ago and now someone was coming after
him to, settle a score or two.  That, of course, was enough for
Paddy; he was very fond of Devereaux, even though the hotshot
lawyer could be a little squirrelly at times, and anybody who knew
the name of one of the army's great men, General MacKenzie
Hawkins, was someone sort of special in Lafferty's eyes.  Too few
people these days, especially the yuppie types, paid the respect
due the great old soldiers, so it was nice to know that among Sam's
qualities was a regard for the country's true heroes.
     All this was on the plus side for Mr. Pinkus and his favored
employee, but what wasn't so plug was the information Paddy felt
they all should be given.  For instance, who was after Sam, and
why, and what did they look like? Surely the answers to these
simple questions were vital to Devereaux's protection.  Well, not
necessarily the why, because that could be a legal thing, but the
who and what the hell they looked like were pretty damned
important.  Instead, all they were told was that Sam would know,
Sam would raise an alarm the instant he recognized the bastard or
bastards coming after him.  Well, Lafferty had never been an officer,
but even a combat sergeant knew a short, proper response to that
kind of reasoning.  As that great

              THE ROAD TO OMAHA                       99

soldier Mac the Hawk might have said: "You don't make a primary
target one of your forward scouts."
     Suddenly, the limo's telephone rang, abruptly shattering the
chauffeur's hero-oriented thoughts about a man he surely
worshiped from ten glorious days in France when that great soldier
led their battalion.  "Lafferty here," he said, the phone out of its
recess and next to his ear.
     "Paddy, it's Sam Devereaux!" yelled the voice over the line.
     "Somehow I can tell that, boyo.  What is it, Sammy?"
     "Are you being followed?"
     "I was hopin' to be, but I'm afraid not, and I've kept one eye on
the miffors-"
     "We are!"
"That don't make sense, lad.  Are you sure?"
"Definitely! I'm calling from a pay phone on the
Waltham road-at a place called Nanny's Naughty Follies
Et Cetera."
     "Hey, boyo, get out of there@ You shouldn't be seen on those
premises.  Mr. Pinkus wouldn't like it."
     "What? Why?"
     "Are you callin' from the phone about ten feet from the jukebox?"
     "Yes, I guess so, I see a jukebox."
     "Look over to your left, at that big circular bar below a long,
raised platform."
     "Yes, yes, I will.... There's just a bunch of dancers-oh, my God,
they're all naked! Women and men!"
I "That's the et cetera, boyo.  Now, if I were you, I'd take fleet feet
and beat it."
     "I can't! Knute and Stosh went out after the Chevy that was
following our cab and stopped when we stopped.  I mean, they're
really professionals, Paddy.  They spotted the 'tag'-they called it a
'tag'-and got rid of the taxi, and now they're closing in."
     "I'll be there in less than ten minutes, Sammy! I'm droppin' these
Greek archbishops off at the next gas station and swingin' north. 
I know a shortcut.  Ten minutes, boyo!"

100               ROBERT LUDLUM

"Loco man, are you wid us?"
     "If your trail markers are accurate, no more than five minutes, D-
One.  I just passed the Chicken Shot Cafg, the one with the red
neon rooster sign.  "
     "Maybe you gringos don't know dee difference.  Maybe you eat
chicken McRooster, no? ... It don't take you even. five minutes from
that place.  "
     "What's the status-what's happening?"
     "We good corporates.  We got a liddle surprise for you, loco
man.  "
     "Ten-four!"
     "Ees not six o'clock-"
     "Rolling! "
     The stolen Oldsmobile from somewhere in the Midwest careened
into Nanny's parking lot in less than three minutes, MacKenzie
Hawkins chewing the stub of his cigar 'and peering out the
windshield for his aides-de-camp.  Instantly, he saw D-Two at the far
end of the asphalt, waving what looked like a large, torn dark
blanket.  As he raced toward his mechanically talented adjutant, he
saw that the signal flag was not a blanket but, instead, a pair of
trousers.  The Hawk leaped out of the car and approached D-Two,
taking a moment to straighten his too-long, toored, and, definitely
still too-loose wig.
     "What's your report, Corporal?" asked Mac anxiously.  "And what
the hell are those?" he added, nodding at the trousers.
     "Dere pants, loco man, what you think?"
     "I can see they're pants, but what are you doing with them?"
     "Ees better I got 'em than the bad amigo who usually wears
dem, no? As long as I have deze and Desi-Uno has the odders, the
two dumb amigos stay where dey are."
     "The two-the escorts, the convoys? Where are they ... and
where's the target?"
     "Come wid me." D-Two led the Hawk down the deserted far side
of the building, which was obviously used for deliveries and
garbage pickups.  Parked next to a large trash dumpster, parked so
close that the door could not possibly be opened, was a Chevrolet
coupe, its opposite door equally secured by a long, discarded
tablecloth knot-