“I didn’t think you were.”
Henley interrupted. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
The commander sighed. “Just why would you want Berendtsen back, Major?”
“Then, he’s available?”
“Just answer the question, please. We’ll do this my way.”
Henley licked his lips. Custis could hear the sound plainly. “Well,” the political officer finally said in a persuasive voice, “there’s been no hope of stability anywhere since he was deposed. Governments come and go overnight. A constitution isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. We’ve never been under Berendtsen’s rule, but his law stood up better than most. We need something like that in Chicago—the whole upper Middlewest needs it.” Now that he’d gotten started, he was talking much more easily. “Paper money’s so much mouse-stuffing, credit’s nonexistent, and half the time your life’s at the mercy of the next man’s good will. We don’t have a society—we have a poorly organized rabble. If Berendtsen’s still alive, we need him. He’s the only man anyone’ll follow with any enthusiasm.”
“Follow a corpse?”
“Follow a name—a legend. A legend of a time when there was civilization in the world.”
“Do you really believe that, Henley?”
“Of course!”
“Oh, you believe that it’ll work—you can see how a crowd would fall into line, believing it. But you realize, don’t you, that if Berendtsen were to take over Chicago, the first thing he would do is order you and your gang hung.”
Henley gave it one more try. “Would he? If we were the ones who gave him the opportunity to come back and finish what he’d begun?”
“I don’t think Ted Berendtsen would have shown that kind of suicidal gratitude. No.”
“Then you won’t do it?”
“I’m not Berendtsen.”
“Then, who is? Do you know where he is?”
“Berendtsen’s been dead thirty years,” the old man said. “What in heaven’s name did you expect? If he was alive—and he’s not—he’d be sixty years old now. A man that age, in this world—your whole scheme’s fantastic, Major, and rational men would know it. But you can’t let yourselves think rationally about it. You need your Berendtsens too badly.”
“Then that’s your final word?”
“I want to ask Custis something, first. You stay and listen. It’ll interest you.”
Custis frowned.
“Custis?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Do you think I’m Berendtsen?”
“You asked me that. No.”
“You don’t. Well, do you think Berendtsen’s alive?”
“No.”
“I see. You don’t think I’m Berendtsen, and you don’t think Berendtsen’s alive—then, what’re you doing up here in these mountains? What were you hoping to find?”
Custis felt himself getting angry. He felt he was being chivvied into a corner. “Nothing, maybe. Maybe I’m just a guy doing a job, because he has to. Not looking for anything or anybody—just doing a job.”
The commander laughed mirthlessly. The sound stabbed at Custis out of the growing darkness in the cabin. “It’s time we stopped lying to each other, Joe. You put your car—your entire life—in a position where you might lose them instantly. You know it and I know it, and let’s not argue the merits of dust grenades against napalm shells. Why did you take that kind of gamble? Why were you dangling that bait? Who were you hoping might snap at it?”
“It was a quick way of finding out what Henley wanted to know.”
“And how did you propose to get out, once you’d gotten yourself in? You don’t give two cents paper for Henley. You’re an independent armored-car commander on a simple contract job; why all the extra effort? You must have known damned well this mission wasn’t in the interests of the Seventh Republic You’re a child of the age. If you’d let yourself stop and think, you would have realized what was going on. But you don’t care anything about the Eighth Republic, either. A man doesn’t pledge allegiance to one of a meaningless string of numbers. No. What you wanted to do was to pledge allegiance to a man who’s thirty years dead. Now deny it.”
Custis didn’t have an answer. It was dark outside. He’d played out his string, with the commander and with himself.
“You want me to tell you I’m Berendtsen, don’t you?”
“Maybe,” Custis said grudgingly.
The commander laughed again—a harsh, bitter croak of sound that made the hackles stand on Custis’s neck. Henley was breathing heavily in the darkness.
“You and Henley—both damned fools. What would you do with your Berendtsen, Joe? Starve with him, up here in these mountains with an old man? If you found him, did you expect him to go and remake the world for you? He tried that, once. And maybe he succeeded, if men can still hope because he lived.
“But what could he do now, an old man? His sort of life is a young man’s game—if it’s anyone’s.
“You, Joe—you’re a different breed from this jackal beside you. What do you think Berendtsen started with? What’s the matter with you, Custis? You’ve got a car, and a crew that’ll follow you anywhere. What do you need some ready-made hero for?”
Custis had no answer at all.
“Don’t worry, Joe—Henley’s getting an earful. I can hear the gears turning in his head. Right now, he’s planning how to use you. He can see it already. The Chicago machine swinging in behind you. The carefully built-up legend they’ll manufacture around you. The indomitable strong American from the plains. All you’ll have to do is stand up on a platform and shout, and his gang will take care of the rest. That’s what he’s thinking. But you don’t have to worry about him. You can take care of him. It’ll be a long time before anyone like you has to worry about anyone like Henley —years. And I can sit here and tell you this, and the likes of Henley’ll still not worry, because they think they can always run things. Of course, in order to safeguard the legend of Joe Custis, he has to make sure, once and for all, that Berendtsen won’t return—”
Custis heard the sound of steel snaking out of Henley’s boot-top. He jumped for where the man had been, but Henley’d had minutes to get ready. Custis heard him bump into the desk, and the thin scream of his blade through the air.
The old man’ll have moved, Custis thought. He’d had time. He heard the ripe sound of Henley’s dagger, and then the dull chunk! as its hilt stopped against flesh. He heard the old commander sigh.
He stood still, breathing open-mouthed, until he heard Henley move. He went in low, under where the blade might be. As Custis hit him, Henley whispered: “Don’t be a fool Don’t make any noise! With any luck, we can walk out of here!”
He broke Henley apart with his hands, making no noise and permitting none from Henley. He let the officer slip to the floor and went silently around the table, to where he felt the old man folded over. He touched his shoulder. “Commander—”
“It’s all right,” the old man sighed. “I’ve been waiting for it.” He stirred. “I’ve left things in a terrible mess. He was quicker to make up his mind than I had expected.” He hunched himself up, his cracked fingernails scraping at his shirt. “I don’t know now…you’ll have to get out without me, somehow. I can’t help you. Why am I so old?”
“It’s O.K., Commander. I’ve had somethin’ figured out. I’ll make it.”
“You’ll need a weapon.” The commander raised his head and pulled his shoulders back. “Here.” He tugged at his chest and fumbled the wet knife into Custis’s hand.
CHAPTER SIX
