'Get movin', gal.'
If the S.S. apes showed up again - no, when they showed up - they probably would not have duplicate warrants. If their leader was silly enough to break into a locked house without a warrant, well, he might have to turn Mike loose on them. But this blind warfare of attrition had to be stopped - which meant that Jubal simply had to get through to the Secretary General.
How?
Call the Executive Palace again? Heinrich had probably been telling the simple truth when he said that a renewed attempt would simply be referred to Heinrich - or to whatever S.S. boss was now warming that chair that Heinrich would never need again. Well? It would surely surprise them to have a man they had sent a squad to arrest blandly phoning in, face to face - he might be able to bull his way all the way up to the top. Commandant What's- his-name, chap with a face like a well-fed ferret, Twitchell. And certainly the commanding officer of the S.S. buckos would have direct access to the boss.
No good. You had to have a feeling for what makes the frog jump. It would be a waste of breath to tell a man who believes in guns that you've got something better than guns and that he can't arrest you and might as well give up trying. Twitchell would keep on throwing men and guns at them till he ran out of both - but he would never admit he couldn't bring in a man whose location was known.
Well, when you couldn't use the front door you got yourself slipped in through the back door - elementary politics. Jubal regretted mildly that he had ignored politics the last quarter century or so. Damn it, he needed Ben Caxton - Ben would know who had keys to the back door - and Jubal would know somebody who knew one of them.
But Ben's absence was the whole reason for this silly donkey derby. Since he couldn't ask Ben, whom did he know who would know?
Hell's halfwit, he had just been talking to one! Jubal turned back to the phone and tried to raise Tom Mackenzie again, running into only three layers of interference on the way, all of whom knew him and passed him along quickly. While he was doing this, his staff and the Man from Mars came in; Jubal ignored them and they sat down, Miriam first stopping to write on a scratch pad: 'Doors and windows locked.'
Jubal nodded to her and wrote below it: 'Larry - panic button?' then said to the screen, 'Tom, sorry to bother you again.'
'A pleasure, Jubal.'
'Tom, if you wanted to talk to Secretary General Douglas, how would you go about it?'
'Eh? I'd phone his press secretary, Jim Sanforth. Or possibly Jock Dumont, depending on what I wanted. But I wouldn't talk to the Secretary General at all. Jim would handle it.'
'But suppose you wanted to talk to Douglas himself.'
'Why, I'd tell Jim and let him arrange it. Be quicker just to tell Jim my problem, though; it might be a day or two before he could squeeze me in? and even then I might be bumped for something more urgent. Look, Jubal, the network is useful to the administration - and we know it and they know it. But we don't presume on it unnecessarily.'
'Tom? assume that it is necessary. Suppose you just had to speak to Douglas. Right now. Not next week. In the next ten minutes.'
Mackenzie's eyebrows went up. 'Well - if I just had to, I would explain to Jim why it was so urgent-'
'No.'
'Be reasonable.'
'No. That's just what I can't be. Assume that you had caught Jim Sanforth stealing the spoons, so you couldn't tell him what the emergency was. But you had to speak to Douglas immediately.'
Mackenzie sighed. 'I suppose I would tell Jim that I simply had to talk to the boss - and that if I wasn't put through to him right away, the administration would never get another trace of support from the network, Politely, of course. But make him understand that I meant it. Sanforth is nobody's fool; he would never serve his own head up on a platter.'
'Okay, Tom, do it.'
'Huh?'
'Leave this call on. Call the Palace on another instrument - and have your boys ready to cut me in instantly. I've got to talk to the Secretary General right now!'
Mackenzie looked pained. 'Jubal, old friend-'
'Meaning you won't.'
'Meaning I can't. You've dreamed up a hypothetical situation in which a - pardon me - major executive of an intercontinental network could speak to the Secretary General under conditions of dire necessity. But I can't hand this entre over to somebody else. Look, Jubal, I respect you. Besides that, you are probably four of the six most popular writers alive today. The network would hate to lose you and we are painfully aware that you won't let us tie you down to a contract. But I can't do it, even to please you. You must realize that one does not telephone the World chief of government unless he wants to speak to you.'
'Suppose I do sign an exclusive seven-year contract?'
Mackenzie looked as if his teeth hurt, 'I still couldn't do it. I'd lose my job - and you would still have to carry out your contract.'
Jubal considered calling Mike over into the instrument's visual pickup and naming him. He discarded the idea at once. Mackenzie's own programmes had run the fake 'Man from Mars' interviews - and Mackenzie was either crooked and in on the hoax? or he was honest, as Jubal thought he was, and simply would not believe that he himself had been hoaxed. 'All right, Tom, I won't twist your arm. But you know your way around in the government better than I do. Who calls Douglas whenever he likes - and gets him? I don't mean Sanforth'
'No one.'
'Damn it, no man lives in a vacuum! There must be at least a dozen people who can phone him and not get brushed off by a secretary.'
'Some of his cabinet, I suppose. And not all of them.'
'I don't know any of them, either; I've been out of touch. But I don't mean professional politicos. Who knows him so well that they can call him on a private line and invite him to play poker?'
'Umm? you don't want much, do you? Well, there's Jake Allenby. Not the actor, the other Jake Allenby. Oil.'
'I've met him. He doesn't like me. I don't like him. He knows it.'
'Douglas doesn't have very many intimate friends. His wife rather discourages- Say, Jubal? how do you feel about astrology?'
'Never touch the stuff. Prefer brandy.'
'Well, that's a matter of taste. But- see here, Jubal, if you ever let on to anyone that I told you this, I'll cut your lying throat with one of your own manuscripts.'
'Noted. Agreed. Proceed.'
'Well, Agnes Douglas does touch the stuff?, and I know where she gets it. Her astrologer can call Mrs. Douglas at any time - and, believe you me, Mrs. Douglas has the ear of the Secretary General whenever she chooses. You can call her astrologer? and the rest is up to you.'
'I don't seem to recall any astrologers on my Christmas card list,' Jubal answered dubiously. 'What's his name?'
'Her. And you might try crossing her palm with silver in convincing denominations. Her name is Madame Alexandra Vesant. Washington Exchange. That's V, E, S, A, N, T.'
'I've got it,' Jubal said happily. 'And, Tom, you've done me a world of good!'
'Hope so. Anything for the network soon?'
'Hold it.' Jubal glanced at a note Miriam had placed at his elbow some moments ago. It read: 'Larry says the transceiver won't trans - and he doesn't know why.' Jubal went on, 'That spot coverage failed earlier through a transceiver failure here - and I don't have anyone who can repair it.'
'I'll send somebody.'
'Thanks. Thanks twice.'
Jubal switched off, placed the call by name and instructed the operator to use hush amp; scramble if the number was equipped to take it. It was, not to his surprise. Very quickly Madame Vesant's dignified features
