'I said wait a minute, will you, please?'
'My rank is colonel in the United States Army, and I expect to be addressed as such,' said the officer testily.
Evan looked hard at the witness, momentarily forgetting the microphone. 'I'll address you any way I like, you arrogant bastard.' Cameras jolted, bleeps filled audios everywhere, but too late for the exclusion. '… unless you've personally amended the Constitution, which I doubt you've ever read,' continued Kendrick, studying the papers in front of him, chuckling quietly as he recalled his meeting with Frank Swann at the State Department before he went to Masqat. 'Inquisition, my ass.'
'I resent your attitude—’
'A lot of taxpayers resent yours, too,' interrupted Evan, looking at Barrish's service record and remembering Frank Swann's precise words over a year ago. 'Let me ask you, Colonel, have you ever fired a gun?'
'I'm a soldier!'
'We've both established that, haven't we? I know you're a soldier; we inquisitorial civilians are paying your salary—unless you rented the uniform.' The congressional chamber rippled with quiet laughter. 'What I asked you was whether you had ever fired a gun.'
'Countless times. Have you?'
'Several, not countless, and never in uniform.'
'Then I think the question is closed.'
'Not entirely. Did you ever use a weapon for the purpose of killing another human being whose intention was to kill you?'
The subsequent silence was lost on no one. The soft reply was registered on all. 'I was never in combat, if that's what you mean.'
'But you just said you were in lethal combat, et cetera, et cetera, which conveys to everyone in here and the audience out there that you're some kind of modern-day Davy Crockett holding the fort at the Alamo, or a Sergeant York, or maybe an Indiana Jones blasting away at the bad guys. But that's all wrong, isn't it, Colonel? You're an accountant who's trying to justify the theft of millions—maybe billions—of the taxpayers' money under the red, white and blue flag of super patriotism.'
'You son of a…! How dare you—' The jolting cameras and the bleeps again came too late, as Colonel Barrish rose from his chair and pounded the table.
'The committee is adjourned! yelled the exhausted chairman. 'Adjourned, goddamn it!'
In the darkened control room of one of Washington's network stations, a grey-haired newscaster stood in a corner studying the congressional monitor. As most of America had seen him do countless times, he pursed his lips in thought, then turned to the assistant beside him.
'I want that congressman—whoever the hell he is—on my show next Sunday.'
The upset woman in Chevy Chase cried into the phone, 'I tell you, Mother, I never saw him like that before in my life! I mean it, he was positively drunk. Thank God for that nice foreigner who brought him home! He said he found him outside a restaurant in Washington barely able to walk—can you imagine? Barely able to walk! He recognized him, and, being a good Christian, thought he'd better get him off the streets. What's so insane, Mother, is that I didn't think he ever touched a drop of alcohol. Well, obviously I was wrong. I wonder how many other secrets my devoted minister has! This morning he claimed he couldn't remember anything—not a thing, he said… Oh, my sweet Jesus! Mother, he just walked in the front door—Momma, he's throwing up all over the rug!'
'Where the hell am I?' whispered Arvin Partridge, Sr., shaking his head and trying to focus his eyes on the shabby curtained windows of the motel room. 'In some rat's nest?'
'That's not far off the mark,' said the blond man, approaching the bed. 'Except that the rodents who frequent this place usually do so for only an hour or two.'
'You!' screamed the representative from Alabama, staring at the Czech. 'What have you done to me?'
'Not to you, sir, but for you,' answered Varak. 'Fortunately, I was able to extricate you from a potentially embarrassing situation.'
