'What? After what he went through for his country? The camps, the-'
'Exactly. No, wait a minute. Let me tell you. When I was with the
'Such as?'
'Such as the Chicoms brainwashed all our prisoners before the North Viets returned them. Turned them into agents. He claimed most of them wouldn't even know they were agents till they got their orders from Peking. All they would know was they were supposed to get into important positions in the Pentagon, and in government and business. They were sort of, like, hypnotized as well as brainwashed.'
Thorkelsen's editor hailed from Orange County, Bircher country, and could believe in seven more outrageous communist plots before the first edition every morning. And his strongly conservative paper was in dire need of something that would catch the imagination of a predominantly liberal market.
When the man's jaw finally rose and his brain had at last finished pursuing the germs of a hundred new conspiracy theories, he asked, 'What about MIAs? Did he say anything about them?'
The man was planning a campaign, Thorkelsen saw. Allegations of a plot wouldn't get him the attention he desired. He had made a career of crying wolf. But an apparent break in the MIA question… that would grab national attention. While he had it, his message could be delivered. The nation could be awakened.
'Find that soldier, Nils!' Mack ordered. And he meant it. 'Find him and drain him like a spider would. Every detail. His whole story, from the minute he was captured. You get the name of just one MIA, we can hold the whole world by the nose while we pound it with this other thing.'
And for the next hour Thorkelsen endured a harangue damning the eastern Jew liberal press and the investigative reporting that had toppled Richard Nixon. Now those self-righteous hypocrites were going to get a shithouseful dumped right back in their laps.
But Cantrell had left no trail. It took Thorkelsen more than a year to identify and trace his man, now the bass guitarist of an obscure British rock group.
Long before Thorkelsen could make contact, before, even, he had located his man, Mack had begun trying to hype circulation with editorials hinting at a forthcoming blockbuster of a story, one that would send the blade of the guillotine plummeting toward the neck of the left-wing clique destroying the country.
Unfortunately, he named and told too much about Cantrell.
A Chinese agent included the articles in his routine reports. The story took months to percolate through the Peking bureaucracies, but it did, and eventually entered the ken of the man called Huang Hua.
An order for executive action went out immediately. Hua had the confidence of Mao's successor, Jua Kuo-feng, who had an even greater interest in the project than had the Chairman.
A race was on.
And Thorkelsen, plodding along in his spare time, drawn on only by drifty visions of a Pulitzer, convinced he was hunting one crackpot at the behest of another, never knew he was running with other horses.
XIX. On the Y Axis;
1975
Cash found Lieutenant Railsback in the process of departing when he reached the office. 'Hang on a minute, Hank.' Beth had already left. An envelope addressed to him lay centered on her desk. 'I need a couple things. Mainly, a shot at the old lady's lawyer. To see if he'll let her go on the lie detector. When he says no, I want to show him what we've got.'
'What you've got? You've got to be kidding. You ain't got shit.'
'I've got four more mysterious disappearances, in her house, and a missing twenty grand in counterfeit that also looks like it ended up at her place.'
'What kind of crap are you trying to feed me now?'
Cash outlined his day.
'Look, let me think. I'm just going to the Rite-Way anyway. I'm going to hang around for the polygraph session.'
'Bring me a couple large Cokes and one of Sarah's special cheeseburgers then, okay? Here.' He handed over two dollars.
John came in while Cash was opening Beth's envelope. He had a cold six-pack. Two cans were missing. 'Bribes,' he admitted. Bringing beer in was a violation of regulations.
'Hank's coming back.' Cash popped a top and drained half a can.
'I know. He's got dibs on a can too. If I'd have known this was going to happen, I'd have got a case.'
'Let me see what Beth has to say here.'
It was a lengthy letter. She meandered. There had been something beside business on her mind. The gist was that she had begged, cajoled, or bullied everyone concerned into appearing for the polygraph test, and Immigration would be no help. The government hadn't gotten seriously involved until 1882. Their suggestion was to appeal to immigrant societies of the national group to which his subject belonged.
Well, he hadn't expected that angle to pan out.
If he wanted her to take notes during his evening extravaganza, he should call her at home.
'What do you think about Beth, John?'
'Huh? Nice ass. Tits ain't bad either. But she's cold. Something drifty about her.'
