Two Songs This Archangel Sings

destroyed them it won't make a difference. Viktor Raskolnikov has slides of every painting Veil has ever sold; with his eye, sorting out the early slides and piecing them together into the Archangel mural or murals shouldn't be too great a trick. Raskolnikov also has a list of the original owners, so reporters across the country will not only know what to look for, but where to look. It won't prove Madison's a murderer, but it will make a great story, and it will reveal what kind of a man Madison really is. That may be all we can hope for. Then, when Veil kills him, at least people will know why. It will be a great media event-an entire nation, through newspapers and television, putting together one huge jigsaw puzzle with themes of treachery, betrayal, and death by Kevin Shannon's secretary of state. Every time another piece of that puzzle is found, a big, bloody chunk of this administration goes down the toilet. And, who knows? Maybe, as the process goes on, something will be found to prove that Madison's a murderer, and Veil won't have to do your dirty work for you. It's certainly going to be interesting, don't you think?'

Andrews looked up at me, fear in his eyes. 'If you do this, Frederickson, you'll be a traitor,' he said hoarsely. 'The damage you'll do to this country will be unimaginable.'

'Bullshit. The damage we'll do to the Shannon administration will be unimaginable, but you're the one, acting on orders from Shannon, who decided he wanted to play what you politicians love to call hardball. People like you and your boss are the ones who do unimaginable damage to this country when you lie, and when you use your power to twist or circumvent laws for your own convenience. You have no soul. This country doesn't need sleazeballs like you in power. The bad taste this story leaves in people's mouths will be more than offset by the tale of one unbelievably courageous man, a fierce patriot and the greatest soldier this country has ever produced, fighting against impossible odds, not only with his combat skills, but with his art. And he wins when the truth finally comes out. The image Veil projects will be what Americans are attracted to, and what they will identify with. Your whole sleazy crew will soon be forgotten, but not Archangel. Maybe Veil will give Americans new respect for themselves, and help us finally to get the Viet Nam war behind us once and for all. In fact, I think it might be jolly good fun if we dubbed this whole process Operation Son of Archangel. You like that idea, Mr. Andrews?'

Garth smiled crookedly, said: 'I like it, Mongo.'

McGarvey said: 'I don't understand half of what the hell you're talking about, but I like it too.'

Andrews said: 'Captain, I need to use your phone.'

'Just as long as you call collect, creep,' McGarvey said, then turned and walked to the door. 'I'll get a medical kit for His Highness.'

Garth and I followed McGarvey out of the office, and I closed the door behind us. Five minutes later the door opened and Andrews, his face still covered with his bloody handkerchief and fear in his eyes, stood and stared at us for some time without speaking. McGarvey, Garth, and I stared back.

'Would you two come with me, please?' Andrews said at last.

'Sure,' I replied. 'Right after I make my call to my reporter friend. I'm a little anxious to get Son of Archangel rolling.'

'Please, Frederickson; no calls yet. You've won, and you are in a position to destroy this administration. I… mishandled this situation badly. Perhaps you'll be more gracious than I was, and give this administration and this country just a bit more time.'

'Give me back the package of slides, the list of owners, and the sequence key. We'll give it all to Captain McGarvey for safekeeping.'

Andrews lowered his eyes. 'I'm sorry. I destroyed the package after I saw what it contained.'

'He's telling the truth,' McGarvey said, the disgust in his voice directed at himself as well as Andrews. 'He had me start a fire in a trash can in the back. For your information, it looked like there were four pieces of paper along with the slides. One had names and numbers on it, and the other three looked like sketches.'

I grunted. 'Three murals to piece together.'

'There are still the slides belonging to the art dealer,' Andrews said. 'You have nothing to lose by holding off just a little longer. Will you come with me? There's a plane waiting for us at Albany Airport.'

'Where are we going?'

'Washington. The president of the United States would very much like to speak to the two of you.'

21

'How the hell did you know what was in that packet?' Garth asked me when, hours later, we were finally alone.

'What else could it have been?' I replied as I stretched out on a monster bed in a monster suite in the most monstrously expensive hotel in Washington. In the bedroom there was a spectacular view through a huge picture window out over the Ellipse. In the distance, the sun was going down behind the Washington Monument; the last, blood-red rays were split and scattered by the tip of the spire, making it appear as if the concrete spear had pierced the ball of fire in its heart. There were two Secret Service agents in the hallway outside the suite-whether to guard us or keep us from leaving, we weren't sure, but at the moment it didn't seem to make much difference.

'Whatever was in the packet almost certainly had to relate to the Archangel business,' I continued. 'Otherwise, Veil wouldn't have gone to so much trouble to make sure it was in a safe place, with Gary Worde in the mountains; a safe deposit box was no good, because Madison could have gained access to that. He put the record into a kind of time capsule without knowing if, or how, he would ever use it. But what kind of record? Veil certainly didn't walk out of any army stockade with secret documents in his pocket, and he would have had no access to any kind of documentation after he was out. So whatever was in the packet had to have been created by him. When I realized that, everything else fell into place. Vivid reds, browns, and greens combined with flesh tones are the colors he used when he first began to paint. Those are also the colors he'd used in the painting he left for me in the secret compartment in his loft, the colors of men, blood, and jungle.'

'Kendry could have gone up there and gotten the slides himself, at the beginning,' Garth said, unrelieved bitterness in his voice. 'Instead, he let you and me roam around on a Goddamn scavenger hunt.'

'It's arguable whether he could have gone himself, Garth. Remember that he'd been under constant surveillance from the time he'd been kicked out of the army. Madison must have known about his visits to Worde, and after the botched assassination attempt Madison's men were almost certainly watching those mountains; they could have been waiting for him to try to go to Worde long before we ever went up there. We provided the necessary distraction for Madison's forces. It's also arguable whether he could have done anything with the slides himself even if he had been able to get them out without being ambushed. Without someone else to bear witness to the truth, he would have been just a discredited man peddling a bizarre slide show while constantly having to look over his shoulder.'

'So now we're the ones who constantly have to look over our shoulders.'

'He couldn't have done it alone, Garth. He needed us.'

It was obvious from the expression on Garth's face that he didn't agree, but he let it go. 'A hell of a piece of quick thinking under pressure, brother,' Garth said, putting a huge hand affectionately on my shoulder.

Garth sat down on the edge of the bed, and we remained silent for some time, staring out the window as the wounded sun continued to sink down behind the monument.

'I should have killed that fuck, Andrews,' Garth continued at last in a matter-of-fact tone that startled me and sent a little chill up my spine.

I eased myself up into a sitting position, next to Garth, and looked into his face in the gathering darkness. What I saw, I didn't like. 'I'm glad you didn't, brother. I don't think we could have gotten clear of that, and I like happy endings.'

'We're never going to get clear of this, Mongo. Madison's been trying to kill us with bullets; these guys are trying to do the same thing, in a different way. There isn't going to be any happy ending.'

'Why not? You said the same thing when we were caught up in Valhalla, and we were in one hell of a lot worse shape then. I think we're in a pretty good position right now.'

'I just wish I'd killed him when I had the chance,' Garth said distantly, after a long pause.