Carlin and Leopold chuckled. The two thugs stayed silent. Strongfellow looked as if he wished he weren’t there.
Street ambled casually into the room, cigarette in one hand, OSS gun in the other. He stopped next to a statue, looked up, and regarded the likeness of Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He smirked and pulled himself up to sit on the statue’s marble pedestal, then ashed his cigarette on General Forrest’s boots.
“You want to know why,” Street said, looking at Charlie.
“He’s not entitled to know anything,” Leopold said.
“I want to know everything,” said Charlie, turning his gaze to Carlin. “And start at the beginning: Did you have Van Waganan killed?”
“You don’t have to tell him, Franklin,” Leopold said.
“Franklin?” said Charlie, noting the unusual use of Carlin’s first name.
“Go ahead and explain it, Mr. Chairman,” Street said. “We never meant for Charlie to get tangled up in any of this. And certainly not Margaret.”
“Of course not,” said Leopold. “I did everything I could to try to steer him in the right direction. But you wouldn’t listen, Congressman.”
“Martin Van Waganan had figured out what you’re doing,” said Charlie. “That’s why he’s dead, isn’t it?”
“Martin Van Waganan is dead because he was even more treasonous than you!” Carlin spat. “Someone at the Pentagon told him about the University of Chicago study by Mitchell and Kraus, how a defoliant could be used as a weapon against the Reds. And then he started looking into all of it. He had all these connections at the Pentagon and in corporate America that he’d picked up on the Truman Commission. Thankfully, our connections quickly told us what was going on and we positioned one of our Hellfire Club nuns right next to him so she could keep us abreast of everything the whole time.”
Leopold nodded, lips pursed.
“That’s correct,” she said. “And just like Congressman Marder, Congressman Van Waganan ignored me and thought he was somehow above it all and that all of those working so hard to save this country from the Red Menace were its enemies.”
“Which reminds me, Charlie,” said Carlin, “you owe Miss Leopold and our security team here a thank you for saving your wife’s life. Louis Gwinnett had orders from his Soviet friends to do whatever he needed to get those files on the General Kinetics plants. I have no doubt he would have killed her.”
“As you’re about to,” Charlie said.
Carlin shrugged. “At least this way you get to say good-bye.”
Charlie glanced at Margaret, who looked terrified.
“What do you mean, good-bye?” Strongfellow asked.
“By that, Chairman Carlin means that he intends to kill Charlie and Margaret,” Street said. “Or have them killed by you or me or those two meatballs over there.” He pointed at the two thugs next to Leopold, who shot Street angry looks. “Speaking of which, bring me my gun, the one you took from Charlie.” Street hopped down from the statue and held out his hand.
Strongfellow looked around the room in disbelief. He walked slowly toward Street and handed him the OSS gun he’d taken from Charlie. “Let me see yours too,” Street said.
Strongfellow handed over his .38. Street opened its chamber, clicked it back in place, and felt the weight of the piece in his palm.
“I’ve seen the Smith and Wesson Chief’s Special before, but I’ve never fired one,” Street said to Strongfellow as if he were at a cocktail party. “Feels good.”
“You’ll get to use it in a second,” Carlin said.
“Lyes rubyat, shchepki letyat,” Leopold said to Charlie. “That’s what Lenin said. ‘To chop down a forest, splinters will fly.’”
“Or in American, ‘You can’t make an omelet without cracking some eggs,’” said Carlin. “Forgive Catherine, she loves to show off how much she learned when she was undercover for military intelligence in Moscow.”
Margaret tried to speak, but they couldn’t understand her through the gag.
“What’s she saying?” asked Strongfellow.
“Go ahead and remove that, Catherine,” Carlin said.
After Margaret swallowed, she spoke: “Love the notion of an anti-Communist quoting Lenin,” she said.
“Should I put the gag back on?” asked Leopold.
“Margaret’s right; it’s perfect,” said Charlie. “‘To chop down a forest, splinters will fly.’ So they’ll fly into me and Margaret, right, who cares. But how many splinters are flying? General Kinetics is manufacturing this pesticide to spray all over insurgencies around the world—and the people and livestock dying here in the U.S. are just collateral damage? That’s what this is about? Is this pesticide really worth it?”
“You half-wit, these aren’t pesticides,” Carlin snarled. “We’re making chemical weapons.”
“You really think all of this is about defoliation?” said Leopold. “This is about the next century’s worth of warfare. Nukes probably won’t ever be used in our war against the Soviets or the Chinese. We will fight conventional wars, and we cannot afford another loss like in Korea. So we need a better way to fight.”
“Chemical weapons were outlawed after World War One,” Charlie said.
“Which is why a chemical weapon disguised as a defoliant is so brilliant,” said Leopold.
“You’re sick,” said Margaret. “You’re sociopaths. Innocent people might die.”
“They already have,” said Street. “It’s going on in Malaya right now. Vietnam might be next. Wake up, Margaret.”
“It’s simply astounding to me that people like you can literally almost be killed by Reds one minute and the next minute you’re essentially defending them,” Carlin said.
“You’re the ones reciting their mottoes,” Margaret said.
“We’re not defending Communists,” said Charlie. “We’re objecting to you killing innocent people. Whether in Malaya or here in the States.”
“None of the problems here in the U.S. are intentional,” said Strongfellow. “At least, the livestock incident in my district, in Skull Valley, was an accident. Chemical spill.”
“Oh, dear, sweet Strongfellow,” said Street. “None of this is an accident. They’re testing how effective these poisons are. On animals in Utah and on poor folk, whether blacks in Louisiana or whites in Appalachia. No one introduces a product to the market without vigorous testing.”
“We’ve told General Kinetics to change that,” said Carlin. “They’re moving the testing to Mexico and India.”
“So the Hellfire Club had Van Waganan killed before he could come forward with any of this, Charlie,” Street said. “He was starting to figure it out. What they didn’t know is that Van Waganan and MacLachlan were working together, and after Van Waganan was killed, Mac kept going.”
“But didn’t the Puerto Ricans kill Mac?” asked Strongfellow, clearly the most confused person in the room.
“Don’t be a fool,” Carlin said. “It’s not as if we wanted him dead and got lucky. There’s no such thing as lucky. There’s what we do and what we fail to do.”
“I don’t understand,” said Charlie.
Street chuckled. “So, Charlie, let’s imagine that Chairman Carlin is a powerful member of a secret society, an association that includes the FBI director as a member. An FBI director with paid informants everywhere—one who might have inside knowledge of the Puerto Rican nationalists’ plot to shoot up the Capitol ahead of time. And then let’s imagine that in the midst of that shoot-out, a congressman who is a thorn in the side of this secret society, who is threatening to expose a company run by another member of that club, just happens to get shot. And killed.”
Carlin shook his head admiringly at Street. “I’d have to be some kind of goddamn genius to pull off what you’re insinuating!”
“See now?” Street said with a smile. “You’re not so modest after all. It’s too bad they don’t give Pulitzers for assassinations.”
“All the things we do to keep this nation safe from the kinds of Reds who tried to kill Margaret just a few hours ago,” Carlin said. “And still these idiots don’t get it.”