A Hard Act To Follow Read online

  I shuddered with him.

  “Imagine it, Damon,” he went on, his eyes bulging as if the foreseen spectacle had suddenly begun to unfold in front of him. “It’s seven a.m. and the nation’s capital is beginning another routine day. People sit down at the breakfast table and drink concentrated orange juice—made with water. They eat eggs—poached in water. They drink coffee—boiled with water. Then they go off to work and the hallucinations begin. Motorists drive of the expressways. Pedestrians throw fits in the middle of the streets. At the White House the President is meeting with the Secretary of State. Suddenly one of them imagines that he can fly and dives through a plate glass window. The other sits back and dip the sound of the breaking glass. On Capitol Hill, the Senate is in session. Suddenly the majority leader becomes infatuated with the frescos on the chamber ceiling and the minority whip begins turning cartwheels up and down the aisles. In the House and at the Pentagon, the story is mm a less the same. Legislators forget their legislation and listen to the beautiful music being played inside their heads. Generals make paper airplanes or pelt each other with spitballs. By noon every man, woman and child in the greater Washington area is high as the proverbial kite. They eat more and they drink more, and they get higher still. Meanwhile, somewhere on the outskirts of the city, perhaps in Arlington or Bethesda or Chevy Chase, the Red Chinese-controlled hippies have a small army—an inexpensive army—waiting to make a big move. At dusk they go into action. One platoon advances on the White House. The leader declares himself President, an underling declares himself Vice-President and another underling declares himself Chief of the Secret Service. No one offers any opposition, because everyone is too flipped out to really care. At the Pentagon, another platoon makes its move. The leader declares himself Secretary of Defense, an underling declares himself Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four others take command of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Orders are dispatched to all military commands to cease all activity until further notice. Again there is no opposition; the Pentagon staff is freaked out, and the commanders in the field have no choice but to follow orders. In Foggy Bottom, another platoon takes over the State Department. On Constitution Avenue, still another takes over the Treasury. The radio and TV people know what’s happening, but their reports to the outside world are totally incomprehensible. Ditto the newspaper people and their reports—if anybody reports anything at all. In short, the capital has been cut off from the rest of the country, and chaos reigns supreme.”

  I forced a smile. “Well, sophisticates have always complained that Washington was a dead town. I guess they’ll have to revise their opinion.”

  He stared into space as if he hadn’t heard me. “Soon,” he continued, “newsmen in other cities will realize that something has happened. They’ll investigate. But the investigators will suffer the same fate as the Washington residents. The effects of the LSD will linger for days. Chickens who have drunk the polluted water will lay polluted eggs. Bottling plants will dispense cases of polluted soft drinks. Cows will give polluted milk—all this presupposing that there’s some egg-laying, soft drink-dispensing and milk-giving to begin with. Meanwhile, there’ll be nothing to prevent the Chinese from dropping a few bombs on us, or on anyone else we’re presently protecting. With our military operations at a standstill and our seat of government wholly immobilized, who’s to stop her? And Russia can get into the act too. She’s been pretty friendly lately, but I for one suspect strongly that her friendliness is the result of fear. With our military capabilities reduced to nothing, she’d have no reason to be afraid anymore. Nor would anyone else. Even Albania could take a shot at us. Or Castro. We’d be sitting ducks for everyone who hates us. And as you know, their number is legion.”

  “You turn a nice cliché,” I put in.

  He continued to stare into space, oblivious of my presence. “Eventually, of course, the effects of the drug would wear off, and order would be restored. The insurrectionist hippies would be put behind bars, and our lawful leaders would resume command. But by this time the damage would have been done. Our cities—those of them that hadn’t been bombed out of existence—would be veritable seas of confusion. The stock market would have crashed. The armed forces would have become completely neutralized. Industrial progress would have ground to a halt. On the international scene, all but the staunchest of our allies—namely South Korea, Australia and New Zealand—would have deserted us. The neutralist nations would regard us with contempt, the communist bloc with scorn. Kosygin would herald the fall of capitalism which Marx and Lenin so long ago predicted. De Gaulle would tell us that he had told us so. America would have lost, perhaps for all time, her position as leader of the Free World.” He polished off his drink in one quick swallow. “Indeed, there might not be a Free World anymore.”

  I took his empty glass and poured refills for both of us. When I returned, the faraway look had left his eyes. He took the fresh drink, sipped it and looked up at me, as if waiting for a barrage of questions.

  I didn’t have any questions, but I did have a few objections. “From where I sit,” I told him, “it looks like the success of the plot hinges on its remaining secret. Now that you know, what’s to stop you from alerting everyone concerned not to drink the water.”

  He chuckled. “Easily said, Damon, but not so easily done. Actually, we’ve set up a program that would keep the President, the Vice President, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other key figures from drinking polluted water. The way it would work, everyone on our list would only drink water and eat foods prepared with water which has been analyzed for chemical content. But obviously there’s a limit to the number of people we can put on the list. And even if everyone on the list obeyed our instructions, the pollution maneuver still would have devastating effects. The hippies might not seize the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and the Treasury. But they’d wreak havoc on the rest of the government.”

  “Still, the plot would be foiled.”

  “Maybe. Unfortunately, though, the powers that be aren’t very interested in our program.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I hadn’t intended to involve you in inter-agency politics, but the fact is that our people haven’t enjoyed the President’s good graces lately. To put it mildly, we’re in the White House doghouse. I won’t go into details, but suffice it to say that we’ve suffered a few defeats in other operations we’ve conducted recently, and now we’re on The Man’s S-list.”

  “I get the point.”

  “Anyway, the White House isn’t very interested in what we have to say anymore. In fact, there’s even been some talk of disbanding our agency.”

  “Then the President doesn’t believe that this plot is underway, and he refuses to take precautions of any sort. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “He not only doesn’t believe it, he doesn’t even know about it. The Cabinet officer to whom the head of our agency is responsible refuses to tell him unless we can provide convincing proof that we’re not just letting our imaginations run away with us.”

  “What kind of proof does he want?”

  “That remains to be seen. All we know is that nothing we’ve told him so far—including everything I told you, and then some—has had any effect. Meanwhile, official Washington goes its usual way, totally unaware of the dangers which lurk right around the proverbial corner.”

  I swallowed hard. “In other words, the hippies—whoever is behind them—are getting ready to make their move. When they make it, it’ll be the end of the Free World. And our side can’t even take precautions to minimize the effects of the plot because one pigheaded Cabinet officer distrusts your agency.”

  “Precisely.”

  “So what’s the next move?”

  He smiled conspiratorially. “The agency does the same thing it did when it had problems with the neo-Nazis in Hamburg, Damon. It calls on you to pull its chestnuts out of the fire.”

  “But what can I do?”

 
“Well, for openers, you can infiltrate the hippies. Mix in with them, talk to them, share their ideas. That shouldn’t be too much of a problem, because you’re already living among them. Thanks to your credentials as a sex researcher, they’ll accept you, and they’ll speak freely to you—or at least they’ll speak more freely than they would to a conventional espionage type.”

  “So far, so good. But what do I do once they accept me.”

  “You find out anything and everything you can about The Big Freak-Out. That won’t be easy, but it shouldn’t be impossible either. If they plan the sort of militarist caper which we project there’ll have to be at least three or four hundred of them involved. Since hippies aren’t by nature a conspiratorial lot, a few of the three or four hundred should be rather loose-mouthed. Your job is to connect with them, pry what information you can from them and report everything to me.”

  “And that’s all there is to it?”

  “Not quite. You see, if you can supply me with enough evidence to persuade the Cabinet officer to whom our agency is responsible that the plot is actually in the works, we’ll be able to sell the President on our program to minimize the effects of the pollution maneuver. But the maneuver still will take place, and while the hippies may not succeed with their coup, they’ll surely hurl Washington into chaos, playing hell with every aspect of domestic life, to say nothing of America’s image abroad. So what we really want you to find out is precisely when and where the pollution maneuver is supposed to take place. Only if we catch the hippies red-handed as they’re about to dump the LSD into the Potomac will we really foil the plot.”

  “That’s quite a tall order.”

  He lifted his glass in toast. “And you’re just the man who can handle it.”

  I started to protest, but he cut me off.

  “Here’s a phone number in Arlington, Virginia,” he said, pulling a crumpled slip of paper from the pocket of his leather shirt. “It’s registered in the name of one Matilda Damon. Ostensibly she’s your dear maiden aunt, whom you call almost daily. Actually she’s one of my subordinates, whose only job for the present will be to wait for your messages and deliver them to me.”

  “Just what I always wanted,” I observed. “A dear maiden aunt.”

  He ignore the comment. “And don’t worry about running up a bill. I want to hear from you at least once a day—more often if the situation warrants it”

  I memorized the number, then touched a match to the slip of paper and dropped it into an ashtray.

  “Next,” he went on, “you’ll need some money.” He pulled a roll of bills from his shirt and thrust them into my hands. “There’s five hundred dollars here, all in tens and twenties. Be generous with your hippie friends, and they’ll be more apt to talk to you. But, of course, don’t be too generous. We don’t want to arouse suspicion. If you use all this, ask Aunt Matilda for more. She’ll send it to you posthaste. And, of course, keep her informed of any change of address. We’ll want to be able to keep in touch with you at all times. You’re not the only one of our people on this job, and some of the others have orders to keep an eye on you, just in case you get into trouble. But one never can tell what might go wrong.”

  “Like one’s running afoul of nasty little men armed with strands of piano wire?”

  “Among other possibilities, yes.” He dug into his shirt again and produced a bottle of pills. “Next, here is some LSP. As you can see, it worked wonders with your sleeping princess. Perhaps you’ll find it useful to become acceptable. Remember. If there’s anything these hippies are really interested in, it’s drug. Show them a new kick and you’ll make yourself a lot of friends in a hurry.”

  “The point is well taken.”

  “Next, get as close as you can to a fellow called The Big Head.”

  “You mean the high priest of The Church of the Sacred Acid?”

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “By reputation.” I gestured toward Lola “Sleeping beauty here thinks he’s one of the foremost religious leaders of all time.”

  “Most of his followers agree with her. For my money, he’s a nut But so were Hitler and Mussolini. Anyway, he bears watching. AU three of the bad-trip hippies interviewed at the public health clinics named him as the man behind the plan.”

  “You mean he’s the mastermind?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s just a figurehead. Whatever the case, he seems to be involved right up to his eyeballs. And since we don’t have any other concrete leads, you might as well start with him.”

  “Finally”— he dipped into his shirt again—”here’s a photograph. Study it carefully, then give it back to me.”

  I held it up to the light It was a picture of a girl—lithe, long-limbed and luscious. Her long black hair toppled over her shoulders like an inky waterfall. Her eyes were sparkling brown, and her bright pink lips were parted in a sexy come-hither smile. She was wearing a topless go-go outfit that revealed the body of a doll who could have been in Playboy.

  “Your wife?” I deadpanned.

  “Corinne LaBelle,” he replied dryly. “She’s a biochemist.”

  “And the costume? Is this the latest thing in lab outfits?”

  “The photo was taken when she was doing some undercover work for the agency as a go-go girl. It’s the best picture we have of her.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “If you’ll pay a little closer attention, you’ll notice that she has a small, heart-shaped tattoo on her left breast.

  “If you happen to run across her, you can use the tattoo as a positive means of identification.”

  “Does she usually run around with an exposed left breast?”

  “Come now, my friend. A man with your talents shouldn’t have trouble seeing her tattoo.”

  I took another look at the picture. The tattoo was there, all right. And the breast on which it was situated, along with the unmarked mammary which dangled deliciously nearby, made me suddenly very interested in the people who practice biochemistry. “You can rest assured that I’ll explore the matter fully the first chance I get.” I grinned. “Meanwhile, at the risk of sounding obtuse, might I ask how she’s connected with the project at hand?”

  “You might.”

  “All right, how’s she connected with the project at hand?”

  “A few years ago, Miss LaBelle was an assistant professor of biochemistry at a major university in France. However, her interest in politics eclipsed her interest in biochemistry, and she was dismissed for propagandizing her students with some of the most militant right-wing doctrines this side of Louis XIV. Still she remained committed to her ideology and presently began traveling throughout France as an itinerant rabble-rouser. Her physical charms persuaded many a Frenchman to heed her words, but, of course, memories of the Nazi occupation still were strong among other Frenchman and finally charges were sworn out against her. Whereupon she left the country without benefit of a passport and slipped into Canada, then into the United States. Here she took a job as a lab assistant with a pharmaceutical firm in Philadelphia and tried to shroud herself with the cloak of anonymity, presumably until the political climate in France changed enough to permit her safe return.”

  “But, of course, France’s political climate never changed.”

  “Exactly. The rightists were defeated soundly in the subsequent election, and Miss LaBelle appeared doomed to spend the next four years, and perhaps longer, as a disgruntled exile. That’s when we made her acquaintance.”

  “We? Meaning the agency?”

  “Correct. We had learned about her from the immigration authorities, with whom we work very closely. We persuaded them not to prosecute her for illegal entry. Then we induced her to join our team.”

  “Failing which, she’d be deported?”

  “I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

  “You people really play all the angles.”

  “In this business, one has to. Anyway, we arranged for her to get a grant from the Thaddeus X.
Coxe Foundation—a grant identical to the one you got for your Hamburg caper. We sent her on a mission in French Morocco, then another mission in the Sudan. These were followed by several missions in Africa, then her stint as a go-go girl in a San Francisco nightclub.”

  “What were you investigating there?”

  “The possibility of communist influences among the student body at Berkeley.” He chuckled. “Miss LaBelle produced quite a dossier.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  “Anyway, after San Francisco, we sent her to Hong Kong, where, under the pretense of investigating the nutritional value of certain varieties of seaweed found in Kowloon Harbor, she spied on the Chinese communists. She managed to gain the confidence of an extraordinary number of important sources, and her reports proved invaluable to us. Indeed, she was one of our most highly-prized agents.”

  “With assets like these.” —I nodded toward her breasts—”it’s no wonder.”

  “Yes. Anyway, we suddenly lost contact with her. There were no more reports, and our other people in Hong Kong couldn’t find a trace of her. If she hadn’t been so thoroughly committed to rightist ideologies, we might have suspected that she defected to the Reds. But, of course, the circumstances under which we originally made contact with her negated that possibility. So we could only conclude that she had been discovered by the commies and murdered, or perhaps kidnapped. In any case, we never heard from her again. The last word we received was one of her reports about the Red Chinese plan to infiltrate the hippies.”

  “She was connected with that?”

  “Not merely connected. She unearthed the whole thing singlehandedly.”

  I gave the picture another look and appreciated the reasons why many otherwise-loyal communists might have shared their deepest secrets with her.

  “You really know how to dig up good agents.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you still haven’t told me how she fits in with my mission. Or are you just showing me the picture for esthetic reasons?”