Hellfire Rebellion

7

Johnny Small was feeling an exhilaration unlike anything he’d ever known. Consciously, he put it down to finally being included among the members of the Sons of liberty, but subconsciously, it was much more than that. At the age of seventeen, he was beginning to experience sexual awakening and he had fallen in love. He could not get Andre out of his mind.

Paul Revere had several apprentices, so he could easily afford to excuse Johnny from his duties at the silversmith shop, so that he could devote most of his energies to his assignment for the Sons of liberty. Johnny regarded this vote of confidence almost with reverence. He was one of them now, a patriot, and they were no longer treating him like a boy. Revere had been impressed with his report and he had taken him straight to Samuel Adams himself, in the middle of the night. so that he could tell their leader what he’d learned.

Adams, dressed in his nightclothes, had listened impassively in the drawing room of his house on Purchase Street while Johnny told him about following Andre to the street where Hunter lived and then described how the headless horseman had appeared out of nowhere and attacked them. He had not told either Revere or Adams: what he had discovered about Andre, but her explanation of the night’s events had colored his report, so that he described an unknown man who had stepped out of the shadows and fired a pistol at the horseman, missed, and how the horseman had taken advantage of the confusion and the noise in the street to escape down some convenient alleyway. He told Adams that the three New Yorkers had made contact with some Tories in the Peacock Tavern and had taken rooms there, the better to pursue their inquiries. When he had finished, Adams nodded and clapped him on the shoulder.

“You’ve done well, lad,” he said. “Very well, indeed.”

Johnny felt flushed with pride at the praise.

“Perhaps we can trust these New Yorkers, after all.” said Revere. “If they can help us find out who this horseman is, then they will indeed have proved their worth.” said Adams. “However. I believe it would be prudent to keep watch on them, just the same. There is much at stake. Can we count on your help in this matter?”

“I will do anything you ask.” said Johnny, proudly. “Good.

We still do not know these people well enough. It would be wise to remain cautious.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Part of our problem, Paul, is that there are many patriots like us throughout the colonies that we do not know well enough. We are united in our aims, but not in fact. There is too little contact between us. I have been giving much thought to this.”

“What do you have in mind?” Revere asked. “Our strength here in Boston is in our unity.” said Adams. “We must unite ourselves with patriots in the other colonies, as well. It is not enough to merely express our views in the Gazette and urge all good citizens to join our cause. We need more direct action. A means of keeping in touch with other patriotic groups. These new commissioners that Townshend has sent to the colonies have been incorruptible because they are all wealthy men. There is little we can offer them in the way of inducements that they do not already have, but unfortunately. there is much that they can offer to our friends.

“I have been hearing most disturbing news,” he continued. “We have driven our own commissioners to seek refuge in Castle William, but in the other colonies, it is said that these new commissioners draw sympathy from people by entertaining lavishly, inviting merchants and influential citizens to balls and dinners, turning their heads with their fine clothes and splendid carriages and sumptuous repasts. I have heard that in Philadelphia. good Whig wives and Tory gentlemen drink rum punch together and dance the minuet. Such gaiety and idleness are destructive to our cause. We must give people a reason to unite against such frivolous displays.”

“What do you propose to do?” Revere said.

“The new strict enforcement of the customs duties has resulted in a growing shortage of hard currency.” said Adams. “My father had sought to bring stability to our paper currency, but when the Land Bank was outlawed by those mountebanks in Parliament, the people took to hording British silver, as you well know. They hide silver coins in mattresses and jars until they accumulate enough to bring them to a silversmith such as yourself and have them melted down, to cast into such things as cups and punch bowls. We all trade and barter with one another, but the customs commissioners accept only British silver, as do the British merchants, and the supply of hard money is dwindling more and more. Imported goods from England are becoming ever dearer and fewer people can afford them and they feel poorly for it, embarrassed when they cannot afford the luxuries their neighbors have. If we can turn that to our advantage by making a virtue of their insufficiency, we can give people a reason to unite behind our cause.”

“How can we do that?” Revere asked, while Johnny listened with fascination, immensely flattered that these two men would discuss their plans in front of him.

“By uniting all the colonies in a concerted boycott of all imported British goods,” said Adams. “We can give those plagued with debt a virtuous excuse for cutting back on their expenses if they can say they do it for the common good, rather than for lack of money. We can help them to look upon it not as insufficiency, but as self-sacrifice, an act of pride and patriotism. A wife who cannot afford to make a dress of silk can then take pride in wearing homespun and be able to look with disdain upon her neighbor, who can afford a finer dress, because she does not choose to sacrifice her comfort and her luxury for a common good, you see? If we can make an act of pride out of their need to tighten up their pulse strings, we will give them a reason to support us in our cause.”

“Aye, and save husbands’ money in the bargain, which will help them to look kindly on our methods.” said Revere. “It is an excellent idea. Sam. But how shall we implement it?”

“I have drafted a circular letter, which I intend to send around to all the colonies and have printed in the newspapers,” said Adams. “We will ask all in the colonies to sign the letter as a form of personal commitment. We will ask them to agree to give constant preference to those merchants who do not import from London. We will ask for a boycott of all ships that continue to bring in British goods. We will ask them to consider all traders who do not sign as traitors to our cause. We will sway the common people to our cause first. A dock porter or a washerwoman could never afford to purchase silks or velvets, much less imported furniture and ready-made apparel, but if they sign an agreement to not purchase them, then they can say that they refuse, not that they are unable. Thus, we elevate their station.”

“But there is no way that we can force everyone to join the boycott.” said Revere. “And there are many merchants who will undoubtedly find a way around it.”

“Then we shall see to it that those merchants will have their names published in the newspapers,” said Adams, “and it will hurt their trade. And meanwhile, those merchants who are less well off will see that trade improve by agreeing to join us in the boycott. If we appeal to their pocketbooks, Paul, then we shall win their hearts.”

“It is a sound plan,” said Revere. “When do you intend to start?”

“As soon as possible,” said Adams. “Bernard daily sends requests to Gage for troops and petitions Parliament for help. The commissioners who have taken shelter in Castle William add their pleas to his. The troops are certain to arrive before too long. There can be no doubt of it. We must take steps to sway popular opinion to our side so that when they do arrive, they will be widely perceived as an intrusion on our liberties.”

He turned to Johnny. “Your role in this is especially important. Jonathan.” he said.

“It is?” said Johnny, his eyes wide.

“It is absolutely vital,” Adams said. “We must find out who this mysterious horseman is and who his followers are, so that we may take the proper steps to stop them. We cannot work against them if we do not know who they are. I have heard rumors of the foul things that they do at their secret meetings, depraved practices that I shall not enumerate for your young ears. It is clear to me that the leaders of this ‘Hellfire Club’ seek to draw men to their cause by appealing to their basest instincts. And we have already seen that once amused, these instincts will make them stop at nothing, not even murder. It is a very dangerous assignment you’ve been given. Jonathan. Whatever happens, you must steer clear of these men. If you can, try to discover who they are, but you must avoid contact with them at all costs. Let us see what information the New Yorkers bring us. Your task is to keep watch on them, but no matter what occurs, do not involve yourself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Johnny said breathlessly, wondering what sort of “foul practices” these terrible men indulged in and feeling suddenly afraid for Andre.

“Good,” said Adams. “Take this, then.” He pressed something into Johnny’s hand. “You’ve earned it.”

Johnny felt a lump in his throat as he gazed down on the silver Liberty medallion in his palm. Given to him by Sam Adams, himself!

“You’re one of us now,” said Revere, squeezing the boy’s shoulder. “Go and do us proud.”

Johnny left the house on Purchase Street in a daze. He could hardly wait to show Andre the medallion. He felt a slight, momentary twinge of guilt at not having told Adams and Revere what he had learned about her, but he was certain that they wouldn’t understand. Each time he thought of her, He remembered how she had realized that he was trailing her despite all the precautions that he took, how she had outwitted him, how she had bravely stood up to the horseman, whom even grown men feared!

She reminded him of the Indian girls that he had seen when he lived on the frontier and sometimes accompanied his uncle on his trading trips to their village. He would often lay awake at night and think about those Indian girls, about how different they were from all the white girls he had known, the simple and yet somehow beautiful way they dressed in their buckskins, the delicate way their feet looked in their leather moccasins, their pretty ankles and the way they walked, with a purposeful, slightly pigeon-toed stride, never flouncing or primping or flirting. The way they’d look at him and then shyly avert their eyes when he looked back. ‘He would dream about them sometimes and wonder what it would be like to talk with them, to walk through the woods and perhaps even to hold their hands, but of course he didn’t dare.

And he kept thinking about how it had felt when he kissed Andre. He did not know what had come over him. He did not know how she could possibly forgive such insufferable boldness, and yet she had not reacted angrily. She had been just as surprised as he was, but she had not looked angry. He felt like a fool for running away. And he kept thinking about that brief instant when his hand had come in contact with her breast. More than anything, he wanted to see her once again. There was a bond between them now, he told himself. They shared an adventure and a secret. For the first time since he had come to Boston. he felt happy and alive. He felt a sense of purpose. And. somehow, he knew that something wonderful was going to happen. For a long time, he had felt that he had a destiny that he had discovered. He believed that now, at last, he knew what it was.

The house on lime Street had been rented from a merchant who owned several similar properties along the waterfront. It was a boxy, wood frame structure with heavy wooden doors and mullioned windows with wood shutters. The brick chimneys rose about three feet above the shingled roof and the exterior was weathered from exposure to the salt sea winds. The house was located on a bend in the road where Lime Street curved around and met with Lynn Street. There was a foundry across the street and from the windows of the upper story they could see the docks near Hudson’s Point. Not far away was the ferry to Charles Town near the old windmill and within several blocks of them was Christ Church, on Salem Street.

Hunter had rented the place with some of his ill-gotten gains from the riots and he paid the landlord extra to insure his privacy. The landlord did not inquire into this special need for privacy. He was simply grateful to have the property rented and to receive the added bonus. He understood about men who did not want anyone inquiring into their affairs. After all, he was himself a smuggler. Perhaps Mr. Hunter was using the house as a place of assignation where he kept a mistress on the side, as many of his own friends did. Perhaps he was engaged in the smuggling trade himself and was using it as a place of storage for his goods. Perhaps he was a radical and holding clandestine meetings there in the middle of the night. The landlord didn’t really care. If anyone had told him that Hunter was a soldier from another universe and that the house on Lime Street was being used as a temporal transition point and field headquarters for a strike force of elite commandos from the 27th century, the landlord might merely have nodded absently and said. “No skin off my nose, so long us the rent is paid on time.”

Corporal Linda Craven stood at the window, looking out discreetly front behind the curtains, watching a merchant sloop sail past on a parallel course with the shore. She was twenty-two years old and this was her third mission. She had received her baptism of fire during her first assignment, in 19th-century London, when she was just a rookie, part of a support unit attached to the team of Delaney, Cross, and Steiger. When it was all over, only two of that support unit had been left alive. She had learned fast and she had learned the hard way. Since then, she and the other surviving member of that unit, Corporal Scott Neilson, had completed one other temporal adjustment mission, during the Second World War. On that occasion, they had been teamed with Lt. Wendell Jones, but the logistics of this assignment had required a new partner for them this time. Jones was black and there were certain historical scenarios where a black man simply couldn’t function very well. In colonial Boston, there was a fairly large population of blacks, but most of them were slaves, and even though many of the Boston colonists-such as Sam Adams, who objected to slavery in principle-had freed their slaves, they still did not possess the same rights as white men did and would not for many years to come, Because of this. Craven and Neilson had been teamed with Master Sergeant Rico Chavez, a veteran of Anglo-Chicano ancestry, whose physical characteristics could easily allow him to pose as anything from a Spaniard to an Italian to a Balkan or what was known as a “black Irishman.” descended from mixed Irish and Spanish stock, In addition to them. Forrester had dispatched another team, two being all that he could spare, consisting of Capt. Michael Seavers, one of the original members of the First Division. Sgt. Ivan Federoff, a veteran of over two dozen missions, and Lt. Geoffrey Stone, a former field agent for the T.I. A,

As Linda Craven was getting her first look at colonial Boston. Stone, Federoff, and Seavers were in the other bedroom, taking advantage of the time to grab some sleep. Chavez was behind her, relaxing on the bed and reading, but Nielson, as usual, was too keyed up to rest. A trick-shooting enthusiast and collector of antique firearms, he was eagerly examining the small arsenal of handguns Hunter had obtained in the 20th century.

‘A Cz-75.” he said admiringly, picking up a black 9 mm. Czech-made semiautomatic. “This one’s a collector’s item. And a 45 Colt Combat Commander; a couple of Berettas, a Model 84. 380 and a 9 min. 92F; a snub-nosed Colt King Cobra. 357 Magnum; a couple of small double-action Walther. 22s: a 10 mm. Springfield with convertible barrels and magazines; and Christ, look at this thing!” He picked up a huge cannon with a dull black steel frame. “An Israeli Desert Eagle. 44 Automag with a ten-shot clip! He’s even got a reloading press complete with dies! You’d think he was expecting an assault team!”

“He was,” said Chavez. without looking up from his book. “Us.”

“Us?” said Nielson, puzzled. “Well, not us specifically,” Chavez said, “but he didn’t trust Priest and the others any more than they trusted him. Not that I can blame him. If I were in his shoes, I’d have done the same thing. Prepared a safehouse and laid in some weapons, just in case. Looks like he picked some good ones, too.”

“Why only lead projectile weapons?” Linda asked. “If he thought he might have to go up against the agency, we’d have him easily outgunned.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” said Chavez. “Never underestimate any sort of firearm,” he said. “I’d sooner go up against a street punk armed with a laser than a good shooter armed with a. 22 rimfire. In the hands of somebody who knows what they’re doing, it would kill you just as dead. In the 20th century, where Hunter picked these up, a semiauto. 22 rimfire was frequently the chosen weapon of professional assassins. It’s a very high-velocity round, and soft, so you get good expansion with practically no recoil. Light and very accurate.”

“No stopping power, though.” said Neilson.

Chavez chuckled. He made a “gun” with his thumb and index finger and pointed it at Neilson. “I know what you’re thinking.” he said in a slightly breathy, menacing voice. “This here’s only a. 22 rimfire, a piddly little round with no stopping power to speak of. So I’m just going to have to shoot you six times in the head.”

Neilson grinned. “I see your point.”

“Actually.” said Chavez, “what the pros used to do with those things is a technique they called ‘the zipper ‘ They’d start at your midsection and work up in a straight line, rapid fire-bang, bang, bang, hang, bang.’ he demonstrated with his finger gun, moving up an imaginary line along Neilson’s body. “That way, even if none of the individual shots proved fatal, the cumulative effect of the trauma would be. All this talk about stopping power you antique collectors get into is just a lot of nonsense. Shot placement is what counts. Of course, you don’t have that problem with lasers, plasma pistols, or disruptors. You don’t need to be as accurate, but then it would have been difficult for Hunter to get his hands on those without some connections. Hell, even the regular troops don’t get issued disruptors, they’re so paranoid of letting those get loose. And they’re not easily concealable. Let me see that automag,” he said to Neilson. Neilson picked up the Desert Eagle, made sure the safety was on, and handed it to him.

“Jeez. heavy sucker, isn’t it’!” said Chavez, hefting it experimentally. “Never fired one of these myself. Must have one hell of’ a kick.”

“About the same as a compensated. 45.” said Neilson. “I have a. 44 Magnum in my collection, but it’s a revolver. Kicks about twice as much as that thing. But the nice thing about that round is that it gives you a lot of versatility it you load your own cartridges, which is what that press is for. See, depending on what kind of bullet you use and how much powder, you can pretty much tailor-make your ammunition to suit your purpose. You can load a soft-point bullet that’ll spend most of its energy on impact and hit like a sledgehammer or you can load for penetration. Use a copper-jacketed hollow-point bullet, stoke the casing with enough powder, and you can shoot through walls or vehicles.”

“Primitive, but nasty,” Chavez said. “I wouldn’t underrate them.”

He gave the pistol back to Neilson.

“With weapons like that, I’m surprised they didn’t have stricter firearms regulations in the 20th century.” said Linda.

“The laws varied, but they’ had the same basic problems we’ve got.” Nielson said. “The law of supply and demand. Hell, look at Boston. Right now, the British are enforcing the customs regulations more stringently than ever, with the Royal Navy backing them up, yet at least half the merchants here are into smuggling. If people really want something, somebody will provide it. You could ban weapons manufacture, but someone would simply set up a machine shop and start turning them out illegally.”

“I remember an assignment I had in L.A. back in the 20th century,” said Chavez. “We had to bust up a Network drug-running operation. The kids in the barrio could get just about anything they wanted, but even if they couldn’t buy a gun, they sometimes made their own by breaking a radio antenna off a car, taping it to a wooden handle, and using a piece of metal and a rubber band for a firing mechanism. Stick a. 22 shell in the damn thing and you’ve got yourself a single-shot zip gun. as they called them. Liable to blow up in your face, but it could be surprisingly effective if it didn’t.”

“They tried gun control laws.” said Neilson, “but they only wound up taking weapons out of the hands of honest people who deserved the right to protect themselves. If a person takes it in his head to kill somebody, he’ll manage to find a way. You can control weapons to some degree, but you can’t really control people.”

“So what are you saying, Scott?” Linda said. “Let anyone who wants to buy a plasma gun or a laser? The streets would be a war zone.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, the streets are a war zone.” Neilson said. “Okay. I understand what you’re saying and I’m really not unsympathetic, but consider where we are now. In a few years, these people are going to fight their war for independence and the incident that’s going to kick the whole thing off is when the British troops march on Lexington and Concord. They’ll fail because the farmers of this time have access to muskets and powder and they’ll fight to protect their rights.”

“The old argument about the constitutional right to keep and bear arms,” said Linda. “The founding fathers weren’t talking about the right to own and carry guns, you know. They were talking about a militia.”

“Really? Then why wasn’t everyone disarmed when Cornwallis surrendered?” Neilson said. “What did they mean by a militia, after all? It’s when you gather armed citizens together for defense, like they did at Lexington and Concord. The exact wording in the Constitution is, ‘A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’ It doesn’t say that the right of the people to bear arms in a militia shall not be infringed, it says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed because there may be a need to raise a militia. The Minutemen didn’t turn their guns in when they stopped drilling. They took them home with them because they were their own personal property.”

“It would be interesting if we could speak with some of the founding fathers and find out exactly what they had in mind when they framed the Constitution,” Linda said. “Unfortunately, the timing isn’t right, let alone the fact it would be dangerous.”

“I wonder what they’d say if we asked them what they meant when they wrote ‘the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’?” said Chavez. “Did they mean the right to live free or did they mean no abortions? And that phrase appeared in the Declaration of Independence, not in the Constitution. In the Constitution, it merely says that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. It certainly never occurred to them that it might become necessary to define exactly what constitutes a person. They also guaranteed freedom of religion, but contrary to popular belief, nowhere in the Constitution does the word ‘God’ even appear. ‘One nation, under God’ is only in the pledge of allegiance, which technically has no constitutional authority behind it. Let’s face it, they never realized that things would get so complicated.” ‘“But you have to admit one thing,” said Neilson, “if it wasn’t for the fact that the colonists were able to keep and hear anus. the British would have rolled right over them.”

“Well, maybe so.” said Linda, “but I’d hate to think what would happen if any citizen in the 27th century could walk into a store and buy a plasma weapon. I somehow doubt the founding fathers would have approved of that.”

“Oh. I don’t know.” said Neilson, with a grin. “Just think what the Minutemen could have done with a few plasma guns and laser rifles. And it’s interesting that when you take relative population figures into account, the incidence of violent crime with firearms was far less in times when weapons were not regulated than when they were.”

“Maybe, but you gotta watch that,” Chavez said. “Statistics are always misleading. It depends on what you use for your data. It doesn’t make much sense to compare 19th-century Dodge City, for example, with 21st-century New York. You can take relative population figures into account, just as you said, but that still doesn’t make for a complete picture. You’re forgetting about the psychological factor of stress given increased population density and things like pollution and noise, which had demonstrable adverse effects upon the central nervous system. making people more aggressive. It’s inevitable that with increased population density and industrialization, you’ll get increased violence. Besides, come to think of it. Dodge City would be a bad example anyway. One of the first things Wyatt Earp and other frontier marshals did was to institute a very basic form of gun control at shotgun point. Surrender your gunbelt within city limits or get out of town. Or take your chances with a load of ‘double-ought.’ They had to run the towns and they understood real well that a gun only gives you power when no one else has got one.”

“You know. right now in Boston, there are no laws of any kind restricting firearms.” said Nielson.” In fact. there were no such laws at all in America until the middle of the 19th century, when carpetbaggers started passing them to disarm former Confederates. Up until that time, the courts upheld the right of citizens to carry arms, openly or concealed, in order to defend themselves. At this time in Boston, it’s very common for men to carry swords or pistols. There’s been rioting in the streets, but interestingly, not one citizen of Boston has been run through or shot.”

“Not yet, but they will.” said Linda.

“Only after the British troops arrive.” said Neilson. ‘Remember, the first fatalities didn’t occur until the Boston Massacre. The Sons of Liberty were a rowdy bunch of street fighters with easy access to firearms, but though they busted a few heads and tarred and feathered a few Tories, they never actually killed anybody until the British sent armed troops against them. To seize their arms and ammunition.”

“Yeah, like you’ve seized mine,” said Hunter, coining into the room and seeing his cache of weapons spread out on the table along with the commandos’ gear, suppose you found the hand grenades and the plastique, as well?”

“ What?” said Linda.

Hunter grinned. “Just kidding, Corporal. You’ve got it all, scout’s honor.”

“Cross your bean and hope to die?” said Linda. wryly.

“Hey, not me.” said Hunter. “I’d like to get out of this thing in one piece, if you don’t mind.” He smiled. “You know, I couldn’t help overhearing some of your conversation. It’s funny, in a way.”

“Funny?” Neilson said, “Yeah. We have the same sort of conversations over on our side,” Hunter said, He grinned. “Get a bunch of C.I.S. agents together and they start sounding like a faculty meeting of some university history department.”

“Not so unusual,” said Chavez, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. “What we all have in common is that our lives often depend on our knowledge and understanding of historical events.” He lit one and tossed the pack to Hunter.

“Thanks.” said Hunter, he glanced at the label. “Noncarcinogenic, huh?”

“The benefits of genetic engineering,” Chavez said. “Taste better, too.”

“We banned ’em,” Hunter said, lighting up, “our tobacco companies started selling dope instead.”

“Seriously?” said Linda.

“Seriously,” said Hunter. We instituted a system of addict registration. Cut the market out from under organized crime and still managed to turn a tidy profit and generate some tax revenue. You guys ought to try it. ‘Course. now the crime families push cigarettes..

Craven and Neilson exchanged glances, not certain if he was serious or not.

“No, it’s a funny thing about soldiers.” Hunter continued, inhaling deeply and blowing out a long stream of smoke. “Not just modern temporal soldiers, but even soldiers in the past, wherever you’re dealing with a culture that’s got a decent rate of literacy. You’ve always got a substantial number of military personnel with academic or philosophical inclinations. ‘They read like crazy. Take graduate degrees. Write books. Learn languages. Study everything from psychology to engineering, but especially history. History’s always been big with soldiers. I wonder why.”

“Maybe it’s because soldiers never get to see the big picture.” Chavez said. “It’s what we’re always told, isn’t it? Some poor grunt in the middle of an Asian jungle, thousands of miles away from home, just can’t understand why he’s been asked to take the same fucking hill six times, only to pull back each time and let the enemy have it once again. He’s told its all part of the big picture, which is something he never gets to see because only the high command sees the big picture. So if he’s lucky, he survives the action and when he gets back home, he picks up a book and reads about some old battle, hoping he might be able to see the big picture there and relate it somehow to the big picture that he had been a part of. Try to figure it all out. Only that doesn’t make sense, either, because he reads about how the high command screwed up in that old battle and got all these people killed for nothing.

“So he reads some more about the history of that period where the old battle took place, to see if there was some reason for it, only he can’t find one, so he continues reading, still trying to figure it all out. And meanwhile, while he’s doing all this reading on the side, he gets promoted and eventually he winds up a general, part of the high command, and now suddenly he’s supposed to be in a position to see the big picture for himself. Only he still can’t see it, because some politician is telling him to do something that makes absolutely no sense to him at all and when he says he doesn’t understand it, he’s told it’s because he can’t see the big picture. Only the politicians get to see the big picture.”

Neilson chuckled.

“So he studies up on politics,” Chavez continued, “serves his time, retires with a pension, and runs for office. Gets, himself elected to the Senate. So there he is in the Senate, being asked to vote for some ridiculous appropriation that makes no sense to him at all, but he’s told it’s all part of the big picture. Only he still can’t see it, because only the President and his advisors get to see the big picture.”

Hunter was grinning.

“So he runs for President.” Chavez went on, in a slow, drawl. “Wins in a landslide because he was a war hero and a great American. Now, finally, the big picture! But no. The corporation heads who contributed to his campaign tell him that they’re the only ones who really get to see the big picture, so he does what they tell him to and after he completes his term of office, they reward him with a seat on the executive board and now he’s really excited. He’s finally made it, he’s going to get to see the big picture at last…” “And?” said Neilson.

“And they all gather together in the boardroom, and they light up their cigars, and they go over their reports, and they examine all their charts, and they go over all their profit statements, and they have someone come in and explain it all to them so they can understand it, and they pour brandy into their snifters and loosen up their ties and congratulate one another and talk about how things will be even better during the next quarter, and they schedule their next meeting, which will take place in the Bahamas at a corporate resort complete with hookers, and they get ready to leave, and our guy suddenly jumps up and says. ‘But wait! ‘ What about the big picture? ’ And they all look at him like he’s crazy. ‘The big picture!’ he says again. ‘What about the big picture?’ And the chairman of the hoard looks at him with absolute amazement and says. ‘Man, you mean to tell me you were on that fucking hill. too?’”

Hunter burst out laughing. “Give me that gun.” said Linda. ‘I’m gonna shoot him.”

“Got a permit?” Neilson asked.

You go to hell.”

Delaney walked in the door. “Dinner’s on,” he said. He glanced around at them. “What’s the joke?”

You ever hear the one about the big picture?” Neilson asked.

Delaney grimaced, “Yeah. I was the idiot on that fucking hill. Now come on. well have the briefing during dinner.