* * * * *
Tom Shandor shouldered his way through the crowd of men in the anteroom,
and went into the inner office. Closing the door behind him coolly, he
faced the man at the desk, and threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Who're
the goons?" he growled. "You haven't released a story yet--?"
John Hart sighed, his pinkish face drawn. "The press. I don't know how
they got the word--there hasn't been a word released, but--" He shrugged
and motioned Shandor to a seat. "You know how it goes."
Shandor sat down, his face blank, eyeing the Information chief
woodenly. The room was silent for a moment, a tense, anticipatory
silence. Then Hart said: "The Rocket story was great, Tommy. A real
writing job. You've got the touch, when it comes to a ticklish news
release--"
Shandor allowed an expression of distaste to cross his face. He looked
at the chubby man across the desk and felt the distaste deepen and
crystallize. John Hart's face was round, with little lines going up from
the eyes, an almost grotesque, burlesque-comic face that belied the icy
practical nature of the man behind it. A thoroughly distasteful face,
Shandor thought. Finally he said, "The story, John. On Ingersoll. Let's
have it, straight out."
Hart shrugged his stocky shoulders, spreading his hands. "Ingersoll's
dead," he said. "That's all there is to it. He's stone-cold dead."
"But he can't be dead!" roared Shandor, his face flushed. "We just can't
_afford_ to have him dead--"
Hart looked up wearily. "Look, I didn't kill him. He went home from the
White House this evening, apparently sound enough, after a long, stiff,
nasty conference with the President. Ingersoll wanted to go to Berlin
and call a showdown at the International conference there, and he had a
policy brawl with the President, and the President wouldn't let him go,
sent an undersecretary instead, and threatened to kick Ingersoll out of
the cabinet unless he quieted down. Ingersoll got home at 4:30,
collapsed at 5:00, and he was dead before the doctor arrived. Cerebral
hemorrhage, pretty straightforward. Ingersoll's been killing himself for
years--he knew it, and everyone else in Washington knew it. It was bound
to happen sooner or later."
"He was trying to prevent a war," said Shandor dully, "and he was all by
himself. Nobody else wanted to stop it, nobody that mattered, at any
rate. Only the people didn't want war, and who ever listens to them?
Ingersoll got the people behind him, so they gave him a couple of Nobel
Peace Prizes, and made him Secretary of State, and then cut his throat
every time he tried to do anything. No wonder he's dead--"
Hart shrugged again, eloquently indifferent. "So he was a nice guy, he
wanted to prevent a war. As far as I'm concerned, he was a pain in the
neck, the way he was forever jumping down Information's throat, but he's
dead now, he isn't around any more--" His eyes narrowed sharply. "The
important thing, Tommy, is that the people won't like it that he's dead.
They trusted him. He's been the people's Golden Boy, their last-ditch
hope for peace. If they think their last chance is gone with his death,
they're going to be mad. They won't like it, and there'll be hell to
pay--"
Shandor lit a smoke with trembling fingers, his eyes smouldering. "So
the people have to be eased out of the picture," he said flatly.
"They've got to get the story so they won't be so angry--"
Hart nodded, grinning. "They've got to have a real story, Tommy. Big,
blown up, what a great guy he was, defender of the peace, greatest, most
influential man America has turned out since the half-century--you know
what they lap up, the usual garbage, only on a slightly higher plane.
They've got to think that he's really saved them, that he's turned over
the reins to other hands just as trustworthy as his--you can give the
president a big hand there--they've got to think his work is the basis
of our present foreign policy--can't you see the implications? It's got
to be spread on with a trowel, laid on skillfully--"
Shandor's face flushed deep red, and he ground the stub of his smoke out
viciously. "I'm sick of this stuff, Hart," he exploded. "I'm sick of
you, and I'm sick of this whole rotten setup, this business of writing
reams and reams of lies just to keep things under control. Ingersoll was
a great man, a _really_ great man, and he was _wasted_, thrown away. He
worked to make peace, and he got laughed at. He hasn't done a
thing--because he couldn't. Everything he has tried has been useless,
wasted. _That's_ the truth--why not tell that to the people?"
Hart stared. "Get hold of yourself," he snapped. "You know your job.
There's a story to write. The life of David Ingersoll. It has to go down
smooth." His dark eyes shifted to his hands, and back sharply to
Shandor. "A propagandist has to write it, Tommy--an ace propagandist.
You're the only one I know that could do the job."
"Not me," said Shandor flatly, standing up. "Count me out. I'm through
with this, as of now. Get yourself some other whipping boy. Ingersoll
was one man the people could trust. And he was one man I could never
face. I'm not good enough for him to spit on, and I'm not going to sell
him down the river now that he's dead."
With a little sigh John Hart reached into the desk. "That's very odd,"
he said softly. "Because Ingersoll left a message for you--"