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no answers, just anarchy.
    But who was Donati to pass judgment? A petty hood from the barrel’s bottom who kissed ass to reach the top, his only ambition
     in life was to follow someone else’s footsteps. All revolutionaries need flunkies to shine the shoes, serve the booze, and
     keep watch over rabble rousers. Donati even managed to get the bosses a few women to screw around with, or beat up, depending
     on their pleasure. There wasn’t a thing he couldn’t arrange to make his employers happy at home. He’d never see battle again—too
     many of his had been lost to punks who were faster, rougher, or smarter. Having no particular vocation allowed him to become
     skilled at many: loading weapons, ordering supplies, assigning guard duty, supervising combat maneuvers. You name it, he did
     it. All except actual on-the-scene warfare.
    “We postponed today’s tactical seminar until you arrived,” he said to Baal. “I can have someone move your gear into your quarters
     and—”
    Baal interrupted, “I’ll take care of that myself. Have the security guards meet me at six-thirty in my room.”
    This one was playing tough, Donati thought, but the Commander said he was the best man to handle defense at the terrorist
     camp. “Whatever you say, sir.”
    “Has there been any alteration of the plan to assassinate the President?”
    “Not that I know of, sir,” Donati replied.
    The jeep ride was two-and-a-half hazardous swamp miles, a train filled with deep potholes and mud. Upon his arrival at the
     camp, Baal dined with the Commander in celebration of the success in Washington. Donati watched them both wear out the night,
     guzzling whisky and telling tall tales of mercenary action in Pakistan and western China. When they both passed out from exhaustion
     and liquor, the roly-poly aide-de-camp cleared the empty bottles and offered thanks to God that he had joined an operation
     that, for all its drawbacks in personnel, proposed a terrorist strategy that had every chance for overwhelming victory.
    And he was promised a place at the very top.
    “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” General Bradley Scott of the Pentagon, chief adviser on inter national
     military affairs for the President, laughed out loud.
    Hamilton Winship popped two Alka-Seltzer tablets in his water glass. The fizz promised to remedy a twisted, bothered stomach.
     “Please, General,” he said in Ben Slay-ton’s defense, “hear my man out.”
    Scott let out a noxious belch and harrumphed loudly to exhibit his displeasure. This long-haired Treasury agent was calling
     him a liar, and Brad Scott didn’t take shit from anybody.
    Slayton glanced at Winship, his eyes begging for moral support. Luckily, Mr. Richards, adviser and representative to the head
     of the Secret Service, spoke up before Slayton lost all credibility.
    “I think it’s fair to assume,” Richards began, “that the message left etched in the base of Lincoln’s statue has nothing to
     do with Santa Claus, as the honorable General Scott has suggested, nor does it relate to some ironic twist of turning the
     antislavery Lincoln black as the proverbial ace of spades.
    “The mechanism used in the Washington Monument assault was timed to go off thirty-five minutes after the relatively harmless
     explosion at the Lincoln Memorial. Both devices were manufactured and designed by people who knew what they were doing. Perhaps
     they invented them—Winship’s men have yet to find out why the soot won’t wash off the Memorial statues.” This elicited mild
     guffaws from the six gentlemen seated in Winship’s office. Richards paced the room, continuing:
    “If these explosives
are
as innovative as everyone suspects, I fail to see why we should ignore Mr. Slayton’s theory.”
    Rising from his chair, Scott thumped his fist on the mahogany table, startling his colleagues next to him. “There is no proof
     that his theory is correct!”
    Winship consumed the antacid