Fort Smith, Canada, Northwest Territories.
Robert waited until General Hilliard came on the line.
“Yes, Commander?”
“I found another witness. Dan Wayne. He owns The Ponderosa, a ranch outside of Waco, Texas.”
“Very good. I’ll have our office in Dallas speak to him.”
FLASH MESSAGE
TOP SECRET ULTRA
NSA TO DEPUTY DIRECTOR DCI
EYES ONLY
COPY ONE OF (ONE) COPIES
SUBJECT: OPERATION DOOMSDAY
6. DANIEL WAYNE – WACO
END OF MESSAGE
In Langley, Virginia, the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency studied the transmission thoughtfully. Number six. Things were going well. Commander Bellamy was doing an extraordinary job. The decision to select him had been a wise one. Janus had been right. The man was always right. And he had the power to have his wishes carried out. So much power … The Director looked at the message again. Make it look like an accident, he thought. That shouldn’t be difficult. He pressed a buzzer.
The two men arrived at the ranch in a dark blue van. They parked in the courtyard and got out of the car, carefully looking around. Dan Wayne’s first thought was that they had come to take possession of the ranch. He opened the door for them.
“Dan Wayne?”
“Yes. What can I …?”
That was as far as he got.
The second man had stepped behind him and hit him hard across the skull with a blackjack.
The larger of the two men slung the unconscious rancher over his shoulder and carried him outside to the barn. There were eight horses in the barn. The men ignored them and walked to the last stall at the back. Inside was a beautiful black stallion.
The large man said, “This is the one.” He put Wayne’s body down.
The second man picked up a cattle prod from the ground, stepped up to the stall door, and hit the stallion with the electric prod. The stallion whinnied and reared up. The man hit him again hard across the nose. The stallion was bucking wildly now, confined in the small space, smashing against the walls of the stall, his teeth bared and the whites of his eyes flashing.
“Now,” the smaller man said. His companion lifted the body of Dan Wayne and tossed it over the half door into the stall. They watched the bloody scene for several moments, then, satisfied, turned and left.
FLASH MESSAGE
TOP SECRET ULTRA
DCI TO DEPUTY DIRECTOR NSA
EYES ONLY
COPY ONE OF (ONE) COPIES
SUBJECT: OPERATION DOOMSDAY
6. DANIEL WAYNE – WACO – TERMINATED
END OF MESSAGE
Day Nine
Fort Smith, Canada
Fort Smith, in the Northwest Territories, is a prosperous town of two thousand people, most of them farmers and cattle ranchers, with a sprinkling of merchants. The climate itself is demanding, with long and rigorous winters, and the town is living proof of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest.
William Mann was one of the fit ones, a survivor. He had been born in Michigan, but in his early thirties he had passed through Fort Smith on a fishing trip and had decided that the community needed another good bank. He had seized the opportunity. There was only one other bank there, and it took William Mann less than two years to put his competitor out of business. Mann ran his bank the way a bank should be run. His god was mathematics, and he saw to it that the numbers always came out to his benefit. His favourite story was the joke about the man who went to a banker pleading for a loan so that his young son could have an immediate operation to save his life. When the applicant said he had no security, the banker told him to get out of his office.
“I’ll go,” the man said, “but I want to tell you that in all my years, I’ve never met anyone as coldhearted as you are.”
“Wait a minute,” the banker replied. “I’ll make you a sporting proposition. One of my eyes is a glass eye. If you can tell me which one it is, I’ll give you the loan.”
Instantly, the man said, “Your left one.”
The banker was amazed. “No one knows that. How could you tell?”
The man said, “That’s easy. For a moment, I thought I detected a gleam of sympathy in your left eye, so I knew it must be your glass eye.”
That, to William Mann, was a good businessman’s story. One did not conduct business based on sympathy. You had to look at the bottom line. While other banks in Canada and the United States were toppling like tenpins, William Mann’s bank was stronger than ever. His philosophy was simple: no loans to start up businesses; no investments in junk bonds; no loans to neighbours whose children might desperately need an operation.
Mann had a respect that bordered on awe for the Swiss banking system. The gnomes of Zurich were bankers’ bankers. So, one day, William Mann decided to go to Switzerland to speak to some of the bankers there to learn if there was anything he was missing, any way he could squeeze more cents out of the Canadian dollar. He had been received graciously, but in the end he had learned nothing new. His own banking methods were admirable, and the Swiss bankers had not hesitated to tell him so.
On the day he was to leave for home, Mann decided to treat himself to a tour of the Alps. He had found the tour boring. The scenery was interesting, but no prettier than the scenery around I; Fort Smith. One of the passengers, a Texan, had dared try to persuade him to make a loan on a ranch that was going into bankruptcy. He had laughed in the man’s face. The only thing about the tour that was of any interest was the crash of the so-called flying saucer. Mann had not believed in the reality of that for an instant. He was sure it had been staged by the Swiss government to impress tourists. He had been to Disney World and he had seen similar things that looked real, but were faked. It’s Switzerland’s glass eye, he thought sardonically.
William Mann was happy to return home.
Every minute of the banker’s day was meticulously scheduled, and when his secretary came in and said that a stranger wished to see him, Mann’s first instinct was to dismiss him. “What is it he wants?”
“He says he wants to do an interview with you. He’s writing an article about bankers.”
That was a different matter entirely. Publicity of the right kind was good for business. William Mann straightened his jacket, smoothed down his hair, and said, “Send him in.”
His visitor was an American. He was well dressed, which indicated that he worked for one of the better magazines or newspapers.
“Mr Mann?”