The Multiple Man Read Free Page B

here."
    "How can I keep . . ."
    He laid a stubby finger against my chest. It felt as if it weighed half a ton. "I don't care how you do it. Just do it. Then meet us at the Mass General cryonics facility after the speech. Alone. No reporters."
    He was dead serious. And the man under the blanket was dead. My brain began to whirl. It couldn't be an assassination attempt. One well-shod character staggers into an alley to have a heart attack and McMurtrie acts as if we're being invaded by Martians.
    But I didn't argue. I went back to the fire door, a couple of steps behind the two cops. Maybe McMurtrie was just overreacting. Or maybe, crafty son of a bitch that he was, he was using this accident as an opportunity to test his troops' capabilities.
    Sure, that's it. A practice run, courtesy of a wino whose time ran out. I was about to smile when the rest of my brain asked, Then why's he bringing Dr. Klienerman up from Washington? And what's he want the Massachusetts General Hospital's cryonics facility for? He's going to dip the wino in liquid nitrogen and make a frozen popsicle out of him?
    One look at the faces of those two Boston patrolmen drove all the levity out of me. They were scared. Not from finding a wino in an alley. Not from brushing against the President's security team. Something was in their eyes that I hadn't seen since the San Fernando quake—these guys were terrified of something that went beyond human control.
    They had reached the fire door a few paces ahead of me and turned to stand guard. I stopped when they looked at me. One of them had his electric prod in his gloved hands. The other had hooked his thumb around the butt of his revolver.
    "Uh . . . McMurtrie told me to go back inside," I mumbled. Somehow I felt guilty in their eyes.
    "Yeah, we heard him." That's all either one of them said. One of them opened the fire door and I stepped back inside the Hall.
    I was shaking. And not entirely from the cold.

    The President's speech was almost over as I took my seat.
    "What happened?" Ryan whispered to me. "You look awful."
    I tried giving him a fierce glance. "Just cold. I'm okay."
    "What's going on?"
    "Nothing," I lied. "McMurtrie wanted to check the arrangements for the President's ride back to Logan. Wanted to know if I had planned a Q and A session after the speech."
    Ryan looked a bit puzzled, but he apparently accepted that. I felt lucky that he was a local reporter and not one of the Washington corps, who know that we never have a question period following a speech. Especially when The Man's already given a press conference the same day.
    Halliday wound up his speech, the audience cheered mightily, and the usual round of handshaking started up on stage. The Hall emptied slowly, although most of the reporters raced for the nearest exits to get back to their offices and file their stories. The few who tried to take an alley exit were turned back, grumbling.
    Ryan didn't leave, though.
    "Don't you have a deadline to meet?" I asked him as we walked slowly toward the back of the Hall, following the emptying throng.
    He paced alongside me, stubborn faced and tweedy. "I'm doing the color piece for the afternoon edition. Got plenty of time. I was wondering . . . Johnny thought it might be fun to do an interview with you."
    "Me?"
    "Sure." He waved an arm in the air. "Local man makes good. What it's like to work in the White House. The inside story of the most popular President since Roosevelt . . . that kind of stuff."
    "Not now," I said. "I've got to join the rest of the staff and get back to Washington. No time for an interview."
    "Too bad."
    I didn't like the look on his face: more curious than disappointed. Or maybe I was projecting.
    "Look," I said. "Why don't we do the interview by phone. Give me a call early next week and we'll set up a time. Okay?"
    He nodded without smiling. "Sure."
    Ryan offered me a ride to the airport, once we got outside to the windy, cold street. I told him I was going to ride in one