The Road to Omaha: A Novel Read online

  “Satirizes much of what is wrong in the nation’s capital.… Ludlum’s fans who enjoyed Hawkins and Devereaux in The Road to Gandolfo will enjoy The Road to Omaha.”

  —Los Angeles Daily News

  WHOSE INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC

  MISSILES ARE THEY, ANYWAY?

  MacKenzie Lochinvar Hawkins—A.k.a. Madman Mac the Hawk, general, U.S. Army (Ret.), retired at the request of the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Washington at large. A rogue elephant—albeit a lovable rogue elephant—he has assumed a new identity: Thunder Head, chief of the Wopotamis.

  “Hilarious and ingenious … [Works] on a number of levels: a study in character development, rollicking adventure, political satire and nutty love story.… Mr. Ludlum’s machine-gun banter and his characters’ zany predicaments make The Road to Omaha sing.”

  —The Washington Times

  Samuel Lansing Devereaux—The brilliant young attorney from Boston whom no one seems to understand, except the Hawk. He is an enigma, full of contradictions—a lawyer who, by some strange twist, also happens to be an honest man.

  “Outlandishly on target … the political satire is unerring and brutal.”

  —The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

  Sunrise Jennifer Redwing—A fiercely loyal daughter of the Wopotami nation, she too is an attorney, she too is brilliant, but she’s prettier by a mile than Sam. She’ll do everything in her power to help her people—and that means making sure they lose their case.

  “Hilariously, Ludlum recycles two of his world-class off-the-wall characters from The Road to Gandolfo.… Mano a mano comedy.”

  —Digby Diehl

  Desi Arnaz I & II—A couple of miscreants from Puerto Rico who have fallen under the Hawk’s spell. Their specialties include hot-wiring cars and picking locks, and if the chips fall right, one of them may soon end up as the director of the CIA.

  “[The Road to Omaha] is hard to put down. The plot is amusing, but what keeps one reading is a ravenous curiosity.… [Hawkins and Devereaux are] two of the most outrageous, unintentional clowns in current fiction.”

  —The Tampa Tribune Times

  Vincent “Vinnie the Bam-Bam” Mangecavallo—The current director of the CIA, he’s a hardworking wise guy who rose up from the ranks of the Brooklyn Mafia to become the administration’s best-kept secret weapon.

  This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  THE ROAD TO OMAHA

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Random House edition published 1992

  Bantam export edition / August 1992

  Bantam edition / February 1993

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1992 by Robert Ludlum.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Bantam Books.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-81393-0

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Preface

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Excerpt from The Bourne Identity

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  PREFACE

  A number of years ago, the undersigned wrote a novel entitled The Road to Gandolfo. It was based on a staggering premise, an earthshaking concept that should have possessed the thunder of the ages … and you don’t hardly come upon them things no more. It was to be a tale told by demons, the legions of Satan marching out of hell to commit a heinous crime that would outrage the world, a mortal blow to all men and women of faith regardless of their specific religion, for it would show how vulnerable are the great spiritual leaders of our times. Stripped to its essentials, the story dealt with the kidnapping of Rome’s Pontiff, a true man of God and of ordinary people everywhere, Pope Francesco the First.

  Are you with me? I mean, it’s really heavy, isn’t it? It should have been, but it wasn’t.… Something happened. Poor Fool, the novelist, peeked around the edges, glimpsed the flip side of the coin, and to his eternal condemnation he began to giggle. That’s no way to treat a staggering premise, a magnificent obsession! (Not too shabby a title, by the way.) Unfortunately, Poor Fool could not help himself; he began to think, which is always dangerous for a storyteller. The what-if syndrome came into play.

  What if the instigator of this horrible crime wasn’t actually a bad fellow, but in fiction’s reality, a genuine military legend whom the politicians crippled because he vociferously objected to their hypocrisies … and what if the beloved Pope wasn’t actually averse to being kidnapped, as long as his look-alike cousin, a none too bright spear carrier from La Scala Opera, took his place, and the true Pontiff could run the immense responsibilities of the Holy See by remote, without the debilitating agenda of Vatican politics and the endless procession of blessings administered to supplicants expecting to buy their way into Heaven by way of the collection plate? Now there was another story.

  I can hear you, I can hear you! He sold himself down his own river of betrayal (I’ve frequently wondered what river the bromide refers to. The Styx, the Nile, the Amazon? Certainly not the Colorado; you’d get hung up on the white-water rocks.)

  Well, maybe I did, and maybe I didn’t. I only know that during the intervening years since Gandolfo, a number of readers have asked me by letter, telephone, and outright threats of bodily harm, “Whatever happened to those clowns?” (The perpetrators, not the willing victim.)

  In all honesty, those “clowns” were waiting for another staggering premise. And late one night a year ago, the squirrelliest of my insignificant muses shrieked, “By Jove, you’ve got it!” (I’m quite sure she stole the line.)

  At any rate, whereas Poor Fool took certain liberties in the areas of religion and economics in The Road to Gandolfo, he hereby freely admits having taken similar liberties in this current scholarly tome with respect to the laws and the courts of the land.

  Then again, who doesn’t? Of course, not my attorney or your attorney, but certainly everybody else’s!

  The accurate novelization of authentic undocumented history of questionable origin demands that the muse must forego certain ingrained disciplines in the search for improbable truths. And def
initely where Blackstone is concerned.

  Yet never fear, the moral is here:

  Stay out of a courtroom unless you can buy the judge. Or, if in the unlikely event you could, hire my lawyer, which you can’t because he’s all tied up keeping me out of jail.

  So, to my many friends who are attorneys (they’re either attorneys, actors, or homicidal killers—is there a running connection?), skip over the finer points of law that are neither fine nor very pointed. However, they may well be inaccurately accurate.

  —RL

  What Robert Ludlum is too modest to say is that when The Road to Gandolfo was published under his own name, it immediately became an international best-seller in eighteen different countries.

  Readers were delighted to discover that his gift for comedy matched his talent for writing entertaining yet meaningful thrillers.

  The Publisher

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  MacKenzie Lochinvar Hawkins—Former general of the army, former by request of the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, and most of Washington. Twice decorated with the Congressional Medal of Honor. A.k.a. Madman Mac the Hawk.

  Samuel Lansing Devereaux—Brilliant young attorney, Harvard Law School, U.S. Army (reluctantly), lawyer for the Hawk in China (disastrously).

  Sunrise Jennifer Redwing—Also an attorney, also brilliant, outrageously gorgeous, and a fiercely loyal daughter of the Wopotami Indian nation.

  Aaron Pinkus—Soft-spoken giant of Boston law circles, the consummate attorney-statesman who happens to be Sam Devereaux’s employer (unfortunately).

  Desi Arnaz I—An impoverished miscreant from Puerto Rico who falls under the Hawk’s spell, and who one day may be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  Desi Arnaz II—See above. Less of a leader but a mechanical genius, such as in hot-wiring cars, picking locks, fixing ski lifts, and turning pesto sauce into an anesthetic.

  Vincent Mangecavallo—The real director of the CIA, courtesy of the Mafia dons from Palermo to Brooklyn. Any administration’s secret weapon.

  Warren Pease—Secretary of State. Every administration’s malfunctioning weapon, but a former prep school “roomie” of the President.

  Cyrus M—A black mercenary with a doctorate in chemistry. Screwed by Washington, and a gradual convert to the Hawk’s sense of justice.

  Roman Z—A Serbo-Croatian Gypsy who was a cell mate of the above. In chaos he finds total delight, as long as he has an unfair advantage.

  Sir Henry Irving Sutton—One of the theater’s finest character actors, and, by happenstance, a hero of World War II’s North African campaign, because “there were no lousy directors to warp my performance.”

  Hyman Goldfarb—The greatest linebacker ever to have graced the football fields of the NFL. In his postprofessional days, he was calamitously recruited by the Hawk.

  “Suicidal Six”

  Duke

  Dustin

  Marlon

  Sir Larry

  Sly

  Telly Professional actors who have joined the army and are considered the finest antiterrorist unit ever produced by the military. They have never fired a shot.

  Fawning Hill Country Club Members

  Bricky

  Doozie

  Froggie

  Moose

  Smythie Fine fellows from the right schools and the right clubs who passionately support the interests of the country—as long as theirs comes first, way first.

  Johnny Calfnose—Information officer of the Wopotami tribe; he picks up a phone and usually lies. He also still owes Sunrise Jennifer bail money. What more can be said?

  Arnold Subagaloo—White House Chief of Staff. He flies off the handle (free on government aircraft) whenever anyone mentions that he’s not the President. What more can anyone say?

  The rest of the personae may be of lesser importance, but it is vital to remember that there are no small parts, only small players, and none of ours are in that ignominious category. Each carries forth in the grand tradition of Thespis, giving his and her all for the play, no matter how inconsequential the offering. “The play’s the thing wherein [we’ll] catch the conscience of the king!” Or maybe somebody.

  PROLOGUE

  The flames roared up into the night sky, creating massive shadows pulsating across the painted faces of the Indians around the bonfire. And then the chief of the tribe, bedecked in the ceremonial garments of his office, his feathered headdress swooping down from his immensely tall frame to the ground below, raised his voice in regal majesty.

  “I come before you to tell you that the sins of the white man have brought him nothing but confrontation with the evil spirits! They will devour him and send him into the fires of eternal damnation! Believe me, my brothers, sons, sisters, and daughters, the day of reckoning is before us, and we will emerge triumphant!”

  The only problem for many in the chief’s audience was that the chief was a white man.

  “What cookie jar did he jump out of?” whispered an elderly member of the Wopotami tribe to the squaw next to him.

  “Shhh!” said the woman, “he’s brought us a truckload of souvenirs from China and Japan. Don’t louse up a good thing, Eagle Eyes!”

  1

  The small, decrepit office on the top floor of the government building was from another era, which was to say nobody but the present occupant had used it in sixty-four years and eight months. It was not that there were dark secrets in its walls or malevolent ghosts from the past hovering below the shabby ceiling; quite simply, nobody wanted to use it. And another point should be made clear. It was not actually on the top floor, it was above the top floor, reached by a narrow wooden staircase, the kind the wives of New Bedford whalers climbed to prowl the balconies, hoping—most of the time—for familiar ships that signaled the return of their own particular Ahabs from the angry ocean.

  In summer months the office was suffocating, as there was only one small window. During the winter it was freezing, as its wooden shell had no insulation and the window rattled incessantly, impervious to caulking, permitting the cold winds to whip inside as though invited. In essence, this room, this antiquated upper chamber with its sparse furniture purchased around the turn of the century, was the Siberia of the government agency in which it was housed. The last formal employee who toiled there was a discredited American Indian who had the temerity to learn to read English and suggested to his superiors, who themselves could barely read English, that certain restrictions placed on a reservation of the Navajo nation were too severe. It is said the man died in that upper office in the cold January of 1927 and was not discovered until the following May, when the weather was warm and the air suddenly scented. The government agency was, of course, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs.

  For the current occupant, however, the foregoing was not a deterrent but rather an incentive. The lone figure in the nondescript gray suit huddled over the rolltop desk, which wasn’t much of a desk, as all its little drawers had been removed and the rolling top was stuck at half-mast, was General MacKenzie Hawkins, military legend, hero in three wars and twice winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor. This giant of a man, his lean muscular figure belying his elderly years, his steely eyes and tanned leather-lined face perhaps confirming a number of them, had once again gone into combat. However, for the first time in his life, he was not at war with the enemies of his beloved United States of America but with the government of the United States itself. Over something that took place a hundred and twelve years ago.

  It didn’t much matter when, he thought, as he squeaked around in his ancient swivel chair and propelled himself to an adjacent table piled high with old leather-bound ledgers and maps. They were the same pricky-shits who had screwed him, stripped him of his uniform, and put him out to military pasture! They were all the goddamned same, whether in their frilly frock coats of a hundred years ago or their piss-elegant, tight-assed pinstripes of today. They were all pricky-shits. Time did not matter, nailing
them did!

  The general pulled down the chain of a green-shaded, goosenecked lamp—circa early twenties—and studied a map, in his right hand a large magnifying glass. He then spun around to his dilapidated desk and reread the paragraph he had underlined in the ledger whose binding had split with age. His perpetually squinting eyes suddenly were wide and bright with excitement. He reached for the only instrument of communication he had at his disposal, since the installation of a telephone might reveal his more than scholarly presence at the Bureau. It was a small cone attached to a tube; he blew into it twice, the signal of emergency. He waited for a reply; it came over the primitive instrument thirty-eight seconds later.

  “Mac?” said the rasping voice over the antediluvian connection.

  “Heseltine, I’ve got it!”

  “For Christ’s sake, blow into this thing a little easier, will you? My secretary was here and I think she thought my dentures were whistling.”

  “She’s out?”

  “She’s out,” confirmed Heseltine Brokemichael, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “What is it?”

  “I just told you, I’ve got it!”

  “Got what?”

  “The biggest con job the pricky-shits ever pulled, the same pricky-shits who made us wear civvies, old buddy!”

  “Oh, I’d love to get those bastards. Where did it happen and when?”

  “In Nebraska. A hundred and twelve years ago.”

  Silence. Then:

  “Mac, we weren’t around then! Not even you!”

  “It doesn’t matter, Heseltine. It’s the same horseshit. The same bastards who did it to them did it to you and me a hundred years later.”

  “Who’s ‘them’?”

  “An offshoot of the Mohawks called the Wopotami tribe. They migrated to the Nebraska territories in the middle 1800s.”

  “So?”

  “It’s time for the sealed archives, General Brokemichael.”