Spencerville

your fucking mind?”
    “Probably.”
    “Well, we can integrate this situation into the equation.”
    “Speak English.”
    “Okay. Are you running off with her?”
    “That’s the plan.”
    “When?”
    “Saturday morning.”
    “Can it wait? ”
    “No. It’s getting hot here.”
    “I’ll bet it is. That’s why you have that piece stuck under your shirt.”
    Keith didn’t reply.
    Charlie asked, “Does the husband know?”
    “No. If he did, this place would have been under fire when you drove up.” Keith added, “He knows his wife and I were an item way back. He doesn’t like that. He gave me until tomorrow to get out of town.”
    “Are you going to kill him?”
    “No. I promised her I wouldn’t. They have two kids. In college.”
    “Well, they had him around a long time. Good memories, life insurance, tuition taken care of.”
    “Charlie, don’t joke about killing. I’ve had enough of that.”
    “Termination. You don’t say kill, and you have to make a joke about it or it sounds ugly.” He added, “Wouldn’t life be easier for you if this guy committed suicide or had an accident? I didn’t like him.”
    “He doesn’t meet our requirements for termination.”
    “Did he threaten you with bodily harm?”
    “Sort of.”
    “There you go. Paragraph five of the rules of termination.”
    “Commandment one. Old Testament.”
    “You got me. Hey, do what you have to do. Actually, if you come live in D.C., you’ll be okay. She’ll like the capital.”
    “Not to live there for five years. She’s a country girl, Charlie.”
    “I’d like to meet her.”
    “Sure.” Keith put out his cigarette.
    Charlie said, “You’re coming back with me on the two-fifteen. You know that, don’t you?”
    “First I’ve heard of it.”
    “There’s no way out of this one, Keith. Believe me. But I’d rather you come as a favor to me. Not because you owe me a favor, but so I can owe you a favor.”
    “I’d like to keep the bullshit out in the farmyard.”
    “You’re coming to Washington to save my ass. I can’t go back there and report to the secretary of defense that I couldn’t get you to see him and the president. Jesus, I’d be spending the next five years in Iceland counting radar blips. My wife would run off with somebody like you.”
    “Cut it out.” Keith stayed quiet for a while, then said, “They rely on our loyalty toward one another more than our loyalty toward the government, don’t they?”
    “That’s all that works these days.”
    “Don’t you feel used?”
    “Sure. Used, underpaid, unappreciated, and unneeded. You’re right, the danger has passed, and we’re… how does that ditty go? ‘The danger’s passed, the wrong is righted; the veteran’s ignored, the soldier’s slighted.’”
    “There you are.”
    “But so what? We’ll play if they pay.” He looked at Keith. “You know, buddy, I sometimes feel like I’m on a football team that just won the big game. The other team’s gone home, the stands are empty, and we’re running plays against nobody, in the dark.” He sat quietly a moment, and Keith could see that Charlie Adair was having his own little crisis of conscience and confidence. But with Charlie, you never really knew.
    Charlie looked up. “The meeting is tomorrow morning.”
    Keith said, “In fact, I had planned to fly to Washington on Saturday on the two-fifteen. Can we make the meeting for Monday?”
    Charlie adopted his make-believe officious tone of voice, and replied, “My good man, you have an appointment with the secretary of defense at eleven-thirty A.M. tomorrow in the Cabinet Room, then you will go into the Oval Office at precisely eleven fifty-five where you will shake hands with and say hello to the president of the United States. As much as these two gentlemen would like to work their schedules around yours, they may possibly have other appointments on Monday.”
    “Perhaps a little advance notice would have been appreciated by a private citizen who has all sorts of constitutional rights not to be summoned by—”
    “Keith. Cut it. You’re no more a private citizen than I am. And you know how these things happen. It happened to Sir Patrick Spence.”
    “Who?”
    “The guy in the Scottish ballad. My people are Scottish, and this place is named Spencerville. That’s how I happened to think of it.”
    “Think of
what?
”
    “The Scottish ballad.” He recited, “‘The king sits in Dumferling Town, drinking his blood-red