Read Online The Chancellor Manuscript by Robert Ludlum - Free Book Online Page A

there had never been an instant of hesitation. It was as if the terrors of twenty years had been erased in a matter of moments.
    She had one more call to make. Here she could use any voice she liked, the blander the better. She dialed.
    “The White House,” said the voice on the line.
    “FBI, honey,” said the middle-aged actress in a faintly southern accent. “This is just information for the logs, nothing urgent. At nine o’clock this evening the director received Mr. Haldeman’s message. This is to confirm the receipt, that’s all.”
    “Okay, it’s confirmed. I’ll list it. Muggy day, isn’t it?”
    “It’s a beautiful night, though,” replied the actress. “The most beautiful night ever.”
    “Someone’s got a heavy date.”
    “I’ve got something better than that. Much better. Good night, White House.”
    “Good night, Bureau.”
    The woman got up from the chair and reached for her pocketbook. “We did it, my darling,” she whispered. Herlast performance had been her finest. She was revenged. She was free.
    The driver in the telephone van studied the graph of the electrical field scope closely. There were breaks in the heavier circuits in the lower left and left central areas. It meant that the alarm devices had been shut down in those sections: the driveway entrance, the door in the stone wall, and the path beyond it that led to the rear of the house.
    Everything was on schedule. The driver looked at his watch; it was nearly time to climb the telephone pole. He checked the rest of his equipment. When he threw a switch, the electrical current throughout Hoover’s residence would be interrupted. Lights, television sets, and radios would fade and return in a quick series of disturbances. The disruptions would last for twenty seconds, no more. The length of time was sufficient, the momentary distraction enough.
    But before that switch was thrown, there was a prior job to be done. If a custom unchanged for years was repeated tonight, an obstacle would be removed efficiently. He looked at his watch again.
    Now.
    He opened the rear doors of the van and jumped to the pavement He crossed rapidly to the pole, unhooked one end of the long safety belt, and whipped it around the wood, snapping the hook into his waist clamp. He lifted his boots one at a time and kicked the spikes into place.
    He looked around. There was no one. He slapped the safety belt above him on the pole and began to climb. In less than thirty seconds he was near the top.
    The spill of the streetlight was too bright, too dangerous. It hung suspended from a short metal brace just above him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out an air pistol loaded with lead pellets. He scanned the ground, the alley, the windows above the row of garages. He angled the air gun up at the lighted glass sphere and pulled the trigger.
    There was a spit, instantly followed by the quiet static of exploding electric filaments. The light went out.
    He waited silently; there was no sound. In the darkness he opened the flap of the equipment case and slid out a metal cylinder eighteen inches long. It was the barrel of an odd-looking rifle. From another compartment he withdrew a heavy steel rod and attached it to the cylinder; at the endwas a curved brace. From a third pocket in the leather tool-case the driver extracted a twelve-inch infrared telescope that had been precision-tooled for the top of the cylinder; it was self-locking and once locked, accurate. Finally, the man reached into his jacket and pulled out the trigger-housing unit. He snapped it into the opening on the underside of the barrel and tested the silent bolt action; all was ready, only the ammunition remained.
    Cradling the odd rifle in his left arm, he slid his right hand into his pocket and took out a steel dart, the flared end dipped in luminous paint. He inserted it into the chamber and slid the bolt back into place. The hammer was cocked, the rifle ready to fire.
    His watch read ten