“Oh? What do they eat?” Mary had asked.
“Chateaubriand and crepes suzette.”
“Well, we’re having pot roast.”
Along with the pot roast Mary had prepared creamed mashed potatoes, fresh vegetables, and a salad. She had baked a pumpkin pie for dessert. Stanton Rogers finished everything on -his plate.
During dinner Mary and he talked about the colorful history of junction City. Finally he brought the conversation around to Remania. “Do you think there will be a revolution there?” he asked.
“Not in the present circumstances. The only man powerful enough to depose lonescu is Marin Groza, who’s in exile.”
The questioning went on. Mary Ashley was an expert on the iron curtain countries, and Stanton Rogers was impressed.
The President was right, he thought. She really is an authority on ]Remania. And there is something more. She’s beautiful. She and the children make an all-American package that will sell. Stanton found himself getting more and more excited by the prospect. She can be more useful than she realizes.
At the end of the evening Stanton Rogers said, “Mrs. Ashley, I’m going to be frank with you. Initially I was against the President appointing you to a post as sensitive as Remania. I told him as much. I tell you this now because I’ve changed my mind. I think you will make an excellent ambassador.”
Mary shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mr. Rogers. I’m no politician. I’m an amateur.”
“Mrs. Ashley, some of our finest ambassadors have been amateurs. That is to say, their experience was not in the Foreign Service. Walter Annenberg, our former ambassador to the United Kingdom, was a publisher. John Kenneth Galbraith, our ambassador to India, was a professor. I could give you a dozen more examples. These people were all what you would call amateurs. What they had, Mrs. Ashley, was intelligence, a love for their country, and goodwill toward the people of the country where they were sent to serve.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“As you’re probably aware, you’ve already been investigated. You’ve been approved for a security clearance. You’re an expert on ]Remania. And last but not least, you have the kind of image the President wants to project in the iron curtain countries.”
Mary’s face was thoughtful. “Mr..Rogers, I appreciate what you’re saying. But I can’t accept. I have Beth and Tim to think about. I can’t just uproot them like-“
“There’s a fine school for diplomats’ children in Bucharest,” Rogers told her. “It would be a wonderful education for them. They’d learn things they could never learn in school here.”
The conversation was not going the way Mary had planned. “I don’t-I’ll think about it.”
“I’m staying in town overnight,” Stanton Rogers said. “I’ll be at the All Seasons Motel. Believe me, Mrs. Ashley, I know what a big decision this is for you. But this program is important not only to the President but to our country. Please think about that.”
When Rogers left, Mary went upstairs. The children were waiting for her, wide awake and excited.
“Are you going to take the job?” Beth asked.
“We have to have a talk. If I did decide to accept it, it would mean that you would have to leave school and all your friends. You would be living in a foreign country where we don’t speak the language, and you would be going to a strange school.”
“Tim and I talked about all that,” Beth said, ” and you know what we think? Any country would be really lucky to have you as an ambassador, Mom.”
Mary talked to Edward that night: He made it sound as though the President really needed me, darling. I have the chance again, and I don’t know what to do. To tell -you the truth, I’m terrified. This is our home. How can I leave it? This is all I have left of you. Please help me decide…. She found that she was crying.
She sat by the window for hours, looking out at the trees shivering in the howling, restless wind.
At nine o’clock in the morning Mary telephoned Stanton Rogers. “Mr. Rogers, would you please tell the President that I will be honored to accept his nomination for the ambassadorship.”
As HE always did on Friday nights, Marin Groza shut his bedroom door, went to the closet, and selected a whip. Once he had made his choice, he took off his robe, exposing his back, which was covered with cruel welts. His expression was full of anguish as he raised the leather whip and cracked it down hard against his back.
Groza flinched with pain each time the tough leather beat against his skin. Once … twice … again … and again, until the vision he had been waiting for came to him. With each lash, scenes of his wife and daughter being tortured scared through his brain. With each lash, he could hear them beg for mercy.
Suddenly he stopped, holding the whip in midair. He was having difficulty breathing. “Help! Help-“
Ley Pastemak heard Groza’s cry for help and came running in, gun in hand. He was too late. He watched as Groza toppled to the floor, his eyes open, staring at nothing.
Pastemak summoned the doctor, who lived in the villa and came into Groza’s room within minutes. He bent down to examme the body. The skin had turned blue, and the muscles were flaccid. He picked up the whip and smelled it.
“What is it?” asked Pastemak. “Poison?”
The doctor nodded. “Curare. It’s an extract from a South American plant. The Incas used it on darts to kill their enemies. Within three minutes the entire nervous system is paralyzed.”
The two men stood staring helplessly at their dead leader.