O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [143]
Zach did not answer. Each man reacted, stunned, puzzled, in dread.
“I love you people,” Zach rasped. “I love the Marine Corps. I love her more.”
“Jesus Christ!” Tobias cried.
Ben came nose to nose with Zach and Zach stared dead ahead, unblinking.
“You don’t know the seriousness of what you’re saying, Zachary. The admiral-in-chief of the United States Navy and the commandant of the Corps handpicked you. If you don’t take this command, there can be only one deduction, that the author of ‘Random Sixteen’ doesn’t have enough belief in his words to stand behind them. ‘Random Sixteen’ will be impeached, trashed.”
“Indeed”—Tobias entered the fray—“you’d be branded as a coward in Marine’s clothing. You shock me, Zachary.”
“I realized that this moment would fall heavily on you,” Zach said.
“Maybe you think my time in China was a big gas. I’ve got a hundred stab wounds in my back and two thousand nights of longing to come back to my country. Maybe you think I didn’t freeze my nuts off in Alaska. You have been singled out, spoon-fed, and coddled by the Corps since you were born. Thank God Paddy O’Hara isn’t alive to see this moment.”
Zach continued to look directly ahead with the passionless face of a tin soldier guarding a national monument. “I know this is hard to take,” he managed.
“Hard to take! This is a big-time fucking!” Tobias retorted. “Can’t you see what’s been done for you? You have been given a chance to change the way the world thinks. No one has that kind of chance. Change the way the world thinks.”
Gunny watched this lashing and remained silent. In a long moment, Ben and Tobias caught their breaths.
“A dog ran over the trolley tracks and the front wheels cut off the tip of his tail, so he turned to see what was happening and the back wheels ran over his head. Don’t lose your head over a little piece of tail,” Tobias preached.
At last the Gunny spoke up. “Tell them why, Captain O’Hara.”
Zach faded. “I’m done in,” he said. “I have nothing left to give the Marine Corps.”
“Nothing left? You haven’t even worked up a sweat!” Tobias said.
Ben beat his fist on the desktop, his face filling with horror. “Oh, my God,” he said.
“I’m done in,” Zach repeated.
“It’s all so fucking clear,” Ben said. “In the back of my mind I’ve always had fears about this guy. Look at him. He says he’s done in. Zachary O’Hara has used you and you and me and the Corps and everyone in his life and every day of his life to pull the con of the century. Zachary O’Hara knew from the day he was born that the Corps was there to serve him. This guy has the brain and the looks and the big name. His life has been a clever, stunning charade. This boy is slick.”
Ben filled his mind to overflowing with Zach’s treachery and he reeled between disbelief and rage.
“His tactics began the day he enlisted, with great fanfare and, oh yeah, the tears over his father’s grave. Well, let’s put Little Precious on guard duty at the Washington barracks. He’s about the biggest showpiece the Corps has left. And we three. Get him into AMP. We owe his daddy! And brilliant young Zachary swoons us into a commission and swoons me into taking him to the War College. That was his dirty plan. Newport. Playing the brokenhearted fool, he cruised subtly and with the sly glance and the wispy touch until every virgin heiress on Mansion Row was in heat. You should have heard the phone calls I got begging me to bring him to their parlor.
“George Barjac pleaded with me to talk Zach into the tobacco business and was ready to throw Lilly into the bargain. But Zachary didn’t want to get involved in a setup with too many sons and sons-in-law.
“And, oh yes, Admiral-in-Chief Langenfeld was ready to swap a battleship for this . . . this piece of shit. Having surveyed the situation, no way Zach O’Hara would spend two years in a Caribbean shithole.”
“You’re yellow! You’re a coward!” Tobias roared.
“Having brought the Princess Amanda to her knees, begging and crawling, the two, so, so much in love, have a plan to cut the balls off Horace Kerr. Our