The Stainless Steel Rat for President

"You are going to shoot us-for no reason?" Bolivar said, turning his profile towards us and hamming it up something terrible. Knowing that the whole scene was being recorded. "You would shoot helpless citizens of your own country-you who are sworn to uphold the law!" He fell back and gasped. "Your time is up. All right men-ready-aim—.." A single policeman raised his gun, then slumped down to join his cataleptic companions. Because in addition to the flags Angelina had been passing out sleep gas capsules.

"Fire!" the officer said-and nothing happened. He turned and gasped-then tried to tear his pistol out of its holster. Another broken capsule puffed out its invisible message and he dropped out of sight to join his troops.

As he vanished there was a muffled cheer from the surrounding buildings and the children reappeared, shouting and waving their flags with joy. This time there were more than a few adults with them. There were echoing ha-has of jolly laughter as we pinned a Harapo button onto each police uniform, put a Harapo flag into each dozing hand. After this, happy volunteers rolled aside the vehicle with its unconscious minions of the law; cheers were raised again as the parade continued. More than candy was being given out now. Attached to the flags were the crisp green rectangles of Election Money. Each bill could be exchanged for a bottle of wine and a fried bean sandwich at the evening rally. Things were really beginning to come together.

But Zapilote was still trying to take them apart. As we drove into the center of the city the crowds grew larger, the cheering louder. The marqu6z and I stood in the back of the car, waving, while the election anthem rolled out in eardestroying waves. The stalwart form of my watchdog, Rodriguez, walked alongside the slowly moving vehicle, his grim face grimmer than usual because I had made him leave his recoilless caliber 50 automatic at home. This precaution had been a wise one because I saw him scratching at his empty armpit just as a number of bullets impacted the force field. It was disconcerting to see them suddenly appear before my face, moving slower and slower until they stopped.

"He's in that window on the second floor!" Rodriguez said, pointing. I saw a flash of movement that vanished as I looked. "Go get him!" I said.

Rodriguez buried himself through the crowd like a surfer through the waves-then on into the building. I ordered the car to stop as I reached out and caught the still-hot slugs as they oozed out of the force field. Dropping them on the floor at my feet. I touched my lapel microphone and spoke.

"Did you get that on tape?" I asked, then looked at James in the following car. He raised the camera and patted it as his radioed voice whispered in my earplug receiver. "In the can. Dad!" "Good. Keep shooting. We have just had an assassination attempt and our faithful watchdog has gone after the gunman. There he is now." Rodriguez had emerged from the building, a long-barreled weapon in one hand, dragging an unconscious man by the other. The crowd murmured and tried to see what was happening as he pushed through them. I switched on the public address system to distract their attention.

"Lady and gentleman voters of Puerto Azul! It has been my great pleasure to come here to meet you, and I sincerely hope that I will see you all at the monster rally tonight. There will be talks, entertainment, free wine, and bean sandwiches, ice cream for the kiddies and a hundred door prizes, yes indeed. You do not have to pay to participate. But a hundred lucky winners will each take home a dartboard with complete set of darts-and these will not be ordinary dartboards, nosiree. Each of these dartboards has a face on it for a target-and I ask you whose face is it? That's right-you can throw darts at the ugly mush of the old dictator himself, Julio 'The Monster' Zapilote!" As you can imagine that produced a gasp or two and drew everyone's attention. A few of them looked skywards as though they expected a lightning bolt from the heavens to strike and slay me. The car door opened and Rodriguez pushed . the assassin and his gun in onto the floor. I nodded when he rolled the unconscious man over and pointed to his dark ela. sses. Mv arnniififtd vnipp mll~dd r]ii[aaain "Now you may call that pretty strong talk-but I mean it. I'm hopping mad. I came here to conduct a peaceful election campaign and what happens? Why I get shot at, that's what happens!" I let the gasp and murmur roll by then turned up the power. "I'm firnous I tell you. Right here in my hand I have one of the bullets that were just fired at me. Right at my feet I have the gunman and his rifle. And you know something funny-even though he was shooting at me from inside that building, this gunman is wearing dark glasses..." The crowd roared and surged forward; I signaled the car to start moving again.