Free Thefts of Nick Velvet by Edward D. Hoch Page B

cabinet ministers—nine in all. Nine sea-shells on your national flag. And the cabinet always sits in row J at the auditorium—the ninth row, since theaters hardly ever have a row I. The country was liberated in 1899, on September 9—the ninth day of the ninth month. And nine-fingered Palidez did it all. He wrote the constitution and built the palace, Nine House, with its nine rooms on each floor.”
    “I know all that,” she said.
    “Then tell me what else there is. Something in the constitution that Palidez wrote. Something that Jorge Asignar needs nine men for.”
    “Nine men—” And suddenly her hand flew to her mouth. “My God, the firing squad!”
    It was then that the driver pulled over to the curb and turned to face them with a pistol in his hand.
    Nick Velvet fired a single shot through the back of the seat, hoping his aim was good. It was—the driver crumpled sideways without a sound.
    “Help shove him over,” Nick told Maria. “I’ll drive.”
    “He’s one of Asignar’s people,” she gasped.
    “He was. I’m glad I still had the gun with me. Which way should I go?”
    “Straight ahead—you can see it from here, over on the left.” As he drove she kept talking. “Palidez’s constitution states that the President of Jabali can be removed from office and sentenced to death by a secret panel of judges in a time of national crisis. But the actual execution of a President can only be carried out by a nine-man firing squad. To insure that the firing squad itself is impartial, none of the men can be citizens of Jabali.”
    “So Asignar brought the Beavers in to be public executioners. He’s planning to take over the country, but he wants it all nice and legal. He doesn’t want the citizens upset.”
    “But how can he get the Beavers to shoot my father?”
    “However it is, I’ve got to stop it. I agreed to steal a baseball team, not to provide a firing squad. Asignar suggested the pre-game pageant. He must be planning it for then.”
    The voice on the radio droned on in Spanish. Nick missed many words, but he got the general idea. Both teams were lined up on the field, facing the President who was standing on a raised platform. The teams carried rifles, symbolic of Jabali’s revolution, but they would soon exchange them for bats, symbolic of today’s peaceful life.
    “Faster!” Maria urged. “They have guns, and father is now down on the field.”
    Nick swung into the stadium driveway, saw a policeman signaling him away, and brushed the man aside like a fly. Then he headed the car toward the metal gates that blocked the entrance to the field. “Keep your head down,” he warned Maria.
    The car hit the gates with a force that cracked the windshield and crushed in the radiator, but they were through. The Beavers, nine of them, were facing General Tras, aiming their rifles in the air in some sort of salute. Nick drove the crippled car forward in a final burst of speed that almost bowled the players over.
    “Don’t shoot!” he yelled to Nesbitt, the shortstop. “It’s a trick!”
    There was shouting from the stands, and Nick saw soldiers running onto the field. “They’re only blanks,” Karowitz protested. “Asignar told us to fire over the President’s head as part of the pageant.”
    Nick grabbed one of the rifles and ejected a blank cartridge. “Then he’s somewhere with a high-powered rifle. He couldn’t expect you fellows to really execute the President, but he wanted it to look that way.”
    General Tras was running over now, his face ashen. “What is it? What’s happening?”
    “Asignar is planning to kill you and make it look like an execution. Once you’re dead, no one would know the difference. The judges who condemned you in secret must be part of Asignar’s plot.”
    There was the crack of a rifle, from far off, and Tras stumbled to the ground. The bullet had hit the fleshy part of his thigh. “He’s on the roof, over there!” Nick shouted. He grabbed one of