Metzger's Dog

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In one of my favorite scenes in Metzger’s Dog, a group of senior spooks from the Central Intelligence Agency is sitting around talking about a top-secret project known as the Exploding President.

The idea, conceived by a flaky agent named Molnar and ultimately rejected by his superiors, was to create a replica dummy of the President of the United States and then fill it with two hundred pounds of high explosives.

“What the hell for?” asks one of the CIA guys.

“To assassinate assassins. You know, at parades and ceremonies.”

“But that would kill everybody around it for a hundred yards.”

“Right. Well-done hamburger. If we’d gone for that one, we might have gotten the Nuclear President. I guess it’s our loss. Glad to see you’ve found something else for Molnar to do.”

At which point the Director of the CIA looks up earnestly and says, “It’s not fair to mark a man for life just for one bad idea.”

That subtle dose of absurdity is worthy of Graham Greene, who I suspect would approve enthusiastically of Thomas Perry.

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