Seven Days in May

Tuesday Morning

Jordan Lyman opened one eye, then shut it again. Rain spattered against the windowpanes in the half-light of early morning. Coming out of his sleep, Lyman listened to the comforting steadiness of the downpour and let the sound take him back to the chill, damp mornings of his Ohio boyhood when he'd stay snuggled in the blankets to await his father's ritual call: "Time to get up, Jordie, the world's waiting for you."

Here in the White House the world was always waiting, but no one dared wake the President without orders-and Lyman had left none for this morning. He stretched and scratched the back of his head. God, what a dismal day. Why hadn't they ever moved the capital to Arizona? Lyman's months as President had confirmed his pet theory about American diplomacy: that it lacked "initiative" primarily because of the Washington climate. The city was always wet, overcast, humidly hot or damply cold. All the bright, cool, cheerful days in a year wouldn't fill one month on the calendar.

He was awake now, but still reluctant to abandon the comfort of his bed. He thought of his daughter Elizabeth in Louisville. I hope the sun is shining on her, poor kid. She's probably in the hospital right now. Well, it will be a good-looking boy, with Liz and her husband as the producers. Boy? Sure, Liz will come through. Better call Doris this morning and see how things are going.

Lyman was swinging himself out of bed, his feet reaching for the floor, when he remembered. That Marine colonel last night and his incredible story. Scott. MacPherson. ECOMCON.

He sat for a few minutes on the edge of the bed, then picked up the phone on the night table.

"Grace," he said to the operator, "good morning. Or it was until I looked out the window. Call Esther at home, will you please, and ask her to come down as soon as she can. Tell her I'll probably still be eating breakfast. Thanks."

Lyman washed, shaved and dressed within fifteen minutes. Leaving his bedroom, he managed a smile for the warrant officer sitting in the hall with his briefcase full of nuclear-war codes. What a way, Lyman thought, to make a President start a rainy day.

He was in the dining room, inwardly fuming again over the grapefruit, when Esther Townsend came in. She was scrubbed and neat, her lipstick very light, the little collar of her blouse tilted upright with starch and the wisp of hair curling over one temple. Why doesn't she get married? thought the President ... The idea fled before the others crowding in behind it.

"Have some coffee, Esther," he said. "The news is as foul as the weather this morning. Somebody wants my job."

Esther eyed him over her coffee cup as she sat at the corner of the table.

"Now, Governor," she said, using the term she had favored ever since he was attorney general of Ohio and still two years away from the governorship. "Isn't this a little early to be worrying about "76?"

"Somebody wants my job right now, or so I'm informed." Lyman telescoped Casey's story, and his own additions, into about five minutes for her benefit.

"This may be a complete misunderstanding all around, Esther," he said as he finished the recital, "but we've got to find out fast. For the time being, only five people are going to know about this beyond you and me: Ray Clark, Paul Girard, Colonel Casey, Art Corwin, and Chris Todd. If any one of them calls during the rest of this week, no matter what time of day, I want you to take the message."

"Do you think I'd better sleep here at the House?" she asked. Her tone was neutral, and Lyman had no way of guessing her reaction to the story. Lord, he thought, I wish I knew my own. If the sun was shining now, I'd think the whole thing was cockeyed.

"Yes, I do. I think for the rest of the week you'd better use that cot in the doctor's office. And, Esther, what about the switchboard girls? In a situation like this-I know it's silly-but I'd rather not trust anybody you don't."

"That's easy," Esther said. "Helen Chervasi and I are good friends. I'll get her to set up the two daytime shifts so that calls from any one of those five people will be switched to her. I'll take the overnight shift myself."

"You can't do that, Esther." Lyman was genuinely concerned. "You'd be out on your feet in two days."

She shook her head. "No, I can nap some during the day, and there won't be any calls much after midnight."

"Well, what do you think of it all?" He was curious, for she still had made no comment on this weird new problem of the Lyman administration.

She pointed her index finger at her head in a familiar private signal: Quiet, secretary thinking. They both grinned.

"Actually, Governor, I'm puzzled, just as you are. As a woman, I'd say I'd have to know more about General Scott. I don't have any particular feeling about him, I mean in that kind of thing. If I were you, I'd find out more about his girl friend."

"What girl friend?"

"Oh, haven't you heard that old one?" Esther smiled wisely and shook her head as if in pity for the backwardness of the male. "It's been the gossip for a couple of years. The General is supposed to slip up to New York now and then to see a very chi-chi item named Millicent Segnier. She's fashion editor of Cherie magazine. They're supposed to have a big thing."

"Well, I'll be damned," Lyman said. "The things a man learns when he lets it drop that somebody is making a pass at his job. That's interesting, dear, but hardly anything to save the Republic with. Look, time's awasting. Get Ray Clark here right away."

The morning papers lay neatly piled on the table behind the desk, still unread, when Clark sailed into Lyman's office.

"What in God's green earth are you gettin' me outa mah bed at this houah fo', Mistuh President?" asked Clark. His face was still wet from the rain. "Ah ain't got me one of them free ten-thousand-dolluh White House funeral wagons to carry me, neither. Ol' Ray gotta drive hisse'f."

Lyman's smile was no more than perfunctory. "Stow the accent this morning, will you, Ray? We've got some fast thinking to do."

He buzzed for Esther and asked her to order a breakfast for Clark.

"Do you know a Marine colonel named Casey, Martin Casey?"

"Sure," Clark said. "If you mean the director of the Joint Staff. He's been before the committee a few times. Did me a favor once, too. The son of a pretty prominent fellow in Atlanta went AWOL from Marine boot camp down at Parris Island. The kid got what was coming to him, but Casey was nice enough to see they kept it out of the papers."

"How do you size him up, Ray?"

"Pretty straight, so far as I know," Clark saw the look on Lyman's face and refined his appraisal. "I'd go a little further. You get a feeling about some people. It's just a hunch, but I'd say Casey was solid. Why? Do you have to trust him on something?"

"We sure as hell do, Ray. Casey came to see me upstairs last night. He thinks he has evidence that there may be a military plot to seize the government on Saturday."

Lyman had expected Clark to explode with a guffaw. Instead, the senator just raised his eyebrows and stared at him.

"You're not surprised? Or do you think I'm a little crazy?" Lyman asked.

"The first, Jordie."

"Why, for God's sake?"

"You tell me the story first. Then I'll tell you why."

This time, as he had with Girard the night before, President Lyman spent almost an hour in the telling, being careful to fit in his own additions, Girard's talk with Bill Fullerton of the Budget Bureau, and even Esther's piece of gossip about Scott. Clark finished his breakfast as Lyman talked.

"Now, my questions," Lyman said as he finished the narrating. "As the ranking member on Armed Services, have you ever heard of ECOMCON? And why weren't you surprised?"

"As to the first," Clark said slowly, "I sure haven't. As for the second, I'll tell you why. Goddammit, Mr. President, I've told you at least three times that morale in the services is lousy. They've slipped way behind civilian pay scales, I mean even further than ever before. And the officers-and the regular NCO's and enlisted men too-think your refusal to restore the old fringe benefits is some kind of personal affront on your part."

"Ray, I promised you we'd send up a bill to adjust military pay and benefits, but when I do I want to do it right and give it a real shove. Maybe I have let it slide too long, but the bill's just about ready now." Lyman tugged at his ear. "But you don't really think that the military would try to seize the government just because they're underpaid, do you?"

"No," said Clark. "Of course not. But it's part of the climate. Jordie, this country is in a foul mood. It's not just the treaty, or the missile strikes, or any one thing. It's the awful frustration that just keeps building up and up. They think every new President is going to be the miracle man who'll make the Commies go away. Of course, he never is. But right now it's getting worse. I'll bet I get five hundred letters every time that nut MacPherson goes on the idiot box. And some senators get more."

"But a Pentagon plot?" Lyman's tone was incredulous.

"I'm talking about the climate, Jordie. The move could come from anywhere. I'll bet if that bastard Prentice had a little real guts inside that belly of his he'd be ready to try it too. When you're down to 29 per cent in the polls, they line up to take pot shots at you. Anything can happen."

"You didn't read the Gallup Poll that way yesterday," Lyman said.

"I didn't know General Scott had rented himself a white horse yesterday, either."

"Then you believe it?" Lyman asked.

"I'm like you and Casey. I think we damn well better check it out as fast as we can."

"I knew I could count on you, Ray," Lyman said, his voice showing his relief. "I'm not quite sure where I'd turn if it weren't for you."

Clark stared at Lyman.

"Mr. President, you're the best friend I've got and I'd do almost anything for you," he said, "but if you don't mind my saying so, this might turn out to be something a lot bigger than just helping Jordan Lyman."

Lyman walked around the desk.

"Scratch a true Southerner," he said, "and you find a patriot, despite the Yankees he has to put up with. And now, since we've let our hair down, Ray, I hope you can stay out of trouble for the rest of the week."

Clark's eyes shifted away from the President.

"I don't make promises to other people on that subject. I make 'em to myself."

"Any way you say, Ray," Lyman replied. "But no bottle for the duration. That's an order."

Clark was curt. "I can take care of myself, Mr. President. What do you want me to do next?"

"See if you can't get something out of Scott at the hearing this morning about ECOMCON," Lyman said. "You know, from the side, easy. We can't let him get the least idea that we suspect anything. And be back here at two o'clock sharp. I want a meeting. Come in the east entrance. We'll go up to the solarium. I'm going to talk to Corwin and Chris alone this morning."

Lyman was at the buzzer by the time Clark had shut the door behind him. "Esther, get Art Corwin in here right away. And listen, Esther, tell Paul to go see Fullerton and get a rundown on all the classified military installations in the country. Overseas, too, while he's at it. And tell him to remind Fullerton again not to talk to anybody about last night's call-or today's either. One other thing: I want Chris Todd here at eleven. Okay?"

Arthur M. Corwin, chief of the White House Secret Service detail, came quietly through the door. Corwin seldom smiled, yet no face in the White House seemed so full of good humor. Though his cheeks and mouth remained uncommitted, the little crinkles around his eyes gave him the look of a man who enjoyed everybody and everything about him. After fifteen years as a field agent-dealing primarily with counterfeiters- he had been assigned to the White House under Lyman's predecessor, Edgar Frazier. Lyman had chosen him to head the detail when the job opened up through retirement.

The two men had taken a quick liking to each other on election night, when Corwin showed up at the governor's mansion in Columbus to guard the new President of the United States. Lyman knew without asking that Corwin had never cared for Frazier; his respect for the agent increased when he found that under no circumstances would Corwin reveal this by so much as a single casual word.

Corwin was taller than the President, wide-shouldered and strong, the proud owner of a bristling crew cut. Though his interests were narrow (Lyman was sure his chief bodyguard hadn't read more than half a dozen books since graduating from Holy Cross), he read the newspapers carefully every day, trying to keep one step ahead of his boss in guessing where he might go, whom he might see, and what visitors he might have in.

Now he stood waiting in front of the desk.

"Sit down, Art," Lyman said. "I may be in a jam and I need your help. First, you ought to know that there's another All Red alert scheduled for Saturday. You weren't to know until the last minute under the security plan."

In his fourth review of Casey's story, Lyman found himself editing it, condensing some points, dwelling at length on others. As the events took sharper focus in his mind, three items-the establishment of ECOMCON, Admiral Barnswell's refusal to join Scott's horse-race pool, and the crumpled note in Hardesty's handwriting-stood out most sharply. Corwin seemed to think so too.

"It's awful hard, Mr. President," he said, "to believe that anybody could fill up a big hunk of desert with men and supplies and buildings and not have word get back to the White House somehow."

"That bothers me, too, Art, most of all," Lyman said. "Of course, Casey is only guessing. He's put two and two together and maybe he's come up with five. But I sat down this morning and tried to list in my own mind all the classified bases we've got, and I couldn't do it. We have so many of them now, and so many levels of classification, that it wouldn't occur to most people to mention a particular one to me unless some decision had to be made about it."

Corwin said nothing. Lyman wondered what this big, quiet man was thinking. Does he share my feeling of outrage at the mere thought that intelligent and capable-and trusted-Americans might be preparing a challenge to the Constitution? Does he feel the same despair and frustration at the idea? Does his loyalty, as a guard, run to the body or to the spirit of what he's protecting?

"What do you think about it, Art?"

"I think I'd better double the detail, with the men I know best," Corwin replied quickly.

"No, no, I don't mean that. What do you think about the whole thing, the idea? Does it make any sense to you?"

Corwin smiled for the first time, and Lyman thought he could read something like affection for him in the agent's face.

"Mr. President," he said, "my predecessor on this job and I get together every once in a while. You'd be surprised how we think of Presidents. As far as we're concerned, in our work, you're all part babe in the woods and part fool.

"Somebody is always trying to knock off the President, in one way or another. We shortstop a hundred letters a year from screwballs who want to cut your throat or poison you or drill you with a rifle."

Lyman smiled ruefully. "And Dr. Gallup must have talked to every one of them last week."

Corwin smiled politely, but was not to be diverted.

"But with all of that, Presidents do the damnedest things. Remember when Truman stuck his head out the window in Blair House, right in the middle of that Puerto Rican thing, to see what all the shooting was about? And Kennedy swimming all by himself fifty yards off his boat in cold water forty feet deep- and him with a bad back? Or Eisenhower playing golf at Burning Tree? Why, the woods are so thick along some of those fairways that a dozen nuts could have a shot out of the trees before the detail could even see them."

Lyman raised a big hand to protest. "But this is different, Art. If it's ... if it's true, this could be an operation to take over the Presidency, the office itself."

"It's all the same to us, Mr. President," Corwin answered. "We don't trust anybody. Maybe you'll laugh, but I find myself running an eye over some of your top people, even the Cabinet, looking for a bulge under their jackets."

"We're not on the same wave length, Art," Lyman insisted. "There isn't any danger, physical danger, to me in this. What this may be is a threat to the office I happen to hold. And, therefore, to the Constitution."

"It comes down to the same thing, sir. If anybody wants to take over the government, they have to get rid of you first somehow, or at least put you away- say in a back room underground at Mount Thunder."

Lyman could see he was wasting time. Corwin refused to follow him into the realm of political philosophy. But did it really matter? Corwin was chained to one task: the protection of the physical person of the President. Well, it might come down to that. And if the thing turned out to be an elaborate tissue of nothing, and Lyman became the laughing-stock of the country, at least Corwin wouldn't join the merriment. Or gossip, either.

"Well, Art. We're all going to meet this afternoon, at two, in the solarium, and I want you there. In the meantime, what would you think about trailing General Scott to see what he's up to?"

Corwin grinned again. "Who says we're not on the same wave length? I was just going to suggest that. And you've got the right man for it. I used to get plenty of practice when I was chasing those funny-money artists."

Esther came in as Corwin was leaving to say that Secretary Todd was waiting, but Lyman asked first for Frank Simon. The thin, wiry young press secretary, looking like a pinched owl behind his hornrimmed glasses, hurried into the office. He was the best public relations technician in the business, but the mere sight of him always made Lyman feel a little jumpy, as though somebody had just scraped his nerve ends.

"Frank," he said, "I'll have to scrub that eleven o'clock appointment with Donahue of the Fed. There are a lot of loose ends on the implementation of the treaty that some of us have to work out. But don't tell the reporters that. Just say it's been postponed because I'm working on legislative matters. All right?"

Simon twitched his shoulders. "We'll draw some snotty stories if you cancel your only appointment today, after that poll yesterday."

"I can't help that, Frank. If the first stage of this disarmament doesn't come off exactly as we agreed, all of us will be below zero in the next poll."

"All right, Mr. President." Simon's shoulders hunched again. "It's a lot easier to handle these things, though, if you can give me a little advance notice. I don't do my best work in the dark."

If you only knew how dark, Lyman answered silently.

Christopher Todd strode in, carrying his ever-present portfolio. An aura of assurance moved with him: Nothing was ever out of place in Chris Todd's world. At sixty, he had been Wall Street's ranking corporate lawyer when Lyman called him to the Treasury.

A ruddy, leathery tan bespoke his weekends as a yachtsman, formerly on the Sound, now on Chesapeake Bay. He wore a gray suit whose perfect tailoring was as elegantly inconspicuous as its discreet pattern. A darker gray tie was totally plain except for a tiny blue anchor in its center. His black shoes, bench made in England, were impeccably polished but not quite shiny. The gold watch chain across his vest had to be a legacy from his grandfather. The Phi Beta Kappa key which reposed out of sight in a pocket at one end of the chain was his own.

The press sketched Todd as "sharp," "cold," "cultivated," "sardonic." He was all that, and more.

Lyman rose to greet him, then took from a desk drawer the box of fine panatela cigars that he kept there especially for Todd. The President opened his own tobacco pouch and filled his pipe as Todd inspected a cigar, clipped it, and lit it with a kitchen match from a box in his coat pocket. Then Lyman told the story again.

As he recounted it, this time in infinite detail, he could see Todd's eyes brighten. The lawyer sat stiff in his chair, watching Lyman steadily except when he studied the end of his cigar. Lyman knew he was timing the ash. A good cigar, Todd believed (and frequently proclaimed), must go at least fifteen minutes before it needed an ashtray. Lyman finished his recital with a simple question.

"Well, what's the verdict, Chris?"

Todd's gray eyebrows arched upward. Foes of the Secretary found this habit of his particularly annoying, believing it indicated-as it usually did-disdain or reproof. Lyman, however, was merely amused, as he was by many of Todd's calculated traits.

"If I went into court as Scott's counsel against that kind of nonsense," said Todd, "I'd move to quash the indictment and we'd be out of the courthouse in ten minutes."

"I didn't offer it as evidence," Lyman replied gently, "but as a presumption of evidence. You're not the only lawyer in the room, Chris."

Todd's blue eyes snapped. "Mr. President, there are no lawyers in Ohio. Only apprentices in the law. When they become lawyers, they move to New York."

"Or Washington," the President said. He laughed as he relit his cold pipe.

"Let's look at this squarely," Todd began. "You obviously set great store by this ECOMCON business. Nobody has heard of it before. Not you, not Girard, not Fullerton, not this Colonel Casey. Well, then, what makes you think it does in fact exist? We have only the colonel's conjecture. He obviously has no facts."

"And the Hardesty note?" asked Lyman. "That refers to it, and to a Site Y, the designation that Casey's friend uses for his post near El Paso."

"That could easily mean another place. The proliferation of these secret bases has always seemed foolish to me. We confuse ourselves more than we do the Soviets."

"Well, we may have an answer to that this afternoon," Lyman said. "Girard is checking out the location and designation of every classified installation."

"And as for flying troops to big cities in an alert, that seems to me not only logical but prudent." Todd was pressing his case. "Obviously, if the Russians struck, we'd need disciplined troops in the metropolitan areas to keep order and prevent complete breakdown. And, if I may say so, the conversion of a wagering pool on the Preakness into a code for some sinister plot to seize the government seems to me to have no foundation whatsoever. It's sheer guesswork. Everybody knows General Scott loves horse races, and everyone who loves horse races bets on them. Colonel Casey's deductive powers are lurid, to say the least."

Lyman leaned on the desk, supporting his chin in both hands.

"Forget the details for a minute, Chris. What do you think of the over-all probability? Do you think the mood of the country and the climate of military opinion make such an operation, let's say, a possibility?"

"No, I don't." Todd studied the stump of his cigar before dropping it into the big desk ashtray. "But obviously, Mr. President, I realize we must do everything possible to ascertain the facts-and quickly. We'd be guilty of gross negligence if we didn't."

Todd unsnapped his briefcase and took out a long yellow scratch pad. He jotted down a series of numbers with his pen. Opposite the first he wrote: "ECOMCON."

"Let's just run through it all again," he said. "I'll study the list this noon and try to come up with a workable plan of investigation by this afternoon. I must say, though, Mr. President, you don't have many investigators available."

"Try to change places with me in your mind, Chris," Lyman said, "and then run through a list of a thousand friends and associates, and see how many you think you can trust completely. You'll be surprised how few you come up with."

"Especially," said Todd acidly, again arching his gray eyebrows, "if you weed out all those who you think might laugh at you when the monster vanishes out of the bedtime story."

"My, my," said Lyman. "You're not only a good big-city lawyer but a pretty fair country psychologist too."

They enumerated events and circumstances, item by item, until Todd had filled a page and a half with numbered notes.

"A couple of things in here lead me to believe that your Colonel Casey has a vivid imagination," Todd said. "For example, take Fred Prentice's remark about staying 'alert' on Saturday. What earthly excuse is there for linking that to the All Red? 'Alert' is a word that anyone might use."

"I guess you might be right there, Chris. I suppose that once Casey got suspicious every casual remark took on some significance it might not really have. But I think you have to look at it along with everything else."

"Well, I'd better get back to my office," Todd said, sliding the pad back into the case and snapping the catch, "and try to make some sense out of this jumble."

Todd left, carrying his portfolio like a professor on his way to class. Through the door Lyman watched him bowing slightly to Esther as he passed her desk. Then she looked at the President and he beckoned to her.

"Esther," he said, "call Colonel Casey and tell him about the meeting. You don't need to explain. But tell him to use the east entrance again."

Well, Lyman thought, in all of my little band of brothers, only two of us can see the forest for the trees ... if there is a forest. Only Ray Clark and I can see the big question. There can't be a constitutional struggle unless the atmosphere is right, unless people are really worried deep down in their bellies. Are they? ... Good old Chris. He's intrigued by the idea of a conspiracy. You can tell it from his eyes, even if he won't admit it. But it's all a matter of evidence, of witnesses, with him... . Corwin can't think of anything but the person of the President. Paul sees it as a simple power struggle between Scott and myself.

Casey? He's just an officer, doing his duty as he sees it.

They're all on the side of the angels, the President mused, and I couldn't ask for better people. But I can't make them understand why it's important. They all think it is, each for his own reasons, but those reasons aren't good enough. I've got to try to make them see it my way, and only Clark sees it that way now ... but does he? Is he worried about the country? He thinks he is, but I don't know. I don't know if you really can worry about it, no matter who you are and how much you think, unless you sit in this chair here. Alone. Sometimes I think no one except the President ever thinks of the country, all of it. I wonder if anyone else can, when you get down to it?

Lyman turned to look out the long windows that stretched from ceiling to floor. The heavy May rain continued to beat down on the hedges, the rose bushes, the rhododendrons, and the big shiny leaves of the magnolia tree. A guard, his head pulled into the turned-up collar of a black rubber raincoat, sloshed along the curving driveway. The President stood watching, smoking, silently cursing the weather-and the myopia of men.

In the pressroom, reporters and photographers were playing wild poker, dealer's choice. Quarters and half dollars clinked noisily on the table. Three telephones were ringing. Milky Waters had his feet on his desk as he talked with Hugh Ulanski of United Press International.

The noncommittal tone Waters used with politicians and other news sources was not in evidence now. As dean of the White House press corps, he spoke with authority among his peers.

"I can't figure the guy," he said. "The day after a national poll comes out showing him up to his ass in unpopularity, he schedules only one appointment- and cancels that one."

"Maybe he's a secret nudist," suggested Ulanski, "and he's contemplating his navel."

"You got the wrong religion for navel watching, son, but the right idea. I like the guy, but if he's a politician I'm a sword swallower."

Simon came into the pressroom. Waters left his feet up but reached for a notebook. The poker game paused expectantly.

"It's nothing much," the press secretary said, fingering his dark-rimmed glasses. "I was asked what 'legislative matters' the President is working on this morning. I haven't got to him yet, but I'll have it for you at the afternoon briefing."

"Frank, you've given me an idea for my overnight." It was Ulanski. "Instead of my day lead, which said the President did nothing, I'll say the President is worn out from doing nothing, and has been ordered to rest tomorrow."

Simon didn't bother to reply. He left. The poker game resumed. The rain continued.

Jiggs Casey's morning in the caverns of the Pentagon was as gloomy as the weather outside. A rising torrent of conflicting conjectures had been flooding his mind from the moment he got out of bed. The ashtray on his desk had doubled its normal accumulation of cigarette stubs, and he had decided that his career as a Marine was finished.

What crazy impulse had sent him to the White House with that nightmare story? How could he have thought of implicating a man of Scott's stature in a plot that had no basis except a frayed string of coincidences? And he had betrayed his own service. Marines don't do that. The feeling of disloyalty to his own kind put Casey in an ugly humor. Every time he tried to think concisely about the episodes that had made such an impression on him yesterday his emotions pulled him back to his own plight. Probably by this time the President had called for his service record and ordered Girard to look for a history of psychiatric trouble. Thank God, at least there's nothing like that in it. Or maybe Lyman had just called General Scott direct and told him the director of the Joint Staff needed a mental examination.

The last possibility was still in Casey's mind when, shortly after ten o'clock, he was summoned to Scott's office. Well, here it comes, he thought as he walked down the hall. Add one Marine to the retired list.

Scott's greeting was friendly as he motioned Casey to a chair. In addition to the usual buoyancy, Casey thought he noted an almost jovial air.

"Jiggs," the General said, "you've been working too hard on the alert. I want you to take the rest of the week off. Why don't you and Marge duck down to White Sulphur and blow yourselves to a good time?"

Casey had expected almost anything but this. He shook his head.

"I couldn't do that, sir," he said. "There are a lot of little details on the All Red, General. I just wouldn't feel right."

Scott waved aside the objection with a sweep of his cigar. "Not a thing to worry about. Murdock can handle anything in that line. You're tired. I can sense it."

"Sir, I want to be up at Mount Thunder with you on Saturday," Casey protested.

"Well, that's all right. You just check back in on the job Saturday morning, then, and pick it up as planned from there. But in the meantime, let's call it a three-day pass."

Casey started to say something, but Scott cut him off.

"Look, Jiggs, I've thought about this. Frankly, word that you're gone will spread around fast. Nobody would think an alert was in the works with the director gone. Consider yourself part of the security cover. And remember, you can't think only about Saturday. I'd rather have you around here in good shape for the next month than have one exercise letter-perfect on Saturday."

Casey tried to keep his voice from faltering. "When do you think I should leave, sir?"

"Right now," boomed Scott. "Walk out and go home. Kiss Marge for me." He walked Casey to the door and squeezed his arm. "See you Saturday, Jiggs. Have fun."

Before his short ride home was half over, Casey had settled on a depressing diagnosis. President Lyman had called Scott, told him of the night visit to the White House, and the two men had agreed that Casey was a good officer who badly needed a rest. Yes, that must be it.

Calm of a kind returned to Casey. He thanked the driver in front of his house and ran for the front door, splashing through the puddles. The empty carport indicated that Marge was out on some kind of errand. That's one break anyway, he thought. It'll give me a little time to figure out a story to tell her.

The telephone was ringing as he opened the door. He answered it while water trickled off his raincoat onto the floor.

"Colonel Casey?"

"This is Colonel Casey." He didn't recognize the caller's voice.

"Colonel, this is Esther Townsend at the White House. Your secretary said you had gone home. You are asked to attend a meeting at two o'clock. Please use the east entrance. The guard will have your name. Take the same elevator you did last night, but go to the third floor. It will be in the solarium, to your left, directly above the study."

"Yes, ma'am. I'll be there."

"Thank you, Colonel. The President said you didn't need to be informed of the subject matter."

Casey removed his raincoat and cap in a daze, ignoring the water that had collected on the floor. He unbuttoned his blouse and loosened his tie, then slumped into a chair in the living room.

He was suddenly relieved. He had been right. It wasn't a bad dream after all. The President must have done some quick checking and decided he was right. That this meant trouble only heightened Casey's excitement.

But why the sudden offer by Scott of a three-day vacation? Offer, hell-he had been ordered to get out of the office. Had the General learned that Casey had driven past his house last night? Maybe a sentry recognized him or wrote down his license number. Or maybe Mutt Henderson had told Broderick of Casey's interest in ECOMCON, and Broderick had tipped off Scott. Had Murdock gotten suspicious? Of what? Casey knew he had given Murdock no cause for alarm. Maybe more coded traffic on the Saturday operation was due to go out and they wanted Casey out of the way so he wouldn't see the dispatches.

In the Armed Services Committee room in the old Senate Office Building, Senator Raymond Clark took his place, just to the right of the chairman's seat at the head of the table. Half a dozen other senators were already in their seats along both sides of the long, baize-covered table.

In the witness chair at the other end, General Scott was waiting to testify. Admiral Lawrence Palmer, the chief of Naval Operations, sat beside him. Behind them, on folding metal chairs, was a row of colonels and commanders, fiddling with the documents in their fat briefcases. Scott whispered with his aide, Colonel Murdock, whose head snipped up and down as he nodded agreement. The left side of Scott's blouse blazed with six rows of battle decorations and service ribbons. He was, as always, totally relaxed and confident in manner.

Clark eyed Scott with fresh interest. There isn't the slightest doubt about it, he thought, that fellow is the most impressive military man this town has seen in twenty years.

Senator Frederick Prentice came in from his private office through a door held open by the committee clerk. The chairman nodded to Scott and Palmer before sitting down in his black-leather chair. He took a deliberate, almost proprietary, look around the room, his glance for a moment putting the other committee members in the same category of personal property as the green-veined marble pillars, the service flags heavy with battle streamers, and the beautifully ornate crystal chandeliers.

Prentice slapped a folder of papers on the table and rapped his gavel once. The clerk hung a sign, "Executive Session," on the outside of the main door, then closed and locked it.

"We are meeting late this morning," Prentice said, "in order to accommodate General Scott. However, we have the consent of the Senate to sit during the session, so we will not have to adjourn at noon. We'll just go ahead until one o'clock, which will give us an hour and a half, if that is satisfactory to the senators."

Prentice looked to his right and left, then tapped the gavel again.

"Very well. General Scott, you may proceed. You had almost finished with your over-all presentation last week, and I would hope there wouldn't be too many interruptions, so that we can get to Admiral Palmer and the Navy. General?"

Scott leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingers down on the edge of the table. His shoulders tightened with the pressure.

He began slowly. "I think we had covered all weapons systems except the ICBM family. Here, as the committee knows, we believe we have more than closed the so-called missile gap of the late fifties and early sixties, and we are now moving rapidly to bring in the Olympus, which should put us well ahead of the Soviet in thrust as well as accuracy.

"Needless to say, the Joint Chiefs view the current missile strikes with the utmost concern, since they involve almost entirely the production lines for Olympus. As you know, the treaty requires us to dismantle only the warheads. The missiles themselves can be built-and should be. They will provide us with some insurance, no matter how fragile, in the very critical months ahead."

Prentice, ignoring his own injunction against interruptions, cut in.

"General," he said, "are you satisfied that other departments of the executive branch are doing all they can to terminate this completely unauthorized stoppage over some petty jurisdictional dispute?"

There was a slight stir among some of the committee Democrats. Scott glanced along the table, and when he replied his words were tactfully restrained.

"I cannot reply directly, Mr. Chairman. I assume that is the case. I know the President called in the head of the AFL-CIO yesterday on the subject. I have not yet been informed of the outcome."

"Don't you think you should be kept up to date," asked Prentice, "considering your responsibilities in this field?"

Scott smiled. "Well, Mr. Chairman, I fully expect to be kept posted, but-"

Senator George Pappas, an Illinois Democrat and a loyal supporter of the Lyman administration, broke in.

"This line of questioning is totally unproductive," he said. "The chairman knows the White House is doing its best in this difficult situation. The senator from Illinois, for one, is confident it will be taken care of. I think we might remember that General Scott isn't supposed to be a labor arbitrator."

"I just want the record clear as to where we stand," Prentice said.

"I think it's already clear where some people stand," snapped Pappas.

Prentice smiled. "Let's move ahead, General, please, now that the distinguished senator from Illinois has cleared the air in his usual fashion."

"Mr. Chairman-" said Pappas angrily, but Prentice snapped the gavel against the table to cut him off.

Scott talked, lucidly and decisively, for a quarter of an hour, ending his discussion of missiles with a summary of the entire defense situation. He wasted no words, yet managed to paint a detailed and vivid picture of the nation's strength.

"Of course," he concluded, "the Joint Chiefs and the ranking field commanders all feel that the next six weeks are critical. Knowing the Soviet record of breaking even the most solemn agreements when it suits their convenience, we intend to maintain our forces on a more or less constant alert until the treaty goes into effect."

Prentice cleared his throat. "Thank you, General. The chairman will confine himself to one question. In connection with your last statement, do you think the United States is in more danger, or less danger, since the ratification of the nuclear disarmament treaty?"

Scott picked up the pencil that lay on the table in front of him and doodled on the memo pad placed there by the committee staff. A good half minute passed before he answered, and when he spoke it was in a measured, almost gentle tone.

"If I might be permitted a personal allusion, Mr. Chairman, this country has been awfully good to me." The committee was intent on Scott's words. "It is probably a cliché to say that I came from humble beginnings, but it is true.

"It never occurred to me, really, until I entered the Military Academy, that I was the beneficiary, along with all citizens, of a really unique system of government.

"I came to the Point in 1934. I think the committee would agree that you could hardly describe that as a year in which our system was operating at its optimum level. But it did not take long for the Academy to make quite clear to me the virtues of our form of government and the differences between the American and other societies.

"Everything that I saw in the war years reinforced my feelings on this subject, as did my contacts with other societies in the Far East and, more recently, the Near East.

"I must say, speaking now on a completely personal basis, and not in my official capacity, that I have been disturbed, over a period of years, at indications that Americans do not always recognize the full dimensions of the threats to them and to this ... this marvelous system under which we live. I think that an examination of the period of the late thirties, of the late forties, of 1955, of 1959, of early 1961, and of more recent years would indicate at least the shadow of a recurring pattern, a pattern of what might be called 'complacency' or 'wishful thinking.'

"I apologize for this rather indirect answer to your question, Mr. Chairman. But what I would like to say is this, really: I hope we are not now entering another such period. We have, as I said, a system in this country that we all want to protect and preserve. It is my personal feeling that we are approaching a critical period, as critical or more so than any in the past thirty years, because of the fact that the government has decided to attempt a nuclear disarmament treaty.

"The committee is quite familiar with the reasoning of the Joint Chiefs in connection with the treaty. There is no point in my going over that again, except to say that the Chiefs still believe that the treaty is too vague on the question of inspection of new nuclear construction. We still contend, that is, that the Soviet might be able to build ten new Z-4 warheads, for example, at some unknown and undetected location, at the same time that he is disarming ten Z-4's from the stockpile, under inspection, on July 1.

"So I do believe we are entering a period so dangerous that we may face some factors that are totally unexpected. Our system, which has meant so much to me personally and which we all want to see sustained, does contain some features which might make it vulnerable. I am sure that none of us would want to see that system used to bring about the collapse of the very things it has made possible. So, obviously, to the extent that we may encounter new or unexpected problems, to that extent there is increased danger."

Scott stopped speaking and dropped his hands from the edge of the table into his lap.

Senator Raymond Clark squared the papers in front of him. That was quite a testament, General, he thought. I wonder if we've got you figured right?

Prentice made no effort to hide his reactions. He beamed openly and proudly. "General, I think I speak for the entire committee when I say I regret very much that we have no written record of your magnificent statement. I only wish that all Americans could have heard it. ... Now, the members of the committee may have some questions. Let's keep them as brief as possible, so we can get on to Admiral Palmer."

He nodded to Clark, the next-ranking Democrat. The Georgian looked at Scott. Well, he thought, it isn't going to sound very good after your lines, but I better go to work.

"General," he began, "I can only echo what the chairman has said about your statement. Now, there is just one point about which I am curious. You may have covered it at a session I missed. What are we doing to safeguard our communications facilities, telephone long lines, television cables, broadcasting facilities, things like that?"

Prentice glanced at Scott in surprise. There was no change in Scott's intent expression.

"Without going into detail, Senator," the General said, "I think I can assure you that adequate provisions have been made. Communications have always been the lifeline of any military establishment, and they are of course far more so today. We fully realize that, and have acted on that realization."

"I'd appreciate it if you could amplify just a bit," Clark suggested.

Scott smiled, almost apologetically. "Senator, this is a quite sensitive subject, and I'm not sure this is the time or place to-"

"The committee simply does not have time." It was Prentice, cutting in. "We can't start into anything of that scope today. We're on the verge of a recess here, Senator Clark, and we must get to Admiral Palmer."

"I notice, Mr. Chairman," said Clark quietly, "that you had time to raise a question about the treaty- for the umpteenth time. I would certainly appreciate it if the committee could indulge me for just a moment."

"Much of the communications field is highly classified," Prentice snapped. "The General doesn't have time today to sort out what he can properly tell the committee and what he can't."

"Oh, now, Mr. Chairman." Clark was still slouched in his chair but his voice was cold. "There hasn't been a leak from this committee in my memory. And there is a long record of complete disclosure to it by the defense establishment, going back even as far, if I am correctly informed, as 1945, when details of the Manhattan project were made available several months before the first atomic bomb was used."

Murdock leaned over and whispered to Scott while Clark was talking. The General nodded agreement and gestured to Prentice.

"If I may interject, Mr. Chairman," he said, "the committee knows that we had a practice alert some weeks ago. What it does not know is that it did not come off to our complete satisfaction. We had trouble, in particular, with some of the communications. We are getting the bugs out now, I think, and I'd prefer to wait a few weeks-say, until after the Congressional recess-when we can give the committee a full report that would include any revisions we may decide to make."

Prentice beamed gratefully down at Scott. "Is that a satisfactory solution?" he asked Clark.

"No, it isn't," Clark replied. "I think we are entitled to some information now. Further, I don't want to leave even the slightest impression that the senator from Georgia thinks any member of this committee cannot be trusted with sensitive information."

"There was certainly no such implication intended on my part, Senator," Scott said, "and I would hope there would be no such inference drawn. Frankly, this is an involved subject, on which I think the committee is entitled to a full and detailed review. We just are not equipped to provide that this morning."

Prentice used his gavel. "I can personally assure the distinguished senator," he said, bearing down on the word "distinguished," "that our communications are secure. Now, unless the senator wishes to force a vote of the committee, I think we will proceed. If there are no other questions for General Scott, we will hear Admiral Palmer."

He glanced at the other senators. None of them spoke and Prentice brought the gavel down again. "Without objection. Admiral Palmer."

The Admiral's testimony consumed a half hour. When he finished and the meeting was adjourned, Clark stopped briefly at his own office and then left the building to eat lunch. The rain had slackened to a drizzle, but the overcast still hung oppressively low. From the office building only a faint outline of the Capitol dome, half a block away, could be seen.

General Scott's limousine, its four-star tag on the front bumper, stood at the curb. Scott was holding the door open for someone. Even from behind him Clark recognized the square bulk of Senator Prentice. The two settled on the rear seat and the car pulled away on the wet asphalt.

As it did so, a gray sedan slithered out of a parking place down the block, heading in the same direction. When it passed Clark, he noticed the driver. He had seen him hundreds of times: it was Art Corwin.

So you've put us all to work already, Jordie, thought Clark. Well, you'd better, Yankee boy. There's plenty to find out-and maybe not much time left to find it out in.

Christ, he thought, I need a drink.

Clark hesitated on the sidewalk, made a half-motion to turn back toward his office. Then he jammed his hands in his raincoat pockets and stepped doggedly off the curb toward the restaurant he had decided on earlier. It was only a block away, the food was good-and it was operated by the Methodist Church.