The Fourth K

CHAPTER 16

PRESIDENT FRANCIS KENNEDY, secure in power and office, his enemies defeated, contemplated his destiny. There was a final step to be taken, the final decision to be made. He had lost his wife and child, his personal life had lost all meaning. What he did have was a life entwined with the people of America. How far did he want to go with that commitment?

He announced that he would run for reelection in November, and organized his campaign. Christian Klee was ordered to put legal pressure on all the big businesses, especially the media companies, to keep them from interfering with the election process. Vice President Helen Du Pray was mobilizing the women of America. Arthur Wix, who was a power in Eastern liberal circles, and Eugene Dazzy, who monitored the enlightened business leaders of the country, mobilized money. But Francis Kennedy knew that in the last analysis all this was peripheral. Everything would rest on himself, on how far the people of America would be willing to go with him personally.

There was one crucial point: this time the people must elect a Congress solidly behind the President of the United States. What he wanted was a Congress that would do exactly what he wanted them to do.

So now Francis Kennedy had to perceive the innermost feelings of America.

It was a nation in shock.

At Oddblood Gray's suggestion, they traveled to New York together. They walked down Fifth Avenue to lead a memorial parade to the great crater made by the atom bomb explosion. They did this to show the nation that there was no longer any danger of radiation, that there was no danger of another hidden bomb. Kennedy performed his part of the memorial ceremony for the dead and the dedication of the land to build a park for all the people to remember. Part of his speech was devoted to the dangers of unrestricted freedom for the individual in this dangerous technocratic age. And his belief that individual freedom must be subordinated to further the social contract, that the individual must give up something to improve the life of the social mass. He said this in passing, but it was much noted by the media.

Oddblood Gray was overcome by a sense of repulsive irony when he heard the deafening cheers of the crowd. Could such a terrible act of destruction be so lucky for one man?

In the smaller cities and rural areas, after the shock and horror had worn off, there was a grim satisfaction. New York had gotten what it deserved.

It was too bad that the bomb had not been bigger and blown up the whole city with its hedonistic rich, its conniving Semites, criminal blacks.

There was, after all, a just God in heaven. He had picked the right place for this great punishment. But through the country there was also fear-that their fate, their lives, their very world and their posterity were in hostage to fellowmen who were aberrant. All this Kennedy sensed.

Every Friday night Francis Kennedy made a TV report to the people. These were really thinly disguised campaign speeches, but now he had no trouble getting airtime.

He used certain catchphrases and little speeches that went straight to the heart.

"We will declare war on the everyday tragedies of human existence," he said. "Not on other nations."

He repeated the famous question used in his first campaign: "How is it that following the end of every great war, when trillions of dollars have been spent and thrown away on death, there is prosperity in the world? What if those trillions had been spent for the betterment of mankind?"

He joked that for the cost of one nuclear submarine the government could finance a thousand homes for the poor. For the cost of a fleet of Stealth bombers it could finance a million homes. "We'll just make believe they got lost on maneuvers," he said. "Hell, it's happened before, and with valuable lives lost besides. We'll just make believe it happened." And when critics pointed out that the defense of the United States would suffer, he said that statistical reports from the Defense Department were classified and that nobody would know about the decrease in defense spending.

He announced that in his second term he would be even tougher on crime. He would again fight to give all Americans the opportunity to buy a new home, cover their health care costs, and make certain they were able to get a higher education. He emphasized that this was not socialism. The costs of these programs would be paid for simply by taking a little bite out of the rich corporations of America. He declared that he did not advocate socialism, that he just wanted to protect the people of America from the "royal" rich. And he said this over and over again.

For the Congress and members of the Socrates Club, the President of the United States had declared war upon them.

The Socrates Club decided to hold a seminar in California on how to defeat Kennedy in the November election. Lawrence Salentine was very worried. He knew that the Attorney General wits preparing serious indictments resulting from the activities of Bert Audick and was mounting investigations of Martin Mutford's financial dealings. Greenwell was too clean to be in trouble, Salentine didn't worry about him. But Salentine knew that his own media empire was very vulnerable. They had gotten away with murder for so many years that they had gotten careless. His publishing company, books and magazines were OK. Nobody could harm print media, the

Constitutional protection was too strong. Except of course that a prick like Klee might get the postal charges raised.

But Salentine really worried about his TV empire. The airwaves, after all, belonged to the government and were doled out by them. The TV stations were only licensed. And it had always been a source of bewilderment to Salentine that the government allowed private enterprise to make so much money out of these airwaves without levying the proper tax. He shuddered at the thought of a strong federal communication commissioner under Kennedy's direction. It could mean the end of the TV and cable companies as now constituted.

Louis Inch, ever the patriot, harbored a somewhat disloyal admiration for President Kennedy. Still hailed as the most hated man in New York, he volunteered to restore the bomb blighted area in that city. The damaged blocks were to be purified with marble monuments enclosed in a green woodland. He would do it at cost, take no profit and have it up in six months. Thank God the radiation had been minimal.

Everybody knew that Inch got things done much better than any government agency. Of course he knew he would still make a great deal of money through his subsidiary companies in construction, planning commissions and advisory committees. And the publicity would be invaluable.

Inch was one of the richest men in America. His father had been the usual hard-nosed big-city landlord, failing to maintain heat in apartment buildings, skimping on services, forcing out tenants in order to build more expensive apartments. Bribery of building inspectors was a skill

Louis Inch learned at his father's knee. Later, armed with a university degree in business management and law, he bribed city councilmen, borough presidents and their staffs, even mayors.

It was Louis Inch who fought the rent control laws in New York, it was

Louis Inch who put together the real estate deals that built skyscrapers alongside Central Park. A park that now had an awning of monstrous steel edifices to house Wall Street brokers, professors at powerhouse universities, famous writers, chic artists, the chefs of expensive restaurants.

Community activists charged that Inch was responsible for the horrible slums on the Upper West Side and in the Bronx, in Harlem and in Coney

Island simply by the amount of reasonable housing he had destroyed in his rebuilding of New York. Also that he was blocking the rehabilitation of the Times Square district, while secretly buying up buildings and blocks.

To this Inch retorted that these troublemakers were people who, if you had a bagful of shit, would demand half of it.

Another Inch strategy was his support of city laws that required landlords to rent housing space to anyone regardless of race, color or creed. He had given speeches supporting those laws because they helped to drive the small landlord out of the market. A landlord who had only the upstairs and/or the basement of his house to rent had to take in drunks, schizophrenics, drug hustlers, rapists, stickup artists.

Eventually these small landlords would become discouraged, sell their houses and move to the suburbs.

But Inch was beyond all that now-he was stepping up in class.

Millionaires were a dime a dozen; Louis Inch was one of the hundred or so billionaires in America. He owned bus systems, he owned hotels and he owned an airline. He owned one of the great hotel casinos in Atlantic City and he owned apartment buildings in Santa Monica, California. It was the Santa Monica properties that gave him the most trouble.

Louis Inch had joined the Socrates Club because he believed that its powerful members could help solve his Santa Monica real estate problems.

Golf was a perfect sport for hatching conspiracies. There were the jokes, the good exercise and the agreements struck. And what could be more innocent? The most rabid investigator from congressional committees or the hanging judges of the press could not accuse golfers of criminal intent.

The Socrates Club turned out to be better than Inch expected. He became friendly with the hundred or so men who controlled the country's economic apparatus and political machinery. It was in the Socrates Club that Louis Inch became a member of the Money Guild that could buy the entire congressional delegation of a state in one deal. Of course you couldn't buy them body and soul-you were not talking abstractions here, like the Devil and God, good and evil, virtue and sin. No, you were talking politics. You were talking of what was possible. There were times when a congressman had to oppose you to win reelection. It was true that 98 percent of the congressmen were always reelected, but there were always the 2 percent that had to listen to their constituents.

Louis Inch dreamed the impossible dream. No, not to be President of the United States, he knew his landlord imprint could never be erased. His smudging the very face of New York was an architectural murder. There were a million slum dwellers in New York, Chicago and especially Santa Monica who would fill the streets ready to put his head on a pike. No, his dream was to be the first trillionaire in the modern civilized world. A plebeian trillionaire, his fortune won with the callused hands of a workingman.

Inch lived for the day when he could say to Bert Audick, "I have a thousand units." It had always irritated him that Texan oil men talked in units-a "unit" in Texas was one hundred million dollars. Audick had said about the destruction of the city of Dak, "God, I lost five hundred units there." And Inch vowed someday to say to Audick, "Hell, I got about a thousand units tied up in real estate," and Audick would whistle and say, "A hundred billion dollars." And then Inch would say to him, "Oh, no, a trillion dollars. Up in New York a unit is a billion dollars." That would settle that Texas bullshit once and for all.

To make that dream come true, Louis Inch capitalized on the concept of airspace. That is, he would buy the airspace above existent buildings in major cities and build on top of them. Airspace could be bought for peanuts; it was a new concept, as marshlands had been when his grandfather bought them, knowing that technology would solve the problem of draining the swamps and turn them into profitable building acres. The problem was to prevent the people and their legislators from stopping him. That would take time and an enormous investment, but he was confident it could be done. True, cities like Chicago, New York, Dallas and Miami would be gigantic steel-and-concrete prisons, but people didn't have to live there, except for the elite who loved the museums, the cinemas, the theater, the music. There would of course be little boutique neighborhoods for the artists.

And of course the thing was that when Louis Inch finally succeeded, there would no longer be any slums in New York City. There would simply be no affordable rents for the petty criminal and working classes. They would come in from the suburbs, on special trains, on special buses, and they would be gone by nightfall. The renters and buyers of the Inch Corporation condos and apartments could go to the theater, the discos and the expensive restaurants and not worry about the dark streets outside. They could stroll along the avenues, even venture into the side streets, and could walk the parks, in comparative safety. And what would they pay for such a paradise?

Fortunes.

Summoned to the meeting of the Socrates Club in California, Louis Inch began a trip across the United States to confer with the great real estate corporations of the big cities. From them he exacted their promise to contribute money to defeat Kennedy. Arriving in Los Angeles a few days later, he decided to make a side trip to Santa Monica before going to the seminar.

Santa Monica is one of the most beautiful towns in America, mainly because its citizens have successfully resisted the efforts of real estate interests to build skyscrapers, voted laws to keep rents stable and control construction. A fine apartment on Ocean Avenue, overlooking the Pacific, cost only one sixth of the average citizen's income. This was a situation that had driven Inch crazy for twenty years.

Inch thought Santa Monica an outrage, an insult to the American spirit of free enterprise; these units under today's conditions could be rented for ten times the going rate. He had bought up many of the apartment buildings. These were charming Spanish-style complexes wasteful in their use of valuable real estate, with their inner courtyards and gardens, and their scandalously low two-story heights. And he could not, by law, raise the rents in this paradise. Oh, the airspace above Santa Monica was worth billions, the view of the Pacific Ocean worth more billions. Sometimes Inch had crazy ideas about building vertically on the ocean itself. This made him dizzy.

He did not of course try to directly bribe the three city councilors he invited to Michael's but he told them his plans, he showed how everybody could become multimillionaires if certain laws were changed. He was dismayed when they showed no interest. But that was not the worst part.

When Inch got into his limousine, there was a shattering explosion. Glass flew all around the interior of the limo, the back window disintegrated, the windshield suddenly sprouted a large hole and spiderwebs appeared in the rest of the glass.

When the police arrived, they told Inch that a rifle bullet had done the damage. When they asked him if he had any enemies, Louis Inch assured them with all sincerity that he did not.

The Socrates Club's special seminar on "Demagoguery in Democracy" commenced the next day.

Those present were Bert Audick, now under a RICO indictment; George

Greenwell, who looked like the old wheat stored in his gigantic Midwest silos; Louis Inch, his handsome pouting face pale from his near death the day before; Martin "Take It Private" Mutford, wearing an Armani suit that could not hide his going to fat; and Lawrence Salentine.

Bert Audick took the floor first. "Would somebody explain to me how Kennedy is not a communist?" he said. "Kennedy wants to socialize medicine and home building. He has me indicted under the RICO laws and I'm not even Italian."

Nobody laughed at his little joke, so he went on. "We can dick around all we want but we have to face one central fact. He is an immense danger to everything we in this room stand for. We have to take drastic action."

George Greenwell said quietly, "He can get you indicted but he can't get you convicted-we still have due process in this country. Now, I know you have endured great provocation. But if I hear any dangerous talk in this room I walk out. I will listen to nothing treasonous or seditious."

Audick took offense. "I love my country better than anyone in this room," he said. "That's what gripes me. The indictment says I was acting in a treasonable way. Me! My ancestors were in this country when the fucking Kennedys were eating potatoes in Ireland. I was rich when they were bootleggers in Boston. Those gunners fired at American planes over– Dak but not by my orders. Sure, I gave the Sultan of Sherhaben a deal, but I was acting in the interest of the United States."

Salentine said dryly, "We know Kennedy is the problem. We're here to discuss a solution. Which is our right and our duty."

Mutford said, "What Kennedy's telling the country is bullshit. Where is the capital mass going to come from to support all these programs? He is talking a modified form of communism. If we can hammer that home in the media, the people will turn away from him. Every man and woman in this country thinks they'll be a millionaire someday and they're already worrying about the tax bite."

“Then how come all the polls show Francis Kennedy will win in November?" Salentine asked irritably. As so many times before, he was a little astonished by the obtuseness of powerful men. They seemed to have no awareness of Kennedy's enormous personal charm, his appeal to the mass of people, simply because they themselves were impervious to that charm.

There was a silence and then Martin Mutford spoke. "I had a look at some of the legislation being prepared to regulate the stock market and banks. If Kennedy gets in, there will be mighty slim pickings. And if he gets his regulatory agency people in, the jails will be filled with very rich people. "

'' I'll be there waiting for them," Audick said, grinning. For some reason he seemed to be in a very good humor despite his indictment. "I should be a trusty by then, I'll make sure you all have flowers in your cells."

Inch said impatiently, "You'll be in one of those country club jails playing with computers that keep track of your oil tankers. "

Audick had never liked Louis Inch. He didn't like a man who piled up human beings from underground to the stars, and charged a million dollars for apartments no bigger than a spittoon. Audick said, "I'm sure my cell will have more room than one of your fancy apartments. And once I'm in, don't be too fucking sure you can get oil to heat those skyscrapers. And another thing, I'll get a better break gambling in jail than in your Atlantic City casinos."

Greenwell, as the oldest and most experienced in dealing with the government, felt he had to take charge of the conversation. "I think we should, through our companies and other representatives, pour a great deal of money into the campaign of Kennedy's opponent. Martin, I think you should volunteer to be the campaign manager."

Martin Mutford said, "First let's decide what kind of money we are talking about and how it's to be contributed."

Greenwell said, "How about a round sum of-five hundred million dollars."

Audick said, "Wait a minute, I've just lost fifty billion and you want me to go for another unit?"

Inch said maliciously, "What's one unit, Bert. Is the oil industry going chickenshit on us? You Texans can't spare a lousy one hundred million?"

Salentine said, "TV time costs a lot of money. If we are going to saturate the airwaves from now until November that's five whole months. That's going to be expensive."

"And your TV network gets a big chunk of that," Inch said aggressively. He was proud of his reputation as a fierce negotiator. "You TV guys put in your share out of one pocket and it appears like magic in your other pockets. I think that should be a factor when we contribute."

Mutford said, "Look, we're talking peanuts here," which outraged the others. "Take It Private" Mutford was famous for his cavalier treatment of money. To him it was only a telex transporting some sort of spiritual substance from one ethereal body to another. It had no reality. He gave casual girlfriends a brand-new Mercedes, a bit of eccentricity he had learned from rich Texans. If he had a mistress for a year he bought her an apartment house to make her old age secure. Another mistress had a house in Malibu, another a castle in Italy and an apartment in Rome. He had bought an illegitimate son a piece of a casino in England. It had cost him nothing, merely slips of paper signed. And he always had a place to stay whenever he traveled. The Albanese girl owned her famous restaurant and building the same way. And there were many others. Money meant nothing to "Private" Mutford.

Audick said aggressively, "I paid my share with Dak."

Mutford said, "Bert, you're not in front of congressional committees arguing oil depletion allowances."

"You have no choice," Inch told Audick. "If Kennedy gets elected and he gets his Congress, you go to jail."

George Greenwell was wondering again whether he should dissociate himself officially from these men. After all, he was too old for these adventures.

His grain empire stood in less danger than the fields of these other men.

The oil industry too obviously blackmailed the government to make scandalous profits. His own grain business was low-key; people in general did not know that only five or six privately held companies controlled the bread of the world. Greenwell feared that a rash, belligerent man like Bert Audick could get them all in really serious trouble. Yet he enjoyed the life of the Socrates Club, the week-long seminars filled with interesting discussions on the affairs of the world, the sessions of backgammon, the rubbers of bridge. But he had lost that hard desire to get the best of his fellowmen.

Inch said, "Come on, Bert, what the hell is a lousy unit to the oil industry? You guys have been sucking the public tit-dry with your oil depletion allowance for the last hundred years."

Martin Mutford laughed. "Stop the bullshit," he said. "We are all in this together. And we will all hang together if Kennedy wins. Forget about the money and let's get down to business. Let's figure out how to attack Kennedy in this campaign. How about his failure to act on that atom bomb threat in time to stop the explosion? How about the fact that he has never had a woman in his life since his wife died? How about that maybe he's secretly screwing broads in the White House like his uncle Jack did? How about a million things? How about his personal staff? We have a lot of work to do."

This distracted them. Audick said thoughtfully, "He doesn't have any woman. I've already had that checked out. Maybe he's a fag."

"So what?" Salentine said. Some of the top stars on his network were gay and he was sensitive on the subject. Audick's language offended him.

But Louis Inch unexpectedly took Audick's point. "Come on," he said to Salentine, "the public doesn't mind if one of your goofy comedians is gay, but the President of the United States?"

"The time will come," Salentine said.

"We can't wait," Mutford said. "And besides, the President is not gay.

He's in some sort of sexual hibernation. I think our best shot is to attack him through his staff," Mutford added thoughtfully. He considered for a moment and then said, "The Attorney General, Christian Klee, I've had some people check into him. You know he's a somewhat mysterious guy for a public figure. Very rich, much richer than people think, I've taken a sort of unofficial peek at his banking records. Doesn't spend much, he's not keeping women or into drugs, that would have showed up in his cash flow. A brilliant lawyer who doesn't really care that much for law.

Not into good works. We know he is devoted to Kennedy, and his protection of the President is a marvel of efficiency. But that efficiency hampers Kennedy's campaign because Klee won't let him press the flesh. All in all I'd concentrate on Klee."

Audick said, "Klee was CIA, high up in operations. I've heard some weird stories about him."

"Maybe those stories could be our ammunition," Mutford said.

"Only stories," Audick said. "And you'll never get anything out of the CIA files, not with that guy Tappey running the show."

Greenwell said casually, "I happen to have some information that the President's chief of staff, that man Dazzy, has a somewhat messy personal life. His wife and he quarrel and he sees a young girl."

Oh shit, Mutford thought, I have to get them off this. Jeralyn Albanese had told him all about Christian Klee's threat.

"That's too minor," he said. "What do we gain even if we force Dazzy out?

The public will never turn against the President for a staff member screwing a young girl, not unless it's rape or harassment."

Audick said, "So we approach the girl and give her a million bucks and have her yell rape."

Mutford said, "Yeah, but she has to holler rape for three years of screwing and having her bills paid. It won't wash."

It was George Greenwell who made the most valuable contribution. "We should concentrate on the atom bomb explosion in New York. I think Congressman Jintz and Senator Lambertino should create investigating committees in the

House and in the Senate, subpoena all the government officials. Even if they come up with nothing concrete, there will be enough coincidences so that the news media can have a field day. That's where you have to use all your influence," he said to Salentine. "That is our best hope. And now I suggest we all get to work." Then he said to Mutford, "Set up your campaign committees. I guarantee you'll get my hundred million. It is a very prudent investment."

When the meeting broke up, it was only Bert Audick who considered more radical measures.

Right after the meeting Lawrence Salentine was summoned by President Francis Kennedy. When Salentine appeared in the Oval Office, he saw that Attorney General Christian Klee was also present, which made him even more wary.

There were no civilities; this was not the charming Kennedy but, Salentine felt, a man seeking some sort of vengeance.

Kennedy said, "Mr. Salentine, I don't want to mince words. I want to be absolutely frank. My Attorney General, Mr. Klee, and I have discussed filing RICO criminal charges against your TV network and the other networks. He has persuaded me that it may be too harsh a punishment.

Specifically you and the other media giants were in a conspiracy to remove me from the presidency. You supported Congress in their impeachment of me."

Salentine said, "It was in our function as a media company to report on a political development."

Klee said coldly, "Cut the bullshit, Lawrence, you guys ganged up on us."

Kennedy said, "That's past history. Let's go on. You media companies have been having a picnic for years, decades. I am not going to allow a corporate umbrella to dominate the communications media of this country.

Ownership of TV stations will be limited to TV. They cannot own book companies. They cannot own magazines. They cannot own newspapers. They cannot own movie studios. They cannot own cable companies. That is too much power. You run too much advertising. That is going to be limited. I want you to take that message back to your friends. During the impeachment process you unlawfully barred the President of the United States from the airwaves. That will never happen again."

Salentine told the President that he didn't believe Congress would allow him to do what he planned. Kennedy grinned at him, and said, "Not this Congress, but we have an election in November. And I'm going to run for reelection. And I'm going to campaign for people in Congress who will support my views."

Lawrence Salentine went back to his fellow TV station owners and gave them the bad news. "We have two courses of action," he said. "We can start helping the President out by supporting him when we cover his actions and his policies. Or we can remain free and independent and oppose him when we feel it necessary." He paused for a moment and said,

"This may be a very perilous time for us. Not just loss of revenue, not just regulatory restrictions, but if Kennedy goes far enough it may even be our losing our licenses."

This was too much. It was inconceivable that the network licenses could be lost. It would be like the homesteaders in early frontier days seeing their land go back to the government. The granting of TV station licenses, the free access to the airwaves had always belonged to people like Salentine. It seemed to them now a natural right. And so the owners made the decision that they would not truckle to the President of the United States, that they would remain free and independent. And that they would expose Kennedy as the dangerous menace to American democratic capitalism that he surely was. Salentine would relay this decision to the important members of the Socrates Club.

Salentine brooded for days on how to mount a TV campaign against the

President on his TV network without making it seem too obvious. After all, the American public believed in fair play; they would resent a blatant hatchet job. The American public believed in the due process of law though they were the most criminal populace in the world.

He moved carefully. First step, he had to enlist Cassandra Chutt, who had the highest-rated national news program. Of course, he couldn't be too direct; anchor people jealously guarded against overt interference. But they had not achieved their eminence without playing ball with top management. And Cassandra Chutt knew how to play ball.

Salentine had nurtured her career over the last twenty years. He had known her when she was on the early-morning programs and then when she had switched to evening news. She had always been shameless in her pursuit of advancement. She had been known to collar a Secretary of State and burst into tears, shouting that if he did not give a two-minute interview she would lose her job. She had cajoled and flattered and blackmailed the celebrated into appearing on her prime-time interview program and then savaged them with personal and vulgar questions. Salentine thought Cassandra Chutt the rudest person he had ever known in the broadcasting business.

Salentine invited her to dinner in his apartment. He enjoyed the company of rude people.

When Cassandra arrived the next evening, Salentine was editing a videotape.

He brought her to his workroom, which had the latest equipment in videos and TV and monitoring and cutting machines, all accompanied by small computers.

Cassandra sat on a stool and said, "Oh shit, Lawrence, do I have to watch you make your cut of Gone with the Wind again?" By way of answer he brought her a drink from the small bar in a corner of the room.

Salentine had a hobby. He would take a videotape of a movie (he had a collection of what he thought were the one hundred best movies ever made) and recut it to make it better. Even in his most favorite movies there would be a scene or dialogue that he thought not well done or unnecessary, and he would remove it with editing machines. Now arrayed in the bookcase of his living room were one hundred videotapes of the best motion pictures, somewhat shorter, but perfect. There were even some movies that had their unsatisfactory endings chopped off.

While he and Cassandra Chutt ate the dinner served by a butler, they talked about her future programs. This always put Cassandra Chutt in a good mood.

She told Salentine of her plans to visit the heads of the Arab states and bring them together on one program, with the president of Israel. Then a program with three European prime ministers chatting with her. And then she was exuberant about going to Japan to interview the Emperor. Salentine listened patiently. Cassandra Chutt had delusions of grandeur but every once in a while she came up with a stunning coup.

Finally he interrupted her and said jokingly, "Why don't you get President Kennedy on your program?"

Cassandra Chutt lost her good humor. "He'll never give me a break after what we did to him."

"It didn't turn out so well," Salentine said. "But if you can't get Kennedy, then why not go to the other side of the fence? Why not get Congressman Jintz and Senator Lambertino to give their side of the story?"

Cassandra Chutt was smiling at him. "You sneaky bastard," she said. "They lost. They are losers and Kennedy is going to slaughter them in the elections. Why should I have losers on my program. Who the hell wants to watch losers on TVT'

Salentine said, "Jintz tells me they have very important information on the atom bomb explosion, that maybe the administration dragged its heels. That they didn't utilize properly the nuclear search teams, which might have located the bomb before it exploded. And they will say that on your program. You'll make headlines all over the world."

Cassandra Chutt was stunned. Then she started to laugh. "Oh, Christ," she said. "This is terrible, but right after you said that, the question, the very next question I thought to ask those two losers, was this: 'Do you honestly think the President of the United States is responsible for the ten thousand deaths in the explosion of the nuclear bomb in New York?'

"That's a very good question," Salentine said.

In the month of June, Bert Audick traveled on his private plane to Sherhaben to discuss with the Sultan the rebuilding of Dak. The Sultan entertained him royally. There were dancing girls, fine food, and a consortium of international financiers the Sultan had assembled who would be willing to invest their money in a new Dak. Audick spent a wonderful week of hard work picking their pockets for a hundred million-dollar "unit" here and a "unit" there, but the real money would have to come from his own oil firm and the Sultan of Sherhaben.

On the final night of his stay he and the Sultan were alone together in the Sultan's palace. At the end of the meal the Sultan banished the servants and bodyguards from the room.

He smiled at Audick and said, "I think now we should get down to our real business." He paused for a moment. "Did you bring what I requested?"

Bert Audick said, "I want you to understand one thing. I am not acting against my country. I just have to get rid of that Kennedy bastard or I'll wind up in jail. And he's going to track down all the ins and outs of our dealings over the past ten years.

So what I am doing is very much in your interest. "

"I understand," the Sultan said gently. "And we are far removed from the events that will happen. Have you made sure the documents cannot be traced to you in any way?"

Bert Audick said, "Of course." He then handed over the leather briefcase beside him. The Sultan took it and drew out a file that contained photographs and diagrams.

The Sultan looked at them. They were photos of the White House interiors, and the diagrams showed the control posts in different parts of the building. "Are these up to date?" the Sultan asked.

"No," Bert Audick said. "After Kennedy took office three years ago,

Christian Klee, who's head of the FBI and the Secret Service, changed a lot of it around. He added another floor to the White House for the presidential residence. I know that the fourth floor is like a steel box.

Nobody knows what the setup is. Nothing is ever published, and they sure as hell don't let people know. It's all secret except to the President's closest advisers and friends."

"This can help," the Sultan said.

Audick shrugged. "I can help with money. We need fast action, preferably before Kennedy gets reelected."

"The Hundred can always use the money," the Sultan said. "I'll see that it gets to them. But you must understand that these people act out of their own true faith. They are not hired assassins. So they will have to believe the money comes from me as head of an oppressed small country." He smiled.

"After the destruction of Dak, I believe Sherhaben qualifies…

Audick said, "That's another matter I've come to discuss.

My company lost fifty billion dollars when Dak was destroyed. I think we should restructure the deal we have on your oil. You were pretty rough last time."

The Sultan laughed but in a friendly way. "Mr. Audick," he said, "for over fifty years the American and British oil companies raped the Arab lands of their oil. You gave ignorant nomad sheiks pennies while you made billions. Really it was shameful. And now your countrymen get indignant when we want to charge what the oil is worth. As if we had anything to say about the price of your heavy equipment and your technological skills for which you charge so dearly. But now it is your turn to pay properly, it is your turn even to be exploited if you care to make such a claim.

Please don't be offended, but I was even thinking of asking you to sweeten our deal."

They recognized in each other a kindred soul who never missed the chance to pursue a negotiation. They smiled at each other in a friendly fashion.

"I guess the American consumer will have to pick up the bill for the crazy President they voted into office," Audick said. "I sure hate to do it to them."

"But you will," the Sultan said. "You are a businessman, after all, not a politician."

"On my way to being a jailbird," Audick said with a laugh. "Unless I get lucky and Kennedy disappears. I don't want you to misunderstand me. I would do anything for my country, but I sure as hell won't let the politicians push me around."

The Sultan smiled in agreement. "No more than I would let my parliament."

He clapped his hands for servants and then he said to Audick, "Now I think it is time for us to enjoy ourselves. Enough of this dirty business of rule and power. Let us live life while we still have it."

Soon they were sitting down to an elaborate dinner. Audick enjoyed Arab food, he was not squeamish like other Americans; the heads and eyeballs of sheep were mother's milk to him.

As they were eating, Audick said to the Sultan, "If you need money for some worthy cause, I can arrange for its transfer from an untraceable source on my end. It is very important to me that we do something about Kennedy."

"I understand completely," the Sultan said. "And now, no more talk of business. I have a duty as your host."

Annee, who had been hiding out with her family in Sicily, was surprised when she was summoned to a meeting with fellow members of the Hundred.

She met with them in Palermo. They were two young men she had known when they were all university students in Rome. The oldest, now about thirty years of age, she had always liked very much. He was tall, but stooped, and wore gold-rimmed glasses. He had been a brilliant scholar, destined for a distinguished career as a professor of Etruscan studies. In personal relationships he was gentle and kind. His political violence sprang from a mind that detested the cruel illogic of a capitalistic society. His name was Giancarlo.

The other member of the First Hundred she knew as the firebrand of leftist parties at the university. A loudmouth, but a brilliant orator who enjoyed spurring crowds to violence though he himself was essentially inept in action. His character changed after he was picked up by the antiterrorist special police and severely interrogated. In other words, Annee thought, they had kicked the shit out of him and put him in the hospital for a month. Sallu, for that was his name, then talked less and acted more.

Finally he was recognized as one of the Christs of Violence, one of the First Hundred.

Both of these men, Giancarlo and Sallu, now lived underground to elude the antiterrorist police. And they had arranged this meeting with care. Annee had been summoned to the town of Palermo and instructed to wander and sightsee until she was contacted. On the second day she had encountered a woman named Livia in a boutique who had taken her to a meeting in a small restaurant where they were the only customers. The restaurant had then closed its doors to the public; the proprietors and the single waiter were obviously members of the cadre. Then Giancarlo and Sallu had emerged from the kitchen. Giancarlo was in chef's regalia and his eyes were twinkling with amusement. In his hands was a huge bowl of spaghetti dyed black with the ink of chopped squid. Sallu, behind him, carried a wooden basket filled with sesame-seeded golden bread and a bottle of wine.

The four of them-Annee, Livia, Giancarlo and Sallusat down to lunch.

Giancarlo served them portions of spaghetti from the bowl, and the waiter brought them salad, a dish of pink ham and a black-and-white grainy cheese.

"Just because we fight for a better world, we shouldn't starve," Giancarlo said. He was smiling and seemed completely at ease.

"Nor die of thirst," Sallu said as he poured the wine. But he was nervous.

The women let themselves be served; as a matter of revolutionary protocol, they did not assume the stereotypical feminine role. But they were amused: they were here to take orders from men.

As they were eating, Giancarlo opened the conference. "You two have been very clever," he said. "It seems you are not under suspicion for the Easter operation. So it has been decided that we can use you for our new task. You are both extremely qualified. You have the experience, but more important, you have the will. So you are being called. But I must warn you. This is more dangerous than Easter."

Livia asked, "Do we have to volunteer before we hear the details?"

It was Sallu who answered, and abruptly, "Yes."

Annee said impatiently, "You always go through this routine and ask, 'Do you volunteer? Do we come here for this lousy spaghetti? When we come we volunteer. So get on with it."

Giancarlo nodded; he found her entertaining. "Of course. Of course," he said.

Giancarlo took his time. He ate and said contemplatively, "The spaghetti is not so bad." They all laughed and right off that laugh he said, "The operation is directed against the President of the United States. He must be liquidated. Mr. Kennedy is linking our organization with the atom bomb explosion in his country. His government is planning special operations teams to target us on a global basis. I have come from a meeting where our friends from all over the world have decided to cooperate on this operation."

Livia said, "in America, that's impossible for us. Where would we get the money, the lines of communication, how can we set up safe houses and recruit personnel? And above all, the necessary intelligence. We have no base in America."

Sallu said, "Money is no problem. We are being funded. Personnel will be infiltrated and have only limited knowledge."

Giancarlo said, "Livia, you will go first. We have secret support in America. Very powerful people. They will help you set up safe houses and lines of communication. You will have funds available in certain banks. And you, Annee, will go in later as chief of operations. So you will have the tricky part."

Annee felt a thrill of delight. Finally she would be an operational chief. Finally she would be the equal of Romeo and Yabril.

Livia's voice broke into her thoughts. "What are our chances?" Livia asked.

Sallu said reassuringly, "Yours are very good, Livia. If they get onto us, they'll let you ride free so they can scoop up the whole operation.

By the time Annee goes operational, you will be back in Italy."

Giancarlo said to Annee, "That's true. Annee, you will be at the greater risk."

"I understand that," Annee said.

"So do I," Livia said. "I meant, what are our chances for success?"

"Very small," Giancarlo said. "But even if we fail, we gain. We state our innocence."

They spent the rest of the afternoon going over the operational plans, the codes to be used, the plans for the development of the special networks.

It was dusk when they were finished and Annee asked the question that had been unasked the whole afternoon. "Tell me, then, is the worst scenario that this could be a suicide mission?"

Sallu bowed his head. Giancarlo's gentle eyes rested on Annee and he nodded. "It could be," he said. "But that would be your decision, not ours. Romeo and Yabril are still alive, and we hope to free them. And I promise the same if you are captured."

CHAPTER 17

CHRISTIAN KITE'S SPFCIAL division of the FBI ran computer surveillance on the Socrates Club and members of Congress. Klee always started his morning going through their reports. He personally operated his desktop computer, which held personal dossiers under his own secret codes.

This particular morning he called up the file of David Jatney and Cryder Cole. Klee had a fondness for his hunches and his hunch was that Jatney could be trouble. He no longer had to worry about Cole; that young man had become an enthusiastic motorcyclist and bashed his head against a stone cliff in Provo, Utah. He studied the video image that appeared on his monitor, the sensitive face, the dark recessed eyes. How the face changed from handsomeness in repose to one of frightening intensity when he became emotional. Were the emotions ugly or just the structure of the face? Jatney was under a loose surveillance, it was just a hunch.

But when Klee read the written reports on the computer, he felt a sense of satisfaction. The terrible insect buried in the egg that was David

Jatney was breaking out of its shell.

David Jatney had fired his rifle at Louis Inch because of a young woman named Irene Fletcher. Irene was delighted that someone had tried to kill Inch but never knew it was her lover who had fired the shot. This despite the fact that every day she beseeched him to tell her his innermost thoughts.

They had met on Montana Avenue, where she was one of the salesgirls in the famous Fioma Bake Shop, which sold the best breads in America. David went there to buy biscuits and rolls and chatted with Irene when she served him. One day she said to him, "Would you like to go out with me tonight? We can eat Dutch."

David smiled at her. She was not one of the typical blond California girls. She had a pretty round face with a determined look, her figure was just a little buxom, and she looked as if she might be just a little too old for him. She was about twenty-five. But her gray eyes had a lively sparkle and she always sounded intelligent in their conversations, so he said yes. And truth to tell, he was lonely.

They started a casual, friendly love affair; Irene Fletcher did not have the time for something more serious, nor the inclination. She had a five-year-old son, and he lived in her mother's house. She was very active in local politics and was intensely involved in Eastern religions, which was not at all unusual for a young person in Southern California.

For Jatney it was a refreshing experience. Irene often brought her young son, Campbell, to meetings that sometimes lasted far into the night, and she simply wrapped her little boy in an Indian blanket and put him to sleep on the floor as she vigorously pointed out the merits of a candidate for political office or the latest seer from the Far East. Sometimes David went to sleep on the floor with the young boy.

To Jatney, it was a perfect match-they had nothing in common. He hated religion and despised politics. Irene detested the movies and was interested only in books on exotic religions and left-wing social studies.

But they kept each other company, each filled a hole in the other's existence. When they had sex they were both a little offhand, but were always friendly. Sometimes Irene succumbed to a tenderness during sex that she immediately minimized afterward.

It was helpful that Irene loved to talk and David loved to be silent. They would lie in bed and Irene would talk for hours and David would listen.

Sometimes she was interesting and sometimes she was not. It was interesting that there was a continuous struggle between the real estate interests and the small homeowners and renters in Santa Monica. Jatney could sympathize with this. He loved Santa Monica; he loved the low skyline of two-story houses and one-story shops, the Spanish-looking villas, the general air of serenity, the total absence of chilling religious edifices like the Mormon tabernacles in his home state of Utah. He loved the great expanse of the Pacific, lying unobscured by glass and stone skyscrapers. He thought Irene a heroine for fighting to preserve all this against the ogres of the real estate interests.

She talked about her current Indian gurus and played their lectures on her tapes. These gurus were far more pleasant and humorous than the stem elders of the Mormon Church he had listened to while growing up, and their beliefs seemed more poetic, their miracles purer, more spiritual, more ethereal than the famous Mormon tablets of gold and the angel Moroni. But finally, they were just as boring with their rejection of the pleasures of this world and the fruits of success on earth, all of which Jatney so desperately desired.

And Irene would never stop talking, she achieved a kind of ecstasy when she talked even of the most ordinary things. Unlike Jatney, she found her life, ordinary as it was, altogether meaningful.

Sometimes when she was carried away and dissected her emotions for a full hour without interruption, he would feel that she was a star in the heavens growing larger and brighter and that he himself was falling into a bottomless black hole that was the universe, failing and falling while she never noticed.

He liked too that she was generous in material things but thrifty with her personal emotions. She would never really come to grief, she would never fall into that universal darkness. Her star would always expand, never lose its light. And he was grateful that this should be so. He did not want her company in the darkness.

One night they went for a walk on the beach just outside Malibu. It seemed weird to David Jatney that here was this great ocean on one side, then a row of houses and then mountains on the other side. It didn't seem natural to have mountains almost bordering an ocean. Irene had brought along blankets and a pillow and her child. They lay on the beach and the little boy, wrapped in blankets, fell asleep.

Irene and David sat on their blanket and were overcome by the beauty of the night. For that little moment they were in love with each other. They watched the ocean, which was blue-black in the moonlight, and the little thin birds hopping ahead of the incoming waves. "David," Irene said, "you have never told me anything really about yourself. I want to love you. You won't let me know you."

David was touched. He laughed a little nervously and then ' "The first thing you should know about me is that I'm a ~ en-Mile Mormon."

"I didn't even know you were a Mormon," Irene said.

"If you are brought up a Mormon, you are taught that you must not booze or smoke or commit adultery," David said. "So when you do it you make sure you are at least ten miles from where anybody knows you." And then he told her about his childhood. And how he hated the Mormon Church.

"They teach you that it's OK to lie if it helps the Church," David said.

"And then the hypocritical bastards give you all this shit about the angel

Moroni and some gold bible. And they wear angel pants, which I have to admit my mother and father never believed in, but you could see those fucking angel pants hanging on their clotheslines. The most ridiculous thing you ever saw."

"What're angel pants?" Irene asked. She was holding his hand to encourage him to keep speaking.

"It's sort of a robe they wear so they won't enjoy screwing," David said.

"And they are so ignorant they don't know that Catholics in the sixteenth century had the same kind of garment, a robe that covers your whole body except for a single hole in it so you can screw, supposedly without enjoying it. When I was a kid I could see angel pants hanging from the laundry lines. I'll say this for my parents, they didn't buy that shit, but because he was an elder in the church they had to fly the angel pants." David laughed and then said, "God, what a religion."

"It's fascinating, but it sounds so primitive," Irene said.

David thought, And what the hell is so civilized about all those fucking gurus who tell you that cows are sacred, that you are reincarnated, that this life means nothing, all that voodoo karma bullshit. But Irene felt his tensing and wanted to keep him talking. She slid her hands inside his shirt and felt his heart beating furiously.

"Did you hate them?" she asked.

"I never hated my parents," he said. "They were always good to me."

"I meant the Mormon Church," Irene said.

David said, "I hated the Church ever since I can remember. I hated it as a little kid. I hated the faces of the elders, I hated the way my mother and father kissed their asses. I hated their hypocrisies. If you disagree with the rulings of the Church, they could even have you murdered. It's a business religion, they all stick together. That's how my father got rich. But I'll tell you the thing that disgusted me the most. They have special anointments and the top elders get secretly anointed and so they get to go to heaven ahead of other people. Like somebody slipping you to the head of the line while you're waiting for a taxi or a table in a popular restaurant."

Irene said, "Most religions are like that except the Indian religions.

You just have to watch out for karma. " She paused a moment. "That is why I try to keep myself pure of greed for money, why I can't fight my fellow human being for the possessions of this earth. I have to keep my spirit pure. We're having special meetings, there is a terrible crisis in Santa Monica right now. If we're not on the alert, the real estate interests will destroy everything we've fought for and this town will be full of skyscrapers. And they'll raise the rents and you and I will be forced out of our apartments."

She went on and on, and David Jatney listened with a feeling of peace.

He could lie on this beach forever, lost in time, lost in beauty, lost in the innocence of this girl, who was so unafraid of what would happen to her in this world.

She was telling him about a man named Louis Inch, who was trying to bribe the city council so that they would change the building and rental laws. She seemed to know a lot about this man Inch, she had researched him. The man could be an elder in the Mormon Church. Finally Irene said, "If it wasn't so bad for my karma, I'd kill the bastard."

David laughed. "I shot the President once." And he told her about the assassination game, the Hunt, when he had been a one-day hero at Brigham Young University. "And the Mormon elders who run the place had me thrown out," he said.

But Irene was now busy with her small son, who'd had a bad dream and waked up screaming. She soothed him and said to David, "This guy Inch is having dinner with some of the town council tomorrow night. He's taking them to Michael's and you know what that means. He'll try to bribe them. I really would like to shoot the bastard."

David said, "I'm not worried about my karma, I'll shoot him for you." They both laughed.

The next night David cleaned the hunting rifle he had brought from Utah and fired the shot that broke the glass in Louis Inch's limousine. He had not really aimed to hit anyone; in fact the shot had come much closer to the victim than he had intended. He was just curious to see if he could bring himself to do it.

CHAPTER 18

IT WAS SAL Troyca who decided to nail Christian Klee. Going over testimonies to the congressional committees of inquiry into the atom bomb explosion, he noted Klee's testimony that the great international crisis of the hijacking took precedence. But then there were glitches; Troyca noticed that there was a time gap. Christian Klee had disappeared from the White House scene. Where had he gone?

They wouldn't find out from Klee, that was certain. But the only thing that could have made Klee disappear during that crisis was something terribly important. What if Klee had gone to interrogate Gresse and Tibbot?

Troyca did not consult with his boss, Congressman Jintz; he called

Elizabeth Stone, the administrative aide to Senator Lambertino, and arranged to meet her at an obscure restaurant for dinner. In the month since the atom bomb crisis the two of them had formed a partnership, in both public and private life.

On their first date, initiated by Troyca, they had come to an understanding. Elizabeth Stone beneath her cool, impersonal beauty had a fiery sexual temperament, but her mind was cold steel. The first thing she said was "Our bosses are going to be out of their jobs in November. I think you and I should make plans for our future."

Sal Troyca was astonished. Elizabeth Stone was famous for being one of those aides who are the loyal right arms for their congressional chiefs.

"The fight isn't over yet," he said.

"Of course it is," Elizabeth Stone said. "Our bosses tried to impeach the President. Now Kennedy is the biggest hero this country has known since Washington. And he will kick their asses."

Troyca was instinctively a more loyal person to his chief. Not out of a sense of honor, but because he was competitive, he didn't want to think of himself as being on a losing side.

"Oh, we can stretch it out," Elizabeth Stone said. "We don't want to look like the kind of people who desert a sinking ship. We'll make it look good.

But I can get us both a better job." She smiled at him mischievously and

Troyca fell in love with that smile. It was a smile of gleeful temptation, a smile full of guile and yet an admission of that guile, a smile that said that if he wasn't delighted with her, he was a jerk. He smiled back.

Sal Troyca had, even to his own way of thinking, a sort of greasy, piglike charm that worked only on certain women, and that always surprised other men and himself. Men respected Troyca because of his cunning, his high level of energy, his ability to execute. But the fact that he could charm women so mysteriously aroused their admiration.

Now he said to Elizabeth Stone, "If we become partners, does that mean I get to fuck you?"

"Only if you make a commitment," Elizabeth Stone said.

There were two words Sal Troyca hated more than any of the others in the English language. One was "commitment" and the other was "relationship."

"You mean like we should have a real relationship, a commitment to each other, like love?" he said. "Like the house niggers used to make to their masters down in your dear old South?"

She sighed. "Your macho bullshit could be a problem," she said. Then she went on: "I can make a deal for us. I've been a big help to the Vice President in her political career. She owes me. Now you have to see reality. Jintz and Lambertino are going to be slaughtered in the November election. Helen Du Pray is reorganizing her staff and I'm going to be one of her top advisers. I have a spot for you as my aide."

Sal said smilingly, "That's a demotion for me. But if you're as good in the sack as I think you are, I'll consider it."

Elizabeth Stone said impatiently, "It won't be a demotion, since you won't have a job. And then when I go up the ladder, so do you. You'll wind up with your own staff section as an aide to the Vice President."

She paused for a moment. "Listen," she said, "we were attracted to each other in the senator's office, not love maybe, but certainly lust at first sight. And I've heard about you screwing your aides. But I understand it. We both work so hard, we don't have time for a real social life or a real love life. And I'm tired of screwing guys just because I'm lonely a couple of times a month. I want a real relationship."

"You're going too fast," Troyca said. "Now, if it was on the staff of the President. He shrugged and grinned to show that he was kidding.

Elizabeth Stone gave him her smile again. It was really a hardboiled sort of grin but Troyca found it charming. "The Kennedys have always been unlucky," she said. "The Vice President could be the President. But please be serious. Why can't we have a partnership, if that's what you prefer to call it? Neither one of us wants to get married. Neither of us wants children. Why can't we sort of half live with each other, keep our own places, of course, but sort of live together? We can have companionship and sex and we can work together as a team. We can satisfy our human needs and operate at the highest point of efficiency. If it works, it could be a great arrangement. If it doesn't, we can just call it quits. We have until November."

They went to bed that night and Elizabeth Stone was a revelation to Troyca.

Like many shy, reserved people, man or woman, she was genuinely ardent and tender in bed. And it helped that the act of consummation took place in

Elizabeth Stone's town house. Troyca had not known that she was independently wealthy. Like a true Wasp, he thought, she had concealed that fact, where he would have flaunted it. Troyca immediately saw that the town house would be a perfect place for both of them to live, much better than his just adequate flat. Here with Elizabeth Stone he could set up an office. The town house had three servants and he would be relieved of time-consuming and worrying details like sending clothes out for cleaning, shopping for food and drink.

And Elizabeth Stone, ardent feminist though she was, performed like some legendary courtesan in bed. She was a slave to his pleasure. Well, it was only the first time women were like that, Troyca thought. Like when they first came to be interviewed for I job, they never looked as good after that. But in the month that followed, she proved him wrong.

They built up an almost perfect relationship. It was wonderful for both of them after their long hours with Jintz and Lambertino to come home, go out for a late supper and then sleep together and make love. And in the morning they would go to work together. He thought for the first time in his life about marriage. But he knew instinctively that this was something Elizabeth would not want.

They lived contained lives, a cocoon of work, companionship and love, for they did come to love each other. But the best and most delicious part of their times together was their scheming on how to change the events of their world. They both agreed that Kennedy would be reelected to the presidency in November. Elizabeth was sure that the campaign being mounted against the President by Congress and the Socrates Club was doomed to failure. Troyca was not so sure. There were many cards to play.

Elizabeth hated Kennedy. It was not a personal hatred; it was that ideally opposition to someone she thought of as a tyrant. "The important thing," she said, "is that Kennedy not be allowed to have his own Congress in the next election. That should be the battleground. It's clear from Kennedy's statements in the campaign that he will change the structure of American democracy. And that would create a very dangerous historical situation."

"If you are so opposed to him now, how can you accept a position on the Vice President's staff after the election?" Sal asked her.

"We're not policymakers," Elizabeth said. "We're administrators. We can work for anybody."

So after a month of intimacy, Elizabeth was surprised when Sal asked that they meet in a restaurant rather than in the comfort of the town house they now shared. But he had insisted.

In the restaurant over their first drinks, Elizabeth said, "Why couldn't we talk at home?"

Sal said thoughtfully, "You know, I've been studying a lot of documents going a long way back. Our Attorney General, Christian Klee, is a very dangerous man."

"So?" Elizabeth said.

"He may have your house bugged," Sal said.

Elizabeth laughed, "You are paranoid," she said.

"Yeah," Sal said. "Well, how about this. Christian Klee had those two kids,

Gresse and Tibbot, in custody and didn't interrogate them right away. But there's a time gap. And the kids were tipped off and told to keep their mouths shut until their families supplied lawyers. And what about Yabril?

Klee has him stashed, nobody can get to see or talk to him. Klee stonewalls and Kennedy backs him up. I think Klee is capable of anything."

Elizabeth Stone said thoughtfully, "You can get Jintz to subpoena Klee to appear before a congressional committee. I can ask Senator Lambertino to do the same thing. We can smoke Klee out."

"Kennedy will exercise executive privilege and forbid him to testify," Sal said. "We can wipe our asses with those subpoenas."

Elizabeth was usually amused by his vulgarities, especially in bed, but she was not amused now. "His exercising executive privilege will damage him," she said. "The papers and TV will crucify him."

"OK, we can do that," Sal said. "But how about if just you and me go to see Oddblood Gray and try to pin him down?

We can't make him talk but maybe he will. He's an idealist at heart, and maybe psychologically he's horrified at the way Klee botched the atom bomb incident. Maybe he even knows something concrete."

It was unfortunate that they picked Oddblood Gray to question. Gray was reluctant to see them, but Elizabeth's friendship with Vice President Helen Du Pray was the deciding factor in their favor. Gray had a tremendous respect for Du Pray.

Sal Troyca opened the discussion by asking, "Isn't it odd that the Attorney General, Christian Klee, had those two young men in custody before the explosion and never got any information out of them?"

"They stood on their Constitutional rights," Gray said cautiously.

Troyca said dryly, "Klee has the reputation of being a rather forceful and resourceful man. Could two kids like Gresse and Tibbot stand up against him?"

Gray shrugged. "You never know about Klee," he said.

It was Elizabeth Stone who put the question directly. "Mr. Gray," she said, "do you have any knowledge or even have any reason to believe that the

Attorney General secretly interrogated those two young men?"

Gray felt a sudden rush of anger at this question. But wait, why the hell should he protect Klee? he thought. After all, most of the people killed in New York had been black. "This is off the record," he said, "and I will deny it under oath. Klee did conduct a secret interrogation with all the listening devices turned off. There is no record. It is possible to believe the worst. But if you do, you must believe the President had no part in it."

CHAPTER 19

ON THIS EARLY MAY MORNING before meeting with the President, Helen Du Pray went on a five-mile run to clear her head. She knew that not only the administration but she herself was at a very dangerous crossroad.

It was pleasant to know that at this point in time she was a hero to Kennedy and the senior staff because she had refused to sign the petition to remove Kennedy-even though that feeling sprang from a concept of male honor that she held in contempt.

There were many dangerous problems. What had Klee really done? Was it possible he could have prevented the atom bomb explosion? And had he let it explode because he knew it would save the President? She could believe that of Klee but not of Francis Kennedy. And surely that could only have been done with Kennedy's consent?

And yet. And yet. There was in the persona of Kennedy now an aura of danger. It was clear that he would try to get a subservient

Congress to do his will. And what would he make that Congress do? It was clear that Kennedy was going to press for RICO indictments against all the important members of the Socrates Club. That was an extremely dangerous use of power. Would he discard all democratic and ethical principles to further his vision of a better America? Kennedy was trying to protect Klee, and Oddblood Gray was rebelling against this. Helen Du Pray feared this dissension. A President's staff existed to serve the President. The Vice President must follow the President. Must. Unless she resigned. And what a terrible blow that would be to Kennedy. And the end of her political career. She would be the ultimate betrayer. And poor Francis, what would he do about Yabril?

For she recognized that Kennedy could become as ruthless as his opponents: the Congress, the Socrates Club, Yabril. Oh, Francis could destroy them all-the tragedies of his life had warped his brain irreversibly.

She felt the sweat on her back, her thigh muscles ached, she dreamed of running forever and ever and never going back to the White House.

Dr. Zed Annaccone dreaded his meeting with President Kennedy and his staff. It made him slightly ill to talk science and mix it in with political and sociological targets. He would never have accepted being the President's medical science adviser if it hadn't been for the fact that it was the only way to ensure the proper funding of his beloved National Brain Research Institute.

It wasn't so bad when he dealt with Francis Kennedy directly. The man was brilliant and had a flair for science, though the newspaper stories that claimed the President would have made a great scientist were simply absurd. But Kennedy certainly understood the subtle value of research and how even the most farfetched of scientific theories could have almost miraculous results.

Kennedy was not the problem. It was the staff and the Congress and all the bureaucratic dragons. Plus the CIA and the FBI, who kept looking over his shoulder.

Until he began serving in Washington, Dr. Annaccone had not truly realized the awful gap between science and society in general. It was scandalous that while the human brain had made such a great leap forward in the sciences, the political and sociological disciplines had remained almost stationary.

He found it incredible that mankind still waged war, at enormous cost and to no advantage. That individual men and women still killed each other, when there were treatments that could dissipate the murderous tendencies in human beings. He found it contemptible that the science of genetic splicing was attacked by politicians and the news media as if tampering with biology were a corruption of some holy spirit. Especially when it was obvious that the human race as now genetically constituted was doomed.

Dr. Annaccone had been briefed on what the meeting would be about. There was still some doubt as to whether the exploding of the atom bomb had been part of the terrorist plot to destabilize American influence in the world-that is, whether there was a link between the two young physics professors, Gresse and Tibbot, and the terrorist leader Yabril. He would be asked whether they should use the PET brain scan to question the prisoners and determine the truth.

Which made Dr. Annaccone irritable. Why hadn't they asked him to run the PET before the atom bomb exploded? Christian Klee claimed that he had been tied up in the hijacking crisis and that the bomb threat had not seemed that serious.

Typical asshole reasoning. And President Kennedy had refused Klee's request for the PET brain scan for humanitarian reasons. Yes, if the two young men were innocent and damage was done to their brains during the scan it would be an inhuman act. But Annaccone knew that this was a politician covering his ass. He had briefed Kennedy thoroughly on the procedure, and Kennedy understood that the PET scan was almost completely safe, and would make the subject answer truthfully. They could have located the bomb and disarmed it.

There would have been time.

It was regrettable, to say the least, that so many people had been killed or injured. But Annaccone felt a sneaking admiration for the two young scientists. He wished he had their balls, for they had made a real point, a lunatic one, true, but a point. That as man in general became more knowledgeable, the probability that individuals would cause an atomic disaster increased. It was also true that the greed of the individual entrepreneur or the megalomania of a political leader could do the same.

But these two kids were obviously thinking of sociological controls, not scientific ones. They were thinking of repressing science, halting its march forward. The real answer, of course, was to change the genetic structure of man so that violence would become an impossible act. To put brakes in the genes and in the brain as you ~on a locomotive. It was that simple.

While waiting in the Cabinet Room of the White House for the President to arrive, Annaccone dissociated himself from the rest of the people there by reading his stack of memoranda and articles. He always felt himself resistant to the President's staff. Christian Klee kept track of the National Brain Research Institute and sometimes slapped a secrecy order on his research. Annaccone didn't like that and used diversionary tactics when he could. He was often surprised that Klee could outwit him in such matters. The other staff members, Eugene Dazzy, Oddblood Gray and Arthur Wix, were primitives with no understanding of science who immersed themselves in the comparatively unimportant matters of sociology and statecraft.

He noted that Vice President Helen Du Pray was present, as was Theodore Tappey, the CIA chief. He was always surprised that a woman was Vice President of the United States. He felt that science ruled against something like this. In his researches on the brain he always felt he would someday come upon a fundamental difference between the male and female brains and was amused that he did not. Amused because if he found a discrepancy the fur would fly in a delightful way.

Theodore Tappey he always regarded as Neanderthal. Indulging in those futile machinations for a slight degree of advantage in foreign affairs against fellow members of the human race. So futile an endeavor in the long run.

Dr. Annaccone took some papers out of his briefcase. There was an interesting article on the hypothetical particle called the tachyon. Not one person in this room had ever heard of the word, he thought. Though his field of expertise was the brain, Dr. Annaccone had a vast knowledge of all the sciences.

So now he studied the paper on tachyons. Did tachyons really exist?

Physicists had been quarreling about that for the last twenty years.

Tachyons, if they existed, would fracture Einstein's theories; tachyons would travel faster than the speed of light, which Einstein had said was impossible. Sure, there was the apology that tachyons were already moving faster than light from the beginning, but what the hell was that? Also the mass of a tachyon is a negative number. Which supposedly was impossible. But the impossible in real life could be possible in the spooky world of mathematics. And then what could happen? Who knew? Who cared? Certainly nobody in this room, which held some of the most powerful men on the planet. An irony in itself. Tachyons might change human life more than anything these men could conceive.

Finally the President made his entrance and the people in the room stood up. Dr. Annaccone put away his papers. He might enjoy this meeting if he kept alert and counted the eye blinks in the room. Research showed that eye blinks could reveal whether a person was lying or not. There was going to be a lot of blinking.

Francis Kennedy came to the meeting dressed comfortably in slacks and a white shirt covered by a sleeveless blue cashmere sweater, and with a good humor extraordinary in a man beset by so many difficulties.

After greeting them he said, "We have Dr. Annaccone with us today so that we can settle the problem of whether the terrorist Yabril was in any way connected with the atom bomb explosion. Also to respond to the charges that have been made in the newspapers and on television that we in the administration could have found the bomb before it exploded."

Helen Du Pray felt she must ask the question. "Mr. President, in your speech to Congress you said Yabril was part of the atom bomb conspiracy. You were emphatic. Was that based on hard evidence?"

Kennedy was prepared for this question and answered with calm precision. "I believed it was true then, I believe it is true now."

"But on what hard evidence?" Oddblood Gray pressed. Kennedy's eyes met Klee's for an instant before he turned to Annaccone and broke into a friendly grin. "That's why we're here. To find out. Dr. Annaccone, what are your thoughts on this subject? Maybe you can help us. And as a favor to me, stop figuring out the secrets of the universe on that pad of yours. You've discovered enough to get us into trouble."

Dr. Annaccone had been scribbling mathematical equations on the memo pad in front of him. He realized that this was a rebuke in the guise of a compliment. He said, "I still don't understand why you didn't sign the order for the PET scan before the nuclear device exploded. You already had the two young men in custody. You had the authority under the Atomic Weapons Control Act."

Christian said quickly, "We were in the middle of what we thought was a far more important crisis, if you remember. I thought it could wait another day. Gresse and Tibbot claimed they were innocent and we had only enough evidence to grab them. We didn't have enough to indict. Then Tibbot's father got tipped off and we had a bunch of very expensive lawyers threatening a lot of trouble. So we figured we'd wait until the other crisis was over and maybe we had a little more evidence."

Vice President Du Pray said, "Christian, do you have any idea how Tibbot Senior was tipped off?"

Christian said, "We are going over all the telephone company records in Boston to check the origin of calls received by Tibbot Senior. So far no luck."

The head of the CIA, Theodore Tappey, said, "With all your high-tech equipment, you should have found out."

"Helen, you've got them off on a tangent," Kennedy said. "Let's stick to the main point. Dr. Annaccone, let me answer your question. Christian is trying to take some heat off me, which is why a President has a staff. But I made the decision not to authorize the brain probe. According to the protocols, there is some danger of damaging the brain and I didn't want to risk it. The two young men denied everything, and there was no evidence that a bomb existed except for the warning letter.

What we have here is really a scurrilous attack by the news media supported by the members of Congress. I want to pose a specific question. Do we eliminate any collusion between Yabril and Professors Tibbot and Gresse by having the PET brain scan done on all of them? Would that solve the problem?"

Dr. Annaccone said crisply, "Yes. But now you have a different circumstance. You are using the Atomic Weapons Control Act to gather evidence in a criminal trial, not to discover the whereabouts of a nuclear device. The act does not authorize PET scanning under those circumstances."

"Besides," Dazzy added, "with their legal defense we'll never get anywhere near those kids."

President Kennedy gave Dazzy a cold smile. "Doctor," he said, "we still have Yabril. I want Yabril to undergo the brain probe. The question he will be asked is this: Was there a conspiracy? And was the atom bomb explosion part of his plan? Now, if the answer is yes, the implications are enormous.

There may still be a conspiracy going on. And it may involve much more than New York City. Other members of the terrorist First Hundred could plant other nuclear devices. Now do you understand?"

Dr. Annaccone said, "Mr. President, do you think that is really a possibility?"

Kennedy said, "We have to erase any doubt. I will rule that this medical interrogation of the brain is justified under the Atomic Weapons Control Act."

Arthur Wix said, "There will be one hell of an uproar. They'll claim we're performing a lobotomy."

Eugene Dazzy said dryly, "Aren't we?"

Dr. Annaccone was suddenly as angry as anyone was allowed to be in the presence of the President of the United States. "It is not a lobotomy," he said. "It is a brain scan with chemical intervention. The patient is completely the same after the interrogation is completed."

"Unless there's a little slipup," Dazzy said.

The press secretary, Matthew Gladyce, said, "Mr. President, the outcome of the test will dictate what kind of announcement we make. We have to be very careful. If the test proves there was conspiracy linking Yabril, Gresse and Tibbot, we'll be in the clear. If the probe proves there is no collusion, you're going to have a lot of explaining to do."

Kennedy said curtly, "Let's go on to other things."

Eugene Dazzy read from the memo in front of him. "The Congress wants to haul Christian up in front of one of their investigating committees.

Senator Lambertino and Congressman Jintz want to take a crack at him.

They are claiming, and they planted it all over in the media, that Attorney General Christian Klee is the key to any funny work that went on."

"Invoke executive privilege," Kennedy said. "As President, I order him not to appear before any congressional committee."

Dr. Annaccone, bored with the political discussions, said jokingly,

"Christian, why don't you volunteer for our PET scan? You can establish your innocence unequivocally. And endorse the morality of the procedure."

"Doc," Christian said, "I'm not interested in establishing my innocence, as you call it. Innocence is the one fucking thing your science will never be able to establish. And I'm not interested in the morality of a brain probe that will determine the veracity of another human being. We are not discussing innocence or morals here. We are discussing the employment of power to further the functioning of society. Another area in which your science is useless. As you've often said to me, don't dabble in something in which you are not expert. So go fuck yourself."

It was rare at these staff meetings that emotions were allowed to be unrestrained. It was even rarer for vulgar language to be used when Vice President Du Pray was attending staff meetings-not that the Vice President was a prudish woman. Yet the people in the Cabinet Room were surprised at Christian Klee's outburst.

Dr. Annaccone was taken aback. He had just made a little joke. He liked Klee, as most people did. The man was urbane and civilized, and he seemed more intelligent than most lawyers. Dr. Annaccone, as a great scientist, prided himself on his understanding of practically everything in the universe. He now suffered the regrettable petty human vulnerability of having his feelings hurt. So without thinking he said, "You used to be in the CIA, Mr. Klee. The CIA headquarters building has a marble tablet that reads,

'Know the truth and the truth shall set you free.' "

Christian had regained his good humor. "I didn't write it," he said. "And I doubt it."

Dr. Annaccone had also recovered. And he had started analyzing. Why the furious response to his jocular question? Did the Attorney General, the highest law official in the land, really have something to hide? He'd dearly love to have the man on the probe's test table.

Francis Kennedy had been watching this byplay with a grave yet amused eye.

Now he said gently, "Zed, when you have the brain lie-detector test perfected, so it can be done without side effects, we may have to bury it. There's not a politician in this country who could live with that."

Dr. Annaccone interrupted. "All these questions are irrelevant. The process has been discovered. Science has begun its exploration of the human brain.

You can never halt a process once it has begun. Luddites proved that when they tried to halt the Industrial Revolution. You couldn't outlaw the use of gunpowder, as the Japanese learned when they banned firearms for hundreds of years and were overwhelmed by the Western world. Once the atom was discovered you could no longer stop the bomb. The brain lie-detector test is here to stay, I assure you all."

Klee said, "It violates the Constitution."

President Kennedy said briskly, "We may have to change the Constitution."

Matthew Gladyce said, with a look of horror on his face, "If the news media heard this conversation they could run us right out of town."

Kennedy said, "It's your job to tell the public what we've said in the proper language, and at the proper time. Remember this. The people of

America will decide. Under the Constitution. Now, I think the answer to all our problems is to mount a counterattack. Christian, press the prosecution of Bert Audick under the RICO laws. His company will be charged with a criminal conspiracy with the Sultanate of Sherhaben to defraud the American public by illegally creating oil shortages to raise prices. That's number one."

He turned to Oddblood Gray. "Rub the congressional nose in the news that the new Federal Communications Commission will deny the licenses of the major network TV stations when they come up for renewal. And the new laws will control those stacked-deck deals on Wall Street and by the big banks. We'll give them something to worry about, Otto."

Helen Du Pray knew that she had every right to disagree in the private meetings even though as the Vice President it was mandatory to agree with the President publicly. Yet she hesitated before she said cautiously, "Don't you think we're making too many enemies at one time? Wouldn't it be even better to wait until we've been elected for a second term? If we do indeed get a Congress more sympathetic to our policies, why fight the present Congress? Why unnecessarily set all the business interests against us when we are not in a position of prime strength?"

"We can't wait," Kennedy said. "They are going to attack us no matter what we do. They are going to continue to try to prevent my reelection, and my Congress, no matter how conciliatory we are. By attacking them we make them reconsider. We can't let them go ahead as if they didn't have a worry in the world."

They were all silent, and then Kennedy rose and said to his staff, "You can work out the details and draw up the necessary memos."

It was then that Arthur Wix spoke about the Congress inspired media campaign to attack President Kennedy by highlighting how many men and how much money was spent to guard the President.

Wix said, "The whole thrust of their campaign is to paint you as some kind of Caesar and your Secret Service as some sort of imperial palace guard. To the public, ten thousand men and one hundred million dollars to guard just one man, even the President of the United States, seems excessive. It makes a lousy public relations image."

They were all silent. The memory of the Kennedy assassinations made this a particularly touchy issue. Also, all of them, being so close to Kennedy, were aware that the President went in some sort of physical fear. So they were surprised when Kennedy turned to the Attorney General and said, "In this case I think our critics are right. Christian, I know I gave you the veto on any change in protection, but how about if we make an announcement that we will cut the Secret Service White House Division in half. And the budget in half also. Christian, I'd like you not to use your veto on this."

Christian smiled and said, "Maybe I went a little overboard, Mr. President. I won't use my veto, which you could always veto." Everyone laughed.

But Gladyce was a little worried by this seemingly easy victory. "Mr. Attorney General, you can't just say you'll do it and not do it. The Congress will be all over our budget and appropriations figures," Gladyce said.

"Okay," Christian said. "But when you give out the press release, make sure you emphasize it is over my strong objections and make it seem like the President is bowing to the pressure of the Congress."

Kennedy said, "I thank you all. This meeting is adjourned."

The director of the White House Military Office, Colonel Henry Canoo (USA, Ret.), was the most cheerful and unflappable man in the administration.

He was cheerful because he had what he thought was the best job in the country. He was responsible to no one but the President of the United States, and he controlled presidential secret funds credited to the Pentagon that were not subject to audit except by himself and the President. Also he was strictly an administrator; he decided no questions of policy, did not even have to offer advice. He was the one who arranged for all the airplanes and helicopters and limos for the President and his staff. He was the one who disbursed funds for the construction and maintenance of buildings used by the White House that were classified secret. He ran the administration of the "Football," the warrant officer and his briefcase that held atom bomb codes for the President. Whenever the President wanted to do something that cost money that he didn't want the Congress or the news media to know about, Henry Canoo disbursed money from the secret fund and stamped the fiscal sheets with the highest security classification.

So in the late May afternoon when Attorney General Klee came into his office, Henry Canoo greeted him warmly. They had done business together before, and early on in his administration the President had given Canoo instructions that the Attorney General could have anything he wanted from the secret fund. The first few times Canoo had checked it out with the President but not any longer. "Christian," he said jovially, "are you looking for information or cash?"

"Both," Christian said. "First the money. We are going to promise publicly to cut down on the Secret Service Division fifty percent and to cut the security budget. I have to go through the motions. It will be a paper transfer, nothing will change. But I don't want Congress to sniff out a financial trail. So your office of the military adviser will tap the Pentagon budget for the money. Then stamp it with your topsecurity classification."

"Jesus," Henry Canoo said. "That's a lot of money. I can do it, but not for too long."

"Just until the election in November," Christian said.

"Then we'll either be out on our ass or in too strong for Congress to make any difference. But right now we have to look good."

"OK," Canoo said.

"Now the information," Christian said. "Have any of the congressional committees been sniffing around lately?"

"Oh, sure," Canoo said. "More than usual. They keep trying to find out how many helicopters the President has, how many limos, how many big aircraft, shit like that. They try to find out what the executive branch is doing. If they knew how many we really have, they'd shit."

"What congressman in particular?" Christian asked.

"Jintz," Canoo said. "He has that admin assistant, Sal Troyca, a clever little bastard. He says he just wants to know how many copters we have, and I tell him three. He says 'I hear you have fifteen' and I say 'What the hell would the White House do with fifteen? But he was pretty close, we have sixteen."

Klee was surprised. "What the hell do we do with sixteen?"

"Copters always break down," Canoo said. "If the President asks for a chopper, am I going to tell him no because they're in the shop? And, besides, somebody on the staff is always asking for a chopper. You're not so bad, Christian, but Tappey at CIA and Wix sure put in a lot of chopper time. And Dazzy too, for what reason I don't know."

"And you don't want to know," Christian said. "I want reports from you on any Congress snooper who tries to find out what the logistics are in supporting the presidential mission. It has a bearing on security.

Reports to me and top classifications. "

"OK," Canoo said cheerfully. "And anytime you need some work done on your personal residence we can tap the fund for that too."

"Thanks," Christian said, "I have my own money."

In the late evening of that day, President Kennedy sat in the Oval Office and smoked his thin Havana cigar. He reviewed the events of the day.

Everything had gone exactly as he had planned. He had shown his hand just enough to win the support of his staff.

Klee had reacted in character, as if he read his President's mind. Canoo had checked with him. Annaccone was malleable. Helen Du Pray might be a problem if he wasn't careful, but he needed her intelligence and her political base of the women's organizations.

Francis Kennedy was surprised at how well he felt. There was no longer any depression and his energy level was higher than it had ever been since his wife had died. Was it because he had at last gained control of the huge and complex political machinery of America?

CHAPTER 20

PRESIDENT KENNEDY wanted Christian Klee to come to breakfast in the White

House bedroom suite. It was rare that meetings were held in Kennedy's private living quarters.

Jefferson, the President's private butler and Secret Service guard, served the large breakfast and then discreetly withdrew to the pantry room, to appear only when summoned by the buzzer.

Kennedy said casually, "Did you know Jefferson was a great student, a great athlete? Jefferson never took shit from anybody." He paused and said, "How did he become a butler, Christian"

Christian knew he had to tell the truth. "He is also the best agent in the Secret Service. I recruited him myself and especially for this job."

Kennedy said, "The same question applies-why the hell would he take a Secret Service job? And as a butler?"

Christian said, "He has a very high rank in the Secret Service."

Kennedy said, "Yeah, but still."

"I organized a very elaborate screening procedure for these jobs. Jefferson was the best man, and in fact he is the White House team leader."

"Still," Kennedy said.

"I promised him that before you left the White House I would get him an appointment in Health, Education and Welfare, a job with clout."

"Ah, that's clever," Kennedy said, "but how does his r6sum6 look from butler to clout? How the hell can we do that?"

"His resume will read executive assistant to me," Christian said.

Kennedy lifted the coffee mug, its white glaze adorned with stenciled eagles. "Now, don't take this wrong, but I've noticed that all my immediate servants in the White House are very good at their jobs. Are they all in the Secret Service? That would be incredible."

"A special school and a special indoctrination appealing to their professional pride," Christian said. "Not all."

Kennedy laughed out loud and said, "Even the chefs?"

"Especially the chefs," Christian said, smiling. "All chefs are crazy."

Like many men, Christian always used a gag line to give himself time to think. He knew Kennedy's method for preparing to go on dangerous ground, showing good humor plus a piece of knowledge he wasn't supposed to have.

They ate their breakfast, Kennedy playing what he called, mother," passing plates and pouring. The china except for Kennedy's special coffee mug was beautiful, with the blue presidential seal and as fragile as an eggshell.

Kennedy finally said almost casually, "I'd like to spend an hour with Yabril. I expect you to handle it personally." He saw the anxious look on Christian's face. "Only for an hour and only for this one time."

Christian said, "What's to be gained, Francis? It could be too painful for you to bear." There were lines in Kennedy's face that Christian had never noticed before.

"Oh, I can bear it," Kennedy said.

"If the meeting leaks, there will be a lot of questions," Christian said.

"Then make sure it doesn't leak," Kennedy said. "There will be no written record of the meeting and it won't be entered in the White House log. Now, when?"

"It will take a few days to make the necessary arrangements," Christian said. "And Jefferson has to know."

"Anybody else?" Kennedy asked.

"Maybe six other men from my special division," Christian said. "They will have to know Yabril is in the White House but not necessarily that you're seeing him. They'll guess, but they won't know."

Kennedy said, "If it's necessary I can go to where you're holding him."

" Absolutely not," Christian said. "The White House is the best place. It should be in the early hours after midnight. I suggest 1:OO A.M."

Kennedy said. "The night after tomorrow. OK."

Yes," Christian said. "You'll have to sign some papers, which will be vague, but will cover me if something goes haywire."

Kennedy sighed as if in relief, then said briskly, "He's not a superman.

Don't worry. I want to be able to talk to him freely and for him to answer lucidly and of his own free will. I don't want him drugged or coerced in any way. I want to understand how his mind works and maybe I won't hate him so much. I want to find out how people like him truly feel." "I must be physically present at this meeting," Christian said awkwardly. "I'm responsible."

"How about you waiting outside the door with Jefferson?" Kennedy asked.

Christian, panicked by the implication of this request, slammed down the fragile coffee cup and said earnestly, "Please, Francis, I can't do that.

Naturally he'll be secured, he will be physically helpless, but I still have to be between the two of you. This is one time I have to use the vet– you gave me." He tried to hide his fear of what Francis right do.

They both smiled. It had been part of their deal when Christian had guaranteed the safety of the President. That Christian as head of the Secret Service could veto any presidential exposure to the public. "I've never abused that power," Christian said.

Kennedy made a grimace. "But you've exercised it vigorously. OK, you can stay in the room but try to fade into the Colonial woodwork. And Jefferson stays outside the door."

"I'll set everything up," Christian said. "But, Francis, this can't help you."

Christian Klee prepared Yabril for the meeting with President Kennedy.

There had, of course, been many interrogations, but Yabril had smilingly refused to answer any questions. He had been very cool, very confident, and was willing to make conversation in a general way-discuss politics,

Marxist theory, the Palestinian problem, which he called the Israeli problem-but he refused to talk about his background or his terrorist operations. He refused to talk about Romeo, his partner, or about Theresa Kennedy and her murder or his relationship with the Sultan of Sherhaben.

Yabril's prison was a small ten-bed hospital built by the FBI for the holding of dangerous prisoners and valuable informers. This hospital was staffed by Secret Service medical personnel and guarded by Klee's Secret Service special division agents. There were five of these detention hospitals in the United States: one in the Washington, D.C., area, another in Chicago, one in Los Angeles, one in Nevada and another on Long Island.

These hospitals were sometimes used for secret medical experiments on volunteer prison inmates. But Klee had cleared out the hospital in Washington, D.C., to hold Yabril in isolation. He had also cleaned out the hospital in Long Island to hold the two young scientists who had planted the atom bomb.

In the Washington hospital, Yabril lived in a medical suite fully equipped to abort any suicide attempt by violence or fasting. There were physical restraints and equipment for intravenous feeding.

Every inch of Yabril's body, including his teeth, had been X-rayed, and he was always restrained by a specially made loose jacket that permitted him only partial use of his arms and legs. He could read and write and walk with little steps, but could not make violent movements. He was also under twenty-four-hour surveillance through a two-way mirror by teams of Secret Service agents from Klee's special division.

After Christian left President Kennedy, he went to visit Yabril knowing that he had a problem. With two of the Secret Service agents he entered Yabril's suite. He sat on one of the comfortable sofas and had Yabril brought in from the bedroom. He pushed Yabril gently into one of the armchairs and then had his agents check the restraints.

Yabril said contemptuously, "You're a very careful man, with all your power."

"I believe in being careful," Christian told him gravely. "I'm like those engineers who build bridges and buildings to withstand a hundred times more stress than possible. That's how I run my job."

"They are not the same thing," Yabril said. "You cannot foresee the stress of Fate."

"I know," Christian said. "But it relieves my anxieties and it serves well enough. Now the reason for my visit: I've come to ask you a favor."

At this Yabril laughed, a fine derisive laugh but a laugh of genuine mirth.

Christian stared at him and smiled. "No, seriously, this is a favor it is in your power to grant or refuse. Now listen carefully. You've been treated well-that is my doing and also the laws of this country. I know it's useless to threaten. I know you have your pride, but it is a small thing I ask, one that will not compromise you in any way. And in return I promise to do everything I can so that nothing unfortunate will happen. I know that you still have hope. You think your comrades of the famous First Hundred will come up with something clever so that we will have to set you free."

Yabril's thin dark face lost its saturnine mirthfulness. He said, "We tried several times to mount an action against your President Kennedy, very complicated and clever operations. They were all suddenly and mysteriously wiped out before we could even get into this country. I personally conducted an investigation into these failures and the destruction of our personnel. And the trail always led to you. And so I know we're in the same line of work. I know that you're not one of those cautious politicians. So just tell me the courtesy you want. Assume I'm intelligent enough to consider it very carefully."

Christian leaned back on the sofa. Part of his brain noted that since

Yabril had found his trail he was far too dangerous ever to be let free under any circumstances. Yabril had been foolish to let out that information. Then Christian concentrated on the business at hand. He said, "President Kennedy is a very complicated man, he tries to understand events and people. And so he wants to meet you face-to-face and ask you questions, engage in a dialogue. As one human being to another. He wants to understand what made you kill his daughter; he wants, perhaps, to absolve himself of his own feelings of guilt. Now, all I ask is that you talk to him, answer his questions. I ask you not to reject him totally. Will you do that?"

Yabril, loosely locked in his jacket, tried to raise his arms in a gesture of rejection. He totally lacked physical fear, and yet the idea of meeting the father of the girl he had murdered aroused an agitation that surprised him. After all, it had been a political act, and a President of the United States should understand that better than anyone.

Still, it would be interesting to look into the eyes of the most powerful man in the world and say, "I killed your daughter. I injured you more grievously than you can ever injure me, you with your thousand ships of war, your tens of thousands of thunderbolt aircraft."

Yabril said, "Yes, I will do you this little favor. But you may not thank me in the end."

Klee got up from the sofa and lightly put a hand on Yabril's shoulder, but Yabril shrugged him away with contempt. "It doesn't matter," Klee said. "And I will be grateful…

Two days later, an hour after midnight, President Kennedy entered the Yellow Oval Room of the White House to find Yabril already seated in a chair by the fireplace. Christian was standing behind him.

On a small oval table inlaid with a shield of the Stars and Stripes was a silver platter of tiny sandwiches, a silver coffeepot and cups and saucers rimmed with gold. Jefferson poured the coffee into the three cups and then retreated to the door of the room and put his wide shoulders back against it. Kennedy could see that Yabril, who bowed his head to him, was immobilized in the chair. "You haven't sedated him?"

Kennedy said sharply.

"No, Mr. President," Christian said. "Those are jacket and legging restraints."

"Can't you make him more comfortable?" Kennedy said.

"No, sir," Christian said.

Kennedy spoke directly to Yabril. "I'm sorry, but I don't have the last word in these matters. I won't keep you too long. I would just like to ask you a few questions."

Yabril nodded. Because of the restraints, it was with some difficulty that he helped himself to one of the sandwiches, which were delicious.

And it helped his pride in some way that his enemy could see that he was not completely helpless. He studied Kennedy's face, and was struck by the fact that this was a man who in other circumstances he would have instinctively respected and trusted to some degree. The face showed suffering but a powerful restraint of that suffering. It also showed a genuine interest in his discomfort; there was no condescension or false compassion. And yet with all this there was a grave strength.

Yabril said softly and more politely and perhaps more humbly than he intended, "Mr. Kennedy, before we begin you must first answer me one question. Do you really believe that I am responsible for the atom bomb explosion in your country?"

"No," Kennedy said. And Christian was relieved that he did not give any further information.

"Thank you," Yabril said. "How could anyone think me so stupid? And I would resent it if you tried to use that accusation as a weapon. You may ask me anything you like."

Kennedy motioned to Jefferson to leave the room and watched him do so.

Then he spoke softly to Yabril. Christian lowered his head as if not to hear. He really did not want to hear.

Kennedy said, "We know you orchestrated the whole series of events. The murder of the Pope, the hoax of letting your accomplice be captured so that you could demand his release. The hijacking of the plane. And the killing of my daughter, which was planned from the very beginning. Now we know this for certain, but I would like you to tell me if this is true. By the way, I can see the logic of it."

Yabril looked at Kennedy directly. "Yes, that is all true. But I'm amazed that you put it all together so quickly. I thought it clever."

Kennedy said, "I'm afraid it's nothing to be proud of It means that basically I have the same kind of mind that you do. Or that there is not much difference in the human mind when it comes to deviousness."

"Still, it was maybe too clever," Yabril said. "You broke the rules of the game. But of course it was not chess, the rules were not so strict.

You were supposed to be a pawn with only a pawn's moves."

Kennedy sat down and drank a bit of his coffee, a polite social gesture.

Christian could see he was very tense, and, of course, to Yabril the seeming casualness of the President was transparent. Yabril wondered what the man's real intentions were. It was obvious that they were not malicious; there was no intent to use power to frighten or harm him.

"I knew from the very beginning," Kennedy said. "With the hijacking of the plane, I knew you would kill my daughter. When your accomplice was captured, I knew it was part of your plan. I was surprised by nothing. My advisers did not agree until later in your scenario. So what concerns me is that my mind must be something like yours. And yet it comes to this. I can't imagine myself doing such an operation. I want to avoid taking that next step and that is why I wanted to talk to you. To learn and foresee, to guard myself against myself."

Yabril was impressed by Kennedy's courteous manner, the evenness of his speech, his seeming desire for some kind of truth.

Kennedy went on. "What was your gain in all this? The Pope will be replaced; my daughter's death will not alter the international power structure. Where was your profit?"

Yabril thought, The old question of capitalism, it comes down to that.

Yabril felt Christian's hands rest lightly on his shoulders for a moment.

Then he hesitated before he said, "America is the colossus to which the Israeli state owes its existence. This by definition is what oppresses my countrymen. And your capitalistic system oppresses the poor people of the world and even your own country. It is necessary to break down the fear of your strength. The Pope is part of that authority, the Catholic Church has terrorized the poor of the world for countless centuries, with hell and even heaven; how disgraceful. And it went on for two thousand years. To bring about the Pope's death was more than a political satisfaction."

Christian had wandered away from Yabril's chair but was still alert, ready to interpose himself. He opened the door to the Yellow Oval Room to whisper to Jefferson for a moment. Yabril noted all this in silence, then went on: "But all my actions against you failed. I mounted two very elaborate operations to assassinate you and they failed. You may one day ask your Mr. Klee the details, they may astonish you.

The Attorney General, what a benign title, I must confess it misled me at the beginning. He destroyed my operations with a ruthlessness that compelled my admiration. But then, he had so many men, so much technology.

I was helpless. But your own invulnerability ensured your daughter's death, and I know how that must trouble you. I speak frankly, since that is your wish."

Christian came back to stand behind the chair and tried to avoid Kennedy's look. Yabril felt a strange tinge of fear, but he went on.

"Consider," Yabril said and half raised his arms to make an emphatic gesture, "if I hijack a plane, I am a monster. If the Israelis bomb a helpless Arab town and kill hundreds, they are striking a blow for freedom; more, they are avenging the famous holocaust with which Arabs had nothing to do. But what are our options? We do not have the military power, we do not have the technology. Who is the more heroic? Well, in both cases the innocent die. And what about justice? Israel was put in place by foreign powers, my people were thrown out into the desert. We are the new homeless, the new Jews, what an irony. Does the world expect us not to fight? What can we use except terror? What did the Jews use when they fought for the establishment of their state against the British? We learned everything about terror from the Jews of that time.

And those terrorists are now heroes, those slaughterers of the innocent.

One even became the prime minister of Israel and was accepted by the heads of state as if they never smelled the blood on his hands. Am I more terrible?"

Yabril paused for a moment and tried to rise, but Christian pushed him back down in his chair. Kennedy made a gesture for him to go on.

Yabril said, "You ask what I accomplished. In one sense I failed, and the proof is that I am here a prisoner. But what a blow I dealt to your authority in the world. America is not so great, after all. It could have ended better for me, but it's still not a total loss. I exposed to the world how ruthless your supposedly humane democracy really is. You destroyed a great city, you mercilessly subdued a foreign nation to your will. I made you peel off your thunderbolts to frighten the whole world and you alienated part of the world. You are not so beloved, your America. And in your own country you have polarized your political factions. Your personal image has changed and you have become the terrible Mr. Hyde instead of the saintly Dr. Jekyll."

Yabril paused for a moment to control the violent energy of the emotions that had passed over his face. He became more respectful, more grave.

"I come now to what you want to hear and what is painful for me to say.

Your daughter's death was necessary. She was a symbol of America because she was the daughter of the most powerful man on earth. Do you know what that does to people who fear authority? It gives them hope, never mind that some may love you, that some may see you as benefactor or friend. People hate their benefactors in the long run. They see you are no more powerful than they are, they need not fear you. Of course it would have been more effective if I had gone free. How would that have been? The Pope dead, your daughter killed and then you are forced to set me free. How impotent you and America would have seemed before the world. "

Yabril leaned back in the chair to lessen the weight of restraint and smiled at Kennedy. "I made only one mistake. I misjudged you completely.

There was nothing in your history that could foreshadow your actions. You, the great liberal, the ethical modern man. I thought you would release my friend. I thought you would not be able to put the pieces together quickly enough and I never dreamed you would commit such a great crime."

Kennedy said, "There were very few casualties when the city of Dak was bombed-we dumped leaflets hours before."

Yabril said, "I understand that. It was a perfect terrorist response. I would have done the same myself. But I would never have done what you did to save yourself. Set off an atom bomb in one of your own cities."

"You are mistaken," Kennedy said. And Christian was relieved again that he did not offer more information. And he was also relieved to see that Kennedy did not take the accusation seriously. In fact Kennedy went on immediately to something else.

"Tell me," Kennedy said, "how can you justify in your own heart the things you have done, your betrayals of human trust? I've read your dossier. How can any human being say to himself, I will better the world by killing innocent men, women and children, I will raise humanity out of its despair by betraying my best friend-all this without any authority given by God or his fellow beings. Compassion aside, how do you even dare to assume such power?"

Yabril waited courteously as if he expected another question. Then he said,

"The acts I committed are not so bizarre as the press and moralists claim.

What about your bomber pilots who rain down destruction as if the people below them were mere ants? Those good-hearted boys with every manly virtue.

But they were taught to do their duty. I think I am no different. Yet I do not have the resources to drop death from thousands of feet in the air. Or naval guns that obliterate from twenty miles away. I must dirty my hands with blood. I must have moral strength, the mental purity to shed blood directly for the cause I believe in. Well, that is all terribly obvious, an old argument, and it seems cowardly to even make it. But you say how do I have the courage to assume that authority without being approved by some higher source? That is more complicated. Let me believe that the suffering I have seen in my world has given me that authority. Let me say that the books I have read, the music I have heard, the example of far greater men than myself, have given me the strength to act on my own principles. It is more difficult for me than you who have the support of hundreds of millions and so commit your terror as a duty to them, as their instrument."

Here Yabril paused to sip at his coffee cup. Then he went on with a calm dignity: "I have devoted my life to revolution against the established order, the authority I despise. I will die believing what I have done is right. And as you know, there is no moral law that exists forever."

Finally Yabril was exhausted and stretched back in his chair, arms appearing broken from the restraints. Kennedy had listened without any sign of disapproval. He did not make any counterargument. There was a long silence and finally Kennedy said, "I can't argue morality-basically, I've done what you have done. And as you say, it is easier to do when one does not personally bloody his hands. But again as you say, I act from a core of social authority, not out of my own personal animosity."

Yabril interrupted him. "That is not correct. Congress did not approve your actions; neither did your Cabinet officers. Essentially you acted as I did, on your own personal authority. You are my fellow terrorist."

Kennedy said, "But the people of my country, the electorate, approve."

"The mob," Yabril said. "They always approve. They refuse to foresee the dangers of such actions. What you did was wrong politically and morally.

You acted on a desire for personal vengeance." Yabril smiled. "And I thought you would be above such an action. So much for morality."

Kennedy was silent for a time as if giving careful consideration to his answer. Then he said, "I hope you're wrong, time will tell. I want to thank you for speaking to me so frankly, especially since I understand you refused to cooperate in former interrogations. You know, of course, that the best law firm in the United States has been retained for you by the Sultan of Sherhaben and shortly they will be permitted to consult with you on your defense."

Kennedy smiled and rose to leave the room. He was almost at the door when it swung open. Then as he was about to walk through it he heard Yabril's voice. Yabril had struggled to his feet despite his restraints and fought to keep his balance. He was erect when he said, "Mr. President." Kennedy turned to face him.

Yabril lifted his arms slowly, resting them crookedly under the nylon and wire jacket. "Mr. President," he said again, "you do not deceive me. I know I will never see or talk to my lawyers."

Christian had interposed his body between the two men and Jefferson was by Kennedy's side.

Kennedy gave Yabril a cold smile. "You have my personal guarantee that you will see and talk to your lawyers," he said, and walked out of the room.

At that moment Christian Klee felt an anguish close to nausea. He had always believed he knew Francis Kennedy but now he realized he did not.

For in one clear moment he had seen a look of pure hatred on Kennedy's face that was alien to everything in his character.