Seven Days in May

Friday Morning

Clark and Henderson drove sleepily into Washington from Dulles Airport. As they crossed Key Bridge, the clock on the dashboard of the senator's convertible showed one minute past eight o'clock. Clark, fighting exhaustion, had kicked off his right shoe in hopes that the engine vibration transmitted through the accelerator pedal would help keep him awake. Henderson, mouth open, slumped in his seat. He had fallen asleep almost the minute Clark unlocked the door of the car at the airport parking lot.

As he fought the morning rush-hour traffic streaming over the bridge toward the Pentagon and other federal agencies in Virginia, Clark felt as if some personal antagonist had pumped grit under his eyelids. It had been a long night. Racing to El Paso airport in the rented sedan, they had decided not to risk interception by showing themselves in the commercial terminal. Henderson pointed out that although Site Y might be nonexistent on paper, any officer from the base could order M.P.'s to arrest him and detain Clark. So they bypassed the terminal and drove to a far hangar where, after a jittery half hour, Clark was able to charter a small plane. He telephoned ahead, to Dallas for seats on a commercial flight to Washington, and the charter pilot got them into Dallas with minutes to spare.

Even Clark's "sunshine bit," as President Lyman termed his talent for turning on the full warmth of his Georgia charm, failed to relax his companion's nerves on the flight to Washington. Mutt Henderson was a soldier undone. He was assailed by second thoughts. Long periods of moody silence were punctuated by feverish questions directed at Clark. The senator tried jokes, but Henderson sometimes failed to manage even a routine smile. At last it became obvious to Clark that only the voice or face of Jiggs Casey could restore Henderson to normal. He was a man who had made his decision-and rued it. The nearer the plane came to Washington the nearer drew the inevitable court-martial-or so Clark surmised that Henderson was thinking. He was almost thankful that Henderson had finally fallen asleep in the car.

Clark pulled up in front of a white-painted brick house in Georgetown that was only a foot or two wider than the little car was long. Henderson followed him groggily across the sidewalk and waited while Clark fumbled with the doorkey.

"Well, here we are," said the senator. Books, old newspapers and magazines littered the couch and floor of the small living room. A sweater hung from a corner of the mantel and gray rings marked tables where too many highball glasses had been left overnight too often.

"The maid comes once a week," Clark said, by way of apology. "Sit down and I'll see if I can get Jiggs on the phone."

He found Casey's home number in the book and dialed it while both men remained standing. Henderson's normally ruddy complexion was dulled by fatigue and tension.

"Jiggs?" said the senator. "This is Ray Clark. Yeah, you're telling me. I'm lucky I'm not still stuck in the middle of the desert. Listen, I've got a pal of yours with me. He looks awful. Either he just swallowed a green watermelon or he thinks he picked the wrong side. Give him the word, will you? His name is Mutt Henderson."

Henderson's face slowly relaxed as he listened on the phone. He grinned weakly. Finally he laughed and hung up.

"Jiggs says to take off my girdle and have a good cry," Henderson said happily. "He can't say much because Marge is there, but he says he'll see us soon. I'm supposed to do whatever you tell me."

"Right now you're going to bed," Clark said. He pushed Henderson up the stairs ahead of him and showed him into a back bedroom.

"Now it's your turn to be under house arrest," Clark said, "except we don't have armed guards around the place. We get along without strong-arm men in Washington. But no phone calls, and don't leave the house until I come to fetch you. If you're hungry when you wake up, you can find something to eat in the kitchen. The coffee is in the cupboard over the stove."

Henderson was already untying his shoelaces when Clark closed the bedroom door. The senator went down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and called Esther Townsend at the White House.

"Senator!" He had seldom heard a woman's voice so relieved. "Where are you?"

"At home, honey, where all good boys should be at breakfast time."

"Can you get here right away?" she asked, her tone quickly serious. "He's in trouble and he needs you."

"On the way," he said.

Clark drove into the back driveway at the White House and parked by the big magnolia tree at the entrance to the ground-floor reception room. Guards "-id White House police nodded to him. The Georgia senator needed no identification; his face was his passport here. He strode into the mansion and took the little walnut-paneled elevator to the second floor.

Lyman was hunched over a breakfast tray in his study, but he rose quickly as Clark knocked and entered. The President came across the room in three big steps to meet him. Trimmer, his tail wagging happily, sniffed at Clark's trouser cuffs.

"God, I'm glad to see you, Ray. I thought you'd fallen off the planet somewhere." He gripped Clark's hand and squeezed his arm, as if to assure himself that this was flesh and blood and not an apparition.

Lyman's appearance stunned Clark. His face was colorless and an unnatural puffiness hung about his eyes. There seemed to be more gray in his hair, and it took Clark a moment to realize that it was merely a matter of Lyman's having missed his regular weekly trim. The middle-aged man of fifty-two whom Clark had seen Tuesday night now seemed almost old. It was obvious to the Georgian that his friend had slept but little.

"Ah'm back from the desert," Clark said, "an" this ol' boy has had mo' adventures than Ali Baba an' his fo'ty thieves. Ah got mo' tall tales than Lyndon Johnson's camel driver."

Clark stood casually with one hand on the high white marble mantel. Lyman sat down in his easy chair and leaned forward, forearms on his knees. He seemed spent and spiritless.

"Ray," he said quietly. "I guess you haven't heard. Paul Girard is dead. His plane crashed on the way home."

Clark stared at the President.

"I'm sorry, Jordie," he said quietly. "I hadn't heard."

He sat down on the sofa opposite Lyman's chair.

The President pulled off his glasses and held them in front of him, eying them as if looking for some tiny scratch on the lenses.

"He got a signed statement from Barnswell. He called me up before he started back and he said that much. And also that Casey had guessed right. Then he went up to Madrid and got onto a Trans-Ocean jet and it flew into a mountain."

Clark could think of nothing to say. Lyman went on, almost as if his friend were not there, to recount the events of Wednesday and Thursday, including Saul Lieberman's shattering news of Russia's apparent intention to assemble new nuclear warheads in violation of the treaty. Much of the time his eyes wandered over the pattern of the rug at his feet. His hands hung limp, the wrists sticking out of his shirt cuffs, the eyeglasses dangling and twitching. The hunch of his shoulders bore the imprint of resignation, almost defeat, as he told of his argument with Todd the night before in front of Casey and Corwin.

"Feemerov I can handle, but on this other thing I can't see my way out, Ray," he concluded.

Clark's mind ran back to that morning in Korea. He could feel the sting on his palms as he slapped the face of a much younger Jordan Lyman. He put into his voice a heartiness he did not feel.

"Aw, come on, Jordie," he said, "there's always a way out. But there isn't much time left. Listen to this."

Clark told of his experiences in detail. As he talked, the anger mounted in him. "Bastards, double bastards," he said as he described the two bottles of bourbon pressed on him.

Lyman's got to get mad, too, he thought, as he told of Henderson's quick knockout of the guard at the Site Y gate the night before.

"Broderick is probably back at the base now," he said, "and you can bet that Scott and Prentice and those other sons of bitches are either in a huddle or will be soon. Now they know that we know, and that's not good, Jordie. What worries me is whether they can move up the time."

"Did any more of those transports come in last night?"

That's it, Yankee boy, thought Clark. You got to start thinking fast to stop this. We need a little fight spirit right now.

"No," he said, "except for those twelve big jets that came in Wednesday night, there weren't any landings. But if they bring 'em in today they might be able to move things up a few hours."

A knock on the door brought a "Come in" from Lyman. Christopher Todd, dressed, as always, as though on his way to a directors' meeting, entered with briefcase in hand. He smiled briefly at Lyman and nodded somewhat noncommittally at Clark.

"Ah, the prodigal son returns," he said. Though the morning sunlight filtering through the mesh curtains promised another warm spring day, Todd's manner was frosty.

Clark quickly retold his story while the President poured himself a cup of hot coffee and sipped at it.

"Well, Mr. President," Todd said when Clark finished, "there's one thing to be done at once."

"What's that, Chris?"

"Call Prentice. Let's find out what he has to say about putting a colleague under arrest."

"Won't that tip our hand?"

"They already know we're onto it. It's time to start finding out what they're planning today. A call from you just might upset Prentice enough so you could get some information from him."

When Lyman got Prentice on the phone, the other two men listened. The President began in a firm, almost harsh voice.

"Good morning, Fred, this is the President. I want to hear your version of that telephone conversation you had with Senator Clark out in New Mexico Wednesday."

Clark and Todd could hear the deep, cadenced voice of Frederick Prentice booming through the instrument. Lyman's face set in weary, rigid lines.

He's tired, tired, tired, thought Clark-but who isn't? He poured himself a cup of coffee to help fight off torpor.

"Frankly, I don't believe you, Fred," Lyman said. "Will you please tell me the present whereabouts of Colonel Broderick? He seems to be quite a tourist."

The President shook his head and bit his lower lip as he listened again. "You've been as helpful as ever, Senator," he said, and brought the phone down heavily in its cradle.

"He says he never talked to Ray Wednesday, or since, in New Mexico or anywhere else. He says he's heard of a Colonel Broderick, he thinks, but he can't recall ever talking to him, and says he hasn't the vaguest idea of where he might be."

"Liar." Clark bit off the word angrily.

"He says you must have been ... dreaming, Ray."

"I know what he said. If I was dreaming I've got a real live colonel out at my place who shared the nightmare."

"I think we ought to have Colonel Henderson here with us for the rest of the day," Todd said. "He ought to be able to tell us how that infernal place works."

Lyman agreed. "Yes, I think you better go get him, Ray. We'll get Casey and Corwin in too while you're gone."

Clark drove the twenty blocks to his Georgetown house at a fast clip, running two red lights on the way. He pulled into the alley and squeezed the car against the high brick wall of his garden. At the back door he was surprised to find a pane of glass broken. It was the one just above the lock. Clark let himself in and ran up the narrow flight of stairs.

The guestroom at the rear of the house was empty. Rumpled sheets lay in a heap on the bed where he had left Henderson. A blanket trailed off on the floor. Clark looked into the closet. The hangers were bare; Henderson's clothes were nowhere to be seen.

"Mutt?" Clark shouted from the head of the stairs. No answer.

He hurried through the front bedroom and the rooms downstairs, but found nothing. At the back door he noted that the slivers of glass from the broken pane lay scattered on the kitchen floor. The window had been smashed from the outside.

He drove back to the White House as fast as he could. Corwin and Casey were there to hear his bad news. Both swore softly as Clark explained.

"And I told Henderson we don't use thugs in Washington," he concluded ruefully. "A lot I know."

Lyman said nothing. Todd was the first to speak.

"Either Senator Clark is completely out of his mind, which seems unlikely, or you'd better start moving right now, Mr. President."

"The first thing is to get Henderson back," Clark said, trying to lend momentum to Todd's urgings. "He didn't just walk out. The way the window was broken tells us that. Somebody shanghaied him. They're starting to play rough."

"What do you think, Jiggs?" asked Lyman.

"I think Mutt and the senator were followed from the airport," Casey said. "My guess is they'd put Mutt in a military guardhouse somewhere. They could charge him with going AWOL, or with assaulting an enlisted man, or both."

Corwin looked at the President. Lyman nodded. "You better get on it right away, Art," he said. "We've got to find him."

"It's just as I said last night," Todd began after the Secret Service agent had left the room. "We don't have one scrap of evidence that could be used in court, but every one of us knows that a big operation is under way. We don't know its exact purpose, but it has to be smashed today, and the sooner the better."

Todd fixed his eyes on the President as though to stare him into action. Lyman looked at Clark.

"I think Chris is right," Clark said. "You got to move."

"How?"

"Call Scott over here and fire him," Clark replied quickly. Then, obviously thinking as he spoke, he went on more slowly: "Then put out a message to all commands that an alert, scheduled for Saturday, has been canceled. And forbid any major troop movements without express permission from you. Then get Barney Rutkowski to fly down to Site Y and bust the place up."

"What's our excuse with Scott-and with the country?"

"Why, establishment of this goddam ECOMCON thing without authority, and airlifting troops all over hellandgone in secret," Clark said. "And don't forget that tax return. You can wave that under his nose."

Lyman twirled a pipe on the coffee table and watched as the stem swung in an arc around the bowl. He knocked the pipe out in the ashtray. Todd started to speak, but the President held up his hand.

"No," he said slowly, "not yet. There's got to be a better way. Anything sudden like that, and General Scott would own the country by Monday morning. People just wouldn't understand it-or stand for it."

"Maybe so," argued Clark, "but you've got to run that risk now. This thing has gone far enough."

Lyman walked to the tall windows and looked down across the big lawn toward the fountain, glistening in the morning sun. Two gardeners were working in the flower bed that surrounded the pool. After a moment the President turned and faced the group.

"No, not yet," he said again. "My hand would be immeasurably strengthened if we could get Henderson back here. He's really our only impartial witness, you know."

"You're gambling with the whole country," Todd said roughly. "Suppose Scott moves up the deadline and doesn't wait until tomorrow?"

Lyman passed up the opportunity to start another debate with Todd. Instead, he looked to Casey.

"Is that feasible, Jiggs? Could an operation like this, with that airlift, be speeded up?"

"I doubt it, Mr. President. It's taken weeks of preparation as is. It's possible, I suppose, but hardly probable." He grinned. "Anyway, if I were running it, I don't think I could move it up."

"I'll accept that military judgment," said Lyman. "We'll sit tight a few more hours before we decide and hope we get Henderson back in the meantime."

"I think that decision, or lack of it, is insane, Mr. President," said Todd.

"We had a full exploration of your views last night, Chris," Lyman said, "and you are clearly on record. I think we can dispense with any further summations to the jury, thank you."

Lyman walked Todd and Casey to the door. "Stay by the phone," he said. "I may need you both back here at any moment. I'm afraid it's going to be a long day."

As the Marine and the lawyer crossed the great hallway to the elevator, Todd eyed an Army warrant officer who sat woodenly in a chair, a small briefcase clasped between his knees.

"Say, Colonel," asked Todd when they were inside the elevator, "who are those people? One of them is always sitting just outside the President's door, wherever he is."

"I don't know. It's some kind of classified deal, I think, Mr. Secretary," said Casey vaguely. What a complicated thing this government is, he thought. There sits the man with the codes that could launch a nuclear war, and the Secretary of the Treasury doesn't even know it.

"Well, I just hope he isn't on Scott's list," Todd said.

Casey said: "Yeah, me too." Casey thought: But even the Commander in Chief couldn't order him away. And maybe-just maybe-this whole thing is so intricate, and has so many little compartments like that one, that even General Scott can't break through it. Let's hope so.

Casey's thoughts turned to personal matters as he drove home. He still had explained nothing about his trip to New York, or his absence again last night, to Marge. The time was coming, if he knew her, when she would demand some answers.

He was right. Instead of her usual morning work costume, she had on a green print dress and her high heels. That meant either a luncheon date or talk-talk with him. Casey guessed from her set smile that it was the latter.

"You look pretty classy for so early in the morning, honey," he said.

Casey followed her into the living room. She sat down on a leather hassock and tucked one nylon-clad leg under her.

"Colonel Casey," she said, "I think it's time you started trusting your service wife."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning where were you Wednesday night and what are all these comings and goings about?"

"Marge, I'm sorry, but I went out of town on a confidential assignment."

"I know that, dear. Very confidential." Marge smiled. He could see the little space between her teeth, but it definitely did not make her look innocent at this moment. "But you're on leave, remember? So let's not pretend it was business, shall we?"

Casey tried to look hurt and misunderstood. It required very little effort. He felt both.

"It was business, Marge. Official, government business."

"And did that business require you to contact a tall bitch named Eleanor Holbrook in New York, maybe?"

"Aw, cut it out, Marge," he said. "We went all through that a long time ago and I'm not going to go through it again."

"You were in New York." It was an accusation, not a question.

"No, I wasn't," he lied. Could some friend of Marge's have seen him at the Sherwood? Or at that restaurant? Or--God forbid-at Shoo's apartment house?

"You're too honest, Jiggs. You never have learned to lie well."

He bristled. "Marge, now, dammit, lay off. I'm not going to discuss any of this. Maybe I can tell you something about it Sunday. Maybe I can't. It's just going to have to be that way."

Her nose crinkled-but not with affection. This was the Angry Crinkle. Jiggs saw it only rarely, but it always meant trouble.

"I may just go off on a little confidential 'assignment' of my own this weekend," she said, "so I may not be available to have the pleasure of listening to your story-if you can make one up by then."

"Oh, for Christ's sake, Marge!" he exploded. But Mrs. Casey, in her best dramatic manner, rose from the hassock and clicked down the hall to the little room where she kept her sewing machine, her golf clubs, her writing desk, and her extension telephone. The door slammed behind her.

Casey kicked the hassock as hard as he could, and succeeded only in hurting his toes. Thank God, he thought, a fellow doesn't have to help save his country more than once in a lifetime.