The Fourth K

CHAPTER 21

WHEN FRANCO SEBBEDICCIO was a little boy in Sicily he had chosen the side of law and order not only because it seemed the stronger side but because he loved the sweet consolation of living under strict rules of authority.

The Mafia had been too impressionistic, the world of commerce too dicey, and so he had become a policeman and thirty years later was the head of the antiterrorist division of all Italy.

He now had under arrest the assassin of the Pope, a young Italian of good family named Armando Giangi, code-named Romeo. The code name irritated

Sebbediccio intensely. Sebbediccio had incarcerated Romeo in the deepest cells of his Roman prison.

Under surveillance was Rita Fallicia, whose code name was Annee. She had been easy to track down because she had been a troublemaker since her teens, a firebrand at the university, a pugnacious leader of demonstrations and linked to the abduction of a leading banker of Milan.

The evidence had come flooding in. The safe houses had been cleaned by the terrorist cadres, but those poor bastards had no way of knowing the scientific resources of a national police organization. There was a towel with traces of semen that identified Romeo. One of the captured men had given evidence under severe interrogation. But Sebbediccio had not arrested Annee. She was to remain free.

Franco Sebbediccio worried that the trial of these guilty parties would glorify the Pope's murder and that they would become heroes and spend their prison sentences without too much discomfort. Italy did not have a death penalty, so they could receive only life imprisonment, which was a joke. With all the reduction of time for good behavior and the different conditions for amnesties they would be set free at a comparatively young age.

It would have been different if Sebbediccio could have conducted the interrogation of Romeo in a more serious fashion. But because this scoundrel had killed a Pope, his rights had become a cause in the Western world. There were protesters and human rights groups from Scandinavia and England and even letters from America. All these proclaimed that the two murderers must be handled humanely, not subjected to torture, not ill treated in any way. And orders had come down from the top: Don't disgrace Italian justice with anything that might offend the left-wing parties in Italy. Kid gloves.

But he, Franco Sebbediccio, would cut through all the nonsense and send a message to the terrorists. Franco Sebbediccio was determined that this Romeo, this Armando Giangi, would commit suicide.

Romeo had spent his months in prison weaving a romantic dream. Alone in his cell he had chosen to fall in love with the American girl, Dorothea. He remembered her waiting for him at the airport, the tender scar on her chin.

In his reveries, she seemed so beautiful, so kind. He tried to remember their conversation that last night he spent with her in the Hamptons. Now in his memory, it seemed to him that she had loved him. That her every gesture had dared him to declare his desire so that she could show her love. Here membered how she sat, so gracefully, so invitingly. How her eyes stared at him, great dark pools of blue, her white skin suffused with blushes. And now he cursed his timidity. He had never touched that skin. He remembered the long slim legs and imposed them around his neck. He imagined the kisses he would rain on her hair, her eyes, the length of her lithe body.

And then Romeo dreamed of how she stood in the sunlight, draped in chains, staring at him in reproach and despair. He weaved fantasies of the future.

She would serve only a short term in prison. She would be waiting for him.

And he would be freed. By amnesty or by the trading of hostages, perhaps by pure Christian mercy. And then he would find her.

There were nights when he despaired and thought of Yabril's treachery. The murder of Theresa Kennedy had never been in the plan, and he believed in his heart that he would never have consented to such an act. He felt a disgust for Yabril, for his own beliefs, for his own life. Sometimes he would weep quietly in the darkness. Then he would console himself and lose himself in his fantasies of Dorothea. It was false, he knew. It was a weakness, he knew, but he could not help himself.

Romeo in his bare cell received Franco Sebbediccio with a sardonic grin.

He could see the hatred in this old man's peasant eyes, could sense his bewilderment that a person from a good family who enjoyed a pleasant, luxurious life could become a revolutionary. He was also aware that Sebbediccio was frustrated that the international public watch restrained him from treating his prisoner as brutally as he might wish.

Sebbediccio had himself locked in with the prisoner, the two of them alone with two guards and an observer from the governor's office watching but unable to hear from right outside the door. It was almost as if the burly older man were inviting some sort of attack. But Romeo knew that it was simply that the older man had confidence in the authority of his position. Romeo had a contempt for this kind of man, rooted in law and order, handcuffed by his beliefs and bourgeois moral standards. Therefore he was extremely surprised when Sebbediccio said to him casually, but in a very low voice, "Giangi, you are going to make life easier for every one. You are going to commit suicide."

Romeo laughed. "No, I'm not, I'll be out of jail before you die of high blood pressure and ulcers. I'll walk the streets of Rome when you're lying in your family cemetery. I'll come and sing to the angels on your tombstone. I'll be whistling when I walk away from your grave."

Sebbediccio said patiently, "I just wanted to let you know that you and your cadre are going to commit suicide. Two of my men were killed by your friends to intimidate me and my associates. Your suicides will be my answer."

Romeo said, "I can't please you. I'm enjoying life too much. And with all the world watching, you don't dare to even give me a good kick in the ass."

Sebbediccio gave him a benevolent smile. He had an ace in the hole.

Romeo's father, who all his life had done nothing for humanity, had done something for his son. He had shot himself A Knight of Malta, father of the murderer of the Pope, a man who had lived his whole life for his own selfish pleasure, he had unfathomably decided to don the mantle of guilt.

When Romeo's newly widowed mother asked to visit her son in his prison cell and was refused, the newspapers took up her cause. The telling blow was struck by Romeo's defense lawyer as he was interviewed on television.

"For God's sake, he just wants to see his mother." Which struck a responsive chord not only in Italy but all over the Western world. Many newspapers gave it a front-page headline, quoting verbatim, "For God's sake, he just wants to see his mother!"

Which was not strictly true: Romeo's mother wanted to see him, he did not want to see her.

With pressure so great, the government was forced to allow Mother Giangi to visit her son. Which enraged Franco Sebbediccio, who had opposed this visit; he wanted to keep Romeo in seclusion, to keep him cut off from the outside world. What kind of a world was it that dared grant such kindness to the killer of a Pope? But the governor of the prison overrode him.

The governor had a palatial office and summoned Sebbediccio to it. He said, "My dear sir, I have my instructions, the visit is to be allowed.

And not in his cell, where the conversation can be monitored, but in this office itself With nobody within earshot, but recorded by cameras in the last five minutes of the hour-after all, the media must be allowed to profit."

Sebbediccio said, "And for what reason is this allowed?" The governor gave him the smile he usually reserved for the prisoners and the members of his staff who had become almost like the prisoners themselves. "For a son to see his widowed mother. What could be more sacred?" Sebbediccio said harshly, "A man who murders the Pope? He has to see his mother?"

The governor shrugged. "Those far above us have decided. Reconcile yourself Also, the defense lawyer insists that this office be swept for bugs, so don't think you can plant electronic gear."

"Ah," Sebbediccio said, "and how is the lawyer going to do the debugging?"

"He will hire his own electronic specialists," the governor said. "They will do their job in the lawyer's presence immediately before the meeting." Sebbediccio said, "it is essential, it is vital that we hear that conversation between them."

"Nonsense," the governor said. "His mother is your typical rich Roman matron. She knows nothing and he would never confide anything of importance to her. This is just another silly episode in the quite ridiculous drama of our times. Don't take it seriously."

But Sebbediccio did take it seriously. He considered it another mockery of justice, another example of scorn for authority. And he hoped Romeo might let something slip when he talked to his mother.

As head of the antiterrorist division for all Italy Sebbediccio had a great deal of power. The defense lawyer was already on the secret list of left-wing radicals who were put under surveillance. His phone was tapped, his mail intercepted and read before it was delivered. And so it was easy to find the electronic company the defense planned to use to sweep the governor's office. Sebbediccio used a friend to set up an "accidental" meeting in a restaurant with the owner of the electronics company.

Even without the help of force, Franco Sebbediccio could be persuasive. It was a small electronics corporation, making a profit but by no means enjoying an overwhelming success. Sebbediccio pointed out that the antiterrorist division had great need of electronic sweeping equipment and personnel, that it could interpose security vetoes on the companies selected. In short that he, Sebbediccio, could make the company rich.

But there must be trust and profit on both sides. In this particular case, why should the electronics company care about the murderers of the Pope, why should it jeopardize its future prosperity over such an inconsequential matter as the recording of a meeting between the mother and son? Why could not the electronics company plant the bug as it was supposedly debugging the governor's office? And who would be the wiser? And Sebbediccio himself would arrange to have the bug removed.

It was done in a very friendly way, but somewhere during the dinner

Sebbediccio made it understood that if he was refused, the electronics company would run into a great deal of trouble in I he coming years.

Although he himself had no personal animosity, how could his government service possibly trust people who protected the murderer of the Pope?

It was all agreed and Sebbediccio let the other man pick up the check. He was certainly not going to pay for it out of his personal funds, and to be reimbursed on his expense voucher might lead to a paper trail years later.

Besides, he was going to make the man rich.

The meeting between Armando "Romeo" Giangi and his mother was therefore fully recorded and heard only by Sebbediccio, and he was delighted with it. He took his time in removing the bug simply out of curiosity at what the snotty governor of the prison was really like, but there he got nothing.

Sebbediccio took the precaution of playing the tape in his home while his wife slept. None of his colleagues must know about it. He was not a bad man and he almost wept when Mother Giangi sobbed over her son, implored him to tell the truth that he had not really killed the Pope, that he was shielding a bad companion. Sebbediccio could hear the woman's kisses as they rained down upon the face of her murderous son. Then the kissing and wailing stopped and the conversation became very interesting to Sebbediccio.

He heard Romeo's voice attempting to calm his mother down. "I don't understand why your husband killed himself," Romeo said. He felt such disdain for the man, he could never acknowledge him as his father. "He didn't care about his country or the world, and, forgive me, he didn't even love his family. He lived a completely selfish and egocentric life.

Why did be feel it necessary to shoot himself?"

The mother's voice came hissing from the tape. "Out of vanity," she said.

"All his life your father was a vain man. Every day to his barber, once a week to his tailor. At the age of forty he took singing lessons. To sing where? And he spent a fortune to become a Knight of Malta and never a man so devoid of the Holy Spirit. On Easter he had a white suit made with the palm cross woven especially into the cloth. Oh, what a grand figure in Roman society. The parties, the balls, his appointment to cultural committees whose meetings he never attended. And the father of a son graduated from the university, he was proud of your brilliance. Oh, how he promenaded on the streets of Rome. I never saw a man so happy and so empty." There was a pause on the tape. "After what you did, your father could never appear in

Roman society again. That empty life was finished, and for that loss he killed himself. But he can rest easy. He looked beautiful in his coffin with his new Easter suit."

Then came Romeo's voice on the tape saying what delighted Sebbediccio.

"My father never gave me anything in life, and by his suicide he stole my option. And death was my only escape."

Sebbediccio listened to the rest of the tape in which Romeo let his mother persuade him to see a priest, and then when the TV cameras and reporters were let into the room Sebbediccio turned it off. He had seen the rest on TV. But he had what he wanted.

When Sebbediccio paid his next visit to Romeo, he was so delighted that when the jailer unlocked the cell he entered doing a little dance step and greeted Romeo with great joviality.

"Giangi," he said, "you are becoming even more famous. It is rumored that when we have a new Pope he may ask mercy for you. Show your gratitude, give me some of the information I need."

Romeo said, "What an ape you are."

Sebbediccio bowed and said, "That's your last word, then?"

It was perfect. He had a recording that said Romeo was thinking of killing himself.

A week later the news was released to the world that the murderer of the Pope, Armando "Romeo" Giangi, had committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell.

In New York, Annee had mounted the mission. She was very conscious of the fact that she was the first woman chief of a First Hundred operational strike. She was determined she would not fail.

The two safe houses, apartments on New York's East Side, had been stocked with food, weapons and other necessary material. The assault teams would arrive a week before the strike date, and she would order them to stay in their apartments until the final day. The escape routes had been set up for any survivors, through Mexico and Canada. She planned to remain in America for a few months, in still another safe house.

Despite her duties Annee had a lot of time to kill and spent it roaming through the city. She was appalled by the slums, especially Harlem; she thought she had never seen a city so dirty, so ill kept, with whole districts looking as if they had been hit by artillery fire. She was disgusted by the mass of homeless, the snarling rudeness of the service people, the cold hostility of the public servants. She had never been to a place so mean-spirited.

The ever– present danger was another matter. The city was a war zone, more perilous than Sicily, for in Sicily violence had strict laws of self-interest, logically conceived, whereas in New York the violence sprang from the malodorous sickness of some animal herd.

There had come one particularly eventful day that made Annee resolve that she would stay in her apartment as much as possible. She went to a late-afternoon American film, a film that irritated her with its moronic machismo. The muscular hero she would have loved to encounter, just to show him how easy it would be to shoot his balls off.

After the film she had strolled along Lexington Avenue to make calls in public phone booths required by her mission. She went into a famous restaurant to give herself a small treat and was affronted by the rudeness of the staff and enraged by the pale imitation of Roman cuisine offered to her. How dare they. In France the owner of the restaurant would be lynched. In Italy the Mafia would bum the restaurant down as a public service.

So, in truth, it came as a tonic when the city of New York tried to make her submit to the final indignities it visited on thousands of its inhabitants and visitors.

During her late evening stroll, the exercise necessary to enable her to sleep, she suffered two separate attempts to rape or rob her.

The first attack, at the beginning of twilight, truly astonished her. It happened right on Fifth Avenue as she was looking at the display in Tiffany's store window. A man and a woman, very young, not more than twenty, pressed her on either side. The young man had the lynxlike face of the hopeless drug addict. He was extremely ugly, and Annee, who admired physical beauty, immediately disliked him. The young girl was pretty but had the petulance of the spoiled American teenager Annee had observed on the streets. She was dressed in the harlot's mode made fashionable by the latest screen idols. Both were white.

The young man pressed hard against her and Annee felt hard metal through the thin jacket she was wearing. She was not alarmed.

"I've got a gun," the young man whispered. "Give my girl your bag. Nice and friendly. No fuss and you won't get hurt."

"Do you vote?" Annee asked.

The young man, distracted, said, "What?" His girlfriend stretched out her hand for the bag. Annee took the girl's hand, then swung her around as a shield, at the same time using her other hand to hit the girl full in the face with her ringed other hand. An incredible amount of blood splashed Tiffany's elegantly dressed window, causing passersby to stop in amazement.

Annee said coolly to the young man, "You've got a gun, shoot." By this time he had swung his body around away from where he held the gun in his pocket.

The fool had seen that move in gangster movies. He didn't know it was a completely useless stance unless the victim froze. But to be on the safe side she grabbed the man's other arm and pulled it out of its socket. As the young man screamed in agony his hand came out of the pocket and a screwdriver clanged against the pavement. Of course, Annee thought, stupid adolescent cunning. She walked away from them.

At this point it would have been prudent to return to her apartment, but out of some territorial imperative she continued her stroll. But then, right on Central Park South, lined with its expensive luxury hotels, guarded by its uniformed doormen, and limousines parked along the street with burly chauffeurs, she was surrounded by four black youths.

They were handsome high-spirited fellows that she liked on sight. They were very much like the youthful rascals in Rome who felt it their duty to accost women in the streets. One of the youths said to her playfully, "Hey, baby, take a walk in the park with us. You'll have a good time."

They barred her path, she could not move forward. She was amused by them, she did not doubt she would have a good time. It was not they who angered her, it was the doormen and the chauffeurs who deliberately ignored her plight.

"Go away," she said, "or I'll scream and those doormen will call the police." She knew she could not scream, could not afford to do so because of her mission.

One of the youths, grinning, said, "Go ahead and scream, lady." But she could see them poised on their toes ready to flee.

When she did not scream, another of the youths understood immediately that she would not. "Hey, she won't scream," he said. "You hear her accent? I bet she has some drugs. Hey, lady, give us some."

They all laughed with delight. One of them said, "Or else we'll call the police." And they laughed again.

Before leaving Italy, Annee had been briefed on the dangers of New York.

But she was a highly trained operational agent and had absolute confidence in that training. So she had refused to carry a gun, fearing that it might compromise the mission. However she wore a specially designed zircon ring that could do a great deal of damage. And in her handbag was a pair of scissors more lethal than a Venetian dagger. So she did not feel herself in any danger. She only worried about the police becoming involved and being questioned by them. She was sure that she could escape without any fuss.

But she had not taken into account her nervousness and natural ferocity.

One of the youths reached out a hand to touch her hair and Annee hissed, "Get out of my way, you black bastard, or I'll kill you."

All four went quiet, their good humor gone. She saw the hurt brooding look come into their eyes and she felt a pang of guilt. She realized that she had made a mistake. She had called them black bastards out of no racial prejudice. It was merely a form of Sicilian invective, where when you quarreled with a hunchback you called him a hunchback bastard, if you quarreled with a cripple you called him a cripple bastard. But how could these young men know this? She almost apologized. But it was too late.

One of the youths said, "I'm gonna punch this white cunt in the face."

And in that moment Annee went out of control. She flicked her ringed hand into his eye. A hideous slit appeared that seemed to detach the youth's eyelid from his face. The other youths stared in horror as Annee calmly turned a comer and then ran.

That was enough even for Annee. Back in her apartment she was filled with remorse for having been so rough, for endangering the mission with her willfulness. She had actually sought out trouble to relieve her own attack of nerves.

She must take no further risks, she must not leave the apartment except for the duties necessary to complete the mission. She must stop calling up her memories of Romeo, control her rage at his murder. And most important of all she must make a final decision. If all else failed, would she turn this into a suicide mission?

Christian Klee flew to Rome to have dinner with Sebbediccio. He noted that Sebbediccio had almost twenty bodyguards, which did not seem to affect his appetite.

The Italian was in high spirits. "Wasn't it fortunate that our Pope killer took his own life?" he said to Klee. "What a circus the trial would have been with all our left-wingers marching in support. It's too bad that fellow Yabril wouldn't do you the same favor."

Klee laughed. "Different systems of government. I see you're well protected."

Sebbediccio shrugged. "I think they are after bigger game. I have some information for you. That woman, Annee, that we've let run loose. Somehow we lost her. But we suspect that she's now in America."

Klee felt a thrill of excitement. "Do you know what port of embarkation? What name she is using?"

"We don't know," Sebbediccio said. "But we think she is now operational."

"Why didn't you pick her up?" Christian said.

"I have high hopes for her," Sebbediccio said. "She is a very determined young lady and she will go far in the terrorist movement. I want to use a big net when I take her. But you have a problem, my friend. We hear rumors that there is an operation in the United States. It can only be against Kennedy. Annee, as fierce as she may be, cannot do it alone. Therefore, there must be other people involved. Knowing your security for the President, they will have to mount an operation that would require a goodly number with material and safe houses. On that I have no information. You had better set to work."

Klee did not need to ask why the Italian security chief had not sent this information through regular channels to Washington. He knew Sebbediccio did not want his close surveillance of Annee made part of an official record in the United States; he did not trust the Freedom of Information Act in America. Also, he wanted Christian Klee in his personal debt.

In Sherhaben, Sultan Maurobi received Christian Klee with the utmost friendliness, as if there had never been the crisis of a few months before.

The Sultan was affable but appeared on guard and a little puzzled. "I hope you bring me good news," he said to Klee. "After all the regrettable unpleasantness, I am very anxious to repair relations with the United States and, of course, your President Kennedy. In fact, I hope your visit is in regard to this matter."

Klee smiled. "I came for that very purpose," he said. "You are in a position, I think, to do us a service that might heal the breach."

"Ah, I am very happy to hear that," the Sultan said. "You know, of course, that I was not privy to Yabril's intentions. I had no foreknowledge of what Yabril would do to the President's daughter. Of course, I have expressed this officially, but would you tell the President personally that I have grieved over this for the past months. I was powerless to avert the tragedy."

Klee believed him, that the murder had not been in the original plans. And he thought how all-powerful men like Sultan Maurobi and Francis Kennedy were helpless in the face of uncontrollable events, the will of other men.

But now he said to the Sultan, "Your giving up Yabril has reassured the President on that point." This they both knew was mere politeness. Klee paused for a moment and then went on. "But I'm here to ask you to do me a personal service. You know I am responsible for the safety of my President.

I have information that there is a plot to assassinate him. That terrorists have already infiltrated into the United States. But it would be helpful if I could get information as to their plans and to their identity and location. I thought that with your contacts you might have heard something through your intelligence agencies. That you might give me some scraps of information. Let me emphasize that it will only be between the two of us. You and 1. There will be no official connection."

The Sultan seemed astonished. His intelligent face screwed up into an expression of amused disbelief. "How can you think such a thing?" he asked.

"After all your destruction, after all our tragedies, would I get involved in such dangerous activities? I am the ruler of a small rich country that is powerless to remain independent without the friendship of great powers. I can do nothing for you or against you.”

Klee nodded his head in agreement. "Of course that is true. But Bert Audick came to visit you and I know that had to do with the oil industry.

But let me tell you that Mr. Audick is in very serious trouble in the United States. He would be a very bad ally for you to have in the coming years. "

"And you would be a very good ally?" the Sultan asked, smiling.

"Yes," Klee said. "I am the ally that could save you. If you cooperate with me now."

"Explain," the Sultan said. He was obviously angered by the implied threat.

Klee spoke very carefully. "Bert Audick is under indictment for conspiracy against the United States government because his mercenaries or those of his company fired on our planes bombing your city of Dak. And there are other charges. His oil empire could be destroyed under certain of our laws. He is not a strong ally at this moment."

The Sultan said slyly, "Indicted but not convicted. I understand that will be more difficult."

"That is true," Klee said. "But in a few months Francis Kennedy will be reelected. His popularity will bring in a Congress that will ratify his programs. He will be the most powerful President in the history of the United States. Then Audick is doomed, I can assure you. And the power structure of which he is a part will be destroyed."

"I still fail to see how I can help you," the Sultan said. And then more imperiously, "Or how you can help me. I understand you are in a delicate position yourself in your own country."

"That may or may not be true," Klee said. "As for my position, which is delicate, as you say, that will be resolved when Kennedy is reelected. I am his closest friend and closest adviser and Kennedy is noted for his loyalty. As to how we can help each other, let me be direct without intending any disrespect. May I do so?"

The Sultan seemed to be impressed and even amused by this courtesy. "By all means," he said.

Klee said, "First, and most important, here is how I can help you. I can be your ally. I have the ear of the President of the United States and I have his trust. We live in difficult times."

The Sultan interrupted smilingly, "I have always lived in difficult times."

"And so you can appreciate what I am saying better than most," Klee retorted sharply.

"And what if your Kennedy does not achieve his aims?" the Sultan said.

"Accidents befall, heaven is not always kind."

Christian Klee was cold now as he answered, "What you are saying is, what if the plot to kill Kennedy succeeds? I am here to tell you that it will not. I don't care how clever and daring the assassins may be. And if they try and fail and there is any trace to you, then you will be destroyed.

But it doesn't have to come to that. I'm a reasonable man and I understand your position. What I propose is an exchange of information between you and myself on a personal basis. I don't know what Audick proposed to you, but I'm a better bet. If Audick and his crowd wins, you still win. He doesn't know about us. If Kennedy wins, you have me as your ally. I'm your insurance."

The Sultan nodded and then led him to a sumptuous banquet. During the meal the sultan asked Klee innumerable questions about Kennedy. Then finally, almost hesitantly, he asked about Yabril.

Klee looked him directly in the eye. "There is no way that Yabril can escape his fate. If his fellow terrorists think they can get him released by holding even the most important of hostages, tell them to forget about it. Kennedy will never let him go."

The Sultan sighed. "Your Kennedy has changed," he said. "He sounds like a man going berserk." Klee didn't answer. The Sultan went on very slowly. "I think you have convinced me," he said. "I think you and I should become allies."

When Christian Klee returned to the United States, the first person he went to see was the Oracle. The old man received him in his bedroom suite, sitting in his motorized wheelchair, an English tea spread on the table in front of him, a comfortable armchair waiting for Christian opposite.

The Oracle greeted him with a slight wave to indicate that he should sit down. Christian served him tea and a tiny bit of cake and a small finger sandwich, then served himself. The Oracle took a sip of tea and crumbled the bit of cake in his mouth. They sat there for a long moment.

Then the Oracle tried to smile, a slight movement of the lips, the skin so dead it barely moved. "You've got yourself into a fine mess for your fucking friend Kennedy," he said.

The vulgarism, spoken as if from the mouth of an innocent child, made Christian smile. Again he wondered, was it a mark of senility, a decaying of the brain, that the Oracle who had never used profanity was now using it so freely? He waited until he had eaten one of the sandwiches and gulped down some hot tea, then he answered, "Which fix?" he said. "I'm in a lot of them."

"I'm talking about that atom bomb thing," the Oracle said. "The rest of the shit doesn't matter. But they are accusing you of being responsible for the murder of thousands of citizens of this country.

They've got the goods on you, it seems, but I refuse to believe you to be so stupid. Inhuman, yes-after all, you're in politics. Did you really do it?" The old man was not judgmental, just curious.

Who else in the world was there to tell? Who else in the world would understand? "What I'm astonished about," Klee said, "is how quickly they got on to me."

"The human mind leaps to an understanding of evil," the Oracle said. "You are surprised because there is a certain innocence in the doer of an evil deed. He thinks the deed so terrible that it is inconceivable to another human being. But that is the first thing they jump at. Evil is no mystery at all, love is the mystery." He paused for a moment, started to speak again and then relaxed back in his chair, his eyes half closed, dozing.

"You have to understand," Christian said, "that letting something happen is so much easier than actually doing something. There was the crisis, Francis Kennedy was going to be impeached by the Congress. And I thought just for a second, if only the atom bomb exploded it would turn things around. It was in that moment that I told Peter Cloot not to interrogate

Gresse and Tibbot. I had the time to do it. The whole thing flashed by in that one second and it was done."

The Oracle said, "Give me some more hot tea and another piece of cake."

He put the cake in his mouth, tiny crumbs appearing on his scarlike lips.

"Yes or no: Did you interrogate Gresse and Tibbot before the bomb exploded? You got the information out of them and then didn't act on it?"

Christian sighed. "They were only kids. I squeezed them dry in five minutes. That's why I couldn't have Cloot at the interrogation. But I didn't want the bomb to explode. It just went so quick."

The Oracle started to laugh. It was a curious laugh even in so old a man.

It was a series of grunted heh, heh, heh's. "You've got it ass backwards," the Oracle said. "You had already made up your mind that you would let the bomb explode. Before you told Cloot not to interrogate them. It didn't go by in a second, you planned it all out."

Christian Klee was a little startled. What the Oracle said was true.

"And all this to save your hero, Francis Kennedy," the Oracle said. "The man who can do no wrong except when he sets the whole world on fire." The Oracle had placed a box of thin Havana cigars on the table; Christian took one of them and fit it. "You were lucky," the Oracle said. "Those people that were killed were mostly worthless. The drunken, the homeless, the criminal. And it's not so great a crime. Not in the history of our human race."

"Francis really gave me the go-ahead," Klee said. And that made the Oracle touch a button on his chair so that the back of it straightened to make his body upright and alert.

"Your saintly President" the Oracle said. "He is far too much a victim of his own hypocrisy, as all the Kennedys were. He could never be party to such an act."

"Maybe I'm just trying to make excuses," Christian said. "It was nothing explicit. But I know Francis so intimately, we're almost like brothers. I asked him for the order so that the medical interrogation team would be able to do a brain probe. That would have settled the whole atom bomb problem immediately. And Francis refused to sign the authorization. Sure, he gave his grounds, good civil libertarian and humanitarian grounds. That was in his character. But that was in his character before his daughter was killed. Not in his character afterwards. And this was afterwards. Remember, he had already ordered the destruction of Dak by this time. He gave the threat that he would destroy the whole Sultanate of Sherhaben if the hostages were not released. So his character had changed. His new character would have signed the medical interrogation order. And then when he refused to sign, he gave me a look, I can't describe it, but it was almost as if he were telling me to let it happen."

The Oracle was fully alive now. He spoke sharply. "All that doesn't matter. What matters is that you save your ass. If Kennedy doesn't get reelected, you may spend years in jail. And even if Kennedy gets reelected, there may be some danger."

"Kennedy will win the election," Christian said. "And after that, I'll be OK." He paused for a moment. "I know him."

"You know the old Kennedy," the Oracle said. Then as if he had lost interest he said, "And how about my birthday party? I'm a hundred years old and nobody gives a shit."

Christian laughed. "I do. Don't worry. After the election you'll have a birthday party in the White House Rose Garden. A birthday party for a king."

The Oracle smiled with pleasure, then said slyly, "And your Francis

Kennedy will be the king. You do know, don't you, that if he is reelected and carries his congressional candidates with him, he will in effect be a dictator?"

"That's highly unlikely," Christian Klee said. "There has never been a dictator in this country. We have safeguards too many safeguards, I think sometimes."

"Ah," the Oracle said, "this is a young country yet. We have time. And the Devil takes many seductive forms."

They were silent for a long time, and then Christian rose to take his leave. They always touched hands when they parted; the Oracle was too fragile for a real handshake.

"Be careful," the Oracle said. "When a man rises to absolute power, he usually gets rid of those closest to him, those who know his secrets."

CHAPTER 22

A FEDERAL JUDGE set Henry Tibbot and Adam Gresse free.

The government did not contest that the arrest had been illegal. The government did not contest that there had been no warrants. Gresse and Tibbot's defense team had exploited every legal loophole.

The people of America were enraged. They blamed the Kennedy administration, they cursed the judicial system. Mobs gathered in the streets of the great cities calling for the death of Gresse and Tibbot.

Vigilante groups formed to carry out the justice of the people.

Gresse and Tibbot fled to a hiding place in South America and disappeared into a sanctuary financed by their wealthy parents.

Two months before the presidential election, polls showed that Francis Kennedy's margin of victory would not be enough to carry his congressional candidates into office.

There were more problems: a scandal involving Eugene Dazzy's mistress; the lingering charges that Attorney General Christian Klee had deliberately permitted the explosion of the atom bomb; the scandal of Canoo and Klee using the funds of the office of the military adviser to beef up the Secret Service.

And perhaps Francis Kennedy himself went too far. America was not ready for his brand of socialism. It was not ready to reject the corporate structure of America. The people of America did not want to be equal, they wanted to be rich. Nearly all the states had their own lottery with prizes running high up into the millions. More people bought lottery tickets than voted in the national elections.

The power of the congressmen and senators already in office was also overwhelming. They had their staffs paid for by the government. They had the vast sums of money contributed by the corporate structure, which they used to dominate TV with brilliantly executed ads. By holding government office they could appear on special political programs on TV and in the newspapers, increasing their name recognition factor.

With the delicate precision of a Renaissance poisoner, Lawrence Salentine had organized the overall campaign against Kennedy so brilliantly that he was now the leader of the Socrates Club group.

President Kennedy studied his staff report, which predicted that his handpicked candidates for Congress would probably not be elected. The thought that he might again be an impotent leader had a physical effect on him. He felt ill. And beyond that he felt a strange rage that was full of a repugnant malice. He was ashamed of this emotion and concentrated on the classified operational plans from Christian Klee.

He noted that Christian had channeled this report directly to the President. And it was just as well. The information was horrifying, but even more extraordinary was Klee's plan on how to handle the problem.

There would be a sacrifice of moral principle involved, Kennedy thought, and then quite consciously knowing the cost, he scribbled his consent on the memos.

On the third day of September, Christian Klee went to the office of the Vice President unannounced. As an extra precaution, he gave special instructions to Helen Du Pray's Secret Service detail chief before he presented himself to Du Pray's secretary and said his business was urgent.

The Vice President was astonished to see him; it was against all protocol that he should visit her without advance warning or even permission. For a moment he was afraid she might take offense, but she was too intelligent to do so. She knew immediately that Christian Klee would breach protocol only for the most serious problem. In fact, what she felt was apprehension. What new terrible thing could have happened now after the past months?

Klee sensed this uneasiness immediately. "There's nothing to be worried about," he said. "It's just that we have a security problem involving the President. As part of our coverage, we have sealed off your office. It would be best that you not answer the phone but deal with your immediate staff. I will remain with you the entire day, personally."

Du Pray understood immediately that no matter what happened, she was not to take command of the country and that was why Klee was there. "If the President has a security problem, why are you with me?" she said. But without waiting for an answer from Klee, she said, "I will have to check this with the President, personally."

"He is appearing at a political luncheon in New York," Klee said.

"I know that," she said.

Klee looked at his watch. "The President will be calling you in about one half hour," he said.

When the call came, Klee watched Helen Du Pray's face. She seemed to show no astonishment; only twice she asked questions. Good, Klee thought, she would be OK, he didn't have to worry about her. Then she did something that aroused Christian's admiration; he didn't think she had it in her-vice presidents were noted for their timidity. She asked Kennedy if she could speak to Eugene Dazzy, the President's chief of staff. When Dazzy came on the phone, she made a simple query about their work schedule for the next week. Then she hung up. She had been checking to see if the person on the phone had really been Kennedy, despite the fact that she recognized his voice. Of the questions she had asked, only Dazzy would recognize the reference. She was making sure that there was no voice impersonation.

She addressed Klee icily; she knew something was fishy, Klee thought. She said, "The President has informed me that you will be using my office as a command post, that I will be under your instruction. I find this extraordinary. Perhaps you will give me an explanation."

"I apologize for all this," Klee said. "If I could have some coffee, I'll give you a full briefing. You will know as much as the President about this matter." Which was true but a little devious. She would not know as much as Klee.

Helen Du Pray was studying him very intently. She didn't trust him, Klee knew. But women didn't understand power, they didn't understand the stark efficiency of violence. He gathered up all his energy to convince her of his sincerity. When he was through almost an hour later, she seemed won over. She was a very beautiful woman and intelligent, Christian thought. Too bad that she would never become the President of the United States.

On this glorious summer day, President Francis Kennedy was to speak at a political luncheon held in New York City's Sheraton Hotel Convention Center, which would be followed by a triumphal motorcade down Fifth Avenue. Then he would make a speech near the atom bomb destruction area. The event had been scheduled three months before and had been well publicized. It was the kind of situation that Christian Klee detested, the President was too exposed.

There were deranged people, and even the police were a danger in Klee's eyes because they were armed and also because as a police force they were completely demoralized by the uncontrolled crime in the city.

Klee took his own elaborate precautions. Only his operational staff in the Secret Service knew the awesome detail and manpower that was used to protect the President in his rare public appearances.

Special advance teams had been sent ahead. These teams patrolled and searched the area of the visit twenty-four hours a day. Two days before the visit, another thousand men were sent to become part of the crowds that would greet the President. These men formed a line on both sides of the motorcade and in the front of the motorcade and acted as part of the crowd but actually formed a sort of Maginot line. Another five hundred men manned the rooftops, constantly scanning the windows that overlooked the motorcade, and these men were very heavily armed. In addition to this there was the President's own special and personal detail, which numbered a hundred men.

And then, of course, there were the Secret Service men under deep cover who were accredited to newspapers and TV stations, who carried newspaper photo cameras and manned mobile TV vehicles.

And Christian Klee had other tricks up his sleeve. In the nearly four years of the Kennedy administration there had been five assassination attempts. None of them had even come close. The would-be killers had been crazies, of course, and were now behind bars in the toughest federal prisons. And Klee made sure that if they got out, he would find a reason to put them back in again. It was impossible to jail all the lunatics in the United States who made threats to kill the President of the United States-by mail, by phone, by conspiring, by shouting it in the streets-but Christian Klee had made their lives miserable for them, so that they would be too busy preserving their own safety to worry about grandiose ideas. He put them under mail surveillance, phone surveillance, personal surveillance, computer surveillance. If they spit on the sidewalk, they were in trouble.

All these precautions, all these arrangements, were in effect this September third when President Francis Xavier Kennedy gave his speech at the political luncheon at the Sheraton Convention Center in New York.

Hundreds of Secret Service men were scattered through the audience, and the building was sealed off after his entrance,

On that same September third, Annee went shopping on Fifth Avenue. In her three weeks in the United States, she had helped move everything into place. She had made her phone calls, had her meeting with the two assassination teams that had finally made their way to New York as crewmen on one of Bert Audick's oil tankers. They moved into the two apartments prepared for them. These apartments had already been stocked with weapons procured by a special underground logistics team that had no part of the central plan.

Annee could not know that Christian Klee's FBI was picking up her phone calls in the very air, that every move she made was covered. And that the teams' phone calls to her in the public booths had been intercepted and read by Christian Klee.

What she had not confessed to anyone was her decision to turn this into a suicide mission.

Annee thought how strange it was that she would go shopping just four hours before what would be the end of her life.

Sal Troyca and Elizabeth Stone were working hard at the office, piecing together information that would prove Christian Klee could have prevented the explosion of the atom bomb.

Elizabeth Stone's town house was only a ten-minute ride away. So, at lunchtime, they spent a couple of hours in bed.

Once in bed, they forgot all the stress of the day. After an hour Elizabeth went into the bathroom to take a shower and Sal wandered into the living room, still naked, to turn on the TV. He stood in amazement at what he was seeing. He watched for a few moments longer and then ran into the bathroom and pulled Elizabeth out of the shower. She was a little frightened by his roughness as he dragged her naked and dripping wet into the living room.

There, watching the TV screen, she began to weep. Sal took her in his arms.

"Look at it this way," he said, "our troubles are over."

The campaign speech in New York on September third was to be one of the most important stops in President Francis Kennedy's bid for reelection.

And it had been planned to have a great psychological effect on the nation.

First, there would be a luncheon at the Sheraton Convention Center on Fifty-eighth Street. There, the President would address the most important and influential men of the city. The luncheon would raise additional funds to rebuild the midtown area in New York that had been leveled by the atom bomb explosion. An architect, without a fee, had de signed a great memorial for the devastated area, and the rest of the acreage was to be a small park with a tiny lake. The city was to buy and donate the land.

After the luncheon, the Kennedy party would lead a motorcade that would begin at 125th Street and go down Seventh and Fifth avenues to place the first symbolic wreath of marble on the rubbled heap that remained of Times Square.

As one of the sponsors of the luncheon, Louis Inch was seated on the dais with President Kennedy and expected to accompany him to his waiting car, thus getting some newspaper and TV coverage. But to his surprise, he was cut off by Secret Service men who isolated Kennedy in a human net. The President was escorted through a door at the rear of the platform.

In the streets outside, huge crowds gathered. The Secret Service had cleared the area so that there was a space of at least a hundred feet around the presidential limousine. There were enough Secret Service men to protect the inner hundred feet with a solid phalanx. Outside that, the crowd was controlled by the police. On the edge of this perimeter were photographers and TV camera crews, who immediately surged forward when the advance guard of Secret Service men came out of the hotel. And then, unaccountably, there was a fifteen-minute wait.

The President finally emerged from the hotel shielded from the TV cameras as he rushed toward his waiting car. At that very moment the avenue exploded into a beautifully choreographed bloody ballet.

Six men burst through the police restraining line, mowing down part of the police wall and running toward the President's armored limousine. A second later, another group of six men burst through the opposite perimeter and raked the fifty Secret Service men around the armored limousine with their automatic weapons.

In the very next second eight cars swung into the open area and Secret Service men in combat gear and bulletproof vests that made them seem like gigantic balloons came tumbling out with shotguns and machine pistols and caught the attackers in the rear. They shot with precision and short bursts. In less than thirty seconds, all twelve attackers were lying in the avenue dead, their guns silenced. The presidential limousine roared away from the curb, other Secret Service cars following.

At that moment, Annee, with a supreme effort of will, stepped in the path of the presidential limousine with her two Bloomingdale shopping bags in her hand. The shopping bags were filled with explosive gel, two powerful bombs that she detonated as the car, too late, tried to swerve but hit her. The presidential car flew up into the air at least ten feet off the ground and came down a mass of flames. The force of the explosion blew everyone inside it to bits. And there was absolutely nothing left of Annee except tiny bits of gaily colored paper from the shopping bags.

One TV cameraman had the wit to swing his camera for a panoramic shot of everything that was visible. Thousands of people had flung themselves to the ground when the firing broke out and were still lying prone as if begging some unforgiving God for mercy. From that prone mass issued streams of blood that came from those who had been hit by the heavy fire from the assassination teams or killed by the explosion of the powerful bombs. Many in the crowd had suffered concussions and, when the terror stopped, rose and staggered in confusion. The camera caught all this for television to horrify the nation.

In the office of Vice President Du Pray, Christian Klee jumped out of his chair and cried out, "What the fuck happened!"

Helen Du Pray stared at the TV screen and then said sharply to Klee, "Who was the poor bastard who took the President's place?"

"One of my Secret Service men," Christian Klee said. "They were not supposed to get that close."

Du Pray was looking at Klee very coldly. And then she became angrier than he had ever seen her. "Why the hell didn't you cancel the whole thing?" she shouted. "Why didn't you avert this whole tragedy? There are citizens dead out there in the street who came to see their President. You've wasted the lives of your own men. I promise you, your actions will be questioned by me to the President and to the appropriate congressional committee."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking about," Klee said. "Do you know how many threats are made against the President every day? If we listened to all of them, the President would be a prisoner in the White House."

Helen Du Pray was studying his face while he spoke.

"Why did you use a double this time?" she said. "That is an extreme measure. And if it was that serious, why did you have the President go there at all?"

"When you are the President, you can ask me those questions," Klee said curtly.

"Where is Francis now?"

Klee stared at her for a moment as if he would not answer. "He's on his way to Washington. We don't know how extensive this plot is, so we want him here. He is very safe."

Du Pray said in a sardonic voice, "OK, now I know he's safe. I assume you've briefed the other members of the staff, they know he's safe, what about the people of America? When will they know he's safe?"

Klee said, "Dazzy has made all the arrangements. The President will go on television and speak to the nation as soon as he sets foot in the White House."

"That's rather a long wait," the Vice President said. "Why can't you notify the media and reassure people now?"

"Because we don't know what's out there," Klee told her smoothly. "And maybe it won't hurt the American public to worry about him a bit."

In that moment, it seemed to Helen Du Pray that she understood everything. She understood that Klee could have cut the whole thing of before it reached the culminating point. She felt an overwhelming contempt for the man, and then, remembering the charges that he could have stopped the atom bomb explosion but didn't, she was convinced that that charge was also true.

But most of all she felt despair: she realized that Klee could never have done this without President Francis Kennedy's consent.

CHAPTER 23

THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT rocketed Kennedy to the top of the polls. In

November, Francis Xavier Kennedy was reelected to the presidency of the

United States. It was a victory so overwhelming that it carried into office nearly all his handpicked candidates for the House and Senate. At long last the President controlled both houses of Congress.

In the period before the inauguration, from November to January, Francis Kennedy set his administration to work drafting new laws for his new and cooperative Congress. In rallying support he was helped by the newspapers and TV, which were weaving fantasies to the effect that Gresse and Tibbot were linked with Yabril and the attempted assassination of the President in one giant conspiracy. The news weeklies had given the issue extensive front-page coverage.

When President Kennedy submitted to his staff his revolutionary plans for transforming the government of the United States, they were secretly horrified. Big business was to be crippled by strongly chartered regulatory agencies. The corporations would become subject to criminal penalties rather than to civil law intervention. It was clear that the end result would be indictments under the RICO laws.

In fact Kennedy had jotted down the names of Inch, Salentine, Audick and Greenwell.

Kennedy emphasized that the surest way to gain public support for his proposal was to eradicate crime in American society. In his plans were proposed amendments to the Constitution that would impose Draconian penalties on criminals. Not only would the rules of evidence be changed, but by law the brain-probe truth test would become mandatory in criminal cases.

But most startling of all was the proposal to establish criminal colonies in the wilds of Alaska for three-time offenders. In effect, life sentences.

Francis Kennedy told his staff: "I want you to study these proposals. If you can't go along with them, even though it will be hurtful to me personally, I am prepared to accept your resignation. I expect your answers within three days."

It was during those three days that Oddblood Gray requested a private meeting with the President. They met in the Yellow Oval Room over lunch.

Gray was extremely formal, deliberately erasing his past relationship with Kennedy. "Mr. President," he said, "I must state to you that I oppose your program to control crime in this country."

Kennedy said gravely, "Those programs are necessary. Finally we have a Congress that will pass the necessary laws."

"I cannot go along with those work camps in Alaska," Gray said.

"Why not?" Kennedy asked. "Only habitual offenders will go. Hundreds of years ago England solved the same problem by sending its criminals to Australia. That worked very well for both sides."

Kennedy had been curt, but Oddblood Gray was in no way intimidated. He said bitterly, "You know that the majority of those criminals will be black."

"Then let them stop committing criminal acts," Kennedy said. "Let them join the political process."

Gray shot back, "Then let your big corporations stop using blacks for slave labor-"

"Get off it, Otto," Kennedy said. "This is not a racial issue. In the years gone by we worked together. I've proved to you many times I'm no racist. Now you can trust me or trust the Socrates Club."

"On this we trust nobody," Oddblood Gray said.

"I'll give you the reality," Kennedy said almost angrily. "Black criminals will be weeded out from the black population. What's wrong with that? Black people are the chief victims. Why should the victims protect their predators? Otto, I have to be frank. White people in this country, rightly or wrongly, are deathly afraid of the black criminal class.

What's wrong with most of the black population being integrated into the middle class?"

"What you're proposing is to wipe out a big part of a generation of young blacks," Gray said. "That's the bottom line. I say no." He paused for a moment and then said, "Say I trust you, Francis, what about the next President? He may use that camp to imprison political revolutionaries."

"That's not my intent," Kennedy said. He smiled. "And I may be around longer than you think."

That statement chilled Gray. Was Kennedy thinking of amending the Constitution so that he could run for a third term? Alarm bells went off in Gray's brain.

"It's not all that simple," he said. And then boldly: "You could change."

And at that moment he could feel Kennedy change. Suddenly they had become enemies.

"Either you are with me or you are not," Kennedy said. "You accuse me of wiping out a whole generation of blacks. That is not true. They are going to a work camp where they will be educated and disciplined to support the social contract. I will be far more drastic with the Socrates Club. They don't get that option. I am going to wipe them out."

Gray saw that Kennedy had no doubts. He had never seen the President so resolute or so cold. He felt himself weakening. And then Kennedy put his hand on his shoulder and said, "Otto, don't desert me now. We will build a great America."

"I'll give you my answer after the inaugural," Gray said. "But, Francis, this is agony for me, don't betray me. If my people have to freeze their black asses in Alaska, I want a lot of white asses to freeze with them."

President Kennedy met with his staff in the Cabinet Room. Also present by special invitation were Vice President Du Pray and Dr. Annaccone. Kennedy knew he had to be very careful-these were the people who knew him best, he must not let them divine his actual agenda. He said to them, "Dr. Annaccone has something to say that may astound you."

Kennedy listened abstractedly while Annaccone announced that the PET scan had been perfected so that the 10 percent risk of cardiac arrest and complete memory loss had been reduced to one tenth of 1 percent. He smiled faintly when Helen Du Pray voiced her outrage at any free citizen's being forced by law to take such a test. He had expected that of her. He smiled also when Dr. Annaccone showed his hurt feelings-Zed was too learned a man to be so thin-skinned.

He listened with less amusement when Gray, Wix and Dazzy agreed with the Vice President. He had correctly predicted that Christian Klee would not speak.

They were all watching Kennedy, waiting for him, trying to see which way he would go. He would have to convince them he was right. He began slowly. "I know all the difficulties," he said, "but I am determined to make this test part of our legal system. Not totally-there is still some degree of danger, small as it is. Though Dr. Annaccone has assured me that with further research, even that will be reduced to zero. But this is a scientific test that will revolutionize our society. Never mind the difficulties, we will iron them out."

Annaccone said quietly, "Congress will not pass such a law."

" We'll make them," Kennedy said grimly. "Other countries will use it. Other intelligence agencies will use it. We have to." He laughed and said to Annaccone, "I'll have to cut your budget. Your discoveries cause too much trouble, and put all the lawyers out of work. But with this test no innocent man will ever be found guilty."

Very deliberately he rose and walked to the doors that looked out onto the Rose Garden. Then he said, "I will show how much I believe in this. Our enemies constantly accuse me of being responsible for the atom bomb going off. They say that I could have stopped it. Euge, I want you to help Dr. Annaccone set it up for me. I want to be the first to undergo the PET scan test. Immediately. Arrange for witnessing, the legal formalities."

He smiled at Klee. "They will ask the question 'Are you in any way responsible for the explosion of the atom bomb. And I will answer." He paused for a moment and then said, "I will take the test, and so will my Attorney General. Right, Chris?"

"Sure," Klee joked uneasily. "But you first."

At Walter Reed Hospital, the suite reserved for President Kennedy had a special conference room. In it were the President and his personal staff, Wix, Gray, Dazzy and Du Pray, along with Congressman Jintz and Senator Lambertino, and a panel of three qualified physicians who would monitor and verify the results of the brain-scan test. Now they listened to Dr. Annaccone as he explained the procedure.

Dr. Annaccone prepared his slides and turned on the projector. Then he began his lecture. He said, "This test is, as some of you already know, an infallible lie-detector test, the truth assessed by measuring the levels of activity from certain chemicals in the brain. This has been done by the refinement of positron emission tomography (PET) scans. The procedure was first shown to work in a limited way at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Slides were made of human brains at work."

A large slide showed on the huge white screen in front of them. Then another, and another. Brilliant colors appeared, lighting up the different parts of the brain as patients read, listened or spoke. Or simply just thought about the meaning of a word. Dr. Annaccone used blood and glucose to tag them with radioactive labels.

"In essence, under the PET scan," Dr. Annaccone said, "the brain speaks in living color. A spot in back of the brain lights up during reading. In the middle of the brain against that background of dark blue, you can see an irregular white spot appear with a tiny blotch of pink and a seepage of blue.

That appears during speech. In the front of the brain, a similar spot lights up during the thinking process. Over these images we have laid a magnetic resonance image of the brain's anatomy. The whole brain is now a magic lantern."

Dr. Annaccone looked around the room to see if everyone was following him. Then he went on, "You see that spot in the middle of the brain changing? When a subject lies, there is an increase in the amount of blood flowing through the brain, which then projects another image."

Startlingly, in the center of the white spot there was now a circle of red within a larger yellow irregular field. "The subject is lying," Dr. Annaccone said. "When we test the President, that red spot within the yellow is what we must look for." Dr. Annaccone nodded to the President.

"Now we will proceed to the examining room," he said.

Inside the lead-walled room, Francis Kennedy lay on the cold hard table.

Behind him a large long metal cylinder loomed. As Dr. Annaccone strapped the plastic mask over Kennedy's forehead and across his chin, Kennedy felt a momentary shiver of fear. He hated anything over his face. His arms were then tied down along his sides. Then he felt Dr. Annaccone slide the table into the cylinder. Inside the cylinder it was narrower than he expected. Blacker. Silent. Now he was surrounded by a ring of radioactive detection crystals.

Then Kennedy heard the echo of Dr. Annaccone's voice instructing him to look at the white cross directly in front of his eyes. The voice sounded hollow. "You must keep your eyes on the cross," the doctor repeated.

In a room five stories below, in the basement of the hospital, a pneumatic tube held a syringe containing radioactive oxygen, a cyclotron of tagged water.

When the order came from the scanning room above, that tube flew, a lead rocket twisting through hidden tunnels behind the walls of the hospital until it reached its target.

Dr. Annaccone opened the pneumatic tube and held the syringe in his hands. He walked over to the foot of the PET scanner and called in to Kennedy. Again the voice was hollow, an echo, when Kennedy heard, "The injection," and then felt the doctor reach into the dark and plunge the needle into his arm.

From the glass-enclosed room at the end of the scanner, the staff could see only the bottom of Kennedy's feet. When Dr. Annaccone joined them again, he turned on the computer high on the wall above, so that they could all watch the workings of Kennedy's brain. They watched as the tracer circulated through Kennedy's blood, emitting positrons, particles of antimatter that collided with electrons and produced explosions of gamma ray energy.

They watched as the radioactive blood rushed to Kennedy's visual cortex creating streams of gamma rays immediately picked up by the ring of radioactive detectors. All the time Kennedy kept staring at the white cross as instructed.

Then, through the microphone piped directly into the scanner, Kennedy heard the questions from Dr. Annaccone.

"What is your full name?"

"Francis Xavier Kennedy."

"What is your occupation?"

"President of the United States."

"Did you in any way conspire to have the atom bomb explode in New York?"

"No, I did not."

"Did you have any knowledge that could have prevented its explosion?"

"No, I did not," Kennedy answered. And inside the black cylinder his words seemed to fall back like the wind on his face.

Dr. Annaccone watched the computer screen above his head.

The computer showed the patterns form in the blue mass of the brain so elegantly formed in Kennedy's curving skull.

The staff watched apprehensively.

But no telltale yellow dot, no red circle appeared.

"The President is telling the truth," Dr. Annaccone said.

Christian Klee felt his knees buckling. He knew he could not pass such a test.

CHAPTER 24

I DON'T UNDERSTAND how he passed it, Christian Klee said.

The Oracle said with contempt that barely came across because of the frailties of his age, "So now our civilization has an infallible test, a scientific test, mind you, for determining whether a man tells the truth. And the first person who takes it ties and gets away with it. 'We can now solve the darkest riddles of innocence and guilt!' What a laugh.

Men and women deceive themselves continually. I'm a hundred years old and I still don't know whether my life was a truth or a lie. I really don't know."

Christian had retrieved his cigar from the Oracle and now he lit it and that small circle of fire made the Oracle's face a mask in a museum.

"I let that atom bomb go off," Christian said. "I'm responsible for that.

And when I take that PET scan I will know the truth and so will the scanner. But I thought I understood Kennedy better than anybody. I could always read him. He wanted me not to interrogate Gresse and Tibbot. He wanted that explosion to happen. Then how the hell did he pass that test?"

"If the brain were that simple, we would be too simple to understand it," the Oracle said. "That was the wit of your Dr. Annaccone and I suggest that is your answer. Kennedy's brain refused to acknowledge his guilt.

Therefore, the computer in the scanner says he is innocent. You and I know better, for I believe what you say. But he will be forever innocent even in his own heart."

"Unlike Kennedy, I am forever guilty."

"Cheer up," the Oracle said. "You only killed ten or was it twenty thousand people? Your only hope is to refuse to take the test."

"I promised Francis," Christian said. "And the media will crucify me for refusing."

"Then why the hell did you agree to take it?" the Oracle said.

"I thought Francis was bluffing," Christian said. "I thought he couldn't afford to take the test and that he would back down. That's why I insisted he take the test first."

The Oracle showed his impatience by running the motor on his wheelchair.

"Climb up on the Statue of Liberty," he said. "Claim your civil rights and your human dignity. You'll get away with it. Nobody wants to see such infernal science become a legal instrument."

"Sure," Christian said. "That's what I have to do. But Francis will know I'm guilty."

The Oracle said, "Christian, if that test asked you whether you were a villain, what would you answer, in all truthfulness?"

Christian laughed, genuinely laughed. "I would answer that no, I wasn't a villain. And I'd pass. That's really funny." Gratefully he pressed the Oracle's shoulder. "I won't forget about your birthday party," he said.

It was Vice President Du Pray who reacted most quickly and most angrily to Klee's statement. She said. "Do you realize that if you refuse you must resign and even then this stance of yours will do great damage to the presidency?"

"I don't see that at all," Klee said. "Do I have to agree to let guys like Annaccone scramble my brain just to keep my job? Or do you think I'm really guilty?" He could see the answer in her eyes and thought he had never seen so handsome a hanging judge. Defensively he added, "There's the Constitution of the United States. I have the individual freedom to refuse such a test."

Otto Gray said sternly, "You're not so keen on the Constitution when it comes to criminals. You're eager to ship them off to Alaska."

Klee said, "Ah, Otto, you don't believe I did it. Do you?" and was relieved when Otto said, "Of course I don't, but you should take the test." He paused for a moment and then said, "Or resign."

Klee turned to Wix and Dazzy. "How about you two?" he asked and smiled at them.

It was Wix who answered first. He said, "I don't have the slightest doubt you're innocent, the charges against you are pure bullshit. But if you refuse to take the brain-scan test you will be guilty in the mind of the public. And then you must leave this administration."

Klee turned to Dazzy. "Eugene?"

Dazzy would not look at him and Dazzy owed him, Klee thought. Then Dazzy said with a judicious air, "You have to take the test, Christian. Even resigning won't help us much. We've already announced you would take it, as you agreed you would. Why this change of mind? Surely you're not afraid?"

"I promised to show my loyalty to Francis Kennedy," Klee said. "Now I've thought it over and decided the risk is too great."

Dazzy sighed. "I sure as hell wish you had thought it over sooner. As for your resignation, I think that is up to the President."

They all looked at Francis Kennedy. His face was dead white, his eyes, which were usually so pale, seemed to be a darker and deeper blue. But his voice was surprisingly gentle when he spoke to Klee. "Christian," he said, "can I persuade you on the basis of our long and close friendship?

I took the test and the risk because I thought it was important for our country and the presidency. And because I was innocent. You've never failed me, Christian. I count on you."

For one moment Klee felt hatred for Francis Kennedy. How could this man conceal his own guilt from himself? And why this best friend of his putting him on the cross of truth? But he said calmly, "I just can't do it, Francis."

Kennedy said soberly, "That's it, then. I don't want you to resign, I won't let you suffer that indignity. Now let's go on.”

Dazzy said, "Do we make a statement to the press?"

"No," Kennedy said. "If they ask, say the Attorney General has the flu and will take the test when he is recovered. That will give us a month's time."

"And in a month?" Dazzy said.

"We'll rethink it then," Kennedy said.

President Kennedy summoned Theodore Tappey, the CIA director, to a private meeting in the Yellow Oval Room. He excluded everyone, he wanted no witnesses, no recording.

Kennedy wasted no time on civilities. There was no window dressing of a leisurely tea. He spoke curtly to Tappey. "Theo, we have a big problem that only you and I understand. And only you and I can solve."

"I'll do my best, Mr. President," Tappey said. And Kennedy saw the feral look in his eyes. He scented blood.

"Everything we say here has the highest security classification, it has executive privilege," Kennedy said. "You are not to repeat this to anyone, not even members of my staff." That was when Tappey knew the matter was extremely sensitive because Kennedy cut his staff in on everything.

"It's Yabril," Kennedy said. "I'm sure-he smiled» I’m positive, you've thought this all out. Yabril will go on trial. That will rake up all the resentments against America. He will get convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. But somewhere down the line there will be a terrorist action that takes important hostages. One demand will be to release Yabril. By that time I won't be President and so Yabril will go free. Still a dangerous man."

Kennedy had caught the sight of skepticism in Tappey. The sign was no sign, Tappey was too experienced in deception. His face simply lost all expression, all animation in the eyes, the contour of the lips. He had made himself a blank so as not to be read.

But now Tappey smiled. "You must have read the internal memos my counterintelligence chief has been giving me. That's exactly what he says."

"So how do we prevent all this?" Kennedy asked. But it was a rhetorical question and Tappey did not answer.

Kennedy decided the time had come. "I assure you I can persuade Yabril to take the brain test. I'll take care of him. The public needs to know that the results of the test will link the atom bomb to Yabril and prove once and for all that this was a global conspiracy. We can clear Christian and go after those kids-stage a manhunt and bring them to justice at least."

For the very first time in their relationship, Kennedy saw Tappey looking at him with the shrewd appraising eye of a fellow conspirator. He knew that Tappey thought things out far ahead. "We don't really need Yabril's answers, do we?"

"No," Kennedy said.

Tappey asked, "Is Christian in on this?"

This was difficult for Kennedy. And this was not even the hardest part. fie said slowly, "Forget about Christian."

Tappey nodded. Tappey was with him. Tappey understood. Tappey was now looking at Kennedy as a servant might look at a master who was about to ask of him a service that would bind them together forever.

"I guess I don't get anything in writing," Tappey said.

"No," Kennedy said. "I am going to give you specific instructions right now."

"Be very specific," Theodore Tappey said, "if you will, Mr. President."

Kennedy smiled at the coolness of the response. "Dr. Annaccone would never do it," he said. "A year ago I myself would never have dreamed of doing it."

"I understand, Mr. President," Tappey said.

Kennedy knew there could be no further hesitation. "After Yabril agrees to take the test, I switch him to your CIA medical section. Your medical team does the scan. They give the test." He could see the look in Tappey's eyes, the waver of doubt, not of moral outrage, but doubt of feasibility.

"We're not talking murder here," Kennedy said impatiently. "I'm not that stupid or that immoral. And if I wanted that done, I'd be talking to Christian."

Tappey was waiting.

Kennedy knew he had to say the fatal words. "I swear that I ask this for the protection of our country. Whether he's in prison or released, Yabril must no longer be a danger. I want your medical team to go to the extreme limit of the test. According to Dr. Annaccone, it was under that protocol that the side effects occurred. And complete memory was erased. A man without memory, without beliefs and convictions, is harmless. He will live a peaceful life."

Kennedy recognized the look in Tappey's eyes-it was the look of one predator who has discovered another strange species its equal in ferocity.

"Can you assemble a team that will do that?" Kennedy asked.

"When I explain the situation to them," Tappey said. "They would never have been recruited if they were not devoted to their country."

In the dark hours of that night, Theodore Tappey escorted Yabril to Kennedy's quarters. Again the meeting was short and Kennedy was all business. There was no tea, there were no civilities. Kennedy began immediately, he presented his proposal.

Kennedy said to Yabril, "It is very important for America to know whether you were part of the conspiracy of the atom bomb. To erase its fears. It is important to you that your name be cleared in this particular matter. Now, it is true that you will go to trial for your other crimes and you will be sentenced to life imprisonment. But I will promise you that I will allow you to communicate with your friends in the outside world. Let us presume they will be loyal enough to create a hostage situation and demand your release. I would be inclined to agree to such a demand. But I can do that only if you are cleared of guilt in the atom bomb explosion… I see you have some doubts."

Yabril shrugged and said, "I find your offer too generous."

Kennedy summoned all his strength to do what he had to do. He remembered Yabril charming his daughter, Theresa, before putting a gun to her neck.

Such charm would not work with Yabril. He could only persuade this man by convincing him of his own strict morality.

"I am doing this to erase fear from the mind of my country," Kennedy said. "That is my greatest concern. My pleasure would be to have you remain in prison forever. So I make this offer out of my sense of duty."

"Then why, are you taking such pains to convince me?" Yabril asked.

"It's not in my nature to perform my duty as a matter of form," Kennedy said, and he could see that Yabril was beginning to believe this too, believe that he was a moral man and could be trusted within that morality. Again he summoned the image of Theresa and her belief in Yabril’s kindness. Then he said to Yabril, "You were outraged at the suggestion that your people engineered the explosion of an atom bomb.

Here is the chance to clear your name and the names of your comrades. Why not take it? Do you fear you will not pass the test? That is always a possibility-it occurs to me now, though I don't really believe it."

Yabril looked directly into Kennedy's eyes. "I don't believe that any man can forgive what I have done to you." He was silent. He looked weary. But he was not deceived. It was the very essence of American corruption to make such a proposition to achieve an immoral political aim.

He knew nothing of what had happened in the last six months. He had been isolated for deep interrogations. Kennedy pressed on.

"Taking this test is your only hope of freedom. Provided you pass it, of course," he said.

Kennedy sighed. "I don't forgive you. But I understand your actions. I understand you feet you did what you did to help our world. As I do what I do now. And it is within my powers. We are different men, I cannot do what you do, and you, I mean you no disrespect, cannot do what I am doing now. To let you go free."

Almost with sorrow, he saw he had convinced Yabril. He continued his persuasion, he used all his wit, all his charm, his appearance of integrity. He projected all the images of what he had once been, of what Yabril had known him to be, before he forfeited the whole of himself to convince Yabril. He knew he was finally successful when he saw the smile on Yabril's face was one of pity and contempt. He knew then that he had won Yabril's trust.

Four days later, after Yabril's PET medical interrogation, after the terrorist had been transferred back to FBI custody, he received two visitors. They were Francis Kennedy and Theodore Tappey.

Yabril was completely unrestrained, unshackled.

The three men spent a quiet hour drinking tea and eating little sandwiches. Kennedy studied Yabril. The man's face seemed to have changed. It was a sensitive face; the eyes were slightly melancholy but good-humored. He spoke little but studied Kennedy and Tappey as though trying to solve some mystery.

He seemed content. He seemed to know who he was. And he seemed to radiate such purity of soul that Kennedy could not bear to look at him and finally took his leave.

The decision about Christian Klee was even more painful to Francis Kennedy.

It had been an unexpected surprise for Christian. Kennedy asked him into the Yellow Room for a private meeting.

But Francis Kennedy opened the meeting quietly by saying, "Christian, I've been closer to you than anybody outside my family. I think we know each other better than anyone else knows us. So you will understand that I have to ask for your resignation to be effective after the inauguration, at a time when I decide to accept it."

Klee looked at that handsome face with its gentle smile. He could not believe that Kennedy was firing him without any explanation. He said quietly, "I know I've cut a few comers here and there. But my ultimate aim was always to keep you from harm."

"You let the nuclear device go off. You could have prevented it."

Christian Klee very coldly considered the situation before him. He would never feel his old affection for Kennedy again. He would never believe in his own humanity, the rightness of what he had done. And suddenly he knew that he could never bear that burden. That Francis Kennedy must share responsibility for what had been done. Even privately.

Klee stared directly into the pale blue eyes he knew so well and searched for mercy there.

"Francis, you wanted me to do what I did. We both knew it was the only thing that could save you-I knew you could not make such a decision. It would have destroyed you, you were so weakened, Francis. Francis, don't condemn me, don't judge me. They would have removed you from power and you could never have borne that. You were very close to despair and I was the only one who could see it. They would have left your daughter unavenged. They would have let Yabril go free, they would have left America disgraced." Klee paused, surprised to see that Francis Kennedy was looking at him so impassively.

Kennedy said, "So you think I was after vengeance."

"Not on Yabril," Klee said. "Maybe on Fate."

"You can stay until after the inauguration," Kennedy said. "You've earned that. But you are a danger spot, a target. I have to make you disappear so I can sweep up the mess."

He paused for a moment. "You were wrong thinking I wanted you to do what you did, Chris. You were wrong to think that I was acting out of a desire for vengeance."

Christian Klee felt a vague dissociation from his world, an anguish he could not even define. He said, "Francis, I know you, I understand you. We were always like brothers. I always felt that, that we really were brothers. And I saved you as a brother should. I made the decision, I took the guilt. I can let the world condemn me, but not you."

He paused for a moment. "You need me, Francis. Even more now, on the course of action you're taking. Let me stay. "

Francis Kennedy sighed. Then he said, "I don't question your loyalty, Christian. But after the inauguration you'll hive to go. We will never discuss this again."

"I did it to save you," Christian said.

"And you did," Kennedy said.

Christian thought about that day in early December, four years ago, when

Francis Kennedy, the President-elect of the United States had waited for him outside the monastery in Vermont. Kennedy had disappeared for a week.

Newspapers and his political opponents had speculated that he had been under psychiatric care, that he had broken down, that he was having a secret love affair. But only two people-the abbot of the monastery and Christian Klee-knew the truth: that Francis Kennedy had retreated to deeply and completely mourn the death of his wife.

It was a week after his election that Christian had driven Kennedy to the Catholic monastery just outside White River Junction in Vermont. They were greeted by the abbot, who was the only one who knew Kennedy's identity.

The resident monks lived apart from the world, cut off from all media and even the town itself. These monks communicated only with God and the earth on which they grew their livelihood. They had all taken a vow of silence and did not speak except in prayer or yelps of pain when they were ill or had injured themselves in some domestic accident.

Only the abbot had a television set and access to newspapers. The TV news programs were a constant source of amusement to him. He particularly fancied the concept of the anchor man on the nightly broadcasts and often ironically, thought of himself as one of the anchor men of God. He used this idea to remind himself of the necessity for humility.

When the car drove up, the abbot was waiting for them at the monastery gate, flanked by two monks in ragged brown robes and sandaled feet.

Christian took Kennedy's bag from the trunk and watched the abbot shake hands with the President-elect. The abbot seemed more like an innkeeper than a holy man. He had a jolly grin to welcome them, and when he was introduced to Christian he said jocularly, "Why don't you stay? A week of silence wouldn't do you any harm. I've seen you on television and you must be tired of talking."

Christian smiled his thanks but did not reply. He was looking at Francis Kennedy as they shook hands. The handsome face was very composed, the handshake was not emotional-Kennedy was not a demonstrative man. He seemed not to be grieving the death of his wife. He had more the preoccupied look of a man forced to go into the hospital for a minor operation.

"Let's hope we can keep this secret," Christian had said. "People don't like these religious retreats. They might think you've gone nuts."

Francis Kennedy's face twisted into a little smile. A controlled but natural courtesy. "They won't find out," he said. "And I know you'll cover. Pick me up in a week. That should be enough time."

Christian wondered what would happen to Francis in those days. He felt close to tears. He took hold of Francis by the shoulders and said, "Do you want me to stay with you?" Kennedy had shaken his head and walked through the gates of the monastery. On that day Christian thought he had seemed OK.

The day after Christmas was so clear and bright, so cleansed by cold that it seemed as if the whole world were enclosed in glass, the sky a mirror, the earth brown steel. And when Christian drove up to the monastery gate,

Francis Kennedy was alone, waiting for him without any luggage, his hands stretched over his head, his body taut and straining upward. He seemed to be exulting in his freedom.

When Christian got out of the car to greet him, Kennedy gave him a quick embrace and a shout of joyous welcome. He seemed to have been rejuvenated by his stay in the monastery. He smiled at Christian, and it was one of his rare brilliant smiles that had enchanted multitudes. The smile that reassured the world that happiness could be won, that man was good, that the world would go on forever to better and better things. It was a smile that made you love him because of its delight in his seeing you. Christian had felt such relief at seeing that smile.

Francis would be OK. He would be as strong as he had always been. He would be the hope of the world, the strong guardian of his country and fellowman. Now they would do great deeds together.

And then with that same brilliant smile Kennedy took Christian by the arm, looked into his eyes, and said, simply and yet with amusement, as if it didn't really mean anything, as if he were reporting some minor detail of information, "God didn't help."

And in the cold scrubbed world of a winter morning, Christian saw that finally something had been broken in Kennedy. That he would never be the same man again. That part of his mind had been chopped away. He would be almost the same, but now there was a tiny lump of falseness that had never before existed. He saw that Kennedy himself did not know this and that nobody else would know. And that he, Christian, only knew because he was the one who was here at this point in time, to see the brilliant smile and hear the joking words "God didn't help."

Christian said, "What the hell, you only gave him seven days."

Kennedy laughed. "And he's a busy man," he said.

So they had gotten into the car. They had a wonderful day. Kennedy had never been more witty, had never been in such high spirits. He was full of plans, anxious to get his administration together and make wonderful things happen in the four years to come. He seemed to be a man who had reconciled himself to his misfortune, renewed his energies. And it almost convinced Christian…

Christian Klee started making arrangements to leave government service. One of the most important things was to erase any traces of his circumventing the law in his protection of the President. He had to remove all the illegal computer surveillances of the members of the Socrates Club.

Sitting at his massive desk in the Attorney General's office, Klee used his personal computer to erase incriminating files. Finally, he called up the file on David Jatney. He had been right on this guy, Klee thought, this guy was the joker in the deck. That darkly handsome face had the lopsided look of a mind unbalanced. Jatney’s eyes were bright with the scattered electricity of a neural system at war with itself. And the latest information showed that he was on his way to Washington.

This guy could be trouble. Then he remembered the Oracle's prediction. When a man rises to absolute power, he usually gets rid of those closest to him, those who know his secrets. He had loved Francis for his virtues. Long before the terrible secrets. He thought about it a long time. And then he thought, let fate decide. Whatever happened, he, Christian Klee, could not be blamed.

He pressed the delete key of the computer and David Jatney disappeared without a trace from all government files.

CHAPTER 25

JUST TWO Weeks before President Francis Kennedy's inauguration, David

Jatney had become restless. He wanted to escape the eternal sunshine of

California, the richly friendly voices everywhere, the moonlit, balmy beaches. He felt himself drowning in the brown syrupy air of its society, and yet he did not want to go back home to Utah and be the daily witness to his father's and mother's happiness.

Irene had moved in with him. She wanted to save on rent money, to go on a trip to India and study with a guru there. A group of her friends were pooling their resources to charter a plane and she wanted to join them with her little son, Campbell.

David was astonished when she told him her plans. She did not ask him if she could move in with him, she merely asserted her right to do so. That right was based on the fact that they now saw each other three times a week for a movie and to have sex. She had put it to him as one buddy to another, as if he were one of her California friends who routinely moved in with each other for periods of a week or more. It was done not as a cunning preliminary to marriage but as a casual act of comradeship. She had no sense of imposing, that his life would be disrupted by a woman and a child made part of his daily living.

What horrified David most of all was that Irene planned to bring her little boy with her to India. Irene was a woman who had absolute confidence that she could make her way in any world; she was certain that the fates would be good to her. David had visions of the little boy sleeping in the streets of Calcutta with the thousands of the diseased poor of that city. In a moment of anger he once told her he could not understand anyone's believing in a religion that spawned the hundreds of millions who were the most desperately poverty-stricken in the world. She had answered that what happened in this world was unimportant, since what happened in the next life would be so much more rewarding.

Jatney was fascinated by Irene and how she treated her son. She often took little Campbell to her political meetings because she could not always get her mother to baby-sit and was too proud to ask too often. She took him with her sometimes even to work, when the special kindergarten he attended was closed for some reason.

There was no question that she was a devoted mother. But to David her attitude toward motherhood was bewildering. She did not have the usual concern to protect her child or worry about the psychological influences that could harm him. She treated him as one would treat a beloved pet, a dog or a cat. She seemed to care nothing for what the child thought or felt. She was determined that being the mother of a child would not limit her life in any way, that she would not make motherhood a bondage, that she would maintain her freedom. David thought she was a little crazy.

But she was a pretty woman, and when she concentrated on sex, she could be ardent. David enjoyed being with her. She was competent in the everyday details of life and was really no trouble. And so he let her move in.

Two consequences were completely unforeseen by him. He became impotent. And he became fond of Campbell.

He prepared for their moving in by buying a huge trunk to lock up his guns, the cleaning materials and the ammo. He didn't want a five-year-old kid accidentally getting his hands on weapons. And by now, somehow, David Jatney had enough guns to deck out a superhero bandit: two rifles, a machine pistol and a collection of handguns. One was a very small.22-caliber handgun he carried in his jacket pocket in a little leather case that was more like a glove. At night he usually put it beneath his bed. When Irene and Campbell moved in, he locked the.22 in the trunk with the other guns. He put a good padlock on the trunk. Even if the little kid found it open, there was no way he could figure out how to load it. Irene was another story. Not that he didn't trust her, but she was a little weird, and weirdness and guns didn't mix.

On the day they moved in, Jatney bought a few toys for Campbell so he wouldn't be too disoriented. That first night, when Irene was ready to go to bed, she arranged pillows and a blanket on the sofa for the little boy, undressed him in the bathroom and put him into pajamas. Jatney saw the little boy looking at him. There was in that look an old wariness, a glint of fear and very faintly what seemed to be a habitual bewilderment. In a flash Jatney translated that look to himself. As a little boy he knew his father and mother would desert him to make love in their room.

He said to Irene, "Listen, I'll sleep on the sofa an the kid can sleep with you."

"That's silly," Irene said. "He doesn't mind, do you, Campbell?"

The boy shook his head. He rarely spoke.

Irene said proudly, "He's a brave boy, aren't you, Campbell?"

At that moment, David Jatney felt a moment of pure hatred for her. He repressed it and said, "I have to do some writing and I'll be up late. I think he should sleep with you the first few nights."

"If you have to work, OK," Irene said cheerfully.

She held out her hand to Campbell and the little boy jumped off the sofa and ran into her arms. He hid his head in her breasts. She said to him,

"Aren't you going to say good night to your uncle Jat?" And she smiled brilliantly at David, a smile that made her beautiful. And he understood it was her own little joke, an honest joke, a way of telling him that this had been the mode of her address and introduction for her child when she lived with other lovers, delicate, fearful moments in her life, and that she was grateful to him for his thoughtfulness, that her faith in the universe was sustained.

The boy kept his head buried in her breasts and David patted him gently and said, "Good night, Campbell." The boy looked up and stared into Jatney's eyes. It was the peculiar questioning look of small children, the regard of an object that is absolutely unknown to their universe.

David was stricken by that look. As if he could be a source of danger.

He saw that the boy had an unusually elegant face for one so young. A broad forehead, luminous gray eyes, a firm, almost stern mouth.

Campbell smiled at Jatney and the effect was miraculous.

His whole face beamed with trust. He reached out a hand and touched David's face. And then Irene took him with her into the bedroom.

A few minutes later she came out again and gave him a kiss. "Thanks for being so thoughtful," she said. "We can have a quick screw before I go back in." She made no seductive movement when she said this. It was simply a friendly offer.

David thought of the little boy behind the bedroom door waiting for his mother. "No," he said.

"OK," she said cheerfully and went back into the bedroom.

For the next few weeks Irene was furiously busy. She has taken an additional job for very little pay and long hours at night, to help in the reelection campaign-she was an ardent partisan of Francis Kennedy. She would talk about the social, programs he favored, his fight against the rich in America, his struggle to reform the legal system. David thought she was in love with Kennedy's physical appearance, the magic of his voice. He believed that she worked at campaign headquarters because of infatuation rather than political belief

Three days after she moved in, he dropped by campaign headquarters in Santa Monica and found her working on a computer with little Campbell at her feet. The boy was in a sleeping bag but was wide awake. David could see his open eyes.

"I'll take him home and put him to bed," David said.

"He's OK," Irene said. "I don't want to take advantage of YOU."

David pulled Campbell out of the sleeping bag; the boy was fully clothed except for his shoes. He took the boy by the hand and he felt warm, soft skin, and for a moment he was happy.

"I'll take him for a pizza and ice cream first, is that OKT' David said to Irene.

She was busy with her computer. "Don't spoil him," she said. "When you're gone, he gets health yogurt out of the fridge." She took a moment to smile at him and then gave Campbell a kiss.

"Should I wait up for you?" he asked.

"What for?" she said quickly, then added, "I'll be late." He went out, leading the little boy by the hand. He drove to Montana Avenue and stopped at a little Italian restaurant that made pizza on the side. He watched Campbell eat. One slice and he mangled that more than he ate it.

But he was interested in eating and that made David happy.

In the apartment he put Campbell to bed, letting him wash and change into his pajamas by himself. He made his bed on the sofa, put on the TV very low and watched.

There was a lot of political talk on the air and interviews on the news programs. Francis Kennedy seemed to descend out of all the galaxies of cable. And David had to admit the man was overpowering on TV. He dreamed of being a victorious hero like Kennedy. You could see the Secret Service men with their stone faces hovering in the background. How safe he was, how rich he was, how loved he was. Often David dreamed of being Francis Kennedy. How Rosemary would be in love with him. And he thought about Hock and Gibson Grange. And they would all be eating in the White House and they would all talk to him and Rosemary would talk to him in her excited way, touching his knee, telling him her innermost feelings.

He thought about Irene and what he felt about her. And he realized he was more bewildered than entranced. It seemed to him that with all her openness she was really completely closed to him. He could never really love her. He thought of Campbell, who had been named after the writer Joseph Campbell, famous for his books about myths, the boy so open and guileless with such an elegant innocence of countenance.

Campbell now called him Uncle Jat and always put a little hand in his.

Jatney accepted. He loved the innocent touches of affection the boy gave him that Irene never did. And it was during these two weeks that this extension of feeling to another human being sustained him.

When he lost his job at the studio, he would have been in a jam if it had not been for Hock, his "uncle" Hock. When he was fired, there was a message for him to come by Hock's office, and because he thought that Campbell would enjoy visiting a movie studio, he brought the child.

When Hock greeted him, David Jatney felt his overwhelming love for the man,

Hock was so warm. Hock sent one of his secretaries immediately to the commissary to get ice cream for the little boy and then showed Campbell some props on his desk that would be used in the movie he was currently producing.

Campbell was enchanted by all this, and Jatney felt a twinge of jealousy.

But then he could see it was Hock's way of clearing away an obstacle in their meeting. With Campbell busy playing with the props, Hock shook Jatney's hand and said, "I'm sorry you got fired. They are cutting down the story-reading department and the others had seniority. But stay in touch, I'll get something for you."

"I'll be OK," David Jatney said.

Hock was studying him closely. "You look awfully thin, David. Maybe you should go back home and visit a while. That good Utah air, that relaxing Mormon life. Is this kid your girlfriend's?"

"Yeah," Jatney said. "She's not exactly my girl, she's my friend. We live together, but she's trying to save money on rent so she can make a trip to India."

Hock frowned for a moment and said, "If you financed every California girl who wanted to go to India, you'd be broke. And they all seem to have kids."

He sat down at his desk, took a huge checkbook out of its drawer and wrote in it. He ripped a piece out of the book, and handed it to Jatney.

"This is for all the birthday presents and graduation presents I never had the time to send you." He smiled at Jatney. Jatney looked at the check. He was astonished to see it was for five thousand dollars.

"Ah, c'mon, Hock, I can't take this," he said. He felt tears coming into his eyes, tears of gratitude, humiliation and hatred.

"Sure, you can," Hock said. "Listen, I want you to get some rest and have a good time. Maybe give this girl her airfare to India so she can get what she wants and you'll be free to do what you want." He smiled and then said very emphatically, "The trouble with being friends with a girl is that you get all the troubles of a lover and none of the advantages of a friend. But that's quite a little boy she has. I might have something for him sometime if I ever have the balls to make a kid picture."

Jatney pocketed the check. He understood everything that Hock had said.

"Yeah, he's a nice-looking kid."

"It's more than that," Hock said. "Look, he has that elegant face, just made for tragedy. You look at him and you feel like crying."

And Jatney thought how smart his friend Hock was. "Elegant" was just right and yet so odd to describe Campbell's face. Irene was an elemental force-like God, she had constructed a future tragedy.

Hock hugged him and said, "David, stay in touch. I mean it. Keep yourself together, times always get better when you're young." He gave Campbell one of the props, a beautiful miniature futuristic airplane, and Campbell hugged it to himself and said, "Uncle Jat, can I keep it?" And

Jatney saw a smile on Hock's face.

"Say hello to Rosemary for me," David Jatney said. He had been trying to say this all through the meeting.

Hock gave him a startled look. "I will," he said. "We've been invited to Kennedy's inauguration in January, me and Gibson and Rosemary. I'll tell her then."

And suddenly David Jatney felt he had been flung off a spinning world.

Now, lying on the sofa, waiting for Irene to come home, dawn showing its smoky light through the living room window, Jatney thought of Rosemary Belair. How she had turned to him in bed and lost herself in his body. He remembered the smell of her perfume, the curious heaviness, perhaps caused by the sleeping pills traumatizing the muscles in her flesh. He thought of her in the morning in her jogging clothes, her assurance and her assumption of power, how she had dismissed him. He lived over that moment when she had offered to give him cash to tip the limo driver and how he had refused to take the money. But why had he insulted her, why had he said she knew better than he how much was needed, implying that she too had been sent home in such a fashion and in such a circumstance?

He found himself falling asleep in little short gaps of time, listening for Campbell, listening for Irene. He thought of his parents back in Utah; he knew they had forgotten about him, secure in their own happiness, their hypocritical angel pants fluttering outside as they joyfully and unceasingly fornicated in their bare skins. If he called them they would have to part.

David Jatney dreamed of how he would meet Rosemary Belair. How he would tell her he loved her. Listen, he would say, imagine you had cancer. I would take your cancer from you into my own body. Listen, he would say, if some great star fell from the sky I would cover your body. Listen, he would say, if someone tried to kill you I would stop the blade with my heart, the bullet with my body. Listen, he would say, if I had one drop from the fountain of youth that would keep me young forever and you were growing old, I would give you that drop so that you would never grow old.

And he perhaps understood that his memory of Rosemary Belair was haloed by her power. That he was praying to a god to make him something more than a common piece of clay. That he begged for power, unlimited riches, for beauty, for any and all the achievements so that his fellowman would mark his presence on this earth, and so he would not drown silently in the vast ocean of mankind.

When he showed Hock's check to Irene, it was to impress her, to prove to her that someone cared enough about him to give him such a vast amount of money as a casual gift. She was not impressed; in her experience it was a commonplace that friends shared with each other and she even said that a man of Hock's vast wealth could have easily given away a bigger amount. When David offered to give her half the amount of the check so that she could go to India immediately, she refused. "I always use my own money, I work for a living," she said. "If I took money from you, you would feel you have rights over me. Besides, you really want to do it for Campbell, not me."

He was astounded by her refusal and her statement of his interest in Campbell. He had simply wanted to be rid of both of them. He wanted to be alone again to live with his dreams of the future.

Then she asked him what he would do if she took half the money and went to India, what he would do with his half. He noticed she did not suggest he go to India with her. He also noted that she had said "your half of the money," so that in her mind she was accepting his offer.

Then he made the mistake of telling her what he would do with his twenty-five hundred.

"I want to see the country and I want to see Kennedy's inauguration," he said. "I thought it might be fun, something different. You know, take my car and drive through the whole country. See the whole United States. I even want to see the snow and ice and feel real cold."

Irene seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then she went striding briskly through the apartment as if counting her possessions in it. "That's a great idea," she said. "I want to see Kennedy too. I want to see him in person or I'll never really be able to know his karma. I'll put in for my vacation, they owe me tons of days. And it will be good for Campbell to see the country, all the different states. We'll take my van and save on motel bills."

Irene owned a small van, which she had fitted out with shelves to hold books and a small bunk for Campbell. The van was invaluable to her because even when Campbell was a little infant she had taken trips up and down the state of California to attend meetings and seminars on Eastern religions.

David felt trapped as they started off on their trip. Irene was driving-she liked to drive. Campbell was between them, one little hand in David's hand. David had deposited half the check in Irene's bank account for her trip to India, and now his twenty-five hundred would have to be used for three of them instead of only one. The only thing that comforted him was the.22-caliber handgun nestling in its leather glove, the glove in his jacket pocket. The East of America had too many robbers and muggers, and he had Irene and Campbell to protect.

To Jatney's surprise they had a wonderful time the first four days of leisurely driving. Campbell and Irene slept in the van and he slept outside in the open fields until they hit cold weather in Arkansas; they had swung south to avoid the cold as long as possible. Then for a couple of nights they used a motel room, any motel on the route. It was in Kentucky that they first ran into trouble.

The weather had turned cold and they decided to go into a motel for the night. The next morning they drove into town for breakfast in a caf6/newspaper store.

The counterman was about Jatney's age and very alert. In her egalitarian California way, Irene struck up a conversation with him. She did so because she was impressed by his quickness and efficiency. She often said it was such a pleasure to watch people who were truly expert at the work they did, no matter how menial. She said this was a sign of good karma.

Jatney never really understood the word "karma."

But the counterman did. He too was a follower of the Eastern religions, and he and Irene got into a long and involved discussion. Campbell became restless, so Jatney paid the bill and took him outside to wait. It was a good fifteen minutes before Irene came out.

"He's a really sweet guy," Irene said. "His name is Christopher, but he calls himself Krish."

Jatney was annoyed by the wait but said nothing. On the walk back to the motel Irene said, "I think we should stay here for a day. Campbell needs a rest."

They spent the rest of the morning and afternoon shopping, though Irene bought very little. They had a very early supper in a Chinese restaurant.

The plan was to go to bed early so that they could travel east before dark.

But they had been in their motel room for only a few hours when Irene suddenly said she was going to take a little drive through town and maybe pick up a bite to eat. She left, and David played checkers with the little boy, who beat him in every game. The child was an amazing checkers player. Irene had taught him when he was only two years old. At one point Campbell raised his elegant head with the broad brow and said, "Uncle Jat, don't you like to play checkers?"

It was nearly midnight before Irene returned. The motel was on a little high ground, and Jatney and Campbell were looking out the window when the familiar van pulled into the parking lot, followed by another car.

Jatney was surprised to see Irene get out of the passenger side, since she always insisted on driving. From the driver's side the young counterman called Krish emerged and gave her the car keys. She gave a sisterly kiss in return. Two young men got out of the other car, and she gave them sisterly little pecks. Irene started walking toward the motel entrance and the three young men put their arms around one another and serenaded her. "Good night, Irene," they sang, "Good night, Irene." When Irene entered the motel room and still heard them singing, she gave David a brilliant smile.

"They were so interesting to talk to I just forgot the time," Irene said, and she went to the window to wave to them.

"I guess I'll have to go and tell them to stop," David said. Through his mind ran flashes of him firing the handgun in his pocket. He could see the bullets flying through the night into their brains. "Those guys are much less interesting when they sing. "

"Oh, you couldn't stop them," Irene said. She picked up Campbell. Holding him in her arms, she bowed to acknowledge their homage and then pointed to the child. The singing stopped immediately. And then David could hear the car moving out of the parking lot.

Irene never drank. But she sometimes took drugs. Jatney could always tell. She had such a lovely brilliant smile on drugs. She had smiled that way one night when he had been waiting up for her in Santa Monica. In that dawn light he had accused her of being in someone else's bed. She had replied calmly, "Somebody had to fuck me, you won't."

Christmas Eve they were still on the road and slept in another motel. It was cold now. They would not celebrate the Christmas season; Irene said that Christmas was false to the true spirit of religion. David did not want to bring back memories of an earlier, more innocent life. But he did buy Campbell a crystal ball with snow flurries, over the objections of Irene. Early Christmas morning he rose and watched the two of them sleep.

He always carried the handgun in his jacket now, and he touched the soft leather of its glove. How easy and kind it would be to kill them both, he thought.

Three days later they were in the nation's capital. They had a fair amount of time until the inauguration. David made up the itinerary of all the sights they would see. And then he made a map of the inaugural parade. They would all go see Francis Kennedy take the oath of office as President of the United States.