The Fourth K

CHAPTER 26

ON INAUGURATION DAY, the President of the United States, Francis Xavier

Kennedy, was awakened at dawn by Jefferson to be groomed and dressed. The early gray light was actually cheery because a snowstorm had begun. Huge white flakes covered the city of Washington, and in the bulletproof tinted windows of his dressing room Francis Kennedy saw himself imprisoned in those snowflakes, as if he were imprisoned in a glass ball. He said to Jefferson, "Will you be in the parade?"

"No, Mr. President," Jefferson said. "I have to hold the fort here in the

White House." He adjusted Kennedy's tie. "Everybody is waiting for you downstairs in the Red Room."

When Kennedy was ready, he shook Jefferson's hand. "Wish me luck," he said. And Jefferson went with him to the elevator. Two Secret Service men took him down to the ground floor.

In the Red Room they were all waiting for him. The Vice President, Helen Du Pray, was stunningly regal in white satin. The President's staff were reflections of the President, all in formal clothes. Arthur Wix, Oddblood Gray, Eugene Dazzy and Christian Klee formed their own little circle, solemn and tense with the importance of the day. Francis Kennedy smiled at them. His Vice President and these four men were his family.

When President Francis Xavier Kennedy stepped out of the White House, he was astonished to see a vast sea of humanity that filled every thoroughfare, that seemed to blot out all the majestic buildings, overflowed all the TV vans and media people behind their special ropes and marked grounds. He had never seen anything like it, and he called to Eugene Dazzy, "How many are out there?"

Dazzy said, "A hell of a lot more than we figured. Maybe we need a battalion of marines from the naval base to help us control traffic."

"No," the President said. He was surprised that Dazzy had responded to his question as if the multitudes were a danger. He thought it a triumph, a vindication of everything he had done since the tragedies of last Easter Sunday.

Francis Kennedy had never felt surer of himself. He had foreseen everything that would happen, the tragedies and the triumphs. He had made the right decisions and won his victory. He had vanquished his enemies.

He looked over at the huge crowd and felt an overwhelming love for the people of America. He would deliver them from their suffering, cleanse the earth itself.

Never had Francis Kennedy felt his mind so clear, his instincts so true. He had conquered his grief over the death of his wife, the murder of his daughter. The sorrow that had fogged his brain had cleared away. He was almost happy now.

It seemed to him that he had conquered fate and by his own perseverance and judgment had made possible this present and glorious future. He stepped out in the snow-filled air to be sworn in and then lead the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to start on his road to glory.

David Jatney had registered himself and Irene and Campbell in a motel a little over twenty miles from Washington, D.C., because the capital itself was jammed. The day before the inauguration, they drove into Washington to see the monuments, the White House, the Lincoln Memorial and all the other sights of the capital. David also scouted the route of the inaugural parade to discover the best place to stand.

On the great day they rose at dawn and had breakfast at a roadside diner.

Then they went back to the motel to dress in their best clothes. Irene was uncharacteristically careful setting and brushing her hair. She wore her best faded jeans, a red shirt and a green floppy sweater over it that David had never seen before. Had she kept it hidden or had she bought it here in Washington? he wondered. She had gone off by herself for a few hours, leaving Campbell with him.

It had snowed all night and the ground was covered white. Big flakes were lazily drifting through the air. In California there was no need for winter clothing, but on the trip East they had bought windbreakers, a bright red one for Campbell because Irene claimed she could easily find him then if he strayed, Jatney a serviceable bright blue, and Irene a creamy white, which made her look very pretty. She also bought a knitted cap of white wool and a tasseled cap for Campbell in bright red. Jatney preferred to be bareheaded he hated any kind of covering.

On this inauguration morning they bad time to spare, so they went out into the field behind the motel to build Campbell a snowman. Irene had a spasm of giddy happiness and threw snowballs at Campbell and Jatney.

They both very gravely received her missiles but did not throw any back.

Jatney wondered at this happiness in her. Could the thought of seeing Kennedy in the coming parade have caused it? Or was it the snow, so strange and magical to her California senses.

Campbell was entranced by the snow. He sifted it through his fingers, watching it disappear and melt in the sunshine. Then he began cautiously destroying the snowman with his fists, punching tiny holes in it, knocking off the head. Jatney and Irene stood a little distance away, watching him. Irene took Jatney's hand in hers, an unusual act of physical intimacy on her part.

"I have to tell you something," she said. "I've visited some people here in Washington-my friends in California told me to look them up. And these people are going to India and I'm going with them, me and Campbell. I've arranged to sell the van, but I'll give you money out of it so you can fly back to Los Angeles."

David let her hand go and put his hands in the pockets of his windbreaker. His right hand touched the leather glove' that held the.22 handgun, and for a moment he could see Irene lying on the ground, her blood eating up the snow.

When the anger came he was puzzled by it. After all, he had decided to come to Washington in the pitiful hope that he might see Rosemary, or meet her and Hock and Gibson Grange. He had dreamed these past days that he might even be invited to another dinner with them. That his life might change, that he would get a foot in the door that opened into power and glory. So wasn't it natural for Irene to want to go to India to open the door into a world she yearned for, to make herself something more than an ordinary woman with a small child working at jobs that could never lead to anything? Let her go, he thought.

Irene said, "Don't be mad. You don't even like me anymore. You would have ditched me if it hadn't been for Campbell." She was smiling, a little mockingly but with a touch of sadness.

"That's right," David Jatney said. "You shouldn't take the little kid to wherever the hell you feel like going. You can barely look out for him here."

That made her angry. "Campbell is my child," she said. "I'll bring him up as I please. And I'll take him to the North Pole if I want to."

She paused for a moment and then said, "You don't know anything about it. And I think you're getting a little queer about Campbell."

Again he saw the snow stained with her blood, little flashing rivers, a prickling of red dots. But he said with complete control, "What exactly do you mean?"

"You're a little weird, you know," Irene said. "That's why I liked you in the beginning. But I don't know exactly how weird you are. I worry about leaving Campbell with you sometimes."

"You thought that, and then you left him with me anyway?" Jatney said.

"Oh, I know you wouldn't harm him," Irene said. "But I just thought me and Campbell should split and go on to India."

"It's OK," David said.

They let Campbell completely destroy the snowman, then they all got into the van and started the twenty-mile drive into Washington. When they pulled into the interstate, they were astonished to see it full of cars and buses as far as the eye could see. They managed to inch into the traffic, but it took four hours before the endless monstrous steel caterpillar spilled them into the capital.

The inaugural parade wound through the broad avenues of Washington, led by the presidential cavalcade of limousines. It progressed slowly, the enormous crowd overflowing the police barricades at spots and impeding progress. The wall of uniformed police began to crumble under the millions of people who pushed against them.

Three cars full of Secret Service men preceded Kennedy's limousine with its bulletproof glass bubble. Kennedy stood inside that glass bubble so that he could acknowledge the cheers of the multitude as he rode through Washington. Little waves of people surged up to the limousine itself, then were driven back by the inner circle of Secret Service men outside the car. But each little wave of frantic worshipers seemed to lap closer and closer. The inner circle of guards were pressed back against the presidential limousine.

The car directly behind Francis Kennedy held more Secret Service men armed with heavy automatic weapons, and other Secret Service men on foot ran alongside it. The next limousine carried Christian Klee, Oddblood Gray, Arthur Wix and Eugene Dazzy. The limousines were barely moving, Pennsylvania Avenue was becoming awash with the crowd, stopping the advance of the cavalcade. Majestically, large flakes of snow descended and formed a white mantle over the crowd.

The car carrying the presidential staff came to a complete stop, and Oddblood Gray looked out the window. "Oh shit, the President is getting out and walking," he said.

"If he's walking we have to walk with him," Eugene Dazzy said.

Gray looked at Christian Klee, and said, "Look-Helen's getting out of her car, too. This is dangerous. Chris, you have to stop him. Use that veto of yours."

"I haven't got it anymore," Klee said.

Arthur Wix said, "I think you'd better call a whole lot more Secret Service men down here."

They all got out of the car and formed a wall to march behind their President.

The large snowflakes were still swirling in the air, but they felt no more substantial on the body of Francis Kennedy than the Communion wafer had felt on his tongue when he was a child. For the first time he wanted to touch physically the people who loved him. He walked up the avenue and shook the hands of those people who pierced the policemanned barriers and then the ring of Secret Service men assembled around him. Every so often a tiny wave of spectators managed to wash through, pushed on by the mass of a million spectators behind them. They crested over the Secret Service men who had tried to form a wider circle around their President. Francis Kennedy shook the hands of these men and women and kept his pace. He could feel his hair getting wet from the snow, but the cold air exhilarated him, as did the adulation of the crowd. He was not conscious of any tiredness, or discomfort, though there was an alarming numbness in his right arm and his right hand was swollen from being gripped so often and so harshly; Secret Service men were literally tearing the devoted supporters away from their President. A pretty young woman in a creamy windbreaker had tried to keep holding his hand and he had had to wrench it back to safety.

David Jatney pushed out a space in the crowd that would shelter himself and Irene, who held Campbell in her arms because he would have been trampled otherwise-the crowd kept shifting in waves like an ocean.

They were no more than four hundred yards from the viewing stands when the presidential limousine came into their line of sight. It was followed by official cars holding dignitaries– Behind them was the endless crowd that would pass before the viewing stand in the inaugural parade. David estimated that the presidential limousine was a little more than the length of a football field away from his vantage point. Then he noticed that parts of the crowd lining the avenue had surged out into the avenue itself and forced the cavalcade to halt.

Irene screamed, "He's getting out. He's walking. Oh, my God, I have to touch him." She slung Campbell into Jatney's arms and tried to duck under the barrier, but one of the long line of uniformed police stopped her. She ran along the curb and made it through the initial picket line of policemen only to be stopped by the inner barrier of Secret Service men. Jatney watched her, thinking, If only Irene were smarter, she would have kept

Campbell in her arms. The Secret Service men would have recognized that she was not a threat and she might have slipped through while they were thrusting back the others. He could see her being swept back to the curb, and then another wave of people swept her up again and she was one of the few people who managed to slip through and shake the President's hand and then was kissing the President on the cheek before she was roughly pulled away.

David could see that Irene would never make it back to him and Campbell. She was just a tiny dot in the mass of people that was now threatening to engulf the broad expanse of the avenue. More and more people were pressing against the outer security rim of uniformed police; more and more were hitting against the inner rim of Secret Service men. Both rims were showing cracks. Campbell was beginning to cry, so Jatney reached into the pocket of his windbreaker for one of the candy bars he usually carried for the boy.

And then David Jatney felt a suffusion of warmth through his body. He thought of the past days in Washington, the sight of the many buildings erected to establish the authority of the state: the marble columns of the Supreme Court and the memorials, the stately splendor of the faradesindle structible, irremovable. He thought of Hock's office in its splendor, guarded by his secretaries, he thought of the Mormon Church in Utah with its temples blessed by special and particularly discovered angels. All these to designate certain men as superior to their fellows. To keep ordinary men like himself in their place. And to direct all love on to themselves. Presidents, gurus, Mormon elders built their intimidating edifices to wall themselves away from the rest of humanity, and knowing well the envy of the world, guarded themselves against hate. Jatney remembered his glorious victory in the "hunts" of the university; he had been a hero then, that one time in his life. Now he patted Campbell soothingly to make him stop crying. In his pocket, underneath the cold steel of the.22, his hand found the candy bar and gave it to Campbell.

Then, still holding the boy in his arms, he stepped from the curb and ducked under the barriers.

David Jatney was filled with wonder and then a fierce elation. It would be easy. More of the crowd were overflowing the outer rim of uniformed police; more of those were piercing the inner rim of Secret Service agents and getting to shake the President's hand. Those two barriers were crumbling, the invaders marching alongside Kennedy and waving their arms to show their devotion. Jatney ran toward the oncoming President, a wave of spectators piercing the wooden barriers carrying him along. Now he was just outside the ring of Secret Service men who were trying to keep everyone away from the President. But there no longer were enough of them. And with a sort of glee he saw that they had discounted him. Cradling Campbell in his left arm, he put his right hand in the windbreaker and felt the leather glove; his fingers moved onto the trigger. At that moment the ring of Secret Service men crumbled, and he was inside the magic circle. Just ten feet away he saw Francis Kennedy shaking hands with a wild-looking ecstatic teenager. Kennedy seemed very slim, very tall, and older than he appeared on television. Still holding Campbell in his arms, Jatney took a step toward Kennedy.

At that moment a very handsome black man blocked him off. His hand was extended. For a frantic moment Jatney thought he had seen the gun in his pocket and was demanding it. Then he realized that the man looked familiar and that he was just offering a handshake. They stared at each other for a long moment; Jatney looked down at the extended black hand, the black face smiling above it. And then he saw the man's eyes gleam with suspicion, the hand suddenly withdrawn. Jatney with a convulsive wrenching of all his bodily muscles threw Campbell at the black man and drew his gun from the windbreaker.

Oddblood Gray knew, in that moment when Jatney stared into his face, that something terrible was going to happen. He let the boy fall to the ground, and then with a quick shift of his feet put his body in front of the slowly advancing Francis Kennedy.

He saw the gun.

Christian Klee, walking to the right and a little behind Francis Kennedy, was using the cellular phone to call for more Secret Service men to help clear the crowd out of the President's path. He saw the man holding the child approach the phalanx guarding Kennedy. And then for just one second he saw the man's face clearly.

It was some vague nightmare coming through-the reality did not sink in. The face he had called up on his computer screen these past nine months, the life he had monitored with computer and surveillance teams had suddenly sprung out of that shadowy mythology into the real world.

He saw the face not in the repose of surveillance photos but in the throes of exalted emotion. And he was struck by how the handsome face had become so ugly, as if seen through some distorted glass.

Klee was already moving quickly toward Jatney, still not believing the image, trying to certify his nightmare, when he saw Gray stretch out his hand. And Christian felt a tremendous feeling of relief. The man could not be Jatney, he was just a guy holding his kid and trying to touch a piece of history.

But then he saw the child in his red windbreaker and little woolen hat being hurled through the air. He saw the gun in Jatney's hand. And he saw Gray fall.

Suddenly Christian Klee, in the sheer terror of his crime, ran toward Jatney and took the second bullet in the face. The bullet traveled through his palate, making him choke on the blood, then there was a blinding pain in his left eye. He was still conscious when he fell. He tried to cry out, but his mouth was full of shattered teeth and crumbled flesh. And he felt a great sense of loss and helplessness. In his shattered brain, his last neurons flashed with thoughts of Francis Kennedy, be wanted to warn him of death, to ask his forgiveness. Christian's brain then flicked out, and his head with its empty eye socket came to rest in a light powdery pillow of snow.

In that same moment Francis Kennedy turned full toward David Jatney. He saw Oddblood fall. Then Christian. And in that moment, all his nightmares, all his memories of other deaths, all his terrors of a malign fate crystallized into paralyzed astonishment and resignation. And in that moment he heard a tremendous vibration in the world, felt for a tiny fraction of a second only the explosion of steel in his brain. He fell.

David Jatney could not believe it had all happened. The black man lay where he had fallen. The white man alongside. The President of the United States was crumpling before his eyes, legs bent outward, arms flying up into the air as his knees finally hit the ground. David Jatney kept firing. Hands were tearing at his gun, at his body. He tried to run, and as he turned he saw the multitude rise and swarm like a great wave toward him and countless hands reach out to him. His face covered with blood, he felt his ear being ripped off the side of his head and saw it in one of the hands. Suddenly something happened to his eyes and he could not see. His body was racked with pain for one single moment and then he felt nothing.

The TV cameraman, his all-seeing eye on his shoulder, had recorded everything for the people of the world. When the gun flashed into sight, he had backed away just enough steps so that everyone would be included in the frame. He caught David Jatney raising the gun, he caught Oddblood Gray making his amazing jump in front of the President and go down, and then Klee receiving a bullet in his face and going down. He caught Francis Kennedy making his turn to face the killer and the killer firing, the bullet twisting Kennedy's head as if he were in a hammerlock.

He caught Jatney's look of stem determination as Francis Kennedy fell and the Secret Service men frozen in that terrible moment, all their training for immediate response wiped out in shock. And then he saw Jatney trying to run and being overwhelmed by the multitude. But the cameraman did not get the final shot, which he would regret for the rest of his life. The crowd tearing David Jatney to pieces.

Over the city, washing through the marble buildings and the monuments of power, rose the great wail of millions of worshipers who had lost their dreams.

CHAPTER 27

PRESIDENT HELEN DU PRAY held the Oracle's one-hundredth birthday party in the White House on Palm Sunday, three months after the death of Francis Kennedy.

Dressed to understate her beauty, she stood in the Rose Garden and surveyed her guests. Among them were the former staff members of the Kennedy administration. Eugene Dazzy was chatting with Elizabeth Stone and Sal Troyca.

Eugene Dazzy had already been told his dismissal was to take effect the next month. Helen Du Pray had never really liked the man. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Dazzy had young mistresses and was indeed already being excessively charming to Elizabeth Stone.

President Du Pray had appointed Elizabeth Stone to her staff-, Sal Troyca came with the package. But Elizabeth was exactly what she needed. A woman with extraordinary energy, a brilliant administrator, and a feminist who understood political realities. And Sal Troyca was not so bad; indeed he was a fortifying element with his knowledge of the trickeries of the Congress and his low brand of cunning, which could sometimes be so valuable to more sophisticated intelligences, such as Elizabeth Stone's and indeed, thought Du Pray, her own. '

After Du Pray assumed the presidency she had been briefed by Kennedy's staff and other insiders of the administration. She had studied all the proposed legislation that the new Congress would consider. She had ordered that all the secret memos be assembled for her, all the detailed plans, including the now infamous Alaska work camps.

After a month of study it became horrifyingly clear to her that Francis Kennedy, with the purest of motives, to better the lot of the people of the United States, would have become the first dictator in American history.

From where she stood in the Rose Garden, the trees not yet in full leaf,

President Du Pray could see the faraway Lincoln Memorial and the arching white of the Washington Monument, noble symbols of the city that was the capital of America. Here in the garden were all the representatives of America, at her special invitation. She had made peace with the enemies of the Kennedy administration.

Present were Louis Inch, a man she despised, but whose help she would need. And George Greenwell, Martin Mutford, Bert Audick and Lawrence Salentine. The infamous Socrates Club. She would have to come to terms with all of them, which was why she had invited them to the White House for the Oracle's birthday party. She would at least give them the option of helping build a new America, as Kennedy had not.

But Helen Du Pray knew that America could not be rebuilt without accommodations on all sides. Also, she knew that in a few years there would be a more conservative Congress elected. She could not hope to persuade the nation as Kennedy, with his charisma and personal romantic history, had done.

She saw Dr. Zed Annaccone seated beside the Oracle's wheelchair. The doctor was probably trying to get the old man to donate his brain to science. And Dr. Annaccone was another problem. His PET brain-scan test was already being discussed in various scientific papers. Du Pray had always seen its virtues and its dangers. She felt it was a problem that should be carefully considered over a long period of time. A government with the capacity to find out the infallible truth could be very dangerous. True, such a test would root out crime and political corruption; it could reform the whole legal structure of society. But there were complicated truths, there were status quo truths, and then was it not true that at certain moments in history, truth could bring a halt to certain evolutionary changes? And what about the psyche of a people who knew the various truths about themselves could be exposed?

She glanced at the comer of the Rose Garden where Oddblood Gray and Arthur Wix were sitting in wicker chairs and talking animatedly. Gray was now seeing a psychiatrist every day for depression. The psychiatrist had told Gray that after the events of the past year it was perfectly normal for him to be suffering from depression. So why the hell was he going to a psychiatrist?

In the Rose Garden the Oracle was now the center of attraction. The birthday cake was being presented to him, a huge cake that covered the entire garden table. On the top, colored in red, white and blue spun sugar, was the Stars and Stripes. The TV cameras moved in; they caught for the nation the sight of the Oracle blowing out the hundred birthday candles. And blowing with him were President Du Pray, Oddblood Gray, Eugene Dazzy, Arthur Wix and the members of the Socrates Club.

The Oracle accepted a piece of cake and then allowed himself to be interviewed by Cassandra Chutt, who had managed this coup with the help of Lawrence Salentine. Cassandra Chutt had already made her introductory re marks while the candles were being blown out. Now she asked, "How does it feel to be one hundred years old?"

The Oracle glared at her malevolently, and at that moment he looked so evil that Cassandra Chutt was glad that this show was being taped for the evening. God, the man was ugly, his head a mass of liver spots, the scaly skin as shiny as scar tissue, the mouth almost nonexistent. For a moment she was afraid that he was deaf, so she repeated herself. She said, "How does it feel to be a century old?"

The Oracle smiled, his facial skin cracking into countless wrinkles. "Are you a fucking idiot?" he said. He caught sight of his face in one of the TV monitors, and it broke his heart. Suddenly he hated his birthday party. He looked directly into the camera and said, "Where's Christian?"

President Helen Du Pray sat by the Oracle's wheelchair and held his hand.

The Oracle was sleeping, the very light sleep of old men waiting for death.

The party in the Rose Garden went on without him.

Helen remembered herself as a young woman, one of the prot6g6es of the Oracle. She had admired him so much. He had an intellectual grace, a turn of wit, a natural vivacity and joy in life that was everything she herself wanted to have.

Did it matter that he always tried to form a sexual liaison? She remembered the years before and how hurt she had been when his friendship had turned into lechery. She ran her fingers over the scaly skin of his withered hand. She had followed the destiny of power, while most women followed the destiny of love. Were the victories of love sweeter?

Helen Du Pray thought of her own destiny and that of America. She was still astonished that after all the terrible events of the past year the country had settled down so peacefully. True, she had been partly responsible for that; her skill and intelligence had extinguished the fire in the country.

But still…

She had wept at the death of Kennedy; in a small way she had loved him. She had loved the tragedy written into the bones of his beautifully planed face. She had loved his idealism, his vision of what America could be. She had loved his personal integrity, his purity and selflessness, his lack of interest in material things. And yet despite all this she had come to know that he was a dangerous man.

Helen Du Pray realized that now she had to guard against the belief in her own righteousness. She believed that in a world of such peril, humankind could not solve its problems with strife but only with a never-ending patience. She would do the best she could, and in her heart try not to feel hatred for her enemies.

At that moment the Oracle opened his eyes and smiled. He pressed her hand and began to speak. His voice was very low, and she bent her head close to his wrinkled mouth. "Don't worry," the Oracle said. "You will be a great President."

Helen Du Pray for a moment felt a desire to weep as a child might when praised, for fear of failure. She looked about her in the Rose Garden filled with the most powerful men and women of America. She would have their help, most of them; some she would have to guard against. But most of all she would have to guard against herself.

She thought again of Francis Kennedy. He lay now with his two famous uncles, loved as they had been. And his daughter. Well, Helen Du Pray thought, I will be the best of what Francis was, I will do the best of what he hoped to do. And then, holding tightly to the Oracle's hand, she pondered on the simplicities of evil and the dangerous deviousness of good.