The Attorney General absorbed this. Nick Katzenbach was not telling him anything he had not already thought about and lost countless hours of sleep over. He came to a decision. Much as he hated to have to do it Bobby Kennedy realised it was time for him to put his cards on the table.
“Jack may not stand for re-election next year,” he announced softly.
The Deputy Attorney General did not need to pause for reflection.
“Because of his health?”
“That and other things.”
“Does LBJ know?”
Bobby Kennedy shook his head.
“No.” Lyndon Baines Johnson had become the invisible man of the Administration. He was around a lot but Cabinet members largely ignored his presence. If the former master of the Senate had not been so valuable keeping the lid on a fractious and increasingly rebellious House of Representatives, he would have been completely sidelined many months ago.
“We both know that LBJ will already know about the President’s illness.” Katzenbach hated what he was about to say. “I’m having a lot of trouble with the fact he has not been ‘formally’ notified of the President’s ‘condition’, Bobby.”
The Attorney General said nothing.
“The news will get out sooner or later,” his deputy continued, telling his boss exactly what he already knew but really did not want to hear.
“If you’re worried about it I’ll draft you a waiver to the effect that you were working under my orders for national security reasons,” Bobby Kennedy offered.
“Dammit, Bobby!” The other man barked. “I don’t want a get out of jail pass on this one! I want the Administration to be able to claim that the Vice-President was fully cognisant of Jack’s ‘problem’ and that he was ready to step up to the plate ‘at any time’ if the worst happened.”
The President’s younger brother instantly raised a hand in apology.
“Sorry, Nick. If this goes on much longer somebody will have to talk to LBJ. You’re absolutely right. But give it a few more days. The White House Press Office is going to put out a release about Jack having come back from Texas with a bout of influenza. You know, the normal thing, he’s been laid low but he’s recuperating and the normal operation of the Administration has not been disrupted. That ought to stop the media poking around for a few more days. In the meantime the National Security team at the White House has things under control and…”
Bobby Kennedy’s voice trailed off because the United States Deputy Attorney General was giving him a sardonically quizzical look.
He redrew his last comment.
“Well. Yes, okay. The National Security team has things as under control as they have been for the last thirteen months, leastways.”
Chapter 19
Lieutenant Walter Brenckmann had been more than a little surprised when he discovered that the traumatised country club waitress and the blond aide to the Governor of California already knew each other. This being the case he was not surprised when Miranda Sullivan peremptorily decided that the rest of the ‘interview’ would be conducted outside in the garden behind the old house situated within a stone’s throw of the University campus.
Their FBI hosts were upset.
“It isn’t safe in the grounds.”
“Rubbish,” Miranda Sullivan decided. She treated the G-men’s subsequent terse objections with what amounted to imperious contempt. After about a minute of batting the problem around the back parlour of the big wood-framed house the FBI had appeared briefly to have caved in. Then there was a new argument about whether an agent should ‘supervise’ the ‘discussions’.
Inside, outside, with or without an FBI minder present mattered not one jot to Walter Brenckmann. He wanted to hear what Darlene Lefebure had to say so he could write up his report, get on with organising the ceremonial arrangements for Admiral Braithwaite’s funeral, and hopefully, sometime before Christmas, get home to visit his mother and younger brother, Dan, in New England. However, Miranda Sullivan clearly had a completely different agenda and once she got into her stride she was a real force of nature.
The FBI had no chance.
It was pleasantly cool in the garden. The lawn had once been carefully trimmed at regular intervals, but bushes and shrubs, weeds and vines had begun to encroach and a high, newly-erected timber plank fence now enclosed the area behind the house.
Miranda led the naval officer and the ashen faced, shorter, slightly younger woman beyond the chairs on the patio and away from the building.
“Is there something you ought to be telling me, Miss Sullivan?” Walter inquired lowly.
“The house is probably bugged,” she explained testily. “And I didn’t want to advertise the fact that Miss Lefebure and I have met before. Although, at that time — the time when we met, that is — we did not know each other’s names.”
Walter was clearly intrigued and this further vexed the tall blond.
“It was you!” Darlene Lefebure hissed. “I thought it was!”
“It was at a party on the night of the war,” Miranda whispered, trying not to let her agitation become overly apparent to the watching FBI men.
Walter Brenckmann took a mental step back, reminding himself why he was here in Berkeley.
“Does that have any bearing on what we’re doing here today?” He asked flatly.
“No!” Miranda reconsidered. “I don’t know.”
“What happened to Dwayne after that night?” The other woman demanded, almost pleading with Miranda.
“Dwayne?”
“My boyfriend!” Darlene Lefebure cried it so loudly that the Special Agents circling the trio at a safe distance all turned to look at them. “Dwayne John? The black boy I was with that night at Johnny Seiffert’s place?”
The blood, which had briefly drained from Miranda’s face, now returned with a rush flushing her cheeks near crimson.
“Dwayne John? I didn’t know his name, sorry.”
Darlene Lefebure’s face creased into a childish scowl.
“What do you mean? You didn’t know his name? After I went out that night the police told me to go back inside. When I went back to Johnny’s place Dwayne was on top of you!” The shorter woman’s eyes glittered with outraged hostility. “Your ankles were crossed behind his neck!”
Walter Brenckmann wrongly imagined, for a moment, that he got the picture. He opened his mouth to suggest that perhaps this was neither the time nor the place for the two women to resolve their little ménage à trois situation with ‘Dwayne John’, whoever he was. However, he got no opportunity to inject what he hoped was an element of reason into the discussion.
Events had gathered their own inexorable pace by then.
“You didn’t even notice I was there until I started screaming!” Darlene Lefebure hissed, squaring up to Miranda as if she was about to slap or claw at her face.
“I was,” Miranda started to reply.
“The first thing these guys,” Darlene Lefebure cut her off angrily, “asked me about when they brought me here was Dwayne. They’ve got him in a lockup someplace across the Bay. They’re trying to get him sent back to Jackson for kidnapping, raping and transporting a minor across a state line! They said if I don’t do what they say it’ll be bad for Dwayne!”
Walter was so stunned by this development that he spoke before he let his brain work through the possibilities.
“This man? Dwayne John? He abducted and raped a minor, a child?”