Girard was silent for what seemed to Casey like half an hour. Then he spoke again, all business.
"Well, how about tomorrow morning? I can fit you in at eight-thirty."
"That'll be twelve hours wasted," Casey said. "Besides, I can only come at night."
"Oh." There was another pause. Then: "Hang on, Jiggs. Let me talk to The Man and see what I can do."
Casey loosened his shirt, pushed the door of the booth open a foot or so, and lit a cigarette. It was half gone when Girard's voice came through the phone again.
"Okay, Jiggs. Be here at eight-thirty sharp tonight. Come in the east entrance. I'll be waiting for you. And I sure hope it's as important as you said, because the President hates any nighttime stuff."
"Thanks, Paul," said Casey. "It's important. And Paul, tell the President all you know about me. He's got to hear me out."
Monday Night
Casey left his car in a garage on F Street and walked around the block past the Treasury building. The softness of evening had dropped over the city like a veil, blurring the sharp edges of daytime. The statue of Albert Gallatin in front of the Treasury seemed friendly, almost lifelike, in the dusk. There were few people on Pennsylvania Avenue, for Washington, unlike Paris or London, withdraws into itself after sunset. It is a habit that Europeans patronize but which Americans feel lends a kind of lonely dignity to their capital. Casey was simply thankful for the lack of pedestrians on the streets; he did not care, to be seen just then.
He had viewed the scene scores of times: the great elms arching over the sidewalk from the White House lawn, the last white-capped guide still prowling the corner in quest of a late tourist, the handful of bench sitters dozing in Lafayette Park, the glow from the great hanging lantern on the White House portico. Tonight the calm setting seemed somehow unreal, strangely detached from his own mission.
Casey turned the corner down East Executive Avenue and walked quickly to the east gate, where a White House policeman stood outside his cubicle. In the semicircular driveway beyond, Girard was waiting, his eyelids half lowered like tiny curtains in the big head, his hands jammed in his pants pockets. "Here's my man, officer," he said. "He's okay." Girard made no effort to suppress his curiosity as they walked along the wide ground-floor hallway through the east wing to the mansion itself. "What the devil is this all about, Jiggs?" "Paul, I told you I can't tell you about it. That's got to be up to the President. Did you brief him on me?"
"Sure." Girard paused before he pressed the elevator button. "Listen, Jiggs, I hope this isn't more trouble. The Man's got all the headaches he can stand right now."
The elevator doors slid open and they stepped into the little car. With walnut paneling, rich brown carpeting, and two oval windows in the doors, it seemed almost like a small room. Girard motioned Casey off at the second floor and led him across the cavernous hall-actually a great room in itself-that swept almost the whole width of the mansion.
The President's study was oval in shape. Casey guessed that it must be directly above the ornate Blue Room on the first floor. Here, in the living quarters, the colors were warmer, thanks to soft yellow carpeting and slip covers, but the study was still far too large for Casey's taste or comfort. Its high ceiling, pilastered walls, tall bookcases, and shoulder-high marble mantel combined to make him feel a little less than life-size. President Lyman was reading, his big feet all but hiding the footstool on which they rested, when Casey and Girard entered. An Irish setter with silky red-brown hair and sad eyes lay curled on a little hooked rug beside the President's chair. Lyman laid his glasses on a table, stood up quickly and came forward smiling, his large hand extended. The dog accompanied him and sniffed gravely at the cuffs of Casey's trousers.
"Hello, Colonel. It's a pleasure to see you outside of business hours."
"If this isn't business," Girard said, "I'll strangle him." He returned to the door. "I'll leave you two alone."
"Colonel," said Lyman as the door closed, "meet Trimmer. He's a political dog. He has absolutely no convictions, but he's loyal to his friends."
"I've read about him, sir," said Casey. "Good evening, Trimmer."
"Ever been up here before, Colonel?"
"No, sir. Just social occasions downstairs. Awful big rooms, sir."
Lyman laughed. "Too big for living and too small for conventions. I don't blame Harry Truman and the others for getting out of here every time they had the chance. Sometimes it gives me the creeps." Lyman swept his arm around the room, his bony wrist thrusting out of the shirt cuff.
"Still, for a place big enough to hold a ball in, this room is about as cozy as you could expect. They tell me it used to be pretty stiff until Mrs. Kennedy did it over in this yellow. And she found that old footstool somewhere. The Fraziers left it that way and Doris and I decided we couldn't improve on it either."
Casey was vastly ill at ease. He was no stranger to high officials, including this President, but somehow even Lyman's small talk, though obviously intended to relax him, made the nature of his errand suddenly seem to dwindle in dimension. What had been real and immediate in the roar of Great Falls now looked fuzzy and a bit improbable. He stood somewhat stiffly.
"Drink, Colonel?"
"Why ... yes, sir. Scotch, please, sir. A little on the pale side, if you don't mind."
"Fine. I'll keep you company."
The drinks mixed, the two men sat down in the yellow-covered armchairs with a little end table between them. Trimmer settled down again on his rug, his eyes on Casey. Over the white marble mantel, the prim features of Healy's Euphemia Van Rensselaer looked down on them, not altogether approvingly. Casey was facing the tall triple windows which provided, through sheer mesh curtains, a vista of the darkening Ellipse. The fountain on the south lawn raised its stream of water below the balcony. Far away, down by the tidal basin, stood the domed colonnade of the Jefferson Memorial, its central statue softly spotlighted. A little to the left, and much closer, rose the gray-white shaft of the Washington Monument, red lights at its top as a warning to low-flying aircraft.
"And now, Colonel. That matter of national security." Lyman's eyes were on Casey.
Casey licked his lips, hesitated a moment and then began just as he had rehearsed it on the drive from home.
"Mr. President," he asked, "have you ever heard of a military unit known as ECOMCON?"
"No, I don't believe I have. What does it mean?" "I'm not sure, sir, but in normal military abbreviations, I'd think it would stand for something like 'Emergency Communications Control.' "
"Never heard of anything like that," the President said.
Casey took his second step.
"I know a colonel isn't supposed to question his commander in chief, sir, but have you ever authorized the formation of any type of secret unit, regardless of its name, that has something to do with preserving the security of things like telephones, or television and radio?"
Lyman leaned forward, puzzled. "No, I haven't."
"Excuse me again, sir, but one more question. Do you know of the existence of a secret army installation that has been set up somewhere near El Paso recently?"
"The answer is 'no' again, Colonel. Why?"
"Well, sir, I hadn't heard of it either, until yesterday. And as the director of the Joint Staff I'm fully cleared and I'm supposed to know everything that goes on in the military establishment. That's even more true of you, sir, as commander in chief."
Lyman sipped his drink for the first time. Casey reached gratefully for his own highball and took a swallow before he went on.
"In a way I'm relieved that you said 'no' to those questions, Mr. President, but in a way I'm not. I mean, if you had said you knew all about ECOMCON, I'd have said thanks and apologized for bothering you and asked permission to go home. I'd have been pretty embarrassed. But the way it is, Mr. President, it's worse. I'm frightened, sir."