Prentice used his gavel. "I can personally assure the distinguished senator," he said, bearing down on the word "distinguished," "that our communications are secure. Now, unless the senator wishes to force a vote of the committee, I think we will proceed. If there are no other questions for General Scott, we will hear Admiral Palmer."
He glanced at the other senators. None of them spoke and Prentice brought the gavel down again. "Without objection. Admiral Palmer."
The Admiral's testimony consumed a half hour. When he finished and the meeting was adjourned, Clark stopped briefly at his own office and then left the building to eat lunch. The rain had slackened to a drizzle, but the overcast still hung oppressively low. From the office building only a faint outline of the Capitol dome, half a block away, could be seen.
General Scott's limousine, its four-star tag on the front bumper, stood at the curb. Scott was holding the door open for someone. Even from behind him Clark recognized the square bulk of Senator Prentice. The two settled on the rear seat and the car pulled away on the wet asphalt.
As it did so, a gray sedan slithered out of a parking place down the block, heading in the same direction. When it passed Clark, he noticed the driver. He had seen him hundreds of times: it was Art Corwin.
So you've put us all to work already, Jordie, thought Clark. Well, you'd better, Yankee boy. There's plenty to find out-and maybe not much time left to find it out in.
Christ, he thought, I need a drink.
Clark hesitated on the sidewalk, made a half-motion to turn back toward his office. Then he jammed his hands in his raincoat pockets and stepped doggedly off the curb toward the restaurant he had decided on earlier. It was only a block away, the food was good-and it was operated by the Methodist Church.
Tuesday Afternoon
Shortly before two o'clock, Esther Townsend brought a brown manila envelope to President Lyman, who was in the upstairs study.
"You didn't ask for this, Governor," she said, "but Art Corwin thought you might want it before the meeting. Don't ask me how he got it."
Lyman cut the envelope open and drew out a thin cardboard folder. The tab on the side, lettered by hand in ink, read: "CASEY, Martin Jerome." It was Colonel Casey's service record; Lyman suddenly realized that though he was commander in chief of the armed forces, he had never before seen an officer's service file. He thumbed through it, retracing Casey's career in the biographical card, proficiency reports, medical examinations, and citations. Quite a substantial officer, he thought. Indeed, quite a brave officer. A sheaf of papers near the end of the file caught his attention and he read them carefully.
Lyman went up to the third floor, crossed the hall, and walked up the little ramp to the solarium. He found Christopher Todd already established in one of the heavy leather chairs. Jordan Lyman didn't use this room often, but he liked it. Added by Harry Truman when the house was rebuilt in 1951, it was all plate glass, steel, and linoleum tile, low-ceilinged and unadorned, completely unlike any other room in the mansion. Eisenhower had used it for bridge games. The Kennedys removed the wicker furniture, added a couple of knee-high sinks in an alcove, and turned it into a playroom for Caroline and John Jr. The Fraziers left it that way for their own grandchildren, but Doris Lyman had redone it as a hideaway for her husband. Lyman retained one memento from Caroline's tenancy-a blue plastic duck which squatted quizzically on the window sill.
The morning rain and noontime drizzle had subsided into a solid mist that beaded the angular, five-panel window and made the room seem almost like the bridge of a ship at sea in a heavy fog.
"This isn't the most cheerful room in the house on a day like this," grumbled Todd. "I feel like a man trying to navigate the Sound in a pea-souper."
"I know what you mean," Lyman said, "but there's no telephone up here and only one door. Maybe no place is secure enough for our kind of business, but I feel better here."
Todd pointed to the little bar in the alcove. A half dozen bottles and an ice bucket stood ready.
"Do you think it's a good idea to tempt Senator Clark that way?" he asked.
"Look, Chris, I know Ray has hit the bottle pretty hard for the last couple of years-since Martha died. But in a pinch he's all right, better than most of us. I happen to know that from Korea."
"In Korea he hadn't met his wife and lost her," Todd argued. "It looks like an engraved invitation to me."
"It's all right," said the President with a note of finality.
Girard, Clark and Corwin turned up, one at a time, in the next few minutes, and Casey stepped through the doorway with military punctuality at just two o'clock. Lyman introduced him to Todd, who had never met him. Casey fidgeted as the Treasury chief appraised him from crew cut to cordovans, much as he might eye the timbers and rigging of a new sloop.
When they were all seated, the President put on his glasses and pulled two pages from the envelope containing Casey's service record.
"This is a report on Colonel Casey's last complete medical examination," he explained. "It was done at Bethesda two years ago, when he was promoted to colonel. I won't read it all, but I think you will be interested in one comment from the psychiatrist who examined him. Quote: 'This officer is normal in all respects. He exhibits no anxieties, has no phobias and is free from even the minor psychiatric disturbances common to a man of his age. Few men examined by this department could be given such a clean bill of mental health.' Unquote."
Lyman, Clark and Corwin grinned at Casey as the Marine reddened slightly.
"Well," Casey said, "I thought I might be going nuts this morning until Miss Townsend called me. It was the longest four hours of my life."
"Be happy to be regarded as totally sane, Colonel," said Todd. "There are few men in this city of whom as much could be said with confidence."
"I took this rather unorthodox step," said Lyman, "because I wanted to settle all doubts at once. Jiggs may be mistaken in his analysis of recent events-that we'll find out-but he's produced it out of a sound mind. Now, I think the best way to proceed is to turn things over to Chris Todd. He's the prosecuting attorney, so to speak, and at least for this afternoon it's his show."
The Cabinet officer pulled black-framed spectacles from his breast pocket and reached into his portfolio for the yellow legal-length scratch pad.
"We all know Colonel Casey's story," Todd began, "but as I understand it, he is not aware of several things President Lyman mentioned to the rest of us."
Speaking to Casey, Todd told of General Rutkowski's call several months before; of Vice-President Gianelli's revelation that Prentice had suggested he spend the weekend in his ancestral village in Italy; of the FBI file on Harold MacPherson's extremist affiliations, and of Scott's insistence that Lyman fly from Camp David to Mount Thunder for the alert without accompanying newspapermen.
"If you'd known all that, Jiggs, you might have brought the Marines with you last night," quipped Clark.
"The Marines," said Todd coldly, "are reported to be with General Scott this week, Ray, or hadn't you heard?"
Casey looked at Lyman. He was obviously anxious to say something, and the President nodded.
"You don't know it, Mr. Secretary," Casey said, "but General Scott urged me-no, ordered is more like it- to take a three-day leave this morning. I was home before noon."
"Any reason?" asked Todd.
"No, sir, not much. He just said I looked tired and ought to take some time off. Of course, he may have heard something from Murdock or one of the guards at Fort Myer."