Not until the General crossed the Potomac on Chain Bridge did Corwin feel easier. Tailing in city traffic was a cinch; he dropped back four or five cars. Scott drove across to Massachusetts Avenue and turned toward the heart of the city. Corwin followed him through two traffic circles before the chairman turned off into a side street that led to the rear of a huge new apartment building. When Scott drove into the back parking lot, Corwin parked on the street nearby.
He saw Scott and Riley walk past a lighted sign ("The Dobney: Tenant Parking Only") and into the underground garage. From his angle, he could see only their legs and feet as they crossed the room and turned into a side corridor. He waited until they had time to get into an elevator, then followed them. The hallway dead-ended at the freight elevator.
Well now, he thought, that's a strange way for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to go calling.
Corwin went back to his car, drove into the back lot and parked about a dozen places away from Scott's automobile. On a hunch, he fished into his glove compartment and got out the pocket-sized Congressional Directory he always carried. He looked up Prentice, Frederick, Senator from California. Sure enough. Residence: The Dobney.
A few minutes later a yellow taxicab drove up and parked. Corwin recognized it as belonging to the fleet which had the concession at Dulles International Airport. He also recognized the passenger who got out. He was tall, angular, and walked with a slight forward hunch of his shoulders. He wore a blue lightweight suit with a high sheen-the kind Corwin called an "electric suit."
Well, I've done my homework pretty well, he thought. After his talk with the President that morning, Corwin had done two things before picking up Scott. He had arranged to get Casey's service record, and he had studied the picture of every man mentioned by President Lyman. He hadn't had to hunt for a likeness of the man who had just got out of the cab, because he had obtained a photograph of him at Lyman's request a week ago. He was sure he was right; the man now walking toward the back entrance of the Dobney was the television commentator, Harold MacPherson.
Corwin got out of his car and strolled toward the garage. He saw MacPherson turn left and go down the hallway toward the freight elevator.
It was more than an hour later-almost 1 a.m.- when Scott and Riley, this time accompanied by MacPherson, reappeared at the garage entrance. The three shook hands and parted, MacPherson going back to the taxi.
Corwin decided to fudge a bit on the President's orders and follow the cab. The quarry was newer-and thus vastly more interesting. Frankly, Corwin thought, I've had about enough of Gentleman Jim for one night.
The new venture, however, proved fruitless. The taxi drove out to Dulles International, as Corwin had suspected it would. He followed MacPherson into the lobby, after brushing the worst of the mud from his shirt and pants, and watched the commentator check in at Eastern Airlines, buy a magazine and stroll down a ramp. Corwin watched him climb onto Flight 348, a night coach to New York.
The Secret Service agent went to a phone booth and called Esther Townsend at the White House. It was 1:55 a.m.
"This is Art," he said. "I've got a report. It's pretty interesting."
"Can it wait until morning?" asked Esther sleepily.
"Early morning, honey," he said, "but awful early."
"How about seven o'clock, upstairs?"
"That's okay. I'll be there."
"I think that's better," Esther explained. "He didn't get to bed until an hour ago and this may be the last night in some time when he'll get a decent rest."
"I'm afraid that goes for all three of us, honey," Corwin said. "I'll be at home."
Flight 348 was lifting off the runway when Corwin drove past the last hangar. God, I'm tired, he thought. And scummy. I smell like a muskrat.
He tramped hard on the accelerator. He began to hum wearily:
... I remember the atom blew down
All the foreign relations in town.
Wednesday Morning
The night sky began to lighten in the east as Jiggs Casey and Senator Raymond Clark rode through the Virginia countryside. President Lyman's agents were about their business; Casey and Clark were headed for Dulles Airport, which Art Corwin had left only a few hours earlier.
Though they were on their way well before sunrise, they were not the first of the President's little force to start work. About the time Corwin reached home, with the red-clay mud of the Blue Ridge still clinging to his shirt, Paul Girard had flown out over the Atlantic in the after cabin of the big jet transport carrying Vice-President Vincent Gianelli to Rome.
By prearrangement with Casey, Senator Clark was driving his own car to the airport. The two men wanted to be able to talk without worrying about an eavesdropping driver. Clark had beeped gently in front of Casey's Arlington home just after 4 a.m. The colonel, waiting on his front stoop in the dark, climbed into the convertible with the red leather bucket seats and threw his thin dispatch case in the back. He was bound for New York, Clark for El Paso.
"Pretty fancy locomotion, Senator," said Casey.
"Jiggs, if you don't start calling me Ray, I'm going to get Billy Riley to bust you to major."
"Okay, Ray." Casey liked this friendly politician from Georgia. "But it's still a pretty snappy rig."
"Just a widower's consolation, Jiggs. We got to have some fun in life. And what did your wife say about this junket?"
"If you think it's easy to leave home without any explanation, you're crazy," Casey said unhappily. "I couldn't say it was a secret mission because Scott might call. I couldn't say the President sent me. I couldn't say it was duty. Damn it, I couldn't say anything. I just had to stand there and watch those big brown eyes turn green."
"Come off it, Jiggs," Clark said in a mocking tone. "Don't tell me Mrs. Casey has any reason to be suspicious of you."
The merging Virginia suburbs flew past. My God, this guy drives fast, Casey thought. The telephone poles raced by like pickets on a fence.
"Well," said Casey, "she doesn't, no. But if she thought I was going to New York, she would be anyway."
"The gal who works for television?"
"That's right."
"What was that all about, anyway?" asked Clark. "You sounded pretty vague yesterday."
"It was a couple of years ago and it was all over almost before it started." Casey offered nothing more.
"I'm beginning to get a little suspicious myself, Jiggs." Clark's tone was bantering.
"Look," said Casey defensively, "the only reason I know this Segnier dame is because of one weekend in New York two years ago when I was on the UN detail. She's a friend of the girl I met. We ... well, it was short and it was one of those things. Marge got some word of it somehow and there was hell to pay. And there should have been, I guess. I was a damn fool, but you know how-"
"Yeah, I know," Clark said. "Don't start kicking yourself around all over again."
"It isn't that. It's just that the President is almost forcing me back into something that was dead and buried. I mean, the only way I can find out anything about Scott and Millicent Segnier is through Shoo."
"Shoo?"
"Shoo Holbrook. Eleanor Holbrook. You might as well know. You might have to rescue me up there. She writes scripts for TV shows."
Clark drove a moment in silence. "Well, take it easy, Jiggs," he said. "A good wife is worth an awful lot."
"I know."
"Worth more than anything," said Clark, suddenly serious, "except a country."
"What do you really think about my story?" Clark was obviously the President's best friend, and Casey was frankly curious about his reaction.
Clark took his eyes off the road and looked at Casey. "I think it's the most harebrained, farfetched yarn I ever heard." He paused. "And I think it's probably true."