Then he was suddenly angry. The hell with it, he thought, I've done enough for Marge for one night. More than I wanted to, God knows. Let's be honest about it, Casey. You wanted to stay at Shoo's. You wanted to go to bed with her. And you still wish you had, don't you?
"Your order, please?" It was the operator.
"Never mind," he said, and banged the receiver down. He could still taste Shoo's lipstick. It tasted the same as it had two years ago. He could remember that. He could even remember the brand she used, although he had seen her lipstick only once, one morning when she left it on the washbasin in the apartment: "Raspberry Ice."
Damn, damn, damn.
He was still short on sleep, but he tossed fitfully for most of the night. When he awoke his watch showed it was 7:45 a.m. He washed, shaved, dressed, and went down to the lobby to eat, then decided to call the White House first.
When he got Esther Townsend, she sounded strained and tired.
"I'd better put him on," she said when he identified himself. A moment later a voice said: "Yes?"
"Good morning, sir, this is Colonel Casey," he said. "I'm making good progress. I think I'll have quite a bit to report when I get back this afternoon."
"Do the best you can." Lyman's voice was utterly flat and toneless. "The best you can. Paul Girard is dead."
Thursday Morning
Jordan Lyman put down the telephone. He had hardly heard what Casey said. He stared again at the piece of yellow paper torn from the news ticker in press secretary Frank Simon's office.
upi-13
(plane)
madrid---48 persons, including a top white house aide, were killed early today when a trans-ocean jet airliner crashed in the rugged guadarrama mountains northwest of madrid.
paul girard, 45, appointments secretary to president lyman, was one of 21 americans believed to have died in the crash. the plane, bound for new york, crashed and exploded shortly after its pilot radioed that he was having "mechanical trouble" and was returning to madrid for repairs.
authorities said there were no survivors. officials of the airline, the nation's second largest overseas air carrier, could offer no immediate explanation for the accident.
5/16---GR712AED
Lyman looked up at Simon, standing in front of his desk. The young man's thin face was drawn tight.
"Jesus, Mr. President, this is awful, isn't it?" Simon said. "I'm so sorry. I didn't even know Paul was out of town until the wires started calling me at four o'clock this morning."
Lyman grasped the arms of his chair and half rose out of it. His voice shook with anger.
"I've just lost my closest friend in this place and you're worrying about what those goddam reporters think of you, Simon. Do you really think that matters to anyone now?"
He sank back again, closed his eyes, and with a visible effort got himself in hand.
"Paul is gone, Frank. That's all that counts."
Simon stood rigid in front of the President's desk, stunned as much by Lyman's interpretation of his remark as by the sudden surge of fury in his voice.
"Please, Mr. President," he said, almost whispering. "Paul was my friend too."
Lyman looked at him, then slowly shook his head as if to clear it. "Of course, Frank. I'm sorry. It's just ..." He stopped. "Look, we'll have to get out a statement. Would you see if you could draft something for me? You know what I'd want to say."
"About his being away, Mr. President ..."
"Say he was abroad on vacation, but was returning at my request to handle some details of the missile strike. Don't say much."
No, don't say much, Lyman thought. Don't say that I sent him over there to get killed doing a dirty job for me, trying to save my skin. Don't say he did it just as well as he did everything else for me. Don't say I don't know what I'll do without him. Say he was on vacation.
When Simon returned a few minutes later with the proposed White House statement, he found the President hunched over his desk, chin in his hands, staring at the water color that hung on a side wall. It was a picture of his boyhood home in Norwalk, Ohio. Lyman glanced at the draft.
"It's all right, Frank," he said without looking up at the press secretary.
On the way out of the oval office, Simon stopped at Esther Townsend's desk and motioned over his shoulder with his thumb.
"Gee, Esther, he's really shook up over Paul, isn't he?"
"If you only knew," she said.
"Listen," Simon asked, "is something else the matter? I've had a funny feeling for the last couple of days that things are running downhill around here. No appointments, nothing scheduled."
"He's worrying about the treaty, Frank." She shrugged. "It's a low spot. One of those times."
At his desk, Lyman felt physically faint. He could see Girard's big ugly head before him, could see that half-warm, half-cynical smile, could hear him talking rough common sense on this ghastly business about General Scott. He could hear the voice as it came filtered over the telephone last night. Now Paul was gone and, worse, the evidence gone with him. Pardon me, Paul, wherever you are, Lyman thought, for mentioning the evidence in the same breath. But it has made things almost impossible.
He tried to think through the developments since Tuesday. Girard's call last night confirmed the worst. Corwin's report showed that Harold MacPherson was in the middle of whatever Scott was planning. There would be ECOMCON troops, perhaps, at Mount Thunder on Saturday. Casey's story of the income tax return? Mildly interesting, perhaps, but worthless as evidence.
The President felt the breath of panic. He needed hard-rock fact to smash this thing, but where was it? And where was Ray Clark? Not a single word from Ray since he last saw him Tuesday night. Thinking of his predicament-and of Clark-he began to feel the old crawl in his stomach, the same one that had paralyzed him on the line in Korea. Far back in a mist-draped morning, he could see the stubborn set of Clark's jaw and feel the sting as Clark's open hand hit him. His efforts to blank out the scene failed. All at once he realized that his shirt was wet with sweat. Why hadn't Clark called?
Jordan Lyman was calmer, but by no means composed, when Christopher Todd walked into the office half an hour later. Todd's fresh appearance provided some reassurance of reality for Lyman.
They had joked last night, when Lyman called him after Girard's report from Gibraltar. Now, like the President, Todd was somber.
"We're in rough water, Mr. President," he said.
"Terrible," Lyman replied. "Or maybe you still have some doubts left, Chris?"
"Not after Girard's call," said the Secretary. "When a man you trust completely substantiates an allegation, there's not much room left for doubts. The devil of it is we don't know what Barnswell told him."
"No, we don't. I think maybe we better send Corwin over to see him again. Or what about you?"
Todd shook his head. "I've had too much experience with reluctant witnesses, Mr. President. That won't work. Barnswell knows about Girard. If he's as smooth as they say, he'd consider another emissary from you as a sign of panic and slip right back onto Scott's mooring."
The President looked moodily at his Secretary of the Treasury. Todd permitted himself a thin smile.
"But this income tax return of Miss Segnier's is quite interesting, Jordan." Todd leaned forward. "I had the pertinent section read to me a few minutes ago, and it will all be down here this afternoon from the New York office. Really, now-a woman trying to deduct three thousand dollars for entertaining General Scott. You could smash him with that."
Lyman smiled tolerantly at the lawyer as he would at a younger brother. The very effort seemed to lighten his mood a little.
"Chris," he said quietly, "that's blackmail. You don't really think I'd use a thing like that, a man's relations with a woman, to defend my oath of office, do you?"